Background

Operation GREENHOUSE (hereinafter referred to as "GH") was a four-shot test series conducted at Eniwetok Atoll in the northern Marshall Islands during the months of May and June, 1951. The atoll had previously been the scene of a three-shot test series code named Operation SANDSTONE in 1948 (April 14 - May 14). As such, the atoll was not free from residual radiation when personnel began arriving in 1950, to prepare for GH.

Sandstone Series[1]

X-Ray April 14, 1948 Tower Shot 37 kt
Yoke April 30, 1948 Tower Shot 49 kt
Zebra May 14, 1948 Tower Shot 18 kt

Greenhouse Series[2]

Dog April 7, 1951 Tower Shot 81 kt*
Easy April 20, 1951 TowerShot 47 kt**
George May 8, 1951, Tower Shot 225 kt
(First Thermonuclear test explosion)

Item May 24,1951 Tower Shot 45.5 kt
(First test of the boosting principle)

*"Allthough the actual yield of 81 kilotons long remained classified, the unprecedented power of the device tested in Dog was no secret. It produced not only a 'new high in yield' but also 'as a tower shot it lifted an estimated 250,000 tons of soil material to an altitude of approximately 35,000feet.' That created a rad-safe problem when a 'wind shear moved that portion of the cloud back across the Japtan-Perry-Eniwetok Area.'" [2-1]

**"The yield of shot Easy...found very high gamma readings on the islands west of Enjebi. 'Insignificant,' however the rad safe unit termed post-Easy fallout on the three manned islands at the atoll's southeast rim 'only...2 or 3 times the background.' The measured 0.5 milliroentgen per hour on the islands an hour after the shot was almost wholly residual activity from Dog." (emphasis added).[2-2]

Military elements involved in the GH series were subunits of the U. S. Navy, U. S. Army, U. S. Air Force, Marine Corps contingents aboard naval vessels, and the United States Coast Guard which operaled the Eniwetok Loran (Long Range Aid to Navigation) Station. Also present at the time were civilian employees of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and Holmes & Narver Construction Co., Inc., members of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project (AFSWP), and civilian employees of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (LASL).

A 1948 memorandum[4] set forth three basic meteorological requirements "for a suitable site for atomic bomb experiments": 1. "...resonable frequency of occurrence of cloud or weather conditions to meet operational condition... " 2. " Wind conditions from the surface to the stratospheric levels should he such that there can be no possibility of subjecting personnel to radiological hazards or surrounding Iand or water area to unintentional radioactive contamination. " 3. " The mechanism of meteorological processes for the site should he adeqauately understood and the weather conditions for the site demonstrated to be of a high and reliable accuracy. "

The memorandum's author, Col. G. B. Holzman, USAF, concluded that for five very specific meteorological conditions " The Marshall islands in the main do not meet (the) requirements" set forth above. In discussing his recommendations, Col. Holzman went on to state that in considering a continental U. S. site for testing nuclear weapons, that "Because the United States is predominantly under the influence of prevailing westerly winds it seems obvious that the eastern coast areas of the United States may provide a suitable site. For example, the coastal areas of North Carolina are influenced by prevailing west to northwest winds to at least 50,000 feet throughout all seasons of the year. "

Indeed, JTF's Radiological Safety Officer stated, on 11 May 1948, that "From a Radiological Safety standpoint Eniwetok Atoll has proven to be a far from satisfactory site for atomic tests."[5]

A day later, on May 12, 1948, Admiral Parsons, in a memorandum to Commander J T F-7[6] discussing site selection for the testing of nuclear weapons stated: "In the case of bombs deliberately placed for maximum contamination the site would need to he chosen with great care. Probably a surface detonation in a harbor would be carried out in Eniwetok or Bikini Atolls but the ground spots available at these sites do not seem suitable for testing surface or shallow underground detonations. "

In appraising the circumstances under which military personnel were located and were to become exposed to nuclear weapons, it is relevant to inquire into the mindset of high-ranking military personnel who oversaw the various operations. The Ianguage of Admiral Parsons' May 12, 1948 memorandum offers just such a glimpse. In discussing the psychological hazards attendant to the testing of atomic bombs in pushing for a continental test site he comments that in order to gain funding for testing that the military relied upon public fear and associated "so called psycho-logical difficulties."

The naval officer further protested that, "I submit that this pattern has already become too firmly fixed in the public mind and its continuation can contribute to an unhealtry, dangerous and unjustified fear of atomic detonations" and that believed "it is high time to lay (to rest) the ghost of an all-pervading lethal radioactive cloud which can only be evaded by people on ships, airplanes and sandpits in the Marshall Islands."

The historical record of the experiences of the so-called Downwinders in Utah, Nevada and Arizona proves conclusively the appropriateness of the title of Dr. David Bradley's Bikini remembrances No Place To Hide. The undeniable truth of the title of Dr. Bradley's book is proved not only by what occurred at Bikini on March 1st, 1954, but also by what, in fact, occurred at Eniwetok in the spring of 1951, and the lengths to which the military, in concert with the AEC, went to cover-up the blatant overexposure of 9,300 men to radioactive particles which were of a size that could be inhaled and/or ingested without knowing.

Finally, any discussion of Operation GREENHOUSE must note that the four weapons detonated were the fourteenth to seventeenth nuclear weapons detonated by the Unites States and as a consequence they were crude devices designed to prove scientific principles. The George test, in fact, was described by Edward Teller's biographers as a contraption and as a great experiment.[7] As nuclear biographer and Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Rhodes demonstrates in his new book Dark Sun - The Making oif the Hydrogen Bomb, the road to developing the H-Bomb began at GREENHOUSE.

The Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA) summed up GH by saying that the weapons tested were not H-bombs per se, yet two involved thermonuclear experiments and that Shot George was an important wat station on the path to development of thermonulear devices.[8] While the test devices in and of themselves were experimental, it then logically follows that test participants were experimental subjects, albeit unwittingly. Indeed, as the record of GH attests, human experiments were conducted by the military.

Finally, in 1978, when former airborne trooper Paul Cooper linked his terminal leukemia with his participation in Operation PLUMBBOB in 1957, little did any of us realize the impact his action of opening the door to the Pentagon's incestuous relationship with science would have on our lives. Following Cooper's death it was left to us who would come to be called Atomic Veterans to discern the truth about his death, plus those of so many of our friends and indeed, our own mortality. It is for the future to discern the morality of our circumstances.

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