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The Ohio State Dnive slty I an forwarding a copy to our Washington office so that your suggestions may come to the attention of the planning group. There are one or two comments I noulc lilce to make. You rust remember that the Bikini test, insofar as our section was concerned, was conducted as an emergency and a lot of corprlEises were made to meet this emergency. Tne test turned out to be literally a hundred times larger than the original conception. V.e had no time to train suiTicient men to do the joc but had to strip the Manhattan District and call upon anosledgable civilians like yourself for personnel. We had to make decisions on instruments in order to get them manu factured and delivered. These decisions hod bo be made st a time when the instrument manufacturing program was nonexistant and had to be re-created and «e had to make essenti ally what could be made. The 263 had a great many defects but it did fill one particular need; namely, hast of a o.ignt detection and scouting instrument. It never was designed to be used as a measuring instrument although i-e were forced, because of lack of other instruments, to use it as such. It will probably take ten years of intensive work to get a fool proof set of meters suite,ble lor war purposes. Tne Cutie Pie also had defects but tne principle is a good one, ns you $e had to deal with various stages in tne Bikini best after Baker. The first and most urgent stage -as tnat of tne gamma radiation. The bets radiation dia not cecone a problem until the decay rate had eliminated must of the hazard iroa the gamma radiation, although it was always present. After you left, »e set up a change anip to monitor the clothes and the bodies and later, vce mo fi ibored tne urines. I don’t believe you are an alarmist, but I never want to go
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tics alone, *e wore certain to get into trouble ii we did not close the operation shortly. I agree entirely tl.ut the great hazard is the Insidious long-time exposure to long-lived isotopes and low concentration in bombed cities w..ore tne under-water detonation in s been used. I believe they s.ouid be minhabitable lor several generations. I realise that you wrote this letter in August but I still think your ide.^s ;;re appropriate. With Lhe best wishes to you and your confreres and a Hap y New? Year; \;nb with greatest appreciation lor your assistance in Crossroads operation, I aa
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