Honorable Richard M. Page 3 May 4, 1973 Nixon In early 1948 a United States anthropologist visited Rongerik. He reported that the people had been cutting down and eating the heart of young palm trees, because there was nothing else to eat. By early 1948, most of the edible young trees had been eaten. Fishing efforts were reduced because Rongerik's coconuts were of such poor quality that they could not produce the sennit needed to lash the homemade canoes together and to serve as rigging. On January 31, 1948, the only food on the island was one bag of flour, which was mixed with a little water and doled out to 167 people. All ripe pandanus and coconut fruits had long since been eaten. In the rext few days some unripe coconuts were eaten, along with the only fish that could be procured, a small, slightly poisonous butterfly fish. In response to emergency messages, a doctor and emergency Supplies were flown to Rongerik in February, 1948. The doctor examined the people and pronounced their condition to be that of a starving people. In March, 1948, the United States government confronted the Situation and moved the people of Bikini again. Their stay on Rongerik had lasted almost two years to the day. This time the people were movedto Kwajaleinatoll, several hundred miles to the south. Kwajalein had been a major Japanese military installation, and the Americans were in the process of transforming it into a Navy base. Many Marshallese workers had been recruited to work at the base on its construction. These workers were housed separately, across the long airfield in a Marshallese labor camp. The military put up 30 ten by ten tents for the Bikini people in the same general area, and the Bikini people thereafter received their meals in a large messhall with the other Marshallese workers. No subsis- tence or handicraft activities were possible on Kwajalein. There was nothing to do but watch the goings-on at the base and observe the workings of telephones, movie theaters, refrigeration units, streets, and assorted indicia of military technology. The anthropologists tell us that the social fabric of the Bikini peopie has not been the same since their sojourn at Kwajalein. The stay at Kwajalein was never intended to be permanent. people would stay only long enough to decide where to move them next. The military narrowed the choices to Wotho atoll or Kili island. After a very short visit to both sites by a few members The of the Bikini community, the people decided that they should move to Kili Island. They were moved to Kili_island -- their Kili prison, as they latercalled it”—"~"inNovemberof 1948. Kili is an island in the southern Marshall Islands, 400 miles south of Bikini. In contrast to Bikini, it has a good deal of rain. Water is perhaps its only plentiful resource. It is very small, comprising just less than 200 acres in Size or .31]1 sq. miles, or about one-seventh of the area of Bikini. Kili is an island, not