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Happy Savages: What We Did to the Marshall Islanders
“Thirty seconds to zero . . . six, five, four, three, two, one.”
![](/sites/commondreams.org/files/imce-images/bravo.jpg ""Castle Bravo" -- Bikini Atoll, March 1, 1954")
"Castle Bravo" -- Bikini Atoll, March 1, 1954Suddenly a big orange blossom fills the screen, accompanied by ukuleles and lovely — I mean Strangelovian — Polynesian music. The blossom is actually Castle Bravo, a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb blast, the largest U.S. test ever, detonated over Bikini Atoll on March 1, 1954.
This is a few minutes into Nuclear Savage: The Island Experiments of Secret Project 4.1, one of the most disturbing documentaries I’ve ever seen, and one of seven feature-length films that are part of Chicago’s fourth annual Peace on Earth Film Festival, Feb. 23-26, at the Chicago Cultural Center. The event, once again, is free of charge.
Peace on earth?
The film festival seeks to “enlighten and to empower individuals, families and communities to step out of the ignorance of conflict . . .”
I take a deep breath and think about Nuclear Savage, a film by former Greenpeace activist Adam Jonas Horowitz, which opens up one of the hidden horrors of American history — analogous to our history of slavery, lynching and Jim Crow — but perpetrated on the far side of the world, with nuclear weapons.
Nuclear Savage is the story of what we did to the Marshall Islanders throughout the Cold War with our nuclear testing program. Not only did we expose many thousands of them to ghastly — often lethal — levels of radiation with 67 nuclear blasts, with glaring evidence that at least some of the exposure was intentional, done for the purpose of studying the effects of radiation on human guinea pigs; not only did we wreck the Marshall Islanders’ way of life and pristine paradise, creating a nation of internal refugees confined to a Western-style slum on the island of Ebeye; not only did we cower, as a nation, from any real responsibility for what our fallout did to these people, settling our genocidal debt to them with $150 million “for all claims, past, present and future”; but also, throughout our dealing with them as nuclear conquistadors, we displayed a racism so profound, so cold-blooded, its exposure must forever shatter the myth of American exceptionalism.
And we’re still doing it. The tiny, impoverished Republic of the Marshall Islands recently signed a 75-year lease agreement with the United States, guaranteeing that the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site on Kwajalien Atoll, where Star Wars testing is still being conducted (for unfathomable billions of dollars), will be operational at least through 2086.
“John is a savage, but a happy, amenable savage.” Thus intones the voice on a ’50s-era newsreel clip in the documentary, showing footage of seven male Marshall Islanders who have been brought to the United States for radiation testing. “John is mayor of Rongelap Atoll. John reads, knows about God and is a pretty good mayor.”
The film does a stunning job juxtaposing examples of our smug ignorance of South Sea culture with the reality of what we did to it. John the happy savage is actually John Anjain, who is one of many former residents of Rongelap Atoll interviewed in the film. He talks about his thyroid cancer, the thyroid cancer of three of his children and one grandson, and about the death of another son from leukemia.
Rongelap was heavily contaminated by the Castle Bravo blast. The official explanation is that the wind suddenly shifted. Many of the islanders believe that the wind direction was known and the blast occurred anyway. The U.S. Navy waited several days before evacuating the island. In 1957, the Rongelapese were told their island was safe again — a blatant untruth — and were transported back to their ancestral home, where they proceeded to die of cancer and give birth to large numbers of stillborn, deformed children. The bodies of many of the islanders were removed by U.S. personnel and examined.
“My first child born did not look human,” one of the islanders said. “It was like a bunch of grapes. The second came out limp, with no muscles or bones at all. It was like a monster, a jellyfish, completely limp. It was a jellyfish baby.”
A year before they were moved back to Rongelap, Merril Eisenbud, the first health and safety chief of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, had said, according to the transcript of a 1956 meeting: “That island is by far the most contaminated place on earth and it would be very interesting to get a measure of human uptake when people live in a contaminated environment. . . . While it is true that these people do not live the way Westerners do, civilized people, it is also true that these people are more like us than the mice.”
They lived on Rongelap till 1985, when they were finally evacuated, not by the United States, which refused to do so, but in the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior. They took everything, including their dismantled homes; they left behind only their cemetery.
Thinking about this extraordinary documentary in the context of the Peace on Earth Film Festival, I am mostly aware of the gap the film exposes: between the ideals of most of the world’s population and the interests of the powerful. We’re a long way from peace, and maybe we always will be, but never have I felt a stronger urge to work for it.
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25 Comments so far
Show AllI just wonder how many of the other islands in the chain got polluted as well as those that were directly exposed, such as Bikini.
Is there anywhere left on this earth that we have not damaged one way or the other with our nuclear arms?
All of those tests increased our planets measured "Background Radiation" They now claim this "background radiation" is normal and spokespersons for the Nuclear Industry cite it all the time when dismissing catastrophes such as Chernobyl, Three Mile island and Fukushima.
This is not significantly different than the Siphylis studies on black men. And we condemned the Nazis for the "tests" they did on the Jews.
Or "eugenics" which continued well into the seventies.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/11/07/2752634/victim-of-eugenics-scarred-for.html
The biggest LIE ever told- history of the USA as taught by........ the USA.
I was asked to write a poem in memory of the victims of Castle-Bravo on the 50th anniversary of the blast, so I wrote this as if seen through the eyes of a small child on Rongalap.
The Day of Two Sunrises
My brother and I went to play
By the boats pulled up on the beach.
We raced and played tag
And chased land crabs in the predawn light.
The sun began to light the east
As it always had before,
Suddenly, a second sun arose in the west
Where never the sun had risen!
We ran to Mama to ask her what and why.
She did not know and the new sun died
As quickly as it grew.
In the Men’s House, they talked and remembered.
The day began as always, the men to fish in their outriggers,
The mothers cooking and digging taro, gathering plantains
And watching over the children
Who played at fishing and gathering and ran and played tag.
Suddenly, from the sky fell white powder!
Once a missionary had told of snow. Perhaps this was snow!
It came down covering everything. It was sticky.
We played, and scooped it up and threw it at each other. It was fun!
That evening I did not feel so well. My eyes hurt and my stomach turned to water.
My brother’s body was covered with blisters and his skin began to fall off.
Mother was vomiting, too, and her beautiful hair
Began to come out in handfuls.
Mother wondered if it was the snow, so she washed us,
But the water was filled with snow and the scrubbing removed the skin.
Soon, the whole village was sick, and the animals, and the plants,
All were sick.
After two days, the strange men came, in boats with a large mouth
Which dropped open on the beach and white clad creatures came out.
They wore masks with strange eyes and a long round mouth.
They pointed sticks at us which buzzed and crackled.
They pointed the sticks at everything, the trees, the well, the fish,
And listened to the buzz and crackle, then made marks on little boards they carried.
Finally they left, but told us we were very sick and not to eat
Of the fish, the coconuts, the plantains, the taro, that they were now tabu.
The men returned in their large boats and said our island was now tabu.
They gathered us up, leaving everything behind.
We were taken to another place where we were poked and bled.
We looked so terrible that the people must have been afraid.
They wore the strange white suits when they looked in on us.
My brother looked the worst, like an old man with scabs
Which broke and bled and his teeth fell out
And then he was dead.
Mama became an old woman with patchy hair
And always a sickness.
Each time she saw me, she cried.
I was so sick, so tired, and then one day I died.
* * *
In memory of the Rongalapese and other Islanders who were poisoned by Castle Bravo (13.5 megatons, 1 March 1954) and other bombs. Just collateral damage in the quest for knowledge and power.
Steve Osborn
25 February 2004
In the early nineties I was at a hospital fund raiser where I picked up a copy of Jane Dibblin's - Day Of Two Suns, what an eye opener. Just when you think that it can't get any worse reality slaps you with more of the same misery clothed with suit and tie. They say this is the luxury class, with standard air conditioning and scratch relief machines - winner takes all. Is there a fate worse than death? If these souls could speak I want to listen. I too wrote a poem dedicated to the victims of this atrocity.
Steve, were you a resident of one of these atolls that was affected?
Peace be with you Steve.
Fractional Beings
lives make perfect building blocks
when stones are but relics
dug from old books
stacking like brick work
they become the fractional beings
born in the statistician's womb
mystery smiles not its cynicism
when graveyards are dug
to wake snoring souls
unearthing bones
I sculpt by returning flesh to them
their dried voices I stuff in the marrow
and all the parts left over
I construct a cross
the sky darkens along the horizon
as the moon turns to center stage
the frolic of a harmless wind
excites the embers
long decayed
in the chambers of an organ swell
their frantic screams
recorded in the clouds
when mercy's chosen stop
could not be found.
"Steve, were you a resident of one of these atolls that was affected?"
First of all, Andrea, thank you for your poem. Prose is excellent for reports, statistics, etc., (you can read reams of that in the project notes mentioned in the article) and is good for telling stories, but poetry is what can expose the heart of mankind to the universe.
To answer your question, I was not a resident. I was an eighteen year old sailor aboard the USS Badoeing Strait, CVE 116; part of the task group for the Redwing series of tests conducted in the Marshall Islands in 1956, two years after the Castle series of which Bravo was the most horrible. I have written of my experiences there. That has left me an anti-nuke, anti-war person for the rest of my life. I have seen World War III, up close and personal, and it is not something the world needs to see or experience.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I Have Seen the Dragon
I have seen the Dragon
Through clenched lids and arms pressed tight.
I have felt its hot breath on my back
And listened to the rumble of its voice.
I have looked upon its breath,
Glowing Amethyst, red and purple,
Climbing towards the stratosphere
To deposit its venom downwind.
I have waited in fear as my gums began to bleed
And my hair came out in clumps.
I breathed a prayer of thanks
As I began to heal.
After fifty years, our ranks are thin,
We who have seen the Dragon and survived.
Those who have died or are sickened still,
Their numbers are legion.
All we can hope for, work for, pray for,
Is that no madman will ever be allowed
To unleash the Dragon again.
For its legacy to all is death, disease and decay.
© Stephen M. Osborn
2 November 2006
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Dragon the Will Not Die
Fukushima, the Dragon that will not die;
I’ve watched it spit its venom into the sky,
And dump its excrement upon the ground
Where generations will expire without a sound.
Dig it up, bury it, filter the air.
The Dragon will spew more poison without care,
Until the ground, water, air, are filled with its foul scent.
And malformed babies abound, with bodies bent.
Always remember, while bucks, shekels, yen and yuan rule,
War, nukes and biogenetics will be just a tool,
For gathering the wealth of their choice;
As they keep billions of souls from having a voice.
Perhaps the People are beginning to awaken,
As they gather to Occupy and steps are taken,
To dismantle the Wealthy and their endless greed.
To plant, in their place, a fresh and viable seed.
Steve Osborn
24 Oct. 2011
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please, keep on writing, my friend.
We have met the Western nuclear savages, and they are us.
Western civilzaton! Let's try it sometime. Can these traditonal societies civilze the West? Let's give it a try. Is the West capablie of copying? I'd like to think so.
There is a heart beat in your spirit and poetry Steve. I don't like to use the conjunction if (as it always points to the present), but it would be wonderful if wisdom and experience were traded on the stock exchange. I will dream no further. Thank you for your gift...
Peace be with you Steve,
What a beautiful poem, good God, America has so much blood on her hands!
Steve,
Thank you for these powerful poems. My best friend is an atomic vet, and sometimes a poet. I'll be sharing these with him.
To view footage of those "jelly fish" babies, and for military "leaders" to take from that experience a further desire to use more of same shows the diabolical nature of those who gravitate to the barbarian calling of Mars rules. It's charming how, for all their shows of endlessly senseless aggression, they manage to call the primitive tribes who use sticks and roadside explosives, The Terrorists.
Hi Siouxrose,
Not to mention calling the islanders "savages." I'm trying to contact the Primordial Soup Company to see if it is possible to get a screening in my area. I'll keep you posted.
When that report was finally declassified, I was never able to read through it. Too many tears, too much nausea. Yes, it was planned, almost to the last cold, scientific, detached, detail.
Steve, your intelligence, gift for verse, and good heart are at their best granting witness to the horrors you viewed. Thank you for keeping the memory of these savage acts alive. Your poetry helps give voice to the unspeakable, otherwise many would never know what's been done in their names. The satanic, and hard to fathom.
I was at a statewide meeting at the University of California where we were planning to blockade the Diablo Canyon Nuclear power plant. Some mothers from the Pacific Islands came and told us about the jellyfish babies. We changed focus and blockaded Vandenberg Air Force Base. A line of soldiers kept us away from the front gate. I grew impatient and walked up to the soldiers and told them about the jellyfish babies, the soldiers were young and so grossed out they stepped back in disgust. I walked through the line and went to the front door, stating in a clear nonviolent voice that I was here to see General Jack about the jelly fish babies; I ended up in Terminal Island Federal Penitentiary, four days, for jaywalking. Second time there were two busloads of us sent to Santa Barbara, where the court system refused to accept discussion of jellyfish babies. We were not allowed off the buses and sent, still shackled, back to our peace camp and released. My shoulders have never recovered form those hours of being shackled behind me and Jellyfish babies still gross me out. I mean, the US government is no better now than it was then. Valley girls say gag me with a spoon as a way to abbreviate such disgusting gross evil.
Ahh, to replace a poptart with a real apple for breakfast requires that we first gross out over the poptart. Are we all grossing out now over the Merkan poptart? Images of the real apple, yet?
PS > You are seeing a hydrogen bomb blow a hole right through the atmosphere. Those idiots are who blew out the ozone layer.
"knows about God"
I see gawd in the fusion of them thar atoms! We can take this planet back 3 billion years! WE ARE GAWD!
Next week in the early morning hours of February 25 the US is shooting an 'unarmed' intercontinental ballistic missile at the Marshall Islands. It will not cause a nuclear explosion, but imagine a huge missile screaming in to your island at thousands of miles an hour.
There will be a small protest outside the front gate of vandenberg at midnight. Those not in the area can sign a petition opposing these provocative missile tests at www.wagingpeace.org/goto/missile
Grown men still play at war games only now their playgrounds are far away and their toys are lethal weapons used against unknowing victims. And, after they are done playing they insist they had nothing to do with the carnage their games left behind. Collateral damage was never a part of their innocent games and in their dreams at night they are knights in shining armor defeating the evils of the world, never understanding that their childish games are the real evil. Take away the toys and the grown men have nothing left for empowerment. They are hallow shells with nothing to offer to sustain a dying planet.
Does the United States ever learn? I guess not. This is not to excuse and defend what the United States has done abroad over the years, but I believe that countries that've come into existence through force often keep on using force as a means of dominating, subjugating and controlling others, especially abroad, but it's happening domestically as well.
Although the name of the person who created the following quotation escapes me at the moment, it's a good quote that makes great, good sense. Here is is:
"History doesn't repeat itself. It rhymes."
It's obvious who the real savages are in that story.
What Marshall Islanders?
The place was empty when we got here ( Oregon Trail homesteader 1850)!!
If you go about 1/3 of the way from Hawaii towards the Marshall Islands you will find Johnston Atoll and you can Google maps 'Johnston Atoll' and see it in satellite mode. You can see Bikini Atoll too if you search that.
Way back 20 or more years ago I went on a scuba-diving trip to Truk Lagoon via Hawaii. Continental Airlines used a converted 727, with a massive cargo door, that did the Hawaii to Japan island hop. It would pick up pallets of fish from the various islands to take to Japan so half the aircraft was cargo and half passengers. I was told by the pilots that the fish covered the cost of the flight completely so passengers were pure profit. I also understood that the less squeaky clean pilots when it came to impeccable hairstyle and dress came to do these flights. Most of the passengers were US military on rotation as a large number of the islands e.g. Kwajalein were occupied by them.
The first island we came to was Johnston Atoll in which the runway covered the entire length of the Island. Somewhat perplexed at what appeared to be an oil refinery with a cracking tower that covered the rest of the island I said "what on earth is this?" One of the miltary people next to me leaned over as I took pictures and asked me if I could guess what it was. I said "No, and asked what's an oil refinery was doing in the middle of the Pacific Ocean?" He told me it was actually high temperature incineration towers that were 'safely' burning the European stored binary chemical weapons and nerve gas, e.g. Sarin, from the Cold War era -as part of some disarmament agreement with the former Soviet Union. Yuck!
Arriving by ship and stored in bunkers, they had a 10 year supply to get through.
It appears looking at it now that the entire place has been torn down and flattened and from what I read was decommissioned in 2005. I wonder just how much contamination there was and where the tower and all those containers ended up.
Another of the islands we stopped at had a nuclear accident and has a huge circle of concrete covering it. It was an odd feeling to see this chilling dystopia in the middle of paradise.
I see now that Johnston Atoll had nuclear testing and accidents too:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnston_Atoll_Chemical_Agent_Disposal_System
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnston_Atoll
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fishbowl
Incredible picture of naval ship airborne and up the side of the central core of the explosion at Bikini Atoll:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Proving_Grounds
Is there any reason humanity should survive?