Yes, and there appear to be some inaccuracies in the commonly referenced Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime
Still, the detonation was 250 miles up, 500 miles away, and was not a "designed" or optimized EMP attack. Given the distance, the effects are moderately impressive to me.
OTOH, by inverse square law alone, it would seem that an EMP could have some serious local effects. The paper you link to does say something like this, just before the conclusion, while neglecting the kind of cascade effects sometimes seen in widespread power and other outages. Then again, of course, if you are really local to a 1.4 megaton blast, you are in serious trouble anyway!
Hmmm... An oddity, perhaps, in the EPRI article: Just looking on it on Google Maps, Johnston Island sure looks like a lot more than 500 miles away from Honolulu. More like 800+? In fact, I found this map:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Pacific_Fishbowl.png
I’d also note that the EPRI article does mention damage to various satellites caused by radiation (not EMP, strictly speaking), and in fact Starfish Prime’s radiation did eventually “kill” 6 satellites, and probably damaged 3 more. This is a serious concern.
More interesting reading and references, here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fishbowl
