Word: bomb
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Reagan last week introduced a major new factor into any future arms-control talks: he decided to proceed with construction of the enhanced radiation warhead, commonly known as the neutron bomb. President Carter deferred production of the weapon in 1978 but allowed development of its components. On Friday, the U.S. began informing its NATO allies of his decision and pledging that the weapons will not be deployed in Europe without allied approval. But one Administration official noted: "Of course the Europeans are going to wonder when the other shoe is going to drop." The neutron bomb, which kills humans...
Such a cumulative inventory is long overdue. Though the A-bombings have been the theme of books, memoirs and films, scientific inquiry has been limited. In the immediate postwar years, U.S. occupation authorities openly discouraged filming the devastation or writing about it. When the Japanese regained control, they too resisted appeals for scientific studies, and even today have never passed a basic compensation law for A-bomb victims. Yet through a variety of techniques-autopsies, statistical studies and radiation experiments-Japanese as well as American and European scientists have pieced together the story of the attacks and their grim consequences...
Even those who seemed to have safely passed these initial trials soon realized that the threat and damage from such attacks were different from previous bombings. Healing of cuts and burns was slow because of radiation damage to the body's immune system. Unusually thick scars, called keloids, formed over wounds. Survivors experienced a high rate of blood disorder, leukemia and other cancers. There were also signs of premature aging, including so-called atomic-bomb cataracts. Many children born in the days and weeks after the blasts were retarded, microcephalic (with small heads) and stunted in growth...
Survivors faced not only the fear of sudden illness and possible genetic damage, but social prejudices as well, limiting their opportunities for jobs, marriage and normal lives. Some even refused to apply for government medical care lest they become publicly known as A-bomb victims...
...study's authors refuse to accept the U.S. explanation that the bombs were dropped to hasten the war's end and avoid a bloody invasion. Instead, they cling to the questionable theory that the attacks were mainly intended to awe Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union. In other respects, the study is remarkably free of polemics, though not of ironies. The writers note that many of the victims were Japanese of American birth who had returned to Japan for study and were trapped there by the war. Those of other nationalities who died in the attacks: thousands...