Nuclear Experiments
In retrospect there is chilling irony in the atomic bomb’s—and the nuclear industry’s—origins. Stopping Nazi
barbarism provided the initial rationale for the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb. At the
Nuremberg trials some Nazi scientists and other functionaries were charged with grotesque experiments on humans;
the Nuremberg judges rejected excuses and rationalizations.
But since then, in the United States, "we have already accepted the policy of experimentation on involuntary
human subjects,"56 concluded Dr. John W. Gofman, a pioneer in radiation research who codiscovered the
fissionability of uranium 233 and helped isolate the world’s first milligram of plutonium.
"In the mid-’50s—when the toxi[ci]ty of low-dose radiation was still uncertain—we were testing nuclear bombs
in the atmosphere and launching the Atoms for Peace Program," Gofman recalled in a 1979 statement. "It should
have been clear to me, even then, that both atmospheric bomb-testing and nuclear power constituted experimentation
on involuntary human subjects, indeed on all forms of life."57
With extraordinarily blunt self-criticism Gofman—a physicist and medical doctor—went on: "I am on record in
1957 as not being worried yet about fallout and still being optimistic about the benefits of nuclear power. There is no
way I can justify my failure to help sound an alarm over these activities many years sooner than I did. I feel that at
least several hundred scientists trained in the biomedical aspect of atomic energy—myself definitely included—are
candidates for Nuremberg-type trials for crimes against humanity through our gross negligence and irresponsibility."
And, Gofman added, "Now that we know the hazard of low-dose radiation, the crime is not experimentation—it’s
murder."58
People viewing such an assessment as unfair or excessively strident might find it less so after visiting small towns
like St. George, Utah, or Fredonia, Arizona, or Tonopah, Nevada. The pain, for many, has just begun.
Before dawn on January 27, 1981—exactly thirty years after the first mushroom cloud ascended from the Nevada
Test Site—lifelong Utah residents gathered at the steps of the state capitol and lit candles in memory of dead
relatives and friends. Around the state other memorial candles flickered in the darkness.
At the operations center for the Nevada Test Site daylight brought simply the beginning of another working day.
An Associated Press reporter phoned for comment on the candlelight observances downwind. He took notes, and
wrote in an article sent across the nation a few hours later: "The Department of Energy maintains there is ‘no
positive evidence’ of a link between fallout and the cancer cases, said Dee Jenkins, test site spokeswoman."59
We called Dee Jenkins and asked for clarification. Had she been accurately quoted?
Yes, she replied. "There is no positive link between low-level radiation and cancer cases."60
We asked whether the downwind residents had received "low-level radiation" exposure during the atmospheric
testing years.
"I’m not qualified to answer that question," she responded after a pause.61 Our request for a clarifying official
statement was never answered.
Three decades after the first fallout clouds from Nevada, in some respects not much had really changed at federal
agencies making pronouncements about nuclear testing.
And, with some exceptions, American mass media have continued to be influenced by substantial pressures to
treat nuclear weapons testers with deference.
In 1957 The Reporter magazine published an exceptional in-depth article, "Clouds from Nevada," by
investigative reporter Paul Jacobs.62 Raising basic questions about the safety of nuclear tests, the article was a
classic instance of prophetic journalism that—if heeded at the time of publication—would have prevented a great
deal of fallout-induced harm yet to come. Twenty years later Jacobs set about working on a documentary film to
update the story.
Jacobs died from cancer in 1978, before completion of the project.63 Associates at New Time Films, based in
New York, finished the movie, titling it Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang.64 The result was a devastating chronicle
of life and death downwind from the test site.
To the nuclear industry, that was the problem. The movie was clearly dangerous. And so when the Public
Broadcasting Service scheduled Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang for national telecast, the Atomic Industrial
Forum—an advocacy organization for nuclear energy corporations—swung into action. It mounted an intensive
nationwide drive against the film, denouncing it as biased and unfit for broadcast. In addition stations in some
localities received letters from regional reactor-committed electric utilities, urging that the film not be broadcast.65
"After the Atomic Industrial Forum wrote to PBS to protest, the censorship then took place on a local level," the
film’s associate producer, Penny Bernstein, told us.66 When the evening scheduled for telecast came, public TV
stations in nine of the nation’s twenty-four largest television areas refused to air Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang.
Some, like the five public stations in New Jersey, said they could not find broadcasting time for the film—ever. Other
stations postponed it to less popular time slots.67
In St. Louis, where public television station KETC scheduled the movie and then yanked it at virtually the last
minute, a Post-Dispatch editorial expressed doubt that the program would have been treated the same way if it had
down-played radiation risks. Most likely, the newspaper concluded, the TV station sought to avoid controversy
"only because the show questioned the safety of radiation and because government and industry . . . have invested
millions in promoting nuclear power (with its accompanying radiation) as safe."68
Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang won the only Emmy award that the Public Broadcasting Service received for
1979. But as of late 1981 PBS—heavily reliant on government and corporate funding—had not provided any money
to the documentary movie’s producers for a follow-up film they had proposed.69
56. John W. Gofman, An Irreverent, Illustrated View of Nuclear Power (San Francisco: Committee for Nuclear Responsibility, Main P.O. Box 11207, San
Francisco, CA 92401; 1979), p. 227.
57. Ibid.
58. Ibid., pp. 227-228.
59. The Oregonian, Associated Press, January 28, 1981.
60. Dee Jenkins, interview, February 1981.
61. Ibid.
62. Paul Jacobs, "Clouds from Nevada," The Reporter, May 16, 1957, reprinted in Health Effects of Low-Level Radiation, Vol. 1, pp. 45-64. Jacobs was one of
the few people to write about the Nevada testing’s destructive impact on downwind residents as early as 1957 for a national readership. Another was Ralph
Friedman, a free-lance journalist who had written for the U.S. Army weekly Yank during World War II. The Nation published Friedman’s reportage—
headlining it "NEXT DOOR TO GROUND ZERO"—in autumn 1957. The federal government, Friedman concluded in his article, "has done a top-flight
Madison Avenue public-relations job in playing down all issues relating to radiation." But, he noted, "AEC publicists have the painful task of double-dealing.
They tell the isolated stockmen and miners that they have nothing to worry about . . . They then tell the people of the cities that the tests are ‘safe’ because
the fallout comes to rest in ‘virtually uninhabited desert terrain.’" (Ralph Friedman, "Next Door to Ground Zero," Nation, October 19, 1957, pp. 256-259.)
When we asked Friedman what the response was to The Nation article, he replied: "None—as far as I could see." (Friedman, interview, March 1981.)
63. For a eulogy to Paul Jacobs see Saul Landau and Jack Willis, In These Times, April 11-17, 1979.
64. Jack Willis and Saul Landau, Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang.
65. "PBS Stations Yield to Industry Pressure, Decline to Air Program on Effects of Nuclear Radiation," ACCESS, March 26, 1979; Penny Bernstein to authors,
January 27, 1981.
66. Bernstein to authors, January 27, 1981.
67. "PBS Stations Yield to Industry Pressure."
68. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 3, 1979.
69. Bernstein to authors, January 27, 1981.