U.S. lawmakers move urgently to recognize survivors of the first atomic bomb test
▻https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/lawmakers-move-urgently-to-recognize-survivors-of-the-first-atom
For General Groves, getting the bomb ready—in secrecy—for wartime use had trumped all other considerations, including public safety.
Yet he realized that a blast whose flash was seen in at least three states and two countries could not be wholly concealed. He ordered the commanding officer of the Alamogordo Air Base to feed a cover story to the Associated Press that “a remotely located ammunition magazine containing a considerable amount of high explosives and pyrotechnics exploded.” There had been, the report went on, “no loss of life or injury.” Local newspapers reprinted the announcement without challenge.
Barbara Kent recalls that the day after the explosion, her camp’s dance instructor took the girls into Ruidoso, where government officials were to make an announcement about the source of the blast.
“It was so crowded downtown—everyone was shoulder to shoulder,” Kent says. “What they told us—there was an explosion at a dump. They said, ‘No one worry about anything, everything’s fine, just go along with your own business.’ Everyone was confused. Some people believed it, but some people thought they couldn’t imagine that a dump explosion would do this." She continues: "They lied to us. I didn’t learn the truth until years later.”
As time passed, Kent says she began to hear disturbing reports that her fellow campers were falling ill. By the time she turned 30, she says, “I was the only survivor of all the girls at that camp.” She adds that she has suffered from lifelong illnesses: She had to have her thyroid removed and has survived several forms of cancer, including endometrial cancer and “all kinds of skin cancers.”