STORY OF .THE DEAD SHEEP Fallout menace in U.S. bared SAN FRANCISCO 1 a few clippings from Saeki in Tonopah, , came to the attention “Ss -—: a Reporter ge they Jacobs, to e Inv estigating. zine, Ti ittl What Jacobs found out cov- es in the May 16 magazine, and it ocking information. For what Jacobs was investigating $ many pag of the was the extent of radicactive fallout in Nevada and Utah, following atomic tests which regularly take place in the Ne- vada test area of the Atomic Energy Commission. Inhabitants of the region told Jacobs, “You are the first- person who has ever come to talk to us about what we have gone through,” What through” is they “have detailed gone in the long article. Here are some of the items: @® Martin (Butch) Bardoli lived on the Fallini ranch near Warm Springs Nevada, 100 miles north of the atomic test site. Neighbors and_ school mates remember how excitedly Butch, then 7, waited on the test days of 1955 for the mushroom clouds to appear. Last year, he died in a Reno hospital — of leukemia. ‘JT think Butch died because of the tests,” his mother said. One of the doctors who ex- amined Butch Bardoli said his death “may have resulted from the explosions in southern Ne- vada.” The AEC has denied the pos- sibility of such a death, and while admitting that leukemia can be induced by large doses of radiation, “the AEC,” writes Jacobs, “does not know ex- actly how much radiation ex- posure ‘Butch’ Bardoli receiv- ed as a result of radioactive fallout from its weapons-test- FRIDAY, MAY 24, 1957 The LPP here DL. Howe. A>party polls is the ‘fi LPP at the Lakehead knows that we alone, or the CCF cannot defeat Howe. decided to its candidate. alone, herefore it withdraw has at, runni ng a can- our sup- dete sat of Howe d call upon all our support- -s to consider the advisability sent circumstances of t the polls behind the candidate, who, with the LPP withdraws to aid defeat of Howe PORT ARTHUR has decided to withdraw its candidate, Bruce sen, in order to help to defeat Liberal Trade Minister C. statement says that to defeat the candidates of the old lime parties, st requirement to “conscious of the need unity at the gain people’s victory . . . The united support of all those who work by hand or brain and who desire to see a change could go a long way towards defeating the present incum- bent...” the statement con- tinued. The LPP made it clear that this decision does not alter or mitigate to any degree the fun- damental and principal differ- ences existing between the LPP and CCF. Smith Act prisoners due for release soon to be rel and ausies Jerome will be freed Jeremy. from the Federal House of De- te oben at West Street here completed the last ths of his term. week or ten days Jerome are Elizabeth Flynn, Alexander Arnold Johnson, 7 and Louis Wein- eased will be V. J. Jerome, yr of the autobiographical novel Lantern for NEW YORK ‘oup of Smith Act prisoners convicted in the second quare trial will complete their three-year sentences this ~ noted Marxist stock. Bittleman is in the Lewis- burg, Pa., federal penitentiary and Miss Flynn at the Wom- en’s Federal Prison, Alderson, West Virginia. The others are finishing, their terms at West Street. All were convicted in 1953 of “conspiring” to teach and advocate their political views. ing program.” @® Thirty miles to the east of the Fallini ranch is Nyaia, Nevada. Here is the Gerald Sharp ranch, and here too is Mrs, Sharp who used to werk bareheaded in the garden. To- day Mrs. Sharp has lost every hair on her head and body. The AEC has denied that the passage of radioactive clouds over Mrs. Sharp’s ranch could be responsible for such a result, but “again it can only estimate on the basis of incomplete data just how much radiation exposure there has been at the Sharp ranch.” @® Dewey A. Hortt, Elma Macelsprang and Aaron Levitt sued the U.S. government for loss of hair following the 1953 test series. The “AEC denied the claim and their suit was eventually dropped. @® Mrs. Dan Sheahan, who with her husband, used to op- erate the Groom mine, just outside the Nevada test area, believes she contracted cancer as a result of the tests. The AEC denied the possi- bility, “although, it admits,” writes Jacobs, “that there has been heavier radiation expos- ure at the mine than at al- most any other area outside the testing grounds.” ® Two hundred miles tiorth- east of the test site in Cedar, Utah, thousands of sheep died following the 1953 atomic tests. The ranchers sued and in 1956 the AEC won the law- suit. ; A federal judge, trying the case, did find however tnat “there were no advance warn- ings given or other precau- tions taken to safeguard the herders or their sheep.” “Meanwhile, amid increas- ing‘ anxiety both in this coun- try and abroad concerning the biological and genetic effects This was the “Operation Tea- pot” A-bomb test explosion in Nevada in 1955. “and in the face of ever more critical appraisals of weap- ons testing, the AEC contin- ues to put forth its soothing assurances that both the path- ologic and genetic harm from radiation fallout have been ex- afgerated by irresponsible, overly emotional, or political- ly biased individuals.” Among these “irresponsible, overly emotional, or political- ly biased individuals” in the U.S. are Dr. Warren Weaver of the Rockefeller Foundation who is chairman of the Nation- al Academy of Science’s Com- mittee on Genetic Effects of Atomic Radiation and Dr. Li- nus Pauling, Nobel Prize win- ning chemist of the California Institute of Technology. Major fact to be adduced from Jacob’s article is that the AEC itself does not know how much radiation has occurred in various areas subjected to fallout, and how much fallout is actually dangerous and how rapidly it is cumulative in its action on the human body. is met by si- which All criticism lence or “explanations” fail to explain. Robert A. Crandall, editor of the Tonopah Times-Bonan- za, was visited by. representa- tives of the AEC every time he wrote an editorial criticiz- ing the tests and protesting the failure of the AEC to keep citi- zens of his town “posted on local conditions following of radiation,” writes . Jacobs, atomic detonations.” MAY 24, 1957 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 16 On one occasion they said he was spreading “alarming stories.” “At other times,” he is quot- ed as saying, “they say some- thing like this: ‘Well, of course, the Communists would like us to stop the tests, too.” When Crandall quoted Dr. Pauling on the dangers of ra- dioactive fallout, he got a Jong letter from the AEC which included a quotation from the National Academy of Sciences intended to refute the distinguished scientist’s state- ments. The statement, . characteris- tically deleted one sentence from the NAS report: The sen- tence read: “On the other hand we cannot yet say that there is a minimum amount (of Roentgen doses) below which the effect does not take place.” 4 It was Crandall’s editoriais that set Jacobs on the trail of his sensational story. The AEC itself, says Jacobs, is in a strange position, If is practically a top-secret organ- ization and it has complete control of all information of an atomic nature, and it is not obliged to release it. It has “classified” hundreds of thousands of pieces qf anfor- mation including such* reports as those made by two veterin- arians who-examined the dead bodies of sheep that died in Utah following the 1953 test explosions. The stockmen who demand- ed the right to examine the report at a meeting with AEC officials in 1954 were not given it and were told.that it had been classified “for military reasons.” In effect, the AEC decides what information shall _ be available, acts as its own judge and jury and then denies the aggrieved the right to exam- ine the evidence on which it has “absolved” itself of all blame for alleged damage. Statements by its spokes- men, themselves distinguish- ed scientists, “run counter to the considered opinion of a number of other distinguished scientists not employed by the AEC,” says Jacobs. They even run counter to statements by the AEC’s own director of the division of biology and medicine, who stated: e “Any cell which has: been irradiated has suffered an in- sult of a greater or lesser de- gree depending upon the amount of radiation received Jacobs concludes:: “Probab- ly the major trouble with the AEC lies in the fact. that its enormous power is not sub- ject to adequate checks and balances. The history of the Nevada weapons ‘tests shows how badly these checks are needed.”