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Marshallese petition to the United Nations, 1954

Petition of 20 April 1954, signed by 111 people, eleven of them listed as members of the Marshallese Congress's hold-over committee, asking the U.N. to stop the tests.

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20 Apr 1954

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  1. 20 Apr 1954 Marshallese petition to the United Nations, 1954
Proof 2 sources
  1. Petition of the Marshallese people to the United Nations, 20 April 1954, as telegraphed to Washington on 3 May 1954 (Foreign Relations of the United States 1952-1954, vol. III, doc. 933), U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, 3 May 1954. Primary record
    Petition is signed with 111 signatures, 11 purported to be members of the Marshallese Congress hold-over committee and 100, separately numbered, purported to be interested Marshallese citizens.
    Subject: Complaint regarding the explosion of lethal weapons within our home islands.
    The following should not be misconstrued as a repudiation of the US as our governing agency for the UN under the trusteeship agreement
    aside from the complaint registered in this petition we have found the American Administration by far the most agreeable one in our memory
    whose complete recovery no one can promise with any certainty
    All the experiments with lethal weapons within this area be immediately ceased.
    The people of Rongelab would have avoided much danger if they had known not to drink the waters on their home island after the radioactive dusts had settled on them.
    All human beings and their valuable possessions be transported to safe distances first, before such explosions occur.
    Adequate funds be set aside to pay for the possessions of the people in case they will have to be moved from their homes.
    the lethal effects of which have already touched the inhabitants of two of the atolls in the Marshalls, namely, Rongelap and Uterik, who are now suffering in various degrees from ‘lowering of blood count,’ burns, nausea and the falling off of hair from the head
  2. Mason Sears to the Secretary of State on the Trusteeship Council session, 23 July 1954 (Foreign Relations of the United States 1952-1954, vol. III, doc. 956), U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, 23 Jul 1954. Primary record
    From the point of view of the United States the most important item on the agenda of the recently concluded Fourteenth Session of the Trusteeship Council was the petition of the Marshallese people protesting the use of their islands
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