Betrayal of Bikini Atoll
QUESTION What became of the people of Bikini Atoll after the U.S. nuclear tests?
From 1946 to 1958, the U.S. conducted 67 nuclear tests in the marshall Islands, mostly on Bikini and Enewetak Atolls.
If the combined explosive power was divided evenly over the 12 years, it would equal 1.6 Hiroshima-size explosions each day.
Before the U.S. conducted its first test, there were 167 people living on Bikini Atoll. They were persuaded to leave by being told they would be able to return.
one Sunday after church, Navy Commodore Ben H. Wyatt, the military governor of the marshall Islands, met the Bikini islanders and convinced them they were like the Israelites, a chosen people, and should move for ‘the good of mankind and to end all wars’.
After long deliberations with his people, King Juda, the leader of the Bikinians, stood before the American delegation and replied: ‘We will go, believing that everything is in the hands of God.’
In march 1946, the Bikinians were shipped 125 miles east to uninhabited, sparsely vegetated rongerik Atoll. They were left food for several weeks, but the coconut trees produced poor fruit and the fish in the lagoon were inedible.
Two years later, the U.S. authorities realised the Bikinians were on the verge of starvation.
many were transported to Kwajalein Atoll, to live in tents beside a cement airstrip used by the U.S. military.
Six months later, they were sent to Kili Island, which does not have a lagoon and is encircled by rough seas for most of the year.
As the islanders struggled to cope with their exile, Bikini was being obliterated. In January 1954, the U.S. Air Force and Army began preparations for operation Castle. This series of tests included the most powerful hydrogen bomb ever detonated by the U.S.
Codenamed Bravo, it hurled into the sky a massive plume of pulverised coral that fell like ashy snowflakes on the 64 people living on rongelap Atoll almost 100 miles away. In the early 1970s, 150 people resettled Bikini. In 1978, it was discovered they had high levels of radioactive caesium 137.
In 2010, Unesco named Bikini Atoll a World Heritage Site. Its people are scattered throughout the marshall Islands and the world.
Rachel Ireland, Waltham Abbey, Essex.
QUESTION Why is the word ‘gate’ tagged on the end of every political scandal?
All ‘-gates’ stem from the Watergate scandal, one of the greatest political scandals in U.S. history. Conservative New York Times columnist, grammarist and presidential speechwriter William Safire popularised the term.
Watergate takes its name from the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate apartment and office complex in Washington DC in June 1972.
The scandal spread as other illegal activities were made public. In 1974, President richard Nixon resigned.
Ever since, the suffix ‘gate’ has been added to the names of people and places that have resulted in political scandal.
It was first done in jest. The earliest recorded use was Volgagate in 1973, coined by National lampoon magazine for a putative russian scandal.
In September 1974, Safire coined Vietgate, a proposed pardon of the Watergate criminals and Vietnam War draft-dodgers. He subsequently coined a host of -gate terms. over several decades, these include Contragate, Iraqgate and Whitewatergate.
Since Watergate, there have been more than 175 -gates. Some have been frivolous, such as Janet Jackson’s Nipplegate, when her breast was exposed at the 2004 Super Bowl.
Elaine Finch, Reading, Berks.
QUESTION Is the band Fleetwood Mac correct that ‘thunder only happens when it’s raining’?
THIS line comes from Fleetwood mac’s song Dreams, on their bestselling rumours album. It was written by Stevie Nicks in double quick time.
‘I found a drum pattern, switched my little cassette player on and wrote Dreams in about ten minutes,’ she related, so perhaps she can be forgiven for some meteorological imprecision.
A dry thunderstorm occurs when temperature and heat gather below the cloud cover.
It will rain as the lightning is produced, but the precipitation evaporates before it reaches the ground.
This is called virga, derived from the latin word virga, meaning rod, sprig, staff or branch.
It refers to the phenomenon of visible shafts of rain that disappear before they reach the ground.
Dry thunderstorms are extremely dangerous. They are the primary cause of wildfires in arid countries in the hot summer months, when lightning ignites a dry fuel source on the ground.
Dr Ian Smith, Cambridge.
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