Nuking Iran: Radiation


Secrets and lies have driven the history of the Bomb. We see this pattern repeated today, in an effort to make nuclear weapons seem no different from other explosives. But with continuing signs that the Bush administration may be heading for war on Iran, with reports of U.S. officials considering using nuclear weapons in Iran, these lies become even more dangerous.

The most important secrets and lies concerned radiation, the distinguishing effect of the Bomb, beyond its sheer power. The effects of radiation were denied, dismissed and minimized for decades. Today they are not even mentioned. It is especially important to revisit this history because, according to the the Physicians for Social Responsibility, a nuclear earth penetrating weapon “would actually create more fallout than a ground-burst or airburst weapon, due to the increased distribution of radioactive debris from detonation at a shallow depth in soil or rock."

Those of us who are early Baby Boomers particularly, but any of us who lived through the Cold War, will have lived through these cycles of fear and denial before. I was born as the first postwar atomic bomb test was happening in Bikini, during Operations Crossroads. My first actual political memory was of wearing an Adlai Stevenson button in 1956, partly because I didn't want radioactive fallout in my chocolate milk. We are in a unique position to know what nuclear warfare might mean, and we need to spread that knowledge.

Radiation and the history of denying it and confronting it is the subject of this essay.

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