COVERT ACTION INFORMATION BULLETIN: U.S. FAKES DATA IN CHEMICAL WAR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00845R000100180005-3
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• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 52
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 9, 2010
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STAT
INFORMATION BUI~ETIN
Number 17 Summer 1982 $2.50
U.S. Fakes Data in Chemical War
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Fditoriai
This issue is devoted almost entirely to the subject of
chemical and biological warfare. Coming at a time when
the attention of the world is focused at the United Na-
tions and at demonstrations around the globe on disar-
mam~_nt, particularly nuclear disarmament, we want to be
char. The scourge of nuclear weapons undoubtedly pre-
sents thcstarkest threat known to the survival of humanity.
But chemical and biological warfare runs a very close
record, both in the vast numbers of people who can be
affected indiscriminately and in the long-lasting effects on
futon. generations and on the earth's environment. More-
over, CBW research and plans are far more secret than
nuclear planning today. which is why we have given so
much space to it.
CBS' Plans
Chemical warfare production was subject to a moratori-
um irnpored in 1969 by President 'Nixon imposed with
the comforting existence of a east stockpile of chemical
wrrp~~ns still stored around the nation and overseas. But as
we explain in this issue, the chemical warfare fanatics have
pushed quite successfully it appears- for an end to that
moratorium and the resumption of chemical munitions
manufacture, this time with a more deadly generation of
"binary" weapons.
Biological warfare is a crime against humanity, and the
U.S. government insists it is not engaged in it. The evidence
we present refutes those denials. With regard to biological
warfare, Cuba has been the victim of a series of attacks
from the V.S. since its revolution in 1959. The latest, the
dengue epidemic of 1981, is analyzed here. We also look at
some of the research still taking place in thin field. As we
note, while all such research is described in defensive terms,
there is no practical difference between offensive and de-
fensive biological warfare; research valuable for one is
valuable for the other.
How Yellow Rain Fits In
~fhe U.S. takes the position that it is manufacturing and
stockpiling chemical weapons because it is against chemi-
Table of Contents
Editorial
2
The Scott Barnes Story
32
Th~~ History of CBW
5
Mystery Death in Bangkok
43
Th~~ Bio-Chemical Buildup
8
Publications of Interest
47
DoD Sales Pitch
25
News Notes
48
Th~~ Dengue Epidemic
28
Sources and Methods
52
On the cover. l'.S. troops, Luxembourg, 1980. Credit U.S. Army.
('urrrr.4r/init /n/inmurin~z HuNrli~r 'umber 17. Summer 19212, published be Cucert Action Publications. Inc., a District of Columbia Nonprofit
Curporrtion, P.O. Box 50272, Washington, DC 20004. l~elephone: [phone]. All rights resen~ed: copcright ~~' 1982 be Covert Action Publications,
Inc. I~~pography be Arr /'or Pr~~P/e, Washington. DC; printing be /~crru/n~ Press. Brooklyn, ~Y. Washington staff: Ellen Ra}. William Schaap. Louis
Wolf. Board of Adsisen: Philip Agee, Ken Lawrence, E~_Isic Wilcott, Jim Wilarit. Indexed in the .4heriut~ire Prc~s,~ brch~.r. ISSti 0275-309X.
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cal weapons. They are needed, it is said, to deter others. But
in justifying this deterrence argument it is necessary to
argue that others are in fact using CBW. Thus arises the
U.S. obsession with "yellow rain"and allegations of chem-
ical warfare in Laos, Kampuchea, and Afghanistan, all by
the Soviet Union supplying its allies.
It is too convenient that the "evidence" of Soviet CBW
arises just as the U.S. chemical weapons lobby moves into
high gear. When Reagan's tri/lion do//ur military budget is
involved, anything goes. It is no coincidence that, as intelli-
gence expert David Wise recently noted (Los Ange/es
Timer, March 21, 1982), it is "widely believed"in Washing-
ton that the CIA is running covert operations in Afghanis-
tanand Kampuchea. We believe, and we hope we demon-
strate inthis issue, that the yellow rain story is part of those
operations.
Torture and the Malvinas
Readers of CAIBwill know that the erstwhile Argentine
commander of the South Georgia Islands who surrendered
to the British and dined with his captors was the "Blond
Angel," Alfredo Astiz, the kidnapping and torture special-
istwhose photo appeared in our last issue. Astiz. was taken
to Britain while the Thatcher government mulled over
extradition reyuests from both Sweden and France. Both
countries alleged that their nationals had died at Astiz's
bloody hands. But Mrs. Thatcher, whose conduct in
Northern Ireland makes British rhetoric about Argentine
butchers less than righteous, ignored the requests and Astiz
was returned to Argentina. It is said that many of the
commanders in the South Atlantic conflict were torturers
being given a chance to polish their images, to return as war
heroes.
We were shocked to read the June 7 issue of Ne~rs~rec~k
magazine, which contained a column by Michael Levin, a
professor of philosophy at the City College of New York,
entitled "The Case for Torture." The article, calmly, ra-
tionally,and chillingly makes the argument that torture is
not barbaric or impermissible, but is "morally mandatory"
when it could save more lives than might be lost by its use.
The piece refers solely to the torture of "terrorists," and
says that "an unwillingness to dirty one's hands" is "moral
cowardice."
Levin's column represents another step in the terrorism
propaganda campaign against left terrorism, to be sure,
never state terrorism. There is a calculated move under way
to show establishment acceptance of "any means neces-
sary" tocombat terrorism, beginning with the fables intro-
duced by Senator Denton's Subcommittee on Security and
'f errorism.
Meanwhile, the Reagan administration announced that
it wishes to resume training foreign police in "counter-
terrorism." This was prohibited in the early 1970x, after
revelations that the Office of Public Safety of the Agency
for International Development was in large part a CIA
operation and to a large extent fostering police crimes,
including torture, throughout the Third World.
"Mad Mike" and the Seychelles
Last issue we outlined the coup attempt in the Sey-
chelles, led by Col. Mike Hoare, describing the various
levels of U.S. and South African complicity. Hoare, facing
30 years imprisonment in his South African trial-which is
taking place only because of international pressure - is
singing like a canary, confirming C'AIB's charges. He has
directly implicated the South African government, testify-
ing that they even supplied the arms for the raid, and also
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stated that the CI A was aware of the plan and supported it.
Tf?~e United States is in for a tough time in the Indian
Ocean. The stunning victory of the Mauritius Militant
Movement complements the claims b_y the Seychelles of
U.S. and South African interference, discussed in the last
issue. Now both countries are sure to push more strongly
for a Zone of Peace in the Indian Ocean and the removal of
the U.S. base on Diego Garcia.
The [ntelligence Identities Protection Act
A~ we write, President Reagan is expected to sign the
Intelligence Identities Protection Act, four years after
(~~~~~er[Ac~in~l /n%~~rnintiun Bu/letrn began, four years after
the CIA started scheming to put it out of business. But as
our readers know, we are not going out of business. We arc
confident that there is more than ever a need to expose the
"invisible government."
What disturbs us is the establishment media's continual
failure to recognize the real dangers of the Act. Congress
and ~:he CIA have gone to such lengths to insist that it is
aimed only at CAIB that the media seem to have bought
the zrgument. We will see what happens when the next
Wilson Terpil or Watergate or Scott Barnes story
surfaces.
Stamp
Some readers raised their eyebrows at Kcn Lawrence's
article about the CIA commemorative stamp in our De-
cember 1980 issue (Number II), doubting Lawrence's
claim that the organized labor stamp was really a cover for
the CIA. Now there is additional evidence of the CIA's
philatelic dirty tricks. Former CIA case officer Philip
Licchty told the Washin,~~tur~ Pusl how the CIA forged a
stamp oC the Vietnamese ;National Liberation Front in
1965 and used the stamp to mail fake letters to media all
White Paper?
Whitewash!
Philip Agee on the CIA
and El Salvador
over the world. "The Vietnam Stamp" even made the cover
of Life magazine.
Linn'r Week/t~ S~anip Netirs, the largest U.S. publication
for collectors, questioned Liechty's allegation, but, since
Americans by law are forbidden to collect Vietnamese
stamps, there was nowhere in this country to go to check
for evidence of printing discrepancies that are the tell-tale
signs of forgery.
Lawrence stands by the allegation in his satire. He says,
"If you doubt the CIA's ability to get the stamps it wants,
consider this: The commemorative honoring Ramon Mag-
saysay, the CIA's man in the Philippines, was issued just a
few months after he died. Admirers of Martin Luther King
had to wait I1 years after his death before the Postal
Service honored him on a commemorative."
Conclusion
We look forward to our fifth year. Despite the Intelli-
gence Identities Protection Act, rumors of our closing up
shop are nothing more than disinformation. We have come
to realize, however, that maintenance of a bi-monthly
schedule is impossible, and plan more nearly to resemble a
quarterly. ~
Grenada:
The CIA's history of document falsifications;
the use of AIFLD as a CIA front; the CIA's work
with paramilitary and terrorist gangs; and aline-
by-line analysis of the State Department "White
Paper" and the "captured" documents. The re-
search which proved the White Paper was a fraud.
Includes complete White Paper with exhibits and
State Department Dissent Parer; 220 pages; paper-
back: $6.50 plus $1.50 postage and handling;
hardcover: $12.95 plus $1.75 postage and hand-
ling.
Order from: Deep Cover Publications, P.O. Box
67 ~', New York, NY 10013.
Nobody's Backyard
A sixteen mm., 60-minute color documentary
celebrating the Grenadian Revolution on its first an-
niversaryand examining the campaign of destabiliza-
tionbeing waged against Grenada, the tiny "jewel" of
the Caribbean. Includes interviews with Maurice
Bishop, Cheddi Jagan, Isabel Letelier, Trevor Mon-
roe, and Philip Agee.
Produced by CovertAction Information Bulletin;
directed by Ellen Ray; for rental information, tele-
phone [phone], or write to P.O. Box 50272,
Washington, DC 20004.
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The FlisWzy of
U.S. Bio-Chemical Killers
By Ken Lawrence
U.S. involvement with chemical and biological warfare
(CBW) began in 1763 when blankets poisoned with small-
pox were presented as gifts to Indians who sought only
friendly relations with the colonists. It reached its peak 200
years later when the U.S. Air Force blanketed the country-
side of Indochina with poisons whose effects are still being
felt.
CBW did not originate in North America, of course. It
dates back to the poisoned arrows and smoke screens of
antiquity. But its use by the U nited States has been persist-
ent, and especially savage. The genocidal use of smallpox
against Native Americans begun in colonial days was re-
peatedduring the later"Trail of Tears"era of the early and
middle nineteenth century.
The WWI Experience
Chemical warfare came into its own during World War
One. Incapacitating and poisonous gases were employed
by all the belligerent powers almost from the war's outset.
Nevertheless it is significant that even though the U.S.
entered the war onlti~ in its last year, and employed far fewer
weapons than the other powers, a much higher percentage
of U.S. artillery was devoted to chemical weapons than was
true for the others. Of gas shells fired as a proportion of
total artillery ammunition, the figure for the L1.S. was 12
percent, while the next highest was Germany at 6.4 percent,
and the others substantially lower. The oft~icial history of
the U.S. Army's Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) boasts,
"By November 1981, the United States was manufacturing
almost as much gas as England and France combined and
nearly four times as much as Germany, which at the start of
the war had led all other nations in the field of chemistry."
After the war ended, the U.S. was involved in two
attempts to proscribe chemical weapons. General Nershing
himself initiated a 1921 proposal that would have outlawed
all use of poison gas, and it was actually ratified by the
Senate, but fell through when France failed to ratify. Four
years later, however, the Senate refused to ratify the Gene-
va Gas Protocol, and in 1926 Secretary of State Frank B.
Kellogg declared U.S. policy ?to be fully prepared as re-
gardschemical warfare,"even though most other countries
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did r~itify the protocol. Meanwhile, beginning in 1922 with
an appropriation of $1,350,000, Congress gave an annual
amount to the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) which
gradually grew as World War Two approached.
For a time the CWS was barred from procuring and
stockpiling chemical weapons (though not from research,
development, and procurement planning), but in 1935 and
1936, following reports that Italy had employed poison gas
during its conquest of Ethiopia, the Congress explicitly
designated its appropriation for "manufacture of chemical
warfare gases or other toxic substances-or other offensive
or defensive materials required for gas warfare purposes."
World War II Stockpiles
All hough poison gas was not used in battle during
World War Two except by the Japanese against China
(and possibly a few times against U.S. troops in New
Guinea), both the Axis and the Allies had stockpiled large
arsenals of chemical weapons, and the Germans had devel-
oped and secretly begun to manufacture two kinds of nerve
gas, tabun and sarin. Both sides seriously considered em-
ploying gas and bacteriological warfare. Adolf Hitler's
1942: Walt Disney designs Micky Mouse gasmasks for
children. Note picture on wall.
plans were thwarted b_y his commanders who Geared retali-
ation inkind. Winston Churchill's most secret order of July
6, 19~~4, revealed just recently, read: "... it may be several
weeks or even months before I shall ask you to drench
Germany with poison gas, and if we do it, let us do it one
hundred percent. In the meanwhile, I want the matter
studied in cold blood by sensible people and not by that
particular set of psalm-singing uniformed defeatists which
one runs across now here now there." By this time his
general staff advised against the use of gas. (Earlier Bri-
tain's Chiefs of Staff had planned to use gas against the
expected Germany invasion that never transpired, and the
U.S., while still officially neutral in mid-1941, secretly man-
ufactured phosgene gas and shipped it to Britain.
Official U.S. policy was to use gas only in retaliation. On
June 8, 1943 President Roosevelt told the press that "We
shall under no circumstances resort to the use of such
weapons unless they are first used by our enemies." But
secretly the option of first use remained available. Admiral
Chester Nimitz and the combined Chiefs of Staff approved
poison gas during the invasion of Iwo Jima, but were
overruled by the President. There was also a contingency
plan to use gas had the U.S. gone ahead with the plan to
invade Japan, scrapped at the last minute in favor of the
atom bomb. Despite the President's statement, the
planners at the War Department lived with "the conviction
that gas warfare was all but inevitable," according to the
CWS official history.
Summing up in the recent book, A Higher Form of
Killing, Robert Harris and Jeremy Paxman wrote, "The
world missed chemical warfare in the Second World War
by inches." Apparently, it missed large-scale biological
warfare by an even smaller margin, and in a number of
instances there is strong evidence that this form of warfare
probably was employed: by the Japanese against people,
crops, and livestock in China; by the U.S. against crops in
Germany and Japan; by the British in the assassination of
Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich; and the use of infectious
diseases and poison by anti-Nazi partisans in Eastern
Europe.
Germ Warfare and Nuremburg
The U.S. and Britain, in 1944 or earlier, planned to
attack six major German cities-Berlin, Hamburg, Stutt-
gart, Frankfurt, Wilhelmshafen, and Aachen-with an-
thraxbombs that would have killed half their populations.
The bombs were ordered produced at a factory in Vigo,
Indiana, but the hazards of production delayed start-up
and the war was over before the bombs could be manufac-
tured. The British had, however, stockpiled five million
cattle cakes poisoned with anthrax for use against the
enemy's livestock by war's end. The U.S. went on to devel-
op delivery systems to spread brucellosis, a highly infec-
tious organism which is rarely fatal but incapacitates its
victims with "chills and undulating fever, headache, loss of
appetite, mental depression, extreme exhaustion, aching
joints, and sweating," sometimes for up to a year. Virtually
everyone associated with the program fell sick for a time.
Unlike chemical warfare, which had been banned by the
1925 Geneva Gas Protocol that Britain had ratified and the
U.S. had not, neither country considered biological war-
fare to beillegal, and at least one secret U.S. memo quoted
by Harris and Paxman called it "very humane indeed."
"phis later posed a problem for the Western allies: "At the
end of the war, the Soviet Union pressed for the death
penalty for one of the Nuremburg defendants, Hans
Frit~sche, on the grounds that he had first suggested the
possibility of germ warfare to the German High Com-
mand. For Britain and America it was an acutely embar-
rassing moment. By 1945 they were aware that they had
invested vastly more time and effort in producing these
"forbidden weapons"than the Nazis. Thev insisted to the
fury of the Russians that Frit~sche be acquitted.
The next reasonably well documented instance of germ
warfare occurred during the Korean War. In February
1952, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the
People's Republic of China charged that U.S. pilots had
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dropped "germ bombs" on North Korea. They offered as
evidence the testimony of captured U.S. Air Force officers
and intelligence agents, and Koreans who told of finding
large quantities of fleas and other insect pests shortly after
U.S. planes had flown over their areas. The U.S. govern-
ment strenuously denied the charge, but a respected group
of scientists believed the evidence was convincing proof
that the U.S. had employed biological weapons.
"The International Scientific Commission for the Inves-
tigation of the Facts Concerning Bacteriological Warfare
in Korea and China" included scientists from Great Bri-
tain, France, Italy, Sweden, Brazil, and the Soviet Union.
One of the most renowned scientists of the twentieth cen-
tury,Joseph Needham of England, sat on the Commission.
Its 700 page report described a whole array of germ wea-
pons; feathers infected with anthrax; lice, fleas, and mos-
quitoes dosed with plague and yellow fever; diseased ro-
dents; and various implements contaminated with deadly
microbes -toilet paper, envelopes, and the ink in fountain
pens.
In 1958 the Eisenhower administration pressed sedition
charges against three Americans who had published the
germ warfare charges in China Monihlr Reric~w~ ,lohn W.
Powell, Sylvia Powell, and Julian Schuman-but failed to
get convictions.
The Vietnam War
When the bicentennial of American CBW came in the
early 1960x, the U.S. government marked the occasion with
the most massive chemical war waged by any power in
world history. Even today the people of Indochina are
suffering the long-term effects of those chemicals on their
land, crops, livestock, and persons. Ironically, a large
number of U.S. military personnel involved in the Indo-
china War have also suffered serious harm from those same
chemicals, especially Agent Orange.
l he use of chemical defoliants was approved by Presi-
dent Kennedy on November 30, 1961, following a recom-
mendation by Secretary of State Dean Rusk that the way
to win a war against a guerrilla army is to destroy crops.
General William C Westmoreland also considered crop
destruction an important aspect of U.S. strategy, pointing
out in a secret report that spraying 13,800 acres would
destroy "crops which if allowed to grow until harvest might
teed 15,000 soldiers for a year."
By the end of the war, 55 million kilograms of chemical
defoliants had been dropped on Indochina, mainly Agent
Orange (a mixture oC two herbicides plus small but toxic
amounts of Dioxin, a substance considered 100 times as
poisonous as cyanide), also including Agent White, espe-
cially persistent in soil, and Agent Blue, which contains
arsenic and is thought to be responsible for the poisoning
of many Vietnamese peasants.
Nine million kilograms ofanti-personnel gases were also
employed, mainly CS gas, which was used to flush enemy
soldiers and civilians out of their shelters so they could be
captured or shot. In closed quarters, such as caves, these
so-called "riot control" chemicals can kill or maim directly,
as was commonplace in Vietnam. Besides CS, there is
strong evidence that, on at least three occasions, U.S.
forces also used BZ gas, a hallucinogen that causes brrt-
thing difficulty, blurred vision, dizziness, disorientation,
loss of memory, and erratic aggressive behavior.
Loading herbicide Agent Purple in Vietnam.
The use of chemical weapons in lndochina was more
open than the germ warfare waged against North Korea,
but it was still deceptive. In 1971, Major General Bernard
Rogers wrote to Senator J. W illiam Fulbright that defolia-
tion operations in Vietnam "are of limited scope and are
subject to the same regulations applied to herbicide use in
the United States." General Rogers, nom NAlO com-
mander, must have known this was a lie. Five million acres,
12 percent of South Vietnam, were sprayed at an appliri-
tion rate that averaged 13 times the amounts recommended
by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Few details of this war would have become public, but
for its immense scale. Secretary of Defense Robert
McNamara wanted the spraying disguised as a program
conducted by South Vietnamese civilian., and his Deputy
Undersecretary U. Alexis Johnson proposed that "U.S.
aircraft be used to conduct a 'major defoliant spray pro-
gram in South Virtnam,'although thraircraft ~yould carry
South Vietnamese markings and the pilots would w~rar
civilian clothes." lhr actual scope of the chemical attack
against Laos, opposed even by then U.S. Ambassador
William H. Sullivan, was kept secret until this past Janu-
ary,and some of the details arc still classilicd. In fact, the
Joint Chiefs of Staff noted in a 1961 document that "care
must br taken to assure that the U.S. does not become the
target for charge, of cmplo~ing chemical or hiologia~l
warfare. Intrrna~ional rrpcrcussiuns could hr most
serious.,'
Although the main victims of these ~~capons are the
people of lndochina, thousands who sutler the results of
Dioxin poisoning ticaknrss of the ryes and some actual
blindness, muscle ~~riknrss, liver damage, cancer. and a
high rate of miscarriage and in(~uit malformation, includ-
ing hundreds of babies born ~~~ithuut eyes the harmful
effects would probable hays vanished irons the pages ul the
press here were it not for the vast number of former GIs,
60,000 of them. ~a~ho are suffering the same symptoms. But
even their plight, ~~hich ought to serve as a monument to
the horrors of CBW, is not deterring our goycrnmrnt from
embarking on its third century of germ and chemical ~yar-
farr, with all the attendant lies and deceit. ~
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1'I~is Side of Nuclear War:
1'~e Pentagon's Other Option
By Louis Wolf
Part I: Yellow Rain Fabrication
Secretary of State Alexander Haig threw the full weight
of the U.S. government behind an orchestrated propagan-
dacampaign when he alleged that the Soviet Union has for
the last several years been responsible for underwriting
chemical warfare in Indo-China and Afghanistan, in viola-
tion of international treaties. The campaign slogan is "yel-
low rain" which, according to both secret and highly-
publicized official "White Paper" reports and testimony
before Congress, purportedly has been employed in Laos,
Kampuchea and Afghanistan.
Where did the phrase "yellow rain" come from'? To
CA 16, its first known use in the U.S. was in an August 20,
1979 Washin,g~on Posy article, spoken, according to the
reporter Stanley Karnow, by a Laos-born English-speak-
ing Hmong tribesman living in exile in Thailand. Two
years later, in November 1981, the State Department's
politico-military affairs director, Richard Burt told the
Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, "We now have the
smoking gun."
The "deadly new weapon," was called "yellow rain" ac-
cording to Burt because after being dropped from aircraft
over Laos, it "would make sounds, when falling on roof-
tops or vegetation, similar to that made by rain." Burt's
account is characteristically incongruous: The overwhelm-
ing majority of houses in the country, especially in rural
areas, have roofs made of thatched straw, on which even
real monsoon rains make no sound that can be heard from
within.
My_otoxins are natural poisons most commonly found
in mould which forms on improperly stored grains, usually
at cool temperatures. They are found in many areas oC the
world. The symptoms of mycotoxin poisoning are varied,
but usually include inflammation of the membranes of the
stomach, lungs, and other organs, causing tissue deteriora-
tion aid hemorrhaging.
Although there is an American Embassy in Vientiane,
Laos, in a position to obtain firsthand data, nearly all
"evidence" upon which the State Department depends for
its Laos "yellow rain"scenario comes from interviews with
Lao and Hmong refugees in Thailand. "The centers, where
they live intents and makeshift structures, are according to
most reports, more like prison camps than anything else. 1 n
addition, refugees perceive, often correctly, that their
chances to emigrate depend on telling visiting diplomats or
journalists what they think they want to hear. Among the
Hmong refugees, many of whom worked as part of the
CIA's secret army in Laos during the Indochina War, this is
especially so.
In addition to accounts by refugees, the State Depart-
ment rests its yellow rain case on a number of very contro-
versialsamples: part of a single leaf, three quarter-inch leaf
fragments, blood samples, and a small quantity of water
from a stagnant pond, all allegedly from Kampuchea; and
a rock scraping they say came from Laos. Out of"about 50
individual samples of greatly varying types and usefulness
for analytical purposes," supposedly now in the govern-
ment's hands, the Army Chemical Systems Laboratory
has, according to the State Department's report to Con-
gress in March this year, found traces of TZ trichothecene
mycotoxins in only a fraction. In fact, the State Depart-
mentactually prepared chemical warfare sample collection
kits and sent them to diplomatic posts in various parts of
the world as part of their propaganda campaign. In No-
vember, when Burt made his "smoking gun" declaration,
the entire evidence was a single allegedly contaminated
leaf.
Challenges to the "Evidence"
"There was, and continues to be, widespread doubt and
wonderexpressed about the State Department "evidence."
Dr. Matthew Mcselson, Harvard biologist, consultant to
the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and world-
renowned expert on chemcial warfare, said that from a
scientific standpoint, it is "outrageous"to expect people to
accept a report of this importance based on a single sample.
James R. Hamburg, the Colorado State University bio-
chemistwho first identified and named TZ in 1969, said the
"evidence"cited by Hurt "is pretty shaky." Professor Doug-
las lackey at Baruch College in New York asserted, "No
scientist independent of the Government would consider
such a specimen to constitute scientific evidence for Haig's
hypothesis."
"The State Department, the CI n, and the Pentagon have
been working on an interagency chemical warfare task
force for more than five years. How did they come up with
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the "smoking gun''" One "sample" was provided by Rep.
Jim Leach (Rep.-Iowa), who obtained it from Soldier of
Fnr~une, the magazine of mercenaries. Other "evidence"
was, according to an American diplomat in Bangkok
(Washirl,~>ton Prr.~~~, Nov. I5, 1981), given to the U.S. Em-
bassy (via Thai military authorities) by the Khmer Rouge
rebels loyal to Pol Pot, hardly disinterested bystanders.
Apparently, there was even a note from the Khmer Rouge
enclosed.
l~he .tic~u )'urk Tinre.e asked in an editorial (November
17, 1981): "What company is the [State] department keep-
ing? With what certainty can it assure the public that its
samples are genuine'?" Burt assured the Times (Letters,
'November 29, 1981) that "none of the samples from the
region we have analyzed have been provided by the Khmer
Rouge." This, of course, contradicts the diplomat who
provided the w"ushirr,~~rorr Post with its information and
who said that the Khmer Rouge had provided other sam-
ples in the past. At the same time that other officials were
insisting that Khmer Rouge samples had proved positive,
Burt was denying any Khmer Rouge involvement.
On September 13, 1981, Secretary Haig was speaking in
West Berlin while a record 50,000 protestors marched
against Reagan foreign and military policies. Inside, Haig
announced, "We now have the evidence" that chemical
weapons are being used in Southeast Asia. Journalists
covering the next day's State Department briefing in Wash-
ington were angered and perplexed at Haig's apparent
openness abroad and secrecy at home. The government
refused to answer questions about exactly who had con-
cluded that the samples contained tricothecene
mycotoxins.
According to the Wall Street Jr~urnal (Nover~rber 3,
1981) one of them is a government scientist with the CIA.
Another is believed to be Sharon Watson, a microbiologist
employed at Fort Detrick, according to Sterling Seagrave,
author of a controversial book on yellow rain.
~hhe government also refused to disclose the identity or
agency affiliations of the nervous briefers who were there
to answer questions. The new disclosures, they said, were
based on a "very unique analysis method"not yet patented.
The History of "The Leaf"
Professor Chester J. Mirocha of the University of Min-
nesota was handpicked by the State Department last spring
to analyze the first "yellow rain" samples. He was chosen,
C'A/B has learned, because of his classified research during
the Vietnam War, for the Pentagon's Advanced Research
Projects Agency. Supposedly to prevent Mirocha from
knowing the secret and controversial nature of the research
project or the government connection, the samples were
sent first to a Philadelphia pharmacologist who paid fur
them to be spirited into his laboratory at night by someone
on campus. The university administration learned ghoul
the origin of the samples only when the research was re-
vealed in the Sr. Puul L)is~~~nrch in September.
Considering that the original single Irrf was by this time
rather fragile, it is surprising that the government decided
to hreak it in half. One half was left as is, the other deliber-
ately spiked with ~I~2 mycotoxins by a mysterious govern-
ment scientist, and both placed in Mirocha's laboratory
with a control leaf, presumabl} gathered from the grounds
at Langley or Fort Detrick.
The glaring inconsistencies of the "evidence" are too
numerous to cover completely in this article. Among them
are the following:
? The 32-page State Department Report sent to Con-
gress and the United Nations on March 22, 1982, entitled
"Chemical Warfare in Southeast Asia and Afghanistan,"
offers amazingly precise statistics. While claiming the
numbers of drrths to he on the low side, an official admit-
ted that there is "an artificial precision."
Attacks
Deaths
Laos
261
6,504
Kampuchea
124
981
Afghanistan
47
3,042
432
10,527
? The 32-page Report claims to consolidate most of the
data accumulated by the interagency task force since 1975.
In its classified form, the Report is said to he over 100 pages
long. What else did it contain that it had to be cut by over
two-thirds before its public release'?
? One of the underlying assumptions of the State De-
partment's case is that tricothecene mycotoxins do not
grow naturally in Southeast Asia, so that they must have
been artificially introduced. Colonel Frederick Celec, in
the State Department Office of Theater Military Policy, on
loan from the Pentagon, says that 3,000 references to tri-
cothecenes in the scientific literature were examined and
none of them reported mycotoxins being found in South-
east Asia. In fact, there have been well-known cases
throughout Asia. Perhaps more appropriate is the state-
ment by the renowned astronomer Martin Rees: "Absence
of evidence is not evidence of absence."
? ~hhe State Department alleges that tricothecenes do
not grow in warm climates. This overlooks the tact that
while much of Indochina is climatically tropical, the up-
land mountainous areas of central and northern Laos,
where all of the reported "yellow rain" samples were col-
lected, are indeed quite cool Furthermore, the 'November
1981 United Nations report discussed belowdifferssharply
from the State Department view. "Mycotoxin-producing
fungi are widely distributed all over the world, and in
recent years with advancement in analytical methods var-
ious mycotoxins have been isolated from fungus-infected
grains and other vegetable products all over the world.
Although it is generally accepted that cold and humid
weather is optimal for the production of most tricuthe-
cenes, various authors have demonstrated the presence of
mvcotoxin-producing fungi and the production of myco-
toxins in rather warm climates." In particular, it appetrrs
that the tricoUiecenes, nivalenol, deox_vnivalenol, and I ~
(all of which were said to he found by Professor Mirocha
on the Laos Irrf sample) are worldwide in distribution as
natural contaminants. Eight scientists in India discovered
several instances of natural tricothecene growth between
1976 and 1978. I n 19K 1, resew chers f rom thr l ~ niversity of
Maryland discovered tricothecencs at 200-300 parts per
million (over four times what Mirocha found on the "yel-
low rain" samples) in an ordinar}~ Braiilian shruh.
? The reliability of the "evidence" is disputed by a signif-
icantgroup of scientists because of the manner of its collec-
tion, transport, and storage. State Department officials
claim to know nearly every detail of how the samples were
collected, and say it was done with great care. How could a
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Hmortg tribesman the State Department says walked with
leaf sample in hand for nine days until he reached the Ban
Vinai refugee camp in Thailand, be expected to have kept
the sample free from new contamination? Colonel Freder-
ick Celec at State refuses to say how long other samples
spent between the time they were collected and the time
they reached the laboratory. When asked by Science maga-
zine (October 2, 1981) if the leaf samples had signs of
fungus before they were analyzed, he read from a lab report
that they "were not heavily molded" but showed a "white
powder resembling mold." Science points out that "the
mold would be the most likely source of the mycotoxins."
Even more troublesome is the fact that Professor Miro-
cha's laboratory engages primarily in agricultural research:
while his lab might be clean to the naked eye, there is a
strong possibility of independent contamination that
would not arise in an ordinary scientific facility.
? The Washington Post (September 23, 1981) asked
why the leaf sample had white mold and no yellow powder,
claimed to be a silicon binder for carrying toxic chemicals.
The State Department replied that some of the weapon
delivery systems may not involve yellow powder at all, just
toxin, which makes one wonder about all the "eyewitness"
reports of "yellow rain" falling.
? In his testimony to Congress, Burt said about "yellow
rain" victims: "Within an hour, they would die, apparently
Kit Gre?n: CIA's Point Man
A - -ANALYTICAL METHODS FOR INVESTIGATION of Reported Use of
Chemical Weapons (RFP 81-3). The project is to develop an improved analyl~
cal technigue fa use in the investigatbn of reports that chemical weapons
(CW) have been used in violation of international legal constraints. In particular,
an effort will be made to develop an accurate, reliable and Dractical method fa
analynng biological materials to determine, weeks a months after an alleged
attack, whether a person was exposed to a CW agent. The project invdves the
development of a detection method (immunoassy) employing antibodies to
nerve agent degredalion products. RFP 81-3 will be available O;A 26 Jun 81.
Repuests for RFP 81-3 must be in writing. Oral repuests shall not be henaed.
It is anticipated that the date for submission of proposals will be 30 days after
the date of issuance of RFP 81-3 (174)
The U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, 21st and Vir-
ginia Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20451
Richard Burt at State's Office of Politico-Military Af-
fairs, Dr. Robert Mikulak of the Arms Control and
Disarmament Agency (ACDA), and Amoretta Hoeber,
Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army (Research and
Development). CA IB stumbled on the CIA involvement
almost by accident.
The advertisement shown above appeared in the June
25, 1981 issue of Conrnu~rce Business Daily. With the
thought that this might be an analytical technique useful
to Agent Orange victims trying to documenttheircases,
we at the Bulletin sent away for RFP 81-3 as soon as it
came to our attention on June 28. By return mail came
the following letter:
Ur. Christopher"Kit"Green is the ClA's"point man"
on yellow rain. While the State Department has had a
high profile in efforts to persuade the governments of
other countries to endorse U.S. allegations of chemical
or biological warfare waged b_y the Soviet Union and its
allies, the CIA has been making the same rounds in the
shadows. Green was part of the 8 -member high level
interagency "truth squad" that traveled for one month
to :en countries, returning to Washington April 28.
"I~hev visited London, Brussels, Islamabad, Bangkok,
Hong Kong, Beijing, Tokyo, Canberra, Wellington, and
Ottawa.
Thus, while the U.S. press and public has been pre-
scn[ed with a 32-page sanitised summary oC the yellow
rain evidence, n much larger classified version is being
shown to officials abroad. In an unusual twist, it seems
that the most dangerous security threat is posed by the
Alrierican people, perhaps because some of the most
skeptical responses to this campaign have come from the
scientific and popular press here, while foreign govern-
me~ts are now considered safe repositories for U.S.
sec-cts.
Perhaps the CIA will add a new rubber stamp to
classified information, replacing the old NOFOR'S (no
foreign dissemination) with ONLYFOR?~.
CA 1 B had assumed that the CI A was heavily involved
in orchestrating the yellow rain campaign, but the main
act~~rs have been Secretary of State Alexander Haig,
Gentlemen: [sic]
This is to notify you that RFP 81-3 for the project
entitled "Analytical Methods for Investigation of
Reported Use of Chemical Weapons," as circulated
in the ~hhursdav, J one 25. 1981 issue of the Commerce
Business Daily, has been canceled.
Evalyn W. Dexter
Contracting Officer
Even the most credulous journalist would have
smelled a rat. We wanted to know what it was that had
been canceled. A Freedom of Information Act request
was filed asking for the details of R FP 81-3, and eventu-
ally acouple of ACDA memoranda arrived, together
with two scientific articles, one on the general principles
of drug immunoassys, and one on using these tech-
niques to prove heroin or morphine abuse.
In the cover Inter, ACDA's Freedom of Information
Officer Raymond O. Walters(who, bvcoincidence, was
also the legal advisor for RFP 81-3), noted that "the
`Approve-Disapprove' lines on the (Jane 19) 'Action
Memorandum' have not been signed" as evidence that
"another branch of the government was conducting sim-
ilar but more thorough studies." If this explanation is
true, it is difficult to understand how a project that was
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of shock and the massive loss of blood from the stomach."
The man who Burt says brought the water sample from the
stagnant Kampuchean pond inadvertently spilled some on
his body, "and he arrived in Thailand gravely ill," with
serious hemorrhaging. Chemical warfare expert Matthew
Meselson says this is laughable. The State Department
analysis says the water contained 66 parts per million of
deoxynivalenol. Meselson estimates someone would have
to drink eight gallons of such a sample to die. Chester
Mirocha admits "I would have a difficult time explaining
the rapid hemorrhaging." He was one of fourteen scientists
whose research with pure tricothecenes on pigs showed no
rapid hemorrhaging.
? It is also unexplained how TZ tricothecenes could
remain in the blood samples for weeks and in some cases
months after the blood was first taken Crom the victim.
Studies have shown that it would be scientifically improb-
able to find TZ in the samples after three or four days have
elapsed. Even State Department officials admit this phe-
nomenon is "surprising."
? Different State Department spokespeople would have
the world believe that in order to produce tricothecene
mycotoxins requires "a major pharmaceutical facility" or
"large-scale biological fermentation facilities." But, Pro-
fessorJames Bamburg told the Nen~ Y~n~k Ti~ues: "You can
do it in your basement or a converted dog kennel." Alex
not approved was nevertheless advertised in Conunc~rce
Business !)ailr six days later.
The most interesting document is a 10-page June 17
memorandum written by David M. Cunard of ACDA's
Multilateral Affairs Bureau. He proposed a $90,000
research project "to develop an accurate, reliable and
practical method for analyzing biological materials,
such as blood samples or hair, to determine weeks or
months after an alleged attack, whether a person was
exposed to a CW agent." In particular, he wrote, this
would be useful because "recent efforts to investigate
reports that chemical weapons have been used in current
conflicts in Afghanistan and Southeast Asia have demon-
stratedthat the analytical techniques presently available
are seriously inadequate."
This would "mark a new direction in ACDA research
in the CW field" and, "To the best of our knowledge,
there are no other U.S. research efforts under way for
development of immunoassy methods for investigating
the use of chemical weapons." Furthermore, "this re-
search will be of direct relevance and value to the De-
partments ofState and Defense, as well as to the Central
Intelligence Agency and other executive agencies with
an interest in the arms control field ...This proposed
project has been closely coordinated with, and has the
support of, other key agencies within the CW inter-
agency community."
Yet, with all this close coordination, and conviction
that nobody else was engaged in such research, the pro-
posalwas withdrawn within days of its publication, and
immediately after CA/B asked fora copy, because
"another branch of the government" was doing an even
better job.
The memo lists the contractor selection board as con-
sisting of Robert Mikulak as chairman, three other
ACDA staffers, and "Kit Green CIA." A source told us
that "another branch of government" referred to the
Army's Chemical Systems Laboratory, Aberdeen Prov-
ingGround, at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland. This was
confirmed by Dr. Mikulak in an interview, but the mat-
ter of why he and other members of the interagency
group had been unaware of that research remains
unclear.
Another knowledgeable source identified "Kit Green"
as Dr. Christopher C Green and told us of his globetrot-
ting on behalf of the yellow rain story. Green's name
previously surfaced as one of those at Great Britain's
super-secret CBW laboratory at Porton Down in-
volved in analyzing the apparent "umbrella assassina-
tion" of Bulgarian defector Georgi Markov. Green is in
the CIA's Science Weapons Research Branch, part of
the Science and Technology Division, formerly the
Technical Services Division, famous as the laboratory
for the Agency's assassination weapons and deadly
biological potions. When we called ClA Headquarters,
spokesman Dale Peterson said he had heen told, as a
policy decision, neither to confirm nor to deny Green's
CIA employment, nor could he "make contact" with
him. We reached Green by phone at his home; he did not
deny that he was a member of the group touring world
capitals on the "yellow rain" mission, but asked us to
contact Dale Peterson to sec whether he should speak
further with us.
CIA involvement in this research can only raise
doubts about its objectivity, particularly at a time when
U.S. official policy requires "proof" of the yellow rain
claims. The strange shell game history of this research
proposal fortifies those doubts.
Nevertheless, the memorandum itself tends to under-
cut the State Department CIA's allegations, and some
of its statements would be hard to find in public docu-
ments discussing yellow rain, such as this one:
"Biological samples from refugees, as well as a Icw
physical samples, have been analyzed for evidence of
exposure to chemical agents. No traces of agent or
agent degradation products have been found."
Yet another statement is especially discordant since so
much is being made of samples furnished by the Khmer
Rouge and Soldier o/~ Fortune magazinr.
"CW agents in general do not persist in the environ-
ment. ~Chey are generally degraded under environ-
mental conditions and are also rapidly metabolized
by microorganisms. Thus, an agent is unlikely to be
present in any sample collected more than a few days
after an attack."
It seems more and more as though "yellow rain"
stories are turning into the CBW version of the Gulf of
Tonkin affair the pretext for a greatly expanded U.S.
CBW arsenal, and perhaps even the use of chemical or
biological weapons in battle or covert operations
where we will Icarn only too late how flimsy the case
actually was. ~
J
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Ciegler, a microbiologist with the Agricultural Research
Service, refuted the government doctrine in the Christian
Science Monitor (December 21, 1981): "All you need is the
fungus.. a few flasks, and some rice, or corn grits. You could
produce it in an ordinary kitchen." University of Montana
biologist E.W. Pfeiffer has had a graduate student produce
mycotcxins in a small laboratory in a half hour.
? Recorded instances of fatal toxicity, both in animals
and humans, have for years been connected with consump-
tion of orexposure tomoldy grain harvested in wet circum-
stances and then not adequately stored. Outbreaks oc-
curred in the Soviet Union in 1942-43 from bread made
with diseased grain, during 1965-66 in the [J.S., Canada,
and Belgium from contaminated beer, and in 1968 in Wis-
consin from consumption of moldy corn by cattle. In
Japan i~ 1970, mycotoxins were found in horse feed, and in
Scotland in 1977 in dairy cattle feed from moldy brewer's
grain.
? State Department references to T2 tricothecene myco-
toxins ~.s "rare" puzzled chemists and biologists. Not only
is T2 common everywhere, but also it is for sale widely on
the open market in the U.S.; the Sigma Chemical Company
in St. Louis sells it and four other toxins in a $75 kit. A
number of other commercial laboratories in the United
States and one in Israel routinely manufacture T2 toxins.
Even t[ e Food and Drug Administration in Washington
maintained stocks of it for some time.
? Another major deficiency in the "proof"of vellow rain
use is the absence of scarred victims. Persons who have
survived a bout with mycotoxins, in the words of the Far
Eastern Economic RerieH~ (January I5, 1982), "would be
expected to have some tissue scarring and nerve and skin
probler7s, the latter in the form of blisters." Yet, after five
years or propaganda, intensive propaganda of late, not a
single person has been found or produced with such
scarring.
U.N. Seudies Yellow Rain Question
In December 1980, the United Nations General Assem-
bly determined to start an impartial investigation on the
reports of chemical warfare. The group "found itself un-
able to reach a final conclusion as to whether or not chemi-
cal warfare agents had been used" and, among the 28
refugees interviewed in Thailand, did not "detect signs and
symptoms which would be suggestive of exposure to chem-
icalwarfare agents. Almost from its inception, and particu-
larly af~.er its 56-page report was issued in November 198 I ,
the tears was the victim of undue pressures and some crude
disinformation. They received 199 written submissions
from the U.S. government about alleged "yellow rain"
incidents in Laos, Kampuchea, and Afghanistan. When the
sheer n amber of submissions didn't sway the group, insin-
uations were leaked to the press that it had abuilt-in
anti-U. S. bias. The composition of the body, appointed by
then Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, reveals the hol-
lowness of that rumor. The chairman, Maj. Gen. Dr.
Esmat Ezz, is scientific research head in the Egyptian
armed Forces. The other members are: Dr Edward Ambe-
va, an orthopedic surgeon in Mombasa, Kenya; L.t. Col.
Nestor Castillo, from the ordnance and chemical branch of
the Ph lippine armed forces; and Humberto Guerra, a
professor of microbiology and tropical medicine in Lirna,
Peru. The group scientific consultant is Professor Herbert
Laos and Kampuchea
Fred Swartzendruber and his wife worked in Laos from
October 1979 to May 1981, representing the Mennonite
Central Committee in its humanitarian efforts there. He
testified about "yellow rain"twice recently before congres-
sional committees. His work required extensive travel in
rural Laos, in both Hmong and ethnic Lao areas, and
having heard much about vellow rain in Bangkok, he con-
stantly asked the Hmong he met about the alleged attacks.
Swartrendrubcr didn't find one Hmong who even knew
of a single attack.
l~wo doctors with Hmong and Lao refugees in Thailand
had the same story. Dr. Charles Weldon, a longtime U.S.
Agency for International Development employee, who
worked in Laos from 1963-67, told the visiting United
Nations investigation team that in his five months as the
longest-serving medical director at the Nong Khai Refugee
Holding Center, he had had no experience with alleged
victims of chemical attack. Dr. Gideon Regalado, medical
officer at the Ban Vinai Refugee Holding Center since
February 1980, told the U.N. team there is no wav to
confirm the refugees' allegations about "yellow rain" at-
tacks onthem. "No set of signs and symptoms were sugges-
tive of abnormalities associated with chemical warfare
agents," he said.
There is continuing evidence that the United States,
together with the People's Republic of China and, most
recently, Thailand, have decided to give full support, co-
vert and overt, to Pol Pot's "Democratic Kampuchea"
forces, despite the international image of Pol Pot as a mass
butcher of his people. The allegations of "yellow rain" in
Kampuchea have since 1978 been featured on the clande-
stine radio and in the press releases of Pol Pot from his
sanctuary in Thailand. "I~he March 1982 State Department
"Special Report" suggests that prior to early 1980, there
were "a minimum" of 4,606 deaths in Laos and 284 in
Kampuchea stemming from chemical attacks. Yet in 1980 a
Thai military spokesman was quoted by the Bun,t,~kok
World (March 8) saying "so far we have not heard of any
deaths." It is also worth noting that in a Reuters report
(Baltimore Sun, Sept. 17, 1981), Gen. Dien Del, the leader
of another anti-communist rebel group, said his forces had
never been attacked by chemical weapons. Their base is in
northwest Kampuchea, where the State Department in fact
claimed that 124 attacks took place. The old Khmer
proverb "One cannot hide a dead elephant under a
basket" -seems to describe the situation best.
Military and chemical-biological collaboration between
the U.S. and Thailand is long-standing. The Thai Army
Chemical Branch was created with substantial financial
assistance and training from various parts of the Pentagon
including Fort Detrick; at least 19 Thai militan~ officers
received chemical and biological training in the United
States between 1953-69. The ~fhai government provided
Fort Detrick with two sites at the Pran Buri Defoliation
Test Area during 1964-66 for field trials of the assorted
chemicals used in Vietnam and, at the same time, siened
secret agreements establishing U.S. air bases in the coun-
try. It was at that time that the air war in Vietnam and Laos
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escalated, and these bases were critical to the entire
operation.
Since November 1981, according to Associated Press
and the Bangkok newspaper The Nation (December 26,
1981), aircraft of the U.S. Seventh Fleet have once again
been granted use of the strategic Utapao Air Force Base,
located 70 miles northeast of Bangkok, for landing and
refueling needs as part of the U.S.-Thailand Joint Training
Program. AP quoted U.S. Ambassador John Gunther
Dean as saying in Honolulu in April 1982 that the U nited
States wants to reopen its former bases in Thailand for
unspecified uses in Southeast Asia; the U.S. Embassy in
Bangkok claimed the AP story was inaccurate. Some re-
ports suggest that as part of a common military strategy,
directed at all three countries of Indochina, the U.S. is
reestablishing hhailand as its primary operations staging
area for the region. The precise role which the Thai chemi-
cal corps is performing for Washington vis a vis "yellow
rain" is a matter still under investigation. CA/B has also
learned that U.S.-Thai training of Hmong Lao resistance
pilots has begun at Udorn Air Base.
correspondent in New Delhi had yet another account.
"Hospitals on the border [with Afghanistan], where many
sick and wounded Afghans are treated, report no evidence
of injury such as burns or damage to the respiratory
system caused by chemical weapons.... During 12 days of
travel with a guerrilla column in Afghanistan this vear
[1981], I heard no complaint of the Russians using chemi-
cal weapons. Western journalists have interviewed
hundreds of Afghan refugees in Pakistan and exiles in
India without hearing anv reliable reports of chemical
attacks."
In sum the extremely tenuous nature of the ll.S. guy-
crnment's heady propaganda about "yellow rain" was put
in a nutshell by then Under Secretary of State Matthew
Nimetz: "We arc not in a position either to confirm or
disprove conclusively reports of the use of chemical wea-
pons in remote areas where the U.S. government has no
presence." (lJ'a.ehrn,~~ion Pnst, April 25, 1980)
This has not deterred them.
Some months ago, Secretary of Defense Caspar Wein-
berger suggested the U.S. possessed "ver_y good evidence"
that the Soviet Union was employing chemical weapons in
Afghanistan. Asked for the evidence by journalists, the
Nen }"ork Tr~rn~s (March 14, 1982) reported, "a Pentagon
aide checked high and low, then conceded `I've got no-
thing."' hhen, in March, the State Department's latest
report depicted widespread chemical attacks by the Afghan
government, with Soviet support and equipment, against
anti-government elements. The report refers to no actual
evidence of chemical warfare agents or the metal canisters
referred to in the text. "The government sometimes seems
to exaggerate the prevalence of symptoms to support its
conclusions," the Chris inn Science Monitor observed
(December, 21, 1981). A State Department officer had told
the Muni~or reporter that he would provide documenta-
tion showing widespread mycotoxin symptoms among the
alleged Afghan victims. "But the material he presented,"
the reporter writes, "showed scarcely anything related to
the specific mycotoxin symptoms." The London Times
Flash Frozen
The "Periscope" column of the April 19, 1982
Netirs~~eek sounds as though the CI A is taking its new
chemical warfare propaganda from old Captain
Video and Buck Rogers scripts.
Following the recitation of"still more evidence" of
chemical attacks in Afghanistan, the item says,
"Most chilling of all, American intelligence has
learned of a new substance nicknamed `silent killer'
that causes victims to die as if flash frozen, sometimes
with guns still in hand."
They forgot to add the line about sending two
boxtops and twenty-five cents to get your own silent
killer gun. If they keep printing stuff like this, NeH~s-
H~eek may put the National Enquirer out of business.
Part II: U.S. CBW Arsenal
It was 5:23 in the morning of May 14th when a sleepy
Senate approved a mammoth $177.9 billion military
budget. The marathon 20-hour session, forced on the body
by Armed Services Committee chairman John ~hoN~er
(Rep.-Texas) and Senate majority leader Howard Baker,
Jr. (Dem.-Tennessee), was marked by yawning senators
anxious to go home. Canvas cots were set up in the corri-
dors outside the chamber for those unable to stay awake.
The voted budget is but a part of the actual anticipated
Pentagon expenditure. President Reagan has requested a
full $263 billion for the first installment of the gargantuan
$1.6 trillion he is seeking for the military between now and
1987, and Pentagon watchers expect C ongress will proba-
bly give him $260 billion this time around.
The U.S. chemical warfare program got a substantial
boost that morning. There was a lengthy, emotional de-
bate, and Vice President George Bush was called from his
bed to the floor in the event his vote was required to break a
tie. At about 3: I S a.m., with all but six senators present, a
rollcall vote was taken on the amendment of Senator Garv
Hart (Dem.-Colorado) aimed at stopping the buildup.
When the 49-45 tally against the amendment was an-
nounced, the Pentagon's long-planned program to resume
production of chemical weapons for the first time since
1969 when they were officially renounced by President
Nixon, had the Senate's green light. The House of Repre-
sentatives is considered a pushover for the proposed plan.
History of CBW Research
This development follows more than three decades of
government experimentation in chemical and biological
warfare (CBW), added to by data and equipment captured
at the war's end from the Germans and Japanese. Biologi-
cal weapons and warfare are defined by the U.S. Army as
"the use of microorganisms ('germs'), such as bacteria,
fungi, viruses, rickettsiae, and substances (toxins) derived
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 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/09 :CIA-RDP90-008458000100180005-3
from living organisms (as distinguished from synthetic
chemicals used as gases or poisons) to produce death or
disease in humans, animals, or plants."
In 1 S'49, an enclosed one-million liter test sphere the
world's largest -was built at Camp Detrick in Frederick,
Maryland, and creation of explosive biological warfare
munitions containing disease causing organisms was
begun. On December 21, 1951, Secretary of Defense Rob-
ert Fro~hlke issued an order to all Pentagon sections that
CBW "readiness" be expanded. By 1953, the BW research
and development facilities at rechristened Fort Detrick
were u f~graded, and construction of the Pine Bluff Arsenal
in Arka nsas was completed at a cost of $90 million. Within
the Arsenal's first 18 months, Bruf~ella Buis (a biological
agent causing undulant fever) and the lethal Pasteurella
tularensis (causing tularemia) were produced on a large
scale.
In 1956 a secret policy stipulated that the United States
"would he prepared to use BW or CW in a general war to
enhance: military effectiveness."This policy was purported-
ly in rez-coon to statements of Soviet leaders. In December
1958 a Defense Science Board symposium at Rand Corpo-
ration offices recommended further increase in CBW re-
search, establishing "weapons systems use doctrines," and
launching a campaign to "gain public acceptance and sup-
port" for such weapons.
Another installation, the Deseret Test Center, at Fort
Douglas, Utah was established in 1962. Between then and
1969 (a year after it merged with the Dugway Proving
Ground), it sponsored ajoint research effort by the Smith-
sonian Institution and the University of Oklahoma con-
ducted n sites outside the U.S. chosen by the government
for open-air biological tests. The declared objective of the
effort was to assess potential reservoirs of certain infectious
agents, and possible paths by which they could be dissemi-
nated. !3etween 1963-69, studies under Deseret auspices
were carried out in the central Pacific Ocean (approximate-
ly from the Hawaiian Islands west to Guam and south to
Samoa); in Alaska, near the Pribilof Islands in the Bering
Sea; and at unspecified locations off the Pacific coast of the
U.S. This program sought to determine the relative distri-
bution ~f birds and mammals, to study their feeding and
breeding behavior and migratory routes, and to "ascertain
the breeding and host preferences of mosquitoes and biting
flies.'
The CIA was deeply involved in many of the tests, both
in planning and implementation. The so-called Special
Operations Division of the U.S. Army Biological Labora-
tories at Fort Detrick collaborated with and was in large
part staffed by CIA officers, especially through the 1960x.
They maintained and experimented with a sizable stockpile
of bacteriological agents and toxins. [See the CIA docu-
ment opposite, reproduced from the 1975 Senate report of
the Church Committee, "Unauthorized Storage of Toxic
Agents."] The CIA also carried out a long series of secret
open-air tests using many different biological agents. The
New York City subway tunnels, the Washington, D.C. bus
terminal, water-supply systems in a number of cities and
towns, and even the drinking fountains at the Pentagon
were targeted by the Agenc_y's Technical Services Division
operati~~es with what they euphemistically called "innocu-
ous organisms." Also, for many years, in the CIA's now-
famous MKULTRA mind-control program, yet unknown
numbers of unwitting citizens, including students, prison-
ers, and mental patients were subjected to injections of or
exposures to a whole range of mind-bending drugs.
Gll.i -.CI ^Lin-.?nc; Ptnn (or ~ .. ,,i l,? oe
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