Golden Anniversary of "The Big One" Ends Without a
Bang
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Trinity Marker.
CLUI photo |
CLUI researchers visited the Trinity Site (where
the world's first nuclear explosion took place) on July 16 of
this year, the 50th anniversary of the test. The Trinity site
is located on the northern end of the White Sands Missile Range
in southern New Mexico. The site, which is usually open to the
public only two days a year (on the first Saturdays of April
and October) was open an additional day for the 50th Anniversary.
The CLUI representatives arrived at Stallion Gate,
the northern entrance to White Sands, at about midnight and
found a jumble of cars and campers scattered in the scrub along
the access road to the perimeter. They parked right next to
the fence and waited till morning. Limos and vans containing
local and foreign television journalists flowed past into the
range throughout the night, while the assorted others, without
press credentials, continued to arrive and amass at the gate.
By the time the public was allowed on to the range, cars were
lined up all the way down the three-mile access road and for
several more miles down the main highway.
The gates opened at 5 AM, supposedly so that people
could be at ground zero at 5:29:45, the official time of the
blast. However a 20 minute drive in a bumper-to bumper caravan
(solid cars for the 15 miles from Stallion Gate to the site)
meant that only a few made it to Ground Zero on time. One of
the few that made it was a fellow who told the press he was
from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and who commemorated the event
by throwing fake blood on the Ground Zero monument, saying "They
call this place Trinity!...This is not the Trinity!". He
was quickly hand-cuffed by the MPs and hauled off to the gate
where we were told he was released.
Throughout the day there were clashes between the protesters
and the Military Police, with the throng of press and reporters
rushing around trying to find--or construct--the story. Tempers
flared again when a Humvee equipped with a firehose came to
wash the fake blood off the monument. A woman shrieked, "That
blood is on all our hands. You cant wash it off...!" The
MPs pushed the crowd back, and as tension rose the protesters
amassed and started to chant in a haunting drone.
Most of the people present were somewhere in the
middle, there to feel connected to this momentous historical
event, the birth of the nuclear age, and to observe the goings-on
around them. Many were local residents, at the site for the
first time, and some of those present had worked on the Manhattan
Project.
Outside the oval fenced enclosure that surrounds
the few acres around Ground Zero, souvenir stands, book stalls,
and a ham radio "event station" were set-up, and all-dressed
Trinity Burgers could be had for two dollars. Busses took people
to the nearby McDonald Ranch, an old homestead taken over by
the Manhattan Project, where the final assembly of the bomb
took place. By the time the area was officially closed to the
public, sometime after 1 PM, over 5,000 people had come to the
site.
