The atomic bomb birthed the national security state with which we’re burdened today. From Greg Mitchell at alternet.org:
PARIS, FRANCE – JULY 11: Christopher Nolan attends the “Oppenheimer” premiere at Cinema Le Grand Rex on July 11, 2023 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pierre Suu/WireImage)
While many people trace the dawn of the nuclear era to August 6, 1945, and the dropping of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima, it really began three weeks earlier, in the desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico, with the top-secret Trinity test, on July 16, 1945. This forms the dramatic center of Christopher Nolan’s new Oppenheimer epic, coming to theaters on July 21. That has been true, in fact, about every movie about the making and use of the first atomic bomb, going back to the very first film in 1947.
The successful detonation put President Truman on the path to using the horrendous new weapon, twice, against Japanese cities, killing at least 170,000 civilians and others. Much less attention has been directed at how the aftermath of the test lay the groundwork for the age that would follow: the cover-up of radiation effects on Americans (workers, soldiers and others) and government obsession with secrecy, soon extending to all military and foreign affairs in the Cold War era, with many negative effects.
One value of focusing on the New Mexico bomb test and not Hiroshima and Nagasaki in popular accounts: No one died that day at Trinity, a far cry from what would happen in Japan. In finalizing work on the revolutionary new weapon, Manhattan Project scientists knew it would produce deadly radiation but weren’t sure exactly how much. One Los Alamos scientist had already died from radiation exposure. The military planners were mainly concerned about pilots ion the bombers carrying the payload catching a dose, but Robert Oppenheimer, the scientific director of the Manhattan Project, worried, with good cause (as it turned out) that radioactive particles could drift for miles and fall to earth, especially with the rain.
Learned that Klaus Fuchs (h/t-YS) was the double-crosser and the state department has been communist for about 100 years.
Remember Alger Hiss?
Comrade commissar FDR (CPUSA) actually made the comment that some of best friends were communists.
Hmm so hmm.
I lived in a small southwestern town in Utah, downwind from those tests. There were several occasions when it was determined that the radiation carried downwind would be too toxic that the government issued warnings to stay indoors. I think we were part of the tests. My dad had a Geiger counter because he had a uranium mine, after one of those tests he couldn’t get a reading on me or my little brother because it was too far off the scale.
AEC doctors used would come to our schools and test all the kids (they later denied they did this). It was a small community, mostly Mormon so poor health practices such as smoking could be eliminated. Saw a news interview done with a woman who was the daughter of the test site who had moved to southern Utah. When her dad found out he came and told her she had to move away! He did not want his grandchildren living here. Don’t worry though, nothing to see here.
Most of my high school friends died at early ages from cancer, leukemia and an astoundingly high rate of Lou Gehrig’s disease. Forty five people out of a population of four thousand. Most everyone in my family has had to deal with cancer including myself.
Although the government half heartedly admitted they might have made a mistake and offered compensation for anyone suffering from cancer it is nearly impossible to receive any funds because when applying and proving you are a downwinder is difficult enough, then you are told, “Well, you have the wrong kind of cancer.”
There were many doctors in Japan immediately after the war testing and following up on radiation related problems with the same result, “Nothing to see here, everything is fine.”
My dad did Southern Nevada bomb tests for Livermore Lab in the summer of 1957. He would sleep on a platform with the bomb and at sunrise a soldier in a jeep would arrive. My dad would set the controls and then they’ve drive I think it was about 20 miles down range. They would laugh when the bomb’s impact wave knocked them over (I have pictures of the bomb blasts). My dad was always in good health until he contracted prostate cancer when he was 61. It killed him when he was 73. I’ve always wondered if the bomb blasts were responsible.
Unfortunately there is no way to know definitely, exposure to low level radiation does cause cancer, but did it cause his? One thing is certain, the people who conducted the tests already knew the results from the control observations they had done in Japan after the war. It was risky enough that those in the top echelons of the experiments were never that close to the tests and their desire to keep their own families safe and away from possible danger was always evident.
It saddens me that your dad may have paid the price of the ruthlessness of those who conducted the tests. It seems your dad was an important part of your life. We never know what life may give us, but we are certain there will be an end.