Bikini Islanders Lose Again to Radiation (Los Angeles Times, July 23, 1978)

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U.$. ERRED 10 YEARS AGO A(jirltoMen the atomic bomb dropped, I thought Bikini uould disapppar com - of the Bikinipeople, 19i8 Jakeo was 34 years old. flc atoll for 23 nuclear test blasts. the Arnencans m the person of President fellow Marlders arm the rest of the Now Andrew Jakeo%7j6 and, above a!l cise, he wants to hve out the days that remam to hlrn cm this tiny curve of coral, sand and coconut palms with his farmly and friends. (# Then. when his time comes. he wan~ to be buried here among his But the old man wdl not be permitted to end his days where he wxhcs. offlclals say about Aug. ~Q,al[hou:h official plans deabng wqth this place and these people seem to go awry Iv Ill remove Andrew Jakeo and [he idnd wt[h a Idnd ivca Onc-scilh Lhat The Bikinians must Jeave their ancestral home and its beautiful. fishcans, as they themselves now admtt, Dcsplte what the scienusts and the ment of S3.25rnllhon for cleanup and rebui!dmg-BAml is not safe after alf. Andrew Jakeo and the others Ilwng on Bikini Island are being sub:ectea to bomb blasts that seared the atoll durSome younger Ehkinians may live to See their homeland again. but Andrew J&eo wdl not. It may be 50 years before Ehkim is fit for human Andrew Jakeo is bitter and angry, although hke most M.rshallese he “The Americans told us In 1946 that they had come to test a bomb.” he sad not long ago. “They told us they did not know how’ much the bomb would hurt Blkm].They told us that after they tested the bomb. and us back. They dld noLsay how long It one another by first names and expect outsiders to do the same—beileved. would be back w[thm a year or so. the other people of E]k]m, Andrew finally c~me back about Please Turn to Page 3, Col. 1 BEST COPY AVAILABLE

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UNFIT F’ARAOISE-Jelacf rik JakeO Stralls the beach at Bikini with Carlton, one of his seven children. The} face Continued from First Page From :PC front porch of his ccmnearly l~:; 1 (Wuptlon of a hnherto qwet, untroljbied way of life. when I was no: unhappy,” he admitbered B:k:c:. And every day I wanted to come cxk because n is my hrrmeIanci. because Biktm is a beautiful He ~vasouet, deferentially polite. Eut at las!. m reply to the stranger’s How. the stranger asked, till he rezct when he leaves BMni once amer. I .i !ll not go. I will sit here. He SM he ah beheved some of the o[hers JVOUMdo the same as he, feel che .szqe as he. And ho~i. after all that had happened to mm and lus peopie stnce geogmhicalfy, tco. The Idea of Operauo.1 (,rostToads was to see what the Wxrco uesert and over tiie Japanese cmes oi Hirosrumaand Na$@salu. Other sites wfere considered. But accorr!mg to Crossroads historian concbhons of c!unate and isolation. It then numbered 162, could be moved lation then was 166.Since then there has been a population explosion. Today %0 persons clam land rights in Bikini Atoll-140 now living on Bikini lsiand, 450 on Kili, and the others scattered throughout the Xarshalls.) There was concern on the part of the U.S. flshmg industry that the test fishing grounds. There also were so many compl~ts from arumal lovers that plans to use dogs as test ammals were canceled. But there IS no reeorded protest agatnst removing the say the removat was the ‘right of the ney of the Pacific Trust Territory’s I’Ou.rattitude must have been that we, at the cost of seveml thoumnd Amenean lives; took the Marshalls took thts whole area of the Paci-

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Continued from Third Page is an expression of who I 2m-of indiOr, as fellow anthropolo@ Lack Tobin, another acaaermc expert with % those islands, a man without land is no man.” By a split vote of the atoll’s leaders, the Bikinians chose to go LORongerik Atoll, 128 males east of theLr home atoll. The Navy, which put out press releases at the tune indicating that move, was onty slightly more restrained a year later m IE offic:al history of Crossroads, “BombsaLBdcim.”’ (A-be) tests would be a comnbution It wasn’t qtnte that way, according to Tobm, emeritus proiessor oi anthropology at Unwersity of Hawati. They agreed because ~k,eyhaa to. just as they had agreed to do dungs vinen the Japanese had bayonets m the been told what 10do by the Japanese were weak. So when the Americans On the afternoon of March 7, 1946, the 166 men, women and chllaren oi 1108. As the awkward Ianchng cr~~t backed off the beach at Bik]m Mand and churned cut of Ihe blue-green i~- goon. the people gathered on the rnam deck to sing traditional songs of fareweU.The neti morntng they were On the morrtm.gof July 1, a B-29 bomber called Dave’s Dream dropped German warsiups moored Just oif BIkim Island. ILex~!oded500 feet above and imtiatmg the radauon poisoning Among the 42,03) observers of the awesome blast was Chef Juda, watchrx as a guest of the ~a~ from the deck of the USS ?Jt. 3fckmJev, several mules away. The Navy used ord test data. corded. Tlie rie.xtday he rejoined h Rongerik was a disaster. It was too poisoned the f~sh of the lagoon. In fact, certain fish of the !.agoon were poisonous w!xch was why Rongerlk had been urtmhab:tea for years. But n was close to Bikini and the people had chosen it for chat reason, They thought they could bear up unv:ere corivmced. would be in a couple oi years at most. Chief Jucia had returned from the water shot, was held July 25, 1946) to been neat aarnage to the ships, there seemed to be llttle to Blkin]l!xK. The was not something he could underSevere food shortages developed during the wutter of 1946-47. In spring of 1947,fire destroyed a third ple pressed for a return COBikini,but pancy and would be for many years. In October, the Navy announced that the 13i!-manswould be relocated on UjeIang.But two months later, the Pentagon announced a new series oi nuclear tests would be held. this time at Enewetak, another atoli m the Marshalls. The Enewetak peocle would go to L1jelanems[ead of the BIAndrew Jakeo remembered the Rongerlk period well. “I was a b:: nny.””He held up the httie finger of h~s year and a haIf, we did net have enough food. (somet]mes) got otr and eaung !he heart of the wee. Thi: old brother, was a teen -ager on ROI?- bered. ‘(We ate things that were no: goad, gathered coconuw that floateo in from the sea. Bad food;we got sic’~ Arms and legs swelled up, and we ,goL blisters on the arms and we had d:arLate m January, 1948, the Nc.’. dqatched anthrbpolognst Qonxti Mason, now of the Umverslty of [iiiiles at the point of starvation, llvlrL:! on raw flour cblutedwith wa~er. mended that the peopie & rcmo$~’<:

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though he adnutted it had many dis- ~dvantages, as the best avadable place to re!ocate the Elikmlans. In March. 194S,they were moved to bcr, the Bikiniansvoted to resettle on mg a new and bwger wllage than they had had on Bku’u. I —-—Kili was without question better than Rongenk. But it also was smaii and, worse yet, it had no lagoon. The Paclflc. Fishing was Iar more Wicult than at Bik;m. Supply ships could : neither land food nor take awa? Ccpra for months at a ume because of the heavy surf. Sometimes SLYmonths passed before a sh:p could unload. In an attempt to rellve the 150iapower whaleboat to the Glkumans.It sank in high se= m 1951. In the same year. the Navy turr,ed over admmlstratlon of \licroneslathe civilians. A high commissioner was appointed by the Pres]dent to partment of Interior. away. But under pressure from the er pushed a commum[y development plan to improve agncukure on Kdi. In addmon. ~he Trust Territory turned over a copra wade boat to provide a Lrmsportatlon M to Jahut Atoll, where a colony of 13i~lfi)ans had been established as part oi the cGmthe scheme prospered. rnoraie imThen, la:e m 1957, and early the boat. des:ro:,cd the hew aqncultural projects arid wrecked the Jaiut coioAfLerthat. according to Tobin, the heart seemea to go out of the emles an H-bomb 750 limes rrme powerful than Lheimst atom:c bomb, had been efiloded at Bikiniwith tragic results. An unprealcted wmd shit aiter the and Eeyond. The piume stretchecitl 240 males long and 40 rmles wide, over an area far out.sde the restricted atolls. all mhablted by Marshallese and U.S. mditarv personnel, were m the path of the iatiout, which in some piaces fluttered down like snowflakes. known untd someume later-23 crewmen of the Japanese fishing twat died of co!nphc~uons. The rest spent The Americans and the Marshainot seem at the t~rneto have su~fered perinanent harm. So one seems to know what happened to the AmenPlease Turn to Page 7, CO1.1

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cans. But over the years, 47 of the Marshallese have deve~oped thyroid abnorrnahties, seven of them diagnosed as cancerous. Tnxty-five have had theu thyrods removed. One has died of leukemla, another of cancer of the stomacltr beheved to have keen caused by the Bravo fallout. Bikini Island. although unoccupied. was intensely irradtaced, a fact whtcn would have consequences which wdl be felt for generations. wide publiclty given to It PlaYed a part in the eventual susuenslon of nuclear testing m 1%.3-the year oi the the nuclear test-ban treaty of 1963. the United %tes, Brwun and the SoWith the end of testing, pressure mounted to return the e~ies to B)kml. tirement in Hawaw served as h]gh commmloner of the Trust Tern[ory In a recent interview with The Times, he said. ‘%’e had, of course, been under pressure from the Bdum people themselves to get them off of be put on some oLher ls!and. They hoped first and foremost for Blkml. I remember being introduced to pleaded with me to either get them them a better place than M.” Norwood sa]d that about the same time a representative of Lhe Atomic icatedit might now be sa’e once again In hlay, 1967,some ume after a fortenor Stewart Ldall, the AEC sen~ a son announced that BLULU\vas safe, explained thot the President’s imal decmon had been based on [he rec - ter studying the 1%7 survey results kin] Island and Eneu Island, 10 males away, were radio loqlc~llv saie the Blkmlans there. ployes or employes of AEC coritracwere no warnings about any olher ioradiological checks be rnaie period]- tally to determine how much mdiation the peoplewerebem e~osed to from evernal ermronmen~l sources and from thew diet. Chief Juda did not live to hear the news. He had cited-shortly before cer, which he beheved had been caused by his esposure to the first Abomb test in 1946, a clatm sclentMs, are mclmed to discount. Ironically, espemlly in view of what was to be learned 10years later, several Bikiruans expressed susplclon about the food growtng on the corttammated atoll durrng a tour of the Islands a few weeks after the Johnson One of the Bikinians, named Jibaj, even refused to touch food from the atoll, insmng lt was poisonous. Another, Laijo. made a forecast that, from the perspective of 1978. seems far more acute and accurate than the predctlons of any of the U.S. in shape agan” Tobin reported hun Slill, despte them suspicions and the obvious enormity of the job, the Blkimans cmthe tour apparently were tlsts that at least the islands of Bikin! and Eneu, 10 males away, could be The Bikmlans reported the conditions they had seen and the plans that their feliow Islanders on M. Only two or three of the 300 then living there voted against the idea oi an eventual return to Bikini. The cleanup began in February, work crew. The rest of the rehablilta - tlon project–plowing up Biim and food crops,%egan later the same year. A few famlhes began movmg bac~ to By 1574, the S32.5.000cleanup and the $3 n?ilhon rehdxbtatlon program was through Its first phase. ForLy of the planned 80 homes had been erectThen, as planning for the second phase was begmmng, the Bikinians said they wanted to locate some of the new structures m the mtervor of The followtng year, another AEC radiological survev was maae. this ume m more detad. It was found that rad)at}on levels m the mtcrlor of Lke island were too high 10 pcrmlt peopie to budd and hve m homes there. volved in 66fi the i967 and the 1975 However. at the same time, it was aelermmea for the f:rst tune that locally grown brea&fru!t and pandanus - raaoacu ve to be safe!y consumed more of a staple in the local diet, were reported to be safe. Then last summer, a Lawrence Livermore Laboratory study done fcr the Energy Research and Development Agency, an AEC successor agency, found that weil water on 13iOther levels of radiation on the island were so high, accoramg to the report. that there was Me maqr. for safe absorption of any addition.a doses irom the food chain. But, at the same time, ERDA ensaid It would be premature to say tha: the Bikmians shotdd be moved oii By fall, though, there no longer was any question: Ray told a rceeu~.z be considered a permanent seNlebe gtven to movmg the settiemen~ t~ It seemed the scientists had r.cv determmea that the Ehk!ruanswer~ dard of .5 rem per year, a measurement of radiation doszqe of any km.~ producing olologlcaleficcts m man. According to the Department C: ternal dose on BlkLnils!and m 157: was .2. the same as m 1974.But the internal aose. measured by an t;- And the coconut \vas nsmed as :FIonly locally grown food then be;r: consutned m any quantity. AS c::. greater rate than anyone prcdlc!eu. High doses of raaiatlon iroin the isotopes are known to cause VariC’L types oi cancer m man. but sclenus! debate the cancer nsk from reiau} e low doses such as those to w!uch ~: rauon lhemselvrs 10 one a day. L:. they were told the coconuts ir~ Eneu were stallsafe. The Trust Tcrntory eovernmo for il>h and fowl, me pcopic we!’? Agriculture surplus food. flclal pohcy: Blkmuwas unfit for pe{ ple to hve on. In contrast to 1968, the news w not announced to the world by t} Presdent of the LrmtedStales.

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It was rather quietly passed along to Congress m the form of a money request. Lndersecrecary of the Intcn - to re[ocate the peopie of Edm, explained the tragedy m low-key, clide retake m the plant food chain The restrlcLion on the use of coconut products produced on Bikini Island rea!ist]c as a permanent place of setHe wrote that Eneu Island appeared to be the most feas!ble alternme place to resettle the .5GGpersons who had earher imcated they eventually wanted to live on Bikml Island. but added that a small number would Meiy choose to remam on Kili. these Eneu Island coconuts can be used for food and …