Armx cconducted 239 Secret, By George C. Wilson . Washington was one of five cities where the iltaahtnaton ['tilt Staff Writer Army released simulated lethal germs in public The Army disclosed yesterday that it secretly places: Other cities where the public served as conducted 239 germ warfare tests in open air unknowing guinea pigs were New York, San between 1949 and 1969, in some tests releasing live but supposedly harmless microscope "bugs" Francisco, Key West and Panama City, Fla. at Washington's Greyhound bus terminal and AU told, the Army listed 27 times that it National Airport as part of, the experiment. tested simulated toxins on public property, in- The idea, according to a two-volume report cluding releasing spores in two tunnels on a the Army gave to the Senate health subcommittee stretch of Pennsylvania Turnpike. yesterday, was to learn how to wage biological In addition to those experiments in public warfare and defend against it. places, the Army secretly used military person. The Washington tests started in 1949 at an nel and their families for open air experiments undisclosed location and were conducted again I by spraying simulated germs into the air at a in May, 1965, at the bus terminal and airport. number ofaiE,11711VII g or Detrick, Md.; Open-Air Germ Warfare Tests Fort Belvoir, Va.; and the Marine training ;Seriatta Marcescens was used. Medical re- school at Quantico, Va. searchers suspect It may have caused 11 cases of The Army said in its report that the tests pneumonia in the Bay area, including one death. were "essential" to "substantiate theories and The Army report acknowledges that the serv- fill knowledge gaps and to determine vulner- ice recognized in 1969 that the germ should not ability to attack." The live bacteria the Army be used in experiments because large doses of it employed were deemed harmless at the time, could produce disease. the report said. Besides the suspicions of illnesses caused by But Sen. Richard S. Schweiker (R-Pa.) told experiments outside Army laboratories, the Army witnesses at the Senate subcommittee Army listed yesterday the casualties among hearing yesterday that "it is very risky indeed those who worked directly with the micro-or- to assume that any living organism, reduced to germ warfare size and released in a populated ganisms. The Army said three laboratory work- area, Is ever safe." ers at Fort Detrick died from diseases con- In the 1950 Sari Francisco tests, the bacteria See WARFARE, A6, Col. 1 ' WARFARE, From Al Schad, Nazi Gerniany's . leading banker, food poisoning. The CIA. sum- traded in the 1950s and I960s, as had mary did not supply the date or how been reported previously. the poison was administered. Another 504 workers connected with 'biological warfare activities at The Army, in its two-volume report, Pt. Detrick, Dugway Proving Ground traced the history of the U.S. biologi- and the Deseret Test Center in Utah cal warfare program from 1942 when and the Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkan- President Roosevelt started it to 1969 sas suffered infections, according to when President Nixon renounced the the Army's count. use of biological weapons. The mili- The Army released its censored re- tary's effort since then, according to port, believed the most complete offi- the Army, has been confined to study- dal version of this nation's biological ing defensive measures against biolog- warfare effort, as Chairman Edward ical warfare. M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) of the Senate The Army report said testing of bl- health subcommittee convened a hear- logical warfare agents rose sharply af- ing on the subject. ter May, 1961, when then Defense Sec- Kennedy released a summary of a retary Robert S. McNamara ordered Separate Central Intelligency Agency the Joint Chiefs of Staff to "evaluate report which showed that the Office the potentialities" of both biological of Strategic Services, predecessor of and chemical warfare, "considering the C/A, used germ warfare against all possible applications." the head of Nazi Germany's Reich- The Joint Chiefs, the report said, es- bank during World War II to prevent timated it would cast $4 billion to ob- him from attending an economic tain "McNamara's complete spec- meeting. trum" of biological and chemical war- In what is believed the first official fare capability. acknowledgement that the United The Pentagon's research director at States engaged in germ warfare, OSS the time, Harold Brown, who is now agents managed to give Hjalmar Secretary of Defense, "strongly con- curred in the JCS view that these weapons had great potential," accord- ing to the report which mentioned Brown by position but not by name. McNamara accepted the Joint Chiefs' recommendations as modified by Brown's office, the report said, and a detailed chemical and biological warfare program was laid down. "Overall," the report continued. "the project resulted in large increases in I U.S. Army BW [biological warfare] programs." In releasing the two-volume report, Army Secretary Clifford L. Alexander said that the Army's biological war- fare program "from its inception was the Senate subcommittee that the characterized by continuing in-depth Army sometimes used human volun- review and participation by the most teers for biological experiments but eminent scientists, medical . consult- protected them to a degree which ants, industrial experts and govern- "equalled or exceeded" civilian safe- ment officials." guards. "We know of no- death or per- Brig. Gen. William S. Augerson, manent injury in any volunteer in this Army assistant surgeon general, told program," Augerson said. .