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Summing Up

From the historical record established, the reader knows that four tests of nuclear weapons, two of which were thermonuclear experiments, were conducted at Eniwetok Atoll in April and May, 1951, and that the name of this operation was GREENHOUSE. The record also demonstrates that the first device tested, Shot Dog (81kt), created an unexpected and unprecedent amount of radioactive fallout to sailors on ships at sea in the general area, as well as to all ground based personnel, and Air Force and Navy personnel on various missions.

The record farther reveals that it was the official policy of Joint Task Force 3, the combined military organization responsible for conducting the operation, not to warn personnel that a fallout was in progress or to otherwise protect themselves.

Historical material presented also proves beyond a reasonable doubt in the strictest legal terms, that a substantial portion of the radioactive particles were of a size which could be either inhaled and/or ingested without a person knowing it had happened. The Defense Nuclear Ageney has further substantiated that these particles were, in their words "respirable" and that personnel were not issued respirators to wear to protect their bodies from internal contamination. Contemporaneous papers also prove that the military had knowledge of the activity of resuspended airborne radionuclides, that personnel at GREENHOUSE were walking around with fallout in their hair, and that it came down on the food of people in the mess line.

The record further substantiates that shortly after the time of Dog Shot, a meeting of interested officials was convened on Parry Island and that it resulted in an argument which caused the Navy Radiological Defense Laboratory to be officially reprimanded by JTF-3. A participant in this meeting described it as an effort to state offically that none of the particles were respirable. It has also been demonstrated that the Radiological Safety Director, Maj. Gen. James Cooney, US Army, MC, favored increasing exposure standards long before GREENHOUSE was conducted.

Additionally, the record also reports the finding of the chief meteorologist at Operation SANDSTONE (Eniwetok Atoll, 1948), that the Marshall Islands were not suitable for conducting atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. Official publications of the DOE (and its predecessor, the AEC) and the Department of Defense, clearly state that internal contamination is a considerable hazard and that a particle, once in the body and entering the blood stream, can be carried to any part of the body. In neither of these reports does it state that before internal damage can occur, an individual must have received x-amount of whole body radiation. Additionally, evidence put forward based on animal experimentation and verified by the Allied Forces Radiation Mortarity Study, clearly substantiates that whole body irradiation does, in fact, cause premature death.

Further, two officers who were eyewitnesses to the GREENHOUSE tests, reporting independently of one another, confirm that all GREENHOUSE personnel were overexposed.

While not discussed in great detail, Shot Item (45.5kt) created the greater portion of exposure at GREENHOUSE as the following chart shows:

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