ENCLOSURE I
UNITED STATES
ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION
WASHINGTON, D, C,
January 31, 1955
Admiral Robert B. Carney
Chief of Naval Operations
OP-00, The Pentagon
Washington 25, D. C.
Dear Admiral Carney:
Data have come to our attention which indicate that radio-
active debris trapped originally in the North Equatorial current
during Operation CASTLE may be moving via the Kuroshio Current
toward the islands of Japan and Formosa, a possibility which
appears to have political as well as scientific significance,
In
order that we may fully evaluate the information now at hand,
detailed monitoring of the Western Pacific must be undertaken as
soon as possible,
The purpose of this letter, therefore, is twofold:
(1) to inform your office of the nature of the phenomenon
which seems to be occurring; (2) to request that a vessel suitable
for a survey of 3 - 4 weeks! duration be made available and ready
to depart from Guam on or about March 1, 1955 with a team of
about six sclentists to be assembled by the Atomic Energy
Commission,
The problem can be summarized as follows:
1, One of the important findings during CASTLE was
that a large fraction of the radioactive debris from a
thermonuclear device detonated close to the surface is
deposited within 100 miles of the site of detonation,
On the basis of studies we performed after detconations
from both land and barges, it appears probable that
more than half of the radioactive debris produced by
the CASTLE series of detonations may have fallen into
the Pacific in the immediate vicinity of the Marshall
Islands.
2. Tne AEC delegates to a Japanese-American Radiopiological Conference held in Tokyo last November
returned to this country with data obtained by the
Japenese scientists during the voyage of the
SHUNKOTSU MARU, a research survey vessel which
collected ocean samples in the mid-Pacific during
the month of May and June,
The course of the
SHUNKOTSU MARU is attached in Exhibit A which shows
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