¥MMH..W.;;UhPI"'BM!i!!MM'UUSUbM!MMi&'§lllNiMM!i@MS!£1M!iMi!f!lMMMflIMtMMMgmfU@i"IfIMil49Rh!hAMMPiiifARiMWHNiiuQI'IfIIDR!M5!JI!l!!WPtMl!l!ll! _ THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC· FALL 1995 Operation Crossroads: The Atomic events of 1946. Weisgall shows that Tests at Bikini Atoll, by Jonathan M the origins of the tests lie more in Weisgall. Annapolis, MD: Naval Insti­ interservice rivalry in the armed tute Press, 1994. ISBN 1-5575°-919-0, forces and in military disputes about xvii + 415 pages, maps, photographs, air power than in a desire to intimi­ appendix, notes, bibliography, index. date the Russians, though President US$3 1.95· Truman was happy to show the world America's monopoly of atomic Jonathan Weisgall is a Washington weaponry. lawyer who has represented the people Operation Crossroads is a book of Bikini Atoll for almost twenty years. about America, not a study in Pacific Here he gives us the definitive account history. It depicts Washington at the of the atomic explosions that started it height of America's economic, politi­ all: Able and Baker, the two tests at cal, and military power in the twenti­ Bikini in July 1946. Not only are Able eth century, at a time when the fate of and Baker a watershed in the history a few hundred Pacific Islanders was a of international relations, ushering in mere bagatelle in official calculations. the postwar nuclear age, they are also "Primitive they are," said the New a dividing line in the history of the York Times of the Bikinians, "but they Bikinians and the Marshallese people love one another and the American in general. Before the 1946 tests, the visitors who took their home" (114). Bikinians were a remote atoll commu­ The contrast between the scale of nity scarcely noticed by their chiefs or Bikinian society and that of the United by successive German and Japanese States could hardly have been greater. colonial adminstrators; since the tests, In a massive feat of organization, the and others that followed in the 1950S, Americans brought 41,963 men and their lives have revolved around exile, 37 women to the Marshall Islands. dispersion, and compensation. Bikini briefly had its own radio sta­ Although Jonathan Weisgall has tion. The target fleet that was assem­ played a vital role in gaining compen­ bled in the lagoon to be bombarded by sation for the Bikinians, they are not atomic explosions consisted of ninety­ the focus of his book. Instead, he five ships, themselves constituting the wants to tell us all there is to know world's fifth largest navy. about the origins, execution, and out­ Navy Commodore Ben H Wyatt, come of Operation Crossroads, and in the military governor of the Marshalls, the process to throw light on the polit­ was the man who had the task of ask­ icallife of the United States at the very ing the Bikinians to leave and who beginning of the cold war. With thirty­ kept the cameras rolling through seven two excellent photographs, chosen or eight takes of the ceremony of fare­ from the thousands taken by the Joint well in March 1946, when [roi; Juda Task Force, and an impressive list of was supposed to say that his people unpublished sources and interviews, were happy to depart. "Juda," com­ Operation Crossroads is a superbly ments Weisgall, "kept repeating that detailed investigative account of the everything was in God's hands, so BOOK REVIEWS Wyatt finally gave up" (113)' The that covered the target ships and Bikinians were not happy to leave, but exposed numerous young American they had no choice in the matter. sailors to contamination as they Wyatt's specialty was to appeal to the clambered aboard too soon after­ Marshallese in the language of the ward. It was, as Weisgall says, Amer­ Christianity to which they had been ica's Chernobyl, and its reverberations converted. In a speech to the people of are still being felt almost fifty years Rongelap and Wotho, who were tem­ later. porarily evacuated to Lae Atoll, he The things that now matter most to explained that America was develop­ many Bikinians are annual distribu­ ing something that was "as effective as tions from the Nuclear Claims Trust the pillar of smoke by day and the Fund, compensation for medical pillar of fire by night. That something claims, the Department of Agriculture was in the hands of the great wise men Food Assistance Program, and the of America. These men worked in their Four Atoll Health Care Program. laboratories in America, quietly saying Where once they ate the fresh food of nothing, but working out the secrets the atoll, the Bikinians now eat white of God. And under His guidance, out rice, white flour, canned fish, pan­ of that study came the atom bomb," cakes, and donuts that come from the which would be available for the Americans. Some suffer from diabetes Americans to employ "if in future any and obesity. Young people aspire to the nation attacked the peoples of God." American way of life they see on The secrets of God in 1946 turned videos. There is talk of a new future out to be two explosions of 23 kilo­ for Bikini in the form of an atomic tons each, about the same yield as the theme park that would attract scuba bomb dropped the previous year on divers for weekends spent exploring Nagasaki. Observed, or rather not the wrecks sunk in the 1946 tests. observed, by correspondents and Another possibility, some say, is for the others wearing goggles that were ten Bikinians to become truly rich by mak­ times too dark, the Able test was ing their homeland available for the promptly labeled a flop by those who dumping of nuclear waste. The long­ had been been indulging in apocalyptic term legacy of 1946 for the Bikinians fantasies about what might happen, has been profound. They have entered such as the inundation of the western the modern economy with a need for coast of the United States. But when outside assistance striking even by New York Herald Tribune journalist Pacific Island standards. Stephen White filed his report on the Operation Crossroads brilliantly second test, an underwater blast, he tells the story of the events that set the told his editor not to cut the superla­ Bikinians on the road to nuclear tives. The first wave created by Baker dependence. was 94 feet high. Baker was the test STEWART FIRTH that did long-term radioactive damage Macquarie University to Bikini. It threw up a gigantic col­ umn of radioactive water and spray *.