Consequential Damages of Nuclear War

Barbara Rose Johnston, Holly M. Barker

"When I began to read this book, I found I could not put it away. In this gripping story, Johnston and Barker make a persuasive argument for redefining the compensation principle to include community damages associated with the loss of a way of life. Contending with the classification and reclassification of key government documents, and incorporating persuasive evidence from oral histories, archival research, and cultural landscape mapping, they render in powerful detail."... --Edward Liebow, Battelle Centers for Public Health Research and Evaluation "This ethnography is appropriate to use in undergraduate and graduate level anthropology courses to illustrate how meticulous ethnographic fieldwork can serve as essential evidence in cases concerning human rights violations. In addition to demonstrating what applying anthropology can accomplish, this book also suggests the importance of long-term ethnographic analysis and multiple methodologies for acquiring data, as well as what can be gained from engaging with professionals both in and outside of anthropology. The readability of this ethnography makes it highly accessible to the public, and more importantly, to policy makers and military personnel who can make a contribution in working to prevent these atrocities from occurring again." --Lauren Harris, Journal of Ecological Anthropology "As Johnston and Barker thoroughly document, the losses of the Rongelapese went much further and deeper; the harm struck to the core of their existence as a community closely tied to the atoll... As the Obama administration tries to convince the United States and the world that we must achieve complete and verifiable nuclear disarmament, it should give the recommendations of this book a fresh look." ---Arjun Makhijani, The Nonproliferation Review "...This powerful, sad, outrageous, important, spellbinding book is a dramatic history of America's second nuclear war, the one the United States Government waged with nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific against the Marshallese people, and with our own military personnel--the Atomic Veterans, who were ordered to participate in the atomic and hydrogen bomb tests of the postwar years. The consequences were devastating for both the natives and the service personnel, the cover-ups were criminal, and the lessons are palpable and relevant today. The Rongelap Report is at the top of my 2008 required reading list for both candidates and voters. That includes you!".. --Martin J. Sherwin, PhD, Pulitzer Prize winning author (with Kai Bird) of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer "...Consequential Damages of Nuclear War is a testament to why anthropology matters. Barbara Rose Johnston and Holly Barker bring heart, mind, memory and conscience to document a tragic past that many would have preferred be forgotten. Their careful scholarship and representative activism boldly declares the promise of engaged applied anthropology."... --David Price, Saint Martin's University "The Rongelap Report is an excellent example of what collaborative politically engaged public anthropology is capable of achieving, when incisive scholarship is brought to bear on urgent problems of human rights, cultural integrity, and policy making." ---Laura A. McNamara, Journal of Anthropological Research

• List of Illustrations -- Prologue: Consequential Damages of Nuclear War -- The Rongelap Report: Hardships and Consequential Damages from Radioactive Contamination, Denied Use, Exile, and Human Subject Experimentation Experienced by the People of Rongelap, Rongerik, and Ailinginae -- Part 1: Introduction -- Summary of Relevant Findings -- Research Concerns -- Research Methods -- Report Framework -- Photo Essay after page -- Part 2: Loss of a Healthy, Sustainable Way of Life -- Valuing Land from a Marshallese Perspective -- Land and Sea Tenure -- Rules Governing Access and Use Rights -- Cultural Land and Seascapes -- Spiritual Values of Land and Seascape -- Environmental Knowledge and Sustainable Resource Use -- Flexible Patterns of Resource Use—Sustainable Living on Atoll Ecosystems 82 Taboos and Resource Management -- Concluding Discussion -- Part 3: Chain of Events and Critical Issues of Concern -- Evacuation from Rongelap to Lae in 1946 -- Damage and Continued Loss of Access to Rongerik -- The Bravo Event -- Relocation from Rongelap to Kwajalein in 1954 -- Project 4.1 Research on Kwajalein -- Relocation from Kwajalein to Ejit -- Long-Term Human Subject Research Plans, Priorities, and Policies -- Difficulties of Life in a Contaminated Setting -- Degenerative Health and Health Care Issues on Rongelap -- Human Subject Research Experiences -- Evacuation of Rongelap in 1985 -- Current Conditions Endured by a Fragmented Rongelap Community -- Part 4: Summary of Damages, Needs, and Compensation Concerns -- Claims by the People of Rongelap for Hardship and Related Consequential Damages of the Nuclear Weapons Testing Program -- Consequences of These Events and Injuries -- Household Economic Injuries -- Compensation Concerns -- Research Needs -- Ideas for Remedial Action -- Part 5: Conclusions and Recommendations -- Violations of Trustee Relationships -- Statements of Culpability -- Reparations -- Relevant Case Precedents -- Recommendations for Categories of Concern in This Claim -- Concluding Remarks -- Epilogue: Seeking Meaningful Remedy -- Appendix -- Sample Marshallese text from the memoir of John Anjain -- List of documents submitted to the Nuclear Claims Tribunal in support of the Rongelap claim -- Letter from the Advisory Committee on Biology and Medicine to Lewis Strauss, chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, November 19, 1956 -- Memorandum from Gordon M. Dunning to C. L. Dunham, June 13, 1957. Subject: Resurvey of Rongelap Atoll -- Letter from Hermann Lisco, MD, Cancer Research Institute, New England Deaconess Hospital, to George Darling, Director, Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, April 29, 1966 -- Letter from Paul Seligman, U.S. Department of Energy, to Mayor James Matayoshi, Rongelap Atoll Local Government Council, April 29, 1999 -- Glossary -- Index.