Operation Crossroads - Opposition

Opposition

Pressure to cancel Operation Crossroads altogether came from scientists and diplomats. Manhattan Project scientists who had argued for a public test of the bomb in lieu of dropping it on a Japanese city now argued that further testing was unnecessary and environmentally dangerous. A Los Alamos study warned "the water near a recent surface explosion will be a witch's brew" of radioactivity. When they complained that the tests might demonstrate ship survivability while ignoring the effect of radiation on sailors, Admiral Blandy responded by adding test animals to some of the ships, thereby generating protests from animal rights advocates.

Secretary of State James Byrnes, who a year earlier had told physicist Leo Szilard that a public demonstration of the bomb might make Russia "more manageable" in Europe, now argued the opposite: that further display of U.S. nuclear power could harden Russia's position against acceptance of the Acheson–Lilienthal Plan, which discussed possible methods for the international control of nuclear weapons and the avoidance of future nuclear warfare. At a March 22 cabinet meeting he said, "from the standpoint of international relations it would be very helpful if the test could be postponed or never held at all." He prevailed on Truman to postpone the first test for six weeks, from May 15 to July 1. For public consumption, the postponement was explained as an opportunity for more Congressional observers to attend during their summer recess.

When Congressional critics complained about the destruction of $450 million worth of target ships, Admiral Blandy replied that their true cost was their scrap value at $10 per ton, only $3.7 million. Veterans and legislators from New York and Pennsylvania requested to keep their namesake battleships as museum ships, as Texas had done with its battleship, but the JTF-1 replied, "... it is regretted that such ships as the New York cannot be spared."