I spent a decade of my life chasing compensation for the downwind victims of fallout from the U.S. government’s testing of atomic devices at the Nevada Test Site — I was working for a Utah politician, and many of the victims were Utah citizens unfortunate enough to live in small towns where, some idiot calculated, the damage from the fallout would be minimized and possible to deny.
Over at Axis of Evel Kneivel, where the Carnival of History 43 is hosted this week, I found this post on the November 5 anniversary of a 1951 atomic bomb test that involved moving hundreds of innocent soldiers to be exposed to radiation in order to test whether they could fight after an atomic exchange.
If Santayana was right, if learning history will help us to prevent the bad parts from recurring, it is urgent that you go read that post, and that you vow to prevent the recurrence of things such as a calculated sacrifice of innocent U.S. citizens.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
By the way, have you looked into the National Association of Atomic Veterans? Here’s their website: http://www.naav.com/
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I’m not going to be much help. I left the Hatch empire after pushing the first compensation bill to a floor vote (we lost). The Radiation Compensation Act was passed, finally, in 1990, as I recall. You should check the provisions of that law, either through Findlaw.com, or through the Thomas site at the Library of Congress (www.loc.gov).
You might also call Sen. Hatch’s office and ask for constituent relations. Especially if Joyce Nelson is still working there, someone should be able to point you to the place to file a claim. I suspect that anything for atomic veterans is in the Veterans Administration. I also wonder whether there is any possibility of posthumous benefits.
The military records office in Missouri is a standing joke among benefits researchers. There was a fire in the office, in 1950, as I recall. A lot of records were lost. But also claimed to be lost were records from the atomic bomb tests in Nevada done over the following four years. At the Senate Labor Committee we used to regularly hear that the records were unavailable because they were lost in “the fire.” Often the records would turn up later.
I’ve never been to the facility. I don’t know why it is so difficult to get to records, nor why requests often seem hit and miss. There must be millions of documents, and it must be much like the massive government warehouse seen in the closing scenes of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Good luck. Keep us informed of anything you learn, please.
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I believe my dad flew his plane through atomic bomb test clouds. He had a personal dosimeter which I found out was Navy issued. He was Air Force. I was told that the only time an Air Force pilot would have one is if they were going to being flying through an atomic bomb cloud. My dad died of a rare form of cancer. My aunt remembers that he mentioned flying over the Pacific, after the war, doing inspections with the inspector general. I have tried to get all of his military records from Missouri. Each time I request or have a Senator request, I receive a few pages of what I already have and then I get a few new records. I called someone there and asked why this was happening. He thought it was strange and said he would do everything he could to help me. Five minutes later he said he could do nothing and he wouldn’t touch this with a ten foot pole. I don’t know what to do next. I know there is compensation for fallout victims and I honestly believe my dad was one. Where do I go from here?
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