Operation Chariot (1958)

One of the Chariot schemes involved chaining five thermonuclear devices to create the artificial harbor.

Project Chariot was a 1958 US Atomic Energy Commission proposal to construct an artificial harbor at Cape Thompson on the North Slope of the U.S. state of Alaska by burying and detonating a string of nuclear devices.

History

The project originated as part of Operation Plowshare, a research project to find peaceful uses for nuclear explosives.

The plan was championed by Edward Teller, who traveled throughout the state touting the harbor as an important economic development for America's newest state. Alaskan political leaders, newspaper editors, the state university's president, even church groups all rallied in support of the massive detonation. Opposition came from the tiny Inupiat Eskimo village of Point Hope, a few scientists engaged in environmental studies under AEC contract, and a handful of conservationists. The grassroots protest soon was picked up by organizations with national reach, such as the Wilderness Society, the Sierra Club, and Barry Commoner's Committee for Nuclear Information. In 1962, facing increased public uneasiness over the environmental risk and the potential to disrupt the lives of the Eskimos, the AEC announced that Project Chariot would be "held in abeyance." It has never been formally canceled.^{[citation needed]}

The history of Project Chariot is recounted in the book The Firecracker Boys by Dan O'Neill (originally published in 1994 and revised and reissued in 2007 as The Firecracker Boys: H-Bombs, Inupiat Eskimos, and the Roots of the Environmental Movement).^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Operation Plowshare

Further reading

• O'Neill, Dan (2007) [1995]. The Firecracker Boys: H-Bombs, Inupiat Eskimos, and the Roots of the Environmental Movement. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0465003486. 
• O'Neill, Dan (1995). The Firecracker Boys. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0312134169. 

External Links

• "Project Chariot: The Nuclear Legacy of Cape Thompson, Alaska". http://arcticcircle.uconn.edu/SEEJ/chariotseej.html. Retrieved 2006-06-16.