Washinetos

Post Stati Writer

tivitles.
Joe Deal, of Energy's safety branch
aald, “There were fin coconuts to tes
and wo foodstulf yrowibg

of Interior's Office of Territorial Ac

The 139 Marshallese living on
kint Island will have to leave thele
home atoll withio three months and
not return for at least 30 years De
cause of radiatton remaining from
1944 US. hydrogen bomb test,
House Appropriations subcommittee
was told yesterday.
fn earher plan to move them fro
Bikini Island to Eneu, another island
in the atoll, was dropped, the subcom
mittee was told, because Eneu's coco
outs were showing radivactisity re
inss five to six times higher than gav
ers:ment eclentists had previously
pected.
Aca result, Interlor Department o
fie’ Is said yesterday, they could not
say where the Bikini residents wou
eventually end up.
The people now living on Bikint
were the fist ones to return after
1960 determination by the Atomic En
erey Commission that the stall was
tale from radiatién conta mination.
From 1946 through 1968 it had bee
the site of 23 U.S. nuclear weapons
tests.
Sidney
Chairman
Subcommittee
Yates (1 AL) shed witnesses from th
Departments of Interior and Energy,
“Whs were these people allowed to co
Back?”
“There was no hint In 1969 that
there would be e@ problem with coco
buts, vevetahles and water,” he was
told by Ruth G. Van Cleve, direct

.

By Walter Pincus

WASTINGION POST

truments available
used the beat
that tlme.”
Deal outlined to the subcomnilttes
medical examination
how last mon
showed the Bikini residents had taken
radicaclive cesium into their bodies at
ce the accepted US.
levels up to
neral population.
tandard for
Dr. Walter Wy n, also of DON, told
that the 139 men,
the subcomm
en who have been
women and
for the past several
living on
wits radleactive cocoears and e
would have to
foods
buts and
undergo medica <antnalions for the
erhaps the rest of
next year
thetr lives to ke » track of the radiohave Invested.
they
active matter
ding of hush concen:
It was the
naclive ecsium and
trations of
US. stardands—ia
trontium—abov
Bikint residents bast
of
the bodies
vinced Interior offimonth that
cials the peuple h d to be moved.
the subcommittee
Van Cleve
@ tests [iast month}
hat althoug
do not reves an tinnestiate dancer?
he atoll should be
the move
ys—the time nerded
made within 90
place to hve and
rary
ten
a
pick
lo
build plywood ho mes there with aluminum roufs.
nkel, hich commis.
Adrian
US. Trott Territory,
sioner of
mitlee he would My to
told the s
ce
and tell the resiBikint next
dents “the need ‘or the move and deterroloe their prefe rences for « place
to scttle.”
At that po t, Rep. Frank Evans (Dquestion of what
Colo.) raised
they did not want to
would be done
leave Wikin
holce but to require
“We have n
Winkel responded,
them to mov

The high commissioner added, how-

kini kept eating coconuts after they
had becn warned they were dangerous
and supplicd with other food and
water from outside the island.
Oscar DeBrum, the district repre
sentative of Uhe Trust Territory government said, “Coconuts are treasured
by the peopie. They would diink coconut milk even in the face of the warnings”
DeBrum then noted that when the
Medical team acrived Jast month on
Bikini, the people offered them the radioactive coconuts as a sign of friendabip.
“Either move the people or cut

down the coconut trees,” DeBrum suggested.
Representatives of the approximately 400 furmer Bikini people who
now live on Kuli Island told the aubcommittce “we see ourselves as the
victims of buresucratio incompetence”
it was questioning by the Kil group
about the safety of Bikint four ycars
avo that first raised the possibility
that dangerous radiation levels might
still exist on the istand.
At the ilme, U.S. officials were pre
paring to return the eutire group to
Ekink

The Kili spokesman, Tomaki Juda,reminded the subcomnuttce that ia’
1046, a Navy officer told the Bikinians*
“it
they had to leave their atell eo

the older people move because they
etill might prefer lo remain,
Two sging Marshallese who own
Major pieces of land on Bikuni Island
are patriarchs of the two family
groups that make up most of the people now living on the island.
Matshall Islanders who attended
mecting
yesterday's subcommittee
were not sure Winkel could convince
them to Icave,
Illustrative of the problem was the
exchange that took place wien a question was askéd why the people on Bi-

ever, that it might be difficult to make

to our Promised Land”

a

:

.«
.

for 32 years and we will pever return.

and have wandered through the ocean’

kind and to cnd all world wars”
The officer compared the Bikinians
“to the childien of Israel whom the.
Lord saved from their enemy and Jed.
into the Promised Land.”
“We are.” Juda said, "sadly mora:
akin to the Children of Istael when
they left Egypt and wandered throuch?
the desert for 4 scars. We left Bikint:

could be ud for the good ot ma

Must Quit Island for at Least 3 0 Years, Hill Told

Tuesday, Mey 23, 1978

Bikinians

Al0

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