Transcribed
from image (pp.2-3) of magazine
Thanks
to Lena (the hyena) for making this available on-line
CHEMICAL
and BIOLOGICAL WARFARE RESEARCH in
BRITAIN and the U.S.
by DAN.
In
the U.S.A. the Army Chemical Corps, dating from World War 1, felt in 1959
that it was threatened by the development of
nuclear weapons, and to prevent its own extinction embarked on a publicity
campaign (“Operation Blue Skies”), the theme of which was “War
without Death” Its budget rose from 35 million dollars in 1959 to 57 millions
in 1961, and 158 millions in 1964. This expenditure does not include 75 millions
which were needed to build the research centre which covers 1300
acres at Fort Detrick, near Fredrick, Maryland. Only about 15% of its findings are ever published, but these concern
such bacterial diseases as anthrax, glanders, dysentery, brucellosis, plague
and tularaemia; rickettsial diseases (Q fever and Rocky Mountain fever); viral
diseases (dengue, several types of encephalitis, psittacosis and yellow fever);
a fungal disease (coccidiodomycosis); and botulism toxin. There is also work on plant diseases, such as a rice
blast fungus which as repeatedly damaged Asian rice crops.
There is active liaison between
Detrick and the U.S. Public Health Service [Public Health
Administration],.including the transfer of funds. This is additional money not shown as going towards military
research, which is taken from the Health Service and used for military
purposes.
On 1st September 1959 a young technician came down with pneumonic plague, but recovered.
A technician
infected with the
disease at Porton Down in England [1962] was not so lucky.)
How are the weapons tested?
– Seventh Day Adventists, a religious sect who survive in the army as non-combatants,
volunteer as guinea-pigs and “occasional experiments have been performed on prisoners”. Field tests of chemical and biological weapons are performed
at Dugway Proving Ground, an area in Utah which covers 1500 square miles on the fringe of the Great
Salt Lake. 900 people are employed there and these ‘experiments’ are performed
on animals. The
U.S. and Britain have
an arrangement whereby 12 British officers attend a course in the latest developments in chemical, biological and radiological
weapons every June at Dugway. Lessons learnt there are passed on to the British
Army’s own chemical warfare school at Winterbourne Gunner, Wiltshire, where
unit instructors are taught. Such training is not widely practised in the Army but
Rhine Army exercises include defensive measures against that kind of attack.
Other U.S. installations include:-
Pine Bluff arsenal, Arkansas, which employs 1400 people, producing biological and toxic-chemical munitions and munitions
for ‘riot-control’; Edgewood Arsenal where production
also takes place; Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Denver, Colorado, where
nerve gas, mustard gas, ‘incapacitants’,
and anti-crop weapons are produced; and an installation at Newport, Indiana, where
a plant has been working day and night since 1960, producing Sarin, a lethal
nerve gas, and loading it into rockets, landmines and artillery shells. The
current annual lists the
following chemical agents as standardised for use:- Sarin (GB),
a nerve gas which can kill in the tiniest quantities; VX which is similar to GB
but evaporates more slowly; a blister agent (HD) which is a ‘Purified’ form of
mustard gas; an incapacitant (BZ) which creates hallucinations and giddiness; a
vomiting agent (DM), which causes sneezing, coughing, vomiting
and severe headache; two tear gases (CS and
CM),
the latter of which also
causes burning, itching and blisters. All three (DM, CS and
CM) have been used in Vietnam.
This might be a suitable point to refer back to
the causes of pneumonic plague in England and the
U.S.A., since plague has become a serious hazard in Vietnam. Is it being deliberately spread by the
Americans, and if so, how is it done? Plague can be transmitted in two ways: by the bite of fleas which have
fed on infected rats, and by droplet infection from one person to another (this
being the cause of the rapid spread of pneumonic plague during the Black Death. A technique for producing and disseminating
a potent aerosol containing the bacteria would thus be “ideal”. This would
involve testing the survival of the bacteria in aerosols, studying the effects
of climatic factors on survival, infectivity and virulence, and developing methods of maintaining these ‘desirable’ properties for as long as possible.
The knowledge and techniques required to accomplish
this entire programme are reflected in the hundreds of papers which have been
published from Porton. Much
of it can be interpreted as preparation for offensive biological warfare. Much
of it can equally be explained as prudent defensive research. Biological research can be defensive in a different way from nuclear programmes. Whereas the latter has ‘defensive’ properties only
in so far as it may be a ‘deterrent’, the former
can be used to develop vaccines etc. which might really help people faced with biological attack. Nevertheless
there still seems to be a lot of work on offensive weapons. A second difference between nuclear and biological warfare research is that [while] the existence (and cost) of the
British nuclear deterrent is well known, the extent of our
[sic] research into methods of offensive biological warfare is still shrouded in
uncertainty. There is no good reason for this “Conspiracy of Silence”. The
public should know what is being done in their name. Does Britain
have biological weapons, and does the
Government believe in a biological ‘deterrent’?
I welcome the revision being made of the
pamphlet “Conspiracy
of Silence” by members of the ad hoc Porton action group and hope that the proposed demonstration
in May will receive a lot of support.
Published in Megaton, magazine of Aberdeen YCND, 1967
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Notes
Sources not available to “DAN” (or anyone) in
1967 include:
Hammond PM, Carter G. From Biological Warfare
to Healthcare: Porton Down, 1940-2000. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002: the
official Porton history.
B. Balmer, 'The Drift of Biological Weapons
Policy in the UK
B. Balmer, 'Biological Weapons: The Threat in
Historical Perspective', Medicine, Conflict and Survival, Vol. 18 No. 2
(April-June 2002) pp.120-137.
E.A. Willis, 'Seascape with monkeys and
guinea-pigs:Britain's biological weapons research programme, 1948-54', Medicine,
Conflict & Survival Vol.19, No.4, 2003, 285-302
and
numerous files now declassified in the National Archives.
Main gate at Porton, 1965:
Scientists (or Special Branch men?) observe demonstrators.
A letter in the Lancet of 30 January
1954 referred to a report in the issue dated 3 October 1953 of a resolution on
microbial warfare unanimously passed at the Sixth International Congress for
Microbiology in Rome, in September 1953. He (or she?) took the journal to task
for having failed to print the resolution in full. It was an appeal to all
governments who had not done so to adhere to and ratify the Geneva Protocol of
1925. Another letter appeared at the time of a government press release
(carried in the same issue), expressing the hope that medically qualified
persons involved in BW would have the ‘tact to remove their names from the
Medical Register as such activity is quite contrary to the ethics of the
Hippocratic Oath’.
- Lathe GH. Microbial warfare [letter]. Lancet
1954 i: 265;
Day TD, Bacterial
warfare. Lancet 1954 i: 629, 632.
