We have obtained more than 3,000 pages of Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experimentation Meetings
along with Department of Energy Meeting Reports and individual documents that have been
submitted to the government.
Examples of content:
Operation Wigwam involved a single test of the Mark 90 Betty atomic bomb.
Operation Wigwam detonated a 30 kiloton bomb, more than
twice the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, about 450 miles
off the coast of California. I believe that Operation Wigwam was
a human experiment, a human radiation experiment.
From an article titled, "Operation Wigwam: The Story
of California's Secret Nuclear War, the Enemy, 6,500 Americans,"
prepared at the Center for Investigative Reporting in Oakland,
allow me to cite from this eye witness account of the scientists
and the military men involved. "The task force of Scripps
scientists knew that what they were readying was an experiment
and an experiment involving human life. The chief objective of
Operation Wigwam was to determine with accuracy at what ranges,
under various conditions, a submarine or surface vessel will be
destroyed by a deep underwater atomic explosion, and second, to
determine the hazards to the ship and supporting forces."
Quoting from the article, "In other words, the naval
personnel being assembled for the blast were unwittingly
participating in a nuclear war games experiment." A copy of this
article has been given to your staff.
Operation Crossroads - Excerpt from testimony of Charles McKay - I'm 69 years old.
I want to talk to you about my experience as a deep sea diver at Bikini. I enlisted as
a 17 year old, 1943 to 1946, in the U.S. Navy as a regular Navy person.
We then, after several days after the surrender, headed
for Sasebo, Japan on the southern island, which was 30 miles from
Hiroshima. So, that was my first area of location, and this was
probably a couple weeks after the explosion at Hiroshima.
The Coucal then headed back to the United States and
refitted, and in 1946 then headed for Pearl Harbor and Maui,
where we engaged in requalifying as divers and also brought
people aboard for trial diving to depths of 200 feet, in
preparation for Operation Crossroads.
I'd like to go back to Operation Crossroads now, and
just give you a brief overview of some of the work that I was
personally involved with. The first test, Able, happened on July
1st. It was a 23 kiloton explosion. It sunk a number of ships,
including the Japanese cruiser Sakawa.
We have divided the files up to make them easier to READ/DOWNLOAD
