AFTERNOON SESSION

(On the record at 1:40 p.m.)

COL. BAILEY: This is our last panel for the day, having to do with public access, and openness. The moderator is Elly Melamed, from the Department of Energy.

MS. MELAMED: Good afternoon. My name is Elly Melamed, as Colonel Bailey said. I am from the Department of Energy=s Office of Human Radiation Experiments. This was an office formed, a great deal in response to the Advisory Committee effort, which was responsible for searching out information and documents, to support Secretary O=Leary=s openness effort, and the work of the Advisory Committee.

The focus of this panel, our last panel, is AOpenness in Government,@ and, really, more specifically, it is Recommendation 17 of the Advisory Committee report. This is the recommendation where the Advisory Committee says to the Interagency Working Group, to take steps, to learn from this whole process we have been through, and to find ways to continue efforts, to organize, and make accessible, to the public, and to the government, itself, the nation=s historical records.

I would like to think of this as a forward-looking panel. We have all, I think, done a tremendous amount of work, you, and representing the stakeholders, the government agencies. The place I know the most about, of course, is the Department of Energy. We put 250,000 documents on the Internet, and we are maintaining them, in hard copy format. We found over 300 cubic feet of records that we sent to the Advisory Committee. We identified several hundred series, and we know that is not all. We know there is more work to be done. And so, I think this panel might be an opportunity to think about ways in which we can all work together, to continue the openness effort that President Clinton, and Hazel O=Leary, has championed, and which the Advisory Committee was in part a product of.

Let me introduce the panel to you. This is Mary Ronan, and she is from the National Archives and Records Administration. The National Archives, as I am sure many of you are familiar, is the agency of the Federal Government charged with maintaining the permanently valuable records, that are produced by the Federal Government. Roger Anders. Roger works with me, in the Department of Energy, in the Office of Human Radiation Experiments. Fred Allingham, from the National Association of Radiation Survivors, from Weaverville, California. And this is Clifford Honicker, from the American Environmental Health Studies project. He is from Knoxville, Tennessee. Dot McLeod, from ITSOR. This is Willa Nell Woodson. She is, her group, that she is associated with, is the Concerned Relatives of Cancer Study Patients, and Willa is from Dayton, Ohio. And William Bires, who is with the Alliance of Atomic Veterans.

What I propose we do, is that, we have Roger speak, and also, Colonel Bailey is, we are lucky to have, Colonel Bailey is going to be on our panel, as well. How could I forget that? I guess he does not need any introduction, at this point.

I thought we would have the government representatives speak, Roger, first, and then, Colonel Bailey. And then, we would ask the stakeholders to speak, Clifford Honicker, and then, Willa Nell Woodson, and then, Fred Allingham. And then, I think we will give the last word of the formal panel to Mary Ronan. I guess she is our outside expert, from the National Archives. And finally, our discussion leaders, William Bires, first, and then, Dot McLeod.

Okay. Roger?

MR. ANDERS: Thank you, Elly. I, as Elly said, I am Roger Anders, from the Department of Energy. I just wanted to say a few words, about the Department=s implementation of Recommendation 17, the recommendation that really pertains to openness and records. And there are five parts to this recommendation.

As Elly mentioned, I am with the Office of Human Radiation Experiments, and our office is charged with formulating and coordinating the Department=s implementation of this recommendation. Now, we actually began the work of implementing this recommendation, or at least Parts 1 and 3 of this recommendation, prior to the release of the Advisory Committee report. The actions that are being undertaken, to implement this recommendation, are listed, in one of the handouts, in the package, that is, the preliminary draft response to Advisory Committee recommendations.

Also prior to release of the Advisory Committee report, the Department, as Elly mentioned, made a great deal of information available, readily available, actions that were consistent with the spirit of this recommendation.

Now, DOE=s implementation of the five parts of this recommendation are as follows. For Part 1, which was to hasten the transfer of agency records to the custody of the National Archives and Records Administration, the Department is now transferring over 3,000 cubic feet of records to the National Archives, and we are in the process of doing that, right now. This includes approximately 2,000 cubic feet of records, stored in the Oak Ridge Operations Office records holding area, and over 1,000 cubic feet of Center for Human Radiobiology records, that are stored at the Argonne National Laboratory.

Now, the Department is also transferring the Atomic Energy Commission=s Division of Biology and Medicine records to the National Archives. Now, this adds more than 80 cubic feet of records to the 3,000 cubic feet I just mentioned. Now, this includes records of the 1974 AEC investigation of the plutonium injection experiments, minutes of the Advisory Committee on Biology and Medicine meetings, radiation exposure special case files, and those Division of Biology and Medicine files which were in the custody of the Department=s History Division. This action has taken some time to coordinate, because these records now belong to four different offices, within the Department. In addition, the Department has asked field facilities to suggest additional collections, which can be offered to the National Archives.

Now, Part 1 also included a suggestion that, for name collections, the Department of Energy records be transferred to the National Archives. They are, the 1958 to 1975 AEC Secretary=s files, the AEC general manager=s office files, the AEC Division of Biology and Medicine files, and the AEC Division of Military Applications files. Most of these records are in the custody of the Department=s History Division. As I have noted, the Department is already transferring the Division of Biology and Medicine files to the National Archives.

Discussions have been held, with the History Division, about transferring the other collections. The History Division, however, has indicated that it prefers to have these records reviewed, first, for declassification, because they do contain classified sections, and then, have them transferred to the National Archives.

Now, regarding the second part of this recommendation, which is to make readily available all existing inventories, folder listings, and other finding aids to records that are presently under agency control, the Department has initiated a project to place finding aids to those records of greatest interest to the public, in agency reading rooms, and in the Coordination and Information Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Now, the Office of Human Radiation Experiments is carrying out this implementation, of this part of Recommendation 17. This is potentially a huge task, because DOE owns approximately 3.2 million cubic feet of records. Most of those records, however, document routine agency activities, such as official travel, personnel actions, or bill payments. The Office of Human Radiation Experiments, however, is focusing on records which concern nonroutine agency activities. Because there are few finding aids, to active records, or those in program offices in which documents are presently being filed, the Office of Human Radiation Experiments is concentrating on inactive records, which are most likely to have finding aids.

Now, generally, folder title listings are created, when records are moved from active files to inactive storage, and these are what the Office of Human Radiation Experiments is concentrating on. So, our office is selecting folder title listings to those inactive records, which seem to be of interest to the public, and making them readily available. We are placing them in packages, which include an introduction, and, sometimes, additional explanatory material. These packages are then going into reading rooms, and the Coordination and Information Center, and we have examples of some of our packages, on the table, out front, there, and you are welcome to copies of them.

This project is literally just started, and we welcome your help, in fleshing it out. We have done sufficient work to figure out what needs to be done, but have not gone further along, yet. We would appreciate your input, into giving us suggestions as to where we should go, next, and we have a stack of stakeholder input forms, again, on the table, out front, and I encourage and urge everyone, that would like to give us some feedback, suggest where we should go, in looking for records, what types of records we should look for, please have one, and fill it out, and send it in to me, and my name and address and phone number is listed on the form.

MS. MELAMED: Roger, can you come to an end?

MR. ANDERS: All right. I will come to an end, at that point. I wanted to say something about the implementation of Parts 3, 4, and 5. I will save that, for the question and answer period, then.

MS. MELAMED: Thank you. Claud? We are trying to stick, pretty strictly, to the time limits, because we are already behind schedule, and, as Claud said, people have to catch planes, so.

COL. BAILEY: Colonel Bailey. Because DOD and DOE has the largest part of the records collection piece, we have been working, very aggressively, and closely together, to ensure that we have the most comprehensive files that one could possibly have, given the circumstances.

Let me just, I want to back up, and give you some perspective, on how DOD got to where we are, as far as, records collection, and my office, the DOD Radiation Experiments Command Center. I was called, on short notice, and told that I had about a 60­day job, because they recognized that I had about 30 years of experience, in archiving, working the classification system, having been in charge of the NATO ­­ record system, in Europe, having worked with the 82^nd Airborne Division, and classified, and declassified, a number of documents, I was about to retire. And so, this two­star general called me in, and says, AClaud, do I have a job for you!@

And so, two years later, I am still working the job, and I am very pleased to do that. But what DOD has done, we have, very aggressively, by narrowing the focus, homed in on specific documents, that identified specific experiments, that the Advisory Committee was looking at, and also, attendant experiments, that kind of gave the total picture. Since January, of 1994, the Department has collected over 250,000 pages, which equates to about, roughly, 3,000 cubic feet, which equates to 3,000 boxes. Lots of documents.

Now, the search is not ended. As a matter of fact, a Colonel Dan Brown and I are going out, sometime within the next couple of weeks, and look at another 180 cubic feet. We have collected, again, specific experiments, concerning intentional releases. We have collected data, on experiments concerning radioisotopic tracer type of clinical investigations, or experiments. They are available, in my office, the Radiation Experiments Command Center.

We intend to keep the command center, over, indefinitely, so that, we will make those records available to you, as I mentioned to the veterans, yesterday, we look at individual inquiries, for example, as a part of this process. Right now, I have about 7,000 inquiries, that are open. I have about, roughly, 350,000 Congressional inquiries that are open. And what we are doing, on that, as a part of this openness business, we are, I am sending teams to St. Louis, Missouri, and we pull both the personnel, and medical records, and bring them to my office. And we review them, very copiously, page by page, to find the facts, and provide those to the stakeholders, so they can, on a case-by-case basis, work their individual cases.

For the future, we will continue to look at specific records groups, to ensure that we have the complete picture. In addition, the Department has declassified over 1,000 documents. I have personally sat on a number of boards, where we cut through the bureaucracy, declassified documents, and made those documents available to the Committee. For the future, to support you all, we are going to make those documents, classified documents, available, over the open Net. It will be sometime in early 1977. 1997, rather. I went back, 20 years. I am an old guy. 1997. The reason being, it would be early 1997, because we have got to be very careful what we put on a system, that is accessible to a lot of people. Got to very careful.

Again, at the RECC, we have established a reading room, where you can come in, if you have specific questions of documents that you want to review, and we will let you review them. We will copy the documents for you, provided you don=t want the whole collection. Dr. Rosen? No! I am just, an inside joke.

(Laughter.)

COL. BAILEY: But, but, I said that I am leaving in about four months. I have said that, about three times, now. I am excited about this business. I really am. This has been my lifeblood, or, I know it is the right thing to do. I know that we need to help each other, in this enterprise. I see something very positive coming out of this effort, of course: The fact ­­ she is giving me the buzz sign! ­­ the fact that, number one, the government, in fact, has become open, is open. It may be just a small slit, but the government is open.

I am the eternal optimist. If nothing else that we learn, today, is that, we have the opportunity, collectively, both the government and the stakeholders, to make a difference. Now, there are people who don=t believe that, but I am where I am, because I am always, as my mother told me, AThere is a brighter side to everything,@ and I believe that. That fuels me. I fuel the Department. This is a personal crusade, for Bailey, and for as long as I am here, and hereafter, hopefully, we are going to continue this aggressive pursuit of the facts, and we are going to ensure that those facts are made available to you, not only based on what the Advisory Committee said, because the Department, Secretary Perry, has signed a number of letters. He has been briefed, and he knows that it is the right thing to do.

So, you can write it, in really dark ink: The Department of Defense. I know that Energy has the same zeal. I have working with the CIA, Dr. Perrara, you and Dr. Perrara. Dr. Perrara and those have been working, and the CIA is involved in releasing heretofore classified documents, and making them available to the public. That is a start. The CIA! Ooh­ah!

We have other agencies. I have talked to veterans= groups. We have assisted individuals, and we are going to continue that effort. Ooh­ah!

MS. MELAMED: Thank you, very much. I just remembered one small fact, that may be of interest to you, since Colonel Bailey brought up the Internet. Not only are all the documents of our agencies going ­­ DOE=s are on, DOD=s are going on, and so are the other agencies ­­ the Advisory Committee report is fully available, on the Internet, if anyone wants access to it, that way, and we can get, if you see me, afterwards, we will be happy to get you the address, if that would make it easier for you to work with. DOE has just put it out, in the past few months.

Okay. Cliff, do you want to take over, now?

COL. BAILEY: I would be remiss, and I should have interjected, some time ago, the issue has come up, about secrecy in the government, and what the government is doing, and people=s concern about classified research, and the fact that the Advisory Committee said, that, under the current environments, the same thing can happen. Let me tell you what is going on, on that.

MS. MELAMED: Can you save it, for the question and answer period?

(Discussion was held off­microphone.)

MS. MELAMED: I want to remind all my panelists, that, before you start, even though I have introduced you, to please say your name, and every time you speak, to say your name, and I will try to remember to do that, myself. Cliff?

MR. HONICKER: Hi. I am Cliff Honicker. These are my views, and my views, alone, not those of either the organization that I work for, the American Environmental Health Studies project, nor the Task Force on Human Radiation Experiments. It is titled, A4200­second Reflection on a Half­decade of Deception.@ My apology for speaking, so fast. I am a Southerner. Speaking fast, like this, is like asking a New Yorker for a free refill on iced tea. It is difficult, but it can be done.

(Laughter.)

MR. HONICKER: I really have no time to tell you of the specific qualifications, to come talk to you, on this issue, other than to say, if you would be interested in the New York Times or Washington Post articles, or the two masters theses I have written on the subject of suppression of information by the Division of Biology and Medicine, or the Japanese shigoku­shimbu book, Nukes and Human Beings, that I assisted on researching, last year, and that has won its second, very prestigious, international news award prize, the first being the equivalent of the Japanese Pulitzer Prize. Let me know, and I will send you copies of my work.

I also come to this issue, uniquely qualified, in that my older sister=s life was saved by a human radiation experiment, and she is now the 21^st-longest living survivor of acute myelogenous leukemia, in the world, thanks to the pioneering effort of a group of doctors who later formed the Hutch, or the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, which was mentioned, earlier, in the thyroid studies follow­up. Her doctor, E.Donald Thomas, won the Nobel Prize for his work, a few years ago.

In 1984, I was also told, by Dr. Jack Hall, Roger Anders=s former boss, that I am the only non-DOE person in the country, that had reviewed the entire collection of the Division of Biology and Medicine files of the Atomic Energy Commission, from 1946 to 1962. I helped initiate the Ottinger investigation that later led to the Markey report, AAmerica=s Nuclear Guinea Pigs.@ I wrote about all that in the New York Times article, AThe Hidden Files,@ which was nominated for a national award in public service by the New York Times staff.

But, before I get into my 4200-second reflection, I would like everyone, very quickly, to join me, in saying two words, okay? Now, I have seen six heads, bobbing down, like this. No reflection on earlier speakers. It was lunch, the food. So, everybody, I want you to say, AWhoa, Buck!@, but I want you to say it, like you mean it. Point it out the window, or security is going to come get me. I will be responsible. So, everybody! One, two, three!

VOICES: Whoa, Buck!

MR. HONICKER: Oh, God. Everybody! I want the CIA! I want the DOE! I want the Indians! I want Ron Hamm! I did not hear Ron. Everybody, this time, say it, like you mean it. This may be the only chance that we have, all these people=s diverse opinions say the same thing, at the same time. So say it, like you mean it. One, two, three!

VOICES: Whoa, Buck!

MR. HONICKER: Difference! What a difference!

Now, this is a true story, and there is a true story to this, as you can guess. I am sitting around, in a bonfire, in Cherokee National Forest, and a group of people, in this little hamlet, in the woods, are sitting around, passing around the bottle. Each time a person took a swig, everyone would join singing out, AWhoa, Buck!@ And then, they would burst out, laughing.

And I had no idea what was going on. I thought it was just a bonfire thing to do, so I politely joined in, which they thought was even funnier, for some reason.

Well, the next day, I went horseback riding, with my friend, for the first time, riding on a sedate, old quarter horse, whose name, coincidentally enough, was ABuck.@ And we had a wonderful afternoon, riding, and enjoying the beauty of the North Carolina Cherokee Mountains.

On the way back, about a mile from his farm, suddenly, this horse, it is like somebody has hit it with a sledgehammer. It is on fire. It is leapt up. It is in the Derby. It is flying down this mountain trail, like a bat out of hell. And I am sitting there, holding on, pulling the reins, tighter and tighter and tighter. And, all of the sudden, it comes out of me: AWhoa, Buck! Whoa! Whoa!@ And I am going through this little community, where all these people live, from the night before, and I know everybody on that mountainside, is rolling on the floor, you know? Because they knew what they were going to hear, the next day.

(Laughter.)

MR. HONICKER: So, this story reminds me of this issue, in more ways than one, and I am not talking about the most famous clichJ of AThe Buck Stops Here,@ although each person in this room taking responsibility, for both their knowledge and their actions, is part of it. What I am talking about, is telling you the punch line, first, and then telling you the story, later.

When I saw that the government vigorously rejected repeated attempts at complying with FACA laws, for having the people most affected by this issue sit on the panel, and work on quality assurance, and gathering the information, I told everyone, last year, ADo not expect anything different from this government. This has gone on, for the last half­century.@ I was partly right, partly wrong, in my prediction.

A professor once told me, that, in life, the process is sometimes more important, if not more important, than the product. I think that can be said for this investigation. A lot of people worked on it, Colonel Bailey and others, worked very hard, invested a good bit of their life on this issue. So there is a lot of emotional investment, that makes this a difficult issue to talk about, in value-neutral terms. For the people whose lives, or family members= lives, have been harmed, in one way or another, to even expect them to be anything but passionately moved by this issue would be unreasonable.

But just because they are passionate about the issue, does not necessarily mean that their views are necessarily clouded, or inaccurate. Sometimes, they are wrong, but I think the vast majority of people in this room, for the vast majority of people in this room, their view is startlingly clear. At least, they are human enough to admit it, when they are wrong, which is more than I can say for the people or the expert panel. They, like their agencies they have investigated, have been very stingy in their missions, and making pretty big errors, in their opinion.

To those affected radiation victims, to the thousands affected by the blatant wrongdoings committed in the name of national security, you owed the people in this room at least one small consolation: that your effort to seek out the truth, and provide a fair picture of both the problem and the solution, would be an effort, beyond reproach. And you did not do that.

Now, I have got everybody saying at least two words, in common. I think we can all agree, after even a cursory review of the history of the AEC=s and the Manhattan Project, with respect to human experiments, on the smaller part, and to the downwinders, the atomic vets, the nuclear workers, the Indians, that, the government dealt from the bottom of the deck, for 50 years. They lied, suppressed information, distorted scientific findings, and covered up massive environmental and human insults. I think we can all agree on that. No problem.

I think you have also seen the difficulty in making this a cut-and-dried human experiment issue, but not by happenstance, as it was Stafford Warren, who initiated the human experiments, and it was Stafford Warren, who initiated the practices of deception, and cover­ups, with respect to nuclear workers, atomic veterans, and downwinders. I think that is why, each time you bring one issue out, the others seem to come along with it.

What few really good smoking guns that you released, pointed out, time and time again, that real national security interests, in this country, were subverted, and sacrificed, in order to protect the government ­­ which is not really accurate: it was the government officials, in employment, at the time ­­ to protect them from lawsuits, adverse public relations, bad press, and the like.

That being the case, it struck me as dizzyingly, amazingly incredible, that the president would allow the very agencies responsible for deceiving the American public for 50 years to have their own employees gather records, and expose their deepest, darkest secrets to the American public.

MS. MELAMED: Cliff, can you begin to wind up, please?

MR. HONICKER: You know, I have worked on this, for 20 years. People spoke, for 15 and 20 minutes. If you will give me three more minutes?

MS. MELAMED: Okay.

MR. HONICKER: Human nature does not work, that way, to have this self-exculpation. If you read the Advisory report and findings, you will see that, time and time again, the history of deception is wide and deep as the day is long. You will also see that, when the Advisory Committee got down to specific incidents of wrongdoing, that the report gets mushy and vague. You find that, of the 4,000­plus identified experiments, that the only experiment with identifiable victims, due compensation, to my knowledge, is the plutonium injection experiments, the very experiment that caused the DOE such intense, quote, Aadverse public relations.@

That act was as facile and callous as handing a gunshot victim a cork, and saying, AHeal thyself!@ It just does not work, that way.

There is a saying, by a German medical doctor, and pardon me, if I cannot remember how to say it, in Germany ­­ I would probably end up offending somebody, if I tried to say it ­­ but I think the English translation is, AIf you look, you will find.@ The corollary to that, I think, is, AIf you ask the right questions, you will find the right answers.@

Why were the files fragmented, to the point of being useless? Why did the government agencies, on this particular issue, keep such consistently fragmentary files? I have seen, firsthand, the nature of these files, and conditions of both before, and after, redaction or deletion. I have dealt, on a day-to-day basis, with Roger Anders, a dozen years ago, as he wheeled boxes on top of boxes from the DOE Germantown vault, to a small room in the old DOE building, while his superior, Charles Eddington, and Joe Dill, and Dr. Thiesen, quote, Areviewed these files,@ before allowing the Subcommittee on Energy Conservation and Power access, to these materials.

I knew, at the time, that Charles Eddington had somehow had his own hands on the testicular irradiation studies, of the prisoners, in Oregon and Washington. It was a glaring conflict of interest that someone responsible for signing off on these experiments ­­ ASo long as we are not liable,@ in Eddington=s words ­­ would be responsible for deciding what the Congress and the American public should and should not know about these experiments, as well as the radiation exposure and injury claims of countless nuclear workers, atomic vets, and people downwind from the nuclear test.

Yet, that was the case. I was so frustrated, in that investigation, I ranted, even like Dr. Egilman, how DOE could do such a thing.

MS. MELAMED: I am sorry, David!

MR. HONICKER: That is all right. I told him he would be in my talk.

The response from my superiors, on the subcommittee staff, was, there was nothing that could be done about it. That was how Washington, D.C., operated.

The story is even more poignant, when you realize, that, ten years earlier than that, in 1973, the Inspector General of the AEC ERTA, in conducting an internal, official-use-only investigation of the issue of informed consent on plutonium injection cases, did not allow Eddington, their own people, the own agency, did not allow Dr. Eddington to conduct the search, by himself, because even they recognized it would be a conflict of interest.

Roger Anders knew that what went on, in those vaults, and as his three superiors reviewed the files, before providing them to the subcommittee, but he kept silent, then, as he does, today. He went from the fellow pushing the carts, in 1984, to a DOE official, leading a team of investigators, searching for human radiation experiment documents, ten years later. Thanks to the national focus of this issue, brought by Eileen Wilson, and not by the DOE, I understand that one of the first sites, if not the first site, that Anders took his research team to investigate, for human experiment documents, was, not ­­ Hamilton=s files, in Berkeley, the scientist conducting plutonium experiments, not Stafford Warren, at UCLA, who initiated the highly secret human experiment program, as chief of the medical division of the Manhattan Project, but he went directly to a locked vault, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The vault is almost identical, in size, to the size of this room. It has white cinder block walls, with some 300 boxes of documents, from the AEC/Manhattan Project years.

The collection is not called the AHuman Radiation Experiment Files,@ it is not called the ASmoking Gun Files,@ but they certainly included a lot of both of them, in those files. It is just called the ARHTG.@ They are a nonrandom hodgepodge collection of documents, that have been pulled from various archival agency files, from around the country, over the last God-knows-how-many years.

Now, why in the world, and how in the world, did Roger Anders know about this obscure little collection of 300 boxes, known only as ARHTG?@

If you go back, and look at some of the most compelling documents found in the massive search, and the Advisory Committee, you will find source locations, such as, ARHTG, Box 1.@ These documents were never lost, and they did not take long to find. I think this vault is where the agency kept the documents that they did not want the public, including possibly various Congressional subcommittees ­­ which I think is a clear violation of the law ­­ to know about.

Hazel said, AGive us time to go through these documents. There is a stack the height of the Empire State Building, to go through.@ Yet Roger knew where the good documents were to be found. Why were they so easy to find, now, and so hard to find, ten years ago, in response to Representative Ottinger=s request that those documents be made, immediately, available?

I reviewed the subject index, 2,000 pages of those documents. Now, no kidding, the index that DOE provided me is called the, quote, ASanitized virgin.@

AVersion!@ Not virgin!

(Laughter.)

MR. HONICKER: Now, there is an oxymoron, if I have ever heard one.

I wanted to believe Hazel and Clinton=s words, I really did, about this era of openness. God knows, I have been trying for it, for many years. But I also wanted to remember the words of Dr. Louie Hempelman, who, among other things, told me, in an interview, in 1989, that AThe proof of the pudding is in the practice,@ or it may have been, AThe proof of the pudding is in the eating,@ I cannot remember. But, at any rate, a colleague of mine, a copy editor of a prestigious magazine, in New York City, asked my advice, about a month ago, on getting documents from this RHTG, for a book he was working on.

I told him, it was the era of openness, and fly on down! Come on! And DOE will pull them right out, for you.

At first, Amy Rothrock, the FOIA officer, in Oak Ridge, was all smiles and accommodation. He only had a dozen or so documents he was asking for. The index had specific box location. Nearly a no­brainer.

He went back to New York, expecting the documents within a week or so. Then he was informed that the documents were still classified, and would remain so, for at least three years, before they could be gotten around to, to be reviewed and downgraded. It is pretty amazing to think about, when you consider they were half-century-old documents, and still secret.

MS. MELAMED: Cliff, we do want you to be able to have your full say, but, we are afraid other people will not have time. So ­­

MR. HONICKER: Then, then I will stop.

MS. MELAMED: ­­ could you take a couple more minutes, and?

MR. HONICKER: No. I will stop.

MS. MELAMED: Okay.

MR. HONICKER: I will stop.

MS. MELAMED: Okay. Thank you.

Willa?

(Applause.)

MS. MELAMED: Be sure to say your name, please. Thanks.

MS. WOODSON: My name is Willa Woodson, and he could have taken a little longer. I am only going to take about a couple of minutes. They told me I have five minutes, and I typed up enough that I know how fast I talk, that it would take me about two.

My father was Patient N1 102 of the radiation experiments, down at the University of Cincinnati Hospital. I believe that we have too much papers, and I want to put faces on the people I am talking about. This is a picture of my father. He retired from the military, Colonel Bailey. Here is a picture of my husband. He retired from the military, also. My father=s name was Willie Jame Williams. He lived 14 days, after total body radiation. He died, in May, of 1970.

The Advisory Committee report, you have, in the Advisory Committee report, you have proven, I believe, that the research conducted on human subjects, was not of any benefit to the patients. The total body radiation was not of any benefit to cancer patients, because it killed healthy cells. For instance, my father=s cancer, I know, in 1970, was operable. He had cancer of the lower left lobe of his lung. We all know, anybody that knows anything about medicine, in 1970, they were able to remove that whole lung, or do a lungectomy.

Also, you have proven, to me, that the plutonium injections were of no benefits to the patient. Your report, says a lot, but what can we do, to ensure that this can never happen, again?

I feel, if research is done on human subjects, even under national security, I feel there should be a panel of lay citizens, more than one. If it is an institutional review board, of five, it should be five lay people, so one cannot outvote the other.

I believe that, after strong guidelines are set by the government, a panel, of lay citizens, can receive security clearance. I believe that, an opening, why should we have opening in government? I believe that, I am getting ahead of myself, and I may slow up. These are, I have three issues that, I believe, that we need to have, as far as research, whenever we are using human subjects as research, and I want to name the three.

I believe that all records should be open to the public. I think that we, as a government, has forgotten, who the government is. I am governed by the people, for the people.

We put you in office, and so many of you forget. I pay you. We pay you. We are victimized. And then, when we ask for something, it is your money. It is not your money. It is my money. We are the taxpayers. We are not millionaires. If we were, we would not be paying taxes. There are too many loopholes.

(Laughter.)

MS. WOODSON: There are too many loopholes. We would not have to pay.

So, we are being victimized, and we are being told that you don=t have any of our money left.

We are sending spaceships, out of space, every other week. I wonder how many millions of dollars does it take for that? We holler about welfare, Medicare, and we need to cut all this. We need to cut out some of this bureaucratic nonsense.

Okay. Let me not get off the track.

It was said, also, in your final report, that you don=t have the expertise to evaluate contributions to the national defense, and could not speak on this issue. I want to know why. You found experts, in a lot of other fields. You found experts, in radiation, and plutonium research, so I am pretty sure you can find experts, in that.

And also, I believe, my husband, the reason I showed you his picture, was a part of research, unbeknowing to him. By me doing my research, on radiation, and reading some of the final report, of the Advisory Committee, I recognized why my husband has had so many cancer operations.

My husband, right after the Korean War, handled cobalt sticks. He worked as a staff member of a chemical, biological, radiation school. He has had three cancer operations. I believe, by talking with other wives of soldiers, whose husbands were in the service during the same time, and had the same type of cancer my husband had, that they were part of a research.

My husband told me that he wore a dosimeter, and a film badge, that was taken off, every other day, and sometimes, twice a week. But he had no knowledge of the danger, until now. I remember him talking about it. I had no knowledge of the danger, until the first cancer. And then, the second. And then, the third. And, when I go back home, I believe we are dealing with the fourth. He is going back into the hospital.

And, every time I go, I see the same men. The same men are having the same surgery my husband is having, over and over, and we, wives of veterans, my husband gave his eye, for his country. He was wounded, in Korea. Also, my father. My father was in World War II, and Korea. And my father came home, after two wars, and he died, 14 days after an experiment. I think it is good to put a face to some of this paper. These are military men.

Also, I feel more protection ­­ we think more about the protection ­­ of animal rights, than we do, about humans. Please, remember, with the experiments now going on, with AIDS research, and the others, if strong guidelines are not set, it may be you, next time, sitting in my seat.

Why is opening important? We now know that all this would not have happened, if we had openness in government. Instead, there has been enough research done, with radiation, to know its risks and benefits, before the experiments even started, in Cincinnati General Hospital, in 1960. Critics of the research charged that physicians were exposing unknowing patients to potentially lethal doses of total body radiation, not to treat their cancers, but to collect data for the effects of nuclear war, for the military, and numerous patients died, or seriously suffered, from the radiation.

A junior faculty association of the University of Cincinnati, which severely criticized the total body radiation program, and follow these reviews, the president of the university decided not to renew their contract with the Department of Defense. We have got to work together to make sure that this never happens, again.

I want to state, this, and I am finished, with my report, I am finished reading. I want to say this. I appreciate what the Department of Energy, and the Department of Defense, is doing. I hope that none of this is in vain. I hope you can put faces with these papers, and remember. We are going into the 21^st century, and then, into the 22^nd. This can be you. Your mother, your father, could be sitting in my seat. This is not above any of you. This is not a black issue, an Indian issue, or Alaskan issue. This is a human rights issue.

(Applause.)

MS. MELAMED: Thank you, very much.

Fred?

MR. ALLINGHAM: This is very awkward.

Yes. Maybe this is better. Can you hear me, okay?

I think the Task Force tension, for the past two days, has had a lot to do with our sense of being like the unjustly condemned man, who has been asked to assist in his own execution, by tripping the trap door, flipping the electrical switch, or injecting himself with a deadly solution. Whether he agrees or not, the sentence is carried out, and only the injustice remains.

Openness. I don=t think there is anyone, who has been working with the radiation victims and survivors, who has not lauded, and applauded, Hazel O=Leary, for her efforts, on openness, and the president, for supporting those efforts. Likewise, the announcement of the Advisory Committee investigation was welcomed, by the survivor community, with open arms, and excitement. We are grateful for these steps, and appreciate the work that has been done, as it has been a quantum leap over anything that has ever been done, previously.

As to the recommendations, I included eighteen, which, it was the CIA one. I mean, I personally could not find anything to critique, in opening up documents, to the public, which is what each of the agencies that were listed, and the response from the agencies, what they are doing. It is hard to critique those kinds of actions.

I have two suggestions. One, obviously, is that it continues, and that you try to find more and more documents, because there are still people, out here, that cannot find what they need, for claims, or just for their own purposes. The second, is, I think, each of these departments needs trained staff, that can deal with the unsophisticated, bureaucratic process, I mean, they are unsophisticated, and cannot deal with the bureaucratic processing. They may not know what they are asking for. And you have to have trained people, that can take what you have got, and work people through a process, to find what they need. The Internet, the reading rooms, may not be available to these people.

I follow this, with the universal conjunction, ABut,@ openness cannot be a policy in an administration, to be bestowed, or not, depending on who sits in the White House, or as Secretary of the Department of Energy. We believe openness was bestowed upon citizens in this country, with the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution.

Since the beginning of the openness initiative, the Task Force has been trying to get our government to understand that real openness goes beyond access to documents, but includes real citizen participation, in decisions that affect their lives. We have tried to tell you, that this administration could change history, by institutionalizing this concept, by the way it handled the radiation issue. For the most part, you all do not believe that we have the capacity to assist you in your work.

This morning=s panel talked about using the expertise, and the commitment, in the communities, to help you in your work. These radiation communities have more expertise, than, obviously, you believe. In the uranium miner part of the next panel, Dr. Sammet declared that the RICA, as applied to the miners, was wrong. We told you that, when it was being passed, in 1990. We told you that, when the rules came out, in 1991. We know it was bad science, bad law. You did not believe us. If our definition of openness was in effect, we may have saved some miners, and their families, a lot of anguish and pain.

And if RICA is bad science, and bad law, for uranium miners, there is a damned good shot, it is the same for downwinders, civilian workers, and atomic veterans.

We asked for representation on the Advisory Committee. It was denied.

We asked for a seat at your table, as the Working Group was going to look at these recommendations. That has been denied.

We asked to be represented on the National Bioethics and Advisory Committee. Apparently, that, too, has been denied.

Openness. Just prior to this workshop, the Task Force received a letter, from Tara O=Toole, that told us, in no uncertain terms, things we have heard, many times, before. We cannot change anything. The Working Group will listen, only on implementation issues. And, the Working Group will make the decisions.

Thus, we arrive back at my analogy, of the unjustly-condemned man. By participating in a discussion, about implementation of recommendations, some of which we do not agree with, we may have only hanged ourselves, leaving only the injustice.

Finally, a question. We find no reference, in the Advisory Committee report, to search efforts by records submitted by, or recommendations related to, the Justice Department. You may get on this panel, after all. Since it has been a key player, all along, in these radiation experiments, was it not included in the president=s Executive Order? Thank you.

(Applause.)

MS. MELAMED: Thank you.

I think everybody on the panel, does anyone, Pat, do you want to say anything?