Clouds of secrecy, p.1
Clouds of Secrecy, page 1
Clouds of Secrecy
Clouds of
Secrecy
The Army’s Germ Warfare Tests
over Populated Areas
LEONARD A. COLE
Foreword by Alan Cranston
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD
Publishers
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD
Published in the United States of America in 1988
by Rowman & Littlefield, Publishers
(a division of Littlefield, Adams & Company)
81 Adams Drive, Totowa, New Jersey 07512
Copyright © 1988 by Rowman & Littlefield
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may
be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior
permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cole, Leonard A., 1933- Clouds of secrecy.
Includes index.
1. Biological warfare-Study and teaching
United States. 2. Biological warfare
Environmental aspects-United States. I. Title.
UG447.8.C65 1987 358’.38 87-12777
ISBN 0-8476-7579-3
3 5 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
Contents
Foreword by Senator Alan Cranston
Preface
Part One Overview
1. Clouds of Secrecy: Introduction
2. Infecting the Enemy: Biological Warfare in the Past, and
the Road to Testing
Part Two Tests and Legacies
3. Living near Gruinard Island
4. Fort Detrick’s Mysteries
5. The Army’s Germ Warfare Simulants: How Dangerous
Are They?
6. Airborne in the U.S.A.: Open Air Vulnerability Tests in
Minneapolis, St. Louis, and the New York City Subway
System
Part Three The Government on Trial
7. Edward Nevin and the Spraying of San Francisco
8. The Trial
Part Four New Fears, Old Responses
9. Terror or Error: The Yellow Rain Puzzle
10. Engineering Genes for Defense: Recombinant DNA
Technology and Biological Warfare
11. Return to Testing: Field Experiments, the Dugway Issue,
and Ethical Questions
12. Worries and Ambiguities
Appendices
l. Excerpts: “Information for Members of Congress: U.S.
Army Activities in the U.S. Biological Warfare Program,”
March 8, 1977
2. Excerpts: Army report included in Hearings before the
Senate Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research,
March 8 and May 23, 1977
3. Excerpts: Reports by Dr. Stephen Weitzman and Dr. J.
Mehsen Joseph that refute the army’s contentions about
the safety of its testing program over populated areas
4. Excerpts: Current open air testing from “Biological
Defense Program,” a report by the Department of
Defense, May 1986
Index
About the Author
Foreword
BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS are particularly heinous. Experts describe them as weapons to “distribute living organisms, usually bacteria or viruses, to disable or kill an enemy by causing disease.”
The atrocities of chemical warfare during World War I led to one of the farthest reaching agreements of modern times, the Geneva Protocol of 1925. That treaty condemned chemical and biological weapons and prohibited their use. Efforts to ban these two types of weapons continue. The most recent agreement is the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction, signed in 1972. The U.S. and the Soviet Union were among the signatories to both conventions.
The Reagan Administration, however, has accused the Soviet Union of violating the Biological Weapons Convention. The Administration claims the Soviets are maintaining germ warfare plants and have used toxins in Afghanistan. It also alleges that the Laotians and the Vietnamese used toxins under Soviet supervision in Laos and Kampuchea, respectively. Independent scientists have disputed the Administration’s allegations, however.
Military leaders have not considered biological weapons particularly reliable. They are difficult to control once released in a battle situation. Arms control specialists say that it is difficult to gauge just how effective these weapons would be in a specific battlefield situation. In addition, the infections they cause could spread beyond the battlefield.
But, some knowledgeable people caution that with advances in biotechnology, the use of biological agents will become more attractive as weapons, not only for armies, but for terrorists as well. This concern, together with the Administration’s allegations about the Soviets, has reopened the controversy over biological weapons.
The current U.S. biological warfare program was intended by Congress simply to study ways to counter biological warfare agents (i.e., as defensive research.) The Reagan Administration says that as a matter of policy it is not developing offensive biological weapons. But as Leonard Cole suggests, unless one is constantly on guard, research in defensive biological weaponry can easily spill over into offensive research.
Such a step could be a major blunder. We do not need offensive biological weapons for a strong national defense. Moreover, the risks to the American population in producing such weapons domestically could be monumental.
Safety must be a primary concern in any research conducted with biological agents. Clouds of Secrecy studies one aspect of U.S. Army research carried out in the 1950s and the 1960s. The experiments sought to determine the vulnerability of populated areas to biological attack. Some of the experiments involved the release of supposedly harmless organisms which had properties resembling those certain biological agents. The Army claimed the organisms were innocuous. But Cole presents evidence that those organisms were known to be harmful. He suggests this is still an open question despite the fact that the court ruled in favor of the government in a suit for damages brought by a San Francisco resident in 1981.
Leonard Cole’s study is a responsible work. It adds measurably to the literature currently available on this highly controversial subject. It raises some legitimate issues that should be explored further.
The first of such issues is the safety of the experiments. Was the population in these areas ever at risk? What about the organisms that were released? Were they completely safe? Equally important is the fact that large segments of the population were subjected to these experiments without their knowledge.
Congress has already taken steps to see that there is no recurrence of such secrecy. In 1977 Congress passed legislation requiring the Department of Defense to notify Congress before conducting any experiments with biological or chemical agents using human subjects. My information is that no secret tests have been conducted since the late 1960s.
Cole makes abundantly clear his opposition to the Army’s open air testing and his criticism of the methodology used. And he buttresses his objections with evidence from primary sources about the excesses in the Army program. All in all, Cole makes a good case for the need for continued Congressional oversight.
Alan Cranston,
U.S. Senator
Preface
THE NOVEMBER 17, 1986 issue of Time magazine carried a curious story about the origin of AIDS. It cited foreign press reports that the disease “is the result of U.S. germ-warfare experiments gone wild.” United States officials blamed the Soviets for spreading unfounded rumors, and AIDS experts thought the proposition farfetched. Yet, as the article indicated, some respected doctors would not rule out the possibility. Their skepticism addresses the frustration felt by many about understanding a disease that seems to have come from nowhere. It also reflects a simmering disquiet about the nature of the United States biological warfare program.
The army has engaged in biological warfare research since World War II, and its official position is that no one outside its laboratories has ever been at risk. Contrary evidence shows the claim to be hollow. Even if the AIDS/germ warfare allegation proves groundless, other army experiments have endangered large segments of the public.
This book is about these experiments, tests in which clouds of bacteria and chemicals have been sprayed over populated areas. It 1 examines the nature of the tests, their rationale, and the effects on the exposed human populations.
My inquiries took me considerable distances, from a hamlet in northern Scotland where American scientists once helped perform biological weapons tests, to Fort Detrick, Maryland, headquarters of the United States biological warfare program. I spoke with dozens of government officials and scientists who have been involved with the testing program. I also met with citizens whose lives it has affected. Many live near forbidden areas that remain contaminated by bacteria from earlier tests. Some have sued the government, claiming that the army’s tests caused illness and death to family members.
The factual story unfolded from interviews as well as documents and court proceedings. But the interviews revealed another dimension. They underscored how intense and partisan is the issue of biological warfare testing. Scientists and officials who are associated with the U.S. biological warfare program make no apologies for testing in populated areas. Their reference point is national security. They believe the Soviet Union is violating the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention that prohibits the development, production, or stockpiling of biological weaponry. The Soviet threat, accordingly, should be addressed with additional defensive research that includes open air vulnerability tests.
Many scholars and scientists believe that claims about Soviet violations are exaggerated or untrue. They challenge the validity of the evidence, and argue that expanding the United States program may itself lead to violations of the Convention. In any case, they consider open air tests involving unsuspecting citizens to be unwarranted and reprehensible.
The two sides’ distrust of each other echoes through the remarks by members of each. After a genial interview, a scientist at Fort Detrick, who had long worked in the biological warfare program, said, “You know, I wouldn’t have taken this time with you if I didn’t think you were one of us.”
The comment made me uneasy. He evidently had interpreted my eagerness to learn about the army’s vulnerability testing program as an endorsement of the enterprise. I demurred from asking what he meant by “one of us,” but emphasized my intention to write fairly. While agreeing with the need for national defense, I said that I could understand why people might be critical of the open air tests.
Some time later a community activist, who is convinced that the army is engaged in illegal biological weapons research, said to me, ‘Tm glad you’re on our side.” I felt no more comfortable about being grafted to this side than the other. My uncritical inquiries again / apparently led a conversation partner to presume that I agreed with his position. Whatever anyone’s suspicions about the army’s current activities, claims about illegal actions are gratuitous without evidence.
Of central interest to this book, however, is the army’s position that open air testing is not illegal, and the fact that it is now taking place.
The interviews revealed a powerful sense of “us” versus “them.” The atmosphere is fraternity-like, clubby. Members of either side are wary of outsiders. Probably nothing the army says or does about biological warfare research will allay the suspicions of its most dedicated critics. But others remain understandably skeptical because of misleading statements by army spokesmen in the past, and confusion about current policies. Several questions about the U.S. biological warfare program remain unanswered, including the extent of people’s exposure to bacteria during tests. The army’s interests, and the nation’s, would be served by dispelling suspicions and addressing such issues fully and candidly.
Many people in and out of government shared their wisdom with me. Some are cited by name in the course of the narrative, many more are not, but I am grateful to all. Joan Aron, Ruth Cole, Norman Covert, Clifford Grobstein, Edward Nevin 3d, Jeremy Paxman, Robert Sinsheimer, Lawrence Ware, and Arthur Westing were especially helpful. They provided documents, background material, or insightful comments about the manuscript, and for their help I express my debt and appreciation.
PART ONE
OVERVIEW
1
Clouds of Secrecy: Introduction
DURING THE 1970s, Americans learned that for decades they had been serving as experimental animals for agencies of their government. The Central Intelligence Agency had secretly been dropping mind-altering drugs into the drinks of citizens to watch their reactions. The U.S. Public Health Service fooled syphilitic blacks into thinking they were undergoing treatment when in fact they were being observed as their disease worsened. In battlefield tests, soldiers were marched to nuclear explosion sites, where they were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. For these experiments thousands of Americans served as unsuspecting guinea pigs, and many suffered illness and death as a consequence. But the scope of these projects was dwarfed by an army program to assess the country’s vulnerability to biological weapons.
For at least two decades, the army secretly exposed millions of Americans to huge clouds of bacteria and chemical particles. The organisms and particles were sprayed over populated areas to observe their paths, in preparation for an attack by the Soviets with more lethal germs. But while the army was measuring air currents and survivability of the bacteria, no precautions were taken to protect the health and welfare of the millions of people exposed.
Like the other experiments that government agencies had been conducting, the public found out about the germ warfare tests through newspaper accounts in the 1970s. Like the other experiments, these tests were no longer taking place at the time of public disclosure. But unlike the other experiments, germ warfare testing is not merely a matter of history. The possibility of spraying the public again has been left open. An army spokesman testified in 1977 at congressional hearings that the army might resume testing when it finds an “area of vulnerability that takes additional tests.”1 Such an area evidently has been found. A 1986 army report reveals that open air testing is taking place again, at least on a limited basis.2
Since testing is conducted secretly, we do not know how many people may be exposed, or what plans exist for further testing. Comments and actions by government officials have offered scant comfort. In 1983, spokesmen for the biological warfare laboratories at Fort Detrick, Maryland, would not acknowledge that vulnerability tests were underway, but one official added, “of course we can’t tell all of our secrets.”
In 1984 the army sought to expand its biological warfare testing facilities in Utah in a manner that seemed intended to draw minimal outside attention. In an apparent effort lo avoid congressional hearings, it tried to “reprogram” funds that had been designated for other purposes. When the issue became public, Pentagon officials agreed to a court order to suspend plans pending preparation of an environmental impact statement.
Alexander M. Capron, who served as executive director of the President’s Commission on Bioethics, said that under existing rules the army could be spraying over heavily populated areas, and the public would not know.3 Capron’s agency, the only federal commission concerned with ethical problems involving research on humans, was dissolved in 1983.
Compounding the uncertainty is the fact that in 1986 the Reagan administration’s budget for chemical and biological warfare exceeded
$1 billion, up from $160 million in 1980, although its details were largely secret. The government’s interest has been fueled by alleged Soviet violations of treaty commitments. The Soviet Union and the United States signed the 1925 Geneva Protocol that prohibits the use of chemical or biological weapons, and the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention that prohibits the development, production, and stockpiling of biological weapons. Only activities related to prophylactic and defensive measures are permissible.4
The administration has claimed that an anthrax epidemic in the Russian city of Sverdlovsk in 1979 was caused by an accidental release of anthrax bacilli that had been illegally stockpiled. It has accused the Soviets and their surrogates of waging war with biological toxins (“yellow rain”) in Afghanistan and Southeast Asia. Most recently it said that the Soviet Union is illegally engaged in a program to develop weapons through genetic engineering. All these claims have been challenged by scientific experts, as will be discussed in the course of this study. But the charges have heightened concerns about America’s defensive capabilities. Programs have been accelerated to develop vaccines and protective gear. Most significantly, recommendations that had been made in the early 1980s to revitalize the army’s open air vulnerability testing program are being carried out.
The Uniqueness of Biological Warfare
Biological weaponry is often lumped with chemical agents, like mustard gas, which was first used with devastating effects in World War I, and nerve gas, which the Soviet Union and the United States currently stockpile in large quantities. Since this book focuses on biological warfare testing, the relationship between the two weapons systems should be clarified. They do have characteristics in common. Their effectiveness would likely depend on meteorological conditions; both are seen as more nasty, terrifying, and uncontrollable than conventional weapons systems. The Pentagon links the two under a single budgetary category, and this also blurs their differences. But beside the distinctive treatment accorded to biological weapons by international treaty, they are unique in other ways.
