© 2017 Michael
Swickard, Ph.D. “What the diary does not reveal… is the appalling fact that
from late 1945 until 1952 Japanese medical researchers were prohibited by U. S.
Occupation Authorities from publishing scientific articles on the effects of
the atomic bombs.” John W. Dower
Three
weeks before the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, a concept test was made at
New Mexico’s Trinity Site. This was an atomic device equal to what was used on
Japan.
There’s no
doubt that in Japan people were sickened by the resultant radiation. But there
wasn’t that realization in New Mexico, even to this day. In fact, there’s resistance
to that notion.
J. Robert
Oppenheimer was the head of the Los Alamos Laboratory that developed the first
nuclear weapons. The “Manhattan Project” initially produced three nuclear
devices.
The first,
a plutonium implosion device, was detonated July 16, 1945 at New Mexico’s Trinity
Site. Oppenheimer remarked the explosion brought to mind the words of the
Bhagavad Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” I certainly
understand that thought.
That
Plutonium scattered over New Mexico. Two nuclear devices were used as bombs in
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. On August 6, 1945, what was called “Little Boy”
a Uranium fueled bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Three days later “Fat Man” a
plutonium implosion bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.
These
unconventional weapons allowed Emperor Hirohito to wrest control from the Army
and surrender to end World War Two. The Emperor had been trying to stop WWII
for years. The power and control in the 1930s and 1940s in Japan was the Army,
under General Hideki Tojo. The nation was not under the power of Hirohito who
was only a figurehead leader.
One
positive for Japan was that the scientists saw how the New Mexico ground blast
spread so much contamination that they exploded the two nuclear bombs at 2,000
feet to get the blunt force trauma on the site but not contaminate it as had happened
in New Mexico.
The
military send lots of scientists to Hiroshima and Nagasaki to monitor the
radiation but seem to have not done so in New Mexico. Or, perhaps they did and the
government authorities realized what a mess they made in New Mexico. Worse,
they didn’t want the role of cleaning up this God-Awful mess. Curious, eh?
As the
decades have passed and the New Mexicans who were sickened by the plutonium
passed, the interest in this story has gone from very little interest to no
interest at all except for those people effected.
I don’t believe
there’s a risk now but government is supposed to protect the citizens. Our
government hasn’t even said they are sorry for the God-awful mess they made and
all of the people they sickened.
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