Codename Cherokee

CODENAME CHEROKEE

(A 1500 word excerpt from THE ATOMIC TIMES: My H-Bomb Year at the Pacific Proving Ground)


Cherokee was the second of 17 nuclear blasts in the 1956 United States H-bomb test series, Operation Redwing, conducted in the South Pacific. Cherokee was typical of what happened when over 1600 men (including me) became guinea pigs for the Department of Defense.  The unstated motto at the Pentagon was:  Everything that CAN go wrong WILL go wrong.


And it did. Cherokee was a prime example.


THE ATOMIC TIMES was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize by its original hardcover publisher, Random House.


"THE ATOMIC TIMES is a gripping memoir of the first H-bomb tests by one of the small groups of young servicemen stationed at Ground Zero on Eniwetok Atoll.  Leavened by humor, loyalty and pride of accomplishment, this book is also a tribute to the resilience, courage and patriotism of the American soldier." --Henry Kissinger


"One of the best books I've ever read, combining elements of Catch 22 and Dr. Strangelove in a memoir both hilarious and tragic. A 'must' read, destined to become a classic." —John G. Stoessinger, Ph.D. (Harvard), winner of the Bancroft Prize for Inernational Affairs, member of the Council on Foreign Relations"One of the best books I've ever read, combining elements of Catch 22 and Dr. Strangelove in a memoir both hilarious and tragic. A 'must' read, destined to become a classic." —John G. Stoessinger, Ph.D. (Harvard), winner of the Bancroft Prize for Inernational Affairs, member of the Council on Foreign Relations"One of the best books I've ever read, combining elements of Catch 22 and Dr. Strangelove in a memoir both hilarious and tragic. A 'must' read, destined to become a classic." —John G. Stoessinger, Ph.D. (Harvard), winner of the Bancroft Prize for Inernational Affairs, member of the Council on Foreign Relations


"Harris has seamlessly presented a colorful cast of characters, and a shockingly honest depiction of his experience. The effect is at once deeply personal and politically profound." —Senator Charles Schumer


"Harris' frank and disturbing descriptions of the criminally irresponsible proceedings on Eniwetok, and the physical and mental pain he and others endured, constitute shocking additions to atomic history. Amazingly enough, given his ordeal, Harris remains healthy.” —Booklist


"Harris uses a chatty, dead-pan voice that highlights the horrifying absurdity of life on the island:  the use of Geiger counters to monitor scrambled eggs' radiation level, three-eyed fish swimming in the lagoon, corroded, permanently open windows that fail to keep out the radioactive fall-out and men whose toenails glow in the dark. (The money initially earmarked for enlisted men's goggles was diverted to buy new furniture for the colonel's house. 'Goggles are important,' Harris is told. 'But the colonel's furniture is important, too.') An entertaining read in the bloodline of Catch-22, Harris achieves the oddest of victories: a funny, optimistic story about the H-bomb." —Publisher's Weekly


"Brilliantly conceived, elegantly rendered and persuasively authentic." —Robert B. Parker, bestselling author of the Spenser and Jesse Stone series