Soapbox Racer

How Radiation Exposure and Atomic Testing by the US Government 1943 – 1951 The Case of Harold Rees, MoMM 1c

Dennis H. Rees

School of History, Liberty University

HIST901: Doctoral Historical Research (B01)

Chapter One Second Draft
ASSIGNMENT

Author Note

Dennis H. Rees

I have no known conflict of interest to disclose.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Dennis H. Rees. Email:     drees4@liberty.edu

Introduction

In the mid-20th century, a group of brave individuals was thrust into a groundbreaking and controversial endeavor known as Operation Greenhouse.[1] This operation took place in the Pacific and brought together military personnel, scientists, and policymakers under a common goal: to conduct atomic tests and further the United States’ nuclear capabilities. As they would come to be known, these ‘atomic veterans’ would bear witness to the immense power of atomic energy and be forever changed by their participation in these historic events.[2] Many of those who became atomic veterans also served in World War II and were dealing with the aftermath of the social and personal costs of that experience.[3] This dissertation examines the impact of Operation Greenhouse in 1951 through the life of a veteran, his community, and, most significantly, his family.[4]

In the years 1943 – 1951, this Veteran, Harold Lloyd Rees, a sailor from Wichita, Kansas, was involved in World War II and the atmospheric testing of nuclear bombs in the Pacific Proving Grounds. After the War, as a reservist, he was called back to active duty in September 1949 and assigned to The USS Cabildo and Operation Greenhouse. He did not want to go but was called by his government to do so. He suffered disruption of his early family’s financial and social future. His new young wife was left alone to deal with their two small daughters, the family finances, daily life logistics, and her extended family’s accommodation. Harold Rees, END 1c, was powerless to help from 7000 miles away in the Marshall Islands. Despite sporadic mail service, he provided advice and financial support for the family.^[5] In an act of mutual love and loneliness between 1943 and 1951, Harold and Daisy wrote to each other almost daily.

The letters between Harold and Daisy provide a window into a love story with amazing highs and tragic lows of the war years. The predominant theme of the letters is a love story that follows all the daily struggles of a long-distance courtship and the early years of building a family. These letters also reveal the numerous locations of Harold’s wartime service, from the Atlantic Theatre of the War to Brooklyn, New York, Wichita, Kansas, and the Marshall Islands, the Pacific Proving Ground for US Nuclear Weapons tests. This story is viewed through the eyes and emotions of Harold and Daisy.

The story of the atomic veterans who participated in Operation Greenhouse is a complex tapestry woven with threads of military, social, and political history. At its heart, the narrative encompasses the experiences and sacrifices of the men and women who served their country during this tumultuous period. They were not only soldiers, sailors, and airmen but also scientists, engineers, and support personnel who played integral roles in the development and testing of atomic and nuclear weapons.^[6] This dissertation will reveal how the government handled its responsibilities concerning the health, safety, and environment they used to conduct these tests.^[7] Atomic veterans’ involvement in Operation Greenhouse was transformative, shaping their lives and leaving an indelible mark on the nuclear age. This series of nuclear tests was pivotal at a crucial time in the Cold War when Russia and the United States were largely ignorant of the other’s nuclear capability and desperate to make sure that they had a superiority in destructive capacity via nuclear weapons.[8]

Harold was the son of Reverand Coin W. Rees and his wife, Violet Irene, of Wichita, Kansas. He had three sisters. He was an energetic teen who won the local Soapbox Derby in 1940. He was in School at East High in Wichita on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He turned 16 one month later, on January 3, 1942. He wanted to enlist in the worst way but was too young. Harold and his friends bid their time until the following year when they turned 17 and got their parents’ permission to join the war effort. Harold chose the Navy, and his best friend chose the Army. It took a month for the paperwork to process, but he convinced them to sign. His first day in the Navy was February 6, 1943.^[9] Three years and fifteen days later, on February 20, 1946, after the war was over, he was separated from the Navy.

Harold and Daisy Rees were married on February 28^th, 1946.^[10] Harold’s parents were married on the 29th of February 1920 in a leap year, and Harold aimed to get as close to that as possible. 1946 did not afford the perfect opportunity. The stage was set to implement the plans they had often written about and discussed in person. They would start a household, and once established, employed, and positioned to accept more family members, they would send for Daisy’s family from New York. Daisy had a sister, Dorothy (Dot), who had three children and was a widow. Daisy also lived with her mother, Sarah Stout, a widow. Daisy worked as a long-distance telephone operator during the war and maintained contact with Harold’s family for several months before his discharge from the Navy. Harold’s mom wrote to him in December 1945 that they heard from Daisy often and felt like they knew her, and she was part of the family even though they had yet to meet in person.^[11]

After the wedding, Harold took a position as a mechanic and joined the Navy Reserve for a few extra dollars per month. He immediately bought a used car and fixed it as best as possible without straining the budget. They lived with Harold’s parents on North Dodge Street across from the hospital for the first few months before Daisy returned to Brooklyn to tie up loose ends. They immediately started a family, and Donna Sue was born in December 1946. Sixteen months after that, in May of 1948, Bonnie Marie was born. They built a house at 523 N Meridian in Wichita, Kansas. Harold started his own business, becoming a distributor for the Bond Bread Company retail store route, supplying several stores with fresh bread daily. This business grew rapidly, and Harold was making about $500 per month. Harold was abruptly called back into active service in the Navy in September 1949. He went to San Diego and the next chapter of his Navy career.

Witnessing four atmospheric nuclear tests in April and May 1951 as a member of the USS Cabildo and  L.S.U. 1249, Harold received doses of radiation and fallout effects that would ultimately cost him his health and life 49 years later.^[12] The government, the limited number of government officials involved, and the military were focused in 1951 on producing nuclear dominance, not the health and welfare of soldiers and sailors involved in supporting the testing and proving of hydrogen bombs, the mission of Operation Greenhouse. There were many unknowns about the effects of radiation on the human body in both the short and long term. Much of the science of radiation’s effects on health had yet to be codified. The science that was known was not used and incorporated into the safety precautions taken for those who participated in testing the bombs created for the US Government.[13]  The documentation obtained during the tests on individuals via film badging was haphazard at best. Long term, it did not provide analysts with the data required to establish an individual participant dosimetry record.^[14]

From a military perspective, the participation of these atomic veterans in Operation Greenhouse underscores the evolving nature of warfare in the post-World War II era. As the United States sought to maintain and expand its superpower status, the development and testing of atomic weapons became a critical component of its defense strategies.[15] Harold and his fellow atomic veterans were at the forefront of these efforts, providing invaluable insights into atomic warfare’s practical implementation and potential implications. Their firsthand experiences would inform military doctrine and shape the future of military planning for decades.[16]

The result of the poor dosage-following design and lax recordkeeping throughout all the atomic and nuclear testing operations was a system capable of remediating veterans’ claims for benefits neither timely nor accurately.^[17] It took Congress to mandate the care of veterans through arbitrary laws that did not rely on science as much as fear of lawsuits.^[18] Proving that one was entitled to benefits due to exposure to radiation during the test of these weapons followed the statute, not necessarily the science. Ultimately, after years of research and litigation, if a veteran was there (at an atomic test) and ended up with a malignancy in the presumptive category, he became eligible for compensation and health care.^[19] This was attributable to the government’s sorely inadequate safety and health precautions applied to atomic and nuclear testing.^[20] These laws were adopted as a last resort when veterans sought and were denied vital health care and support for illness resulting from their radiation exposure.

However, the story of the atomic veterans goes beyond their military contributions. It also delves into the social and human dimensions of their experiences. These individuals, many of whom were young and inexperienced, were exposed to the hazards of radiation and faced significant health risks as a result. To note his awareness of the dangers, Harold wrote to Daisy on April 20, 1951, that he “hoped that what I am doing doesn’t make me sterile.”[21] The social impact of their exposure and subsequent health issues has been a topic of ongoing debate and concern for decades. The atomic veterans, their families, and the communities they returned to all grappled with the aftermath of atomic testing, dealing with the physical, emotional, financial, and societal consequences that accompanied it. Answers about who, if anyone, was primarily responsible for the consequences suffered by those who supported and conducted these tests continue to be sought.

The political context surrounding Operation Greenhouse cannot be overlooked. The United States’ pursuit of nuclear supremacy during the Cold War era had profound geopolitical implications. The outcomes of these atomic tests not only shaped the country’s standing on the world stage but also influenced international power dynamics and arms races. Operation Greenhouse was key to the development of triggers for the hydrogen bomb, the next step in the development of ever more powerful and devastating weaponry. Russia had just completed its first test of a nuclear weapon in August 1949 called ‘First Lightening.’ The atomic veterans, unknowingly caught in the web of political maneuvering, became witnesses to the complex intersection of military, scientific, and diplomatic endeavors that shaped the nuclear arms race of the mid-20th century.[22]

This dissertation aims to shed light on the multifaceted experiences of the atomic veterans Harold represents who participated in Operation Greenhouse. Drawing from primary sources, personal testimonies, and scholarly works and relying heavily on the archive of the letters of Harold and Daisy Rees, it seeks to provide a comprehensive narrative of their contributions, sacrifices, and the lasting impact of their involvement in the atomic testing program. Through this story, a deeper understanding of the complexities and consequences of atomic warfare is gained, inviting reflection and contemplation on the intersection of military might, social responsibility, the lives of participants, and the legacies of historical events on contemporary culture.[23]

Background

Tracing the evolution of the Atomic Bomb is an exercise that informs why and how important events unfolded in the race for world dominance during WW II. The country that developed the first superweapon would end the war and rule the peace thereafter. Ruling the peace turned into another race to develop ever larger and more devastating nuclear weapons until the state of mutually assured destruction was achieved.[24] Unfortunately, as with many developing technologies, the political and societal aspects develop along with the product, and only after it is manifest does society and government react to it. In the case of atomic weapons, science developed, then the government and political response, and finally, society was able to react to what was done.[25] The political machine was not far behind in its decision to use the atomic bomb. Just weeks after the successful test at Los Alamos Laboratory, President Truman issued the order to drop the bomb on Japan. For emphasis, after Japan failed to surrender, a second bomb was dropped a week later.[26]

A historiographical note about Operation Greenhouse requires examining the location of these tests. There was discussion regarding the stability and predictability of the weather in the optimal location. Despite many voices offering that these islands were not ideal, as a matter of fact, it was not even advisable as a location; it was chosen regardless.[27] This fateful choice resulted in radioactive fallout covering most of the islands in the Marshall Chain. Ultimately, the Bikini and Eniwetok Atolls had to be evacuated for several years to remediate the damage and assess the health of the residents. The Pacific Proving Ground (primarily The Marshall Islands) proved to be the most radiation-contaminated area on the planet (Before the most recent nuclear power plant accidents in Russia and Japan) as a result of the US and Allied Nuclear testing programs.[28]

Harold was recalled back into the Navy in September 1949 as Korea began to edge toward conflict. He was first sent to California, where he immediately put in the paperwork for a hardship discharge. Going from owning a business and making a good living back to the salary of an END 1c (the rating of an ENGINEMAN DIESEL First Class) of about $124 per month was a severe blow to the family finances. The crises seemed to mount daily with Daisy at home with their two small daughters and no job. Unfortunately, the hardship discharge was denied in 1950 while Harold was in San Diego at the Naval Shipyard. Harold was sent to school to be a Naval Instructor and earned his certificate at the end of March 1950. After a few months, he was assigned to the Cabildo as an Engineman First Class in the boat pool. The Cabildo would be assigned to Operation Greenhouse later in the year and sent to Eniwetok via Hawaii and Pearl Harbor. USS Cabildo departed Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, California, on February 5, 1951, and reached Eniwetok 18 days later, where it remained for the duration of Operation Greenhouse. Cabildo’s primary mission was to transport and support the Greenhouse Mobile Boat Pool used for intra-atoll transportation at Eniwetok.[29]

Back in the Navy, Harold and Daisy resumed the correspondence they had carried out throughout the last two years of WW II. The letters in this period were filled with the love shown earlier and daily family concerns like having enough money for groceries, house payments, and utility bills. Daisy’s letters were filled with concern about the family’s finances and budget. She was trying to sell Harold’s bread truck and worried there would be no business to return to if the truck was gone.[30]

Overall, daily activities for the boat pool on the USS Cabildo during Operation Greenhouse were focused on supporting the testing, ensuring the safety and efficiency of operations, and maintaining readiness. After Test shot ‘Item’ on the 24^th of May 1951, Harold wrote to Daisy, “I sure wish I could tell you about what we have been doing but that’s impossible. In fact, a person couldn’t describe it you would have to see it to realize how it looks.”[31] He was careful not to kick up any dust the censors might look at since he was close to making it home. His writing shows that he knows the significance of what they are doing. The boat he was on, LSU 1249, was short a few crew members because 6 were arrested for taking pictures when they knew it was forbidden even to have a camera.[32]

Much had transpired since 1945 that led to the Eniwetok tests in 1951. The Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA) established a viable organization to produce and safeguard a deployable nuclear capability for the US and its allies.[33] The civilian authorities had the lead in manufacturing parts for 50 Mark III Atomic Weapons. The government was unsure of how to handle the growing nuclear weapons stockpile and was somewhat uneasy with them being in full control by the armed forces. The Manhattan Project was winding down after WW II as the scientists were interested in returning to their peacetime pursuits in colleges and universities nationwide. General Groves, however, was interested in maintaining the momentum of the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos. He believed that since the US Government had failed in late 1945 and throughout 1946 to transition the responsibility for the nuclear program to civilian hands, it was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain focus on the weapons program. Funding was lacking, and the demilitarization of the armed forces was beginning to take a toll on the manpower needed to maintain the program.[34]

The priority for Operation Greenhouse was to test some of Dr. Edwin Tellers’ theories about being able to create a fusion reaction started by a fission reaction within an atomic bomb.[35] If this were possible, it would prove that a thermonuclear device of devastating proportions could be achieved.[36] Two of the four tests in Operation Greenhouse proved that Teller’s theories were valid. The shot ITEM on May 25, 1951, was the primary test that proved the Hydrogen Bomb could be a reality. ITEM had a yield of 2X that of either Hiroshima or Nagasaki, and the fallout was recorded in a notebook that became available from the Defense Nuclear Agency after it became the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA).[37] It was ionizing radiation and radioactive fallout and the lack of knowledge about its health effects on those exposed that became the major controversy of Operation Greenhouse. The government had failed to heed the warnings of those who said the Marshall Islands were not meteorologically suited to atmospheric atomic and nuclear testing. Further, they did not do enough to mitigate radioactive fallout. They did not anticipate that fallout particulate would be of a size that was ‘highly respirable.’[38] Through ingestion, inhalation, and deposition, many of the soldiers, sailors, and scientists received doses of radioactive fallout particles as well as harmful radiation in the form of gamma, beta, and x-rays that affected their health and well-being for the rest of their lives.[39] Harold Rees was among them at Operation Greenhouse.

Lit Review

The literature surrounding the development, production, and testing of nuclear ordinance can be divided into a few topics. First, there are the scientists and the development of the bomb. Second, there are the politics in support of the development, production, and deployment of the Bomb. Then are the changes in warfare and military strategy due to the Bomb and who had it. Lastly, and most marginalized, are the effects of the Bomb on culture and society.

Some of the best authors treating the development phase are Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, who wrote in their book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of Robert J. Oppenheimer about the history of the development of the bomb as well as the personnel involved. This book has been made into a contemporary movie released in 2023. Another author, Francis George Gosling, The Manhattan Project: Making the Atomic Bomb, wrote his book as a “short history of making the American atomic bomb.” The book details the scientific path from the 1919 discovery by Rutherford of a process to transmute elements by splitting their atoms through the next thirty-six years of development, resulting in what we know now as the unimaginable weapon of war. 

The political environment has been heavily researched and written about. Since we are dealing with the government, there is an abundance of primary material to be researched, resulting in detailed treatment of nearly every aspect of the political view of the topic. Some of the notable writers of the political history of the atomic bomb follow. Philip L. Cantelon, Richard G. Hewlett, and Robert C. Williams, in their book, The American Atom: A Documentary History of Nuclear Policies from the Discovery of Fission to the Present, provide a careful and enlightening overview of the many political hurdles that had to be negotiated over a period of years to finally come to a sort of world equilibrium surrounding nuclear weapons and the threat of their use. Another important work on the topic is by Dennis Merrill, who wrote Documentary History of the Truman Presidency: The Development of an Atomic Weapons Program Following World War II. Merrill discusses the Truman years and the many agonizing decisions that had to be taken, leading to the loss of over 100,000 lives and billions in property. This decision was only the beginning in that the after-war nuclear policy was equally important and, in many ways, more difficult.

As one of the world’s leading statesmen and knowledgeable parties about the Cold War and statecraft, Henry A. Kissinger, in “Nuclear Testing and the Problem of Peace” in the journal Foreign Affairs, writes one of the most thoughtful and impactful articles discussing the politics of a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.[40] Even though the Soviets would not accept the proposal by Eisenhower for several years, this article laid the framework for an eventual agreement.

The changes in military strategy and preparedness have been written about from many perspectives, from those advocating a super military that could not be defeated to those advocating relative equality throughout the largest societies in the world, nick-named MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). Lawrence Freedman, in his The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, makes the point that the decision to use a nuclear weapon in a future war went beyond the confines of the battlefield in that its value was one of terror and fear, so it should be used exclusively on cities.[41] Another book by William Liscum Borden, There Will Be No Time: The Revolution in Strategy highlights war’s differing time scale in a nuclear age. Plans and strategies must be pre-set to follow automatically in the case of a nuclear first-strike scenario to bolster the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) doctrine.[42] No other advent in weaponry has so dramatically affected military strategy to such an extent, requiring a completely new and vastly different strategy than the previous one. Never before has one country had the option of completely defeating another and decimating the country’s people and property with one instantaneous and massive first-strike blow.

The effects on culture and society due to the advent of nuclear weapons have been profound, even without any actual nuclear warfare after 1945. Just the threat of nuclear arms being unleashed is one of the most thought-about but not yet acted-upon topics of the world’s peoples and governments. It is a daily topic of conversation in the world’s newspapers, statehouses, and boardrooms. Paul S. Boyer, in his book By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age, decries the dearth of writing about culture and society to the extent that a thousand years from now any person wanting to read cultural and intellectual history from 1945 to 1985 would scarcely know that nuclear weapons existed.[43] While also lamenting the paucity of examinations of the cultural and societal aspects of atomic energy begun through the development of atomic weapons, Scott C. Zeman and Michael A. Amundson,  in their book Atomic Culture: How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb have critical readers who posit “Despite the growing interest in atomic culture and history, the body of relevant scholarship is relatively sparse.”[44]

Those of us in the baby-boomer generation remember the ‘atomic bomb drills’ at elementary school wherein we dove under our desks and tables to remain safe from the nuclear blast that would inevitably come from the Soviet Union. This image became associated with the fears attached to the dreaded atomic bomb. In his book about the cultural fears instilled by the bomb, Spencer R. Weart’s The Rise of Nuclear Fear states, “Our brains scarcely distinguish between direct experiences and vivid imaginary experiences, as seen, for example, in a movie.”[45] In the 1950s, American children were introduced to images and actions that combined to create fear of nuclear war that may have been entirely rational given the recent wars and the actual use of atomic weapons. This book attempts to explain the science behind our reactions.

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Blades, David M., and Joseph M. Siracusa. A History of U.S. Nuclear Testing and Its Influence on Nuclear Thought, 1945–1963. Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.

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———. Footprints to a Legacy. Xlibris Corporation, 2009.

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Frank, Richard B. Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire. Penguin, 2001.

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[1] “OPERATION GREENHOUSE. Scientific Director’s Report of Atomic Weapon Tests at Eniwetok, 1951. Volume 2. Part 2. Evaluation of Program.,” 5-14, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA296598.

[2] Harold Rees to Daisy Rees, Letter dated XX/XX/XXXX, Dennis Rees Archive, ………..

[3] Becky Alexis-Martin, “The Mystery of the X-Ray Hands,” in Disarming Doomsday, The Human Impact of Nuclear Weapons since Hiroshima (Pluto Press, 2019), 30–52, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvg8p69d.8.

[4] C Thomas et al., “Analysis of Radiation Exposure For Naval Personnel at Operation Greenhouse,” Technical Report (DEFENSE NUCLEAR AGENCY, July 30, 1982).

[5] To become familiar with the primary source material for the story of Harold Rees and Family, see Harold L. Rees, “Archive of Letters from 1944 to 1966,” Letters and documents, 1966 1944, Various, Dennis Rees personal letter archive. Included digitally in Exhibit A.

[6] To understand the differences between Atomic and nuclear bombs, see Fiona Young-Brown, Nuclear Fusion and Fission (Cavendish Square Publishing, LLC, 2016). 29-46.

[7] To show that the government is still learning about the health effects of nuclear energy read, Tilman A. Ruff et al., “Health Implications of Ionizing Radiation,” in Learning from Fukushima, ed. Peter Van Ness and Mel Gurtov, Nuclear Power in East Asia (ANU Press, 2017), 221–60, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1ws7wjm.16.

[8] To fully appreciate the relative positions of Russia and the United States regarding the arms race during the Cold War of this period, see Elis Biörklund, International Atomic Policy During a Decade: An Historical-Political Investigation into the Problem of Atomic Weapons During the Period 1945-1955 (Routledge, 2020)., and Christian Brahmstedt, Defense’s Nuclear Agency, 1947-1997 (Defense Threat Reduction Agency, U.S. Department of Defense, 2002).

[9] PJ Reilly, “Notice of Separation from The US Naval Service” (Bureau of Naval Personnel, February 20, 1946), Dennis Rees personal letter archive.

[10] Clyde M Hudson, “Marriage License” (Kansas State Board of Health, February 27, 1946), Binder 1, 11, Dennis Rees personal letter archive.

[11] Harold Rees From Irene Rees, December 14, 1945, Rees Wartime Letters, Private Collection.

[12] To understand the historiography of exposure to ionizing radiation and radioactive fallout and how it affected radiation exposed veterans see: Becky Alexis-Martin, “The Mystery of the X-Ray Hands,” in Disarming Doomsday, The Human Impact of Nuclear Weapons since Hiroshima (Pluto Press, 2019), 30–52, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvg8p69d.8; Barton C. Hacker, “Radiation Safety, the AEC, and Nuclear Weapons Testing,” The Public Historian 14, no. 1 (1992): 31–53, https://doi.org/10.2307/3378439; United States Congress House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Review of Federal Studies on Health Effects of Low-Level Radiation Exposure and Implementation of Public Law 97-72: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, House of Representatives, Ninety-Eighth Congress, First Session, May 24, 1983 (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1983); Institute of Medicine, An Evaluation of Radiation Exposure Guidance for Military Operations: Interim Report (National Academies Press, 1997); Institute of Medicine et al., The Five Series Study: Mortality of Military Participants in U.S. Nuclear Weapons Tests (National Academies Press, 2000); C. Dennis Robinette, Seymour Jablon, and Thomas L. Preston, Studies of Participants in Nuclear Tests: Final Report, 1 September 1978-31 October 1984 (Medical Follow-Up Agency, National Research Council, 1985); Sue Rabbitt Roff and Douglas Holdstock, “Mortality and Morbidity of Members of the British Nuclear Tests Veterans Association and the New Zealand Nuclear Tests Veterans Association and Their Families,” Medicine, Conflict and Survival 15 (1999): i–52; Elaine Ron, “Ionizing Radiation and Cancer Risk: Evidence from Epidemiology,” Radiation Research 150, no. 5 (1998): S30–41, https://doi.org/10.2307/3579806; Tilman A. Ruff et al., “Health Implications of Ionizing Radiation,” in Learning from Fukushima, ed. Peter Van Ness and Mel Gurtov, Nuclear Power in East Asia (ANU Press, 2017), 221–60, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1ws7wjm.16; “Guide to U.S. Atmospheric Nuclear Weapon Effects Data,” accessed February 5, 2024, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADB178624.

[13] Barton C. Hacker, Elements of Controversy: The Atomic Energy Commission and Radiation Safety in Nuclear Weapons Testing, 1947-1974 (University of California Press, 1994). 53.

[14] Medicine et al., The Five Series Study. 61-70.

[15] McGeorge Bundy, “Early Thoughts on Controlling the Nuclear Arms Race: A Report to the Secretary of State, January 1953,” International Security 7, no. 2 (1982): 3–27, https://doi.org/10.2307/2538431.

[16] Michael Uhl and Tod Ensign, GI Guinea Pigs: How the Pentagon Exposed Our Troops to Dangers More Deadly Than War: Agent Orange and Atomic Radiation (Playboy Press, 1980).

[17] Some of the examples of this issue are related in the following sources: John E. Till et al., “Military Participants at U.S. Atmospheric Nuclear Weapons Testing— Methodology for Estimating Dose and Uncertainty,” Radiation Research 181, no. 5 (2014): 471–84; Harvey Wasserman, Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America’s Experience with Atomic Radiation (Delacorte Press, 1982); “Defense Threat Reduction Agency, About Mission  Nuclear Test Personnel Review, US Atmospheric Nuclear Test History Documents,” accessed January 20, 2024, https://www.dtra.mil/About/Mission/Nuclear-Test-Personnel-Review/US-Atmoshperic-Nuclear-Test-History-Documents/.

[18] United States Congress Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Justice for Atomic Veterans Act of 1998: Report (to Accompany S. 1385). (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1998).

[19] Institute of Medicine, Board on Military and Veterans Health, and Committee on Evaluation of the Presumptive Disability Decision-Making Process for Veterans, Improving the Presumptive Disability Decision-Making Process for Veterans (National Academies Press, 2008).

[20] Understanding of the health and safety precautions can be better seen through these sources: John D. Bankston, Invisible Enemies of Atomic Veterans: And How They Were Betrayed (Xlibris Corporation, 2015); National Research Council et al., Health Effects of Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation: BEIR V (National Academies, 1990); Sue Rabbitt Roff, “Puff the Magic Dragon: How Our Understanding of Fallout, Residual and Induced Radiation Evolved over Fifty Years of Nuclear Weapons Testing,” Medicine, Conflict and Survival 14, no. 2 (1998): 106–19; “Operation Greenhouse, Scientific Director’s Report, Annex 4.1, Cloud Studies, Parts I, II, and III, Nuclear Explosions, 1951.,” accessed February 5, 2024, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA374155; “OPERATION GREENHOUSE. Scientific Director’s Report of Atomic Weapon Tests at Eniwetok, 1951. Annex 6.7. Contamination-Decontamination Studies,” accessed February 5, 2024, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA995259.

[21] Harold Rees to Daisy Rees, April 20, 1951, Rees Wartime Letters, Private Collection.

[22] For a review of the arms race and the cold war see: Michael Nacht, Michael Frank, and Stanley Prussin, Nuclear Security: The Nexus Among Science, Technology and Policy (Springer Nature, 2021); Henry D Sokolski, ed., Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice (DIANE Publishing, 2004); Garry Wills, Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State (Penguin, 2011); Elis Biörklund, International Atomic Policy During a Decade: An Historical-Political Investigation into the Problem of Atomic Weapons During the Period 1945-1955 (Routledge, 2020); David M. Blades and Joseph M. Siracusa, A History of U.S. Nuclear Testing and Its Influence on Nuclear Thought, 1945–1963 (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014); Benjamin Friedman, Christopher Preble, and Matt Fay, The End of Overkill: Reassessing U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy (Cato Institute, 2013).

[23] Henry A. Kissinger, “Nuclear Testing and the Problem of Peace,” Foreign Affairs 37, no. 1 (1958): 1–18, https://doi.org/10.2307/20029327.

[24] Henry D Sokolski, ed., Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice (DIANE Publishing, 2004). 15-49.

[25] For a discussion of the science of nuclear weapon development and our understanding of its effects, see: Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of Robert J. Oppenheimer (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2006); Robert L. Campbell, Footprints to a Legacy (Xlibris Corporation, 2009); Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan (Harvard University Press, 2006); Roger Meade, “Discoveries and Collisions The Atom, Los Alamos, and the Marshall Islands” (Ph.D. Dissertation, United States — Arizona, Arizona State University), accessed February 12, 2024, https://www.proquest.com/docview/1686534750/abstract/1052C951EEE04179PQ/1; Richard Rhodes, Dark Sun: The Making Of The Hydrogen Bomb (Simon and Schuster, 2012); Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (Simon and Schuster, 2012); Robert Serber, The Los Alamos Primer: The First Lectures on How to Build an Atomic Bomb, Updated with a New Introduction by Richard Rhodes (Univ of California Press, 2020); Joseph Siracusa, Nuclear Weapons: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2020).

[26] To understand the complicated decision to use the atomic bomb on Japan in 1945 see: Aaron Barlow, The Manhattan Project and the Dropping of the Atomic Bomb: The Essential Reference Guide (Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2019); Philip L. Cantelon, Richard G. Hewlett, and Robert C. Williams, The American Atom: A Documentary History of Nuclear Policies from the Discovery of Fission to the Present (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991); Campbell Craig and Sergey Radchenko, The Atomic Bomb and the Origins of the Cold War (Yale University Press, 2008); Herbert Feis, The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II (Princeton University Press, 2015); James Howell, Countdown to Atomgeddon (Xlibris Corporation, 2014); Frank A. Settle Jr, General George C. Marshall and the Atomic Bomb (Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2016); Doctor Tom Lewis, Atomic Salvation: How the A-Bomb Attacks Saved the Lives of 32 Million People (Simon and Schuster, 2020); Dennis Merrill, Documentary History of the Truman Presidency: The Development of an Atomic Weapons Program Following World War II (University Publications of America, 1995); Andrew J. Rotter, Hiroshima: The World’s Bomb (OUP Oxford, 2008); J. Samuel Walker, Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan (ReadHowYouWant.com, 2016); Ending the War Against Japan: Science, Morality, and the Atomic Bomb (Choices Program, Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University, 2007).

[27] Campbell, Footprints to a Legacy.40.

[28] To gain a perspective n the damage done to the Pacific Testing Grounds see the following; “Bikini, Enewetak, and Rongelap Marshallese, and United States XucIe X Weapons Testing in the Marshall Islands, A Bibliography,” accessed February 11, 2024, https://www.osti.gov/opennet/servlets/purl/16377909.pdf; “Printout of Marshall Island Documents Related to Atomic Testing,” accessed February 11, 2024, https://www.osti.gov/opennet/servlets/purl/16365104.pdf; “Scientific Director’s Report of Atomic Weapon Tests at Eniwetok, 1951 (Partial),” accessed February 11, 2024, https://www.osti.gov/opennet/servlets/purl/16072261.pdf.

[29] “HISTORY OF USS CABILDO DURING OPERATION GREENHOUSE,” accessed March 20, 2024, http://www.usscabildo.org/cabildousn/green-h.html.

[30] Harold Rees to Daisy Rees, December 15, 1950, Wartime Letter Archive, Personal Collection.

[31] Harold Rees to Daisy Rees, May 25, 1951, Wartime Letter Archive, Personal Collection.

[32] Harold Rees to Daisy Rees, May 14, 1951, Wartime Letter Archive, Personal Collection.

[33] Christian Brahmstedt, Defense’s Nuclear Agency, 1947-1997 (Defense Threat Reduction Agency, U.S. Department of Defense, 2002). 47-77.

[34] Ibid., 3-19.

[35] Ibid., 77.

[36] “Operation Greenhouse, Scientific Director’s Report, Annex 4.1, Cloud Studies, Parts I, II, and III, Nuclear Explosions, 1951.”

[37] Campbell, Footprints to a Legacy. 50.

[38] Campbell, Footprints to a Legacy. 42-3.

[39] Ibid., 40-3

[40] Henry A. Kissinger, “Nuclear Testing and the Problem of Peace,” Foreign Affairs 37, no. 1 (1958): 1–18

[41] Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (Macmillan, 1989), 66.

[42] William Liscum Borden, There Will Be No Time: The Revolution in Strategy (Macmillan, 1946), 176.

[43] Paul S. Boyer, By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age (Pantheon, 1985), xv.

[44] Scott C. Zeman and Michael A. Amundson, Atomic Culture: How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (University Press of Colorado, 2004), v-vii.

[45] Spencer R. Weart, The Rise of Nuclear Fear (Harvard University Press, 2012), vii.