ABSTRACT
The 10-megaton H—bomb explosion at Enewetak in November 1952, kept secret by the Americans at the time, represented a quantum leap in the destructive power of nuclear weapons. The Americans had left Bikini atoll alone since the first tests in 1946. The US Atomic Energy Commission would have liked to maintain secrecy about what had happened at the Bravo test. The US Defense Nuclear Agency finally admitted in 1982 that ‘Bravo was without question the worst single incident of fallout exposures in all the US atmospheric testing program’. According to the same source of information, the Bravo explosion was much bigger than expected and ‘released large quantities of radioactive materials into the atmosphere, which were caught up in winds that spread the particles over a much larger area than anticipated. American public opinion gradually swung against nuclear tests, as people pondered the effects of fallout on themselves and their children.
