Cee eee wpe meena: Accordingly, five weeks after the end of World War I], the Joint Chiefs of Staff began co plan a series of ordered a joint task force site which will permit the tests with acceptable aromuc tests. and it to select ‘a suitable accomplishment of risk and minimum hazard."’ The project was code named Operation Crossroads. Thesite for the tests had to meet numerous conditions: It had to be in an area controlled by the United States, in a climatic zone free from storms and cold temperatures, with a large. sheltered area for anchoring target ves- sels and measuring the effects of radiation. Ir had to be uninhabited or have a small popu- lation that could be relocated easily. Natutally. the site had to be faraway from population centers in the United States: as the AEC told che Congress in 1953: ‘‘The Com- mission felt thar tests should be held overseas until it could be established more definitely that continental detonations would nor en- danger the public health and safety." In late January 1946 the Joint Chiefs selected Bikini Atoll for atomic testing. Bikini is one of 29 arolls and five islands comprising the Marshall Islands, which are scattered over 357,000 square miles just north of the equator in the central Pacific Ocean. The Marshall Islands, along with the rest of Micronesia. were seized during World War II by the United States from Japan, which had earlier taken them from Germany after World War I and held them under a League of Nations mandate. Micronesia was the site of many of the bloodiest battles of World WarlI. More than 6,000 U.S. soldiers were killed and nearly 23.000 wounded dur- ing operations in these islands. The United States placed them under U.S. military control until July 1947, when the area became a ang tnerefore supported Onlv a small com- munity. (In 1946 the population numbered 167.) It is remote. and the Bikinians had never had much contact with other Mar- shallese or foreigners. In fact. no foreigners lived on Bikini until World War II, when a unit of five Japanese soldiers established a weather station there. On Sunday, February 10, 1946, the American military governor of the Marshalls, Commodore Ben Wyatt. arrived in Bikini by seaplane and told the people at the conclusion of their church services that they would have to leave their homes so the United States could test nuclear weapons there. According. to official Navy records, Wyatt ‘compared the Bikinians to the Children of Israel whom the Lord had saved from their enemy and led into the Promised Land.’ He described the power of the atomic bomb. ‘‘the destruction it had wrought upon the enemy.” and he told the people that American scientists ‘‘are trying to learn how to use it for the good of mankind and to end afl world wars.’’ The Navy had searched the entire world for the best place to test these powerful weapons, and Bikini was it. Wyatt then asked the Bikinians: ‘Would you be willing to sacrifice your island for the welfare of al] men?” The Bikinians deliberated, and Chief Juda Kessibuki reported their decision: “If the United States government and the scientists of the world want to use our island and atoll for furthering development, which with God's blessing will result in kindness and benefit to all mankind. my people will be pleased to go elsewhere.” “One Hell of a Good Sales Job”’ by the United States. Bikini met all the requirements for Operation Crossroads. One of the northernmost atolls in the Marshall Islands. it receives muchless rainfall than the atolls to the south, Official Navy accounts notwithstanding. the Bikinians’ decision to leave their atoll was not based solely on a naive desire to see mankind benefit from atomic testing. The Bikinians were awed by America’s defeat of Japan and by the fact that the five Japanese soldiers stationed on Bikini committed suicide when American troops landed on the atoll in 1944. Following the establishment of U.S. 76. 77. U.N. strategic trust territory administered