Dominant Voices of Empire: How American Media Overlooked the Marshall Island Bombing
Around the time of the Cold War in the mid-20th century, nuclearization was all the rage. It was globally recognized as a demonstration of the political strength, the modernization, and the wealth of knowledge of an empire. As a participant in the Cold War, the United States was one of these empires that strived to attain and, later, maintain nuclear power. Further, they constantly worked to develop their nuclear weapons and assess its destructive capabilities by conducting tests on islands throughout the Pacific. American media often commercialized this development to demonstrate their power as an empire. On April 9th, 1954, the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Lewis Strauss, released the first official report in the U.S. News & World Report called “The H-Bomb–Its Birth, Growth and Future” about the dropping of Castle Bravo’s Hydrogen Bomb (referred to as the H-bomb) on the Marshall. The report discussed ways in which the dropping of the H-bomb was an ingenious and impressive feat that contributed greatly to the United States’ “military strength and readiness” (Strauss 59). Strauss also makes an effort to adamantly refute arising rumors around the bomb to ensure that the American people felt safe. However, the United States’ Defense Threat Reduction Agency, a research group of the U.S. military, released a special report called “Castle Bravo: Fifty Years of Legend and Lore–A Guide to Off-Site Radiation Exposure” much later in 2013 which questions the accuracy of Strauss’s report. The two reports compared demonstrate how American media during the mid-20th century tended to depict nuclearization in a positive light and overlook its actual perilous effects on the Marshall Islands in order for the American empire to gain support from the general public and maintain their status as a superior empire.
Strauss’s report starts with the discussion of how nuclearization has improved their status in the Cold War. He writes that once the American empire “detected the test of an atomic weapon, or device, by the Russians in August of 1949,” their status in “leadership was therefore challenged” (Strauss 59). Already, Strauss implies this notion that nuclearization amongst empires is a symbol for dominance and supremacy among world powers. He further enforces this when he equates the “number of atomic weapons” with “superiority” and asserts, “Our superiority would thereafter be only relative and dependent upon a qualitative lead–that is to say, upon our possessions of greater numbers of atomic weapons so long as that could be maintained” (59). Strauss makes it seem as though the development of nuclearization is essential and perhaps the only way the United States can succeed in the Cold War in addition to maintaining their status as a world power (59). This is clear when he writes, “It should be noted that the testing of weapons is important likewise in order to be fully aware of the possible future aggressive ability of an enemy, for we fully know that we possess no monopoly of capability in this awesome field” (59). He then proceeds to discuss how the bomb is a progressive and modernized innovation for the United States in general. He exclaims how “this test produced the largest man-made explosion ever witnessed to that date” and that this is an act to take tremendous pride in (59).
With this, Strauss begins to refute anti-nuclearization rumors, which he labels to have “exaggerated and mistaken characteristics,” around the bomb’s destruction of the Marshall Islands (Strauss 59). The two atolls, Bikini and Eniwetok, were chosen as the test sites for the bombing. Under the rather plain-spoken and declarative subheading “‘Island’ Destroyed? ‘No’,” Strauss describes both atolls as “small, uninhabited, treeless sand bars,” and states that “the impression that an entire atoll or even large islands have been destroyed in these tests is erroneous” (60). The United States’ Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s report contains conflicting information, especially regarding Bikini Atoll. Firstly, the name Bikini itself translates to “fanned by palm trees” in Marshallese, implying that, in fact, there were trees on the atoll (Kunkle et al. 16). Secondly, the report states that when choosing a suitable testing site, the president had decided that it “was necessary that the site be extremely remote and only sparsely populated, or, more preferably, uninhabited” (Kunkle et al. 16). The diction used here suggests that when searching for test sites in this region, the United States considered an island being “sparsely populated” and “uninhabited” to have nearly equal meaning in that it makes the possibly-existing population seem insignificant to the American empire (Kunkle et al. 16). The report explicitly writes later that at the chosen test site of Bikini, there were indeed “162 people living there” (Kunkle et al. 16). Either Strauss was aware of this sparse population and chose to evade discussion of them in his report, or he was not aware and inaccurately depicted the conditions of the Marshall Islands.
Under the next subheading in his report called “Ship in Danger Area,” Strauss dubs the rumor that the damage created by the bomb extended to areas near the testing site as “of course entirely incorrect” (Strauss 60). The United States’ Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s report contradicts his declaration. Prior to claiming Bikini as one of the test sites, the United States had only selected Eniwetok, but since “the amount and extent of airblast damage and radioactive contamination resulting from the five or six multi-megaton explosions envisioned for CASTLE could not all be accommodated at Eniwetok,” Bikini was also chosen (Kunkle et al. 29). Additionally, the report bluntly states that the “atoll was just too small, and the atoll islands too close together” to not have affected one another during the bombing (see Fig. 1 below). The report further mentions a high-end group of scientists from the Nationwide Radiological Study who conducted a population study of Marshallese natives for three years after the BRAVO explosion. The study demonstrates “compelling information” that the effects of BRAVO “likely extended to other atolls in the Marshall Islands” (Kunkle et al. 155). As a result, it is likely that the bombs dropped on each island had detrimental effects that expanded past both islands.
Strauss also discusses the evacuation and relocation of natives from Bikini and Eniwetok to a nearby island named Kwajalein (Strauss 60). Despite indirectly forcing the natives to relocate, the United States is depicted in an almost heroic manner in Strauss’s report, claiming that their naval establishment on the island placed the relocated natives “under continuous and competent medical supervision” (60). Upon visiting, Strauss observes that the “natives appeared to be well and happy” (60). Although the United States’ Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s report does state that the relocated natives in Kwajalein “were in good spirits and had no medical complaints,” it states that “during the next 2 days, a few complained of mild malaise and two of mild burning of their eyes” (Kunkle et al., 112). Conditions apparently worsened, with symptoms of “definite hematological changes,” “mild skin lesions,” “questionable epilation [hair loss],” and more within the next few months (Kunkle et al., 112). Although Strauss mentions sick people, he declares that none of “these cases have any connection with these tests” (Strauss 60).
Strauss’s report overlooks yet another crucial aspect of the controversy around nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands. The Marshallese culture, as described in the United States’ Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s report, has a tendency to acquiesce to the requests of dominant powers (Kunkle et al. 17). In addition, with the confident American empire ready to test their destructive nuclear weapons and as a “sparsely populated” group of people lacking political power and weaponry to compete, the Marshall Islands’ natives were not in a position to refuse the United States’ offer (Kunkle et al. 16).
Comparing and contrasting Strauss’s report and the United States’ Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s report provides a new perspective of looking at the way nuclearization, including its sites of testing, was depicted in American media during the Cold War. Strauss’s report, which strongly defended nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands, deflects several concerns regarding the civilian population there. It expresses the ways in which nuclearization helps the United States upgrade their status as a world-class empire and glossing over the severity of the damage. At the time, the United States was especially concerned with their reputation as a world-class empire with nuclear power due to the Cold War against Russia; however, times have changed. The recently released United States’ Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s report disproves several of Strauss’s arguments and makes it alarmingly evident that there is another side to the nuclearization story that the world is missing.
Works Cited:
Strauss, Lewis. “The H-Bomb–Its Birth, Growth and Future.” U.S. News & World Report. 9 April 1954: 59, 60, 61. Print.
Kunkle, Thomas., and Byron Ristvet. Special Report: CASTLE BRAVO: FIFTY YEARS OF LEGEND AND LORE A Guide to Off-Site Radiation Exposures. Albuquerque: Defense Threat Reduction Agency Defense Threat Reduction Information Analysis Center, 2013. Print.
