French Nuclear Base
p. 61 · Read in the full issue
Disagreement On Fall-Out French Nuclear Base At Mururoa "Ready In Three Years"
Fhe French nuclear testing
e to be built at Mururoa >ll in the Tuamotu Archi ago of French Polynesia will ready for use in about three rs, according to General iry, head of a 24-man civil I military mission which was Tahiti in May to plan the e.
NNOUNCING this at a Press conference in Papeete, General ry said a “rear” base would be iblished in Tahiti and that from 30 to 3,000 civil and military micians would be employed in it.
Tie base should not interfere with liti’s tourist industry, he said, and assured the people of Oceania that re would be no danger of con lination from radio-active fall-out.
To Assume Command Jeneral Thiry said that maritime fic would rise by about 40 per t. during the construction of the e, and that an office would be med in Papeete soon to engage al labour to work on the project, le added that Captain Petesche, of French Navy, would arrive in liti in June to assume command the nuclear testing project. )ther developments in French ynesia during May were the ar il in Tahiti of an engineer who I study the question of modernis the port of Papeete; the arrival Tahiti of several atomic experts 1 a top military doctor; and the t of General Thiry to Mururoa.
"Dirty" Bombs
Meanwhile, a leading US nuclear artist said in New York that Aus lia and South America would both a “dusting” of the fall-out from French tests at Mururoa because French had “not reached a clean idition in their testing”, fhe scientist, Dr. Ralph Lapp, who k part in America’s first atomic nb programme, said that French rmo-nuclear bombs were “dirty”, ich meant that they lacked “pro
tection” and produced a great amount of radiation and fall-out.
“Australia, naturally, will get a fall-out dusting from the French bombs,” Dr. Lapp said. “The amount will depend on the size of the bombs and the altitude at which they are detonated.
“I suspect Australia will get only a minimal amount. Because of the trade winds, South America should get much more.”
Footnote: A British Army sergeant, who served on Christmas Island dur ing hydrogen bomb tests from June, 1956, to September, 1957, died of leukemia in England in April. A coroner who inquired into his death returned a finding of “death from leukemia with insufficient evidence to show how this was caused”. He said he could not give a finding of “natural causes”. The sergeant was Brian Edgar Power, 29.