Spectacular failure, contested success: The Project Chariot bioenvironmental programme

@article{01ad0af0159e4284b60c084a830c7087,

title = "Spectacular failure, contested success: The Project Chariot bioenvironmental programme",

author = "Millar, {Susan W.S.} and Don Mitchell",

note = "Funding Information: Millar Susan W. S. Department of Geography, Central Connecticut, State University Mitchell Don Department of Geography, Syracuse University 07 1998 5 3 287 302 sagemeta-type Other search-text his entire operation has become such an admixture of politics, emotions and scientific data that it is often difficult to determine where one ends and the other begins,' wrote Brina Kessel to a fellow zoologist in 1961.1 Kessel was the director of a series of ecological studies conducted in the early 1960s by the biology faculty at the University of Alaska under contract to the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). The AEC had come to Alaska in 1958 seeking con- sent to blast a huge harbour with nuclear bombs at the edge of the tundra near Cape Thompson in north-west Alaska. As part of its much-hyped Project Plowshare, Edward Teller and his colleagues at Livermore Radiation Laboratory were hoping to demonstrate on American soil the efficacy of what they called 'geographical engineering' before selling these techniques to other nations.2 Ultimately, Project Chariot, as the harbour project was called, was a spectacular failure. No harbour was dug; and the AEC garnered enormous bad publicity as well as a good deal of ill-will in the scientific community. Our purpose in this paper is not to detail the complex machinations that led to the rise and fall of Chariot. This has already been done with great thor- oughness, and considerable flair, by Dan O'Neill in his compelling history, Firecracker Boys. It is quite clear, however, that along with the intense political organizing among local Eskimos, and among scientists and community activists in places as far-flung as St Louis, New York and New Hampshire, one of the other key ingredients in Chariot's failure was the scientific, chiefly ecological, work that AEC had hoped would pave the way for the blasts. Our goal here is to outline briefly the nature of this scientific work, explore how the work itself came about, and show how it changed over the course of the project. Much of the science was trailblazing and it still remains a signal event in cold regions environmental study. Our contention is that the scientific work done as part of Ecumene 1998 5 (3) 0967-4608(98)EU142OA {\textcopyright} 1998 Arnold 'T SPECTACULAR FAILURE, CONTESTED SUCCESS: THE PROJECT CHARIOT BIOENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAMME Susan W. S. Millar and Don Mitchell Chariot was so good only because it was impossible to identify the boundaries between emotion, politics and scientific data that so worried Brina Kessel. In this paper we show how social and historical context are essential ingredients in the production of science. We contend that, far from impoverishing science, such contextual understanding strengthens its claims to knowledge and indeed to truth itself. Social studies of science in recent years take at least the first part of this claim as given.3 By contrast, critics of social studies of science complain that such stud- ies serve only to undermine science, and at their worst simply misunderstand how science itself works.4 While these criticism of social studies of science are largely misguided, it is true that some studies have indeed minimized the degree to which science is a particular kind of knowledge, and to which scientific knowl- edge is cumulative, is a means for unfolding the mysteries of nature and is a way of knowing that makes valid claims about how the world works. When we begin to understand how science is not hindered but rather enabled through politics, emotional claims or other social processes, we will hardly be witnessing the destruction of science's special claims to knowledge. The science developed as part of Chariot instead keenly exemplifies the ways in which science is enabled by society. But it also shows how that science itself acts back on the politics that produce it. Here we briefly outline the controversies that made Chariot science a con- tested success, even as the harbour project itself was a significant failure.5 We begin by discussing the lasting outcome of the Chariot bioenvironmental pro- gramme, and how that programme came to be developed in the first place: it certainly was not part of the original plans of the Livermore engineers and pro- moters when they first came north with ideas of instant atomic engineering. We then briefly examine two of the many controversies that constituted Chariot sci- ence. Our purpose is to give examples of how nearly impossible it is to separate the 'texts' of science from the social, political, economic and indeed emotional 'contexts' that make those texts.6 We start with the text. The Project Chariot bioenvironmental programme There are countless monuments to Project Chariot still abroad in the world. They can be found in the destruction of the tundra ecosystem around the pro- ject site at Ogotoruk Creek, in the radioactive debris left behind from 'tracer' experiments for 30 years and in the lasting political activism of Alaskan Eskimos and scientists both directly and indirectly connected to Chariot.7 Another is the massive tome, The environment of the Cape Thompson region, Alaska.8 Published in 1966, the book is indeed a monument. Weighing nearly six pounds, and exceed- ing 1200 pages, its chapters cover everything from climate and geology to marine zoology, plant distributions, food webs, caribou migration patterns, regional radiobiology, local human ecology and the meat consumption patterns of area residents. The black leatherbound tome garnered reviews at the time of its pub- lication which marvelled that though 'the whole Chariot idea was a touchy one scientifically and politically', the book was 'an outstanding product.' As one 288 Susan W. S. Millar and Don Mitchell Ecumene 1998 5 (3) reviewer put it, 'It seems unlikely that there ever before has been such a sophis- ticated description and interpretation of the environment of a relatively small, undeveloped, isolated area.' Indeed, the same reviewer argued, the Chariot studies 'could well become a model for coordinated investigations of the envi- ronment in other areas'.9 In his introduction to the collection, the director of Project Plowshare for the AEC, John Kelly, writes rather wistfully of how incomplete the studies are, of how they are 'naturally lacking any postdetonation studies'. The original intent of the Chariot bioenvironmental programme, according to Kelly, was (1) to esti- mate the 'biological cost of the excavation program'; (2) to develop data that 'could be used as base lines in studies to be conducted in postexcavation time'; (3) to determine the levels and distributions of 'radioisotopes in the biota and physical environment in pre- and postdetonation time'; and (4) to 'conduct all studies in such a manner that the results would constitute a significant contri- bution to scientific knowledge'.10 Of course, there never was a postdetonation time, in large part precisely because of what the scientists working as part of the programme found. Rather, that too was a product of the very controversies that made the science in the first place. The form of any scientific object (like knowl- edge), as Latour reminds us, is ever a function of the struggles that go into its making.11 When Livermore first vetted the idea of an instant harbour north of the Bering Strait in Alaska, there was no contemplation of a series of studies to gauge the 'biological cost of the program'. Indeed, it seems as though the Livermore promoters assumed that Alaskans would jump at the chance to be on the frontiers of geographical engineering.12 Yet when Edward Teller and his Livermore entourage arrived in Alaska in the summer of 1958 to announce their plans, they were met with scepticism on a number of fronts. Newspaper editors and chamber of commerce types were certainly enthusiastic about geographical engineering, but they wondered why Livermore was proposing such an imprac- tical project. The Ogotoruk Creek area, after all, would be icebound for most of the year, and it was not at all clear that the area possessed sufficient mineral wealth to support a harbour (at least not minerals that could be gathered eco- nomically).13 They suggested that perhaps Livermore would like to consider har- bours in other, more practical areas. Or maybe what Alaska needed was an instant canal slicing through the Alaskan peninsula which would cut by an immense proportion travel time between Anchorage and south-eastern parts of the state (and the Lower 48).14 In the face of such concerns, Livermore dropped any pretence of using Chariot for economic development and argued instead that Chariot should be seen as an essential experimental first step in geo- graphical engineering. But concern was also raised in another, more serious corner. A group of biol- ogists associated with the University of Alaska in Fairbanks (UAF) opposed the project for a number of reasons, chief among which was that it was abundantly clear that Livermore had no idea how its scheme would damage the local ecosys- tem and nearby native villages.15 If Livermore was proposing an experiment in nuclear cratering, these biologists reasoned, then it ought to be a complete exper- Spectacular failure, contested success 289 Ecumene 1998 5 (3) iment, one capable of assessing not just the engineering factors involved in exploding several large nuclear bombs simultaneously but also the biological and human effects of such a project.16 The Fairbanks scientists assumed that when the ecological and human damage such projects would cause were brought to light, the costs associated with them would become unacceptably high, doom- ing Chariot to oblivion.17 Around this time Chariot was drawing fire from other quarters, including from other divisions of the AEC. There were persistent rumours in Washington and around the state that the AEC had pulled the plug on Chariot.18 Chariot was far from dead, however. Indeed, by February 1959, the University of Alaska pres- ident had received word that a biological programme similar to that proposed by the UAF biologists had been concocted, and that Livermore's Gerald Johnson would come to the university before the end of the month 'ready to proceed on the spot with the awarding of contracts'.19 This announcement threw the biologists into furious action as they sought to hammer out a proposal to the AEC for several biological studies at Cape Thompson. By April the biologists in Fairbanks under the supervision of zoologist Brina Kessel, had put together a three-to-five-year programme of study that would examine the regional ecology of the blast site. Since both funds and university personnel were 'apparently lim- ited for this work', Kessel and her colleagues proposed 'research only in areas in which we are most competent'. These included studies of small and large mammals, plant distribution and ecology, sea-cliff bird studies and human eco- logical studies in the town of Kivalina (about 40 miles from Ground Zero). In their proposal, they expressed hope that studies in fields such as soils, micrometeorology, littoral biology (including the limnology of Ogotoruk Creek), marine mammals, land birds, invertebrate zoology, and entomology will be supported by the Atomic Energy Commission through other contracts. Without complete coverage of all these fields, the total study will probably fail to provide the desired understanding of the total ecology of the field.20 Indeed, the AEC had begun soliciting proposals for work in these (and several other) areas, and in May a general meeting was called in Seattle of all poten- tial contract scientists to hammer out the total form of the bioenvironmental programme for Chariot. Given the rapid movement toward ecological studies, and the opposition to Chariot within and beyond the AEC, it is quite possible that the ecological programme was established precisely to stave off Chariot's premature demise.21 That is, the ecological programme was established not only to provide the types of information the Fairbanks scientists argued were essen- tial to Chariot's success as an experiment, but also to gather consent from con- cerned scientists in Alaska, as well as from sceptical members of Congress and the Eisenhower administration, for Chariot as a necessary exercise in geo- graphical engineering.22 290 Susan W. S. Millar and Don Mitchell Ecumene 1998 5 (3) Two controversies The rather rapid development of a bioenvironmental programme for Chariot is one indication of how the boundary between 'politics, emotion, and scientific data' is continually blurred in practice. Two related controversies that developed as the ecological work progressed further demonstrate this point. The first con- cerns the state of knowledge after the first season, a set of rather premature statements about the 'biological costs' of the blast, and arguments over which scientific work would be funded for the second season. The second concerns the way radioactivity moved through the Arctic ecosystem and accumulated in the bones and tissues of caribou and humans. The first season's work, beginning in mid-July 1959, was rushed and very incomplete. If there was any 'evidence' gathered at all, it was that the 'costs' of Chariot were apt to be much higher than the AEC had anticipated. Even so, on 7 January 1960 the Project Chariot Environmental Studies Committee (which had been created to oversee the entire bioenvironmental programme) released to the public a set of conditions under which Chariot could be carried out. Claiming to be basing its statement on information 'known to it as of December 10, 1959', the Committee suggested that the blast could be made in March or April, that 'the preferred distribution of the debris, especially that of a radioac- tive nature, is to sea; placing debris to land is also considered acceptable'; but that '[i]n no case should radiation be delivered to humans in excess of that specified as acceptable for the general public; nor should the detonation cause significant damage to the food sources of the indigenous human population'. The Committee further recommended detonation in the spring because: 1. Few birds are in the area. 2. Most small animals are under snow cover. 3. Most plants are under snow cover and their metabolism is low. 4. Local hunting activity on the land is low. 5. The sea and inland waters are under ice; snow is on the ground. It is expected that the radioactive debris will be flushed from the frozen landscape by the spring run-off of rapidly melting snow. 6. Weather is generally good and daylight is increasing which will facilitate project studies. It concluded with a caveat: The Committee wishes to emphasize the following point: the foregoing discussion and recommendations are based on data presently available. These data are incomplete. Continuing environmental studies are required to satisfy those deficiencies and pro- vide the basis for firm recommendation. It is anticipated that the currently planned studies will provide, prior to March, 1961, the necessary information on which the Committee can base its final recommendation.23 On the one hand, then, the Committee was making a recommendation for how the explosions could be conducted. On the other, it was arguing for fur- ther biological studies to determine whether the attempt was feasible. Such schiz- ophrenic actions on the part of the Committee, its chair, John Wolfe, or the AEC as a whole were by no means rare. By the end of the following summer, Spectacular failure, contested success 291 Ecumene 1998 5 (3) for example, even before any contract workers had submitted September 'progress letters' giving early indication of their findings during the summer sea- son, a New York Times article announced: 'Dr. John N. Wolfe, an Atomic Energy Commission scientist, said a fifteen-month field study costing $2,000,000 had produced no evidence that the detonation would damage the Eskimos' rela- tionship to their environment and livelihood.'24 Chariot 'science', at least in Wolfe's version, seemed to have a rather dubious connection to the truth, never mind the contemporary state of knowledge. Such claims by AEC functionaries incensed the scientist working on the envi- ronmental programme, and many contract scientists contested the Committee's pronouncements ­ sometimes quite publicly.25 Even so, as they made their com- plaints, they were also engaged in writing grant proposals for the following sum- mer's work. This proved to be an exceptionally frustrating process. The University of Alaska's Kessel, for example, wrote to Wolfe in February 1960 com- plaining that researchers there 'feel completely out-of-touch with the progress and future plans for Project Chariot'. They were not even sure the project was still in operation.26 In a typically defensive response, Wolfe argued that '[t]o keep everyone advised of the details is impossible. A letter or report is some- times obsolete before we find [a] franked envelope to put it in.'27 Yet Wolfe did have time to write to Doris Saario, a University of Alaska research assistant study- ing the people of Kivalina. Due to budget constraints (imposed by Wolfe), Kessel had decided to eliminate the studies at Kivalina and to hand over responsibil- ity for them to geographer Don Foote, an independent contractor whose 'funds come from the San Francisco office [of the AEC] and so are apparently not as limited as ours'.28 Wolfe replied to Saario that he would like to see her work continue as 'the value of cross-checks are not to be underestimated'.29 Since Wolfe did not feel such 'cross-checks' were important for the other studies in the area, it is clear he either did not trust or wanted to minimize the impact of Foote's findings in Point Hope and Noatak, which were proving to be quite detrimental to Livermore's plans for geographical engineering.30 Kessel was furious at Wolfe's interventions. On the one hand, Wolfe had told the University of Alaska to scale back their studies; on the other, he was super- seding Kessel's authority ­ and her budget ­ by specifically requesting Saario to continue her work. More generally, Kessel complained that the Division of Biology and Medicine (DBM): is making it extremely difficult for us to plan and execute the comprehensive, coor- dinated research program you desire. In the first place, because of the delayed con- tract reviews, we are forced to wait until far too late to begin assembling research crews (and then the Committee complains that the data is not being obtained . . .), or we have to commit ourselves to employees early and trust that the DBM will stand behind our commitments.31 Further, Kessel was concerned that the Committee found 'the parts of the research program where we asked for only minimal funds last year for intro- ductory work' to be lacking, but that it now 'wish[es] to cut our budget for next year so that we will not be able to institute a research program [in these areas] comparable to those in the other projects'. In short, she feared that the 292 Susan W. S. Millar and Don Mitchell Ecumene 1998 5 (3) Committee and DBM were making it impossible to do the research the University was contracted to do. 'All in all, we are becoming more and more dissatisfied with our relationship with the DBM and with the AEC, and we have the distinct impression that you lack confidence in our ability to handle the research program.' She challenged Wolfe to declare whether he was 'satisfied with our over-all program or with our new proposal'; if he was not, she affirmed that 'we will be glad to withdraw our proposal entirely'.32 Clearly offended by Kessel's letter, Wolfe fired off a defensive response, not to Kessel, but to university president Ernest Patty. I do not wish to discuss my misconceptions, lack of understanding, and general incom- petence with members of your staff . . . . Nonetheless, I am the only defender of the program here at DBM . . . . If Prof. Kessel wishes to withdraw her renewal proposal or reject our support, she is perfectly free to do so . . . .33 As for his writing to Saario directly concerning the termination of her studies, Wolfe responded: 'I regret that time, geography, and expedience being what they are, I cannot await Dr. Kessel's permission to contact various group lead- ers relative to special program problems. I will keep her informed when the sub- ject matter seems inside her sphere of interest and jurisdiction';34 a curious statement indeed, given that Kessel was Saario's boss. The shape of science ­ the contents of the massive black tome, The environ - ment of the Cape Thompson Region ­ was dependent on the resolution of such dis- putes as those between Kessel and Wolfe. What was funded, what work was completed, how the research was reported: all of these were a function of the strange alchemy of political pressure within and outwith the AEC, personality conflicts between researchers and oversight committees, and the ability, under short time horizons, to entice qualified researchers to Alaska to conduct stud- ies under less than stable conditions. As Kessel noted, Wolfe and the AEC were 'asking the University to commit themselves to prospective scientists before we ever submit a proposal [for funding] and then apparently they will decide whether to fund [them] or not'.35 Nowhere were these disputes more clear than in the discussions over research that sought to understand the connection between lichen, caribou and humans in the Arctic ecosystem, research that, as the AEC later admitted,36 was perhaps the most important of the whole endeavour. This research constitutes our sec- ond controversy. Understanding the food webs of the Arctic, and how radioactivity travelled through them, seemed essential to the bioenvironmental programme, especially since numerous studies were beginning to show a link between global radioac- tive fallout and the bioaccumulation of radioactivity in Arctic mammals. Moreover, Don Foote's preliminary research was showing just how important caribou were to local people as a source of protein. Hence, understanding how radioactivity travelled through the ecosystem was essential to gauging the 'bio- logical cost' of the proposed excavation. Despite all this, Wolfe complained to Kessel after seeing the UAF proposal for the 1961 field season that 'the mam- mal proposals [including caribou studies] have ballooned beyond credulity, and some of this expansion is outside the scope or at the borders of the total pro- Spectacular failure, contested success 293 Ecumene 1998 5 (3) ject objective, geographic and temporal'. He therefore informed Kessel that a 'revision of the scope of your research program compatible with the Committee's guidelines, with such revisions reflected in the budget, appears necessary'.37 Kessel reminded Wolfe that he himself had earlier placed the caribou studies under the category of 'continuing and/or intensified studies' for the coming season, but that given his new stance, 'we will delete the proposed range study from our next year's plans.'38 Wolfe shot back that his desire for 'intensification' of some studies only extended to 'those not fully underway (e.g. entomology) and those which had been started late in 1960 (e.g. soils movement).' Unlike these programmes, 'Caribou have had the benefit of several sources of infor- mation. . . . The range study is completely out of the question. . . .' He made clear the reasoning behind his requested cuts: 'There would not have been any program such as this at all if it were not for the idea of nuclear excavation. We still ride on the coat-tails of that idea, since actual detonation has not received approval. We are obligated, therefore, to support researches useful to the idea but at the same time we have insisted on studies contributory to science.'39 Two months later, the AEC cut the university's funds even further, and Wolfe told Kessel that the 'caribou studies, with their costly airplane requirements, will have to be pretty much limited to what has been referred to as {"}the Ogotoruk herd{"} ',40 in essence making impossible the sort of work UAF scientists felt was necessary to come to a complete understanding of the dynamics of caribou ecol- ogy. These cuts also forced Kessel to request the elimination of a phytosocio- logical study and the transference of its budget to meet the costs of caribou stomach-rumen analysis (a project necessary for understanding the feeding habits of caribou and thus how radioactivity was taken up by them).41 Even with this switch, stomach analysis remained perpetually underfunded and incom- plete, providing Wolfe with an opportunity for chastising Kessel and Pruitt for not doing a good enough job in this field.42 The caribou controversy came to a head in the fracas surrounding UAF mam- malogist Bill Pruitt's 1962 'Final Report' on the mammal studies, a draft of which he completed toward the end of 1961. Pruitt had become interested in bioac- cumulation of radioactivity in caribou for much the same reasons as most other scientists working on high-latitude mammals. In the late 1950s, the Arctic was a region of relatively low contamination by fallout. Yet a number of studies had shown that both caribou and human residents of the Arctic had elevated con- centrations of radioactive contamination.43 At the beginning of his work for the AEC, Pruitt had sent for reprints of papers on lichens, since lichens were a pri- mary food source for caribou. This research showed both that lichens them- selves had greater levels of radioactivity compared to other plants and that animals that grazed on lichens took up strontium-90 from the plants and deposited it in their bones. By February 1961, when the controversy over the funding of that year's field season was brewing, Pruitt requested funds to study the relationship between vegetation and caribou. This was the 'intensification' of the caribou studies that Wolfe vetoed.44 Pruitt's activities in publicizing the bioaccumulation of radioactivity in Arctic mammals and people in outlets such as the News Bulletin of the Alaska 294 Susan W. S. Millar and Don Mitchell Ecumene 1998 5 (3) Conservation Society and the journal Nuclear Information during 1961 had earned him the enmity both of the AEC and of new University of Alaska presi- dent (and Chariot enthusiast) William Wood, and Pruitt was given a 'phase-out' contract that lasted through 22 January, 1962. In November, he submitted a required 'progress report' to Wolfe, a report that formed the basis of his final report due in December. Wolfe was not impressed by Pruitt's assessment. 'Surely there is more to report on caribou than Dr. Pruitt indicates in the summary recently submitted,' he suggested to Kessel.45 Kessel responded by reminding Wolfe that the caribou studies 'were stopped because of the budget limitation' he himself had imposed on the university researches.46 In his report Pruitt had included a table that summarized existing research on plant and lichen uptake of radioactive elements and their relationship to mammals in Arctic environ- ments. He included this in part because he had been unable himself to do the work necessary to establish these relationships for Ogotoruk Creek. This table drew considerable ire from Wolfe. The Table in your summary reporting radiological analysis of biological material seemed somewhat out of order. Only one of the 11 entries is for Ogotoruk Creek, i.e. lichens. Of the ten non-Ogotoruk Creek entries, one is for lichens, but in units not at all comparable to the units for the Ogotoruk Creek lichen material. No com- parison is possible because 'counts' cannot be converted to micro-micro curies with- out a considerable array of correctional factors. What was the objective? I assume that the remainder of the entries had some objective also, if only to call attention to the available data. We are aware of these and other published analyses, and when they are useful in various kinds of comparisons, we fully intend to use them. In themselves they are scarcely meaningful.47 Knowing his contract would not be renewed, Pruitt replied to Wolfe with all the sarcasm he could muster: I infer from your comments that you (and the Committee?) reject data from locali- ties other than the Ogotoruk Creek region. In one respect I find this heartening, since I (and others) have been deeply concerned at the attempts to fit data derived from the domestic cattle at the Nevada Test Site into the Arctic caribou eco- system. . . . You undoubtedly remember that funds for our proposed study of vegetation­caribou­radioactivity relationships were specifically deleted from our present contract. I am glad that you noted the variation in measurement units used in reporting Strontium-90 concentrations. This had long been a source of irritation to me. Since the problem has been brought to your attention so vividly I suggest that you are in a position there in Washington to correct it and respectfully urge you to do so. I must confess that I am completely puzzled by your questioning the objective of including the table on radioactivity in the Terrestrial Mammals summary. The objec- tive was clear ­ to bring to the attention of all concerned the potential danger posed by radiation from Chariot (and all sources) to a species of prime importance to north- ern regions, both ecologically and economically. It is quite true that the table . . . might be out of order in that it contains data derived not from our own studies but from those of others. However, ecology consists of a synthesis, a drawing together of ideas and information from scattered sources.48 Spectacular failure, contested success 295 Ecumene 1998 5 (3) If Wolfe was still unclear as to why reporting other studies on radioactivity con- tamination was so important, Pruitt sought to make it manifestly clear to him: I did not think it necessary to point out that caribou bone strontium concentrations are already far above the present human 'allowable' limits. I did not think it neces- sary to point out that Foote has shown that the village of Point Hope relies on the annual caribou harvest to ensure its ecological stability. I did not think it necessary to point out the recent Finnish embargo on reindeer meat because of radioactive con- tamination, nor to pose the question of the possible economic effects of a similar embargo in Alaska (after Chariot???) by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and commer- cial utilizers of reindeer meat. I did not think it necessary to point out that Lappish students at the University of Oslo were recently found to have whole-body radiation counts on a fantastically higher level than non-Lappish students, nor did I speculate on the possible results if a similar study were made on the Alaskan Eskimo people. These are all ecologically pertinent. I am glad you were aware of the data in my table. Since, however, some of the reindeer studies were published as early as 1958, I am at a loss to explain the statements made by your organization and the Committee in 1960 regarding 'no evidence' of potential biological harm.49 If relations between Wolfe and Pruitt were tense in December, and if Kessel felt she was caught in the middle, then the real meltdown of personal relations occurred in January, when Pruitt prepared his final report on the 1961 research season, a report based on the 'progress letter' to which Wolfe had already objected. By this time, Brina Kessel had already refused to allow Pruitt to write the final reports either on ground squirrels (on which he had done most of the research) or on caribou (on which he had overseen the research programme). When Pruitt submitted his final report on the ecology of other small mammals, Kessel made a number of changes that its author felt effectively 'censored' his conclusions. When Pruitt received Kessel's changes, he restored much of his original text, particularly portions concerning routeways of radioactive isotopes in the Arctic ecosystem (and including references to caribou ecology), and submitted a new version directly to the university stenographers. Kessel pulled the manuscript from the steno pool and reorganized much of it, cutting and pasting sections into new locations and simply eliminating other sections.50 Among other things, Kessel eliminated nearly all references (and all citations to existing literature) on the importance of caribou to Eskimos' 'way of life' and economic wellbeing. Pruitt complained that these 'deletions form a disturbing pattern', since they chiefly centred on 'sections on endangered species, potential ecosystem disruption or recommendations for further research. These are just the aspects of Arctic ecology and resource conservation that are avoided by the powerful commercial and governmental exploiters and {"}developers{"} '.51 Incensed as he was at Kessel's changes, Pruitt's hands were tied: Kessel had the only copy of his text. And when she returned the changed report to him, she did not also return his original. Kessel informed Pruitt that the University of Alaska was the party responsible for the reports to the AEC, not the individ- ual researchers, and thus that she was within her rights as project leader to change Pruitt's work. Nonetheless, she gave Pruitt 20 days to respond to the changes she had made. Pruitt countered by 'challeng[ing] your statement that 296 Susan W. S. Millar and Don Mitchell Ecumene 1998 5 (3) the University is the one ultimately responsible for the content of all final reports. The ultimate responsibility for any scientific writing, whether intra- agency report, contractual report or open publication lies with the author. Your statement that the document under consideration is a final contractual report and not a publication in the scientific literature imputes different degrees of accuracy or logical rigor.'52 Despite her promise of 20 days to review her edito- rial changes, Kessel submitted Pruitt's report to the AEC after only 10. The report was submitted in Pruitt's name, but with the statement 'as modified by Brina Kessel, General Supervisor, University of Alaska Project Chariot Investigations' appended to the title-page.53 Conclusion: contested success In the text of The environment of the Cape Thompson region, these controversies fade to invisibility. The tone is reasonable and reassuring: 'It is the living com- munities of plants and animals, including man, and their ecological ties with each other and their environments', a preface signed by the Committee on Environmental Studies for Project Chariot intones, 'that are the warp and weft of geography. And it is with the relations of geography to modern technology that this volume is concerned.'54 But this statement was written at the end of 1965, more than three years after Chariot had been cancelled. The record shows that, for their part, the engineers and promoters at Livermore had little inter- est in geography beyond its providing a place to explode huge bombs. Even so, the Committee found it necessary to remark in its preface: the majesty of technology is not sufficient unto itself. It is also encumbered with the responsibility of asking before its accomplishments, what else these monumental achievements do to man's environment ­ in terms of welfare, safety, and total ecology. As Professor Paul B. Sears has remarked, 'Failure to use Science as a source of perspective in our present age of culture degrades its function and may in time be disastrous.' One suspects the Professor's reference was strongly biological in context.55 The context within which this text was made, of course, was at least as much 'political' or 'emotional' as it was biological, as our few examples have shown. To the degree to which Chariot 'used Science', it was only because that science was forced upon it. As importantly, the very shape of that science was in no sense pre-given; rather, it too was a product of struggles over who should have the voice to represent what kind of nature and society, over who should have the standing to speak for or against the use of hydrogen bombs to reshape the surface of the earth. Emotion and politics are not incidental to the making of science: they are integral to it. If the research reported in the book is as good as its reviewers say it is, then it is because of, not despite, the controversies that went into its making. The black book is not, as Latour would say, a black box ­ at least not when one knows the controversies that went into its making. Spectacular failure, contested success 297 Ecumene 1998 5 (3) Acknowledgements This research was supported by the Anne U. White fund of the Association of American Geographers and a Junior Faculty Development Award from the University of Colorado. We would like to thank Scott Kirsch and Denis Cosgrove for helpful comments on earlier drafts. Department of Geography Central Connecticut State University Department of Geography Syracuse University Notes 1 Kessel to Boyd, 21 Apr. 1961, Project Chariot Collection, Box 1, File 4, Rasmussen Library, University of Alaska. 2 For discussions of the Plowshare programme, see D. O'Neill, Firecracker boys (New York, St. Martin's Press, 1994); T. Findlay, Nuclear dynamite: the peaceful nuclear explosion fiasco (Sydney, Brassey's, 1990); E. Teller, 'We are going to work miracles', Popular Mechanics (Mar. 1960); S. Kirsch and D. Mitchell, 'Earth-moving as the {"}measure of man{"}: Edward Teller, geographical engineering and the matter of progress', Social Text 54 (1998), pp. 98­132; for Project Chariot, in addition to O'Neill, see P. Brooks and J. Foote, 'The disturbing story of Project Chariot', Harper's, 19 Apr. 1962, pp. 60­62; P. Coates, 'Project Chariot: Alaskan roots of environmentalism', Alaska History 4 (1989), pp. 1­31. 3 Classic works in social studies of science include B. Latour and S. Woolgar, Laboratory life: the construction of scientific facts (Los Angeles, CA, Sage, 1979); B. Latour, Science in action: how to follow scientists and engineers through society (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1987); S. Shapin and S. Schaffer, Leviathan and the air pump: Hobbes, Boyle and the experimental life (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1985); S. Shapin, A social history of truth (Chicago, University of Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1994); S. Traweek, Beemtimes and lifetimes (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1988); S. Fuller, Philosophy, rhetoric and the end of knowledge: the coming of science and technology stud - ies (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1993); D. Haraway, Primate visions: gender, race, and nature in the world of modern science (New York, Routledge, 1989); S. Harding, Whose science? whose knowledge? thinking from women's lives (Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1991); B. Barnes, Scientific knowledge and sociological theory (London, Routledge, 1974); D. Bloor, Knowledge and social imagery (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976); A. Pickering, ed., Science as practice and culture (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1992). 4 Paul Gross and Norman Levitt's attack on social studies of science, Higher superstition: the academic left and its quarrels with science (Baltimore, MD, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), is the leader in this field. Gross and Levitt argue that social studies of science are nothing less than an attack on rationality, and that they simply deny that there is any such thing as reality, fact or truth. Such studies ­ at least the good ones ­ of course argue no such thing. Instead, they seek to understand the ways in which reality, fact and truth are socially derived, even if 'nature' (or any other object of sci- ence) is not completely reducible to social struggle, politics or language. 5 Chariot never took place: the project was cancelled in 1962, and with it went the last best hope for big earth-moving explosions outside the Atomic Energy Commission's 298 Susan W. S. Millar and Don Mitchell Ecumene 1998 5 (3) Nevada test site. See Findlay, Nuclear dynamite; Kirsch and Mitchell, 'Earth-moving', and Kirsch's paper in this issue. 6 See esp. D. Livingstone, 'The history of science and the history of geography: inter- actions and implications', History of Science 22 (1984), pp. 271­302; see also D. Livingstone, The geographical tradition: episodes in the history of a contested enterprise (Oxford, Blackwell, 1992), pp. 29­30. 7 The eventual defeat of Chariot is a complex and exciting story. Involved in Chariot's demise were contract scientists like Don Foote and William Pruitt, whom we will meet in the course of this paper; their confederates in the bioenvironmental programme like botanists Les Viereck and Albert Johnson; early Alaska environmental activists like Ginny Wood and Celia Hunter; missionaries working in Eskimo communities such as Keith Lawton; dozens of Eskimo activists including Point Hope residents Dan Lisbourne, Joe Frankson and Rose Omnik; Eskimo reporter Howard Rock and his compatriot Tom Snapp (who founded the influential native newspaper the Tundra Times in large part to keep track of Chariot doings); St Louis biologist Barry Commoner (who traces his start as an activist in part to Chariot) and others affiliated with the Committee for Nuclear Information; native rights proponent LaVerne Madigan and her Association of American Indian Affairs; a small clique of activists centred around the New Hampshire home of Jim Haddock, who was drawn into the fray when he happened to meet Revd Lawton; and the Secretary of the Interior Stuart Udall's executive secretary, Sharon Francis. These activists, working with the Chariot scientists and the information they were producing, were enormously effective in bringing the dangers of the project to national attention. O'Neill's Firecracker boys, though meticulously documented and scholarly in its own way, has the character of a good suspense novel. Concerns about destruction of the Ogotoruk Creek ecosystem were voiced as early as 1959, when botanists working on the project complained they could not keep con- struction workers and heavy equipment out of their study sites; L. Viereck to A. Johnson, 12 July 1959, Project Chariot Collection, Box 4, File 28. 8 Norman J. Wilimovsky and John Wolfe, eds, The environment of the Cape Thompson region, Alaska (Springfield, VA, US Atomic Energy Commission, Division of Technical Information, PNE-481, 1966). 9 J. C. Reed, 'Ecological investigations in the Arctic', Science 154 (2 Oct. 1966), p. 372. 10 John Kelly, 'Foreword', in Wilimovsky and Wolfe, The Cape Thompson region, p. iv. 11 This is the point of Latour's Science in action. 12 O'Neill, Firecracker boys, ch. 3; Kirsch and Mitchell, 'Earth-moving'. Of particular inter- est is geographer Don Foote's contemporaneous sleuth-work into the mindset at Livermore as its staff sought to convince Alaskans to buy into Chariot; see esp. Don Foote Collection, Box 11, Files 18 and 19, Rasmussen Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks. These two files contain many of Foote's notes for a history of Chariot he wrote as an AEC contract worker in Point Hope. 13 Livermore had contracted with the E. J. Longyear Company ­ a mining firm fre- quently contracted to do drilling at the Nevada test site ­ to make an economic sur- vey of the Cape Thompson region. Its report (Report to the University of California Radiation Laboratory on the mineral potential and the proposed harbor locations in northwest Alaska) was not publicly released when it was completed. Instead, Teller withheld the report until the Chariot site had won approval from the AEC, public land had been withdrawn through the Department of the Interior and Alaskan government had been secured. When it was later released, one Alaskan resource economist claimed that the report was almost laughably bad: it exaggerated mineral deposits, minimized trans- Spectacular failure, contested success 299 Ecumene 1998 5 (3) portation costs and did no market analysis at all: Rogers to Foote, 15 Feb. 1961, Foote Collection, Box 11, File 21. See also O'Neill, Firecracker boys, pp. 38­39. O'Neill pro- vides a good overview of the response of the Alaskan press to Livermore's plans for instant harbours in the far north. 14 Teller was not one to dampen such ideas: he knew they only worked in favour of allowing him to blow his first big hole in the tundra. Teller, a master of the sound- bite avant la lettre, liked to promise all manner of miracles, quipping at one point in Alaska: 'If your mountain is not in the right place, just drop us a card' (Anchorage Times, 26 June 1959), and another time claiming that Livermore's 'geographical engi- neering' techniques were accurate enough to dig a harbour 'in the shape of a polar bear if desired' (Fairbanks Daily News­Miner, 17 July 1958). 15 Among other documents, see the statement by UAF biologists read to Livermore sci- entists Harry Keller and Vay Shelton, 9 Jan. 1959, Project Chariot Collection, Box 3, File 20; T. S. English to G. Johnson, 21 Jan. 1959, in ibid.; Johnson to Viereck, 21 Feb. 1961, Foote Collection, Fox 10, File 10. 16 'As biologists we can view the proposed explosions (Chariot) as an experiment in engineering with biological side-effects. We are told that the results will be used in planning further explosions. It therefore seems especially necessary to gain as much biological information as possible, and we feel embarrassed that it seems necessary to reiterate that useful conclusions are most likely to follow from a carefully consid- ered experimental design.' Statement of UAF biologists, 9 Jan. 1959. 17 A. Johnson to L. Viereck, 21 Feb. 1961; Albert Johnson, Oral History Interview, in D. O'Neill (comp.), Project Chariot: a collection of oral histories (Fairbanks, Alaska Humanities Forum, 1989). 18 See A. Johnson to E. L. Bartlett, 21 Feb. 1959; Bartlett to Johnson, 24 Feb. 1959, both in Project Chariot Collection, Box 4, File 20; see also O'Neill, Firecracker boys, pp. 73­74. 19 Memo by UAF President E. Patty, 18 Feb. 1959, Project Chariot Collection, Box 3, File 20. 20 B. Kessel, A. Johnson, L. Swartz and W. Pruitt, 'An ecological study of the flora and fauna of the Cape Thompson­Ogotoruk region, Alaska', Project Chariot Collection, Box 9, File 74. 21 This is the conclusion of O'Neill, Firecracker boys, pp. 76­77. For a sense of how rushed the environmental programme was to be, see Johnson to English, 27 Jan. 1959, Project Chariot Collection, Box 3, File 20, in which Johnson says all the work needed to be 'presented in the coming summer'. It seems that the meeting in Washington made it clear that at least two summer seasons would be needed. 22 On the importance of winning consent, see Kirsch and Mitchell, 'Earth-moving'. 23 AEC press release, 'Statement of the Committee on Environmental Studies for Project Chariot', 7 Jan. 1960, copy in Foote Collection, Box 11, File 23. 24 L. E. Davies, 'Proposed atomic blast in Arctic is called safe'. New York Times, 17 Aug. 1960. 25 The beginnings of public opposition to Chariot by contract scientists is detailed in O'Neill, Firecracker boys, ch. 11­13; see also Kirsch and Mitchell, 'Earth-moving'. 26 Kessel to Wolfe, 15 Feb. 1960, Project Chariot Collection, Box 1 File 2. 27 Wolfe to Kessel, 18 Feb. 1960, in ibid. 28 Kessel to Saario, 14 Mar. 1960, Foote Collection, Box 21. 29 Wolfe to Saario, 13 Apr. 1960, Project Chariot Collection, Box 1, File 2. 30 The chapters in Wilimovsky and Wolfe, The Cape Thompson region speak to this point ­ if read between the lines. Foote had found evidence of rather astounding amounts 300 Susan W. S. Millar and Don Mitchell Ecumene 1998 5 (3) of meat consumption by Point Hope villagers. Theirs was a diet still ruled in large part by bingeing during flush times, and so it was not unusual for an individual to eat more than five pounds of meat in a day. Such levels of consumption, if true, would prove devastating to AEC's arguments that (1) the Cape Thompson region was not an important hunting site, and (2) fallout would not prove a considerable risk to local residents. While the AEC published Foote's findings in his chapter (D. Foote and A. Williamson, 'A human geographical study', pp. 1041­1107), it followed it with another chapter, from studies that were not part of the Chariot bioenvironmental pro- gramme, specifically on meat consumption among Eskimos (C. Heller, 'Meat con- sumption at three northern Eskimo villages', pp. 1109­11). The chapter served to undermine Foote's findings. Foote himself had deep reservations about Heller's methodology, arguing that the rather informal sampling missed feast-days and was not comparable to his method of keeping complete diaries of consumption over extended periods of time. There may have been more to the Saario episode than is apparent in Wolfe's calls for 'cross-checks'. Saario was notoriously bad at writing up the results of her research, and there is extensive correspondence between her and a number of the other researchers encouraging her to clean up and finish reports. Inconclusive findings, as in Saario's incomplete reports, might have helped keep the project alive. Indeed, in their summary reports of the Chariot studies, the committee frequently minimized Foote's findings by saying 'one researcher comments' ­ the implication being that Saario's (unreported) findings were different. See US Atomic Energy Commission, Bioenvironmental features of the Ogotoruk Creek area, Cape Thompson, Alaska: a second sum - mary by the committee on environmental studies for Project Chariot (Springfield, VA, Office of Technical Information, TID-17226, 1962). For researchers' responses to the ways Foote's findings were undermined, see Kessel to Wolfe, 7 Apr. 1961; memorandum by W. Pruitt, 15 Mar. 1961; memorandum by L. Viereck, n.d.; all in Project Chariot Collection, Box 1, File 6. 31 Kessel to Wolfe, 19 Apr. 1960, Project Chariot Collection, Box 1, File 2. 32 Ibid. 33 Wolfe to Patty, 5 May 1960, in ibid. 34 Ibid. 35 Kessel to Wolfe, 19 Apr. 1960, in ibid. 36 See US Atomic Energy Commission, Project Chariot Phases I­V: Project Manager's sum - mary report (Las Vegas, Nevada Operations Office and Holmes and Naver, Inc. NVO- 7, Aug. 1964), pp. 2­7; cited in O'Neill, Firecracker boys, p. 212. 37 Wolfe to Kessel, 7 Mar. 1961, Project Chariot Collection, Box 1, File 1. 38 Kessel to Wolfe, 14 Mar. 1961, in ibid. 39 Wolfe to Kessel, 20 Mar. 1961, in ibid. 40 Wolfe to Kessel, 16 May 1961, in ibid. 41 Kessel to Wolfe, 12 June 1961, in ibid. 42 See e.g. Wolfe to Kessel, 17 Nov. 1961, and Kessel to Wolfe, 1 Dec. 1961, in ibid.; Wolfe to Pruitt, 19 Dec. 1961, William O. Pruitt Collection, Rasmussen Library, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Box 1, File 5. 43 O'Neill, Firecracker boys, pp. 209­13, provides an excellent, accessible discussion of these issues. 44 See the letters cited in n.42 above, Firecracker boys, p. 211. 45 Wolfe to Kessel, 17 Nov. 1961, Project Chariot Collection Box 1, File 1. 46 Kessel to Wolfe, 1 Dec. 1961, in ibid. 47 Wolfe to Pruitt, 19 Dec. 1961, Pruitt Collection, Box 1, File 5. Spectacular failure, contested success 301 Ecumene 1998 5 (3) 48 Pruitt to Wolfe, 8 Jan. 1962, in ibid. 49 Ibid. 50 O'Neill discusses this incident in Firecracker boys, pp. 195­205. The pertinent docu- ments are Pruitt to Wolfe, 8 Jan. 1962, Pruitt Collection, Box 1, File 5; Kessel to Wolfe, 28 Feb. 1962, Kessel to Wolfe, 11 Apr. 1962, Wolfe to Kessel, 8 May 1962, all in Project Chariot Collection, Box 1, File 1; Pruitt to Wood, 2 Mar. 1962, Pruitt to Wolfe, 22 Mar. 1962, Wolfe to Pruitt, 27 Mar. 1962, Pruitt to Kessel, 30 Mar. 1962, Pruitt to Francis, 10 May 1962, Pruitt to Francis, 25 May 1962, 'Statement to Project Chariot Environmental Committee and all concerned', 24 Apr. 1962, all in Pruitt Collection, Box 2, File 10. 51 'Statement to Project Chariot Environmental Committee and all concerned'. 52 Pruitt to Kessel, 30 Mar. 1962, Pruitt Collection, Box 2, File 10. 53 For his troubles, William Pruitt found himself released from the University of Alaska (which did not have a tenure system) and blacklisted by UAF president William Wood and functionaries in the AEC. Likewise, botanist Les Viereck, who had resigned in protest from the Chariot bioenvironmental programme, found himself released from the university. There is some evidence that his attempts to return to university teach- ing were also resisted. Don Foote, after eventually completing his PhD in geography, was hired by an institute affiliated with UAF in 1968, but soon after died in an auto accident. O'Neill tells these stories in Firecracker boys, ch. 17. 54 The Committee on Environmental Studies for Project Chariot, 'Preface', in Wilimovsky and Wolfe, The Cape Thompson region, p. vi. 55 Ibid., p. vii. 302 Susan W. S. Millar and Don Mitchell Ecumene 1998 5 (3) 1 Kessel to Boyd, 21 Apr. 1961, Project Chariot Collection, Box 1, File 4, Rasmussen Library, University of Alaska. 2 For discussions of the Plowshare programme, see D. O{\textquoteright}Neill, Firecracker boys (New York, St. Martin{\textquoteright}s Press, 1994); T. Findlay, Nuclear dynamite: the peaceful nuclear explosion fiasco (Sydney, Brassey{\textquoteright}s, 1990); E. Teller, {\textquoteleft}We are going to work miracles{\textquoteright}, Popular Mechanics (Mar. 1960); S. Kirsch and D. Mitchell, {\textquoteleft}Earth-moving as the “measure of man”: Edward Teller, geographical engineering and the matter of progress{\textquoteright}, Social Text 54 (1998), pp. 98-132; for Project Chariot, in addition to O{\textquoteright}Neill, see P. Brooks and J. Foote, {\textquoteleft}The disturbing story of Project Chariot{\textquoteright}, Harper{\textquoteright}s , 19 Apr. 1962, pp. 60-62; P. Coates, {\textquoteleft}Project Chariot: Alaskan roots of environmentalism{\textquoteright}, Alaska History 4 (1989), pp. 1-31. 3 Classic works in social studies of science include B. Latour and S. Woolgar, Laboratory life: the construction of scientific facts (Los Angeles, CA, Sage, 1979); B. Latour, Science in action: how to follow scientists and engineers through society (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1987); S. Shapin and S. Schaffer, Leviathan and the air pump: Hobbes, Boyle and the experimental life (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1985); S. Shapin, A social history of truth (Chicago, University of Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1994); S. Traweek, Beemtimes and lifetimes (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1988); S. Fuller, Philosophy, rhetoric and the end of knowledge: the coming of science and technology stud ies (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1993); D. Haraway, Primate visions: gender, race, and nature in the world of modern science (New York, Routledge, 1989); S. Harding, Whose science? whose knowledge? thinking from women{\textquoteright}s lives (Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1991); B. Barnes, Scientific knowledge and sociological theory (London, Routledge, 1974); D. Bloor, Knowledge and social imagery (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976); A. Pickering, ed., Science as practice and culture (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1992). 4 Paul Gross and Norman Levitt{\textquoteright}s attack on social studies of science, Higher superstition: the academic left and its quarrels with science (Baltimore, MD, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), is the leader in this field. Gross and Levitt argue that social studies of science are nothing less than an attack on rationality, and that they simply deny that there is any such thing as reality, fact or truth. Such studies - at least the good ones - of course argue no such thing. Instead, they seek to understand the ways in which reality, fact and truth are socially derived, even if {\textquoteleft}nature{\textquoteright} (or any other object of science) is not completely reducible to social struggle, politics or language. 5 Chariot never took place: the project was cancelled in 1962, and with it went the last best hope for big earth-moving explosions outside the Atomic Energy Commission{\textquoteright}s Nevada test site. See Findlay, Nuclear dynamite ; Kirsch and Mitchell, {\textquoteleft}Earth-moving{\textquoteright}, and Kirsch{\textquoteright}s paper in this issue. 6 See esp. D. Livingstone, {\textquoteleft}The history of science and the history of geography: interactions and implications{\textquoteright}, History of Science 22 (1984), pp. 271-302; see also D. Livingstone, The geographical tradition: episodes in the history of a contested enterprise (Oxford, Blackwell, 1992), pp. 29-30. 7 The eventual defeat of Chariot is a complex and exciting story. Involved in Chariot{\textquoteright}s demise were contract scientists like Don Foote and William Pruitt, whom we will meet in the course of this paper; their confederates in the bioenvironmental programme like botanists Les Viereck and Albert Johnson; early Alaska environmental activists like Ginny Wood and Celia Hunter; missionaries working in Eskimo communities such as Keith Lawton; dozens of Eskimo activists including Point Hope residents Dan Lisbourne, Joe Frankson and Rose Omnik; Eskimo reporter Howard Rock and his compatriot Tom Snapp (who founded the influential native newspaper the Tundra Times in large part to keep track of Chariot doings); St Louis biologist Barry Commoner (who traces his start as an activist in part to Chariot) and others affiliated with the Committee for Nuclear Information; native rights proponent LaVerne Madigan and her Association of American Indian Affairs; a small clique of activists centred around the New Hampshire home of Jim Haddock, who was drawn into the fray when he happened to meet Revd Lawton; and the Secretary of the Interior Stuart Udall{\textquoteright}s executive secretary, Sharon Francis. These activists, working with the Chariot scientists and the information they were producing, were enormously effective in bringing the dangers of the project to national attention. O{\textquoteright}Neill{\textquoteright}s Firecracker boys , though meticulously documented and scholarly in its own way, has the character of a good suspense novel. Concerns about destruction of the Ogotoruk Creek ecosystem were voiced as early as 1959, when botanists working on the project complained they could not keep construction workers and heavy equipment out of their study sites; L. Viereck to A. Johnson, 12 July 1959, Project Chariot Collection, Box 4, File 28. 8 Norman J. Wilimovsky and John Wolfe, eds, The environment of the Cape Thompson region, Alaska (Springfield, VA, US Atomic Energy Commission, Division of Technical Information, PNE-481, 1966). 9 J. C. Reed, {\textquoteleft}Ecological investigations in the Arctic{\textquoteright}, Science 154 (2 Oct. 1966), p. 372. 10 John Kelly, {\textquoteleft}Foreword{\textquoteright}, in Wilimovsky and Wolfe, The Cape Thompson region , p. iv. 11 This is the point of Latour{\textquoteright}s Science in action . 12 O{\textquoteright}Neill, Firecracker boys , ch. 3; Kirsch and Mitchell, {\textquoteleft}Earth-moving{\textquoteright}. Of particular interest is geographer Don Foote{\textquoteright}s contemporaneous sleuth-work into the mindset at Livermore as its staff sought to convince Alaskans to buy into Chariot; see esp. Don Foote Collection, Box 11, Files 18 and 19, Rasmussen Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks. These two files contain many of Foote{\textquoteright}s notes for a history of Chariot he wrote as an AEC contract worker in Point Hope. 13 Livermore had contracted with the E. J. Longyear Company - a mining firm frequently contracted to do drilling at the Nevada test site - to make an economic survey of the Cape Thompson region. Its report ( Report to the University of California Radiation Laboratory on the mineral potential and the proposed harbor locations in northwest Alaska ) was not publicly released when it was completed. Instead, Teller withheld the report until the Chariot site had won approval from the AEC, public land had been withdrawn through the Department of the Interior and Alaskan government had been secured. When it was later released, one Alaskan resource economist claimed that the report was almost laughably bad: it exaggerated mineral deposits, minimized transportation costs and did no market analysis at all: Rogers to Foote, 15 Feb. 1961, Foote Collection, Box 11, File 21. See also O{\textquoteright}Neill, Firecracker boys , pp. 38-39. O{\textquoteright}Neill provides a good overview of the response of the Alaskan press to Livermore{\textquoteright}s plans for instant harbours in the far north. 14 Teller was not one to dampen such ideas: he knew they only worked in favour of allowing him to blow his first big hole in the tundra. Teller, a master of the sound-bite avant la lettre , liked to promise all manner of miracles, quipping at one point in Alaska: {\textquoteleft}If your mountain is not in the right place, just drop us a card{\textquoteright} ( Anchorage Times , 26 June 1959), and another time claiming that Livermore{\textquoteright}s {\textquoteleft}geographical engineering{\textquoteright} techniques were accurate enough to dig a harbour {\textquoteleft}in the shape of a polar bear if desired{\textquoteright} ( Fairbanks Daily News-Miner , 17 July 1958). 15 Among other documents, see the statement by UAF biologists read to Livermore scientists Harry Keller and Vay Shelton, 9 Jan. 1959, Project Chariot Collection, Box 3, File 20; T. S. English to G. Johnson, 21 Jan. 1959, in Ibid. ; Johnson to Viereck, 21 Feb. 1961, Foote Collection, Fox 10, File 10. 16 {\textquoteleft}As biologists we can view the proposed explosions (Chariot) as an experiment in engineering with biological side-effects. We are told that the results will be used in planning further explosions. It therefore seems especially necessary to gain as much biological information as possible, and we feel embarrassed that it seems necessary to reiterate that useful conclusions are most likely to follow from a carefully considered experimental design.{\textquoteright} Statement of UAF biologists, 9 Jan. 1959. 17 A. Johnson to L. Viereck, 21 Feb. 1961; Albert Johnson, Oral History Interview, in D. O{\textquoteright}Neill (comp.), Project Chariot: a collection of oral histories (Fairbanks, Alaska Humanities Forum, 1989). 18 See A. Johnson to E. L. Bartlett, 21 Feb. 1959; Bartlett to Johnson, 24 Feb. 1959, both in Project Chariot Collection, Box 4, File 20; see also O{\textquoteright}Neill, Firecracker boys , pp. 73-74. 19 Memo by UAF President E. Patty, 18 Feb. 1959, Project Chariot Collection, Box 3, File 20. 20 B. Kessel, A. Johnson, L. Swartz and W. Pruitt, {\textquoteleft}An ecological study of the flora and fauna of the Cape Thompson-Ogotoruk region, Alaska{\textquoteright}, Project Chariot Collection, Box 9, File 74. 21 This is the conclusion of O{\textquoteright}Neill, Firecracker boys , pp. 76-77. For a sense of how rushed the environmental programme was to be, see Johnson to English, 27 Jan. 1959, Project Chariot Collection, Box 3, File 20, in which Johnson says all the work needed to be {\textquoteleft}presented in the coming summer{\textquoteright}. It seems that the meeting in Washington made it clear that at least two summer seasons would be needed. 22 On the importance of winning consent, see Kirsch and Mitchell, {\textquoteleft}Earth-moving{\textquoteright}. 23 AEC press release, {\textquoteleft}Statement of the Committee on Environmental Studies for Project Chariot{\textquoteright}, 7 Jan. 1960, copy in Foote Collection, Box 11, File 23. 24 L. E. Davies, {\textquoteleft}Proposed atomic blast in Arctic is called safe{\textquoteright}. New York Times , 17 Aug. 1960. 25 The beginnings of public opposition to Chariot by contract scientists is detailed in O{\textquoteright}Neill, Firecracker boys , ch. 11-13; see also Kirsch and Mitchell, {\textquoteleft}Earth-moving{\textquoteright}. 26 Kessel to Wolfe, 15 Feb. 1960, Project Chariot Collection, Box 1 File 2. 27 Wolfe to Kessel, 18 Feb. 1960, in Ibid. 28 Kessel to Saario, 14 Mar. 1960, Foote Collection, Box 21. 29 Wolfe to Saario, 13 Apr. 1960, Project Chariot Collection, Box 1, File 2. 30 The chapters in Wilimovsky and Wolfe, The Cape Thompson region speak to this point - if read between the lines. Foote had found evidence of rather astounding amounts of meat consumption by Point Hope villagers. Theirs was a diet still ruled in large part by bingeing during flush times, and so it was not unusual for an individual to eat more than five pounds of meat in a day. Such levels of consumption, if true, would prove devastating to AEC{\textquoteright}s arguments that (1) the Cape Thompson region was not an important hunting site, and (2) fallout would not prove a considerable risk to local residents. While the AEC published Foote{\textquoteright}s findings in his chapter (D. Foote and A. Williamson, {\textquoteleft}A human geographical study{\textquoteright}, pp. 1041-1107), it followed it with another chapter, from studies that were not part of the Chariot bioenvironmental programme, specifically on meat consumption among Eskimos (C. Heller, {\textquoteleft}Meat consumption at three northern Eskimo villages{\textquoteright}, pp. 1109-11). The chapter served to undermine Foote{\textquoteright}s findings. Foote himself had deep reservations about Heller{\textquoteright}s methodology, arguing that the rather informal sampling missed feast-days and was not comparable to his method of keeping complete diaries of consumption over extended periods of time. There may have been more to the Saario episode than is apparent in Wolfe{\textquoteright}s calls for {\textquoteleft}cross-checks{\textquoteright}. Saario was notoriously bad at writing up the results of her research, and there is extensive correspondence between her and a number of the other researchers encouraging her to clean up and finish reports. Inconclusive findings, as in Saario{\textquoteright}s incomplete reports, might have helped keep the project alive. Indeed, in their summary reports of the Chariot studies, the committee frequently minimized Foote{\textquoteright}s findings by saying {\textquoteleft}one researcher comments{\textquoteright} - the implication being that Saario{\textquoteright}s (unreported) findings were different. See US Atomic Energy Commission, Bioenvironmental features of the Ogotoruk Creek area, Cape Thompson, Alaska: a second sum mary by the committee on environmental studies for Project Chariot (Springfield, VA, Office of Technical Information, TID-17226, 1962). For researchers{\textquoteright} responses to the ways Foote{\textquoteright}s findings were undermined, see Kessel to Wolfe, 7 Apr. 1961; memorandum by W. Pruitt, 15 Mar. 1961; memorandum by L. Viereck, n.d.; all in Project Chariot Collection, Box 1, File 6. 31 Kessel to Wolfe, 19 Apr. 1960, Project Chariot Collection, Box 1, File 2. 32 Ibid. 33 Wolfe to Patty, 5 May 1960, in Ibid. 34 Ibid. 35 Kessel to Wolfe, 19 Apr. 1960, in Ibid. 36 See US Atomic Energy Commission, Project Chariot Phases I-V: Project Manager{\textquoteright}s sum mary report (Las Vegas, Nevada Operations Office and Holmes and Naver, Inc. NVO-7, Aug. 1964), pp. 2-7; cited in O{\textquoteright}Neill, Firecracker boys , p. 212. 37 Wolfe to Kessel, 7 Mar. 1961, Project Chariot Collection, Box 1, File 1. 38 Kessel to Wolfe, 14 Mar. 1961, in Ibid. 39 Wolfe to Kessel, 20 Mar. 1961, in Ibid. 40 Wolfe to Kessel, 16 May 1961, in Ibid. 41 Kessel to Wolfe, 12 June 1961, in Ibid. 42 See e.g. Wolfe to Kessel, 17 Nov. 1961, and Kessel to Wolfe, 1 Dec. 1961, in Ibid. ; Wolfe to Pruitt, 19 Dec. 1961, William O. Pruitt Collection, Rasmussen Library, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Box 1, File 5. 43 O{\textquoteright}Neill, Firecracker boys , pp. 209-13, provides an excellent, accessible discussion of these issues. 44 See the letters cited in n.42 above, Firecracker boys , p. 211. 45 Wolfe to Kessel, 17 Nov. 1961, Project Chariot Collection Box 1, File 1. 46 Kessel to Wolfe, 1 Dec. 1961, in Ibid. 47 Wolfe to Pruitt, 19 Dec. 1961, Pruitt Collection, Box 1, File 5. 48 Pruitt to Wolfe, 8 Jan. 1962, in Ibid. 49 Ibid. 50 O{\textquoteright}Neill discusses this incident in Firecracker boys , pp. 195-205. The pertinent documents are Pruitt to Wolfe, 8 Jan. 1962, Pruitt Collection, Box 1, File 5; Kessel to Wolfe, 28 Feb. 1962, Kessel to Wolfe, 11 Apr. 1962, Wolfe to Kessel, 8 May 1962, all in Project Chariot Collection, Box 1, File 1; Pruitt to Wood, 2 Mar. 1962, Pruitt to Wolfe, 22 Mar. 1962, Wolfe to Pruitt, 27 Mar. 1962, Pruitt to Kessel, 30 Mar. 1962, Pruitt to Francis, 10 May 1962, Pruitt to Francis, 25 May 1962, {\textquoteleft}Statement to Project Chariot Environmental Committee and all concerned{\textquoteright}, 24 Apr. 1962, all in Pruitt Collection, Box 2, File 10. 51 {\textquoteleft}Statement to Project Chariot Environmental Committee and all concerned{\textquoteright}. 52 Pruitt to Kessel, 30 Mar. 1962, Pruitt Collection, Box 2, File 10. 53 For his troubles, William Pruitt found himself released from the University of Alaska (which did not have a tenure system) and blacklisted by UAF president William Wood and functionaries in the AEC. Likewise, botanist Les Viereck, who had resigned in protest from the Chariot bioenvironmental programme, found himself released from the university. There is some evidence that his attempts to return to university teaching were also resisted. Don Foote, after eventually completing his PhD in geography, was hired by an institute affiliated with UAF in 1968, but soon after died in an auto accident. O{\textquoteright}Neill tells these stories in Firecracker boys , ch. 17. 54 The Committee on Environmental Studies for Project Chariot, {\textquoteleft}Preface{\textquoteright}, in Wilimovsky and Wolfe, The Cape Thompson region , p. vi. 55 Ibid. , p. vii. ",

year = "1998",

month = jul,

doi = "10.1177/096746089800500303",

language = "English (US)",

volume = "5",

pages = "287--302",

journal = "Ecumene (continues as Cultural Geographies)",

issn = "0967-4608",

publisher = "SAGE Publications Ltd",

number = "3",