Masters Theses

Date of Award

6-1987

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Major

Sociology

Major Professor

Donald A. Clelland

Committee Members

Thomas C. Hood, John P. Gaventa

Abstract

About 130 miles northwest of Minneapolis, lies the farming community of Farwell, Minnesota (pop. 103). This is the case of Joe Sauter, a sheep farmer who in 1958 filed a claim against the Atomic Energy Commission for loss of livestock, damage to trees, and personal injuries that he believed were the result of radioactive fallout. This case will detail the efforts of the AEC to cut short the claim of radiation injury by suppressing key radiological data which would have substantiated Sauter's claim and proved damaging to the AEC.

Officials within the AEC knowingly and willfully made false statements and representations, not only to Sauter, but to the agricultural representatives who investigated the sheep deaths on Sauter's farm on behalf of the AEC.

Later, Sen. Clinton Anderson (D-MN), chairman of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, and Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey, chairman of two subcommittees on disarmament and international health, both made specific requests to the AEC for radioactive hotspots in Minnesota and North Dakota. The AEC withheld the information learned on Sauter's farm in order to protect the broader interests of the AEC in producing nuclear warheads and promoting nuclear energy.

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