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FILE NAME DuPont DUP DATE 1995 DOC DUP172 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION Book Excerpt - Censorship of American Uranium Mine Epidemiology in the 1950s Culture Work A Book Series from the Condo for Literacy and Cultural Studies at Howard udited by Morjane Gober Gober Media Spectacioa Marjorie Gorber Jan Mokak and Refpon Refpon b Wolkowitz editors Secret Agents The Rosenberg Case McCarthyism and Fifties America Edited by Marjorie Garber and Rebecca L. Walkowitz Reaelske - Pro Val ^ Lusby Puidnim Puidnim PPR la Routledge 29 35th Sheer New York NY 10001 Published in Great Britain by Routledge Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P4EE EC4P4EE gratefully acknowledge these Cultural essays volume Forecare the Crime of the Century Wars by N.Procton Wars Robert and London London Ax State They ofLux Nature's Debtto Sock ty by Andr Andrew Ross from Cancer Cancer ProctorProctor Verso New any krm or by any sovented including Library of Congress Cataloging Secret Secret Agenta the Rosenberg index 0-415-91120-6 0-415-91120-6 0-415-91120-6 pb Julius 2. Rosenberg Biographs knock knock demees hadam ten Secret Ayente Contents Contents PART ONE Xcrets AllO Alajoric Garber The Rosenbergs and the Crimes of a Century Blanche Wiesen Cook TV the Bamb and the Body Other Cold War Secrets Joyce Nelson The SSecretecret about Secrets Stanley Goldberg Censorship of American Uranium Mine Epidemiology the 1950s RobertN Proctor The Trial J. of Edgar Hoover Thomas L. Dunun Strange Angel The Pinklisting of Roy Cohn 43 Muhael Caddeu Flash Back Flash Forward Nineties and the Transformed of Remote Remote Control 107 PART TWO Agents Before the Rosenbergs Scenarios Espionage in the Early Cold War 127 Schrecker SchreckerSchreckr SchreScchkreeckrer 10. Helplessness and Heartlessness Irving Howe James Bond and the Rosenbergs Brun Robbins 11. The Rosenberg Case and the New York Intellectuals 155 DavidSuchoff Rosenberg 12. The Letters 171 David Thorham~- Suffering 13. The Suffering Body Rosenberg in the Hands of the Writers 383 Carl Hard Green of 14. A Bond of Ethel Ethel Rosenberg Sisterhood Women the 197 JewishJoyce Aurley The Bell Jar and the Ghost of Ethel Rosenberg 215 Marie Ashe Testimonies THREE 16. Rosenberg Realities 235 Robert Mecropol 17 Some Remarks about Trials 253 David Kennedy 18. Jews and McCartbyism A View from the Bronx 257 MortonJ. Horwitz 19. Contrasting Fates of Repression A Comment on Gibson v Flonda Legislative investigation investigation Committee 265 Randall Kennedy 20. Arbitrary Convictions Rosenberg Cose the Death Penalty and Democratic Culture Karl E. Klare 21 The Work of the Stole 29 Rows Rows ' qoggreplagige: + ah? Acknowledgments Acknowledgments for wish wish to thank friends and colleagues whoseinsights essential to the production this book In particular we are Alice Jardinc who was instrumentalin conceiving this project daily recognized its importance Our thanks also to Carol Forney for BonnViierginia Carmichael Mierapol their crucialwork the early stages of thevolume with K. AnthonyAnthony Appiah Virginia Carmichael Diana Fuss ScShciheibeibnignesges and addressed herehere su Karro Friedland and Herrick Wales at BarbarCeanter Center forLiterary Literary and Harvard throughout generous d'hoades at Harvard provided generous assistance assistance Mecropol vohune Meeropol Michiel the and Rob A. of reproduction severalimportant Images in this reproduction Minuroo FundRadcliffe and College support Our warm See ka example ^ rritur ( osim PX Kolbungi Pig Sjen to ladys nai taught a MITuon MITuon the unu chief engineer ofof the Western EElectrilc ectric Company and as such precursors director of one of the precursors to the Bell Telephonelaborties laboratories and the Rese of the Industrial justification of In recent years the issues surrounding the sur ounding abstract been further muddied by themilitary's justification scientific research have of scientificscientific work immediately following World during Cold the period we 10 as the War such we support assured the military of access to some . Atthe samne people rinu s entistswere known to brag among themselves themslves about their clevernes in writing research proposals tha gave the appearance of providing practical applications to posencial nulsary funders funders but that to reality provided a cover for allowing the scientists to pursue their own increst in pure abstract sci- enu See e.g. PaulPaul Forman Behind Behind QuantumElectronics NationalSecurity Security as Basis for Physical Research in the United States 1940 196H0istorical Studiesin Physical and brological The ultimate raionale raionale for public the same as the rationale for species that separates us from other species questions Wecannot cannot turn those drives off We are driveu topursue quoi humanity and of ^vilization 58 Censorship of American Uranium Mine Epidemiology the 1950s Robert N. Practor when we think of atomic radiation Story of Our Friend the Atom AA great deal of attention has focused on theradiation experias that the US Army the Atomic Energy Commission the Public government conducted unsupect onunsuspect The timing of the revelations has much to do with the appointment of a new promised Department Energy secretary Hazel O'LearyO'Leary who has open this darker side of history Much also has to do withthe endof the ldWarit perhaps not entirely accidental that the celebrated rev- of Lations Lations coincide coincided withthe joint decisionin December 1993 the govern missiles vot of Russia and and theUnited States no longerlonger to pointtheir a ore ober There is also the levity of distance thesame forces that have llowed a younger generation of German scholars to explore the NNaazi zi past sw allow a younger generation of historian to unearth thisseamy 4 of American I have recently published a book on what causes cancer cancer has indowith not just bad habits but also bad business bad government and ven bad science ips nan body Radiation benben controversial Radiation occupies a special place the history of the though causescauses cancer how andto what extent have radiation cancers were first observed in early adventurous use of rays produced tragic outcome of the 1920s radium craze alert- alert- guileles the especiallyespecialy atter hundreds of dial painters contracted contracted cancer of the jaw fromingesting ingestingradioactive Project mucles expo The Manhattan vastly increased thescale planted to be sures and the postwaprostwar nuclear boom allowed cancers to be iinn the and millers lungs The story want here however is about who kreps knowledge often lies in the structure of what why when and where where but also kreps ignorance not just who knows about fails to investigate is manufactured product it In argued and don't know oibers another thing Igorance important toask why we the 1950s McCarthyises McCarthyise McCarthyises knowledge is a know certain things that the secrets the atoin borat had fallen into energy Julius with traitorous agents such as Ethel and bands Rosenberg the help of domestic As it turns out there eager were other nuclear secrets governmets governments were to secrets concerning the magnitude of hazards deadly work related related work especially uranium mining EARLY EPIDEMIOLOGY is to realize that uranium mining is unlike unlike most other kinds of important of mining in that during the course blasting and digging for ore radioactive radioactive during released Radon is a natural decayproduct of uranium noble chemically siraply real danger as a three and gas days Radou inert is andand is itself poses no exhaled But exhaled its radioactive daughter products polnium ssues The primary hazard comes from lining of tintigng radionuclides radionuclides rradioanucldieisonuclides that lodge in the bombarde again alsoalso bombarded bombarded by gamma radiation but the lung Utanium miners are the primary danger stems from the ingestion and inhalation ofalpha emitters Sinoking in combination with uranium mining ming of Grand resident Junction showed in the ogistogist showed , 1960s reterette smoking can prove especiallyespecial y dangerous Geno Saccamano a pabol- that uranium mining in combination with cigamining by one's odds of getting lung cauer by as much rimes Roscoe J. as thirty tisk Robert studies haveshown that nonsmokers are also at Roscoe of the National Institure for Occupational Safety sod followed Health shown that nousooking urnoiuen misers misers followed from 1950 " " " thirteen times more likely to die hoon lung daover daover than a coBEA nonsouching rable group of nonsouching US veteraIS veteraIS Kwwwviedpy of the walth hazards of uraniao odging lenses m kung ^ekge be tone that Varrot Varot ups liec paste therdydd milk milk cab agradat Consorship of Amedcar Uraniam Mine Epidemiology near Erzgebirgte owns mines had been sixteenth century first ver the word dollsc is derived from thale a shortened of region pure Jaschimsthaler a coin made from the very nickel nickel cobalt silver of this region and a source of nickel cobalt , bismuth uraniuro and arsenic Miners long painful long been known to suffer froma painful known as BergknuskheitBergknuskheitBergknuskheit ruontain miners lived about and that about quarters of This all lang camer latter figure would not from other causes such for most of the nnietinth neteenth century century the uranium consumption most commonly astributed to foul airconsumption orminer's phuthi- probably silicosis or silico ) The ailment was correctly cancer in the 1870s butit waswas not until the 1920sthat identitied commonly cause was as the inhalation of radioactive gases gases Even after recognized as cancer suientific belief commonly blamed blamed the Hiring and Hes e'sHesse'sview fungalspores ou wooden genetic inbreeding inthese supports or genetic predispositions retnute mountain regions The first tostered inbreding inbreeding these the Schmedberg mines were publishedpublished in 1924 in one ofGermany's Germany'Gesrmany's leading pladies pladies pladies by journals P.P. Ludewig and S. Lorenser that the radioactivity radioactivity in 10 studies con- Subsequem orders nagnitude but was generally highest as one wouldwould expect near thedril wiare new ores were ripped from the rock face According to ove cal workers were inhaling an average of 12.4 dose WilhelmWilhelm and Hueper of cadium per yea an of the pathbreaking Tumoss and Alied in 1942 that moine been Allied aware certain ; shaft were murehazardous hazardouhs azardous than popularly korant reser 1921 survey had found between twodeath thousand and nine thousand winars for beer in this m^rethis was convincing cakan subdukur was the pronary pronary cause rf the evidence in their view camou 8 AMFRICAAMFRINCAN EXPERIENCE Bes Pages Pages States concern concern Spaname try radkarradkar largely after World largely demand demand fox aras~-na . response to the rapidggrowtrh owth of the bomb production driven at fre- by and netic pace Cold War fears the extraction of hugequantities AEC Ores to the Atomic Energy Coramison military Coramisson but throughout throughout the world the industrial enthusiasm , required which lad to be AEC were eventually found source for many yearsyears the Colorado Plateau arid fon cotscr and Arizona SkyrocketingSkyrocketingSkyrocketing New across Utah Colorado New New Mexico stretching off rushthough unallesunalles investors investors investors were soon uruaburo demand uruaburo and end of the 1950s fivo e r six large corpo- and companies bylarger out companies Union Carbida Anaconda Anaconda UnitedNuclear Kea rations nonably McGee After the Arab oil embar- nonably dominated this industry industry and Honestake Mining - in the search for uranium including Exxo b joined of 1973 oil companies companies Richfield Gery Gulf Mobil Comero Gerry Oil AtlanticAtlantic Richfield and To there hundred thousand States 1966 were six uranium mince twenty five thousand United minersminers Ohio employing on all whom of whom workedworked underground Many of these Navajos were these the percent native residents residents of this part of the world long standing emergence of a vadon Given the European experience the emergence difficult uranium mines should out have been dificult predict Gaseous emissions to early in from radium bad been recognized : the century and by the end of the 1930sefforts had establish a in 1942 presented presented lung cancer tolerance tolerance concentration concentration for inhaled an elaborate bistorical review ofthe link in Europe mines along with been made to . Cancer efioris to attribute attribute the disease Institute die fonnalof air review Lorenz bEy gon concluded conclude thatthe radioactivityradioactivity concluded considered generally considered in the mines are ofthe ore and the radoncontent of the to be the primary cause of the cases au result does European Bergkrankheit Bergkrankheit to 1917 experetxpert on occupational cases of cancer and of leukemia dicted that see materials workers in the field offissfioiuasblseiouable materials of industrialists workers in action the late 1940s does not necessarily scientists several alert the federal governmen de urawanurawanurawan . Ebsorbud the fast fast ing bazndbazand but without traveled to Colorado Colorado of and second directors the ABC protectious ka abe protectious protectious of 1948 to inspect the nubes and tisch superiors superiors to the exhi workers workers but wee rehofied when they tried tried aferi } } } { ic hitects hitects hitects % } Abrand tha th-c At bac bye ones Next log of AngarAnagaranno AnogaranoAngarano Men age Bakertonical tet B. Van responulihts for rabamn sticty or desniu lear programi but bizarre bizarre bitepretation bitepretation bitepretation of the 1946 Aromer Inergy Act the ormonission ormonision ormonision was bound regulate only to regulate radisuon exposBLON exposBLON and saiety of bra left individual states equ^pnu^ was vayan ruinets was up to individual o simpation given their lack of that Merril Escubod and expurise health * good to problemas This was not a good time Bale 18 18 rufiologisi William William cross the AA EC on matters of radiation vitely ignored in 1949 for example was ignored by the AHC when be evidence that US miners were being to levels presented being exposed doactivity odlehhraitegd hboeth noutgheh bounder odlehratedodlehratedodlehrated odlehrated the radiation president of to cause as bothboth both the bounder bounder bounderbounder ofof radiation radiation radiation radiation radiation genaicsgenaics genaicsgenaics American Society Human Generics was buried from a the International Conference Conference on the Peaceful Uses n^Ato884 agusking ingy ingy a Geneva in 1955. Muller had been involved publiczb~ gthe threat radiation genetic psed radiation to the genetic integrity ofthe species and for that seats seats by feared by the commission , which twisted his ideas and scrugin to pa - health 19 euer benign benign .. *** view of the healthhealth effectseffects of radiation dramatic case of censorship however however is that of Willielm Institute's loadingdirector of the National Cancer Cancer Instiute's Instiute's EnvisatovalEnvisatovalEnvisatoval 11 set 11 oe at hection 1948-64 Hupper had begun begun begun an investigations investigations of the beath of un in the spring of 1948 only to see see his research blockbeldocked blocked wlwn 4. ANC heard about his plans to publicize the work The caseis BuereseBuerese indulge I ang soat the scader will Paul Paul Marr'sMarr's me shall Me de de in states states that AmerAimcearincan into some detail Transfornuction Transfornuction Amernan of Amernan of Amernan profes ional profesional mamony mamony within the constraints professional competition charge of in officials in of the MIH Division Research works investigator who The who suspuerpioerrsiupoerrior in 1951 wrote investigator his own choosing and is notobliged obliged to adhere works ma Ole free to publish as finds new and and to changehis research promising leads Hehas alroos purposes purposes purposes and arpool dua ta institutional rules Hooper's uwa espearems skirias ibough that political pressures were not catirely lareignlareign so The Gerrusu ^'mageand former Du Pou complwee badbad already canuses fo les dioros to track track down down indosaria indosaria auringene auringene alter poong the NC1 og 1948 example example , belad teraved teraved a loca butlekerot Loyday Copaoussinn b^,,ntba i was under joseangara joseangjaosreaangara da dekyoky dekyoky w tko United United N^,eDu Pont's medical doro nonava nonava thomped up dungy dungy that wanchymal whi SECRET AGENTS colleague jealous Hoeper was able to show that it had come from a acclaib m be e had had had won his work on occupational bladder of the cancer Husper was later accused of harboring communistic tendencies thoughthough this too was shown to to have no more substance than the Nazi charge In April of 1948 Hueper had begun a project to snady the health of urani- um miners well aware of the fact that European uranium miners had long of suffered from very high rates lung cancer His eforts in this area were styried however by the all papers dealing with radiation had cleared fact that to be cleared by theAtomic Commission When Hueper sought to the threat as a 1957 meeting ofthe Colorado StatStatee Medical Director ' Director of Biology and Medicine Shields Warreu ordered the head of the NCI to instruct Huoper to delete all references in paperto the hazards of uranium mining Hueper initially refused on the he had not joined the institue to become a scientific liac with with the demand though he telt he had no alternative alternative alternative but to the conference He did send a copy of his paper to the society's his not explaining his decision When word got around that he was sileruly accepting bis censorship ccensoershinp sorship Warren again wrote the director of the this time asking for Hueper's dismissal Hupper Hupper stayedstayed on a the insti- insti- ture but was soon thereafter barred fromall epidemiological epidemiological work on occa- general pational cancer The order came from the surgeon HaHrper arper was animals henceforth henceforth allowed do only experimental work on animals and was pro- hibited from further investigations imo the causation causation of cancer in man relat- environmental ocfarcinogtenhiec later ed to environmental eexposure xposure exposure to * As Victor Archer recalls travel research travel west the carinogeic chemical physical and incident Hueper wasessen- " MississippiHucper com- plainepdlained that governmentgovernment censorship of studies on the healib effects of the uranium uranium mining ddieihead countless nieo to delayed measures to remedy the situation leaving who otherwise otherwise could have been saved It would be too belove Colorado had years a comprehensive report identifiedlung cancer as the tthishis only only after the governor of state of Colorado had urged its writing The U.S. Public Health thethe hazards oftheminesandand the heakh apathy but this agency too was hawestrung by censorship In the early 1950s the raining companies and and 19501950 bureaucraticbureaucratic conservatisn~fl service Launched Launched an edu star agendios agendios of the lwalle posed by uranium mining incredibly incredibly he mincts twosbys wwe new the laxand The sov erecommended impecerol Soullano Soullano sol though none of thew ronqueada ronqueada pies tubulous tubulous and do dhatwa dhatwa durclopal durclopal luiclhuieche consequc consequence Censorship of American Uranium Mine Epidemiology Epidemiology in the 1950 rbe somnier of 1952 a PHS PHS levels in 157 mines in Colorado Utah Arizona Arizona and New Mexico and fund median concentra- ranging from 8 pCi pCi ar Eastern Slopel to 9,000 pCV1 at Bull Canyon highest levels recorded were at Bull Canyon and Marysvalewhore peak readings of 59,000 pCi and 48,700 were In 1987 the obtained 48,700 pCi vice proposed a standard of oneworking level WL ro equivalent levlro picocuries of radon daughters per liter of air-the maximum safe radioactivity in a working mine by its own admission 64 percent of workers were exposed exposed to levels at least ten times this high levels that were predicted to cause lung cancers As late as 1961 nearly a third of all breathing uranium miners were still breathing more than 1,000 pC at work Victor Archer and threeof his colleagues colleagues as the Public Health Service pudy in lished the first major study of US uranium miner epidemiology 1962. The sane had now been followed for over decade and the firstexcess cancers were beginningbeginning to appear Accidents and heart disease were still theprimary hhazrdas zardshazards but five of 907 miners with roore than three years experience under- ground had already died from lung cancer when only onesuch death was expected * These preliminary results were confirmed confirmed a year lace when an preliminary updated analysis of the PHS date showedthat uranium mine workers were more than times as likely to die from respiratory mal population and that men who had been exposed respiratory cancer than the nor- adiation showed lung cancer rates up to forty times higher than expected subsequent These and studies confirmed what had physicianpshysicians for the better part of a century been known w European improperly ventilated ura- mining causes cancer THE DEAD BODY APPROACH It is sometimes said that firm proof proof of a radiation hhazardazardin US mines reged only in the 1960s and it is truethat published reports of American cancer deaths did did not appear until this time But as we have seen good evi- dence that such deaths would occur was available muchearlier and was agored or even suppressed by the Public Health Service acting on orders of filled the Atonic Energy Commission journals were withwarn European ngs and Americans Americans familiar familiar with this literature had amply warned the agen- sus whn should have acted to lessen the The Public Health exposures Service Report of 1957 1957 called forthe immediate aplication application of corrective corrective and half a dozen scientists bad warned sincethe late - 1940s of anvil^,,ny But ampcodingpublic posh ber health disaster nuclear authorities were reluctant that m^ylenopede the flea of aramundtorm aramundtorm aramundtorm D^"oesto the I weapons Drown A Holarkas the PI heakh p nosirx upane coin FX 9t wou eines became fruvra fruvra | fa the failure of the ABC to warn the miners orto force the industry to clean up its act in 1953 be complained that the only way we can ever ger anything done is to collect dead bodies and lay them on somebody's doorstep Victor Archer the epidemiologist who from 1956 to 1968 supervised the PHS's studystudy of caser among the uranium uranium miners used siruilar language his own frustration In the mid 1970s as the trial offormer expressminers and theirfamilies suing the federal government for compensation Archer testified that he and his colleagues colleagues col eagues bad caved in to AEC and PHS pressures not to publicize the hazard We did not want to rock the boat W had to take the position that we were neutral scientists trying to find out what the facts were that we were not going to make any pubic announce- ments until the results of our scientific study were completed completed " Official pressures to monitor the disaster without informinginforming those at risk or forc- companies scientists ing the to reduce the hazard led PHS scientists to characterize their study asa death watch or dead body approach A federal judge involved in the Navajo case charged that U.S. atomic authorities had failed warn the miners in order to guaranteea constant uninterrupted and reli- 934 able flow of uranium ore for national security purposes Local physicians were certainly not unaware that somethingsomething was amiss Navajos Lung cancer had always been rare among the as it still is relatively speaking today By the 1950s physicians onthe plateau began to see increasing numbers of Navajoa with the disease It got so I didn't need to wait for the tests They would come the wife and the six kids were always there and they would say they had been spitting blood I would ask and they would answer that they had been in the reines Then I didn't need to wait to make the diagnosis really I already knew Of course not everyoneeveryone knew or wanted to admit they knew as late as 1979 McGee their spokesmen were still denying that Navajos who had workedin the mines had contracted cancer from work. The Atomic EnergyCommission and Public Health Service werenot the Atomic only agencies agencies unwilling or unable to the problem The Bureau of had tackle Mines long regulated health and safety standards in the nation's coal mines but was not until19166966 thatit was authorizedto regulate health and in uranium mines The Labor government of federal neglectneglect responsibility for monitoring and During regularing radiarionradiarion hazardin mineswaws as left up to individual individuianldividual states Usah state officials in 1999 tried to have one company Vanadium sustail ventilation equipour but wilbena succOM lolorado was the only state to recognize rados induced hong Ber a componendis e draw actuarial head by the state in Censorship of American Uranium Mine Epidemiology in the 1950s1950s the mid mid 1960s calculated that by 1985 1,350 cases of lung cancer would have ree from radiation exposure in the mines These figures figures assumed rather that exposures would cease after 1956 pimistically FFeeddeerraall aaccttiioonn finally finally finally came on came on May May 5 1967 1967 when Wirtz President stacy of labor Willard President Johnson's Johnson's sec- government would WI ofradiation Wirrz'sWirrz's the decision immediately ran afoul of government's government's Jonu Committee onAtomic Energy a Senate body charged with both super- riscoe and promotion of the rwuclearindustry relationsrhip elationship labor union the rities characterized as the fox guarding henhouse The commuinee sid- ung with the ABC made clear it wanted to retain the Public Health Service's Service's standard of 1.0 WL As hearings before the Joint Committee on Asaic Energy Paul Tomkins executive director of the Federal Radiation FederalRadiation WL Council testified that the labor secretary's recommendation WL could nothing but close up the uclear] industry A Kerr McGeephysi testified that miners could sustain up to three working working levels of radia- w^...bout tun harm Wirtz was ultimately forced to accept the AEC andard critics of the sequence of events observed that miners the weak- would of the participants in the drama have no continue heir deadly deadly with the daughters of radon737 It & strangethat miners were treated so shabbily shabily by government health + and momic authorities An indoor occupational radon standard of ien ories per literhad been establishedby theNational Bureau of of Standards se 4; the National Council on Radiation Protection in 1953 recommend- shhis same standard be extended to mines The Inernational Council vn Raduxion Protectionadoptedthe PHS's standard of one hundred picatau per liter equal to one working levelin 1959 buta subsequent survey the average for U.S. uranium mines mines remained as high as 2.0 WL : 1966 glown from about 70 WI in 1957 In 1971 the newly created Incitumemal Agency the Incitumemal Incitumeal Protection Protection Agency reducrededuced maximum allowable level of four mudurut dropped level months maines significantly but in 1975, and Health Administration MSHA found still being exposed to 4.6 WLMs per year on aver- EPA Gonit and several times higher than what was than doubled one's risk of cxpomura SEROL ^ fiuinuSEROL^fiuineeSEROL ^ fiuinuwe eb and flow over the precise shape of the dose- iners najomar drvo but no one doubts doubts that inners lying Hy 1978 X86 of minerdoseal harbelwho minerdoseal minerdoseal minerdoseal de Public Heal~-bHeal~-b sacion since the early 1960s had died of lung cancer by 1990this number bad grown to nearly twice that figure Given than thirty to thousand men have forty worked the US uranium mines since the 1940s is probable that four of five thousand Americans have died or will eventually dis from lung cancer caused by that line been otherwise of work Hundreds of othershave had a lung removed or ' debilitated CRIME AND PUNISHMENT Why were systematic efforts to monitor the hazard not even set up until the 1960s Why even after this time were ouders allowed to suffer ten to thirty times the legal levels Why were the miners never warned Many of these mines were on Navajo lands and many miners were Native Americans some have suggested that racis~-nmay have played a role in the failure to establish standards effective effective early onThe fact thar the thirty hundred miners ef ectiveoriginally studied by the PHS were all white lends credence to sucha theo- ry as does the fact that Navajo miuers were not studied until the 1960s Fear of losing a reliablelabor source though was probably also a factor In 1985 in case brought by non Indiau miners against the federalgovernment Anderson Judge AldonAnderson of the US district court in Utab ruled that the ABC Judgefailed to warn uranium miners out of a misguided sense of national security thereby AEC feared that informed would flee the mines and miners The * threaten the nation's uranium supply The problem inother words was not simply one of ignorance Duncan A. Holaday a Public Health Servicsecientist whowarned federal officials anybody's has about the danger early on testifiteedstified that by thelate 1940s there was no question in anybody's mind that radiationiin nthe mines was a real problem But nobodyin the AtomicEnergy CommissiCoomisionn wanted to pay attention Holaday calculatedin 1954 that raine operators could install ventilation cost -- of only five or six cents per pound of processed aran^>easily couldhave been passed on to the ALC The ABC pounds bought more than three million of the meral that year at about twelve dollars per pound Holaday's advice was ignored by the AEC and mine operatorshowever on the grounds that ventilating mines was urmez- usbat and too expensive @ The AEC and the commercial nuclear cach- lialunent wanted uramura on the cheap Security was givena much higher valus than safety and the end result was the loss of workers lives Wayne sponsors Owens D Utab one of the congressional sponsors of the 1991 Kadiatio Exposure Compensation Act and whose own brother doxt fran lo ~ s cancer caused by paph were med 44 PrSseEsteteeat R uranium mining has put the outer cather simply >> ' grb pin pin de und s ynglewoh walkas Censorship ot Ameritun Uranium Mine Epidemiolgy Epidemiology the 1980s 1980s fandlies EffortsEforts to obtain obtain corepensation corepensation corepensation fa the injined mmers ur their fandliefsandlies havehave made since the 1970s Compensation though has been slow in com though has whenit btain in certain come at all Ironically compensation compensation bas been easier former East bloc countries such as Czechoslovakian where where where uraniomuraniom mining miningmining abuses were far more severe than in the United Stat)esIn 1991 after decades of unsuccessful efforts to obtain federal com- pensation forinjuredminers minersCongress finally passed the Radiation Exposure fund up a 30 million trust to compensate ura- compensate with nium miners along other victims victims of radiation radiation exposure exposure downwinders southern Utah of at participants innuclear tests and certain act apologizes ngress Lilies forthe hardships included formalapology The they have endured1166 CongresCongress in 1991 and ted to increase the total tund to 200 million Miners who suffered lung cancer are now theoretically entitled to 100,001000,000 compensation from the hund Families may be compensared if the viction no longer living has difficult however to obtain com- The formas one one must fill out are daunning daunning running to more thm hundred pages Written proof must be provided that one was exposed got cancer from that exposure Only cancers are compensable that long Most of wkers prove theirexposure was excessive must those called dog holes very small mines with little or compensable who venti have no wayof proving they workedin such placesand Indias scoreals scoreals razy he even harder harder to come by The Navajo miners turned for treatment generally wory five years their their of salenc salence salence of , and elderly widows of victims marriage As of marriage As a result of these and other problems it compensationBy only he difficult for families to obtain then clains bad boco successfully half mid 1992 has Peeae . By May of 1993 compensation andaners 346 Nevada Test trickle into the coromanities where lang can- ***** who secretary be n slow proces has been slow Stewart L. Udall former as a lawyer for many victims recently named be adminstraionadministration of thethe process as a bureaucratic legal maze daysof jo pravcat compensation to Nwajo Bibers Bibers There's no pity for wha hqpcued hqpcued on these peoplepeople No noderstanding noderstanding You have a compassionate compassionate pro- prom abomisured abomisured so unerly wwomparmonate wwomparmonate wwomparmonate mana Na a man why his body to lung bha bha bha fomjas ibe n ssic bob f^,her canon 1971whom hi was a bed sboy the bappealbapel beauty away CODA agents In February 1950 FBI pearance of some questioned David David Greenglass about the disap- from Los Alarsus when he was stationed there uraniurn adintred Greenglass later piece adinitred that he had takou a of uraniurn as a discov thrown into the East River when he becanse frightened of discov had 15 FBI cry On June 1980 FBI their questioning two FBI agents ccamae me to bis aparumeru and in hour period during uranium molen theythey spoke that David's suggestion passing on borak Nowhere trid Nowhere in the record does the theft of the uranium appear even anoth- thoughit arguably gave David Greenglass a motive ex person instead of houself busness ofcapionage Greenglass's broth- 31 er Hernard signed an affidavit auesting to the stolen uranium on May apeal 1963 a document containedin the record ofthe Rosenbergs final more one Clearly more than one kind of censorship and more than kind of decade of the fitties hazard attached to close the discussion of uranium mine epidemiology epidemiolgy can be found in my book Cancer Wars Pulisits Shapes What WeKnow and Dy't Know About New York Basic Booka 1995 frora which parts of the present essay have Welsome Albuquerque Tribune Nov. 1993 Geoffrey Sea Story No One Would Touch 37-40 Columina journalism ReviewReview MMaar r/Apr19199494 194 2. The first German report of a radiation induced cancer concerned a year- Hand ruckens nid worker at a roentgen Cancroid des rechten Vereins Beilage 1902 135 tube manufacturing plans sec Albert Fiber Deutsche medianische medianische Handdruckens Deutsche Wochenschrift Wochenschrift Wochenschrift Wochenschrift His arm was amputated at the folder in 1902 and he died fromrecurrence of thedisease disease in 1906. the United bo Clarence Dally Dally Thomas A. Poison's past became the best Ansun ktown no have dard heins expresan tX r^,pttie takdev byond ane amputated choch choch bebus hun b los tamiya n suttu suttu hop hop Not Censonhup of Amerk Uranium Mine Epidea in the 1950s fad done Sec Catherine Catherine Caufield Multiple Exposurest Exposurest Exposurest Kadianon the Age New Y^k Hasper 1989 In 198swo 198swo separate cases of radiation caused cao physicians and their assistants as istants anda French review three than a lundred cases SeeOtto Hase , Symptomologie Symptomologie und Therapxx des Rontgenkarainoms A. Barth 1931 Kenntnis der Sch^/digungder insoschlichen insoschlichen Haur durch fur k^ntgenknsidek^ntgenknsideund Radiwanforschung 1911 256-64 Suphin Feygin Du cancer radiologi us Paris 1914 An expensive radium tonicsold under the brand name Radiorhor was mar heed in the 1920 known PittsburghPit sburghPitsburgh industrialist industrialist Eben Byers drank unal huttle day day from 1926 1931 when death in 1932 took much of the wind out contracted cancer of the jaw His radium cuse sals though trear- mears of this sum continued on a smaller scale into the post World War II era and to limitedextent even today In certain Montana maines for example you can still breathe arthritis therapy very popular in certain resort of incas Superior Radon Center in Georgia the former Soviet prepares vadon and vaginal and musal icoigations for more than one thwusaud patienta per day Sec David J. Brenner Radon Risk and Remedy New York WH 1989 .76 Nugent Disease Angela The New " The Power to Define a Epidemiological Politres David Rosner and Gerald University PPrers ess PS6PS6 177 9W1illiam D. The New Jersey Radium Dial Painters A Classic in Occupational 1979 Carcinogenesis Hulletin of the History of Medicine 560-70 560-70 exposed % The equario of females and sexual dangerin the 1950s is York Homeward Bound Amanian Familes Book 1988 in the Cold War fho New of the term rados daughters by jocks macho photon Profesionalism Physics 66 Health Physics Physics Health Physic 6. Roscoe et Keurtou Health Physics Language and 1994 ) 235-36 Mortality among Nonsmaking Exposed to Rakon Luous De from 1527 to 533 effects of silver caining caining das region implans secara onsumpums onsumpums in saracit are bound veher dlas wilde curungona las cared it a pb pb trans } Hee aril in den Hesse gerichtfache Medizin 30 1879 was recognized as a compensable compensable Germany and in 1932 in Occupational Tumors Springfield ILChurles C. Thomas 1942 435 59 M.-S. Cancer pulmonare pulmonare provoque provoque par les emanations tadinactives Archives des maladies professionnellesprofesioneles 9 280-83 M.T. Macklin Macklin Does CChrohnicronic Irritation Cause Primary Tanor of the Human Lung Egos Lorenz, Radioactivity and Lung Archeres Pathology 30 1940924 55 Cancer Critical Review of Long Cancer in the Minces of Schneeberg and " formal of the National Quecer Juster 1944 : 13 Rludewig andS. 10 Rludewig and Lorensen Untersuchung der Grubeulut denSchnebrge Schneeberger Gruben auf den Gehalt an RadiumerRataidoniumeration Radiumeration Zeitadmit les Physik 1924 11 Ocupatomal Tumors 44 12 235 Uranium is the fissile isotope required for bomb productions productions extraction of more common a 238requiresformidable separation process involvinginvolving industria uracions encichment encichment facility example of unprecedented size and expenseThe Piketon , Ohio for at one mile long and more thanten today today the in the early world In the 1980s one percent city of Los enormous magnets used to accelerate ionized ura- lighter and more fisable 235 comuned abour the amount consumed electricynghly consumed enrichment fadlitica 12 facilityfacility facility Oak Ridge Tennessee and See Geuboy Geuboy facility at Paducah Kentucky of com- extraordinaryextraordinary Cascade Worker theads HarvardUniversity 13 Milion Radon Daughters and the Federal Governum alfeum of the Atomic Scientists Oct. 1967 25-29 5. London die physiologischenWirkungen der Emanation Emantio des J.C J.C Zetalblau Zetalblau f^...rPhysiogPhysiog 2 18 1904 185-88 185-88 John Read and ; The Ilerance Concentrationof Radonin the Atmosphere Journal of Badiology 12 1939 54-60 Heeper Occupational Tumors 435-59 435--59 Radioactivity 16 Lorenz Radioactivity Radioactivity and Lung Queen 17 17 rod W. Swart Okcupational Okcupational and Pothamak York Academy of Medan Medan 2 1917 Provaonical Provaonical Provaonical Provaonical ProvaonicaProvaonilcal Provaonical the 1950s 1990 60 62 Elof A. Carlou Genes Nakastien , and Society Society Danversity Press 1981 6 356 67 20 Paul Stars TheSontal Transformation American Meriam New Books 1982 343-44 Physican 21 Wilhelm C. Husper Adventures of a Medical Casandra's Tale National Library of Malscine Physician Occupational A autobiography Hueper paper Telephone interview with Victor April 10 1992 Adventures Bumper Adventures Keith Keith Schneider Schneider Uraniums Miners Inherit Dispie's Sid Legacy Tunes Tunes Juary 4,1990 Duncan Duncan A. Holaday et al Controlof Radon and Daugher and Calculations on Biologic Effects Washington Service 1987 ix and 2-4 Holaday had first proposed a working in his uterent Report Health Stady ^ linesandMalls Washington D.C US Public Health oxauthored with W. Davul and N. Doyle " Holaday HistoryHistorHyistory 29 Wagoner et al Dousual Cancer Moralis among a Group of Metal Miners MedicmeMedicme 269 1963 Wagoner 244-8 Vivtor E. Archer Joseph K. Uranium Mmers in the and Frank H.H. Lundin Lung radiation safety assets at wok eleven years in tablish some of the the really really loag rorm effects of inhaled Redinactivuyand Health Springfieht Springfieht VA Jig tiodan 3 daday had had conchaded mestobbing in consequence mechanically venidate Am Am Tracic Tracic Quest for Cancer Pactories thanum di Sufficiens Wesson Ch cited Raton Raton ( cove free po Paid sist Best the Colorado PlateauAlbuquerque Albuquerque University University University of New Mexico Press 1989 148 Archer is cited Ball Cancer Factories 46 and 59-60 Ball's bookis the he history of the efforts of uranium miners to obtain compensation compensation for lung cancers cancers caused by mining Ball Cancer Factories for Factories the ABC See Nuremberg Expediency in TheNazi Doctors and the NurembergNuremberg Cade New York Oxford University Press 1992 ed George J. George Annas and Michael A. Grodin 209-10 Molly Ivins Uranium Mines in West Leave Leave Deadly Legacy New New York Times May May 20 1979 compare also Ringkolz Uranium Frenzy 166-222 Ball CanceFarctones Factones 49 Daughers Vorst Vorst Vorst andand Reistrup Radun Daughers The Public Health Service in 1952 ? 26-27 26-27 Miller proposed proposed a temporary pCi ten times higher than the 1941 NCRP figure See standard of 100 temporary Holaday David and Doyle Interim Repan Meinhardt Quantitative Risk Health Physics 521987 Exposares 84-86 Schneler Uranium Miners Bertel MultipleBertel Immediate Danger London Women's Press Press 1985 83 88 Rosalie Ball CancerFaczones 50. JosephWagoner Wagoner in1979 suggesteda possible racial bias bias bias in the government's dealings dealings with Navajos In 1978 the goverumcat stack ed notifying all shipyard workers and others who had beenexposed to asbestos but nothing like that has been done for the miners Isit because they are Westerners with little power in their Congressional representation representation because they are Indians so no one needs to care lvins Uranium Mines Native Americans in the early 1980s owned about half of the nation's privately owned uranium reserves see Sandra E. Bergman Uranium Mining on Indian Lands Environment Sopi 1982 6-35 Ball Cancer Pactorus Atchison These PeopleWere People Were Used as Guinea Guinea Pigs Pigs Business inspector concussing ofbeing um muning was suspected a and Norman SSolmon olomon anybody that said a thing againstagainstwragi Own Own York Disaster The of The Disaster Disaster Delacorta 1982 AAmmeerriiccaa''ss 149 Soviet Unun and in other parts of Eastern Europe prisoners were lit deathin mires mires apparently apparently as part of deliberate plan to ball the Out BortBohrth Amer the big st single pidice of araumta 10 der world wa nt mas| er t^ when Inas P130 the cost of Censorship of American Uranium Mine Epidemiology in the 1950 the 1980s half million workers produced some wo hundred thousand tons of enriched uranum for Soviet atomic bombe and reactors The authority siblefor the Rast Gernan Gernaan effort was named coordinating Wismut bismuthbismuth to disguise the fact that uranium was the primary object literally object of inter est With its own Comunist Communist Party Party organization hospitals secret police and propaganda apparatus Wismut was as a 1993 Science news feature put itan powerful state within a state shrouded in secrecy See Patricia Patricia Kahn A GrislyArchive Archive of Key Cancer Date Science 259 1993 448 5T1he of SchneberSg chneeberg Nudear Engineering Feb.Feb. 1991 7 also Werner Sch^uniano Deutsche Opfer f^...rMoskaus Atombombe Der Tagesspiegel Jan. 13. 1991 A somewhere smaller program existedin CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia on the southern slopes of the Erzgebirge Tens of thousands thousands of political prisoners were forced to work in seventeen uranium concentration camps from the late 1940s through the early 1960s epidemiological studies were conducted huu the State Security Police barred their publication See my letter The Oberrothenbach Catastrophe in Science 760 1993 1676-77 Czechoslovakian scientists in the 1970s published published several reports on the hazards of uranium mining but never mentioned the fact that forced labor had been used 46 US Congress Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources Radiation Exposure CompensationCompensation Compensation Compensation Act 101st Congress 2d session 1990 2. On the downwinders see Howard Ball Justice Downwind America's Atomic Testing Program in the 1950s New York Oxford University University Press 1988 CaroleCarole Gallagher Gallagher American GroundZero The Secret Nuclear War CambridgeMA MIT Press 1993 Keith Schneider Valley ofDeathLate Rewards for Navajo Miners New York Times Migy, 1993 Walter Schneis and Miriam Schneir Invitation to an Inquest A New Look at the Rosenberg RosenbergSobell Case Garden City NY NY Doubleday 1965 355-61 John Wexley The judgment ofJulus and Ethel Rosenberg New York Cameron and Nahu 1955 85 The confidential confidential interoffice memos of the Greenglasses attorney O. John Ronga did contain both a mention of the sample of uranium and theinfor maton that he had thrown it into the East the details of this petty theft waronital waronital faa the trial record See Wexley Jadymem 100