[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 20 (Tuesday, March 1, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 1, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
   AMERICA'S RESPONSIBILITY TO DISCLOSE THE TRUTH ABOUT RADIOACTIVE 
                    FALLOUT IN THE MARSHALL ISLANDS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Miller] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, today is the fortieth 
anniversary of the Bravo shot, the detonation of the largest nuclear 
device ever tested by the United States. The 15-megaton Bravo blast was 
1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb which devastated 
Hiroshima. It blanketed thousands of square miles with radioactive 
fallout, including inhabited atolls in the Marshall Islands, the 
Pacific island nation then administered by the United States under a 
trusteeship agreement with the United Nations.
  Last week, the Committee on Natural Resources held a hearing during 
which testimony made clear that the United States breached the trust 
placed in it 40 years ago. Against the advice and admonition of its own 
military and civilian experts, the joint task force responsible for the 
Bravo test failed to evacuate inhabited atolls which they knew were 
directly in the path of potentially dangerous levels of radioactive 
fallout. After heavy fallout contaminated the inhabited islands as 
predicted, the task force responded half-heartedly to the emergency, 
evacuating only a few islands and only after the people on them had 
been exposed to radiation for several days. A shroud of secrecy covered 
up the fact that thousands more people, including American servicemen 
and their families, had been exposed to radioactive fallout from Bravo.

  The aftermath of the Bravo debacle continues in the Marshall Islands 
today. The committee heard testimony that on one island of the Nation's 
most populous atoll, the rate of thyroid disease, including cancer, is 
100 times higher than any place else in the world. We have received 
telephone calls and letters from American veterans and their families 
who are suffering from debilitating diseases which they relate to their 
exposure to fallout from the Bravo test.

  Mr. Speaker, we have just begun the process of uncovering the truth 
about the legacy of U.S. nuclear testing in the Pacific. The Department 
of Energy has begun declassifying and disclosing documents long held 
secret in its files. However, DOE has only a part of the picture. It is 
important that all Government agencies, including the Departments of 
Defense, Interior, State, and Justice, release information about the 
tests and their effects.
  I call upon the administration to take the U.S. role in the Marshall 
Islands nuclear weapons testing as seriously as it has its role in 
nuclear medicine testing here in the United States. There is a fine 
line between intentionally injecting an American citizen with plutonium 
and intentionally leaving a Marshall Islander in the path of 
radioactive fallout. We have a responsibility to disclose the truth 
about both.

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