an order of dismiss.1, thereby, for all practical purposes, putting an end to this litigation. The plaintiffs' attorney entered into the stipulation on which the dismissal was founded on the basis that. he covld not support his case with the evidence available. Seven suits were filed in the Utah District Court by Southern Utah sheepmen alleging death of their sheep, stunted growth, and failure to produce lambs in the usual number, supposedly as a result of fallout from the 1953 tests. The suits asked $226,309. The Federal judge decided against the plaintiffs and for the AEC when the case was heard in the fall of 1956, The Sheahan family, overators of the Groom Mine near the Test Site, have sued the AEC and the U.S. Air Force for $450,000 in the U.S. Court of Claims, alleging the taking of their mining property. In the suit they clain they no longer are able to operate the mine oecause of nuclear testing and because of Air Force bombing operations on the Las Vegas Sombing and Gunnery Eange which adjoins the test site. Based on their allegation that they can no longer operate the mine, the owners assert that the government egencies have in effect condemned and taken the oroverty. This case has not been decided. Mr, and Mrs. Daniel Sheahan have also sued the AEC for $75,600 in a separate suit in the Federal District Court for Nevada, alleging that Mrs. Sheahan develooed a facial cancer as a result of asserted burns from radioactive fallout in the 1952 series. The suit is pending. Value of a Continental Site to National Programs The five test series in Nevada have demonstrated that the con- tinental test site is even more valuable than had been anticivated. Desoite rigid limitations on yield, Nevada tests have clearly demonstrated their value to all national atomic weapons programs. w#:ch Nevada test to date has been succesful in adding to scientific knowledge needed for development of atomic weapons, and needed to strengthen our defense against enemy weapons. Possession of a continental test site has perhaps doubled the rate at which knowledge has been gained in the fields of weapon design and weapoh effects. Nevada tests have made it possible to design weapons suited to a wide variety of strategic and tactical Situations, and fitted to different military delivery vehicles. Together with tests in the Pacific, Nevada tests have made it possible to increase by very sizeable amounts the efficiency of stockpile weapons. As a result of the auclear field test program the United States has developed a whole family of weapons, with large yields and small. Because of the tests, the Armed Forces are stronger and Civil Defense better prepared. -~ 10- COPIED /m LANL BOs