"Between 1946 and 1958, 23 nuclear devices were detonated by the United States at seven test sites located on the reef, inside the atoll, in the air, or underwater.[4]"
"Building on this attention, in 1946, French engineer Louis Réard named his new swimsuit design the bikini, in hopes that its revealing style would create an "explosive commercial and cultural reaction" similar to the 1946 nuclear explosion at Bikini Atoll.[5][6][7][8][9]"
The press loved it.
I also remember reading about some US leaflets containing something like "if somebody comes to you showing the reading of a Geiger counter, don't trust him, he's doing the foreign propaganda and just tries to make our citizens feel less secure." Maybe somebody remembers that better?
"From 1951 to 1957, the United States military and the Atomic Energy Commission collaborated in a series of human radiation experiments called the Desert Rock exercises."
It seems they ordered soldiers to observe the explosion and then march through the site.
The voice of the announcer in the video after the detonation: "these experiments are designed to dispel much of fear and uncertainty surrounding atomic radiation" "only 10% of injuries are due to the gamma rays"
"When getting a reading almost anywhere near Ground Zero the Geiger needle just lay over on the maximum, so we started not to pay much attention to whatever the reading was on those Geiger Counters."
A large part of the "Atoms for Peace" and "Our Friend the Atom" were a result of Eisenhower's deliberate attempt to normalize the usage of nuclear weapons in combat.
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2011/07/wish_y...
Also, the "bikini" famously got its name from the
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikini_Atoll
"Between 1946 and 1958, 23 nuclear devices were detonated by the United States at seven test sites located on the reef, inside the atoll, in the air, or underwater.[4]"
"Building on this attention, in 1946, French engineer Louis Réard named his new swimsuit design the bikini, in hopes that its revealing style would create an "explosive commercial and cultural reaction" similar to the 1946 nuclear explosion at Bikini Atoll.[5][6][7][8][9]"
The press loved it.
I also remember reading about some US leaflets containing something like "if somebody comes to you showing the reading of a Geiger counter, don't trust him, he's doing the foreign propaganda and just tries to make our citizens feel less secure." Maybe somebody remembers that better?