SESSION V playing. 239 There were bits and pieces of airplane ail over the village. It was just absolutely unbelievable that that much material could fall down in a populated area and not hit sombudy. But nobody was hit. In this case the weapon impacted in a rock wall of a man's tomato patch, the high explosive charge detonated and the pl:tonium was thrown into a cloud which drifted away from the village but down across their pvincipal agricultural area, Their prime cash crop was tomatoes, and they get two crops a year. The last one they harvest about the middle of January. They were just waiting to get in to harvest their last crop of tomatoes. Incidentally, it happened to be a holiday for a patron saint o/the village. So, religion enters into the situation. For those of you who like to think of the theological aspects, the statement was made, ''The hand of God was out in Palomares," FREMONT-SMITH: ishing it? LANGHAM: The hand of God protecting the village or pun- Protecting it, because this is the only village that's had over 4 megaions of weapons dropped on it with nobody being hurt. So it does look as if the hand of God was out; this was what the Span. ish thought, the people that lived in this area, , In this case, the contamination went down across their principal cash crop, their vine-ripened tomatoes, and -o economics are involved here. They have a fishing industry also, and there was a question about the fish as well as the tomatoes; exactly the same thing that Merril wae talking about. The inhabitants of the area are very friendly, nice people. They like to have their pictures taken. Burros and carts were their prin- cipal mode of transportation, Many c‘ the tomato fields were ferti- lized with soil that had been brought in in baskets, and the soil has been brougat in over the years to make the tomato [ieids, RADIOACTIVE CONTAMINATION & DECONTAMINATION LANGHAM: Plutonium counts of the order of probably two or three thousand per minute per alpha probe area could be measured ia the front yard of a few homes and there was a count of 500 or so sometimes on the living room floor inside the house.