Simply stating what my wife feels in regards to the overall tone of the article and establishing that as another data point.
While I was in Idaho and Utah during the period in question I don't remember many reports of fall-out from NV tests except those blowing toward the east. At that time we got lots of reports of Russian above-ground tests that were very dirty. They sent huge clouds of fall-out loaded with strontium 90 over Canada and the northern tier of states including ID. Later the Chinese tests did the same.
The information in this thread is new to me. I don't recall anything like it being publicized at the time but memory can be faulty. I do remember that the dangers of fall-out were greatly downplayed at the time, far too much so. I knew a wire service reporter who was present for the Eniwitok H-bomb tests. The media and Navy personnel were positioned very close to them -- much too close for safety in my estimation. I think we were simply too ignorant then to know how dangerous this stuff can be. Thanks to that miscalculation we've now gone too far the other direction.