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They were secret. It took digging by newspapers and
Congress to disclose them. But now documents about radiation weapons
tests in Utah are in local public libraries for anyone to read.
Rep. Karen Shepherd presented on Monday about 1,500 pages of such
documents each to the Salt Lake County, Salt Lake City and University
of Utah libraries for public use.
All such tests were secret until last December, when the U.S. General
Accounting Office revealed Dugway Proving Ground conducted at least
six tests in the 1950s to explode and scatter radioactive material in
the Utah desert.
Then this year, the Deseret News dug out more documents showing at
least another 27 such tests occurred - with suggestions that maybe
hundreds more tests may have been staged.
They included dropping radioactive pellets and bombs from aircraft,
exploding different shapes of radioactive munitions to see which would
scatter contamination farthest and using dust generators to spread
radioactive specks to the wind.
Shepherd and Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, then requested Dugway to
release all documents it had on such tests. It gave them the 1,500
pages of documents - which revealed another 35 such tests, for a total
so far of 68 known radiation weapons experiments.
Shepherd later complained that did not include documents that the
Deseret News dug out this month that revealed the Air Force in 1959
conducted what amounted to eight intentional meltdowns of nuclear
reactors at Dugway. Copies of them were soon given to her.
While Shepherd has released the documents she has obtained to the
public and press, Bennett chose not to release his copies until after
they have been reviewed by scientists. He said he wanted to avoid any
undue panic by misinterpretation of the data.
Dugway tests are currently under review by the presidential Advisory
Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. President Clinton ordered it
this year to specifically review the Dugway tests as part of its study
of all such Cold War experiments.
That commission complained last Friday that the military and Energy
Department still classify some key documents its seeks - including
some regarding radiation-weapons tests. |
