THE ATOM: Model City

At first blush, it was hard to believe that there could be much wrong with life in Richland, Wash., the Atomic Energy Commission's model residential city for the big Hanford Plutonium Works. Its 24,000 residents seemed to live in an atomic-age Utopia. With no effort from them, Government planning had methodically channeled the city's burgeoning population into neatly curving rows of comfortable frame houses. Sputtering Government sprinklers had drawn green grass from the arid Columbia River basin in defiance of the gritty desert winds from the Horse Heaven Hills.

Government agents had...

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