Nuclear Justice for the Marshall Islands

Just three months after the atomic ruins of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been burned into Japan’s landscape, U.S. military and political leaders began planning a series of atomic weapons tests in order to study the effects of the bomb on naval vessels. With World War II over and a new era of Pacific control ahead, the United States selected Bikini and Enewetak Atolls in the northern Marshall Islands, part of what it called the Pacific Proving Grounds, as the site of 67 nuclear weapons tests. These tests played a key role in setting the stage for global politics and power struggles for the first 75 years of the atomic age.

On July 1, 1946, Joint Task Force One launched Operation Crossroads “Test A” (Able) when, at exactly 34 seconds past 9 a.m., a B-29 Superfortress dropped a 23-kiloton plutonium bomb (nearly identical to the “Fat Man” bomb that destroyed Nagasaki) over Bikini Atoll. The bomb exploded 520 feet above sea level, where 242 naval vessels floated in the eastern lagoon as targets. Operation Crossroads continued on July 25 with “Test B” (Baker), the world’s first underwater nuclear detonation. A third test, Charlie, was cancelled due to radiation concerns. As described in the military’s official report, whether detonated in the air or under water, the atomic bomb’s end result would be “death and destruction on an enormous scale.”

Subsequent test names included Nutmeg, Walnut, Maple, and Rose. More than a dozen had American Indian tribal names – Apache, Navajo, and Dakota – while others were prosaically called Mike, George, or simply Dog. Early tests were conducted sporadically – three in 1948, four in 1951, two in 1952, six in 1954 – but in the final two years, the U.S. sharply accelerated the pace. Between May 1956 and August 1958, the U.S. detonated 50 nuclear and thermonuclear bombs, often just a few days apart. On seven occasions, tests were carried out on consecutive days and seven times atomic bombs were detonated twice in a single day.

The tests were of greatest consequence to the people whose homeland was selected for the detonations, which proved to be catastrophic to the health, environment, and well-being of the Marshallese. The 67 tests had a total yield of 108 megatons – the equivalent of 1.6 Hiroshima-sized bombs being detonated every day for a dozen years. Testing irrevocably disrupted life in the Marshall Islands, introducing generations of dislocation, disease, and premature death. Traditional practices were punctured, whole islands were vaporized, and a giant poison-filled concrete dome was left at the edge of a plutonium-spiked lagoon.

Beginning with 167 Bikini Islanders who were told that the abandonment of their islands was “for the good of mankind and to end all wars,” followed by residents of neighboring atolls, entire communities were forced to leave their ancestral homes only to be returned later, then relocated again and again, causing profound impacts that continue today.

Seventy-five years after Operation Crossroads, a new generation of Marshallese is demonstrating resilience, determination, and vision, proving themselves to be global leaders as they fight for nuclear and climate justice, determined to save their islands and their way of life.

Trust and Consequences

After the costly and bloody battles of the Pacific theater, a victorious United States began testing atomic weapons at Bikini Atoll a full year before it assumed responsibility for greater Micronesia as a United Nations Strategic Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.

Testing ended in August 1958 with Operation Hardtack’s Quince, a “fizzle” test with a conventional explosion that produced no yield but scattered plutonium across Runit Island. The last nuclear test in the Marshall Islands was called Fig and, as the Los Angeles Times reported, included 130 tons of soil transported from a Nevada nuclear test site for experimental purposes without Marshallese consent. After Fig, U.S. nuclear testing continued in other parts of the Pacific and elsewhere.

In 1979, the Marshall Islands ratified its own constitution and, in 1982, officially became the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). Like the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and the Republic of Palau, the RMI negotiated an agreement with the United States called a compact of free association (COFA), which entered into force in 1986.

Under COFA, both the United States and RMI made concessions and received benefits. Chief among these for the Marshall Islands was visa-free travel and long-term residency in the U.S. for its citizens. This has led to the migration of more than 25,000 Marshallese, who have relocated temporarily or permanently to the U.S. where they can live, study, work (and pay taxes), and access certain medical care. The largest Marshallese communities in the U.S. are in Springdale, Arkansas, the Pacific Northwest, and Hawaii.

For the U.S., COFA grants permission to operate a missile test range at Kwajalein Atoll under a lease through 2066 (with an option to extend until 2086). The U.S military installation at Kwajalein is critical to radar, rocket, and missile operations including intercontinental ballistic missile tests in support of U.S. nuclear weapons.

Furthermore, and of great importance, the U.S. claims a “right of strategic denial” in perpetuity under which it retains control over land and territorial waters around the RMI and FSM. The provision has been compared to a form of “security insurance” because it enables the U.S. to deny access to military forces of other nations across broad areas in the Pacific.

The Myth of the Four Atolls

Following the nuclear tests, special attention, compensation, and study of four atolls (the so-called “nuclear affected atolls,” Bikini, Enewetak, Rongelap, and Utrik) has continued. Because the nuclear tests and subsequent fallout forced so many relocations and re-relocations, it is difficult (if not impossible) to track all the Marshallese displaced by the tests.

In November 1948, two years after being relocated from Bikini to neighboring Rongerik Atoll and then to Kwajalein, Bikinians were moved a third time to Kili, an isolated, solitary island 425 miles south of Bikini. Relocation disrupted the Bikinians’ traditional system of land ownership and introduced them two new threats: non-communicable diseases and climate change. On a lone island without a supporting atoll or lagoon, residents became dependent on food subsidies, which led to a sharp rise in diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure. Life on Kili Island also means periodic flooding exacerbated by rising sea levels. At one time, more than a thousand Bikinians lived on Kili. Today the population is around 400.

Nearly 300 Bikinians now live on Ejit Island, part of Majuro Atoll, while others live on Kwajalein’s Ebeye Island and elsewhere. Today Bikini Atoll’s 23 islands remain uninhabited except for around half a dozen residents who serve in a caretaking capacity. Marshall Islanders are matrilineal and identify with their mother’s and grandmother’s homeland, but today most Bikinians have never set foot on Bikini.

Some 200 miles west of Bikini is Enewetak Atoll, the site of 43 nuclear and thermonuclear tests. Enewetak’s northern islands remain unsafe for habitation, but today nearly 450 people live on Enewetak Island in the atoll’s south. Enewetak Atoll is best known for the Runit Dome (also called the Cactus Dome or “the tomb”), an 18-inch thick concrete-capped dome filled with over 100,000 cubic yards of radioactive soil and debris built over an atomic crater. The dome was constructed under the U.S. Defense Nuclear Agency between 1977 and 1980 using U.S. Army labor by soldiers who largely had no idea they were working in an environment contaminated with plutonium, strontium-90, and cesium-137.

Among the dozen atolls east of Bikini are Rongelap and Utrik, both recognized by the U.S. government as “nuclear affected.” Controversially, the residents there were unwilling subjects in a U.S. radiation experiment called Project 4.1 (originally titled: “Study of Response of Human Beings Exposed to Significant Beta and Gamma Radiation Due to Fall-Out from High Yield Weapons”). The project has long been criticized for its lack of test subject consent, the belief that fallout exposure was intentional, and the failure to relocate residents of some atolls that were clearly affected.

In 1985, Greenpeace responded to a plea for help from a Rongelapese legislator and relocated at least 300 residents to Mejatto, an isolated mile-long island in northwestern Kwajalein Atoll where the dislocated community had no land ownership rights, no knowledge of local fishing conditions, and where there were no established coconut, breadfruit, or pandanus food crops. The nearest town and airport is on Ebeye Island, an arduous 10-hour boat journey requiring costly engine fuel to cross the U.S. military-controlled Kwajalein Lagoon. Today around 260 people live on Mejatto while Rongelap Atoll itself has just six residents who maintain basic infrastructure for scientists and other periodic visitors.

A fourth atoll, Utrik, today has around 375 residents.