Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 2, 1994 TAG: 9401020030
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By Boston Globe
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Cold War pressures led the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy to push the AEC hard from the 1940s to the 1960s to make bigger, better nuclear weapons faster, scientists and others said.
During the 1940s and 1950s, the prevailing atmosphere was one of secrecy and fear, and the attitude of some nuclear scientists was almost casual toward the dangers of exposure to low levels of radiation, those familiar with the AEC and the joint committee said. Corners were cut, they added.
"There was a different mindset then, particularly toward radioactive materials and radiation," said Frederick Shon, a nuclear physicist who is now deputy chief administrative judge of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. Shon worked with the AEC in the early 1960s. "Many people thought that radiation was a hazard like any other hazard and you've got to learn to deal with it."
Shon said the military, in particular, believed that radiation was just another battlefield threat, like the poison gas used in World War I, that soldiers must learn to survive.
"The military believed that they could use tactical nuclear weapons," Shon said. "They would fire nuclear-tipped shells out of a cannon, then move the infantry in just as fast as they could. So, in tests in Nevada, they moved the infantry in while the radiation levels were quite high," he said.
Two former AEC commissioners said they never knew that radiation experiments were performed on unwitting civilians.
"I sure as hell wouldn't have let any unwitting people be experimented on," said Lauren K. Olson, a lawyer and AEC commissioner from 1960 to 1962. "It would be a visceral reaction by most people that you don't treat people with a potentially dangerous treatment without their consent."
Dr. Gerald Tape, who joined the commission in 1963, said the five AEC commissioners "would have known" about medical experiments conducted by the AEC's biomedical division. Commissioners were appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
Tape said experiments using radioactive isotopes as tracers of substances in the human body "were perfectly ethical" and carried out routinely. The more pertinent ethical questions for current queries, Tape said, should concern whether patients were adequately informed of the risks in tests.
By law, under the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, the AEC was required to keep Congress "informed and current" on all things related to nuclear research and development.
But some critics of congressional oversight, citing the committee's eagerness to move quickly on both the peaceful and military development of nuclear power, said the committee might not have objected to experiments designed to test whether humans could withstand a nuclear attack.
"When the Soviets tested their first bomb in 1949, there was a moment of genuine hysteria in the United States," said Richard Rhodes, author of "The Making of the Atomic Bomb." "It was directly after that Soviet test that we decided the only response was to go for a larger bomb, the hydrogen bomb," he said.
Had the committee known of radiation experiments at that time, Rhodes said, "I think it probably would have said to the AEC: Do whatever you need to do."
Roger Anders, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission historian specializing in the AEC's past, cautioned that it is important to separate out the kinds of radiation experiments. In the rash of recent press reports about experiments on humans, "Everything kind of gets lumped together," he said.
The AEC was formed in 1946 and oversaw both nuclear regulation and research until 1975. Congress then split the AEC into the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy.
Throughout its existence, the AEC conducted biomedical research on the effects of radiation on humans, Anders said.
by CNB