Las Vegas –The countdown warns of something ominous. Then there’s the flash of light, the trembling of the benches, the explosive noise and a swoosh of air sweeping through the Ground Zero Theater.
Few museums offer thrill rides, but the folks at the newly opened Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas wanted to show guests a bit of what it was like to sit outside and watch an above-ground nuclear test as thousands of spectators did in the Nevada desert during the 1950s.
That’s the more unusual part of what’s otherwise a thoughtful, $3.5 million effort to memorialize one of the Cold War’s most secretive and central efforts, the activities at the 1,375-square-mile Nevada Test Site about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. A hundred bombs were tested aboveground from 1951 to 1962, and 828 were tested underground until an international treaty ended that practice in 1992.
The Atomic Testing Museum, about 1 mile east of the Las Vegas Strip, is one of the nation’s first museums dedicated to studying the Cold War era.
“It’s only now, after the Cold War is over, that we realize that even though it was a ‘cold’ war, it did happen in places,” museum director Bill Johnson says. “This museum’s position is that the Nevada Test Site was a battleground of the Cold War and it helped to end it, and that’s a significant position to take.”
But in paying tribute to the U.S. weapons effort and those who labored on it, the museum comes with a payload of controversy about its human toll. Some say the museum – founded by former test site workers and housed in a space leased by the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration – pushes an agenda that largely ignores the damaging and lasting effects of nuclear fallout.
“I actually believe the Test Site was a deterrent to World War III, and I would have not been one of the nuclear protesters, but I concede there were costs,” says historian Christopher Preble, director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute in Washington. “I would hope a museum would have a more balanced approach and be honest about the long-term effects, while at the same time giving credit to the people who were there.”
Johnson and curator Loretta Helling insist the museum, with its Smithsonian affiliation, is a serious effort to portray that history. A rotating exhibit space and lecture series will provide opportunities for those who feel left out to be represented, Helling said.
As it stands now, the displays feature a wide range of artifacts of the era including models of bombs, a case full of various Geiger counters, and films that discuss the science behind nuclear fission and radiation.
The simulation in the Ground Zero Theater is an attention-grabber that “doesn’t even do justice to what it was really like, but it gives a little bit of a feel, and it’s in the concept of ‘You’re in Las Vegas,”‘ says Johnson, who aims for 100,000 visitors a year in a city that greeted 41 million tourists in 2004. “It’s like one of those motion rides they have at the hotels.”
Other displays include a litany of knickknacks from atomic-themed candy and 1950s comic books to postcards with photos of Las Vegas resorts that have mushroom clouds billowing in the distance. The gift shop sells collectibles such as Albert Einstein action figures.
State Sen. minority leader Dina Titus shrugged off the critics, noting her own opposition to nuclear testing “doesn’t mean the museum needs to be boring.” Titus is on the museum’s board and says she’ll ensure that the institution represents more facets of the history as time goes on.
“I think the museum is very important because the story needs to be told so we don’t make the mistake again,” Titus says. “I wanted the museum to be more than a glorification of the bomb. It needs to tell all aspects of the story.”
The details
The Atomic Testing Museum,
755 E. Flamingo Road, is open Monday-Saturday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., and Sunday, 1-5 p.m. Admission
is $10, with discounts for seniors, students and military personnel. Call 702-794-5161 or visit
