America Tested Nuclear Weapons on Itself

[Music] age began in July 1945 when the United States successfully detonated the world's first atomic bomb [Music] it was an event that had a profound effect on its creators the world would not be the same most people were silent I remembered the line from Hindu scripture now I am become deaf destroy our worlds the following month the United States dropped nuclear bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki [Music] really Hiroshima bomb killed over one hundred thousand people [Music] those bombings were also technically nuclear tests the 20 kiloton bomb dropped on Nagasaki three days after Hiroshima was a different design it killed 74 000 more Japanese and provided the Americans more data on their new weapons capabilities they were only the second and third nuclear weapons that had ever been built or detonated the bombings of Japan were not simply acts of War they were also experiments conducted by the United States to see what these weapons would do an Ultra Modern plant outside Detroit plays host to military representatives of a dozen NATO Nations here in two million square feet of floor space parallel assembly lines turn out the Jupiter and the Redstone missiles America is truly keeping Pace in the missile age [Music] the United States conducted over a thousand nuclear tests more than all the other countries of the world combined when they went to test their weapons they're not going to test them next to their people who they care about ideally they're going to test them out where you know people they don't care about our the first location chosen for testing was the Marshall Islands An American protectorate in the Central Pacific and here is Bikini nearly 4 000 miles from the United States a tiny Coral atoll destined for atomic bomb experiments these first pictures of the little island show the 165 men women and children as they prepare for the move to another small island this is where the term bikini the swimsuit comes from so we have these sort of legacies Even in our vocabulary of this weird period of sort of American nuclear culture and enthusiasm in front of the Palm thatched Community House an American naval officer through an interpreter discusses plans for moving the people the people of bikini are a happy people and they chat daily with the Americans as they wait to leave Modern Dentistry brings only laughter the Marshall Islanders they were told that they were going to have to evacuate their islands for a short time and then be brought back instead these bombs illuminated their Islands they vaporized their Island they polluted the fishing grounds [Music] but testing weapons so far from the continental United States was extremely expensive so the U.S government began searching for alternative sites closer to home the decision was made to start testing nuclear weapons in Nevada and that began in 1951. [Music] underground tests of nuclear weapons will be conducted inside the U.S but it's the above ground test at the Nevada Test Site approximately 100 between 1951 and 1962 that will have the most devastating and lasting impact elaborate fake communities are built to replicate the impact of a nuclear bomb hitting an American town the impact on actual Americans is not as elaborately planned and from the end of World War II until today the overwhelming majority of people killed by American atomic bombs will be Americans [Music] what the atomic energy commission knew at this point is that these tests would release massive amounts of radiation and that that radiation would drift with the wind and so the decision was made to aim these tests and the way they did that was by monitoring weather conditions and meteorological conditions and testing nuclear weapons only when the wind was blowing East so away from Las Vegas and densely populated California so a deliberate engineering took place the fact remains this Fallout wasn't falling on empty land the Nevada Test Site is about 100 miles as the crow flies to the south of us probably even less than that to the areas where weapons testing took place Ian zabarte is a leading member of the western bands of the Shoshone nation of Indians and of activist who's on a mission to bring Justice to his people for the horrors that have befallen them when America declared their sacred land Ground Zero these Shoshone Elders have never before told their stories on camera I slept in the house on a on a couch that was in the living room and the living room faced to the South [Music] and I can remember one morning being woke Before Dawn everything was just bright and brilliant whatever it was it was almost impossible to see it was so bright and it was one of the experiments we were alarmed when we saw this great big dust coming from our southern side and it was just a great big big rolling dust storm light coming into duck water and my mom and dad told us that Fallout that's at atomic bomb they let off as I get older I noticed that several of the family members here in Duck water have cancer and so exposure to Fallout you know in any form the consequences are basically parts of your body die in significant exposure means more parts of it die eventually to the point where the cells can't reproduce themselves or they reproduce in a way that's mutated and that leads to a cancer and in places with high contamination there's a legacy of cancer history that never would have existed in the absence of nuclear weapons testing the health of people in these communities was seen as an acceptable Sacrifice by the atomic energy Commission in order to have a larger and more sophisticated nuclear weapons Arsenal to fall behind any other Nation an atomic progress is a national risk and so when people from the downwind area went to the aec and said why didn't you warn us the atomic energy commission said things like we have to make sacrifices in order to protect democracy yes the very nature of testing weapons for National Defense fires we accept the possibility of some exposure to additional radiation but the Western Shoshone sacrificed both their blood and treasure for America's nuclear industrial complex the first thing to keep in mind about the Nevada testing site is that it's actually legally the property of the western Shoshone Nation [Music] it's deeded to them in the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley and they have never actually seeded that land according to the Treaty of Ruby Valley the Western Shoshone land stretched for nearly one hundred thousand square miles covering much of Nevada and into California Idaho and Utah but with the Advent of the nuclear age in 1945 the United States began forcing the tribe off their land creating a vast Patchwork of high security military installations [Music] this is the violence of colonialism which is really fundamental to the the birth of the nuclear age nation of Indians are the most bombed nation in the world it was mass destruction of our world really it's just been destroyed forever and you can actually see the scars of this if you go on and look at satellite pictures it looks like the moon it's all craters I'm trying to get back to where my ancestors are from and I can't because these people have decided to kill my land and people [Music]

Channel: VICE TV

Views: 211,568

Keywords: military industrial complex, marshall islands nuclear testing, US army, vice, vice tv, world, vice magazine, vice videos, UK, US, Hiroshima, atomic bomb, hiroshima documentary, hiroshima bomb, atom bomb, wwii, ww2, world war 2, history documentary, war documenatry, atom bomb footage, john hurt, nuclear bomb, nuclear explosions, dropping atomic bomb, atomic explosion, nagasaki bomb, while the rest of us die full documentary, us military, cold war, nuclear war, nuclear explosion

Id: mz7Kw6BH15A

Length: 9min 29sec (569 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 08 2023