Remembering Another Day of Infamy

Next week we celebrate with fireworks the 220th anniversary of our nation’s birth, a day of glory. Next week also marks the 50th anniversary of another important event in our history, a day of shame.

It was July 1, 1946, that we dropped our first test atom bombs in the coral-filled lagoon at the Bikini Atoll, a ring-shaped corner of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific. We didn’t just steal it from its inhabitants. We destroyed it so now it’s of no use to anyone.

“It’s one of history’s forgotten episodes,” says author Theodore Taylor of Laguna Beach. But it’s not something Taylor can ever forget. He was there.

Taylor was a sailor on one of the ships sent into the lagoon in preparation for the tests. He vividly recalls how it touched the crew, most of them hardened World War II combat veterans, as they watched another boat move out the island’s several hundred inhabitants and their few possessions, relocating them to other islands.

“As they passed us, they were all singing a hymn and looking back to the island, saying goodbye to their homeland,” Taylor recalls. “There wasn’t a dry eye among us as we watched that scene. We knew they’d been lied to, that they’d never be back.”

The Truman administration had told the islanders it would be safe for them to return in two years. But of course, the testing went on for many years. Radiation has reached so deep into the roots of the coconut trees that even today it is not safe for human habitation. The Johnson administration declared it safe in 1968, but had to backtrack after the few who returned kept getting sick. The U.S. has since set up a $90-million trust for future generations of Bikinians, who have scattered all over the Pacific.

“It truly was a paradise, like nothing I’d ever seen,” Taylor says of Bikini. “But we turned it into a wasteland.”

Taylor is the author of “The Cay,” required reading in classrooms all over the U.S. He’s written more than a dozen successful books, mostly for young adults. But he never got over his guilt at being a party to what happened at Bikini Island, which a dozen generations of people had called home.

His newest book is “The Bomb,” a novel for young readers about the removal of the Bikinians 50 years ago. The main character is a young boy who refuses to believe the American line and tries in vain to stop what is happening. After I read it, I told Taylor it must have been tough for him to write.

“Very difficult,” he said. He told me about one of the islanders rowing out to the ship he was on the first day and asking him in earnest why the Americans were there.

“I told him I didn’t know,” he said. “But of course, that was a lie. We all knew. I’ve always felt guilt over that.”

Imagine your reaction if the Clinton administration said your street would be needed for nuclear testing, but you shouldn’t worry; you’d be free to move back in two years. Perhaps Taylor’s guilt is one we all should share.

Different Bikini: There’s another, more frivolous anniversary approaching: the 50th anniversary of bikini swimwear on July 3. And you’re right to think there’s a connection. French designer Louis Reard, who made famous the two-piece swimsuit for women, named it the bikini after reading in the newspaper about the U.S. test bombs at the Bikini Lagoon. He thought the name signified the earth trembling, which is what he wanted his new fashion statement to do. Many might say it certainly did.

Doing Easter Right: The four most deadly words in journalism are: “You made an error.”

My favorite story about that comes from the late director John Huston (“Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” “The African Queen”). In his autobiography, he tells about his editor at the old New York Graphic sending him to a murder scene. Upon returning to the office, Huston misread his own notes and inadvertently mixed up the names of the victim and the assailant. Writes Huston: “That ended my connection with the Graphic. God knows I was the worst newspaper reporter.”

So it was with dismay I learned from Joan Kurze of the Easter Island Foundation that I had misspelled the Polynesian name of Easter Island. Here it is again, guaranteed correct by Kurze: Rapa Nui.

Wrap-Up: I don’t remember the events of Bikini Island from my own history books, nor does my son, who just completed an eighth-grade history course. This week I reviewed half a dozen high school-level history texts, and none of them even mention the Bikini bomb tests.

The only discussion of Bikini in David McCullough’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Truman” is that President Truman worried what the Russians would think about the tests. Not a word that anyone was living there. If Truman himself had any misgivings about relocating the Bikinians, he doesn’t mention it in his own memoirs. This week I watched the highly acclaimed HBO movie “Truman.” It showed Bikini Island, but you would never know people were forced to leave their homeland for the testing.

Seems to me, though, that it ought to be a little bit bigger footnote in our history. It teaches us such a lesson about our own arrogance, and, I would argue, the need for more diversity in our government.

When I was a journalism student at Indiana University, the student editors at the daily newspaper wrote this headline after Richard Nixon announced his entire Cabinet at once: “No Women, No Minorities, No Democrats.” The journalism faculty severely chastised the editors for allowing their biases to interfere with their straight reporting of the news. Frankly, I’ve always thought it was a pretty accurate headline. What else was memorable about the Nixon Cabinet?

I just have this feeling that if a Colin Powell had been on Harry Truman’s staff, or, say, Barbara Jordan, one of them would have said, “Let’s take another look at just what we’re doing to these people on Bikini, Mr. President.”

For the Bikinians, the buck hasn’t stopped yet.

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or sending a fax to (714) 966-7711.