Mbbgh Ls BRagUR et

Tene a

agriculturalist,

5 aeaR0

an anthropologist and representatives of the

Pacific Islands Trust Territories,

Department of the Interior.

Eight of the moSt highly qualified experts available were
asked to review the survey material.

After meeting with mem-

bers of the survey team and examining their reports,

these

consuitants reached the unanimous conclusion that it would be

radiologically safe to allow the Bikini people to return to
their home atoll.

Their report was forwarded to the Secretary

of the Interior earlier this month.
While Bikini is best known as a weapons testing site, it
has also contributed significantly to man's knowledge of the
long term effects of radiation on an environment.
During the years when radiation levels were too high for
people to live there permanently,

the AEC sponsored several

scientific studies on the atoll.

In fact,

Bikini truly served

as a living ecological laboratory.
Before it was either a proving ground or laboratory,
though, Bikini was a home land.

Having been closely associated

with nuclear energy,

for all these years,

and Bikini,

I find it

particularly gratifying now to take part in the atoll's return
c

to usefulness as a home for the Bikinian people.
Copies of the technical data from #@ee survey are available
for examination at the Public Document Room in AEC's Washington
office at 1717

H Street.

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