The History of Biological Weaponization
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The History of Biological Weaponization PART ONE OF THREE W M The following study is from Chapter on San Francisco, to assess the ability of pathogens to Four of our newly revised and greatly en- spread through urban centers. The germs were meant 1 larged book, Vaccination Crisis. The entire to be harmless. However, they were not harmless enough. 1 3 book is now available from us (see bottom Eleven patients were admitted to Standard University 8 of this page). Part One deals with adult Hospital with sarratia infection. One patient, Edward J. vaccination problems. Part Two is about Nevin, died. The physicians were so astonished at the childhood vaccines, and is an expansion of outbreak of a totally rare disease that they wrote it up in the first edition of Vaccination Crisis; but a medical journal. Years later, in 1981, the government it now includes still more information on denied any responsibility and the judge dismissed a law- how to avoid childhood vaccination. —vf suit (Cole, Clouds of Secrecy, pp. 52-54, 75-104). Clusters of anthrax. Another U.S. project consisted BEGINNINGS of cluster bombs, each of which held 536 bomblets. Upon hitting the ground, each bomblet would emit a little more How it began. The Soviet germ weapon program began in the 1920s and gradually grew into a mammoth than an ounce of anthrax mist. This terrible disease, if operation. The objective was to develop weapons capable untreated, kills nearly every infected person (a very high of infecting people with anthrax, typhus, and other dis- mortality rate, even compared with the Bubonic plague eases. Stalin spent large amounts of money on the and most other pathogens). project. Practice runs. A substance, something like anthrax, was used in practice sessions against St. Louis, Minne- We get involved. Back then, the United States had no germ weapons. By the late 1930s, with intelligence apolis, and Winnipeg, cities whose climates and sizes agencies warning that Tokyo and Berlin had biological were considered similar to Kiev, Leningrad, and Mos- Project Saint Jo, weapons, Washington began to mobilize against germ cow. Code named the clandestine tests (CBW attacks in 1942. President Franklin D. Roosevelt pub- involved 173 releases of noninfectious aerosols Conventions Bulletin, June 2000, pp. 16-19). licly denounced the germ warfare plans of the enemy, even while preparing to retaliate with similar ones. In 1956, the Soviet defense minister, Georgi Zhukov, George W. Merck, president of the drug company, Merck told a Communist Party Congress that any modern war & Co., was placed in charge of the new project. would certainly include the use of biological weapons (Sidell et al., Medical Aspects, p. 54). When American Fort Detrick. The army base at Fort Detrick, Mary- land, was selected as the place where the research should intelligence learned of that statement, it energized our begin. It would eventually become an immense U.S. bio- bioweapons program even more. logical weapons center. The same year, American U-2 spy planes began fly- ing over the Soviet Union. By that time, the Russians When World War II ended. Meanwhile, in 1946 at Sverdlovsk, the Soviets set up a factory that specialized had built many secret bases throughout the nation, which in anthrax. The next year, outside Zagorsk, they built a were developing and producing germ weapons. complex for making weapons out of viruses, including Island in the Aral Sea. Shortly afterward, an Ameri- smallpox. can U-2 spy plan, flying high over a desolate island in The outbreak of the Cold War and the Korean War in the Aral Sea, photographed dense clusters of buildings 1951 led Washington to put new emphasis on planning and odd geometric grids which CIA agents recognized (Mayday: for germ battles, and rapid expansion of facilities took as belonging to a biological weapons base Eisenhower, Khrushchev and the U-2 Affair, p. 121). place at Fort Detrick. Nuclear testing was already occur- ring both in the Soviet Union and the United States. The bull’s eye ring pattern was identical to one at our Utah desert biological testing base, where roads, sen- Spraying San Francisco. In one experiment, U.S. scientists sprayed mild germs (Sarratia marcescens) sors, electrical poles, and test subjects were placed at increasing distances from germ sprayers. Germ factories. By the late 1950s, the U.S. was VACCINATION CRISIS—This important book building factories capable of producing enough patho- has been revised and enlarged. It is now 8½ x 11 gens and biological toxins to fight wars. But, officially, in size and 116 pages in length. Part One is about they were only doing that which was needed to defend dangerous adult vaccines; Part Two covers en- against such attacks. larged data and protection regarding mandatory, Q fever. In 1956, the Pine Bluff Arsenal, an army and other childhood, vaccines. Price: $6.50 + base in the woods of northern Arkansas, was turned DATE OF PUBLICATION: APRIL 2003 OF PUBLICATION: DATE $2.50. into a weapons factory producing bacteria, including tu- 2 Waymarks laremia. Soon it expanded into virus production. Before period is a full twelve days before the first symptoms long, it was also producing Q fever (Sidell, et al., Medi- (malaise, headache, fever, and vomiting) begin to occur cal Aspects, pp. 50-51, 429). and medical diagnosis is made. Q fever is a relatively mild disease which was meant, Our military leaders considered applying smallpox not to kill enemy troops, but cripple them with chills, to the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Vietnam. But the anger caused coughing, headaches, hallucinations, and fevers of up to by a fearful spread of the disease throughout southern 104o F. It was thought that sick soldiers would cause Asia, and the quick retaliation likely to come from Chi- more problems to the enemy in a war than dead ones. nese and Soviet stockpiles, were feared. So the project Another virus was Venezuelan equine encephalitis (VEE), was abandoned. a horrible disease. Protests begin. Nearly all of the information you THE 1960s have just read was not generally known back then (nor is much of it known today). Nevertheless, by the late Nixon was absent. President Eisenhower was briefed 1960s, the American public had gradually become aware on Fort Detrick’s advances just before he left the White that biological weapons were being made at Fort Detrick. House. The full meeting of the National Security Council Crowds of Vietnam anti-war protesters gathered at its occurred on February 18, 1960. But Richard Nixon, the entrance. Books opposed to germ warfare began being vice president, was absent. He was preparing for his run published (Susan Wright, ed., Preventing a Biological for president. By this time, researchers had found ways Arms Race; S.M. Hersh, America’s Hidden Arsenal; etc.). to concentrate the diseases and extend their storage lives from one to three years. Nixon calls an end. Then, on November 25, 1969, Richard Nixon announced the end of biological weapon Under Kennedy. Spending on biological weapons greatly increased after John F. Kennedy took office in testing. In January, Nixon also stopped all our chemical January 1961. The new secretary of defense, Robert weapons programs. The scientists were told to focus their McNamara, along with the Joint Chiefs of Staff thor- work on “germ defense,” not germ attack. But no limits were set on the quantities of danger- oughly analyzed the program and were satisfied that the ous microbes or chemicals which could be used in that new weapons would prove very handy in case of war, research. So our stockpiles were not reduced. especially those (such as Q fever) which could cripple But our biological/ the enemy’s troops rather than kill them. Caring for in- Overseas: business as usual. chemical defense program had been greatly damaged. jured soldiers would cause more problems than dispos- Our scientists were well-aware of the fact that it takes ing of dead ones. The development of virus weapons was 18 months to develop a weapons-grade agent and ten accelerated (Regis, Biology of Doom, pp. 185-186). Tests were made in both the Pacific and Alaska. The years to develop a good vaccine against it. They also knew hundreds of personnel involved in these tests were co- that the Soviet Union would not stop their deadly ordinated from Fort Douglas, near Salt Lake City. projects, just because we had. By that time, China was also working on chemical Improving smallpox. As we became more involved in the Vietnam War, work focused on improving small- and biological weaponization projects. Soon after, cer- tain Near Eastern nations would begin doing the same. pox and its delivery. This ancient disease was highly con- tagious, and killed about a third of its victims, mainly THE 1970s from blood loss, cardiovascular collapse, and second- The Senate is angry. In the fall of 1975, Senate hear- ary infections as pustules spread over the body (New ings uncovered a number of astonishing projects, plans, York Times, June 15, 1999). and plots by our BW (biological warfare) scientists, work- It was during this time that biologists at Fort Detrick ing with the military. learned how to extend the life of the variola (smallpox) At least 16 different, terrible diseases were stock- virus by refrigerating it in a special way which made use piled, mostly at Fort Detrick. The single largest item was of freeze drying. In connection with this, an ominous anthrax. discovery was made: Freeze drying would kill some mi- The germ treaty. That same year, 1975, an interna- crobes, but not smallpox (Hahon, Screening Studies, tional germ treaty took effect. All BW arsenals through- pp.