Nevada: America's favorite nuclear target.

In the past 50 years Nevada has been the target of nuclear attack many times. First, there were bombs. And more bombs. And then more bombs -- nearly 1000 over the years.

-- Above image is from: Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940, Stephen I. Schwartz, Editor, from photo group following page 458, Brookings Institution Press, Washington, D.C., 1998.

Today, Yucca Mountain, in Nevada, is the planned waste repository in America. Strongly opposed by virtually all Nevadans, it is unlikely to ever open -- but that's okay, you see, because the debate continues unabated, and that means the nuke plants stay open.

But less well known is a third time that Nevada was attacked by nukes. As the photograph below shows, the mighty battleship Nevada was at the center of the very first test bomb ("Test Able") in Bikini Atoll, after World War II. The test involved dozens of ships, including Destroyers, Submarines, Attack Transports, Landing Ship Tank, Landing Craft Infantry, Landing Craft Tank, Landing Craft Mechanized, Floating Drydocks, and Barges. At the center of this huge, doomed armada was the majestic Nevada.

-- Operation Crossroads: The Official Pictorial Record. Page 118. The Office of the Historian, Joint Task Force One. Wm. H. Wise & CO., Inc., New York, NY, 1946. (Below is an inset from the above photo.)

Copyright (c) 2002 by Russell D. Hoffman. All Rights Reserved