Customer Reviews

The Firecracker Boys

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Behind the blithe title of this book is a serious work. More, it's an important book. Its subject is Project Chariot, a proposed nuclear excavation on Alaska's Bering Strait. Project Plowshare, initiated in the late 50's, was the umbrella effort to put nuclear explosions to work for non-military purposes, and Project Chariot was billed as one of its first trials. The Firecracker Boys is the history of the conception, marketing, and eventual failure by the nuclear establishment in the face of a burgeoning environmental movement.

But the book is more than a history; it's the story of the the people on both sides of the fight, and of nuclear testing.There are few books which analyze the history of nuclear testing in the United States, and while detailing the story of Project Chariot, Dan O'Neill gives the most comprehensive history I've yet read of nuclear testing in general. This was surprising to me because I have been in search of such a book, and was delighted to discover it behind what would seem to be a narrow slice of the annals of nuclear testing.

O'Neill shows us the world of the Eskimos who, for centuries or longer, lived not far from the selected site of the harbor which was to be blasted from the Bering shore. We also get a view into the life and motivations of Edward Teller, the vociferous proponent of Plowshare's geographical engineering, and other nuclear scientists and officials: "If your mountain isn't in the right place, drop us a card". In addition, the Atomic Energy Commission, in an effort to appear interested in the safety of such a detonation, instituted a program of scientific studies of the site and of the Eskimos nearby. When the biologists, geologist and sociologists refused to be cowed and censored by the AEC, the scientists spoke out at great risk in order to let the truth be known.

The struggle for the truth, as told by O'Neill, is an important element of the book, and a cautionary tale for today. The U.S. Government, under the auspices of the AEC, misled and deceived the citizens of the U.S. about the safety and necessity of nuclear testing. The author patiently outlines the contrast between recently declassified materials, and what the officials of the AEC were saying to the press, the Eskimos and to the American public about the dangers of fallout from nuclear testing. No doubt, the AEC felt it was justified in such disregard and duplicity in the name of national security and of the progress of science. When agents of the government act in a manner beyond accountability and scrutiny, and with ideological obsessiveness, the result is usually detrimental to the public. In this well written and well researched book, Dan O'Neill tells a mostly forgotten story which every American should know.

I cannot help but notcice how the reviewers which seem to have been deeply disgusted by this book prefer to remain anonymous. Even if their opinion is that nuclear testing should continue, it disturbs me that these reviewers were not taken aback by the colossal mountain of half-truths, misrepresentations, and downright lies that the AEC (Atomic Energy Comission) used to lobby this project to Alaskans.

And remember, these are the same guys who concluded that it would be acceptable to conduct underground nuclear tests near one of the most active fault lines in the world, on Amchitka Island out on the Aleutian chain.

I can only say that never again will I be able to look at a map of my state without imagining a "polar bear shaped harbor" etched in to the wind battered coast somewhere between Barrow and Kotzebue.

About a fascinating chapter in American history, and how the democratic process prevailed--barely--over the certain vested interests in the military-industrial complex. Makes Dwight Eisenhower look like a prophet--and also details some of the career of Edward Tellar, rightly celebrated as the father of the American H-bomb but then subsequently responsible for much bad science, including Ronald Reagan's Star Wars. This book is very well researched and documented. One moral to draw: citizens must be involved with public policy. The former Soviet Union, undertaking a similar project, turned areas of Siberia so radioactive that it will not be safe to dwell there for 10,000 or more years. We almost did the same in Alaska--but thankfully did not. Read this book to (1) understand how this disaster was averted, and what we can do to continue to safeguard our democratic processes; and (2) for great--true--story.

Deep and serious scholarship is rarely this readable! Dan O'Neill transforms the little-known drama of arctic whale-hunting Eskimos into a global issue, tracing their struggle against becoming a nuclear proving ground through the years 1957-1966. If you start to read this book as a thriller, you won't be disappointed. When you have finished reading it, you will have absorbed some significant historical insights.

Classic cold war government decision making at it's best. Full of good guys, bad guys, PR fools, and the standard cast of characters found in any project where money, power, self interest and secrecy is involved. O'Neill's notes on his interview with Edward Teller was a fitting end to the book. I do wish O'Neill would have tried a bit harder to get some justification of the project from anyone who worked on the AEC or Labs side.

This book chronicles an early battle in the environmental movement. It also gives a fascinating view of life in Alaska, including life in a remote eskimo village. Anyone planning a trip to Alaska should read this book. Many of the people in the book still live in America's last frontier and you might just bump into some of them on your visit.

This book is excellent! It's just mind-boggling to imagine that Teller and his boys (hence the title) almost got away with exploding a nuclear "device" near Kotzebue under the guise of creating a deep-water harbor... The absolute apathy and ignorance of many Interior Alaskans and the lap-dog behavior of many at the Univ. of Alaska Fairbanks and local media is really disappointing... A excellent read about a near disaster of our times (many of the characters are still alive and some still are involved at UAF, my alma mater)... Think Alaska is pristine and still pure? Think again... The heroes of this book, while many of them paying a great price, are given the attention they deserve in this piece of wonderful writing...

I cannot count the number of times I looked up from this book and stared into space with complete disbelief. To think that someone in the Cold War era might think it was just fine to detonate nuclear devices near an ancient community--in my backyard--baffled me.

But then, I missed such days. This book therefore was an excellent insight to the diminsions of the Cold War that would consider such explosions. The author ovbiously spent years researching the project, the people and the purpose; his work speaks well for Alaskan Intellect. But beyond that, the story is facinating and the reader is drawn in. (However, it does miss that fifth star because it drags around page 60...enough that I put it down for two months.)

My next stop after this book was the Bikini Atoll and Marshall Islands, as THE FIRECRACKER BOYS absolutely peaked my interst in Cold War nuclear testing. It should do the same for others who read it.

With John Bolton as our renegade permanent representative to the UN, working for the US nuclear weapons industry by trying to stop the UN program of nonproliferation, "The Firecracker Boys" so brilliantly described in Dan O'Neill's book continue even today with their diabolical efforts. Not to mention NASA's plan to send nuclear powered rockets into space.

AEC went there to see what would happen if a harbor was created there. They were only testing the feasibility of atomic bombs in use and effects.