Word: corals
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Starbird began drawing up general plans long before the British agreed two months ago to let the U.S. use Christmas Island,* a coral atoll some 30 miles long that lies 1,200 miles south of Hawaii. In some ways, Christmas Island was ideal. Big enough to support an airfield, it was far removed from populated islands and prying Soviet monitors. In 1957 and 1958, the British had launched their tests from the island...
...Starbird soon found that long disuse and the corrosion of the salt-laden ocean air had all but ruined what was left of the British facilities on the island. The harbor was silted with sand. The water supply system was nothing more than a deep ditch cut into the coral to catch rain water. The airstrip was pocked with holes that would snap off a landing gear. The buildings were ready to fall down...
...safe for a new series of blasts: Eniwetok and Bikini, the Pacific sites of former tests, are too small and too close to inhabited islands. Last week the British solved the problem by giving the U.S. permission to fire off a nuclear series on Christmas Island, a sand-covered coral atoll isolated in the central Pacific...
GENE T. DAVIS Coral Gables...
...Pacific.* Its advantages: it has two good runways, 6,500 ft. and 5,000 ft. long, just 3,400 miles southwest of California; there is little population closer than Hawaii or Micronesia, 1,600 miles to the west; it contains about 200 sq. mi. of sand-covered coral, room enough for considerable equipment and accommodations for 2,000 men; its isolation affords hope of keeping some tests secret. The British conducted three nuclear test series there...