More than a half century after it ran in the Deseret News, the headline seems more clear, and more stark, than ever. In 1951, newspapers were a lot more cluttered with headlines and stories that measured not more than a column wide, but this one covered four columns at the top, right over a little piece about "Reds" battling across South Korea and another one about the Senate contemplating whether to begin drafting 18-year-old boys again.
It said, simply, "Atom blast site chosen for Vegas."
The placement of the story is important. It reminds modern readers of the context of the times. The Korean conflict was getting hot. The Soviet Union had the bomb. An America that had recently exerted all its resources to stop one megalomaniac bent on world dominance now faced a stultifying political movement that seemed to be gobbling the world one bite at a time. We had finally abandoned our isolationist tendencies after a terrible world war, and we understood a thing or two about stopping menaces before they became too large.
But it is the third paragraph that catches the eye today. After noting that the bombs would be the first detonated in the United States since 1945, the United Press account says, "The (Atomic Energy) commission said all necessary safety conditions will be enforced."
We know now that this was a lie; that even if the government didn't fully understand the effects of radioactive fallout, it soon knew exactly what kind of danger the blasts would rain onto the lives of thousands of people in Nevada and Southern Utah — patriotic, hard-working people who, as it turned out, became this nation's only nuclear bomb victims during the Cold War — and it kept on detonating.
The subject of compensation has been popular lately. Many Americans believe the government ought to compensate the victims of slavery. John Conyers, a Democratic representative from Michigan, has introduced the "Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act," and has already gotten 48 co-sponsors. Meanwhile, a group of attorneys, led by Johnnie Cochran, is looking for ways to force compensation through the courts.
This issue came to a head, of sorts, in recent weeks when reformed '60s activist David Horowitz, who long ago traded in his love beads and began championing conservative causes, tried to buy ads opposing slave reparations in several student newspapers. The result was a frightening display of how little many college students understand or appreciate free speech. Many student papers, including those from Yale, Harvard, Columbia and Cornell, refused to run the ad. In some places where it did run, angry students stole newspapers and demanded apologies.
Horowitz isn't a tactful person. His ad was meant to incite more than to stimulate. But he asked some sensible questions.
Among them were these: Who decides who gets paid 140 years after slavery ended? Should the white descendants of union soldiers who fought to end slavery have to pay? What of the immigrants who came to America after the Civil War? By most estimates, that would include more than half the country today.
When it comes to government compensation, timing has to be a consideration. The farther we are from an event, the more difficult it becomes to assign either blame or victim status. Slavery was a blight on this continent for 244 years. It allowed an entire group of people to be systematically abused, raped and tormented from generation to generation. Unfortunately, just as time heals wounds, so, too, does it act as a blender in the melting pot of American society.
In this country, the government is not an individual or a private entity. It is us, and we are a different people today than in the 1860s. We have missed our chance at real reparations.
Not so with the nuclear victims. Many of them still are alive. Many are suffering horribly. Others are suffering the anguish of losing loved ones after watching them go through years of agony. This newspaper has documented these cases thoroughly in recent months.
Congress already voted to give these victims compensation, if they could prove their diseases were caused by radiation. Even former uranium miners from 11 states were included. But then Congress decided not to appropriate enough money.
Sure, it's our money. And, sure, many of us weren't around to be responsible for what happened in this case, either. But it is hard to ignore the cries of victims who trusted and believed in their government and its claims that "all necessary safety conditions will be enforced."
Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah and Pete Domenici, R-N.M., are trying for an emergency appropriation of $84 million to help these people. This is the reparations battle that ought to be rallying the nation.
Jay Evensen is editor of the Deseret News editorial page. E-mail: even@desnews.com