Gambling, flashing Lights, clubs, parties, showgirls. Sounds like an adults heaven. Well if you go to 36.1699° N latitude, you’ll end up in Las Vegas. A place that was once a little mining town, and a place to stop for water, which now turned into one of the biggest attractions in the world. Back then with a nuclear test site employing 10,000 people, it was soon seen as a boom to the Vegas economy, and with the bombs being dropped once every three weeks, Las Vegas became known unofficially as “Atomic City.” To allay any fears the citizens of Vegas may have had, the government ran a successful PR campaign, convincing people that atom bombs were not only safe, but fun. Obviously we now know that nuclear fallout causes all sort of horrible health problems, but back then they were told that if anyone was exposed to radiation, they could just take a shower and they’d be alright.

Our PLP class took a trip to the southwest. One of our stops was in Las Vegas. This year, we have been learning about the Cold War and fear, and what’s a better way to learn than to go to the “Atomic city” and experience the Cold War second hand. We had to come up with a question that we can answer on the trip, and our question had to answer the driving question, “How is fear used as a defensive, political, and cultural tool?” While on the trip we were getting information, video clips, interview clips, and lots of footage of exhibits that were related to our question. When we got back we wrote our essay first, than when that was approved we moved on to starting our video.

Here below is my essay:

11,000 Americans diagnosed with cancer and killed from radiation fallouts during the Cold War. A time where nuclear testing was a regular event. When having more than 2000 nuclear explosions form test all around the world, there is bound to be an after affect. After the media started to blow up the affects of radiation and nuclear bombs, the public wasn’t too happy and started to protest. Nuclear testing was influenced by the fear of radiation, starting from atmospheric testing, moving to underground testing, to stopping testing all at once.
The first nuclear device was tested on the day of July 16, 1945. It was detonated as a test by the United States, a milestone known as the Trinity Test. The device was equivalent to 15 kilotons of TNT. It was than dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945. Just a couple of days later on August 9, 1945 another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan with an equivalent of 21 kilotons of TNT. The public was filled with happiness as this new device ended the Second World War. The public was never aware of the affects of the bomb, because they were to excited about the ending of the war.
August 31, 1946 a newspaper from the New Yorker sold out. It had interviews of Hiroshima survivors telling their story. The US than began to realize the affects of Hiroshima. This blew up the fear of the bomb, and the harm of radioactivity escalated to what we now know as the beginning of the Cold War. The nuclear arms race began and the testing of 1032 nuclear weapons, including 216 atmospheric tests. Atmospheric testing generally is when an explosion is taken place in the atmosphere. The nuclear explosion is close enough to the ground that it draws dirt and debris into their mushroom cloud, this reason causing large amounts of nuclear fallout. When the military started to discover the dangers of radiation, before tests they would look at wind speed and wind direction to check which way the mushroom cloud would be headed too. A report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation to the General Assembly states that:
“The main man-made contribution to the exposure of the world’s population [to radiation] has come from the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, from 1945 to 1980. Each nuclear test resulted in unrestrained release into the environment of substantial quantities of radioactive materials, which were widely dispersed in the atmosphere and deposited everywhere on the Earth’s surface.” Many soldiers were used as guinea pigs, troops were exposed to detonations to see how they would react to a nuclear attack and whether equipment still would function. All of the atomic vets were sworn to secrecy. They could not tell anyone about their experiences. Even if they became ill, they could not tell doctors that they have been exposed to radiation. But now decades later, that secrecy has been lifted. Wayne Brooks was an atomic veteran and he was used as a guinea pig; “We were used as guinea pigs – every one of us,” Brooks said. “They didn’t tell us what it was gonna do to us. They didn’t tell us that we were gonna have problems later on in life with cancers and multiple cancers.” Wayne has witnessed 27 tests, he has suffered throat and lung problems, rashes and prostate cancer. Fortunately he is still alive. Atmospheric testing started to “blow up”. In a way that turned the public from being happy about the bomb, to making it fearful and it should be stopped.
Knowledge about fallout and its effects grew, and with it came the concern about the environment and long term genetic damage. Talks between the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, and the Soviet Union began in May 1955 on the subject of an international agreement to end nuclear tests. On August 5, 1963 representatives of the US, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty, forbidding testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, in space, and underwater. To stop the nuclear fallout they moved the tests to underground. An underground test is conducted under the surface of the earth at varying depths. The US and the Soviet Union used underground tests a majority of the time throughout the Cold War. True underground tests would fully contain and get rid of negligible amount of nuclear fallout. But some of these tests would occasionally “vent” to the surface. Sometimes nearly none to a lot of radioactive debris gets released. The first underground nuclear test was conducted on 29 November, 1951, called the “Buster-Jangle Uncle”. This was a 1.2 kiloton bomb, it was detonated 17ft below ground level. The explosion resulted in a cloud that rose to 11,500 ft, and deposited fallout to the north and north-northeast. Underground tests weren’t looking so good at this time, containing some of the fallout but still releasing a lot of radiation. The fourth test called the “Plumbbob Rainier” was detonated at 899ft underground on September 19, 1957. The bomb was 1.7 kilotons and was fully contained underneath, which resulted in no fallout. This test became the prototype of many larger test that came. Samples from the test would base the results of the Limited Test Ban Treaty. Underground testing became the new and improved way of testing. An incident happened that changed the way of nuclear tests. On December 18, 1970 a bomb code named Baneberry resulted in an eye opening nuclear accident. The bomb was 10 kilotons and was dropped 900ft below water-saturated clay. The clay met the rock density criterion, but it was too weak to contain the pressure of the explosive. The rock fractured and released radiation 10,000ft in the sky showering fallout in its path. This test was located at the Nevada test site, and the mushroom cloud could be seen from 120km away in Las Vegas. At the National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas, I had an interview with a worker at the museum who had worked on the Baneberry site. Mike Hanley was an engineer on the site. After the incident he went back to his desk job, and he had the radiation safety employees taking samples off his desk. There job was to keep him safe, so they took samples even off his safety gear to make sure he wasn’t contaminated. Underground testing came to a holt. The US weren’t making any new technology, so nothing needed to be tested. It was a lot of money to produce a new bomb and to setup the test site.
The United States today could still test bombs, but it would take about 2 years to setup and build the site according to Mike Hanley. They have already made and tested plenty of bombs, so no new design could be thought of, and that made it no reason for another test. In October of 1977 the US, Soviet Union, and the UK were in negotiations with starting a treaty to ban all testing. Negotiations never continued due to disagreements, until December 1986 when president Reagan reaffirmed US commitment to pursue the long term goal of a comprehensive test ban. Than it was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, and on September 10, 1996 the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty was put into action. The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty or the CTBT is a multilateral treaty that bans all nuclear explosions, for both civilian and military purposes, in all environments. On September 24, 1996 the treaty was opened for signing, and China, France, Soviet Union, UK, and the US, the five nuclear weapons states signed first along with 66 other states the following day. Radiation became a global fear that was not only cause by nuclear tests, but also caused by nuclear power plants. Chernobyl is one of the worst nuclear accidents to ever happen to this day. The results of that accident are catastrophic with 56 direct deaths, many people diagnosed with cancer, mutated babies, and mutated animals. Radiation truly became a fear that no one could stop. Radiation was one of the worst fears of this time era because no one knew anything about it.
Nuclear testing was influenced by the fear of radiation, starting from atmospheric testing, moving to underground testing, to stopping testing all at once. The atomic age, a time like no other. Where bombs were being tested, and no one knew the effects of nuclear energy. Samples were then being taken from test sights, and workers were getting sick and diagnosed with cancer. The media started to blow up with the results of Hiroshima, and people started getting scared of the bomb and radiation. One of the scariest things is not knowing. When you hear about people being sick, and dying, and you don’t know what it is and how to avoid it, it’s quite terrifying. Nuclear tests were the reason radiation and fallout became a huge deal. People feared it, so they protested it, and it resulted in all the types of nuclear testing to becoming banned. Nuclear testing plays a big role in life today. North Korea today is still testing bombs and threatening the US. With the doomsday clock being closer than it’s ever been on the brink of war, it is scary. It runs through my head everyday, the fear of another war, and the wasteland our country can turn into, but the most fearful thing is not knowing what will happen. So what is the actual fear? We don’t know.

Before heading out on the trip we did many different projects and work related to the topic of fear. Since we were learning about the Cold War we connected nuclear energy, and radiation to the topic of fear. We watched many movies, documentaries, and presentations about the public exposing the fear of radiation. If you are interested in hearing and learning more about this topic check out my other post “Fake News“. I talk about the movies and how the fear of radiation was huge. I also talk about the threat of WW3.

For our field study our first stop was Tucson, Arizona. In Arizona we visited the Biosphere 2, Pima Air and Space Museum, and the Titan ll missile. I have never been to a place like Arizona. Temperatures nearly at 40 degrees Celsius, and my body wasn’t used to this heat. All the hikes we did were very cool, seeing how Arizona wildlife differed from here in British Columbia. The first day we went to the Biosphere 2. The Biosphere 2 was originally meant to demonstrate the viability of closed ecological systems to support and maintain human life in outer space. But that experiment failed, so now it’s an Earth systems science research facility located. It was pretty neat walking into different biomes and just feeling the difference in each breathe, from the humidity. Our next stop was the Pima Air and Space museum. This was one of my favourite places. There were so many different types of planes, jets, helicopters, legit planes used in wars. It was pretty coincidental, but while we were there, a McLaren photo shoot was going on, so we also got a super car show. The Titan ll Museum was crazy, seeing the most powerful weapon in the U.S nuclear arsenal. The warhead was 9 megatons. Touring the whole underground facility took a long time because of how big it was.

Our second stop was Las Vegas. In Vegas we visited the Atomic Testing Museum, Mob Museum, and lots of other cool entertainment shows and museums. The Atomic Testing Museum and the Mob Museum were the highlights. The Testing Museum was a very cool experience, seeing how fallout shelters looked like, seeing videos of bomb tests, and seeing how each site was set up. There was a section with a theatre and you would sit there and watch and test and listen to people who had to sit there, and watch it, and explain in detail the explosion. The Mob Museum was very interacting. Lots of places were you could listen to real life phone calls between real mobsters. It was really cool and some of the conversations would give you the chills, like when the mobsters were talking about someone they had just killed. They had a section where u could grab a fake gun with a big theatre screen, and you have to shoot the criminal at the right time, which was a fun little game. But also there was lots of information and learning going on while this all happened. But my question was about Atomic Testing and not the Mob unlike some of my fellow classmates, so I got to have some fun.

But all fun aside this trip was a memorable one. I never travel far with my family, so it’s always fun going far away with my classmates and friends, and to have fun, but also learn a lot too. It makes it a fun way to learn, and keeps it in my memory for ever. With this trip came the final product which is our video. It was tough trying to make a video essay, but I feel confident I got my point across and made it interesting. So without further ado here’s my video:

(video finished but on the computer)