At first, I thought it was a joke. An Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas celebrating weapons of mass destruction. But if we've learned anything these days, it is that truth is far more bizarre than anything the best comedians could invent.
   On Feb. 20, amid fanfare and scattered protests, the Nevada Test Site Historical Foundation held the grand opening of the Atomic Testing Museum, with a decidedly pro-nuclear bent. The $4.5 million museum is a partnership between the Test Site Historical Foundation, the Department of Energy and the Desert Research Institute in association with the Smithsonian Institution.
   Half of the funding came from a congressional appropriation secured by Nevada Sen. Harry Reid. The rest came from private donations including major gifts from Bechtel and Lockheed Martin. The speaker at the dedication was Linton F. Brooks, the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration.
   But, here are the implications of those facts. The Department of Energy is the former Atomic Energy Commission, which tested nuclear weapons at the Nevada Test Site from 1951 to 1992. The same Atomic Energy Commission that repeatedly lied to the American public and engaged in a systematic cover-up of the real effects of nuclear testing.
   The same Atomic Energy Commission that in the early 1950s printed a pamphlet called "Atomic Testing in Nevada," assuring citizens that "there is no danger" and urging them to "participate in a moment of history" by watching the tests.
   Congressional appropriations mean that taxpayers - ordinary citizens like those living downwind who were harmed - are helping to fund the museum. Bechtel and Lockheed Martin are companies with intimate ties to the Nevada Test Site and the military.
   Linton Brooks is the man who has been pushing for the development of new nuclear weapons and for test site preparedness in case the president decides that nuclear testing should resume. He's also the man who assured Utah Sen. Bob Bennett in a Senate hearing that the underground test Baneberry, which spewed radioactive debris 10,000 feet into the atmosphere, did not release radiation beyond the Nevada Test Site borders - an assertion which is disputed by government documents that clearly show radiation from Baneberry was tracked as far as Canada.
   The museum opens at a time when the Bush administration is discussing renewed testing as a possibility and when it is twisting arms to develop new nuclear weapons. It also comes at a time that the juggernaut of the military-industrial complex remains a very powerful player in setting American nuclear policy. A Feb. 23 New York Times review of the museum concluded that "the history of testing, as told here, is largely the history of its justification."
   None of this inspires confidence in the museum's ability to "consolidate and preserve" the full, complex and vexing history of atomic testing.
   As it is, the Atomic Testing Museum celebrates the nation's nuclear testing program while ignoring its far-reaching and devastating consequences. Exhibits feature simulations of atomic blasts with shaking benches, loud explosions and blasts of air that are little more than the Disneyfication of atomic testing.
   There are "exciting" accounts of eyewitnesses to the explosions and kitschy atomic memorabilia from pop culture like atomic hairstyles or 3-D Viewmasters, some for sale in the museum store.
   Missing are exhibits about the human toll of nuclear testing, about downwinders, about how far the winds carried radioactive fallout and about the death and disease it caused. This omission comes as a crushing blow to the tens of thousands of Americans who have suffered the health effects of fallout and who continue to lose loved ones to fallout-related illnesses.
   By excluding our story, the museum is essentially saying we don't deserve a place in history, even though we were involuntary participants in what a New York Times writer once called "The most prodigiously reckless program of scientific experimentation in American history."
   The museum cannot be considered complete until it provides a full accounting of the very heavy price Americans paid for our nation's four-decade nuclear testing program. Otherwise, it is nothing more than a propaganda vehicle.
   In his dedication speech, Linton Brooks told visitors that the museum "helps us celebrate victory in America's longest war." The museum must also acknowledge the many Cold War veterans - civilian downwinders, test site workers and enlisted servicemen alike - who unwittingly gave their health and lives to that war.
   We would happily provide input. We deserve and demand no less.
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   Mary Dickson is a survivor of thyroid cancer and the author of Living and Dying with Fallout, which appeared in the summer issue of the journal Dialogue.