Nuclear research and testing
Nuclear research and testing encompasses investigations into the energy released at the atomic level, with significant historical and geopolitical implications. Since the inception of the nuclear age during World War II, marked by the Manhattan Project and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, countries have pursued nuclear capabilities, often under a veil of secrecy. The Cold War era witnessed intense competition between the United States and the Soviet Union, leading to substantial nuclear arsenals and a policy of Mutual Assured Destruction aimed at deterring conflict. However, this focus on military power often overshadowed health and safety concerns, as both nations conducted atmospheric tests that exposed soldiers and civilians to harmful radiation without adequate warnings or protections.
The repercussions of these testing programs have been profound, particularly for communities near test sites, such as those in Kazakhstan and the United States. These populations experienced increased rates of health issues, including cancer and birth defects, due to suppression of vital safety information. Over time, some victims of nuclear testing have sought compensation, resulting in legislative measures like the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act in the U.S., which, despite its limitations, acknowledges the need for accountability and support for affected individuals. Overall, the legacy of nuclear research and testing continues to evoke complex ethical and health-related discussions globally, reflecting diverse perspectives on security, safety, and human rights.
Nuclear research and testing
DEFINITION: Investigations into energy released at the atomic level
SIGNIFICANCE: Governments have been most secretive and censorious regarding their nuclear programs, and have concealed the dangers of radioactivity from their people
In various countries, the public has been kept from being informed, or has been informed after the fact, regarding the developing and testing of nuclear weapons and powerplants. Scientific research and health and safety data have been suppressed.
The Manhattan Project, instigated by the United States in 1942, culminated in the first nuclear explosion on July 16, 1945, and inaugurated the nuclear age. The wartime secrecy surrounding nuclear weaponry continued in peacetime. The atomic bombs dropped by the United States on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, to force the close of World War II made public the reality of the nuclear age: Atomic bombs represented an enormous leap in the destructive weaponry available to states. The deliberate, complete, and rapid destruction of large countries became possible. Another power, the Soviet Union, quickly developed nuclear capability after the United States demonstrated that the weapons work.
From the end of World War II until the demise of the Soviet Union, the United States and the Soviet Union developed mammoth nuclear arsenals and engaged in mutual suspicion and hostility but not outright war; this period came to be called the Cold War. Both powers followed the rationale of deterrence theory, which relies on the understanding of Mutual Assured Destruction. According to the theory of Mutual Assured Destruction (which both powers evidently thought credible, since neither launched a nuclear attack during the Cold War), a nation starting a nuclear attack would be assured of its own destruction, because radar would give the nation being attacked enough warning to launch a devastating counterattack. Thus nuclear war was not winnable. Secrecy marked all aspects of nuclear weaponry during the Cold War.
Both superpowers were willing to overlook the human cost of atmospheric testing. Suppressed information has been classified in the United States, the former Soviet Union, and other nuclear countries as a matter of “national security,” a mechanism that threatens those who publish leaked information with legal punishment. National security has been invoked on occasions in which the government has wished to be spared embarrassment or liability. The Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963) moved testing underground, although the problem of unexpected release of radioactivity was documented.
The Atomic Energy Commission
The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 created the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) to oversee the American nuclear arsenal and to monopolize nuclear research. Protests by scientists helped prevent direct military control of the AEC, but the free exchange of scientific information relating to nuclear devices was stopped. All data concerning the manufacture or utilization of atomic weapons, the production of fissionable materials, or the use of fissionable materials in the production of power became restricted. The military did not lead the AEC, but the Department of Defense classified nuclear information. By all accounts, fear of the Soviet Union superseded the AEC’s safety concerns for soldiers present at testing sites and nearby civilians who suffered fallout exposure.
US Testing Victims
Almost one hundred atmospheric tests were conducted at the Nevada Test Site between 1951 and 1958, which exposed US citizens to the resulting radiation. After a two-year moratorium with the Soviet Union, 135 more tests occurred prior to the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Explosions were authorized only when wind patterns blew the contamination into the less populated areas of Utah, Arizona, and Nevada, rather than toward California. The “downwinders” were deemed to be, according to AEC documents, a “low-use segment of the population.” AEC handbills promised that “no danger from or as a result of AEC test activities” would extend beyond the test site locale. The AEC’s widely distributed booklet Atomic Tests in Nevada (1957) asserts that “Geiger counters . . . going crazy . . . may worry people unnecessarily. Don’t let them bother you.”
The United States tested thermonuclear (fusion) weapons in 1954 in the Pacific. Following the March 1, 1954, “Bravo” test of a fifteen-megaton (million tons) explosion on Bikini, wind currents carried contamination over the Marshall Islanders. The AEC’s own monitors experienced radiation levels that exceeded their equipment’s capacity to measure (at one hundred millirads per hour). The AEC’s press release noted that the 236 exposed islanders were regarded as “well and happy.”
Soldiers served as test subjects to assist the government in determining the effectiveness of soldiers exposed to nuclear effects. Between 250,000 and 500,000 US soldiers were brought directly onto ground zero. The July 5, 1957, “Hood” shot was exploded 3,500 yards away from soldiers who had been given secret clearance status and classes at Camp Pendleton before being sworn to secrecy. Military authorities assured them that “Hood” was a “clean” device, although it measured seventy-four kilotons (thousand tons), and created massive fallout.
The vital question of what the health effects of repeated exposure to low-level radiation would be began to plague the AEC’s credibility by the 1960s. Studies by Dr. John Gofman and Dr. Arthur Tamplin, as well as articles by Dr. Harold A. Knapp (AEC’s Fallout Studies Branch) and Dr. Edward Weiss (US Public Health Services), underscoring the dangers of low-level radiation as verified by the AEC’s own secret 1950’s data were censored. Gofman and Tamplin became critics of the AEC, which responded in kind. Later evidence seemed to confirm the critics’ concerns. For example, Dr. Carl J. Johnson’s study of 4,125 Utah downwinders published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1984 found 288 cancer cases, 109 more than the 179 predicted for a group of that size. Critics of the AEC came to the conclusion that the AEC had been willing to expose soldiers and uninfluential civilians to significant health risks in order to gather data.
Soviet Testing Victims
The Soviet Union’s testing program has brutally devastated areas of Kazakhstan. Over 450 atmospheric nuclear explosions took place at the single “Polygon site” just west of the city of Semipalatinsk. The Soviet government never warned residents of radiation dangers or long-term health problems. When the twenty-six “ground explosions” at Semipalatinsk created toxic fallout levels, the Soviet Union escalated its published levels of acceptable exposure. As a result, some areas of central and eastern Kazakhstan contain significantly higher levels of radioactivity than found in Chernobyl after the reactor accident.
Using previously classified information, Leonid Ilyin, director of the Institute of Biophysics at the Russian Federation’s Public Health Ministry, concluded that the first Soviet blast, which took place at Semipalatinsk on August 29, 1949, was also the most lethal. The Kurchav Atomic Energy Institute determined that it exposed 200,000 people to radiation levels comparable to those experienced by the Japanese survivors at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One result is that the region’s rate of birth defects is ten times higher than that of Europe, Japan, or the United States. Declassified documents also reveal that six thousand local citizens were monitored but not treated for radiation effects in Semipalatinsk Clinic Number Four by doctors who were prohibited from revealing their findings.
Kazakhstan, independent after 1991, became the first country to close down a nuclear test site (Semipalatinsk), partly in response to a robust grassroots antinuclear movement, which called itself “Nevada-Semipalatinsk.”
US Freedom of Information Act
Many victims of the US testing program have received some compensation. The original Freedom of Information Act (1966) was amended in 1974 to force a timely bureaucratic response. Congressional mandates assisted the veterans who had been exposed to atomic tests in receiving benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs in 1988 and extended limited compensation to civilians through the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990. The downwinders initially won the Allen case in Federal District Court in 1984. The court found a governmental liability for negligence. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision in 1987, citing the government’s immunity from prosecution. The US Supreme Court declined to review this decision in 1988.
In 1990, the US passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), which provided monetary compensation for certain groups of people who became ill as a result of US nuclear testing. However, the act was limited in scope and did not provide compensation for all US victims of nuclear testing. Amended several times over the following years to include more eligible groups, RECA was extended by two years by President Joe Biden in 2022.
Bibliography
Blume, Lesley M. M. "Trinity Nuclear Test's Fallout Reached 46 States, Canada and Mexico, Study Finds." The New York Times, 20 July 2023, www.nytimes.com/2023/07/20/science/trinity-nuclear-test-atomic-bomb-oppenheimer.html. Accessed 30 Apr. 2024.
Blume, Lesley M. M. "U.S. Nuclear Testing's Devastating Legacy Lingers, 30 Years after Moratorium." National Geographic, 22 Sept. 2022, www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/us-nuclear-testings-devastating-legacy-lingers-30-years-later. Accessed 30 Apr. 2024.
Jalonick, Mary Clare, and Jim Salter. "Senate Passes Bill to Compensate Americans Exposed to Radiation by the Government." PBS NewsHour, 7 Mar. 2024, www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/senate-passes-bill-to-compensate-americans-exposed-to-radiation-by-the-government. Accessed 30 Apr. 2024.