Weyerhaeuser environmental ClassiCs Paul S. Sutter, Editor Weyerhaeuser environmental ClassiCs Paul S. Sutter, Editor Weyerhaeuser Environmental Classics are reprinted editions of key works that explore human relationships with natural environments in all their variety and complexity. Drawn from many disciplines, they examine how natural systems affect human communities, how people affect the environments of which they are a part, and how different cultural conceptions of nature powerfully shape our sense of the world around us. These are books about the environment that continue to offer profound insights about the human place in nature. Making Climate Change History: Man and Nature: Or, Physical Primary Sources from Global Warming’s Geography as Modified by Human Past, edited by Joshua P. Howe Action, by George Perkins Marsh Nuclear Reactions: Documenting A Symbol of Wilderness: Echo Park American Encounters with Nuclear and the American Conservation Energy, edited by James W. Feldman Movement, by Mark W. T. Harvey The Wilderness Writings of Howard Tutira: The Story of a New Zahniser, edited by Mark Harvey Zealand Sheep Station, by Herbert Guthrie-Smith The Environmental Moment: 1968–1972, edited by David Stradling Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory: The Development of the Reel Nature: America’s Romance with Aesthetics of the Infinite, Wildlife on Film, by Gregg Mitman by Marjorie Hope Nicolson DDT, Silent Spring, and the Rise The Great Columbia Plain: of Environmentalism, edited by A Historical Geography, 1805–1910, Thomas R. Dunlap by Donald W. Meinig Conservation in the Progressive Era: Classic Texts, edited by David Stradling Weyerhaeuser Environmental Classics is a subseries within Weyerhaeuser Envi- ronmental Books, under the general editorship of Paul S. Sutter. A complete listing of the series appears at the end of this book. NUCLEAR REACTIONS Documenting American Encounters with Nuclear Energy edited by James W. Feldman university oF Washington Press Seattle and London Nuclear Reactions is published with the assistance of a grant from the Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books Endowment, established by the Weyerhaeuser Company Foundation, members of the Weyerhaeuser family, and Janet and Jack Creighton. Copyright © 2017 by the University of Washington Press Printed and bound in the United States of America Design by Thomas Eykemans Composed in OFL Sorts Mill Goudy, typeface designed by Barry Schwartz 21 20 19 18 17 5 4 3 2 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. university oF Washington Press www.washington.edu/uwpress Cataloging information is on file with the Library of Congress ISBN 978-0-295-99962-3 The paper used in this publication is acid-free and meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48–1984. ∞ For Chris, Sam, and Ben CONTENTS Foreword: Postwar America’s Nuclear Paradox, by Paul S. Sutter . xiii Acknowledgments . xvii Introduction: Nature and the Nuclear Consensus in Postwar America . 3 PART 1 FIRST REACTIONS . 21. Leslie Groves, Report on the Trinity Test, 1945 . 23 Harry S. Truman, White House Statement on the Bombing of Hiroshima, 1945 . 28 Nagasaki Mushroom Cloud, 1945 . 32 Joseph H. Willits, “Social Adjustments to Atomic Energy,” 1946 . 34 Headline Comics, Atomic Man, 1946 . 39 Arthur H. Compton, “The Atomic Crusade and Its Social Implications,” 1947 . 41 H. M. Parker, “Speculations on Long-Range Waste Disposal Hazards,” 1948 . 45 General Advisory Committee Reports on Building the H-Bomb, 1949 . 49 Lewis L. Strauss to Harry S. Truman, 1949 . 54 PART 2 BUILDING CONSENSUS . 57 . “National Security Council Resolution 68,” 1950 . 59 Federal Civil Defense Administration, This Is Civil Defense, 1951 . 65 Federal Civil Defense Administration, Women in Civil Defense, 1952 . 69 Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Address before the General Assembly of the United Nations on Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy,” 1953 . 74 Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation, “What does Atomic Energy really mean to you?” 1953 . 79 Lewis L. Strauss, “My Faith in the Atomic Future,” 1955 . 81 Heinz Haber, The Walt Disney Story of Our Friend the Atom, 1956 . 86 Bureau of Public Roads, A Preliminary Report on Highway Needs for Civil Defense, 1956 . 93 Walter Reuther, Atoms for Peace: A Separate Opinion, 1956 . 96 PART 3 CHALLENGING CONSENSUS . 101 Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein, “The Russell-Einstein Manifesto,” 1955 . 103 Roger Revelle and Milner B. Schaefer, “General Considerations Concerning the Ocean as a Receptacle for Artificially Radioactive Materials,” 1957 . 107 Atomic Energy Commission, Atomic Tests in Nevada, 1957 . 111 National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, “We Are Facing a Danger Unlike Any Danger That Has Ever Existed,” 1957 . 114 Atomic Energy Commission, Atoms for Peace U.S.A., 1958 . 118 Barry Commoner, “The Fallout Problem,” 1958 . 123 Edward Teller, “The Plowshare Program,” 1959 . 128 Office of Civil Defense and Mobilization, Fallout Maps, 1959 . 132 Herman Kahn and H. H. Mitchell, The Postattack Environment, 1961 . 134 Margaret Mead, “Are Shelters the Answer?” 1961 . 140 Women Strike for Peace Milk Campaign, 1961 . 144 Atomic Energy Commission, Annual Report, 1962 . 149 John F. Kennedy, “Commencement Address at American University,” 1963 . 152 David E. Lilienthal, Change, Hope, and the Bomb, 1963 . 155 John F. Kennedy, “Address to the American People on the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty,” 1963 . 160 PART 4 CONFRONTING PARADOX . 163 Glenn T. Seaborg, Environmental Effects of Producing Electric Power, 1969 . 165 Minnesota Environmental Control Citizens Association, “A Nuclear Energy Gamble,” ca. 1969 . 171 Lenore Marshall, “The Nuclear Sword of Damocles,” 1971 . 175 Calvert Cliffs’ Coordinating Committee, Inc., v. United States Atomic Energy Commission, 1971 . 179 William R. Gould, “The State of the Atomic Industry,” 1974 . 183 Committee on the Present Danger, “Common Sense and the Common Danger,” 1976 . 188 Ralph W. Deuster, “Rx for the ‘Back’ of the Cycle,” 1976 . 192 Leonard Rifas, All-Atomic Comics, 1976 . 196 David N. Merrill, Nuclear Siting and Licensing Process, 1978 . 198 Helen Caldicott, Nuclear Madness, 1978 . 200 Abalone Alliance, “Declaration of Nuclear Resistance,” 1978 . 204 Report of the President’s Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island, 1979 . 207 Gloria Gregerson, Radiation Exposure and Compensation, 1981 . 211 PART 5 RENEWAL . 215 David E. Lilienthal, Atomic Energy: A New Start, 1980 . 217 Ronald Reagan, “Address to Members of the British Parliament,” 1982 . 221 Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 . 225 Jonathan Schell, The Fate of the Earth, 1982 . 230 Ronald Reagan, “Address to the Nation on Defense and National Security,” 1983 . 234 Carl Sagan, “The Nuclear Winter,” 1983 . 238 Office of Technology Assessment,Nuclear Power in an Age of Uncertainty, 1984 . 246 Campaign for a Nuclear Free Future, Disarmament Begins at Home, ca. 1984 . 251 Bernard Lown, “A Prescription for Hope,” 1985 . 255 Elizabeth Macias, High-Level Nuclear Waste Issues, 1987 . 259 Ronald Reagan, “Address to the 42nd Session of the United Nations,” 1987 . 263 Editors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “A New Era,” 1991 . 267 EPILOGUE THE NUCLEAR PRESENT . 271 David Albright, Kathryn Buehler, and Holly Higgins, “Bin Laden and the Bomb,” 2002 . 273 Allison M. Macfarlane, “Yucca Mountain and High-Level Nuclear Waste Disposal,” 2006 . 277 Oregon Department of Energy, Hanford Cleanup: The First 20 Years, 2009 . 282 Mark Z. Jacobson, “Nuclear Power Is Too Risky,” 2010 . 288 President’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, Report to the Secretary of Energy, 2012 . 291 Nuclear Energy Institute, “Nuclear Energy: Powering America’s Future,” 2013 . 296 Ken Caldeira, Kerry Emanuel, James Hansen, and Tom Wigley, “To Those Influencing Environmental Policy but Opposed to Nuclear Power,” 2013 . 300 Latuff Cartoons, Fukushima Cartoon, 2014 . 303 John Asafu-Adjaye et al., “An Ecomodernist Manifesto,” 2015 . 305 Index . 311 FOREWORD Postwar America’s Nuclear Paradox Paul s. sutter Some time in the near future, the International Commission on Stratig- raphy (ICS) will make a momentous decision: whether or not to desig- nate a new geological epoch called the “Anthropocene.” This decision, though a complex and technical one, hinges on whether humans have become such a dominant force on this planet that they will leave an unambiguous signature in the earth’s strata, one that would constitute a clear dividing line in the planet’s geological history. A collection of scholars known as the Anthropocene Working Group has been tasked with making an initial recommendation to the ICS and with deciding when to date the beginning of the Anthropocene. Although there are several viable contenders, including the onset of the Industrial Revo- lution and the widespread combustion of fossil fuels that came with it, these scholars are increasingly focused on a more recent beginning point: July 16, 1945, the day that Americans exploded the first atomic bomb in Alamogordo, New Mexico. As a result of that detonation, known as the Trinity Test, as well as the two bombs that the Americans subsequently dropped on Japan and the hundreds of aboveground tests that followed over the next two decades, radioactive debris has settled