American Nuclear Weapons Testing

Testing at the Nevada Test Site began in early 1951 and within the next seven years 90 nuclear explosions occurred in the Nevada desert. Nuclear weapon designs constantly change and as a result they have to be tested periodically to determine if the scientific calculations behind them are correct (Ball 32). Some of these tests took place in the Marshal Islands, which is where all of the experimental designs that were tested should have taken place. Certainly, American scientists could have perfected their weapons using the knowledge gained from these tests, and create theoretical designs that would not have to be tested in the atmosphere where radioactive fallout could cause more unnecessary deaths (Ball 32. In fact, in addition to the tests conducted in Nevada, 66 nuclear weapons’ tests were conducted in the Marshal Islands. The Department of Defense used nuclear weapons tests in Nevada to “train military unites to become familiar with new weapons and their characteristics” (Ball 31). In the instance that they should need to be tested, they should have been tested in the Marshall Islands where exposure was limited. This is not to say that new nuclear weapon designs were not tested in Nevada, but a great deal of the nuclear explosions in Nevada were unrelated to weapons development and more to do with military training. As Glenn Cheney, a radioactivity researcher and author, comments on the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union, “To fall behind, to become weaker, might be to practically ask for attack” (Cheney 37). Of course, the people of those islands would be resettled and compensated for giving up their lands, yet this action would have prevented the American public from radiation exposure and cost much less in the long run. The Marshall Islands, located in the middle of the Pacific, were a United Nations Trust Territory that was administered by the United States following World War II (Nuclear Testing 2). Glenn Cheney adds to this argument by stating that, “The military had two objectives for carrying out the tests: to train the troops to operate during an atomic attack, and to assess their psychological response to a nearby atomic explosion (51). Justification for the nuclear tests lies in the fact that the Cold War was at a very critical juncture with the fear of communism being widespread among American policy makers as well as the general public. Security precautions such as an increased naval presence around the Marshall Islands provided a secure location to test new weapons, yet many were still tested in the mainland United States.