Bikini: Postmortem

Washington DC: Newsweek, 1946. Presumed contemporary typescript copy. Typescript. RARE Operation Crossroads related newspaper columnist 'opinion peace'. This is the text of one of Mr. Lindley's weekly Newsweek columns, published on July 15, 1946. This piece of ephemera, by a journalist who witnessed the event, is probably unique. Three pages, 8 inches by 10.5 inches, printed on one side only, with two holes punched at the top. Several typed overstrikes noted. It is NOT listed in the Newsweek Index but does appear in the published issue starting at page 32. [A different column, Echoes of Bikini, by Mr. Lindley is listed in the index but could not be found in the published issue.] Ernest K. Lindley was a noted Washington correspondent for many years and then an official of the State Department. Mr. Lindley graduated from the University of Idaho. He was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship and spent three years at Oxford University in England. In 1924, Mr. Lindley joined the staff of The New York World as a reporter and political writer. He moved to The Herald Tribune in 1931 when the world ceased publication. In 1937, Mr. Lindley left The Herald Tribune to become the Washington bureau chief of Newsweek magazine, which was organized that year. A year later, he joined The Washington Post. Mr. Lindley remained on The Post until 1943 and on Newsweek until 1961. At Newsweek, Mr. Lindley wrote a weekly column, "Washington Tides". During WWII, Mr. Lindley organized a group of veteran reporters that met frequently with Gen. George C. Marshall, the Army chief of staff, and Administrator Ernest J. King, the chief of naval operations, and other high officials for sensitive briefings. Operation Crossroads was a pair of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946. They were the first nuclear weapon tests since Trinity in July 1945, and the first detonations of nuclear devices since the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. The purpose of the tests was to investigate the effect of nuclear weapons on warships. The Crossroads tests were the first of many nuclear tests held in the Marshall Islands, and the first to be publicly announced beforehand and observed by an invited audience, including a large press corps. They were conducted by Joint Army/Navy Task Force One, headed by Vice Admiral William H. P. Blandy rather than by the Manhattan Project, which had developed nuclear weapons during World War II. A fleet of 95 target ships was assembled in Bikini Lagoon and hit with two detonations of Fat Man plutonium implosion-type nuclear weapons of the kind dropped on Nagasaki in 1945, each with a yield of 23 kilotons of TNT (96 TJ). The first test was Able. The bomb was named Gilda after Rita Hayworth's character in the 1946 film Gilda, and was dropped from the B-29 Superfortress Dave's Dream of the 509th Bombardment Group on July 1, 1946. It detonated 520 feet (158 m) above the target fleet and caused less than the expected amount of ship damage because it missed its aim point by 2,130 feet (649 m).
The second test was Baker. The bomb was known as Helen of Bikini and was detonated 90 feet (27 m) underwater on July 25, 1946. Radioactive sea spray caused extensive contamination. A third deep-water test named Charlie was planned for 1947 but was canceled primarily because of the United States Navy's inability to decontaminate the target ships after the Baker test. Ultimately, only nine target ships were able to be scrapped rather than scuttled. Charlie was rescheduled as Operation Wigwam, a deep-water shot conducted in 1955 off the coast of Mexico (Baja California).
Condition: Good.

Keywords: Operation Crossroads, Atomic Bomb, Atomic Test, Weapon Test, Marshall Islands, Bikini Atoll, Kwajalein, Weapon Effects, Bomb Damage, USS Arkansas, USS Nevada, Blandy, Joint Task Force, Naval Architecture, Radioactivity

[Book #85748]

Price: $500.00

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