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Atomic Atolls
This month marks the 56th
year since the infamous "Bravo" hydrogen bomb shook the coral atolls
in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, and left its radioactive legacy
for the decades ahead.
John
Anjain, then-mayor of Rongelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands, told me
in 1981 how a man working with the Atomic Energy Commission in February
1954 stuck out the tip of his index finger - about a half-inch - and
said, "John, your life is about that long." When asked
what he meant, the AEC man explained that they wer
Mar 12, 2010
This month marks the 56th
year since the infamous "Bravo" hydrogen bomb shook the coral atolls
in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, and left its radioactive legacy
for the decades ahead.
John
Anjain, then-mayor of Rongelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands, told me
in 1981 how a man working with the Atomic Energy Commission in February
1954 stuck out the tip of his index finger - about a half-inch - and
said, "John, your life is about that long." When asked
what he meant, the AEC man explained that they were about to explode
a big bomb at Bikini. John inquired why they were not evacuating
the people of Rongelap [130 miles away] beforehand as they had done
for a series of A-bomb tests at Bikini in 1946, and was told that "they
had not gotten word from Washington to evacuate the people."
The
frangipani scented dawn of March 1, 1954 over Bikini was obliterated
by the thunderous force of the "Bravo" H-bomb, cracking the
balmy sky and raining gritty radioactive ash - what the Marshallese
call "poison" - over a gigantic swath of the central Pacific
Ocean. Mayor Anjain, who "saw the sun rise twice" that
morning, could not know the nuclear nightmare awaiting him and his people.
The
"super" Bravo behemoth at 15-megatons was more than 1,200
times the size of the Hiroshima atomic bomb, and was the U.S.' answer
at the height of the Cold War to the Soviet's 1953 Sakharov [perceived]
thermonuclear weapon believed to be deliverable to America's shores
by Soviet aircraft. Bravo was nicknamed the "shrimp"
by its designer Edward Teller because it could be delivered (three years
before Sputnik) by bomber to the Soviet heartland.
The
radioactive plume from Bravo spread across an immense area in the central
Pacific Ocean, covering numerous inhabited Marshalls atolls: Thousands
of Marshallese on a score of atolls were exposed, but only two
were of interest to the U.S.
The
downwind people of Rongelap and Utrik [300 miles east of Bikini] were
evacuated as they suffered from the acute effects of radiation exposure:
Australian author Nevil Shute drew the inspiration for his popular nuclear
apocalypse On the Beach from the Rongelapese. Likewise,
Japanese filmmaker Ishiro Honda based his mutant reptile Godzilla
on the Bravo incident.
As
the international fallout controversy reached a crescendo after Bravo,
a hastily called press conference was held in Washington in late March
1954 with Pres. Eisenhower and AEC chair Lewis ["nuclear energy too
cheap to meter"] Strauss, his Administration's top lieutenant in nuclear
matters. Having just returned from the islands, Strauss soothingly
explained that "the 236 Marshallese natives appeared to me to be
well and happy." Strauss added the caveat that "the
medical staff on Kwajalein have advised us that they anticipate no illness,
barring of course, diseases which may be hereafter contracted."
When
I interviewed Nine Letobo from Utrik in 1981, she recalled that after
Bravo "many women had 'jibun' ('miscarriages'), including
myself who gave birth to something that was not like a human being ('ejab
armij'). Some women gave birth to things resembling grapes and
other fruits, and some women even stopped having children, including
me. Things are not the same now, and people are not as active
and healthy as before 'the bomb.'"
Today
thirty-six radiogenic disorders are believed to stem from the nuclear
testing between 1946-58, when sixty-seven A- and H-bombs were detonated
at Bikini and Enewetak. A recently released Pentagon report known
as "Project 4.1" has added fuel to the controversy surrounding Bravo.
Project 4.1 called for the "study of responses of human beings exposed
to significant beta and gamma radiation due to fallout from high yield
weapons," and was circulated on November 10, 1953, nearly four
months before the Bravo event.
The
late Dr. Robert Conard, head of the Brookhaven/AEC medical surveillance
team for the islanders, wrote in his 1957 annual report on the exposed
Marshallese: "The habitation of these people on Rongelap Island affords
the opportunity for a most valuable ecological radiation study on human
beings . . . The various radionuclides present on the island can be
traced from the soil through the food chain and into the human being."
In
reference to the exposed Marshallese after Bravo, AEC official Merrill Eisenbud bluntly stated during
a NYC AEC meeting in 1956, "Now, data of this type has never been available.
While it is true that these people do not live the way westerners do, civilized people, it is
nonetheless also true that they are more like us than the mice."
Thirty
years later in 1985, the Rongelap islanders abandoned their homeland
[first inhabited 2,000 years ago]
due to fears of lingering radiation, having taken up three decades of
cesium-137, strontium-90, and a pestilent potpourri of long-lived radioisotopes
through the foodchain and background radiation.
To
date around 2,000 Marshallese have been awarded compensation for health
injury from the tests. The Congressionally-formed Nuclear Claims
Tribunal has paid out $100 million since 1988, and considers thirty-six
radiogenic disorders for claimants. The NCT has a serious backlog,
is out of money, and awaits action from the U.S. Administration and
Congress for re-authorization.
This
year the dislocated Rongelap people will return - with much anxiety
about lingering radiation - to their rehabilitated atoll home:
Perhaps the Rongelap return can signal a new beginning for the Marshall
Islanders, the nuclear nomads and a reminder of last century's
Cold War in human costs.
And
maybe the new Administration and Congress can see fit to fulfill their historic responsibility -
both moral and fiduciary - toward the 80,000 people of the Republic
of the Marshall Islands.
An Unconstitutional Rampage
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Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
This month marks the 56th
year since the infamous "Bravo" hydrogen bomb shook the coral atolls
in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, and left its radioactive legacy
for the decades ahead.
John
Anjain, then-mayor of Rongelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands, told me
in 1981 how a man working with the Atomic Energy Commission in February
1954 stuck out the tip of his index finger - about a half-inch - and
said, "John, your life is about that long." When asked
what he meant, the AEC man explained that they were about to explode
a big bomb at Bikini. John inquired why they were not evacuating
the people of Rongelap [130 miles away] beforehand as they had done
for a series of A-bomb tests at Bikini in 1946, and was told that "they
had not gotten word from Washington to evacuate the people."
The
frangipani scented dawn of March 1, 1954 over Bikini was obliterated
by the thunderous force of the "Bravo" H-bomb, cracking the
balmy sky and raining gritty radioactive ash - what the Marshallese
call "poison" - over a gigantic swath of the central Pacific
Ocean. Mayor Anjain, who "saw the sun rise twice" that
morning, could not know the nuclear nightmare awaiting him and his people.
The
"super" Bravo behemoth at 15-megatons was more than 1,200
times the size of the Hiroshima atomic bomb, and was the U.S.' answer
at the height of the Cold War to the Soviet's 1953 Sakharov [perceived]
thermonuclear weapon believed to be deliverable to America's shores
by Soviet aircraft. Bravo was nicknamed the "shrimp"
by its designer Edward Teller because it could be delivered (three years
before Sputnik) by bomber to the Soviet heartland.
The
radioactive plume from Bravo spread across an immense area in the central
Pacific Ocean, covering numerous inhabited Marshalls atolls: Thousands
of Marshallese on a score of atolls were exposed, but only two
were of interest to the U.S.
The
downwind people of Rongelap and Utrik [300 miles east of Bikini] were
evacuated as they suffered from the acute effects of radiation exposure:
Australian author Nevil Shute drew the inspiration for his popular nuclear
apocalypse On the Beach from the Rongelapese. Likewise,
Japanese filmmaker Ishiro Honda based his mutant reptile Godzilla
on the Bravo incident.
As
the international fallout controversy reached a crescendo after Bravo,
a hastily called press conference was held in Washington in late March
1954 with Pres. Eisenhower and AEC chair Lewis ["nuclear energy too
cheap to meter"] Strauss, his Administration's top lieutenant in nuclear
matters. Having just returned from the islands, Strauss soothingly
explained that "the 236 Marshallese natives appeared to me to be
well and happy." Strauss added the caveat that "the
medical staff on Kwajalein have advised us that they anticipate no illness,
barring of course, diseases which may be hereafter contracted."
When
I interviewed Nine Letobo from Utrik in 1981, she recalled that after
Bravo "many women had 'jibun' ('miscarriages'), including
myself who gave birth to something that was not like a human being ('ejab
armij'). Some women gave birth to things resembling grapes and
other fruits, and some women even stopped having children, including
me. Things are not the same now, and people are not as active
and healthy as before 'the bomb.'"
Today
thirty-six radiogenic disorders are believed to stem from the nuclear
testing between 1946-58, when sixty-seven A- and H-bombs were detonated
at Bikini and Enewetak. A recently released Pentagon report known
as "Project 4.1" has added fuel to the controversy surrounding Bravo.
Project 4.1 called for the "study of responses of human beings exposed
to significant beta and gamma radiation due to fallout from high yield
weapons," and was circulated on November 10, 1953, nearly four
months before the Bravo event.
The
late Dr. Robert Conard, head of the Brookhaven/AEC medical surveillance
team for the islanders, wrote in his 1957 annual report on the exposed
Marshallese: "The habitation of these people on Rongelap Island affords
the opportunity for a most valuable ecological radiation study on human
beings . . . The various radionuclides present on the island can be
traced from the soil through the food chain and into the human being."
In
reference to the exposed Marshallese after Bravo, AEC official Merrill Eisenbud bluntly stated during
a NYC AEC meeting in 1956, "Now, data of this type has never been available.
While it is true that these people do not live the way westerners do, civilized people, it is
nonetheless also true that they are more like us than the mice."
Thirty
years later in 1985, the Rongelap islanders abandoned their homeland
[first inhabited 2,000 years ago]
due to fears of lingering radiation, having taken up three decades of
cesium-137, strontium-90, and a pestilent potpourri of long-lived radioisotopes
through the foodchain and background radiation.
To
date around 2,000 Marshallese have been awarded compensation for health
injury from the tests. The Congressionally-formed Nuclear Claims
Tribunal has paid out $100 million since 1988, and considers thirty-six
radiogenic disorders for claimants. The NCT has a serious backlog,
is out of money, and awaits action from the U.S. Administration and
Congress for re-authorization.
This
year the dislocated Rongelap people will return - with much anxiety
about lingering radiation - to their rehabilitated atoll home:
Perhaps the Rongelap return can signal a new beginning for the Marshall
Islanders, the nuclear nomads and a reminder of last century's
Cold War in human costs.
And
maybe the new Administration and Congress can see fit to fulfill their historic responsibility -
both moral and fiduciary - toward the 80,000 people of the Republic
of the Marshall Islands.
This month marks the 56th
year since the infamous "Bravo" hydrogen bomb shook the coral atolls
in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, and left its radioactive legacy
for the decades ahead.
John
Anjain, then-mayor of Rongelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands, told me
in 1981 how a man working with the Atomic Energy Commission in February
1954 stuck out the tip of his index finger - about a half-inch - and
said, "John, your life is about that long." When asked
what he meant, the AEC man explained that they were about to explode
a big bomb at Bikini. John inquired why they were not evacuating
the people of Rongelap [130 miles away] beforehand as they had done
for a series of A-bomb tests at Bikini in 1946, and was told that "they
had not gotten word from Washington to evacuate the people."
The
frangipani scented dawn of March 1, 1954 over Bikini was obliterated
by the thunderous force of the "Bravo" H-bomb, cracking the
balmy sky and raining gritty radioactive ash - what the Marshallese
call "poison" - over a gigantic swath of the central Pacific
Ocean. Mayor Anjain, who "saw the sun rise twice" that
morning, could not know the nuclear nightmare awaiting him and his people.
The
"super" Bravo behemoth at 15-megatons was more than 1,200
times the size of the Hiroshima atomic bomb, and was the U.S.' answer
at the height of the Cold War to the Soviet's 1953 Sakharov [perceived]
thermonuclear weapon believed to be deliverable to America's shores
by Soviet aircraft. Bravo was nicknamed the "shrimp"
by its designer Edward Teller because it could be delivered (three years
before Sputnik) by bomber to the Soviet heartland.
The
radioactive plume from Bravo spread across an immense area in the central
Pacific Ocean, covering numerous inhabited Marshalls atolls: Thousands
of Marshallese on a score of atolls were exposed, but only two
were of interest to the U.S.
The
downwind people of Rongelap and Utrik [300 miles east of Bikini] were
evacuated as they suffered from the acute effects of radiation exposure:
Australian author Nevil Shute drew the inspiration for his popular nuclear
apocalypse On the Beach from the Rongelapese. Likewise,
Japanese filmmaker Ishiro Honda based his mutant reptile Godzilla
on the Bravo incident.
As
the international fallout controversy reached a crescendo after Bravo,
a hastily called press conference was held in Washington in late March
1954 with Pres. Eisenhower and AEC chair Lewis ["nuclear energy too
cheap to meter"] Strauss, his Administration's top lieutenant in nuclear
matters. Having just returned from the islands, Strauss soothingly
explained that "the 236 Marshallese natives appeared to me to be
well and happy." Strauss added the caveat that "the
medical staff on Kwajalein have advised us that they anticipate no illness,
barring of course, diseases which may be hereafter contracted."
When
I interviewed Nine Letobo from Utrik in 1981, she recalled that after
Bravo "many women had 'jibun' ('miscarriages'), including
myself who gave birth to something that was not like a human being ('ejab
armij'). Some women gave birth to things resembling grapes and
other fruits, and some women even stopped having children, including
me. Things are not the same now, and people are not as active
and healthy as before 'the bomb.'"
Today
thirty-six radiogenic disorders are believed to stem from the nuclear
testing between 1946-58, when sixty-seven A- and H-bombs were detonated
at Bikini and Enewetak. A recently released Pentagon report known
as "Project 4.1" has added fuel to the controversy surrounding Bravo.
Project 4.1 called for the "study of responses of human beings exposed
to significant beta and gamma radiation due to fallout from high yield
weapons," and was circulated on November 10, 1953, nearly four
months before the Bravo event.
The
late Dr. Robert Conard, head of the Brookhaven/AEC medical surveillance
team for the islanders, wrote in his 1957 annual report on the exposed
Marshallese: "The habitation of these people on Rongelap Island affords
the opportunity for a most valuable ecological radiation study on human
beings . . . The various radionuclides present on the island can be
traced from the soil through the food chain and into the human being."
In
reference to the exposed Marshallese after Bravo, AEC official Merrill Eisenbud bluntly stated during
a NYC AEC meeting in 1956, "Now, data of this type has never been available.
While it is true that these people do not live the way westerners do, civilized people, it is
nonetheless also true that they are more like us than the mice."
Thirty
years later in 1985, the Rongelap islanders abandoned their homeland
[first inhabited 2,000 years ago]
due to fears of lingering radiation, having taken up three decades of
cesium-137, strontium-90, and a pestilent potpourri of long-lived radioisotopes
through the foodchain and background radiation.
To
date around 2,000 Marshallese have been awarded compensation for health
injury from the tests. The Congressionally-formed Nuclear Claims
Tribunal has paid out $100 million since 1988, and considers thirty-six
radiogenic disorders for claimants. The NCT has a serious backlog,
is out of money, and awaits action from the U.S. Administration and
Congress for re-authorization.
This
year the dislocated Rongelap people will return - with much anxiety
about lingering radiation - to their rehabilitated atoll home:
Perhaps the Rongelap return can signal a new beginning for the Marshall
Islanders, the nuclear nomads and a reminder of last century's
Cold War in human costs.
And
maybe the new Administration and Congress can see fit to fulfill their historic responsibility -
both moral and fiduciary - toward the 80,000 people of the Republic
of the Marshall Islands.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.
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"Trump is dismantling critical environmental safeguards, putting lives at risk, and leaving working people to suffer the devastating consequences," said one campaigner.
Apr 14, 2025
A coalition of green groups on Monday promoted plans for nationwide "All Out on Earth Day" rallies "to confront rising authoritarianism and defend our environment, democracy, and future" against the Trump administration's gutting of government agencies and programs tasked with environmental protection and combating the climate emergency.
Organizers of the protests—which are set to take place from April 18-30—are coalescing opposition to President Donald Trump's attacks on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other agencies, which include efforts to rescind or severely curtail regulations aimed at protecting the public from pollution, oil spills, and other environmental and climate harms.
"This Earth Day, we fight for everything: for our communities, our democracy, and the future our children deserve."
The Green New Deal Network, one of the event's organizers, decried Trump's "massive rollbacks" to the EPA and noted that funds "for critical programs have been frozen and federal workers have been unjustly fired" as Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, takes a wrecking ball to government agencies.
"This Earth Day, we fight for everything: for our communities, our democracy, and the future our children deserve," Green New Deal Network national director Kaniela Ing said in a statement.
"Trump, Musk, and their billionaire allies are waging an all-out assault on the agencies that keep our air clean, our water safe, and our families healthy," Ing continued. "They're gutting the programs and projects we fought hard to win—programs that bring down energy costs and create good-paying jobs in towns across America, especially in red states."
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All Out on Earth Day participants include Sunrise Movement, Climate Power, Third Act, Popular Democracy, Climate Defenders, the Democratic National Committee Council on Environment and Climate, Unitarian Universalists, NAACP, Dayenu, Evergreen, United to End Polluter Handouts Coalition, Climate Hawks Vote, and the Center of Biological Diversity (CBD).
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Ilya Somin, a Cato Institute chair and George Mason University law professor, announced earlier this month on a legal blog hosted by the outlet Reason that he and the Liberty Justice Center—which has a record of representing libertarian positions in court battles—were "looking for appropriate plaintiffs to bring this type of case."
Monday's complaint was filed on behalf of FishUSA, Genova Pipe, MicroKits, Terry Precision Cycling, and VOS Selections. It argues that "the statute the president invokes—the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA)—does not authorize the president to unilaterally issue across-the-board worldwide tariffs."
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Jeffrey Schwab, senior counsel at the Liberty Justice Center, stressed that "no one person should have the power to impose taxes that have such vast global economic consequences... The Constitution gives the power to set tax rates—including tariffs—to Congress, not the president."
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Andrew Reese, president of Genova Pipe in Salt Lake City, Utah, explained that "we operate seven manufacturing facilities across the United States and are committed to producing high-quality products in America. With limited domestic sources, we rely on imports to meet our production needs. The newly imposed tariffs are increasing our raw material costs and hindering our ability to compete in the export market."
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Mahdawi, who had held a green card for 10 years, was a leader of protests at Columbia last year where students called for the school to divest from companies that benefit from Israel's policies in the occupied Palestinian territories.
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"I was shocked, and I walked directly to the person, and I told him, 'You don't represent us,' because this is not something that we agree with," he said. "To be antisemitic is unjust. And the fight for the freedom of Palestine and the fight against antisemitism go hand in hand, because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
After Betar began posting on social media about Mahdawi, he went into hiding and corresponded with Columbia asking officials to move him to a safe location. Mahdawi's lawyer told The Intercept that the school said it could not move him to housing where he would be protected from ICE.
Mahdawi suspected that an email last month from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), stating that his citizenship test was being moved up by several months, was a sign that immigration authorities were planning to "trap" him in order to detain him and try to deport him to the West Bank, where he is from.
He called the three members of Congress from Vermont, and spoke to Welch personally, asking them to intervene if he was targeted by ICE. The three lawmakers and their offices said at the time that they "would remain on standby pending news of Mahdawi's status after the [immigration] interview," according to The Intercept.
"We strongly condemn the Trump administration for abducting Mohsen Mahdawi, a lawful permanent resident, because he exercised his constitutional right to criticize the Israeli government's war crimes," said Edward Ahmed Mitchell, national deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "By abducting and imprisoning college students for engaging in free speech, the Trump administration is acting like an arm of the Israeli government, which regularly censors free speech and imprisons its critics. We demand the release of Mohsen and every other student who has been wrongly abducted."
"All Americans should be alarmed at the speed of attacks on basic constitutional freedoms of lawful residents in the U.S.," Mitchell added.
Lawyers for Mahdawi filed a habeus corpus petition on Monday, saying the government had violated his statutory and due process rights by punishing him for speech.
"Mohsen Mahdawi was unlawfully detained today for no reason other than his Palestinian identity," Mahdawi's attorney, Luna Droubi, told The Intercept. "He came to this country hoping to be free to speak out about the atrocities he has witnessed, only to be punished for such speech."
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