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BROOKHAVEN NATIONAL LABORATORY ASSOCIATED UNIVERSITIES. INC. Division of Biology and Medicine Atomic Energy Commission I sent you/a letter of appreciation for the splendid assistance given us by various groups on our mission. In the present letter I thought I might bring up some of the things that happened on our trip. Things went very smoothly as far as support was concerned, Unfortunately, things began popping with our arrival at Eniwetok and was followed by a slight fallout. This seriously contaminated our LCU for our purposes as we found on arrival at Rongelap the following week. With the best of intentions the crew had painted the deck just prior to our getting the steel room on board, sealing in activity. We later used acid solutions and finally had paintremoverflown in from Eniwetokand were able to get the backgroundin the steel room down to aboutone-fifthof what it was to beginwith. We could see the peaks of activityin the Rongelapeseand, even thoughthe backgroundwas undesirablyhigh, we hope to quantitatethe amounts. There were some peaks which we have not i&ntified in additionto the prominentcesium and zinc peaks. We counted about 100 people. We hope to be able to comparethe ones that livedon Eniaetokfrom those on Rongelapand a few that had more recentlymoved therefrom Ebeye. It is unfortunatethat the Eniaetokpeoplehad been living on Rongelapfor the month prior to our arrivalsince it is the radioactive body burdens of people livingon this more contaminatedisland that is of most interest. Fortunatelythere apparentlyhad been only slightadditionalfallouton Rongelapatollfrom the presenttests On arrival at Rongelap we found Mr. Ness and Dr. Hicking from Majuro and Major Ritchie from the Task Force there in regard to various claims made by the Rongelap people. It is indeed unfortunate that the rehabilitation of these people had to be disturbed by the test series. I am afraid more claims based on this situation will be forthcoming. The only claim which our team was responsible for was the uprooting of two coconut trees-used as mooring by the LST in March.
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I found that therewas a certainfeelingamong the Rongelap peoplethat we were doing too many examinations,blood tests,etc. which they did not feel necessary,particularlysincewe did not treat many of them. Dr. Hickingand I got the people togetherand expls that we had to carry out all the examinationsto bo certainthey were healthyand only treatedthose we found somethingwrong with. I told them they shouldbe happy so littletreatmentwas necessarysince so few needed it and most of them were healthy,etc., etc. Perhapsnext trip we shouldconsidergivingmore treatmentor even placebos, During the abovemeetingthe questioncame up abouteating coconutand land crabs. I must confessI didn'tknow therewas any differencebetweenthe two. When I told them they couldnot eat the coconutcrabs,they were a littlepeeved since they had been told by the weatherstationpeople that they could eat them. It seems they dependon these crabs for food to a greaterextentthan I had suspected. Perhapswe can re-evaluatethis problemin the light of the more recent analysesbeing made by the Universityof Washingtongroup. 'Wouldsamples from Arbar Islandto the west be radioactivelyacceptable?This problemshouldbe clarifiedfor the people, I spoke to Dr. Hickingabout the health aide situationand he agreesto try and place one aide on Eniaetokand one on Rongelap. About 50 peoplenormallylive on Eniaetok,some 12 miles'distant.I told him AEC would pay the salaryof the extra health aide. F Mr. Neaa broughtup the subjectof the $S a day chargemade by the Navy for hospitalization.atKwajalein. I told him I would ask you to see if the Navy would waive this chargeuntil the peoplegot back on theirfeet economicallyand after this time only chargethe usual Trust Territoryhospitalizationfee ($1 a day, I believe.) askedhim to see if the usual monthlyvisit of the practitioner(Dr. Iaman)from Ebeye could be carriedout regularly. Apparentlythe activityassociatedwith the test serieshas somewhatcurtailedthe use of Navy planesfor this purpose,but shouldbe rectifiedat the end of the tests. I also askedthat Dr. Isaaansend me regularlya reportof any seriousclinicalconditionsseen on Rongelapand summariesof cases admittedto the hospitals. The importanceof radio communicationsbetween Rongelapand Bbeye and Majuro in regardto emergencymedicalsituationswas discussedat Rongelapwith the health aide and the radio I was most pleasedto see Hr. McKenzie,the agriculturist from &ajuro,at Rongelap, He is institutinga vigorousprogramin plantingof importantfood plants there. I understandone agriculturistwill be presenton Rongelapat least half time to implement the program* This programis of extremeimportancein view of our findingin March a group of children with night blindness probably
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I am most appreciativeof the fine spiritof the part of the Trust Territoryand Navy in our mutual