A Higher Form of Killing by Robert Harris and Jeremy Paxman is an important addition to the very small number of written accounts available to the public on the subject of chemical and biological warfare. It presents an astonishing account of the British-U.S. World War II development and production of anthrax bombs, at Churchill's insistence, for possible use against German population centers. Now eclipsed by nuclear weapons, germ weapons have been outlawed by the 1972 Biological Warfare Convention, and, even before that, in 1969, such biological and toxin weapons were unilaterally and unconditionally renounced by the United States. But poison gas weapons have not been outlawed. U.S.- Soviet negotiations to do so have been suspended by the Administration, partly because of serious but un-proven doubts about Soviet compliance with existing constraints on biological and chemical weapons and warfare. At the same time, with essentially no Congressional or public analysis of the real military and political issues, the United States is embarking on a multi-billion-dollar program to produce a new generation of nerve gas artillery, shells, bombs, rockets, and missile warheads, generating much controversy among NATO allies. Against this background, the great value and importance of Paxman and Harris's book is as a reliable guide to the past history and possible future developments in this little-known and poorly understood but possibly momentous aspect of the arms race. —MATTHEW MESELSON, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Harvard University By far the best account of chemical/biological warfare available for the nonspecialist reader. Its use of newly opened archival material tells us a lot about how we got into the present mess over these hideous weapons, and may therefore help us to get out. It is an excellent book. —JULIAN PERRY ROBINSON, University of Sussex Science Policy Research Unit President Reagan stands at the brink of a reckless decision to break a 12-year moratorium and produce a new poison gas weapon. He does not need it or the trouble it will bring. The Pentagon wants a new nerve gas primarily for European defense. That could ignite another row with the allies, who have not been seriously consulted and do not want the gas on their soil. It could trigger a new chemical weapons competition with Moscow, ending what hope remains for the long-pending treaty to ban such weapons. It could lead to even more repugnant chemical weaponry. And it could spread the industry until many nations and even terrorists gain access to poison gas, now stocked only by the two superpowers and France. —THE NEW YORK TIMES, January 21, 1982 A Higher Form of Killing begins with the First World War, when poison gas killed or maimed one and a half million men in the mud of Flanders. It tells of the Japanese use of mustard gas and biological weapons in the 1930s, the Nazis' discovery of nerve gas in 1937, and the huge arsenal of chemical weapons which Hitler, who used gas to kill millions in concentration camps, several times came close to using in battle. It tells of horrifying secret experiments with anthrax (in Great Britain in the 1940s), the development of the plague bacillus, and futuristic attempts to tinker with the genetic code. A Higher Form of Killing reveals that Churchill planned to use gas in 1940; that the British stored two million cattle cakes impregnated with anthrax for dropping on Germany; that the Americans made millions of biological bombs and debated plans to "drench" German cities with germs; and that anti-crop agents were used against Germany and Japan, causing widespread starvation. The United States used tons of chemical defoliants in Vietnam; there is strong evidence that has been widely debated that the Russians used chemical warfare in Laos, Afghanistan, and Eritrea. Drawing extensively on American, British, European, and (where possible) Russian sources— most of them previously classified or unavailable— this timely book tells the secret history of chemical and germ warfare. Today the United States leads in the development of these weapons. Germ warfare has been outlawed, but the new and frightening prospect of a chemical weapons race is a subject of national and international concern. In writing this book, the authors have received wide support from soldiers and internationally renowned scientists. ROBERT HARRIS was born in 1957 and was educated at Cambridge University (where he was President of the Union). He is a producer and reporter on the BBC television program Newsnight. JEREMY PAXMAN was born in 1950 and educated at Cambridge before entering journalism. His assignments have taken him to many of the world's trouble spots of the last ten years, including Northern Ireland (where he lived for three years), the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. He has written extensively for a number of publications, and is now a correspondent with BBC television's Panorama. CONTENTS Illustrations, vii Acknowledgements, ix Introduction, xi ONE: 'Frightfulness', 1 TWO: The Serpent and the Flower, 37 THREE: Hitler's Secret Weapon, 53 FOUR: A Plague on your Children, 68 FIVE: The War That Never Was, 107 SIX: New Enemies, 137 SEVEN: The Search for the Patriotic Germ, 149 EIGHT: The Rise and Rise of Chemical Weapons, 173 NINE: The Tools of Spies, 197 TEN: From Disarmament to Rearmament, 216 Epilogue, 239 Notes, 242 Index, 267 ILLUSTRATIONS between pages 114 and 115 1 Casualties of one of the first German chlorine attacks, April 1915. 2 The first British respirators, May 1915. 3 The Livens Projector. 4 A burster of TNT releasing a dense cloud of gas on impact. 5 Ambulancemen drilling in the standard British gas mask, July 1916. 6 The Battle of the Somme, July 1916. 7 Scientists assembled near Gruinard, 1942. 8 Paul Fildes, leader of the British biological warfare team in the Second World War. 9 and 10 The production of anthrax-impregnated cattle cakes, Porton Down 1942. 11 German High School students are given a lesson in gas precautions. 12 A dance marathon in a bomb shelter in London's East End. 13 Windmill girls rehearse in gas masks, April 1941. 14 A child's gas mask. 15 The unprimed grenade recovered by the Nazis in May 1942 after the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. 16 Heydrich's bomb-damaged Mercedes a few hours after the attack. 17 A Soviet soldier on exercise in anti-gas suit and mask. 18 Hungarian troops training against gas. 19 The effects of anthrax. 20 Rocky Mountain spotted fever. 21 Facial paralysis caused by encephalomyelitis. 22 An early symptom of plague. 23 A dog is injected with an LSD-type chemical at Edgwood Arsenal. 24 The effect of one drop of mustard gas administered to a volunteer at Porton Down. 25 Testing a suit and gas mask designed to resist nerve agents. 26 Decontaminating a casualty during British exercises in Germany. 27 Defoliation of the jungle in Vietnam. 28 A 'tunnel rat' emerges from a Vietcong bunker. 29 A CIA poison dart gun. 30 British soldiers training against gas attack, 1980. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book grew out of a film we made for the BBC television programme Panorama, and we would like to thank Roger Bolton, Panorama's editor, for the encouragement and advice he gave us at that time, and for the understanding that he, and others at the BBC, have shown since. Thanks are due to so many people who helped in the actual research of this book that we cannot list all of them here. Considerations of space aside, many felt free to talk only with a promise of anonymity. Among those who can be mentioned, however, we must record our gratitude to the staff of the Public Record Office, the Imperial War Museum, Churchill College, Cambridge, the US Army Public Affairs Department, and Edgewood Arsenal, all of whom assisted with documents and advice. The Church of Scientology also made available to us documents they had unearthed in their campaign against chemical warfare. Among other individuals who gave us their advice and information thanks are due to General Allan Younger, Professor John Erickson, General T. H. Foulkes, David Irving, Lord Stamp, Air Marshal Sir Christopher Hartley, Professor Henry Barcroft and Paul Harris. Nicholas Sims, Lecturer in International Relations at the London School of Economics, and Adam Roberts, Reader in International Relations at Oxford University, were both kind enough to read and comment on portions of the typescript for the publishers. Additional research in Washington was carried out by Scott Malone. We would also like to thank Jeremy Lewis of Chatto & Windus, without whose initial enthusiasm this book would never have been written; and Elizabeth Burke, who steered our battered manuscript into production. Although it is invidious to single out particular individuals from the many who have helped us, two in particular deserve our special thanks. One is Dr Rex Watson, the Director of Porton Down, who, within the confines of the Official Secrets Act and with no guarantee of a 'good press', gave us invaluable assistance. With his approval, we also enjoyed the help and advice of Porton's information officer, Alex Spence. Our other great debt is to Julian Perry Robinson of the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex University. He helped generously, both with time and advice, and read the book in its early stages, making many valuable suggestions. All students in this field owe Julian Perry Robinson a debt for the work he did in pulling together the information contained in the first two volumes of the six-part study of chemical and biological weapons published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Where we have drawn upon this, and upon the work of others who have investigated this subject in the past, acknowledgement is made in the notes at the end of the book.