00:00:06.213 --> 00:00:11.205
(church bells)

00:00:37.429 --> 00:00:40.830
- I don't think anybody ever
hit a golf shot out here.

00:00:40.830 --> 00:00:41.663
Nobody.

00:00:42.720 --> 00:00:45.347
On that side, I think,
I used to know a guy,

00:00:45.347 --> 00:00:46.988
he died from cancer.

00:00:46.988 --> 00:00:49.563
They had a sheep camp up here,

00:00:49.563 --> 00:00:52.410
and I know he used to
hit range balls up there,

00:00:52.410 --> 00:00:53.710
but I don't think anybody...

00:00:56.239 --> 00:00:59.322
(Phil speaks Navajo)

00:01:10.004 --> 00:01:12.205
- There's a hill here.

00:01:26.430 --> 00:01:30.883
Callaway. All right,
here we go. Here we go.

00:01:38.917 --> 00:01:40.350
(gentle music)

00:01:40.350 --> 00:01:43.080
- [Voiceover] Teeing off on
the subject of the atomic bomb

00:01:43.080 --> 00:01:45.633
requires that you focus
your attention properly.

00:01:46.680 --> 00:01:50.403
Keep your eyes where
they belong: on the ball,

00:01:51.510 --> 00:01:54.990
because it serves to lead
us into a minute universe

00:01:54.990 --> 00:01:57.193
containing things so infinitesimal

00:01:57.193 --> 00:01:59.490
they are hard to imagine,

00:01:59.490 --> 00:02:02.673
unless we change our
concepts of size and space.

00:02:03.780 --> 00:02:05.250
And the change comes easier

00:02:05.250 --> 00:02:07.620
by taking a quick glimpse at golf,

00:02:07.620 --> 00:02:10.800
a game involving the
manipulation of a small sphere,

00:02:10.800 --> 00:02:13.590
the ball, on the surface
of another sphere,

00:02:13.590 --> 00:02:17.103
about 300 million times
as large: the earth.

00:02:19.530 --> 00:02:22.860
For a golf ball is about
300 million times as large

00:02:22.860 --> 00:02:26.070
as each of the atoms which
make up its elements.

00:02:26.070 --> 00:02:30.270
If an atom is so small, how
can we know anything about it?

00:02:30.270 --> 00:02:32.043
By observing its effects.

00:02:33.780 --> 00:02:36.903
You can't see the wind either,
but you can see what it does.

00:02:38.898 --> 00:02:41.898
(synth music)

00:02:43.220 --> 00:02:45.393
- Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov,

00:02:45.393 --> 00:02:49.320
has warned: if a third World
War were to take place,

00:02:49.320 --> 00:02:53.103
it would be destructive and
would involve nuclear weapons.

00:02:58.770 --> 00:02:59.910
- [Reporter] Nuclear officials there

00:02:59.910 --> 00:03:03.303
warning of a possible
nuclear reactor meltdown.

00:03:04.920 --> 00:03:06.570
- Facing clear evidence of peril,

00:03:07.500 --> 00:03:09.393
we cannot wait for the final proof,

00:03:10.358 --> 00:03:12.607
the smoking gun

00:03:12.607 --> 00:03:15.549
that could come in the
form of a mushroom cloud.

00:03:38.172 --> 00:03:39.829
- [Speaker] Actually there's
no need to be worried,

00:03:39.829 --> 00:03:43.244
as the army have taken all
of the necessary precautions

00:03:43.244 --> 00:03:46.411
to see that we're perfectly safe here.

00:04:00.102 --> 00:04:02.958
- [Speaker] Now they
have heard of our plan

00:04:02.958 --> 00:04:04.958
for their evacuation.

00:04:22.397 --> 00:04:24.082
- [Speaker 1] It was a shamble town.

00:04:24.082 --> 00:04:25.846
- [Speaker 2] A shamble?
It looked like Ebbets Field

00:04:25.846 --> 00:04:27.848
after a double header with the Giants.

00:04:27.848 --> 00:04:30.695
(audience laughs)

00:05:08.070 --> 00:05:12.283
- I started looking
for -- in the archives,

00:05:12.283 --> 00:05:14.100
I even went out to the chieftain office

00:05:14.100 --> 00:05:15.060
and they have the things,

00:05:15.060 --> 00:05:18.513
but everything around the
time of the bomb, 1945,

00:05:19.620 --> 00:05:21.090
it's not in there.

00:05:21.090 --> 00:05:22.800
Those things have been taken out.

00:05:22.800 --> 00:05:26.490
In the library, there was
nothing in the library.

00:05:26.490 --> 00:05:29.433
And if it was, it wasn't
there for the public to see.

00:05:30.420 --> 00:05:33.810
So, they told me that we
have some discs over here

00:05:33.810 --> 00:05:37.410
where some of this stuff was
actually put on this disc.

00:05:37.410 --> 00:05:38.580
So they gave me those discs.

00:05:38.580 --> 00:05:43.020
So I sat there for one whole
day, you know, on the machine.

00:05:43.020 --> 00:05:46.440
And everything that had to do with 1945

00:05:46.440 --> 00:05:48.570
was a big black blob.

00:05:48.570 --> 00:05:50.010
I couldn't read it.

00:05:50.010 --> 00:05:52.170
- There was no accountability for it.

00:05:52.170 --> 00:05:57.062
No acknowledgement, no...

00:05:57.062 --> 00:05:59.453
justification for...

00:06:02.870 --> 00:06:04.770
for the secrecy.

00:06:04.770 --> 00:06:06.360
'Cause it was all done in secret.

00:06:06.360 --> 00:06:10.710
They should have had the people
evacuated, but they didn't.

00:06:10.710 --> 00:06:12.180
- They would bus the school kids

00:06:12.180 --> 00:06:14.940
and their picnic lunches
out to the Trinity site,

00:06:14.940 --> 00:06:15.773
and they would be out there

00:06:15.773 --> 00:06:17.820
and those kids would eat
their lunch out there,

00:06:17.820 --> 00:06:19.050
and they would pick up Trinitite

00:06:19.050 --> 00:06:21.240
and put it in their
pockets, and take it home,

00:06:21.240 --> 00:06:24.180
because it was not fenced
off right away, you know?

00:06:24.180 --> 00:06:26.070
My husband used to go out
there and ride his horses

00:06:26.070 --> 00:06:29.400
or his dirt bike or whatever,
a little motorcycle,

00:06:29.400 --> 00:06:31.130
and he'd go out there,
go hunting out there.

00:06:31.130 --> 00:06:33.480
It wasn't fenced off for a while.

00:06:33.480 --> 00:06:35.437
- Some of the people have
said, who will park here,

00:06:35.437 --> 00:06:38.770
"Well, how come you guys didn't move?"

00:06:39.630 --> 00:06:42.840
How could we move when we didn't know?

00:06:42.840 --> 00:06:45.120
We weren't made aware that
this was going to happen.

00:06:45.120 --> 00:06:46.747
They just did it.

00:06:46.747 --> 00:06:48.447
And because it was a remote area,

00:06:48.447 --> 00:06:51.540
and there was nothing here but...

00:06:51.540 --> 00:06:53.640
- According to them.
- According to them.

00:06:55.170 --> 00:06:57.660
- This particular bomb was the first.

00:06:57.660 --> 00:07:01.113
And so it was the test,
it was problematic.

00:07:02.895 --> 00:07:07.587
They used 13.7 pounds of plutonium.

00:07:08.880 --> 00:07:12.213
Only three pounds were needed
to cause the explosion.

00:07:13.125 --> 00:07:17.370
The 10.7 pounds, if you
figure a sack of flour,

00:07:17.370 --> 00:07:19.810
10.7 pounds of raw plutonium

00:07:21.000 --> 00:07:24.960
went into the atmosphere
and rained down in ash

00:07:24.960 --> 00:07:28.380
for days on Tularosa, on clean clothing.

00:07:28.380 --> 00:07:30.720
We used cisterns for water,

00:07:30.720 --> 00:07:34.610
because there was no, you know,

00:07:34.610 --> 00:07:38.070
no water piping, very
little if there was any.

00:07:38.070 --> 00:07:41.250
Still there's open ditch irrigation.

00:07:41.250 --> 00:07:43.890
It was July, the monsoon season,

00:07:43.890 --> 00:07:47.490
the rains came, caught
the water on our roofs

00:07:47.490 --> 00:07:50.523
and fed it into our cisterns for drinking.

00:07:52.290 --> 00:07:54.318
Cattle turned white.

00:07:56.400 --> 00:07:58.156
People's hair turned white.

00:07:59.191 --> 00:08:01.860
- There was a quote,

00:08:01.860 --> 00:08:03.900
I'm not exactly sure what it says,

00:08:03.900 --> 00:08:05.527
but it says something like,

00:08:05.527 --> 00:08:09.960
"Well, nobody knew what was
happening, nobody complained,

00:08:09.960 --> 00:08:12.293
so I guess we got away with it."

00:08:14.850 --> 00:08:16.765
So they did.

00:08:16.765 --> 00:08:20.636
- There's not much taught
in New Mexico history about

00:08:20.636 --> 00:08:22.090
anything other than

00:08:22.090 --> 00:08:23.790
they developed the first
nuclear device here.

00:08:23.790 --> 00:08:25.830
They certainly don't talk
about the downwinders

00:08:25.830 --> 00:08:28.785
and the people who lived 12 miles away,

00:08:28.785 --> 00:08:32.820
and the sacrifice that we all made

00:08:32.820 --> 00:08:35.220
when we were enlisted into
the service of our country

00:08:35.220 --> 00:08:36.960
without our consent or knowledge.

00:08:36.960 --> 00:08:38.940
They never talk about those
things in the history.

00:08:38.940 --> 00:08:41.490
And it's not just New Mexico history,

00:08:41.490 --> 00:08:43.830
it's US history and world history.

00:08:43.830 --> 00:08:47.577
Because July 16th, 1945 changed our world.

00:08:47.577 --> 00:08:49.142
And we've never lived...

00:08:49.142 --> 00:08:51.567
I mean, we've never lived

00:08:51.567 --> 00:08:54.420
without the threat of nuclear
annihilation since then.

00:08:54.420 --> 00:08:56.520
That threat always been
out there since then.

00:08:56.520 --> 00:08:58.078
So it's world history.

00:08:58.078 --> 00:09:00.269
- [Voiceover] They couldn't
experiment realistically

00:09:00.269 --> 00:09:01.544
along the way.

00:09:01.544 --> 00:09:06.000
They couldn't conduct small,
safe, pint-sized tests.

00:09:06.000 --> 00:09:09.933
There's no such thing as a
small, safe atomic explosion.

00:09:10.860 --> 00:09:14.070
Below critical size, the bomb is a bust.

00:09:14.070 --> 00:09:15.813
Above, it's a burst.

00:09:18.030 --> 00:09:22.770
To those who, early on the
morning of July 16th, 1945,

00:09:22.770 --> 00:09:26.070
awaited the setting off of
their first atomic bomb,

00:09:26.070 --> 00:09:29.373
it had to be all or nothing, but which?

00:09:35.790 --> 00:09:37.985
(dramatic music)

00:09:37.985 --> 00:09:42.017
- I looked over towards where
the explosion took place,

00:09:42.017 --> 00:09:47.017
just over the mountains,
the San Andres Mountains,

00:09:47.144 --> 00:09:50.577
and all I could see was a
whirling dust, you know,

00:09:50.577 --> 00:09:53.055
just going in a circle like that,

00:09:53.055 --> 00:09:55.499
but it was just going like that, you know?

00:09:55.499 --> 00:10:00.499
Up, and towards Roswell in that
general direction, you know?

00:10:00.750 --> 00:10:03.133
To Oklahoma.

00:10:03.133 --> 00:10:05.860
And it got down there quite
a ways, 'cause I stood there

00:10:05.860 --> 00:10:07.950
and I couldn't leave it alone.

00:10:07.950 --> 00:10:12.244
You know, it was going
up and spinning around.

00:10:12.244 --> 00:10:15.507
Up, and at the same
time it was going east.

00:10:17.298 --> 00:10:19.961
And then pretty soon
it got way down there,

00:10:19.961 --> 00:10:23.850
like I said, probably around
Oklahoma, somewhere in there.

00:10:23.850 --> 00:10:28.304
And that thing was still giving
it that great big bubble.

00:10:28.304 --> 00:10:31.379
I mean that -- whoo -- it was huge!

00:10:32.240 --> 00:10:35.730
- [Voiceover] When a wartime
nuclear explosion occurs,

00:10:35.730 --> 00:10:38.760
a serious fallout follows.

00:10:38.760 --> 00:10:42.508
Thousands of tons of atomized
earth, building materials,

00:10:42.508 --> 00:10:45.423
rocks, and gases may
be thrown into the air.

00:10:46.860 --> 00:10:49.350
And the mushroom cloud containing them

00:10:49.350 --> 00:10:52.533
sometimes moves as high as 100,000 feet,

00:10:53.430 --> 00:10:55.375
nearly 20 miles up.

00:10:56.940 --> 00:10:59.700
Some of the radioactive
particles spill out

00:10:59.700 --> 00:11:01.548
near the explosion site.

00:11:03.000 --> 00:11:07.947
Others may be carried for
10, 50, 100 miles or more.

00:11:07.947 --> 00:11:10.707
- And pretty soon, the bottom broke off

00:11:10.707 --> 00:11:15.707
and kept on going east,
toward New York, Pennsylvania.

00:11:16.680 --> 00:11:20.460
And the top kept going like that too,

00:11:20.460 --> 00:11:23.721
but it started coming back this way,

00:11:23.721 --> 00:11:26.700
and I'll be damned if it didn't come back,

00:11:26.700 --> 00:11:30.251
and then it started to
come down, down, down.

00:11:30.251 --> 00:11:32.077
And I told mama, I said,

00:11:32.077 --> 00:11:34.433
"Look Ma!" I said, "this
thing is coming back!"

00:11:34.433 --> 00:11:37.679
I said, "It's going to get
all your clothes dirty."

00:11:37.679 --> 00:11:39.090
And truly that's what happened.

00:11:39.090 --> 00:11:41.160
And she'd just had hung it up, you know?

00:11:41.160 --> 00:11:43.091
And they were still wet.

00:11:44.640 --> 00:11:48.362
That explosion came back
towards Holloman Air Force Base,

00:11:48.362 --> 00:11:49.893
they were on the north end of it,

00:11:49.893 --> 00:11:53.910
which is just a little way
from Tularosa, you know.

00:11:53.910 --> 00:11:56.489
And that thing landed.

00:11:56.489 --> 00:11:58.885
It went just past the White Sands

00:11:58.885 --> 00:12:03.385
and landed right there,
between Tularosa and Carrizozo.

00:12:05.152 --> 00:12:06.835
And I mean to tell you,

00:12:07.710 --> 00:12:10.755
the dust just kept giving it that,

00:12:10.755 --> 00:12:14.207
except it was a great
big circle, you know?

00:12:15.190 --> 00:12:18.030
And in the meantime, the
wind was blowing this way

00:12:18.030 --> 00:12:18.870
here on the ground,

00:12:18.870 --> 00:12:21.816
and up there it must have been
blowing this way, you know.

00:12:21.816 --> 00:12:25.117
I guess that's how the wind
moves around, you know?

00:12:25.117 --> 00:12:28.627
And, I hollered at Ma, I says,

00:12:28.627 --> 00:12:32.190
"Ma!" I says, "Here comes that explosion."

00:12:32.190 --> 00:12:33.773
She says, "What happened?"

00:12:33.773 --> 00:12:35.617
"I don't know," I says, "Look," I says,

00:12:35.617 --> 00:12:37.873
"There's dust all over the place."

00:12:37.873 --> 00:12:39.765
By this time, there was dust all,

00:12:39.765 --> 00:12:42.477
I mean, all over hell and Texas, you know?

00:12:42.477 --> 00:12:46.230
- Raw plutonium, less than a gram,

00:12:46.230 --> 00:12:48.480
if inhaled or swallowed,

00:12:48.480 --> 00:12:52.260
will cause immediate cancer in a human.

00:12:52.260 --> 00:12:56.550
And so that was 10.7
pounds of raw plutonium

00:12:56.550 --> 00:12:58.833
that went up into the atmosphere.

00:12:59.820 --> 00:13:02.280
The official record said
that this was uninhabited,

00:13:02.280 --> 00:13:03.113
like I said.

00:13:03.960 --> 00:13:05.160
And that's not true.

00:13:05.160 --> 00:13:08.880
I mean, now they evacuate for 150 miles.

00:13:08.880 --> 00:13:12.690
That would've been El
Paso, Albuquerque, Socorro,

00:13:12.690 --> 00:13:14.340
Las Cruces,

00:13:14.340 --> 00:13:17.115
not to mention the little
towns, like Tularosa,

00:13:17.115 --> 00:13:22.115
within 30 to 40 miles, Capitan, Carrizozo,

00:13:22.371 --> 00:13:24.773
and on and on, all of these little towns.

00:13:24.773 --> 00:13:28.189
- I never heard my mama
say a bad word, you know,

00:13:28.189 --> 00:13:33.189
but boy, she was one mad
Mexican, let me tell you.

00:13:33.372 --> 00:13:36.993
And she got up, she had to
take all her clothes down,

00:13:38.070 --> 00:13:42.000
wash it again, and rinse it out good.

00:13:42.990 --> 00:13:46.902
And then, I had to go
out there with a wet rag

00:13:46.902 --> 00:13:48.830
and I was cleaning the clotheslines,

00:13:48.830 --> 00:13:50.400
'cause we didn't have no dryers

00:13:50.400 --> 00:13:52.650
back in those days, you know?

00:13:52.650 --> 00:13:56.700
And I went out there
walking down the wires,

00:13:56.700 --> 00:13:58.020
cleaning them off, you know,

00:13:58.020 --> 00:14:00.960
making sure they were
clean, because like I said,

00:14:00.960 --> 00:14:04.740
that dust went -- it
wasn't a big, big dust,

00:14:04.740 --> 00:14:07.950
it was just a powdery -- a real light...

00:14:07.950 --> 00:14:12.150
But it was dust, you know, from
the daggone bomb, you know?

00:14:12.150 --> 00:14:14.160
- [Voiceover] The
particles in that fallout

00:14:14.160 --> 00:14:17.303
behave like miniature X-ray machines,

00:14:17.303 --> 00:14:20.045
sending out radiation in all directions.

00:14:20.045 --> 00:14:22.350
- One of the downwinders
that cannot be here today

00:14:22.350 --> 00:14:23.880
is Barbara Kent.

00:14:23.880 --> 00:14:25.410
She lives in California right now.

00:14:25.410 --> 00:14:28.382
She's 90 years old,
living with her daughter.

00:14:28.382 --> 00:14:30.582
But in 1945...

00:14:30.582 --> 00:14:32.465
Well, she was born and
raised in El Paso, Texas,

00:14:32.465 --> 00:14:35.670
and in 1945, she was
in a little dance club

00:14:35.670 --> 00:14:39.120
and they got an opportunity
to go to Ruidoso, New Mexico,

00:14:39.120 --> 00:14:41.280
for a summer camp, for a week.

00:14:41.280 --> 00:14:43.380
And so there were about 12 little girls.

00:14:43.380 --> 00:14:45.690
They were all around 12, 13 years old,

00:14:45.690 --> 00:14:47.370
and they had some adults with them.

00:14:47.370 --> 00:14:48.690
And they went to Ruidoso,

00:14:48.690 --> 00:14:50.250
they checked in, got into their cabins,

00:14:50.250 --> 00:14:52.020
and they had bunk beds
and so forth in there,

00:14:52.020 --> 00:14:54.240
and they were close to
the little Ruidoso River,

00:14:54.240 --> 00:14:56.040
and the morning after they got there

00:14:56.040 --> 00:14:59.850
is when the Trinity test went
off, the first atomic bomb.

00:14:59.850 --> 00:15:01.380
It threw them out of their bunks.

00:15:01.380 --> 00:15:04.800
Barbara was on the top bunk.
It threw her off on the floor.

00:15:04.800 --> 00:15:06.780
They all jumped up, didn't
know what was going on.

00:15:06.780 --> 00:15:08.160
So they ran outside.

00:15:08.160 --> 00:15:10.470
They said the brightest
light you can ever imagine

00:15:10.470 --> 00:15:12.960
came up, brighter than the sun.

00:15:12.960 --> 00:15:15.210
And so, it eventually went down,

00:15:15.210 --> 00:15:17.790
and then later in the
day it started snowing.

00:15:17.790 --> 00:15:19.320
So they asked their camp counselors

00:15:19.320 --> 00:15:20.640
if they could go play in it.

00:15:20.640 --> 00:15:22.530
So, for three to five days,

00:15:22.530 --> 00:15:24.270
those 12 little girls were out there

00:15:24.270 --> 00:15:26.250
playing in radioactive fallout.

00:15:26.250 --> 00:15:28.410
It wasn't snow. It was warm to the touch.

00:15:28.410 --> 00:15:30.330
They commented it was warm to the touch,

00:15:30.330 --> 00:15:32.460
but in 1945, they didn't know what it was,

00:15:32.460 --> 00:15:34.080
they just assumed it was snow.

00:15:34.080 --> 00:15:36.510
So they played in it, they
caught it in their hands,

00:15:36.510 --> 00:15:37.680
they rubbed it on their faces.

00:15:37.680 --> 00:15:40.380
They put it in their mouths,
caught it in their mouths.

00:15:40.380 --> 00:15:45.380
And so -- of those 12
girls that were there,

00:15:45.493 --> 00:15:48.420
11 of them died by the age of 40.

00:15:48.420 --> 00:15:50.250
Barbara Kent is the only survivor.

00:15:50.250 --> 00:15:52.080
All the adults have died of cancer,

00:15:52.080 --> 00:15:53.730
11 of the girls have died of cancer.

00:15:53.730 --> 00:15:55.590
She's the only survivor.

00:15:55.590 --> 00:15:59.730
- I don't recall any of my people

00:15:59.730 --> 00:16:01.292
ever say anything about it.

00:16:01.292 --> 00:16:06.158
And, later, a couple weeks later,

00:16:06.158 --> 00:16:09.780
newspaper information,
little articles in there,

00:16:09.780 --> 00:16:12.180
about a blast near Carrizozo,

00:16:12.180 --> 00:16:13.510
such and such, you know?

00:16:13.510 --> 00:16:17.670
And we said, "Oh, I guess we just go ahead

00:16:17.670 --> 00:16:19.920
and do whatever we've
normally been doing."

00:16:19.920 --> 00:16:23.587
And, I guess the Feds
were -- they thought,

00:16:23.587 --> 00:16:26.250
"Well, if they want to do that,
we'll just leave them alone

00:16:26.250 --> 00:16:29.430
and let them 'em do that for 75 years."

00:16:29.430 --> 00:16:31.130
So here we are.

00:16:32.160 --> 00:16:34.060
- Nobody knew nothing about it.

00:16:34.060 --> 00:16:38.370
I mean, it was all quietus. You know?

00:16:38.370 --> 00:16:43.370
Nobody said one word about
that dang bomb at the base.

00:16:45.127 --> 00:16:48.210
And like my dad said,
nobody would say one word.

00:16:48.210 --> 00:16:49.653
Nobody would talk about it.

00:16:51.264 --> 00:16:53.958
They acted like nobody
knew nothing about it,

00:16:53.958 --> 00:16:55.402
which they didn't, you know,

00:16:55.402 --> 00:16:59.377
except the ones that blew it up.

00:16:59.377 --> 00:17:01.360
It was...

00:17:01.360 --> 00:17:05.559
It was a strange time, you know?

00:17:05.559 --> 00:17:08.760
- [Voiceover] Now, we must
be ready for a new danger:

00:17:08.760 --> 00:17:10.980
the atomic bomb.

00:17:10.980 --> 00:17:12.900
First, you have to know what happens

00:17:12.900 --> 00:17:15.180
when an atomic bomb explodes.

00:17:15.180 --> 00:17:16.890
You will know when it comes.

00:17:16.890 --> 00:17:19.680
We hope it never comes,
but we must get ready.

00:17:19.680 --> 00:17:21.480
It looks something like this.

00:17:21.480 --> 00:17:23.700
There is a bright flash,
brighter than the sun,

00:17:23.700 --> 00:17:26.280
brighter than anything you've ever seen.

00:17:26.280 --> 00:17:29.640
If you were not ready and
did not know what to do,

00:17:29.640 --> 00:17:32.160
it could hurt you in different ways.

00:17:32.160 --> 00:17:33.990
It could knock you down, hard,

00:17:33.990 --> 00:17:36.750
or throw you against a tree or a wall.

00:17:36.750 --> 00:17:38.610
It is such a big explosion,

00:17:38.610 --> 00:17:41.700
it can smash in buildings
and knock signboards over,

00:17:41.700 --> 00:17:43.830
and break windows all over town.

00:17:43.830 --> 00:17:47.188
But, if you duck and cover, like Burt,

00:17:47.188 --> 00:17:49.086
you will be much safer.

00:17:49.086 --> 00:17:50.384
- You know, when I was growing up,

00:17:50.384 --> 00:17:53.787
I grew up in the Cold
War, during the Cold War,

00:17:53.787 --> 00:17:55.860
and I grew up keenly aware

00:17:55.860 --> 00:17:58.800
that I lived next door to a bombing range.

00:17:58.800 --> 00:18:00.150
And there's no way to get around it,

00:18:00.150 --> 00:18:01.920
because they detonate things all the time.

00:18:01.920 --> 00:18:03.360
We could be sound asleep at night

00:18:03.360 --> 00:18:05.370
and something would go off.

00:18:05.370 --> 00:18:08.310
There would be an explosion
that would rock our house,

00:18:08.310 --> 00:18:10.803
break the windows,
sometimes crack the walls.

00:18:11.910 --> 00:18:13.530
And when you're a kid growing up

00:18:13.530 --> 00:18:16.301
during the middle of, you know,

00:18:16.301 --> 00:18:20.280
the duck and cover drills
that we did at school,

00:18:20.280 --> 00:18:22.380
telling us what to do if
there was a nuclear war,

00:18:22.380 --> 00:18:23.585
you know, get under your desk

00:18:23.585 --> 00:18:24.960
like that was gonna somehow protect you.

00:18:24.960 --> 00:18:25.993
But that's what they --

00:18:25.993 --> 00:18:28.010
you know, we went through
those drills all the time.

00:18:28.010 --> 00:18:30.390
So, growing up with that as the backdrop,

00:18:30.390 --> 00:18:32.850
and knowing that we lived
next door to a bombing range,

00:18:32.850 --> 00:18:34.680
and then having them detonate things

00:18:34.680 --> 00:18:36.450
at all hours of the day and night.

00:18:36.450 --> 00:18:38.430
I always lived with a low level of stress

00:18:38.430 --> 00:18:39.510
associated with that.

00:18:39.510 --> 00:18:42.907
I can remember our family talking about,

00:18:42.907 --> 00:18:45.804
"What are you gonna do
if there's a -- you know,

00:18:45.804 --> 00:18:48.510
if they tell you that it's not
a drill, that it's for real,

00:18:48.510 --> 00:18:50.130
make sure you get your brother and sister

00:18:50.130 --> 00:18:51.767
and head home right away."

00:18:51.767 --> 00:18:54.660
And, you know, "we've located a..."

00:18:54.660 --> 00:18:56.760
I remember my mom and
dad having a discussion

00:18:56.760 --> 00:18:59.940
about how my dad had located
like a cave in the foothills

00:18:59.940 --> 00:19:01.380
outside of the town where I lived,

00:19:01.380 --> 00:19:05.130
and that we would just flee
there, and wait it out.

00:19:05.130 --> 00:19:07.138
But they would take us
on field trips out there,

00:19:07.138 --> 00:19:09.140
all the time, and try to convince us

00:19:09.140 --> 00:19:14.140
that we should be so proud
of the part our state played

00:19:14.273 --> 00:19:17.915
in this entire, you know,

00:19:19.164 --> 00:19:20.689
industrial nuclear complex,

00:19:20.689 --> 00:19:21.810
I don't know what else to say.

00:19:21.810 --> 00:19:24.833
And I used to think, "We're not safe."

00:19:24.833 --> 00:19:28.183
(synth music)

00:24:22.818 --> 00:24:24.453
- This younger guy, he went in,

00:24:25.426 --> 00:24:27.420
he came back outside and
parked and talked to us.

00:24:27.420 --> 00:24:29.100
He had a Geiger counter,

00:24:29.100 --> 00:24:33.862
and he said it measured 112, at the site.

00:24:33.862 --> 00:24:38.220
Okay? That is very high radiation.

00:24:38.220 --> 00:24:41.160
Still, if you can feel the wind,

00:24:41.160 --> 00:24:45.338
it's always blowing from south to north.

00:24:45.338 --> 00:24:48.129
Just a little breeze.

00:24:48.129 --> 00:24:52.028
If there's 112 decibels

00:24:52.028 --> 00:24:54.470
on his Geiger counter,

00:24:54.470 --> 00:24:58.380
what was it when the bomb was detonated?

00:24:58.380 --> 00:25:01.470
- [Bernice] They said that the
Geiger counters in Carrizozo,

00:25:01.470 --> 00:25:05.610
the day of the detonation,
went off the charts.

00:25:05.610 --> 00:25:10.260
But try finding history.
Try finding history.

00:25:10.260 --> 00:25:14.670
The government has kept it under wraps,

00:25:14.670 --> 00:25:18.240
and, you can't find it.

00:25:18.240 --> 00:25:20.340
They're not sharing it.

00:25:20.340 --> 00:25:24.694
- They used us as an experiment, people,

00:25:24.694 --> 00:25:26.733
to see what would happen to us.

00:25:26.733 --> 00:25:29.790
And, a lot of people afterwards, you know,

00:25:29.790 --> 00:25:33.180
were having to be taken
care of by doctors,

00:25:33.180 --> 00:25:35.847
and, even the doctors didn't
know what the hell was --

00:25:35.847 --> 00:25:36.905
how to fix it, you know,

00:25:36.905 --> 00:25:39.937
how to take care of them,
treat em', you know,

00:25:39.937 --> 00:25:42.330
because they never had treated anybody

00:25:42.330 --> 00:25:45.266
for that kind of thing, you know?

00:25:45.266 --> 00:25:49.996
It was something brand spanking new.

00:25:49.996 --> 00:25:52.620
And, a lot of people were sick,

00:25:52.620 --> 00:25:55.200
and a lot of people died too, you know?

00:25:55.200 --> 00:25:58.700
Nobody knew why they were dying, you know.

00:25:58.700 --> 00:26:02.533
That was -- "So and so
died. What happened?"

00:26:02.533 --> 00:26:04.693
"They don't know."

00:26:04.693 --> 00:26:08.130
Nobody knew. Not even
the doctors, you know?

00:26:08.130 --> 00:26:10.830
- My parents and four siblings of mine

00:26:10.830 --> 00:26:12.570
were alive at the time.

00:26:12.570 --> 00:26:14.160
Both parents died of cancer.

00:26:14.160 --> 00:26:17.413
My oldest sister died of cancer.

00:26:17.413 --> 00:26:21.264
My other sister had --

00:26:21.264 --> 00:26:23.310
survived breast cancer,

00:26:23.310 --> 00:26:26.460
and my brother is surviving lung cancer.

00:26:26.460 --> 00:26:30.304
I have other siblings who
are survivors of cancer,

00:26:30.304 --> 00:26:32.920
and cousins,

00:26:32.920 --> 00:26:36.595
the Peraltas, lived at Capitan,

00:26:36.595 --> 00:26:38.937
the dad was in the corral
when the bomb went off,

00:26:38.937 --> 00:26:42.630
with his horse, 5:30 in the morning,

00:26:42.630 --> 00:26:46.950
and he walked back into
the house loaded with ash

00:26:46.950 --> 00:26:50.460
to see his family of
nine huddled in a corner,

00:26:50.460 --> 00:26:53.160
thinking that the world
had come to an end.

00:26:53.160 --> 00:26:55.710
And, so he walked in covered in ash.

00:26:55.710 --> 00:26:57.810
The entire family is dead of cancer,

00:26:57.810 --> 00:27:01.800
except for one cancer survivor
that lives in Las Cruces.

00:27:01.800 --> 00:27:03.990
And so, I could just like go on all day.

00:27:03.990 --> 00:27:07.140
- I have a list.

00:27:07.140 --> 00:27:08.774
20 of my family,

00:27:08.774 --> 00:27:11.598
immediate family members, have had cancer.

00:27:11.598 --> 00:27:13.672
Six have died.

00:27:13.672 --> 00:27:17.721
And, 11 have thyroid or

00:27:17.721 --> 00:27:22.721
radiation exposure diseases.

00:27:22.721 --> 00:27:24.690
That's just my immediate family,

00:27:24.690 --> 00:27:27.090
I'm not including his family in there,

00:27:27.090 --> 00:27:30.750
and I'm not including my dad's family.

00:27:30.750 --> 00:27:33.840
So, right off the top, 31.

00:27:33.840 --> 00:27:36.810
- Just my case,

00:27:36.810 --> 00:27:41.768
my cancer was discovered in...

00:27:41.768 --> 00:27:44.880
April of 2008.

00:27:44.880 --> 00:27:49.880
Can you imagine the
money that I've put out?

00:27:50.190 --> 00:27:54.888
Fortunately I've got good
insurance, but still...

00:27:54.888 --> 00:27:56.751
You know, I paid for the insurance too!

00:27:56.751 --> 00:28:01.751
So, the amount of money put
out over 12, 13 years...

00:28:02.340 --> 00:28:06.576
And I didn't have any serious
operations or anything.

00:28:08.809 --> 00:28:13.809
So, a lot of people have been hurt a lot,

00:28:13.970 --> 00:28:17.190
and it would be nice to...

00:28:17.190 --> 00:28:20.128
at least acknowledge that
it happened, you know?

00:28:20.128 --> 00:28:21.536
That you know, that...

00:28:21.536 --> 00:28:26.502
yes, it could have affected
those people over there.

00:28:27.990 --> 00:28:29.897
- I don't know that

00:28:29.897 --> 00:28:33.223
some of the things that are wrong with me

00:28:33.223 --> 00:28:36.504
have come from the bomb itself,

00:28:36.504 --> 00:28:38.747
and way back then, you know?

00:28:38.747 --> 00:28:39.997
I don't know.

00:28:39.997 --> 00:28:41.707
But...

00:28:41.707 --> 00:28:44.218
as far as the military goes,
they don't give a damn.

00:28:44.218 --> 00:28:45.618
They don't wanna know about it,

00:28:45.618 --> 00:28:46.650
they don't want to hear about it,

00:28:46.650 --> 00:28:47.790
they don't want to talk about it,

00:28:47.790 --> 00:28:51.065
they don't know nothing about it.

00:28:51.065 --> 00:28:52.500
Period.

00:28:52.500 --> 00:28:57.500
- There's a lot of generational trauma.

00:28:57.840 --> 00:29:02.250
There's a lot of kids here that
have gotten the same cancers

00:29:02.250 --> 00:29:04.950
that their grandparents
got, or their parents got.

00:29:04.950 --> 00:29:08.201
And we attribute that to damaged DNA,

00:29:08.201 --> 00:29:10.166
you know, that you pass on.

00:29:10.166 --> 00:29:12.699
Because, you know, DNA --

00:29:12.699 --> 00:29:13.832
you know, this DNA,

00:29:13.832 --> 00:29:18.510
if you've been exposed, you
know, it changes your structure

00:29:18.510 --> 00:29:20.726
your cells and everything in your body.

00:29:20.726 --> 00:29:24.441
So, if you have kids, you're passing down,

00:29:24.441 --> 00:29:28.153
you know, you're passing down
damaged genes to your kids.

00:29:29.490 --> 00:29:34.320
- The thing about the government
hiding the truth from us --

00:29:34.320 --> 00:29:35.503
I never knew.

00:29:35.503 --> 00:29:38.971
I was born here -- never knew

00:29:38.971 --> 00:29:43.971
the effects of radiation on people.

00:29:44.520 --> 00:29:47.530
And one endocrinologist asked me once,

00:29:47.530 --> 00:29:50.370
after I'd listed my medical history,

00:29:50.370 --> 00:29:53.310
if my family had ever
been exposed to radiation.

00:29:53.310 --> 00:29:55.525
I told him, "I don't have a clue."

00:29:55.525 --> 00:29:57.358
I didn't know.

00:29:57.358 --> 00:30:01.983
I was a grown adult, and I didn't know.

00:30:01.983 --> 00:30:04.800
And they told us,

00:30:04.800 --> 00:30:08.283
the newspaper said that it was an

00:30:08.283 --> 00:30:12.880
ammunition dump explosion.

00:30:12.880 --> 00:30:15.926
So, how were people to know
different? They didn't know.

00:30:16.800 --> 00:30:19.740
- The morning of the big blast,

00:30:19.740 --> 00:30:23.880
as everybody calls it anymore,

00:30:23.880 --> 00:30:26.400
I was going on five years old,

00:30:26.400 --> 00:30:30.780
and I was visiting in town with an aunt.

00:30:30.780 --> 00:30:32.640
And, we had two boys my age,

00:30:32.640 --> 00:30:35.760
and we were asleep in their bedroom,

00:30:35.760 --> 00:30:39.984
and I can remember

00:30:39.984 --> 00:30:43.964
a really bright flash, light coming on,

00:30:43.964 --> 00:30:47.173
like someone just stepped in
there and turned the bulb on

00:30:47.173 --> 00:30:49.830
and then turned it off real quick.

00:30:49.830 --> 00:30:52.680
And, didn't think anything of it.

00:30:52.680 --> 00:30:55.620
Just thought they were checking on us.

00:30:55.620 --> 00:30:59.989
And... then, later,

00:30:59.989 --> 00:31:02.597
there was a rumble,

00:31:02.597 --> 00:31:05.922
like distant thunder.

00:31:05.922 --> 00:31:08.943
It didn't last that long.

00:31:08.943 --> 00:31:12.090
And there was some minor shaking

00:31:12.090 --> 00:31:14.815
that rattled the windows.

00:31:27.685 --> 00:31:31.685
(indistinct restaurant chatter)

00:31:48.084 --> 00:31:50.526
(muffled music)

00:32:59.152 --> 00:33:01.890
(triumphant music)

00:33:01.890 --> 00:33:03.000
- [Voiceover] With global war,

00:33:03.000 --> 00:33:05.010
the government stepped into the picture.

00:33:05.010 --> 00:33:07.200
General Groves, head of the project,

00:33:07.200 --> 00:33:09.120
teamed up with Vannevar Bush,

00:33:09.120 --> 00:33:11.490
Government Director of
Science and Research,

00:33:11.490 --> 00:33:14.793
and with Dr. Richard Tolman,
technicological expert.

00:33:17.040 --> 00:33:18.840
Seeking for the best base material

00:33:18.840 --> 00:33:20.790
to carry the explosive atoms,

00:33:20.790 --> 00:33:23.850
hundreds of prospectors ranged
the province of Alberta.

00:33:23.850 --> 00:33:27.840
Scientists made uncounted tests
before deciding on uranium,

00:33:27.840 --> 00:33:30.633
which contained atoms
easiest of all to crack.

00:33:32.767 --> 00:33:35.670
Two billion dollars went
into research and plants,

00:33:35.670 --> 00:33:38.040
such as this one at Richland, Washington.

00:33:38.040 --> 00:33:40.530
One of the world's most
closely guarded secrets,

00:33:40.530 --> 00:33:42.510
the atomic bomb process was developed

00:33:42.510 --> 00:33:44.430
in widely separated areas.

00:33:44.430 --> 00:33:47.220
Even the thousands of men and
women working on the project

00:33:47.220 --> 00:33:50.903
had no idea of the staggering
energy they were to release.

00:33:51.770 --> 00:33:54.811
(triumphant music)

00:34:41.780 --> 00:34:44.970
- [Voiceover] In the control
shack was Dr. J. Oppenheimer,

00:34:44.970 --> 00:34:47.790
who, assisted by Dr. I. Rabi and others,

00:34:47.790 --> 00:34:50.490
had directed the making
of the bomb itself.

00:34:50.490 --> 00:34:53.760
- The automatic control's got it now.

00:34:53.760 --> 00:34:57.120
Rob, this time, the
stakes are really high.

00:34:57.120 --> 00:34:59.040
- It's going to work all right, Robert,

00:34:59.040 --> 00:35:01.457
and I'm sure we'll never be sorry for it.

00:36:23.883 --> 00:36:27.883
(indistinct restaurant chatter)

00:37:00.928 --> 00:37:04.345
(voices in the distance)

00:37:56.715 --> 00:37:59.215
(sound of passing cars)

00:38:12.151 --> 00:38:13.058
- [Customer] Yeah.

00:38:13.058 --> 00:38:13.941
- [Allison] You want that one right there?

00:38:13.941 --> 00:38:16.014
- [Customer] Sure.

00:38:16.014 --> 00:38:17.420
- [Allison] Sign here for me?

00:38:17.420 --> 00:38:18.728
- [Customer] Sure.

00:38:30.938 --> 00:38:33.450
- We live 15 miles, as the crow flies,

00:38:33.450 --> 00:38:36.150
from where the first nuclear
bomb was ever tested.

00:38:36.150 --> 00:38:38.850
And one of our biggest
sellers is the Trinitite,

00:38:38.850 --> 00:38:40.950
which was picked up by
one of the previous owners

00:38:40.950 --> 00:38:43.650
of the shop, prior to 1952.

00:38:43.650 --> 00:38:45.875
There's a picture of him here.

00:38:45.875 --> 00:38:49.416
In 1952, they bulldozed the site,

00:38:49.416 --> 00:38:50.774
hauled equipment in there, and

00:38:50.774 --> 00:38:53.250
basically hauled a lot
of the Trinitite off

00:38:53.250 --> 00:38:54.617
and filled in the rest of it.

00:38:54.617 --> 00:38:56.508
And as he states there,

00:38:56.508 --> 00:38:58.320
that if he had known they
were gonna fill it in,

00:38:58.320 --> 00:39:00.267
he would've picked up much more.

00:39:00.267 --> 00:39:02.610
- [Voiceover] After the atomic test,

00:39:02.610 --> 00:39:04.890
the scientists find the
desert at ground zero

00:39:04.890 --> 00:39:08.691
turned to glass. The
earth lowered nine feet.

00:39:10.080 --> 00:39:12.401
- [Allison] Trinitite is
what the sand turned to

00:39:12.401 --> 00:39:15.143
during the first atomic test in history,

00:39:15.143 --> 00:39:16.833
when they detonated
the first nuclear bomb,

00:39:16.833 --> 00:39:20.341
July 16th of 1945 at...

00:39:20.341 --> 00:39:24.350
it says on my card 5:30 AM,
and most people say that,

00:39:24.350 --> 00:39:28.260
but it actually was at
5:29 and 45 seconds.

00:39:28.260 --> 00:39:30.540
But the military's about the only ones

00:39:30.540 --> 00:39:32.940
that cared about that 15 seconds.

00:39:32.940 --> 00:39:34.440
But I've talked to several people,

00:39:34.440 --> 00:39:37.230
like William Rye was one
of the ranchers out here

00:39:37.230 --> 00:39:38.941
that watched it --

00:39:38.941 --> 00:39:41.040
actually stepped outside of the house

00:39:41.040 --> 00:39:42.690
when they did the test.

00:39:42.690 --> 00:39:47.690
And all of his hair and beard
and everything turned white.

00:39:49.080 --> 00:39:52.350
It grew back in normal, through time.

00:39:52.350 --> 00:39:54.060
But like all the animals out here,

00:39:54.060 --> 00:39:59.060
the sides of them facing the
blast--like bunny rabbits,

00:39:59.190 --> 00:40:01.320
mice, I guess,

00:40:01.320 --> 00:40:04.470
I know of a cat, and cows --

00:40:04.470 --> 00:40:08.310
the sides of them facing
the explosion turned white.

00:40:08.310 --> 00:40:10.500
And they always say, of course,

00:40:10.500 --> 00:40:12.060
it was the day the sun rose twice,

00:40:12.060 --> 00:40:15.619
because it came up before the sun came up.

00:40:15.619 --> 00:40:19.086
- We knew the world would not be the same.

00:40:20.697 --> 00:40:23.173
Few people laughed.

00:40:24.930 --> 00:40:29.563
Few people cried. Most people were silent.

00:40:32.040 --> 00:40:35.910
I remembered the line
from the Hindu scripture,

00:40:35.910 --> 00:40:37.740
the Bhagavad Gita.

00:40:40.560 --> 00:40:43.960
Vishnu

00:40:43.960 --> 00:40:46.384
is trying to persuade the prince

00:40:46.384 --> 00:40:50.549
that he should do his duty,

00:40:50.549 --> 00:40:55.549
and to impress him, takes
on his multi-armed form,

00:40:57.012 --> 00:40:58.687
and says,

00:40:58.687 --> 00:41:03.217
"Now I am become death,
the destroyer of worlds."

00:41:05.370 --> 00:41:08.340
I suppose we all thought
that, one way or another.

00:41:08.340 --> 00:41:10.940
- There's an interview with
my uncle who's now gone,

00:41:12.180 --> 00:41:14.490
where he says, "I guess
they thought we were nothing

00:41:14.490 --> 00:41:16.050
but a bunch of Mexicans and Indians,

00:41:16.050 --> 00:41:18.450
and they could spare a few."

00:41:18.450 --> 00:41:21.000
And that's how people feel about this.

00:41:21.000 --> 00:41:23.850
It's exactly how we feel about it.

00:41:23.850 --> 00:41:25.830
I say all the time now,

00:41:25.830 --> 00:41:28.935
they had to dehumanize us to do this.

00:41:28.935 --> 00:41:31.140
How could you harm somebody else,

00:41:31.140 --> 00:41:35.513
so blatantly harm somebody else
-- and not just the person,

00:41:35.513 --> 00:41:38.730
but, for generations --

00:41:38.730 --> 00:41:43.560
and be able to do that without
some level of, you know,

00:41:43.560 --> 00:41:48.560
some level of looking at them
as subhuman or less than?

00:41:48.570 --> 00:41:50.340
- It's another chapter,

00:41:50.340 --> 00:41:54.089
the ongoing chapter of

00:41:54.089 --> 00:41:57.780
what people have done

00:41:57.780 --> 00:41:59.130
to other peoples,

00:41:59.130 --> 00:42:02.490
people that they feel aren't their equal,

00:42:02.490 --> 00:42:04.730
or their equivalent.

00:42:04.730 --> 00:42:06.053
- Somewhere along the line,

00:42:06.053 --> 00:42:09.810
it was decided that New
Mexico is a sacrifice zone.

00:42:09.810 --> 00:42:11.458
And when I say that, what I mean is

00:42:11.458 --> 00:42:13.860
we have the whole cradle to grave process

00:42:13.860 --> 00:42:15.540
taking place here,

00:42:15.540 --> 00:42:18.990
where we open up the earth
and we extract uranium.

00:42:18.990 --> 00:42:22.350
There's over 500 abandoned uranium mines

00:42:22.350 --> 00:42:24.810
between the Navajo Nation,
Laguna and Acoma Pueblo.

00:42:24.810 --> 00:42:29.220
The largest uranium mine is
in Paguate in Laguna Pueblo,

00:42:29.220 --> 00:42:31.980
right in the middle of their pueblo.

00:42:31.980 --> 00:42:33.990
All of these places are Superfund sites.

00:42:33.990 --> 00:42:37.410
They took 32 million tons
of uranium out of the earth.

00:42:37.410 --> 00:42:40.458
Imagine the extraction
of that much material.

00:42:40.458 --> 00:42:43.458
(synth music)

00:44:51.082 --> 00:44:53.640
- [Phil] See that? That's the mine there.

00:44:53.640 --> 00:44:57.060
That's the shaft there, and
you can see the ore waste.

00:44:57.060 --> 00:44:59.610
That's the ore waste there.

00:44:59.610 --> 00:45:02.790
The mining stopped here in 1966,

00:45:02.790 --> 00:45:07.790
and through '70, through
'80, through 1990,

00:45:07.890 --> 00:45:08.880
close to 2000,

00:45:08.880 --> 00:45:13.230
they finally remediated some
of these abandoned mines.

00:45:13.230 --> 00:45:17.430
So for over 30 years, just
imagine how much water

00:45:17.430 --> 00:45:19.140
had drifted back into these mines,

00:45:19.140 --> 00:45:21.510
horizontal mines, or the shaft,

00:45:21.510 --> 00:45:24.750
that ended up in the
aquifers out on the flat.

00:45:24.750 --> 00:45:26.808
- [Voiceover] Recently, vast deposits

00:45:26.808 --> 00:45:30.540
of uranium have been
discovered in the Navajo Hills.

00:45:30.540 --> 00:45:32.550
This rare natural resource

00:45:32.550 --> 00:45:35.070
is becoming increasingly important

00:45:35.070 --> 00:45:37.729
in the development of atomic power.

00:45:38.670 --> 00:45:41.340
Royalties from the uranium
mines are providing

00:45:41.340 --> 00:45:44.100
much needed cash for the Navajo prospector

00:45:44.100 --> 00:45:45.790
and for the tribe.

00:45:46.920 --> 00:45:51.261
The hills resound with the
whir of modern machinery.

00:45:53.310 --> 00:45:57.060
Many of the Navajo men are
employed in the uranium mines,

00:45:57.060 --> 00:46:00.270
where they are valued as
conscientious workers.

00:46:00.270 --> 00:46:02.100
Day by day, they take their places

00:46:02.100 --> 00:46:03.990
in operating power machinery

00:46:03.990 --> 00:46:06.333
and the numerous other
jobs about the mines.

00:46:07.560 --> 00:46:11.400
- Other parts of Navajo
Nation, they came to work here.

00:46:11.400 --> 00:46:14.340
Some came up on horseback,
some came up on their trucks,

00:46:14.340 --> 00:46:16.440
some came up on dump trucks.

00:46:16.440 --> 00:46:21.440
And so, this was seriously
populated. A lot of people.

00:46:21.503 --> 00:46:24.000
My father was one of them.

00:46:24.000 --> 00:46:26.670
He started mining here over on that side,

00:46:26.670 --> 00:46:28.604
it's called Mesa 1.

00:46:28.604 --> 00:46:31.230
Where we're at right now is Mesa 5.

00:46:31.230 --> 00:46:34.830
As we go that way, I think
it extends to Mesa 7.

00:46:34.830 --> 00:46:37.260
James was a young man then.

00:46:37.260 --> 00:46:39.735
His father probably also worked...

00:46:39.735 --> 00:46:42.330
His father was Frank Smith Senior.

00:46:42.330 --> 00:46:46.290
He's the one that brought the
issue to a community meeting

00:46:46.290 --> 00:46:50.340
and said, "Look, all these
men that engaged in mining

00:46:50.340 --> 00:46:51.690
are dying, they're sick.

00:46:51.690 --> 00:46:52.815
Something needs to be done."

00:46:54.238 --> 00:46:58.013
(James speaks Navajo)

00:47:28.716 --> 00:47:29.549
- [Phil] Okay.

00:47:30.750 --> 00:47:34.495
What James is saying is that
when you go see a doctor,

00:47:35.700 --> 00:47:38.910
the doctors will ignore your exposure,

00:47:38.910 --> 00:47:41.160
that you're a former uranium worker.

00:47:41.160 --> 00:47:43.867
They will ignore that.
And they will tell you,

00:47:43.867 --> 00:47:46.350
"You're just getting
old, you're an elderly.

00:47:46.350 --> 00:47:47.400
These are natural --

00:47:47.400 --> 00:47:49.320
the sicknesses that you have are natural,

00:47:49.320 --> 00:47:51.187
that you're getting old."

00:47:51.187 --> 00:47:55.350
And those are how he has been treated,

00:47:55.350 --> 00:47:59.730
and they don't address
where he came in for.

00:47:59.730 --> 00:48:03.480
His mining days and his exposure,

00:48:03.480 --> 00:48:06.270
the illnesses that he
has is being ignored,

00:48:06.270 --> 00:48:08.130
and he doesn't get treated for it.

00:48:08.130 --> 00:48:10.426
I think that same goes for everybody.

00:48:11.414 --> 00:48:13.997
(upbeat music)

00:48:14.938 --> 00:48:16.440
- [Voiceover] Our country is dependent

00:48:16.440 --> 00:48:18.180
upon the uranium industry,

00:48:18.180 --> 00:48:21.960
and the uranium miners for
a continuing adequate supply

00:48:21.960 --> 00:48:23.766
of this magic element.

00:48:31.920 --> 00:48:34.620
The magic of uranium
stems from its property

00:48:34.620 --> 00:48:36.360
of radioactivity.

00:48:36.360 --> 00:48:38.520
It is this same property, however,

00:48:38.520 --> 00:48:40.260
that endangers the health of workers

00:48:40.260 --> 00:48:42.690
who mine and handle uranium.

00:48:42.690 --> 00:48:45.720
Therefore, special
precautions must be taken

00:48:45.720 --> 00:48:48.270
to protect uranium miners from exposure

00:48:48.270 --> 00:48:50.550
to excessive radioactivity.

00:48:50.550 --> 00:48:53.970
- Families used to live
here for so many years.

00:48:53.970 --> 00:48:58.970
They were never, never told
about the dangers of mining.

00:48:59.059 --> 00:49:02.040
They were never told,
"Don't go in the mine,

00:49:02.040 --> 00:49:03.930
don't drink that water."

00:49:03.930 --> 00:49:07.260
And they used dynamite boxes
for the dish cupboards,

00:49:07.260 --> 00:49:11.100
and they used used vent
bags for their curtains.

00:49:11.100 --> 00:49:14.490
And they used mining rocks
to build foundations.

00:49:14.490 --> 00:49:17.520
And they consumed contaminated water.

00:49:17.520 --> 00:49:20.730
My mother was telling me
that on that side, Mesa 7,

00:49:20.730 --> 00:49:22.500
we used to live there,

00:49:22.500 --> 00:49:24.390
and we used to get water from the mine,

00:49:24.390 --> 00:49:28.380
and my mom would use baby powder

00:49:28.380 --> 00:49:31.770
mixed with mine water
to make milk formula,

00:49:31.770 --> 00:49:33.750
and feed it to my little brother.

00:49:33.750 --> 00:49:36.600
He was six months old when he died,

00:49:36.600 --> 00:49:40.050
and -- hurt from stomach
ailment or stomach issues.

00:49:40.050 --> 00:49:43.830
So, she literally just
contaminated my little brother.

00:49:43.830 --> 00:49:46.230
And just imagine how
many others, you know?

00:49:46.230 --> 00:49:47.970
People don't really
talk about it these days

00:49:47.970 --> 00:49:51.586
because, you know, they want
to leave the stories behind.

00:49:51.586 --> 00:49:53.601
You know, they're still grieving.

00:49:54.630 --> 00:49:57.300
- [Voiceover] About
1921, an early suspicion

00:49:57.300 --> 00:50:00.180
of the danger of radiation
from radon and its daughters

00:50:00.180 --> 00:50:04.872
came from Europe, where uranium
and radium were being mined.

00:50:04.872 --> 00:50:07.560
(jaunty string music)

00:50:07.560 --> 00:50:10.200
In one district, where radon
daughter concentrations

00:50:10.200 --> 00:50:13.215
were very high, and mine
ventilation was poor,

00:50:13.215 --> 00:50:16.230
about half of the deaths
among underground miners

00:50:16.230 --> 00:50:17.970
was from cancer.

00:50:17.970 --> 00:50:19.410
Records are not available,

00:50:19.410 --> 00:50:22.950
but it is assumed that early
American uranium miners

00:50:22.950 --> 00:50:25.677
had a similar exposure to radon daughters.

00:50:27.578 --> 00:50:30.690
- The authorities, the federal,

00:50:30.690 --> 00:50:33.990
all these institutions that study uranium,

00:50:33.990 --> 00:50:36.060
the Center for Disease Control,

00:50:36.060 --> 00:50:39.120
the National Institute of Health,

00:50:39.120 --> 00:50:41.550
They already knew that
this was going to happen,

00:50:41.550 --> 00:50:43.200
but they never told us that.

00:50:43.200 --> 00:50:45.770
They knew the consequences already.

00:50:47.670 --> 00:50:50.456
Wow, who took this picture, James?

00:50:50.456 --> 00:50:53.910
(Phil and James speaking Navajo)

00:50:53.910 --> 00:50:55.290
- [Phil] 1971.

00:50:55.290 --> 00:50:59.130
So this is Mesa 1, as
you're looking that way.

00:50:59.130 --> 00:51:01.290
So this could be that one right there.

00:51:01.290 --> 00:51:03.685
The mountain in the back. Okay.

00:51:03.685 --> 00:51:07.093
And this one here, this one here is...

00:51:07.093 --> 00:51:11.760
(James speaks Navajo)

00:51:11.760 --> 00:51:16.755
- [Phil] ...across the hill.
And that's James, there.

00:51:18.630 --> 00:51:22.579
- [James] When you come into the office,

00:51:22.579 --> 00:51:24.817
ask for the job,

00:51:24.817 --> 00:51:27.089
"Okay.

00:51:27.089 --> 00:51:32.089
Your name, how old are
you, your kids, your wife."

00:51:33.319 --> 00:51:37.443
Only three questions they have...

00:51:37.443 --> 00:51:41.140
will put to work in the mine.

00:51:42.150 --> 00:51:43.858
Now,

00:51:43.858 --> 00:51:48.858
we ask all back to Washington,

00:51:49.015 --> 00:51:50.962
"Can you help me?

00:51:50.962 --> 00:51:55.920
I'm hurt all over my body and damaged.

00:51:55.920 --> 00:51:58.317
Can you help me? Can you see?"

00:51:59.422 --> 00:52:02.375
Then they told me,

00:52:03.642 --> 00:52:07.045
"This one, your name, everything..."

00:52:07.045 --> 00:52:10.367
Questions, lots of questions.

00:52:10.367 --> 00:52:15.342
And they give us the
paper, about 20 pages.

00:52:15.342 --> 00:52:19.380
This, "sign," all "sign this."

00:52:19.380 --> 00:52:23.122
So that's what they're
doing there now, Washington,

00:52:23.122 --> 00:52:25.207
those people.

00:52:25.207 --> 00:52:27.270
- They were very reckless.

00:52:27.270 --> 00:52:30.810
They were reckless, and
they destroyed our land,

00:52:30.810 --> 00:52:33.120
they did away with our fathers,

00:52:33.120 --> 00:52:35.062
they killed a lot of people,

00:52:35.062 --> 00:52:36.810
in the form of genocide --

00:52:36.810 --> 00:52:38.580
that's the way I seen it.

00:52:38.580 --> 00:52:40.502
- [Voiceover] The chief
interest of the Navajo

00:52:40.502 --> 00:52:44.310
is the land, for essentially,
he is an agriculturalist

00:52:44.310 --> 00:52:46.043
and stockman.

00:52:48.720 --> 00:52:50.400
The Navajos love the soil

00:52:50.400 --> 00:52:52.800
from which they earn their livelihood,

00:52:52.800 --> 00:52:56.340
and the various animals,
the horses, sheep, and goats

00:52:56.340 --> 00:52:58.020
they raise on the land.

00:52:58.020 --> 00:53:02.347
- You know, our land will
never be in that pristine --

00:53:02.347 --> 00:53:03.540
before the mining.

00:53:03.540 --> 00:53:06.690
It'll never happen. It
will remain this way.

00:53:06.690 --> 00:53:08.610
Those scars will be there.

00:53:08.610 --> 00:53:10.951
Contamination...

00:53:10.951 --> 00:53:13.170
It looks like it rained here quite a bit.

00:53:13.170 --> 00:53:16.350
Just imagine how much contamination
is down the creek here.

00:53:16.350 --> 00:53:20.940
That's the reason why people
don't farm no more down below.

00:53:20.940 --> 00:53:23.490
Before that, I knew people were farming.

00:53:23.490 --> 00:53:25.770
They were working the land.

00:53:25.770 --> 00:53:28.446
But nowadays, you don't
see anybody planting.

00:53:28.446 --> 00:53:32.529
(Phil and James speaking Navajo)

00:53:44.490 --> 00:53:45.810
- [Phil] Okay.

00:53:45.810 --> 00:53:48.150
James was saying that
before the mining started,

00:53:48.150 --> 00:53:50.910
they had natural springs up here.

00:53:50.910 --> 00:53:52.650
And then, after the mining,

00:53:52.650 --> 00:53:55.050
then all that water is contaminated now.

00:53:55.050 --> 00:53:59.970
- [voiceover] Navajos
love their great outdoors.

00:53:59.970 --> 00:54:02.640
They cultivate and harvest
the crops in the fields

00:54:02.640 --> 00:54:07.640
under the life-giving sunshine,
the broad open prairies.

00:54:07.939 --> 00:54:11.022
(gentle music)

00:54:11.880 --> 00:54:13.950
The awe-inspiring mountain peaks,

00:54:13.950 --> 00:54:16.533
the hills and valleys of their ancestors.

00:54:17.970 --> 00:54:21.361
- Going back... the...

00:54:21.361 --> 00:54:23.810
way back in the 1800s, I guess,

00:54:23.810 --> 00:54:26.310
people were trying to survive

00:54:26.310 --> 00:54:29.042
and they had seen foreigners in the area.

00:54:29.042 --> 00:54:33.449
So even back then, there was...

00:54:33.449 --> 00:54:35.840
what do you call it, terrorism,

00:54:35.840 --> 00:54:37.560
that was happening.

00:54:37.560 --> 00:54:41.165
So, it just so happened that
the Navajos got blamed for

00:54:41.165 --> 00:54:45.230
raiding other people,
raiding other tribes,

00:54:47.100 --> 00:54:49.946
fending off Westerners.

00:54:49.946 --> 00:54:52.695
It came to a point where they were held,

00:54:52.695 --> 00:54:55.320
driven to Fort Sumner,

00:54:55.320 --> 00:54:59.311
where they were in prison, captivity,

00:54:59.311 --> 00:55:01.530
for almost five years.

00:55:01.530 --> 00:55:02.940
And I understand through history

00:55:02.940 --> 00:55:06.390
that one of the soldiers
there, white soldiers,

00:55:06.390 --> 00:55:08.077
said, "We're still here at Fort Sumner.

00:55:08.077 --> 00:55:10.740
I don't know why we're
guarding these people.

00:55:10.740 --> 00:55:12.348
We don't know what they did."

00:55:12.348 --> 00:55:14.181
A soldier saying that.

00:55:14.181 --> 00:55:17.045
But they were guarding the Navajos

00:55:17.045 --> 00:55:19.290
that were in prison, captivity.

00:55:19.290 --> 00:55:21.303
They call this the Long Walk.

00:55:21.303 --> 00:55:24.519
Finally, our elders,

00:55:24.519 --> 00:55:27.310
supposedly some of them were leaders,

00:55:27.310 --> 00:55:31.135
Chief Manuelito, Chief Narbona,

00:55:31.135 --> 00:55:33.401
and others,

00:55:33.401 --> 00:55:37.470
and they entered into an agreement.

00:55:37.470 --> 00:55:40.794
There was a lack of...

00:55:40.794 --> 00:55:42.180
probably of personal hygiene,

00:55:42.180 --> 00:55:44.146
a lack of food,

00:55:44.146 --> 00:55:45.768
so there came a day where they said,

00:55:45.768 --> 00:55:47.516
"We're going to let you go,

00:55:47.516 --> 00:55:51.534
provided that you're going
to abide by this treaty,

00:55:51.534 --> 00:55:53.940
that the federal government
will also provide you

00:55:53.940 --> 00:55:57.263
with health, education, and protection.

00:55:57.263 --> 00:55:59.730
And you're going to go
back to your homeland.

00:55:59.730 --> 00:56:04.730
You're not going to be
able to handle arms again.

00:56:05.040 --> 00:56:07.950
That will be forbidden
for you to do that."

00:56:07.950 --> 00:56:12.441
And... so, they signed a treaty,

00:56:12.441 --> 00:56:14.199
with an X.

00:56:14.199 --> 00:56:16.987
So they were -- they moved back.

00:56:16.987 --> 00:56:21.487
They were packed with covered
wagons, some animals, goods.

00:56:21.487 --> 00:56:25.440
They came back. They seen
Mount Taylor out in Grants.

00:56:25.440 --> 00:56:28.200
I understand a lot of
Navajos, they seen their land,

00:56:28.200 --> 00:56:29.617
they cried.

00:56:29.617 --> 00:56:32.130
"There's our land, we're headed back."

00:56:32.130 --> 00:56:33.938
There was so much happiness.

00:56:33.938 --> 00:56:35.222
- [Voiceover] The Navajo tribe

00:56:35.222 --> 00:56:36.547
is unusually fortunate

00:56:36.547 --> 00:56:38.670
in having been placed by the government

00:56:38.670 --> 00:56:40.440
on a reservation of the same land

00:56:40.440 --> 00:56:43.770
in which their native way
of life was developed.

00:56:43.770 --> 00:56:47.280
Their wisdom, in taking over
only those useful things

00:56:47.280 --> 00:56:49.830
that fit in with this traditional life,

00:56:49.830 --> 00:56:52.770
accounts for much of this
Indian people's success

00:56:52.770 --> 00:56:55.680
in adjusting to the changes brought about

00:56:55.680 --> 00:56:57.991
by the coming of the white man.

00:56:58.858 --> 00:57:03.210
- They moved back out
here, they settled back.

00:57:03.210 --> 00:57:07.890
In no time, the Navajos are
considered as being resilient,

00:57:07.890 --> 00:57:11.943
hard workers, ranchers, farmers.

00:57:12.900 --> 00:57:14.316
In no time,

00:57:15.475 --> 00:57:17.910
they...

00:57:17.910 --> 00:57:21.270
they sprouted, they diversified.

00:57:21.270 --> 00:57:24.701
They were able to live their life again.

00:57:25.680 --> 00:57:28.410
And the kids were sent
to boarding schools.

00:57:28.410 --> 00:57:30.600
I went to a boarding school.

00:57:30.600 --> 00:57:32.310
- [Voiceover] As a new term starts

00:57:32.310 --> 00:57:34.800
at Shiprock Boarding School,

00:57:34.800 --> 00:57:38.403
our conflicting worlds are clearly shown.

00:57:39.240 --> 00:57:40.560
For the children,

00:57:40.560 --> 00:57:45.390
there are nine months away
from the vital family circle,

00:57:45.390 --> 00:57:47.940
as they learn new ideas,

00:57:47.940 --> 00:57:52.256
which their elders will not understand.

00:57:53.310 --> 00:57:55.410
At the morning flag raising,

00:57:55.410 --> 00:57:59.138
Robert saw his first American flag.

00:58:01.530 --> 00:58:04.700
He liked its shining brightness.

00:58:06.660 --> 00:58:09.960
The teacher told of strange things,

00:58:09.960 --> 00:58:14.953
about a city called Washington,
and about a president.

00:58:16.290 --> 00:58:18.202
Robert liked the charts,

00:58:18.202 --> 00:58:21.305
for he could not speak English yet.

00:58:27.390 --> 00:58:29.790
As the noon meal was served,

00:58:29.790 --> 00:58:34.140
the children were taught to give thanks.

00:58:34.140 --> 00:58:37.256
- We were forbidden to
talk our Navajo language.

00:58:38.852 --> 00:58:41.868
If you get caught talking
your own language,

00:58:41.868 --> 00:58:44.490
you will stand in the corner for hours.

00:58:44.490 --> 00:58:48.300
At times, I understand they
washed your mouth with soap.

00:58:48.300 --> 00:58:50.490
There was a lot of abuse
that was taking place

00:58:50.490 --> 00:58:52.448
at these boarding schools.

00:58:53.686 --> 00:58:55.602
And...

00:58:56.494 --> 00:58:59.910
and that same language,
when the war broke out,

00:58:59.910 --> 00:59:02.160
along with the Cold War era,

00:59:02.160 --> 00:59:04.500
where the mining, all of
that, that was taking place

00:59:04.500 --> 00:59:06.817
and then the war broke out,

00:59:09.113 --> 00:59:14.113
a general, or high brass,

00:59:14.280 --> 00:59:16.160
Johnston, I think is his name,

00:59:16.160 --> 00:59:19.470
grew up in Navajo land,
down here in western Navajo,

00:59:19.470 --> 00:59:21.988
east of Flagstaff.

00:59:21.988 --> 00:59:24.360
His parents,

00:59:24.360 --> 00:59:28.244
his grandparents, were
trading post owners.

00:59:28.244 --> 00:59:33.244
So this colonel, or
general, was a little boy,

00:59:33.600 --> 00:59:35.261
living among the Navajos.

00:59:35.261 --> 00:59:37.435
He happened to be in the military.

00:59:37.435 --> 00:59:38.727
He went in the military and said,

00:59:38.727 --> 00:59:42.450
"Hey, I live among the Navajos,

00:59:42.450 --> 00:59:44.460
let's go recruit them."

00:59:44.460 --> 00:59:47.859
So, that's how the Navajos

00:59:47.859 --> 00:59:50.209
got their rifle back.

00:59:50.209 --> 00:59:53.220
They were forbidden to carry firearms.

00:59:53.220 --> 00:59:58.200
They were asked to come join
the Marines, be code talkers.

00:59:58.200 --> 01:00:02.100
The language that we
were forbidden to use --

01:00:02.100 --> 01:00:06.300
they trained to be code
talkers, the Marine Corps.

01:00:06.300 --> 01:00:11.028
And that's how the Japanese
could not take apart

01:00:11.028 --> 01:00:12.651
their language.

01:00:12.651 --> 01:00:17.651
So, what I'm saying is
that we played a key role

01:00:17.880 --> 01:00:20.130
in defending our land.

01:00:20.130 --> 01:00:21.930
The rest of the western world,

01:00:21.930 --> 01:00:25.170
they could lay back and
pursue American dream,

01:00:25.170 --> 01:00:29.101
while the federal
government did harm to us.

01:00:29.101 --> 01:00:30.786
I served in the military.

01:00:30.786 --> 01:00:33.810
I did my share of peeling potatoes,

01:00:33.810 --> 01:00:38.218
working in the kitchen, KP,

01:00:38.218 --> 01:00:39.630
cleaning latrines.

01:00:39.630 --> 01:00:41.610
Took an oath.

01:00:41.610 --> 01:00:45.272
But they never covered us
back, they never delivered.

01:00:45.272 --> 01:00:46.738
- [Voiceover] 21 days after

01:00:46.738 --> 01:00:48.521
the New Mexico dress rehearsal,

01:00:48.521 --> 01:00:53.521
a lone B29 was over Hiroshima,
carrying an atomic bomb.

01:00:53.610 --> 01:00:57.330
At 8:15 in the morning of
August 6th, Japanese time,

01:00:57.330 --> 01:00:59.943
the first atomic bomb hit an enemy target.

01:01:01.050 --> 01:01:02.880
Within a mile of zero point,

01:01:02.880 --> 01:01:04.945
the devastation speaks for itself.

01:01:07.593 --> 01:01:09.300
But in these very ruins,

01:01:09.300 --> 01:01:12.330
army cameramen have found
and filmed pictorial evidence

01:01:12.330 --> 01:01:14.910
that tells in twisted steel and stone

01:01:14.910 --> 01:01:17.311
the effect of death-dealing atomic power.

01:01:18.539 --> 01:01:20.760
- I was in the Navy, in
training for three months,

01:01:20.760 --> 01:01:25.679
and it wasn't -- right away,
I got assigned to a ship,

01:01:25.679 --> 01:01:30.679
and... away I went to Hawaii,

01:01:30.695 --> 01:01:32.286
and then to Japan.

01:01:32.286 --> 01:01:34.380
And I was all over --
the Philippine islands

01:01:34.380 --> 01:01:35.970
and all around the area there,

01:01:35.970 --> 01:01:38.394
Korea and everywhere, you know?

01:01:41.550 --> 01:01:42.750
When I was there,

01:01:42.750 --> 01:01:45.840
I made sure I went all over Japan,

01:01:45.840 --> 01:01:49.380
places where the bombs hit.

01:01:49.380 --> 01:01:51.120
I wanted to see what it looked like.

01:01:51.120 --> 01:01:55.225
Man, and there's places, it
was still bare, nothing on 'em.

01:01:55.225 --> 01:01:59.700
And, where I saw one of the
-- where one of the bombs hit,

01:01:59.700 --> 01:02:04.700
it was still a pit there
that hadn't been filled.

01:02:04.740 --> 01:02:07.972
- My dad, now, he was a...

01:02:07.972 --> 01:02:12.839
was a Navy man during World War II.

01:02:12.839 --> 01:02:14.790
He was Army World War I,

01:02:14.790 --> 01:02:16.560
Navy World War II.

01:02:16.560 --> 01:02:20.790
And he was on one ship that went down,

01:02:20.790 --> 01:02:23.298
and he...

01:02:23.298 --> 01:02:24.464
he won't, to this --

01:02:24.464 --> 01:02:26.322
well he's not around anymore,

01:02:26.322 --> 01:02:29.070
but he wouldn't buy a Japanese car.

01:02:29.070 --> 01:02:32.580
He ran my brother out of the yard one day

01:02:32.580 --> 01:02:33.990
because he was driving a Volvo,

01:02:33.990 --> 01:02:35.490
and he said, "I didn't care much

01:02:35.490 --> 01:02:38.280
for those pacifist SOBs either," you know?

01:02:38.280 --> 01:02:41.630
And that's just the way he was...

01:02:41.630 --> 01:02:45.777
But, they personally did no harm to me.

01:02:45.777 --> 01:02:50.777
That misguided allegiance to a...

01:02:51.251 --> 01:02:54.684
screwed up bunch of people
running the country,

01:02:54.684 --> 01:02:57.425
all military.

01:02:58.470 --> 01:03:00.180
- [Voiceover] It was
evident that atomic power

01:03:00.180 --> 01:03:04.260
to break the enemy, must
become a tale of two cities.

01:03:04.260 --> 01:03:08.423
Nagasaki was selected to
become target city number two.

01:03:08.423 --> 01:03:10.950
At 10:58, the morning of August 9th,

01:03:10.950 --> 01:03:12.870
the bomb was exploded above the city,

01:03:12.870 --> 01:03:14.670
and in the towering mushroom,

01:03:14.670 --> 01:03:16.560
Japan could read its doom.

01:03:16.560 --> 01:03:19.950
- She was just talking to
these people that came from...

01:03:19.950 --> 01:03:22.200
She talked to them Tuesday.

01:03:22.200 --> 01:03:23.042
These are Japanese,

01:03:23.042 --> 01:03:26.260
they spoke very little English,

01:03:26.260 --> 01:03:29.070
and they're from -- they live in New York,

01:03:29.070 --> 01:03:31.710
they caught a plane,
landed here yesterday,

01:03:31.710 --> 01:03:33.570
and they're here today.

01:03:33.570 --> 01:03:35.650
Wanted to know everything
about what happened,

01:03:35.650 --> 01:03:37.537
so they could take it back home,

01:03:37.537 --> 01:03:40.770
so they could understand
what happened here,

01:03:40.770 --> 01:03:44.868
and what it did to them in Japan.

01:03:44.868 --> 01:03:47.334
- You know, when I went, you know...

01:03:47.334 --> 01:03:50.520
that many years later,

01:03:50.520 --> 01:03:52.537
they said, "Don't talk,

01:03:52.537 --> 01:03:55.680
don't say nothing about that atomic bombs

01:03:55.680 --> 01:03:56.895
that we dropped on them.

01:03:56.895 --> 01:03:59.407
Don't even speak about 'em."

01:03:59.407 --> 01:04:03.600
I just wanted to see what the
damage looked like, you know?

01:04:03.600 --> 01:04:08.430
And I'm telling you, it was terrible.

01:04:08.430 --> 01:04:10.377
- It just bothers me that, you know,

01:04:10.377 --> 01:04:13.503
it could go out of control real easy.

01:04:16.710 --> 01:04:20.970
You know, that goes back to
my time in the Marine Corps.

01:04:20.970 --> 01:04:23.096
I don't have any fear of death.

01:04:25.505 --> 01:04:26.910
I'm Christian,

01:04:26.910 --> 01:04:29.280
and joining the Marine Corps --

01:04:29.280 --> 01:04:32.070
I wanted to be a Marine all my life.

01:04:32.070 --> 01:04:33.895
And so I did.

01:04:34.770 --> 01:04:39.746
And -- it's something
that they put in you.

01:04:41.280 --> 01:04:44.190
It changes your personality

01:04:44.190 --> 01:04:48.862
and you've got to be
willing to accept the order

01:04:48.862 --> 01:04:50.943
without question.

01:04:50.943 --> 01:04:53.892
You know, and...

01:04:53.892 --> 01:04:54.725
so...

01:04:56.610 --> 01:05:01.610
like I said, I don't
have any fear of dying,

01:05:01.890 --> 01:05:04.790
not in combat or out here,

01:05:04.790 --> 01:05:06.775
but to be fried by a nuke?

01:05:06.775 --> 01:05:09.855
I don't think I want that.

01:05:11.126 --> 01:05:12.886
- I looked at all the people,

01:05:12.886 --> 01:05:16.590
and a lot of them still
had wrinkles on their face,

01:05:16.590 --> 01:05:20.068
and some on their hands,
you know, and arms...

01:05:20.068 --> 01:05:22.960
from the blast, you know,

01:05:22.960 --> 01:05:26.109
the atomic explosion,

01:05:26.109 --> 01:05:28.095
from the bomb,

01:05:28.095 --> 01:05:31.728
and it left them all marked up, you know?

01:05:31.728 --> 01:05:32.561
A lot of people.

01:05:32.561 --> 01:05:35.283
And I saw a lot of
people myself, you know?

01:05:41.100 --> 01:05:44.250
- We have spent more
than two billion dollars

01:05:44.250 --> 01:05:47.820
on the greatest scientific
gamble in history.

01:05:47.820 --> 01:05:50.251
And we have won.

01:05:50.251 --> 01:05:54.210
But the greatest marvel is not
the size of the enterprise,

01:05:54.210 --> 01:05:57.330
its secrecy, or its cost,

01:05:57.330 --> 01:06:02.330
but the achievement of scientific
brains in making it work.

01:06:02.365 --> 01:06:06.420
And hardly less marvelous has
been the capacity of industry

01:06:06.420 --> 01:06:07.950
to design,

01:06:07.950 --> 01:06:12.150
and of labor to operate
the machines and methods

01:06:12.150 --> 01:06:15.780
to do things never done before.

01:06:15.780 --> 01:06:19.140
Both science and industry worked together

01:06:19.140 --> 01:06:22.350
under the direction of
the United States Army,

01:06:22.350 --> 01:06:24.992
which achieved a unique success

01:06:24.992 --> 01:06:28.560
in an amazingly short time.

01:06:28.560 --> 01:06:32.220
It is doubtful if such another combination

01:06:32.220 --> 01:06:35.010
could be got together in the world.

01:06:35.010 --> 01:06:38.671
What has been done is
the greatest achievement

01:06:38.671 --> 01:06:42.479
of organized science in history.

01:06:43.779 --> 01:06:45.929
(synth music)

01:09:23.533 --> 01:09:25.257
- Sometimes I measure all these things

01:09:25.257 --> 01:09:29.790
in that idea that plutonium
has a half life of 24,000 years

01:09:29.790 --> 01:09:32.370
or 7,000 generations.

01:09:32.370 --> 01:09:36.868
And, you know, when I
think in those terms,

01:09:36.868 --> 01:09:39.385
there's no way that I can,

01:09:39.385 --> 01:09:41.550
you know, there's no way that
I can wrap my mind around it,

01:09:41.550 --> 01:09:45.375
that I can reconcile how...

01:09:45.375 --> 01:09:47.491
how anybody thought it was okay

01:09:47.491 --> 01:09:49.900
to do these kinds of things here.

01:09:49.900 --> 01:09:53.670
You know, we lived these
very simple but full lives.

01:09:53.670 --> 01:09:54.840
We had everything we needed.

01:09:54.840 --> 01:09:59.206
We had the running rivers,
we had fertile soil...

01:09:59.206 --> 01:10:01.146
You know, we had
everything that we needed,

01:10:01.146 --> 01:10:03.512
and it was all invaded.

01:10:03.512 --> 01:10:05.940
Our environment was invaded
and our lives were invaded,

01:10:05.940 --> 01:10:08.490
and nothing's ever been the same.

01:10:08.490 --> 01:10:10.803
And we've never lived normal lives.

01:10:12.679 --> 01:10:16.028
- I'm sure glad

01:10:16.028 --> 01:10:18.178
that I don't have the burden of...

01:10:19.844 --> 01:10:20.677
of...

01:10:24.197 --> 01:10:29.100
exchanging mental wits
with the country over here

01:10:29.100 --> 01:10:34.100
that's got nuclear
capability just like we do...

01:10:34.584 --> 01:10:38.186
You know, almost anything
could touch it off.

01:10:42.610 --> 01:10:45.570
We're in a very, very dangerous era,

01:10:45.570 --> 01:10:50.570
and we have to put trust in someone,

01:10:50.640 --> 01:10:53.790
and this same someone is the one

01:10:53.790 --> 01:10:56.785
that don't care about their own people.

01:10:56.785 --> 01:11:01.633
Here we are 75 years later,
didn't learn anything.

01:11:05.901 --> 01:11:06.909
- You know, it's interesting,

01:11:06.909 --> 01:11:11.820
because I asked my
grandsons what they learned

01:11:11.820 --> 01:11:14.873
in social science, social studies.

01:11:14.873 --> 01:11:19.260
They don't tell the truth.
They don't tell our history.

01:11:19.260 --> 01:11:20.940
They tell about the bomb,

01:11:20.940 --> 01:11:23.040
but they don't tell the rest of it.

01:11:23.040 --> 01:11:25.681
And, I coach 'em...

01:11:25.681 --> 01:11:26.706
and I tell them,

01:11:26.706 --> 01:11:27.996
"This is what you have to know

01:11:27.996 --> 01:11:30.921
and this is what you have to say."

01:11:30.921 --> 01:11:35.254
They have to know the truth.

01:11:35.254 --> 01:11:37.079
(song)