April 30, 2021 Advertisement With the Able nuclear test on July 1, 1946, the United States fired the opening salvo in one of the worst, and least-known, tragedies in our nation’s history. Seventy-five years later, it’s time for the Biden administration to break with the past and issue a presidential apology to victims of nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands. This action promises to address past injustices, help restore America’s moral leadership on the world stage, and foreclose the chance for similar calamities. The United States tested 67 nuclear weapons from 1946 to 1958 in what is now the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), a nation of 29 atolls located nearly halfway between Hawaii and Australia in the Pacific Ocean. At the time, the islands were under U.S. protection. The nuclear tests and their fallout had the largest impact on four northern atolls: Enewetak, Bikini, Rongelap, and Utrok, each of which was evacuated due to radiation stemming from tests with payloads up to 1,000 times greater than the bomb dropped at Hiroshima.