• History

When the U.S. Army Brought Reporters to a Still-Hot Atomic Test Site

4 minute read

The Trinity nuclear weapon test—the first time an atomic bomb was detonated, exactly 70 years ago on July 16, 1945—is famous today for J. Robert Oppenheimer’s observation “I am become Death” and for the world-changing events that followed the successful explosion. At the time, however, it was the opposite of famous: one journalist attended (from the New York Times) but, for weeks, officials explained away the explosion with a phony cover story.

By that September, however, the U.S. was ready to show off the New Mexico site of the blast.

The Sept. 17, 1945, issue of TIME reported that the Army had brought 31 reporters to see “the first awesome footprint of man’s newest genie” and that the intervening weeks had not lessened its visual impact:

Seen from the air, the crater itself seems a lake of green jade shaped like a splashy star and set in a sere disc of burnt vegetation half a mile wide. From close up the “lake” is a glistening incrustation of blue-green glass 2,400 ft. in diameter, formed when the molten soil solidified in air. The glass takes strange shapes—lopsided marbles, knobbly sheets a quarter-inch thick, broken, thin-walled bubbles, green, wormlike forms.

In the glass lake’s center, directly beneath the bomb’s exploding point, is a crater of bare earth about 15 ft. deep and 300 ft. across. Scientists told newsmen the earth here was pushed downward ten feet by the explosion’s force. Stumps of the four reinforced-concrete tower pillars that supported the bomb still stand in the crater, flaked and twisted. The rest of the tower has vanished into vapor.

But that news junket wasn’t just a matter of showing off the weapons’ power. Rather, it was a concerted public relations effort to counter news out of Japan that the bombs had made Hiroshima and Nagasaki unsafe in the long term. In New Mexico, however, it appeared that the vegetation in the area was continuing to grow healthily. Even though reporters were asked to wear protective shoes and to stay away from still-radioactive “hot spots” in the actual detonation crater, the Army aimed to prove that the lingering effects of the bomb were limited. After all, would they be bringing journalists to walk around near the Trinity site if that weren’t the case?

Just as the reporters were able to visit the New Mexico test site, citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were eventually able to return to their cities. A variety of factors, such as the tonnage of the bombs and the height of detonation, meant that the radiation dissipated more quickly than might have otherwise been the case. However, the damage to those who were present before that point in time was immense. Many of those who seemed to have survived unscathed fell ill later.

In fact, that very same issue of TIME carried another story, in the health section rather than the science section, with a report from a Dutch doctor who happened to be a prisoner of war in Japan at the time of the bombings. He told TIME about people with a set of strange symptoms—swelling, hemorrhages, fever, internal bleeding. “Many (though not all) of the bomb victims who seemed to be recovering,” the magazine reported, “collapsed and died several weeks later.”

But, seven decades later, it now seems that scientists might have been wrong about the residual radiation all along: last September, the U.S. National Cancer Institute announced plans to study a possible link between the Trinity test and high cancer rates in the area.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Photos From the Ruins

Urakami Cathedral (Roman Catholic), Nagasaki, September, 1945.
Not published in LIFE. Urakami Cathedral (Roman Catholic), Nagasaki, September, 1945.Bernard Hoffman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Nagasaki, September, 1945.
Not published in LIFE. Nagasaki, September, 1945.Bernard Hoffman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Hiroshima streetcar, September, 1945.
Not published in LIFE. Hiroshima streetcar, September, 1945.J. R. Eyerman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Nagasaki, Japan, September 1945.
Not published in LIFE. Nagasaki, Japan, September 1945.Bernard Hoffman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
A photo album, pieces of pottery, a pair of scissors - shards of life strewn on the ground in Nagasaki, 1945.
Not published in LIFE. A photo album, pieces of pottery, a pair of scissors - shards of life strewn on the ground in Nagasaki, 1945.Bernard Hoffman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
From notes by LIFE's Bernard Hoffman to the magazine's long-time picture editor, Wilson Hicks, in New York, September 1945.
From notes by LIFE's Bernard Hoffman to the magazine's long-time picture editor, Wilson Hicks, in New York, September 1945.Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Hiroshima, 1945.
Not published in LIFE. Hiroshima, 1945.Bernard Hoffman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Nagasaki, 1945, a few months after an American B-29 dropped an atomic bomb, codenamed "Fat Man," on the city.
Not published in LIFE. Nagasaki, 1945, a few months after an American B-29 dropped an atomic bomb, codenamed "Fat Man," on the city.Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
The landscape around Urakami Cathedral, Nagasaki, September, 1945.
Not published in LIFE. The landscape around Urakami Cathedral, Nagasaki, September, 1945.Bernard Hoffman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
From notes by LIFE's Bernard Hoffman to the magazine's long-time picture editor, Wilson Hicks, in New York, September 1945.
From notes by LIFE's Bernard Hoffman to the magazine's long-time picture editor, Wilson Hicks, in New York, September 1945.Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Neighborhood reduced to rubble by atomic bomb blast, Hiroshima, 1945.
Not published in LIFE. Neighborhood reduced to rubble by atomic bomb blast, Hiroshima, 1945.Bernard Hoffman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Bust in front of destroyed cathedral two miles from the atomic bomb detonation site, Nagasaki, Japan, 1945.
Bust in front of destroyed cathedral two miles from the atomic bomb detonation site, Nagasaki, Japan, 1945.Bernard Hoffman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Hiroshima, 1945, two months after the August 6 bombing.
Not published in LIFE. Hiroshima, 1945, two months after the August 6 bombing.Bernard Hoffman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Nagasaki, 1945.
Not published in LIFE. Nagasaki, 1945.Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Two women pay respects at a ruined cemetery, Nagasaki, 1945.
Not published in LIFE. Two women pay respects at a ruined cemetery, Nagasaki, 1945.Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Hiroshima, September, 1945.
Not published in LIFE. Hiroshima, September, 1945.J.R. Eyerman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

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Write to Lily Rothman at lily.rothman@time.com