Leukemia Victim Searches for Other Atomic Veterans

Richard Jenkins recalls staring with wide-eyed wonder as one gigantic mushroom cloud after another fanned into the blue skies above the West Pacific’s Marshall Islands 33 years ago.

At the time, Jenkins, now a custom boat builder, did not realize that the explosions would cast a pall over his life.

As a Navy radio operator aboard the destroyer Mansfield during the military’s nuclear testing, called Operation Hardtack, Jenkins was within a 30-mile range when 30 nuclear bombs were detonated in 1958.

At 52, he now suffers from mild leukemia, liver and kidney disorders and has undergone surgery for cataracts. He has also battled digestive tract problems and chronic fatigue off and on for the last 20 years.

It was not until 1988--when the Department of Veterans Affairs acknowledged that radiation from those explosions could cause leukemia and 12 other cancers--that he found what he believes is the root of his medical trouble.

Now, he wants to find other so-called atomic veterans so they can get help from the department.

“If I can get just two guys to the VA hospital, then my years of collecting information will be worth it,” Jenkins said. “I want to see my shipmates get the treatment they deserve.”

Jenkins was one of about 200,000 military personnel who participated in 235 atomic blasts detonated after World War II in the West Pacific and Nevada. The government said that only about 1,700 of them were exposed to larger doses of radiation than now allowed under federal occupational guidelines for radiation workers.

A federally funded study released in 1985 showed that military witnesses of a single 1957 atom bomb explosion suffered abnormally high death rates from leukemia. The report also concluded that scientists “cannot convincingly either affirm or deny” that leukemia deaths are radiation-related.

Nevertheless, legislation in 1988 established a link between veterans’ radiation exposure and health problems, naming leukemia and 12 other cancers for which the veterans can receive treatment and benefits.

Because Jenkins and other atomic veterans had injuries that did not show up for decades after their discharge, they would not otherwise have been eligible for VA benefits unless they were indigent, officials said.

Jenkins and veterans groups now want the Department of Veterans Affairs to expand the list of cancers it will treat for atomic veterans and to remove the 30- to 40-year deadline by which military personnel must apply. A provision to expand the list of cancers is part of a bill by Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) scheduled for Senate committee hearings next month.

“In 1988, Public Law 100-321 seemed a cause for celebration,” said Oscar Rosen, national commander of the National Assn. of Atomic Veterans. “But the VA has interpreted that law very narrowly. They are absolutely cruel in the way they treat members.”

Rosen’s group has hired a public relations firm to develop radio spots urging exposed personnel to contact the association.

Jenkins, Rosen and others in the 4,000-member association say they were used as human test animals in experiments designed to measure their reactions to radiation exposure. “We feel we were used as guinea pigs,” Rosen said. “The military calls them tests, but we call them experiments.”

The military admits that it was testing the personnel’s psychological responses to the mushroom clouds they watched take shape, said Navy Capt. William J. Flor, who heads the government’s effort at the Defense Nuclear Agency to contact atomic veterans. Although the military monitored individuals’ exposure to radiation during the nuclear blasts, the government does not acknowledge that it tested their physical endurance.

“Physical tasks were tested to see if a person is too stressed out to perform their function in combat,” he said. “But we were not allowed as a government to do . . . experiments on human survival.”

Operation Hardtack I was a series of 35 nuclear tests in 1958, all but two of which were detonated at Eniwetok and Bikini atolls in the Marshall Islands, government documents say. Jenkins was among about 300 on board his ship who were issued protective sunglasses and badges with film to register exposure to radiation.

The sailors stood on deck and watched atomic bombs explode from 15 miles away, Jenkins said. “We could feel the heat on our faces,” Jenkins said. “So they moved the ship closer and told us to go to the other side of the ship.”

When they returned to the side closest to the blast, paint had peeled back from the heat, he said.

The personnel had to wear the film badges on cords around their necks. When the film turned from black to a reddish color, Jenkins said, the sailors were taken off duty, washed down and “detoxified.” Then, he said, they were issued new badges and sent back to work.

Their exposure was measured while they were on active duty, but no records were kept after their discharges.

After the 1988 law was passed, Jenkins went to the VA hospital in Sepulveda and asked to be given a battery of tests for radiation-related illness. That is when he was found to have leukemia and given a flurry of medications.

This year, Jenkins was denied disability compensation by the Department of Veterans Affairs. His letter of denial said he was ineligible because he had not developed symptoms of any of the 13 cancers while on active duty. Because that finding is inconsistent with the 1988 law, Jenkins said he plans to reapply.

Jenkins considers himself a pro-military patriot but now sympathizes with those who protest nuclear proliferation.

“When you see the bumper sticker that says, ‘One nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day,’ I’m living proof. It has ruined 20 years of my life.”