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Bikini Atoll Is Not A Beer: Pacific Islanders Speak Out

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

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Pacific Islanders are speaking out after a Texas-based company, the Manhattan Project Beer Co, named one of its handcrafted beers, Bikini Atoll. Based on news coverage and responses on social media, people around the world are listening. An online petition asks CEO Jeff Bezos and other distributors to stop selling Bikini Atoll. It currently has 6,000 signatures. On Aug. 15, the Marshall Islands National Nuclear Commission (NNC) released an official statement calling on the Manhattan Project “to engage in dialogue with the people of Bikini to hear directly from community members about their reactions to their product.”

Type
Research Article
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2019

References

Notes

1 Tom Zoellner, Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock That Shaped the World (New York: Viking, 2009), 84-87.

2 Ibid., 80-81. According to Zoellner, Laurence did more “than anyone in history to present uranium as a friend to mankind” through his two jobs as “stenographer for the War Department” and “top science reporter for the nation's most influential newspaper.”

3 Jonathan M. Weisgall, Operation Crossroads: The Atomic Tests at Bikini Atoll (Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1994), 32.

4 Ibid., 31.

5 Ibid., 329. See “Bikini won out,” n. 45, ch. 3, 329.

6 Zoellner, 90.

7 Ibid., 89-90.

8 Download the complete transcript of the telephone conversation between Gen. Groves and Lt. Col. Rea here.

9 William L. Laurence, “U.S. Atom Bomb Site Belies Tokyo Tales: Tests on New Mexico Range Confirm That Blast, and Not Radiation, Took Toll,” New York Times, September 12, 1945.

10 Laray Polk, “Lucky Dragon,” CounterPunch, April 5, 2007.