About a quarter of a century–and a battery of lawsuits–later, Congress seems ready to make amends. After having reviewed documented testimony that the Atomic Energy Commission and the Public Health Service failed to reveal the hazards in uranium mines in New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado, the House passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act last week. The bill would establish a trust fund of $100 million. Families of miners with radiation-induced illness would be eligible for a lump-sum payment of $100,000, and “downwinders,” certain cancer victims in Utah, Nevada and Arizona who were exposed to fallout from nuclear testing, could receive $50,000. Though the legislation’s chances look good in the Senate, the White House’s position is unclear.

The case against the federal government is damning. European studies in the ’20s and ’30s linked radioactivity in uranium mines to lung cancer, and found that mineshaft ventilation could reduce the threat. In 1949 U.S. scientists discovered that cancer could be caused by inhaling particles produced by radon gas, a byproduct of uranium. But even after the Public Health Service privately recommended ventilation in 1952, the Atomic Energy Commission failed to pressure mine owners. “[The AEC’s] position was that they had no legal responsibility for the mines,” says Dr. Victor Archer, a former PHS official. “The safety of the miners sort of fell between the cracks.” The evidence shows the AEC believed ventilators were too costly, despite the fact that processed uranium sold at an average rate of $12 a pound. In 1954 alone the AEC bought more than 3 million pounds. The pressure to produce was so intense, says retired miner Harry Tsosie, 60, that the three shifts on which he worked were each expected to mine 80 tons of rock a day. (So far, Tsosie has escaped cancer.)

Why did the PHS fail to speak out? It was then a small agency with very little power. Also it was the McCarthy era, and anyone who criticized the nuclear-war effort risked being branded a communist. But the PHS may have committed a graver sin than keeping silent. From 1954 to 1960 the agency monitored the health of a test group of 4,138 uranium miners without telling the men why. Archer, who directed the study, says that by 1960 the miners already suffered high rates of lung cancer. “The PHS used the miners as guinea pigs to study the effects of radiation,” says former secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall, 70, a lawyer who has filed five suits on behalf of the miners. “Some of us have difficulty morally distinguishing between this study and some of the stuff the Nazi doctors did.”

Too late: Since 1979 Udall has crusaded to win compensation for the families of stricken miners. Union Carbide began ventilating some mines in the late ’50s, but the federal government did not impose safety regulations on mining companies until 1967. By then it was too late for many of the 15,000 men–20 percent of them Navajos–who had mined uranium. Udall pursued four separate suits against mining companies, winning only a small settlement in Utah. He also tackled the U.S. government, but his suit was quashed in 1985 when an appellate court ruled that the federal government was protected by sovereign immunity, which allows Washington to decide when it can be sued. But a judge recommended that the miners turn to Congress. With reparations now a possibility, Udall thinks the money is small consolation. “It may be that [a government] apology is worth more,” he says.

What haunts the survivors most is the image of husbands and fathers working long hours, eating lunch and even drinking water from springs in the mines–totally unaware of the danger. Many Navajos were even more out of touch; they spoke no English and their language had no word for “radioactive.” “It’s an unfortunate instance of national-security interests being placed above the health of innocent people,” says Elizabeth Arky, an attorney for the Navajo Nation in Washington. Medical experts believe that the number of lung-cancer deaths among former uranium miners will double soon. For most of the world, the cold war is over, but in some Navajo communities and small mining towns in the West, the body count is still climbing.