Oppenheimer's first victims overlooked by film and blighted by cancer and death
Tucked up in bed with her younger siblings, Lucy Benavidez Garwood was woken violently as her family’s ramshackle home was shaken to its foundations. So forceful was the boom that the then 13-year-old feared a car had struck the house.
She would walk to school as neighbours in her small town of Tularosa believed there had been an earthquake. A few miles west, farmers working the fertile fields at 5.29am feared it was much worse. Seeing a massive flash of light, they believed the world was nigh.
It was not until several weeks later the truth would emerge as US forces dropped J Robert Oppenheimer’s atomic bombs on the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in Japan. Lucy, who despite her 91 years, today has the mobility and mental speed of a local rattle snake. And she says: “The reality is America dropped it on their own people first, and no one ever gave a s*** about us. They still don’t. Because we were poor and uneducated, we were seen as disposable.
“We were Oppenheimer’s first victims but we still remain last in getting the help we need. We have had not one cent yet our families have been blighted by cancer and death ever since.” Physicist Oppenheimer had used the small New Mexico town’s backyard as a testing site for his deadly Manhattan Project, leaving behind an equally devastating legacy that lasts to this day.
Downwinder survivor Lucy wants justice (James Breeden)Despite the recent Hollywood glamorisation of his work in the hit movie bearing his name, he left a legacy of high cancer rates and cruel government secrecy. Some 78 years on and Tularosa is still reeling, fuelled by a fierce pursuit of reparation that must not be ignored.
Give Ukraine western fighter jets to fight Russians, urges Boris Johnson
Hundreds, if not thousands, of New Mexico’s Downwinders – people who live downwind of the test site where the risk from fallout or radiation leaks was greatest – continue their battle for compensation over the devastating cancers they claim the test bomb caused in hundreds of people. But much like they have been since July 16, 1945, the Christopher Nolan directed movie – which stars Cillian Murphy as Oppenheimer with a powerful cast including Benny Safdie – has also erased their plight.
The Oscar-tipped film makes no mention of the New Mexican people who took the full force of the catastrophic blast and its deadly fallout. Lucy remembers Oppenheimer’s bomb – comparable to almost 25,000 tons of TNT – like it was yesterday. She tells how while the world marvelled at the power of the lethal invention, amid the celebration of the Second World War ending, an unwavering shadow over the unsuspecting residents.
Tularosa wants recognition (James Breeden)According to the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, vast amounts of radiation were blasted into the atmosphere, descending over an area 250 miles long and 200 miles wide. Scientists tracked part of the fallout pattern as far as the Atlantic Ocean, some 1,450 miles away, but the greatest concentration settled 50 miles from the test site. Government officials chose the Trinity Test Site because it was remote and flat with predictable winds.
The bomb’s plutonium mushroom cloud, which soared 10 miles into the sky, sent nuclear dust covering the Tularosa Basin for weeks. Due to the secret nature of the project, residents in surrounding areas were not warned. The ash blanketed every building, road and field, seeped into the local water supply and entered the food chain as animals ate the contaminated grass.
Lucy explains: “It was only when our sheep, goats and chickens began to become ill and die that we started to realise just how exposed we had been. No one ever told us about the bomb. They made us believe it was an ammunition explosive at a nearby military base. They lied and lied to us about what really happened. They still do.
Oppenheimer and a general at the Trinity site (Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Blast in 1945 lit up the sky in Tularosa (Corbis via Getty Images)“No community has been left untouched by Oppenheimer’s curse on this land. Three of my four daughters contracted cancer. Hundreds of others have too. No one from the government stepped forward and helped. All neighbouring states have been compensated – and yet never has the site which took the brunt of the bomb seen a cent.”
The cruel irony of the Downwinders’ plight is that the very officials who carried out the Trinity test also betrayed them through calculated deception. The US government callously withheld information about the potential dangers of radiation, leaving the Downwinders defenceless.
Perhaps the most blatant injustice is the glaring disparity in compensation across states. While some Downwinders in other regions have been acknowledged and supported, the people of New Mexico have been left to contend with their suffering in isolation. Recent research discovered that within 10 days, the fallout had reached 46 states, Mexico and Canada.
A sign marks the location of the test area (James Breeden)It found that the accumulation of radioactive material was greater than what was called for under a government compensation programme in 28 of the 33 counties in New Mexico. More than £2billion has been handed out through the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990. The battle for compensation has been a Herculean task, marked by bureaucratic barriers and systemic indifference.
While other states have received reparations for their pain, New Mexico’s Downwinders have been denied the same recognition. Now, as several lawmakers battle to see the state included, they are hit with a further problem. Despite RECA being recently extended, it’s still set to expire next year. Once that ends, Downwinders chance for help might disappear too. As the movie, shown in Tularosa’s neighbouring town of Alamogordo, continues to make billions of dollars, the local community remains on the sidelines.
Battle is on to keep Victoria Cross awarded to RAF World War Two hero in UK
Film on at nearby Alamogordo (James Breeden)Tina Cordova, 62, a cancer survivor and founder of a group of New Mexico Downwinders who was raised in Tularosa, said: “They’ll never reflect on the fact that New Mexicans gave their lives. “They invaded our lives and our lands, and then they left.” The Downwinders’ story is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit yet Lucy does not share many people’s fury, saying: “I don’t have any anger, just hurt. Our fight is not about compensation, we just want medical help.”
Oppenheimer may have robbed her of one of her daughters but it failed to steal her humour. Asked the secret to how she is so active, Lucy replies: “Probably because I was nuked.”
Read more similar news:
Comments:
comments powered by Disqus
