Recorded August 5, 2007
MP3: Side 1 | Side 2
REALAUDIO

Intro­duc­tion: Revis­it­ing a sub­ject Mr. Emory has researched for years, this pro­gram sup­ple­ments Peter Vogel’s heroic research on the Port Chicago explo­sion of July 17th of 1944. For decades, Peter has researched that event, devel­op­ing a com­pelling body of evi­dence that the explo­sion was actu­ally the test of an early atomic bomb—the Mark II. (Peter’s research is avail­able in an online book: The Last Wave from Port Chicago.) In this broad­cast, author Dean McLeod, whose book Images of Amer­ica: Port Chicago is due for release on 9/15/2007, joins him. (An advance look at the con­tents of his book, includ­ing some very impor­tant doc­u­ments that com­ple­ment and rein­force Peter’s work on the explo­sion, are avail­able on DEAN’S WEBSITE.) After a syn­op­sis of the Port Chicago explo­sion, inves­ti­ga­tion and mutiny, Dean sum­ma­rizes the his­tory of the town of Port Chicago, includ­ing the fact that the town was relo­cated in its entirety dur­ing the Viet­nam War, in order (osten­si­bly) to safe­guard the res­i­dents in the event of a future explo­sion like the one at Port Chicago. Dean notes that, dur­ing the Cold War, Port Chicago became a major trans­ship­ment point for nuclear weapons bound for the Pacific the­ater. The sec­ond half of the pro­gram sum­ma­rizes Peter’s inves­ti­ga­tion into the explo­sion itself and the evi­dence that the blast was a test of an atomic bomb. Dean presents doc­u­ments that he has uncov­ered which strongly rein­force Peter’s argument.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: The neg­a­tive reac­tions of Edward Teller (father of the H-bomb) and Don­ald Kerr (direc­tor of Los Alamos National Lab­o­ra­tory) to Peter’s inquiries about Port Chicago; the tremen­dous inter­est of the Los Alamos National Lab­o­ra­tory in this (sup­pos­edly con­ven­tional) explo­sion; the back­ground of Cap­tain William Par­sons (the point man for the Los Alamos research on Port Chicago); Par­sons’ role as bomb­ing offi­cer aboard the Enola Gay—the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima; the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the explo­sion that pin­point it as being a nuclear fis­sion blast; an August, 1944 mem­o­ran­dum con­grat­u­lat­ing par­tic­i­pants in the inves­ti­ga­tion for advanc­ing a “highly clas­si­fied and urgent project.” It is dif­fi­cult to imag­ine that the inves­ti­ga­tion of the explo­sion of an ammu­ni­tion ship would be con­sid­ered “highly clas­si­fied and urgent!”

1. The broad­cast begins with a syn­op­tic overview of the Port Chicago explo­sion as an his­tor­i­cal event—in par­tic­u­lar as a water­mark in the strug­gle of African-Americans for civil rights. On the evening of July 17th, 1944 the ammu­ni­tion ship U.S.S. E.A. Bryan exploded at Port Chicago, com­pletely demol­ish­ing the ship, much of the adja­cent port facil­i­ties and sink­ing and rend­ing apart the U.S.S. Quinalt Vic­tory, which was anchored some dis­tance away. (Port Chicago is part of the Con­cord Naval Weapons facil­ity on Suisun Bay—an inland sec­tion of San Fran­cisco Bay.) African-American sailors ordered to resume ammunition-loading duties after the explo­sion mutinied, refus­ing the order on the grounds that the work­ing con­di­tions were unsafe. (African-American sailors han­dled much of the dan­ger­ous duty of load­ing ammu­ni­tion bound for the war in the Pacific.) In a legal pro­ceed­ing in which they were rep­re­sented by future Supreme Court Jus­tice Thur­good Mar­shall, the sailors were con­victed of mutiny. Even­tu­ally, those con­vic­tions were reversed in recog­ni­tion of the exces­sive, grind­ing con­di­tions in which they had been ordered to work. The mutiny, con­vic­tion and rever­sal of the con­vic­tion in recog­ni­tion of the unfair work­ing con­di­tions in which the muti­neers had been obliged to work have made the event a land­mark in the strug­gle for African-American civil rights. As dis­cussed in—among other programs—FTR#444, infor­ma­tion sur­faced decades after the event indi­cat­ing that the Port Chicago explo­sion was a test of an early atomic weapon—the Mark II. For a more detailed analy­sis of the explo­sion itself than can be pre­sented here, see the descrip­tion for that pro­gram and Peter Vogel’s online book The Last Wave from Port Chicago.

2. Much of the first side of the pro­gram fea­tures author Dean McLeod’s dis­cus­sion of the his­tory of Port Chicago. A major trans­ship­ment point for muni­tions to be used in the Pacific, the Port Chicago facil­ity became, in time, one of the most impor­tant ship­ping facil­i­ties for nuclear weapons dur­ing the Cold War. Before dis­cussing the emi­nent domain relo­ca­tion of all of the town’s inhab­i­tants dur­ing the Viet­nam War, Mr. McLeod chron­i­cles the his­tory of the tiny town, begin­ning with its ori­gins as a log­ging town in 1908. [Many Bay Area towns sprang up at this time, in order to har­vest the plen­ti­ful red­wood trees for the rebuild­ing of San Fran­cisco and envi­rons after the earth­quake of 1906.] An impor­tant junc­tion for both rail and mar­itime traf­fic, the town was named for the metrop­o­lis of the Mid­way with a view to the func­tional sim­i­lar­ity between the two towns.

3. In 1968, all of the town’s res­i­dents were relo­cated by the gov­ern­ment, which had appro­pri­ated all of the town’s ter­ri­tory under the prin­ci­ple of emi­nent domain. Using the ratio­nale that the relo­ca­tion was nec­es­sary to ensure the safety of Port Chicago’s cit­i­zens in the event of a nuclear acci­dent, all of them were obliged to relo­cate. [The town had a pop­u­la­tion of about 3,500 at its peak—considerably fewer at the time that the town was relocated.]

4. One of the dis­cov­er­ies that impelled Peter Vogel on his path of dis­cov­ery lead­ing to the real cause of the explo­sion was his dis­cov­ery of a film, pur­port­ing to be a sim­u­la­tion of the Port Chicago explo­sion. This film and the dev­as­ta­tion pro­duced by the Port Chicago explo­sion were used to sup­port the government’s argu­ment in favor of the relo­ca­tion of the town’s residents.

5. The sec­ond side of the broad­cast con­sists almost entirely of dis­cus­sion of the Mark II, the early atomic weapon that was tested at Port Chicago. For sub­stan­tive, detailed dis­cus­sion of the Mark II and the indi­ca­tions that the Port Chicago explo­sion was a test, see the descrip­tion for FTR#444, as well as Peter Vogel’s mag­nif­i­cent online book. One piece of crit­i­cal evi­dence not included in FTR#444 is the fact that sub­se­quent research has turned up higher-than-expected radi­a­tion lev­els in areas adja­cent to the blast. NOTE THAT SOMEONE SKEPTICAL OF PETER VOGEL’S WORKING HYPOTHESIS MADE THIS DISCOVERY!! The infor­ma­tion about the ele­vated radi­a­tion lev­els at Port Chicago is avail­able in FTR#472.

6. After Peter Vogel excerpts some com­pelling doc­u­ments indi­cat­ing that the Port Chicago explo­sion was indeed a test of the Mark II atomic device, Dean McLeod excerpted some doc­u­ments avail­able in his book and on his web­site that com­ple­ment Peter Vogel’s orig­i­nal research in an effec­tive and com­pelling way. After enu­mer­at­ing the many high-ranking naval offi­cers and Man­hat­tan Project nota­bles involved with the inves­ti­ga­tion of the Port Chicago explo­sion, Dean notes a mem­o­ran­dum con­grat­u­lat­ing par­tic­i­pants in the inves­ti­ga­tion for advanc­ing a “highly clas­si­fied and urgent project.” It is dif­fi­cult to imag­ine that the inves­ti­ga­tion of the explo­sion of an ammu­ni­tion ship would be con­sid­ered a “highly clas­si­fied and urgent project.” BE SURE TO CHECK OUT THESE DOCUMENTS, AVAILABLE ON DEAN’S WEBSITE These doc­u­ments are also avail­able in Dean’s forth­com­ing book Images of Amer­ica: Port Chicago, sched­uled for pub­li­ca­tion on 9/15.