operations or national defense, against the “risks” (radiation
exposure). Obviously, this is an exceedingly complex and, in
part, subjective process.
In spite of these difficulties this balancing of benefits from
normal peacetime operations against risks has been performed
by the Federal Radiation Council (FRC) resulting in their
recommendingradiation protection guides for this purpose. **
In a letter of August 17, 1962 to the Joint Committee on Atomic
Energy, Congress of the United States, the FRC clarified
further their published Guides:
“... the Guides were originally developed for
application as guidelines for the protection of radiation workers and the general public against exposures
which might result during ‘normal peacetime opera-
tions’ in connection with the industrial use of ionizing
ee a ell ae AA ee tn
radiation ... the term ‘normal peacetime operations’
referred specifically to the peaceful applications of
nuclear technology where the primary control is
placed on the design and use of the source. Since
numerical values in the Guides were designed for the
regulation of a continuing industry, they were of
necessity set so low that the upper limit of Range II ©
can be considered to fall well within levels of exposure
acceptable for a lifetime. Furthermore, to provide
the maximum margin of safety, the upper limits of
Range II were related to the lowest possible level at
which it was believed that nuclear industrial technology could be developed...”
Guides developed primarily for use by industryin restricting
its releases of radioactive effluents to the general environment
outside their controlled areas are, of course, very materially
lower than those that might constitute a serious health hazard.
A fourth reason why concern has been expressed about
health risks from fallout maylie inithe area of causal relation-
ships, i.e., the identifying or associating of nuclear tests with
nuclear war. There mayhave been established in the minds of
some that nuclear weapons testing and nuclear wargo hand-in-
hand, i.e., the first axiomatically leads to the second.
A dis-
cussion of causal relationships is beyond the scope of this
booklet, yet one point must be made.
As a matter of technical fact, nuclear weapons of proven
performance would not have been possible without the testing
of nuclear devices and the verifying of nuclear concepts that
were incorporated into their design.
Whatever protection we
enjoy from our nuclear arsenal results from a stockpile of testproven nuclear weapons, not a stockpile of drawing board
sketches.
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