Despite fierce lobbying by the White House and Energy Department on behalf of their plan to ship thousands of tons of high-level nuclear waste from reactors all over the country for storage in Yucca Mountain, Nev., would such a huge concentration of radioactive material be safe?
The government claims the storage site would pose no threat to residents. But, despite federal denials of the possibility of any nuclear fallout, and assertions that waste cannot leak into drinking water, Nevada lawmakers demand more proof.
John Meier, who used to be top aide to eccentric billionaire and prized Nevada resident Howard Hughes, says he’s heard this before, and he remembers all-too-well the outcome.
Meier, an intense, often obsessive man who once served on President Richard Nixon’s Taskforce on Resources and the Environment and was named Aerospace Man of the Year, recalls the Atomic Energy Commission’s nuclear testing in the ’50s and ’60s in the Nevada desert.
“The government back then exploded nuclear devices underground while assuring the public of their total safety,” explains Meier. “Hughes and I didn’t buy their assurances for a second. After a long, tiring battle, we forced them to retreat, but not before their tests killed scores of civilians.”
The testing began in 1954 and remained uninterrupted until Hughes moved to Las Vegas in 1966.
“Hughes was annoyed by the vibrations coming from the underground detonations,” says Meier. “And he was convinced that the testing was dangerous.”
Hughes summoned Meier, his top aide, to his Desert Inn penthouse and demanded to know the effects created by detonation of nuclear devices and the physical consequences of being exposed to radiation.
“I abandoned all other projects,” recalls Meier. “When Hughes wants something, you had better make damn sure that he gets it.”
Meier visited the Atomic Energy Commission, university scientists, government offices, libraries and newsrooms. The press at that time was highly skeptical of the AEC’s routine assurances.
Meier penned a general report with references to mutations, cancer, the effects of exposure on cells and body tissue – how German girls employed in factories painting radium dials died horrible deaths from cancer of the mouth.
“Hughes was scared witless,” says Meier. “He was dead set on driving the AEC out of Nevada.”
Meanwhile, the tests were becoming larger and larger. On the morning of April 16, 1968, Howard Hughes’ fury intensified when he read in the Las Vegas Sun that the AEC was planning its biggest explosion yet, which it named Boxcar.
Over the next few days, Hughes wrote memos, had Meier place frantic phone calls, and, in general, caused a stink that would be blamed for postponing the blast scheduled for the 24th.
Meier pleaded with politicians. “I went straight to [Vice President Hubert] Humphrey, but he wanted proof that tests were harmful.”
The AEC was adamant, and carried out the massive explosion two days later, at 6 am, detonating the equivalent to one million tons of TNT. Buildings shook. Boxcar’s shockwave caused the ground to heave for a 250-mile radius. Seismic instruments recorded the explosion in New York and Alaska.
Hughes, who felt the blast, was so frightened that he hid underneath his bed until nearly 8:30 that morning. “I got a call from Hughes’ servants.” relates Meier. “They were desperate. They asked if I could come by right away to help coax Hughes out from under his bed. It took almost an hour.”
When America’s wealthiest man finally did emerge, Hughes demanded that Meier stop the nuclear testing once and for all.
Meier quickly assembled an independent research team with some of America’s leading scientists. He met a former AEC engineer who vacated his post because he felt the testing was unsafe. The man explained that there had been serious venting of radioactive gases into the atmosphere and contamination of water systems in the desert.
“We quickly set up a monitoring system to check for titanium in the water,” Meier says. “I hired scientists from Harvard and MIT to read the data. They organized a report that contradicted what the government was telling everybody: We showed that the nuclear testing poisoned the atmosphere, contaminated drinking water, and may have sickened and killed many people.”
Shockingly, Meier says his team also discovered that the U.S. had asked several foreign doctors to provide the government with dead babies and body parts for nuclear experimentation. This fact was corroborated by recently declassified Energy Department documents.
President Johnson formed his own team to investigate and report directly to him.
Meier says Humphrey promised him a copy of the presidential report, but Johnson’s team had allegedly done the unexpected: It confirmed Meier’s research.
“Johnson refused to make the report public,” claims Meier. “The testing continued.”
A few months later, on Jan. 20, 1969, Nixon was inaugurated president. “I learned from Sen. Edward Kennedy, for whom I served as an adviser, of an antiballistic missile program that would involve a new range of nuclear testing in Nevada,” Meier remembers.
Meier heightened Hughes’ battle with the AEC by publicly presenting the Commission with a list of questions about its testing, which was reported extensively in the national media. The AEC outraged Hughes by avoiding most questions.
“The questions really had the government scared,” says Meier. “I remember meeting with officials who told me they would destroy Howard Hughes if we didn’t stop.”
Hughes wrote a letter directly to Nixon, who was so nervous from Meier’s public questions that he tried to dispatch his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, to negotiate with Hughes.
A few days later, the AEC announced it would move its testing site to Alaska.
“Hughes was satisfied,” says Meier. “He didn’t care much about other people, he just didn’t want the testing to affect him. For Hughes, the battle ended. And he won.”
In time, though, Hughes’ and Meier’s contentions would be proven accurate. Dr. John Gofman and Dr. Arthur Tamplin, who headed the AEC’s radiation health program, were the first to speak out, declaring the tests hazardous. Col. Raymond E. Brim, an Air Force officer responsible for monitoring nuclear fallout, admitted there was indisputable evidence that people were being showered with radioactive debris from the firings.
It is impossible to know how many deaths were caused or how many people were contaminated by radiation from the government’s testing programs.
One civilian, Preston Truman, born in 1951 in the small Utah town of Enterprise, told the press that by the time he was 27, eight of his boyhood friends had died of cancer. Truman himself was diagnosed with lymphoma while in high school, but after $100,000 in treatment his cancer went into remission.
Meier, who was close to it all in the ’60s, says he is now concerned by the Energy Department’s denial that nuclear material earmarked for storage underground in Nevada could harm residents.
“The government says it has conducted many tests,” says Meier. “I feel very strongly that an independent team is needed immediately to research possible nuclear fallout or leakage into water by this proposed storage facility.
“You have to look at who is commissioning these reports that claim the facility would be safe. Even if it is done by an outside team, do they have anything to benefit from the opening of this facility?”
Meier, now almost 70, remembers his crusade with great sadness, and he hopes that history will not be repeated. “Because if this is anything like the last time,” he recalls, “the effects will be disastrous and irreversible.”
Aaron Klein is president of the news channel for the upcoming Internet Television Network. Former editor of the undergraduate newspaper of Yeshiva University in New York, Klein made international headlines last May by traveling overseas to spend time with and interview members of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist network. Klein has also previously conducted exclusive interviews with Yasser Arafat, Ehud Barak, Benjamin Netanyahu and leaders of the Taliban.
