DISCLAIMER The following is a staff memorandum or other working document prepared for the members of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation experiments. It should not be construed as representing the final conclusions of fact or interpretation of the issues. All staff memoranda are subject to revision based on further information and analysis. For conclusions and recommendations of the Advisory Committee, readers are advised to consult the Final Report to be published in 1995. TAB I DRAFT FOR DISCUSSION PURPOSES ONLY MEMORANDUM TO: Members of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments FROM: Advisory Committee Staff DATE: February 8, 1995 RE: Documentary Update: Fallout Data Collection During the 1950's, the U.S. government developed a worldwide network to monitor the effects of fallout from the nuclear weapons tests. Particularly in the early years--before the fallout debate became a front page issue in the latter part of the 50's--the network operated in the twilight between openness and secrecy. This memorandum contains some documentation of the early period, particularly regarding the secrecy and knowing deception involved in the collection of bones and tissue materials from animals and humans. I. PROJECT GABRIEL The Atomic Energy Commission's programmatic concern for fallout dates, at least, to the creation of "Project Gabriel" in 1949. The July, 1954 Report on Project Gabriel (Attachment l) explained that Gabriel's objective was "to evaluate the radiological hazard from the fallout of debris from nuclear weapons detonated in warfare." (Id., page 1). II. PROJECT SUNSHINE In 1953, a conference to review Gabriel was convened by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) at the RAND Corporation's Santa Monica, California headquarters. (RAND was a "think tank" created in the 1940's to advise the Air Force.) The attendees were told (Attachment 2): Pending a re-evaluation of the classification policy for this project by the AEC, it has been requested that the existence of the project and the conference itself should not be revealed to anyone other than those who have been contacted officially in connection with the project. 1 The letter of invitation . . . should be classified . . . or returned to this office by registered mail. The conference gave birth to Project SUNSHINE (Attachment 1, pg 2): The conference recommended that studies then current be supplemented by a world-wide assay of the distribution of Sr-90 [strontium 90, a fallout product] from the nuclear detonations which have occurred. This assay has been designated Project SUNSHINE. Project SUNSHINE's worldwide data collection activities were to operate in a cloak of secrecy (Attachment 1, pg.2): Samples for assay have included soil, alfalfa. animals. dairy products, human bones, rain and other water, etc. Samples of one or more of these materials have been obtained from each of some 20 foreign countries. Many of the samples have been obtained through the Department of Agriculture and directly by the participating laboratories; others have been obtained through miscellaneous contacts. Three laboratories have been engaged in analyses of samples for Sr-90: University of Chicago (W.F. Libby); Columbia University (J.L. Kulp); and New York Operations Office, AEC (Merril Eisenbud and John Harley). A decision to keep the existence of a worldwide assay SECRET has limited the freedom with which suitable combinations of samples might be obtained from foreign countries. Project Sunshine's Foreign Baby Bone Collection Network Documents obtained by the Committee (Attachment 3) show that, following the 1953 conference, the AEC undertook to measure Sr-90 through the sampling of baby bones from throughout the world. To collect foreign samples the AEC undertook a plan of deception which involved the personal and professional contacts of researchers, and the use of an elaborate cover story. In an October 16, 1953 letter to the University of Chicago's Dr. Libby, Robert A. Dudley of the Biophysics Branch of the AEC Division of Biology and Medicine (DBM) explained that: We are now planning to go ahead with foreign bone collections on these lines; We believe the most fruitful approach may be through personal contacts with foreign doctors. Dr. Bugher [of the DBM] sees possibilities in his connections with the Rockefeller Foundation. I have good connections in India and perhaps certain other countries. 2 Dudley explained that a cover story for the collection had been devised: Dr. Bugher still wishes that the initial security specifications be maintained. We are therefore making our collections under these conditions: The stated purpose of the collection is to be for a survey of the natural Ra [Radium] burden of human bones . . .there are still enough uncertainties regarding threshold dose for injury . . . to provide a plausible explanation for further surveys . . . As for the emphasis on infants, we can say that such samples are easy to obtain here, and that we would like to keep our foreign collections comparable. In an October 26, 1953 letter Dudley asked for the help of Dr. Shields Warren, who had served as head of the DBM, and was located at the Cancer Research Institute at the New England Deaconess Hospital. Dudley wrote: We are now starting to make provision for a collection of foreign bones, pretty much on the lines you suggested, and I would like to keep you informed of the steps we take. Also, I need a little help again. We have decided to make the actual collection on an unclassified basis, although the real purpose will of course remain secret. The stated purpose of the collection is for a world-wide survey of the quantity of radium in humans. We do expect to make radium analyses on at least some of the samples, so our story is merely incomplete, not false. . . The help I need is this: I do not know how much you have told Dr. Farber about the chief purpose of the collection; therefore, I am afraid to approach him with a story on the foreign collections. Perhaps it would be best if you would speak with him again about the foreign samples, telling a story not in conflict with the one which we are using in our contacts. On the same day, Dudley wrote to solicit assistance from his father, who was associated with the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions. The letter explained the public purpose of the data gathering, and solicited assistance. In a letter the following day to Dr. Libby's office, Dudley enclosed "a copy of the one open letter I've written so far on our foreign bone collection. This happens to be to my father who has good contacts in India . . . . " On November 10, evidently from a referral by the senior Dudley, the AEC official wrote to the Christian Medical Association in Nadya Pradesh, India, soliciting assistance. 3 On December 9, Dudley sent a letter to Dr. James Scott of the Atomic Energy Project at the University of Rochester, a primary AEC biomedical contract research source. The letter to Rochester explained "for you alone" the real purpose of the project: This letter will explain in a little more detail than I was able to do over the phone our interest in obtaining infant skeletons from Japan. The Division of Biology and Medicine is engaged in a project to evaluate the long range radiological hazard which might result from the large scale use of atomic weapons . . . In order to help in the evaluation of the hazard, we are providing for the direct measurement of the world-wide Sr-90 distribution which has resulted from the 40 or 50 nuclear detonations in the last few years. One type of sample on which we are concentrating is the bones of infants, either stillborn or up to a year or two of age. We have found that stillborn bones are easy to obtain in the United States, and are trying to extend our collection to foreign countries. It appears that the ABCC [Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission] would be a logical contact in Japan. We could use perhaps 6 or 8 skeletons from that area. It has been decided, for various reasons including public and international relations, to classify this project SECRET for the present. Hence, the unclassified description of our purpose in obtaining these bones is for Ra analyses. We actually are providing for the measurement of Ra as well as Sr-90 in many or all of the samples, so that the Ra story is merely incomplete, not false. The complete purpose I have described for you alone. In a December 30, 1953 letter, DBM Director Burgher solicited assistance from the Rockefeller Foundation: We have arrangements made for obtaining a number of specimens in India and in South Africa through various medical missions . . . I would like to obtain specimens from Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Chile or Bolivia . . . 4 The Appendix to the July 1954 Project Gabriel report, under the heading "Sr-89,90 activity of animals animal products" recorded, under "No. of items," that 55 human stillborn infants had been collected in Chicago, and analyzed by Drs. Kulp of Columbia and Libby of Chicago, and that Dr. Libby had done analyses of a stillborn infants from Utah, three stillborn from Vellore, South India, and three "human legs (adult)" from Massachusetts. Above and beyond the sensitivity of the collection of baby bones, a further perspective on the AEC's efforts to insulate itself from the bone collection and analysis activity is provided in a December, 1954 letter from Thomas L. Shipman, the Health Division Leader at the AEC's Los Alamos site, to DBM Director Charles Dunham. Shipman wrote that SUNSHINE "is probably the most important matter for the future consideration of DBM, as well as our group." However, the program had "simply 'growed' like Topsy." Better administration was essential:"Such a program obviously cannot be carried out with the complete lack of administration which has characterized past efforts." In suggesting the involvement of Los Alamos in this regard, Shipman lamented the problem faced, in the mid-1950's, by those too closely connected with the AEC: (Attachment 4) There is also the fact that Los Alamos may be regarded as a rather biased institution. Some people may feel that we are interested parties. I certainly am only too well aware of a resistance, particularly in the Press, to accept pronouncements and conclusions coming out of the AEC itself. Strangely enough, they were quite willing to accept the conclusions of the National Academy of Sciences, completely forgetting that the subcommittees were in very large measure composed of AEC or AEC contractor representatives. They were the same guys wearing different hats. III. HUMAN FALLOUT SAMPLING ON HUMANS BY THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE In the early 1950's the Department of Defense undertook to create its own fallout network, evidently under the auspices of the at the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project. The initial planned effort appears to have been a worldwide collection of human urine and animal milk and tissue samples in connection with the 1955 Operation Teapot Tests. The report from the effort, which was conducted at Army's Walter Reed Research Institute, was reproduced in the September Briefing Book. (Tab F, Staff 5 Memorandum: Atomic Veterans, Attachment 13) The purpose of the effort was to establish a baseline for forthcoming Pacific tests. The Teapot data gathering also involved a cover story. A December 16, 1954 memorandum from the Chief of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project stated, at least in regard to the animal sampling (Attachment 5): The actual data obtained are SECRET and the sample collection should be discreetly handled. It is suggested that a statement be included in the instructions to the effect that these samples are being collected for nutritional studies. The memorandum further stated that "[d]ata from studies of these [animal and human] samples is classified SECRET." IV. THE STORY CONTINUES As testing proceeded, public concern and debate grew. In 1953, the Nevada tests were accompanied by the death of sheep, and concern for the effect of the fallout on the "downwind" population emerged. Controversy was heightened following the accidental irradiation of Marshall Islanders, servicemen, and a Japanese fishing crew in the 1954 "Bravo" hydrogen bomb test in the Pacific. In 1957 Congress held the first Congressional hearings, and the debate on fallout and atmospheric testing became a central issue in national and international politics. In the latter part of the decade, there were public presentations on the Army sampling effort and the collection of stillborn and other human bones. However, much of the documentation, including that related to the foreign data collection discussed above, does not appear to have been made public until many years later, and some are only being declassified now. Staff is researching the full breath of Sunshine and the extent to which information became public. 6 5