Atomic museum not a hit with downwinders

At odds: Curators say new Atomic Testing Museum is educational; foes say it's a forum for nuclear apologists

By Ken Ritter
The Associated Press

<snip> ''Once you've been a victim of nuclear weapons you're less enthusiastic about it,'' said Michelle Thomas, 52, a lifelong resident of St. George, Utah. ''I don't hate or fear anyone bad enough to want to see happen to them what happened to us.'' <snip>

''My dad never ever talked about it until just a few days before he passed away,'' Margalski said. ''He talked about going out and walking in it while they came around with Geiger counters.'' <snip>

''In 50 years, when all the people who had a negative opinion are dead, it will be just that - one-sided history,'' said Truman, who founded and directs an advocacy group called Downwinders. <snip>

Thomas remembers a fine ash falling like snow across St. George. When fallout warnings sounded, her mother would don an old straw hat, pull on rubber dish gloves and tie a dish towel around her own mouth to pluck laundry from the outdoor drying line. <snip>

http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2598386