Nuclear War and Environmental Catastrophe

^{Appendix 4} Nelson Anjain’s Open Letter to Robert Conard, April 9, 1975

From 1946 to 1958, the US Nuclear Weapons Testing Program conducted sixty-seven nuclear detonations in the Marshall Islands. In 1956, Merril Eisenbud, director of the AEC Health and Safety Laboratory, outlined the benefits of studying a Marshallese population inhabiting an environment known to be radioactively contaminated: “[N]ow that Island is safe to live on but is by far the most contaminated place in the world and it will be very interesting to go back and get good environmental data, … While it is true that these people do not live, I would say, the way Westerners do, civilized people, it is nevertheless also true that these people are more like us than the mice.”

April 9, 1975.

Rongelap Island,

Micronesia.

Dr. Robert Conard

Brookhaven National Laboratory

Upton, Long Island, New York 11790

Dear Dr. Conard,

I’m sorry I was not at home when you visited my island. Instead, I have spent the past few months travelling to Japan and Fiji learning about treatment of atomic bomb victims and about attempts to end the nuclear threat in the Pacific.

Since leaving Rongelap on the peace ship Fri, I have learned a great deal and am writing to you to clarify some of my feelings regarding your continued use of us as research subjects.

I realize now that your entire career is based on our illness. We are far more valuable to you than you are to us. You have never really cared about us as people—only as a group of guinea pigs for your government’s bomb research effort. For me and for the other people on Rongelap, it is life which matters most. For you it is facts and figures. There is no question about your technical competence, but we often wonder about your humanity. We don’t need you and your technological machinery. We want our life and our health. We want to be free.

In all the years you’ve come to our island, you’ve never treated us as people. You’ve never sat down among us and really helped us honestly with our problems. You have told people that the “worst is over”, then Lekoj Anjain died. I don’t know yet how many new cases you’ll find during your current trip, but I am very worried that we will suffer again and again.

I’ll never forget how you told a newspaper reporter that is was our fault that Lekoj died because we wouldn’t let you examine us in early 1972. You seem to forget that it is your country and the people you work for who murdered Lekoj.

As a result of my trip, I’ve made some decisions that I want you to know about. The main decision is that we do not want to see you again. We want medical care from doctors who care about us, not about collecting information for the U.S. government’s war makers.

We want a doctor to live on our island permanently. We don’t need medical care only when it is convenient for you to visit. We want to be able to see a doctor when we want to. America has been trying to Americanize us by flying flags and using cast-off textbooks. It’s about time America gave us the kind of medical care it provides its own citizens.

We’ve never really trusted you. So we’re going to invite doctors from hospitals in Hiroshima to examine us in a caring way.

We no longer want to be under American control. As a representative of the United States, you’ve convinced us that Americans are out to dominate others, not to help them. From now on, we will maintain our neutrality and independence from American power.

There will be some changes made. Next time you try to visit be prepared. Ever since 1972 when we first stood up to you, we’ve been aware of your motives. Now that we know that there are other people in the world who are willing to help us, we no longer want you to come to Rongelap.

NA: sc

cc: Hon. Gary Hart, U.S. Senate

Hon. Phillip Burton, U.S. House

Hon. Kurt Waldheim, Secretary-General, United Nations

Hon. Ataji Balos, Congress of Micronesia

Source: Marshall Islands Document Collection, US Department of Energy