BROOKHAVEN NATIONAL LABORATORY
FOOLS
ASSOCIATED UNIVERSITIES, INC.
UPTON, L.1. N.Y.
TEL
YAPHANK
REFER:
4-6262
June 5, 1958
Dr. Charles L. Dunham, Director
Division of Biology and Medicine
Atomic Energy Commission
Washington 25, DBD. C.
Dear Chuck:
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I sent you a letter of appreciation for the splendid assistance
given us by various groups on our mission.
In the present letter I thought
I might bring up some of the things that happened on our trip.
Things went very smoothly as far as support was concerned.
Un-
fortunately, things began popping with our arrival at Eniwetok and was
followed by a slight fallout. This seriously contaminated our LCU for
our purposes as we found on arrival at Rongelap the following week. With
the best of intentions the crew had painted the deck just prior to our
getting the steel room on board, sealing in activity. We later used acid
solutions and finally had paintremover flown in from Eniwetok and were
able to get the background in the steel room down to about one-fifth of
what it was to begin with. We could see the peaks of activity in the
Rongelapese and, even though the background was undesirably high, we hope
to quantitate the amounts.
There were some peaks which we have not identified in addition to the prominent cesium and zinc peaks. We counted
about 100 people.: We hope to be able to compare the ones that lived on
Eniaetok from those on Rongelap and a few
there from Ebeye. It is unfortunate that
living on Rongelap for the month prior to
radioactive body burdens of people living
land that is of most interest.
that had more recently moved
the Eniaetok people had been
our arrival since it is the
on this more contaminated is-
Fortunately there apparently had been
only slight additional fallout on Rongelap atoll from the present tests
to date.
On arrival at Rongelap we found Mr. Neas and Dr. Hicking from
Majuro and Major Ritchie from the Task Force there in regard to various
claims made by the Rongelap people. It is indeed unfortunate that the
rehabilitation of these people had to be disturbed by the test series.
I am afraid more claims »Dased on this situation will be forthcoming.
The only claim which our team was responsible for was the uprooting of
two coconut trees used as mooring by the LST in March.
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