planned to fire fourteen shots to test new weapon designs and to find
ways to reduce fallout from all weapons.
Under the new criteria for
testing on the continent, nine of the shots had yields of less than ten
kilotons and were fired from towers 400 to 500 feet high.
Over eight
thousand military personnel participated in the series although troop
maneuvers were held at only two shots.
The Ammy retained sole responsi-
“bility for the radiological safety of the troops for Teapot and all
other continental series.
The Commission had put far more resources
into off-site monitoring but assigned sole responsibility fer the
monitoring to the Public Health Service which had established fixed
stations in small communities around the test site. The Public Health
Service, henceforth, conducted most off-site monitoring and transformed
the perception of fallout radiation from a problem in industrial safety
to that of a general hazard to the public as a whole.*>
As testing accelerated, more people became concerned about the
health hazards of fallout.
Consequently fallout became a national issue
with scientists and laymen concerned about both the somatic ane genetic
effects of fallout radiation.
In response to the Commission's weapon
effects statement the Federation of American Scientists proposed that a
United Nations" commission assess the hazards of testing.
At the
Commission's request the’ National Academy of Sciences also launched a
radiation study.
Simltaneously in 1955 the Joint Committee on Atcmic
Energy and the Senate armed Services Committee held hearings on problems
related to the hazards of fallout.°°
The
Commission
responded by
.
authorizing
release scientific data about fallout.
Commissioner
Litby
to
On June 3, 1955, Libby ascressed
the alumi of the University of Chicago and assured them that fallout
17
ri
’.