SESSIONII
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WARREN: And yet, as Wright says, the information is always there.
FREMONT-SMITH:
What?
WARREN: The principles on which these decisions could be made
have been there from the beginning.
FREMONT-SMITH:
EISENBUD:
Right.
I don't think it sinks in.
CONARD: I get impressed with the ignorance of the lay public with
regard to the simple facts. When you talk toa group, it's obvious
that they just don't understand the simplest things about radiation.
TAYLOR:
I claim they haven't been helped by the official spokes-
men, at least in the United States.
They've gotten very little help
at all because the very first words that were published were, "Don't
worry. We know what's being done." Then followed Castle, the
situation in which the natives were seriously irradiated, and yet
obviously we didn't irradiate the natives on purpose. Obviously we
didn't know what the hell we were doing. This has happened so many
times. We deny the fact that we didn't know what we were doing, but
there is no basis for confidence any more. I think that is central. [
think that this central fact, that the public has, on the basis of the
record, a positive lack of confidence in what they are told, is going
to have a profound effect on what happens.
FREMONT-SMITH: In the future.
TAYLOR: If one or two explosions or a whole lot of explosions
really start taking place in anger you will get irrational behavior
which is a result of irrational behavior, namely, the way in which
it's been handled by the U.S,
ROOT:
We go to the other extreme in assurin; the people that
democracy can only exist on the basis of an informed public, that
the public has a right to know. After the 1954 incident there were
big headlines in London and other countries proclaiming 'Ike Demands
Candor.
Ike -says the people who are going to be subject to this and
whose taxes pay for tnis have a right to be consulted as far as se-~
crecy permits; that everything that can be told should be told."'" There
was a great wait and then the British papers asked, ''Where is this
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