Epigraphs Note on Terminology Acknowledgments Introduction

“Douglas P. Meigs died as a result of burns due to steam. The Aetna, insurance
carrier for Fercleve [the contractor], was not permitted to investigate
the cause, nor the scene of the accident, but was permitted to make a routine
dependency investigation. After complete facts were available to the
Insurance Section, the insurance carrier was instructed to make payment
as awarded to Meigs’s widow by the Bureau of Workmen’s Compensation,
State of Pennsylvania.”
37. A. Kramish, “They Were Heroes Too,” Washington Post, December 15, 1991.
Kramish told me that the Manhattan Project officer, “Dusty” Rhodes was
sent to silence the press. The Philadelphia Record may have gone to press
before he arrived, Kramish thinks. The following morning the newspaper
reported that two “specialists” had been killed in an accident. “Gas was
released,” the newspaper added.
38. Leslie Groves, Now It Can Be Told (New York: Da Capo, 1962), p. 121.
39. Washington Post, December 15, 1991.
40. At one beryllium factory in Ohio doing secret fluoride work for the Manhattan
Project, skin lesions and a crippling lung disease called berylliosis
produced an employee turnover rate of 100 percent each month. Captain
Mears to Major Ferry, July 30, 1945. He reports on “chemical dermatitis .
. . resulting from the fluoride compounds entering through a hair follicle,
contaminating a wound, or through a puncture wound by a sharp crystal.
In these cases a papule develops slowly with some of the lesions ending in
ulceration taking months to heal. Some of the workmen’s hands and forearms
are covered with inflamed hair follicles, papules, and depressed sharply
circumscribed scars.” Md 319.1, General Essays, Lectures, Medical Report,
Box 34, Accession #4nn 326-85-005, Atlanta FRC, RG 326.
41. “Never before had such quantities of elemental fluorine gas been handled
daily,” wrote a Manhattan Project doctor, Herbert Stokinger, who saw the
daily health risk to American workers. “Continuous exposure to low concentrations
from unavoidable losses from the equipment was a source of
considerable concern,” he added. Hodge and Voegtlin, eds., Pharmacology
and Toxicology of Uranium Compounds, p. 1024.
42. “Fluorine: Precautions to be Observed in Handling, Shipping and Storage.”
Manhattan Project Official History, Occupational Hazards, Book 1,
General.
43. Herbert Stokinger reported that animal deaths were seen in laboratory experiments
at 0.3-mg/cu m for fluorine. Hodge and Voegtlin, eds., Pharmacology
and Toxicology of Uranium Compounds, p. 1033. Also, “The toxicity of oxyfluorides
occurring from the liberation of fluorine in the atmosphere” was
given a high priority for research. Memo to Col. Warren from Capt. John L.
Ferry, November 29, 1943, Md 3, Md 700, General Essays, Lectures, Medical
Reports, Box 34, Manhattan Engineer District Accession #4nn 326-85-005,
Atlanta FRC, RG 326.
That toxicity data, only declassified in 1994, is truly spectacular. While
exposure of laboratory animals to 0.5 parts per million of pure fluorine for