The Plutonium Files (26 page)

The large plane flew east for eight thousand miles across the blue wrinkled expanse of the Pacific Ocean, stopping for fuel in Brisbane, New Caledonia, and Fiji. When they reached Honolulu, Red Cross officials took mother and son sightseeing and then prepared a fresh bed for the child’s last lap to San Francisco.
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The ragged brown edge of a new continent appeared in their plane window just four days after Freda had applied for the visa.

The transport plane touched down at a small airfield north of San Francisco. A Red Cross ambulance was pulled up nearby and a knot of reporters and photographers were milling about. Freda tottered down the ramp with her child. She was wearing an old-fashioned hat, a print dress, and a dark coat. Draped around her shoulders was a slender braid of mink.

Simmy looked like a character out of a Charles Dickens novel, skin and eyes glittering with fever, his right leg swaddled in a cast. The photographers moved in with their boxy cameras. The boy giggled, reaching for the spent bulbs. Someone gathered up a whole bag of bulbs and shoved them into his hand. Freda, exhausted and disoriented, was brimming with gratitude. She thanked the Army and the Red Cross for helping to arrange the flight. The doctors in Australia, she said, had told her
it was urgent to get to UCSF within a week. “Inside of one hour, American Army officers and Red Cross workers had arranged priorities for us as paying passengers,” she said.
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“I want everybody to know how kind they have been.” Freda refused even to acknowledge the possibility that UCSF would not be able to help her son. “I’m hopeful,” she said, “because I have to be.”

The next day the story of the arrival of mother and son was carried in newspapers around the United States: “Mercy Flight Brings Aussie Boy Here”; “Sydney Boy Admitted to U.S. Hospital After Flight”; “Specialists Hope to Cure Boy, 4.” Then the reporters moved on to the next assignment. For Freda and Simmy, though, the story was just beginning.

Once he was in the hospital, the experiment on Simmy had to proceed quickly. Ships and men were already massing in the Pacific Ocean for Operation Crossroads. Many of Hamilton’s assistants would be going. Even Hamilton himself, on one occasion toting a bottle of bourbon for the sweaty troops, would be flying back and forth.

Still carrying the bag of spent flashbulbs, Simmy was placed in a wheelchair and rolled to his hospital bed. The admittance office waived a lot of the paperwork. “Their traveling expenses, previous specialists, etc. have been tremendous,” one official hurriedly noted. Freda gave the physicians the X rays and medical reports she had carried with her from Australia. Curiously, there was no letter of referral or summary of Simmy’s illness.

The child was given a detailed physical examination. Codeine and aspirin were prescribed for his pain and an elixir of phenobarbital was ordered to help him sleep. Freda stayed at the Parnassus Guest House across the street from the hospital. Her joy at arriving in the United States evaporated quickly when doctors allowed her to see Simmy only three times a week. “They say if I go more often they will not be able to do anything,” Freda told her husband in a telephone conversation.
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Simmy was also distraught by the separation. “He wants to see his mother continually,” an entry on his medical chart states.

Simmy began to grow more feverish a few days after he was admitted. Additional aspirin was ordered. Ice packs were placed on his forehead. Alcohol rubs were administered. A severe infection materialized in his middle ear, and ten days after his arrival, his left eardrum was punctured so pus could drain out.

Incredibly, on April 26, the same day his ear was punctured and his temperature was hovering at 104 degrees, Simmy was injected with three
radioisotopes: plutonium-239, cerium, and a third isotope believed to be yttrium.
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He was the youngest of the eighteen plutonium patients and the only foreign citizen. CAL-2 was his code name.

The radioisotopes injected into Simmy were slightly different from the ones Hamilton outlined in his memo. Instead of plutonium-238, plutonium-239 was injected. Radioactive strontium was eliminated, and one of the scientists involved in the experiment suggested the yttrium injected into Simmy may actually have been rubidium.

Simmy’s fever continued to seesaw after the injections. It dropped to normal a day later, and then rose again to 104 degrees. The infection spread to the right ear, which was also drained. Although his temperature kept fluctuating, surgeons decided to go ahead and do a bone biopsy. Australian doctors had specifically recommended against a biopsy, but the reason for their objection is not clear. After Freda signed a consent form for the anesthesia, the child was wheeled into surgery and a rubber tourniquet was wrapped around his upper leg. Surgeons removed an “oblong section” of bone.
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“Then with curved gouges more material was removed from the center of the tumor for radioactive studies as well as biopsy.” Small bits of muscle and tissue were also taken out for study. Finally the incision was closed and the child was returned to the ward.

A note in Simmy’s medical records states that some of the specimens were sent to Earl Miller. Another document states that the data on the uptake of the radioactive materials could be obtained from Miller by “responsible individuals.” But Miller said in an interview shortly before his death that he was not involved in Simmy’s case.
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“If I had any contact with this kid it might have been through reading his films.”
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Freda placed two calls to Australia, the first on April 25 and the second on May 9. Samuel’s secretary listened to the conversations and transcribed them. Simmy’s brother, Joshua, said this was probably done because his Russian-born father didn’t speak English well and the phone connections were terrible.
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Some of the transcripts contain blank spaces, which Joshua said probably represented words the secretary couldn’t understand. The transcripts are filled with a poignant sense of confusion and urgency. They were kept by Simmy’s father for decades and were handed down to his surviving children after he died.

The day after the radionuclides were injected, Freda placed the first call to her husband. “They have given him an injection and will be giving him another one on Saturday,” she reported.
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There is no further information
about what Freda was told about the injections; nor has any evidence made public so far indicated that Freda was informed about the plutonium.

Simmy’s diagnosis, unlike Albert Steven’s and Eda Schultz Charlton’s, was accurate. X rays showed the child had two additional lesions—one in the upper thigh and one in his left arm. The disease probably had nothing to do with the fall from the hammock.

Freda’s agitation, meanwhile, continued to mount. In the second conversation with her husband, she said, “This afternoon they said they have not any hope at all.
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The resident specialist has told me there is no hope.”

Simmy’s fever continued to fluctuate during the rest of his hospital stay. He was given large doses of penicillin and more aspirin for the pain in his leg. There was a debate about whether to administer “deep X-ray therapy” or to amputate the leg. Both options were discarded because it was felt that the cancer was too far advanced. Freda was advised, however, that if Simmy’s tumor became excessively large or ulcerated through the skin, amputation might be necessary.

A fresh plaster cast was placed over Simmy’s leg and he was discharged on May 25. The child seemed improved and was trying to put weight on the injured leg. Ominously, though, an X ray done four days after the discharge suggested the tumor actually was increasing in size.
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Six weeks had elapsed since Freda’s joyous, hopeful arrival in the United States. “Sailing June 14th Need Money Cable Immediately Love,” she wrote in a telegram to her family.

Simmy and Freda took a slow boat back to Australia. The journey took a month, and the two may have passed some of the Navy vessels transporting scientists and sailors to Operation Crossroads. Somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, Simmy celebrated his fifth birthday. When they reached Australia, Simmy and his mother took up residence in the Riverview Hotel on the outskirts of Sydney. Simmy’s father joined them there. The eight-room hotel, which is still standing, was owned by Samuel’s sister. Joshua, the eldest son, said the family probably stayed in Sydney because they were strapped for cash.

Through the summer, fall, and winter, Freda, Simmy, and Samuel were together, sharing a large room in the front of the hotel. There were cooking facilities, perhaps a hot plate in the room. Simmy slept in the only bed.

Freda, who had had her fill of doctors and mercy flights, used homeopathic remedies in a desperate attempt to ease the child’s pain. Mrs.
O. S. Adams, a Californian who may have befriended Freda while she was in the United States, sent her a packet of clover bloom. “At last I have the clover bloom for your little boy,” she wrote.
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“Cover with water, boil two or three minutes strain and serve when cool enough.” The letter and the envelope, with its six cents’ worth of stamps, were also kept by Simmy’s father.

The clover bloom was fragrant and full of hope, but no match for the bone cancer. The disease did its work, brutally and efficiently. Finally there was nothing left to do but hold Simmy. “The last time I went into his room, Simmy was screaming with pain.
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I couldn’t stand it,” said Joshua. “The next thing we were driving back to Dubbo. I was sitting in the backseat and I asked my mother where Simmy was. She said he was staying in Sydney for a while. I could see she was very upset.”

Simmy died on January 6, 1947, a year after the fall from the hammock. His death deeply affected the Shaw family. Samuel never mentioned Simmy’s name again and shut himself off from his two other children. If Joshua or Helene touched him, he went to the sink and washed his hands. “From Simeon’s death onward, there was a void.
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I can’t remember one happy moment,” Joshua said.

A couple of years later, a secretary for Bertram V. A. Low-Beer, the UCSF radiologist who conducted the TBI experiment for the Met Lab, wrote to Freda. Low-Beer was interested in how Simmy was feeling. “We realize you may have been busy and overlooked the letter, but we are very interested in knowing how your son, [name deleted], is feeling at the present time.”
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Low-Beer’s secretary told Freda she was welcome to use the bottom of her letter for her reply. A stamped, self-addressed envelope was enclosed. “Hoping to hear from you soon,” she added. Freda never responded.

Soon after the experiment on Simmy was completed, Joseph Hamilton and his colleagues headed to the beautiful lagoon in the Pacific Ocean where the world’s first peacetime atomic bombs were detonated during Operation Crossroads. But his human experiments were not over yet. In November of 1946, some five months later, he was again pleading with the Manhattan Engineer District for small amounts of plutonium-238 so he could continue his studies.
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The next human guinea pig in Berkeley was injected not with plutonium, but americium, a radioactive element discovered by Glenn Seaborg in 1944, which is created by bombarding plutonium-239 with neutrons. The subject was Hanford Jang, a sixteen
year-old boy from Canton, China, who spoke no English. Often referred to as CAL-A, Jang was suffering from the same disease as Simmy: an osteogenic sarcoma. The cancer was located in his left femur and had spread to other parts of his body.

According to the scant records on the case, Jang was injected with americium on June 10, 1947, at the Chinese Hospital in San Francisco’s Chinatown. On the day of the procedure, a note in his medical records states: “An injection has been given this patient at 10:30 a.m. today, henceforth all urine and feces shall be collected separately daily in individual containers provided to be collected daily at 9:00 a.m. by messenger from the radiation laboratories of the University of California at Berkeley.
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Please date all bottles.” Another note in his records states: “Keep clear of urine. Keep cool. Keep in container and in bucket of ice.”

Scientist Kenneth Scott instructed researcher Josephine Crowley to “make arrangements for daily car trips to S.F. for excreta for first two weeks.”
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He continued, “We will use the same procedure as with Mr. S. See JGH for particulars.” “Mr. S.” was probably a reference to Albert Stevens. “JGH” was Joseph Hamilton.

Although doctors had decided not to amputate Simmy’s leg because the cancer was too widespread, they went ahead and amputated Hanford Jang’s leg despite the fact that his cancer, too, had metastasized. The amputation was performed two days after the injection. The limb was then sent to Berkeley, where it was dissected and the americium measured in the bone, tumor, connective tissue, and muscle.
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The teenager died eleven months later, on June 15, 1948, and was buried in the Six Companies Cemetery, a Chinese cemetery in San Francisco. The Department of Energy admitted years later there was “no evidence of disclosure” about the experiment in Jang’s medical records.
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Although Hamilton certainly supervised the human experiments, it’s not clear whether he actually injected the patients. “I don’t think Dr. Hamilton, himself personally, ever injected anybody with anything.
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I don’t think he ever wanted to practice medicine after he finished his internship,” Patricia Durbin speculated in an interview with government officials in 1994. “He basically turned [away from] medical practice and became a laboratory bench scientist. He was terrified of patients. He was terrified of people.” Hamilton was so afraid of human touch, Durbin added, that he once wanted to fire one of his pregnant secretaries because he was worried he would have to deliver the baby himself.

Within weeks of the Hanford Jang injection, Joseph Hamilton and his associates began looking around for another human subject. They
eventually set their sights on Elmer Allen, an African American railroad porter originally from Texas whose life had been turned upside down by an accident. Code-named CAL-3, Elmer was the third and last patient injected by the Berkeley group and the final subject used in the entire experiment. Elmer outlived the other seventeen patients and the doctors who injected him, succumbing to pneumonia in 1991. But his was one of the most tragic stories of all.