Oral histories shed light on atomic era

Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2004 | 11:10 a.m.

Administrator Linda M. Smith, 64, remembers the fear of the Cold War that was the "driver behind everything" she and her co-workers did.

Miner John Campbell, 61, remembers the pioneering "romance" of digging the underground cavities to contain the radiation.

Secretary Marie Daly McMillan, 78, remembers studying Russian to be able to help translate secret Soviet documents obtained by U.S. officials.

Franciscan Sister Rosemary Lynch, 87, remembers camping out in the desert for Lent to protest the neutron bomb.

"Down-winders" Eugene and Zenna Mae Bridges, both 75, remember their 7-year-old son, Lonnie, and the cancers that stole his young life.

These are the local faces behind the atomic bomb, and UNLV researchers are striving to preserve their stories about the Nevada Test Site by spending four years recording them.

UNLV researchers are interviewing and transcribing the personal histories of more than 200 people impacted by the Test Site, from the high-level scientists and administrators to the miners, contractors and janitors to the protesters and the down-winders most impacted by the radiation fallout that drifted north.

The goal is to develop an archive of personal narratives to better tell the story of Nevada's role in the development of nuclear weapons, the escalation of the arms race and the eventual end of the Cold War, project director Mary Palevsky said.

The archive, along with other documents from the Nevada Test Site, will be available for future researchers or others to read in the UNLV Lied Library's department of special collections.

"It is important to know what happened with the whole development of the atomic bombs to have a use in World War II to what eventually became the arms race in the Cold War -- how these incredible, dangerous weapons were developed and tested," Palevsky said. "How did that happen? What were the dangers, what were the costs and what are the human stories that go with that?"

The child of nuclear scientists herself, Palevsky is the author of "Atomic Fragments: A Daughter's Questions" and has focused most of her research on the human stories of the people involved with or affected by the United States' decision to develop nuclear weapons.

The oral history project, funded by a $582,000 grant from the U.S. Energy Department and a $248,000 grant from the U.S. Education Department, brings together UNLV's history and sociology departments to try to cover all sides of a controversial issue, Palevsky said. The project also helps train graduate and undergraduate students to work with oral histories.

Much of the country's role in the international arms race played out at the Test Site, about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, where U.S. officials conducted nuclear weapons testing on a piece of remote desert the size of Rhode Island.

Because of its size, climate, remoteness and because it was already under government control, the area was selected as the main continental test area by the Energy Department, then the Atomic Energy Commission, in 1951.

Employing upward of 10,000 people at its peak in the 1970s, the Test Site was a major contributor to the development and economic growth of Las Vegas and impacted thousands of Nevadans. Officials conducted atmospheric testing from 1951 to 1963 and then continued underground testing until the end of the Cold War in 1992.

Limited subcritical testing -- testing of parts of the nuclear devices that stops short of producing a nuclear reaction -- continues underground at the Test Site today.

"It (the Test Site) is a vital aspect of Cold War history that was one of the dominant themes of the second half of the 21st century," said Andrew Kirk, principal researcher for the history side of the project and director of UNLV's public history program.

"Because of the secrecy and just the ignorance of what was going on out there, many of these stories have never been told."

Most Nevadans -- even natives -- appear to know only bits and pieces about the work done at the Test Site, Kirk said. But one year into the project, he said he's been amazed by how many people worked at the Test Site or know someone who did.

"I think what has surprised me so much is just the extent of how the Test Site was woven into the history of Nevada," Kirk said.

Much of UNLV's oral history project is aimed at understanding "how people saw what they were doing," Robert Futrell, the principal investigator for the sociology side of the project, said.

As a sociologist, Futrell said he is most interested in the culture of the community behind "one of the biggest science projects ever."

The personal histories of the people behind the Test Site give researchers insight into how Southern Nevada developed, how science and technology is produced and how the culture of the Cold War and the need for secrecy impacted the workers and their identities, Futrell said.

The workers interviewed so far have expressed pride in their efforts and saw the technology they were developing as "world-changing," Futrell said, but the workers have also expressed fears and doubts about how that technology has changed the world.

The secrecy, the long commute to the Test Site and the dangerous work all took its toll on everyone, particularly on people with families, project participants said. But they also said they were united in the shared belief that the testing was keeping the nation safe and that the testing successfully deterred any country from actually using the weapons after World War II.

"Talk about the glue that held it together -- it was the incredibly strong belief in the project and a team effort you won't see again," said Smith, who began working at the Test Site as as administrative assistant in 1965 and rose to the rank of second-in-command of the Energy Department's Nevada Operations office by the time she retired in 1994.

But the technology they developed came with a cost, and the voices of those who paid that cost is another important part of the Test Site's story, UNLV researchers said.

That's why they have interviewed couples such as the Bridges, who believe their son died of radiation-related cancer and leukemia in 1956, when they were living in Salt Lake City.

Pointing out pictures of Eugene Lamont "Lonnie" Bridges in their Las Vegas home, the Bridges said they understood the need for national security, but that it should have been security for all Americans, not just some. And the United States should have kept all the testing offshore.

"It's hard enough to lose a child because of a natural impairment, but to have anybody die because people were so obsessed with national security ... it just makes me angry," Lonnie's father, Eugene Bridges, said.

"... Anybody who has never seen a radiation death, it's the most torturous thing."