Delayed Reaction

For decades, the government told the people who made America's nuclear weapons their work sites were safe. In a stunning turn-around Saturday, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson told CBS News the government didn't come clean.

"It's important that we eliminate this previous policy of denial and simply saying that there is no link when before us, in some of our plants, it was painfully obvious that workers weren't told the truth," he said.

CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston reports one of those workers was Joe Harding. From 1952 to 1970, his job was in the Paducah, Ky. gaseous diffusion plant. When he came down with cancer, he and his wife suspected radiation from the plant -- but no one would listen.

In a recording made before his death, Harding said, "You could see your own tracks in this uranium dust, looking back on this now just horrifies you."

A new government study finds that radiation at 14 plants gave an estimated 600,000 workers higher than normal rates of cancer. Among the sites: Rocky Flats in Colorado; Savannah River in South Carolina; Hanford in Washington state; Portsmouth in Ohio; and Paducah -- where Harding worked.

The federal government is proposing to spend $120 million in Ohio and Kentucky for an accelerated clean-up and medical help for sick workers.

" I've apologized to them," Richardson said. "But I've also said to them if you can prove to me direct links -- we will help you do that -- we will compensate. We will help you pay for some of your medical bills, we will pay for lost wages."

But what is the price for a lost life such as Joe Harding's, and all of the others who didn't live long enough to hear their government apologize?