The writer and retired journalism professor Beverly Ann Deepe Keever donated some of her books, “News Zero: The New York Times and The Bomb,” for use by interested people in Majuro.
On behalf of the author, Journal Editor Giff Johnson delivered donations of 20 books to the College of the Marshall Islands library for use in the CMI system and 10 books to the USP Majuro Campus library earlier this month.
Johnson was asked by USP Campus staff to give a short presentation about the book and read a brief section of the book that describes the US government cover up of the initial fallout exposure of Rongelap, Utrik and other islands in the immediate aftermath of the March 1, 1954 Bravo hydrogen bomb test. Speaking to a group of about 20 students and staff, Johnson read a section that described how a young US Marine Corps corporal stationed at Kwajalein was instrumental in breaking the US government silence about Bravo test fallout — a not well-known fact about the US nuclear test legacy in the Marshall Islands.
The book blurb points out that “The New York Times almost singlehandedly shaped news and public perceptions beginning (from the mid-1940s) that helped the US government birth the acceptance of the most destructive man-made force ever created.
In what the author calls ‘News Zero,’ this world-class newspaper omitted or obscured the defining and deadly feature of atomic bombs: radiation and radioactivity. News Zero about radiation and radioactivity kept in the dark for years the unsuspecting lay public, out-of-the-loop opinion leaders, at-risk production workers, US servicemen and Pacific Islanders.”
The book has several chapters related to the Marshall Islands and the US nuclear weapons testing program here from 1946-1958.