SESSIONII 83 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 aA mer ten oremcng ee nm eeeee