Area 51_ An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base - Annie Jacobsen [204]
7. “Science Discovers Real Frankenstein”: Winthrop, “Science Discovers.”
8. War of the Worlds radio broadcast as an example: Zachary, Endless Frontier, 190.
9. President Roosevelt had appointed: “Vannevar Bush, A Collection of His Papers in the Library of Congress,” Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington DC.
10. his next move: Zachary, Endless Frontier, 285. Zachary wrote, “Bush’s role in the A-bomb’s birth actually burnished his reputation. Like Truman, most Americans were thrilled by Japan’s surrender and the end of the war… Rather than interrogate the leaders of the Manhattan Project, the public embraced them. Bush’s reputation as a scientific seer grew; his image as an unmatched organizer of expertise solidified. For Bush, the atomic bomb capped off his five-year rise to celebrity from relative obscurity.”
11. As Americans celebrated peace: “Majority Supports Use of Atomic Bomb on Japan in WWII”: David Moore, Gallup News Service, August 5, 2005.
12. Operation Crossroads was in full swing: Author interview with Colonel Leghorn, who was the commanding officer of Task Force 1.5.2 for the operation. I am indebted to Colonel Leghorn not only for generously sharing with me recollections of his historic role at Crossroads, beginning with his departure by airplane from the Roswell Army Air Field, but for lending me original photographs taken from his airplane during the 1946 nuclear tests. He also loaned me two original yearbook-type books where I learned the operation involved more than ten thousand instruments and nearly half the world’s supply of film. The Air Force alone took nine million photographs.
13. There were barracuda everywhere: Interview with Ralph “Jim” Freedman. Freedman’s first visit to Bikini was for the nuclear test Castle Bravo, six years after Crossroads, but the barracuda problem was the same.
14. led by a king named Juda: Bradley, No Place to Hide, 158.
15. The U.S. Navy had evacuated the natives to Rongerik Atoll: The documentary Radio Bikini (1987), directed by Robert Stone, includes remarkable outtakes of AEC footage showing military personnel rehearsing how to best pitch propaganda to the natives.
16. three-bomb atomic test series: Schwartz, Atomic Audit, 102. Operation Crossroads cost an astonishing $1.3 billion in 1946 eleven months after the war’s end, more than any subsequent test series. Crossroads involved 95 ships and 42,000 military and civilian personnel. It was a show of force.
17. a young man named Alfred O’Donnell: Interview with Alfred “Al” O’Donnell.
18. “In the face of intense fire”: Air Force Historical Research Agency, 30 Reconnaissance Squadron (ACC), Lineage, Assignments, Stations, and Honors, Major Richard S. Leghorn, http://www.afhra.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=10193.
19. Curtis LeMay rarely smiled: Kozak, LeMay, iv.
20. five cents per bird: Ibid., 9.
21. “Caveman in a Jet Bomber”: I. F. Stone, The Best of I. F. Stone, 326–28.
22. LeMay was at Bikini to determine: Rhodes, Dark Sun, 261–62.
23. Operation Crossroads was a huge event: The New York Times described it as the largest and “most stupendous single set of experiments in history.” Senator Huffman called the test a “Roman holiday in the Pacific” and promised that the “only important impression these tests are going to give the world is that the United States is not done with war.” Members of the Southern Dairy Goat Owners and Breeders Association recommended that the sheep being used during the test be substituted with U.S. congressmen, on the grounds that good goats were harder to find than congressmen were. In the days leading up to the event, protesters picketed the White House with signs that read, BIKINI: REHEARSAL FOR WORLD WAR THREE.
24. one million tons of battle-weary steel: Fact sheet, Operation Crossroads, Defense Nuclear Agency, Public Affairs Office, Washington,