Weisgal! Strange People from Bikini.”’ stated: ‘’Primi- tive they are, but they love one another and the American visitors who rook their home.” “Two Idaho Potatoes” Unfortunately, the removal of the Biki- nians from their home in 1946 was the only time the United States ever executed an action involving them with such swiftness, energy. or commitment. The Bikinians were left on Rongerik with only a few weeks’ supply of food and water. The Navy. meanwhile, assured the media that the Bikinians were pleased with their move. One Navypress re- lease reported that the ‘natives are delighted. enthusiastic about the atomic bomb, which has already brought them prosperity and a new promising future.’’ An Associated Press story, quoting a Navy spokesman, indicated that the move was a blessing in disguise: Bikinians in July 1947 reported that they were ‘visibly suffering from malnutrition.”’ Six months later another medical officer ex- amined them and reported that they were starving. The people were rationing themselves to one bucketful of water per household a day and were cutting down young palm trees in order to eat the heart of the palm because there was nothingelse to eat. Bur U.S. military authorities understood neither the deplorable conditions on Rongerik nor the Bikinians’ deeply felr ties to their home. A 1946 New York Times article on the future of Bikini-after Operation Cross- roads reported that ‘Juda of Bikini and his people. now living on Rongerik Atoll, will probably be repatriated if they insist on it, though the United States military authorities say they can't see why they should want to: Bikini and Rongerik look as alike as two *““Rongerik is much more beautiful and is a ticher island than Bikini. Rongertk is abour three times larger than Bikini... . Coconuts Idaho potatoes.”’ The near starvation of the Bikinians on Rongerik could noc be ignored indefinitely. on Bikini and food is plentiful.” In fact, the move to Rongerik was ill conceived and poorly planned. The land area of Rongerik Atoll is actually much smaller than Bikini—its 17 islands comprise 0.63 square miles, compared to Bikini's 36 islands atoll in the Marshalls that was being developed as a U.S. military base. That summer Bikinian leaders again were taken to explore possible relocation sites. They selected Kili. here are three or four times as large as those and 2.3 square miles—and its lagoon is less than one-fourth the size of Bikini’s. The lifesustaining coconut palms and pandanustrees on Rongerik were considerably less productive than those on Bikini. and many of the fish in Rongerik's lagoon proved to be poisonous. Moreover, because the Bikinians thought they would be living on Rongerik for only a short time, they did not bother to tell the Navy that according to their mythology the atoll was inhabited by an evil spirit that contaminatedthefish in the lagoon. By May 1946, less than two monthsafter they arrived, the Bikinians asked the Navy's permission to leave Rongerik and return home, but their request was denied. There however, and in March 1948 they were moved to a temporary camp on Kwajalein, an a fertile island 400 miles south of Bikini that had been used as a copra plantation by the Germans and Japanese. (Copra, or dried coconut meat, is the cash crop of the Marshalls: whenprocessed, it yields coconut oil.) The Bikinians chose Kili partly out of frustration and anger at their plight. In the Marshalls almost all land is owned by paramount chiefs, or troijes. who historically functioned much like feudal lords. receiving a form of tithe from the subjects who worked their land and providing them protection in times of danger. The deprivation and psycho- logical stress the Bikinians experienced on Rongerik led them to question their traditional belief in the powerof their trory, whose role as protector had begun to diminish by were severe food shortages during the winter of 1946-1947; a U.S. doctor whovisited the the twentieth century. One of the strong at- 80. 81. tractions of Kili was that it was not con-