In February 2005 the National Atomic Testing Museum opened in Las Vegas, Nevada, commemorating the nuclear tests in the American West during the second half of the twentieth century that helped the United States "win" the Cold War. One photograph of a sign read “Always Ready,” capturing American vigilance in the conflict against the Soviet Union and Communism. But many critics claimed that the exhibits provided no voice to the human costs, especially to the uranium-affected people known as “downwinders” who lived in counties of Utah, Nevada, and Arizona during nuclear blasts between January 1951 and October 1958 and June and July of 1962. The downwinders are the subject of Sarah Alisabeth Fox’s book Downwind: A People’s History of the Nuclear West. Following the atomic bombing of Japan and the subsequent end of World War II in 1945, American nuclear tests were conducted in the Marshall Islands of the Pacific Ocean. However, these tests were expensive and difficult to hide from international scrutiny, so the Atomic Energy Commission decided that a test site in the continental United States was better. To government officials, southern Nevada and the desert region north of Las Vegas seemed like a wasteland. However, much of the land that the U.S. military claimed belonged to Native Americans, especially the Western Shoshones. What makes Fox’s book compelling (and horrifying) is the human costs in the name of national security. Navajo Indians, facing few work opportunities on the reservation, sought jobs in the uranium industry only to face health problems in their later years and many of them died young. Both Anglo and Native American sheepherders lost significant numbers of livestock due to nuclear contamination. When residents first noticed the symptoms they still trusted the federal government’s story that nuclear testing posed no threat to them. For example, in Utah, the large Mormon population, who emphasized obedience as the first law of God, did not question the government. Anyone who asked questions risked being labeled a Communist. Only with the discontent from the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal of the 1970s did residents express suspicion with the government. Consequently, downwinders and their families today face a host of health problems, including leukemia, multiple myeloma, lymphoma, primary cancer of the pharynx, and more. I was attracted to Fox’s book because at my current special library position we have a downwinders reference section that many patrons frequently use. Downwind gives a good overview of how residents in Utah, Nevada, and Arizona trusted the federal government about nuclear testing only to later face a terrible legacy of health complications. Another good source on the Cold War’s environmental effects on the American West is Judy Pasternak’s 2010 narrative Yellow Dirt: An American Story of a Poisoned Land and a People Betrayed (which Fox cites), describing the effects of uranium poisoning on the Navajo population. Both accounts greatly enhance our understanding of the history of the Cold War. Fox, Sarah Alisabeth. Downwind: A People's History of the Nuclear West. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2014.
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CategoriesAuthorTom Schmidt lives in Prescott Valley, AZ. Archives
October 2018
CategoriesArchives
October 2018
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