Nuclear Legacy
From 1946-1958 the United States detonated 67 nuclear weapons on Bikini and Enewetak Atolls in the Marshall Islands, which resulted in forced relocation, culture loss tied with loss of lands, as well as biological and ecological consequences, which are ongoing. Despite the importance the Marshall Islands played in the United States’ rise to Superpower status in the early years of the Cold War, this shared nuclear legacy is not found in U.S. history textbooks and rarely acknowledged.
Our Nuclear Justice Work
MEI has worked to raise awareness of this shared nuclear legacy and its consequences since our founding in 2013. We do so through classes, speaking engagements, conferences, videos, and events.
MEI hosted Nuclear Remembrance Day: Reflect. Honor. Educate. in 2014 on the 60th anniversary of the Castle Bravo detonation at the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, and in 2021 hosted a three-day conference in Springdale on the 75th anniversary of the first nuclear test on Bikini Atoll that featured a youth day, community commemoration, and a series of equity panels about nuclear production and climate change’s impact on health.
Since 2022, MEI's staff have been active on the national and international scene participating at United Nations' events. Executive Director, Benetick Kabua Maddison, along with MEI staff Marcina Langrine, Marino Morris, and Matthew John, participated in the 1st and 2nd Meetings of the States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Vienna, Austria (2022), and in New York City (2023). MEI also participated at the U.N. conference on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in NYC, and collaborated with the RMI Mission in Geneva, Switzerland on a Human Rights Declaration. In 2023 Maddison participated in a Youth G-7 meeting in Japan, and along with Matthew John and Marino Morris, participated with on a three week speaking tour of Germany. Benetick addressed the General Assembly in NYC on the International Day for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons (see video).
2MSP 2023: The MEI team, accompanied by Marshallese band MARK Harmony, recently concluded a week's worth of meetings and speaking engagements at the 2nd Meeting of States Parties in NYC. Maddison was also recognized as a 2023 Nuclear Free Freedom Award laureate.
MEI also works closely with Marshallese youth, who, growing up in diaspora, are not taught this shared history. We use art as activism to help teach Marshallese youth and facilitate their outreach to their own community and the general public. We continue to work with talented Marshallese fellows as part of the Youth for Nuclear Justice project in 2023. MEI also collaborates with national and international organizations to raise awareness of the consequences of nuclear weapons' production and testing and to amplify youth voices from affected communities around the world. MEI is a proud recipient of an Equity Rises Grant through the Ploughshares Fund and an ICAN, Nuclear Truth Project, and RTT/NAPF partner.
- attribution: MEI
MEI and Nuclear Legacy Events
2MSP 2023 Showcase
75th Anniversary Conference
Equity Panels
With support from the Walmart Foundation, MEI facilitated two panels that addressed inequities in health: one focused on nuclear issues and a second on climate issues affecting nuclear frontline and/or communities of color.
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Nuclear Panel: Ariana Tibon, RMI National Nuclear Commission, Albious Latior, Marshallese community advocate, Dr. Tommy Rock, Diné, Navajo First Nation. See video below.
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Climate Panel: Tina Eonemto Stege, RMI Climate Envoy, Mireya Rieth, Arkansas United, Kendra Pinto, Diné, Eastern Agency of the Navajo Nation. See video on Climate page.
Moderators: Marcina Langrine and Benetick Kabua Maddison, MEI.
The coronavirus pandemic has had a disproportionate impact upon Marshallese in diaspora due, in part, to the ongoing consequences of US nuclear testing. To mark the 75th anniversary (July 1, 1946, Pacific) of the first nuclear test on Bikini Atoll in 2021, MEI hosted a series of events to address the US-RMI nuclear legacy and assess core issues that have led to health inequities. Events also addressed the impact of the linked climate crisis upon Marshallese bodies and lands, as well as the broader impact of climate change and the coronavirus pandemic upon other nuclear affected communities and communities of color.
Photos from Youth Day
MEI Videos about the Nuclear Legacy
Benetick Maddison on the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima
Tina Stege on slow violence and the nuclear legacy
Neisen Laukon, a survivor's story
Nuclear Legacy history
From 1946 through 1958 the United States conducted 67 nuclear tests on Bikini and Enewetak Atolls in the Marshall Islands.
On March 1, 1954, the United States detonated its largest thermonuclear device, Castle Bravo, which at 15 megatons, was 1,000 times the force of the first tests on Bikini in 1946 and that of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan in 1944.
The Bravo test vaporized three islands on Bikini and swept the crushed coral, trees, marine life and sea water into the atmosphere, which fell as radioactive fallout on the inhabited atolls of Rongelap, Utrok, and Ailinginae. The explosion, seen across the Marshall Islands, also spread radioactive fallout throughout the Marshall Islands, though in less detectable amounts.
On March 1 in the Marshall Islands, this event is commemorated through a national holiday, Nuclear Victims Remembrance Day. .
Above, list of islands and atolls receiving fallout from tests. AEC document. (RMI Embassy, Nuclear Documents Collection)
Excerpt from a statement by US Rear Admiral Lewis Strauss, who minimized the impact of those who suffered from radiation poisoning after the Bravo test. (New York Times, March 31, 1954.)
Witnesses describe the blast as turning the entire sky red. The late Min. Tony deBrum described the event as if you were standing under a glass bowl, and someone poured blood over it. Marshallese as far away as Namdik Atoll describe how three days after the blast, the plants turned brown and died.
For those exposed on Rongelap and Utrok, the signs of radiation exposure were evident. Not realizing that the white powder that fell was dangerously radioactive, children played in the substance like it was snow. It coated the ground, trees, water supplies, and Marshallese bodies. Within hours sickness set in: vomiting and diarrhea, and visible burns. It was 48-72 hours after the event before those exposed were picked up and transported to Kwajalein Atoll, the location of the U.S. military base. The 236 Marshallese were stripped naked and sprayed down before boarding the transport vessel.
It was only because of the exposure to a Japanese fishing crew aboard their vessel, Lucky Dragon, that news of the event was reported. After the crew returned to Japan and unloaded their cargo of tuna, it became evident that the men had been exposed to radioactive fallout, and the government of Japan demanded a response from the U.S. government. Initial U.S. statements regarding the Marshallese were that there "were no visible signs of exposure." On March 31st, Admiral Lewis Strauss reported that all "236 natives appeared to me to be well and happy" and that medical personnel had advised "they anticipate no illness." (See excerpt left)
After the Rongelapese were returned to the atoll in 1957, the lands were still heavily contaminated. Neisen Laukon, who was four years old when her family returned to the atoll, remembers people getting blisters on the feet from walking on the sand and in their mouths from eating native foods. Women gave birth to what they called jellyfish babies because of their translucent skin and lack of bone structure; other births appeared as grapes.
The inhabitants of Utrok and Rongelap Atolls who were exposed by the Bravo detonation were also unknowingly used as human experiments in Project 4.1, a secret U.S. Atomic Energy Commission study, which was authorized while they were being treated on Kwajalein and continued for years to monitor the effects of radiation on a human population. Subjects are still being monitored through health programs.
Today, the people of the Marshall Islands still suffer from the biological and ecological effects of radiation exposure, forced relocations, and loss of lands, which are still not safe for habitation despite U.S. cleanup efforts on small, targeted areas. Utrokese were returned to their atoll shortly after Bravo and have remained. The Rongelapese were returned in 1957, where they suffered from unknown illnesses and thyroid abnormalities. Greenpeace came to their aid and removed them in 1985, when the U.S. refused. Researchers have recently found that some areas in the Marshall Islands are, today, 10x more radioactive than Chernobyl or Fukushima.
Crater on Bikini Atoll left by Bravo detonation. AEC doctors checking women on Rongelap for thyroid abnormalities.
DECLASSIFICATION
U.S. government documents declassified in 1994 under President Bill Clinton’s administration, including the list of affected atolls above, reveal that the exposure was more widespread than officially recognized by the US government. Those documents were subsequently redacted or reclassified altogether by the Department of Defense and by later administrations. Appeals by the RMI and atoll populations to revisit issues of compensation based on this evidence have been denied.
MEI supports the full declassification of all documents pertaining to the testing period and urges the U.S. Congress to review the evidence provided in the Marshallese petition.
Table from "Radiocative Debris from Operation Castle," a document declassified by the Clinton Administration. (RMI Embassy, Nuclear Documents Collection)
MEI Video from Nuclear Remembrance Day 2014: Reflect. Honor. Educate.
MEI created this page as part of our mission to raise awareness of Marshallese history and culture. Except where other sources have been identified, this material is copyrighted by MEI and should be cited in any publications. Contact info@mei.ngo for more information.
We recommend the following books, articles, films, and websites that provide information about U.S. nuclear testing and its impact on the Marshall Islands.
Barbara Rose Johnston & Holly Barker, Consequential Damages of Nuclear War: The Rongelap Report (California: Left Coast Press, 2008).
Holly Barker, Bravo for the Marshallese: Regaining Control in a Post-Nuclear, Post-Colonial World, 2nd ed. (California: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2012).
Giff Johnson, Don't Ever Whisper: Darlene Keju, Pacific Health Pioneer, Champion for Nuclear Survivors, 2013.
Jack Neidenthall, For the Good of Mankind
Jessica A. Schwartz, Radiation Sounds and Marshallese Nuclear Silences (Durham: Duke University Press, 2021).
National Security Archive documents / 70th Anniversary of Operation Crossroads (2016)
Films:
Radio Bikini, Directed by Robert Stone
Nuclear Savage, A film by Adam Horowitz
Select Websites:
GWU's National Security Archive
National Association of Atomic Veterans