Annie Jacobsen Quotes
The area out at Area 51 that was part of the Operation Plumbbob test continues to be contaminated. It was not cleaned up until the '80s.
Jacobsen, Annie. Interview by Terry Gross. Fresh Air, NPR, 17 May 2011.
Within a few months 11,021 scientists, of forty-nine countries also signed the appeal.
This was a political use of sarcasm and irony. Oak Ridge was the site of the largest facility for producing fissionable material in the world as the result of the Manhattan Project. And yet the problem of what to do with the radioactive waste has never been resolved. So Oak Ridge was producing more and more radioactive uranium in the area without a resolution in sight. The “joke” was that the people in the area were immune, so production could continue without a solution to radioactive waste.
Rickover, the father of the nuclear submarine was not only an expert in nuclear reactors and power, but he was known as a safety perfectionist with a safety record in the Navy that is still marveled at. President Carter, as a naval officer, had worked for Rickover and himself was technologically knowledgeable about nuclear power. He asked his old mentor to chair the investigating the Three Mile Island incident. Rickover actually recommended to the President that much of the report be secret, assuming that reform would take place quickly if the nuclear power industry were not killed by the damning expose of inept personnel and the lack of safety processes with a very dangerous process. However, few reforms were made nationally, and Rickover, 6 years later, grew to regret his recommendation for secrecy.
During the meltdown of the Japanerse nuclear reactors at Fukashima, American sailors were deployed to provide critical assistance fram an American aircraft carrier in the area. They played a significant role in getting the reactors under control. Many of the Japanese at the emergency area had suffered serious illness from the radiation exposure abd a number died. The crew of the aircraft carrier had developed a highly unusual prevelance of serious illness assocated with radiation exposure. The U. S. Defense Department was "styding the matter" but had not decided that the unusual illness patern was related to their assignment assisting in th emergency. A number of the sailors had come to japan and asked for damages from the Raactor company which like most American Corporations would not do or say anything. The Japanese government also was silent on the issue when the sailors came to Japan, However, this former prime minister felt so strongly that he visited the Sailors and took up their cause in letting the Japanese public know what had happened and how the government and the electic company were acting. This was Koizumi's tearful response to the press covering the saolors and their request.
Annie Jacobsen is an American investigative journalist, author, and a 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist. She was a contributing editor to the Los Angeles Times Magazine from 2009 until 2012. Jacobsen writes about war, weapons, security, and secrets. Jacobsen is best known as the author of the 2011 non-fiction book, Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base, which The New York Times called "cauldron-stirring." She is an internationally acclaimed and sometimes controversial author who, according to one critic, writes sensational books by addressing popular conspiracies.
