The Lakeland Ledger, Tuesday, December 19, 2006
http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006612190423&source=email

Testing Nuclear Bombs

America, in recent years, has become terribly fretful about both Iran and North Korea attempting to gain an atomic weapon. (North Korea seems to have succeeded.) Our president has uttered dire warnings if they so much as attempt to test their device.

In light of all this, Americans, and especially our leaders, need a history lesson badly, to realize what we did as a nation in the 1950s and early '60s testing our newly crafted hydrogen bombs.

On Nov. 1, 1952 we exploded our first H-bomb on the island of Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands. We discovered that it had the destructive might greater than all the bombing done in World War II by all sides. But its most devastating effect was its lethal fallout of radioactive ash that had tragic consequences for the natives of the Marshalls, along with Japanese fishermen and their catches, which they brought home for people to consume.

Then followed a host of tests beginning on Bikini Atoll in the Marshalls, whose fallout fell over 7,000 square miles, once again, tragically affecting the lives of people on these islands, with no apologies from the U.S.

After that, further tests went underground in Nevada, with fallout covering six of our western states, plus two Canadian provinces, with no public warnings provided. Additional tests followed on Christmas Island, and in New Mexico, Colorado and Alaska. All together, America detonated more than 1,000 nuclear warheads between 1946 and 1962, releasing more lethal ash in the atmosphere and upon people than we have ever admitted.

Now, in light of all our testing, we have the immoral audacity to tell other notions what they can or cannot do with their attempts to harness atomic energy for their desired purposes. We even threaten war. Our nation stands on shaky moral ground in telling other nations what they cannot have what Russia, Israel, Britain, India and France now possess.

No wonder we are seen as the arrogant giant, as viewed by much of the rest of the world.

THE REV. ROBERT E. WILLOUGHBY - Lakeland