Atomic Weapons
Peak polio in the United States occurred between 1950 and 1954. The Salk IPV field trials were underway in 1953. As of 1954, the diagnostic criteria for polio were changed. After the vaccine went public, polio increased as much as 600-700% in some areas with the greatest fallout, mostly in the northern mid-west, northeast, and the corresponding regions of Canada. The criteria for the diagnoses related to vaccine were also changed.
In 1955, with government-sponsored polio vaccine in distribution, Nelson A. Rockefeller brokered the intentionally failed peace summit in Geneva that led to the nuclear buildup later called Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) http://polioforever.wordpress.com/nelson-a-rockefeller/; the Rural Electrification program (REA) also began domestic promotion of reactors: “ATOMIC POWER is in the works for rural power cooperatives. The Atomic Energy Commission and the Rural Electrification Administration have offered four Texas power co-ops a chance to try out nuclear reactors ranging from 5,000 to 40,000 kw. capacity. Managers of the Texas coops will meet with REA and other officials in Phoenix, Ariz.” [Oct, 1955] http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,891625,00.html
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Atomic Weapons
The Manhattan Project –MED– Manhattan Engineer District, developed from the Advisory Committee on Uranium created by FDR in October of 1939 by the legendary prompting of scientists Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard. [Leo Szilard became a SALK Institute Fellow]
The Uranium Committee: photo at Bohemian (Grove) Club > http://www.mbe.doe.gov/me70/manhattan/s-1_photograph.htm; http://www.mphpa.org/classic/HISTORY/H-04a.htm ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_Committee
MED acquired 9 major campus facilities, which later became National Laboratories.
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Trinity.html (arrow-controlled slideshow)
The US Tests……………….. 2 attacks, 1,254 atmospheric, underground or water through Sept.1993 (this figure rose at the 1994 admission of Hazel O’Leary to an additional 204 tests, revealed by journalist Eileen Welsome who uncovered the secret human radiation experiments performed during the Manhattan Project — are there even more ‘tests’?..the US figure may exceed 2000)
1945 – TRINITY - July 16, 1945 - first ever atomic explosion at Alamogordo, New Mexico : 1 shot
The Target Committee, 16 men who met in the office of Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson: “There is no evidence that any high-level American authorities ever considered the question of whether to use the atomic bomb. The “A-bomb-or-invasion” binary that has so enraptured some historians was simply not a question that Truman (or Roosevelt for that matter) ever directly addressed. What American leaders did discuss extensively, and sometimes heatedly, were the questions associated with how, where and when to use the bomb.” http://japanfocus.org/-Sean-Malloy/3114
1945 – Hiroshima, August 6 – Nagasaki, August 9
………………………………………………………………….largest polio outbreaks began to occur, jumping from an increase in cases averaging 1,000-2,ooo, or in the thousands, to over 10, 000; averaging 20,000 cases in the latter 40s through 1949; in part attributable to DDT, BHC, and other organochloride pesticides, however this average doubles and triples with the beginning of domestic atomic testing at the NTS.
Brigadier General Carter Clark stated in his book, American Caesar (p.359), “when we didn’t need to do it, and we knew we didn’t need to do it, we used them as an experiment for two atomic bombs”.
[Dr. Thomas Francis was given the task of re-organizing the "Atomic Survivors Survey", also called the Lifespan Study, in 1955 after he successfully promoted the Salk IPV. According to the records, there was no useful data obtained about the Hiroshima/Nagasaki victims before 1950. The Lifespan Study is the go-to source for the longterm effects of radiation and (solid only) cancer risk, although it's noted to have altered criteria, shifted and eliminated groups of participants over the years; i.e. all Leukemias were eliminated]
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First members of the Atomic Energy Commission (photo) http://www.mbe.doe.gov/me70/manhattan/first_aec.htm , William W. Waymack, Lewis L. Strauss, David E. Lilienthal (chair), Robert F. Bacher, Sumner T. Pike
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1946 – Operation CROSSROADS – July 1-25 – Marshall Islands, Pacific : 2 shots ; large-scale biomedical experiments http://web.archive.org/web/20071027043339/www.aracnet.com/~pdxavets/crossroa.htm
-Oak Ridge (Clinton labs, operated by Monsanto) begins shipments of radio-isotopes for medical experimentation
1947..Manhattan Project medical staff organize training and goals for ‘Health Physics’ experiments. DoE mentions 2000 ‘projects’ on their “Openness” website
>>>>Canadian NRX reactor start-up July 22
1948 – Operation SANDSTONE – Apr15-May15 – Marshall Islands, Pacific : 3 shots
[Jonas Salk receives grant money to develop polio vaccine at the Univ. of Pittsburgh, under the department of William McDowell Hammon and Surgeon General Thomas Parran]
<<Aug.1949- the Soviets detonate their first atmospheric test>
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..1950, begins Peak Polio; the Western Shoshone claim an experimental H-bomb exploded off the west coast of British Columbia http://www.shundahai.org
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“the evidence is convincing that the Russians achieved not only the first experimental nuclear fusion on earth, but also produced the first deliverable hydrogen bomb.” –p263, Energy and Conflict, 1976, Blumberg and Owens, who wrote “our first solid evidence came from Major Theodore F. Walkowicz…[who told us] there was something chilly and strange in the debris samples… [More] evidence comes from Robert LeBaron who, in 1951, was chairman of the Military Liason Committee, the link between the Pentagon and the AEC. LeBaron..confirmed Walkowicz’s statement that there was a hydrogen component in a Russian test in late 1950… He was asked, ‘Was the AEC, the GAC, Robert Oppenheimer or Edward Teller aware of this intelligence?’ LeBaron’s reply was rather astounding: ‘No, they were not notified. It was top secret..’ ” [pp269-270]
1951 – Operation RANGER – Jan27-Feb06 – [activated] Nevada Test Site : 5 shots …Science magazine published an article by W.W. Meinke on the radioactive snow observed in Ann Arbor, Michigan — http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/refs/113/2941/545?ck=nck
1951 – Operation GREENHOUSE – Apr08-May25 – Marshall Islands, Pacific : 4 shots
1951 – Operation BUSTER-JANGLE – Oct22-Nov29 – Nevada Test Site : 7 shots : operation Desert Rock, 6,500 troops on the ground http://web.archive.org/web/20080620044321/http://www.aracnet.com/~pdxavets/bustdoc.htm
…………………………………..W.McD. Hammon tests gamma-globulin on Provo Utah children, Sept -Dec.1 http://web.archive.org/web/20071023053808/www.aracnet.com/~pdxavets/buster.htm
1952 – Operation TUMBLER-SNAPPER – Apr 1-Jun05 – Nevada Test Site : 8 shots : operation Desert Rock, troops on the ground
…………………………………..W.McD. Hammon injects over 54,000 children in July; Houston TX and Sioux City, IA
>>Oct, UK tests in Western Australia
1952 – Operation IVY – Nov 1-Nov16 – Marshall Islands, Pacific : 2 shots (first thermonuclear, H-bombs)
……………………………………………………………………….greatest number of polio cases on record, near 60,000
>>Dec, Canadian NRX, partial meltdown & explosion(Jimmy Carter helps with clean-up)
….DUCK and COVER civil defense drills are introduced to the public http://conelrad.com/duckandcover/cover.php?turtle=01
1953 – Operation UPSHOT-KNOTHOLE – Mar17-Jun04 – Nevada Test Site : 11 shots – Desert Rock series – 18,000 troops on the ground
[Eisenhower began his 'Atoms For Peace' campaign]…radioactive rain falling in the northeast
……………………………………………………………………….Salk begins initial vaccine trials
1954 – Operation CASTLE – Mar 1-May15 – Marshall Islands, Pacific : 6 shots (thermonuclear)
[Congress passes the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, authorizing power plants]…DDT use shifted away from farms and dairies to the Dept. of Forestry. Polio diagnoses get re-labeled!
>>Canada builds its first power plant
…………………………………………………………………..Salk’s IPV begins massive field trials; 1,800,000 children 6-11yrs; NO blasts at NTS
<<>>Lewis Strauss, chief of the AEC (former Kuhn Loeb& Co/Rockefeller banker) gave nuclear materials to Israel for a desalination program
–”Sabin began his testing in 1954..at a correctional facility in Chillicothe, Ohio.” http://sabin.uc.edu/series7s.cfm Both Salk and Sabin were testing polio vaccines domestically while there was no NTS fallout, presumably for better results.
1955 – Feb.2, 1955 – “On this day [AEC] Chairman Lewis Srrauss had given Eisenhower a proposed public announcement regarding the anticipated effects of fallout from thermonuclear explosions. The statement was designed to inform the American public of the “nature and extent of the dangers of nuclear attack and of the protective measures that can be taken by individuals and communities to avoid or minimize those dangers. (Goodpaster, Memorandum for Record, Feb.2, 1955…)…Several days later Eisenhower would say that “instinctively he felt what was going to be said was in error” and that he would prefer “a calm practical statement” (Ann Whitman memorandum, Feb. 7, 1955..)” http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/first-term/documents/1282.cfm; the official response was Civil Defense
Operation TEAPOT – Feb 18-May 15 – Nevada Test Site : 14 shots………….April 12, Salk Polio vaccine announced for immediate distribution during this test series. “Provocation” polio, blamed on contaminated vaccine, brought the inoculation program to a halt on May 7 which lasted only 5 days! Note that the number of nuclear detonations have more than doubled in each series and the bombs themselves are 10x (exponentially) more powerful; ‘upgraded to thermonuclear’. It was known by the mid-1950s that almost 80% of polio victims were young adults (15-40 years). And what about radioactive “April showers”? 1954 and 1955 are on record as especially stormy! http://www.hurricaneville.com/project_stormfury.html
>>>article on weather control in the 1950s http://jenniferlake.wordpress.com/2009/07/17/weather-control/
1955 – Operation WIGWAM – May 14 – San Diego, CA : 2000ft. underwater; the San Diego Evening Tribune reported to the public that a 1 to 5 kiloton blast was expected. The actual detonation yielded 30 kt, more than twice the kt of Hiroshima. Elroy L. Runnels, a young sailor who was there, participated in a class-action suit before dying of leukemia 24 years later. The gov’t maintained that the 6,500 men on ships were 5 miles away –Runnels said his ship, the USS Moctobi, was less than 1 mile from the blast. The City of San Diego had a 9-day bath of fallout 20 times greater than ‘normal’. [does that mean "expected"?]
1955 – Project 56
1956 – Operation REDWING – May -July22 – Marshall Islands, Pacific : 17 shots
–”In 1956, a medical team from the Soviet Union visited the United States to study poliomyelitis and the Salk vaccine… The medical establishment in the Soviet Union decided to use Sabin’s vaccine in a mass immunization program later that year.” http://sabin.uc.edu/series7s.cfm
1957 – Operation PLUMBOB – May28-Oct07 – Nevada Test Site : 29 shots !!!(largest test series) —PEAK FALLOUT —1957-1964 [Congress held FALLOUT hearings from May27- June 7 , on the nature of radioactive effects --http://www.moh.govt.nz/notebook/nbooks.nsf/8b635a98811eBaed85256ca8006d4e51/4c256e21000ca266?OpenDocument Plumbob was the longest and 'dirtiest test series that provoked much controversy. Did they think they had 'beat' polio?
Fallout map: http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Pbscd.gif
1957 – Projects 57 & 58 – April – Nevada Test Site .....................................---PEAK FALLOUT---
<Great Britain Operation Grapple http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/UKTesting.html >
[The UK has a massive plutonium fire at Windscale and begins Salk IPV distribution. An explosion and fire in the Soviet's Ural Mtns. also occurs.]
……………………………………………………………Hilary Koprowski tests an oral vaccine in the Congo, identified as a possible cause of AIDS.
……………………………………………………………Thomas Francis organizes the Tecumseh Health Study
1958 – Operation HARDTACK I – HARDTACK II, – Marshall Islands, Pacific : 62 atmospheric, 15 underground, ballistics —PEAK FALLOUT—
NASA is chartered from the previous NACA http://fedupusa.wordpress.com/nasa/
>>May 1958, Canadian NRU reactor has major fuel fire
– Project ORION – nuclear spacecraft project ………………………………… —PEAK FALLOUT—Orion was a theoretical experiment to design an ‘interstellar Ark” which was considered ‘near-term’ by completion of the project. In 1973-74 the designs were updated and called ‘Project Daedalus’; 1989 update to ‘Project Longshot’; 1998 update to ‘Project Ican’ and ‘Project Aimstar’
1958 – Operation ARGUS – High Altitude (100-500 mile) ballistic missile detonations, Top Secret –1,100 miles from Capetown, So.Africa —PEAK FALLOUT—
Project Argus “Greatest Experiment” 1959/03/ 19 (1959) 1959, “Hearings on Fallout Before the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE)”, May 5-8 http://www.archives.gov/legislative/guide/house/chapter-23-joint-atomic-energy.html ]
1961 – 1962 Operation NOUGAT ………………………………………………………….. —PEAK FALLOUT—
< France begins detonation tests – program runs from 1961 to 1974>
…Arco Idaho Nat’l Lab ‘breeder’ reactor meltdown, Jan. 1961
October 30, 1961 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba <Soviets detonate the largest H-bomb ever constructed (100Mt), exploded at near half-potential, approx. 55Mt>http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2358355/tsar_bomba/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUIMgbXOmJg (this video from the History Channel inaccurately portrays the ‘moratorium’ begun in 1959 as lasting 2 years)
>>>US initiates Community Fallout Shelter Program
1962 – Operation SWORDFISH – May 11 – 360miles S.W. of San Diego, CA : 20kt underwater
1962 – Operations DOMINIC, FISHBOWL, STORAX, SUN BEAM, ROLLER COASTER, and PLOWSHARE. The U.S. conducts its greatest all-time concentration of ballistic warhead tests, totaling 178, including the July 9, 1962 launch of Starfish Prime. http://www.ctbto.org/specials/infamous-anniversaries/9-july-1962starfish-prime-outer-space/ —PEAK FALLOUT—
1963 - …………………………………………………………………………………………… —PEAK FALLOUT—ground contamination; US atmospheric testing ends and underground testing continues to 1993
Aug. 5, 1963 – United States, United Kingdom, and SovietUSSR sign the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT), temporary moratorium
Edward Teller revealed in his ‘Memoirs’ that work at Lawrence Livermore was designed around thwarting and deceiving inspections regarding weapons ‘bans’
[Nov22- JFK assassinated]
1964 - ……………………………………………………………………………………………—PEAK FALLOUT—
<China conducts first test at Lop Nor, October 16> Madame Chiang Kai-shek invites Dr. Howard A. Rusk (of NYU) to China to help establish the Rehabilitation Medical Center specializing in polio patients. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_A._Rusk (Rusk, a vital partner with Florence Mahoney and Mary Lasker in the expansion of the NIH after 1948, created the World Rehabilitation Fund in 1955)
…US satellite with plutonium core disintegrates over Madagascar
1969 – SALT I – negotiations from 1969-1972 http://www.answers.com/topic/salt-i-treaty ; http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1799.html
1972 – Nixon and Brezhnev sign the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, May 26 1972
1974 – SALT II – negotiations, no treaty ever ratified
1983 – START negotiations initiated under Ronald Reagan, Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty
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1946 Operation Crossroads - Baker shot, 23k
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NTS, 1951 looking over the test animal pens
The Nuclear Battlefield
Human performance within a post-detonation environment was the goal of human and biological testing during the Desert Rock exercises. Strategists like Herman Kahn of the RAND Corp. believed that Nuclear War was feasible and winnable. Pharmaceutical development sponsored by the government was strongly directed to anti-radiation drugs and applications.
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2009 –status of current anti-radiation drugs http://citizen2009.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/anti-radiation-drugs/
