Flight deck crew of the Bairoko
@

Entire crew of the USS Philip

e

“Certain individuals,” 40 in all, whose names were to
be forwarded to joint task force headquarters at a
later date.

Nine days later, on 21 March, CJTF 7 sent a message from Enewetak to
the. Chief, AEC Division of Military Applications, CINCPAC, and the Army

Chief of Staff, who was the Joint Chiefs of Staff's Executive Agent for
CASTLE, stating that he was acting on the advice "from my staff surgeon,
radiological safety advisors, and scientific director" and was accepting
the request for a waiver of MPE for the groups CTG 7.3 listed.

He also

concurred that these individuals should be assigned "to activities requiring minimum or no exposure."
As the operation progressed, more waivers were requested.
der, TG 7.4 wrote

(Reference 24, p.

The Comman-

72):

The present maximum exposure of 3.9 r per l3-week test
period is not a realistic MPE in consideration of heavy
work loads in extensively contaminated areas.
The use of

waivers to cover exposures in excess of this MPE becomes

a needless routine without much significance when opera-

tions are conducted in large contamination areas without

much interval between detonations.

A large number of in-

dividuals did exceed 3.9 r, but very few exceeded 6.0.

TG 7.1 noted in the final radsafe report that the requirements of the
military projects to work in contaminated areas and with contaminated
equipment soon led to block requests for an authorized exposure of 7.8 R
for the test series.

The waiver of the MPE early in the series created a

loss of confidence in the established limit of 3.9 R, which was soon reflected in the actions of the nonmilitary task groups.

When it became

apparent that an MPE waiver could be obtained upon application, the prac-

tices of conservation of exposure and wide utilization of recovery and
contractor personnel became minimal.

In many cases, waivers were re-

quested after overexposure, and in others approved waivers were never
utilized.

Although 10.8 percent of TG 7.1 exceeded the MPE, only 33 per-

cent of the overexposures were covered by waivers, and 22 percent of the

99

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