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 PREFACE

Between 1945 and 1962, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) conducted 235 atmospheric nuclear weapons tests at sites in the United States and in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. In all, about 205,000 Department of Defense (DOD) participants, both military and civilian, were present at the tests. Of these, approximately 142,000 participated in the Pacific test series and approximately another 4,000 in the single Atlantic test series.

In 1977, 15 years after the last aboveground nuclear weapon test, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services noted more leukemia cases than would normally be expected among about 3,200 soldiers who had been present at shot SMOKY, a test of the 1957 PLUMBBOB series. Since that initial report by the CDC, the Veterans Administration (VA) has received a number of claims for medical benefits from former military personnel who believe their health may have been affected by their participation in the weapon testing program.

In late 1977, the DOD began a study that provided data to both the CDC and the VA on potential exposures to ionizing radiation among the military and civilian personnel who participated in the atmospheric testing 15 to 32 years earlier. In early 1978, the DOD also organized a Nuclear Test Personnel Review (NTPR) to:


 * Identify DOD personnel who had taken part in the atmospheric nuclear weapon tests
 * Determine the extent of the participants' exposure to ionizing radiation
 * Provide public disclosure of information concerning participation by DOD personnel in the atmospheric nuclear weapon tests.

This report on Operation CROSSROADS is one of a series of volumes that are the product of the NTPR. The DOD Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA), whose Director is the executive agent of the NTPR program, prepared the reports, which are based on military and technical documents reporting various aspects of each of the tests. Reports of the NTPR provide a public record of the activities and associated radiation exposures of DOD personnel for intrested former participants and for use in public health research and Federal policy studies.

Information from which this report was compiled was primarily extracted from planning and after-action reports of Joint Task Force 1 (JTF 1) and its subordinate organizations. Documents that accurately placed personnel at the test sites were desired so that their degree of exposure to the ionizing radiation resulting from the tests could be assessed. The search for this information was undertaken in archives and libraries of the Federal Government, in special collections supported by the Federal Government, and, were reasonable, by discussion or review with participants.

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