Justice Downwind: America's Atomic Testing Program in the 1950s

by Howard Ball

Based on interviews with all parties and on extensive archival research into the files of the Atomic Energy Commission, Justice Downwind tells the astonishing story of how the United States exploded atomic weapons on its own soil between the years 1951 and 1963 as part of a postwar military
nuclear testing program.
Concerned with the hazards of cancer and radioactive fallout, 1,100 citizens living downwind of the Nevada Testing Site, in an effort to expose the Atomic Energy Commission's negigence in implementing the testing, sued the government for causing injury and wrongful death. Fearful that public
outcry might shut down the program, AEC officials, during the 1950s, downplayed any suggestion that the testing program might endanger the health of persons living downwind of the testing site. By 1978, scientific studies had demonstrated associations between the epidemic of childhood leukemia and
other cancers in the region and radioactive fallout. Pressing their case in the courts and in Congress, the downwind plaintiffs found themselves up against a government that remains even today reluctant to admit its responsibility. This new paperback edition includes updated information on the 10th
Circuit Court's recent decision to overturn Judge Jenkins's ruling against the Federal Government in the Allen v. the United States case, the dilemmas associated with risky technologies, and new medical studies that have discovered links between leukemia and radioactive fallout.

314 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

Reviews

[Zachary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gives short shrift to the actual topic, deals at length with the radiation victims' long-winded court battles against a stonewalling government. Still a major crime in anybody's book, though.