"An American came to Bikini. He said he was the most powerful man in the world... He said he wanted to drop a bomb on Bikini. They were taking many pictures of us; at that time, I didn't know what a camera was, why they had to do everything so many times..." (Kilon Bauno). Operation Crossroads-the testing of the atomic bomb off Bikini atoll in 1946-has become an emblem of the dawn of the nuclear age; but Robert Stone's Radio Bikini explores this bizarre experiment in its many ramifications. In an expertly edited compendium of historic film footage and radio material, Stone conveys the mood governing Operation Crossroads: it is a mixture of incredible gall and incredible naiveté, in the evacuation of the Bikini natives to a nearby island, in sending Navy boys into the bomb site just hours after the explosion, and in the obsession to capture on film and radio every aspect of the maneuver. One of the first great (electronic) "media events," this was the bomb as spectacle, with all its attendant excitement and scientific pretensions. But Stone's film is far from a period piece; Operation Crossroads lives on, in the ex-Navy men whose disfigured bodies are the true testing ground for the A-bomb. "I don't recall anyone even talking to us about radioactivity," says a one-time farm boy turned nuclear victim. "And there are thousands out there like me."