Video – Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

For the offense of not having his shirt tucked in, 15-year-old special needs student Marshawn Pitts was slammed into a wall of lockers and pounded repeatedly in the face by a police officer who broke the boy’s nose and bloodied his mouth.

The Dolton, Illinois teen told a local CBS affiliate that the officer was cursing at him as he complied with the order to tuck in his shirt. Then, “it was just like, boom!” he said.

The assault, which took place in May, was recorded on a security camera at the Chicago suburb’s Academy for Learning.

“The academy is a high school for special-needs students who are emotionally disturbed or struggle with behavioral disorders,” noted Chicago Breaking News. “Marshawn was a student there because he suffered brain injuries when he was hit by a car years ago, [family attorney Edward] Manzke said.”

During the recording, the officer stoops down and places a cup of coffee on the floor, then threw the teen into the lockers before pummeling him and pinning him to the floor in a maneuver known as the “face-down take-down.”

“Zena Naiditch of Equip for Equality, a legal advocacy group that fights for the rights of people with disabilities, looked at the video and said the type of physical restraint used by the officer has killed students,” CBS News reported.

Naiditch added that the hold can be lethal because those trapped by it are left unable to breathe. CBS noted that seven states currently prohibit officers from using the “face-down take-down.”

The officer has not been identified, but due to the filmed evidence of the assault he has been terminated from the force.

Manzke told WBBM News Radio 780 that Marshawn has since transferred to a new school and the family is planning to file a lawsuit.

This video is from CBS 2 in Chicago, broadcast Oct. 7, 2009.

UPDATE: Cop who assaulted teen now in jail on rape charge; shot ex-wife’s new husband 24 times in ‘self defense’

The officer who brutally beat special needs student Marshawn Pitts has been identified as 38-year-old Christopher Lloyd, according to Chicago Breaking News, which spoke to Lloyd’s father.

The news agency reported that Lloyd is currently in jail after being charged with the rape of a woman he knew and is facing a 20-year sentence should he be convicted.

The Chicago Tribune-backed service adds: “A lawsuit filed by his ex-wife, Nicole McKinney, last summer alleges he gunned down her new husband Cornel McKinney in front of their children outside their home on the 6100 block of South Langley Avenue on Feb. 17, 2008.”

An autopsy revealed Lloyd shot the man 24 times, the agency found. He was not jailed at the time as Chicago police accepted his explanation that the killing was in self-defense.

Lloyd also reportedly told his father that the boy he was filmed assaulting had a history of behavioral problems and had cursed at him when told to tuck in his shirt.

Image sample credit: CBS News.

[from - ]

http://rawstory.com/2009/10/camera-catches-cop-assault-of-15-year-old-special-needs-student/

***

My Note -

If the Chicago authorities had not let this police officer get away with shooting somebody 24 times which was violent brutality and MURDER – the rest of the damage he has done, wouldn’t have been done.

And, since when does anything someone might say, excuse brutality, violence, physical assault or murder by police or anybody else. What kind of model of behavior is that? It is against the law by anyone’s standards and is nothing but sadistic and criminal behavior and the law should apply to police officers when they engage in criminal brutality against us.

When the police officers act no differently than the most evil and sadistic of criminals, they are no longer serving the public good.

- cricketdiane

***

Strange Conspiracy in a Land of Freedom, Honor and Integrity 4 – Washington and what human rights and civil rights are? Have our leaders ever had integrity, decency and honor?

Posted by cricketdiane on October 12, 2009

Strange Conspiracy in a Land of Freedom, Honor and Integrity 4 – Washington and what human rights and civil rights are? Have our leaders ever had integrity, decency and honor?

***

Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

P2OG stands for Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group, a U.S. intelligence agency that would employ black world (black operations) tactics.

Contents

* 1 General information
* 2 See also
* 3 References
* 4 External links

General information

The Defense Science Board (DSB) conducted a 2002 DSB Summer Study on Special Operations and Joint Forces in Support of Countering Terrorism. [1] Excerpts from that study, dated August 16, 2002, recommend the creation of a super-Intelligence Support Activity, an organization it dubs the Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG), to bring together CIA and military covert action, information warfare, intelligence and cover and deception.[2] For example, the Pentagon and CIA would work together to increase human intelligence (HUMINT), forward/operational presence and to deploy new clandestine technical capabilities.[3] Concerning the tactics P2OG would use,

Among other things, this body would launch secret operations aimed at stimulating reactions among terrorists and states possessing weapons of mass destruction—that is, for instance, prodding terrorist cells into action and exposing themselves to quick-response attacks by U.S. forces.

Such tactics would hold states/sub-state actors accountable and signal to harboring states that their sovereignty will be at risk , the briefing paper declares.[2]

See also

Operation Northwoods
References

1. ^ Defense Science Board, DSB Summer Study on Special Operations and Joint Forces in Support of Countering Terrorism, U.S. Department of Defense, Final Outbrief, August 16, 2002; 78 pages (in PowerPoint format). Text of the document in HTML format. Here is a 30-page excerpt from the foregoing (in PowerPoint format). This is the publicly published U.S. government document which proposes P2OG.
2. ^ a b William M. Arkin, The Secret War: Frustrated by intelligence failures, the Defense Department is dramatically expanding its ‘black world’ of covert operations, Los Angeles Times, October 27, 2002. Also available here.
3. ^ David Isenberg, ‘P2OG’ allows Pentagon to fight dirty, Asia Times, November 5, 2002.

External links

* Federation of American Scientists (FAS) Project on Government Secrecy, DOD Examines ‘Preemptive’ Intelligence Operations, Secrecy News, Vol. 2002, Issue No. 107, October 28, 2002.
* Chris Floyd, Into the Dark: The Pentagon Plan to Provoke Terrorist Attacks, CounterPunch, November 1, 2002. Also appeared in Moscow Times, November 1, 2002, pg. XXIV; St. Petersburg Times, November 5, 2002; and under the title Into the Dark: The Pentagon Plan to Foment Terrorism, Collected Writings: Past Articles by Chris Floyd, April 15, 2005. This article was chosen number four in Project Censored’s Censored 2004: The Top 25 Censored Media Stories of 2002-2003, (#4) Rumsfeld’s Plan to Provoke Terrorists.
* Seymour M. Hersh, The Coming Wars: What the Pentagon can now do in secret, The New Yorker, January 24, 2005 edition. Referenced by the below Chris Floyd article.
* Chris Floyd, Global Eye, Moscow Times, January 21, 2005, Issue 3089, pg. 112; also appeared as Darkness Visible: The Pentagon Plan to Foment Terrorism is Now in Operation, Collected Writings: Past Articles by Chris Floyd, April 15, 2005.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proactive,_Preemptive_Operations_Group

***

(They’ve been finding these WWI munitions, arsenic, lewisite and other chemical weapons components on Washington, D.C.’s American University campus and the surrounding neighborhood since 1993, including some Lewisite and buried lab contents recently in September and October of 2009. The area is still filled with arsenic from the WWI chemical weapons lab and test firing compound that were originally in the area. – my note)

Washington D.C. Chemical Munitions

EPA ID# DCD983971136

NPL Status: Not on NPL

50th and Massachusettes
Washington, DC 20015
District of Columbia
Contacts

Remedial Project Manager
Steven Hirsh
215-814-3352
hirsh.steven@epa.gov

Community Involvement Coordinator
William Hudson
215-814-5532
hudson.william@epa.gov

You will need the free Adobe Reader to view some of the files on this page. See EPA’s PDF page to learn more.

Current Site Information

Site Actions

ATSDR’s Health Consultation September 2005 (PDF) (138 pp, 980K)

* Figure 1 (PDF) (1 p, 538K)
* Figure 2 (PDF) (1 p, 895K)
* Figure 3 (PDF) (1p, 147K)
* Figure 4 (PDF) (1 p, 905K)
* Brochure (PDF) (5 pp, 246K)

ATSDR’s Health Consultation February 2005 (PDF) (74 pp, 233K)

* Figure 1 (PDF) (2 pp, 534K)
* Figure 2 (PDF) (1 p, 895K)
* Figure 3 (PDF) (1 p, 147K)
* Figure 4 (PDF) (1 p, 905K)
* Appendices A – G (PDF) (84 pp, 480K)

ATSDR’s Health Consultation December 2003

ATSDR’s Health Consultation June 2003

ATSDR’s Health Consultation March 2001

Region 3 | Mid-Atlantic Cleanup | Mid-Atlantic Superfund |EPA Home | EPA Superfund Homepage

http://www.epa.gov/reg3hwmd/super/sites/DCD983971136/index.htm

Washington, D.C. Army Chemical Munitions (Spring Valley)
Current Site Information
EPA Region 3 (Mid-Atlantic)
Delaware
New Castle County
2 miles southwest of the City of New Castle
EPA ID# DCD983971136

1st Congressional District

Last Update: January 2009
Other Names
Spring Valley
Current Site Status

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) provides minutes of the latest partnering, Remediation Advisory Board (RAB) and community meetings on their web site accessible on the website link below. The Army Corps also routinely updates this website with project progress reports and notifications of future meetings and events. The Restoration Advisory Board (the local community group) meetings are held on the second Tuesday of each month (except December and August) and are open to the public with public comment solicited at the end of each session.

The USACE completed excavation of a a munitions pit on a residential property adjacent to, and owned by the American University. USACE is completing test trenching and arsenic contaminated soil removal at this and the adjoining property. All work at these two properties is expected to be complete in the fall of 2009. USACE is planning for destruction of recovered chemical and conventional munitions.

The USACE has sampled approximately 1,500 for arsenic to date. Twenty seven additional properties were added to the site in 2006 based on a review of real estate records. Sampling of these properties and land owned by the District within the site is complete. EPA and the District Department of Environment are issuing comfort letters to property owners where sampling and any required remediation has been completed. USACE is attempting to gain access to all properties not previously sampled (approximately 10), and 5 properties where sampling revealed arsenic above 20ppm, the site cleanup goal.

In September of 2005 ATSDR issued a Health Consultation for the Spring Valley Site. ATSDR recommended additional sampling of soil, groundwater and air in specific locations within the Spring Valley Site. The DC Council approved funding for a health study and a contract was awarded to Johns Hopkins for that study, and a report was released in 2007. The report concludes that the health of Spring Valley residents is good; better than National averages and consistent with a reference community with similar demographics. Additional DC funding may be allocated for follow-on work in FY’2010.

In late 2003 perchlorate was discovered in groundwater at the site. A groundwater study is underway. Thirty nine monitoring wells have been installed near the Dalecarlia reservoir, adjacent to waste and munition disposal sites in the Spring Valley neighborhood and in other selected locations. Groundwater sampling data collected between 2005 and 2007 has identified two locations in the site where groundwater is contaminated with perchlorate, and one location where groundwater is contaminated with arsenic at elevated levels. The groundwater study continues in 2009 and 2010 with installation of additional monitoring wells including four deep wells and another round of well and surface water sampling.

District Of Columbia Council held a Public Roundtable in May 2009 to discuss issues at the site. EPA testified at the Roundtable. In June of 2009 the Congressional ‘COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service and the District of Columbia’ held a hearing on the site. Members of the public, Army, EPA, District Department of Environment, GAO, and American University provided testimony and answered questions.

RAB meetings over the past year have focused the arsenic clean-up; disposal of recovered munitions, chemical sampling other than arsenic, completing site work and pursuit of additional funding to accelerate the cleanup. For more detailed information and updates on RAB issues, public meetings, and background, please access USACE’s web site by clicking on the Spring Valley internet site below:

The Army maintains a Spring Valley internet site.
Site Description

Spring Valley is located in the Northwest section of the District of Columbia, including the American University. During WWI this area was known as the American University Experimental Station and Camp Leach, a 660-acre facility used as a research and test center for chemical weapons. The experimental station and chemical laboratories were located on American University property.
In January, 1993 a contractor who was digging a utility trench unearthed World War I munitions in the Spring Valley area of the District of Columbia. During further investigations, munitions were discovered in pits located on the Korean Ambassador property, adjacent to American University and additional pits were also found on the adjacent residential property. The pit excavation and other work at the Korean property has been completed. An additional pit on the adjacent residence found numerous additional munitions and the work has not been completed yet. That work began in 2007 and was completed in 2009.

Arsenic-contaminated soil has been removed from the Child Development Center play area on American University. Soil removal actions have been completed on several American University Lots and at approximately 90 residential properties. Approximately 50 residential properties still require soil removal. All soil removal at residential properties should be complete in 2009. Soil remediation at Federal and District owned property is scheduled for 2010.

The site-wide soil cleanup standard for arsenic has been finalized at 20 ppm by EPA, the Army Corps of Engineers and the DC Health Department. The Mayor’s Science Advisory Panel has approved this standard. The arsenic contamination is the result of chemical warfare research carried out at the American University Experimental Station during WWI.

The Army Corps of Engineers budget for this site is approximately $11 million dollars per year. Site work is expected to continue thru 2011.

The USACE has completed excavation of lab waste and debris in an area near the boundary of the American University known as Lot 18. Numerous empty (scrap) munition and several intact bottles were removed from the site. One of the bottles was found to contain a small amount of Lewisite, a blister agent used at the site; a second bottle was found to contain mustard gas. Other chemical agent degradation products have been found in sealed containers. The USACE began excavation of additional lab debris in an adjacent area of the American University in 2008 and will complete the action in 2009.

The USACE intends to destroy recovered munitions currently stored at the site in 2009.

Site Responsibility
USACE is the lead agency at this site.

NPL Listing History
Not listed on the NPL.
Threats and Contaminants
The primary threats at the site are buried munitions and elevated arsenic in site soils and threats posed by buried munitions and lab waste.

Contaminant descriptions and risk factors are available from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, an arm of the CDC.
Cleanup Progress
The pit excavation and other work at the Korean property has been completed. An additional pit on the adjacent residence is currently being addressed. Arsenic contaminated soil has been removed from the Child Development Center play area on American University. Soil removal actions on several American University Lots and at approximately 70 homes have been completed. The site-wide soil cleanup standard for arsenic has been finalized at 20 parts per million (ppm) by EPA, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Washington DC Health Department. The Mayor’s Science Advisory Panel has approved this standard. The American University intramural fields have been returned to the University and are back in use and the University is preparing to reoccupy the Child Development Center. To date the Army Corps of Engineers has spent over $160 million on investigation and removal work. Also see the Spring Valley web address above.
Contacts
Contact Us
Administrative Record Locations

Region 3 | Mid-Atlantic Cleanup | Mid-Atlantic Superfund |EPA Home | EPA Superfund Homepage

http://www.epa.gov/reg3hwmd/npl/DCD983971136.htm

***

200px-South_Korean_Ambassador_House_DC.JPG
South Korean embassy residence on Glenbrook Road

Map of Washington, D.C., with Spring Valley in red.
180px-Map_spring_valley.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Valley,_Washington,_D.C.

***

490px-Map_spring_valley.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_spring_valley.jpg

Hazardous Waste and History Mix On D.C. Tour

Kent Slowinski leads a tour of the Spring Valley World War I munitions site in Northwest Washington, which the Army Corps of Engineers has been working for years to clean up. (By Katherine Frey — The Washington Post)

A groundwater monitoring well registers high levels of perchlorate. (Katherine Frey – The Washington Post)

Visitors on a WalkingTownDC tour of Spring Valley hear how, 90 years after scientists ended their experiments, remnants of toxic munitions remain. It’s terrifying, says Chris Cottrell, 22, a senior at American University. (Photos By Katherine Frey — The Washington Post)
By Yamiche Alcindor
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 21, 2009

The manicured lawns and beautiful brick homes that line the streets of Spring Valley look like those in most affluent District neighborhoods.
This Story

*
Hazardous Waste and History Mix On D.C. Tour
*
SPRING VALLEY: Norton Tries to Reassure Residents Over Chemical Weapons Cleanup
*
More Questions on Buried Munitions
*
AMERICAN UNIVERSITY EXPERIMENT STATION: Vial Used for Chemical Agent Mustard Is Uncovered

View All Items in This Story
View Only Top Items in This Story

But the area looked much different during World War I, when the Army was using it as a testing ground for chemical weapons.

On Sunday, visitors on a tour of the neighborhood heard how, 90 years after scientists ended their experiments, the remnants of toxic munitions remain.

The purpose of the tour is to encourage more historical research, investigation and cleanup here, said Kent Slowinski, who led more than a dozen people on the walk. We want to raise awareness in both Spring Valley and nationwide.

He and Allen Hengst co-founded Environmental Health Group: Spring Valley, a group that advocates for more research into the locations and health effects of the chemicals.

The one-mile walk was part of more than 120 free WalkingTownDC tours, presented by Cultural Tourism DC, that took place across the District over the weekend.

During World War I, 661 acres of forested land around the American University campus were used for Army tests. The range became known as the American University Experiment Station.

In 1993, a construction crew’s discovery of an artillery round triggered an evacuation and cleanup of the area. Experts have since been scouring the neighborhood for buried munitions and chemicals. Workers have found several toxins, such as arsine, a vomiting agent called DA or Clark 1 and liquid mustard, a type of blistering agent.
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Slowinski, a landscape architect who grew up in Spring Valley, became interested in 1996 when a stonemason with whom he was working found munitions at a home in Spring Valley. For two hours Sunday, Slowinski, who has given several tours of the area, pointed to various campus buildings and houses where hundreds of chemical munitions might be buried. He began at the university’s Ohio McKinley Hall, the birthplace of the U.S. Chemical Warfare Service. He pointed to trees, football fields and green patches around the university and neighborhood where he believes munitions still lie.

Slowinski also talked about homeowners whose health problems might be linked to the neighborhood’s past.

It’s terrifying, said Chris Cottrell, 22, a senior at American University who took the tour. There are dangerous munitions buried on campus, and I don’t think most students even know about it. This is like the first thing the university should tell students about.

Aaron Lloyd, 38, grew up in Spring Valley. Less than a decade ago, his stepfather found munitions buried in the back yard of the home where Lloyd grew up and where his mother had kept a garden. It’s very disturbing, he said. Someone had to have known about these chemical weapons before 1993.

Nan Wells, an advisory neighborhood commissioner from Spring Valley, said she hopes that the tour will help engage the public. We need follow-up studies to know the health effects, she said during the tour. She also hopes that the Army Corps of Engineers, which along with the D.C. Department of the Environment is overseeing the cleanup and destruction of the munitions, will continue to fund the project.

For fiscal 2010, the corps has allotted $11 million to the cleanup effort. The number drops to $3 million in fiscal 2011 and $500,000 the following fiscal year.

Nazzarena Labo, 36, a epidemiologist, said more research needs to be done before health effects from the munitions can be determined. It’s very hard to go from anecdotal evidence to causation, she said. People shouldn’t be scared or anxious. But they should be concerned.

Slowinski ended the tour at 4825 Glenbrook Rd., a vacant house where cleanup workers found a laboratory vial last month that tested positive for the World War I blistering agent mustard. The home’s owner had a brain tumor and eventually moved away, Slowinski said.

American University has since bought the house, where cleanup continues.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/20/AR2009092001961.html

A groundwater monitoring well registers high levels of perchlorate. (Katherine Frey – The Washington Post)

More Questions on Buried Munitions

Friday, August 14, 2009; 8:53 AM

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said Thursday that she plans to host a community meeting next month at which residents of the District’s Spring Valley neighborhood can question ^ U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Col. David E. Anderson about the latest discovery of buried World War I chemical munitions in the area.
This Story

On Aug.4, the engineer corps found a glass vial containing traces of the blistering agent mustard during ^ what was thought to be the closing stages of an excavation in the back yard of a vacant house on Glenbrook Road. The corps has been searching on and off for 16 years for munitions buried at what was once a military weapons test site and had been winding down ^ the part of the project the search at the house.
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The discovery of the mustard, two feet below the surface, has halted excavation and rekindled residents’ fears of what might still lie undiscovered. Norton said she would set a date for the meeting later, and plans to visit the site one day next week.

Michael E. Ruane

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/14/AR2009081400951.html?sid=ST2009100203435

SPRING VALLEY
Norton Tries to Reassure Residents Over Chemical Weapons Cleanup

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) speaks at a site where trace amounts of mustard agent were found. (By Michael Ruane — The Washington Post)

By Michael E. Ruane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 20, 2009

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton toured World War I munitions burial sites in Northwest Washington on Wednesday and sought to reassure the public that the Army Corps of Engineers would continue its search for such materials for as long as it takes.
This Story

Norton (D-D.C.) was given a status report by the corps, which has been directing the $170 million, 16-year cleanup of the munitions that are buried in scattered sites in the District’s Spring Valley neighborhood.

This month, workers were surprised when they found a flask containing residue of the blistering agent mustard buried in the yard of a vacant house in the 4800 block of Glenbrook Road NW. Officials said they had thought cleanup at that site was almost finished.

Work there has been halted but will resume soon, Norton said as she stood across the street Wednesday morning.

Meanwhile, corps officials said they plan to search with metal detectors in the Dalecarlia woods, along Dalecarlia Parkway, in an area that was once a mortar firing range.
Norton said she has asked the corps to reveal all of the substances that have been found in the area, something the corps has not publicly done.

American University, in what was then a remote part of Washington, served as an experimental site for chemical warfare during World War I.

That was then, Norton said. Our concern now is not to rewrite history but to keep the corps digging until all concerned, including the Congress of the United States, is satisfied that it’s all done.

Our position is that the corps must remain until there is an objective all-clear here, she added. Nobody need move out of this beautiful neighborhood. It really isn’t fair to alarm people. . . . There is no indication that the neighborhood is unsafe.

There are 1,632 suspect properties in the area, she said. Ninety-eight percent of them have been sampled. About 140 have required cleanup of some kind.

Norton said she has been told that the air in the area is safe, and so is the water.

Some residents remain critical of the corps’ work. Give me a backhoe and ground-penetrating radar, and I guarantee I’ll find stuff that they missed, said Kent Slowinski, who said he grew up in the neighborhood.

Others said they are satisfied. I think that the Army corps has done a fairly comprehensive, conscientious job, said Jeff Stern, who has lived around the corner for 20 years. I’m pretty comfortable that they’re going to clean it up, and we’re all going to move on.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/19/AR2009081902423.html?sid=ST2009100203435

***

Last winter, on the slopes below the Point, a herd of deer, too many to be counted, was grazing, a remnant of the porous boundary between the city and the natural world that made the site so attractive to the founders of St. E’s in the 1850s. The campus was empty, its curving streets — which once invited patients to wander among the trees and grass — quiet. On Wednesday they were full of the usual talismans of the new security society: black Chevy Tahoes with tinted windows, large vans with no markings, men with earpieces and short cropped hair.

Even the promises of public access were beginning to morph slowly into the bland language of the bureaucratic wormhole. During the approval process, there had been talk of public access not just to the Point, but to a theater on the campus and an old Civil War cemetery. There was the sense that Hitchcock Hall, which still has the solid bones of a lovely public theater in it, might someday host community gatherings, public lectures, concerts and films. All with DHS approval, of course.

Norton spoke Wednesday as if that were all still true. She hailed a new day, the first time in memory that residents and visitors will be able to visit the Point, the most panoramic view of the city.

But GSA officials were already muddying up that clear vision. GSA has been working very closely with DHS and the community to ensure that the operational and security needs of DHS are maintained while allowing public access to the St. Elizabeths campus, read a GSA statement, released after officials were pressed on comments that seemed to contradict Norton’s sanguine view of wider public access.
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The most reasonable view of the plan for St. E’s is a mix of resignation, sadness, skepticism and anger. Resignation, because the pragmatists are probably right, especially in the current economy. Sadness, because the advocates for a better use are certainly right: This will be a fortress with forbidding walls, occupied by commuters who drive in and out and very likely never leave the compound during the work day. Skepticism because it’s impossible to know how seriously anyone pursued other options for the site.

And anger because early design drawings for the first big new building on the campus, a Coast Guard facility — 1.18 million square feet of bland boxiness that looks as if it was found on a World War II-era drafting board — are so desultory. It is supposed to be energy efficient, and it will stretch down the side of a hill on the edge of the campus, thus preserving some of the historic feel of the old landscape. But the design, by Will + Perkins, is ugly.

The best response to the project is vigilance. To be blunt, the promises of public access are probably hollow, perhaps even disingenuous. Even if they were made sincerely, all it will take is for someone in the bureaucracy to utter the magic words national security to deny access to the campus, at first on an occasional basis, and eventually forever. Within a few years, no one will even remember the Point, and St. E’s will sit high and impregnable on its hill, bristling with security and black cars and open to nobody but its employees.

Even the promise to rehabilitate the 52 historic structures must be watched very closely. Can we believe it? What will happen if it turns out to be even more expensive than anticipated to return them to life? Security has become the trump card that transcends all other values. We need to spend our money on more important things . . . .

St. E’s reached the point of Wednesday’s groundbreaking relatively quickly for a project of this size, and the process revealed the usual fault lines between idealists and the get-’er-done crowd, between preservationists and local community leaders hungry for economic revitalization. Marion Barry probably didn’t mean to raise the specter of race, but perhaps that was involved too, in the usual subterranean fashion that it operates in Washington politics.

This is where an architectural obituary ends with a bland statement of it remains to be seen . . . But St. E’s deserves better than that. So here’s a test, to be taken 10 or 15 years from now.

Does anyone walk outside its gates to eat lunch? Have property values risen near the site? Do the same people live there? Did GSA in fact save and repair all 52 buildings as planned? Has there ever been an open performance in the old theater? Is the Civil War cemetery on anyone’s tourist map? Do people gather at sunset on the Point and watch the light fade over the city? If you say Ezra Pound to anyone leaving the central building, is there a glimmer of recognition?

Or have all the intangibles of cultural landscape been lost?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/09/AR2009090902436.html?hpid=moreheadlines

***

Weaponry: Lewisite — America’s World War I Chemical Weapon

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In 1903 a young priest working on his doctoral degree at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., was studying the reaction of the gas acetylene and arsenic trichloride in the presence of aluminum chloride. When these compounds were mixed, the flask turned black, and after the mixture was poured into water, a black, gummy mass formed that had a penetrating odor and caused the priest to become seriously ill. He was hospitalized for several days while recovering from the toxic effects of the compound and decided to postpone indefinitely any further investigations of it. However, the priest, Father Julius Arthur Nieuwland, described the reaction in his 1904 dissertation. The toxic substance later became known as lewisite, one of the most deadly poison gases developed until well after World War I. Produced by the United States during the latter part of that war, it had also been independently discovered, although not manufactured, in Germany. During World War II, the United States, Great Britain, Germany, the Soviet Union, and Japan produced lewisite. Since that time other countries have manufactured the compound, including Iraq, North Korea, and perhaps Libya.

In the early evening of April 22, 1915, the first lethal poison gas attack of World War I occurred at Ypres, Belgium. German troops discharged approximately 160 tons of chlorine gas that slowly crept toward the Allied trenches with the aid of a gentle wind. French and Algerian soldiers first noticed two strange yellow clouds approaching, and soon men began to choke, cough, suffocate, and retreat in horror. Smoke and fumes made their panic worse because they could not see around them. Some soldiers buried their faces in the dirt, hoping to protect themselves from the unknown killer. A few officers who were educated in chemistry realized the value of urinating on a cloth and breathing through it to crystallize and neutralize the chlorine, and they instructed others to do so.

The unprecedented attack killed more than 5,000 men and injured 15,000 others. There were between 880,000 and 1,297,000 gas casualties during World War I, and gas warfare may have caused more than 26,000 deaths. American casualties from poison gas totaled almost 72,000, and of these more than 1,200 died. The Central Powers and then the Allies attacked with the weapon even though two separate prewar international conferences had banned the use of weapons and projectiles intended to diffuse asphyxiating, deleterious, or poisonous gases.

The United States did not declare war on Germany until April 2, 1917, but by then it had already begun research into chemical gases. The Bureau of Mines first conducted chemical warfare research early in 1917, under the direction of Van H. Manning. Founded in 1910 to investigate poisonous and asphyxiating gases in mines, the bureau offered its services to the Military Committee of the National Research Council (NRC) on February 8, 1917. On April 3, the committee formed the Subcommittee on Noxious Gases, composed of army and navy officers and members of the Chemical Committee of the NRC, and Manning was appointed as its chairman. George A. Burrell, who worked for the Bureau of Mines, became the director of research on war gases on April 7 and immediately began working on a suitable gas mask for American soldiers.

The need for more chemists quickly arose, and in May the Bureau of Mines was authorized to accept help from laboratories at twenty-one universities, three companies, and three government agencies. Furthermore, in July 1917 a central laboratory was established at American University in Washington, D.C. The weapons development and testing facility would become known as the American University Experimental Station. The War Department began suggesting in September 1917 that the labs at American be militarized, and ten months later, in June 1918, President Woodrow Wilson agreed, transferring the extensive work at the university to a newly formed army subdivision, the Chemical Warfare Service. Eventually, more than 10 percent of all the chemists in the United States became directly involved with chemical warfare research during World War I.

One of them was Winford Lee Lewis, who left Northwestern University in 1918, where he was an associate professor of chemistry, to become the director of the Offensive Branch of the newly formed Chemical Warfare Service unit at Catholic University. This unit, called Organic Unit No. 3, was given the task of developing and producing novel gases, especially compounds containing arsenic. In April 1918, following the suggestion of the Rev. John Griffin, who had been Julius Nieuwland’s chemistry adviser at Catholic, Lewis reviewed the priest’s dissertation and read about his experiments with arsenic trichloride. He further investigated and perfected its reaction with acetylene, with aluminum trichloride acting as a catalyst.

Lewis wrote that the resulting compound ‘…took on a nauseating odor and [caused] marked irritation effect to the mucous surfaces. The headache resulting persists several hours and the material seems to be quite toxic.’ The perfected product was named after him, christened lewisite. The government eventually ordered Lewis to stop working on the compound at Catholic University, under the pretext that it was ineffective. They did this, however, in order to trick German spies into believing that Lewis’ work had not been productive. In truth, other researchers continued evaluating and perfecting lewisite at nearby American University.

Lewis believed in gas warfare and defended its use throughout his life, saying that it would make wars more humane because it would shorten them and innocent civilians would suffer less. He also believed that ‘Providence’ would intervene and give the most advanced people the best gas. Lewis furthermore characterized the horrors of gas warfare as exaggerations and insisted that chemical battles are the most efficient and economical of all fights.

Nieuwland, who became a renowned professor of chemistry at the University of Notre Dame, held similar beliefs. When questioned in 1936 about his discovery of lewisite, he asserted that poison gas rendered warfare more humane:

By the introduction of gas and other modern instruments of warfare, a progressively small percentage of combatants have been killed. In biblical times, thousands of men met in the middle of a plain and slashed one another until only a few were left standing. Today, the primary aim is not to kill but to incapacitate. And poison gas is an ideal method of achieving that aim. If a man goes to a hospital suffering from gas, he is as useless as if he were dead and to care for him, several other persons must be kept out of the battle lines. The chances are that ultimately the victim will recover.

Lewisite, the chemical formula of which is C2H2AsCl3, was given the code names ‘Methyl’ and ‘G-34? during World War I. Perhaps its most enduring pseudonym is ‘Dew of Death.’ General Amos Fries, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces’ Gas Service and later director of the Chemical Warfare Service, so named it because there were plans to spray lewisite over the enemy from airplanes, and the gas was thought to be so deadly that ten planes armed with it could eliminate every trace of life in Berlin.
After the war, many newspaper articles sensationalized lewisite, attaching properties to it that the poison gas did not have. The Cleveland Plain Dealer on June 15, 1919, reported that lewisite was seventy-two times more powerful than mustard gas, considered the king of war gases at that time, and that a single drop on the back of a hand was fatal. Also, on February 26, 1923, the San Francisco Journal stated that lewisite would sterilize the ground so that ‘nothing will grow upon it for at least two years and perhaps longer’ and that one drop of it on living flesh caused ‘mortification.’

Lewisite is primarily a vesicant (causing blisters). It secondarily irritates the lungs and is a systemic poison. Upon contact with the skin, it causes large, painful, fluid-filled blisters, especially on the extremities, back, and scrotum. It also acts as a toxic lung irritant by causing swelling, inflammation, and destruction of the lining of the airways. The lining may subsequently slough off and form an obstruction in the airway, making it difficult to breathe. It is a systemic poison because absorption of arsenic through the skin causes pulmonary swelling, diarrhea, restlessness, weakness, below-normal temperature, and low blood pressure. A victim feels its effects immediately.

Lewisite can be delivered as a vapor, an aerosol, or a liquid and is believed to be most damaging in low-temperature, low-humidity, and dry nonalkaline conditions. It can be fatal in as little as ten minutes when inhaled in high concentrations. Lewisite is also persistent, lasting up to six to eight hours in sunny weather and even longer in cold, dry climates. The poison vapor is about seven times heavier than air and will therefore hover along the ground and enter caves, trenches, and sewers.

Mustard gas, like lewisite, is a vesicant. The two chemicals have many of the same characteristics, but there are also important distinctions. Mustard agents can be composed of sulfur- or nitrogen-based compounds, whereas lewisite is composed of arsenic. Sulfur mustard was the compound used extensively during World War I, first by the Germans and later by the Allies. Similar to lewisite, it is effective as a liquid, vapor, or aerosol, but in contrast to lewisite, its effects are delayed for up to a few hours. They will both form large blisters on the skin, but mustard lesions take about two to three times as long to heal. Whereas lewisite has a lower freezing temperature than mustard agents, both compounds can persist for days, even months under certain conditions. Mustard gas accounted for almost 40 percent of the total gas casualties in World War I.

After lewisite’s transfer to the American University Experimental Station, Captain James Bryant Conant was ordered to find a method to manufacture it in large quantities. Formerly an instructor of chemistry at Harvard University, Conant directed the Organic Research Unit No. 1 of the Offense Research Section at American.
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Weaponry: Lewisite — America’s World War I Chemical Weapon

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The lewisite work at the Experimental Station was dangerous. A huge tub of soapsuds had to be readily available for soldiers to plunge into if gas from leaking pipes or vats of boiling chemicals contaminated them. Soldier-chemists tested human volunteers and animals to determine the effectiveness of the compound. George Temple, the head of the station’s motor maintenance department, repeatedly volunteered to be burned by poisonous gases. When a sample of lewisite was placed on his forearm, it caused redness, swelling, and huge silver-colored blisters that took eight weeks to heal.

One morning in August 1918 an explosion caused by a faulty timer on a bomb sent lewisite gas across a field and toward the homes of residents near the American University campus, including that of former senator Nathan B. Scott. Scott, his wife, and his sister-in-law were gassed while sitting on their porch. Not long after the accident, the lewisite work at the university ceased and the Chemical Warfare Service ordered production moved to a secret plant twenty miles east of Cleveland, in Willoughby, Ohio.

The Willoughby plant was located on the site of the former Ben-Hur Motor Company. Soldiers first arrived at the site at the end of July 1918 and found that, although the office building was mostly completed, the plant floor had never been graded. A plumbing system had been installed, but there were no working sewer or water lines in the facility. The pipes had frozen over the previous winter, so the system had to be removed and totally redone. The electrical wiring was only partially complete and had been installed haphazardly, so it had to be removed and reinstalled.

Finding contractors to remodel the plant was difficult. Most of the nearest ones were located in Cleveland, and transportation, food, and housing for construction workers had to be arranged. Further, the workmen wanted to be reimbursed for the cost and time of traveling. Fortunately, Willoughby contractors were eventually found and hired, but only after appealing to the town’s mayor. The workers took from July 28 to mid-August to remodel the factory. Security was tight. A barbed-wire fence was erected around the facility, and guards maintained a twenty-four-hour watch. Klaxon horns and an alarm system were also installed to warn of the presence of intruders. Eventually the site included four barracks to house the twenty-two officers and 542 soldiers working at the facility, a mess hall, and a forty-eight-bed hospital (neither of the two deaths that occurred at the plant was from the effects of lewisite).
The soldiers working there initially were not allowed to leave the grounds except for meals, and all their mail went through a post office box, No. 426, in Cleveland, without any mention of Willoughby. On August 10, Maj. Gen. William L. Sibert, director of the Chemical Warfare Service, visited the Willoughby plant and told the soldiers that as long as they maintained secrecy about the plant, the army would allow them to enter the town of Willoughby, but they were still not permitted to go to Cleveland due to the fear of espionage.

Each of the soldiers at the facility was issued a gas mask that had to be kept nearby or worn in the alert position at all times. Many of the men worked to the point of complete exhaustion, trying to make the plant operational as soon as possible because the government had ordered three thousand tons of lewisite to be ready for a planned spring 1919 offensive against the Germans.

In September 1918, the War Department realized that, in order to satisfy all its planned uses for lewisite, production had to be doubled. That entailed a large expansion at Willoughby. New equipment was ordered, and the plant layout changed to make room for it. Amazingly, by November, just five months after construction started, the plant had begun full production of ten tons of lewisite per day.

On November 11, however, the war suddenly ended. Early in December, the men began dismantling, inventorying, and disposing of the plant’s equipment and materials. By March 1919, all of the plant’s soldiers were gone.

From the time the soldiers had arrived in Willoughby until the day they left, the town’s government, Red Cross, and residents were all extremely helpful and friendly. They often hosted receptions and gatherings for the soldiers, provided pies for their Thanksgiving dinner, and even donated a grand piano to the boys. When townspeople asked the soldiers what they were doing at the Willoughby plant, the soldiers responded that they were working on a formula for rubber, which explained the strong odors that the plant emitted.

According to Nate A. Simpson, one of the soldiers assigned to the plant, the army did not reassign a single soldier from the top-secret facility until the war was over. The plant became known as the ‘mousetrap’ because once you were there, you knew you were not going to leave until the war was over.

There are different stories pertaining to what happened to the gas produced at Willoughby after the armistice was signed. Some say the plant never produced chemicals, but in 1957 workmen dug up several laboratory bottles containing lewisite on the grounds of the old facility. Others suggested that the army hauled between a few tons and 150 tons of lewisite to the Atlantic Ocean by train in big steel casks that were under guard. There the material was carefully transferred onto barges and dumped at sea. Another account suggests that 150 tons of lewisite was en route to Europe when the war ended, and the ship transporting it was subsequently sunk rather than be allowed to return the deadly chemical to the United States.

Two British scientists, Stanley Green and Thomas Price, published the formula for lewisite in The Journal of the Chemical Society in 1921. According to General Fries in his book Chemical Warfare, the formula’s publication was unfortunate because the highly secret compound became known throughout the world, perhaps allowing Japan and Germany to learn about it and develop manufacturing techniques.

Until 1943 lewisite was thought to be equal to or better than mustard gas. However, U.S. Army tests done during World War II on lewisite found that unless the human subjects were defenseless or unconscious, they immediately felt the pain of exposure and would leave the area and protect themselves. Because mustard does not cause immediate effects, soldiers were more likely to be exposed for longer periods. Army testers also found that it was very difficult to get effective concentrations of lewisite vapor. Furthermore, the development of British anti-lewisite, which can prevent burns caused by lewisite and reverse its systemic effects, was believed to reduce the combat effectiveness of the chemical weapon. For those reasons, the U.S. military has not considered lewisite an effective chemical agent since World War II.

Other countries apparently did not agree with this evaluation. For example, the Soviet Union produced huge quantities of the material, disposing of approximately twenty thousand tons of it in the Arctic Sea during the late 1940s and ’50s. More recently, a plant specifically designed to incinerate lewisite and mustard gas has become operational at Gorny, Russia.

Although chemical weapons were not used in major combat during World War II, the Japanese used lewisite and mustard gas in China during most of the war years. In one horrible experiment, prisoners were forced to drink ‘crude water,’ which was a liquid form of lewisite or mustard gas. In addition, more than thirty-five hundred Chinese died in October 1941 at Ichange in the Yangtze Valley after a suspected lewisite attack. Lewisite artillery shells were found on New Guinea, indicating that the Japanese had planned to use the agent against Allied forces. Germany also conducted lewisite experiments on concentration camp inmates.

From 1940 to ‘43, the United States produced lewisite at a small pilot plant at Edgewood Arsenal and then later at Huntsville, Pine Bluff, and Rocky Mountain arsenals. About twenty thousand tons of the agent had been produced before the plants were shut down. Along with disposing of the enemy stockpiles, the United States also dumped most of its own lewisite into the Atlantic and Pacific oceans after the war. One of the 1948 dumping operations was referred to as Operation Geranium because lewisite has a geraniumlike odor.

More recently, Iraq allegedly used lewisite and a mustard gas-lewisite mixture against Iran in the 1980s. The deadly chemical was detected in three separate 1991 instances during the Persian Gulf War, and at least one Iraqi prisoner of war claimed in February 1991 that Iraq had lewisite-filled munitions in its inventory.

A 1999 article in Environmental Health Perspectives reported that lewisite is still produced in very limited quantities in the United States (presumably just for military preparations) and the country’s remaining stockpile is stored at Desert Chemical Depot in Utah. And recently in Washington, D.C., lewisite and mustard agents, hastily buried and forgotten when the American University Experimental Station closed down, have been discovered in the ground, requiring a hazardous waste cleanup operation by the army’s Corps of Engineers.
Lewisite, the major American contribution to chemical weapons development during World War I, has had an amazing history, from its inadvertent discovery by a priest in 1903 to its presence a hundred years later in the arsenals of some countries. Most notably, North Korea has an estimated twenty-five hundred to five thousand tons stockpiled. Whether lewisite will eventually be used in combat situations or as a terrorist weapon — and, if so, how effective it would be — remains to be determined.

This article was written by Joel A. Vilensky and Pandy R. Sinish and originally published in the Spring 2005 edition of MHQ. Joel A. Vilensky and Pandy R. Sinish are the authors of Dew of Death: The Story of Lewisite, America’s World War I Weapon of Mass Destruction.

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http://www.historynet.com/weaponry-lewisite-americas-world-war-i-chemical-weapon.htm

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Made in Mass., bomb stirs global debate
Textron seeks to quash cluster munitions pact
By Bryan Bender
Globe Staff / September 20, 2009

WASHINGTON – The Sensor Fuzed Weapon is a marvel of military technology, says its maker, Textron Defense Systems. An advanced “cluster bomb,’’ it is designed to spray 40 individual projectiles of molten copper, destroying enemy tanks across a 30-acre swath of battlefield.

But the bomb – which is made at a Textron facility in the Boston suburb of Wilmington – violates terms of a landmark international treaty limiting cluster bombs to 10 bomblets or less. The pending treaty, signed by 98 nations last year in Oslo, has been sought for decades by human rights groups, which say that cluster bombs kill indiscriminately and leave behind duds that kill or maim unsuspecting civilians.

Now Textron, with the support of the Pentagon and the State Department, is mounting a campaign to derail the cluster-bomb treaty and write a new set of rules under the United Nations that would make it easier to sell its weapon around the world.

Textron’s primary argument for scrapping the treaty is that 99 percent of the bomblets released by the Sensor Fuzed Weapon will explode in combat, leaving only a tiny amount of unexploded ordinance that could be picked up by a child or hit by a farmer’s plow. Textron calls this capability “clean battlefield operation.’’

“It really is an extremely sophisticated weapon,’’ said Mark D. Rafferty, vice president of business development for Textron Defense Systems, which employs about 1,000 people at its Wilmington plant. Rafferty stood in front of a full-scale mock-up of the bomb, a 6-foot-long cylinder with tail fins, at an arms show in Washington, D.C., last week.

“Knowing that we are in no way, shape or form contributing to [civilian suffering] is really a very satisfying place to be,’’ he said.

The United States is among several major powers including Russia, China, and Israel that have refused to sign the Oslo treaty.

The US Air Force has purchased 4,600 of the new weapons, at a cost of several billion dollars. Textron has also sold them to Turkey, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. And it is in the final stages of reaching a deal with India for 510 of the weapons at an estimated cost of $375 million.

Textron wants the international community to rewrite the treaty to allow weapons with large numbers of bomblets, if they can be shown to avoid the potential for civilian casualties from unexploded components.

The initiative has outraged many arms control advocates, however, who secured signatures from Britain, France, and 96 other countries at last year’s Oslo negotiations. The treaty needs to be ratified by 30 countries to take effect; so far, 17 of them have done so.

“It’s a disgraceful attempt to throw mud at the most important achievement in humanitarian affairs and disarmament in the last decade,’’ said Thomas Nash, coordinator of the London-based Cluster Munition Coalition, a network of 400 nongovernmental organizations from about 90 countries.

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Textron Defense Systems is a division of the Providence-based conglomerate Textron Inc., which makes products as diverse as helicopters and passenger planes and defense and intelligence systems. It had annual revenue of more than $14 billion in 2008. The Wilmington facility makes a variety of air-launched munitions, as well as both air and ground surveillance systems.

As part of its public relations push, Textron has established a new website, dontbanthesolution.com, replete with expert testimony and computer-generated battle scenes to demonstrate its weapon’s pinpoint accuracy and fail-safe design. Textron Systems chief executive Frank Tempesta, has penned an oped in a leading international trade magazine contending that the proposed treaty, the Convention on Cluster Munitions, will do more harm than good by leading militaries to use more powerful, and less accurate, weapons to achieve the same effect. And the company has dispatched officials to foreign capitals and the conference rooms of skeptical human rights groups to make their case.

Dropped from a high-flying aircraft, the Textron weapon releases 10 canisters that parachute downward, scanning for the enemy with a built-in sensor. When they reach an optimum altitude, the canisters, spinning at high speed, release four separate bomblets, or “skeets,’’ each with its own rocket motor and targeting system.

Each skeet has a 2.2-kilogram warhead, sufficient to pierce and disable a 70-ton tank, and weighs a little less than 4 kilograms including its motor and electronics.
Just two of the weapons, released from a B-52 bomber, destroyed 24 Iraqi tanks in 2003.

If they don’t find a target, the company says, the 40 bomblets are designed to self-destruct. For example, if the skeet reaches a height of 50 feet without homing in on the heat from a tank or armored vehicle, it will explode in midair. And once armed, the projectile is only capable of exploding for eight seconds before it disarms. As a third safety mechanism, any unexploded skeets lying on the ground will disarm after two minutes.

The Pentagon has certified in testing that the Sensor Fuzed Weapon leaves unexploded bomblets only 1 percent of the time or less. That is a standard that Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates has stipulated all cluster munitions must meet by 2018.

Arms control advocates remain unconvinced, however.

“They think technology is the answer,’’ said Nash, the Cluster Munition Coalition coordinator. His group contends that Textron’s claims of accuracy and reliability have historically been overstated.

“It is not reasonable to base your policy on the continued failure of weapons manufacturers to make reliable weapons,’’ he said. “They make money from selling weapons, and I think that compromises to a certain extent the credibility of their humanitarian analysis.’’

Other experts, including supporters of the Oslo treaty, acknowledge that Textron has made significant breakthroughs to minimize harm to civilians. Ove Dullum, chief scientist at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment, said in an interview that based on tests he considers the Sensor Fuzed Weapon a minimal risk to civilians.Continued…

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Still, he says that may not hold true under battle conditions.

Graphic
How an SFW works

“My experience . . . is that even if carefully conducted tests of ammunition show a very low dud rate, that will not represent the dud rate in war,’’ he said, citing the aging of munitions, environmental impact, and the handling of the weapons in a real war environment.

Moreover, even if the weapon can achieve the level of reliability advertised, it is still highly dangerous for civilians on the battlefield, said Jeff Abramson, deputy director of the Arms Control Association, a nonpartisan Washington think tank. He said that, depending on how many are used in a future conflict, a 1 percent dud rate could still affect many innocent bystanders.

“If you have 1 percent of 10,000 submunitions, that is 100 left that could possibly explode in the future,’’ he said.

Textron and the US military say that, without the ability to use cluster bombs with 40 bomblets, military forces will inevitably use greater numbers of traditional bombs. That, Gates concluded in a policy memorandum last year, “could result, in some cases, in unacceptable collateral damage and explosive remnants of war.’’

Nations that do not sign the treaty could have trouble selling their weapons. Cluster bombs made by Diehl and Rheinmetall in Germany and by Bofors Defence and GIAT Industries in France meet the requirements of the treaty, with two bomblets contained in each. They would be expected to pick up market share at Textron’s expense if the treaty is ratified as written.

Also, nations that ratify the treaty may place restrictions on cooperating with any military that doesn’t abide by it.

UN negotiations to craft a new agreement are at a standstill. “There is still a wide divergence,’’ said a US defense official involved in the talks who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to do so. Another meeting is scheduled in Geneva in November.

But a State Department spokesman, Jason Greer, argued that a new treaty that takes into account the potential to reduce civilian casualties would be an improvement over the Oslo pact, which merely sets standards for bomblets and their size.

The US government also argues that the current treaty will have little effect if the holdouts – which have the largest militaries and explosive stockpiles – refuse to participate. A new treaty, said Greer, would probably include “more of the countries that actually produce cluster munitions.’’

Bryan Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2009/09/20/made_in_mass_bomb_stirs_global_debate/

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EODT Named to Top 200 Government Contractors List

EOD Technology, Inc. logo. (PRNewsFoto/EOD Technology, Inc.)

LENOIR CITY, TN UNITED STATES

LENOIR CITY, Tenn., Sept. 22 /PRNewswire/ — EOD Technology, Inc. (EODT), a global provider of professional support services to a broad range of Federal markets, was ranked as one of the most successful defense and government contractors by Government Executive Magazine in August of 2009.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20061218/EODTLOGO)

Specializing in security, critical mission support, munitions response and stabilization and reconstruction operations, EODT ranked 86th on the list of the Top 100 Defense Contractors with more than $406M in business in 2008. Overall, EODT ranked 118th on the list of Top Government Contractors.

We’re pleased to be included on this list alongside other well-respected companies, said Matt Kaye, President and Chief Executive Officer of EODT. It’s a testament to the hard work of our employee-owners, leveraging our critical skills and technology, and our commitment to our customers’ mission success.

EOD Technology, Inc. is headquartered in Lenoir City, TN, with offices in Huntsville, AL; Tucson, AZ; Washington, D.C.; Baghdad, Iraq; Kabul, Afghanistan; Lagos, Nigeria; Pretoria, South Africa, and San Jose, Costa Rica. The employee-owned, ISO 9001:2000-registered company is an industry leader for integrated Munitions Response, Security, Critical Mission Support, and Stabilization and Reconstruction operations worldwide.

Government Executive Magazine is a biweekly business magazine serving senior executives and managers in the federal government’s various departments and agencies. It covers the business of the federal government while serving the individuals who manage those departments and agencies.

For a full listing of http://www.govexec.com/features/0809-15/0809-15s3s1.htm.

For more information on EODT, please visit www.eodt.com

SOURCE EOD Technology, Inc.

http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent.aspx?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/09-22-2009/0005099040&EDATE=

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Top 100 Defense Contractors
Government Executive August 15, 2009

Total Purchases: $377,545,789,635
Rank Parent Company 1 Lockheed Martin Corp. 2 Northrop Grumman Corp. 3 Boeing Co. 23,337,676,385 4 BAE Systems 5 General Dynamics Corp. 6 Raytheon Co. 7 United Technologies Corp. 8 L-3 Communications Holdings 9 KBR Inc. 5,997,147,425 10 Navistar International Corp. 11 ITT Corp. 4,361,701,072 12 Textron Inc. 13 SAIC 3,880,995,968 14 General Electric Co. 15 Computer Sciences Corp. 16 Carlyle Group 17 Humana Inc. 18 URS Corp. 2,554,214,043 19 Health Net Inc. 20 Triwest Healthcare Alliance Co. 21 Renco Corp. 22 MacAndrews 23 Finmeccanica Group 24 Public Warehousing Co. KSC 25 Hewlett-Packard Co. 26 Alliant Techsystems Inc. 27 Bechtel Group Inc. 28 Oshkosh Truck Corp. 29 Harris Corp. 30 BP PLC 1,733,031,788 31 Honeywell Inc. 32 Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. 33 Hensel Phelps Construction Co. 34 Force Protection Inc. 35 CACI International Inc. 36 AmerisourceBergen Corp. 37 Rockwell Collins 38 Shaw Group Inc. 39 Veritas Capital Inc. 40 General Motors Corp. 41 General Atomics Technology Corp. 42 Red Star Enterprises Ltd. 43 Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. 44 Valero Energy Corp. 45 Bahrain National Oil Co. 46 Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. 47 VSE Corp. 910,970,473 48 McKesson Corp. 49 Hawker Beechcraft Corp. 50 Cardinal Health Inc. Rank Parent Company 51 Dell Computer Corp. 52 Exxon Mobil Corp. 53 Aerospace Corp. 54 MITRE Corp. 55 Government of Canada 56 Johns Hopkins University 57 Motor Oil Hellas 58 Cerberus Capital Management LLC 59 Massachusetts 60 ManTech International Corp. 61 Supreme Foodservice AG 62 Afognak Native Corp. 63 CH2M Hill Companies Ltd. 64 Rolls Royce PLC 65 Chugach Alaska Corp. 66 Qinetiq Ltd. 67 AECOM Technology Corp. 68 Kongsberg Gruppen ASA 69 Clark Enterprises 70 Serco Group PLC 71 FLIR Systems Inc. 72 Battelle Memorial Institute 73 Goodrich Corp. 74 Thales Group 75 Tetra Tech Inc. 76 Walsh Group Ltd. 77 Balfour Beatty PLC 78 Caddell Construction Co. 79 International 80 IBM Corp. 438,442,797 81 Perini Corp. 82 Atlantic Diving Supply Inc. 83 Fluor Corp. 84 Sierra Nevada Corp. 85 Ceradyne Inc. 86 EOD Technology Inc. 87 Syracuse Research Corp. 88 Government of Germany 89 NANA Regional Corp. Inc. 90 Peter Kiewit Sons Inc. 91 M.A. Mortenson Cos. 92 Environmental Chemical Corp. 93 AT&T Inc. 94 Kraft Foods Inc. 95 Daimler AG 96 Owens & Minor Inc. 97 Parsons Corp. 98 Cubic Corp. 99 ChevronTexaco Corp. 100 McCann-Erickson Worldwide Inc. Rank Parent Company Total DoD Air Force Army Navy
$30,051,930,697 $13,402,513,986 $4,673,579,372 $9,994,571,537
23,493,816,066 5,479,989,076 6,716,656,907 10,105,473,396
7,794,047,338 5,731,974,349 7,748,677,940
16,280,496,923 828,059,801 10,089,734,594 4,804,129,315
14,438,355,290 1,214,774,012 6,405,315,050 6,483,123,733
14,219,207,207 2,253,498,433 5,355,002,065 5,065,679,797
8,300,866,917 1,523,796,618 4,688,709,458 1,815,768,432
6,708,092,019 2,351,444,344 2,609,680,934 1,002,989,257
0 5,967,705,203 21,562,825
4,755,920,575 0 1,050,487,191 3,661,537,716
792,240,270 2,216,449,782 1,171,466,504
4,229,341,007 82,694,889 1,877,358,208 2,118,188,994
554,684,641 1,426,224,359 952,845,596
3,575,099,286 861,623,778 693,192,932 1,554,292,506
3,460,070,189 1,051,526,975 1,297,668,833 632,433,336
3,000,639,282 926,994,813 1,489,905,528 431,919,072
2,952,008,623 12,773,329 13,847,565 0
678,565,777 1,511,131,563 340,533,854
2,438,349,117 0 7,738,759 0
2,366,975,634 3,374,709 3,337,141 0
2,357,606,472 0 2,246,977,265 882,547
& Forbes Holdings Inc. 2,357,595,977 0 2,246,966,770 882,547
2,287,550,122 345,506,669 1,676,254,285 166,167,303
2,150,460,246 0 112,874,687 389,839
1,936,483,484 121,716,498 126,362,722 1,500,647,274
1,928,045,694 158,596,859 1,545,629,367 214,725,180
1,909,722,670 0 362,461,903 1,444,569,802
1,863,726,822 2,855,688 1,139,848,061 594,806,836
1,841,470,263 352,496,050 700,433,176 562,796,290
0 12,479,006 1,335,395
1,722,292,898 422,553,331 917,429,432 226,105,722
1,712,005,958 140,491 87,944 25,050
1,385,774,293 0 1,018,601,994 194,751,134
1,360,427,189 0 26,597,104 1,260,999,475
1,324,237,903 30,197,348 855,709,364 360,343,915
1,298,059,841 83,165 260,875 308,840
1,290,859,084 773,085,946 126,795,606 311,722,654
1,162,267,243 58,373,675 1,026,977,507 71,565,167
1,088,769,197 32,061,649 886,391,895 50,837,576
1,076,904,574 382,648 1,070,195,213 1,535,050
1,074,419,407 579,075,188 356,240,344 122,811,088
1,069,266,941 0 0 0
1,061,047,715 417,139,704 474,687,169 85,603,024
1,043,869,551 0 73,781 0
1,017,687,603 0 0 27,711
918,256,500 0 0 0
1,056,359 770,453,773 139,410,182
903,799,326 33,821 3,410,799 165,198
873,897,910 823,896,324 150,034 49,663,703
856,333,988 1,840,754 5,512,460 3,853,811
Total DoD Air Force Army Navy
$853,009,785 $163,188,072 $446,435,698 $137,002,507
836,548,150 0 75,400 0
768,870,625 768,870,624 0 0
753,883,279 315,806,923 438,076,355 0
744,892,235 82,814,809 581,150,504 46,126,090
737,152,343 25,557,031 15,509,329 439,160,972
724,853,533 0 0 0
699,109,260 272,059,710 321,739,234 101,642,955
Institute of Technology 690,979,858 674,214,136 12,723,729 1,766,348
655,579,972 39,750,939 468,587,925 98,302,417
647,167,103 0 16,824 0
625,338,159 33,423,988 380,906,675 209,173,786
590,556,845 272,852,190 233,347,979 84,304,529
575,055,274 146,721,853 34,043,302 314,030,420
571,049,687 218,447,009 229,500,924 116,923,859
544,400,680 22,884,216 295,907,687 156,542,210
542,021,197 8,898,669 512,354,481 20,824,644
533,417,559 0 519,926,428 7,506,433
528,766,858 0 347,436,052 181,330,806
523,436,321 117,542,491 250,349,830 154,853,577
507,944,847 2,573,732 381,111,835 112,829,953
507,253,506 209,188,912 229,049,887 55,835,539
488,566,461 142,087,471 201,966,041 60,550,693
475,384,785 24,028,412 182,573,107 206,505,951
472,960,770 79,441,485 216,306,216 143,792,111
457,810,954 0 381,642,295 76,168,658
457,806,604 0 278,568,912 179,237,691
457,368,091 0 343,711,022 113,657,069
Oil Trading Co. LLC 456,802,653 0 0 0
32,868,218 139,590,963 135,836,638
436,363,793 51,409,576 384,954,216 0
435,784,112 10,085,160 190,810,107 11,073,010
430,878,065 18,128,045 370,364,360 42,385,659
429,752,561 251,287,811 150,015,314 28,433,902
417,616,849 0 334,254,377 6,998,076
406,322,993 0 395,983,226 10,339,766
403,733,239 39,350,693 357,559,755 6,822,790
403,511,351 0 403,511,351 0
395,526,436 69,496,405 205,891,169 40,818,802
388,739,591 0 340,275,640 48,463,950
379,601,040 0 353,277,196 26,323,843
372,745,944 211,092,012 145,243,918 16,410,013
371,277,191 29,467,353 137,598,235 58,063,591
367,840,952 0 0 0
366,016,800 912,666 345,360,235 14,140,454
365,861,498 0 0 0
356,746,280 27,084,791 296,981,887 30,601,531
354,715,998 63,585,514 226,409,732 58,450,192
349,576,353 0 4,268,538 653,480
348,696,704 0 348,696,703 0
Total DoD Air Force Army Navy

http://www.govexec.com/features/0809-15/0809-15s3s1.htm

***

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Leavenworth
Papers No.10

Chemical Warfare in World War I:
The American Experience, 1917 – 1918

MAJ(P) Charles E. Heller, USAR

Combat Studies Institute
U.S. Army Command and General Staff College
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

September 1984

Leaveanworth Papers are published by the Combat Studies Institute, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027-6900. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and are not neccessarily those of the Department of Defnse or any element thereof. Leavenworth Papers are available from the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402.

Leavenworth Papers US ISSN 0195 3451

FOREWORD

This Leavenworth Paper chronicles the introduction of chemical agents in World War I, the U.S. Army’s tentative preparations for gas warfare prior to and after American entry into the war, and the AEF experience with gas on the Western Front.

Chemical warfare affected tactics and almost changed the outcome of World War I. The overwhelming success of the first use of gas caught both sides by suprise. Fortunately, the pace of hostilities permitted the Allies to develop a suitable defense to German gas attacks and eventually to field a considerable offensive chemical capability. Nonetheless, from the introduction of chemical warfare in early 1915 until Armistice Day in November, 1918, the Allies were usually one step behind their German counterparts in the development of gas doctrine and the employment of gas tactics and procedures.
In his final report to Congress on World War I, General John J. Pershing expressed the sentiment of contemporary senior officers when he said, Whether or not gas will be employed in future wars is a matter of conjecture, but the effect is so deadly to the unprepared that we can never afford to neglect the question. General Pershing was the last American field commander actually to confront chemical agents on the battlefield. Today, in light of a significant Soviet chemical threat and solid evidence of chemical warfare in Southeast and Southwest Asia, it is by no means certain he will retain that distinction.

Over 50 percent of the Total Army’s Chemical Corps assets are located within the United States Army Reserve. The Leavenworth Paper was prepared by the USAR Staff Officer serving with the Combat Studies Institute, USACGSC, after a number of request from USAR Chemical Corps officers for a historical study on the nature of chemical warfare in World War I. In fulfilling the needs of the USAR, this Leavenworth Paper also meets the needs of the Total Army in its preparations to fight, if necessary, on a battlefield where chemical agents might be employed.

CARL E. VUONO
Lieutenant General, USA
Commandant

Director
COL Louis D. F. Frashe
John F. Morrison Professor of Military History
Dr. Bruce W. Menning
Curriculum Supervisor
LTC(P) Michael T. Chase
Operations Officer
LTC Patrick H. Gorman
CAC Historical Office
Dr. John W. Partin, CAC Historian
Dr. William G. Roberson, Deputy CAC Historian
Director, Fort Leavenworth Museum
Dr. John P. Langellier
Research Committee
LTC Gary L. Bounds, Chief
LTC Gary H. Wade
Maj (P) Charles E. Heller, USAR
Maj Scott McMichael Dr. Robert H. Berlin
Dr. George Gawrych
Dr. Gary Bjorge
Teaching Committee
LTC John A. Hixson, Chief
LTC George L. Tupa
Maj(P) David R. Durr
Maj(P) Roy R. Stephenson
Maj Roger Cirillo Dr. Robert E. Baumann
Dr. Jerold E. Brown
Dr. Christopher R. Gabel
Dr. Joseph Glatthaar
SFC Robert R. Cordell
Military History Education Committee
LTC Michael E. Hall, Chief
Maj George J. Mordica, II
CPT (P) Don M. Prewitt, ARNG Dr. Jack J. Gifford
Dr. Larry Roberts
Historical Services Committee
Dr. Lawerence A. Yates, Chief
Elizabeth R. Snoke, Librarian
Marilyn A. Edwards, Editor
Donald Gilmore, Editor
Carolyn Brendsel, Editor
Staff
SFC Danny G. Carlson
Clara L. Rhoades
Sharon E. Torres SP5 Patricia Clowers
Cynthia L. Teare
Carolyn D. Conway

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Heller, Charles E., 1943 -
Chemical warfare in World War I.

(Leavenworth Papers, ISSN 0195-3451; no. 10)
September 1984
Bibliography: p
1. World War, 1914 – 1918 — Chemical warfare.
2. World War, 1914 – 1918 — United States.
3. Chemical warfare — United States — History — 20th century. I. Title II series.

UG447.H39 1985 940.4’144 84-28527

Contents
Illustrations
Tables
Introduction
1. The Introduction of Gas Warfare in World War I
2. The Europeans Face Chemicals on the Battlefield, 1915-1918
3. The U.S. Army’s Response to Chemical Warfare, 1915 – 1917
4. The AEF Organizes for Chemical Warfare
5. The Quick and the Dead : The AEF on the Chemical Battlefield
6. We Can Never Afford to Neglect the Question
Notes
Bibliography

Illustrations
Maps
1. The stabilized Western Front, 1915
2. Ypres sector in Belgium, 22 April-24 May 1915
3. Varicolored zones of German gas fired in support of a crossing of the Dvina River before Riga, Eastern Front, 1 September 1917 German gas shell bombardment of Armentières
4. German gas shell bombardment of Armentières on 9 April 1918
5. The German spring offensives of 1918 were heavily supported by a variety of gases

Figures
1. Side view of gas cylinder emplacement
2. Organization of the Gas Service, AEF, 1917
3. U.S. Gas Regiment, company organization, 1917
4. Entrance, gas-proof dugout

Tables
1. Summary of markings for chemical shell and properties of most common gases
2. Hospitalized casualties

Introduction

The combat experience of World War I provided the U.S. Army with its first significant exposure to chemical warfare. The purpose of this paper is to show how the Army prepared for this kind of warfare and how soldiers in the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF), from generals to doughboys, adapted or failed to adapt to fighting a war in which chemical weapons played a prominent role. Because no one AEF division experienced every facet of gas warfare, the study will examine information pertaining to many units in order to give a more complete picture of the phenomenon.

In World War I terms, chemical warfare included not only gas, but liquid flammable material, thermite, and smoke (all of which are relevant to the modern battlefield). This study will deal only with what participants referred to as chemicals … gases, or war gases. These included real gases such as phosgene and chlorine, and also weapons that, while referred to as gases, were in fact vaporized liquids (mustard gas, for example) or finely ground solids. In this study the terms chemical agent and gas will be used interchangeably. Smoke will be discussed, but only as a ruse for gas; liquid flame and thermite will not be covered. Because most of the U.S. experience was on the Western Front, that theater of the war will receive detailed treatment.

Despite technological advances in chemical warfare since 1918, many lessons learned on the battlefields of World War I are valid for study today, if only because America’s principal antagonist in world affairs, the Soviet Union, appears to be quite willing to employ chemical agents on today’s battlefield. During the decade of the 1970s persistent accounts of the use of chemical agents by the Russians and their clients caused the U.S. government to pay closer attention to the problem of chemical warfare. Soviet offensive equipment captured by the Israelis in the 1973 October War contained filtration systems for survival on a chemical or biological battlefield. Reports from Laos about Vietnamese using a chemical agent called Yellow Rain on mountain tribesmen prompted a policy review by U.S. government officials. In December, 1979, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, with subsequent reports from Afghan refugees that the invaders were using gas during combat operations, again forced the U.S. Army to reassess its chemical warfare doctrine.1

U.S. intelligence estimates indicate that the Russians have between 70,000 and 100,000 chemical warfare troops. Every Soviet line regiment has a Chemical Defense Company. Present Soviet chemical delivery systems include artillery, mortars, multiple rocket launchers, bombs, air spray, and land mines. The blood, blister, and nerve agents in the Russian chemical arsenal include mustard gas (a blister agent) and phosgene (a lung injurant) two of the most effective agents used in World War I.2

There is an abundance of material available for a study of gas warfare during World War 1. Sources include unit reports, the published and unpublished diaries of participants, books written by chemical officers during the interwar period, and a number of secondary historical works of more recent origin. Also, I conducted several interviews with veterans of the First World War to obtain as accurate a picture as possible of what it was like for an AEF doughboy to train for, and to live, work, and fight in, a chemical environment. During the war the newly created Chemical Warfare Service (CWS)* did its best to record its activities and report on the use of chemicals. I relied extensively on these records.

A number of agencies provided a great deal of assistance to me in the preparation of this paper, and I would like to acknowledge the staffs of the following institutions: the Technical Library, Chemical Systems Laboratory, Edgewood Area, Aberdeen Proving Ground;, U.S. Army Chemical Center and School, Fort McClellan, Alabama; National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania; and Combined Arms Research Library, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. I especially want to thank members of the 1st Gas Regiment Association for graciously consenting to be interviewed, and Lt. Col. Charles M. Wurm, Chemical Corps, CACDA, Fort Leavenworth, for providing me with a great amount of technical information and advice.

Major(P) Charles Heller, USAR
Combat Studies Institute
U.S. Army Command and General Staff College

*The forerunner of the CWS was the Gas Service, set up under AEF General Order 31, 3 September 1917. On 11 May 1918, when the CWS was established as a branch of the National Army, the Gas Service became the Overseas Division, CWS.

The Introduction of Gas
Warfare in World War I

Chapter 1

Of all the weapons employed in World War I, none stimulated public revulsion more than poison gas. The abhorrence of chemical warfare lingered long after the Armistice of 11 November 1918. Gas victims continually reminded the general public of the effect of chemical weapons, as illustrated by the often repeated story of a veteran’s coughing fit being explained by a tap on the chest and an apologetic, Gas you know.

The employment of chemical agents in war, however, did not begin with World War I. The earliest recorded incident occurred in the fifth century B.C. during one of a series of wars between Athens and Sparta.*1 Over the centuries that followed, combatants on several occasions engaged in rudimentary forms of chemical warfare on the battlefield. If by the end of the nineteenth century the use of poison gas was still by far the exception and not the rule in war, there were in all the great powers a number of men who foresaw its widespread use should a general conflagration engulf Europe.2

*Spartan forces besieging an Athenian city placed a lighted mixture of wood, pitch, and sulfur under the walls. The Spartans hoped the fumes would incapacitate the Athenians so that they would not be able to resist the assault that followed.

A concern with poison gas manifested itself at the Hague Conference of 1899. One of the agenda items dealt with prohibiting the use of shells filled with asphyxiating gas. The proposed ban** eventually passed with one dissenting vote, that of the American representative, Naval Capt. Alfred T. Mahan, who declared that it was illogical and not demonstrably humane to be tender about asphyxiating men with gas, when all were prepared to admit that it was allowable to blow the bottom out of an ironclad at midnight, throwing four or five hundred men into the sea, to be choked by water, with scarcely the remotest chance of escape. Secretary of State John Hay, in his instructions to Mahan, argued that the inventiveness of Americans should not be restricted in the development of new weapons. For Hay it made no sense for the United States to deprive itself of the ability to use, at some later date, a weapon that might prove to be more humane and effective than anything then present in the American arsenal. 3
**The declaration stated, The Contracting Powers agree to abstain from the use of projectiles the sole object of which is the diffusion of asphyxiating or deleterious gasses.

The Hague Conference declaration did not prevent some nations from discussing the use of chemical weapons, and at least one country, France, experimented publicly with gas. The French Army tested a grenade filled with ethyl bromoacetate, a nontoxic tear, or lachrymatory, agent developed for use in the suppression of small-arms fire from the concrete casements then prevalent in the permanent fortifications that dotted Western Europe. In 1912, French police used 26-mm grenades filled with this agent to capture a notorious gang of Parisian bank robbers. The Germans, unlike the French, did not experiment with chemical agents for military use as such, but at the outbreak of World War I, Germany’s highly advanced dye industry gave it a sophisticated technological base from which to develop weapons of this nature.4

When war erupted in August, 1914, everyone from private citizens to the leaders of the belligerent countries shared a common belief that the economies of the European nations would neither survive nor support a lengthy war. As a result, the war plans of two key protagonists, Germany and France, called for a quick, decisive offensive against one another. Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany assured his troops that they would be home before the leaves fall. It was not to be. By the end of 1914, the armies on the Western Front were locked in a deadly form of trench warfare (Map 1),* sustained by the very industrialized economies that, because of their complexity and interdependency, had been thought unable to withstand a long war.5

*One of the misconceptions surrounding World War I is that there existed a continuous, parallel belt of trenches stretching from the English Channel in the north to the Swiss border in the south. In fact, in some sectors along the 470-mile Western Front, soldiers occupied shell holes; in other areas, the terrain caused troops to be dispersed in fortified garrisons or strong points. Some trenches, as in the British sector of Flanders, were actually sandbagged parapets rising from marshy lands, where digging any deeper than a foot or two would have brought water to the surface. There was one factor, however, that was constant along the entire front. Whether in trenches, shell holes, or strongpoints, daily life offered little more than dull routine and boredom for the men of both sides as they waited for their respective high commands to decide their fate.

Unwilling to accept the indecisiveness of trench warfare, army staffs on both sides pondered ways to break the deadlock and return to open or maneuver warfare. Alternatives were proposed, some strategic, others tactical. The British, for example, sought a strategic solution by a seaborne assault against Turkey, an ally of Germany. This attack at Gallipoli in 1915 sought to open the Dardanelles as the first step toward linking up with. Russia and forcing Turkey out of the war. For a variety of reasons, the plan failed, and the deadlock on the Western Front continued.

As their attack at Gallipoli tottered to defeat, the British looked to the application of tactical innovation at Neuve-Chapelle to break the stalemate. On 10 March 1915 British artillery, instead of firing a lengthy bombardment prior to an attack, as doctrine dictated, let loose a brief but intense barrage on a relatively narrow German trench frontage. The fire was then shifted to the German rear in order to create a lethal steel curtain that would block reinforcements. To the surprise of everyone, the British infantry quickly overran the German forward positions. The attack failed, though, primarily because the high command, viewing it as an experiment, did not have sufficient reserves available to exploit a breakthrough.
To View: The stabilized Western Front, 1915

Germany also searched for ways to break the deadlock and decided on a solution involving gas. Early in the war the Germans kept a wary eye out for indications that the French were using their 26-mm gas grenades. Apparently, in August, 1914, France did use this chemical weapon, but in open areas where the gas quickly dispersed with no noticeable effect on the enemy. The French soon discarded the grenades as worthless. At this same time, stories were appearing in Allied newspapers about a new French liquid explosive, turpinite. While claiming that this substance gave off lethal fumes, the articles failed to explain that the gas reached a deadly concentration only in confined spaces. Still, the Germans were apprehensive and became alarmed by the deaths of a number of soldiers asphyxiated during a French bombardment, even though a medical team rushed to the scene concluded that the men died not from poison gas, but from inhaling carbon monoxide fumes while huddled in their dugout.6

In any event such newspaper stories and front-line experiences may have spurred the development of war gases by German scientists. Contributing to that effort, chemistry professor Walter Nernst suggested partially replacing the TNT in a 105-mm shrapnel shell with dianisidine chlorosulphonate, an agent known to cause irritation of the mucous membrane. The new filling would serve two purposes: it would conserve TNT and act as a chemical weapon. The German High Command accepted this new weapon, although it is uncertain which of the two purposes it initially considered more important. On 27 October 1914, 3,000 of these shells fell on British troops near Neuve-Chapelle. The soldiers suffered no ill effects and never suspected they were under chemical attack. The Germans continued to experiment with gas because they were convinced the idea had merit and because intelligence sources could not determine what effect the shells had had at Neuve-Chapelle. This lack of information on the effects of gas attacks was a common occurrence throughout the war.7

The Neuve-Chapelle experiment increased the German High Command’s interest in gas warfare. The German General Staff asked the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry in Berlin to investigate the possibility of using a more effective agent. The only guideline provided by the military was that the Hague declaration of 1899, banning projectiles used exclusively for delivering poison gases, had to be circumvented. Adhering to the letter if not the spirit of the ban, the Germans devised a gas shell that also contained an explosive charge for producing a shrapnel effect. The Professor von Tappan who designed the shell also solved two technical problems related to emplacing chemicals in an artillery projectile. First, he stabilized the liquid within a shell casing in order to reduce its tumbling in flight, thereby increasing the shell’s accuracy and range. Second, to ensure that two extremely reactive chemical substances did not accidently combine in the shell casing, von Tappan developed a special shell, designated the T-shell by the German Army in his honor. The T-shell was a standard 15-cm howitzer round that contained seven pounds of xylyl bromide and a burster charge for a splinter effect. A lead lining prevented contact between the burster charge and the chemical payload.8

The German High Command decided to use the first T-shells on the Eastern Front. On 31 January 1915, over 18,000 shells were fired at Russian positions at Bolimov. German officers, confident that their new weapon would neutralize the enemy positions, were surprised when their attack was repulsed with severe casualties. The shelling had had little or no effect on the Russians because cold temperatures had prevented vaporization of the xylyl bromide.9

To find a more effective means of employing gas on the battlefield, the German High Command turned to an assistant of von Tappan, Professor Fritz Haber. Haber, a reservist, had shown marked enthusiasm for the potential value of chemicals as weapons. Believing that T-shells did not provide a high enough concentration of chemicals to produce enemy casualties, he suggested the use of large commercial gas cylinders as a delivery system. Cylinders could deliver large amounts of gas and, like the T-shell, did not technically violate the Hague ban on projectiles. Haber also recommended the use of chlorine as an agent because it was commercially produced and readily available in large quantities. Chlorine also satisfied the requirements for military application: it was lethal immediately effective, nonpersistent, and volatile. It was also dense enough to resist dilution in a moderate wind.10

Haber’s gas cylinder project received the approval of the Chief of the German General Staff, General Erich von Falkenhayn, who had the professor appointed Head of the Chemical Warfare Department in the Prussian Ministry of War. The high command selected the front of the Fourth Army facing the French salient at Ypres as the location for an experimental attack. Pioneer Regiment 35 was designated to conduct the gas attack. Haber, assigned as a chemico-technical advisor, assisted Colonel Peterson, the regimental commander, and instructed the troops on the emplacement and use of gas cylinders. By 10 March 1915 the Regiment, with the assistance of infantry labor, had emplaced 1,600 large and 4,130 small cylinders containing a total of 168 tons of chlorine. Then, for one month, the Pioneer troops sat and waited for the winds to shift westerly toward the enemy trenches in the Ypres salient. Only then could they safely unleash the chemicals by opening the cylinder valves.11

Late in the afternoon of 22 April 1915, a setting sun cast long shadows over the battle-scarred terrain around the medieval Belgium city of Ypres. In the distance the faint sound of large-caliber guns could be heard. Birds fluttered and swooped, seeking places to roost on the practically treeless landscape. Suddenly, at 1724, three flares rose from an observation balloon over the German lines and burst against the darkening eastern sky. German artillery commenced a fierce bombardment that landed to the rear of the French and British lines in the Ypres sector. Then, at 1800, an eerie silence fell over the area.
To View: German Pioneer troops opening cylinders for a gas attack, 1916.
Peering across the battlefield, men of two French divisions, the 87th Territorial and the 45th Algerian, saw blue-white wisps of haze rising from the German trenches. The haze swirled about, gathered in a cloud that slowly turned yellow-green and began to drift across the terrain at a height of up to six feet. As the cioud drifted, it settled into every depression in the landscape. Finally, the gentle north .northeasterly wind brought it spilling into the French trenches, silently enveloping the occupants in a misty, deadly embrace.

To the north and southwest of the now mist-enshruded French positions, British and Canadian troops looked into the haze and, to their amazement, saw soldiers, many without weapons, emerge from the cloud, running wildly, and in confusion toward positions to the rear. Terror-stricken Algerians ran by the startled Dominion troops, coughing And clutching their throats. Moments later French soldiers staggered by, blinded, coughing, chests heaving, faces an ugly purple color, lips speechless with agony. One by one, the guns of the French artillery batteries in the sector stoppedfiring, and the two French divisions collapsed. The Ypres front now had a gap over four-miles wide containing hundreds of men in a comatose or dying condition. After half an hour, German troops, equipped with cotton wadding tied over their faces-a primitive form of protective mask-cautiously advanced into the breech created by the discharge of chlorine gas.
To View: Ypres sector in Belgium, 22 April-24 May 1915

Following the initial shock and surprise, Allied commanders began to bring forward reserve troops and to move units from the left and right flank into the gap. The Germans advanced four and one-half miles – until they encountered the ragged edge of a hurriedly organized defensive line (Map 2). The First Canadian Division and assorted French troops manned the line in scattered, hastily prepared positions 1,000 to 3,000 yards apart. This improvised defense, together with the fact that the Germans had lost some of their combat edge during the month-long wait for favorable winds, finally slowed and then halted the attack. As for the German troops who reached their initial objective, they had only the most primitive protective equipment. When they saw the havoc their own gas had wrought, they had no wish to proceed any farther that night.

Two days later, during which time the British and French brought reinforcements into the area, the Germans discharged more gas. Although they did so again four more times throughout May, the element of surprise had been lost. The British and French troops were now equipped with their own primitive masks, and although the defenders suffered severe losses (over 5,900 casualties-nearly double the number of casualties for the attackers), the Germans could gain no more than a few hundred yards beyond the forward limit of their first attack. The German High Command, surprised as its opponents at the success of the new weapon, had no reserves to exploit a possible success. Thus, one of the war’s greatest tactical surprises was dissipated on what amounted to an experimental attack with limited objectives.12
To View: German medics, wearing an early mask, giving oxygen to gas victim, 1915. British, French, and Russian prototype masks were similar in design.

With the battle front at Ypres now stabilized, the British and French had to decide whether or not retaliate in kind. Faced with the Germans’ obvious technological advantage, the Allies at first hesitated to retaliate for fear of inviting the expansion of gas warfare. But when, the British Expeditionary Force commander reported that a lack of an offensive gas capability would seriously impair the morale of his troops, the British cabinet gave its approval to use chemical agents. The French government soon followed suit for basically the same reason.13

On 24 September 1915, at 0550 near Loos, Belgium, the British launched the Allies’ first attack supported by gas. It had taken them five frantic months to reach a point at which a large-scale gas attack was feasible. During that period, several Special Companies of Royal Engineers had been trained in the emplacement and discharge of gas cylinders. Unlike the Germans, the British decided to conduct their gas attack on a wide frontage. This necessitated the deployment of the cylinders clustered in batteries along the front rather than spaced far apart in one continuous line. To accomplish this, the British constructed galleries in front of the first-line trenches and positioned in them 5,500 cylinders containing 150 tons of chlorine.* The frontage was too wide to saturate all of it with gas, so the British decided to utilize smoke candles to simulate gas in those areas where the agent could not be used. By alternating the discharges of gas and smoke, the gas attack could be prolonged over forty minutes. This planned smoke screen was the first used during the war.

*This forward placement was made to protect the cylinders from German artillery, which was zeroed in on the first line of trenches to the rear of the galleries.

Fortune did not favor this first British gas attack. During the evening prior to the attack, the winds died. The following morning the British commander, Gen. Sir Douglas Haig, made a controversial decision to proceed with the attack despite uncertainty as to whether or not the slight breeze that rose in the morning would continue to blow toward the German lines. On the right flank, the gentle winds brought the gas and smoke mixture into the German trench system. There, the mild wind worked to the British advantage, for the cloud lingered and did not dissipate. On the left flank, however, not only did the winds fail, but in several positions the gas wafted back into the British trenches, engulfing the troops waiting to attack.

The Germans were taken by surprise. Their troops had little awareness of the danger posed by gas and were not sufficiently trained in defensive measures. The war diary of the German Sixth Army, the unit that bore the brunt of the attack, described the results. The gas in some instances caused little but momentary confusion, while in other cases entire units lost their ability to resist the follow-up British infantry attack. The German mask, which was essentially the same one used at Ypres, broke down as the gas lingered. The chlorine also caused rifles, machine guns, and even artillery breechblocks to jam. The most effective result of the gas was that it rendered German officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) incapable of shouting commands loud enough to be heard through their masks. The dense clouds of smoke and gas also shrouded positions and precluded officers and NCOs from leading by example.14

In spite of some British gains, the attack fell short of the desired results for three reasons. The first was the decision to proceed with the attack despite the unfavorable wind conditions. Second, the British artillery was hampered in providing support because it lacked sufficient shells. Third, there were no reserve divisions to exploit a breakthrough. In his report, the British Commander-in-Chief, Sir John French, acknowledged that, although the attack failed to penetrate the German lines, the gas attack met with marked success, and produced a demoralizing effect in some of its opposing units. More important, the major belligerents had accepted and expanded the use of chemicals as weapons of war.15

The ensuing chemical war proved to be one of experimentation with gases and with defensive add offensive equipment. As tactical doctrine and training evolved to reflect technological changes, the availability of gases and the imagination of commanders became the only limits to the employment of this new weapon.

The Europeans Face
Chemicals on the Battlefield,
1915-1918

Chapter 2

During World War I chemists on both sides investigated over 3,000 chemical substances for potential use as weapons. Of these, only thirty agents were used in combat, and only about a dozen achieved the desired military results (Table 1). Most armies grouped war gases according to their physiological effects, that is their effects on the human body.1

One category, lachrymators, was composed of tear gases such as xylyl bromide, an agent that primarily affected the eyes but in large concentrations could also damage the respiratory system. Asphyxiators, such as phosgene, chloropicrin, and chlorine, were in another category. These gases caused fluid to enter the lungs, thereby preventing oxygen from reaching the blood. Toxic gases, yet another category, passed through the lungs to the blood, preventing the circulation and release of oxygen throughout the body. Hydrogen cyanide ( Vincennite to the French) was one of the least effective toxic agents. Sternutators, such as diphenylchlorarsine, were a type of respiratory irritant composed of a very fine dust that caused sneezing, nausea, and vomiting. Some sternutators were systemic poisons that had a delayed toxic effect on the body. The final category held the greatest casualty producer-a vesicant or blister agent that, because of its peculiar odor, the British and later the Americans commonly referred to as mustard gas. *2

*The Germans referred to it as Yellow Cross because of the shell marking, and the French called it Yperite, in recognition of the location where it was first used.

In 1917 the Germans first used mustard against the Allies at Ypres. This was the only persistent agent used during World War I and had effects similar to those produced by a combination of lachrymatory, asphyxiator, and systemic poisons. Although called mustard gas, this chemical was not a gas, but rather a volatile liquid that, several hours after contact with the skin, would cause severe bums and blisters. The introduction of Yellow Cross caught the Allies completely by surprise. During the first attack, British infantry saw the gas shells explode, but were unable to see, smell or taste any agent, nor feel any immediate effects. The soldiers concluded that the Germans were trying to trick them and did not put on their masks. After several hours, to the consternation of officers and medics, the troops began to complain of pain in their eyes, throats, and lungs. Later, blisters appeared on the exposed skin of the British soldiers. The German use of Yellow Cross caused British gas casualties, which had been declining, to increase markedly. Because of its ability to produce large numbers of casualties, mustard was soon being referred to as the King of the war gases.3
TO VIEW: 1. Side view of gas cylinder emplacement

The major combatants realized that the employment of gas called for specially trained troops and, accordingly, formed offensive gas units. Because of the need to emplace gas cylinders, pioneer or engineer troops usually provided the cadre of these special units. The Germans converted two pioneer regiments, the 35th and 36th, into gas units consisting of three battalions each. The regiments would deploy by companies, according to the size of the front of the attack. In addition to these units, the Germans organized a gas mortar (Minenwerfen) battalion. The Austro-Hungarians followed the German model and created their own special gas units.4

As early as July, 1915, the French and British organized gas companies called Special by the British and Z for gaz (gas) by the French; both employed engineer troops as cadre. By 1917 the British had expanded their original four companies to twenty-one and had organized them as a Special Brigade. The French eventually created the 31st, 32nd, and 33rd gas battalions composed of three companies each. The Russians organized gas units and called them Gas Detachments of the Chemical Department, with one detachment assigned to each Russian Army, a total of thirteen.5

In addition to developing gas units and chemical agents, a constant search continued for efficient delivery systems. The cylinders used in the first gas attack at Ypres in 1915 were the major component of a cumbersome, immobile system, It usually took several days of intensive labor,* with infantry providing most of the muscle, to emplace the cylinders for a cloud attack (Figure 1). One can gain an indication of the difficulty of the task by noting that as many as 12,000 cylinders, each weighing over 100 pounds, were sometimes needed for a single operation. Once emplaced, the cylinders were dangerously exposed to enemy high explosive shells and easily damaged, Cylinder discharges always depended on favorable weather conditions.

*The time it took to install individual cylinders varied according to the terrain, weather, available manpower, and enemy harassing fire.
TO VIEW: 1. Summary of markings for chemical shell and properties of most common gases

Despite these problems, the British relied on cylinders as a delivery method until the end of the war. They normally used seven to eight cylinders in a section, six sections to a Special Brigade company. Sixteen companies could produce a gas wave or cloud that covered a 24,000-meter front. Several factors influenced the British decision to continue using cylinders. First, the prevailing winds favored Allied gas clouds. Second, the British suffered from a chronic shortage of shells and were reluctant to convert the production of high explosive shells to the production of gas shells. Third, British intelligence reports indicated a dense cloud attack was effective in producing mass casualties. On 26 October 1917, Brig. Gen. Charles H. Foulkes, Commander of the British Special Brigade, reviewed intelligence reports indicating that British cloud attacks created significant German casualties as far back as thirty kilometers from, the front-line trenchm Foulkes proposed that the Special Brigade use what he termed retired cylinder attacks, in which. a large number of cylinders would be emplaced behind British lines rather than in the front lines or forward of the trenches. Because the Special Brigade companies could assemble a greater number of cylinders in a relatively small area without the interference of enemy small arms or shell fire, this method allowed for a significantly greater concentration of gas released at one point.6

The British improved this tactic by conducting what they called beam attacks. These attacks called for placing numerous cylinders on narrowgauge tram cars that troops pushed forward to positions just behind the front trenches. After the cylinders were opened, the resulting gas concentration became so dense that friendly troops had to be evacuated from the path of the gas beam. On 24 May 1918 the British launched their first beam attack. This and similiar attacks, General Foulkes claimed, caused the Germans considerable anxiety, for they could not determine how and where the dense clouds originated. The beam attacks were especially deadly when launched from six or more separate railheads and when the individual clouds merged behind German lines. Prisoners taken from the German 9th Uhlan Regiment reported that one such attack caused 500 casualties in the neighboring 1st Landwehr Regiment, which, as a. result of the attack, had to be withdrawn from the line. According to the British, the effectiveness of the improved cloud attacks, with their increased density, continued to frustrate the German Army.7

The Germans, for their part, arranged their cylinders so that twenty formed a battery. Fifty such batteries were required to saturate one kilometer of front line with gas. The lack of favorable prevailing winds, however, soon forced the Germans to abandon the cloud attack. On 8 August 1916, they launched their last cylinder attack at Wieltje, near the scene of the first discharge at Ypres.8
To View: Narrow gauge tram gondola with gas cylinders.

Because the prevailing winds in Western Europe blew from west to east, the German Army began to place increasing reliance on gas-filled shells that detonated beyond Allied lines and whose contents could then drift back over enemy trenches. Gas shells could be fired. from standard artillery pieces with no extensive adaptation for gas employment. Although weather conditions still remained a factor, no longer did the Germans have to wait for the wind to change to a westerly direction. Now artillery could fire upward of the target, saturating it with gas and achieving the same effect as cylinders. Shells also offered an element of surprise not available with cloud attacks. Finally, gas shells proved more advantageous than high explosive rounds because the former did not have to score direct hits on a target to neutralize it. To avoid confusion and to aid artillerymen, the Germans developed a coded system of colored crosses to identify shells containing chemical agents.

The Germans were further encouraged to use gas shells by the results of an attack staged on the night of 22-23 June 1916. About 110,000 shells containing the lung irritant Green Cross fell on French forces near the fortress of Verdun. German batteries adjacent to this sector added thousands of rounds of a lachrymatory gas. The gas attack, according to French sources, had its greatest effect on French artillerymen and reserves in the rear areas, causing over 1,600 casualties. German staff officers, impressed with the results, talked of creating special gas batteries controlled by special gas staffs. In the interest of flexibility, however, the high command decided that all artillery units should fire gas shells. By the war’s end, gas shells comprised 50 percent of a German artillery battery’s basic.9

The British and,French also developed gas shells with unique color codes. The French Army used these shells almost as extensively as the Germans and fired the first phosgene-filled artillery shells on 22 February 1916 at Verdun. The French also experimented with an extremely small bursting charge in order to increase the gas payload. This French innovation allowed a stable, dense cloud to form. Although the French increased the chemical payload, they erred by adding comparatively harmless (smoke producers), such as stannic chloride, thus reducing the toxic capacity of their phosgene shells by 30 to 40 percent.10

The French committed another technical error in the gas war. The hydrocyanic acid (hydrogen cyanide) used in their Vincennite shell (named for the production location) was too volatile and filled only half of the shell’s capacity. Unless an extremely high concentration could be built up, there were no harmful effects. All the belligerents considered the Vincennite fill practically worthless. The French, for some reason, refused to accept this conclusion and manufactured over four million shells that, when fired, caused relatively few casualties.11
To View: British artillery firing and recieving gas shells, ca. 1916.

The British faced a constant artillery shell production shortage and supplemented their use of gas cylinders with the 4-inch Stokes mortar, introduced in July, 1916, at the Battle of the Somme, The weapon, designed specifically to fire gas and thermite shells, had a payload three times as large (six to nine pounds) as could be fired from the standard 3-inch mortar. A range of only 800 to 1,000 meters meant that effective delivery required emplacement in the front-line trenches. Members of the Special Brigade also experimented with a homemade contraption similar to a trench mortar.

To View: A 4-inch Stokes mortar used by British and American gas troops.

Early in 1917 Capt. William H. Livens, a British officer, developed a device made from ordinary steel containers. This makeshift mortar fired oil drums packed with oil-soaked cotton waste. Captain Livens also began to experiment with firing large gas-filled shells from his homemade trench mortar. This resulted in a new delivery system known as the Livens projector. In its final form the projector consisted of a drawn steel cylinder eight inches in diameter, one and one-fourth inch thick, that came in two sizes-two feet nine inches or four feet long. Rounded at one end, the cylinders had a base plate that looked like a Mexican sombrero. The projectors were buried in a trench cut at a forty-five degree angle for maximum range. Originally buried to the muzzle, this depth was later found to be unnecessary, and the projectors were thereafter emplaced only deep enough to steady them for firing. The shells used with the projectors carried a payload of thirty to forty pounds of chemical agent and had a range, depending on the length of the barrel, of either 1,200 or 1,900 meters. The British first used this delivery system for what they called gas shoots at Arras on 4 April 1917. The Germans reported that the density of the gas delivered by this method equaled that of a gas cloud. Captured German documents claimed that the Livens projector was a deadly weapon because it not only developed a dense concentration of gas similiar to the one created by cylinders, but like artillery, its impact came as a surprise. During the war the British fired ever 300 ga’s projector shoots. On 31 March 1918 the largest of these operations took place at Lens, with the firing of 3,728 of the devices.12

Increased casualties resulting from British gas projector attacks prompted the Germans to develop a similar weapon. Time constraints and the lack of industrial capacity for increased steel production forced them to retool their obsolete 18-cm heavy mortars. These tubes coul& fire a projectile containing three to four gallons of a chemical agent. In December, 1917, the Germans launched their first projector attack on the Western Front. In August, 1918, they introduced a rifled projector, 16-cm in diameter, that increased the range of the device to 3,500 meters. The shells contained thirteen pounds of chemical agent and five and one-half pounds of pumice. The pumice kept the chemical agent from. being flung into the air upon explosion. It also made the agent, usually phosgene, more persistent. In one instance, the gas reportedly lingered for one and one-half hours. Yet, impressive as were these results, the Germans, despite their efforts, continued to lag behind the British in the tactical use of this delivery system.13

Initially, the tactical employment of chemical weapons varied to some degree between the Allies and the Central Powers; however, these variations became less noticeable during the latter stages of the war. By November, 1918, the protagonists were using similiar delivery systems and chemical agents.
To View: Livens projector emplacement, 1918, used by British, French, and Americans.

From 1915 to 1918 the Germans held the initiative in most areas of gas warfare. They did this through the introduction of new agents that allowed them to direct more systematic thought to the question of how the employment of gas might alter a tactical situation. They were, for example, the first to use gas as an adjunct to maneuver in support of an infantry attack. The Allies struggled to keep up with such offensive doctrine, but they had to contend first with the development of effective defensive measures to counter German initiatives. Only after developing countermeasures could the Allies then plan their use of a new chemical agent or a new delivery system. This lag was evident in the case of the two most effective agents used in World War I, phosgene and mustard gas. The Germans introduced phosgene six months before the Allies were able to employ it and mustard a year ahead of their foe. The Allies had to adopt immediate defensive measures, such as effective mask filters and protective suits, before they could turn to the development of tactical doctrine. As far as the tactical employment of gas was concerned, wrote Lt. Col. Pascal Lucas, a French officer, it took us a long time to realize that the neutralization of personnel [by gas] could supplement the always incomplete destruction of defensive organizations by high explosives.14

British gas doctrine, when circumstances did permit its development, was driven in part by a shortage of artillery shells that prohibited the British Army from mounting an artillery gas attack until the summer of 1916. In the meantime, the British, as noted, convinced themselves that chemicals released from cylinders or projectors could most effectively be used to obtain the highest possible concentration of an agent in a specific area. The consequences of this doctrine were twofold: it prevented the British from employing gas to support mobile or open warfare, and it limited the. use of chemical agents primarily to the more restricted roles of attrition and harassment.

In the case of harassment, the British High Command, relying on intelligence reports, would indicate for one reason or another what German units it wished the Special Brigade to weaken or demoralize. German divisions recently transferred from the Eastern Front were prime targets because of their ignorance of defensive measures for gas warfare. The British sought out units that they expected to be transferred to the main battle fronts, i.e., Somme or Ypres, and tried to weaken them physically and psychologically before they deployed. On at least one occasion, a gas operation was postponed to await the arrival of a particular division. Once a German unit became a target for a gas attack, the Special Brigade made a point of following that unit around the front. The 1st Bavarian Regiment, for instance, was gassed fifteen times; the 1st Guards Regiment twelve times in six months; the 10th Bavarian Regiment ten times in five months, and the 9th Bavarian Regiment fourteen times from 28 June 1916 to 1 August 1917. The effects could be devastating to the morale of the gassed units and those units around them. A captured German diary recorded, We have again had many casualties through gas poisoning. I can’t think of anything worse; wherever one goes, one must take one’s gas mask with one, and it will soon be more necessary than a rifle. Things are dreadful here. 15

The British ultimately developed tactical doctrine for the use of gas shells. This doctrine set three methods for inflicting enemy gas casualties. The first and most favored method was by a surprise gas attack, in which British gunners attempted to establish the greatest concentration of gas in a target area by firing a lavish expenditure of ammunition at an extremely rapid rate. After one or two minutes of shelling, enemy soldiers who had not put on protective masks would be incapacitated by the dense gas; the remainder would be masked, rendering further bombardment uneconomical and unnecessary. The second method for using gas shells tried to exhaust the enemy by desultory fire over a period of many hours. In most instances, the British believed this attrition. method not worth the effort, because few casualties were produced. The third method was an attempt to penetrate the enemy’s gas masks with new agents such as chloropicrin, which when fired in a high concentration in a specific area, seeped into the masks and created intolerable eye irritation, coughing, vomiting, and inflammation of the respiratory tract. Enemy soldiers forced to remove their fouled masks were then subjected to a shelling with lethal phosgene.16

The Germans attempted to make the enemy trenches no less dreadful than their own. Having the technological advantage that gave them the ability to introduce new gases before the Allies, the Germans devoted much thought to the tactical employment of chemical weapons, and in this respect, they reached a high degree of sophistication. After abandoning cloud attacks, the Germans increased their use of gas shells. They discovered on the Eastern Front that tear gas was extremely effective in neutralizing Russian artillery. Even a few rounds would incapacitate a gun crew or, having forced it to mask, prevent it from delivering accurate fire. On the Western Front in 1916, the Germans fired some 2,000 tear gas shells at an extensive French trench system near Verdun. This massive surprise bombardment resulted in the capture of 2,400 Frenchmen who, after being temporarily blinded by the tear gas, were surrounded by German troops wearing goggles, but no masks.17

The Germans introduced other agents to the battlefield for specific tactical purposes. In May, 1916, they fired their Green Cross shell filled with diphosgene, a lung irritant. Later, as an indication of the increased sophistication of gas shells, they subdivided the Green Cross shell fill, first by a mix of 75 percent phosgene and 25 percent diphosgene, which was labled Green Cross 1. Then, in July, 1917, four different percentages of phosgene, diphosgene, and diphenylchlorosine called Green Cross 2, A, B, and C, respectively, were introduced. These were followed shortly by Blue Cross and Yellow Cross shells. The former shell was filled with an arsenic compound of finely separated dust. In field trials, this agent proved extremely effective in the penetration of all mask filters in existence. The need to encase the compound in a glass-lined shell, however, reduced its effectiveness, as the heat of the explosion failed to cause vaporization, and the force of the explosion caused only mechanical pulverization. The recipients, the French and British, considered Blue Cross a failure and not worth the effort. The introduction of Yellow Cross (mustard gas), however, again gave the Germans the initiative in chemical warfare, which they held to the end of the war. By increasing the explosive charge in the shell, the Germans further extended the area contaminated by this blister producing agent. This shell was marked by a double (Lorraine) cross.18

The Germans found gas persisted even longer when an agent and a small amount of high explosives were placed in one shell. The effect of the high explosive, when used in the proper amount, was to spread the agent over a wider area and keep it airborne longer. With this knowledge, the Germans changed their gas doctrine from attacking a, particular target to gassing large areas for extended periods of time. German staff officers began to plan operations that called for gas barriers and gas pockets.

German tactical doctrine for the use of artillery gas shells offered a variety of possibilities. For the offense, it called for surprise and the concentration of as much gas as possible through the sudden and rapid placement of shells on a target area. Cloud concentration tactics imitated surprise tactics, but with an increase in the number of shells and an expansion of the size of a target area. Another offensive tactic was the use of gas shells that contained a high explosive charge and shrapnel. These shells, used exclusively by the Germans, had an effect so devastating that the efficacy of a high explosive shrapnel [gas] shell bombardment was always increased. Once introduced, the Germans always added a percentage of these shells to any high explosive or shrapnel bombardment. The high explosive-gas shell was used extensively in German rolling barrages to support advancing infantry during the spring offenses of 1918. These shells were also used to neutralize known enemy artillery batteries and machine gun nests, thus allowing German infantry to bypass Allied strong points.19

The key figure in the expansion of German gas shell tactical doctrine was Lt. Col. Georg Bruchniffiler, known as Durchbruck (Breakthrough) and considered an artillery genius because of his success on the battlefield. While on the Eastern Front, Bruchmiiller, a great believer in the efficiency of gas shells, developed a highly sophisticated system of gas artillery fire. His tactical ideas were incorporated in the December, 1917, edition of the German manual for employment of gas shells.20 Bruchmiiller’s system created Gas Squares, which were areas known to hold enemy batteries or concentrations of enemy troops. These locations would be saturated by surprise gas shell fire, and the lethal concentration would be renewed by subsequent periodic fire. Bruchmiiler’s artillery tactics achieved surprise through a predicted-fire method that eliminated the usual ranging of the target by one gun of a battery. Bruchmiiller formulated advanced firing data and tables based on meteorological variables such as wind, air temperature, and barometric pressure.21

*Infantry troops seeking shelter from. the high explosive bombardment were often forced into locations such as shell holes, where the gas settled. Furthermore, the concussion often stripped a mask off a soldier’s face, exposing him to gas poisoning. More important, this tactic made Allied soldiers mask everytime they were subjected to artillery fire.
To View: British soldiers blinded by mustard gas at an advance aid station near Béthune during the German Lys spring offensives, 9 – 29 April 1918.

When Blue Cross and Yellow Cross shells became available, Bruchmiiller devised Buntkreuz (colored cross) tactics. One of the most successful uses of this new doctrine came on the Eastern Front, in the German crossing of the Dvina River before Riga (Map 3). On 1 September 1917 a two-hour preliminary bombardment of the Russian batteries created varicolored zones, as combinations of Blue Cross and Green Cross were used both during bombardment and then during three hours of firing for effect. For the preliminary gas fire, each German battery had a set of firing sequences every twelve minutes to counter Russian batteries, which first maintained a desultory fire and then fell silent. According to German estimates, more than 116,400 gas shells were fired, which caused at least a thousand Russian casualties, mainly because of the ineffectual respirators issued to Russian troops. The figure might have been higher had not the Russians fled. German infantry reached the opposite bank to find that the Russian artillery crews had abandoned their guns in great haste, resembling flight. The Russian infantry, which lacked effective personal protection against chemical agents, had followed suit.22

*Zones containing either Blue, Green, or Yellow Cross gas shells or combinations of all three.
TO VIEW: Varicolored zones of German gas fired in support of a crossing of the Dvina River before Riga, Eastern Front, 1 September 1917

Persistent agent fire was used tactically by the Germans on both the offense and the defense. Surprise, though desirable, was not necessary for persistent agents. Yellow Cross allowed an area to be cleared of, or rendered inaccessible to, the enemy. Fire continued for several hours, and the contamination could be renewed each day thereafter, if so desired. The areas gassed were called Yellow Zones of Defense. In April, 1918, the Germans shelled the city of Armentieres with mustard gas (Map 4). The bombardment was so heavy that witnesses claimed liquid mustard gas ran in the streets. Naturally, the British evacuated the locale; the contamination, however, prevented the Germans from entering the city for two weeks. In the spring offensives of 1918 (Map 5), the Germans created mustard gas zones to protect the flanks of advancing infantry, to neutralize enemy strong points, to deny the enemy key terrain, to block supply routes, and to render enemy artillery batteries ineffective. Even in open warfare, a German officer wrote, the troops soon were asking for gas supporting fire. 23
To View: Various types of gas masks used in World War I.

Mustard gas caused considerable consternation among the Allies. We were outdistanced … a French officer noted, the German lead on us in this respect … was a source of real inquietude, for the units that were exposed suffered considerably and the struggle against Yperite seemed most deceptive of solution. The Allies eventually responded in kind, but not until June, 1918, a full year after the Germans introduced the ultimate agent of World War I, did the French use Yperite, and it took the British until 26 September 1918 to retaliate with mustard. So desperate were the French to obtain the agent that British officers reported teams of French soldiers draining unexploded German Yellow Cross shells in order to reuse the gas.24
TO VIEW: 4. German gas shell bombardment of Armentières on 9 April 1918

TO VIEW: 5. The German spring offensives of 1918 were heavily supported by a variety of gases

Personal protection was always a problem, one neither side ever really solved in World War I. The German High Command, prior to the first attack at Ypres, made no effort to develop an efficient gas mask. Attacking German soldiers had small protective bags of mull or hemp that were soaked in a sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) solution and then tied over the mouth and nose. Not until the closing months of 1915 did the German army begin to issue a self-contained respirator. The mask had a treated leather facepiece (because of the shortage of rubber, only officer facepieces were constructed of this material, which was more efficient than leather and easier to maintain) and eyepieces of an outer glass lens and a celluloid inner lens. The first German mask had a significant drawback: the filter had to be screwed on to the facepiece each time the mask was used, which meant that more time was required to mask during a gas attack. Later, this problem was remedied by a single construction model with a replaceable filter element.25
To View: German artillerymen wearing the single-piece gas mask, early 1917.

The French, British, and Russians did not coordinate their research and development of gas defenses. Although they passed information and some equipment to each other, they worked independently for the most part on their own protective masks.* In England, shortly after the first gas attack in April, 1915, housewives were asked by the high command to produce what became popularly known as the Black Veil Respirator-black veiling held a pad of cotton waste soaked in a chemical solution over the nose and mouth. These makeshift masks reached the British trenches in early May. When, in the latter part of 1915, the Germans began to use tear gas, the British countered with a flour sack type mask made of flannel, called the Hypo or H-Helmet after the chemical in which it was soaked, calcium hypochlorite. This mask offered protection to the eyes as well as to the respiratory system. One British officer described it as a smoke helmet, a greasy grey-felt bag with a tale window certainly ineffective against gas. This H-Helmet contained two celluloid eyepieces, but no apparatus to expel the carbon dioxide that built up in the mask.26

*This go-it-alone attitude, created perhaps by national pride, prevailed for most of the war in many areas besides chemical warfare. In fact, it was not until the German spring 1918 offensives that a Supreme Command came into existence to direct and coordinate the operations of the Allied armies.
To View: British machine gun crew with PH-Helmets (note exhaust valve) firing during a German gas attack, Oise Sector, Marne, France, 1916.

In the fall of 1915 British intelligence learned of Germany’s intention to use a new gas, phosgene, a delayed-action choking agent, The Russians had also learned that the Germans intended to employ phosgene and advised the British that a solution of phenate-hexamine was effective in blocking the agent. As a result, the British soaked their H-Helmet in the Russian solution and added an outlet valve to reduce the carbon dioxide buildup inside the mask. The British Army called the new device the PH-Helmet. The troops called it a. goggle-eyed booger with a tit. 27
To View: French soldiers with M-2 masks advance through a gas cloud.

Although the PH-Helmet successfully blocked phosgene, it had serious drawbacks: it was hot, stuffy, and emitted an unpleasant odor; it also offered little protection against dense concentrations of lachrymatory agents. To counteract both phosgene and the lachrymating agents, the British in early 1916 took an entirely different approach to protective masks by developing a two-piece device called the Large Box or Tar Box Respirator. A canister worn on the back contained neutralizing chemicals and attached by a rubber hose to a facepiece covering the chin, mouth, and nose. The wearer endured an uncomfortable noseclip and a mouthpiece similar to an athlete’s rubber tooth protector. Goggles protected the eyes. The advantage of the mask rested in the use of a large filter. However, this also caused difficulties because the canister was too large and clumsy to be carried for extended distances over prolonged periods. This kind of mask reached its final stage of development with the introduction of the Small Box Respirator (SBR), which employed a smaller filter worn on the chest and a single construction facepiece. The details of the SBR became very familiar to men of the American Expeditionary Forces.28

The French wrote a different chapter to the development of the gas mask. After using the same primitive masks as the British, they set out to develop a mask that was both effective and comfortable to wear – two criteria that were, and still are, essential for the successful design of protective devices. The first significant French protective device, the M-2 mask, was similar in design to the British H-Helmet, except it did not cover the entire head, but took the form of a snout similar to a feedbag for a horse. Its filtration ability was limited, so French doctrine called for troops to be rotated after several hours of exposure to any gas.29 In 1917 the French introduced the ARS (Appareil Respiratoire Speécial) mask. In appearance it resembled German protective equipment. The rubber facepiece had a waxed or oiled linen lining. Inhaled air passed in front of the eyepieces to prevent clouding. A canister attached to the facepiece could not be removed.

In September, 1917, these French masks were followed by another, the Tissot, which became one of the most effective masks of the war. As one postwar American observer noted, the French deserve great credit for the introduction of this defensive piece of equipment. In design, the Tissot was similar to the British Small Box Respirator except that the former’s filter canister was carried on the soldier’s back, not chest. This meant that infantrymen could carry only the Tissot and no other equipment. It covered the entire face, but without the uncomfortable nose clip and mouthpiece. The design allowed air to enter the mouth across the eyepieces, thus removing the normal phenomenon of condensation. The circulation of fresh air also diluted any lachrymatory gases that might enter the mask. Finally, the entire facepiece was of thin rubber. The French thought the filter location, the same as for the Large Tar Box Respirator, clumsy and difficult to adjust and, therefore, judged it unsuitable for infantry. Troops, such as artillery gun crews and stretcher bearers, who were not loaded with personal equipment and who had to continue to fight or function during a gas attack, did receive the mask. These soldiers found, in addition to comfort, that one could breathe easier and that the filtration system was superior to the ARS and M-2 mask.30

Unlike the British and French, the Russians devoted few resources to the development of chemical protective equipment. Consequently, they suffered the greatest number of chemically inflicted casualties in World War I. On 2 May 1915, not quite a month after the second Battle of Ypres during which French Colonial and Territorial troops collapsed under the first German gas attack, the Russians were subjected to a similar experience. German pioneer troops directed by Fritz Haber released 263 tons of chlorine gas from 12,000 cylinders against Russian troops at Bolimov. The first cylinder attack on the Eastern Front killed 6,000 Russian soldiers. Two more gas cloud attacks were made on the same position, and upward of 25,000 Russian casualties resulted. According to German sources, in June, 1915, at Bzura, two Russian regiments, the 55th and 56th Siberian, suffered approximately 9,000 gas casualties, or about 90 percent of their total strength. On 7 September 1916 a German cloud attack killed 600 Russian officers and men. The following month Transbaikal Cossacks suffered 4,000 casualties. A gas attack in 1917 cost the Russians 12 officers, 1,089 men killed, and 53 officers, 7,738 men incapacitated. Despite these casualties, the Tzarist Army developed only one mask in addition to the basic chemical-soaked gauze respirator. The fabric facepiece of this mask covered the head and attached directly to a canister containing a charcoal filter. It looked similar to the bill on a duck. Although the mask had no noseclip or mouthpiece, soldiers still found it extremely uncomfortable because the weight of the filter placed a great strain on the muscles of the neck. To make matters worse, the filter of this mask was of questionable effectiveness. By 1917 different types of British and French masks were being sent to Russia and used, to some limited extent, by Russian troops.31

By the summer of 1917, when U.S. troops began to arrive at French ports, chemical warfare had become commonplace and, in practice, had reached a high degree of sophistication compared to the first significant gas attack at Ypres a little over two years earlier. By July the most effective chemical agent of the war, mustard or Yellow Cross, had made its appearance. Gas shells now might contain two or even three different agents. All of the delivery systems for chemical war were in operation and efforts were being made by the combatants to improve on these weapons. The British had, for example, devised electronically detonated cylinders on tram cars for beam attacks. Also, the British had finally begun to overcome their shell production problems and had used gas shells in large quantities at the Battle of Arras in April, 1917.

Tactical doctrine for chemical warfare had reached a high level of sophistication, especially in artillery employment. In this area, the Germans, thanks to Lt. Col. Georg Bruchmüller, led the way. German artillery firing instructions became increasingly complex in regard to the selection of the gas or combination of gases to be used in a variety of tactical situations.

Given the advantage of viewing the development of chemical warfare from afar, the United States Army, upon entering the war, should have been in a position to operate in a chemical environment without repeating the costly experiences of the French, British, and Germans. Unfortunately, this was not to be the case.

The U.S. Army’s Response
to Chemical Warfare,
1915-1917

Chapter 3

Most of the information Americans received concerning the war and chemical warfare in Europe came from the news media. Because the Royal Navy had cut the German trans-Atlantic cable early in the war, almost all news from the Continent flowed through British and French censors.

According to one author of a study on chemical warfare, Frederick Brown, Allied control of chemical warfare information to the United States can be divided into four distinct phases. During the first phase the Germans were portrayed as violators of the Hague Convention. Reports indicated that the German Army had introduced a barbaric and inhumane weapon. This line, of course, was geared to gaining,support and perhaps intervention by the United States on the side of the Allies in the European war. When the French and British decided to retaliate with gas, the message changed, with Allied releases indicating that the German’s first use of gas justified retaliation and the reluctant employment of similiar weapons by the Allies. A note of righteous indignation pervaded these reports, although the reports were toned down considerably when discussing the effects of gas. In the third stage, which occurred during the spring and summer of 1917, there was a total news blackout on information concerning the gas war. Assistant Secretary of War Benedict Crowell speculated on the cause. He acknowledged an increased use of chemical agents on both sides and believed the Allies feared and perhaps with reason that a picture of gas warfare, if presented to the Americans, would result in a unreasonable dread of gases on the part of the American nation and its soldiers. The fourth and final phase, which came after U.S. entry into the war, was ushered in with a burst of information with virtually no censorship. The use of chemicals in this phase was depicted as a triumph of Allied technology, an example of good overcoming evil.1

Restricted Allied propaganda during the first three phases mentioned above impeded U.S. preparedness in chemical warfare in two ways. First, it gave U.S. officers the impression that the belligerents were making minimal use of gas and that chemical weapons, when employed, had little or no impact on the battlefield. Second, it created the perception among Army officers that chemical warfare, introduced by the barbaric Hun, was inhuman and somehow sullied the honor of the professional soldier.2

There were other reasons for the military’s lack of appreciation of this new weapon. President Wilson’s efforts to maintain strict neutrality during the first two years of the war hampered the Army’s planning for defense. When, at one point, Wilson discovered that the General Staffs War College Division had prepared contingency plans for a war with Germany, he reprimanded Secretary of War Lindley Garrison. When the Army did tackle the problem of preparedness, chemical warfare, because it was an unfamiliar subject to most planners, received little attention. Other matters seemed more pressing. There were, for example, significant shortages of all kinds of war materiel. In 1915, the U.S. Army had only twenty-one aircraft, as compared to Britain’s 250 and France’s 500. The United States had fewer than 700 3inch guns, while the French alone had 4,800 of a similar caliber prior to the outbreak of war. Based on Western Front usage, the U.S. Army had only a two-day supply of artillery shells. Similarly, four days of trench warfare would exhaust the U.S. inventory of small arms ammunition. In the assignment of priorities to overcome these and other deficiencies, chemical warfare came nowhere near the top of the list.3

During the summer of 1915, the U.S. Army War College published studies on the impact of the war on each belligerent’s industrial base. In this report, the implications of chemical weapons and gas warfare received no notice. In November, 1915, two months after the British retaliated with gas at the Battle of Loos, the War College published a supplement to the earlier studies. This report included a survey of developments in weapons, equipment, and force structuring, but interestingly, still did not mention gas warfare.

Even the preparedness movement and the passage of the 1916 National Defense Act did nothing to spur an American assessment of the chemical war being waged in Europe. In fact, during Congressional hearings over preparedness for national defense, poison gas was mentioned only once when Col. Charles G. Treat of the U.S. Army’s General Staff testified on the subject of changing artillery doctrine in Europe. Following a discussion of shrapnel shells, one Senator asked Treat, Are they still using the poisonous gas over there, Colonel? Treat replied, The papers say so, but we have not had any actual reports from our observers that they are using them. In November, 1916, the same month that Treat testified, the War Department’s Board of Ordnance and Fortifications noted that certain practices with poison gas in the European war made necessary the procurement of appropriate defensive equipment, such as gas masks for the Army. The board observed that no branch of the U.S. Army then handled anything remotely connected with chemical warfare.4

The board, in its final report, recommended that responsibility for the design, but not the supply, of gas masks be given to the Army’s Medical Department. In reviewing the records of the board, the Adjutant General sent extracts of the comments that pertained to gas defense equipment to the Surgeon General, who concurred with the board’s findings. The Chief of Staff also concurred, after which the Secretary of War gave the Surgeon General responsibility for the development and design of gas masks. No decision was made as to which branch of the Army would supply troops with protective gas equipment.5

The Surgeon General had detailed a number of medical officers to serve as observers with the French and British armies. Reports on the medical aspects of the European conflict, including the diagnosis and treatment of gas victims, were received by the Surgeon General from 1916 on. Unfortunately, for unexplained reasons, the Surgeon General took no action to initiate the development of protective gas devices. The Adjutant General, for his part, shelved the entire matter. Thus, on the eve of American intervention, the Army acted as if it had barely heard of chemical warfare.6

The Secretary of War’s Annual Report for 1917 reflected this neglect. The report pompously declared that the councils of prudence and forethought should prepare the Army to surprise the enemy rather than lag defensively behind the surprises which he prepares for us. The Secretary went on to acknowledge the tremendous impact of science on the war in Europe and referred specifically to the introduction of the airplane and the submarine. As for chemicals, he merely noted that there were other scientific novelties that had surfaced in the European conflict.7

In February, 1917, the question the scientific novelty called poison gas was finally raised by an anxious Quartermaster General who pointedly asked the Adjutant General exactly which bureau of the War Department would furnish the Army with gas masks if the need arose. The question prompted the Adjutant General to initiate correspondence with the’Chief of Ordnance, the Quartermaster General, and the Surgeon General to decide on the responsibility for gas mask production. At the time of the correspondence, the Surgeon General had yet to begin a program of gas mask development.8

That same month the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Mines took the first positive steps toward preparing the Army for chemical warfare. The director, Van H. Manning, displayed a great deal more vision and foresight than did his military colleagues in Washington. At a bureau meeting, Manning asked his department chiefs what they could do to be useful if the nation should become involved in the European war. Since its founding in 1908, the bureau had investigated poison gases found in mines, conducted research on breathing devices, and examined ways to treat miners who had succumbed to noxious fumes. Obviously, this work had a direct application to chemical warfare. The day following the meeting, the Secretary of the Interior authorized Manning to contact another civilian organization,. the Military Committee of the National Research Council. In a letter to C. D. Walcott, the chairman of the committee, Manning pointed out that the bureau could adapt for military application a self-contained breathing apparatus then in use for mine rescues. Also, the bureau had a test chamber at the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, experimental station that could be used to conduct tests on military gas masks then in use by the Europeans. The bureau hoped that the information obtained from this research could be given to the Army, allowing it to adopt the best gas mask, should the need arise.9

Upon receipt of this letter, Walcott arranged a meeting between representatives of the General Staffs War College Division and the Bureau of Mines. The meeting proved productive: at the end of February, 1917, the War Department accepted the bureau’s offer of assistance and agreed to furnish the support, exclusive of funding, necessary to move the work along. Still, no immediate action. was taken by either the Army or the Bureau of Mines to begin a defensive gas equipment research program.

On 6 April 1917, when the U.S. declared war on Germany, the Army not only lacked defensive equipment for chemical warfare, but also had no concrete plans to develop or manufacture gas masks or any other defensive equipment. Even if gas masks had been available, the Army would have had no idea how to conduct defensive gas training. Moreover, no one in the nation seemed to have any practical knowledge concerning offensive chemical warfare equipment or the doctrine then used by the Allies and the Germans for its employment.
Even after the declaration of war by Congress and the decision to ship an American division overseas, preparations for chemical warfare lacked a sense of urgency. The same day war was declared, the Council of National Defense formed a Committee on Noxious Gases. The group met in Washington and immediately adjourned to study British and French gas warfare literature. At later meetings the committee established definite guidelines for Bureau of Mines research to follow in the development of masks. Only then did the chemists at the bureau’s Pittsburgh experimental station begin in earnest to develop an American gas mask. The committee also recommended that gas mask production be kept separate and distinct from research.10

In May, 1917, the General Staff awoke to the fact that the division requested by the French and British as a token force might well be in combat in a matter of months without any defensive gas equipment L. P. Williamson, liaison officer between the Bureau of Mines and the War Department, received a directive from the General Staff telling him to seek the bureau’s assistance in the manufacture of 25,000 gas masks. George A. Burrell,* a civilian chemist in the bureau’s Research Laboratory, readily and willingly accepted the task, but not, as he later noted, fully appreciating all the conditions which a war mask had to encounter. Burrell should not have been so hard on himself. No one in the United States really understood or even knew much about the employment of chemical defensive equipment on the battlefield.11

*Burrell was made a colonel in the Corps of Engineers and later served in the Chemical Warfare Service Research Division.

Working day and night, employees of four different civilian companies fabricated 20,088 masks and filters, using a British Small Box Respirator (SBR) as a model. The masks were shipped overseas to be examined and tested by British experts. They were quickly rejected. The British cabled back that the masks were unacceptable for combat because the mouthpiece was too large and stiff. They also found the rubberized cloth facepiece did not filter out the agent chloropicrin, which was then being used by the Germans in increasing quantities. The filter, which was worn on the chest in a container, had soda-lime granules that were too soft. With repeated jolting, the granules would clog the canister and increase resistance to breathing.

While this was going on, the acting Chief of Staff, Maj. Gen. Tasker Bliss, after a lengthy round of memoranda initiated by the Adjutant General, informed the Surgeon General on 16 May 1917 that, in addition to research and development, the Medical Department would be responsible for supplying the U.S. Army with gas masks and other defensive equipment. During the next fiscal year the Medical Department would be responsible for supplying 1,000,000 gas masks, 8,500 decontamination sprayers for use in trench warfare, and 1,000 oxygen resuscitators for the treatment of chemical casualties. Unfortunately, neither the Chief of Staff nor the Surgeon General created an office to procure the equipment. The Surgeon General did, however, assign an officer to the National Research Council’s Committee on Noxious Gases.12

The Committee on Noxious Gases soon met with representatives from the Army and Navy and with members of a French scientific mission. After several sessions, the committee sent a memorandum to the Secretary of War on 2 July 1917, informing him that it had worked out a partial organization plan for a gas service. Unfortunately, the use of the term gas service was misleading, because what the committee recommended turned out to be a cumbersome decentralized system for preparing the Army for chemical warfare. The offensive aspects of gas warfare, the committee explained, should be handled by the Ordnance Department, the defensive measures by the Medical Department. The Bureau of Mines would continue to direct research, and the Corps of Engineers would receive responsibility for handling all chemical warfare material on the battlefield. The General Staff immediately put this decentralized system into effect.13

On 24 July 1917 the Chief of Staff ordered the Medical Department to provide nine officers as instructors for a Gas Defense School to be organized at the Infantry School of Musketry, Fort Sill, Oklahoma. As a result of this order, the Medical Department received the additional responsibility for the conduct of defensive gas training. Medical officers with absolutely no experience in gas warfare were now expected to train other medical officers for duty as instructors for an Army that would eventually be expanded to over three million men.14

After an interminable delay, the Surgeon General on 31 August 1917 finally created a Gas Defense Service composed of three sections: Field Supply, Overseas Repair, and Training. He placed a Medical Corps officer in command and filled his staff with members of the Medical Department’s Sanitary Corps.* The officers had no chemical warfare doctrine to guide them. Only two War Department publications existed in the United States to assist these gas officers: a hurriedly compiled Notes on Gas as a Weapon in Modern War and a Memorandum on Gas Poisoning in Warfare. Both publications appear to have borrowed extensively from French and British gas warfare doctrine, some of it outdated.15

*The Sanitary Corps is equivalent to today’s Medical Service Corps.
The creation of a Training Section, even with its limited expertise, came none too soon. In September, 1917, draftees, volunteers, and National Guardsmen began to arrive at the thirty-six training cantonments scattered across the country. Sanitary Corps and division medical officers, with only several thousand masks at their disposal (including the 20,088 rejected by the British), faced the overwhelming task of training hundreds of thousands of troops in gas warfare and gas defense. Shortages of equipment, manuals, and knowledge were not the only problems facing the new gas officers. Gas was such a new weapon that division commanders and their staff officers were unwilling to give up training time for chemical defense at the expense of more traditional military skills such as close order drill and marksmanship. It was a wonder that any defensive training in gas warfare took place. Many times it did not. Initially, there were at best one or two hours of gas defense lectures, sometimes accompanied by a demonstration of how to wear the gas mask.16

The lack of knowledge and experience with gas bred ignorance and superstition among recruits and veterans alike. Rumors swept through the camps that Germany had a gas that would make [soldiers'] eyes drop out of their sockets or their fingers and toes drop off. To the unsophisticated youths who filled the training camps, gas was mysterious enough, but add to it the word chemical, and it became hopelessly beyond … their conception. Gas was such an intangible thing, a division commander noted, that a level of understanding adequate to guard against the dangers it posed was difficult to reach. Reaching such a level continued to be a hopeless task because no coherent U.S. gas warfare doctrine existed. As a consequence, a majority of World War I doughboys found themselves in a chemical combat environment with only a minimal amount of defensive gas training and with no idea of what this training really meant. 17

Confronted with this unfortunate situation, the War College of the General Staff examined the evolving gas defense program in the fall of 1917. Defensive training in gas warfare – regardless of how rudimentary – had to be given to men going to Europe. Ypres had proved what chemical warfare could do to unprepared soldiers. Severe casualties and battlefield defeat might well occur if immediate steps were not taken to train men in the defensive aspects of chemical warfare. As a result, the War College requested and received a British gas officer and a gas NCO for each of the thirty-six training cantonments.

*The British Special Brigade of the Royal Engineers was an offensive gas unit. (See Chapter 2.)

In late October, 1917, the British gas experts arrived in the United States. Their activities were coordinated and directed by Maj. S.J.M. Auld, Special Brigade, Royal Engineers.* Auld quickly made his presence felt. Impressed by the British gas officer’s knowledge and practical experience, the War College and the Field Training Section asked him to prepare a working textbook on gas in order to fill the U.S. Army’s doctrinal void in chemical warfare. Working with Sanitary Corps Capt. James H. Walton, Auld wrote four pamphlets that were later combined as Adjutant General Document 705, Gas Warfare. They were initially published individually in the following order:

Part Three: Methods of Training in Defensive Methods
Part Two: Methods of Defense Against Attack
Part One: German Methods of Offense
Part Four: The Offensive in Gas Warfare -Cloud and Projector

*Later, in October, 1918, the Army Gas School was moved to Camp Kendrick, adjacent to Lakehurst, New Jersey, the proving ground for the new Chemical Warfare Service established on 11 May 1918.

Thus, British gas warfare doctrine edited by the War College Division of the General Staff became U.S. Army doctrine.18

Auld strongly influenced the organization of the U.S. Army for chemical warfare in one other way. When he and other British officers discovered that the General Staff had placed defensive training under the Medical Department, they were appalled. The British officers insisted that gas defense was purely a military affair ; in their opinion, proper defensive measures were largely a question of discipline. Based on the experience of the British Army, such procedures were so closely connected with the soldier’s fighting activities that preparation for chemical warfare could not be carried out by a noncombat branch of the’Army. The British were so emphatic that, in January, 1918, by order of the General Staff, the Field Training Section of the Sanitary Corps passed to the Corps of Engineers.19

Major Auld also suggested the establishment of a Central Army Gas School to train Divisional, Brigade and Regimental Gas officers and other personnel whom it might be desirable to educate in Gas Warfare. This idea was already under consideration by the General Staff. The result was the establishment of an Army Gas School at Camp A. A. Humphreys, Virginia,* where in May, 1918, two initial courses began. The first, a four-day course for officers and noncommissioned officers, provided general information on gas warfare. The second, a twelve-day course, was for Chief Gas Officers who would be assigned to division and higher echelon staffs. Although there were similarities between the two courses, the Chief Gas Officers’ instruction went into greater detail on most matters. The shortage of trained gas officers in the AEF prevented students from being held for longer periods of field training on subjects such as gas detection, construction of gas-proof dugouts, and the proper wearing of respirators.20

**In January, 1918, the General Staff placed the Sanitary Corps’ Field Training Section under the Corps of Engineers.
To View: Recruits undergoing a simulated gas attack at a National Army Camp, 1918.

Auld assisted in training the first U.S. gas officers, forty-five first lieutenants, all chemists, who were assigned to the Field Training Section of the Sanitary Corps.** The instruction took place at the American University in Washington, DC. In January, 1918, after three months of training in gas warfare and general military subjects, thirty-three of the forty-five officers, together with their British instructors, departed for duty at division training camps. The other twelve went directly to France. Unfortunately, by January, 1918, six of the thirty U.S. divisions destined to see combat in France had either left the States or had completed training. The men in these units had received no chemical warfare training before embarking for Europe. As for the divisions that did receive some training before shipping overseas, their division gas officers were afterwards assigned to the 473d Engineer Regiment, a stateside administrative holding unit. Thus, the first trained gas officers did not deploy with the men they had trained. Although necessary for the training of subsequent divisions, this decision had, in the words of one gas officer, a discouraging effect upon the men and upon gas training and discipline in general in the unit deployed overseas. The confidence of the embarking troops was hardly bolstered when the experts on chemical warfare stayed home.

As the war progressed, the training in the division camps improved. In January, 1918, the 29th Division’s gas training at Camp McClellan consisted of a brief lecture and gas mask drill for one hour daily, five days a week, under the close supervision of British instructors. This compared favorably to the weekly one-hour anti-gas instruction in October, 1917. As training became more sophisticated, men underwent tests at the end of their division’s training cycle. They masked and entered a chamber filled with chlorine gas. Next, they went through a chamber filled with a tear agent, where they unmasked. Although by the summer of 1918, recruits received standardized chemical warfare training, reports filed by division gas officers in Europe indicated the key to successful preparation had yet to be found. Still more training was needed, and it had to be integrated with other subjects.21

In the summer of 1918, with news reaching America of Germany’s increased use of gas, an Army regulation was promulgated, requiring every doughboy who left the country to have a certificate indicating he had completed gas training. No other military skill required such validation. Unfortunately, the requirement was usually ignored, and most men continued to arrive in France without the benefit of adequate instruction in gas defense. Gas officers realized that sufficient time for training in the camps did not exist. To make up for the deficiency, units attempted to use the time aboard transports for defensive gas training. The 80th Division, for example, ordered that shipboard activities would include physical training, manual of arms, guard duty, and anti-gas instruction. 22

Although the U.S. Army’s first efforts in chemical warfare were directed toward anti-gas or defensive measures, the development of the means to retaliate in kind soon followed. On 15 August 1917,, with the approval of the General Staff in Washington, AEF General Order 108 authorized the organization of special and technical engineer troops that would be assigned to each army as a Gas and Flame Regiment.* The War Department ordered recruits for the newly formed 30th Engineers to report to the American University campus in Washington, DC, where they were transformed into the 1st Gas Regiment. Unfortunately, with no one to instruct them in offensive or even defensive gas warfare, the only training the first companies of the gas regiment received in the United States involved close order drill. The unit underwent no special training in gas warfare. Beginning in December, 1917, the companies of the 1st Gas Regiment left the United States without gas masks.23

* Flame disappeared from the name and from use when GHQ, AEF, decided that the primitive flamethrowers used by the British and the French were more dangerous to the operator than to the enemy.
To View: Recruits at Camp Kearney, California, using British Ayrton or trench fans to clear gas, 1918.

The gas mask problem continued to plague the Army as a whole. An effective American mask was eventually developed using the British Small Box Respirator as a model. However, production of American gas masks peaked just one month prior to the end of the war. Late delivery and the initial small number of masks produced were offset only by the AEF’s decision to purchase several million British and French gas masks.24

The same unpreparedness and production lag applied to offensive chemical weapons. The Army attempted to contract out the production of war gases to a number of civilian chemical companies, but these firms objected immediately to the contracts because of the inherent dangers in the production of large quantities of war gases and because the demand for the product would not extend beyond the conflict. Besides that, the firms had already overcommitted their plants and personnel for the production of other war-related chemical products.25

The Army thus found itself with no alternative but to construct its own production facilities. In December, 1917, construction of plants to produce chemical agents began at Gunpowder Neck, Maryland. By the summer of 1918, the Edgewood Arsenal there had plants in operation producing phosgene, chloropicrin, mustard, chlorine, and sulfur trichloride. The arsenal also had a capability for filling artillery shells, although most of the agents produced were shipped overseas to the Allies in fifty-five gallon drums. Because of insufficient time, not one single gas shell manufactured at the arsenal ever reached an American artillery piece in France. When production of chemicals finally peaked one month prior to the Armistice, the plants had to stop production for lack of shell casings. artillery units and special gas troops fired American produced war gas, but in French and British shells.26

As the emphasis on chemical warfare increased, there arose a need to coordinate the various agencies assigned responsibility for gas warfare. Accordingly, on 28 June 1918 President Wilson, using the authority given to him by the Overman Act,* ordered the establishment of the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) as a separate branch of the National Army. Immediately, all activities pertaining to chemical warfare were placed under Maj. Gen. William L. Sibert, formerly Commanding General of the First Infantry Division. The creation of a branch of the Army dedicated to chemical warfare was significant because it acknowledged, albeit belatedly, the tremendous impact the new weapon was having on the AEF The CWS, with the concurrence of the General Staff, established ten subordinate divisions:
Administration Proving
Research Medical
Gas Offense Training
Gas Offense
(Edgewood Arsenal) Overseas
(Gas Service, AEF)
Development 1st Gas Regiment

*The Overman Act of 20 May 1917 gave the president the authority to re organize executive agencies during the war emergency.

With the exception of the Overseas Division and the 1st Gas Regiment, the division chiefs were located in Washington, DC, and the operations of their divisions were scattered throughout the United States. The Administration Division facilitated routine matters and coordinated the activities of the other CWS divisions. A Research Division, as the name implied, handled all basic research, from the discovery of new chemicals to the development of protective masks and offensive equipment. Another division, Gas Defense, conducted research, but primarily administered the manufacturing, testing, and inspecting of gas masks for men and animals. This division also had the responsibility for manufacturing gas-proof dugout blankets, protective suits and gloves, antigas ointment, and gas warning signals. The Gas Defense Division administered Edgewood Arsenal. A Development Division experimented with charcoal suitable for gas mask filters, a manufacturing process for mustard, and a means of producing casings and adapters for 75-min shells of similar design to the French glass-lined gas projectiles. A Proving Division tested prototype gas shells before production and spottested shells prior to shipment overseas. The Medical Division coordinated work on the therapy, pharmacology, physiology, and pathology of war gases on the body. This division’s primary emphasis was on the prevention and treatment of casualties from mustard gas.28

The agency that had its most direct impact on the AEF was the Chemical Warfare Service’s Training Division. The division’s responsibilities included the organization and training of gas troops, the training of casual detachments for overseas duty, the maintenance of a Chemical Warfare Training Camp detachment, and the procurement and training of chemical officers for overseas duty. In recognition of the division’s importance, the Assistant Director of the Chemical Warfare Service, Brig. Gen. H. C. Newcomer, assumed operational command. This was the only division, other than Administration, headed by a general officer.

The structure of the CWS in the United States was determined by the personnel and equipment requirements of the AEF. Stateside training and preparations for chemical warfare had to be curtailed in order to rush American troops to France. Initially, expertise in chemical warfare was lacking. As a consequence, combat divisions deployed without proper training, equipment, and leadership. Until late 1917, there was no chemical warfare doctrine to rely upon. Nevertheless, American troops had to fight on a chemical battlefield against an opponent highly skilled in the use of chemicals in combat. Out of necessity it fell to the Overseas Division, CWS, to bear the brunt of the responsibility for preparing American soldiers for chemical warfare.

The majority of the thirty AEF divisions to see combat in World War I entered the line during and after the five German spring offensives of 1918. These offensives saw chemical warfare at the highest level since its introduction three years before. Regardless of the emphasis eventually placed on gas warfare by GHQ, AEF, and the Army General Staff, new doctrine’for gas weapons could not be fully absorbed or mastered by the inexperienced Americans. Prewar neglect of gas warfare equipment and accompanying doctrine had a significant impact on the ability of the AEF to defend against, and to successfully employ, chemical agents in World War I.

The AEF Organizes for
Chemical Warfare

Chapter 4

On 13 June 1917, while the General Staff in the United States struggled to organize, man, and equip an army, General John J. Pershing, Commander of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF), arrived in France with a staff of fifty-three officers and 146 enlisted men. After a continuous round of official visits and ceremonies, Pershing and his staff settled into temporary headquarters in Paris. Two weeks later the first American troops arrived in France. General Order 8, published on 5 July 1917, established the organization of the AEF General Headquarters (GHQ). This order also created on paper the GHQ position of Chief of the Gas Service, whose responsibilities included procurement of gas personnel and supplies, the conduct of the entire Gas and Flame Service both offense and defense, the supervision of training for gas officers and troops, and experimentation with new gases, delivery systems, and protective devices.1

Ordering the creation of a Gas Service was a simple matter. The actual organizing of a new branch of the Army, however, would take a tremendous amount of effort and time. Time was precious. By mid-July, over 12,000 doughboys were within thirty miles of the front, all without gas masks or training in chemical warfare. Yet, because of more pressing problems,* it was not until 17 August 1917 that General Pershing sent a cable to Washington requesting the organization of a Gas Service and the authority to appoint Lt. Col. Amos A. Fries, Corps of Engineers, as its chief.

Lieutenant Colonel Fries had arrived in France three days earlier. As an engineer officer he was assigned responsibility for organizing a road network to support the AEF Services of Supply (SOS). Several days later Col. Hugh A. Drum and Col. Alvin B. Barber of the GHQ, AEF, approached Fries. As Fries recalled after the war, the staff officers asked what I should think if my orders were changed so as to make me Chief of the newly proposed gas service. Given overnight to decide, Fries accepted. On 22 August 1917 he began to build an organization based on information Barber and Drum had compiled about the British Special Brigade and French Z units. In addition, the staff officers gave Fries a draft of a proposed General Order 31 that would establish a Gas Service.2

*In addition to commanding an army in a combat zone, Pershing was faced with the same problems that the General Staff in Washington had-the officering, billeting, feeding, equipping, and training of a vast army of raw recruits.

General Order 31 assigned the Gas Service responsibility for both offensive and defensive operations, including the organization of gas personnel, gas warfare supplies, and gas warfare training in the AEF. Appended to the order was a draft chart of the Gas Service Organization. In reviewing the chart with Fries, Pershing noted that the offensive arm included Stokes mortar companies. This prompted him to ask why existing trench mortar companies could not be utilized to fire gas rounds. Barber and Drum, who were also present, explained that gas operations were too technical and dangerous for untrained personnel to conduct and, therefore, required special troops. They also told Pershing that in the British Army the Special Brigade used 4-inch Stokes mortars.3

Acting on Pershing’s instructions, Fries, with Colonel Church and Captain Boothby of the Medical Department, visited the British Special Brigade headquarters at St.Omer. Church had served as an observer with the French Army for a year and a half and, during that time, had collected information on chemical warfare defense. Boothby did the same while observing British chemical warfare procedures and also took a course at the British defense school. At St. Omer the medical officers discussed British defensive gas doctrine, while Fries obtained information on the offensive aspects of chemical warfare. Fries elicited information on gases in use, special troops, chemical ammunition, and delivery systems. He also visited the large chemical material depot for the British Fifth Army.

After returning to AEF headquarters, the three officers reviewed both the draft General Order and the organizational chart. They modified the original proposals to provide general rather than specific guidelines, anticipating that only actual combat experience would glean the information necessary to build a truly effective organization. Fries criticized the British system that divided responsibility for offensive and defensive gas warfare. Paradoxically, the British liaison officer in the United States, Maj. S. M. J. Auld, warned the Americans against just such a practice. Thus, the AEF Gas Service made it the responsibility of all gas officers to be knowledgeable in both areas, a point driven home in subsequent general orders detailing the duties of army, corps, and division gas officers. On 3 September 1917, almost five months after the United States entered the war, the final version of General Order 31 was published (Figure 2).4

Not until 27 May 1918, as U.S. divisions were coming on-line in increasing numbers and experiencing heavy gas casualties, did GHQ, AEF, issue General Order 79 for the establishment of unit gas officers. Only then did Fries have the authority to appoint chief gas officers for armies and corps and gas officers and assistants for divisions. Until this time, division commanders had been appointing gas officers as they saw fit. Under the new arrangements, chief gas officers of armies and corps and division gas officers would be staff officers responsible to the commander. Parallel reporting procedures were established in order to ensure that accurate information reached the proper authorities. In addition to reports through official channels, the order authorized these officers to send required reports directly to the Chief of the Gas Service. The Chief, with GHQ approval, could also order these unit staff officers to attend meetings necessary for the coordination of defensive gas measures.
TO VIEW: 2. Organization of the Gas Service, AEF, 1917

The division and higher echelon gas officers had specific duties assigned. By direction of their commanding officers, they were to instruct and supervise the gas officers and NCOs within their command, supervise all defensive training and drill, collect enemy chemical warfare material for submission to AEF laboratories, inspect defensive measures, and advise the commander and staff regarding all aspects of chemical warfare. The division gas officer had the responsibility of reporting to the commander all gas casualties and actions taken to prevent recurrences. The division commander forwarded this report, together with a list of the actions he had taken to correct the deficiencies, to the Chief of the Gas Service.

Regimental and battalion commanders assigned duties to their gas officers. At this level, gas officer and gas NCO responsibilities were considered additional, not primary duties. A gas officer and NCO assistant were required for regiment, battalion, and separate units, and two NCOs were appointed for each company. Selected on the basis of undefined special qualifications, the men were trained at the AEF Gas Defense School or corps gas schools. Among their duties, they supervised training in the use of gas masks, gas proof shelters, alarm systems, and related defensive measures. When the division entered combat, the gas NCOs were required to inspect all defensive equipment and antigas procedures at least twice a week. They reported weather, terrain conditions, all new enemy gas tactics and material, and any noted deficiencies. This information was reported officially to the company commander and informally to the battalion commander.

General Order 79 established an AEF Gas Defense School with a course of instruction adequate for the training in gas defense of gas officers and noncommissioned officers. The school director received specific instructions, to coordinate his activities with those of officers engaged in offensive gas instruction and with those at the AEF’s new chemical experimental station at Hanlon Field near Chaumont. Instructors at the Gas Defense School kept abreast of the latest changes in gas warfare by personally reviewing files of Allied and American gas officer reports and by reading translated copies of captured German and Austrian documents.

General Order 79 dealt primarily with the Gas Corps* and the training of its officers, but it also called the attention of all ranks to the increasing importance of gas warfare. Although the Gas Corps would do every thing that was possible to prepare individuals and units to avoid casualties from gas, the ultimate responsibility for defense against gas, the order concluded, devolves upon commanding officers who must provide for the training of their men and the maintenance of gas discipline. In order to maintain gas discipline and provide adequate training, the order urged commanders to cooperate with Gas Corps officers.5

*Gas Service and Gas Corps were terms used interchangeably in the AEF.

The extensive use of gas by the Germans in their spring 1918 offensives caused the AEF General Staff to expand the duties of gas officers. As of 2 July 1918, gas officers were to be consulted and their technical knowledge utilized in the preparation of all plans involving the extensive use of gas, whether by artillery or other means. Thus, the duties and responsibilities of gas officers grew with the increasing awareness of the impact chemical agents were having on the offensive and defensive capabilities of AEF units. Fries, however, faced a chronic problem of locating competent men to serve in a branch of service that lacked precedent and had an unknown future. was further complicated by an Armywide shortage of personnel. The Corps of Engineers, originally the primary source of gas officers, became reluctant, as its own demand for officers grew, to have men reassigned to another branch.6

The AEF Gas Service had other problems with which to contend. There was, for example, a severe shortage of gas warfare supplies. The lack of protective masks for members of the AEF caused the greatest concern. On 2 August 1917, GHQ, AEF decided to utilize the British Small Box Respirator (SBR) as its primary mask and the French M-2 mask* as an emergency protective device.7

The SBR consisted of a canister-type filter of absorbent charcoal with alternating layers of oxidized soda lime granules. A flexible rubber tube connected the canister to a rubberized facepiece that was held to the face by elastic bands in order to provide an airtight fit. Inside the facepiece was a rubber nose clip. A hard rubber mouthpiece that the wearer grasped by his teeth was connected to the flexible hose attached to the filtration canister. A soldier exhaled air through a rubber flutter valve at the front of the mask. The wearer viewed the world through two lenses made of celluloid or specially prepared glass. Each soldier had a tube of antidimming or defogging paste that could be used to prevent condensation from forming on the lenses. Lacking an American mask, the AEF placed an initial order for 600,000 SBRs and 100,000 French M-2 masks. Additional orders followed, as it would take the United States a year from its entry into the war to begin providing its troops in the field with an acceptable American-made version of the SBR.8

The shortage of respirators notwithstanding, no individual could enter the combat zone unless equipped with a mask. Commanders and staff officers went to considerable lengths to ensure that all members of their units had respirators. In late December, 1917, the newly arrived 42nd Rainbow Division was moved by rail to a training site in France. On the train were masks for the unit, which the division’s Chief of Staff planned to issue on its arrival. The 1st Division, however, was due to go on the line shortly and submitted an urgent request for respirators. The Chief of the Gas Service responded by ordering the 42nd’s Chief of Staff to transfer his masks to the 1st Division. To circumvent the order, the 42nd’s Chief of Staff immediately stopped the train and ordered the masks issued to his men. He then reported to Fries that it was impossible to comply with the order because the masks had already been issued.9

*Because of its poor filtration capability and flimsy construction, the M-2 mask was later banned for use in the alert zone for everyone except men with head wounds who could not wear the SBR, men who were unconscious and could not grasp the mouthpiece, and black soldiers who could not wear the nose clips of the SBR.

Several thousand men of the 1st Division lacked masks, and its 1st Brigade was scheduled to move to the front line in January.* Fries finally obtained a priority of shipment and detailed several gas officers to accompany the masks from Le Havre, the major British supply base, to ensure their safe delivery to the 1st Division. Despite these precautions, one carload of 4,000 masks disappeared in transit. Fries finally had to order the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Division to turn in their SBRs. These were cleaned and reissued to the Division’s 1st Brigade. This episode was not an isolated one.10

Gas equipment and supplies in the United States and France were initially the responsibility of the nearest related branch of the Army. The AEF Gas Service found this procedure exceedingly embarrassing, cumbersome and inefficient. Despite initial resistance, the General Staff in Washington approved AEF requisition submitted on 10 September 1917 for 50,000 cylinders, 50,000 Livens projector shells, and a large quantity of Stokes mortars and ammunition. None of these weapons or ammunition reached the AEF in time to be used in combat. To avoid duplication of effort and to save time, Fries, in February, 1918, received permission to make direct purchases of equipment from the Allies. At that time almost all of the gas warfare material used by the AEF came from the British. Not until April, 1918, did any material manufactured in the United States begin to reach the AEF. As noted in the preceding chapter, a number of war gases were manufactured in the United States during the war, and more than 3,600 tons of these did reach the French and British.11

Because of a shortage of artillery pieces, artillery units of the AEF were equipped primarily with the French 75-mm light field gun, the 155-mm medium howitzer, and the 240-mm heavy howitzer, as well as with British 8-inch and 9.2-inch heavy howitzers. The U.S. Army also adopted, with minor modifications, the French gas shell. The AEF Services of Supply purchased French shells and painted them according to an American color code.**12

Originally, the SOS defensive gas equipment fell into Class I with clothing, leather goods, and optical instruments. In February, 1918, when the Gas Service was given authority to requisition its own supplies, all items of gas warfare equipment were placed into a new category, Class V. In September, 1918, the Army created four subclasses within the general Class V classification. Subclass A material included offensive gas supplies, such as gas shells and grenades, that were not used by gas troops but by the combat arms. Subclass B material included those gas supplies issued exclusively to gas troops. Subclass C supplies encompassed aviation, smoke, and incendiary material. Subclass D items included all defensive gas material. The Ordnance Corps transported and issued subclasses A and C, while the Gas Service did the same for B and D items. The Gas Service distributed all anti-gas supplies. Fries ordered a 10 percent reserve of all equipment at the division gas dumps, and each company or regiment maintained a 5 percent reserve supply. The division gas officer issued the required masks to the regimental supply officers, who distributed them to battalions. Gas officers also issued gas alarm devices, Strombo horns, Klaxon horns, and gongs directly to company commanders in each sector. Later, army and corps gas officers were given similar responsibility for the issue of gas supplies to corps artillerymen and all rear echelon troops.13

*Only one-half of the 1st Division was needed to relieve a French division (French divisions were one-half the size of the comparable American unit). The balance of the 1st Division remained in training.

**They were distinguished by a gray body lettered Special Gas. A strip colored either white or red or both circled the shell. Nonpersistent gas had only red, semipersistent gas combined red and white. The number of stripes indicated the relative persistency, the least persistent having fewer stripes.

Another branch heavily involved in chemical warfare was the Army’s Medical Department. The General Staff anticipated that medical officers would require some knowledge of the actual symptoms brought on by chemical agents and the various methods of treatment for gas poisoning. Consequently, in May, 1917, the War Department issued a Memorandum on Gas Poisoning in Warfare with Notes on Its Pathology and Treatment, based on British sources. Still, despite this assistance from Washington, most of the planning and organization for the treatment of gas casualties was done by the AEF in France.14

Maj. J. R. Church, Medical Department, was the first Medical Director of the Gas Service in France. While on the General Staff, he had assisted in the initial planning for an AEF Gas Service. As Medical Director he devoted most of his time to organizational matters. The increase in gas casualties, however, resulted in a personnel change in the position, with Lt. Col. Harry L. Gilchrist, M.D., the former commander of Number 9, General Hospital, replacing Church. Gilchrist prepared for his new assignment by attending the British Gas School at Rouen, France.15

When Gilchrist reported for duty as Medical Director, he found no records or guidelines detailing the responsibilities of his position. His first priority, and one agreed to by Fries, was to launch a gas instruction campaign directed specifically at AEF medical officers. On 9 February 1918, Gilchrist published a pamphlet, Symptomology, Pathology and General Treatment of Gas Cases, which provided medical officers basic information on the treatment of chemical casualties. Following this publication, the Medical Director’s office issued a constant stream of bulletins aimed at keeping AEF medical officers up-to-date on the latest medical developments in gas warfare. Gilchrist visited most AEF divisions and hospitals, where he lectured to officers and men on chemical warfare from a medical point of view, emphasizing prevention and treatment of gas casualties.16

As the chemical war escalated with the introduction of mustard gas, the Medical Director’s responsibilities and, indeed, his department’s tasks became increasingly crucial to the AER Gilchrist inspected troops at the front and visited medical personnel in hospitals, hospital trains, and other locations. He also served as the liaison officer between the Gas Service and the Medical Department, advising both the AEF’s Chief of the Gas Service and the Chief Surgeon on gas-related medical matters. In addition to these general duties, he collected all medical information relating to gas warfare and relayed it to the AEF’s Chief Surgeon. Gilchrist focused his attention on such matters as new treatment for gas casualties and combating-the effects of the enemy gases not only from a therapeutic, but also from a prophylactic point of view. To obtain information, he visited the sites of battles where large numbers of gas casualties had occurred.17

Because armies and corps of the AEF were formed after the arrival of a number of divisions, the medical structure to treat gas casualties evolved first within the division. On 1 March 1918, the 42nd Division became the second American division to occupy a sector on the Western Front. Although initially the division had few gas casualties, the medical officers prepared for a large influx of gas victims. All four of the division’s field hospitals were set up to accept gas victims, and orders were given that a total of 500 beds be put aside for such cases. On 20 March the Germans launched an artillery bombardment of mustard and high explosive shells that hit the 42nd Division’s 165th Infantry at 1730 hours. In the space of a few minutes, the mustard caused 270 casualties, including one death. The first-aid station through which the casualties passed also received a drenching with. gas, so medical personnel wore masks as they treated the patients.18

As a result of this attack and others that followed, the 42nd Division took several steps to improve the treatment of gas casualties. These later became standard for AEF divisions in the line. The first measure was to dedicate one of the four division field hospitals to gas cases. The position of division Gas Medical Officer was also created. Memorandum 148, HQ, 42nd Division, published on 23 April 1918, listed the duties of this officer as the instruction of medical personnel in gas defense; the supervision of gas protection of medical dugouts, aid stations, and field hospitals; the early diagnosis of symptoms; and the treatment of all types of gas casualties.19

The AEF adopted the 42nd Division’s practices when it instituted the position of division Gas Medical Officer in AEF General Order 144, dated 29 August 1918. GHQ took this measure in the face of mounting gas casualties and a high incident of gas malingering. As a consequence, in addition to the duties indicated in the 42nd Division’s memorandum, the AEF order added duties such as the instruction of all division personnel on the early symptoms and treatments of gas poisoning and the instruction of line officers in practical medical matters connected with gas warfare. The orders stated that any officers selected must be live, wide-awake, energetic men, and must show a keen appreciation of the work. By the first week in October, 1918, each AEF division had a Gas Medical Officer. These men were sent to the School of Pharmacy’s School of Gas (Ecole de Gaz) at the University of Paris for a four-day course to prepare them for their division duties.20

Beyond the division field hospitals, each army established its own gas hospitals.* The first such installation began operation on 29 August 1918. Army-level hospital personnel were casuals, or officers and men loaned from base or evacuation hospitals or anywhere else medical personnel could be found. To meet the demands of the Meuse-Argonne offensive, the Chief Surgeon, AEF, in September, l918, established five gas hospitals with a total of 1,650 beds. Colonel Gilchrist suggested three mobile 1,500-bed gas hospitals be established, one for each U.S. corps. This plan, however, was never implemented because of insufficient personnel. Another plan called for the creation of two emergency gas teams to be assigned to each base hospital. Their mission was to relieve the strain that sudden gas attacks put on division field hospitals*. The GHQ, AEF, organized several emergency gas teams, each consisting of a medical officer, two nurses, and two orderlies. The Chief Surgeon of the 1st U.S. Army, Col. A. N. Stark, however, objected to these teams on the grounds that base hospitals were too far removed from the fighting. He also believed that the division field hospitals set aside forgassed soldiers were effective and needed no further assistance. HeedingStark’s objections, the Chief Surgeon disbanded the teams.21

Another problem with which Fries and his staff had to contend was training in gas defense. When the 1st Division arrived in France, Pershing thought it best to have the Americans train by serving with a French divi sion. This proved to be unsatisfactory because the training varied from unit to unit within the French division. When the Training Section of the AEF’s GHQ became operational, it prepared a standardized division training schedule. Initially, the period of time a division spent preparing to enter the line was supposed to be three months.** Only two days of the schedule were allocated to Gas Service instructors. Later, as the demand for combat units increased, the gas instruction decreased to a mere six hours. This was vigorously protested by the Gas Service. In the spring of 1918, when the German offensives required a shortening of the division training cycle to bring new units on line, gas instruction was cut further.22

Formal defensive training was supplemented by wearing the masks during other training activities. Pvt. Norman A. Dunham of the 40th Division remembered wearing the SBR and full pack during two and three hour marches. He thought the mask the worst thing a soldier has to contend with and the most torturous thing a person can wear. Lt. Edgar D. Gilman remarked that when he wore the mask he found that it was not only disagreeable, painful, and smothering, but also that his saliva flowed profusely from his mouth, through the flutter valves, and down the front of his shirt. Personal protection was survival on the battlefield,however, and command emphasis had to be placed on defensive gas training, to include the wearing of the mask.23

*Corps hospitals were not considered because a corps was organized exclusively for tactical purposes.
**The 1st Division was retrained at Gondrecourt and was the only AEF Division to complete the AEF’s three-month-long training schedule.

It became obvious to GHQ, AEF that many commanders were not supporting the training activities of their gas officers and NCOs. To remedy this problem, officers in brigades that were rotated off the line received a comprehensive lecture course on gas defensive measures. However, continued reports of over 25 percent gas casualties indicated to General Staff that, after basic training, comparatively little was to be gained by instructing individuals in units on the line. The consensus among gas officers was that training had to instill an interest and awareness of gas defensive measures throughout an entire unit to give the best results in combat. Gas officers also believed more realistic training was needed. One result of this conviction was that artillery batteries, when they trained, received a minimum of three surprise gas attacks as part of the training schedule. To test the alertness of sentries and to correct such carelessness as leaving masks out of reach, attacks were often scheduled at night, while the troops were sleeping at their position. Men firing on the ranges were subjected to simulated surprise gas attacks in order to familiarize them with laying artillery pieces during an attack and to acquaint them with the difficulty of transmitting firing data while masked. During night marches, men were subjected to gas attacks as a means of teaching them to overcome confusion.

During the first year of American participation in the war, men arriving as individual replacements had little or no formal instruction in defensive measures until they reached their units in the forward areas. In the summer of 1918, the Army acted to rectify this haphazard method. Training stations were established at the AEF debarkation ports of Brest and St. Nazaire. Each center had five Gas Service instructors: one officer and four NCOS. Three enlisted men acted as gas mask fitters and helpers. When troops arrived at the stations, they marched single file into a warehouse to be fitted and issued. masks. After an inspection, the troops moved to a large lecture hall where instructors did everything possible to impress on the men the importance of defensive gas measures. To complete the training, seventy-five to 100 men at a time entered a gas chamber filled with a tear agent for five to ten minutes. At peak times more than 2,000 men a day were put through this initiation into gas warfare.

In Army rear areas, depot divisions,* such as the one at La Querche, handled three categories of personnel: newly arrived line replacements, special units such as engineer troops, and casuals who were recently released from hospitals and scheduled to rejoin their units. During the normal three-week course, the replacements received a minimum of eighteen hours of gas defense training. Their training consisted of lectures, mask drills, games with the mask worn, and firing weapons while wearing the The troops also went through simulated tactical operations, with the instructors lighting smoke candles and throwing tear gas grenades to provide added realism.

*The AEF suffered so many casualties that some divisions were broken up, their men used as replacements, and their cadre used to train arriving personnel.

Special troops such as pioneer infantry, engineer, and medical service units first received basic infantry training and then were given three days’ intensive instruction in gas defense. During the three days, the men practiced their specialty while wearing masks. For example, medics with SBRs in place applied bandages and carried stretchers through woods and over rough terrain. Engineers constructed roads and pioneer troops dug ditches while wearing masks. After duty hours, trainees played baseball in their SBRs.
To View: Sanitary Detachmant, 121st Maching Gun BAttalion, wearing the SBR while playing baseball, 2 June 1918.

Hospital convalescents, the last category of men run through the divisions, numbered anywhere from a handful to 2,000 a day. These men were reequipped with masks, and those with prior gas training – Class A men – were excused from formal instruction until August, 1918, when the mounting number of mustard gas casualties compelled the Gas Service staff to give all personnel short classes on ways to avoid being contaminated by this persistent agent.

The increased German employment of chemical agents-especially mustard gas – for counterbattery fire forced American artillery training camps to place special emphasis on defensive gas instruction. During a gas attack, a poorly trained artillery man would be totally incapable of serving his weapon or delivering accurate fire. Initially, artillery officers and NCOs attended a week-long course of lectures, drills, and practical exercises. Later NCOs received an additional week of training. If the artillerymen failed to score 70 percent or better on the final examination, they had to repeat the course. Just before returning to the front, the graduates had to visit.a base hospital to see gas casualties. The experience, according to instructors, furnished a great stimulus to general gas training. Still, despite these efforts to train every doughboy arriving in France, many received no training in gas warfare because of the pressing need for troops,on the front lines.24

In conjunction with the emphasis on gas defensive training, the AEF paid increasing attention to the offensive gas capabilities of the American Army in France. On 10 January 1918 the first two companies of the 1st Gas Regiment (30th Engineers) arrived in France (Figure 3). The companies reported to the British Special Brigade training area at Helfaut, where Brigadier General Foulkes personally directed the training of the unit. Eventually, four of the six companies of the regiment passed through Helfaut.
TO VIEW: 3. U.S. Gas Regiment, company organization, 1917

The training of the 1st Gas Regiment in offensive gas operations began in February, 1918, and employed the delivery systems used by the British. The American troops spent five days learning to use Livens projectors, seven days for Stokes mortars, and two days for cylinder operations. The men first attended classes and then conducted practical field exercises in which they applied their newly acquired knowledge. Projector operations called for the emplacement of the guns at night and their detonation the following day. Stokes mortar drill required the men to conduct rapid fire with gas rounds, thermite, and smoke, both day and night. Officers of the regiment opened cylinders of chlorine, and the men walked through the gas cloud to instill confidence in their training and equipment. The American officers were then detailed to a sector of the British front and assigned to Special Brigade companies, where they observed projector, mortar, and cylinder operations. The overall result was that these men better understood offensive gas operations and could assist in training the other companies of the American Gas Regiment.25

On 6 June 1918 these trained officers and men held a practice shoot for the AEF General Staff at Hanlon Field, the home of the AEF’s Gas School and experimental station in France. Twelve Stokes mortars and 100 Livens projectors were fired. On 22 June, after several more exercises, companies of the 1st Gas Regiment moved to the U.S. sector to conduct offensive gas operations.

Artillery was the other branch of the Army capable of conducting offensive gas operations. In the first gas warfare manuals prepared by the U.S. Army War College, artillery employment was not included because of the continual changes in gas tactical doctrine* on the Western Front. Therefore, almost all artillery training in gas warfare was conducted in France, where the AEF adopted British and French doctrine for gas shell fire. The U.S. 1st Army, for example, published its own Provisional Instruction for Artillery Officers on the Use of Gas Shell, based on French field manuals. At artillery camps, gas officers lectured on the problems involved in the use of gas shells, but no evidence exists to indicate that gas shells were ever fired in training. Yet, by 1 November 1918, 20 percent of all shells delivered to the AEF were gas filled, and a 25 percent ratio was planned for 1919.26

No other preparations or plans were instituted in AEF rear areas to prepare and sustain the American armies in chemical warfare. The burden of the gas war fell to the combat divisions of the AEF. How well they fought and how well they adapted to this new experience is the subject of the next chapter.

*Firing with gas shells was such a new experience that the opposing armies changed their doctrine on a regular basis seeking the most effective means of employment.

The Quick and the Dead :
The AEF on the
Chemical Battlefield

Chapter 5

Between 18 and 21 January 1918, units of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division relieved the French 1st Moroccan Division manning the front lines in the Ansauville sector. In doing so, the Big Red One became the first American division to occupy a portion of the Western Front. The movement of American troops into the lines was uneventful except for one incident, As we take our positions in the trenches, Maj. Gen. Robert Bullard, the division commander, noted, from the French position on our right some two hundred gas casualties are evacuated-our first object lesson. 1

This grim object lesson reinforced French warnings that the Ansauville sector was a highly active gas front with both sides constantly employing large amounts of chemical agents. The German use of Yellow Cross especially concerned the French. The XXII Corps commander, prior to the arrival of the ist Division, had his troops post in every dugout instructions in English on the correct procedures to follow during and after a Yellow Cross attack. The French warning advised the Americans to mask when the first gas shell exploded and remain masked for four hours following a gas bombardment. The instructions also called for anyone in a gassed area to beat and shake his clothing prior to entering a dugout and to use soapy water to decontaminate skin exposed to mustard. Further instructions from the French corps commander followed, emphasizing the gas-proofing of dugouts and the maintenance of gas mask discipline.2

Based on the 1st Division’s experience over the previous months, these instructions should not have been necessary. Although the unit arrived overseas without the slightest bit of gas training, it received in France the most complete chemical warfare preparation of any AEF division during the war. Gas training pamphlets, directives, and orders were showered on the 1st Division by an anxious and apprehensive GHQ, AEF. The 1st Division became the only American division to undergo the complete GHQ, AEF, training schedule, which included defensive and offensive gas training.*

*Even with this extensive training, the mistakes made by the soldiers of this division during chemical warfare were the very same repeated over and over by other, less prepared AEF divisions. In the Ansauville and the Montdidier sectors, the Big Red One suffered more casualties from gas than from small arms or artillery shell fire.
To View: Big Nims, 366th Infantry, 92nd Division, inspecting his mask (note mouthpiece), 8 August 1918.

Instruction in chemical warfare began for the 1st Division in December with nine hours devoted to defensive training. Proper masking was a key element of this training. With troops in the practice trenches, instructors sounded gas alarms and lit smoke pots to simulate gas clouds, thereby increasing the troops’ skill in putting on and wearing the gas masks. During the drill, gas instructors reminded their students that in case of gas attack, there are only two classes of soldiers, the quick and the dead. 3

The British had decided for reasons now obscure that SBR masking should take no longer than six seconds, to be accomplished in five steps. In step one, the doughboy had to hold his breath,* knock off his headgear, grip his rifle between the legs, and reach into the case on his chest to grasp the mask by the breathing joint and nose clip. At step two, the soldier thrust his chin out, held the mask in front of the face with both thumbs inside and under the elastic headband. In step three, the chin was placed into the facepiece while the headband was pulled over the head to secure the mask. Next, at step four, the soldier grasped the mouthpiece with his teeth. The last step, five, required the soldier to reach through the facepiece to secure the nose clip and then run his hands around the mask to ensure a snug fit. Division gas officers complained that when it came to defensive gas training, many commanders were satisfied when their men simply achieved the six-second requirement. Proper adjustment, the gas officers believed., was more important than speed.4

*Officers realized that, when exposed to German gas in combat, men instinctively took a deep breath. In so doing, they unintentionally inhaled the poisonous air. Later, the AEF corrected the drill by instructing the doughboy to stop breathing when the gas alarm sounded.

When finally issued, each mask came with a small log book tied to the canvas case. Soldiers received instructions to record the length of time they wore the mask, both for drill and in combat. They were also required to identify each type of gas encountered. The purpose of this log was to ensure that the filter in the canister was replaced at the proper intervaL Filters for an SBR had a life of fifty to 100 hours of exposure, depending on the chemical agents. As might be expected, the log system did not work. As one gas officer remarked, any man who in the hell of battle can keep such a record completely should be at once awarded a Distinguished Service Medal. Gas officers in some divisions came up with an alternative: they painted the number of the month of issue on the case. If and when filters became available, the officers replaced them based on their own estimate of exposure time. There were three types of AEF filter canisters. Those painted black were for training only and offered no protection against smoke or gas. Canisters colored yellow protected against smoke, offered greater gas protection, and had a high resistance to breathing. The green canister offered protection against smoke, had sufficient gas protection, and had a low resistance to breathing.5
To View: Men of the 366th Infantry, 92nd Division, during an inspection of their American SBRs at Ainville, Vosges, France, 8 August 1918.

While the British SBR was initially worn by the 1st and other divisions, the American version was in ready supply by the late summer of 1918. The American mask had both advantages and disadvantages. Although its fuller facepiece permitted easy cleaning of the eyepieces, these eyepieces had a tendency to fall out; also, the larger facepiece with an increase in dead space made it more difficult to clear. The larger canister gave greater protection, but was heavier and clumsy.6
To View: Medics place an M-2 mask on a head-wound casualty, 137th Ambulance Company, 31 August 1918.

There is no question but that the SBR, whether British or American, was extremely uncomfortable. General Bullard admitted that he could never fulfill the qualification of a successful wearer because as much as he tried he could not wear the mask longer than three minutes without feeling smothered. Since the SBR was difficult to wear, division gas officers reported troops would change from the SBR to the more comfortable M-2 in the midst of a gas attack, in the process inhaling the poisonous air. The M-2 did not offer the filtration protection of the SBR. Its flimsy construction and susceptibility to water damage also reduced. its effectiveness, as did the fact that it did not block mustard gas. The widespread problem with the M-2 prompted AEF, GHQ General Order 78 on 25 May 1918. This order forbid anyone who entered the alert zone* to use the M-2. As noted previously it was retained and attached to stretchers for men with head wounds or for those unable to grasp the mouthpiece. Labor troops in rear areas were authorized to wear the M-2.7

A number of U.S. officers apparently procured, on their own, another French mask, the ARS (described earlier). This created morale problems since it gave American enlisted men the impression that our protective equipment is defective. A Gas Service report demanded that these officers be taught that only the material issued by the Gas Service was authorized for use, and that they had no authority to secure equipment from the French.8

Another mask, the Tissot, was officially procured from the French, although it was for issue only in small numbers to artillerymen, Signal Corps troops, and front-line medical units whose personnel had to be active during gas attacks. Not only did this mask’s filter offer less resistance to breathing and have the same quality filtration of the American SBR, but the problem of fogged vision associated with the SBR did not exist. The Tissot design allowed air to flow between the two lenses of each eyepiece, eliminating condensation. Most important, the Tissot design did away with a nose clip and mouthpiece, making it a comfortable yet safe mask.9 Unfortunately, as noted earlier, the filter location on the back, together with the flimsy rubber facepiece, made it unsuitable for infantry.

If soldiers wearing gas masks in defensive positions experienced a variety of problems, they encountered even more difficulties when they shifted to the offensive. The standard issue American or British SBR made normal breathing difficult, it made obtaining sufficient oxygen during heavy exertion, such as in infantry attacks across No Man’s Land, impossible. Additionally, exertion caused perspiration to form on the lens, limiting vision even more than what was normal.*

Standing Orders for Defense Against Gas published in November, 1911, stated that within two mile& of the front lines and within areas specially exposed to gas shelling, the gas mask case would be carried in the alert position, which was on the chest.
To View: Lt. William T. Powers, Pvt. Walter Miesley, Operator, and Pvt Tichard Pereyer, Recorder, wearing the Tissot mask while receiving instructions from a forward observer, 30 October 1918.

At Ville Savoye, for example, Pvt. Moses King, 305th Infantry, 77th Division, had difficulty seeing through his mask and received an order from his company commander – whose own vision was obscured – to remove his facepiece, but to keep the nose clip and mouthpiece in place. This pernicious habit, the Chief, Chemical Warfare Service, AEF, noted in September 1918, has been the cause of many casualties ; the practice has been condemned at every opportunity. Despite the condemnation, the practice never ceased, and the increased use of mustard gas by the Germans resulted in a significant number of Allied casualties suffering from eye damage.10

As a consequence of these and other problems, standing orders did not call for troops to mask during the attack. Doughboys did, however, wear the mask on the chest in the alert position with the helmet chin strap on the tip of the chin, rather than under it, to facilitate quick placement of the mask if gas were encountered.11

* Anti-dimming (defogging) paste was issued with the mask, but according to soldiers who used it, it distorted the vision of the mask wearer.

In addition to the problems associated with gas masks, the persistency of chemical agents combined with the methods of AEF commanders to produce a significant number of gas casualties. Under normal attacking conditions, an area in which phosgene was used would clear in ten minutes. Diphosgene would take longer to dispel, perhaps fifteen to twenty minutes. Mustard gas would linger for several days. A problem arose, however, when AEF commanders intent on taking an objective regardless of the cost often launched an attack before a gassed area had cleared. The reason for this disregard lay in the fact that the AEF, from General Pershing down to division commanders, never hesitated to relieve an officer considered lacking in an aggressive spirit.

Of the chemical agents employed by the Germans against the Allies, mustard gas was responsible for 39 percent of AEF gas casualties. Once mustard gas made contact with the skin, it destroyed tissue as long as it remained, doing damage several hours before the first symptoms appeared. To combat this persistent blister agent, the Gas Service made available to line units an ointment called Sag paste* to protect exposed flesh. Sag paste came in a 3.5-cm by 16-cm collapsible tube and became a standard-issue item for the prevention and treatment of mustard burns. According to one veteran, it looked like and had the consistency of carbolated vaseline. Doughboys who entered a mustard-contaminated area or who anticipated a shelling of Yellow Cross smeared their bodies with the ointment. It proved very effective, a medic in the 35th Division noted, if used in time. However, it was uncomfortable because it caked when the men perspired and rubbed off on clothing when a soldier engaged in any physical activity. The paste also presented a danger: if not removed after exposure to gas it eventually absorbed the mustard agent without neutralizing it, which meant that the agent ultimately came into contact with the skin. There were other uses for the paste: medics, for example, found it to be effective in soothing mustard burns by blocking the oxygen to the contaminated area. Enterprising men in the trenches found it extremely effective in exterminating cooties, the doughboy slang for body lice.12

The Defense Division, CWS, sought other ways besides masks and Sag paste to protect troops from mustard gas. The division designed and had manufactured a protective suit for artillery gun crews, medics, and decontaminating teams. The suit consisted of cotton sheeting impregnated with linseed or vegetable drying oil. The coveralls had elastic ties at the ankles and wrists. A zipper down the center from neck to crotch provided an airtight fit. The hood was worn under the headgear. Mittens had been provided prior to the development of the suit and were highly valuable … but somewhat stiff and clumsy. ** Special boots were also provided to complete the uniform. Unfortunately, the suit trapped body heat and moisture so it could rarely be worn longer than fifteen to thirty minutes. A gas officer reported men tearing off the suit while working in an area reeking with mustard gas because they couldn’t stand the discomfort any longer. 13

*I was unable to identify the source of the term Sag. Lt. Col. Charles M. Wurm, CACDA,Ft. Leavenworth, suggested Salve, Antigas.

Gloves were not available until the end of the war.
To View: Pvt. John Sloan, 6th Infantry Medical Attachment, in an Anti-Gas Suit, Croix de Charemont, France, 20 August 1918. This protective uniform was worn by medical personnel and artillery gun crews.

The effects of mustard gas could be lessened or even avoided by removing it with hot soapy water shortly after exposure. To this end, GHQ, AEF, on 29 August 1918, ordered the Medical Department to activate a number of mobile degassing units. Each division in the line of battle would have two such units attached, commanded by a Sanitary Corps captain or first lieutenant. To each eleven-man unit a specially trained medical gas officer would be detailed from the supported division, This individual’s duties included the supervision of the unit’s operation, instruction of the medical personnel on the treatment of gas casualties, and responsibility for the maintenance of the proper equipment for the treatment of gas casualties at the battalion advance aid station. The degassing units remained in the division rear. When a unit became contaminated and could be withdrawn from the line, the degassing station rushed to treat the men as close to the front as possible. The units equipment consisted of a five-ton tank truck with a 1,200 gallon capacity and an instantaneous heater mounted on the rear of the vehicle to provide hot water. The heated water flowed to portable shower baths similar to modern field showers. Another vehicle carried fuel, underwear, uniforms, and medical supplies. These supplies included bicarbonate of soda to Rush the patient’s eyes, ears, mouth, and nasal passages. Unfortunately for the thousands of mustard casualties, very few degassing units saw service, as evidenced by the late date of the order creating them.*14
To View: Degassing Station tank truck with heater mounted in the rear, Mobile Degassing Unit #1, Services of Supply, Tours, France, 21 July 1918.

*When the Armistice took effect, the few units that had reached the field were turned over to the Quartermaster Corps for delousing troops returning home.

While methods were being sought to degas men, efforts were also undertaken to decontaminate the ground they held in the static trench warfare. General orders created decontamination squads at regiment and battalion level. These units decontaminated shell holes with lime and new earth, buried gas shell duds, reported to gas officers the location of dud shells that could not be buried, and removed contaminated equipment and clothing in special oiled bags. Each man in the squad was issued a new SBR, a reserve M-2 mask, a suit of protective coveralls, and two pairs of oiled mittens. The decontamination equipment consisted of shovels, buckets, and long-handled tongs for handling dud mustard shells.
To View: A squad preparing to decontaminate a gas shell hole, 4 December 1918.

In the trenches, mustard gas and other agents were counteracted in a variety of ways. During a gas attack, standing orders called for as little moving about and talking as possible, because gas poisoning was sometimes intensified by exertion. Once an attack ceased, trenches were cleared of low lying gas. One method required the use of an Ayrton or trench fan. This device consisted of a two-foot-long handle attached to a rigid piece of canvas hinged to a fifteen-inch section that moved in one direction. In effect the fan was used like a shovel, with the moveable flap creating an upward air current, thus removing the gas. Americans adopted these fans as called for by British defensive gas doctrine. Unfortunately, the fans, according to British General Foulkes, were worse than worthless. Not only did they not remove the vapor, but the exertion of masked users led to exhaustion and increased susceptibility to gassing.* The fans were eventually discarded and burned to create an updraft, soon recognized as a better method of clearing trenches and dugouts of gas.15
To View: Men detailed to use Ayrton or British trench fans after gas attack, 1918.

Another method of decontamination used in the trenches consisted of placing boxes of chloride of lime outside of dugouts. Prior to entering, men stepped in the substance, neutralizing any mustard agent clinging to the shoes. The Vermoral sprayer, which was a hand-pumped fire extinguisher filled with a sodium thiosulfate solution, could neutralize chlorine, but little else. The sprayers were used, however, to moisten the blankets at the entrances of the gas-proof dugouts.16

The prolongation of German gas attacks, the increased quantity of chemical agents fired in an attack, the extensive use of the persistent agent mustard, plus the fact that 80 percent to 90 percent of all gas attacks experienced by the AEF took place during the hours of darkness, made the construction of gas-proof dugouts essential for survival in the trenches (Figure 4). Basically, the gas-proofing of dugouts required a wood frame entrance and a snug fitting blanket, usually soaked with glycerine and kept damp with a diluted solution of sodium thiosulfate. If space allowed, complete protection could, be obtained by hanging two blankets over the entrance in such a way as to leave an air space between the two. Such measures made it difficult for men in front-line trenches to get out of a dugout rapidly in the event of an infantry attack, and for this reason early U.S. manuals advised against protection of front-line dugouts. But this advice was generally ignored because of the need to have a gas-free environment in which to sleep and occasionally remove the SBR. The same Army manual stated that Medical aid-posts and advanced dressing stations; Company, Regiment, and Brigade Headquarters; at least one dugout per battery position; Signal Shelters and any other place where work has to be carried out during a gas attack should always be protected. 17

*Apparently the, British Army first rejected the fan, an, invention of Mrs. Ayrton, the wife of a distinguished physicist, but political pressure forced them to procure 100,000. The AEF Gas Service, unaware of the circumstances and not thinking to ask, ordered 50,000.
TO VIEW: 4. Entrance, gas-proof dugout

Oftentimes, casualties occurred when a gas shell or projector shell fell at the entrance of a dugout and the force of the explosion threw open the blankets and drove the gas inside. On 27 May 1918, at the beginning of one of the German 1918 spring offensives, a concentration of 983 phosgene projector bombs caught doughboys of the 168th Infantry, 42nd Division, asleep in dugouts on the side of a ravine. The Germans, in order to keep the U.S. troops pinned in the gassed position, shelled the area in the rear of the ravine for an hour with shrapnel and Yellow Cross. The division G-3 reported one soldier killed and six wounded by shrapnel, 236 gassed, and thirty-seven gas deaths resulting from the attack.18

It was the duty of the gas sentry to sound the warning of a gas attack to the other troops. Usually the sentry received general instructions to alert his unit as soon as he heard the hissing sound of gas leaving cylinders, saw a cloud moving along the ground, observed a distant flash, heard a muffled explosion of projectors, saw a shell burst with a small pop, or sniffed a suspicious odor. In addition to shouting, Gas he would, after masking, sound a mechanical alarm. Such alarms ranged from air horns, known as Strombos,* to metal shell casings, steel triangles, or even church bells. When, in the fall of 1918, the AEF went on the offensive, the Gas Service decided that Klaxon horns and European police rattles produced the most audible warning of gas to troops on the move.19
To View: Pvt. Demetry Melonisk, 315th Field Hospital, 304th Sanitary Train, 79th Division, carrying a chruch bell used to give gas alarms, 17 October 1918.

*Strombos horns carried for a great distance and were initially used for cloud attacks that occurred over a wide frontage. Later in the war, when attacks became more localized with projectiles and shells, the Strombos were phased out and replaced with alarms whose sound did not carry as far.

Whether on the move in open warfare or manning the trenches in static warfare, the most critical individuals in chemical combat were the unit gas officers. On 27 May 1918, AEF General Order 79 formalized and standardized defensive duties for gas officers, the positions having been created by individual divisions on their own initiative after arrival in France. Two months later, General Order 107 expanded the functions of gas officers: in addition to their previous duties, they would be advisers whose technical knowledge would be solicited in the preparations of all plans involving the extensive use of gas, whether by artillery or by other means. Despite the order, staff officers too often told gas officers that their advice for offensive planning was not required and that they should concern themselves only with defensive duties. The success of division gas officers in integrating plans for the use of gas in offensive operations eventually depended on, in the words of the Gas Service’s Chief, their ability to go out and sell gas to the army. Despite such promotional efforts, resistance by staff officers continued. During the Meuse-Argonne campaign in the fall of 1918, an unidentified division gas officer reportedly recommended to a division operations officer (G-3) that gas be used during a particular phase of the engagement. The staff officer replied that he would employ the artillery firing gas shells only if the gas officer stated in writing that the gas would not cause a single American casualty. This request was unrealistic in that a thorough staff planner in World War I usually included an allowance for casualties due to a friendly barrage. Another objection raised to the use of gas was that commanders feared its employment would subject their men to unnecessary retaliatory gas attacks.20

Even if a division commander and his staff were reluctant to employ chemicals, they could not afford to be careless about the protection of their troops from chemical agents. A unit’s effectiveness depended on proper gas defensive measures. GHQ, AEF, delegated significant responsibility for gas defense to division, regiment, battalion, and company gas officers and NCOs. These dedicated and harried men attempted to insure that their respective organizations could cope with gas attacks while sustaining minimal casualties. Once in the trenches, exposed to a chemical warfare environment, most commanders soon realized the need for competent gas officers. After selection and training, gas officers had to prove themselves to the commander, staff, and the troops in the trenches. The most effective way to gain the respect and confidence of the troops, one gas officer discovered, was to join a unit under an attack. This practice offered a number of advantages. First, the gas officer learned the immediate effects of a gas attack and what individuals endured during such an attack. He could suggest corrections and give guidance during the attack, as opposed to afterwards, when men were already casualties. The confidence of the men in the gas officer’s instruction grew when they observed him take what they did. Infantry officers proved more willing to accept the advice of such a gas officer because they knew he spoke from actual and not book knowledge.

*No figures for the AEF are available, but the French concluded that 75,000 or 1.5 percent of all their casualties were due to arnicicide (casualties caused by friendly fire).

This knowledge afforded the gas officer the credibility to obtain a hearing and accomplish results when he called to the attention of unit officers and staff both good results of proper gas discipline and the bad results of bad discipline. 21

While division gas officers worked with the staff, the regimental and battalion gas officers had the greatest impact on the doughboys, At these lower echelons, gas officers assumed a variety of responsibilities that ranged from instruction to inspection of defensive equipment and selection of alternate positions during an attack. It fell to these officers to assure that gas alarms were installed, gas sentries posted, gas alert signs displayed, and dugouts selected for gas-proofing, In addition these officers took wind readings twice a day.* When required, gas officers became bomb disposal experts who located and removed all unexploded enemy gas shells. As the Table of Organization for AEF units, did not include gas officers, General Order 79 of 27 May 1918, which ordered the appointment of gas officers down to battalion level, caused some grumbling in recently arrived divisions. Plagued by a shortage of line officers, commanders assigned men to gas duties grudgingly., When the need arose, the men chosen were subjected to double duty as infantry officers.22

With the absence of sophisticated detection and warning systems, one of the most important functions of a gas officer became the determination of when to give the order to mask and when to unmask. At gas schools, trainees were taught to taste gas, sniffing just enough air to identify a chemical agent by its own peculiar odor. They had to know the persistency and the properties of each gas and then be able to determine how soon after an attack the air would clear. Most of the officers became very proficient at identification. At times, though, some gas officers were too conscientious in tasting for gas and became casualties themselves.23

When night settled in, gas officers in the trenches slept fitfully, waiting for the cry of Gas One such officer described an evening that was shattered, after the troops had gone to sleep, by the sound of artillery followed by gas alarms. Everyone, he recalled, came out of their holes with masks in place, the fine fruit of constant training. The officer lifted his mask, sniffed, and determined the fumes to be from high explosive shells. After taking his mask off, the gas officer gave the all clear and the men unmasked. Toward dawn the men again awoke to the sound of gas alarms and cries of Gas This time the officer raised his mask and detected the mild pungent breath of a chemical agent. He masked and told the others to do the same. A gas shell exploded upwind with a light pop and puff of vapor. After the shells ceased dropping he checked up and down the line for casualties and found none. Several minutes passed, and he took another taste only to detect a lingering odor. Five minutes later a light wind drove the gas away, and the all-clear sounded.24

*Early in the American involvement, AEF and War Department manuals listed cloud attacks as the primary delivery system of the Germans; when the wind blew from the east, therefore, troops went on a gas alert.

The Americans were not always so fortunate in responding to gas attacks. On 26 February 1918, at 1330 in the Ansauville sector, men of the 1st Division received the first German projector attack directed against U.S. forces. The estimated 150 to 250 bombs contained phosgene and chloropicrin. Conditions were ideal for such an attack: the heavy evening air kept the gas low to the ground, and what wind there was soon became calm. The bombs fell over a 600-meter front, where heavy underbrush held the gas in place. Of the 225 men exposed, 33 percent (eighty-five men) became casualties. Two men died soon after the attack, and six soldiers succumbed after they reached the division field hospital.

Col. Campbell King, 1st Division Chief of Staff, believed that there were several causes for the casualties. The sudden attack caught men unprepared on sentry duty or in their dugouts; they did not have adequate warning to adjust their masks or lower the gas curtains. After the attack, men removed their masks on their own initLtive, or changed to the M-2, although the gas lingered in a dangerous concentration. Furthermore, the unmasked doughboys remained or worked in the dugouts and in low places in the woods, where gas stagnated. A captain who witnessed the attack amplified the Chief of Staffs observation. He reiterated that the premature removal of the mask, a breach of discipline, caused casualties and that the men failed to mask in time and to lower the gas-proof curtains. At the same time, the soldiers neglected to put out fires in the dugouts, thereby drawing gas from the trenches into the sealed shelters. Men who were only slightly gassed exerted themselves, contrary to standing orders, thus complicating their symptoms. The captain attributed the donning of the M-2 to the discomfort involved in wearing the SBR. A field hospital report mentioned that one man had had his mask disarranged in. an attempt to force a mask on a comrade who had gone berserk and torn off his own mask.25

In another commonplace incident, an entire platoon of infantry in the 28th Division became gas casualties before they reached the front. While moving forward one night toward Châuteau Thierry, the men stopped to rest in shallow shell holes near the road. A recent rain had diluted the usual smell of mustard, and no one advised the green troops that the holes were craters from Yellow Cross shells. Unwittingly, they slept through the night in fresh mustard contamination. The following morning the men awoke with backs and buttocks so badly burned that the skin appeared to be flayed. The battalion gas officer could only try to relieve their agony with generous applications of Sag paste. That same day the 28th Division’s gas officer noted his dwindling supplies of paste and masks. Since German gas seemed to be coming over in increasing quantities with the resulting casualties, he ordered. one of the battalion gas officers back to the SOS depot at Gievres on a foraging expedition to secure antigas supplies for the division.26

There were times when division, regimental, and battalion gas officers, in their more zealous attempts to prevent gas casualties, ran afoul of line officers. A battalion commander in the 23d Infantry, 2d Division, complained to his superior that the requests, orders, and reports required by the regimental gas officer were absurd, ludicrous, and, in many cases, impossible to carry out. For instance, the gas officer had ordered that all men within 1,200 yards of the front line must sleep in gas-proof dugouts with sentry posted over each. If this order were respected, the commander complained, no one in the unit would get any rest because the facilities for compliance did not exist. Another directive informed the infantry officer that men exposed to mustard should take a warm bath and change uniforms. To this he replied, with frustration, We don’t get enough water to wash regularly. The battalion commander closed his letter by explaining how tired he was of receiving directives doped out of a book. Staff officers, he believed, must become more aware of the conditions at the front.27
To View: Infantrymen of the 28th Division masking during a gas attack, 23 August 1918.

Likewise a division commander complained that new gas officers were almost hysterical in their attempts to educate the troops in gas defense. Knowledge and real efficient training, he observed, came after hard experience and the hysteria of gas officers passed. When the 1st Division suffered 800 gas casualties at Villers-Tournelle, General Bullard complained of a report filed by a GHQ gas officer who, he believed, spoke without knowledge or consideration in a tone of superior criticism that comes from abstract study. After Bullard complained, the officer’s superiors ordered all gas officers to abstain from such criticism. Fortunately, incidents such as these were the exception rather than the rule, and line officers eventually realized that the gas officers were there to help them, not to harass them.28

Still, the job of gas officer continued to be a demanding one, especially in regard to defensive training for replacements. The square World War I division had a Table of Organization strength of approximately 28,000 officers and men. In this war of attrition with high casualties (referred to as wastage ), these large square divisions had a constant flow of new men into the ranks. The 1st Division, for example, after 223 days in the line, received over 30,000 replacements, The 2nd Division’s statistics were even more striking: following 139 days in the trenches, it took in over 35,000 new men. Six other divisions received over half their strength in replacements, and another five received over a third. The rapid mobilization and rush to send men overseas led to a situation in which men had little overall training. The 42nd Division, after some time in the trenches, withdrew to train for the St. Mihiel offensive. During this time the division received replacements, cannon fodder if there ever was any. One, company obtained forty-three new men of whom one man had had but one week of training; four had had two weeks; twenty had had three weeks; six had had four weeks ; and the balance had had between one and three months. Gas officers were therefore faced with a continual personnel training problem, having to instill a proper respect for gas defense in green officers and men.29

Protecting officers and men of the AEF required more than training. Contamination of food, water, tobacco, and equipment by chemical agents emerged as a significant problem for gas officers. On an interim basis the Gas Service issued tar paper and oil cloth to cover food and tobacco. Water contamination was always a problem, because the scarcity of water often compelled men like a 79th Division doughboy at Montfaucon to risk drinking from a suspicious source. Driven by thirst, this American ignored the warning of French soldiers and drank stagnant water from a shell hole. He later suffered chest pains from the gas contaminated water. After being evacuated he eventually returned to his unit, but only after twenty-three days in a base hospital. No one ever devised an effective means to stop troops from drinking contaminated water. Late in the war, the Quartermaster Corps packaged foodstuffs destined for France in gas-proof, airtight trench ration containers.

As for equipment, the corrosive properties of most war gases created problems of contaminated artillery shells not being able to be chambered, breechblocks jamming, gun surfaces rusting, and contaminated small arms cartridges not chambering properly. AEF regulations required weapons and shells be cleaned with oil immediately after a gas attack, but the metal continued to corrode unless small arms were disassembled and boiled in a solution of sodium bicarbonate and water. The difficulty of applying decontamination method in the trenches, not to mention in No Man’s Land during a prolonged assatilt lasting several days, can be well imagined, Protection of animals was also a problem, and they, too, were fitted with protective masks.30

*The term square comes from the fact that the division had four infantry regiments.
To View: The use of chemical agents created problems not only for the combat arms but also for the Services of Supply, the logistical tail of the AEF. Here mules and men are masked for a drill, November, 1918.
When doughboys went over the top, they, their commanders, and their gas officers alike faced increased challenges and many difficulties not met with in trench warfare. At times, good gas discipline had little or no impact on casualties in the maelstrom of battle. The reports of gas officers constantly referred to gas casualties caused by men being knocked down, or shocked and stunned by German high explosive shell fire. The concussion of the exploding shells slowed the men’s reaction or worse, knocked them unconscious, and they never had a chance to put their mask on. Many times the blast tore off a mask or flying shrapnel cut the facepiece or damaged the hose from the filter to the mouthpiece. The extensive use of gas both at day and night often meant prolonged use of the mask. Lt. Robert A. Hall, for example, blamed a significant number of the 1st Division’s gas casualties at Villers-Toumelle on the fact that after seventeen to eighteen hours of good gas discipline wearing the SBR, perspiration impregnated with gas seeped under the elastic head band. Perspiration also caused the nose clip to slip, and as a result, men inhaled poisonous vapor or had their eyes affected and, as a consequence, became gas casualties.31

Troops caught in the open by enemy gunners often sought cover in shell holes, ravines, and patches of wood, the very places where gas lingered the longest. Even if men maintained strict gas discipline, casualties were inevitable when the enemy concentration of gas shells became too dense. From 0600, 12 October to 1600, 13 October 1918, the 114th Infantry, 29th Division, attacked German positions at Bois Ormout. The Germans fired an estimated 2,000 gas shells at the regiment in bursts of about 300. Yellow, Green, and Blue Cross 77-mm and 105-mm shells landed around the 1,500 men of the 114th Infantry while they deployed in ravines, shell holes, and wooded areas. As a consequence, 500 men became gas casualties, mostly with lung injuries. The commander requested permission to evacuate the contaminated area. The French 66th Regiment commander, who had operational control of the attack, told him to remain in place. The Frenchman believed the withdrawal of the regiment was not tactically sound, for the Germans would counterattack if they detected any sign of an Allied retreat. Maj. James H. Walton, the division gas officer, remarked that this incident, in which high gas casualties were inflicted despite good gas discipline, was one of the best examples of the deadly effects of gas shell he had seen in combat.32

Combat decisions that had little reference to gas warfare often resulted in incurring or aggravating gas casualties. For example, although AEF tactical doctrine called for the preselection of alternate positions, many requests to relocate infantry units during combat were denied even though the tactical situation and the enemy’s use of chemical agents called for relocation. In the determination to show the AEF’s battle prowess, many of its senior commanders were loath to give up an inch of occupied or captured ground. In one such case, on 15 July 1918, the commander of the 30th Infantry, 3d Division, filed a graphic report of the unit’s plight after repelling a German attempt to cross the Marne. His men, after being shelled with various chemicals for ten hours, were absolutely worn out. They had not had even a drink of water during that time. The shells landing in their sector contained mustard, chloropicrin, and chocolate (diphosgene has the odor of candy) gases. If the men remained in their contaminated uniforms, he noted, they were certain to become gas casualties, because the mustard gas would eventually reach their flesh. It was absolutely impossible to feed the regiment. because the rations had been contaminated by the gas. He reported to division that they are still there in the line and they will hold the line, but they ought to be relieved…. They were not.* Such decisions exhibited a crucial lack of understanding of the nature of gas warfare.33

Like the infantry, AEF artillerymen and animals suffered under the fury of German gas shell bombardments. While nonpersistent gas caused artillerymen problems in their attempt to deliver accurate fire, mustard yellow cross gas, remarked a cannoneer with the 91st Division, seems to be about the only Boche weapon of which the men are really afraid. Efforts were made to displace batteries subjected to counterbattery gas attacks, but this was difficult and time consuming. To assist the artillerymen who had to remain in a gassed area, the French Tissot mask was issued when available. As previously noted, not only did this mask’s filter offer less resistance to breathing, but the problem of fogged vision associated with the SBR did not exist. Most important, without a nose clip and mouthpiece it was a very comfortable mask to wear. In addition to the Tissot mask, gas gloves made of oil cloth were issued together with impervious clothing. However, because the antigas suits were not ventilated, men would tear them off in warm weather even while working in an area reeking with. mustard. As an alternative to the protective coveralls, artillerymen used Sag paste. Many artillerymen shaved off all their body hair prior to an application of the ointment. Every man in the firing battery, noted a gunner, is now denuded of hair on top of his poll, under his arm pits, between his legs, and his underwear is soldered to him with ‘sag paste.’ 34

*Gas casualties for the 30th Infantry during the period 14-20 July 1918 totaled 202 out of a total of 600 for the 3rd Division. (Spencer, Gas Attacks, Part 1, p. 123.)
To View: A horse and cannoneer masked during a gas attack, 1918.

The German use of chemical agents during World War I also placed a tremendous burden on a noncombat branch, the AEF Medical Department. Initially, no actions were taken at division level to provide medics with special expertise in the treatment of chemical casualties. As a result, division medical personnel were unprepared initially to handle the influx of gas victims. In the confusion of organizing and placing an American army in combat, it took GHQ, AEF, until October, 1918, to establish a uniform procedure to handle casualties.
To View: Battery A, 108th Field Artillery, receiving and firing gas counterbattery, 3 October 1918.

The 42d Division, the second most experienced American combat division of the AEF, appointed a gas medical officer a position that eventually all divisions of the AEF were ordered to establish. The 42d’s decision to appoint a gas medical officer came in the wake of several disastrous contacts with chemical agents in the division’s early combat. One such incident occurred on the evening of 20 March 1917, when approximately 400 German mustard rounds and 7,000 high explosive and shrapnel shells landed on a position manned by the division’s 165th Infantry. The weather conditions were excellent for the persistent mustard agent. It had rained earlier, and there was no breeze to dissipate the gas as it hung in the air. At midnight, men began to suffer the delayed effects of the gas. Company K lost two-thirds of its effectives. A week later Lt. Col. H. L. Gilchrist, Medical Director of the AEF, reported observing at a base hospital 417 gas casualties from the 165th Infantry.35

As the intensity of fighting increased, so did the number of men who claimed they were gassed, further burdening the Medical Department. Many shell-shocked soldiers or men who suffered from exhaustion and hunger believed themselves to be victims of gas poisoning. Others panicked after smelling shell fumes and reported themselves gassed. Then there were the shirkers who feigned being gassed. The symptomology of gas poisoning is so complex, observed Maj. William V. Sommervell, 3d Division Gas Officer, and at the same time so indefinite that anyone who claimed to be gassed was immediately sent to the rear.36
To View: Lts. Lautell Lugar and William A. Howell, Medical Corps, attending wounded to the rear of the first trench line during a gas attack, 27 October 1918.

As a consequence GHQ, AEF, expanded the number of medical personnel available to diagnose gas victims and weed out malingerers. At the hospital to the rear, division medical personnel devised several traps to detect suspected malingerers. One trap involved offering the gas casualty a large meal. Men on the front line were always hungry; they rarely had enough to eat. But a gas victim’s symptoms would include a loss of appetite, so anyone who devoured the food found himself promptly returned to the line. Medical personnel also offered suspected malingerers a cigarette laced with diphosgene. If the soldier gagged he was feigning gas poisoning. Some idea of the magnitude of the problem may be derived from one division field hospital commander’s establishment, of a board to review the 251 gas cases in his wards. The board’s report indicated that only ninety of the men actually suffered from gas poisoning. The problem, though, was never satisfactorily resolved in the AEF.37

The Medical Department processed gas casualties in combat divisions, using procedures similar to those used for sick and wounded. Medics at the battalion aid stations did what they could for the gas wounded. This consisted of plastering Sag paste on mustard burns, often having to cut a uniform open to expose the swollen flesh. A wet compress applied over the eyes eased the pain of those blinded. Men who inhaled mustard gas could only be comforted with. words, for no treatment could ease their pain. Medics could do nothing but try to put [the] mask back on and get them to a Field Hospital. From the battalion aid station, men moved to the Ambulance Head, the closest point to the line safely out of reach of German artillery fire. When possible, all gas casualties rode to avoid exertion. Men blinded by chemical agents were usually led to the ambulance head by comrades who could see, although in some instances, large numbers of blinded soldiers groped their way to the rear by holding on to a cord set up by the medics.38
To View: Gas casualties from the 2nd Battalion, 326th Infantry, 82nd Division, waiting for evacualtion, Argonne Forest, Ardennes, France, 11 October 1918.

When possible, division field hospitals were located in the same general area, with one hospital designated to handle gas victims. At this hospital the division medical officer supervised triage. Soldiers were placed into one of the following categories: fit for duty, immediate return to unit; fit for duty in twenty-four hours, return to unit; severely gassed, evacuate to an Army hospital. Exhausted men who complained of gas symptoms but who showed no outward signs of having been gassed were held in the division rear for rest, food, and observation. If medics verified their claims to gas poisoning, they too were evacuated.39
To View: Loading 89th Division gas patients at a field hospital north of Royaumeix (St. Mihiel Sector), 8 August 1918, for removal to a base hospital in Toul. Stretcher bearers wear makeshift burlap mittens to protect hands from gas-infected clothing of victims.

Division gas hospitals had to be located near a source of water because persistent and even nonpersistent agents clung to clothing, hair, and skin. After admission to a hospital, doughboys stripped off all their clothing and showered. Those casualties with serious symptoms were bathed while still on their stretchers. The bath house of the 2d Division gas hospital had a portable heater and six shower heads. When a doughboy left the showers, medics sprayed his eyes, nose, and throat with bicarbonate of soda. Depending on the diagnosis, the patient might be given a special treatment. of alkaline, oxygen, and, if necessary, venesection (bleeding) to counteract the effects of inhaled gas. For those soldiers who had eaten food or drunk water contaminated by gas, doctors prescribed olive or castor oil to coat the irritated stomach linings. When treatment failed to allow free breathing, or when the patient developed additional symptoms, medics immediately evacuated him to a base gas hospital. By November, 1918, the Medical. Department was well on its way to developing procedures to handle gas Victims.40

If American defensive doctrine and procedures for dealing with gas warfare were rudimentary or nonexistent to begin with and evolved during the war, the same was true of offensive gas doctrine and procedures. The American Army’s Artillery Corps had not determined its own doctrine for gas warfare prior to entering combat. Instead, U.S. artillerymen borrowed from both the French and British, as well as from the Germans. The first U.S. field manual for the use of chemical artillery shells was a translation of a current French manual. The AEF, emulating the French, classified chemical shell fire into two types of bombardment. The first type, destructive fire, consisted of two minutes of rapid fire with rounds landing in close proximity, so as to create a dense gas cloud that, given surprise, could inflict heavy casualties. The second type, a neutralizing bombardment, was fired over a longer period and was used to lower the enemy’s physical resistance and morale. It also interfered with the enemy’s activities by forcing him to wear a mask for extended periods of time. Mustard gas best accomplished neutralization according to the AEF field manuals.41

AEF manuals identified several kinds of missions that utilized surprise or neutralizing bombardment. For purpose of harassment, a neutralizing fire was used to exhaust and hinder the movement of enemy personnel. Interdiction fire was a kind of neutralizing fire that rendered positions untenable. Barrages in support of an infantry attack were to consist of 25 percent gas, or one gun per battery. The balance of high explosive fire disrupted enemy reinforcements and prevented counterattacks. AEF manuals duplicated German doctrine by ordering the inclusion of gas in all barrages; this would, it was hoped, deceive the enemy into believing a great concentration of gas was being fired at all times and cause him to mask frequently, thus wearing him down physically and mentally and limiting his ability to defend his position.42

Artillery counterbattery fire with gas came to be an extremely effective tactic. Before gas shells came into use, the attempt to neutralize enemy batteries on the Western Front required large amounts of high explosive shell. Regardless of the length of time or the number of rounds fired, complete destruction of the enemy’s batteries was never accomplished. Between 1914 and 1916 the average length of time required for artillery counterbattery fire to be effective was estimated at over six days. By 1917, gas made it possible to neutralize a known artillery battery in as little as fifteen minutes. Effective counterbattery fire over a wide front could neutralize enemy artillery in only two to four hours. By the spring of 1918, artillery commanders called for gas shells constantly, and the number of rounds fired was limited only by the availability of such shells.43

Of special demand was mustard, the agent that had become the king of the chemical war. The effect of mustard shells was so striking that there was a constant unfilled demand for them. One division commander remarked that when his cannoneers were at last issued the agent their morale soared. The arrival of mustard from French gas ammunition points in July, 1918, caused a great jubilee among AEF division artillerymen. That same month, on 2 July 1918, AEF General Order 107 allowed division gas officers to take an active role in the preparation of all plans involving the extensive use of gas by artillery and special gas troopS.44

AEF tactical employment of mustard and other chemical agents improved somewhat as artillerymen became more experienced. If, for instance, the exact location of an enemy battery in a wooded area was unknown, an AEF battery would shell the access roads with mustard, rather than waste limited gas shells by dowsing the entire woods. The artillerymen would then fire high explosive shells to damage the access roads and make it difficult for resupply trains trying to reach the battery to avoid contamination. The enemy battery would soon have to move. This tactic was also used to block reinforcements passing through defiles or over bridges. It proved to be an extremely efficient and economical method of counterbattery fire.45

Unfortunately, many senior U.S. Army officers remained oblivious to the potential use of chemicals by artillery or special gastroops in the offense. When it came time for the AEF to launch its first major offensives at St. Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne, the use of gas was minimal. In preparing for the Meuse-Argonne campaign, for example, the U.S. First Army Headquarters studied the spring offensives of 1918, where the Germans literally smothered the Allies with hundreds of thousands of gas shells in a relatively short space of time. To its credit, First Army HQ disseminated this information to its units and, in field orders during the campaign, urged subordinate corps and divisions to use gas. Gas was made available by the French to the Americans in a sufficient quantity to neutralize enemy batteries, strong points, and installations, and to produce casualties. The final decision to utilize gas, however, rested with the corps and division commanders. With little or no doctrine, training, or experience they were reluctant to employ gas. The offensive use of chemical weapons, according to one First Army general, does not seem to be understood. Army-level operational planning for the campaign included extensive use of gas, but its use by corps and divisions was halting. While the First Army’s divisions did gain some confidence in the use of gas towards the end of the campaign, they never really mastered its employment.46

After training with the British Special Brigade, the other gas offensive arm of the AEF, the 1st Gas Regiment, went into action on 22 May 1918. The Ist Battalion, 1st Gas Regiment, which consisted of Companies A and B, reported for duty attached to the 26th Division. On 18 June, Company B, temporarily attached to the XXXII French Corps, conducted the regiment’s first independent operation. At 2230, seven hundred 8-inch Livens projectors, emplaced the night before and loaded with sixty-pound drums of phosgene, were fired at two targets located 1,500 meters away. The first target was a company of infantry with one Minenwerfer (mortar) company and the second a reserve battalion of infantry. Artillery fired shrapnel and high explosive shells in conjunction with the projector attack. A month later prisoners revealed that this attack caused at least fifty casualties, including ten enemy deaths.47
The AEF tactical doctrine for the employment of special gas troops cited the advantages of using gas in terms of accuracy, the extended casualty producing area, and. lasting results. The doctrine noted the effectiveness of gas for the elimination of well-entrenched targets that high explosive fire could not destroy. The amount and type of chemical agent employed depended on the tactical situation, as well as wind and terrain features. Projectors, the primary weapon of U.S. gas troops, provided the means for producing casualties and demoralization second to none. When used aggressively, Livens projectors could keep enemy forces off balance; when employed on a quiet front, they could lessen considerably the likelihood of that front being used as a place to rest battle weary troops.48

In the offense, special gas troops could be utilized, according to AEF manuals, in five tactical situations. In the first, they would precede an offensive operation, keeping enemy positions in a gas environment until attacking troops arrived. This tactic would cause casualties and demoralize and reduce the fighting efficiency and morale of the enemy. Second, gas employed by special troops could eliminate machine gun nests just prior to an attack. AEF 4-inch Stokes mortars offered the best means of eliminating a machine gun position: two to ten Stokes mortars firing phosgene could form a localized concentration, either creating casualties or forcing the masking or the abandonment of the gun. Third, gas was ideal for sustained operations. Each night, gas could be placed on enemy machine gun nests, strongpoints, and troop concentrations, thereby weakening future resistance. Fourth, after friendly forces had taken an objective, reorganized, and consolidated their positions, gas employment acted as a temporary check or block to potential enemy counterattack formations. Fifth, the doctrine stipulated that in a stabilized situation frequent surprise fire with projectors could create the high concentrations of gas on suitable enemy targets from one end of the line to the other needed to harass enemy troops. In addition, local concentrations of gas, fired from Stokes mortars on machine gun nests, mortar positions, strongpoints, trench intersections, and other sensitive points further reduced enemy morale and strength.49

In the brief time it was deployed, the 1st Gas Regiment never matched the sophistication of the British Special Brigade. With the return to open warfare, the 1st Gas Regiment made superhuman efforts to meet AEF needs and moved their Stokes mortars with advancing infantry rather than remain in the trenches, as the British did. The regiment mortar men became very proficient in using thermite shells against machine gun positions and in covering advancing infantry with smoke. The regiment did not, however, employ gas during the attack as extensively as it did thermite and smoke. Gas was used, though, in conjunction with smoke, in order to cause enemy troops to expect gas whenever they received smoke. This tactic forced the enemy to mask, further limiting his vision.

Many commanders resisted the employment of special gas troops. The use of gas was new to American commanders, so it came as no surprise to officers of the Gas Regiment that trouble occasionally arose with the unit they were to support. The 1st Gas Regiment company commanders, lieutenants and captains attached to infantry divisions, tried as best they could to explain what results gas would achieve. During the Saint Mihiel operation in the fall of 1918, infantry officers quickly took advantage of the close support furnished by the Gas Regiment, whose mortar crews knocked out German machine gun nests with thermite and created smoke to screen the U.S. infantry. Still, the infantry appeared reluctant to use gas consistently. When the American First Army launched its first attack, the 1st Gas Regiment did not support the offensive with gas.

During the Meuse-Argonne offensive, the 1st Gas Regiment did support Anierican troops with gas. Company E, 1st Gas Regiment, attached to the 28th Infantry Division, bombarded enemy hilltop positions with Stokes mortar rounds of smoke, thermite, and deceptive gas. Covered by this suppressive fire, doughboys executed a flanking movement and took the hill with very little difficulty. On 2 October 1918, Company F, while in support of the 33d Infantry Division, received authorization to fire fifty-six projectors loaded with phosgene bombs at German units near Bois La Ville. Results of the gas mission were unknown. Soon after, however, German artillery retaliated by firing a number of Yellow Cross rounds at the 33d Infantry Division. As a result, the infantry regiment being supported by the gas company refused to allow it to fire its scheduled second projector attack. The official history of the Gas Regiment indignantly reported that American troops near Bois La Ville constituted a normal mustard target for German gunners and that, irrespective of our gas operations, the locale normally experienced such attacks.50

Company F fired one of the largest American gas bombardments of the Meuse-Argonne campaign in support of the French XVII Corps. The men of Company F installed 230 Livens projectors in two nights. To assist in the operation, 100 French soldiers with forty-seven horses pulled narrowgauge rail cars containing projectors and shells to the front. At exactly 0330 on 16 October 1918, drums of phosgene, fired in a dense fog and rain, fell on a known enemy troop position. Corps artillery fired high explosive shells in conjunction with the attack.51

As the Meuse-Argonne operation continued infantry commanders gained confidence in the effectiveness of chemicals and increasingly called upon gas troops to exercise their skills. By the latter stages of the offensive, some division commanders actively sought out gas company commanders to support their operations. The 2d Division staff consulted the supporting gas company in planning an attack and, as a result, projectors were used for the first time preceding a significant American advance. The results confirmed the claims of the gas unit in that a large number of enemy troops became casualties; the gas cloud itself had a demoralizing effect on other German troops as the wind pushed it to the enemy rear.52

The initial hesitancy by the AEF to employ gas was judged understandable by an officer of the 1st Gas Regiment. The American Army was unprepared to engage in gas warfare when President Wilson committed it to battle. As a result, the use of chemical weapons and the defense against them became a deadly learning process for all branches of the Army under the stress of battle. Many commanders were simply unwilling to employ a weapon with which they had had no prior experience and which, if used, could invite German retaliation in kind. For those commanders who did allow the use of gas, some became enthusiastic supporters of offensive gas operations; some did not. The American experience with the offensive use of gas remained uneven to the end of the war.53

We Can Never Afford to
Neglect the Question

Chapter 6

General John J. Pershing, in his Final Report, made specific reference to three weapons introduced in World War I and the impact each had on the conduct of the war. The three weapons Pershing listed were the tank, aircraft, and poison gas. Only one, gas, caused him to reflect on its use in any future war. He declared, Whether or not gas will be employed in future wars is a matter of conjecture, but the effect is so deadly to the unprepared that we can never afford to neglect the question. Pershing, with the experience of the war behind him, pointed out that gas was a significant weapon, but not as a producer of battle deaths.1

The AEF suffered 34,249 immediate deaths on the battlefield. Of these, an estimated 200 were caused by gas.* The number of men wounded and evacuated to medical facilities numbered 224,089. Medical Department reports indicate 70,552 of these hospital patients suffered from gas wounds. Of these gas victims, 1,221 died in AEF hospital wards. When, looking at the total figures, 27.3 percent of all AEF casualties, dead and wounded, were caused by gas. With respect to the burden gas casualties placed on medical facilities, not to mention the replacement system, a significant 31.4 percent of all AEF wounded were treated in hospitals for gas wounds (Table 2).2

Gas in World War I did not have to cause large numbers of casualties to be an effective and versatile weapon. Gas warfare placed additional strain on every aspect of combat. According to British Maj. Gen. Charles H. Foulkes, Commander of the Special Brigade, the appearance of gas on the battlefield … changed. the whole character of warfare. In World War I, gas was everywhere, in clothing, food, and water. It corroded human skin, internal organs, and even steel weapons. The smell of gas hung in the air, and the chemical environment became a reality of everyday life. Not only did men have to train constantly, but an entire logistical network had to be established for offensive and defensive gas equipment. A new branch of the U.S. Army came into existence, and new units, such as decontamination squads, mobile degassing units, and special gas troops, were created. These organizations, in turn, took manpower away from the combat arms, as combat arms officers became gas officers in divisions, regiments, and battalions. Also, the impact of gas on the Medical Department posed tremendous problems in the treatment of casualties. The number of gas wounded became so great that one field hospital out of four per division was dedicated to the treatment of gas victims.3

*This is a rough and perhaps low estimate. It was always difficult to determine the cause of death when shell-torn bodies were interred by Quartermaster troops.
TO VIEW: 2. Hospitalized casualties
Despite the pervasive impact of chemical agents on the battlefield, commanders and staffs had difficulty adjusting their thinking and planning in such a way as to make effective use of these new weapons – weapons totally different from anything they had ever been trained to use. Not only did commanders and staffs have difficulty determining how they would employ the new weapon to their tactical advantage, but they also had to consider the effects of enemy gas on their own troops. By entering the conflict without preparation for chemical warfare, AEF commanders never fully comprehended the potential of gas on the battlefield.

The experience of the United States Army before and during World War I suggests several shortcomings in the military’s preparation for, and later employment of, chemical warfare. Prior to American entry into the war, the War Department and General Staff virtually ignored the deployment of chemical weapons in Europe and did, little or nothing to prepare the Army to fight and survive in a chemical environment. This pervasive neglect had an adverse impact on the capability of the AEF to fight effectively on a chemical battlefield. American troops entering front-line trenches were usually poorly trained and ill equipped to engage in gas warfare.

Proper defensive equipment is a minimal requirement for the successful engagement of forces in chemical warfare. The indispensable item for the World War I doughboy was his protective mask. Besides the filtration of all harmful agents, the mask had to fulfill a number of other requirements to be efficient. It had to be comfortable and allow for freedom of movement, full vision, easy breathing, communication, and durability. The American failure to develop a mask that could meet these requirements limited the combat effectiveness of the soldiers of the AEF. The decision to purchase the British SBR and, later, to manufacture an American version of it rather than to adopt and modify the more efficient and comfortable French Tissot was a serious error in judgment brought about by a lack of foresight and preparation.

The prewar failure to develop and experiment with new gases was also a serious shortcoming. If attention had been paid to the rapidly changing technology of chemical warfare, the United States, with its untapped industrial capacity, might have been able to overcome the German advantage. American technology might have produced the king of war gases, the persistent mustard agent, in a timely fashion. Instead, the Germans introduced this agent a year before the Allies.

After entry into the conflict, the United States geared up for production of war gases currently in use. Eventually mustard and other agents were shipped from the United States, but only in fifty-five-gallon containers. Production of chemical shells, based on French designs, was belatedly undertaken, and not a single American gas shell ever left the muzzle of an AEF artillery piece in combat. The unfortunate shortage of gas shells restricted the AEF’s capability to retaliate in kind against the Germans; this, in turn, had a demoralizing effect on troops whose own positions had been liberally drenched with gas from German shells.

The AEF never found the key to effective education and training for the offensive and defensive aspects of chemical warfare. A significant advantage could have been obtained if both offensive and defensive training had been integrated into all aspects of instruction. Once a soldier understood the overall nature of gas warfare and acquired confidence in his equipment and gas officers, he more easily accepted and adjusted to chemicals in actual combat. Unfortunately, U.S. training in chemical warfare never reached the sophistication needed to achieve the desired results. Equipment shortages and the lack of trained, instructors hampered the AEF’s preparation to engage in chemical warfare. The Army suffered needless casualties as a consequence.

Good gas discipline was also essential to the conduct of chemical warfare. Very few soldiers reached the level of the 1st Infantry Division doughboy who, when asked by a staff officer if the gas alarm signified a drill, replied through his mask in muffled tones, Put on your mask, put on your mask, you damn fool and don’t ask questions. Here, said the division commander who learned of the incident, was the real thing in discipline. Discipline and training were required if men were to be expected to remain in a contaminated area. The soldier’s determination to fight on would certainly have been enhanced if he had had faith in his equipment and the knowledge that provisions had been made for the decontamination of himself and his gear.4

Had the U.S. Army’s leaders, prior to America’s entry into the war, prepared themselves intellectually by studying German gas doctrine or by reviewing observer reports, gas officers would not have had to overcome such strong resistance to the tactical employment of chemicals. Because the U.S. Army failed to develop gas warfare doctrine, the average AEF officer never really understood the potential value of chemicals. Nor could he put aside his preconceived, if perhaps erroneous notion, that chemicals were unusually inhumane weapons whose development should not be pursued. For America the real inhumanity of chemical warfare in World War I lay in the blindness of U.S. civilian and military leaders who, having ignored the real and present threat posed by gas, deployed the doughboys of the AEF to fight unprepared in a chemical environment. Ignorance, shortsightedness, and unpreparedness extracted a high toll at the front, a toll that the United States with its intellectual and technological resources should not have had to pay.

Notes

Introduction

1. Wayne Biddle, Restocking the Chemical Arsenal, New York Times Magazine, 24 May 1981:36.

2. Poisoning the Battlefield, Time Magazine, 10 March 1980:28.

Chapter 1

1. Amos A. Fries and Clarence J. West, Chemical Warfare (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1921), 1.

2. Ibid., 2-4; Alden H. Waitt, Gas Warfare, The Chemical Weapon, Its Use and Protection Against It (New York: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1942), 7-11.

3. Waitt, Gas Warfare, 12-13.

4. Ian V. Hogg, Gas, Ballantines Illustrated History of the Violent Century: Weapons Book no. 43, edited by Barrie Pitt (New York: Ballantine Books, 1975), 10-11; Army and Navy Journal, 8 May 1915:1141.

5. Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August (New York: MacMillan, 1962), 119.

6. Rudolf Hanslian, The German Gas Attack at Ypres on April 22, 1915 (Berlin: Verlag Gasschutz and Luftschutz, 1934), 6, translated by the Military Intelligence Division, U.S. Army War College; Charles H. Foulkes, Gas The Story of the Special Brigade (Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1936), 24; Ulrich M61ler-Kiel, Die Chemische Waffe im, Weltkrieg and jetzt [The chemical weapon during the war and now] (Berlin: Verlag Chemie, 1932), 16, translated by the Military Intelligence Division, U.S. Army War College; H. C. Peterson, Propaganda for War (Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1939), 63; Hogg, Gas, 19.

7. Foulkes, Gas , 25; Victor Lefebure, The Riddle the Rhine: Chemical Strategy in Peace and War (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1923), 40; Hogg, Gas, 20-23; Curt Wachtel, Chemical Warfare (Brooklyn, NY: Chemical Publishing Co., 1941), 66.

8. Hogg, Gas, 23.

9. Augustin Mitchell Prentiss, Chemicals in War: A Treatise on Chemical Warfare (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1937), 435-36.

10. Hanslian, Ypres, 6-7; Hogg, Gas, 24; Wachtel, Chemical Warfare, 64.

11. Hanslian, Ypres, 10-12.

12. The description of the first gas attack is taken from the following sources: Hanslian, Ypres; Owen Spencer Watkins, unidentified article in The Methodist Recorder (Great Britain) quoted in The Literary Digest, 4 September 1915:483-86; and Basil Henry Liddell Hart, The Real War, 1914-1918 (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1930), 175-85.

13. Foulkes, Gas , 19-20.

14. The description of the British gas attack at Loos is taken from Ibid., 66-84; and Hart, The Real War, 186-98.

15. Foulkes, Gas , 84.

Chapter 2

1. Miiller-Kiel, Chemische Waffe, 49.

2. Hogg, Gas, 11-14.

3. Rudolf Hanslian, Der Chemische Krieg [The chemical war] (Berlin: E.S. Mittler & Sohn, 1927), 64, translated by the U.S. Army War College; Foulkes, Gas , 263-64.

4. Hanslian, Chemische Krieg, 4.

5. Great Britain, Army, Report on the Activities of the Special Brigade, with chart on Expansion of the Special Brigade, 19 December 1918, in possession of the author; France, Armée, Armées du Nord et du Nordest, Instruction relative a l’Organization et a emploi des Unités speciales, dites, Unités Z [Instruction relative to the organization and. use of special units, called Units Z], 23 January 1918, partial translation by Dr. Robert. M. Epstein, Combat Studies Institute, U.S. Army Command. and General Staff College, 1982; Hanslian, Chemische Krieg, 4. There were thirteen Russian field armies at the time that country left the war.
6. Foulkes, Gas , 242-43.

7. Samuel James Manson Auld, Chemical Warfare, Chemical Warfare, 15 March 1922:1224, reprint of a lecture published in the Royal Engineers Journal (Great Britain) of February 1922; Foulkes, Gas , 293.

8. Hanslian, Chemische Krieg, 4-5; Foulkes, Gas , 94-95, 305.

9. Hanslian, Chemische Krieg, 48-49.

10. Prentiss, Chemicals in War, 440-45.

11. Ibid.

12. Foulkes, Gas , 167, 169; Lefebure, Riddle, 62.

13. Hanslian, Chemische Krieg, 107.

14. Hogg, Gas, 48-49; Pascal Lucas, The Evolution of Tactical Ideas in France and Germany during the War of 1914-1918 (Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1923), 34, translated by P. V. Kieffer, U.S. Army, in 1925.

15. Foulkes, Gas , 145, 238 n. 145, 1.91; Donald Wilson, former Major, Special Brigade, Royal Engineers, interview with author, Fort McClellan, AL, 28 October 1981.

16. Foulkes, Gas , 197-98.

17. Hanslian, Chemische Krieg, 45.

18. Prentiss, Chemicals, 458.

19. Hanslian, Chemische Krieg, 61.
20. Hogg, Gas, 119-20.

21. Hanslian, Chemische Krieg, 58.

22. Ibid.

23. Ibid., 63, 67-68; Fries and West, Chemical Warfare, 176.

24. Lucas, Tactical Ideas, 127.

25. Ibid., 22; Fries and West, Chemical Warfare, 205-6.

26. Robert Graves, Goodbye to All That (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1957, c1929), 95; Prentiss, Chemicals, 536.
27. Graves, Goodbye, 198.

28. Fries and West, Chemical Warfare, 197-98.

29. Prentiss, Chemicals, 539.

30. Fries and West, Chemical Warfare, 202.

31. Foulkes, Gas , 312-13; U.S. War Department,Gas Warfare, pt. 1, German Methods of Offense, Document no. 705 (Washington, DC: U.S. Army War College/U.S. Government Printing Office, 1918), 19, hereafter cited as War Department, Gas Warfare, etc.; Prentiss, Chemicals, 540.

Chapter 3

1. Frederick Brown, Chemical Warfare, A Study in Restraints (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968), 15-17, 1 confirmed Brown’s analysis of the propaganda war by examining prewar issues of the Army-Navy Journal,The Literary Digest, and the New York Times. I also looked at Harold D. Lasswell, Propaganda in the World War (New York: Peter Smith, 1938), and Peterson, Propaganda for War. Frederick Palmer, an astute wartime observer, gives an excellent overview of the effect Allied propaganda had on Americans in Newton D. Baker, America at War, 2 vols. (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1931), 1:36-39. See also Benedict Crowell, America’s Munitions, 1917-1918 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1919), 410.

2. Brown, Chemical Warfare, 40-41. Brown cites Chief of Staff Peyton C. March’s comments that the use of gas reduces civilization to savagery. From memoirs of World War I officers, especially those who served in the Chemical Warfare Service, it is apparent that this belief was widespread.

3. William A. Ganoe, The History the United States Army, rev. ed. (Ashton, MD: Eric Lundberg, 1964), 452; Brown, Chemical Warfare, 21n.

4. U.S. Senate, Committee on Military Affairs, Preparedness for National Defense, 64th Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1916), 483; Wilder D. Bancroft,et al., Medical Aspects of Gas Warfare, The Medical Department of the United StatesArmy in the World War, vol. 14 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1926), 27.

5. Bancroft, et al., Medical Aspects, 27.

6. Ibid. In Chemical Warfare, Brown cites two reports, but these were filed after the U.S. declaration of war.

7. U.S. War Department, Annual Report, 1917, vol. 1, The Secretary of War, et al. (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1918), 42.

8. Bancroft, et al., Medical Aspects,27.

9. Fries and West, Chemical Warfare, 32.

10. Bancroft, et al., Medical Aspects, 28.

11. Crowell, America’s Munitions, 413; G. A. Burrell, The First Twenty Thousand, Journal of Industrial Engineering, 2 (1919), 93, quoted in Fries and West, Chemical Warfare, 43.

12. Bancroft, et al., Medical Aspects, 28.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid., 30-31.

15. Ibid.; Fries and West, Chemical Warfare, 34.

16. Chief, Chemical Warfare Service, to Chief of Staff, A. E. F., 16 October 1918, Subj: Gas Training in [thel United States, reprinted in U.S. Army, Chemical Warfare Service, Defense Division, Report on the Operations of the Defense Division, Chemical Warfare Service, Submitted to the Chief of Chemical Warfare Service in accordance with S. O. 31, December 1918, DTIC AD-498438, hereafter cited as Report ... Defense Division.

17. Edgar Dow Gilman, Chemical Warfare. Lectures Delivered to the Reserve Officer Training Corps, University of Cincinnati: Gas Projector Attacks, Chemical Warfare 8 (15 July 1922):14; Robert Lee Bullard, Personalities and Reminiscences of the War (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1925), 193.

18.Samuel James Manson Auld, A General Record of the American Chemical Warfare Service and the Relations Therewith of the British Gas Mission, 5 sect., 2:4, in the author's possession.

19.Ibid., 2:3.

20. Ibid., 1:3-5; Chief, Chemical Warfare Service, A. E. F., to all gas officers, 28 September 1918, Subj: Gas Defense Training, 35th Division Gas Officer File, Record Group 120, National Archives, Washington, DC.

21. Fries and West, Chemical Warfare, 66; Division Gas Officer, 29th Division, to Deputy Chief, Chemical Warfare Service, 13 January 1918, uncataloged Division Gas Officer Reports, U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA, hereafter cited as MHI; Baron Munchausen [pseud], History of the 318th Field Hospital, World War I project, MHI.

22. Gilman, Lectures, 16; Memorandum no. 65, HQ, 80th Division, Camp Lee, VA, 14 May 1918, uncataloged Division Gas Officer Reports, MHI.

23. General Order no. 108, 15 August 1917, cited in U.S. Army, A. E. F., 1917-1919, History of the Chemical Warfare Service, American Expeditionary Forces, First Gas Regiment, 14 pts. in 1 vol. (Bound typescript; Fort Leavenworth, KS: General Service School, n.d.),pt. 1, hereafter cited as A. E. F., History West, Chemical Warfare, 42-44. lst Gas Regiment ; Ibid., 1:1, 4; Fries and West, Chemical Warfare, 42 -44.

24. Crowell, America’s Munitions, 418-28; Lt. Col. Amos A. Fries to Director of the Chemical Warfare Service, 19 March 1919, Subj: History of Chemical Warfare Service in France, uncataloged manuscript, MHI, 5, 24, 27-29.

25. Crowell, America’s Munitions, 397; Fries and West, Chemical Warfare, 53.

26. E. Alexander Powell, The Army Behind the Army (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1919), 125; Crowell, America’s Munitions, 397-408.

27. Prentiss, Chemicals, 81-82.

28. Fries and West, Chemical Warfare, 60-70.

Chapter 4

1. U.S. Department of the Army, Historical Division, United States Army in the World War, 1917-1919, vol. 16, General Orders, G. H. Q., A. E .F., G. O. no. 8, 5 July 1917, Organization, of Headquarters, American Expeditionary Forces, Table 4, Technical and Administration Services (Gas Service) (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1948), 23, hereafter cited as General Orders, A. E. F.

2. Fries, History, 2.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid., 3; General Orders, A.K F., G.0. no. 31, 3 September 1917, 67-68.

5.General Orders, A.E.F., G.O. no. 79, 27 May 1918, 327-29.

6. Ibid., G.O. no. 107, 2 July 1918, 370.

7. Fries, History, 5.

8. War Department, Gas Warfare, pt. 2, Methods of Defense Against Gas Attacks, 14-18; Fries, History, 11, 24, 27; Fries and West, Chemical Warfare, 50-51.

9. Fries, History, 28-29.

10. Ibid., 29.

11. Ibid., 8-9; Crowell, America’s Munitions, 406-9; Powell, The Army, 125; Prentiss, Chemicals, 481.

12. Prentiss, Chemicals, 462.

13. General Orders, A.E.F., G.0. no. 53, 3 November 1917, 100.

14. U.S. War Department, Memorandum on Gas Poisoning in Warfare with Notes on Its Pathology and Treatment (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1917); Fries, History, 9-10.

15.U.S. Army, Chemical Warfare Service, Medical Director, History of Chemical Warfare Service, American Expeditionary Forces, Medical Director (N.p., 1918), 1, DTIC AD-494989, hereafter cited as History … Medical Director ; Bancroft, et al., Medical Aspects, 59.

16. History . Medical Director, 2-3.

17. Ibid.

18. E. W. Spencer, The History of Gas Attacks upon the American Expeditionary Forces During the World War, 4 pts (Bound typescript; Edgewood Arsenal, MD: Chemical Warfare Service, U.S. War Department, 15 February 1928), 3:403-4; J. W. Grissinger, Medical Field Service in France (Washington, DC: The Association of Military Surgeons, 1928), 28-29, reprinted from The Military Surgeon 61-63 (1927-1928).

19. Grissinger, Medical Field Service, 41.

20. General Orders, A.E.F., G.O. no. 144, 29 August 1918, 429-32; Bancroft, et al., Medical Aspects, 60, 838.

21. Bancroft, et al., Medical Aspects, 45, 49.

22. Fries and West, Chemical Warfare, 86; Gilman, Lectures, 14.

23. Norman A. Dunham, The War As I Saw It, 3 vols., manuscript, World War I project, MHI, 1:166, 168; Gilman, Lectures, 14.

24. U.S. Army, Chemical Warfare Service, European Division, Training Activities of the Chemical Warfare Service (N.p., 1919). Unless otherwise indicated all of the information pertaining to defensive gas training is from this unnumbered publication.

25. History 1st Gas Regiment, 1:5-7, 2:9-10

26. Auld, General Record, 2:5; U.S. Army, A. E. F., 1917-1919, ist Army, Provisional Instructions for Artillery Officers on the Use of Gas Shell (N.p.: Base Printing Plant, 29th Engineers, 1918); U.S. Army, A.E.F., 1917-1919, Gas Manual, pt. 2, Use of Gas by the Artillery (France, March 1919), hereafter cited as Gas Manual, pt, 2; U.S. Army, Chemical Warfare Service, History of the Chemical Warfare Service, American Expeditionary Forces (N.p., 1918), 43, DTIC AD-495051.

Chapter 5

1. Bullard, Personalities, 136.

2. Rexmond C. Cochrane, The 1st Division at Ansauville, January-April 1918, U.S. Army Chemical Corps Historical Studies; Gas Warfare in World War I, Study no. 9 (Army Chemical Center, MD: Historical Officer, U.S. Army Chemical Corps, 1958), 12-13.

3. Ibid., 5; U.S. Army, 16th Infantry Regiment, The Story of the 16th Infantry in France, typescript, World War I project, MHI, 8.

4. War Department, Gas Warfare, pt.3, Methods of Training in Defensive Measures, 26-28.

5. Amos A. Fries, -Gas in Defense-, in -Gas in Attack- and -Gas in Defense- (Fort Leavenworth,KS: The General Service Schools Press, n.d.), 17-18, reprinted from the National Service Magazine, June-July 1919; Report … Defense Division, 12.

6. Report Defense Division, 14.

7. Bullard Personalities, 159; Report … Defense Division, 14.

8. U.S. Army, A.E.F., Office of the Chief of Gas Service, Semi-monthly Report to Director of Gas Service, U.S., on Activities and Needs of the Gas Service, A. E. F., 15 May 1918, 2, DTIC AD-498800.

9. Report. Defense Division, 1.4.

10. Dorothy Kneeland Clark, Effectiveness of Chemical Weapons in World War I, Staff paper ORO-SP-88 (Bethesda, MD: Tactics Division, Operations Research Office, Johns Hopkins University, 1959), 75; U.S. Army, A. E. F., 1917-1919, Defensive Measures Against Gas Attack, No. 253 revised (France, November 1917), 8, hereafter cited as Defensive Measures.

11. Moses King, Diary of Moses King, Company I, 305th Infantry, U.S.N.A., n.d., World War I project, MHI; Chief, CWS, to all gas officers, 28 September 1918, RG 120, National Archives.

12. Harry L. Gilchrist, A Comparative Study of World War Casualties From Gas and Other Weapons (Edgewood Arsenal, MD: Chemical Warfare School, 1928), 21; Report … Defense Division, 16; Clarence M. Wood, former medic, 140th,Ambulance Company, 35th Division, letter to the author, 19 October 1981; Prentiss, Chemicals in War, 565.

13. Prentiss, Chemicals in War, 564-65; Report… Defense Division ; Fries and West, Chemical Warfare, 272-74; Waitt, Gas Warfare,195.

14. General Orders, A. E. F. G. 0. no, 144, 29 August 1918, 432; Fries, -Gas in Defense-, 15-16.

15. Foulkes, Gas , 101-2.

16. Fries -Gas in Defense-, 14; War Department, Gas Warfare, 2:14.

17. Fries -Gas in Defense-, 11; War Department, Gas Warfare, 2:31.

18. Rexmond C. Cochrane, The 42nd Division Before Landres-et-St-Georges, October 1918, U.S.Army Chemical Corps Historical Studies: Gas Warfare in World War I, Study no. 17 (Army Chemical Center, MD: Historical Office, U.S. Army Chemical Corps, 1960), 13-15.

19. Fries, -Gas in Defense-, 9-10.

20. General Orders, A. E. F., G. O. no. 107, 2 July 1918, 370; Fries and West, Chemical Warfare, 89-91; Charles R. Shrader, Amicicide: The Problem of Friendly Fire in Modern War, Research Survey no. 1 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1982), xii, 2.

21. U.S. Army, 26th Division, Gas Officer, Report of Growth, Organization and Accomplishments of the Division Gas Officer, With Suggested Duties of Officers, 25 November 1918, Record Group 120, National Archives, Washing-ton, DC.

22. Ibid.

23. Harold Reigelman, A Chemical Officer at the Front, Chemical Warfare Bulletin 23 (April 1937):42.

24. Ibid., 54.

25. Spencer, Gas Attacks, pt. 1, First Division, 8-13.

26. Reigelman, At the Front, 51.

27. Laurence Stallings, The Doughboys (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), 100-1.

28. Bullard, Personalities, 193.

29. Stallings, The Doughboys, 377; quotation in D. Clayton James, The Years of MacArthur,vol. 1, 1880-1941 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1970), 197.

30. Andrew Kaehik, Diary [of service with the 314th Infantry, 79th Infantry Division], 29 September 1918, World War I project, MHI; George F. Unmacht, The Effects of Chemical Agents on Quartermaster Supplies, The Quartermaster Review 14 (November-December 1934):54; Fries, -Gas in Defense-, 16; Defensive Measures, 12.

31. Division Gas Officer, 32d Division to Commanding General 32d Division, Monthly Report, ii.d., Record Group 120, National Archives, Washington, DC; Spencer, Gas Attacks, pt. 1, 1st Division, 9; Regimental Gas Officer, 18th Infantry, to Commanding Officer, 5 May 1918, quoted in Rexmond C. Cochrane, The 1st Division at Cantigny, May 1918, U.S. Army Chemical Corps Historical Studies: Gas Warfare in World War 1, Study no. 11 (Army Chemical Center, MD: Historical Office, U.S. Army Chemical Corps, 1958), 19-20; Report … Defense Division, 10, 14; General Orders, A.E.F., G.O. no. 78, 25 May 1918.

33. Clark, Effectiveness, 75; Division Gas Officer, 29th Division, to Chief Gas Officer, 1st Army, Report on Recent Operations, 20 November 1918, Record Group 120, National Archives, Washington, DC; Willard Newton, Over There for Uncle Sam: A Daily Diary of World War One, n. d., 95, World War I project, MHI; Division Gas Officer, 29th Division to Chief Gas Officer, 1st Army, A. E. F, Report on Recent Operations, 20 October 1918, uncataloged Division Gas Officer Files, MHI.

33. Clark, Effectiveness, 73-74.

34. Karl Edwin Harriman, The Cannoneers Have Hairy Ears (New York: J. H. Sear, 1927), 50, 176; Waitt, Gas Warfare, 195.

35. Cochrane, The 42d Division, 9.

36. History … Medical Director, 17; Bancroft, et al., Medical Aspects, 65.

37. History … Medical Director, 17, Bancroft, et al., Medical Aspects, 65.

38. Wood letter.

39. Grissinger, Medical Field Service, 71.

40. Medical Director, Gas Service, to Chief of Gas Service, A. E. F., 1 July 1918, Subj: Report of Second Serious Gas Attack in 2d Division, reprinted in Bancroft, et al., Medical Aspects, 71-73.

41. Gas Manual, 2:12-13.

42. Ibid., 12.

43. Conrad H. Lanza, Counterbattery, Chemical Warfare Bulletin 23 (July 1937):89-91; Lucas, Tactical Ideas, 57.

44. Bullard, Personalities, 193-94; General Orders, A. E. F., G. O. no. 107, 2 July 1918, 370.

45. Lanza, Counterbattery, 92.

46. Rexmond C. Cochrane, The Use of Gas in the Meuse-Argonne Campaign, September – November 1918, U.S. Army Chemical Corps Historical Studies: Gas Warfare in World War I, Study no. 10 (Army Chemical Center, MD: Historical Office, U.S. Army Chemical Corps, 1958), 89; History 1st Gas Regiment, pt. 3., sect. 6, 1-35-; Fries and West, Chemical Warfare, 90.

47. History 1st Gas Regiment, 1:1.

48. Ibid., 4:1, 3; pt. 3, sect. 4:8.

49. Ibid., 4:1-2.

50. Ibid., 4:3.

51. James Thayer Addison, The Story of the First Gas Regiment (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1919), 149-50; History 1st Gas Regiment, pt. 3, sect. 4:8.

52. History … 1st Gas Regiment, pt. 3, sect. 5:14.

53. Addison, First Gas Regiment, 150.

Chapter 6

1. John J. Pershing, Final Report of General John J. Pershing, Commander-in-Chief American Expeditionary Forces (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1920), 77.

2. In researching gas casualty statistics, I found minor discrepancies and a variety of reporting methods. The studies I examined included Albert G. Love, Statistics, pt. 2, Medical and Casualty Statistics, The Medical Departanent of the United States Army in the World Way, vol. 15 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1925); Albert G. Love, War Casualties, Army Medical Bulletin no. 24 (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Medical Field Service School, 1931); and Harry L. Gilchrist, A Comparative Study of World War Casualties From Gas and Other Weapons (Edgewood Arsenal, MD: Chemical Warfare School, 1928). I found that the latter had the clearest format and figures that were substantiated by the other studies. The figures do not include casualties in the Marine Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division.

3. Foulkes, Gas , 345.

4. Bullard, Personalities, 161.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Unpublished

Auld, Samuel James Manson. A General Record of the American Chemical Warfare Service and the Relations Therewith of the British Gas Mission. 5 sect. In the author’s possession.

Chief, Chemical Warfare Service, A. E. F., to all gas officers, 28 September 1918, Subj: Gas Defense Training. 35th Division Gas Officer Files, Record Group 120, National Archives, Washington., DC.

Chief, Chemical Warfare Service, to Chief of Staff, A.E.F., 16 October 1918, Subj: Gas Training in [the] United States. Reprinted in U.S. Army, Chemical Warfare Service, Defense Division, Report on the Operations of the Defense Division, Chemical Warfare Service. Submitted to the Chief of Chemical Warfare Service in accordance with S. O. 31, December 1918. DTIC AD-498438.

Division Gas Officer, 29th Division, to Chief Gas Officer, 1st Army. Report on Recent Operations. 20 November 1918. Record Group 120, National Archives, Washington, DC.

Division Gas Officer, 29th Division, to Chief Gas Officer, 1st Army, A.E.F. Report on Recent Operations. 20 October 1918. Uncataloged Division Gas Officer Files, U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA.

Division Gas Officer, 29th Division, to Deputy Chief, Chemical Warfare Service, 13 January 1918. Uncataloged Division Gas Officer Reports, U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA.

Division Gas Officer, 32d Division, to Commanding General, 32d Division. Monthly Report. N.d. Record Group National Archives, Washington, DC.

Dunham, Norman A. The War as I Saw It. 3 vols. Manuscript. World War I project, U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA.

Fries, Amos A., Lt. Col., to Director of the Chemical Warfare Service, 19 March 1919, Subj: History of Chemical Warfare Service in France. Uncataloged manuscript. U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA.

Kachik, Andrew. Diary [of service with the 314th Regiment, 79th Infantry Division]. World War I project, U.S. Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA.

King, Moses. Diary of Moses King, Company I, 305th Infantry, U.S.N.A. N.d. World War I project, U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA.

Memorandum no. 65, HQ, 80th Division, Camp Lee, VA, 14 May 1918. Uncataloged Division Gas Officer Reports, U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA.

Munchausen, Baron [pseud.]. History of the 318th Field Hospital. World War I project, U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA.

Newton, Willard. Over There for Uncle Sam: A Daily Diary of World War One. World War I project, U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA.

Spencer, E. W. The History of Gas Attacks upon the American Expeditionary Forces During the World War. 4 pts. Bound typescript. Edgewood Arsenal, MD: Chemical Warfare Service, U.S. War Department, 15 February 1928.

U.S. Army. A. E. F., 1917-1919. 1st Gas Regiment. History of the Chemical Warfare Service, American Expeditionary Forces, 1st Gas Regiment. 14 pts. in 1 vol. Bound typescript. Fort Leavenworth, KS: General Service School, n.d.

—–. Office of the Chief of Gas Service. Semi-monthly Report to Director of Gas Service, U.S., on Activities and Needs of the Gas Service, A. E. F. 15 May 1918. DTIC AD-498800.

U.S. Army. Chemical Warfare Service. History of the Chemical Warfare Service, American Expeditionary Forces. N.p., 1918.

—–. Defense Division. Report on the Operations of the Defense Division, Chemical Warfare Service. Submitted to the Chief of Chemical Warfare Service in accordance with S. O. 31, December 1918. DTIC AD-498438.

—–. European Division. Training Activities of the Chemical Warfare Service. N.p., 1919.

—–. Medical Director. History of Chemical Warfare Service, American Expeditionary Forces, Medical Director. N.p., 1918. DTIC AD-494989.

U.S. Army. 26th Division. Gas Officer. Report of Growth, Organization and Accomplishments of the Division Gas Office, with Suggested Duties of Officers. 25 November 1918. Record Group Washington, DC.

National Archives, U.S. Army. 16th Infantry Regiment. The Story of the 16th Infantry in France. Typescript. World War I project, U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA.

Wilson, Donald, former Major, Special Brigade, Royal Engineers. Interview with author. Fort McClellan, AL, 28 October 1981.

Wood, Clarence M., former medic, 140th Ambulance Co., 35th Division. Letter to author. 19 October 1981. In the author’s possession.

Published

Addison, James Thayer. The Story of the First Gas Regiment. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1919.

Army and Navy Journal, 8 May 1915:1141.

Auld, Samuel James Manson. Chemical Warfare. Chemical Warfare, 15 March 1922:12-24. Reprint of a lecture published in the Royal Engineers Journal (Great Britain) of February 1922.

Bullard, Robert Lee. Personalities and Reminiscences of the War. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1925.

Burrell, G. A. The First Twenty Thousand. Journal of Industrial Engineering 2 (1919). Quotation in Amos A. Fries and Clarence J. West, Chemical Warfare. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1921.

Crowell, Benedict. America’s Munitions, 1917-1918. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1919.

Foulkes, Charles H. Gas The Story of the Special Brigade. Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1936.

France. Armée. Armées du Nord et du Nordest. Instruction relative a l’Organization et a emploi des Unités spéciales, dites, Unités Z [Instruction relative to the arganization and use of special units, called Units Z]. 23 January 1918. Partial translation by Dr. Robert M. Epstein, Combat Studies Institute, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1982.

Fries, Amos A. -Gas in Defense-. In -Gas in Attack- and -Gas in Defense-. Fort Leavenworth, KS?: The General Service Schools, n.d.? Reprinted from the National Service Magazine, June-July 1919.

Fries, Amos A., and Clarence J. West. Chemical Warfare. New York: McGrawHill, 1921.

Gilman, Edgar Dow. Chemical Warfare. Lectures Delivered to the Reserve Officer Training Corps, University of Cincinnati: Gas Projector Attacks. Chemical Warfare 8 (15 July 1922):11-16.

Graves, Robert. Goodbye to All That. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1957, c1929.
Great Britain. Army. Report on the Activities of the Special Brigade. With chart on Expansion of the Special Brigade. 19 December 1918. In the author’s possession.

Grissinger, J. W. Medical Field Service in France. Washington, DC: The Association of Military Surgeons, 1928.

Harriman, Karl Edwin. The Cannoneers Have Hairy Ears. New York: J. H. Sear, 1927.

Lucas, Pascal. The Evolution of Tactical Ideas in France and Germany During the War of 1914-1918. Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1923. Translated by P. V. Kieffer, U.S. Army, in 1925.

Pershing, John J. Final Report of General John J. Pershing, Commanderin-Chief American Expeditionary Forces. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1920.

Reigelman, Harold. A Chemical Officer at the Front. Chemical Warfare Bulletin 23 (April, July, and October 1937):42-55, 106-16, 151-63. Reprinted from War Notes a Casual, publication information unknown.

U.S. Army. A.E.F., 1917-1919. Defensive Measures Against Gas Attack. No. 253, revised. France, November 1917.

—–. Gas Manual. Pt. 2. Use of Gas by the Artillery. France, March 1919.

—–. 1st Army. Provisional Instructions for Artillery Officers on the Use of Gas Shell. N.p. Base Printing Plant, 29th Engineers, 1918.

U.S. Department of the Army. Historical Division. United States Army in the World War, 1917-1919. Vol. 16. General Orders, G.H.Q., A.E.F. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1948.

U.S. Senate. Committee on Military Affairs. Preparedness for National Defense. 64th Cong., 1st sess. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1916.

U.S. War Department. Annual Report, 1917. Vol. 1. The Secretary of War, et al. Washington, DC, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1918.
—–. Gas Warfare. Pt. 1. German Methods of Offense. Pt. 2. Methods of Defense Against Gas Attacks. Pt. 3. Methods of Training in Defensive Measures. Washington, DC: U.S. Army War College/U.S. Government Printing Office, 1918.

—–. Memorandum on Gas Poisoning in Warfare with Notes on Its Pathology and Treatment. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1917.

Watkins., Owen Spencer. Unidentified article in The Methodist Recorder (Great Britain) quoted in The Literary Digest, 4 September 1915:483-86.

Other Works

Bancroft, Wilder D., et al. Medical Aspects of Gas Warfare. The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War, vol. 14. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1926.

Biddle, Wayne. Restocking the Chemical Arsenal. New York Times Magazine, 24 May 1981.

Brown, Frederick. Chemical Warfare, a Study in Restraints. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968.

Clark, Dorothy Kneeland. Effectiveness of Chemical Weapons in World War I. Staff paper ORO-SP-88. Bethesda, MD: Tactics Division, Operations Research Office, Johns Hopkins University, 1959. DTIC AD-233081.

Cochrane, Rexmond C. The 1st Division at Ansauville, January-April 1918. U.S. Army Chemical Corps Historical Studies: Gas Warfare in World War I, Study no. 9. Army Chemical Center, MD: Historical Office, U.S. Army Chemical Corps, 1958.

—–. The 1st Division at Cantigny, May 1918. U.S. Army Chemical Corps ,,Historical Studies: Gas Warfare in World War I, Study no. 11. Army Chemical Center, MD: Historical Office, U.S. Army Chemical Corps, 1958.

—–. The 42nd Division Before Landres-et-St. Georges, October 1918. U.S. Army Chemical Corps Historical Studies: Gas Warfare in World War I, Study no. 17. Army Chemical Center, MD: Historical Office, U.S. Army Chemical Corps, 1960.

—–. The Use of Gas in the Meuse-Argonne Campaign, September – November 1918. U.S. Army Chemical Corps Historical Studies: Gas Warfare in World War I, Study no. 10. Army Chemical Center, MD: Historical Office, U.S. Army Chemical Corps, 1958.

Ganoe, William A. The History of the United States Army. Rev. ed. Ashton, MD: Eric Lundberg, 1964.

Gilchrist, Harry L., Col. A Comparative Study of World War Casualties from Gas and Other Weapons. Edgewood Arsenal, MD: Chemical Warfare School, 1928.

Hanslian, Rudolf. Der Chemische Krieg [The chemical war]. Berlin: E. S. Mittler & Sohn, 1927. Translated by the U.S. Army War College.

—–. The German Gas Attack at Ypres on April 22, 1915. Berlin: Verlag Gasschutz and Luftschutz, 1934. Translated by the Military Intelligence Division, U.S. Army War College.

Hogg, Ian V. Gas. Ballantine’s Illustrated History of the Violent Century: Weapons Book no. 43, edited by Barrie Pitt. New York: Ballantine Books, 1975.

James, D. Clayton. The Years of MacArthur. Vol. 1. 1880-1941. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1970.

Lanza, Conrad H. Counterbattery. Chemical Warfare Bulletin 23 (July 1937):87-94.

Lasswell, Harold D. Propaganda in the World War. New York: Peter Smith, 1938.

Lefebure, Victor. Riddle of the Rhine: Chemical Strategy in Peace and War. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1923.

Liddell Hart, Basil Henry. The Real War, 1914-1918. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1930.

Love, Albert G., Maj. Statistics.Pt. 2. Medical and Casualty Statistics. The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War, vol. 15. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1925.
—–. War Casualties. Army Medical Bulletin no. 24. Carlisle Barracks, PA: Medical Field Service School, 1931.

Müller-Kiel, Ulrich. Die Chemische Waffe im Weltkrieg und Jetzt [The chemical weapon in the World. War and now]. Berlin: Verlag Chemie, 1932. Translated by the Military Intelligence Division, U.S. Army War College.

Palmer, Frederick. Newton D. Baker, America at War. 2 vols. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1931.

Peterson, H. C. Propaganda for War. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1939.

Poisoning the Battlefield. Time Magazine, 10 March 1980:28.

Powell, E. Alexander. The Army Behind the Army. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1919.

Prentiss, Augustin Mitchell. Chemicals in War: A Treatise on Chemical Warfare. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1937.

Shrader, Charles R. Amicicide: The Problem of Friendly Fire in Modern War. Research Survey no. 1. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1982.

Stallings, Laurence. The Doughboys. New York: Harper and Row, 1963.

Tuchman, Barbara W. The Guns of August. New York: Macmillan, 1962.

Unmacht, George F. The Effects of Chemical Agents on Quartermaster Supplies. The Quartermaster Review 14 (November-December 1934):53-55.

Wachtel, Curt. Chemical Warfare. Brooklyn, NY: Chemical Publishing Co., 1941.

Waitt, Alden H. Gas Warfare: The Chemical Weapon, Its Use and Protection Against It. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1942.

LEAVENWORTH PAPERS

1 . The Evolution of U.S, Army Tactical Doctrine, 1946-76, by Major Robert A. Doughty

2. Nomonhan: Japanese-Soviet Tactical Combat, 1939, by Dr. Edward J. Drea

3. Not War But Like War : The American Intervention in Lebanon, by Dr.Roger J. Spiller

4. The Dynamics of Doctrine: The Changes in German Tactical Doctrine During the First World War, by Captain Timothy T. Lupfer

5. Fighting the Russians in Winter: Three Case Studies, by Dr. Allen F. Chew
6. Soviet Night Operations, by Major Claude R. Sasso

7. August Storm: The Soviet 1945 Strategic Offensive in Manchuria, by Lieutenant Colonel David M. Glantz

8. August Storm: Soviet Tactical and Operational Combat in Manchuria, 1945, by Lieutenant Colonel David M. Glantz

9. Defending the Driniumor: Covering Force Operations in New Guinea, 1944, by Dr. Edward J. Drea

10. Chemical Warfare in World War I: The American Experience, 1917-1918 by Major Charles E. Heller, USAR

STUDIES IN PROGRESS
Soviet Airborne Forces
*
Rapid Deployment Logistics, Lebanon, 1958
*
Special Units: Rangers in World War 11
*
Counterattack on the Naktong: Light Infantry Operations in Korea, 1950
*
Armored Combat in World War 11: Arracourt
*
Stand Fast: German Defensive Doctrine in World War il
*
Combined Arms Doctrine in the 20th Century
*
Operations of Large Formations: The Corps
*
Tactics and Doctrine in Imperial Russia
*
U.S. Intervention in the Dominican Republic, 1965

TO VIEW: MAJ (P) Charles E. Heller

Major(P) Charles E. Heller, USAR, is currently on an AGR tour at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College as the Combat Studies Institute’s USAR Staff Officer. He has served on active duty with the 8th Infantry Division and in a variety of USAR assignments, including a MOBDES position with the U.S. Army Center of Military History. He has an M.A. in history from the University of Massachusetts and has recently completed all his degree requirements for a Ph.D. at the same institution. He has published a number of articles on a variety of military history topics.

COMBAT STUDIES INSTITUTE

Mission

The Combat Studies Institute was established on 18 June 1979 as a separate, department level activity within the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, for the purpose of accomplishing the following missions:

1. Conduct research on historical topics pertinent to the current doctrinal and educational concerns of the Army and publish and distribute the results of such research in a variety of formats to the Active Army and Reserve components.

2. Prepare and present instruction in military history at CGSC and assist other CGSC departments in integrating applicable military history materials into their instruction.

3. Serve as the TRADOC executive agent for the development and coordination of an integrated, progressive program of military history instruction in the TRADOC service school system.

4. Direct the CAC Historical Program.

5. Supervise the Fort Leavenworth Museum.

TO VIEW: Back Cover Synopsis

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Chemical warfare
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Chemical warfare (disambiguation).
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Chemical agents
Lethal agents
Blood agents
Cyanogen chloride (CK)
Hydrogen cyanide (AC)
Blister agents
Ethyldichloroarsine (ED)
Methyldichloroarsine (MD)
Phenyldichloroarsine (PD)
Lewisite (L)
Sulfur mustard gas (HD, H, HT, HL, HQ)
Nitrogen mustard gas (HN1, HN2, HN3)
Nerve agents
G-Agents
Tabun (GA), Sarin (GB)
Soman (GD), Cyclosarin (GF)
GV
V-Agents
EA-3148, VE, VG, VM, VR, VX
Novichok agents
Pulmonary agents
Chlorine
Chloropicrin (PS)
Phosgene (CG)
Diphosgene (DP)
Incapacitating agents
Agent 15 (BZ)
EA-3167
Kolokol-1
Riot control agents
Pepper spray (OC)
CS gas
CN gas (mace)
CR gas
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Chemical warfare (CW) involves using the toxic properties of chemical substances as weapons to kill, injure, or incapacitate an enemy.

This type of warfare is distinct from the use of conventional weapons or nuclear weapons because the destructive effects of chemical weapons are not primarily due to their explosive force.

Chemical weapons are classified as weapons of mass destruction by the United Nations, and their production and stockpiling was outlawed by the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993. The offensive use of living organisms or their toxic products is not considered chemical warfare but biological warfare.

Contents

* 1 Definition
* 2 Technology
o 2.1 Chemical warfare agents
+ 2.1.1 Persistency
+ 2.1.2 Classes
+ 2.1.3 Designations
o 2.2 Delivery
+ 2.2.1 Dispersion
+ 2.2.2 Thermal dissemination
+ 2.2.3 Aerodynamic dissemination
o 2.3 Protection against chemical warfare
+ 2.3.1 Decontamination
* 3 Sociopolitical climate
o 3.1 Efforts to eradicate chemical weapons
o 3.2 Chemical weapon proliferation
* 4 History
o 4.1 Ancient to medieval times
+ 4.1.1 Textual and Literary Evidence
+ 4.1.2 Archaeological Evidence
o 4.2 Rediscovery
o 4.3 World War I
o 4.4 Interwar years
o 4.5 World War II
o 4.6 North Yemen Civil War
o 4.7 Cold War
+ 4.7.1 Developments by the Western governments
+ 4.7.2 United States Senate Report
+ 4.7.3 Developments by the Soviet government
o 4.8 Iran–Iraq War
o 4.9 Falklands War
o 4.10 Terrorism
* 5 See also
* 6 Notes
* 7 References
* 8 Further reading
* 9 External links

Definition

Chemical warfare is different from the use of conventional weapons or nuclear weapons because the destructive effects of chemical weapons are not primarily due to any explosive force. The offensive use of living organisms (such as anthrax) is considered biological warfare rather than chemical warfare; however, the use of nonliving toxic products produced by living organisms (e.g. toxins such as botulinum toxin, ricin, and saxitoxin) is considered chemical warfare under the provisions of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Under this Convention, any toxic chemical, regardless of its origin, is considered a chemical weapon unless it is used for purposes that are not prohibited (an important legal definition known as the General Purpose Criterion).[1]

About 70 different chemicals have been used or stockpiled as chemical warfare agents during the 20th century. Chemical weapons are classified as weapons of mass destruction by the United Nations, and their production and stockpiling was outlawed by the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993.

Under the Convention, chemicals that are toxic enough to be used as chemical weapons, or that may be used to manufacture such chemicals, are divided into three groups according to their purpose and treatment:

* Schedule 1 – Have few, if any, legitimate uses. These may only be produced or used for research, medical, pharmaceutical or protective purposes (i.e. testing of chemical weapons sensors and protective clothing). Examples include nerve agents, ricin, lewisite and mustard gas. Any production over 100 g must be notified to the OPCW and a country can have a stockpile of no more than one tonne of these chemicals.
* Schedule 2 – Have no large-scale industrial uses, but may have legitimate small-scale uses. Examples include dimethyl methylphosphonate, a precursor to sarin but which is also used as a flame retardant and Thiodiglycol which is a precursor chemical used in the manufacture of mustard gas but is also widely used as a solvent in inks.
* Schedule 3 – Have legitimate large-scale industrial uses. Examples include phosgene and chloropicrin. Both have been used as chemical weapons but phosgene is an important precursor in the manufacture of plastics and chloropicrin is used as a fumigant. The OPCW must be notified of, and may inspect, any plant producing more than 30 tonnes per year.

Technology
Chemical warfare technology timeline Agents Dissemination Protection Detection
1900s Chlorine
Chloropicrin
Phosgene
Mustard gas Wind dispersal Gas masks, urinated-on gauze Smell
1910s Lewisite Chemical shells Gas mask
Rosin oil clothing
1920s Projectiles w/ central bursters CC-2 clothing
1930s G-series nerve agents Aircraft bombs Blister agent detectors
Color change paper
1940s Missile warheads
Spray tanks Protective ointment (mustard)
Collective protection
Gas mask w/ Whetlerite
1950s
1960s V-series nerve agents Aerodynamic Gas mask w/ water supply Nerve gas alarm
1970s
1980s Binary munitions Improved gas masks
(protection, fit, comfort) Laser detection
1990s Novichok nerve agents

A Swedish Army soldier wearing a chemical agent protective suit (C-vätskeskydd) and his protection mask (skyddsmask 90).

Although crude chemical warfare has been employed in many parts of the world for thousands of years,[2] modern chemical warfare began during World War I – see Poison gas in World War I.

Initially, only well-known commercially available chemicals and their variants were used. These included chlorine and phosgene gas. The methods used to disperse these agents during battle were relatively unrefined and inefficient. Even so, casualties could be heavy, due to the mainly static troop positions which were characteristic features of trench warfare.

Germany, the first side to employ chemical warfare on the battlefield,[3] simply opened canisters of chlorine upwind of the opposing side and let the prevailing winds do the dissemination. Soon after, the French modified artillery munitions to contain phosgene – a much more effective method that became the principal means of delivery.[4]

Since the development of modern chemical warfare in World War I, nations have pursued research and development on chemical weapons that falls into four major categories: new and more deadly agents; more efficient methods of delivering agents to the target (dissemination); more reliable means of defense against chemical weapons; and more sensitive and accurate means of detecting chemical agents.

Chemical warfare agents
See also: List of chemical warfare agents
A chemical used in warfare is called a chemical warfare agent (CWA). About 70 different chemicals have been used or stockpiled as chemical warfare agents during the 20th century and the 21st century. These agents may be in liquid, gas or solid form. Liquid agents are generally designed to evaporate quickly; such liquids are said to be volatile or have a high vapor pressure. Many chemical agents are made volatile so they can be dispersed over a large region quickly.

The earliest target of chemical warfare agent research was not toxicity, but development of agents that can affect a target through the skin and clothing, rendering protective gas masks useless. In July 1917, the Germans employed mustard gas. Mustard gas easily penetrates leather and fabric to inflict painful burns on the skin.

Chemical warfare agents are divided into lethal and incapacitating categories. A substance is classified as incapacitating if less than 1/100 of the lethal dose causes incapacitation, e.g., through nausea or visual problems. The distinction between lethal and incapacitating substances is not fixed, but relies on a statistical average called the LD50.

Persistency

One way to classify chemical warfare agents is according to their persistency, a measure of the length of time that a chemical agent remains effective after dissemination. Chemical agents are classified as persistent or nonpersistent.

Agents classified as nonpersistent lose effectiveness after only a few minutes or hours. Purely gaseous agents such as chlorine are nonpersistent, as are highly volatile agents such as sarin and most other nerve agents. Tactically, nonpersistent agents are very useful against targets that are to be taken over and controlled very quickly.

Apart from the agent used, the delivery mode is very important. To achieve a nonpersistent deployment, the agent is dispersed into very small droplets comparable with the mist produced by an aerosol can. In this form not only the gaseous part of the agent (around 50%) but also the fine aerosol can be inhaled or taken up by the skin.

Modern doctrine requires very high concentrations almost instantly in order to be effective (one breath should contain a lethal dose of the agent). To achieve this, the primary weapons used would be rocket artillery or bombs and large ballistic missiles with cluster warheads. The contamination in the target area is only low or not existent and after four hours sarin or similar agents are not detectable anymore.

By contrast, persistent agents tend to remain in the environment for as long as several weeks, complicating decontamination. Defense against persistent agents requires shielding for extended periods of time. Non-volatile liquid agents, such as blister agents and the oily VX nerve agent, do not easily evaporate into a gas, and therefore present primarily a contact hazard.

The droplet size used for persistent delivery goes up to 1 mm increasing the falling speed and therefore about 80% of the deployed agent reaches the ground, resulting in heavy contamination. This implies, that persistent deployment does not aim at annihilating the enemy but to constrain him.
Possible targets include enemy flank positions (averting possible counter attacks), artillery regiments, commando posts or supply lines. Possible weapons to be used are wide spread, because the fast delivery of high amounts is not a critical factor.

A special form of persistent agents are thickened agents. These comprise a common agent mixed with thickeners to provide gelatinous, sticky agents. Primary targets for this kind of use include airfields, due to the increased persistency and difficulty of decontaminating affected areas.

Classes

Chemical weapons are inert agents that come in four categories: choking, blister, blood and nerve.[5] The agents are organized into several categories according to the manner in which they affect the human body. The names and number of categories varies slightly from source to source, but in general, types of chemical warfare agents are as follows:

Classes of chemical weapon agents Class of agent Agent Names Mode of Action Signs and Symptoms Rate of action Persistency
Nerve

* Cyclosarin (GF)
* Sarin (GB)
* Soman (GD)
* Tabun (GA)
* VX
* VR
* Some insecticides
* Novichok agents

Inactivates enzyme acetylcholinesterase, preventing the breakdown of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine in the victim’s synapses and causing both muscarinic and nicotinic effects

* Miosis (pinpoint pupils)
* Blurred/dim vision
* Headache
* Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea
* Copious secretions/sweating
* Muscle twitching/fasciculations
* Dyspnea
* Seizures
* Loss of consciousness

* Vapors: seconds to minutes;
* Skin: 2 to 18 hours
VX is persistent and a contact hazard; other agents are non-persistent and present mostly inhalation hazards.
Asphyxiant/Blood
* Most Arsines
* Cyanogen chloride
* Hydrogen cyanide

* Arsine: Causes intravascular hemolysis that may lead to renal failure.
* Cyanogen chloride/hydrogen cyanide: Cyanide directly prevents cells from using oxygen. The cells then uses anaerobic respiration, creating excess lactic acid and metabolic acidosis.

* Possible cherry-red skin
* Possible cyanosis
* Confusion
* Nausea
* Patients may gasp for air
* Seizures prior to death
* Metabolic acidosis

Immediate onset Non-persistent and an inhalation hazard.
Vesicant/Blister

* Sulfur mustard (HD, H)
* Nitrogen mustard (HN-1, HN-2, HN-3)
* Lewisite (L)
* Phosgene oxime (CX)

Agents are acid-forming compounds that damages skin and respiratory system, resulting burns and respiratory problems.

* Severe skin, eye and mucosal pain and irritation
* Skin erythema with large fluid blisters that heal slowly and may become infected
* Tearing, conjunctivitis, corneal damage
* Mild respiratory distress to marked airway damage

* Mustards: Vapors: 4 to 6 hours, eyes and lungs affected more rapidly; Skin: 2 to 48 hours
* Lewisite: Immediate

Persistent and a contact hazard.
Choking/Pulmonary
* Chlorine
* Hydrogen chloride
* Nitrogen oxides
* Phosgene

Similar mechanism to blister agents in that the compounds are acids or acid-forming, but action is more pronounced in respiratory system, flooding it and resulting in suffocation; survivors often suffer chronic breathing problems.

* Airway irritation
* Eye and skin irritation
* Dyspnea, cough
* Sore throat
* Chest tightness
* Wheezing
* Bronchospasm

Immediate to 3 hours Non-persistent and an inhalation hazard.
Lachrymatory agent

* Tear gas
* Pepper spray

Causes severe stinging of the eyes and temporary blindness. Powerful eye irritation Immediate Non-persistent and an inhalation hazard.
Incapacitating

* Agent 15 (BZ)

Causes atropine-like inhibition of acetylcholine in subject. Causes peripheral nervous system effects that are the opposite of those seen in nerve agent poisoning.

* May appear as mass drug intoxication with erratic behaviors, shared realistic and distinct hallucinations, disrobing and confusion
* Hyperthermia
* Ataxia (lack of coordination)
* Mydriasis (dilated pupils)
* Dry mouth and skin

* Inhaled: 30 minutes to 20 hours;
* Skin: Up to 36 hours after skin exposure to BZ. Duration is typically 72 to 96 hours.

Extremely persistent in soil and water and on most surfaces; contact hazard.
Cytotoxic proteins
Non-living biological proteins, such as:

* Ricin
* Abrin

Inhibit protein synthesis

* Latent period of 4-8 hours, followed by flu-like signs and symptoms
* Progress within 18-24 hours to:
o Inhalation: nausea, cough, dyspnea, pulmonary edema
o Ingestion: Gastrointestinal hemorrhage with emesis and bloody diarrhea; eventual liver and kidney failure.

4-24 hours; see symptoms. Exposure by inhalation or injection causes more pronounced signs and symptoms than exposure by ingestion Slight; agents degrade quickly in environment

There are other chemicals used militarily that are not scheduled by the Chemical Weapons Convention, and thus are not controlled under the CWC treaties. These include:

* Defoliants that destroy vegetation, but are not immediately toxic to human beings. Some batches of Agent Orange, for instance, used by the United States in Vietnam, contained dioxins as manufacturing impurities. Dioxins, rather than Agent Orange itself, have long-term cancer effects and for causing genetic damage leading to serious birth deformities.
* Incendiary or explosive chemicals (such as napalm, extensively used by the United States in Vietnam, or dynamite) because their destructive effects are primarily due to fire or explosive force, and not direct chemical action.
* Viruses, bacteria, or other organisms. Their use is classified as biological warfare. Toxins produced by living organisms are considered chemical weapons, although the boundary is blurry. Toxins are covered by the Biological Weapons Convention.

Designations
For more details on this topic, see chemical weapon designation.

Most chemical weapons are assigned a one- to three-letter NATO weapon designation in addition to, or in place of, a common name. Binary munitions, in which precursors for chemical warfare agents are automatically mixed in shell to produce the agent just prior to its use, are indicated by a -2 following the agent’s designation (for example, GB-2 and VX-2).

Some examples are given below:
Blood agents: Vesicants:

* Cyanogen chloride: CK
* Hydrogen cyanide: AC

* Lewisite: L
* Sulfur mustard: H, HD, HS, HT

Pulmonary agents: Incapacitating agents:

* Phosgene: CG

* Quinuclidinyl benzilate: BZ

Lachrymatory agents: Nerve agents:

* Pepper spray: OC
* Tear gas: CN, CS, CR

* Sarin: GB
* VE, VG, VM, VX

Delivery

The most important factor in the effectiveness of chemical weapons is the efficiency of its delivery, or dissemination, to a target. The most common techniques include munitions (such as bombs, projectiles, warheads) that allow dissemination at a distance and spray tanks which disseminate from low-flying aircraft. Developments in the techniques of filling and storage of munitions have also been important.

Although there have been many advances in chemical weapon delivery since World War I, it is still difficult to achieve effective dispersion. The dissemination is highly dependent on atmospheric conditions because many chemical agents act in gaseous form. Thus, weather observations and forecasting are essential to optimize weapon delivery and reduce the risk of injuring friendly forces.

Dispersion
Dispersion of chlorine in World War I

Dispersion is placing the chemical agent upon or adjacent to a target immediately before dissemination, so that the material is most efficiently used. Dispersion is the simplest technique of delivering an agent to its target. The most common techniques are munitions, bombs, projectiles, spray tanks and warheads.

World War I saw the earliest implementation of this technique. The actual first chemical ammunition was the French 26 mm cartouche suffocante rifle grenade, fired from a flare carbine. It contained 35g of the tear-producer ethylbromacetate, and was used in autumn 1914 – with little effect on the Germans.
The Germans on the other hand tried to increase the effect of 10.5 cm shrapnel shells by adding an irritant – dianisidine chlorosulphonate. Its use went unnoticed by the British when it was used against them at Neuve Chapelle in October 1914. Hans Tappen, a chemist in the Heavy Artillery Department of the War Ministry, suggested to his brother, the Chief of the Operations Branch at German General Headquarters, the use of the tear-gases benzyl bromide or xylyl bromide.

Shells were tested successfully at the Wahn artillery range near Cologne on 9 January, 1915, and an order was placed for 15 cm howitzer shells, designated ‘T-shells’ after Tappen. A shortage of shells limited the first use against the Russians at Bolimów on 31 January, 1915; the liquid failed to vaporize in the cold weather, and again the experiment went unnoticed by the Allies.

The first effective use were when the German forces at the Second Battle of Ypres simply opened cylinders of chlorine and allowed the wind to carry the gas across enemy lines. While simple, this technique had numerous disadvantages. Moving large numbers of heavy gas cylinders to the front-line positions from where the gas would be released was a lengthy and difficult logistical task.

Stockpiles of cylinders had to be stored at the front line, posing a great risk if hit by artillery shells. Gas delivery depended greatly on wind speed and direction. If the wind was fickle, as at Loos, the gas could blow back, causing friendly casualties.

Gas clouds gave plenty of warning, allowing the enemy time to protect themselves, though many soldiers found the sight of a creeping gas cloud unnerving. This made the gas doubly effective, as, in addition to damaging the enemy physically, it also had a psychological effect on the intended victims.

Another disadvantage was that gas clouds had limited penetration, capable only of affecting the front-line trenches before dissipating. Although it produced limited results in World War I, this technique shows how simple chemical weapon dissemination can be.

Shortly after this open canister dissemination, French forces developed a technique for delivery of phosgene in a non-explosive artillery shell. This technique overcame many of the risks of dealing with gas in cylinders. First, gas shells were independent of the wind and increased the effective range of gas, making any target within reach of guns vulnerable. Second, gas shells could be delivered without warning, especially the clear, nearly odorless phosgene – there are numerous accounts of gas shells, landing with a plop rather than exploding, being initially dismissed as dud high explosive or shrapnel shells, giving the gas time to work before the soldiers were alerted and took precautions.

The major drawback of artillery delivery was the difficulty of achieving a killing concentration. Each shell had a small gas payload and an area would have to be subjected to saturation bombardment to produce a cloud to match cylinder delivery. A British solution to the problem was the Livens Projector. This was effectively a large-bore mortar, dug into the ground that used the gas cylinders themselves as projectiles – firing a 14 kg cylinder up to 1500 m. This combined the gas volume of cylinders with the range of artillery.

Over the years, there were some refinements in this technique. In the 1950s and early 1960s, chemical artillery rockets and cluster bombs contained a multitude of submunitions, so that a large number of small clouds of the chemical agent would form directly on the target.

Thermal dissemination
An American-made MC-1 gas bomb

Thermal dissemination is the use of explosives or pyrotechnics to deliver chemical agents. This technique, developed in the 1920s, was a major improvement over earlier dispersal techniques, in that it allowed significant quantities of an agent to be disseminated over a considerable distance. Thermal dissemination remains the principal method of disseminating chemical agents today.

Most thermal dissemination devices consist of a bomb or projectile shell that contains a chemical agent and a central burster charge; when the burster detonates, the agent is expelled laterally.

Thermal dissemination devices, though common, are not particularly efficient. First, a percentage of the agent is lost by incineration in the initial blast and by being forced onto the ground. Second, the sizes of the particles vary greatly because explosive dissemination produces a mixture of liquid droplets of variable and difficult to control sizes.

The efficacy of thermal detonation is greatly limited by the flammability of some agents. For flammable aerosols, the cloud is sometimes totally or partially ignited by the disseminating explosion in a phenomenon called flashing. Explosively disseminated VX will ignite roughly one third of the time. Despite a great deal of study, flashing is still not fully understood, and a solution to the problem would be a major technological advance.

Despite the limitations of central bursters, most nations use this method in the early stages of chemical weapon development, in part because standard munitions can be adapted to carry the agents.
Soviet chemical weapons canisters from a stockpile in Albania

Aerodynamic dissemination

Aerodynamic dissemination is the non-explosive delivery of a chemical agent from an aircraft, allowing aerodynamic stress to disseminate the agent. This technique is the most recent major development in chemical agent dissemination, originating in the mid-1960s.

This technique eliminates many of the limitations of thermal dissemination by eliminating the flashing effect and theoretically allowing precise control of particle size. In actuality, the altitude of dissemination, wind direction and velocity, and the direction and velocity of the aircraft greatly influence particle size. There are other drawbacks as well; ideal deployment requires precise knowledge of aerodynamics and fluid dynamics, and because the agent must usually be dispersed within the boundary layer (less than 200–300 ft above the ground), it puts pilots at risk.

Significant research is still being applied toward this technique. For example, by modifying the properties of the liquid, its breakup when subjected to aerodynamic stress can be controlled and an idealized particle distribution achieved, even at supersonic speed. Additionally, advances in fluid dynamics, computer modeling, and weather forecasting allow an ideal direction, speed, and altitude to be calculated, such that warfare agent of a predetermined particle size can predictably and reliably hit a target.

Protection against chemical warfare

Ideal protection begins with nonproliferation treaties such as the Chemical Weapons Convention, and detecting, very early, the signatures of someone building a chemical weapons capability. These include a wide range of intelligence disciplines, such as economic analysis of exports of dual-use chemicals and equipment, human intelligence (HUMINT) such as diplomatic, refugee, and agent reports; photography from satellites, aircraft and drones (IMINT); examination of captured equipment (TECHINT); communications intercepts (COMINT); and detection of chemical manufacturing and chemical agents themselves (MASINT).

If all the preventive measures fail and there is a clear and present danger, then there is a need for detection of chemical attacks,[6] collective protection,[7][8][9] and decontamination. Since industrial accidents can cause dangerous chemical releases (e.g., the Bhopal disaster), these activities are things that civilian, as well as military, organizations must be prepared to carry out. In civilian situations in developed countries, these are duties of HAZMAT organizations, which most commonly are part of fire departments.

Detection has been referred to above, as a technical MASINT discipline; specific military procedures, which are usually the model for civilian procedures, depend on the equipment, expertise, and personnel available. When chemical agents are detected, an alarm needs to sound, with specific warnings over emergency broadcasts and the like. There may be a warning to expect an attack.

If, for example, the captain of a US Navy ship believes there is a serious threat of chemical, biological, or radiological attack, the crew may be ordered to set Circle William, which means closing all openings to outside air, running breathing air through filters, and possibly starting a system that continually washes down the exterior surfaces. Civilian authorities dealing with an attack or a toxic chemical accident will invoke the Incident Command System, or local equivalent, to coordinate defensive measures.[9]

Individual protection starts with a gas mask and, depending on the nature of the threat, through various levels of protective clothing up to a complete chemical-resistant suit with a self-contained air supply. The US military defines various levels of MOPP (mission-oriented protective posture) from mask to full chemical resistant suits; Hazmat suits are the civilian equivalent, but go farther to include a fully independent air supply, rather than the filters of a gas mask.

Collective protection allows continued functioning of groups of people in buildings or shelters, the latter which may be fixed, mobile, or improvised. With ordinary buildings, this may be as basic as plastic sheeting and tape, although if the protection needs to be continued for any appreciable length of time, there will need to be an air supply, typically a scaled-up version of a gas mask.[8][9]
Members of the Ukrainian Army’s 19th Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Battalion practice decontamination drill, at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait

Decontamination

Decontamination varies with the particular chemical agent used. Some nonpersistent agents, such as most pulmonary agents such as chlorine and phosgene, blood gases, and nonpersistent nerve gases (e.g., GB) will dissipate from open areas, although powerful exhaust fans may be needed to clear out building where they have accumulated.

In some cases, it might be necessary to neutralize them chemically, as with ammonia as a neutralizer for hydrogen cyanide or chlorine. Riot control agents such as CS will dissipate in an open area, but things contaminated with CS powder need to be aired out, washed by people wearing protective gear, or safely discarded.

Mass decontamination is a less common requirement for people than equipment, since people may be immediately affected and treatment is the action required. It is a requirement when people have been contaminated with persistent agents. Treatment and decontamination may need to be simultaneous, with the medical personnel protecting themselves so they can function.[10]

There may need to be immediate intervention to prevent death, such as injection of atropine for nerve agents. Decontamination is especially important for people contaminated with persistent agents; many of the fatalities after the explosion of a WWII US ammunition ship carrying mustard gas, in the harbor of Bari, Italy, after a German bombing on 2 December 1943, came when rescue workers, not knowing of the contamination, bundled cold, wet seamen in tight-fitting blankets.

For decontaminating equipment and buildings exposed to persistent agents, such as blister agents, VX or other agents made persistent by mixing with a thickener, special equipment and materials might be needed. Some type of neutralizing agent will be needed; e.g. in the form of a spraying device with neutralizing agents such as Chlorine, Fichlor, strong alkaline solutions or enzymes . In other cases, a specific chemical decontaminant will be required.[9]

Sociopolitical climate
ARMIS BELLUM NON VENENIS GERITUR

War is fought with weapons, not with poisons

The study of chemicals and their military uses was widespread in China and India. The use of toxic materials has historically been viewed with mixed emotions and moral qualms in the West. The practical and ethical problems surrounding poison warfare appeared in ancient Greek myths about Hercules’ invention of poison arrows and Odysseus’s use of toxic projectiles. There are many instances of the use of chemical weapons in battles documented in Greek and Roman historical texts; the earliest example was the deliberate poisoning of Kirrha’s water supply with hellebore in the First Sacred War, Greece, about 590 BC.[11]

One of the earliest reactions to the use of chemical agents was from Rome. Struggling to defend themselves from the Roman legions, Germanic tribes poisoned the wells of their enemies, with Roman jurists having been recorded as declaring armis bella non venenis geri , meaning war is fought with weapons, not with poisons. Yet the Romans themselves resorted to poisoning wells of besieged cities in Anatolia in the second century BC.[12]

Before 1915 the use of poisonous chemicals in battle was typically the result of local initiative, and not the result of an active government chemical weapons program. There are many reports of the isolated use of chemical agents in individual battles or sieges, but there was no true tradition of their use outside of incendiaries and smoke. Despite this tendency, there have been several attempts to initiate large-scale implementation of poison gas in several wars, but with the notable exception of World War I, the responsible authorities generally rejected the proposals for ethical reasons.

For example, in 1854 Lyon Playfair, a British chemist, proposed using a cyanide-filled artillery shell against enemy ships during the Crimean War. The British Ordnance Department rejected the proposal as as bad a mode of warfare as poisoning the wells of the enemy.

Efforts to eradicate chemical weapons
See also: List of chemical arms control agreements

Nation CW Possession Signed CWC Ratified CWC
Albania Known January 14, 1993 May 11, 1994
Burma (Myanmar) Possible January 13, 1993 No
the People’s Republic of China Probable January 13, 1993 April 4, 1997
Egypt Probable No No
France Probable January 13, 1993 March 2, 1995
India Known January 14, 1993 September 3, 1996
Iran Known January 13, 1993 November 3, 1997
Israel Probable January 13, 1993 No
Japan Probable January 13, 1993 September 15, 1995
Libya Known No January 6, 2004
(acceded)
North Korea Known No No
Pakistan Probable January 13, 1993 October 28, 1997
Russia Known January 13, 1993 November 5, 1997
Serbia
and Montenegro Probable No April 20, 2000
(acceded)
Sudan Possible No May 24, 1999
(acceded)
Syria Known No No
Taiwan Possible n/a n/a
United States Known January 13, 1993 April 25, 1997
Vietnam Probable January 13, 1993 September 30, 1998

* August 27, 1874: The Brussels Declaration Concerning the Laws and Customs of War is signed, specifically forbidding the employment of poison or poisoned weapons.
* September 4, 1900: The Hague Conference, which includes a declaration banning the use of projectiles the object of which is the diffusion of asphyxiating or deleterious gases, enters into force.
* February 6, 1922: After World War I, the Washington Arms Conference Treaty prohibited the use of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases. It was signed by the United States, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy, but France objected to other provisions in the treaty and it never went into effect.
* September 7, 1929: The Geneva Protocol enters into force, prohibiting the use of poison gas.

Chemical weapon proliferation
Main article: Chemical weapon proliferation

Despite numerous efforts to reduce or eliminate them, some nations continue to research and/or stockpile chemical warfare agents. To the right is a summary of the nations that have either declared weapon stockpiles or are suspected of secretly stockpiling or possessing CW research programs. Notable examples include United States and Russia.

US Vice President Dick Cheney opposed the signing ratification of a treaty banning the use chemical weapons, a recently unearthed letter shows. In a letter dated April 8, 1997, then Halliburton-CEO Cheney told Sen. Jesse Helms, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that it would be a mistake for America to join the Convention. Those nations most likely to comply with the Chemical Weapons Convention are not likely to ever constitute a military threat to the United States. The governments we should be concerned about are likely to cheat on the CWC, even if they do participate, reads the letter,[13] published by the Federation of American Scientists.

The CWC was ratified by the Senate that same month. Since then, Albania, Libya, Russia, the United States, and India have declared over 71,000 metric tons of chemical weapon stockpiles, and destroyed about a third of them. Under the terms of the agreement, the United States and Russia are supposed to eliminate the rest of their supplies of chemical weapons by 2012. But that looks unlikely – the U.S. government estimates remaining stocks will be destroyed by 2017.

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Ancient to medieval times

Chemical weapons have been used for millennia in the form of poisoned spears and arrows, but evidence can be found for the existence of more advanced forms of chemical weapons in ancient and classical times.

A good example of early chemical warfare was the late Stone Age (10 000 BC) hunter-gatherer societies in Southern Africa, known as the San. They used poisoned arrows, tipping the wood, bone and stone tips of their arrows with poisons obtained from their natural environment. These poisons were mainly derived from scorpion or snake venom, but it is believed that some poisonous plants were also utilized. The arrow was fired into the target of choice, usually an antelope (the favourite being an eland), with the hunter then tracking the doomed animal until the poison caused its collapse.

Ancient Greek myths about Hercules poisoning his arrows with the venom of the Hydra Monster are the earliest references to toxic weapons in western literature. Homer’s epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, allude to poisoned arrows used by both sides in the legendary Trojan War (Bronze Age Greece).[12]

Textual and Literary Evidence

Some of the earliest surviving references to toxic warfare are may appear in the Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata. [14]

The Laws of Manu, a Hindu treatise on statecraft (ca 400 BC) forbids the use of poison and fire arrows, but advises poisoning food and water. Kautilya’s Arthashastra, a statecraft manual of the same era, contains hundreds of recipes for creating poison weapons, toxic smokes, and other chemical weapons. Ancient Greek historians recount that Alexander the Great encountered poison arrows and fire incendiaries in what is now Pakistan in the fourth century BC.[12]

Sun Tzu’s Art of War (ca 500 BC) advises the use of fire weapons. In the 4th century BC, writings of the Mohist sect in China describe the use of bellows to pump smoke from burning balls of mustard and other toxic vegetables into tunnels being dug by a besieging army. Even older Chinese writings dating back to about 1000 BC contain hundreds of recipes for the production of poisonous or irritating smokes for use in war along with numerous accounts of their use. From these accounts we know of the arsenic-containing soul-hunting fog , and the use of finely divided lime dispersed into the air to suppress a peasant revolt in AD 178.

The earliest recorded use of gas warfare in the West dates back to the 5th century BC, during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. Spartan forces besieging an Athenian city placed a lighted mixture of wood, pitch, and sulfur under the walls hoping that the noxious smoke would incapacitate the Athenians, so that they would not be able to resist the assault that followed. Sparta wasn’t alone in its use of unconventional tactics during these wars: Solon of Athens is said to have used hellebore roots to poison the water in an aqueduct leading from the Pleistrus River around 590 BC during the siege of Kirrha.[12]
Chemical weapons were known and used in ancient and medieval China. Polish chronicler Jan D?ugosz mentions usage of poisonous gas by the Mongol army in 1241 in the Battle of Legnica.

Historian and philosopher David Hume, in his history of England, recounts how during early in the reign of Henry III (r.1216 – 1272) the English Navy destroyed an invading French fleet, by blinding the enemy fleet with quicklime, the old name for calcium oxide. D’Albiney employed a stratagem against them, which is said to have contributed to the victory: Having gained the wind of the French, he came down upon them with violence; and throwing in their faces a great quantity of quicklime, which he purposely carried on board, he so blinded them, that they were disabled from defending themselves.[15]

Archaeological Evidence

There is archaeological evidence that the Sasanians deployed chemical weapons against the Roman army in 3rd century AD/CE. Research carried out on the collapsed tunnels at Dura-Europos in Syria suggests that the Iranians used bitumen and sulphur crystals to get it burning. When ignited, the materials gave off dense clouds of choking gases which killed 20 Roman soldiers in the matter of 2 minutes.[16]

Rediscovery

During the Renaissance, people again considered using chemical warfare. One of the earliest such references is from Leonardo da Vinci, who proposed a powder of sulfide of arsenic and verdigris in the 15th century:

throw poison in the form of powder upon galleys. Chalk, fine sulfide of arsenic, and powdered verdegris may be thrown among enemy ships by means of small mangonels, and all those who, as they breathe, inhale the powder into their lungs will become asphyxiated.

It is unknown whether this powder was ever actually used.

Earlier, in the 13th century, of Henry III the English Navy destroyed an invading French fleet, by blinding the enemy fleet with quicklime, the old name for calcium oxide. (See Calcium oxide#use as a weapon) In the 17th century during sieges, armies attempted to start fires by launching incendiary shells filled with sulphur, tallow, rosin, turpentine, saltpeter, and/or antimony. Even when fires were not started, the resulting smoke and fumes provided a considerable distraction. Although their primary function was never abandoned, a variety of fills for shells were developed to maximize the effects of the smoke.

In 1672, during his siege of the city of Groningen, Christoph Bernhard van Galen, the Bishop of Münster, employed several different explosive and incendiary devices, some of which had a fill that included belladonna, intended to produce toxic fumes. Just three years later, August 27, 1675, the French and the Germans concluded the Strasbourg Agreement, which included an article banning the use of perfidious and odious toxic devices.

In 1854, Lyon Playfair, a British chemist, proposed a cacodyl cyanide artillery shell for use against enemy ships as way to solve the stalemate during the siege of Sevastopol. The proposal was backed by Admiral Thomas Cochrane of the Royal Navy. It was considered by the Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, but the British Ordnance Department rejected the proposal as as bad a mode of warfare as poisoning the wells of the enemy. Playfair’s response was used to justify chemical warfare into the next century:

There was no sense in this objection. It is considered a legitimate mode of warfare to fill shells with molten metal which scatters among the enemy, and produced the most frightful modes of death. Why a poisonous vapor which would kill men without suffering is to be considered illegitimate warfare is incomprehensible. War is destruction, and the more destructive it can be made with the least suffering the sooner will be ended that barbarous method of protecting national rights. No doubt in time chemistry will be used to lessen the suffering of combatants, and even of criminals condemned to death.

Later, during the American Civil War, New York school teacher John Doughty proposed the offensive use of chlorine gas, delivered by filling a 10 inch (254 millimeter) artillery shell with 2 to 3 quarts (2 to 3 liters) of liquid chlorine, which could produce many cubic feet (a few cubic meters) of chlorine gas. Doughty’s plan was apparently never acted on, as it was probably presented to Brigadier General James Wolfe Ripley, Chief of Ordnance, who was described as being congenitally immune to new ideas.

A general concern over the use of poison gas manifested itself in 1899 at the Hague Conference with a proposal prohibiting shells filled with asphyxiating gas. The proposal was passed, despite a single dissenting vote from the United States. The American representative, Navy Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, justified voting against the measure on the grounds that the inventiveness of Americans should not be restricted in the development of new weapons.

World War I
Aerial photograph of a German gas attack on Russian forces circa 1916
A Canadian soldier with mustard gas burns, ca. 1917–1918.
Main article: Poison gas in World War I

The Hague Declaration of 1899 and the Hague Convention of 1907 forbade the use of poison or poisonous weapons in warfare, yet more than 124,000 tons of gas were produced by the end of World War I. The French were the first to use chemical weapons during the First World War, using tear gas.
The German’s first use of chemical weapons were shells containing xylyl bromide that were fired at the Russians near the town of Bolimów, Poland in January 1915.[17] The first full-scale deployment of chemical warfare agents was during World War I, originating in the Second Battle of Ypres, April 22, 1915, when the Germans attacked French, Canadian and Algerian troops with chlorine gas. Deaths were light, though casualties relatively heavy.

A total 50,965 tons of pulmonary, lachrymatory, and vesicant agents were deployed by both sides of the conflict, including chlorine, phosgene and mustard gas. Official figures declare about 1,176,500 non-fatal casualties and 85,000 fatalities directly caused by chemical warfare agents during the course of the war.[18]

To this day unexploded WWI-era chemical ammunition is still frequently uncovered when the ground is dug in former battle or depot areas and continues to pose a threat to the civilian population in Belgium and France and less commonly in other countries. The French and Belgian governments have had to launch special programs for treating discovered ammunition.

After the war, most of the unused German chemical warfare agents were dumped into the Baltic Sea, a common disposal method among all the participants in several bodies of water. Over time, the salt water causes the shell casings to corrode, and mustard gas occasionally leaks from these containers and washes onto shore as a wax-like solid resembling ambergris. Even in this solidified form, the agent is active enough to cause severe contact burns to anybody coming into contact with it.[citation needed]

Interwar years

After World War I chemical agents were occasionally used to subdue populations and suppress rebellion.

Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in 1917, the Ottoman government collapsed completely, and the former empire was divided amongst the victorious powers in the Treaty of Sèvres. The British occupied Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) and established a colonial government.

In 1920, the Arab and Kurdish people of Mesopotamia revolted against the British occupation, which cost the British dearly. As the Mesopotamian resistance gained strength, the British resorted to increasingly repressive measures. Much speculation was made about aerial bombardment of major cities with gas in Mesopotamia, with Winston Churchill, then-Secretary of State at the British War Office, arguing in favor of it.[19] In the 1920s generals reported that poison had never won a battle. The soldiers said they hated it and hated the gas masks. Only the chemists spoke out to say it was a good weapon.

In 1925, sixteen of the world’s major nations signed the Geneva Protocol, thereby pledging never to use gas in warfare again. Notably, in the United States, the Protocol languished in the Senate until 1975, when it was finally ratified.

The Bolsheviks also employed poison gas in 1921 during the Tambov Rebellion. An order signed by military commanders Tukhachevsky and Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko stipulated: The forests where the bandits are hiding are to be cleared by the use of poison gas. This must be carefully calculated, so that the layer of gas penetrates the forests and kills everyone hiding there. [20]

During the Rif War in Spanish Morocco in 1921–1927, combined Spanish and French forces dropped mustard gas bombs in an attempt to put down the Berber rebellion. (See also: Chemical weapons in the Rif War)

In 1935, Fascist Italy used mustard gas during the invasion of Ethiopia in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. Ignoring the Geneva Protocol, which it signed seven years earlier, the Italian military dropped mustard gas in bombs, sprayed it from airplanes, and spread it in powdered form on the ground. 150,000 chemical casualties were reported, mostly from mustard gas.

World War II
The chemical structure of Sarin nerve gas, developed in Germany (1939)

Despite article 171 of the Versailles Peace Treaty, article V of the Treaty in Relation to the Use of Submarines and Noxious Gases in Warfare [3] and a resolution adopted against Japan by the League of nations on 14 May 1938, the Imperial Japanese Army frequently used chemical weapons. Because of fear of retaliation however, those weapons were never used against Westerners, but against other Asians judged inferior by the imperial propaganda.

According to historians Yoshiaki Yoshimi and Seiya Matsuno, the chemical weapons were authorized by specific orders given by Emperor Showa himself, transmitted by the chief of staff of the army. For example, the Emperor authorized the use of toxic gas on 375 separate occasions during the battle of Wuhan from August to October 1938.[21]

They were also profusely used during the invasion of Changde. Those orders were transmitted either by prince Kotohito Kan’in or general Hajime Sugiyama.[22]

The Imperial Japanese Army used mustard gas and the recently-developed blister agent Lewisite against Chinese troops and guerrillas. Experiments involving chemical weapons were conducted on live prisoners (Unit 731 and Unit 516). The Japanese also carried chemical weapons as they swept through Southeast Asia towards Australia.

Some of these items were captured and analyzed by the Allies. Greatly concerned, Australia covertly imported 1,000,000 chemical weapons from the United Kingdom from 1942 onwards[23] [4][24] [5][6].[25][26][27]

Shortly after the end of World War I, Germany’s General Staff enthusiastically pursued a recapture of their preeminent position in chemical warfare. In 1923, Hans von Seeckt pointed the way, by suggesting that German poison gas research move in the direction of delivery by aircraft in support of mobile warfare. Also in 1923, at the behest of the German army, poison gas expert Dr. Hugo Stolzenberg negotiated with the USSR to built a huge chemical weapons plant at Trotsk, on the Volga river.

Collaboration between Germany and the USSR in poison gas continued on and off through the 1920s. In 1924, German officers debated the use of poison gas versus non-lethal chemical weapons against civilians. Even before World War II, chemical warfare was revolutionized by Nazi Germany’s discovery of the nerve agents tabun (in 1937) and sarin (in 1939) by Gerhard Schrader, a chemist of IG Farben.

IG Farben was Germany’s premier poison gas manufacturer during World War I, so the weaponization of these agents can not be considered accidental.[28] Both were turned over to the German Army Weapons Office prior to the outbreak of the war.

The nerve agent soman was later discovered by Nobel Prize laureate Richard Kuhn and his collaborator Konrad Henkel at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg in spring of 1944.[29][30] The Nazis developed and manufactured large quantities of several agents, but chemical warfare was not extensively used by either side. Chemical troops were set up (in Germany since 1934) and delivery technology was actively developed.

Recovered Nazi documents suggest that German intelligence incorrectly thought that the Allies also knew of these compounds, interpreting their lack of mention in the Allies’ scientific journals as evidence that information about them was being suppressed. Germany ultimately decided not to use the new nerve agents, fearing a potentially devastating Allied retaliatory nerve agent deployment. Fisk, Robert (December 30, 2000). Poison gas from Germany . Independent. http://www.zmag.org/hussein.htm.

William L. Shirer, in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, writes that the British high command considered the use of chemical weapons as a last-ditch defensive measure in the event of a Nazi invasion of Britain.

On the night of December 2, 1943, German Ju 88 bombers attacked the port of Bari in Southern Italy, sinking several American ships – among them SS John Harvey, which was carrying mustard gas intended for use in retaliation by the Allies if German forces initiated gas warfare. The presence of the gas was highly classified, and authorities ashore had no knowledge of it – which increased the number of fatalities, since physicians, who had no idea that they were dealing with the effects of mustard gas, prescribed treatment improper for those suffering from exposure and immersion.

The whole affair was kept secret at the time and for many years after the war (in the opinion of some, there was a deliberate and systematic cover-up). According to the U.S. military account, Sixty-nine deaths were attributed in whole or in part to the mustard gas, most of them American merchant seamen [31] out of 628 mustard gas military casualties.[32] The large number of civilian casualties among the Italian population were not recorded. Part of the confusion and controversy derives from the fact that the German attack was highly destructive and lethal in itself, also apart from the accidental additional effects of the gas (it was nicknamed The Little Pearl Harbor ), and attribution of the causes of death between the gas and other causes is far from easy.[33][34]

Rick Atkinson, in his book The Day of Battle, describes the intelligence that prompted Allied leaders to deploy mustard gas to Italy. This included Italian intelligence that Adolf Hitler had threatened to use gas against Italy if the state changed sides, and prisoner of war interrogations suggesting that preparations were being made to use a new, egregiously potent gas if the war turned decisively against Germany. Atkinson concludes that No commander in 1943 could be cavalier about a manifest threat by Germany to use gas.

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husayni, the senior Islamic religious authority of the Palestinian Arabs and ally of Adolf Hitler was accused of sponsoring an unsuccessful chemical warfare assault on the Jewish community in Tel-Aviv during 1944 by The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies. Allegations suggest that five parachutists were supplied with maps of Tel Aviv, canisters of a German–manufactured fine white powder, and instructions from the Mufti to dump chemicals into the Tel Aviv water system. District police commander Fayiz Bey Idrissi later recalled, The laboratory report stated that each container held enough poison to kill 25,000 people, and there were at least ten containers. [35]

North Yemen Civil War

The first attack took place on June 8, 1963 against Kawma, a village of about 100 inhabitants in northern Yemen, killing about seven people and damaging the eyes and lungs of twenty-five others. This incident is considered to have been experimental, and the bombs were described as home-made, amateurish and relatively ineffective . The Egyptian authorities suggested that the reported incidents were probably caused by napalm, not gas. The Israeli Foreign Minister, Golda Meir, suggested in an interview that Nasser would not hesitate to use gas against Israel as well.

There were no reports of gas during 1964, and only a few were reported in 1965. The reports grew more frequent in late 1966. On December 11, 1966, fifteen gas bombs killed two people and injured thirty-five. On January 5, 1967, the biggest gas attack came against the village of Kitaf, causing 270 casualties, including 140 fatalities. The target may have been Prince Hassan bin Yahya, who had installed his headquarters nearby. The Egyptian government denied using poison gas, and alleged that Britain and the US were using the reports as psychological warfare against Egypt. On February 12, 1967, it said it would welcome a UN investigation. On March 1, U Thant said he was powerless to deal with the matter.

On May 10, the twin villages of Gahar and Gadafa in Wadi Hirran, where Prince Mohamed bin Mohsin was in command, were gas bombed, killing at least seventy-five. The Red Cross was alerted and on June 2, it issued a statement in Geneva expressing concern. The Institute of Forensic Medicine at the University of Berne made a statement, based on a Red Cross report, that the gas was likely to have been halogenous derivatives – phosgene, mustard gas, lewisite, chloride or cyanogen bromide.

The gas attacks stopped for three weeks after the Six-Day War of June, but resumed on July, against all parts of royalist Yemen. Casualty estimates vary, and an assumption, considered conservative, is that the mustard and phosgene-filled aerial bombs caused approximately 1,500 fatalities and 1,500 injuries.

Cold War

After World War II, the Allies recovered German artillery shells containing the three German nerve agents of the day (tabun, sarin, and soman), prompting further research into nerve agents by all of the former Allies. Although the threat of global thermonuclear war was foremost in the minds of most during the Cold War, both the Soviet and Western governments put enormous resources into developing chemical and biological weapons.
[edit] Developments by the Western governments

In 1952, researchers in Porton Down, England, invented the VX nerve agent but soon abandoned the project. In 1958 the British government traded their VX technology with the United States in exchange for information on thermonuclear weapons; by 1961 the U.S. was producing large amounts of VX and performing its own nerve agent research. This research produced at least three more agents; the four agents (VE, VG, VM, VX) are collectively known as the V-Series class of nerve agents.

Also in 1952 the U.S. Army patented a process for the Preparation of Toxic Ricin , publishing a method of producing this powerful toxin.

During the 1960s, the U.S. explored the use of anticholinergic deleriant incapacitating agents. One of these agents, assigned the weapon designation BZ, was allegedly used experimentally in the Vietnam War. These allegations inspired the 1990 fictional film Jacob’s Ladder.

In 1961 and 62 the Kennedy administration authorized the use of chemicals to destroy vegetation and food crops in South Vietnam. Between 1961 and 1967 the US Air Force sprayed 12 million US gallons of concentrated herbicides, mainly Agent Orange (containing dioxin as an impurity in the manufacturing process) over 6 million acres (24,000 km²) of foliage and trees, affecting an estimated 13% of South Vietnam’s land. In 1965, 42% of all herbicides were sprayed over food crops. Besides destroying vegetation used as cover by the NLF and destroying food crops the herbicide was used to drive civilians into RVN-controlled areas.[36]

In 1997, an article published by the Wall Street Journal reported that up to half a million children were born with dioxin related deformities, and that the birth defects in South Vietnam were fourfold those in the North. The use of Agent Orange may have been contrary to international rules of war at the time. It is also of note that the most likely victims of such an assault would be small children. A 1967 study by the Agronomy Section of the Japanese Science Council concluded that 3.8 million acres (15,000 km²) of land had been destroyed, killing 1000 peasants and 13,000 livestock.

Between 1967 and 1968, the U.S. decided to dispose of obsolete chemical weapons in an operation called Operation CHASE, which stood for cut holes and sink ‘em. Several shiploads of chemical and conventional weapons were put aboard old Liberty ships and sunk at sea.

In 1969, 23 U.S. servicemen and one U.S. civilian stationed in Okinawa, Japan, were exposed to low levels of the nerve agent sarin while repainting the depots’ buildings. The weapons had been kept secret from Japan, sparking a furor in that country and an international incident. These munitions were moved in 1971 to Johnston Atoll under Operation Red Hat.
George H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev signing the bilateral treaty on 1990-06-01

A UN working group began work on chemical disarmament in 1980. On April 4, 1984, U.S. President Ronald Reagan called for an international ban on chemical weapons. U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed a bilateral treaty on June 1, 1990, to end chemical weapon production and start destroying each of their nation’s stockpiles. The multilateral Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) was signed in 1993 and entered into force (EIF) in 1997.

In December, 2001, the United States Department of Health and Human Services, CDC, NIOSH, National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory (NPPTL), along with the U.S. Army Research, Development Engineering Command Edgewood Chemical/Biological Center (ECBC), and the U.S. Department of Commerce National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) published the first of six technical performance standards and test procedures designed to evaluate and certify respirators intended for use by civilian emergency responders to a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapon release, detonation, or terrorism incident. To date NIOSH/NPPTL has published six new respirator performance standards based on a tiered approach that relies on traditional industrial respirator certification policy, next generation emergency response respirator performance requirements, and special live chemical warfare agent testing requirements of the classes of respirators identified to offer respiratory protection against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) agent inhalation hazards. These CBRN respirators are commonly known as open-circuit self-contained breathing apparatus (CBRN SCBA), air-purifying respirator (CBRN APR), air-purifying escape respirator (CBRN APER), self-contained escape respirator (CBRN SCER) and loose or tight fitting powered air-purifying respirators (CBRN PAPR). Current NIOSH-approved/certified CBRN respirator concept standards and test procedures can be found at the webpage: http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npptl/standardsdev/cbrn/

United States Senate Report

A 1994 United States Senate Report, entitled Is military research hazardous to veterans health? Lessons spanning a half century, [37] detailed the United States Department of Defense’s practice of experimenting on animal and human subjects, often without their knowledge or consent. This included:

* Approximately 60,000 [US] military personnel were used as human subjects in the 1940s to test the chemical agents mustard gas and lewisite. Mustard section,[37]
* Between the 1950s through the 1970s, at least 2,200 military personnel were subjected to various biological agents, referred to as Operation Whitecoat. Unlike most of the studies discussed in this report, Operation Whitecoat was truly voluntary. Seventh section,[37]
* Between 1951 and 1969, Dugway Proving Ground was the site of testing for various chemical and biological agents, including an open air aerodynamic dissemination test in 1968 that accidentally killed, on neighboring farms, approximately 6,400 sheep by an unspecified nerve agent. Dugway section,[37]

Developments by the Soviet government

Due to the secrecy of the Soviet Union’s government, very little information was available about the direction and progress of the Soviet chemical weapons until relatively recently. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russian chemist Vil Mirzayanov published articles revealing illegal chemical weapons experimentation in Russia.

In 1993, Mirzayanov was imprisoned and fired from his job at the State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology, where he had worked for 26 years. In March 1994, after a major campaign by U.S. scientists on his behalf, Mirzayanov was released.[38]

Among the information related by Vil Mirzayanov was the direction of Soviet research into the development of even more toxic nerve agents, which saw most of its success during the mid-1980s. Several highly toxic agents were developed during this period; the only unclassified information regarding these agents is that they are known in the open literature only as Foliant agents (named after the program under which they were developed) and by various code designations, such as A-230 and A-232.[39]

According to Mirzayanov, the Soviets also developed weapons that were safer to handle, leading to the development of the binary weapons, in which precursors for the nerve agents are mixed in a munition to produce the agent just prior to its use. Because the precursors are generally significantly less hazardous than the agents themselves, this technique makes handling and transporting the munitions a great deal simpler.

Additionally, precursors to the agents are usually much easier to stabilize than the agents themselves, so this technique also made it possible to increase the shelf life of the agents a great deal. During the 1980s and 1990s, binary versions of several Soviet agents were developed and are designated as Novichok agents (after the Russian word for newcomer ).[40] Together with Lev Fedorov, he told the secret Novichok story exposed in the newspaper Moscow News.[41]

Iran–Iraq War
Victims of Iraq’s poison gas attack in civil area during Iran–Iraq War

Chemical weapons employed by Saddam Hussein killed and injured numerous Iranians, and even Iraqis. According to Iraqi documents, assistance in developing chemical weapons was obtained from firms in many countries, including the United States, West Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France and China.[42]

The Iran–Iraq War began in 1980 when Iraq attacked Iran. Early in the conflict, Iraq began to employ mustard gas and tabun delivered by bombs dropped from airplanes; approximately 5% of all Iranian casualties are directly attributable to the use of these agents.[citation needed]

About 100,000 Iranian soldiers were victims of Iraq’s chemical attacks. Many were hit by mustard gas. The official estimate does not include the civilian population contaminated in bordering towns or the children and relatives of veterans, many of whom have developed blood, lung and skin complications, according to the Organization for Veterans. Nerve gas agents killed about 20,000 Iranian soldiers immediately, according to official reports. Of the 80,000 survivors, some 5,000 seek medical treatment regularly and about 1,000 are still hospitalized with severe, chronic conditions.[43][44][45]

Iraq also targeted Iranian civilians with chemical weapons. Many thousands were killed in attacks on populations in villages and towns, as well as front-line hospitals. Many still suffer from the severe effects.

Despite the removal of Saddam and his regime by Coalition forces, there is deep resentment and anger in Iran that it was Western companies based in the Netherlands, West Germany, France, and the U.S. that helped Iraq develop its chemical weapons arsenal in the first place, and that the world did nothing to punish Iraq for its use of chemical weapons throughout the war.[46]
Main article: Halabja poison gas attack

Shortly before war ended in 1988, the Iraqi Kurdish village of Halabja was exposed to multiple chemical agents, killing about 5,000 of the town’s 50,000 residents [47]. After the incident, traces of mustard gas and the nerve agents sarin, tabun and VX were discovered.

During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, Coalition forces began a ground war in Iraq. Despite the fact that they did possess chemical weapons, Iraq did not use any chemical agents against coalition forces. The commander of the Allied Forces, Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, suggested this may have been due to Iraqi fear of retaliation with nuclear weapons.[citation needed]

Falklands War

Technically, the reported employment of tear gas by Argentine forces during the 1982 invasion of the Falkland Islands constitutes chemical warfare.[48] However, the tear gas grenades were employed as nonlethal weapons to avoid British casualties. The British claim that more lethal, but legally-justifiable as they are not considered chemical weapons under the Chemical Weapons Convention, white phosphorus grenades were used.[49] The barrack buildings the weapons were used on proved to be deserted in any case.

Terrorism

For many terrorist organizations, chemical weapons might be considered an ideal choice for a mode of attack, if they are available: they are cheap, relatively accessible, and easy to transport. A skilled chemist can readily synthesize most chemical agents if the precursors are available.

The earliest successful use of chemical agents in a non-combat setting was in 1946, motivated by a desire to obtain revenge on Germans for the Holocaust. Three members of a Jewish group calling themselves Dahm Y’Israel Nokeam ( Avenging Israel’s Blood ) hid in a bakery in the Stalag 13 prison camp near Nuremberg, Germany, where several thousand SS troops were being detained. The three applied an arsenic-containing mixture to loaves of bread, sickening more than 2,000 prisoners, of whom more than 200 required hospitalization.

In July 1974, a group calling themselves the Aliens of America successfully firebombed the houses of a judge, two police commissioners, and one of the commissioner’s cars, burned down two apartment buildings, and bombed the Pan Am Terminal at Los Angeles International Airport, killing three people and injuring eight. The organization, which turned out to be a single resident alien named Muharem Kurbegovic, claimed to have developed and possessed a supply of sarin, as well as 4 unique nerve agents named AA1, AA2, AA3, and AA4S. Although no agents were found at the time he was arrested in August 1974, he had reportedly acquired all but one of the ingredients required to produce a nerve agent. A search of his apartment turned up a variety of materials, including precursors for phosgene and a drum containing 25 pounds of sodium cyanide.[50]

The first successful use of chemical agents by terrorists against a general civilian population was on March 20, 1995. Aum Shinrikyo, an apocalyptic group based in Japan that believed it necessary to destroy the planet, released sarin into the Tokyo subway system killing 12 and injuring over 5,000. The group had attempted biological and chemical attacks on at least 10 prior occasions, but managed to affect only cult members. The group did manage to successfully release sarin outside an apartment building in Matsumoto in June 1994; this use was directed at a few specific individuals living in the building and was not an attack on the general population.

On 29 December, 1999, four days after Russian forces began assault of Grozny, Chechen terrorists exploded two chlor tanks in town. Because of the wind conditions, no Russian soldiers were injured.[51]

In 2001, after carrying out the attacks in New York City on September 11, the organization Al Qaeda announced that they were attempting to acquire radiological, biological and chemical weapons. This threat was lent a great deal of credibility when a large archive of videotapes was obtained by the cable television network CNN in August 2002 showing, among other things, the killing of three dogs by an apparent nerve agent.[52]

On October 26, 2002, Russian special forces used a chemical agent (presumably KOLOKOL-1, an aerosolized fentanyl derivative), as a precursor to an assault on Chechen terrorists, ending the Moscow theater hostage crisis. All 42 of the terrorists and 120 of the hostages were killed during the raid; all but one hostage, who was killed, died from the effects of the agent.

In early 2007 multiple terrorist bombings have been reported in Iraq using chlorine gas. These attacks have wounded or sickened more than 350 people. Reportedly the bombers are affiliated with Al-Qaeda in Iraq[53] and have used bombs of various sizes up to chlorine tanker trucks.[54] United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attacks as, clearly intended to cause panic and instability in the country. [55]

See also

* Wikimedia Commons logo Media related to Chemical warfare at Wikimedia Commons
* Area denial weapons
* Biological warfare
* Chemical Ali
* Chemical Weapons Convention
* Exotic pollution
* List of chemical warfare agents
* List of highly toxic gases
* Psychochemical weapon
* Saint Julien Memorial
* Sardasht (A town attacked with chemical weapons during the Iran–Iraq War.)
* Stink bomb
* USAMRICD
* Weapons of mass destruction
* Zyklon B
* Ronald Maddison

Notes

1. ^ Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation. Chemical Weapons Convention States Parties and Signatories. http://www.state.gov/t/ac/rls/fs/71827.htm.
2. ^ Syed, Tanya (2009-01-19). Ancient Persians ‘gassed Romans’ . BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7837826.stm. Retrieved 2009-02-21.
3. ^ Irwin, Will (22 April 1915), The Use of Poison Gas , New York Tribune, http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/1915/chlorgas.html
4. ^ Johnson, Jeffrey Allan (1990), The Kaiser’s Chemists: Science and Modernization in Imperial Germany, University of North Carolina Press
5. ^ Gray, Colin. (2007). Another Bloody Century: Future Warfare. Page 269. Phoenix. ISBN 0304367346.
6. ^ Griffin Davis (May 24, 2006), CBRNE – Chemical Detection Equipment , EMedicine, http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/TOPIC924.HTM, retrieved 2007-10-22
7. ^ US Department of Defense (2 June 2003) (PDF), Multiservice Tactics, Techniques, and Procedure for NBC Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical (NBC) Protection (FM 3-11.4 / MCWP 3-37.2 / NTTP 3-11.27 / AFTTP(I) 3-2.46), FM 3-11.4, http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/policy/army/fm/3-11-4/fm3-11-4.pdf, retrieved 2007-10-22
8. ^ a b Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2002-09-12), Protecting Building Environments from Airborne Chemical, Biologic, or Radiologic Attacks, http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/441190, retrieved 2007-10-22
9. ^ a b c d US Department of Defense (29 September 2000) (PDF), Multiservice Tactics, Techniques, and Procedure for NBC Defense of Theater Fixed Sites, Ports, and Airfields (FM 3-11.34/MCRP 3-37.5/NWP 3-11.23/AFTTP(I) 3-2.33), http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/policy/army/fm/3-11-34/fixedsites.pdf, retrieved 2007-10-22
10. ^ Ciottone, Gregory R; Arnold, Jeffrey L (January 4, 2007), CBRNE – Chemical Warfare Agents , EMedicine, http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/TOPIC852.HTM, retrieved 2007-10-22
11. ^ Adrienne Mayor, Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World Overlook-Duckworth, 2003, rev ed with new Introduction 2008
12. ^ a b c d Mayor 2003
13. ^ In Surprise Testimony Cheney Renews Opposition to CWC. United States Senate. 1997-04-08. http://www.fas.org/cw/cwc_archive/cheneyletter_4-8-97.pdf. Retrieved 2009-01-04.
14. ^ ed. by M. Bothe …; Michael Bothe, Natalino Ronzitti, Allan Rosas (1998). The New Chemical Weapons Convention – Implementation and Prospects. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. p. 17. ISBN 9041110992.
15. ^ David Hume, History of England, Volume II.
16. ^ Science Daily, dated January 19, 2009[1].
17. ^ The First World War (a Channel 4 documentary based on the book by Hew Strachan)
18. ^ Heller, Charles E. (September 1984), Chemical Warfare in World War I: The American Experience, 1917–1918, US Army Command and General Staff College, http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/Heller/HELLER.asp
19. ^ [2], Libcom 1804-2003: History of Iraq
20. ^ Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Panné, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski, Stéphane Courtois, The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, Harvard University Press, 1999, hardcover, 858 pages, ISBN 0-674-07608-7
21. ^ Y. Yoshimi and S. Matsuno, Dokugasusen Kankei Shiryô II, Kaisetsu, Jugonen Sensô Gokuhi Shiryoshu, 1997, p.27-29
22. ^ Yoshimi and Matsuno, idem, Herbert Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, 2001, p.360-364
23. ^ Australian Military History Publications (Army History Unit), Chemical Warfare in Australia, http://www.mustardgas.org/
24. ^ Walker, Frank (January 20, 2008). Deadly chemicals hidden in war cache . smh.com.au. http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/deadly-chemicals-hidden-in-war-cache/2008/01/19/1200620272396.html. Retrieved 2009-01-04.
25. ^ Madigan, Damien (2008-02-27). Author lifts lid on chemical wartime history . Blue Mountains Gazette. http://bluemountains.yourguide.com.au/news/local/general/author-lifts-lid-on-chemical-wartime-history/1191452.html. Retrieved 2009-01-04.
26. ^ Base’s phantom war reveals its secrets . Lithgow Mercury. 2008-08-07. http://lithgow.yourguide.com.au/news/local/news/general/bases-phantom-war-reveals-its-secrets/1237570.aspx. Retrieved 2009-01-04.
27. ^ Ashworth, Len (2008-09-09). Chemical warfare left its legacy . Lithgow Mercury. http://lithgow.yourguide.com.au/news/local/news/general/chemical-warfare-left-its-legacy/1266856.aspx. Retrieved 2009-01-04.
28. ^ Corum, James S., The Roots of Blitzkrieg, University Press of Kansas, USA, 1992, pp.106-107.
29. ^ Schmaltz, Florian (2005), Kampfstoff-Forschung im Nationalsozialismus Zur Kooperation von Kaiser-Wilhelm-Instituten, Militär und Industrie , Wallstein Verlag
30. ^ Schmaltz, Florian (2006), Neurosciences and Research on Chemical Weapons of Mass Destruction in Nazi Germany , Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 15: 186–209, doi:10.1080/09647040600658229
31. ^ US Naval Historical Center, Naval Armed Guard Service: Tragedy at Bari, Italy on 2 December 1943, http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq104-4.htm
32. ^ Niderost, Eric (Full text), World War II: German Raid on Bari, HistoryNet.com, http://www.historynet.com/world-war-ii-german-raid-on-bari.htm
33. ^ Infield, Glenn B. Infield. Disaster at Bari.
34. ^ Reminick, Gerald. Nightmare in Bari: The World War II Liberty Ship Poison Gas Disaster and Coverup.
35. ^ Korn, Benyamin, Arab Chemical Warfare Against Jews–in 1944 , The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, http://www.wymaninstitute.org/articles/2003-03-chemical.php
36. ^ Anatomy of a War by Gabriel Kolko, ISBN 1-56584-218-9 pages 144-145
37. ^ a b c d Staff, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, US Senate (December 8, 1994), Is Military Research Hazardous to Veterans’ Health? Lessons spanning half a century, 103d Congress, 2d Session – COMMITTEE PRINT – S. Prt. 103-97, http://www.gulfweb.org/bigdoc/rockrep.cfm
38. ^ Yevgenia Albats and Catherine A. Fitzpatrick. The State Within a State: The KGB and Its Hold on Russia – Past, Present, and Future, 1994. ISBN 0-374-18104-7 (see pages 325–328)
39. ^ Fedorov, Lev (27 July 1994), Chemical Weapons in Russia: History, Ecology, Politics, Center of Ecological Policy of Russia, http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/cbw/jptac008_l94001.htm
40. ^ Birstein, Vadim J. (2004), The Perversion Of Knowledge: The True Story of Soviet Science, Westview Press, ISBN 0-813-34280-5
41. ^ Federov, Lev; Mirzayanov, Vil (1992), A Poisoned Policy , Moscow News (weekly No. 39)
42. ^ Lafayette, Lev (July 26, 2002). Who armed Saddam? . World History Archives. http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/51/040.html.
43. ^ Fassihi, Farnaz (October 27, 2002), In Iran, grim reminders of Saddam’s arsenal , New Jersey Star Ledger, http://www.nj.com/specialprojects/index.ssf?/specialprojects/mideaststories/me1209.html
44. ^ Hughes, Paul, It’s like a knife stabbing into me , The Star (South Africa), http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=39470
45. ^ Sciolino, Elaine (February 13, 2003), Iraq Chemical Arms Condemned, but West Once Looked the Other Way , New York Times, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0213-05.htm
46. ^ Timmerman, Kenneth R. (1991). Death Lobby: How the West Armed Iraq. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-59305-0.
47. ^ Death Clouds: Saddam Hussein’s Chemical War Against the Kurds
48. ^ The Argentine Fight for The Falklands, Lieutenant-Commander Sanchez-Sabarots
49. ^ Falkland Islanders at war, Bound, Graham, Pen and Sword Books Limited, ISBN 1 84415 429 7.
50. ^ T Is for Terror: A mad bomber who stalked Los Angeles in the ’70s could be the poster boy for the kind of terrorist the FBI fears today , Newsweek Web Exclusive, 9 July 2003, http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3070093
51. ^ ?????? ????. ?????? ? ????????? ????? XX ????: ? ??????? ??????? ????????????. ????? 5: ????????? ????. ?.: ????, 2002
52. ^ Robertson, Nic (August 19, 2002), Disturbing scenes of death show capability with chemical gas , Cable News Network, http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/08/19/terror.tape.chemical/
53. ^ Multi-National Force Iraq, Combined Press Information Center (20 April 2007), Chlorine Tanks Destroyed, Terrorists Killed in Raids, Press Release A070420a, http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11530&Itemid=128
54. ^ Multi-National Force Iraq, Combined Press Information Center (6 April 2007), Suicide Vehicle Detonates outside Police Checkpoint, Press Release 20070406-34, http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11185&Itemid=128
55. ^ Ban, Ki-Moon (19 March 2007), Secretary-General Condemns Chlorine Attack in Iraq , United Nations Radio, http://www.un.org/radio/6542.asp

References

* CBWInfo.com (2001). A Brief History of Chemical and Biological Weapons: Ancient Times to the 19th Century. Retrieved Nov. 24, 2004.
* Chomsky, Noam (Mar. 4, 2001). Prospects for Peace in the Middle East, page 2. Lecture.
* Cordette, Jessica, MPH(c) (2003). Chemical Weapons of Mass Destruction. Retrieved Nov. 29, 2004.
* Croddy, Eric (2001). Chemical and Biological Warfare. Copernicus. ISBN 0-387-95076-1.
* Smart, Jeffery K., M.A. (1997). History of Biological and Chemical Warfare. Retrieved Nov. 24, 2004.
* United States Senate, 103d Congress, 2d Session. (May 25, 1994). The Riegle Report. Retrieved Nov. 6, 2004.
* Gerard J Fitzgerald. American Journal of Public Health. Washington: Apr 2008. Vol. 98, Iss. 4; p. 611

Further reading

* Leo P. Brophy and George J. B. Fisher; The Chemical Warfare Service: Organizing for War Office of the Chief of Military History, 1959; L. P. Brophy, W. D. Miles and C. C. Cochrane, The Chemical Warfare Service: From Laboratory to Field (1959); and B. E. Kleber and D. Birdsell, The Chemical Warfare Service in Combat (1966). official US history;
* Gordon M. Burck and Charles C. Flowerree; International Handbook on Chemical Weapons Proliferation 1991
* L. F. Haber. The Poisonous Cloud: Chemical Warfare in the First World War Oxford University Press: 1986
* James W. Hammond Jr.; Poison Gas: The Myths Versus Reality Greenwood Press, 1999
* Jiri Janata, Role of Analytical Chemistry in Defense Strategies Against Chemical and Biological Attack, Annual Review of Analytical Chemistry, 2009
* Benoit Morel and Kyle Olson; Shadows and Substance: The Chemical Weapons Convention Westview Press, 1993
* Adrienne Mayor, Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World Overlook-Duckworth, 2003, rev ed with new Introduction 2008
* Geoff Plunkett, Chemical Warfare in Australia, Australian Military History Publications, 2007
* Jonathan B. Tucker. Chemical Warfare from World War I to Al-Qaeda (2006)

External links

* ATSDR Case Studies in Environmental Medicine: Cholinesterase Inhibitors, Including Insecticides and Chemical Warfare Nerve Agents U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
* Russian Biological and Chemical Weapons, about the danger posed by non-state weapons transfers
* Gaddum Papers at the Royal Society
* Chemical Weapons stored in the United States
* [7] The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons OPCW
* [8] Chemical Warfare in Australia
* Classes of Chemical Agents U.S. National Library of Medicine
* Chemical warfare agent potency, logistics, human damage, dispersal, protection and types of agents (bomb-shelter.net)
* ‘War of Nerves’: A History of Chemical Weapons (interview with Jonathan Tucker from National Public Radio Talk of the Nation program, May 8, 2006

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_warfare
Categories: Chemical warfare

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_warfare

***

Project MKULTRA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

MKULTRA redirects here. For other uses, see MKULTRA (disambiguation).
Declassified MKULTRA documents
Project MK-ULTRA, or MKULTRA, was the code name for a covert CIA mind-control and chemical interrogation research program, run by the Office of Scientific Intelligence. The program began in the early 1950s, continuing at least through the late 1960s, and it used United States citizens as its test subjects.[1][2][3] The published evidence indicates that Project MK-ULTRA involved the surreptitious use of many types of drugs, as well as other methods, to manipulate individual mental states and to alter brain function.

Project MK-ULTRA was first brought to wide public attention in 1975 by the U.S. Congress, through investigations by the Church Committee, and by a presidential commission known as the Rockefeller Commission. Investigative efforts were hampered by the fact that CIA Director Richard Helms ordered all MK-ULTRA files destroyed in 1973; the Church Committee and Rockefeller Commission investigations relied on the sworn testimony of direct participants and on the relatively small number of documents that survived Helms’ destruction order.[4]

Although the CIA insists that MK-ULTRA-type experiments have been abandoned, 14-year CIA veteran Victor Marchetti has stated in various interviews that the CIA routinely conducts disinformation campaigns and that CIA mind control research continued. In a 1977 interview, Marchetti specifically called the CIA claim that MK-ULTRA was abandoned a cover story. [5][6]

On the Senate floor in 1977, Senator Ted Kennedy said:

The Deputy Director of the CIA revealed that over thirty universities and institutions were involved in an extensive testing and experimentation program which included covert drug tests on unwitting citizens at all social levels, high and low, native Americans and foreign. Several of these tests involved the administration of LSD to unwitting subjects in social situations. At least one death, that of Dr. Olson, resulted from these activities. The Agency itself acknowledged that these tests made little scientific sense. The agents doing the monitoring were not qualified scientific observers.[7]

To this day most specific information regarding Project MKULTRA remains highly classified.

Contents

* 1 Title and origins
* 2 Goals
* 3 Budget
* 4 Experiments
o 4.1 Drugs
+ 4.1.1 LSD
+ 4.1.2 Other drugs
o 4.2 Hypnosis
o 4.3 Canadian experiments
* 5 Revelation
* 6 U.S. General Accounting Office Report
* 7 Deaths
* 8 Legal issues involving informed consent
* 9 Extent of participation
* 10 Notable subjects
* 11 Conspiracy theories
* 12 Popular culture
* 13 See also
* 14 Footnotes
* 15 Further reading
* 16 External links

Title and origins
Dr. Sidney Gottlieb approved of an MKULTRA subproject on LSD in this June 9, 1953 letter.

The project’s intentionally oblique CIA cryptonym is made up of the digraph MK, meaning that the project was sponsored by the agency’s Technical Services Division, followed by the word ULTRA (which had previously been used to designate the most secret classification of World War II intelligence). Other related cryptonyms include MK-NAOMI and MK-DELTA.

A precursor of the MK-ULTRA program began in 1945 when the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency was established and given direct responsibility for Operation Paperclip. Operation Paperclip was a program to recruit former Nazi scientists. Some of these scientists studied torture and brainwashing, and several had just been identified and prosecuted as war criminals during the Nuremberg Trials.[8][9]

Several secret U.S. government projects grew out of Operation Paperclip. These projects included Project CHATTER (established 1947), and Project BLUEBIRD (established 1950), which was later renamed to Project ARTICHOKE in 1951. Their purpose was to study mind-control, interrogation, behavior modification and related topics.

Headed by Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, the MK-ULTRA project was started on the order of CIA director Allen Dulles on April 13, 1953,[10] largely in response to Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean use of mind-control techniques on U.S. prisoners of war in Korea.[11] The CIA wanted to use similar methods on their own captives. The CIA was also interested in being able to manipulate foreign leaders with such techniques,[12] and would later invent several schemes to drug Fidel Castro.

Experiments were often conducted without the subjects’ knowledge or consent.[13] In some cases, academic researchers being funded through grants from CIA front organizations were unaware that their work was being used for these purposes.[14]

In 1964, the project was renamed MK-SEARCH. The project attempted to produce a perfect truth drug for use in interrogating suspected Soviet spies during the Cold War, and generally to explore any other possibilities of mind control.

Another MK-ULTRA effort, Subproject 54, was the Navy’s top secret Perfect Concussion program, which used sub-aural frequency blasts to erase memory.[15]

Because most MK-ULTRA records were deliberately destroyed in 1973 by order of then CIA Director Richard Helms, it has been difficult, if not impossible, for investigators to gain a complete understanding of the more than 150 individually funded research sub-projects sponsored by MK-ULTRA and related CIA programs.[16]

Goals

The Agency poured millions of dollars into studies probing dozens of methods of influencing and controlling the mind. One 1955 MK-ULTRA document gives an indication of the size and range of the effort; this document refers to the study of an assortment of mind-altering substances described as follows:[17]

1. Substances which will promote illogical thinking and impulsiveness to the point where the recipient would be discredited in public.
2. Substances which increase the efficiency of mentation and perception.
3. Materials which will prevent or counteract the intoxicating effect of alcohol.
4. Materials which will promote the intoxicating effect of alcohol.
5. Materials which will produce the signs and symptoms of recognized diseases in a reversible way so that they may be used for malingering, etc.
6. Materials which will render the induction of hypnosis easier or otherwise enhance its usefulness.
7. Substances which will enhance the ability of individuals to withstand privation, torture and coercion during interrogation and so-called brain-washing .
8. Materials and physical methods which will produce amnesia for events preceding and during their use.
9. Physical methods of producing shock and confusion over extended periods of time and capable of surreptitious use.
10. Substances which produce physical disablement such as paralysis of the legs, acute anemia, etc.
11. Substances which will produce pure euphoria with no subsequent let-down.
12. Substances which alter personality structure in such a way that the tendency of the recipient to become dependent upon another person is enhanced.
13. A material which will cause mental confusion of such a type that the individual under its influence will find it difficult to maintain a fabrication under questioning.
14. Substances which will lower the ambition and general working efficiency of men when administered in undetectable amounts.
15. Substances which promote weakness or distortion of the eyesight or hearing faculties, preferably without permanent effects.
16. A knockout pill which can surreptitiously be administered in drinks, food, cigarettes, as an aerosol, etc., which will be safe to use, provide a maximum of amnesia, and be suitable for use by agent types on an ad hoc basis.
17. A material which can be surreptitiously administered by the above routes and which in very small amounts will make it impossible for a man to perform any physical activity whatsoever.

Historians have asserted that creating a Manchurian Candidate subject through mind control techniques was a goal of MK-ULTRA and related CIA projects.[18]

Budget

A secretive arrangement granted the MK-ULTRA program a percentage of the CIA budget. The MK-ULTRA director was granted six percent of the CIA operating budget in 1953, without oversight or accounting.[19] An estimated US$10m or more was spent[20].

Experiments

CIA documents suggest that chemical, biological and radiological means were investigated for the purpose of mind control as part of MK-ULTRA.[21]

Drugs
LSD

Early efforts focused on LSD, which later came to dominate many of MK-ULTRA’s programs.
Experiments included administering LSD to CIA employees, military personnel, doctors, other government agents, prostitutes, mentally ill patients, and members of the general public in order to study their reactions. LSD and other drugs were usually administered without the subject’s knowledge or informed consent, a violation of the Nuremberg Code that the U.S. agreed to follow after World War II.

Efforts to recruit subjects were often illegal, even discounting the fact that drugs were being administered (though actual use of LSD, for example, was legal in the United States until October 6, 1966). In Operation Midnight Climax, the CIA set up several brothels to obtain a selection of men who would be too embarrassed to talk about the events. The men were dosed with LSD, the brothels were equipped with one-way mirrors, and the sessions were filmed for later viewing and study.[22]

Some subjects’ participation was consensual, and in many of these cases, the subjects appeared to be singled out for even more extreme experiments. In one case, volunteers were given LSD for 77 consecutive days.[23]

LSD was eventually dismissed by MK-ULTRA’s researchers as too unpredictable in its results.[1] Although useful information was sometimes obtained through questioning subjects on LSD, not uncommonly the most marked effect would be the subject’s absolute and utter certainty that they were able to withstand any form of interrogation attempt, even physical torture.

Other drugs

Another technique investigated was connecting a barbiturate IV into one arm and an amphetamine IV into the other.[24] The barbiturates were released into the subject first, and as soon as the subject began to fall asleep, the amphetamines were released. The subject would begin babbling incoherently at this point, and it was sometimes possible to ask questions and get useful answers.

Other experiments involved heroin, morphine, temazepam (used under code name MK-SEARCH), mescaline, psilocybin, scopolamine, marijuana, alcohol, sodium pentothal,[25] and ergine (in Subproject 22).

Hypnosis

Declassified MK-ULTRA documents indicate hypnosis was studied in the early 1950s. Experimental goals included: the creation of hypnotically induced anxieties, hypnotically increasing ability to learn and recall complex written matter, studying hypnosis and polygraph examinations, hypnotically increasing ability to observe and recall complex arrangements of physical objects, and studying relationship of personality to susceptibility to hypnosis. [26]

Canadian experiments

The experiments were exported to Canada when the CIA recruited Scottish physician Donald Ewen Cameron, creator of the psychic driving concept, which the CIA found particularly interesting. Cameron had been hoping to correct schizophrenia by erasing existing memories and reprogramming the psyche. He commuted from Albany, New York to Montreal every week to work at the Allan Memorial Institute of McGill University and was paid $69,000 from 1957 to 1964 to carry out MKULTRA experiments there. In addition to LSD, Cameron also experimented with various paralytic drugs as well as electroconvulsive therapy at thirty to forty times the normal power. His driving experiments consisted of putting subjects into drug-induced coma for weeks at a time (up to three months in one case) while playing tape loops of noise or simple repetitive statements. His experiments were typically carried out on patients who had entered the institute for minor problems such as anxiety disorders and postpartum depression, many of whom suffered permanently from his actions.[27] His treatments resulted in victims’ incontinence, amnesia, forgetting how to talk, forgetting their parents, and thinking their interrogators were their parents.[28] His work was inspired and paralleled by the British psychiatrist Dr William Sargant at St Thomas’ Hospital, London, and Belmont Hospital, Surrey, who was also involved in the Intelligence Services and who experimented extensively on his patients without their consent, causing similar long-term damage.[29] Dr. Cameron and Dr. Sargant are the only two identified Canadian experimenters, but the MKULTRA file makes reference to many other unnamed physicians who were recruited by the CIA.[citation needed]

It was during this era that Cameron became known worldwide as the first chairman of the World Psychiatric Association as well as president of the American and Canadian psychiatric associations. Cameron had also been a member of the Nuremberg medical tribunal in 1946-47.[30]

Revelation

In 1973, CIA Director Richard Helms ordered all MK-ULTRA files destroyed. Pursuant to this order, most CIA documents regarding the project were destroyed, making a full investigation of MK-ULTRA impossible.

In December 1974, The New York Times reported that the CIA had conducted illegal domestic activities, including experiments on U.S. citizens, during the 1960s. That report prompted investigations by the U.S. Congress, in the form of the Church Committee, and by a presidential commission known as the Rockefeller Commission that looked into domestic activities of the CIA, the FBI, and intelligence-related agencies of the military.

In the summer of 1975, congressional Church Committee reports and the presidential Rockefeller Commission report revealed to the public for the first time that the CIA and the Department of Defense had conducted experiments on both unwitting and cognizant human subjects as part of an extensive program to influence and control human behavior through the use of psychoactive drugs such as LSD and mescaline and other chemical, biological, and psychological means. They also revealed that at least one subject had died after administration of LSD. Much of what the Church Committee and the Rockefeller Commission learned about MKULTRA was contained in a report, prepared by the Inspector General’s office in 1963, that had survived the destruction of records ordered in 1973.[31] However, it contained little detail.

The congressional committee investigating the CIA research, chaired by Senator Frank Church, concluded that [p]rior consent was obviously not obtained from any of the subjects . The committee noted that the experiments sponsored by these researchers … call into question the decision by the agencies not to fix guidelines for experiments.

Following the recommendations of the Church Committee, President Gerald Ford in 1976 issued the first Executive Order on Intelligence Activities which, among other things, prohibited experimentation with drugs on human subjects, except with the informed consent, in writing and witnessed by a disinterested party, of each such human subject and in accordance with the guidelines issued by the National Commission. Subsequent orders by Presidents Carter and Reagan expanded the directive to apply to any human experimentation.

On the heels of the revelations about CIA experiments, similar stories surfaced regarding U.S. Army experiments. In 1975 the Secretary of the Army instructed the Army Inspector General to conduct an investigation. Among the findings of the Inspector General was the existence of a 1953 memorandum penned by then Secretary of Defense Charles Erwin Wilson. Documents show that the CIA participated in at least two of Department of Defense committees during 1952. These committee findings led to the issuance of the Wilson Memo, which mandated—in accord with Nuremberg Code protocols—that only volunteers be used for experimental operations conducted in the U.S. armed forces. In response to the Inspector General’s investigation, the Wilson Memo was declassified in August 1975.

With regard to drug testing within the Army, the Inspector General found that the evidence clearly reflected that every possible medical consideration was observed by the professional investigators at the Medical Research Laboratories. However the Inspector General also found that the mandated requirements of Wilson’s 1953 memorandum had been only partially adhered to; he concluded that the volunteers were not fully informed, as required, prior to their participation; and the methods of procuring their services, in many cases, appeared not to have been in accord with the intent of Department of the Army policies governing use of volunteers in research.

Other branches of the U.S. armed forces, the Air Force for example, were found not to have adhered to Wilson Memo stipulations regarding voluntary drug testing.

In 1977, during a hearing held by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, to look further into MKULTRA, Admiral Stansfield Turner, then Director of Central Intelligence, revealed that the CIA had found a set of records, consisting of about 20,000 pages,[32] that had survived the 1973 destruction orders, due to having been stored at a records center not usually used for such documents.[31] These files dealt with the financing of MKULTRA projects, and as such contained few details of those projects, but much more was learned from them than from the Inspector General’s 1963 report.

In Canada, the issue took much longer to surface, becoming widely known in 1984 on a CBC news show, The Fifth Estate. It was learned that not only had the CIA funded Dr. Cameron’s efforts, but perhaps even more shockingly, the Canadian government was fully aware of this, and had later provided another $500,000 in funding to continue the experiments. This revelation largely derailed efforts by the victims to sue the CIA as their U.S. counterparts had, and the Canadian government eventually settled out of court for $100,000 to each of the 127 victims. None of Dr. Cameron’s personal records of his involvement with MKULTRA survive, since his family destroyed them after his death from a heart attack while mountain climbing in 1967.[33]

U.S. General Accounting Office Report

The U.S. General Accounting Office issued a report on September 28, 1994, which stated that between 1940 and 1974, DOD and other national security agencies studied thousands of human subjects in tests and experiments involving hazardous substances.

The quote from the study:

… Working with the CIA, the Department of Defense gave hallucinogenic drugs to thousands of volunteer soldiers in the 1950′s and 1960′s. In addition to LSD, the Army also tested quinuclidinyl benzilate, a hallucinogen code-named BZ. (Note 37) Many of these tests were conducted under the so-called MKULTRA program, established to counter perceived Soviet and Chinese advances in brainwashing techniques. Between 1953 and 1964, the program consisted of 149 projects involving drug testing and other studies on unwitting human subjects…[34]

Deaths

Harold Blauer, a professional tennis player in New York City, died as a result of a secret Army experiment involving MDA.[35]

Frank Olson, a United States Army biochemist and biological weapons researcher, was given LSD without his knowledge or consent in 1953 as part of a CIA experiment, and died under suspicious circumstances (initially labeled suicide) a week later following a severe psychotic episode. A CIA doctor assigned to monitor Olson’s recovery claimed to be asleep in another bed in a New York City hotel room when Olson jumped through the window to fall ten stories to his death.[36]

Olson’s son disputes this version of events, and maintains that his father was murdered due to the belief that he was going to divulge his knowledge of the top-secret interrogation program code-named Project ARTICHOKE.[37] Frank Olson’s body was exhumed in 1994, and cranial injuries indicated Olson had been knocked unconscious before exiting the window.[38]

The CIA’s own internal investigation, by contrast, claimed Gottlieb had conducted the experiment with Olson’s prior knowledge, although neither Olson nor the other men taking part in the experiment were informed as to the exact nature of the drug until some 20 minutes after its ingestion. The report further suggested that Gottlieb was nonetheless due a reprimand, as he had failed to take into account Olsen’s already-diagnosed suicidal tendencies, which might well have been exacerbated by the LSD.[36]

Legal issues involving informed consent

The revelations about the CIA and the Army prompted a number of subjects or their survivors to file lawsuits against the federal government for conducting illegal experiments. Although the government aggressively, and sometimes successfully, sought to avoid legal liability, several plaintiffs did receive compensation through court order, out-of-court settlement, or acts of Congress. Frank Olson’s family received $750,000 by a special act of Congress, and both President Ford and CIA director William Colby met with Olson’s family to publicly apologize.

Previously, the CIA and the Army had actively and successfully sought to withhold incriminating information, even as they secretly provided compensation to the families. One subject of Army drug experimentation, James Stanley, an Army sergeant, brought an important, albeit unsuccessful, suit. The government argued that Stanley was barred from suing under a legal doctrine—known as the Feres doctrine, after a 1950 Supreme Court case, Feres v. United States—that prohibits members of the Armed Forces from suing the government for any harms that were inflicted incident to service.

In 1987, the Supreme Court affirmed this defense in a 5–4 decision that dismissed Stanley’s case.[39] The majority argued that a test for liability that depends on the extent to which particular suits would call into question military discipline and decision making would itself require judicial inquiry into, and hence intrusion upon, military matters. In dissent, Justice William Brennan argued that the need to preserve military discipline should not protect the government from liability and punishment for serious violations of constitutional rights:

The medical trials at Nuremberg in 1947 deeply impressed upon the world that experimentation with unknowing human subjects is morally and legally unacceptable. The United States Military Tribunal established the Nuremberg Code as a standard against which to judge German scientists who experimented with human subjects… . [I]n defiance of this principle, military intelligence officials … began surreptitiously testing chemical and biological materials, including LSD.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, writing a separate dissent, stated:

No judicially crafted rule should insulate from liability the involuntary and unknowing human experimentation alleged to have occurred in this case. Indeed, as Justice Brennan observes, the United States played an instrumental role in the criminal prosecution of Nazi officials who experimented with human subjects during the Second World War, and the standards that the Nuremberg Military Tribunals developed to judge the behavior of the defendants stated that the ‘voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential … to satisfy moral, ethical, and legal concepts.’ If this principle is violated, the very least that society can do is to see that the victims are compensated, as best they can be, by the perpetrators.

This is the only Supreme Court case to address the application of the Nuremberg Code to experimentation sponsored by the U.S. government. And while the suit was unsuccessful, dissenting opinions put the Army—and by association the entire government—on notice that use of individuals without their consent is unacceptable. The limited application of the Nuremberg Code in U.S. courts does not detract from the power of the principles it espouses, especially in light of stories of failure to follow these principles that appeared in the media and professional literature during the 1960s and 1970s and the policies eventually adopted in the mid-1970s.

In another law suit, Wayne Ritchie, a former United States Marshall, alleged the CIA laced his food or drink with LSD at a 1957 Christmas party. While the government admitted it was, at that time, drugging people without their consent, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel found Ritchie could not prove he was one of the victims of MKULTRA and dismissed the case in 2007.[40]

Extent of participation

Forty-four American colleges or universities, 15 research foundations or chemical or pharmaceutical companies and the like including Sandoz (currently Novartis) and Eli Lilly & Co., 12 hospitals or clinics (in addition to those associated with universities), and 3 prisons are known to have participated in MKULTRA.[41][42]

Notable subjects

A considerable amount of credible circumstantial evidence suggests that Theodore Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, participated in CIA-sponsored MK-ULTRA experiments conducted at Harvard University from the fall of 1959 through the spring of 1962. During World War II, Henry Murray, the lead researcher in the Harvard experiments, served with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which was a forerunner of the CIA. Murray applied for a grant funded by the United States Navy, and his Harvard stress experiments strongly resembled those run by the OSS.[43] Beginning at the age of sixteen, Kaczynski participated along with twenty-one other undergraduate students in the Harvard experiments, which have been described as disturbing and ethically indefensible. [43][44]

Merry Prankster Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, volunteered for MK-ULTRA experiments while he was a student at Stanford University. Kesey’s ingestion of LSD during these experiments led directly to his widespread promotion of the drug and the subsequent development of hippie culture.[45]

Candy Jones, American fashion model and radio host, claimed to have been a victim of mind control in the ’60s.[46]

Infamous Irish mob boss James Whitey Bulger volunteered for testing while in prison.[47]

Conspiracy theories

MK-ULTRA plays a part in many conspiracy theories given its nature and the destruction of most records.
Lawrence Teeter, attorney for convicted assassin Sirhan Sirhan, believed Sirhan was under the influence of hypnosis when he fired his weapon at Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. Teeter linked the CIA’s MKULTRA program to mind control techniques that he claimed were used to control Sirhan.[48]

Jonestown, the Guyana location of the Jim Jones cult and Peoples Temple mass suicide, was thought to be a test site for MKULTRA medical and mind control experiments after the official end of the program. Congressman Leo Ryan, a known critic of the CIA, was assassinated after he personally visited Jonestown to investigate various reported irregularities.[49]

Popular culture

* MKULTRA is referenced in the plots of The Ambler Warning by Robert Ludlum, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe, Firestarter by Stephen King, Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito, The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon, The Telling of Lies by Timothy Findley; and The Watchmen by John Altman; the films The Bourne Ultimatum, Conspiracy Theory, The Good Shepherd, Jacob’s Ladder, and The Killing Room; the television series Angel, The West Wing. The Lone Gunmen, Numb3rs, Bones, Quincy M.E. and The X-Files; the games Conspiracy X and The Suffering: Prison is Hell; the character Deathstroke the Terminator in the Teen Titans by DC Comics.
* The bands mk Ultra, MK-ULTRA, and a side project of Frank Tovey took their names from these projects. MKULTRA is also referenced by such musical artists as Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Canibus, Exit Clov, Fatboy Slim, Green Magnet School, Immortal Technique, Manic Street Preachers, Muse, The Orb, Sirius Isness, Lustmord side project Terror Against Terror, Tokyo Police Club, and Unwound.
* MKULTRA also provides a name for a move by professional wrestler Sterling James Keenan.

See also

* Brainwashing
* CIA operations
* Human radiation experiments
* Louis Jolyon West
* Macy conferences
* Project MKDELTA
* Project MKNAOMI
* Operation Paperclip
* Sidney Gottlieb
* United States v. Stanley
* William Sargant

Footnotes

1. ^ Richelson, JT (ed.) (2001-09-10). Science, Technology and the CIA: A National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book . George Washington University. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB54/. Retrieved 2009-06-12.
2. ^ Chapter 3, part 4: Supreme Court Dissents Invoke the Nuremberg Code: CIA and DOD Human Subjects Research Scandals . Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments Final Report. http://www.hss.energy.gov/healthsafety/ohre/roadmap/achre/chap3_4.html. Retrieved 2005-08-24.
3. ^ The Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Foreign and Military Intelligence . Church Committee report, no. 94-755, 94th Cong., 2d Sess.. Washington, D.C..: United States Congress. 1976. pp. 392. http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/book1/html/ChurchB1_0200b.htm.
4. ^ An Interview with Richard Helms . Central Intelligence Agency. 2007-05-08. https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/docs/v44i4a07p_0021.htm. Retrieved 2008-03-16.
5. ^ Interview with Victor Marchetti . http://www.skepticfiles.org/socialis/marcheti.htm. Retrieved 2009-08-22.
6. ^ Cannon, M (1992). Mind Control and the American Government . Lobster Magazine 23.
7. ^ Opening Remarks by Senator Ted Kennedy . U.S. Senate Select Committee On Intelligence, and Subcommittee On Health And Scientific Research of the Committee On Human Resources. 1977-08-03. http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/e1950/mkultra/Hearing01.htm.
8. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4443934.stm
9. ^ http://www.jlaw.com/Articles/NaziMedEx.html
10. ^ Church Committee; p. 390 MKULTRA was approved by the DCI [Director of Central Intelligence] on April 13, 1953
11. ^ Chapter 3, part 4: Supreme Court Dissents Invoke the Nuremberg Code: CIA and DOD Human Subjects Research Scandals . Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments Final Report. http://www.eh.doe.gov/ohre/roadmap/achre/chap3_4.html. Retrieved August 24 2005. MKULTRA, began in 1950 and was motivated largely in response to alleged Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean uses of mind-control techniques on U.S. prisoners of war in Korea.
12. ^ Church Committee; p. 391 A special procedure, designated MKDELTA, was established to govern the use of MKULTRA materials abroad. Such materials were used on a number of occasions.
13. ^ Church Committee; The congressional committee investigating the CIA research, chaired by Senator Frank Church, concluded that ‘[p]rior consent was obviously not obtained from any of the subjects.’
14. ^ Price, David (June 2007). Buying a Piece of Anthropology: Human Ecology and unwitting anthropological research for the CIA (PDF). Anthropology Today 23 (3): 3–13. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8322.2007.00510.x. https://secure.wikileaks.org/w/images/AT-june07-Price-PT1.pdf. Retrieved 2008-04-13.
15. ^ http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/e1950/mkultra/Hearing05.htm, retrieved 25 April 2008
16. ^ Chapter 3, part 4: Supreme Court Dissents Invoke the Nuremberg Code: CIA and DOD Human Subjects Research Scandals . Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments Final Report. http://www.eh.doe.gov/ohre/roadmap/achre/chap3_4.html. Retrieved August 24 2005. (identical sentence) Because most of the MK-ULTRA records were deliberately destroyed in 1973 … MK-ULTRA and the related CIA programs.
17. ^ Senate MKULTRA Hearing: Appendix C–Documents Referring to Subprojects, (page 167, in PDF document page numbering). (pdf). Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Committee on Human Resources. August 3, 1977. http://www.arts.rpi.edu/~pellr/lansberry/mkultra.pdf. Retrieved 2007-08-22.
18. ^ Ranelagh, John (March 1988). The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA. Sceptre. pp. 208–210. ISBN 0-340-41230-5.
19. ^ Declassified
20. ^ Mind Control and the Secret State
21. ^ Declassified
22. ^ Marks, John (1979). The Search for the Manchurian Candidate. New York: Times Books. pp. 106–7. ISBN 0-8129-0773-6.
23. ^ NPR Fresh Air. June 28, 2007 and Tim Weiner, The Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA.
24. ^ Marks 1979: pp 40-42.
25. ^ Marks 1979: chapters 3 and 7.
26. ^ Declassified
27. ^ Marks 1979: pp 140-150.
28. ^ Turbide, Diane (1997-04-21). Dr. Cameron’s Casualties . http://www.ect.org/dr-camerons-casualties/. Retrieved 2007-09-09.
29. ^ Collins, Anne ([1988] 1998). In the Sleep Room: The Story of CIA Brainwashing Experiments in Canada. Toronto: Key Porter Books. pp. 39, 42–3, 133. ISBN 1550139320.
30. ^ Marks 1979: p 141.
31. ^ a b Prepared Statement of Admiral Stansfield Turner, Director of Central Intelligence
32. ^ Government Mind Control Records of MKULTRA & Bluebird/Artichoke
33. ^ HistoryOnAir Podcast 98 – MKULTRA
34. ^ Quote from Is Military Research Hazardous to Veterans Health? Lessons Spanning Half A Century , part F. HALLUCINOGENS 103rd Congress, 2nd Session-S. Prt. 103-97; Staff Report prepared for the committee on veterans’ affairs December 8, 1994 John D. Rockefeller IV, West Virginia, Chairman. Online copy provided by gulfweb.org, which describes itself as Serving the Gulf War Veteran Community Worldwide Since 1994 . (The same document is available from many other (unofficial) sites, which may or may not be independent.)
35. ^ Marks 1979: p 72n.
36. ^ a b Marks 1979: chapter 5.
37. ^ Olson, E (2002-08-22). Family Statement on the Murder of Frank Olson . http://www.frankolsonproject.org/Statements/FamilyStatement2002.html. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
38. ^ Ronson, Jon (2004). The Men Who Stare at Goats. Picador. ISBN 0-330-37548-2.
39. ^ United States v. Stanley, 483 U.S. 669 (1987)
40. ^ Ritchie v. United States of America: United States District Court, Northern District of California No. C 00-3940 MHP. Findings of Fact and Conclusion of Law Re: Motion for Judgment on Partial Findings (pdf). http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5c/Ritchie.pdf. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
41. ^ Book Review: Search for the Manchurian Candidate by John Marks
42. ^ CIA Off Campus: Building the Movement Against Agency Recruitment and Research
43. ^ a b Chase, A (2000-06-01). Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber . The Atlantic Monthly. pp. 41-65. http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/06/chase.htm. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
44. ^ Cockburn, A; St Clair J (1999-10-18). CIA Shrinks and LSD . CounterPunch. http://www.counterpunch.org/ciashrinks.html. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
45. ^ Baker, Jeff (November 11, 2001). All times a great artist, Ken Kesey is dead at age 66 . The Oregonian: pp. A1.
46. ^ Bennett, C (2001-07-01). Candy Jones: How a leading American fashion model came to be experimented upon by the CIA mind control team . Fortean Times. http://www.forteantimes.com/features/profiles/497/candy_jones.html. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
47. ^ Bruno, A. James Whitey Bulger . truetv.com. http://www.trutv.com//library/crime/gangsters_outlaws/mob_bosses/james_whitey_bulger/2.html. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
48. ^ Teeter, Lawrence. Interview with Sirhan’s attorney Lawrence Teeter . KPFA 94.1/Guns & Butter show. http://www.kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=8965&page=2&type=.
49. ^ Meier, M (1989). Was Jonestown a CIA Medical Experiment?: A Review of the Evidence. New York: Edwin Mellen. ISBN 0-8894-6013-2.

Further reading

* U.S. Congress: The Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Foreign and Military Intelligence (Church Committee report), report no. 94-755, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1976), 394 . http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/book1/contents.htm.
* U.S. Senate: Joint Hearing before The Select Committee on Intelligence and The Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. August 3 1977 . http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/e1950/mkultra/index.htm.

External links

* Short documentary about MKULTRA and the Frank Olson incident
* The Most Dangerous Game Downloadable 8 minute documentary by independent filmmakers GNN
* GIF scans of declassified MKULTRA Project Documents
* Interview of Alfred McCoy on CIA mind control research
* U.S. Supreme Court CIA v. SIMS, 471 U.S. 159 (1985) 471 U.S. 159
* U.S. Supreme Court UNITED STATES v. STANLEY, 483 U.S. 669 (1987) 483 U.S. 669

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Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKULTRA
Categories: Devices to alter consciousness | History of the United States government | Central Intelligence Agency operations | Psychedelic research | LSD | Medical research | Military history of the United States | Military psychiatry | Mind control | 1953 establishments | Secret government programs | Human experimentation in the United States | Investigations and hearings of the United States Congress | Code names

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKULTRA

***

Operation WASHTUB
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Operation Operation WASHTUB was a CIA-organized covert operation to plant a phony Soviet arms cache in Nicaragua to demonstrate Guatemalan ties to Moscow. It was part of the effort to overthrow the President of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán in 1954.[1][2]

On February 19, 1954, the CIA planted a cache of Soviet-made arms on the Nicaraguan coast to be discovered weeks later by fishermen in the pay of Nicaraguan president Anastasio Somoza García. On May 7, 1954, President Somoza told reporters at a press conference that a Soviet submarine had been photographed, but that no prints or negatives were available. The story also involved Guatemalan assassination squads. The press and the public were skeptical and the story did not get much press. .[3]

Notes

1. ^ Ward, Matthew. Washington Unmakes Guatemala, 1954 Appendix A: Timeline of Events . Council on Hemispheric Affairs. http://www.coha.org/NEW_PRESS_RELEASES/Matt%20Ward/MW_Appendix_A.htm.
2. ^ Piero Gleijeses, Nick. Secret History: The CIA’s Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala, 1952-1954. Page 57
3. ^ Piero, p. 57 referring to Gleijeses, Shattered Hope, p. 294

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_WASHTUB
Categories: Conflicts in 1954 | Central Intelligence Agency operations | False flag operations | History of Guatemala

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_WASHTUB

***

Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

P2OG stands for Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group, a U.S. intelligence agency that would employ black world (black operations) tactics.

Contents

* 1 General information
* 2 See also
* 3 References
* 4 External links

General information

Such tactics would hold states/sub-state actors accountable and signal to harboring states that their sovereignty will be at risk , the briefing paper declares.[2]
[edit] See also

Operation Northwoods
[edit] References

[edit] External links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proactive,_Preemptive_Operations_Group

***

Operation Gladio
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Emblem of Gladio , Italian branch of the NATO stay-behind paramilitary organizations. The motto means In silence I preserve freedom .

Gladio (Italian for Gladius, a type of Roman short sword) is a code name denoting the clandestine NATO stay-behind operation in Italy after World War II, intended to continue anti-communist resistance in the event of a Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe. Although Gladio specifically refers to the Italian branch of the NATO stay-behind organisations, Operation Gladio is used as an informal name for all stay-behind organisations, sometimes called Super NATO .[1]

Operating in many NATO and even some neutral countries,[2] Gladio was first coordinated by the Clandestine Committee of the Western Union (CCWU), founded in 1948. After the creation of NATO in 1949, the CCWU was integrated into the Clandestine Planning Committee (CPC), founded in 1951 and overseen by the SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe), transferred to Belgium after France’s official withdrawal from NATO’s Military Committee in 1966 — which was not followed by the dissolution of the French stay-behind paramilitary movements.

The role of the CIA in sponsoring Gladio and the extent of its activities during the Cold War era, and its relationship to terrorist attacks perpetrated in Italy during the Years of Lead and other similar clandestine operations is the subject of ongoing debate and investigation. Italy, Switzerland and Belgium have had parliamentary inquiries into the matter.[3]

Contents

* 1 General stay-behind structure
o 1.1 European Parliament resolution concerning Gladio
* 2 Allegations
o 2.1 Gladio’s strategy of tension and internal subversion operations
* 3 Gladio operations in NATO countries
o 3.1 First discovered in Italy
+ 3.1.1 Giulio Andreotti’s October 24, 1990 revelations
+ 3.1.2 2000 Parliamentary report: a strategy of tension
+ 3.1.3 General Maletti’s testimony concerning alleged CIA involvement
+ 3.1.4 A quick chronology of Italy’s strategy of tension
+ 3.1.5 The DSSA, another Gladio?
o 3.2 Belgium
o 3.3 France
o 3.4 Denmark
o 3.5 Germany
+ 3.5.1 The 1980 Oktoberfest bomb blast
+ 3.5.2 CIA’s documents released in June 2006
+ 3.5.3 Norbert Juretzko’s 2004 revelations
o 3.6 Greece
o 3.7 The Netherlands
o 3.8 Norway
o 3.9 Portugal
o 3.10 Turkey
o 3.11 The United Kingdom
+ 3.11.1 General Serravalle’s revelations
+ 3.11.2 The Guardian’s November 1990 revelations concerning plans under Margaret Thatcher
* 4 Parallel stay-behind operations in non-NATO countries
o 4.1 Austria
o 4.2 Finland
o 4.3 Spain
o 4.4 Sweden
o 4.5 Switzerland
* 5 The Order of the Solar Temple mystery
* 6 FOIA requests and US State Department’s 2006 communiqué
* 7 Politicians on Gladio
* 8 Gladio in Fiction
* 9 References
* 10 Bibliography
* 11 Films

General stay-behind structure
Emblem of NATO’s stay-behind paramilitary organizations.

The command structure of stay-behind forces, as suggested in Field Manual 31-15: Operations Against Irregular Forces.

After World War II, the UK and the US decided to create stay-behind paramilitary organizations, with the official aim of countering a possible Soviet invasion through sabotage and guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines. Arms caches were hidden, escape routes prepared, and loyal members recruited: i.e. mainly hardline anticommunists, including many ex-Nazis or former fascists, whether in Italy or in other European countries. In Germany, for example, Gladio had as a central focus the Gehlen Org — also involved in ODESSA ratlines — named after Reinhard Gehlen who would become West Germany’s first head of intelligence, while the predominantly Italian P2 masonic lodge was composed of many members of the neofascist Italian Social Movement (MSI), including Licio Gelli. Its clandestine cells were to stay behind (hence the name) in enemy controlled territory and to act as resistance movements, conducting sabotage, guerrilla warfare and assassinations.

] . . . [

In 1991, a report by Swiss magistrate Pierre Cornu was released by the Swiss defence ministry. It said that P26 was without political or legal legitimacy , and described the group's collaboration with British secret services as intense . Unknown to the Swiss government, British officials signed agreements with the organisation, called P26, to provide training in combat, communications, and sabotage. The latest agreement was signed in 1987... P26 cadres participated regularly in training exercises in Britain... British advisers — possibly from the SAS — visited secret training establishments in Switzerland. P26 was led by Efrem Cattelan, known to British intelligence.[75]

In a 2005 conference presenting Daniele Ganser’s research on Gladio, Hans Senn, General Chief of Staff of the Swiss Army between 1977 and 1980, explained how he was informed of the existence of a secret organisation in the middle of his term of office. According to him, it already became clear in 1980 in the wake of the Schilling/Bachmann affair that there was also a secret group in Switzerland. But former MP, Helmut Hubacher, President of the Social Democratic Party from 1975 to 1990, declared that although it had been known that special services existed within the army, as a politician he never at any time could have known that the secret army P26 was behind this. Hubacher pointed out that the President of the parliamentary investigation into P26 (PUK-EMD), the right-wing politician from Appenzell and member of the Council of States for that Canton, Carlo Schmid, had suffered like a dog during the commission’s investigations. Carlo Schmid declared to the press: I was schocked that something like that is at all possible, and said to the press he was glad to leave the conspirational atmosphere which had weighted upon him like a black shadow during the investigations.[89] Hubacher found it especially disturbing that, apart from its official mandate of organizing resistance in case of a Soviet invasion, P26 had also a mandate to become active should the left succeed in achieving a parliamentary majority.[86]
[edit] The Order of the Solar Temple mystery

Psychiatrist Jean-Marie Abgrall has alleged[90] that the collective suicides allegedly committed by various Order of the Solar Temple (OST) members, in December 1995 in the Vercors region of France, were somehow related to Gladio. According to Jean-Marie Abgrall’s declarations to Le Point magazine and Nice Matin newspaper in February 2003, which he renewed in official justice documents, the Renewed Order of the Solar Temple cult ( Ordre Rénové du Temple – ORT[91]), ancestor of the OTS, had relations with Gladio networks. Abgrall also claimed that the AMORC, of which he had been a member, was also related to Foccart networks (Jacques Foccart was De Gaulle’s spindoctor for African affairs, and retained an important role long after him).

The theory of the mass suicide has been heavily contested by family of the victims Alain Vuarnet, René and Muguette Rostan, Willy and Giséla Schleimer and their lawyer, Alain Leclerc. According to a Reuters cable dated March 22, 2004 (19:03:46), the lawyer explained that he had two documents upholding the theory of a murder, the first one being Jean-Marie Abgrall’s juridical declaration above-mentioned. According to the lawyer, psychiatrist Jean-Marie Abgrall reveals… that the Order of the Solar Temple, as the AMORC and the ORT, were created and controlled by French and foreign secret services . Those information weren’t given at the time of investigations; the lawyer thus asked that Dr. Abgrall be heard by the judge, according to a Reuters cable.

One document was a copy of an April 21, 1997 letter addressed by a lawyer office to a bank, concerning the distribution of 17 million French Francs (about 2.5 millions Euros) between various personalities and political parties, the OST and the Rosicrucian Order AMORC (Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis), an organization suspected of links with the OST. In his demand for more investigation, Dr. Leclerc wrote: If the document is true, it shows that the Order of the Solar Temple was in activity after the last March 22, 1997 massacre (the collective suicide of five adepts in Canada) and that the responsibles of this organization are still alive . However, the court refused further expertise: thus, it hasn’t been possible to verify the validity of this document.

A third document was sent by the French secret services (RG) to the judge, discrediting the family of the victims’ claims and demands for further investigations. If Jean-Marie Abgrall’s claims of relationship between the ORT (OST’s ancestor) and Gladio may seem far-fetched, Propaganda Due’s juridically proven involvement[citation needed] in Gladio’s strategy of tension inclines one to keep open various possibilities during investigations. Furthermore, connections between ORT founder Luc Jouret and far-right Belgian activist Jean Thiriart have been alleged by other sources; together, they had found in the 1970s a far-right party which was controlled by Belgium’s branch of Gladio. In any case, the mass suicides haven’t been clearly explained, let alone financial links concerning those various cults.[92][93][94]

FOIA requests and US State Department’s 2006 communiqué

Three Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests have been filed to the CIA, which has rejected them with the Glomar response: The CIA can neither confirm nor deny the existence or non-existence of records responsive to your request. One request was filed by the National Security Archive in 1991; another by the Italian Senate commission headed by Senator Giovanni Pellegrino in 1995 concerning Gladio and Aldo Moro’s murder; the last one in 1996, by Oliver Rathkolb, of Vienna university, for the Austrian government, concerning the secret stay-behind armies after a discovery of an arms-cache.[28]

Furthermore, the US State Department published a communiqué in January 2006 which, while confirming the existence of stay-behind armies, in general, and the presence of the Gladio stay-behind unit in Italy, in particular, with the purpose of aiding resistance in the event of Soviet aggression directed Westward, from the Warsaw Pact, dismissed claims of any United States ordered, supported, or authorized skullduggery by stay-behind units. In fact, it claims that, on the contrary, the accusations of US-sponsored false flag operations are rehashed former Soviet disinformation based on documents that the Soviets themselves forged; specifically the researchers are alleged to have been influenced by the Westmoreland Field Manual, whose forged nature was confirmed by former KGB operatives, following the end of the Cold War. The Soviet-authored forgery, disseminated in the 1970s, explicitly formulated the need for a strategy of tension involving violent attacks blamed on radical left-wing groups in order to convince allied governments of the need for counter-action. It also rejected a Communist Greek journalist’s allegations made in December 2005 (See above).[61]

Politicians on Gladio

Whilst the existence of a stay-behind organization such as Gladio was disputed, prior to its confirmation by Giulio Andreotti, with some skeptics describing it as a conspiracy theory, several high ranking politicians in NATO countries have made statements appearing to confirm the existence of something like what is described:

* Former Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti ( Gladio had been necessary during the days of the Cold War but, that in view of the collapse of the East Bloc, Italy would suggest to NATO that the organisation was no longer necessary. )
* Former French minister of defense Jean-Pierre Chevènement ( a structure did exist, set up at the beginning of the 1950s, to enable communications with a government that might have fled abroad in the event of the country being occupied. ).
* Former Greek defence minister, Yannis Varvitsiotis ( local commandos and the CIA set up a branch of the network in 1955 to organise guerrilla resistance to any communist invader )

As noted above, the US has now acknowledged the existence of Operation Gladio.

Gladio in Fiction

A precise analogue of Operation Gladio was described in the 1949 fiction novel An Affair of State by Pat Frank.[95] In Frank’s version, U.S. State Dept officers recruit a stay-behind network in Hungary to fight an insurgency against the Soviet Union after the Soviet Union launches an attack on and captures Western Europe.
[edit] References

1. ^ Çelik, Serdar (February/March 1994). Turkey’s Killing Machine: The Contra-Guerrilla Force . Kurdistan Report 17. http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/51/017.html. Retrieved 2008-09-20. quoting Bülent Ecevit from a newspaper interview (in Turkish). Milliyet. 1990-11-28. Özel Harp Dairesinin nerede bulundug(unu sordum ‘Amerikan Askerî Yard?m Heyetiyle ayn? binada’ yan?t?n? ald?m.
2. ^ Haberman, Clyde (1990-11-16). EVOLUTION IN EUROPE; Italy Discloses Its Web Of Cold War Guerrillas . New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE5D61031F935A25752C1A966958260&sec=&spon=&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink. Retrieved 2008-10-11. Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece and Luxembourg have all acknowledged that they maintained Gladio-style networks to prepare guerrilla fighters to leap into action in the event of a Warsaw Pact invasion. Many worked under the code name Stay Behind. Greece called its operation Red Sheepskin.
News reports in recent days assert that similar programs have also existed in Britain, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Austria, Turkey and Denmark, and even in neutral countries like Switzerland and Sweden.
3. ^ Belgian parliamentary report concerning the stay-behind network, named Enquête parlementaire sur l’existence en Belgique d’un réseau de renseignements clandestin international or Parlementair onderzoek met betrekking tot het bestaan in België van een clandestien internationaal inlichtingenetwerk pg. 17-22
4. ^ a b c d Vulliamy, Ed (1990-12-05). Secret agents, freemasons, fascists… and a top-level campaign of political ‘destabilisation’ . The Guardian. http://www.cambridgeclarion.org/press_cuttings/vinciguerra.p2.etc_graun_5dec1990.html.
5. ^ Fitchett, Joseph. (1990-11-13) Paris Says it Joined NATO ‘Resistance’, International Herald Tribune
6. ^ Duraud, Bernard (2005-10-07). La critique – Récit d’un brigadiste (in French). L’Humanité. http://www.humanite.fr/2005-10-07_International_La-critique-Recit-d-un-brigadiste.
7. ^ a b c d e Ganser, Daniele. Terrorism in Western Europe: An Approach to NATO’s Secret Stay-Behind ArmiesPDF (162 KB), Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, South Orange NJ, Winter/Spring 2005, Vol. 6, No. 1.
8. ^ O’Shaughnessy, Hugh. Gladio: Europe’s Secret Networks, The Observer, 18 November 1990.
9. ^ Gelli arrest is another chapter in Vatican bank scandal . American Atheists. 1998-09-16. http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/vatican2.htm. Retrieved February 2006.
10. ^ See for ex. links between Italian neofascist terrorist Stefano delle Chiaie, whom was protected by the Italian SISMI, and the DINA; including assassination attempts on Bernardo Leighton, Carlos Altamirano, Andrés Pascal Allende (Salvador Allende’s nephew), etc. Delle Chiaie also worked with Argentine death-squad Triple A and Bolivian dictator Hugo Banzer. Las relaciones secretas entre Pinochet, Franco y la P2 , Conspiración para matar, Sergio Sorin, February 4, 1999
11. ^ Secret Cold-War Network Group Hid Arms, Belgian Member Says . Brussels: Reuters. 1990-11-13.
12. ^ Pedrick, Clare; Lardner, George Jr (1990-11-14). CIA Organized Secret Army in Western Europe . Washington Post. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost/access/8457082.html?dids=8457082:8457082&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=NOV+14%2C+1990&author=Pedrick%2C+Clare%3B+Lardner%2C+George+Jr&pub=The+Washington+Post&desc=CIA+Organized+Secret+Army+in+Western+Europe&pqatl=google. Retrieved 2008-07-31.
13. ^ Vulliamy, Ed (1990-08-03). Grieving Bologna looks back in anger on bombing . The Guardian.
14. ^ Patrice, Claude (1990-11-07). ITALIE : face aux interrogations de l’opinion M. Andreotti lève le voile sur le passé d’une structure armée parallèle patronnée par l’OTAN et la CIA (in French). Le Monde. http://www.lemonde.fr/cgi-bin/ACHATS/506729.html.
15. ^ a b Gardais, Pierre (1990-11-29). Le chef du gouvernement italien a dû reconnaître son existence (in French). L’Humanité. http://www.humanite.fr/1990-11-29_Articles_-Le-chef-du-gouvernement-italien-a-du-reconnaitre-son-existence. Retrieved 2008-08-21. Selon les cas, on excitait ou en empêchait le terrorisme d’extrême gauche ou d’extrême droite (English translation)
16. ^ a b Willan, Philip. Paolo Emilio Taviani , The Guardian, June 21, 2001. (Obituary.)
17. ^ a b Herman, Edward S (June 1991). Hiding Western Terror . Nation: 21–22.
18. ^ Barbera, Myriam. Gladio: et la France?, L’Humanité, November 10, 1990 (French).
19. ^ Caso Moro. Morire di Gladio (in Italian). La Voce della Campania. January 2005. http://www.lavocedellevoci.it/inchieste1.php?id=32.
20. ^ Gladio e caso Moro: Arconte su morte Ferraro, La Nuova Sardegna (Italian)
21. ^ a b Pallister, David. How M16 and SAS Join In, The Guardian, December 5, 1990
22. ^ Willan, Philip. US ‘supported anti-left terror in Italy’ , The Guardian, June 24, 2000.
23. ^ CIA knew, but didn’t stop bombings in Italy – report. CBC
24. ^ a b Willan, Philip. Terrorists ‘helped by CIA’ to stop rise of left in Italy, The Guardian, March 26, 2001.
25. ^ Protest marches as the Milan bomb outrage five go free . The Guardian. 1985-08-03.
26. ^ Neo-fascists Cleared of 1973 Bomb Attack for Second Time . ANSA. 2004-12-01.
27. ^ CIA rejects accusation of involvement in bombings in Italy . AFP. 2000-08-04.
28. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Chronology, Secret Warfare: Operation Gladio and NATO’s Stay-Behind Armies, ETH Zurich
29. ^ a b c Strage di Piazza Fontana spunta un agente USA . La Repubblica. 1998-02-11. http://www.repubblica.it/online/fatti/fontana/fontana/fontana.html. Retrieved 2006-02-02. (With original documents, including juridical sentences and the report of the Italian Commission on Terrorism (Italian)
30. ^ Richards, Charles (1990-12-01). Gladio is still opening wounds . The Independent: p. 12. http://www.cambridgeclarion.org/press_cuttings/gladio.parliamentary.committee_indep_1dec1990.html. Retrieved 2008-07-30.
31. ^ a b Charles Richards & Simon Jones, Skeletons start emerging from Europe’s closet, The Independent, November 16, 1990, quoted in (Statewatch 1991).
32. ^ Agnew, Paddy. Report of NATO-sponsored secret army shocks Italy, The Irish Times, on November 15, 1990 pg. 8. Quoted by (Statewatch 1991).
33. ^ Willan, Philip. Moro’s ghost haunts political life , The Guardian, May 9, 2003.
34. ^ Vulliamy, Ed. The Guardian, January 16, 1991. Quoted by (Statewatch 1991).
35. ^ Translated from Bologna massacre Association of Victims Italian website Original page (Italian)
36. ^ Ganser, Daniele (2005-04-07). The Secret Side of International Relations: An approach to NATO’s stay-behind armies in Western Europe (PDF). Political Studies Association Annual Conference.
37. ^ Italy probes ‘parallel police’ . BBC News. July 1, 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4640247.stm. Retrieved 2008-07-30.
38. ^ Philips, John (2005-07-05). Up to 200 Italian police ‘ran parallel anti-terror force’ . The Independent. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20050705/ai_n14681859. Retrieved 2008-07-30.
39. ^ Selvatici, Franca (2005-07-02). Macché Gladio bis, le autorità sapevano Gaetano Saya si difende (in Italian). La Repubblica. http://www.repubblica.it/2005/g/sezioni/cronaca/polipala/nogladio/nogladio.html. (Google translation available)
40. ^ Ceccarelli, Filippo (2005-07-03). Gladio, P2, falangisti l’Italia che sogna il golpe (in Italian). La Repubblica. http://www.repubblica.it/2005/g/sezioni/cronaca/polipala/sognigolpe/sognigolpe.html.
41. ^ Imarisio, Marco (2005-07-03). Così reclutavano: «Facciamo un’altra Gladio» (in Italian). Corriere della Sera. http://www.corriere.it/Primo_Piano/Cronache/2005/07_Luglio/02/imarisio.shtml.
42. ^ Official site of the Belgian Permanent Committee for the Control of Intelligence Services See history section in the Presentation part.
43. ^ Kwitny, Jonathan (1992-04-06). The C.I.A.’s Secret Armies in Europe . The Nation: pp. 446-447. http://www.thenation.com/archive/detail/9203303730. Quoted in Ganser’s Terrorism in Western Europe .
44. ^ Cogan, Charles (2007). ‘Stay-Behind’ in France: Much ado about nothing? . Journal of Strategic Studies 30 (6): 937–954. doi:10.1080/01402390701676493.
45. ^ Daeninckx, Didier. Du Temple Solaire au réseau Gladio, en passant par Politica Hermetica…, February 27, 2002.
46. ^ a b Colby, William. A Scandinavian Spy, Chapter 3. (Former CIA director ‘s memoirs.)
47. ^ a b Lee, Christopher. CIA Ties With Ex-Nazis Shown, Washington Post, June 7, 2006.
48. ^ Alleged Secret Organization . The Times. 1952-10-09.
49. ^ a b ‘Partisans’ in Germany . The Times. 1952-10-11.
50. ^ a b c d e Norton-Taylor, Richard and David Gow. Secret Italian Unit, The Guardian, November 17, 1990
51. ^ Ban In Hesse On Youth Union . The Times. 1953-01-10.
52. ^ Further Ban On Union Of German Youth . The Times. 1953-01-15.
53. ^ Police say suspect committed suicide . United Press International. 1981-11-01.
54. ^ a b c Why Israel’s capture of Eichmann caused panic at the CIA, The Guardian, June 8, 2006
55. ^ Opening of CIA Records under Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, May 8, 2002 NARA communique (English)
56. ^ Peter Murtagh, The Rape of Greece. The King, the Colonels, and the Resistance (London, Simon & Schuster, 1994), p.29, quoted by Daniele Ganser (2005), p.213
57. ^ Ganser (2005), pp.213-214 (his quote)
58. ^ Philip Agee and Louis Wolf, Dirty Work: The CIA in Western Europe (Secaucus: Lyle Stuart Inc., 1978), p.154 (quoted by Daniele Ganser (2005) p.216
59. ^ a b c d Richard Norton-Taylor, The Gladio File: did fear of communism throw West into the arms of terrorists? , in The Guardian, December 5, 1990
60. ^ NATO’s secret network ‘also operated in France’ , The Guardian, November 14, 1990, pg.6
61. ^ a b c Misinformation about Gladio/Stay Behind Networks Resurfaces . United States Department of State. http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2006/Jan/20-127177.html.
62. ^ ‘MIVD verzwijgt wapenvondst in onderwereld’ . Nu.nl. 2007-09-09. http://www.nu.nl/news/1228111/13/%27MIVD_verzwijgt_wapenvondst_in_onderwereld%27.html. Retrieved 2007-09-09.
63. ^ GLADIO IN NEDERLAND . http://reporter.kro.nl/uitzendingen/2007/0909_gladio_in_nederland/intro.aspx. Retrieved 2007-09-09.
64. ^ Olav Riste (1999). The Norwegian Intelligence Service: 1945-1970. Routledge. ISBN 0714649007.
65. ^ Secret Anti-Communist Network Exposed in Norway in 1978 . Associated Press. 1990-11-14.
66. ^ (Ganser 2005, p. 119) Quotes Joao Paulo Guerra, Gladio actuou em Portugal , in O Jornal, 16 November 1990 and Stuart Christie, Stefano delle Chiaie, London, 1984, p.30.
67. ^ Turkone, Mumtaz’er (2008-07-05). Only a coup prevented? . Today’s Zaman. http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=146630. Retrieved 2008-11-15. It was known that Turkey also had a similar organization but it was only the Turkish counter-guerilla group that rode out this purging process intact.
68. ^ Kilic, Ecevit (2008-04-28). I.talyan Gladiosu’nu çözen savc?: En etkili Gladio sizde (in Turkish). Sabah. http://arsiv.sabah.com.tr/2008/04/28/haber,B9DE249697B646F0939528BF8FA2BE4C.html. Retrieved 2008-11-15. Türkiye’nin ise ‘Özel Harp Dairesi’, halk aras?ndaki ad?yla ‘kontrgerilla.’ Yap?n?n iki unsuru vard?; askeri görevliler ve siviller. Sivillerden olus,an yap?n?n ad? ise ‘Ergenekon’. 1990′l? y?llar?n bas,?nda bat? ülkeleri, Gladio’nun faaliyetlerine son verdi. Sorumlular? yarg?land?. Türkiye hariç.
69. ^ Gölbas,? cephanesi I.talyan savc?y? hakl? ç?kard? (in Turkish). Zaman. 2009-01-09. http://www.zaman.com.tr/haber.do?haberno=801635. Retrieved 2009-01-09.
70. ^ Üstel, Aziz (2008-07-14). Savc?, Ergenekon’u Kenan Evren’e sormal? as?l (in Turkish). Star Gazete. http://www.stargazete.com/gazete/yazar/savci-ergenekon-u-kenan-evren-e-sormali-asil-113287.htm. Retrieved 2008-10-21. Türkiye’deki gizli ordunun ad? kontr gerillad?r.
71. ^ David Lampe, The Last Ditch: Britain’s Resistance Plans against the Nazis Cassell 1968 ISBN 0304925195
72. ^ Dan van der Vat. Obituary: General Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley, Guardian. 15 March 2006
73. ^ Gerardo Serravalle, Gladio (Rome: Edizione Associate, ISBN 88-267-0145-8, 1991), p.78-79 (Italian)
74. ^ Belgian Parliamentary Commission of Enquiry into Gladio, quoted by Daniele Ganser (2005)
75. ^ a b Norton-Taylor, Richard. UK trained secret Swiss force in The Guardian, September 20, 1991, pg.7.
76. ^ Crimes of Montejurra (Good Google translation)
77. ^ Un informe oficial italiano implica en el crimen de Atocha al ‘ultra’ Cicuttini, relacionado con Gladio, El País, December 2, 1990 (Spanish)
78. ^ Suárez afirma que en su etapa de presidente nunca se habló de la red Gladio, El País, November 18, 1990 (Spanish)
79. ^ Calvo Sotelo asegura que España no fue informada, cuando entró en la OTAN, de la existencia de Gladio, El País, November 21, 1990 (Spanish)
80. ^ Italia vetó la entrada de España en Gladio, según un ex jefe del espionaje italiano, El País, November 17, 1990 (Spanish)
81. ^ Serra ordena indagar sobre la red Gladio en España, El País, November 16, 1990 (Spanish)
82. ^ La ‘red Gladio’ continúa operando, según el ex agente Alberto Volo, El País, August 19, 1991 (Spanish)
83. ^ El secretario de la OTAN elude precisar si España tuvo relación con la red Gladio, El País, November 24, 1990 (Spanish)
84. ^ Indicios de que la red Gladio utilizó una vieja estación de la NASA en Gran Canaria, El País, November 26, 1990 (Spanish)
85. ^ La red secreta de la OTAN operaba en España, según un ex agente belga, El País, November 14, 1990
86. ^ a b The Dark Side of the West, Conference Nato Secret Armies and P26, ETH Zurich, 2005. Published 10 February 2005. Retrieved February 7, 2007.
87. ^ Ganser, Daniele. The British Secret Service in Neutral Switzerland: An Unfinished Debate on NATO’s Cold War Stay-behind Armies , published by the Intelligence and National Security review, vol.20, nE4, December 2005, pp.553-580 ISSN 0268–4527 print 1743–9019 online.
88. ^ Major Hans von Dach, 1958. Der totale Widerstand…; Total Resistance reed. Paladin Press, 1992 ISBN 978-0873640213.
89. ^ Schwarzer Schatten (in German). Der Spiegel 50: 194b-200a. 1990-12-10. http://wissen.spiegel.de/wissen/dokument/dokument.html?id=13502168&top=SPIEGEL. Retrieved 2008-10-28. [verification needed]
90. ^ p.14 quote from Libération concerning OST, Gladio and Jacques Foccart, on Survie NGO web site: La justice française n’a fait que combattre la pertinence des parties civiles au lieu de les soutenir dans la recherche de la vérité
91. ^ The Renewed Order of the Solar Temple (ORT — Ordre Rénové du Temple ) is listed as a cult composed of 50 to 500 French members by the 1995 French Parliamentary Commission of investigation of Cults activities (See here [1] for original report).
92. ^ Les familles des victimes veulent rouvrir l’instruction, Reuters, 2004-03-22 (French)
93. ^ Refus de rouvrir l’enquête, colère des familles , Reuters, 2004-03-25 (French)
94. ^ Declaration to the media of Alain Vuarnet, family of the OTS victims
95. ^ Pat Frank. An Affair of State. J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1949

Bibliography

* Statewatch (January 1991), Operation Gladio, http://www.thejohnfleming.com/gladio.html, retrieved 2008-07-30
* Secret Warfare : Operation Gladio and NATO’s Stay-Behind Armies. Edited by Daniele Ganser and Christian Nuenlist. 29 Nov 2004. Parallel History Project, ETH Zürich
* Ganser, Daniele (2005), NATO’s Secret Armies: Operation GLADIO and Terrorism in Western Europe, Frank Cass Publishers, ISBN 0-7146-8500-3 (resume)
* Daniele Ganser, Les Armées Secrètes de l’OTAN, Gladio et Terrorisme en Europe de l’Ouest, ISBN 978-2-917112-00-7 éditions Demi-Lune, 2007. Same book as above, in French. (a quick resume in French)
* William Colby (former CIA director), Honorable Men (1978) extract
* David Hoffman, The Oklahoma City bombing and the Politics of Terror , 1998 (chapter 14 online on strategy of tension
* Giovanni Fasanella and Claudio Sestieri with Giovanni Pellegrino, Segreto di Stato. La verità da Gladio al caso Moro , Einaudi, 2000 (see civic website of Bologna) (Italian)
* Jan Willems, Gladio, 1991, EPO-Dossier, Bruxelles (ISBN 2-87262-051-6). (French)
* Jens Mecklenburg, Gladio. Die geheime terrororganisation der Nato, 1997, Elefanten Press Verlag GmbH, Berlin (ISBN 3-88520-612-9). (German)
* Leo A. Müller, Gladio. Das Erbe des kalten Krieges, 1991, RoRoRo-Taschenbuch Aktuell no 12993 (ISBN 3499 129930). (German)
* Jean-François Brozzu-Gentile, L’Affaire Gladio. Les réseaux secrets américains au cœur du terrorisme en Europe, 1994, Albin Michel, Paris (ISBN 2-226-06919-4). (French)
* Anna Laura Braghetti, Paola Tavella, Le Prisonnier. 55 jours avec Aldo Moro, 1999 (translated from Italian: Il Prigioniero), Éditions Denoël, Paris (ISBN 2207248887) (Italian)/(French)
* Regine Igel, Andreotti. Politik zwischen Geheimdienst und Mafia, 1997, Herbig Verlagsbuchhandlung GmbH, Munich (ISBN 3776619511). (German)
* Arthur E. Rowse, Gladio: The Secret U.S. War to Subvert Italian Democracy in Covert Action #49, Summer of 1994.]
* Anti-Fascist Action (AFA), Staying Behind: NATO’s Terror Network in Fighting Talk #11, May 1995.
* François Vitrani, L’Italie, un Etat de ‘souveraineté limitée’ ? , in Le Monde diplomatique, December 1990. (French)
* Patrick Boucheron, L’affaire Sofri : un procès en sorcellerie? , in L’Histoire magazine, nE217 (January 1998) Concerning Carlo Ginzburg’s book The judge and the historian about Adriano Sofri (French)
* Les procès Andreotti en Italie ( The Andreotti trials in Italy ) by Philippe Foro, published by University of Toulouse II, Groupe de recherche sur l’histoire immédiate (Study group on immediate history). (French)
* Angelo Paratico Gli assassini del karma Robin editore, Roma, 2003.

Films

* Michele Placido, Romanzo Criminale (2005, concerning the strategy of tension and the Banda della Magliana)
* Renzo Martinelli, Five Moons Plaza at the Internet Movie Database (Piazza delle cinque lune) (2003)
* Allan Francovich, Gladio (1992), (aired on the BBC) – Watch Online
* Conspirator: The Story of Licio Gelli at the Internet Movie Database (2009)

v • d • e
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Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio
Categories: Anti-communism | Central Intelligence Agency operations | Contemporary British history | Contemporary French history | Contemporary Italian history | History of modern Greece | History of Turkey | Operation Gladio | Military scandals | Military operations involving NATO | Stay-behind organizations | Warfare by type | Cold War

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio

Stay-behind.png
Emblem of NATO’s stay-behind paramilitary organizations.
300px-FM_31-15_figure_3.png

The command structure of stay-behind forces, as suggested in Field Manual 31-15: Operations Against Irregular Forces.

521px-FM_31-15_figure_3.png

Description FM 31-15 figure 3.png
English: U.S. Army Field Manual 31-15: Operations Against Irregular Forces Figure 3: Possible relationships in a cold war situation.
Date
May 1951(1951-05)
Source

http://stinet.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA310713&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf

Author

Headquarters, Department of the Army
Permission

Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:FM_31-15_figure_3.png

***

[Excerpt from Operation Gladio entry above - ]

In 1990, Colonel Herbert Alboth, a former commander of the Swiss secret stay-behind army P26 declared in a confidential letter to the Defence Department that he was willing to reveal the whole truth . He was later found in his house, stabbed with his own military bayonet. The detailed parliamentary report on the Swiss secret army was presented to the public on November 17, 1990.[28] According to The Guardian, P26 was backed by P27, a private foreign intelligence agency funded partly by the government, and by a special unit of Swiss army intelligence which had built up files on nearly 8,000 suspect persons including leftists , bill stickers , Jehovah’s witnesses , people with abnormal tendencies and anti-nuclear demonstrators. On November 14, the Swiss government hurriedly dissolved P26 — the head of which, it emerged, had been paid £100,000 a year. [59]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio

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Dupont Necco Park Niagara County Niagara Falls NPL
Durez Corporation Niagara County Niagara Falls RCRA
Dyno Nobel Incorporated Ulster County Ulster Park RCRA
Eastman Kodak Company – Kodak Park Monroe County Rochester RCRA
Edmos Corporation Nassau County Glen Cove RCRA
Ellenville Scrap Iron And Metal Ulster County Ellenville NPL
Endicott Village Well Field Broome County Endicott NPL
Facet Enterprises Inc. Chemung County Elmira Heights NPL
Fairchild Republic Company Nassau County Farmingdale RCRA
FMC Corp. Dublin Rd. Landfill Orleans County Ridgeway and Shelby NPL
FMC Corp. Middleport Niagara County Middleport RCRA
Forest Glen Mobile Home Subdivision Niagara County Niagara Falls NPL
Frontier Chemical Waste Process, Inc. – Pendleton Site Niagra County Pendelton RCRA
Frontier Chemical Waste Process, Inc. – Royal Avenue Facility
Nigara County Niagara Falls RCRA
Fulton Terminals Oswego County Fulton NPL
Fulton Ave. Nassau County Hempstead NPL
G.E.C. Alstrom Transportation Incorporated Steuben County Edison Drive Hornell RCRA
GCL Tie & Treating Inc. Delaware County Sidney NPL
GE Moreau Saratoga County South Glens Falls NPL
General Electric Company – CPP Fort Edward Washington County Fort Edward RCRA
General Electric Company – Hudson Falls Washington County Hudson Falls RCRA
General Electric – Auburn Plant Cayuga County Auburn NY RCRA
General Electric – River Road Schenectady County Schenectady RCRA
General Motors central Foundry Division St. Lawrence County Massena NPL
Genzale Plating Co. Nassau County Old Bethpage NPL
Goldisc Recordings Inc. Suffolk County Holbrook NPL
Gowanus Canal Kings County Brooklyn NPL
Griffiss Air Force Base Oneida County Rome NPL
Haviland Complex Dutchess County Town of Hyde Park NPL
Hertel Landfill Ulster County Plattekill NPL
Hiteman Leather Herkimer County West Winfield NPL
Hooker Chemical/ Ruco Polymer Corp. Nassau County Hicksville NPL
Hooker Chemical/ S-area Niagara County Niagara River NPL
Hooker – Hyde Park Niagara County Niagara Falls NPL
Hooker 102nd Street Niagara County East of Griffin Park in Niagara Falls NPL
Hopewell Precision Dutchess East Fishkill NPL
HQ 10th Mtn Division & Fort Drum Jefferson County Jones Street T4819 & Off North Memorial Drive P11 NY RCRA
Hudson Technologies Inc. Rockland County Hillburn NPL
Hudson River PCBs Washington County Hudson River New York from Hudson Falls to the Battery in New York City including Rensselaer Washington and Saratoga Counties. NPL
IBM Corporation – East Fishkill Dutches County Hopewell Junction RCRA
IBM Corporation – Endicott Broome County Endicott RCRA
IBM Corporation – Former Tioga County Owego RCRA
IBM Corporation – Kingston Ulster County Kingston RCRA
IBM Corporation – Poughkeepsie Dutches County Poughkeepsie RCRA
IBM Corporation – TJ Watson Research Center Yorktown Westchecter County Yorktown RCRA
Islip Municipal Sanitary Landfill Suffolk County Long Island NPL
Jackson Steel Nassau County Mineola/North Hempstead NPL
Jewett White Lead Company Richmond County Richmond Terrace Removal
Johnstown City Landfill Fulton County Johnstown City NPL
Jones Sanitation Dutchess County Hyde Park NPL
Jones Chemicals Inc. Livingston County Caledonia NPL
Katonah Municipal Well Westchester County Village of Katonah in the Town of Bedford NPL
Kenmark Textile Corp. Suffolk County Farmingdale NPL
Kentucky Avenue Well Field Chemung County Near Horseheads NPL
Kinder Morgan Liquids Terminals, LLC Richmond County Staten Island RCRA
Lawrence Aviation Industries Inc. Suffolk County Port Jefferson Station NPL
Lehigh Valley Railroad Derailment Site Genesee County Leroy NPL
Li Tungsten Corporation Nassau County Glen Cove NPL
Liberty Industrial Finishing Nassau County Farmingdale NPL
Little Valley Cattaraugus County Little Valley NPL
Lockheed Martin Corporation – Ocean Radar and Sensor Systems Onondaga County Liverpool RCRA
Love Canal Niagara County Niagara Falls NPL
Ludlow Sand & Gravel County Paris Oneida NPL
Mackenzie Chemical Works Suffolk County Central Islip NPL
Malta Rocket Fuel Area Saratoga County Malta and Stillwater NPL
Marathon Battery Corp. Putnam County Cold Spring NPL
Mattiace Petrochemical Co. Inc. Nassau County Glen Cove NPL
McKesson Envirosystems Onondaga County Syracuse RCRA
Mercury Refining Inc. Albany County Colonie NPL
Mercury Refining Company Inc. MERECOsa Albany County Albany RCRA
Mohonk Road Industrial Plant Ulster County Marbletown NPL
Momentive Performance Materials Silicones, LLC Saratoga County Waterford RCRA
Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant Suffolk County Calverton RCRA
Nepera Chemical Plant Orange County Hamptonburgh NPL
Newtown Creek Kings County Brooklyn Study
Niagara County Refuse Niagara County Wheatfield NPL
Niagara Mohawk Power Co. saratoga Springs Saratoga County Saratoga Springs NPL
Niagara Mohawk Seventh North Onondaga County Syracuse RCRA
North Sea Municipal Landfill Suffolk County Southampton NPL
Northeast Environmental Services Madison County Lenox RCRA
Northrop Grumman Corporation – Bathpage Nassau County Bethpage RCRA
Occidental Chemical Corporation – Buffalo Avenue Niagara County Niagara Falls RCRA
Old Bethpage Landfill Nassau County Oyster Bay NPL
Old Roosevelt Field Contaminated Groundwater Area Nassau County Garden City NPL
Olean Well Field Cattaraugus County Olean NPL
Olin Corporation Niagara County Niagara Falls RCRA
Onondaga Lake Onondaga County City of Syracuse and Towns of Salina Geddes and Camilus NPL
Pasley Solvents & Chemicals Inc. Nassau County Hempstead NPL
Peter Cooper Cattaraugus County Gowanda NPL
Peter Cooper Markhams Cattaraugus County Dayton NPL
Pfohl Brothers Landfill Erie County Cheektowaga NPL
Philips Display Components Seneca County Seneca Falls RCRA
Plattsburgh Air Force Base Clinton County Plattsburgh NPL
Pollution Abatement Services Oswego County Granby NPL
Port Washington Landfill Nassau County North Hempstead NPL
Preferred Plating Corp. Suffolk County Babylon NPL
Pride Solvents & Chemical Company Incorporated Suffolk County West Babylon RCRA
Radium Chemical Company Inc. Queens County Woodside/Queen NPL
Ramapo Landfill Rockland County Hillburn NPL
Realco Incorporated Albany County Watervliet RCRA
Revere Smelting & Refining Corporation Of NJ Orange County Middletown RCRA
Reynolds Metals Company St. Lawrence County Massena NPL
Reynolds Metals Company St. Lawrence County Massena RCRA
Richardson Hill Road Landfill/pond Delaware County Richardson NPL
Robintech Inc./ National Pipe Co. Broome County Vestal NPL
Rosen Brothers Scrap Yard/dump Cortland County Cortland NPL
Rowe Industries Groundwater Contamination Suffolk County Village of Sag Harbor NPL
Rutherford Acquisition Corporation Orange County Harriman RCRA
Sabic Innovative Plastics US LLC Albany County Selkirk RCRA
Safety-Kleen Corporation – Congers 2-118-01 Rockland County Congers RCRA
Sarney Farm Dutchess County Amenia NPL
Schenectady International Incorporated – Congress Street Schenectady County Schenectady RCRA
Schenectady International Incorporated – Rotterdam Junction Schenectady County Rotterdam Junction RCRA
Sealand Restoration Inc. St. Lawrence County Lisbon NPL
Seneca Army Depot Seneca County Romulus NPL
Shenandoah Road Ground Water Contamination Site Dutchess County East FishKill NPL
Sidney Landfill Delaware County Sidney NPL
Sinclair Refinery Allegany County Wellville NPL
Smithtown Ground Water Contamination Suffolk County Smithtown NPL
SMS Instruments Inc. Suffolk County Deer Park NPL
Solvent Savers Chenango County Lincklaen NPL
Solvents & Petroleum Service Incorporated Onondaga County Syracuse RCRA
Stanton Cleaners Area Ground Water Cont. Nassau County Town of Great Neck NPL
Star Anchors & Fasteners Orange County Mountainville RCRA
Stauffer Management Company Onondaga County Skaneateles Falls RCRA
Suffern Village Well Field Rockland County Suffern NPL
Syosset Landfill Nassau County Oyster Bay NPL
Tecumseh Redevelopment, Inc. Erie County Lackawanna RCRA
Textron Realty Operations Incorporated Niagara County Wheatfield RCRA
Tri-cities Barrel Broome County Adjacent to Old Route 7 in Fenton NPL
Triumvirate Environmental Incorporated. Queens County Astoria RCRA
Tronic Plating Co. Inc. Suffolk County Farmingdale NPL
USDOE Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory Schenectady County Niskayuna RCRA
Vestal Water Supply Well 1-1 Broome County Vestal NPL
Vestal Water Supply Well 4-2 Broome County Vestal NPL
Volney Municipal Landfill Oswego County Volney NPL
Von Roll Isola USA Incorporated – Riverview Schenectady County Schenectady RCRA
Warwick Landfill Orange County Warwick NPL
Watervliet Arsenal Albany County Watrevliet RCRA
West Valley Demonstration Project USDOE Cattaraugus County West Valley RCRA
Western NY Nuclear Service Center Cattaraugus County Ashford RCRA
White Mop Wringer Montgomery County Fultonville RCRA
Wide Beach Development Erie County Brant NPL
Wyeth – Ayerst Laboratories Rockland County Pearl River RCRA
Xerox Corporation Monroe County Webster RCRA
York Oil Company Franklin County Next to the Town Hall and the Moira Town Highway Garage NPL

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Last updated on Thursday, October 1st, 2009.

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fsusdoe.htm

USDOE – Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory
EPA Identification Number: NY6890008992
Facility Location: 2401 River Road, Niskayuna, New York

Site Map
Facility Contact Name: J.H. Robillard, (518) 395-6366
EPA Contact Name: Michael Infurna, (212) 637-4177, infurna.michael@epa.gov
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) Case Manager: Margaret Rogers, (518) 357-2353, morogers@gw.dec.state.ny.us
Last Updated: September 2005
Environmental Indicator Status:

Human Exposures Under Control [PDF 415.68 KB, 26 pp] has been verified.
Groundwater Contamination Under Control [PDF 814.28 KB, 20 pp] has been verified.
Site Description

The Knolls site is located at 2401 River Road in the Town of Niskayuna, Schenectady County, New York, on the south bank of the Mohawk River. Construction of the site began in 1948 and laboratory operations began in 1949. The site consists of 170 acres of land, extending 4,200 feet along the river. Most of the property is located on a bluff about 100 feet high with a steep slope dropping off to a low bench about 15 to 20 feet above the river.

The principal function of the site is research and development in the design and operation of naval nuclear propulsion engines. As a result of these activities, various types of hazardous and mixed wastes are generated. Mixed waste contains both hazardous waste and radioactive material. The majority of hazardous and mixed wastes are generated from laboratory operations and facility renovation activities.

Container storage areas are used for hazardous and mixed waste prior to shipment off-site to licensed/permitted treatment, storage or disposal facilities. The Knolls site may also accept mixed waste to consolidate wastes for shipment to out-of-state treatment facilities. There is no disposal of hazardous waste or mixed waste at the facility.

NYS Department of Environmental Conservation completed a Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Facility Assessment preliminary review and a visual site inspection of this facility, and determined that investigations will be required at 31 of the identified solid waste management units (SWMUs) and four areas of concern (AOCs). Conditions have been included in the NYS hazardous waste permit to require Knolls to submit investigation work plans for all SWMUs and AOCs that require further corrective action activities.
Site Responsibility and Legal Instrument

The State is responsible for corrective action through issuance of a NYS Part 373 operating permit for storage of hazardous and mixed waste.
Permit Status

The NYS Part 373 operating permit, issued July 20, 1998, allows for hazardous and mixed waste storage in four areas. These areas are:

* The Building Q1 complex with an authorized capacity of 6,600 gallons;
* Two prefabricated modular additions located in the Building E11 truck bay with an authorized capacity of 1,320 gallons;
* Four floor vaults (numbered 2, 3, 5 & 6) with an authorized capacity of 3,520 gallons each; and
* Building M10 with an authorized capacity of 36,800 gallons.

The types of containers used for storage of hazardous waste include bottles, cans, jugs, drums and large volume boxes.
Potential Threats and Contaminants

The four potential exposure pathways for this site are surface water, groundwater, sediment and soil. Some potential receptors in the area are:

* Mohawk River users (via recreation and drinking water),
* Terrestrial and aquatic biota, and
* On and off-site employees and residents in the area.

Current effluent discharges to the Mohawk River are regulated under a permit issued by NYS Department of Environmental Conservation.

Knolls is also monitoring on-site stream and Mohawk River water quality. This surface water monitoring shows that there have been only occasional water quality exceedences for two non-hazardous compounds, both of which are attributable to natural conditions. Knoll’s groundwater monitoring network consists of 56 wells, of which 33 are currently monitored for chemical constituents.

Within the monitoring well system there have been elevated levels of phenols, in an isolated area, and volatile organic compounds in three areas of the site. Sediment sampling has been done in the on-site streams, which flow toward the Mohawk River. Detectable concentrations of contaminants were found in all sediments, but no appreciable difference between upstream and downstream concentrations are clear, with one exception (manganese, a non-hazardous metal) at Mid-line Stream.

Localized soil contamination, which can be traced to specific sources, has been discovered. Soil contamination includes polychlorinated biphenyls in two areas (one area of which has been remediated), heavy metals in two areas (one area of which has been remediated), and volatile organic compounds in a fifth area.
Cleanup Approach and Progress

Based upon available data, no imminent danger to human health or the environment has been identified. However, implementation of corrective action programs is required to control certain potential risks. The goal of these programs is to seek complete characterizations of, and final solutions for, environmental contamination that has been, or may yet be, identified. The on-going routine monitoring programs undertaken by Knolls, in addition to the corrective action programs, are designed to alert Knolls and the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation of any health or environmental risks.

Knolls has been required by the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation to supplement previously conducted geophysical/soil gas surveys to determine the horizontal and vertical extent of suspected waste deposition in certain areas of the site, as well as supplementing existing groundwater monitoring data. These surveys will be used as a basis for site visits to determine whether contaminant releases to the soils within the boundaries of the suspected waste deposition areas have occurred.

In other areas, site visits have been or will be used to either discover whether contaminant releases have occurred, or to confirm the removal of contaminated materials from soils. In the remaining areas, Knolls will be required to conduct a Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Facility Investigation to determine the extent and concentration of already confirmed contamination, or to perform phased evaluations of in-ground portions (industrial sewers) of systems as part of a required work plan.
Site Repository

Copies of supporting technical documents and correspondence cited in this site fact sheet are available for public review at:

NYSDEC Region 4
1150 North Westcott Road
Schenectady, New York 12306-2014
Telephone (518) 357-2353 B Margaret Rogers

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) makes its public records available for a review under the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL).

The Town of Niskayuna Public Library
2400 Nott Street East
Niskayuna, New York 12309
Telephone (518) 386-2249

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New Jersey Sites

Click on the headings to view sites by Name, County, City or Cleanup Type.
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http://www.epa.gov/region02/cleanup/sites/njtoc_name.htm

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Radiation Technology, Inc.
Rockaway Township, NJ
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EPA added the Radiation Technology, Inc. (RTI) site in Rockaway Township, New Jersey to the National Priorities List on September 1, 1984 because volatile organic compounds (VOCs), or potentially harmful chemicals that can easily evaporate into the air, were found in onsite water supply wells. The 263-acre Superfund site, located in Morris County, was used for testing and developing rocket engines and propellants. Onsite operations also included radiation sterilization, production of architectural products, and hardwood flooring production. RTI improperly stored and disposed of waste drums containing solvents and other chemicals.

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) and the Rockaway Township Health Department closed onsite contaminated wells. During the first part of the cleanup, RTI installed wells to measure and monitor the ground water contamination, and also removed abandoned tanks and drums under NJDEP supervision. At New Jersey’s request, EPA took over the cleanup. EPA oversaw ground water investigation and removed material containing asbestos in a portion of the site. In early 2007, the U.S. Army Military Munitions Response Program notified EPA that a portion of the site fell within the boundaries of a historic practice projectile firing area, and could have contained unexploded materials. The U.S. Army conducted an investigation, and no dangerous materials were found or removed. As a precaution, EPA requested that safety procedures related to unexploded materials be included in the site’s work plans.

http://www.epa.gov/region02/superfund/npl/radiationtech/index.html

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The 1978 discovery of toxic chemicals beneath the suburban infrastructure of Love Canal, in Niagara Falls, New York first illuminated the consequences of environmental neglect. For decades, many American businesses had disposed of hazardous waste improperly, contaminating tens of thousands of sites nationally, including nearly 250 within Region 2 alone. Accidents, spills, and leaks of hazardous materials resulted in land, water, and air that pose immediate and potential threats to public and environmental health.

Citizen reaction to these localized threats led Congress to establish the Superfund Program in 1980, an initiative designed to locate, investigate, and clean up the most hazardous sites nationwide. Superfund is officially called CERCLA, or the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act. The EPA administers the Superfund Program in cooperation with individual states and tribal governments.

The national EPA office that oversees management of the program is the Office of Superfund Remediation and Technology Innovation (OSRTI). The sites dealt with under Superfund are listed on the NPL, or National Priorities List. Superfund constitutes a crucial environmental and economic precedent within American legislative history.

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Last updated on Thursday, August 20th, 2009.

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***

Lindane Dump

EPA ID# PAD980712798

NPL Status: Final

Route 28 & Spring Hill Rd
Harrison Twp, PA 15065
Allegheny County
Contacts

Remedial Project Manager
Bradley White
(215) 814-3217
white.brad@epa.gov

Community Involvement Coordinator
Carrie Deitzel
215-814-5525
1-800-553-2509
deitzel.carrie@epa.gov

Governmental Liaison
Megan Mackey
215-814-5534
mackey.megan@epa.gov
Administrative Record Locations

Public files (Administrative Record) on EPA’s actions and decisions for this site can be examined at the following location:

U.S. EPA Region 3

http://www.epa.gov/arweb/

U.S. EPA Region III
6th Floor Docket Room
1650 Arch St.
Philadelphia, PA 19103
215…

Current Site Information

Site Progress Profile

Administrative Record

Fact Sheet

March 1998

Press Release
* 10/12/1999: Cleanup Underway at 13 Toxic Sites in Pennsylvania (Contact: Ruth Podems, (215) 814-5540)
* 07/21/1999: ALLEGHENY LUDLUM TO PAY $150,000 FOR BLOCKING EPA ACCESS TO SUPERFUND CLEANUP (Contact: David Sternberg (21…)

Record of Decision

Site Actions

Site Map

Region 3 | Mid-Atlantic Cleanup | Mid-Atlantic Superfund

http://www.epa.gov/reg3hwmd/super/sites/PAD980712798/index.htm

***

Lindane Dump
Current Site Information
EPA Region 3 (Mid-Atlantic)
Pennsylvania
Allegheny County
Harrison Township
EPA ID# PAD980712798

4th Congressional District

Last Update: March 2009
Other Names

Pennwalt Lindane Dump
Alsco Community Park
Current Site Status
EPA completed the Second Five-Year Review of the Site in September 2008. The purpose of the Five-Year Review is to determine if the remedy at the Site is protective of human health and the environment. The remedy at the Site has been determined to be protective of human health and the environment in the short term. Exposure pathways that could result in unacceptable risks are being controlled, and institutional controls are preventing exposure to, or the ingestion of, contaminated wastes, soils, and ground water. Contaminated leachate and shallow ground water are being controlled by the successful operation of the leachate/shallow ground water collection and treatment system. The quality of the effluent from the treatment system achieves discharge standards. To ensure long term protectiveness, 1,4-dioxane will be added to the list of sampled contaminants and additional monitoring will be performed to assess potential downgradient plume migration. Long term protectiveness of the remedy is expected to be achieved through the continued operation and maintenance of the leachate/shallow ground water collection and treatment system and continued compliance with institutional controls. EPA continues to review quarterly monitoring reports and annual groundwater monitoring reports.
Site Description
The Lindane Dump site, located in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, consists of a recreational park about 14-acres in size and a 47 ½-acre lower project zone that includes a closed landfill area. About 400 tons of powdered lindane pesticide waste and other industrial waste were dumped at the site from 1900 to 1950. Industrial waste dumping continued after the sale of the property in 1965. In 1976, a portion of the site was donated by the owner to Harrison Township for use as a park area. There are approximately 13,000 people living within one-mile of the site. Residents near the site obtain water from a municipal system that draws water from the Allegheny River.

Site Responsibility
This site is being addressed through Federal, State, and potentially responsible parties (PRPs) actions.

NPL Listing History
Our country’s most serious, uncontrolled, or abandoned hazardous waste sites can be cleaned using federal money. To be eligible for federal cleanup money, a site must be put on the National Priorities List. This site was proposed to the list on September 30, 1982 and formally added to the list on September 8, 1983.

Threats and Contaminants

The ground water and soil are contaminated with pesticides. The site has been capped and an upgraded leachate collection and treatment system has been installed. These actions have significantly reduced the possibility that pesticide residues in the soil might leach into the ground water and surrounding soils. The cap and leachate collection and treatment system also prevent humans and wildlife from accidentally ingesting or coming into direct contact with contaminated ground water, soil, or leachate which may pose health risks.

Contaminant descriptions and associated risk factors are available at: (ATSDR web site).

Cleanup Progress

A leachate treatment system has been installed and activated to control the spread of pesticide residues. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) and Pennwalt, a potentially responsible party have conducted an investigation into the nature and extent of contamination at the site. The investigation defined the contaminants and recommended alternatives for the final cleanup. In 1983, the State and Pennwalt, agreed to conduct a leachate treatability study to evaluate short- and long-term treatment and disposal alternatives. In 1992, EPA selected the remedy for cleanup of the site which includes capping the site and installing an upgraded leachate control system. In 1993, EPA and Elf-Atochem, a successor of Pennwalt, agreed to a Consent Decree, requiring Elf-Atochem to conduct the remedial design and construction activities for the site. The leachate treatment system has reduced the further spread of contaminated materials from the Lindane Dump. Construction of the cap began in the spring of 1998 and was completed in the spring of 1999. A baseball field and tennis courts were constructed on the upper portion of the site which is commonly known as the Alsco Community Park. Operation and maintenance activities will continue for at least 30 years.

Contacts
Site Contacts
Administrative Record Locations

Region 3 | Mid-Atlantic Cleanup | Mid-Atlantic Superfund |EPA Home | EPA Superfund Homepage

http://www.epa.gov/reg3hwmd/npl/PAD980712798.htm

***

http://www.epa.gov/reg3hwmd/super/sites/PAD980712798/index.htm

***

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Serving Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia

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Alphabetical List of Superfund Sites

[ All Sites | District of Columbia | Delaware | Federal Facilities | Maryland | Pennsylvania | Virginia | West Virginia ]
Site Name EPA ID NPL Status City County State Zip
8th and Plutus Streets Pottery WVN000305784 Non Chester Hancock WV 26034
12th Street Dump DESFN0305510 Non Wilmington New Castle DE 19802
16th Street Quarry DESFN0305308 Non Wilmington New Castle DE n/a
2020 Chestnut St VA0002366946 Non Portsmouth Portsmouth VA 23701
2020 Daniels Road Non Ellicott City Howard MD 21043
2314 N. American Street PAD048613368 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19123
50th and Hayes DCSFN0305431 Non Washington DC DC 20019
68th Street Dump MDD980918387 Proposed Rosedale Baltimore MD 21237
70th and Kingsessing Trailer PAD987332848 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19142
A-1 Auto Body Tire Dump PAD987334679 Non Erie Erie PA 16501
Abandoned Chemical Trailer PAD982363939 Non North Versailles Allegheny PA 15137
Aberdeen Proving Ground – Edgewood Area MD2210020036 Final Aberdeen Harford MD 21001
Aberdeen Proving Ground – Michaelsville LF MD3210021355 Final Aberdeen Harford MD 21005
Abex Corp VAD980551683 Final Portsmouth Portsmouth VA 23704
Action Manufacturing Company PAD987366515 Non Atglen Chester PA 19310
AES-Monsanto Property WVSFN0305408 Non Nitro Putman WV 25143
A.I.W. Frank/Mid-County Mustang PAD004351003 Final Exton Chester PA 19341
Ainsworth Paint Mfg. MDD025722786 Non Baltimore Baltimore MD 21231
Aladdin Plating PAD075993378 Deleted Clarks Summit Lackawanna PA 18411
Alderfer Landfill PAD981939051 Non Franconia Twp Montgomery PA 18924
Allegany Ballistics Lab WV0170023691 Final Short Gap Mineral WV 26753
Allentown Mercury Spill PASFN0305569 Non Allentown Lehigh PA 18102
Allied Chemical Corp Works VAD003064003 Non Front Royal Warren VA 22630
Allied-Pulaski VAD980551915 Non Pulaski Pulaski VA 24301
Ambler Asbestos Piles PAD000436436 Deleted Ambler Montgomery PA 19002
Amchem Products, Inc PAD002348324 Non Ambler Montgomery PA 19002
American Insulator Company PAD075274431 Non New Freedom York PA 17349
American Street Tannery PAD981939267 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19147
AMP, Inc PAD041421223 Deleted Glen Rock York PA 17327
Anacostia River Initiative Non Washington DC DC
Andela aka Warwick Twp Real Estate PA0000585901 Non Warwick Twp Bucks PA 18929
Andrews Air Force Base MD0570024000 Final Andrews AFB Prince Georges MD 20331
Anne Arundel County Landfill MDD980705057 Withdrawn Glen Burnie Anne Arundel MD 21061
Army Creek Landfill DED980494496 Final New Castle New Castle DE 19720
Arrowhead Associates VAD042916361 Final Montross Westmoreland VA 22520
Ashland Chemical Co. PAD043394683 Non Easton Northampton PA 18042
Ashland Chemical Company PAD980552251 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19148
Atlantic Avenue Drum DED981739469 Non Elsmere New Castle DE 19703
Atlantic Wood Industries VAD990710410 Final Portsmouth Portsmouth VA 23704
Atwell Mountain Drum WVD982363780 Non Atwell McDowell WV 24813
Austin Ave. Radiation Site PAD987341716 Deleted Lansdowne Delaware PA 19050
AVCO Lycoming PAD003053709 Final Williamsport Lycoming PA 17701
Avtex Fibers, Inc. VAD070358684 Final Front Royal Warren VA 22630
Bahn Warehouse/Strawberry Alley PAD987277977 Non Mechanicsburg Cumberland PA 17055
Baker Brothers Scrap Yard PAD987389624 Non Lewisburg Union PA 17837
Baldwin Defiance PAD987285079 Non Darby Borough Delaware PA 19036
Baldwin Street PCB Drum VA0001995349 Non Danville Danville VA 24541
Bally Groundwater PAD061105128 Final Bally Berks PA 19503
Barefoot Disposal PAD981040611 Non Hollidaysburgh Blair PA 16648
Barney Circle DC0001840818 Non Washington DC DC 20032
Basic Tool Company VAD988212429 Non Hampton Hampton VA 23661
Bay Products PA0002298107 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19136
Bayway Refining Company MDSFN0305426 Non Baltimore Baltimore MD 21226
Beaumont Glass Co. WVD988788345 Non Morgantown Monongalia WV 26505
Belfield Avenue PAD982364036 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19144
Belfield Paint PA0000694513 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19144
Bell Landfill PAD980705107 Final Wyalusing Bradford PA 18853
Belle Isle Playground Drums WV0001584994 Non Wheeling Ohio WV 26003
Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (USDA) MD0120508940 Final Beltsville Prince Georges MD 20705
Bendix Flight Systems PAD003047974 Final South Montrose Susquehanna PA 18843
Berkley Products Co. Dump PAD980538649 Deleted Denver Lancaster PA 17517
Berks Landfill PAD000651810 Final Sinking Springs Berks PA 19608
Berks Sand Pit PAD980691794 Final Longswamp TWP Berks PA 19539
Better Homes Trailer Park Clandestine Lab Assessment VAN000306111 Non Sugar Grove Smyth VA 24375
Bickmore Drum Dump WVD988770350 Non Bickmore Clay WV 25019
Big Island Run Oil Site Girta Wirt WV
Big John Salvage – Hoult Rd WVD054827944 Final Fairmont Marion WV 26554
Blosenski Landfill PAD980539985 Final West Caln TWP Chester PA 19376
Blue Ribbon Paint Company WVD004319158 Non Wheeling Ohio WV 26003
Boarhead Farms PAD047726161 Final Bridgeton TWP Bucks PA 18972
Bolling Air Force Base Non Washington DC DC 20331
Bollinger Steel Plant PAD987279346 Non Ambride Beaver PA 15003
BoRit Asbestos Site PAD981034887 Proposed Maple Street Ambler PA 19082
Boyertown Farms PASFN0305457 Non Gilbertsville Montgomery PA 19525
Boyle Galvanizing PA0000569244 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19125
Brandywine Creek Mystery Oil DEN000305651 Non Wilmington New Castle DE 19802
Brandywine DRMO MD9570024803 Final Andrews Prince Georges MD 20331
Braxton Industries, Inc. WVD056805674 Non Ireland Braxton WV 26374
Breslube-Penn, Inc. PAD089667695 Final Coraopolis Allegheny PA 15108
Brodhead Creek PAD980691760 Deleted Stroudsburg Monroe PA 18360
Brooke County Glass Dump WV0002456275 Non Wellsburg Brooke WV 26070
Brown’s Battery Breaking PAD980831812 Final Hamburg Berks PA 19526
Browning Lumber WVD054116538 Non Bald Knob Boone WV 25010
Bruin Lagoon PAD980712855 Deleted Bruin Butler PA 16022
Buckeye Pipeline Emergency Response–Nestle Purina Alpo Plant PAN000306205 Non Allentown Lehigh PA 18104
Buckingham County LF VAD089027973 Final Dillwyn Buckingham VA 23936
Buckingham Landfill Drum VASFN0305528 Non Buckingham Buckingham VA 23921
Buffalo Run #1 Oil Site Petroleum Ritchie WV
Buffalo Run #2 Oil Site Petroleum Ritchie WV
Bush Valley Landfill MDD980504195 Final Abingdon Harford MD 21009
Butler Mine Tunnel PAD980508451 Final Pittston TWP Luzerne PA 18640
Butyric Acid Drum PAD987379203 Non Strattonville Clarion PA 16258
Butz Landfill PAD981034705 Final Jackson TWP Monroe PA 18360
C & D Recycling PAD021449244 Final Freeland Luzerne PA 18224
C & R Battery VAD049957913 Final Richmond Chesterfield VA 23234
Camp Simms DC0001840669 Non Washington DC DC 20032
Capitol Assay Labs MDD108981531 Non Baltimore Baltimore MD 21230
Capitol Hill Anthrax DCN000305703 Non Washington DC DC 20002
Cardozo High School Mercury Spill DC0001840669 Non Washington DC DC
Cemetary Lane MDD985366632 Non-Archived Elkridge Howard MD 21227
Central Chemical MDD003061447 Final Hagerstown Washington MD 21740
Centre County Kepone PAD000436261 Final State College Centre PA 16801
C G Wood PAD981113558 Non Jamestown Mercer PA 16134
Chain Bike Corp PAD053061909 Non Allentown Lehigh PA 18103
Charlestown Coal Tar WVD988767612 Non Charlestown Jefferson WV 25438
Chauncey PCB WVN000305921 Non Chauncey Logan WV 25612
Chem-Fab Corp PAD002323848 Final Doylestown Bucks PA 18901
Chemical Metals Industries MDD980555478 Deleted Baltimore Baltimore MD 21230
ChemSolv, Inc DED980714141 Final Dover Kent DE 19901
Cherry Pit Drum MD0001406867 Non Baltimore Baltimore MD 21226
Cherry Valley Furniture Removal WVN000306572 Non Richwood Nicholas WV 26261
Chesapeake PLT VAD001704808 Non Chesapeake Chesapeake VA 23320
Chillum Gasoline Release MDN000305887 Non Chillum Prince Georges MD 20783
Chillum PERC MDN000305887 Non Chillum Prince Georges MD 20783
Chisman Creek VAD980712913 Final Seaford York VA 23690
Cochranville Tire Fire PAD982367831 Non West Oxford Twp Chester PA 19330
Coker’s Sanitation Landfill DED980704860 Final Cheswold Kent DE 19936
Cockerille Estate Abandoned Lab VAD988167771 Non Greenwood Albemarle VA 22943
Coeburn Battery Disposal VAD988174835 Non Coeburn Wise VA 24230
Coeburn Town Dump VAD988226429 Non Coeburn Wise VA 24230
Coleman Company PAD987390523 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19140
College Avenue Chemical VAN000306642 Non Pembrooke Giles VA 24136
Collegeville Radium PASFN0305467 Non Collegeville Montgomery PA 19426
Collins Well Service WVSFN0305395 Non West Union Doldridge WV 26456
Colonial Pipeline VAD988225876 Non Reston Fairfax VA 22091
Columbia Gas Transmission WV0000229666 Non Charleston Kanawha WV 25314
Columbia Plating PAD981741176 Non Columbia Lancaster PA 17512
Commodore Semiconductor Group PAD093730174 Final Norristown Montgomery PA 19403
Concept Science Explosion PASFN0305433 Non Hanover Twp Lehigh PA 18103
Congo Road Boron PASFN0305500 Non Congo Montgomery PA 19505
Consolidated Pharmacutical MDN000306570 Non Baltimore Anne Arundel MD 21225
Cosmechem MDN000306098 Non Baltimore Anne Arundel MD 21223
Courtaulds Lead WVD004319208 Non Wheeling Ohio WV 26003
Craig Branch Drum Dump WVD988775441 Non Sissonville Kanawha WV 25312
Craig Farm Drum PAD980508527 Final Parker Armstrong PA 16049
Crater Resources PAD980419097 Final King of Prussia Montgomery PA 19406
Crawford Station HSCA PAD987270188 Non Middletown Dauphin PA 17057
Creek Road Sand Blasting aka River Bend PASFN0305402 Non Hartsville Bucks PA 18974
Crossley Farm PAD981740061 Final Hereford TWP Berks PA 18056
Croydon TCE PAD981035009 Final Croydon&Bristol Bucks PA 19020
Crozet Township VAN000305873 Non Crozet Albemarle VA 22932
Cryochem PAD002360444 Final Boyertown Berks PA 19512
CSX Pump House Drive Locomotive Spill PASFN0305485 Non Richmond Richmond VA
Culpeper Wood Preservers VAD059165282 Final Culpeper Culpeper VA 22701
Cummings Landfill WVD980830731 Non Hurricane Putnam WV 25526
Curtis Bay Coast Guard Yard MD4690307844 Final Baltimore Anne Arundel MD 21226
Dallas Cleaner Site PAN000306173 Non Dallas Luzerne PA 18612
Dalzell Viking Glass Co. WVSFN0305531 Non New Martinsville Wetzell WV 26155
Deardorff Drive/Ridge Road HSCA PAD981939937 Non Etters York PA 17319
Defense General Supply Center VA3971520751 Final Richmond Chesterfield VA 23297
Defense Supply Center Philadelphia PA09715900005 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19101
Delaware City PVC DED980551667 Final Delaware City New Castle DE 19706
Delaware Sand & Gravel DED000605972 Final New Castle New Castle DE 19720
Delta Quarries PAD981038052 Final Antis & Logan TWP Blair PA 16602
Dewart Farms PASFN0305473 Non Watsontown Northumberland PA 17777
Dewey Beach Cylinder DED984067207 Non Dewey Beach Sussex DE 19971
Diamond State Salvage DE0000122218 Non Wilmington New Castle DE 19805
Dixie Caverns County LF VAD980552095 Deleted Salem Salem VA 24153
Donegal TWP Midnight Drum Dump PAD981738982 Non Donegal TWP Butler PA 16025
Dorney Road Landfill PAD980508832 Final Mertztown Berks PA 19539
Douglassville Disposal PAD002384865 Final Douglassville Berks PA 19518
Dover AF Base DE8570024010 Final Dover Kent DE 19901
Dover Gas Light DED980693550 Final Dover Kent DE 19901
Doyle Wood Treating VA0000094490 Non Martinville Martinville VA 24115
Drake Chemical PAD003058047 Final Lock Haven Clinton PA 17745
Drumco Drum Dump MDD985386119 Non Baltimore Anne Arundel MD 21240
Dublin TCE PAD981740004 Final Dublin Bucks PA 18917
Duncanville Tanker PAD981736325 Non Duncanville Blair PA 16635
Dupont Explosives PAD981939325 Non Bradford McKean PA 16701
Durham Township Solvent Spill PAD981738925 Non Rieglesville Bucks PA 18077
E.I. DuPont (Newport Landfill) DED980555122 Final Newport New Castle DE 19804
E-Z Chemical PAD987271194 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19123
Eager Beaver Lumber PAD004375192 Non Townville Crawford PA 16360
East Mount Zion PAD980690549 Final Springettsbury York PA 17402
East Norriton PCE PAN000306145 Non East Norriton Montgomery PA 19404
East 7th Street Drum DESFN0305397 Non Wilmington New Castle DE 19809
East Tenth Street PAD987323458 Proposed Marcus Hook Delaware PA 19061
East Coast Trailer Sales PA0000634659 Non Bensalem Bucks PA 19020
Eastern Diversified Metals PAD980830533 Final Hometown Schuylkill PA 18252
Eastern Maryland Wood Treating Co. MDD981040207 Non Federalsburg Dorchester MD 21632
Eddystone Ave. Trailer PAD987269941 Non Eddystone Delaware PA 19094
Edwards Road Spill WVD981738750 Non Coalburg Kanawha WV 25035
Elizabethtown Landfill PAD980539712 Final Elizabethtown Lancaster
Elkton Farm MDD985407196 Non Elkton Cecil MD 21921
Elkton Farm Firehole MDN000306146 Non Elkton Cecil MD 21921
Elkview Drum Dump WVD988767901 Non Elkview Kanawha WV 25071
Elrama School PAD981034994 Non Union Twp Washington PA 15332
Enterprise Avenue PAD980552913 Deleted Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19153
Enterprise Transformer Dump WVD988770665 Non Enterprise Harrison WV 26568
Evans Chemical Site VASFN0305570 Non Roanoke Roanoke VA 24016
Everdure, Inc. VAD003121142 Non Orange Orange VA 22960
Exeter PCB VAD988222972 Non Hopewell Hopewell VA 23875
Fairview Water Co. PAD987392271 Non Mt. Pocono Boro. Monroe PA 18344
Falkenstein Electroplating PAD002268944 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19133
Fine Petroleum/Mariner Hi Tech VAD023837628 Non Norfolk Norfolk VA 23504
First Piedmont Rock Quarry VAD980554984 Final Chatham Pittsylvania VA 24531
Fifth Street Drum Dump WVD982367443 Non Huntington Wayne WV 25701
Fike Chemical, Inc WVD047989207 Final Nitro Kanawha WV 25143
Fischer & Porter PAD002345817 Final Warminster Bucks PA 18974
FMC Corp VAD980714877 Non Fredericksburg Spotsylvania VA 22553
Follansbee Site WVD004336749 Deleted Follansbee Brooke WV 26037
Foote Mineral PAD077087989 Final Frazer Chester PA 19355
Former Mohr Orchards PAN000306624 Non Schnecksville Lehigh PA 18078
Former Nansemond Ordnance Depot VAD123933426 Final Suffolk Suffolk VA 23434
Ft. Detrick Area B Groundwater MDD985397249 FInal Frederick Frederick MD
Ft. Eustis VA6210020321 Final Newport News Newport News VA 23604
Ft. George G. Meade MD9210020567 Final Odenton Anne Arundel MD 20755
Ft. Pickett VA2210020705 Non Blackstone Nottoway VA 23824
Ft. Ritchie MD0000795211 Non Cascade Washington MD 21719
Foster Lab VASFN0305571 Non Shenandoah Warren VA 22630
Foster Wheeler Energy Corporation/Church Road TCE PAD003031788 Proposed Mountaintop Luzerne PA 18707
Franklin Slag Pile PASFN0305549 Final Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19134
Franklin Smelting PAD002280725 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19134
Frazier’s Bottom PCB Site WVD981738875 Non Frazier’s Bottom Putnam WV 25082
Garfield Street Drum Dump WVD982363913 Non McMechin Marshall WV 26040
GE Railcar MDN000306575 Non Elkton Cecil MD 21922
General Electric – Hammermill PAD981114820 Non Lawrence Park TWP Erie PA 16511
Glen Dale TCE WVSFN0305381 Non Glendale Marshall WV 26038
Glen Morgan Drum Dump WVD988767455 Non Glen Morgan Raleigh WV 25847
Glenside Mercury Spill PA0001401520 Non Glenside Montgomery PA 19038
Goodwin Junkyard VAD988187076 Non Carrollton Isle of Wight VA 23314
Goose Creek Abandoned Well WV0001095413 Non Cairo Ritchie WV 26337
Grant Chemical PA0001017144 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19135
Greenwood Chemical VAD003125374 Final Greenwood Albemarle VA 22943
Halby Chemical DED980830954 Final New Castle New Castle DE 19720
H & H Inc., Burn Pit VAD980539878 Final Montpelier Hanover VA 23192
Hamburg – Pine Creek (PDF) (3 pp, 30.8K, About PDF) PAN000306001 Non Albany Berks PA 19529
Hamburg – Pleasant Hills Trailer Park PAN000305911 Non Hamburg Berks PA 19526
Hamburg – Port Clinton Avenue PAN000305872 None Hamburg Berks PA 19526
Hamburg Lead – Kaercher Creek PAN000305723 Non Hamburg Berks PA 19526
Hamburg Lead – Railcut PAN000305725 Non Hamburg Berks PA 19526
Hamburg Playground PAD987332541 Non Hamburg Berks PA 19526
Hampton Industrial Plating VAD988201992 Non Tabb York VA 23690
Hanlin-Allied-Olin WVD024185373 Final Moundsville Marshall WV 26041
Hannibal Lock & Dam WVD988768941 Non New Martinsville Wetzel WV 26155
Hanover Avenue Rocket VAN000305932 Non Richmond Richmond VA 23221
Harbeson Dead Swan DESFN0305412 Non Harbeson Sussex DE 19947
Harrison County PCB WVD981738941 Non Fairmont Harrison WV 26554
Harvey & Knott Drum, Inc DED980713093 Final Kirkwood New Castle DE 19708
Havertown PCP PAD002338010 Final Haverford TWP Delaware PA 19041
Healthways Inc. DED984072249 Non Odessa New Castle DE 19730
Hebelka Auto Salvage Yard PAD980829329 Deleted Upper Macungie TWP Lehigh PA 18062
Heisman Field PA0002377828 Non Titusville Crawford PA 16354
Heizer Creek Landfill WVD980538656 Non Poca Putnam WV 25159
Heleva Landfill PAD980537716 Final Coplay Lehigh PA 18037
Hellertown Manufacturing PAD002390748 Final Hellertown Northampton PA 18055
Henderson Road PAD009862939 Final Upper Merion Twp Montgomery PA 19406
Henshell Corporation PAD987283520 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19132
Hidden Lane Landfill VAD980829030 Final Sterling Loudoun VA 21065
Hilltop Residential Lab PASFN0305565 Non Upper Darby Delaware PA 19082
Histand’s Supply PAD069027027 Non Wycombe Bucks PA 18980
Hranica Landfill PAD980508618 Deleted Buffalo TWP Butler PA 16055
Hoffman Metal Removal WVN000305643 Non Mabscott Raleigh WV 25827
Holly Hill Subdivision WV0001095421 Non Fairdale Raleigh WV 25839
Hunter Farm Drum PAD987332533 Non Bakerstown Allegheny PA 15007
Hunterstown Road PAD980830897 Final Gettysburg Adams PA 17325
Hutchinson Mine PCB PAD982364275 Non Hutchinson Westmoreland PA 15640
Hyman-Viener VAD003112364 Non Richmond Richmond VA 23231
I-81 Tractor Trailor Chemical Spill Site VAN000306150 Non Fort Defiance Augusta VA 24437
Iaeger PCB Site WVD988784641 Non Iaeger McDowell WV 24844
Indian Head Naval Surface Warfare Center MD7170024684 Final Indian Head Charles MD 20640
Industrial Lane PAD980508493 Final Easton Northampton PA 18042
J & L Industries, Inc. MDD022527584 Non Baltimore Baltimore MD 21220
JF & M Co. PCB WVD054114707 Non Huntington Cabell WV 25701
Jacks Creek/Sitkin Smelting PAD980829493 Final Lewistown Mifflin PA 17044
Jackson Ceramix Inc. PAD001222025 Final Falls Creek Jefferson PA 15840
JenkinJones Drum Dump WVD988768552 Non JenkinJones McDowell WV 24848
Joe’s Creek Well Oil Site Tango Lincoln WV
John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA
Johnson Bronze Co. PAD981036171 Non New Castle Lawrence PA 16103
Joyce National Powder PAD101274686 Non Eldred McKean PA 16731
Kanawha Motive Power WVSFN0305389 Non Montgomery Fayette WV 25136
Kanawha River Site WVSFN035516 Non Kanawha WV
Kane & Lombard Street Drums MDD980923783 Final Baltimore Baltimore MD 21224
Kay Lane Drum Dump WVD988767463 Non Charleston Kanawha WV 25302
Kelly Drive Sulfuric Acid Spill PAN000305641 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19131
Kenilworth Landfill DCSFN0305462 Non Washington DC DC 20020
Kennett Square Junkyard PAD980692776 None Kennett Square Chester PA 19348
Kent County (Houston) Landfill DED980705727 Remove Houston Kent DE 19954
Kessel Lumber Supply WVD041014572 Non Keyser Mineral WV 26726
Kevak Property PAD981740129 Non Glen Lyon Luzerne PA 18617
Keyser Avenue Borehole PAD981036049 Removed Scranton Lackawanna PA 18508
Keystone Sanitation Landfill PAD054142781 Final Hanover York PA 17331
Keystone Drive WVD982363046 Non Charleston Kanawha WV 25311
Kimberton Site PAD980691703 Final Kimberton Chester PA 19442
Kim-Stan Landfill VAD077923449 Final Selma Alleghany VA 24474
Klotz Brothers Courtyard VA0001907831 Non Staunton Staunton VA 24401
Komak/Ontario Street PAD982364416 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19140
Koppers Co, Inc DED980552244 Final Newport New Castle DE 19804
Krewatch Farm DED981039878 Non Seaford Sussex DE 19973
Krieger’s Landfill DED981736317 Non Wilmington New Castle DE 19720
L.A. Clarke & Son VAD007972482 Final Spotsylvania Spotsylvania VA 22553
Lackawanna Refuse PAD980508667 Deleted Old Forge Lackawanna PA 18504
Lake Street Oil Farm Oil Site Salisbury Wicomico MD
Lakin State Farm WVD982363855 Non Camp Conley Mason WV 25550
Langley AFB/NASA Research Cntr VA2800005033 Final Hampton Hampton VA 23665
Lansdowne Radiation Site PAD980830921 Deleted Lansdowne Delaware PA 19050
Laurel Chlorine Cylinder MDSFN0305488 Non Laurel Prince Georges MD 20707
Layton Landfill PAD981044845 Non Perry Twp. Fayette PA 15482
Leetown Abandoned Chemical Drum WVD988766119 Non Leetown Jefferson WV 25430
Leetown Pesticide WVD980693402 Deleted Leetown Jefferson WV 25430
Lehigh Electric and Engineering Co. PAD980712731 Deleted Old Forge Lackawanna PA 18518
Lehman MTBE PA0000057471 Non Lehman Luzerne PA 18627
Letterkenny Army Depot PDO Area PA2210090054 Final Chambersburg Franklin PA 17201
Letterkenny Army Depot SE Area
PA6213820503 Final Chambersburg Franklin PA 17201
Level A Field Exercise at Ft. Meade Non Odenton Anne Arundel MD
Lewes Coal Gas DED984066209 Non Lewes Sussex DE 19958
Limestone Rd MDD980691588 Final Cumberland Allegany MD 21502
Lindane Dump PAD980712798 Final Harrison TWP Allegheny PA 15065
Lo-Ming WVN000306106 Non Sara Ann Logan WV 25644
Logan Section Contamination Site PASFN0305530 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19120
Lord-Shope Landfill PAD980508931 Final Girard Erie PA 16417
Lower Darby Creek Area PASFN0305521 Final Darby TWP Delaware and Philadelphia PA 19023
MW Manufacturing PAD980691372 Final Valley TWP Montour PA 17821
Macson’s, Inc. VA0001118207 Non Chesapeake Chesapeake VA 23324
Main Avenue Lead VA0001992957 Non Big Stone Gap Wise VA 24219
Malitovsky Drum Company PAD980831408 Non Pittsburgh Allegheny PA 15201
Malvern TCE PAD014353445 Final Malvern Chester PA 19355
Manilla Creek Landfill WVD980537526 Non Raymond City Putnam WV 25159
Marcus-Paulsen PA0001411552 Non Denbo Washington PA 15429
Marinace Ficam MDSFN0305383 Non Johnsville Frederick MD 21701
Marine Corps Combat Development Comand VA1170024722 Final Quantico Prince William VA 22134
Marjol Operation PAD003041910 Non Throop Lackawanna PA 18512
Matthews Electroplating VAD980712970 Deleted Roanoke Roanoke VA 24153
Mayburg Tar Pit PAD980832612 Non Mayburg Forest PA 16347
McAdoo Associates PAD980712616 Deleted McAdoo Schuylkill PA 18237
Mechling Hill Drum Dump WVD982367500 Non Follansbee Brooke WV 26037
Merit Products PAD987322534 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19132
Metal Bank PAD046557096 Final Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19135
Metcoa PAD080719446 Non Pulaski TWP Lawrence PA 16143
Metro Container Corp PAD044545895 Non Trainer Delaware PA 19013
Metropolitan Mirror & Glass PAD982366957 Deleted Frackville Schuylkill PA 17931
Micucio Brothers DED984075127 Non Middletown New Castle DE 19709
Mid-Atlantic Wood Preservers MDD064882889 Deleted Harmans Anne Arundel MD 21077
Middletown Air Field PAD980538763 Deleted Middletown Dauphin PA 17057
Middletown Road Dump MDD980705099 Deleted Annapolis Anne Arundel MD 21401
Mill Creek Dump PAD980231690 Final Erie Erie PA 16505
Millsboro TCE Site DEN000306645 Proposed Sussex DE
Misplaced Cesium 137 Gauge WV0001411446 Non Dairy McDowell WV 24828
Modern Sanitation PAD980539068 Final York York PA 17404
Monroe Street PAD982367625 Non York York PA 17404
Moosic PA0002008506 Non Avoca Luzerne PA 18641
Morrison Plant Site VASFN0305388 Non Lynchburg Lynchburg VA 24501
Motiva Enterprises Sulphuric Acid Spill DEN000305677 Non Delaware City New Castle DE 19706
Mount Clare Drum Dump WVD988767042 Non Mount Clare Harrison WV 26408
Mount Vernon Mills VAD988207957 Non Fries Grayson VA 24330
Moyers Landfill PAD980508766 Final Collegeville Montgomery PA 19426
Municipal/Industrial Disposal Corp PAD982366353 Non Elizabeth Twp Allegheny PA 15037
Mt. Sidney VAN000305720 Non Mt. Sidney Augusta VA 24467
Nanticoke Homes DED054719851 Non Greenwood Sussex DE 19950
NASA Wallops Island VA8800010763 Non Wallops Island Accomack VA 23337
National Vulcanized Fiber PAD107214116 Non Kennett Square Chester PA 19348
Naval Air Development Center PA6170024545 Final Warminster Bucks PA 18974
Naval Amphibious Base VA5170022482 Final Norfolk Virginia Beach VA 23521
Naval Support Station PA3170022104 Non Mechanicsburg Cumberland PA 17055
Naval Surface Warfare Center VA7170024684 Final Dahlgren King George VA 22448
Naval Surface Warfare Center – White Oak MD0170023444 Non Silver Spring Montgomery MD 20903
Naval Training Center Bainbridge MDD985397256 Non Bainbridge Cecil MD 21904
Naval Weapons Station Yorktown VA8170024170 Final Yorktown York VA 23690
Naval Weapons Station Yorktown – Cheatham Annex VA3170024605 Final Williamsburg Williamsburg VA 23185
Navy Ships Parts Control Center PA3170022104 Final Mechanicsburg Cumberland PA 17055
Nazcon Concrete MDSFN0305379 Non Beltsville Prince Georges MD 20705
NCR Corp DED043958388 Final Millsboro Sussex DE 19966
Nelson Electric Co VAD003115706 Non Richmond Richmond VA 23214
Neutron Products, Inc. MDN000305785 Non Dickerson Montgomery
New Castle Spill DED058980442 Deleted New Castle New Castle DE 19720
New Castle Steel DED980705255 Deleted New Castle New Castle DE 19720
Newport Drum DED984066696 Non-Archived Newport New Castle DE 19804
Nichols #1 Well Non Looneyville Roane WV
Nickel Plate Road PAD982367369 Non Cochranton Crawford PA 16314
Nitro Municipal Landfill WVD980538722 Non Nitro Putnam WV 25143
Nitro Sanitation Landfill WVD980513642 Non Nitro Kanawha WV 25143
Norfolk Naval Base VA6170061463 Final Norfolk Norfolk VA 23511
Norfolk Naval Shipyard VA1170024813 Final Portsmouth Portsmouth VA 23709
North Penn Area 1 PAD096834494 Final Souderton Montgomery PA 18964
North Penn Area 2 PAD002342475 Final Hatfield Montgomery PA 19440
North Penn Area 5 PAD980692693 Final Colmar Montgomery PA 18915
North Penn Area 6 PAD980926976 Final Lansdale Montgomery PA 19446
North Penn Area 7 PAD002498632 Final Lansdale Montgomery PA 19446
North Penn Area 11 PA0001412311 Non Creamery Montgomery PA 19474
North Penn Area 12 (Transicoil) PAD057152365 Final Worcester Montgomery PA 19490
Northeastern Pennsylvania Inland Sub-Area Plan Non
Novak Sanitary Landfill PAD079160842 Final Allentown Lehigh PA 18104
NVF Yorklyn DE0002337806 Non Yorklyn New Castle DE 19736
O’Brien Machinery PAD987379187 Non Downingtown Chester PA 19335
Oakland Junkyard Site MDD981739584 Non-Archived Oakland Garrett MD 21053
Oceana Salvage VAN000306180 Non Virginia Beach City Virginia Beach VA 23454
Occidental Chemical Corp PAD980229298 Final Pottstown Montgomery PA 19464
Ohio River Park PAD980508816 Final Neville Island Allegheny PA 15225
Ohio River Wells Non St. Marys Pleasants WV
Oil Tank Lines Inc. PA0001909522 Non Darby Delaware PA 19023
Old Athens Turnpike Lead WVN000305682 Non Princeton Mercer WV 24740
Old Barrett Building PAD987277175 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19146
Old Brine Sludge Landfill DED980704894 Removed Delaware City New Castle DE 19706
Old City of York Landfill PAD980692420 Final Seven Valleys York PA 17360
Old National Carbide VAD988166146 Non Raketown Carroll VA 24350
Old Salem Tannery VAD988170437 Non Salem Salem VA 24153
Old Wilmington Road Ground Water Comtamination / Perry Phillips Landfill PAD981938939 Final Sadsburyville Chester PA 19320
Ordnance Products, Inc MDD982364341 Final Northeast Cecil MD 21901
Ordnance Works Disposal Area WVD000850404 Final Morgantown Monongalia WV 26505
ORFA Manufacturing Co PAD987400561 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19143
Osborne Landfill PAD980712673 Final Grove City Mercer PA 16127
Otsego PCB Capacitor WVD988767448 Non Otsego Wyoming WV 25882
P&W Tire Fire VA0001120260 Non Axton Henry VA 24054
Pagan Road PAD981033632 Non Summit Twp Erie PA 16509
Palmerton Zinc Piles PAD002395887 Final Palmerton Carbon PA 18071
Paoli Rail Yard PAD980692594 Final Paoli Chester PA 19301
Pathan Chemical PAD067399378 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19125
Patuxent River Naval Air Station MD7170024536 Final Patuxent River St Marys MD 20670
Peach Alley Parking Lot PAN000305909 Non Hamburg Berks PA 19526
Peck Iron and Metal VAN000306115 Proposed Portsmouth Portsmouth VA 23704
Peninsula Plating DE0001167998 Non Blades Sussex DE 19973
Penn Foam Corp PAD080874282 Non Raubsville Northampton PA 18042
Pennsylvania 500 Non Long Pond Monroe PA 18334
Pennsylvania Dept of Transportation Lab PAD980827851 Non Harrisburg Dauphin PA 17101
Penrose Drum PAD987279890 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19145
Perkasie TCE PAN000306027 Non Perkasie Bucks PA 18944
Philadelphia Naval Complex PA4170022418 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19112
Pigeon Point Landfill DED980494603 Removed New Castle New Castle DE 19720
Plymouth TWP CO2 Release PASFN0305547 Non Plymouth TWP Montgomery PA 19428
Point of Rocks VAD982363798 Non Enon Chesterfield VA 22401
Potomac Yard Site VAD020312013 Non Alexandria Arlington VA 22301
Pottstown Drum PAD981738818 Non Pottstown Montgomery PA 19464
Powers Boss Batteries, Inc. VAD988169900 Non Saltville Smyth VA 24370
Precision National Corp. PAD053676631 Non Clarks-Summit Lackawanna PA 18411
Presque Isle PAD980508865 Deleted Erie Erie PA 16501
Price Battery PAN000305679 Final Hamburg Berks PA 19526
Princeton Enterprises WVD988790333 Non Clarksburg Harrison WV 26304
Printed Circuits PAD054717475 Non Bristol Twp Bucks PA 19007
Professional Food Service VASFN0305449 Non Bedford Bedford VA 24523
Publicker Industries PAD981939200 Deleted Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19148
Purolite Chemical PAD987277498 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19122
Ravenswood PCE WVSFN0305428 Final Ravenswood Jackson WV 26164
Ray York Body Shop WVD981939697 Non Oak Hill Fayette WV 25901
Raymark PAD039017694 Final Hatboro Montgomery PA 19040
Recticon/Allied Steel PAD002353969 Final Parker Ford Chester PA 19457
Reeser’s Landfill PAD980829261 Deleted Upper Macungie Twp Lehigh PA 18062
Rentokil, Inc. VAD071040752 Final Richmond Henrico VA 23228
Resin Disposal PAD063766828 Deleted Jefferson Boro Allegheny PA 15025
Revere Chemical PAD051395499 Final Revere Bucks PA 18953
Rhinehart Tire Fire VAD980831796 Deleted Winchester Frederick VA 22601
Ridgeview PCB WVD981738883 Non Ridgeview Boone WV 25169
River Bend aka Creek Road Sand Blasting PASFN0305402 Non Hartsville Bucks PA 18974
River Road Landfill PAD000439083 Deleted Sharpsville Mercer PA 16146
Roanoke Drum Recycling VA0001897289 Non Roanoke Roanoke VA 24019
Robesonia Mercury PA0002122927 Non Robesonia PA 19551
Rodale Manufacturing PAD981033285 Final Emmaus Lehigh PA 18049
Roger’s Electric Company MDD024275257 Non-Archived Cheverly Prince Georges MD 20785
Rohm and Haas Landfill PAD091637975 Removed Bristol Township Bucks PA
Round Bottom Hill WVD988796587 Non Moundsville Marshall WV 26041
Route 52 / Washington Street Extension WVD981939622 Non Bluefield Mercer WV 24701
Route 522 Bridge PA0002021731 Non Lewistown Mifflin PA 17044
Route 563 Drum PAD981738867 Non Salford Twp Montgomery PA 18957
Route 735 Abandoned Barrel VAD988212379 Non Coatesville Hanover VA 23069
Route 940 Drum Dump PAD981034630 Deleted Tobyhanna Monroe PA 18350
Royal Dry Cleaners PAD987279817 Non Lansdale Montgomery PA 19446
RR2 Emlenton Lead PASFN0305448 Non Emlenton Venango PA 16373
Rustin Barrel VAD988212361 Non Mechanicsville Hanover VA 23069
Ryeland Road PAD981033459 Final Heidelberg Berks PA 19567
Sable Diamonds PAD982364234 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19106
Sabol Farm Drum PA0001096171 Non Girard Erie PA 16417
Sackville Mills Property PA0000198846 Non Nether Providence Delaware PA 19086
Saegertown Industrial Area PAD980692487 Final Saegertown Crawford PA 16433
Safety Light Corporation PAD987295276 Final Bloomsburg Columbia PA 17815
Salford Quarry PAD980693204 Final Lower Salford TWP Montgomery PA 19438
Salt Service PAD987387578 Non Ridley Park Delaware PA 19078
Saltville Power Plant VA0000878090 Non Saltville Smyth VA 24370
Saltville Waste Disposal VAD003127578 Final Saltville Smyth VA 24370
Sam Jones’ Junkyard VAD981036858 Non Gainesville Prince William VA 22065
Sand, Gravel, & Stone MDD980705164 Final Elkton Cecil MD 21921
Sasser Electric Company Drum WVD123625709 Non Mt Hope Fayette WV 25880
Saunders Supply Co. VAD003117389 Final Chuckatuck Suffolk VA 23432
Scott Robinson Lead Battery VAD988176368 Non Wise Wise VA 24293
Seaford-Arbutus Well Field DED984075523 Non-Archived Seaford Sussex DE 19973
Sealand Limited DED981035520 Deleted Mt Pleasant New Castle DE 19709
Second Street Electoplating PAD987270964 Non PA
Sellite Area Drum Site WVSFN0305501 Non Point Pleasant Mason WV 25550
Sewell Bottom Drum Dump WVD988768743 Non New River, George Nat’l PA Fayette WV 25936
Shaffer Equipment WVD981038300 Non Minden Fayette WV 25879
Shaler/JTC Properties PAD981041064 Non Bruin Twp Butler PA 16022
Sharon Steel Corporation (Fairmont Coke Works) WVD000800441 Final Fairmont Marion WV 26554
Sharon Steel Corp. (Farrell Works Disp Area) PAD001933175 Final Farrell Mercer PA 16121
Shriver’s Corner PAD980830889 Final Gettysburg Adams PA 17325
Singleton Drum VAD988222220 Non Rappahannock Culpeper VA 22701
Skipjack Chemicals, Inc. MDD985390327 Non Denton Caroline MD 21629
Sloan Glass WV0004294104 Non Culloden Cabel WV 25510
Small Lab Site MDD985382456 Non-Archived Sykesville Carroll MD 21784
Snow Hill Lane MDD981108467 Non Brooklyn Baltimore MD 21225
Solly Ave. Midnight Dump Site PAD981738800 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19111
Sophia Battery Dump WVSFN0305434 Non Sophia Raleigh WV 25921
South West Philadelphia Sludge Spill PAD987336989 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19153
Southeast Federal Center Non Washington DC DC 20408
Southern International Wood Treatment Co. VAD139372239 Non Miller’s Tavern King and Queen VA 23085
Southern MD Wood Treating MDD980704852 Deleted Hollywood St Marys MD 20686
Spectron, Inc MDD000218008 Final Elkton Cecil MD 21921
Spelter Smelter WV0000634584 Non Clarksburg Harrison WV 26438
Spencer Transformer PCB WVD021607494 Non Spencer Roane WV 25276
SSCD Schoolyard Site PAD981738743 Non Punxsatawney Jefferson PA 15767
St. Elizabeth’s Hospital Non Washington DC DC 20032
St Julien’s Creek Annex (US Navy) VA5170000181 Final Chesapeake Chesapeake VA 23702
St. Mary’s Salvage MDD985370030 Non-Archived St Marys St Marys MD 20686
Standard Chlorine of DE
aka Metachem DED041212473 Final Delaware City New Castle DE 19706
Stanley Kessler PAD014269971 Final King of Prussia Montgomery PA 19406
Starbrick Area PAD980918510 Non Conewango Twp Warren PA 16365
Starlight Lane Tire Fire VAN000305871 Non Roanoke Roanoke VA 24001
State Road PAD002279040 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19135
Stoney Creek PAN000306567 Non Trainer Delaware PA 19061
Stauffer Chemical Company VAD980551634 Non Bentonville Warren VA 22610
Strasburg Landfill PAD000441337 Final Newlin TWP Chester PA 19320
Strube Inc. PAN000306591 Non Marietta Lancaster PA 17547
Struble Trail Drums PA0001405166 Non E. Caln. Twp. Chester PA 19335
Suffolk City LF VAD980917983 Deleted Suffolk Suffolk VA 23434
Sussex County Landfill DED980494637 Deleted Laurel Sussex DE 19956
Sutton Enterprises, Inc. VAD988173548 Non Chesapeake Chesapeake VA 23320
Swanson Creek Oil Spill/Pepco Oil Pipeline Spill Charles and Prince George’s MD
Swissvale Auto Surplus Parts PAD980692560 Non Swissvale Allegheny PA 15218
Sycamore Well VASFN0305541 Non Danville Danville VA 24540
Sykesville Oil Spill Non Sykesville Carroll MD 21784
TMC Asbestos PA0002269660 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19145
Tacony Warehouse PA0210000931 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19135
Taylor Borough Dump PAD980693907 Deleted Taylor Lackawanna PA 18517
Taylor County Mercury WV0001986744 Non Grafton Taylor WV 26354
Tennessee Ave. Lead VA0001412600 Non Big Stone Gap Wise VA 24219
Thompson Street Trailer PAD987268646 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19125
Thompson’s Auto Parts Fire WVD988768800 Non Huntington Cabell WV 25701
Tobyhanna Army Depot PA5213820892 Final Tobyhanna Monroe PA 18466
Tonolli Corp PAD073613663 Final Nesquehoning Carbon PA 18240
Tordon Herbicide Chem Drum WVD982366908 Non Mechanicsville Hampshire WV 26757
Tranguch Gasoline PA0001409671 Non Hazelton Luzerne PA 18201
Trowbridge Estates Mercury PAD982363160 Non Feasterville Bucks PA 19020
Turpin Property VAD988168902 Non Wytheville Wythe VA 24382
Twin City Iron & Metal Co., Inc. VAD034557579 Non Bristol Bristol VA 24201
Tybouts Corner Landfill DED000606079 Final Wilmington New Castle DE 19899
Tyler Refrigeration Pit DED980705545 Deleted Smyrna Kent DE 19977
Tysons Dump PAD980692024 Final Upper Merion TWP Montgomery PA 19406
UGI Columbia Gas Plant PAD980539126 Final Columbia Lancaster PA 17512
United Chemical Technologies PA0000382820 Non Bristol Bucks PA 19007
Upper Glade Drum Dump WVD982362980 Non Upper Glade Webster WV 26266
Upshur County 4-H Tarpit WVD981941685 Non Selbyville Upshur WV 26263
U.S. Titanium VAD980705404 Final Piney River Nelson VA 22964
USA Cameron Station VA4210220139 Non Alexandria Alexandria VA 22304
USA Radford Ammuntion Plant VA1210020730 Non Radford Radford City VA 24141
USA Support Oakdale
formerly: C.E. Kelly Support Facility PA5210022344 Non Oakdale Allegheny PA 15071
USAF Andrews Air Force Base MD0570024000 Final Andrews AFB Prince Georges MD 20331
USN NRTF-Driver VA9170022488 Non Suffolk Suffolk VA 23434
Valley Forge National Historic Park PA9141733080 Non Valley Forge Chester PA 19481
Valley Plating VAD980832836 Non Richmond Henrico VA 23222
Valmont TCE (Former Valmont Industrial Park) PAD982363970 Final West Hazleton Luzerne PA 18201
Verdict Chemical Site PAN0000305629 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19133
Vermiculite WRG4 PAN000305592 None Ellwood City Lawrence PA 16117
Vienna Tetrachloroethene WVD988798401 Final Vienna Wood WV 26105
Vint Hill Farms Station VA8210020931 Non Warrenton Fauquier VA 22186
Vinton Drum Site VASFN0305390 Non Vinton Bedford VA 24179
Virginia Scrap Iron & Metal VA0000807156 Non Roanoke Roanoke VA 24015
Voortman Farm PAD980692719 Deleted Ladark Lehigh PA 18034
W & G Electroplating WVD988769642 Non Fairmont Marion WV 26554
Wach’s Landfill PAD980918767 Non S. Huntingdon Westmoreland PA 15089
Wade (ABM) PAD980539407 Deleted Chester City Delaware PA 19013
Walker Creek Well Non Parkersburg Wood WV
Walsh Landfill aka Welsh Landfill PAD980829527 Final Honeybrook Chester PA 19344
War Memorial Hospital Oil Spill WV0001766864 Non Berkeley Springs Morgan WV 25411
Warrenton PCE VA0000180836 Non Warrenton Fauquier VA 22186
Warrenton Training Center VAD988189312 Non Warrenton Fauquier VA 22186
Warwick Twp Real Estate aka Andela PA0000585901 Non Warwick Twp Bucks PA 18929
Washington D.C. Chemical Munitions (Spring Valley) DCD983971136 Non Washington DC DC 20015
Washington DC Mercury Incident DCN000306000 Non Washington DC DC 20032
Washington Gas & Light Non Washington DC DC 20019
Washington National Airport VAD988166518 Non Arlington Arlington VA 22030
Washington Navy Yard DC9170024310 Final Washington DC DC 20374
Watson Johnson Landfill PAD980706824 Final Richlandtown Bucks PA 18955
Weirton Drum Disposal WVD988776258 Non Weirton Hancock WV 26062
West Dauphin Chemical PAN000305598 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19132
West Virginia Ordnance WVD980713036 Final Pt Pleasant Mason WV 25550
Westinghouse Electric (Sharon) PAD005000575 Final Sharon Mercer PA 16146
Westinghouse Elevator Co. PAD043882281 Final Gettysburg Adams PA 17325
Westline PAD980692537 Deleted Westline McKean PA 16751
Wheeling Acid Spill WVD981739295 Non Wheeling Ohio WV 26003
Wheeling Scrap Radiation Source WVD000895987 Non Wheeling Ohio WV 26003
Whitemarsh Twp. Drum Dump PAD982366841 Non Plymouth Meeting Montgomery PA 19462
Whitmoyer Labs PAD003005014 Final Myerstown Lebanon PA 17067
Wildcat Landfill DED980704951 Final Dover Kent DE 19901
William Dick Lagoons PAD980537773 Final West Caln TWP Chester PA 19376
Willow Grove Naval Air Station PAD987277837 Final Willow Grove Montgomery PA 19090
Windsor Manor Road MDD985382829 Non Brandywine Prince Georges MD 20613
Woodard Property Abandoned Drums PAD987329794 Non Erie Erie PA 16501
Woodbridge Research Facility (WRF) VA7210020981 Non Woodbridge Prince William VA 22191
Woodlawn County Landfill MDD980504344 Final Woodlawn Cecil MD 21904
Yankee Street Arsenic WVN000306642 Non Wellsburg Brooke WV 26070
York County Solid Waste and Refuse Authority PAD980830715 Deleted Hopewell TWP York PA 17363
York Metal Finishing PAN000305638 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 19133

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Last updated on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009.

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Federal Facilities Superfund Sites

[ All Sites | District of Columbia | Delaware | Federal Facilities | Maryland | Pennsylvania | Virginia | West Virginia ]
Site Name EPA ID NPL Status City County Zip State
Aberdeen Proving Ground – Edgewood Area MD2210020036 Final Aberdeen Harford 21001 MD
Aberdeen Proving Ground – Michaelsville LF MD3210021355 Final Aberdeen Harford 21005 MD
Allegany Ballistics Lab WV0170023691 Final Short Gap Mineral 26753 WV
Andrews Air Force Base MD0570024000 Final Andrews AFB Prince Georges 20331 MD
Barney Circle Non Washington DC 20032 DC
Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (USDA) MD0120508940 Final Beltsville Prince Georges 20705 MD
Bolling Air Force Base Non Washington DC 20331 DC
Brandywine DRMO MD9570024803 Final Andrews Prince Georges 20331 MD
Camp Simms Non Washington DC 20032 DC
Curtis Bay Coast Guard Yard MD4690307844 Proposed Baltimore Anne Arundel 21226 MD
Defense Supply Center Philadelphia PA09715900005 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia 19101 PA
Defense General Supply Center VA3971520751 Final Richmond Chesterfield 23297 VA
Dover AF Base DE8570024010 Final Dover Kent 19901 DE
Former Nansemond Ordnance Depot VAD123933426 Final Suffolk Suffolk 23434 VA
Fort Eustis VA6210020321 Final Newport News Newport News 23604 VA
Ft. Detrick Area B Groundwater MDD985397249 Final Frederick Frederick MD
Ft. George G. Meade MD9210020567 Final Odenton Anne Arundel 20755 MD
Fort Pickett VA2210020705 Non Blackstone Nottoway 23824 VA
Ft. Ritchie MD0000795211 Non Cascade Washington 21719 MD
Indian Head Naval Surface Warfare Center MD7170024684 Final Indian Head Charles 20640 MD
Langley AFB/NASA Research Cntr VA2800005033 Final Hampton Hampton 23665 VA
Letterkenny Army Depot PDO Area
PA2210090054 Final Chambersburg Franklin 17201 PA
Letterkenny Army Depot
SE Area

PA6213820503
Final Chambersburg Franklin 17201 PA
Marine Corps Combat Development Comand VA1170024722 Final Quantico Prince William 22134 VA
Middletown Air Field PAD980538763 Deleted Middletown Dauphin 17057 PA
NASA Wallops Island VA8800010763 Non Wallops Island Accomack 23337 VA
Naval Air Development Cntr PA6170024545 Final Warminster Bucks 18974 PA
Naval Amphibious Base VA5170022482 Final Norfolk Virginia Beach 23521 VA
Naval Support Station PA3170022104 Non Mechanicsburg Cumberland 17055 PA
Naval Surface Warfare Center VA7170024684 Final Dahlgren King George 22448 VA
Naval Surface Warfare Center – White Oak MD0170023444 Non Silver Spring Montgomery 20903 MD
Naval Training Center Bainbridge MDD985397256 Non Bainbridge Cecil 21904 MD
Naval Weapons Station Yorktown VA8170024170 Final Yorktown York 23690 VA
Naval Weapons Station Yorktown – Cheatham Annex VA3170024605 Final Williamsburg Williamsburg 23185 VA
Norfolk Naval Base VA6170061463 Final Norfolk Norfolk 23511 VA
Norfolk Naval Shipyard VA1170024813 Final Portsmouth Portsmouth 23709 VA
Patuxent River Naval Air Station MD7170024536 Final Patuxent River St Marys 20670 MD
Philadelphia Naval Complex PA4170022418 Non Philadelphia Philadelphia 19112 PA
St. Elizabeth’s Hospital Non Washington DC 20032 DC
St Julien’s Creek Annex (US Navy) VA5170000181 Final Chesapeake Chesapeake 23702 VA
Southeast Federal Center Non Washington DC 20408 DC
Tobyhanna Army Depot PA5213820892 Final Tobyhanna Monroe 18466 PA
USA Cameron Station VA4210220139 Non Alexandria Alexandria 22304 VA
USA Radford Ammuntion Plant VA1210020730 Non Radford Radford City 24141 VA
USA Support Oakdale
formery: C.E. Kelly Support Facility PA5210022344 Non Oakdale Allegheny 15071 PA
USN NRTF-Driver VA9170022488 Non Suffolk Suffolk 23434 VA
Valley Forge National Historic Park PA9141733080 Non Valley Forge Chester 19481 PA
Vint Hill Farms Station VA8210020931 Non Warrenton Fauquier 22186 VA
Warrenton Training Center VAD988189312 Non Warrenton Fauquier 22186 VA
Washington DC Chemical Munitions (Spring Valley) DCD983971136 Non Washington DC 20015 DC
Washington Gas & Light Non Washington DC 20019 DC
Washington National Airport VAD988166518 Non Arlington Arlington 22030 VA
Washington Navy Yard DC9170024310 Final Washington DC 20374 DC
West Virginia Ordnance WVD980713036 Final Pt Pleasant Mason 25550 WV
Willow Grove Naval Air Station PAD987277837 Final Willow Grove Montgomery 19090 PA
Woodbridge Research Facility (WRF) VA7210020981 Non Woodbridge Prince William 22191 VA

Region 3 | Mid-Atlantic Cleanup | Mid-Atlantic Superfund |EPA Home | EPA Superfund Homepage

http://www.epa.gov/reg3hwmd/super/ff.htm

***

My Note – there had been a chemical weapons lab somewhere near Cleveland, Ohio – in a small town. What happened to that area’s cleanup – has it ever been checked or did they simply build people’s houses on top of it as they did in Washington, DC and other places?

- cricketdiane

P.S. I don’t think it was Colonel Mustard that did this one . . .

***

Strange Conspiracy in a Land of Freedom, Honor and Integrity 3 – Does Washington even know what human rights and civil rights are? Have our leaders ever had integrity, decency and honor?

Posted by cricketdiane on October 12, 2009

Strange Conspiracy in a Land of Freedom, Honor and Integrity 3 – Does Washington even know what human rights and civil rights are? Have our leaders ever had integrity, decency and honor?

Published 10-12-09

***

Dugway sheep incident
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dead sheep owned by Ray Peck in Skull Valley, 1968[1]

The Dugway sheep incident, also known as the Skull Valley sheep kill, was a 1968 sheep kill that has been connected to United States Army chemical and biological warfare programs at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. 6,000 sheep were killed on ranches near the base, and the popular explanation blamed Army testing of chemical weapons for the incident, though alternative explanations have been offered. A report first made public in 1998 was called the first documented admission from the Army that a nerve agent killed the sheep at Skull Valley.

Contents

* 1 Background
* 2 Incident
* 3 Possible causes
* 4 Aftermath
* 5 See also
* 6 References
* 7 Further reading
* 8 External links

Background

Since its founding in 1941, much of the activity at Dugway Proving Ground is a closely guarded secret. Activities at Dugway included aerial nerve agent testing.[2] According to reports from New Scientist, Dugway was still producing small quantities of anthrax as late as 1998, 30 years after the United States renounced biological weapons.[3] There were at least 1,100 other chemical tests at Dugway during the time period of the Dugway sheep incident. In total, almost 500,000 pounds (230 metric tons) of nerve agent were dispersed during open-air tests.[2] There were also tests at Dugway with other weapons of mass destruction, including 328 open-air tests of biological weapons, 74 dirty bomb tests, and the equivalent of eight intentional meltdowns of nuclear reactors.[2]

Incident

In the days preceding the Dugway sheep incident the United States Army at Dugway Proving Ground conducted at least three separate operations involving nerve agents.[4] All three operations occurred on March 13, 1968. One involved the test firing of a chemical artillery shell, another the burning of 160 U.S. gallons (600 L) of nerve agent in an open air pit and in the third a jet aircraft sprayed nerve agent in a target area about 27 miles (43 km) west of Skull Valley. It is the third event that is usually connected to the Skull Valley sheep kill.[4]

The incident log at Dugway Proving Ground indicated that the sheep incident began with a phone call on March 17, 1968 at 12:30 a.m. The director of the University of Utah’s ecological and epidemiological contract with Dugway, a Dr. Bode, phoned Keith Smart, the chief of the ecology and epidemiology branch at Dugway to report that 3,000 sheep were dead in the Skull Valley area. The initial report of the incident came to Bode from the manager of a Skull Valley livestock company.[5] The sheep were grazing in an area about 27 miles (43 km) from the proving ground; total sheep deaths of 6,000–6,400 were reported over the next several days as a result of the incident.[6] The Dugway Safety Office’s attempt to count the dead sheep compiled a total of 3,483.[7]

Possible causes

One explanation in the aftermath of the incident was that a chemical or biological agent had escaped from the Dugway Proving Ground. Logic dictated that for 3,000 sheep to suffer a near instant death, an agent from Dugway would almost have to be involved.[5] Circumstantial evidence seemed to support this assertion, the United States Army admitted to conducting open-air tests with the nerve agent VX in the days preceding the sheep kill.[5] The Army also intimated that a spray nozzle had malfunctioned during the test causing an aircraft to continue spraying VX as it climbed to higher altitudes.[5][6] It was also reported that a small amount of VX was found in the tissue of the dead sheep.[6]

Other information contradicted the initial assumptions about the cause of the incident. One contradiction to nerve agent exposure as a cause came in the symptoms of some of the sheep following the incident.[7] Several sheep, still alive, sat unmoving on the ground. The sheep refused to eat, but exhibited normal breathing patterns and showed signs of internal hemorrhaging.[7] Regular breathing and internal hemorrhaging are inconsistent with nerve agent exposure.[7] In addition, no other animals in the area, some much more susceptible to nerve agent poisoning, were affected.[5][7]

Aftermath

The incident had an impact on the Army, and U.S. military policy within a year. The international infamy of the incident contributed to President Richard Nixon’s decision to ban all open-air chemical weapon testing in 1969.[2] The sheep incident was one of the events which helped contribute to a rise in public sentiment against the U.S. Army Chemical Corps during and after the Vietnam War.[8] Ultimately, the Chemical Corps was disbanded for a short time as a result.[8]

Following the incident, the Army and other state and federal agencies compiled reports, some of which were later characterized as studies .[4] A report which remained classified until 1978 and unreleased to the public until nearly 30 years after the incident was called the first documented admission by the Army that VX killed the sheep. In 1998, Jim Woolf, reporting for the The Salt Lake Tribune, made the content of the report public for the first time.[2] The report described the evidence that nerve agent was the cause of the sheep kill as incontrovertible. [4] The 1970 report, compiled by researchers at the U.S. Army’s Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland, stated that VX was found in both snow and grass samples recovered from the area three weeks after the sheep incident.

The report concluded that the quantity of VX originally present was sufficient to account for the death of the sheep. [4] Even after the report surfaced the Army maintained that it did not accept responsibility for the incident nor did they admit negligence.[2] As late as 1997, one year before the report went public, U.S. Department of Defense officials stated that the reason it (the report) was never published is because it wasn’t particularly revealing. [9]

See also

* Granite Peak Installation
* Operation CHASE
* United States and weapons of mass destruction

References

1. ^ Lee Davidson and Joe Bauman (2001-02-12). Toxic Utah: A land littered with poisons . Deseret News. http://www.deseretnews.com/dn/sview/1,3329,250010322,00.html. Retrieved 2008-03-18.
2. ^ a b c d e f Norrell, Brenda. Skull Valley’s Nerve Gas Neighbors , (LexisNexis), Indian Country Today (Rapid City, South Dakota), October 26, 2005. Retrieved November 26, 2007.
3. ^ Hambling, David. US army plans to bulk-buy anthrax , New Scientist,September 24, 2005. Retrieved November 27, 2007.
4. ^ a b c d e Woolf, Jim. Army: Nerve Agent Near Dead Utah Sheep in ’68; Feds Admit Nerve Agent Near Sheep , (LexisNexis),The Salt Lake Tribune, January 1, 1998. Retrieved November 26, 2007.
5. ^ a b c d e Regis, Edward. The Biology of Doom: The History of America’s Secret Germ Warfare Project, (Google Books), Owl Books, 2000, p. 209, (ISBN 080505765X). Retrieved October 10, 2008.
6. ^ a b c Hoeber, Amoretta M. and Douglass, Jr. Joseph D. The Neglected Threat of Chemical Warfare , (JSTOR), International Security, Vol. 3, No. 1. (Summer, 1978), pp. 55-82. Retrieved November 26, 2007.
7. ^ a b c d e Mauroni, Albert J. America’s Struggle with Chemical-Biological Warfare, (Google Books), Praeger, Westport, Connecticut: 2000, p. 40, (ISBN 0275967565). Retrieved November 26, 2007.
8. ^ a b Mauroni, Al. The US Army Chemical Corps: Past, Present, and Future , Army Historical Founation. Retrieved October 10, 2008.
9. ^ DoD news briefing – Mr. Kenneth Bacon, ASD (PA), (Lexis Nexis, relevant excerpt), M2 Presswire, April 8, 1997. Retrieved November 26, 2007.

Further reading

* Boffey, Philip M. Nerve Gas: Dugway Accident Linked to Utah Sheep Kill , (Citation, log-in required to view article) Science December 27, 1968, Vol. 162, No. 3861, pp. 1460 – 1464. Retrieved November 26, 2007.
* Sheep & the Army, Time Magazine, April 5, 1968, accessed October 10, 2008.
* Toward the Doomsday Bug , Time Magazine, September 6, 1968, accessed October 12, 2008.
* Van Kampen, K.R., et al. Effects of nerve gas poisoning in sheep in Skull Valley, Utah , Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, (Abstract), April 15, 1970; Vol. 156 Issue:8 pp. 1032-5, accessed October 10, 2008.
* Wright, Burton. America’s Struggle With Chemical-Biological Warfare , (Book review), Army Chemical Review, February, 2001, accessed via FindArticles.com on October 12, 2008.

External links

* Biewin, John. Sheep Kill, (radio broadcast), NPR, February 8, 1998, accessed October 10, 2008.
* Cianciosi , Scott. The Sheep Incident , DamnInteresting.com, March 17, 2008, accessed October 12, 2008.

v • d • e
United States chemical weapons program
Agents and chemicals
3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate (BZ) A Chlorine A Methylphosphonyl difluoride (DF) A Phosgene A QL A Sarin (GB) A Sulfur mustard (HD) A VX
Weapons
Bigeye bomb A M1 chemical mine A M104 155mm Cartridge A M110 155mm Cartridge A M121/A1 155mm Cartridge A M125 bomblet A M134 bomblet A M138 bomblet A M139 bomblet A M2 mortar A M23 chemical mine A M34 cluster bomb A M360 105mm Cartridge A M426 8-inch shell A M43 BZ cluster bomb A M44 generator cluster A M55 rocket A M60 105mm Cartridge A M687 155mm Cartridge A XM-736 8-inch projectile A MC-1 bomb A M47 bomb A Weteye bomb
Operations and testing
Dugway sheep incident A Edgewood Arsenal experiments A MKULTRA A Operation CHASE A Operation Geranium A Operation LAC A Operation Red Hat A Operation Steel Box A Operation Ranch Hand A Operation Top Hat A Project 112 A Project SHAD
Facilities
Anniston Army Depot A Anniston Chemical Activity A Blue Grass Army Depot A Deseret Chemical Depot A Edgewood Chemical Activity A Hawthorne Army Depot A Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal System A Newport Chemical Depot A Pine Bluff Chemical Activity A Pueblo Chemical Depot A Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility A Umatilla Chemical Depot
Units and formations
1st Gas Regiment A U.S. Army Chemical Corps A Chemical mortar battalion
Equipment
Chemical Agent Identification Set A M93 Fox A MOPP A People sniffer
Related topics
Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory A Chlorine bombings in Iraq A Herbicidal warfare A List of topics A Poison gas in World War I A Tyler poison gas plot
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dugway_sheep_incident
Categories: Chemical warfare | Non-combat military accidents | Military in Utah | Sheep

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dugway_sheep_incident

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Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the book by Cadi Ayyad ben Moussa, see Ash-Shifa.

The Al-Shifa (??????, Arabic for healing ) pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum North, Sudan was constructed between 1992 and 1996 with components imported from the United States, Sweden, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, India, and Thailand.

The industrial complex was composed of around four buildings. It was the largest pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum and employed over 300 workers, producing medicine both for human and veterinary use. The factory was used primarily for the manufacture of anti-malaria medicines and veterinary products.

The factory was destroyed in 1998 by a missile attack launched by the United States. It stated several reasons for its action:

* Retaliation for previous attacks on U.S. embassies in several African countries.
* The alleged use of the factory for the processing of VX nerve agent.
* For alleged ties between the owners of the plant and the terrorist group al-Qaeda.

These justifications for the bombing were disputed by the owners of the plant, the Sudanese government, and members of the international community.

Contents

* 1 Destruction
* 2 Evidence
* 3 Consequences
* 4 Criticism
* 5 Responsibility
* 6 References
* 7 External links

Destruction

On August 20, 1998, the factory was destroyed in cruise missile strikes launched by the United States in retaliation for the August 7 truck bomb attacks on its embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya (see 1998 U.S. embassy bombings). The administration of President Bill Clinton justified the attacks, dubbed Operation Infinite Reach, on the grounds that the al-Shifa plant was involved with processing the deadly nerve agent VX, and had ties with the Islamist al-Qaeda group of Osama bin Laden, which was believed to be behind the embassy bombings and Operation Bojinka. The August 20 U.S. action also hit al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, to where bin Laden had moved following his May 1996 expulsion from Sudan.

Evidence
The key piece of physical evidence linking the al-Shifa facility to production of chemical weapons was the discovery of EMPTA in a soil sample taken from the plant during a CIA clandestine operation. EMPTA, or O-Ethyl methylphosphonothioic acid, is classified as a Schedule 2B compound according to the Chemical Weapons Convention and is a VX precursor. Although several theoretical uses for EMPTA were postulated as well as several patented process using EMPTA, such as the manufacture of plastic, no known industrial uses of EMPTA were ever documented nor any products that contained EMPTA. It is, however, not banned by the Chemical Weapons Convention as originally claimed by the US government. Moreover, it does not necessarily follow from the presence of EMPTA near (but outside) the boundary of Al-Shifa that this was produced in the factory: EMPTA could have been stored in or transported near al-Shifa, instead of being produced by it, according to a report by Michael Barletta.[1]

Under-Secretary of State Thomas Pickering claimed to have sufficient evidence against Sudan, including contacts between officials at Al-Shifa plant and Iraqi chemical weapons experts, with the Iraq chemical weapons program the only one identified with using EMPTA for VX production. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA), a Sudanese opposition in Cairo led by Mubarak Al-Mahdi, also insisted that the plant was producing ingredients for chemical weapons.[2] Former Clinton administration counter terrorism advisor Richard Clarke and former national security advisor Sandy Berger also noted the facilities alleged ties with the former Iraqi government. Clarke also cited Iraq’s $199,000 contract with al Shifa for veterinary medicine under the UN’s Oil for Food Program.

Officials later acknowledged, however, that the evidence that prompted President Clinton to order the missile strike on the Shifa plant was not as solid as first portrayed. Indeed, officials later said that there was no proof that the plant had been manufacturing or storing nerve gas, as initially suspected by the Americans, or had been linked to Osama bin Laden, who was a resident of Khartoum in the 1980s. [3]

However, a Clinton State Department official had stated that a money manager for Bin Laden had claimed that Bin Laden had, indeed, invested in Al Shifa. And that the Al Shifa manager even lived in the same Sudan house Bin Laden himself had previously lived in.[4]

The U.S. State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research wrote a report in 1999 questioning the attack on the factory, suggesting that the connection to bin Laden was not accurate; James Risen reported in the New York Times: Now, the analysts renewed their doubts and told Assistant Secretary of State Phyllis Oakley that the C.I.A.’s evidence on which the attack was based was inadequate. Ms. Oakley asked them to double-check; perhaps there was some intelligence they had not yet seen. The answer came back quickly: There was no additional evidence. Ms. Oakley called a meeting of key aides and a consensus emerged: Contrary to what the Administration was saying, the case tying Al Shifa to Mr. bin Laden or to chemical weapons was weak. [5] The Chairman of El Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries, who is critical of the Sudanese government, more recently told reporters, I had inventories of every chemical and records of every employee’s history. There were no such [nerve gas] chemicals being made here. [6]

Nonetheless, Clinton’s Secretary of Defense William Cohen testified to the 9/11 Commission in 2004, characterizing Al Shifa as a WMD-related facility , which played a chemical weapons role such as to pose a risk that it, with the help of the Iraqi chemical weapons program connections he also testified to, might help Al Qaeda get chemical weapons technology.[7]

Sudan has since invited the U.S. to conduct chemical tests at the site for evidence to support its claim that the plant might have been a chemical weapons factory; so far, the U.S. has refused the invitation to investigate. Nevertheless, the U.S. has refused to officially apologize for the attacks, suggesting that some privately still suspect that chemical weapons activity existed there.[3]

The Khartoum attack was noted for its outstanding precision, as successive missiles all but leveled the Al-Shifa works with minimal damage to surrounding areas, although one person was killed and ten wounded in the attack.

Directly after the strike the Sudanese government demanded that the Security Council conduct an investigation of the site to determine if it had been used to produce chemical weapons or precursors. Such an investigation was from the start opposed by the US. Nor has USA ever let an independent laboratory analyze the sample allegedly containing EMPTA. Michael Barletta concludes that there is no evidence the al-Shifa factory was ever involved in production of chemical weapons, and it is known that many of the initial US allegations were wrong.[1]

Consequences

Noam Chomsky has argued that the bombing of Al-Shifa was a horrendous crime committed by the United States Government that resulted in the deaths of several hundreds of thousands of Sudanese people from treatable diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis because they were deprived of medicines manufactured at the plant. Insofar as such consequences ensued, we may compare the crime in Sudan to the assassination of Lumumba, which helped plunge the Congo into decades of slaughter, still continuing, or the overthrow of the democratic government of Guatemala in 1954, which led to 40 years of hideous atrocities; and all too many others like it. [8]

Germany’s ambassador to Sudan from 1996 to 2000, Werner Daum, wrote an article in which he called several tens of thousands of deaths of Sudanese civilians caused by a medicine shortage a reasonable guess .[9] The regional director of the Near East Foundation, who had field experience in the Sudan, published in the Boston Globe another article with the same estimate.

These estimates were disputed by Keith Windschuttle and by Leo Casey, who said the figures were fabricated out of whole cloth .[10][11] Windschuttle claimed that Daum had done no research into the matter and that the reports of the Sudanese operations of the several Western aid agencies, including Oxfam, Médecins sans Frontières, and Norwegian People’s Aid, who have been operating in this region for decades, will not find any evidence of an unusual increase in the death toll at the time.
The factory was in fact a principal source of Sudan’s anti-malaria and veterinary drugs.[12] Human Rights Watch reported that the bombing had the unintended effect of stopping relief efforts aimed at supplying food to areas of Sudan gripped by famine caused by that country’s ongoing civil war. Many of these agencies had been wholly or partially manned by Americans who subsequently evacuated the country out of fear of retaliation spurred by negative responses by the Sudanese government. A letter by that agency to President Clinton stated many relief efforts have been postponed indefinitely, including a crucial one run by the U.S.-based International Rescue Committee where more than fifty southerners are dying daily .[13]

Criticism

Outspoken Clinton critic Christopher Hitchens wrote that the factory could not have been folded like a tent and spirited away in a day or so. And the United States has diplomatic relations with Sudan. … Well then, what was the hurry? … There is really only one possible answer to that question. Clinton needed to look ‘presidential’ for a day. [14]

The 9/11 Commission Report evaluated such so-called Wag the Dog theories (the strikes being motivated to deflect attention from domestic, political troubles), and found no reason to believe them, nor disbelieve the testimony and assertions of former President Clinton, former Vice President Gore, CIA Chief Tenet, nor former security advisors Berger and Clarke that the destruction of Al Shifa was still, as of 2004, a justifible national security target. Page 118

The U.S. Justice Department, under President George W. Bush, produced an alleged al-Qaeda defector as a witness on February 13, 2001, in its ongoing case against Osama Bin Laden. The witness, Jamal Ahmad al-Fadl, testified that Al Qaeda operatives he was involved with had been engaged in manufacturing chemical weapons in Khartoum, Sudan, around 1993 or 1994. Page 524

According to The Guardian, The factory’s owner, Salah Idris, vigorously denied that he or the factory had any link with such weapons or any terrorist group. He is now suing the US government for £35 million after hiring experts to show that the plant made only medicines. Despite growing support for Idris’s case in the US and Britain, Washington refuses to retract any of its claims and is contesting the lawsuit. [15]

The Sudanese government wants the plant preserved in its destroyed condition as a reminder of the American attack and also offered an open door to the U.S. for chemical testing at the site, however, the U.S. refused the invitation. Sudan has asked the U.S. for an apology for the attack but the U.S. has refused on the grounds it has not ruled out the possibility the plant had some connection to chemical weapons development. [1]

The bombing of the al-Shifa factory resurfaced in the news in April, 2006, due to the firing of former CIA analyst Mary O’Neil McCarthy. McCarthy was against the bombing of the factory in 1998, and had written a formal letter of protest to President Clinton. According to former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer, she had voiced doubts that the factory had ties to al Qaeda or was producing chemical weapons. The New York Times reported: In the case of the Al Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan, her concerns may have been well-founded. Sudanese officials and the plant’s owner denied any connection to Al Qaeda. In the aftermath of the attack, the internal White House debate over whether the intelligence reports about the plant were accurate spilled into the press. Eventually, Clinton administration officials conceded that the hardest evidence used to justify striking the plant was a single soil sample that seemed to indicate the presence of a chemical used in making VX gas. [16]

Responsibility

Thomas Joscelyn quotes Daniel Benjamin, a former NSC staffer: The report of the 9/11 Commission notes that the National Security staff reviewed the intelligence in April 2000 and concluded that the CIA’s assessment of its intelligence on bin Laden and al-Shifa had been valid; the memo to Clinton on this was cosigned by Richard Clarke and Mary McCarthy, the NSC senior director for intelligence programs, who opposed the bombing of al-Shifa in 1998. The report also notes that in their testimony before the commission, Al Gore, Sandy Berger, George Tenet, and Richard Clarke all stood by the decision to bomb al-Shifa. [2]

Former Secretary of Defense Cohen defended, in his testimony to the 9/11 Commission in 2004, along with other cited Clinton security cabinet members in their separate 9/11 Commission testimony, the decision to destroy Al Shifa.: At the time, the intelligence community at the highest level repeatedly assured us that it never gets better than this in terms of confidence in an intelligence conclusion regarding a hard target. There was a good reason for this confidence, including multiple, reinforcing elements of information ranging from links that the organization that built the facility had both with Bin Laden and with the leadership of the Iraqi chemical weapons program; extraordinary security when the facility was constructed; physical evidence from the site; and other information from HUMINT and technical sources. Given what we knew regarding terrorists’ interest in acquiring and using chemical weapons against Americans, and given the intelligence assessment provided us regarding the al-Shifa facility, I continue to believe that destroying it was the right decision. Page 14

References

1. ^ a b Barletta, Michael (Fall 1998). Chemical Weapons in the Sudan: Allegations and Evidence (PDF). The Nonproliferation Review: 115-136. http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/npr/vol06/61/barlet61.pdf.
2. ^ Noah, Timothy (March 31, 2004). Khartoum Revisited, Part 2 . Slate. http://slate.msn.com/id/2098102/.
3. ^ a b Lacey, Marc (October 20, 2005). Look at the Place Sudan Says, ‘Say Sorry,’ but U.S. Won’t . The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/20/international/africa/20khartoum.html.
4. ^ U.S. claims more evidence linking Sudanese plant to chemical weapons . CNN. September 1, 1998. http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/africa/9809/01/sudan.plant/.
5. ^ Risen, James (October 27, 1999). To Bomb Sudan Plant, or Not: A Year Later, Debates Rankle (archived). The New York Times (Cornell University). http://web.archive.org/web/20000831005711/http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/sudbous.htm.
6. ^ McLaughlin, Abraham (January 26, 2004). Sudan shifts from pariah to partner . The Christian Science Monitor. http://www.christiansciencemonitor.com/2004/0126/p01s05-woaf.html.
7. ^ Cohen, William S. (March 23, 2004). Statement to The National Commission On Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (PDF). http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/hearing8/cohen_statement.pdf.
8. ^ Chomsky, Noam. 9-11 , Seven Stories Pres, 2001
9. ^ Daum, Werner. Universalism and the West , The Future of War, Vol. 23, Summer 2001
10. ^ A Rejoinder to Chomsky’s Reply to Casey by Leo Casey
11. ^ Second Reply to Casey by Noam Chomsky Zmag, October 2001
12. ^ The CBW Conventions Bulletin December 1998
13. ^ Letter to Clinton Urges Sudan Factory Inspection Human Rights Watch, September 15, 1998
14. ^ They bomb pharmacies, don’t they? , Salon.com
15. ^ Antony Barnett and Conal Walsh, ‘Terror’ link TVs guard UK, The Guardian (14 October 2001).
16. ^ David S. Cloud, Colleagues Say C.I.A. Analyst Played by the Rules, New York Times (23 April 2006).

External links

* A series of pictures of the Al-Shifa factory
* Monterey Institute of International Studies links to related sites
* Chemical Weapons in the Sudan. Allegations and Evidence
* The CIA in Khartoum by John Ryle – Reply by Gary Wills New York Review of Books
* The New McCarthyism
* US Terrorism in Sudan The Bombing of Al-Shifa and its Strategic Role in U.S.-Sudan Relations

Coordinates: 15E38?45?N 32E33?41?E? / ?15.64583EN 32.56139EE? / 15.64583; 32.56139
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Shifa_pharmaceutical_factory
Categories: History of Sudan | Clinton administration controversies | Khartoum | Al-Qaeda | Chemical warfare

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Shifa_pharmaceutical_factory

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Operation CHASE
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Operation CHASE (Cut Holes and Sink ‘Em) was a United States Department of Defense program that involved the disposal of unwanted munitions at sea from May 1964 into the early 1970s.[1]

The disposal program involved loading old munitions onto ships which were then slated to be scuttled once they were up to 250 miles off shore.[2][3] While most of the sinkings involved ships loaded with conventional weapons there were four which involved chemical weapons.[2] The chemical weapons disposal site was a three mile (5 km) area of the Atlantic Ocean between the coast of the U.S. state of Florida and the Bahamas.[4] The CHASE program was predated by United States Army disposal of 8000 tons of mustard and lewisite chemical warfare gas aboard the scuttled SS William C. Ralston in April 1958.[1][5] These ships were sunk by having Explosive Ordnance Demolition (EOD) teams open sea cocks on the ship after arrival at the disposal point.[1] The typical Liberty ship sank about three hours after the sea cocks were opened.[1]

Contents

* 1 Operations
o 1.1 CHASE 1
o 1.2 CHASE 2
o 1.3 CHASE 3
o 1.4 CHASE 4
o 1.5 CHASE 5
o 1.6 CHASE 6
o 1.7 CHASE 7
o 1.8 CHASE 8
o 1.9 CHASE 9
o 1.10 CHASE 10
o 1.11 CHASE 11
o 1.12 CHASE 12
* 2 Aftermath
* 3 See also
* 4 References

Operations
CHASE 1

The mothballed C-3 Liberty ship John F. Shafroth was taken from the National Defense Reserve Fleet at Suisun Bay and towed to the Concord Naval Weapons Station for stripping and loading.[1] A major fraction of the munitions in CHASE 1 was Bofors 40 mm gun ammunition from the Naval Ammunition Depot at Hastings, Nebraska.[1] CHASE 1 also included bombs, torpedo warheads, Naval mines, cartridges, projectiles, fuzes, detonators, boosters, overage UGM-27 Polaris motors, and a quantity of contaminated cake mix an Army court had ordered dumped at sea.[1] Shafroth was sunk 47 miles off San Francisco on 23 July 1964 with 9799 tons of munitions.[1]

CHASE 2

Village was loaded with 7348 short tons of munitions at the Naval Weapons Station Earle and towed to a deep-water dump site on 17 September 1964.[1] There were three large and unexpected detonations five minutes after Village slipped beneath the surface.[1] An oil slick and some debris appeared on the surface.[1] The explosion registered on seismic equipment all over the world.[1] Inquiries were received regarding seismic activity off the east coast of the United States, and the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) expressed interest in measuring the differences between seismic shocks and underwater explosive detonations to detect underwater nuclear detonations then banned by treaty.[1]

CHASE 3

Coastal Mariner was loaded with 4040 short tons of munitions at the Naval Weapons Station Earle.[1] The munitions included 512 tons of actual explosives.[1] Four SOFAR bombs were packed in the explosives cargo hold with booster charges of 500 pounds of TNT to detonate the cargo at a depth of 1000 feet (300 meters). The United States Coast Guard issued a notice to mariners and the United States Department of Fish and Wildlife and the United States Bureau of Commercial Fisheries sent observers.[1] The explosives detonated seventeen seconds after Coastal Mariner slipped below the surface on 14 July 1965.[1] The detonation created a 600-foot (200 meter) water spout, but was not deep enough to be recorded on seismic instruments.[1]

CHASE 4

Santiago Iglesias was loaded with 8715 tons of munitions at the Naval Weapons Station Earle, rigged for detonation at 1000 feet (300 meters), and detonated 31 seconds after sinking on 16 September 1965.[1]

CHASE 5

Isaac Van Zandt was loaded with 8000 tons of munitions (including 400 tons of high explosives) at the Naval Base Kitsap and rigged for detonation at 4000 feet (1.2 kilometers).[1] On 23 May 1966 the tow cable parted en route to the planned disposal area.[1] Navy tugs USS Tatnuck (ATA-195) and USS Koka (ATA-185) recovered the tow within six hours, but the location of sinking was changed by the delay.[1]

CHASE 6

Horace Greeley was loaded at the Naval Weapons Station Earle, rigged for detonation at 4000 feet (1.2 kilometers), and detonated on 28 July 1966.[1]

CHASE 7

Michael J. Monahan was loaded with overage UGM-27 Polaris motors at the Naval Weapons Station Charleston and sunk without detonation on 30 April 1967.[1]

CHASE 8

The first chemical weapons disposal via the program was in 1967 and designated CHASE 8. CHASE 8 disposed of mustard gas and GB-filled M-55 rockets.

CHASE 9

Eric C. Gibson was sunk on 15 June 1967.[1]

CHASE 10

CHASE 10 dumped 3,000 tons of United States Army nerve agent filled rockets encased in concrete vaults.[2] Public controversy delayed CHASE 10 disposal until August 1970. Public awareness of operation CHASE 10 was increased by mass media reporting following delivery of information from the Pentagon to the office of U.S. Representative Richard McCarthy in 1969.[4] Both American television and print media followed the story with heavy coverage. In 1970, 58 separate reports were aired on the three major network news programs on NBC, ABC and CBS concerning Operation CHASE. Similarly, The New York Times included Operation CHASE coverage in 42 separate issues during 1970, 21 of those in the month of August.[4]

CHASE 11

CHASE 11 occurred in June 1968 and disposed of United States Army GB and VX, all sealed in tin containers.

CHASE 12

CHASE 12, in August 1968, again disposed of United States Army mustard agent and was numerically (although not chronologically) the final mission to dispose of chemical weapons.

Aftermath

Operation CHASE was exposed to the public during a time when the Army was under increasing public criticism, especially the Army’s Chemical Corps.[3] CHASE was one of the incidents which led to the near-disbanding of the Chemical Corps in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Concerns were raised over the programs effect on the ocean environment as well as the risk of chemical weapons washing up on shore.[3] The concerns led to the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act in 1972, which prohibited future such missions.[2]

See also

* Dugway sheep incident

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Kurak, Steve Operation Chase United States Naval Institute Proceedings September 1967 pp. 40-46
2. ^ a b c d Pike, John. Operation CHASE , 27 April 2005, Globalsecurity.org. Retrieved 26 November 2007.
3. ^ a b c Mauroni, Al. The US Army Chemical Corps: Past, Present, and Future , Army Historical Founation. Retrieved 26 November 2007.
4. ^ a b c Wagner, Travis. Hazardous Waste: Evolution of a National Environmental Problem , (Project Muse), Journal of Policy History, 16.4 (2004) pp. 306-331. Retrieved 26 November 2007.
5. ^ Kraft, James C. The Last Triple Expander United States Naval Institute Proceedings February 1977 p. 67

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_CHASE
Categories: Non-combat military operations involving the United States | Chemical weapons demilitarization | Ocean pollution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_CHASE

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Operation Geranium
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Operation Geranium was a U.S. Army mission that dumped more than 3,000 tons of the chemical agent lewisite into the ocean off the Florida coast in 1948.

Contents
* 1 Operation
* 2 Dumping
* 3 See also
* 4 References
* 5 External links

Operation

Operation Geranium occurred from 15 – 20 December 1948[1] and involved the dumping of approximately 3,150 tons of stockpiled lewisite into the Atlantic Ocean.[2][3][1] Geranium was so called because lewisite has an odor reminiscent of geraniums.[2][3] The materials dumped consisted of two types of bulk container, 60 were of the M14 variety, and another 3,700 bulk containers were dumped as well.[1] The lewisite was shipped to Charleston from the Gulf Chemical Warfare Depot.[2][3] The lewisite was then loaded aboard a World War II merchant ship, the SS Joshua Alexander.[3] The lewisite was then dumped, at sea, 300 miles off the coast of Florida.[1]

Dumping

Sea dumping was used by the U.S. Army to dispose of World War II lewisite stocks prior to Geranium.[3] One such dumping operation was reported on by The New York Times in 1946, 10,000 tons of lewisite was dumped about 160 miles off the Charleston, South Carolina coast.[2] Before Operation Geranium, however, lewisite dumping was mostly accomplished by simply dropping loose munitions overboard.[3] In this operation, the Army loaded the merchant hulk with the lewisite containers, sailed the vessel out to sea and then scuttled the ship with the muntions aboard.[3] Most of the 20,000 tons of lewisite produced during World War II by the U.S. was disposed of by dumping at sea.[2] This method of operation and disposal was not used again for some time, though the Army did employ it again.[3]

See also

* Operation CHASE

References

1. ^ a b c d Brankowitz, William R. Summary of Some Chemical Munitions Sea Dumps by the United States , Meeting notes, 30 January 1989, p. 38, accessed 7 January 2009.
2. ^ a b c d e Vilensky, Joel A. Dew of Death: The Story of Lewisite, America’s World War I Weapon of Mass Destruction. (Google Books), Indiana University Press, 2005, p. 109, (ISBN 0253346126).
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Brankowitz, William R. Chemical Weapons Movement History Compilation , p. 9 (p. 13 in PDF), Office of the Program Manager for Chemical Munitions (Demilitarization and Binary) (Provisional), Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, 27 April 1987, accessed 7 January 2009.

External links

* Map of significant U.S. chemical agent dumps (Operation Geranium marked at F1)

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Geranium
Categories: Chemical weapons demilitarization | Non-combat military operations involving the United States | Ocean pollution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Geranium

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Granite Peak Installation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Granite Peak Installation (GPI), also known as Granite Peak Range, was a U.S. biological weapons testing facility located on 250 square miles (650 km2) of Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. GPI was a sub-installation of Dugway but had its own facilities, including utilities. Established in 1943, GPI was deactivated with the end of World War II.

Contents

* 1 History
* 2 Mission
o 2.1 Overview
o 2.2 Testing
* 3 Facilities
* 4 See also
* 5 Notes
* 6 References

History

In October 1943, because of the limitations of a 2,000-acre (8.1 km2) site at Horn Island off the coast Mississippi a biological weapons testing site was established at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah.[1][2] Known as the Granite Peak Installation, the site was activated as the U.S. military’s principal bio-weapons testing site beginning in June 1944.[2][3][1] Construction on the massive facilities required by GPI began on July 10, 1944 and continued for seven months, finally ending on January 30, 1945.[2] The total cost for the development and construction of GPI was around $1.3 million.[4] When WWII ended in 1945 GPI was deactivated and closed.[5]

Mission
Overview

GPI was the U.S. bio-weapons program’s main testing site. Granite Peak was a sub-installation of Dugway Proving Ground and many of GPI’s administrative task were overseen by the post commander at Dugway.[1] Personnel stationed at the main Dugway grounds cooperated with tests at GPI. For example, air missions were flown by Dugway detachments, and weather forecast data was also provided by personnel at Dugway.[1] Despite the assistance from Dugway, GPI maintained control over all technical aspects of its operations and testing.[1] GPI was overseen by the Army Special Projects Division.[6]

Testing

One weapon tested was a 91 pound bomb containing vegetable killer acid , known as VKA (2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid)[7][8] Testing of other munitions continued from 1943-1945, including tests using the causal agent for anthrax.[5] The M33 cluster bomb was used in a series of tests from August-October 1952 at GPI.[9] The Army Chemical Corps exposed over 11,000 guinea pigs to Brucella suis via air-dropped M33s.[9] The guinea pig trials caused one Chemical Corps general to remark, Now we know what to do if we ever go to war against guinea pigs [9]

Facilities

GPI was a 250-square-mile (650 km2) area of Dugway that was located 30 miles (48 km) from the nearest active area, known as Dog Area .[10] Because of this isolation the installation developed many of its own facilities, separate from the main facilities at Dugway.[10] GPI had its own utilities, laboratories, living quarters and medical facility.[10] By 1985 only two structures remained extant from the Granite Peak Installation, a pump house and an underground igloo storage building .[10]

Transportation resources at GPI included an airplane landing strip and 22 miles (35 km) of surfaced roads.[2] Utilities at the site included, sewer and septic systems, power plants, and delivery systems for electricity, water and steam.[2] The base was much larger than the BW site at Horn Island.[2]

See also

* Fort Detrick
* Fort Terry
* Horn Island Testing Station
* Granite Peak

Notes

1. ^ a b c d e Pike, John E. (webmaster). Granite Peak Range , globalsecurity.org, April 26, 2005, accessed January 13, 2009.
2. ^ a b c d e f Harris, Sheldon H. Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare 1932-45 and the American Cover-Up, (Google Books), Routledge, 1994, pp. 155-56, (ISBN 0415091055).
3. ^ Whitby, Simon M. Biological Warfare Against Crops, (Google Books), Macmillan, 2002, pp. 73-74, (ISBN 0333920856).
4. ^ Regis, Ed. The Biology of Doom, p. 95.
5. ^ a b Isla, Nicolas. Transparency in past offensive biological weapon programmes: An analysis of Confidence Building Measure Form F 1992-2003 , Hamburg Center for Biological Arms Control, Occasional Paper No. 1, June 2006, p. 26, accessed January 13, 2009.
6. ^ Guillemin, Jeanne. Biological Weapons: From the Invention of State-sponsored Programs to Contemporary Bioterrorism, (Google Books), Columbia University Press, 2005, pp. 63-65, (ISBN 0231129424).
7. ^ Smart, Jeffery K. Medical Aspects of Chemical and Biological Warfare: Chapter 2 – History of Chemical and Biological Warfare: An American Perspective, (PDF: p. 44 – p. 36 in PDF), Borden Institute, Textbooks of Military Medicine, PDF via Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base, accessed December 28, 2008.
8. ^ Regis, Ed. The Biology of Doom, pp. 140-41.
9. ^ a b c Regis, Ed. The Biology of Doom, pp. 143-56.
10. ^ a b c d Buchanan, David G. and Johnson John P. Dugway Proving Ground – Written and Historical Narrative , Historic American Engineering Record, Library of Congress, HAER #: UT-35, 1984, accessed January 13, 2009.

References

* Regis, Ed. The Biology of Doom: The History of America’s Secret Germ Warfare Project, (Google Books), Macmillan, 2000, (ISBN 080505765X).

v • d • e
United States biological weapons program
Weaponized agents
Anthrax A Botulism A Brucellosis A Q fever A Staphylococcal Enterotoxin B A Rice blast A Tularemia A VEE A Wheat stem rust
Researched agents
AHF A BHF A Bird flu A CHIKV A Dengue fever A EEE A Glanders A Hantavirus A Lassa fever A Melioidosis A Newcastle disease A Plague A Potato blight A Psittacosis A Ricin A RVF A Rinderpest A Smallpox A Typhus A WEE A Yellow fever
Weapons
E120 bomblet A E133 cluster bomb A E14 munition A E23 munition A E48 particulate bomb A E61 bomb A E77 balloon bomb A E86 cluster bomb A E96 cluster bomb A Flettner rotor bomblet A M114 bomb A M115 bomb A M143 bomblet A M33 cluster bomb
Operations and testing
Edgewood Arsenal experiments A Operation Big Buzz A Operation Big Itch A Operation Dark Winter A Operation Dew A Operation Drop Kick A Operation LAC A Operation May Day A Operation Polka Dot A Operation Whitecoat A Project 112 A Project Bacchus A Project Clear Vision A Project Jefferson
Facilities
U.S. Army Biological Warfare Labs A Building 101 A Building 257 A Building 470 A Deseret Test Center A Dugway Proving Ground A Edgewood Arsenal A Fort Detrick A Fort Douglas A Fort Terry A Granite Peak Installation A Horn Island Testing Station A One-Million-Liter Test Sphere A Pine Bluff Arsenal A Rocky Mountain Arsenal A Vigo Ordnance Plant
Related topics
Biological agent A Biological warfare A Entomological warfare A List of topics A U.S. bio-weapons ban A War Bureau of Consultants

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granite_Peak_Installation
Categories: Biological warfare facilities | Military in Utah | Former United States Army research facilities

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granite_Peak_Installation

***

Operation LAC
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Operation LAC (Large Area Coverage), was a U.S. Army Chemical Corps operation which dispersed microscopic zinc cadmium sulfide (ZnCdS) particles over much of the United States. The purpose was to determine the dispersion and geographic range of biological or chemical agents.

Contents

* 1 Earlier tests
* 2 Operation
* 3 Specific tests
* 4 Scope
* 5 Risks and issues
* 6 See also
* 7 References
* 8 Further reading

Earlier tests

There were tests that occurred prior to the first spraying affiliated with Operation LAC. The Army admitted to spraying in Minnesota locations from 1953 into the mid-1960s.[1]

Operation

Operation LAC was undertaken in 1957 and 1958 by the U.S. Army Chemical Corps.[2] Principally, the operation involved spraying large areas with zinc cadmium sulfide.[1] The U.S. Air Force loaned the Army a C-119, Flying Boxcar , and it was used to disperse zinc cadmium sulfide by the ton in the atmosphere over the United States.[3] The first test occurred on December 2, 1957 along a path from South Dakota to International Falls, Minnesota.[4]

The tests were designed to determine the dispersion and geographic range of biological or chemical agents.[3] Stations on the ground tracked the fluorescent zinc cadmium sulfide particles.[3] During the first test and subsequently, much of the material dispersed ended up being carried by winds into Canada.[4] However, as was the case in the first test, particles were detected up to 1,200 miles away from their drop point.[3][4] A typical flight line covering 400 miles would release 5,000 pounds of zinc cadmium sulfide and in fiscal year 1958 around 100 hours were spent in flight for LAC.[4] That flight time included four runs of various lengths, one of which was 1,400 miles.[4]

Specific tests

The December 2, 1957 test was incomplete due to a mass of cold air coming down from Canada.[4] It carried the particles from their drop point and then took a turn northeast, taking most of the particles into Canada with it. Military operators considered the test a partial success because some of the particles were detected 1,200 miles away, at a station in New York state.[4] A February 1958 test at Dugway Proving Ground ended similarly. Another Canadian air mass swept through and carried the particles into the Gulf of Mexico.[4] Two other tests, one along a path from Toledo, Ohio to Abilene, Texas, and another from Detroit, to Springfield, Illinois, to Goodland, Kansas, showed that agents dispersed through this aerial method could achieve widespread coverage when particles were detected on both sides of the flight paths.[4]

Scope
According to Leonard A. Cole, an Army Chemical Corps document titled Summary of Major Events and Problems (1958) described the scope of Operation LAC. Cole stated that the document outlined that the tests were the largest ever undertaken by the Chemical Corps and that the test area stretched from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean, and from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.[4] Other sources describe the scope of LAC varyingly, examples include, Midwestern United States ,[3] and the states east of the Rockies .[1] Specific locations are mentioned as well. Some of those include: a path from South Dakota to Minneapolis, Minnesota,[2]Dugway Proving Ground, Corpus Christi, Texas, north-central Texas, and the San Francisco Bay area.[1]

Risks and issues

Though anecdotal evidence[1][5] exists of ZnCdS having adverse health effects as a result of LAC, a 1997 report refuted this. The U.S. National Research Council stated, in part, After an exhaustive, independent review requested by Congress, we have found no evidence that exposure to zinc cadmium sulfide at these levels could cause people to become sick. [6] Still, the use of ZnCdS remains controversial and critics such as Cole have accused the Army of literally using the country as an experimental laboratory .[7]

See also

* Operation Dew

References

1. ^ a b c d e LeBaron, Wayne. America’s Nuclear Legacy, (Google Books), Nova Publishers, 1998, p. 83–84, (ISBN 1560725567).
2. ^ a b Guillemin, Jeanne. Biological Weapons: From the Invention of State-Sponsored Programs to Contemporary Bioterrorism, (Google Books), Columbia University Press, 2005, p. 108, (ISBN 0231129424).
3. ^ a b c d e Novick, Lloyd F. and Marr, John S. Public Health Issues Disaster Preparedness: Focus on Bioterrorism, (Google Books), Jones & Bartlett Publishers, 2003, p. 89, (ISBN 0763725005).
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Cole, Leonard A., The Eleventh Plague, (Google Books), Macmillan, 2002, pp. 19–23, (ISBN 0805072144).
5. ^ Carlton, Jim. Years Ago, The Military Sprayed Germs on U.S. Cities , Wall Street Journal, October 22, 2001, via American Patriot Friends Network, accessed November 13, 2008.
6. ^ Leary, Warren E. Secret Army Chemical Tests Did Not Harm Health, Report Says, The New York Times, May 15, 1997, accessed November 13, 2008.
7. ^ Moreno, Jonathan D. Undue Risk: Secret State Experiments on Humans, (Google Books), Routledge, 2001, p. 235, (ISBN 0415928354).

Further reading

* Subcommittee on Zinc Cadmium Sulfide, U.S. National Research Council, Toxicologic Assessment of the Army’s Zinc Cadmium Sulfide Dispersion, (Google Books), National Academies Press, 1997, (ISBN 0309057833).

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_LAC
Categories: Non-combat military operations involving the United States | Biological warfare | Chemical warfare | Human experimentation in the United States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_LAC

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Category:Human experimentation in the United States
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pages in category Human experimentation in the United States
The following 33 pages are in this category, out of 33 total. This list may not reflect recent changes (learn more).
A

* Addiction Research Center

* Operation Big Buzz
* Harold Blauer
* Peter Buxtun

* Henry Cotton (doctor)

* Operation Dew

* Edgewood Arsenal experiments
F

* Walter E. Fernald State School

* Hofling hospital experiment
* Human radiation experiments

* Wendell Johnson

* Operation LAC
* Jesse William Lazear

* Clara Maass
* Madhouse: A Tragic Tale of Megalomania and Modern Medicine
* Operation May Day
* Medical Apartheid
* Milgram experiment
* Project MKULTRA

* Oklahoma City sonic boom tests
* Operation Top Hat
* David Orlikow

* The Plutonium Files
* Project 112
* Project SHAD

* Walter Reed

S
* Eugene Saenger
* Richard Seed
* Stanford prison experiment
* Stateville Penitentiary Malaria Study

* Tuskegee syphilis experiment

* Operation Whitecoat
* Willowbrook State School

Categories: Human experimentation by country | Torture in the United States | Human rights in the United States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Human_experimentation_in_the_United_States

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Addiction Research Center
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Addiction Research Center is an unprecedented center of addiction research that was founded in 1948. It was originally based in Lexington, Kentucky, housed on the rural campus of a prison-hospital called Narco, and run jointly with the Federal Bureau of Prisons.[1] It became part of the National Institute on Drug Abuse in 1974. It was relocated to Baltimore in 1979.[2]

References

1. ^ http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/112579635/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
2. ^ History of the Addiction Research Center

Stub icon This article about an organization in the United States is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
v • d • e
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction_Research_Center
Categories: Addiction and substance abuse organizations | LSD | Human experimentation in the United States | United States organization stubs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction_Research_Center

***
Operation Big Buzz
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Operation Big Buzz was a U.S. military entomological warfare field test conducted in the U.S. state of Georgia in 1955. The tests involved dispersing over 300,000 yellow fever mosquitoes from aircraft and through ground dispersal methods.

Contents

* 1 Operation
* 2 Results
* 3 See also
* 4 References

Operation

Operation Big Buzz occurred in May 1955 in the U.S. State of Georgia. The operation was a field test designed to determine the feasibility of producing, storing, loading into munitions, and dispersing from aircraft the yellow fever mosquito (Aedes aegypti).[1] The second goal of the operation was to determine whether the mosquitoes would survive their dispersion and seek meals on the ground.[1] Around 330,000 uninfected mosquitoes were dropped from aircraft in E14 bombs and dispersed from the ground. In total about one million female mosquitoes were bred for the testing,[2] remaining mosquitoes were used in munitions loading and storage tests.[1] Those mosquitoes that were air-dispersed were dropped from airplanes 91 meters above the ground, spreading out on their own and due to the wind.[1]

Results

Mosquitoes were collected as far away as 610 meters from the release site.[1] They were also active in seeking blood meals from humans and guinea pigs.[1]

See also

* Operation Big Itch
* Operation Drop Kick
* Operation May Day

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Rose, William H. An Evaluation of Entomological Warfare as as Potential Danger to the United States and European NATO Nations , U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command, Dugway Proving Ground, March 1981, via thesmokinggun.com, accessed December 27, 2008.
2. ^ Novick, Lloyd and Marr, John S. Public Health Issues Disaster Preparedness, (Google Books), Jones & Bartlett Publishers, 2001, p. 89, (ISBN 0763725005).

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Big_Buzz
Categories: Non-combat military operations involving the United States | Biological warfare | Human experimentation in the United States | Military in Georgia (U.S. state)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Big_Buzz

***

Operation Big Itch
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Operation Big Itch was a U.S. entomological warfare field test using uninfected fleas to determine their coverage and survivability as a vector for biological agents.[1] The tests were conducted at Dugway Proving Ground in 1954.

Contents

* 1 Operation
* 2 Results
* 3 See also
* 4 Notes

Operation

Operation Big Itch was a September 1954 series of tests at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah.[2][3] The tests were designed to determine coverage patterns and survivability of the tropical rat flea (Xenopsylla cheopis) for use in biological warfare as disease vector.[3] The fleas used in these trials were not infected by any biological agent.[4] The fleas were loaded into two types of munitions and dropped from the air.[4] The E14 bomb and E23 bomb, which could be clustered into the E86 cluster bomb and E77 bomb, respectively.[3] When the cluster bombs reached 2,000 or 1,000 feet (600 or 300 m) the bomblets would drop via parachute, disseminating their vector.[3]

The E14 was designed to hold 100,000 fleas and the E23 was designed to hold 200,000 fleas but the E23 failed in over half of the preliminary Big Itch tests.[3] E23s malfunctioned during testing and the fleas were released into the aircraft where they bit the pilot, bombadier and an observer.[4] As a result, the remaining Big Itch tests were conducted using only the smaller capacity E14.[3] Guinea pigs were used as test subjects and placed around a 660-yard (600 m) circular grid.[3]

Results

Big Itch proved successful,[3][5] the tests showed that not only could the fleas survive the drop from an airplane but they also soon attached themselves to hosts.[6] The weapon proved able to cover a battalion-sized target area and disrupt operations for up to one day.[3] The one-day limit was due to the activity of the fleas; the air dropped fleas were only active for about 24 hours.[2]

See also

* Operation Big Buzz
* Operation Drop Kick
* Operation May Day

Notes

1. ^ Bubonic plague is an infection of the lymphatic system, usually resulting from the bite of an infected flea.
2. ^ a b Rose, William H. An Evaluation of Entomological Warfare as as Potential Danger to the United States and European NATO Nations , U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command, Dugway Proving Ground, March 1981, via thesmokinggun.com, accessed December 25, 2008.
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Kirby, Reid. Using the flea as weapon , (Web version via findarticles.com), Army Chemical Review, July 2005, accessed December 23, 2008.
4. ^ a b c Croddy, Eric and Wirtz, James J. Weapons of Mass Destruction: An Encyclopedia of Worldwide Policy, Technology, and History, (Google Books), ABC-CLIO, 2005, p. 304, (ISBN 1851094903).
5. ^ Novick, Lloyd and Marr, John S. Public Health Issues Disaster Preparedness, (Google Books), Jones & Bartlett Publishers, 2001, p. 89, (ISBN 0763725005).
6. ^ Leeson, Kate. Biological Weapons: Bioterrorism and the Public Health , Medical Association for the Prevention of War, 2000, p. 12, accessed December 25, 2008.

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Big_Itch
Categories: Biological warfare | Non-combat military operations involving the United States | Military in Utah

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Big_Itch

***

Operation Drop Kick
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Operation Drop Kick[1] was a 1956 U.S. entomological warfare field testing program that deployed Aedes aegypti mosquitoes to carry a biological warfare agent. Operation Drop Kick apparently included a 1956 test in Savannah, Georgia, where uninfected mosquitoes were released in a residential neighborhood and another 1956 test in Avon Park Bombing Range, Florida, where 600,000 mosquitoes were released by plane[2].

The 1964 movie Dr. Strangelove also refers to an Operation Drop Kick [3].

See also

* Operation Big Buzz
* Operation Big Itch
* Operation May Day

References

1. ^ Rose, William H. An Evaluation of Entomological Warfare as as Potential Danger to the United States and European NATO Nations , U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command, Dugway Proving Ground, March 1981, via thesmokinggun.com, accessed December 25, 2008.
2. ^ (1960-01-01)Summary of Major Events and Problems (Reports Control Symbol CSHIS-6). Technical Report United States Army Chemical Corps.
3. ^ Memorable quotes for Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb . http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057012/quotes. Retrieved 2008-12-28.

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Drop_Kick
Categories: Biological warfare | Non-combat military operations involving the United States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Drop_Kick

***

Operation May Day
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Operation May Day was a series of entomological warfare (EW) tests conducted by the U.S. military in Savannah, Georgia in 1956.

Operation

Operation May Day involved a series of EW tests from April to November 1956. The tests were designed to reveal information about the dispersal of yellow fever mosquitoes in an urban area. The mosquitoes were released from ground level in Savannah, Georgia and then recovered using traps baited with dry ice. The operation was detailed in partially declassified U.S. Army report in 1981.[1]

See also

* Operation Big Buzz
* Operation Big Itch
* Operation Drop Kick

References

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_May_Day
Categories: Biological warfare | Human experimentation in the United States | Savannah, Georgia | Non-combat military operations involving the United States | Military in Georgia (U.S. state)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_May_Day

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Harold Blauer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Harold Blauer (1910 – January 8, 1953) was an American tennis player who died as a result of injections of a mescaline derivative (code-named EA-1298) as part of Project MKULTRA, a covert CIA mind-control and chemical interrogation research program, run by the Office of Scientific Intelligence. Blauer had no knowledge of the experiment being performed on him, and after his death the experiment was covered up by the state of New York, U.S. Government, and the CIA for 22 years.[1]

Contents

* 1 Blauer’s treatment
* 2 Death
* 3 Malpractice lawsuit
* 4 Case reopened
* 5 See also
* 6 References

Blauer’s treatment

Blauer was voluntarily admitted to the New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI) in December 1952 to be treated for depression following a divorce. Blauer was then taken from his room and told he would be receiving an injection. He demurred at first, but agreed reluctantly after being told it was a treatment for his depression.[2] After this and the next three injections, Blauer told medical staff that he did not want any more treatment because of the negative reactions he was experiencing. However, he was convinced after each injection to continue treatment after being threatened with commitment to a mental asylum.[3]

In reality, Blauer’s treatment was administered as a part of the top-secret army-funded Project Pelican, a part of Project MKULTRA. It was overseen by Dr. Paul H. Hoch, the director of experimental psychiatry at the NYSPI. Hoch secretly was collaborating with Dr. Amadeo Marrazzi, the chief of clinical research at the Army Chemical Corps. Fort Detrick’s Special Operations Division had made secret contacts with the NYSPI in order to develop biological weapons that could cause a range of effects from minor disablement to longer incapacitation and death. Blauer was unwittingly chosen as a test subject for one of these biological weapons.[4]

Death

Blauer’s fifth injection was 16 times stronger than any of the previous ones. After receiving it, his body stiffened, his eyes rolled, and he frothed at the mouth while his teeth clenched for two hours. Finally, he collapsed in a coma and died. His death certificate cited his death as coronary arteriosclerosis; sudden death after intravenous injection of a mescaline derivative, caused by a preexisting heart condition.[2][3]

Malpractice lawsuit

Blauer’s ex-wife filed a lawsuit for medical malpractice against the state of New York. While conferences between attorneys were taking place between the NYSPI, state of New York, army, and Department of Justice, the army took Blauer’s medical records out of state to avoid discovery and hid them in a safe, despite a court order ordering their production. During the trial, numerous false statements were made by the defense, such as citing preexisting heart conditions as the reason for his death.

The malpractice claim was settled for $18,000, despite New York’s attorney claiming it was worth at least $60,000. $6000 was secretly reimbursed to the state of New York later by the U.S. Government.[3][1]

Case reopened

In August 1975, the U.S. army contacted Blauer’s daughter, Elizabeth Barrett, and told her they had found Blauer’s case file locked in a safe. Barrett reopened the case, filing three consolidated lawsuits. The district court ruled that Blauer’s death was caused by the negligence of the United States, that the drugs given to Blauer had been inadequately tested in lab mice, and that the New York attorney had falsely claimed the drugs were from the Army Medical Corps to give the impression that they were a treatment for depression. On June 4 1987, the court entered a judgment against the United States for $702,044.00.[1]
See also

* Project MKULTRA

References

1. ^ a b c Elizabeth Barrett, Individually and As Administratrix of Theestate of Harold Blauer, Deceased, Plaintiff, v. United States of America, Defendant.united States of America, Third-party Plaintiff-appellee, v. State of New York, Third-party Defendant-appellant . U.S. Court of Appeals. 1988-02-1988. http://cases.justia.com/us-court-of-appeals/F2/853/124/121222/. Retrieved 2009-03-17.
2. ^ a b Gutman, W.E. (2002). The new Frankensteins . The Panama News. http://www.thepanamanews.com/pn/v_08/issue_13/science_02.html. Retrieved 2009-03-17.
3. ^ a b c Standler, Ronald (1999-05-08). Nonconsensual Medical Experiments on Human Beings . http://www.rbs2.com/humres.htm. Retrieved 2009-03-17.
4. ^ Albarelli, H.P.; John Kelly (2001-07-06). New Evidence in Army Scientist’s Death . WorldNet Daily. http://pollarchive.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=23489. Retrieved 2009-03-17.

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Blauer
Categories: 1910 births | 1953 deaths | Human experimentation in the United States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Blauer

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Peter Buxtun
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Buxton media.jpg

Peter Buxtun (sometimes referred to as Peter Buxton) is a former employee of the United States Public Health Service who became known as the whistleblower responsible for ending the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment.

Buxtun, then a 27-year-old social worker and epidemiologist in San Francisco,[1] was hired by the Public Health Service in December 1965[2] to interview patients with sexually transmitted diseases; in the course of his duties, he learned of the Tuskegee Experiment from co-workers. He later said— I didn’t want to believe it. This was the Public Health Service. We didn’t do things like that. [1] In November 1966, he filed an official protest on ethical grounds with the Service’s Division of Venereal Diseases; this was rejected on the grounds that the Experiment was not yet complete. He filed another protest in November 1968; again, his concerns were ruled irrelevant.[3]

In 1972, Buxtun leaked information on the Tuskegee Experiment to Jean Heller of the Washington Star. Heller’s story exposing the Experiment was published on July 25, 1972; the Experiment was terminated shortly thereafter.[4] Buxtun subsequently testified at the ensuing Congressional hearing.

In May 1999, Buxtun attended the launch of a memorial center and public exhibit to the experiment in Tuskegee.[5]

References

1. ^ a b Heller, Jean (July 20, 1997). The legacy of Tuskegee . St Petersburg Times: p. 1D.
2. ^ Rubin, Allen; Babbie, Earl R. (2005). Research Methods for Social Work. Thomson Wadsworth. p. 70. http://books.google.ca/books?id=eAdbEn-yZbcC&pg=PA70&lpg=PA70&dq=%22peter+buxtun%22+syphilis&source=web&ots=k9kE54DMeS&sig=WPZY3SohO7ZNJv6Oq2vC8JOI_58&hl=en#PPA70,M1.
3. ^ Thomas, Stephen B., PhD; Quinn, Sandra Crouse, MEd (November 1991). The Tuskegee Syphilis Study, 1932 to 1972: Implications for HIV Education and AIDS Risk Education Programs in the Black Community . American Journal of Public Health (American Public Health Association) 81 (11): 1498–1505. ISSN 1541-0448. http://minority-health.pitt.edu/archive/00000393/01/The_Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study_1932_to.pdf. Retrieved 2008-03-06.
4. ^ Stryker, Jeff (13 April 1997). Tuskegee’s long arm still touches a nerve . New York Times: p. 4.
5. ^ Center launched as training tool . Associated Press. May 17, 1999.

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Buxtun
Categories: American whistleblowers | Human experimentation in the United States | United States Public Health Service | Polish Americans | Living people

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Buxtun

***

Henry Cotton (doctor)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Henry Andrews Cotton, M.D. (1876–May 1933) was an American psychiatrist and the medical director of New Jersey State Hospital at Trenton (previously named New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum, now known as Trenton Psychiatric Hospital) in Trenton, New Jersey between 1907 and 1930. He embraced the concept of scientific medicine that was emerging among physicians at the turn of the twentieth century, which included a belief that insanity was the result of untreated infections in the body, and to treat them he directed his dental and medical staff to practice surgical bacteriology on the patients.[1]

Contents

* 1 Career
o 1.1 Surgical removal
o 1.2 Exaggerated cure rates and honors
o 1.3 Investigation and controversy
o 1.4 Retirement
* 2 References
* 3 Further reading
* 4 External links

Career

Henry A. Cotton had studied in Europe under Emil Kraepelin and Alois Alzheimer, considered the pioneers of the day, and was a student of Dr. Adolf Meyer of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, who dominated American psychiatry in the early 1900s. Based on the observation that patients with high fever often turn delusional or hallucinating, Meyer introduced the possibility of infections (then viewed as the cutting edge concept of scientific medicine) being a biological cause of behavioral abnormalities, in contrast to eugenic theories which emphasized heredity and to Freud’s theories of childhood traumas. Cotton would become the leading practitioner of the new approach in the United States.

After becoming medical director of Trenton State Hospital at the remarkable age of only 30, Henry A. Cotton began to institute many progressive ideas, such as abolishing mechanical restraints that had created nightmare conditions in asylums for hundreds of years and implementing daily staff meetings to discuss patient care.

Surgical removal

Cotton began to implement the emerging medical theory of infection-based psychological disorders by pulling patients’ teeth, as they were suspected of harboring infections. If this failed to cure a patient, he sought sources of infection in tonsils and sinuses and often a tonsillectomy was recommended as additional treatment. If a cure was not achieved after these procedures, other organs were suspected of harboring infection. Testicles, ovaries, gall bladders, stomachs, spleens, cervixes, and especially colons might be suspected as the focus of infection and removed surgically.[1]

Exaggerated cure rates and honors

This was before even rudimentary scientific methods such as control groups—much less double-blind experiments—existed, statistical methodology for applications in human behavior and medical research did not emerge during the lifetime of Cotton. He could only follow faulty methods to compile data, much of it allowing for projection of anticipated results. He reported wonderful success with his procedures, with cure rates of 85%; this, in conjunction with the feeling at the time that investigating such biological causes was the state of the art of medicine, brought him a great deal of attention, and worldwide praise. He was honored at medical institutions and associations in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe and asked to make presentations about his work and to share information with the others who practiced the same or similar methods. Patients, or their families, begged to be treated at Trenton, and those who could not, demanded that their own doctors treat them with these new wonder cures. The state acknowledged the savings in expenses to taxpayers from the new treatments and cures. In June 1922, the New York Times wrote in a review of Cotton’s published lectures:

At the State Hospital at Trenton, N.J., under the brilliant leadership of the medical director, Dr. Henry A. Cotton, there is on foot the most searching, aggressive, and profound scientific investigation that has yet been made of the whole field of mental and nervous disorders… there is hope, high hope… for the future.

Unfortunately, in an era before antibiotics surgery resulted in a very high rate of postoperative morbidity and mortality, largely from postoperative infection. Among his patients at this time was Margaret Fisher, daughter of wealthy and famed Yale economist Irving Fisher, who believed in the hygienic movement of the period. Diagnosed by physicians in Bloomingdale Asylum as schizophrenic, which was untreatable until the modern development of some pharmaceutical agents, Fisher had his daughter transferred to Trenton, however, because Cotton attributed her condition to a marked retention of fecal matter in the cecal colon with marked enlargement of the colon in this area for which she was subjected to a series of colonic surgeries before dying of a streptococcal infection in 1919. The danger of surgery was recognized by some patients in the institution, who, despite their mental illness, developed a very rational fear of the surgical procedures, some resisting violently as they were forced into the operating theater in complete contradiction of what are now commonly accepted medical ethics. A paternalistic attitude and the permission of the family of seriously insane patients was the basis of intervention at the time.

Differences of professional opinion existed among psychiatrists regarding focal sepsis as a cause of psychosis and not all believed in the benefits of surgical intervention to achieve cures. Meyer, head of the most respected psychiatric clinic and training institution for psychiatrists in the United States, at Johns Hopkins University, accepted the theory. He was encouraged by a like-minded member of the state board of trustees who oversaw Trenton State Hospital to provide an independent professional review of the work of Cotton’s staff. Meyer commissioned another of his former students who practiced psychiatry on his staff at the Phipps Clinic, Dr. Phyllis Greenacre, to critique Cotton’s work. Her study began in the fall of 1924 just after Meyer visited the hospital and privately had expressed concern about the statistical methods being applied to provide an assessment of Cotton’s work. Cotton’s staff made no effort to facilitate the study.

Investigation and controversy

From the outset, Greenacre’s reports were critical, with regard to both the hospital, which she felt was as unwholesome as the typical asylum, and Cotton, whom she found singularly peculiar . She realized that the appearance and behavior of almost all of the psychotic patients was disturbing to her because their teeth had been removed, making it difficult for them to eat or speak. Further reports cast serious doubt on Cotton’s reported results; she found the staff records to be chaotic and the data to be internally contradictory. In 1925 criticism of the hospital reached the New Jersey State Senate, which launched an investigation with testimony from unhappy former patients and employees of the hospital. Countering the criticism, the trustees of the hospital confirmed their confidence in the staff and director, and presented extensive professional praise of the hospital and the procedures followed under the direction of Cotton, whom they considered a pioneer. On September 24, 1925 the New York Times stated that, eminent physicians and surgeons testified that the New Jersey State Hospital for the Insane was the most progressive institution in the world for the care of the insane, and that the newer method of treating the insane by the removal of focal infection placed the institution in a unique position with respect to hospitals for the mentally ill and related accolades given in support of Henry A. Cotton by many professionals and politicians.

Falling ill during the public hearing, some[who?] assert that Cotton suffered a nervous breakdown, diagnosed himself as suffering from several infected teeth, which he promptly had removed, pronounced himself cured, and returned to work. Soon Cotton opened a private hospital in Trenton which did a hugely lucrative business treating mentally ill members of rich families seeking the most modern treatments for their conditions. Meyer reassigned Greenacre without completing her report and resisted her efforts to complete the report. Admitting a shared belief in the possibility that focal sepsis might be the source of mental illness, Meyer never pressed his protege to confront the scientific analysis of the erroneous statistics the hospital staff provided to Cotton, his silence guaranteeing continuance of the practices. Later Cotton would occasionally admit to death rates as high as 30% in his published papers. It appears that the true death rates were closer to 45% and that Cotton never fully recognized the errors his staff made in analyzing his work.

Retirement

In October 1930 Cotton was retired from the state hospital and was appointed medical director emeritus. Although this ended the abdominal surgeries which were so dangerous before the discovery of antibiotics, the hospital continued to adhere to Cotton’s humane treatment guidelines and, to carry out his less risky medical procedures until the late 1950s. Henry A. Cotton continued to direct the staff at Charles Hospital until his death.

In the early 1930s Cotton’s rate of postoperative mortality began to be a matter of professional debate in the state department of institutions by some concerned that he intended to press to resume his position at the state hospital. Another report on Cotton’s work was begun in 1932 by Emil Frankel. He noted that he had seen Greenacre’s report and agreed with it substantially, but his report also failed to be completed.

Henry A. Cotton died suddenly of a heart attack in 1933 and was lauded in the New York Times and the local press, as well as international professional publications, for having been a pioneer seeking a better path for the treatment of the patients in mental hospitals.

References

1. ^ a b Ian Freckelton. Madhouse: A Tragic Tale of Megalomania and Modern Medicine. (Book review), Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2005, pp. 435-438.

Further reading

* Madhouse: A Tragic Tale of Megalomania and Modern Medicine, Andrew Scull, Yale University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-300-10729-3
External links

* Balanced review of Scull’s book on Henry A. Cotton, M.D. by Hugh Freeman, a psychiatrist and former editor of the British Journal of Psychiatry
* Chapter on Trenton’s Charitable Institutions, including Trenton Hospital, from 1929 History book
* One page article on Cotton by Andrew Scull
* History of Trenton Psychiatric Hospital in American Journal of Psychiatry

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cotton_(doctor)
Categories: American psychiatrists | 1876 births | 1933 deaths | New Jersey physicians | Human experimentation in the United States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cotton_(doctor)

***

Operation Dew
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Operation Dew refers to two separate field trials conducted by the United States in the 1950s. The tests were designed to study the behavior of aerosol-released biological agents.

Contents

* 1 General description
* 2 Dew I
* 3 Dew II
* 4 See also
* 5 Notes
* 6 References

General description

Operation Dew took place from 1951-1952 off the southeast coast of the United States, including near Georgia, and North and South Carolina.[1][2] Operation Dew consisted of two sets of trials, Dew I and Dew II.[2] The tests involved the release of 250 pounds (110 kg) of fluorescent particles from a minesweeper off the coast.[1] Operation Dew I was described in a U.S. Army report known as Dugway Special Report 162 , dated August 1, 1952.[2] The purpose of Operation Dew was to study the behavior of aerosol-released biological agents.[1]

Dew I

Operation Dew I consisted of five separate trials from March 26, 1952 until April 21, 1952 that were designed to test the feasibility of maintaining a large aerosol cloud released offshore until it drifted over land, achieving a large area coverage.[2] The tests released zinc cadmium sulfide along a 100-to-150-nautical-mile (190 to 280 km) line approximately 5 to 10 nautical miles (10 to 20 km) off the coast of Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.[2] Two of the trials dispersed clouds of zinc cadmium sulfide over large areas of all three U.S. states. The tests affected over 60,000 square miles (150,000 km²) of populated coastal region in the U.S. southeast.[3] The Dew I releases were from a Navy minesweeper, the USS Tercel.[2]

Dew II

Dew II involved the release of fluorescent particles and Lycopodium spores from an aircraft.[2] Dew II was described in a 1953 Army report which remained classified at the time of a 1997 report by the U.S. National Research Council concerning the U.S. Army’s zinc cadmium sulfide dispersion program of the 1950s.[2]

See also

* Operation LAC

Notes

1. ^ a b c Croddy, Eric, et al. Chemical and Biological Warfare: A Comprehensive Survey for the Concerned Citizen, (Google Books), Springer, 2002, p. 231, (ISBN 0387950761).
2. ^ a b c d e f g h U.S. National Research Council, Subcommittee on Zinc Cadmium Sulfide. Toxicologic Assessment of the Army’s Zinc Cadmium Sulfide Dispersion, (Google Books), National Academies Press, 1997, pp. 44-77, (ISBN 0309057833).
3. ^ Toxicologic Assessment of the Army’s Zinc Cadmium Sulfide Dispersion, p. 74.

References

* U.S. National Research Council, Subcommittee on Zinc Cadmium Sulfide. Toxicologic Assessment of the Army’s Zinc Cadmium Sulfide Dispersion, (Google Books), National Academies Press, 1997,(ISBN 0309057833).

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Dew
Categories: Non-combat military operations involving the United States | Biological warfare | Human experimentation in the United States | 1950s in the United States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Dew

Lycopodium
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lycopodium

Lycopodium annotinum
Scientific classification
Kingdom:     Plantae
Division:     Lycopodiophyta
Class:     Lycopodiopsida
Order:     Lycopodiales
Family:     Lycopodiaceae
Genus:     Lycopodium
Species
see text

Lycopodium is a genus of clubmosses, also known as ground pines, in the family Lycopodiaceae, a family of fern-allies (see Pteridophyta). They are flowerless, vascular, terrestrial or epiphytic plants, with widely-branched, erect, prostrate or creeping stems, with small, simple, needle-like or scale-like leaves that cover the stem and branches thickly. The fertile leaves are arranged in cone-like strobili. Specialized leaves (sporophylls) bear reniform spore-cases (sporangia) in the axils, which contain spores of one kind only. These club-shaped capsules give the genus its name.

Lycopods reproduce sexually by spores. The plant has an underground sexual phase that produces gametes, and this alternates in the life cycle with the spore-producing plant. The prothallium developed from the spore is a subterranean mass of tissue of considerable size and bears both the male and female organs (antheridium and archegonia). However, it is more common that they are distributed vegetatively through above or below ground rhizomes.

There are approximately 950 species[citation needed], with 37 species widely distributed in temperate and tropical climates, though they are confined to mountains in the tropics.

Lycopodium powder

The term Lycopodium is also used to describe the yellowish, powdery spores of certain club mosses, especially Lycopodium clavatum, used in the past in fireworks, photographic flash powder, fingerprint powders, as a covering for pills and explosives. In physics experiments, the powder is also used to make sound-waves in air visible for observation and measurement, and to make a pattern of electrostatic charge visible. For example, Nicéphore Niépce used Lycopodium as fuel for a demonstration model of the first internal combustion engine, the Pyreolophore as early as 1807. Chester Carlson used lycopodium powder in his early experiments to demonstrate xerography.

It is also used as an ice cream stabilizer[citation needed].

Species

* Lycopodium aberdaricum (central and southern Africa)
* Lycopodium alboffii (southernmost South America and the Falkland Islands)
* Lycopodium alticola (southwest China)
* Lycopodium annotinum (Interrupted Clubmoss; circumpolar north temperate)
* Lycopodium assurgens (Brazil (Minas Gerais, Santa Catarina))
* Lycopodium casuarinoides (southeast Asia (Japan to Bhutan and Borneo))
* Lycopodium centrochinense (east Asia (central China to India and the Philippines)
* Lypocodium cernuum creeping club moss (lowland mixed forest) — found along bush margins or disturbed ground; height approximately 400 mm
* Lycopodium clavatum (Stag’s-horn Clubmoss; subcosmopolitan, see separate page for details)
* Lycopodium confertum (southern South America and the Falkland Islands)
* Lycopodium dendroideum (northern North America)
* Lycopodium deuterodensum, tree club moss (eastern Australia, New Caledonia, New Zealand) — has appressed leaves; height approximately 600 mm
* Lycopodium diaphanum (Tristan da Cunha)
* Lycopodium dubium (cold temperate and subarctic Europe and Asia; treated as a synonym of L. annotinum by some authors)
* Lycopodium fastigiatum (southeastern Australia, New Zealand)
* Lycopodium gayanum (south-central Chile and adjacent westernmost Argentina)
* Lycopodium hickeyi (northeastern North America)
* Lycopodium hygrophilum (New Guinea)
* Lycopodium interjectum (southwest China (Sichuan))
* Lycopodium japonicum (eastern Asia (Japan west and south to India and Sri Lanka))
* Lycopodium juniperoideum (northeast Asia (central Siberia southeast to Taiwan))
* Lycopodium jussiaei (northern South America, Caribbean)
* Lycopodium lagopus (circumpolar arctic and subarctic)
* Lypocodium lucidulum, shining club moss (North America) — occurs in wet woods and among rocks; has no distinct strobili; bears its spore capsules at the bases of leaves scattered along the branches
* Lycopodium magellanicum (South and Central America (Andes), southern Atlantic Ocean and southern Indian Ocean islands)
* Lycopodium minchegense (southeast China (Fujian))
* Lycopodium obscurum (northeast North America, northeast Asia)
* Lycopodium paniculatum (southern South America (Andes))
* Lycopodium papuanum (New Guinea)
* Lycopodium pullei (New Guinea)
* Lycopodium scariosum (southeastern Australia, New Zealand, Borneo (Mount Kinabalu))
* Lycopodium selago (uplands of western Europe)
* Lycopodium simulans (southwest China (Yunnan))
* Lycopodium spectabile (Java)
* Lycopodium subarcticum (northeast Siberia)
* Lycopodium taliense (southwest China (Yunnan))
* Lycopodium venustulum (Hawaii, Western Samoa, Society Islands)
* Lycopodium vestitum (northwest South America (Andes))
* Lycopodium volubile, climbing club moss (southwest Pacific Ocean islands (New Zealand north to Java), Australia (Queensland)) — found along bush margins and disturbed ground; has a creeping habit and can climb up vegetation
* Lycopodium zonatum (southeast Tibet)

External links

* Species list (takes a broad view of the genus, including the species here separated in the genus Diphasiastrum)
* Burning Lycopodium Powder: Simulating a Grain Elevator Explosion by Kevin A. Boudreaux

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycopodium
Categories: Lycopodiophyta

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycopodium

***

Edgewood Arsenal experiments
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Edgewood Arsenal experiments (also known as Project 112) are said to be related to or part of CIA mind control programs after World War II, like MKULTRA. Journalist Linda Hunt, citing records from the National Archives, revealed that eight German scientists worked at Edgewood under Project Paperclip: see Secret Agenda: the United States Government, Nazi Scientists and Project Paperclip St. Martin’s Press, 1991; ABC PrimeTime Live, Operation Paperclip, 1991, and hearings before the House Judiciary Committee, 1991. The experiments were performed at the Edgewood Arsenal, northeast of Baltimore, Maryland, and involved the use of hallucinogens such LSD, THC, and BZ, in addition to biological and chemical agents. Experiments on human subjects utilizing such agents goes back to at least World War I. In the mid-1970s, in the wake of many health claims made from exposure to such agents, including psychotropic and hallucinogenic drugs administered in later experiments, Congress began investigations of misuse of such experiments, and inadequate informed consent given by the soldiers and civilians involved.

The Edgewood experiments took place from approximately 1952-1974 at the Bio Medical Laboratory, which is now known as the U. S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense. The volunteer would spend the weekend on-site. They would perform tests and procedures (math, navigation, following orders, memory and interview) while sober. The volunteer would then be dosed by a scientist and perform the same tests. These tests occurred in the building/hospital under the care of doctors and nurses. At times the tests would be taken outside to study the effects while in the field. For example the volunteer would have to guard a check point while under the influence to see what effects certain drugs had on the patient.

A pamphlet produced by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Health Effects from Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Weapons (Oct. 2003), discusses the Edgewood Arsenal Experiments in some detail:

Renewed interest led to renewed human testing by the Department of Defense (DoD), although ultimately on a much smaller scale. Thus, between 1950 and 1975, about 6,720 soldiers took part in experiments involving exposures to 254 different chemicals, conducted at U.S. Army Laboratories at Edgewood Arsenal, MD (NRC 1982, NRC 1984, NAS 1993). Congressional hearings into these experiments in 1974 and 1975 resulted in disclosures, notification of subjects as to the nature of their chemical exposures, and ultimately to compensation for a few families of subjects who had died during the experiments (NAS 3). These experiments were conducted primarily to learn how various agents would affect humans (NRC 1982). Other agencies including the CIA and the Special Operations Division of the Department of the Army were also reportedly involved in these studies (NAS 1993). Only a small number of all the experiments done during this period involved mustard agents or Lewisite. Records indicate that between 1955 and 1965, of the 6,720 soldiers tested, only 147 human subjects underwent exposure to mustard agent at Edgewood (NRC 1982). According to the 1984 NRC review, human experiments at DoD’s Edgewood Arsenal involved about 1,500 subjects who were experimentally exposed to irritant and blister agents including:

* lachrymatory agents, e.g., CN;

* riot control agents, e.g., CS;

* chloropicrin (PS);
* Diphenylaminochlorarsine (DM, Adamsite);

* other ocular and respiratory irritants; and

* mustard agents.

For example, from 1958 to 1973 at least 1,366 human subjects underwent experimental exposure specifically with the riot control agent CS at Edgewood Arsenal (NRC 1984). Of those involved in the experiments:

* 1,073 Subjects were exposed to aerosolized CS;

* 180 Subjects were exposed dermally;

* 82 subjects had both skin applications and aerosol exposures;

and finally

* 31 subjects experienced ocular exposure via direct CS application to their eyes.

Most of these experiments involved tests of protective equipment and of subjects’ ability to perform military tasks during exposure.

The report cites three earlier studies for its data, namely;

* Veterans at Risk: Health Effects of Mustard Gas and Lewisite
* Possible Long-Term Health Effects of Short-Term Exposure to Chemical Agents, Volume 1, Anticholinesterases, and Anticholinergics. (1982). Commission on Life Sciences. The National Academies Press
* Possible Long-Term Health Effects of Short-Term Exposure To Chemical Agents, Volume 2: Cholinesterase Reactivators, Psychochemicals and Irritants and Vesicants (1984) Commission on Life Sciences. The National Academies Press.

The Veterans Affairs pamphlet, written to aid government clinicians in understanding the presence of various symptoms in presenting patients at their clinics and hospitals, also discusses the use of psychoactive drugs on human subjects:

About 260 subjects were experimentally exposed to various psychochemicals including phencyclidine (PCP), and 10 related synthetic analogs of the active ingredient of cannabis (NRC 1984). The NRC report also mentions human experiments involving exposure of 741 soldiers to LSD (NRC 1984).

The Vanderbilt University Television News Archive has two videos about the experiments, both from a July 17, 1975 NBC Evening News segment . In one, NBC newsman John Chancellor reports on how Norman Augustine, then-acting Secretary of Army, ordered a probe of Army use of LSD in soldier and civilian experiments. In a separate piece, by reporter Tom Pettit, Major General Lloyd Fellenz, from Edgewood Arsenal, explains how the experiments there were about searching for humane weapons, adding that the use of LSD was unacceptable.

A Washington Post article, dated July 23, 1975, by Bill Richards ( 6,940 Took Drugs ) reported that a top civilian drug researcher for the Army said a total of 6,940 servicemen had been involved in Army chemical and drug experiments, and that, furthermore, the tests were proceeding at Edgewood Arsenal as of the date of the article. A Government Accounting Office May 2004 report, Chemical and Biological Defense (p. 24), states that there even more victims of the experimental program, a number that may never be completely known:

We also reported that the Army Chemical Corps conducted a classified medical research program for developing incapacitating agents. This program involved testing nerve agents, nerve agent antidotes, psycho chemicals, and irritants. The chemicals were given to volunteer service members at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland; Dugway Proving Ground, Utah; and Forts Benning, Bragg, and McClellan. In total, Army documents identified 7,120 Army and Air Force personnel who participated in these tests.15 Further, GAO concluded that precise information on the scope and the magnitude of tests involving human subjects was not available, and the exact number of human subjects might never be known.

GAO explains at the outset of their report the rationale for the study:

In the 1962-74 time period, the Department of Defense (DOD) conducted a classified chemical and biological warfare test program —- Project 112 —- that might have exposed service members and civilian personnel to chemical or biological agents. In 2000 the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) began obtaining information from DOD about the program. Concerned that veterans and others might have health problems from exposure during Project 112 and similar DOD tests, Congress required DOD in the 2003 Defense Authorization Act to identify Project 112 tests and personnel potentially exposed—service members and the number of civilian personnel—and other chemical and biological tests that might have exposed service members.

Finally, it appears there were similar experiments conducted at the UK Ministry of Defence establishment at Porton Down, Wiltshire, into at least the 1970s. See the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives at King’s College London.

External links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgewood_Arsenal_experiments

***

Walter E. Fernald State School
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fernald, Walter E., State School
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. Historic District
Walter E. Fernald State School is located in Massachusetts
Location:     200 Trapelo Rd., Waltham, Massachusetts
Coordinates:     42E23?28?N 71E12?38?W? / ?42.39111EN 71.21056EW? / 42.39111; -71.21056
Built/Founded:     1888
Architect:     Preston, William G.; Hoyt, Clarence P.
Architectural style(s):     Greek Revival, Queen Anne, Late 19th And 20th Century Revivals
Governing body:     State
MPS:     Massachusetts State Hospitals And State Schools MPS
Added to NRHP:     January 21, 1994
NRHP Reference#:     93001487
[1]

The Walter E. Fernald State School, now the Walter E. Fernald Developmental Center, located in Waltham, Massachusetts, is the Western hemisphere’s oldest publicly funded institution serving people who have developmental disabilities. [2] Originally a Victorian sanatorium, it became a poster child for the American eugenics movement during the 1920s. It later was the scene of medical experiments in the twentieth century. Investigations into this research led to new regulations regarding human research in children.

Contents

* 1 History
* 2 Nuclear Medicine Research in Children
* 3 Twenty-first Century
* 4 References
* 5 External links

History

The Fernald Center, originally called the Massachusetts School for Idiotic Children, was founded by reformer Samuel Gridley Howe in 1848 with a $2,500 appropriation from the Massachusetts State Legislature. The school eventually comprised 72 buildings total, located on 186 acres (0.75 km2). At its peak, some 2,500 people were confined there, most of them feeble-minded boys.

Under its first resident superintendent, Walter E. Fernald (1859–1924), an advocate of eugenics, the school was viewed as a model educational facility in the field of mental retardation. It was renamed in his honor in 1925, following his death the previous year.

The institution did serve a large population of mentally retarded children, but the The Boston Globe estimates that upwards of half of the inmates tested with IQs in the normal range. In the 20th century, living conditions were spartan or worse; approximately 36 children slept in each dormitory room. There were widespread reports of physical and sexual abuse[citation needed], This situation changed radically, starting in the 1970s, when a class action suit, Ricci v. Okin, was filed to upgrade conditions at Fernald and several other state institutions for persons with mental retardation in Massachusetts. U.S. District Court Judge Joseph L. Tauro, who assumed oversight of the case in 1972, formally disengaged from the case in 1993, declaring that improvements in the care and conditions at the facilities had made them second to none anywhere in the world.

Nuclear Medicine Research in Children

The Fernald School was the site of the 1946–53 joint experiments by Harvard University and MIT that exposed young male children to tracer doses of radioactive isotopes. [3] Documents obtained in 1994 by the United States Department of Energy [4]revealed the following details:

* The experiment was conducted in part by a research fellow sponsored by the Quaker Oats Company.
* MIT Professor of Nutrition Robert S. Harris led the experiment, which studied the absorption of calcium and iron.
* The boys were encouraged to join a Science Club , which offered larger portions of food, parties, and trips to Boston Red Sox baseball games.
* The 57 club members ate iron-enriched cereals and calcium-enriched milk for breakfast. In order to track absorption, several radioactive calcium tracers were given orally or intravenously.
* Radiation levels in stool and blood samples would serve as dependent variables.
* in another study, 17 subjects received iron supplement shots containing radioisotopes or iron.[5]
* Neither the children nor their parents ever gave adequate informed consent for participation in a scientific study.

[6]

The Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, reporting to the United States Department of Energy in 1994, reported on these experiments:

In 1946, one study exposed seventeen subjects to radioactive iron. The second study, which involved a series of seventeen related subexperiments, exposed fifty-seven subjects to radioactive calcium between 1950 and 1953. It is clear that the doses involved were low and that it is extremely unlikely that any of the children who were used as subjects were harmed as a consequence. These studies remain morally troubling, however, for several reasons. First, although parents or guardians were asked for their permission to have their children involved in the research, the available evidence suggests that the information provided was, at best, incomplete. Second, there is the question of the fairness of selecting institutionalized children at all, children whose life circumstances were by any standard already heavily burdened.

The highest dose of radiation that any subject was exposed to was 330 millirem, the equivalent of less than one year’s background radiation in Denver.[7]

The school also participated in studies of thyroid function in patients with Down Syndrome and their parents. [8] This study showed that their iodine metabolism was similar to normal controls.

Twenty-first Century

The buildings and grounds survive as a center for mentally disabled adults, operated by the Massachusetts Department of Mental Retardation. In 2001, 320 adults resided at Fernald, with ages ranging from 27 to 96 years and an average age of 47 years. According to a December 13, 2004 article in the Boston Globe, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney announced in 2003 that the facility would be closed and the land sold by 2007. In 2003, a coalition of family advocates and state employee unions began a campaign to save Fernald and asked U.S. District Judge Joseph L. Tauro to resume his oversight of the Ricci v. Okin class action lawsuit that had led to improvements at Fernald and the other state facilities beginning in the 1970s.

In an August 14, 2007 ruling, Judge Tauro ordered the Department of Mental Retardation to consider the individual wishes of all 185 institution residents before closing the facility. However, in September 2007, the new administration of Governor Deval Patrick appealed Tauro’s ruling to the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston. In a statement, the Patrick administration contended that Fernald had become too expensive to continue to operate and that equal or better care could be provided in private, community-based settings for the remaining Fernald residents. The administration’s cost claims have been disputed by the Fernald League for the Retarded, Inc., the Massachusetts Coalition of Families and Advocates for the Retarded, Inc. (COFAR) and other family-based organizations, which have continued to advocate for the preservation of Fernald as a site for ICF/MR-level care for its current residents. Those advocacy organizations have proposed a postage-stamp plan under which Fernald would be scaled back in size and the remaining portion of the campus sold for development. The Patrick administration, however, has declined to negotiate with those Fernald advocates, and has pressed ahead with its appeal and closure plans.

Fernald was the subject of a 2007 documentary film Front Wards, Back Wards directed by W.C. Rogers, which has been shown on some PBS television stations.

References

1. ^ National Register Information System . National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2009-03-13. http://www.nr.nps.gov/.
2. ^ The Walter E. Fernald Association . http://fernaldassociation.com/fernaldCenter.htm. Retrieved 2009-06-09.
3. ^ BRONNER F, HARRIS RS, MALETSKOS CJ, BENDA CE (January 1956). Studies in calcium metabolism; the fate of intravenously injected radiocalcium in human beings . The Journal of Clinical Investigation 35 (1): 78–88. doi:10.1172/JCI103254. PMID 13278403.
4. ^ OT-19. Radioisotope Studies at the Fernald State School, Massachusetts . http://www.hss.energy.gov/healthsafety/ohre/roadmap/experiments/0491doc.html#0491_Other. Retrieved 2009-06-07.
5. ^ SHARPE LM, PEACOCK WC, COOKE R, HARRIS RS (July 1950). The effect of phytate and other food factors on iron absorption . The Journal of Nutrition 41 (3): 433–46. http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/pmidlookup?view=long&pmid=15428911.
6. ^ Chapter 7: The Studies at Fernald School . ACHRE Report. It is clear that the doses involved were low and that it is extremely unlikely that any of the children who were used as subjects were harmed as a consequence.
7. ^ Hussain, Zareena (January 7, 1998). MIT to pay $1.85 million in Fernald radiation settlement . The Tech 11 (65). http://tech.mit.edu/V117/N65/bfernald.65n.html. Retrieved 2009-06-09.
8. ^ KURLAND GS, FISHMAN J, HAMOLSKY MW, FREEDBERG AS (April 1957). Radioisotope study of thyroid function in 21 mongoloid subjects, including observations in 7 parents . The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism 17 (4): 552–60. PMID 13406017. http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/pmidlookup?view=long&pmid=13406017.

* D’Antonio, Michael. The State Boys Rebellion. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004.

External links
* Excerpts from the writings of Walter E. Fernald

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_E._Fernald_State_School

***
Hofling hospital experiment
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In 1966, the psychiatrist Charles K. Hofling conducted a field experiment on obedience in the nurse-physician relationship.[1] In the natural hospital setting, nurses were ordered by unknown doctors to administer what could have been a dangerous dose of a (fictional) drug to their patients. In spite of official guidelines forbidding administration in such circumstances, Hofling found that 21 out of the 22 nurses would have given the patient an overdose of medicine.

Contents

* 1 Procedure
* 2 Findings
* 3 Conclusions
* 4 Criticism
* 5 Books
* 6 See also
* 7 References
* 8 External links

Procedure

A doctor unknown to a nurse would call her by telephone with orders to administer 20 mg of a fictional drug named Astroten to a patient and that he/she will sign for the medication later. The bottle had been surreptitiously placed in the drug cabinet, but the drug was not on the approved list. It was clearly labeled that 10 mg was the maximum daily dose.
The experimental protocol was explained to a group of nurses and nursing students, who were asked to predict how many nurses would give the drug to the patient. Of the twelve nurses, ten said they would not do it. All twenty-one nursing students said they would refuse to administer the drug.

Hofling then selected 22 nurses at a hospital in the United States for the actual experiment. They were each called by an experimenter with the alias of Dr. Smith who said that he would be around to write up the paperwork as soon as he got to the hospital. The nurses were stopped at the door to the patient room before they could administer the drug .

There were several reasons that the nurses should have refused to obey the authority. 1.) The dosage they were instructed to administer was twice that of the recommended safe daily dosage. 2.) Hospital protocol stated that nurses should only take instructions from doctors known to them, therefore they should definitely not have followed instructions given by an unknown doctor over the phone. 3.) The drug was not on their list of drugs to be administered that day and the required paperwork to be filled before drug administration was not completed.

Findings

Hofling found that 21 out of the 22 nurses would have given the patient an overdose of medicine. None of the investigators, and only one experienced nurse who examined the protocol in advance, correctly guessed the experimental results. He also found that all 22 nurses whom he had given the questionnaire to had said they would not obey the orders of the doctor, and that 10 out of the 22 nurses had done this before, with a different drug.

Conclusions

The nurses were thought to have allowed themselves to be deceived because of their high opinions of the standards of the medical profession. The study revealed the danger to patients that existed because the nurses’ view of professional standards induced them to suppress their good judgement.

Criticism

Because it was a field experiment, it had high ecological validity and experimental validity. However, in order to do the experiment truthfully, the nurses had to be denied informed consent. The nurses were accustomed to accepting advice from authority figures. Finally, the medicine used was fictional. When the experiment was repeated with Valium, a drug with which the nurses were acquainted, none of the nurses obeyed

Books

* Basic Psychiatric Concepts in Nursing (1960). Charles K. Hofling, Madeleine M. Leininger, Elizabeth Bregg. J. B. Lippencott, 2nd ed. 1967: ISBN 0-397-54062-0
* Textbook of Psychiatry for Medical Practice edited by C. K. Hofling. J. B. Lippencott, 3rd ed. 1975: ISBN 0-397-52070-0
* Aging: The Process and the People (1978). Usdin, Gene & Charles K. Hofling, editors. American College of Psychiatrists. New York: Brunner/Mazel Publishers
* The Family: Evaluation and Treatment (1980). ed. C. K. Hofling and J. M. Lewis, New York: Brunner/Mazel Publishers
* Law and Ethics in the Practice of Psychiatry (1981). New York: Brunner/Mazel Publishers, ISBN 0-87630-250-9
* Custer and the Little Big Horn: A Psychobiographical Inquiry (1985). Wayne State University Press, ISBN 0-8143-1814-2

See also

* Milgram experiment

References

1. ^ Hofling CK et al. (1966) An Experimental Study of Nurse-Physician Relationships . Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 141:171-180.

[edit] External links
* Obedience studies

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofling_hospital_experiment
Categories: Group processes | Social psychology | Psychology experiments | Human experimentation in the United States | Medical ethics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofling_hospital_experiment

***

Human radiation experiments
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Since the discovery of ionizing radiation, a number of human radiation experiments have been performed to understand the effects of ionizing radiation and radioactive contamination on the human body.

Contents

* 1 Experiments performed in the United States
o 1.1 Radioactive Iodine Experiments
o 1.2 Uranium Experiments
o 1.3 Plutonium experiments
o 1.4 Fallout research
o 1.5 Project Sunshine
* 2 Legal Repercussions
* 3 See also
* 4 References
* 5 Further reading
* 6 External links

Experiments performed in the United States
Radioactive Iodine Experiments

In 1953, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) ran several studies on the health effects of radioactive iodine in newborns and pregnant women at the University of Iowa. In one study, researchers gave pregnant women from 100 to 200 microcuries of iodine-131, in order to study the women’s aborted embryos in an attempt to discover at what stage, and to what extent radioactive iodine crosses the placental barrier. In another study, they gave 25 newborn babies (who were under 36 hours old and weighed from 5.5-8.5 lbs) iodine-131, either by oral administration or through an injection, so that they could measure the amount of iodine in their thyroid glands. [1]

In another AEC study, researchers at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine fed iodine-131 to 28 healthy infants, through a gastric tube to test the concentration of iodine in the infants’ thyroid glands. [1]
In a 1953 operation called Green Run, the AEC dropped radiodine 131 and xenon 133 over a 500,000 acre area which contained three small towns near the Hanford site in Washington [2].

In 1953, the AEC sponsored a study to discover if radioactive iodine affected premature babies differently from full-term babies. In the experiment, researchers from Harper Hospital in Detroit orally administered iodine-131 to 65 premature and full-term infants who weighed from 2.1-5.5 lbs [1]

Uranium Experiments

Between 1953 and 1957, eleven patients at Massachusetts General Hospital were injected with uranium as part of research funded by the Manhattan Project [2]

Plutonium experiments

During and after the end of World War II, scientists working on the Manhattan Project and other nuclear weapons research projects conducted studies of the effects of plutonium on laboratory animals and human subjects. In the case of human subjects, this involved injecting solutions containing (typically) five micrograms of plutonium into hospital patients who were thought either to be terminally ill or to have a life expectancy of less than ten years due either to age or chronic disease condition. The injections were made without the informed consent of those patients. [3]

In her book, The Plutonium Files: America’s Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War, Eileen Welsome, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for The Albuquerque Tribune, revealed the extent of the experiments conducted on unwitting participants.[4] At the Fernald school in Massachusetts, an institution for feeble-minded boys, 73 disabled children were fed oatmeal containing radioactive calcium and other radioisotopes. The radioactive tracers allowed scientists to track how the nutrients were digested. Immediately after World War II, 829 pregnant mothers in Tennessee received what they were told were vitamin drinks that would improve the health of their babies, but were, in fact, mixtures containing radioactive iron, to determine how fast the radioisotope crossed into the placenta. Other incidents included an eighteen-year-old woman at an upstate New York hospital, expecting to be treated for a pituitary gland disorder, who was injected with plutonium.[5] Such experiments are now considered to be a serious breach of medical ethics.

Fallout research

In 1954, American scientists conducted fallout exposure research on the citizens of the Marshall Islands after the Castle Bravo nuclear test in Project 4.1. The Bravo test was detonated upwind of Rongelap Atoll and the residents were exposed to serious radiation levels, up to 180 rads. 236 Marshallese were exposed, some developed severe radiation sickness and one died, long term effects included birth defects, jellyfish babies, and thyroid problems.[6]

The decision to explode the Bravo slide under the prevailing winds was made by Dr Alvin C. Graves (1912-1966), the Scientific Director of Operation Castle. Dr Graves had total authority over firing the weapon, above that of the military Commander of Operation Castle. Dr Graves had himself received an exposure of 200 Roentgens in the 1946 Los Alamos accident in which his personal friend, Dr Louis Slotin, died from radiation exposure. Dr Graves appears in the widely available film of the earlier 1952 test Mike, which examines the last minute fallout decisions [7]. The narrator (Western actor Reed Hadley) is filmed aboard the control ship in that film which shows the final conference. Hadley points out that 20,000 people live in the potential area of the fallout. He asks the control panel scientist if the test can be aborted and is told yes but it would ruin all their preparations in setting up timed measuring instruments in the race against the Russians. In Mike the fallout correctly landed north of the inhabited area, but in the 1954 Bravo test, there was a lot of wind shear and the wind which was blowing north the day before the test steadily veered towards the east.

In addition, the yield of Bravo, the first ever American lithium deuteride (solid fusion fuel) bomb, was twice the maximum expected figure (because lithium-7 was unexpectedly split to give fusionable tritium, in addition to the predicted effect of lithium-6). The combination of unexpectedly high yield plus the wind veering (which was already in progress even before Bravo was fired), contaminated the inhabited islands to the east of the detonation. It was not a deliberate radiation experiment, although questions do remain over the reason the emergency messages from US weather personnel, who were contaminated on Rongerik like the Marshallese, were ignored for two days after the test. Once the heavy fallout on the inhabited islands was discovered, all of the people were evacuated promptly and regularly checked for signs of injury.

Project Sunshine

Early in the Cold War, researchers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia attempted to determine just how much nuclear fallout would be required to make the Earth uninhabitable.[8][9] They realized that atmospheric nuclear testing had provided them an opportunity to investigate this. Such tests had dispersed radioactive contamination worldwide, and examination of human bodies could reveal how readily it was taken up and hence how much damage it caused. Of particular interest was strontium-90 in the bones. Infants were the primary focus, as they would have had a full opportunity to absorb the new contaminants.[10]

As a result of this conclusion, researchers began a program to collect human bodies and bones from all over the world, with a particular focus on infants. The bones were cremated and the ashes analyzed for radioisotopes. This project was kept secret primarily because it would be a public relations disaster; as a result parents and family were not told what was being done with the body parts of their relatives[11].

Legal Repercussions

On January 15, 1994, President Bill Clinton formed the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (ACHRE). Ruth Faden of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics chaired the first ever committee. This committee was created to investigate and report the use of human beings as test subjects in experiments involving the effects of ionizing radiation in federally funded research. The committee discovered the causes of the experiments, and reasons why the proper oversight did not exist, and made several recommendations to prevent future occurrences of similar events. The final report issued by the ACHRE can be found at the Department of Energy’s website here: [1].

See also

* MKULTRA
* Nuclear and radiation accidents
* Radiation poisoning
* Radioactive contamination
* Human experimentation
* Totskoye range nuclear tests
* Walter E. Fernald State School

References

1. ^ a b c Veracity, Dani (March 6, 2006). Human medical experimentation in the United States: The shocking true history of modern medicine and psychiatry (1833-1965) (in English). NaturalNews.com. http://www.naturalnews.com/019189.html. Retrieved 2009-03-12.
2. ^ a b Sharav, Vera. Human Experiments: A Chronology of Human Research (in English). Alliance for Human Research Protection. http://www.ahrp.org/history/chronology.php. Retrieved 2009-03-12.
3. ^ http://library.lanl.gov/cgi-bin/getfile?00326640.pdf
4. ^ Book review The New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 341:1941-1942, December 16, 1999.
5. ^ Democracy Now | Plutonium Files: How the U.S. Secretly Fed Radioactivity to Thousands of Americans
6. ^ Nuclear Issues
7. ^ Internet Archive: Details: Operation Ivy
8. ^ ACHRE Report:New Ethical Questions for Medical Researchers
In 1949, the AEC undertook Project Gabriel, a secret effort to study the question of whether the tests could threaten the viability of life on earth. In 1953, Gabriel led to Project Sunshine…
9. ^ energy.gov PDF, Report on Project Gabriel, July 1954.
10. ^ guardian.co.uk, Britain snatched babies’ bodies for nuclear labs
11. ^ Dundee University Medical School; PDF

Further reading

* The Plutonium Files: America’s secret medical experiments in the Cold War, by Eileen Welsome, Dial Press, c1999, New York, N.Y., ISBN 0-385-31402-7
* Killing Our Own: The disaster of America’s experience with atomic radiation, by Harvey Wasserman, Delacorte Press, c1992, ISBN 978-0440045670
* The Treatment: The Story of Those Who Died in the Cincinnati Radiation Tests, by Martha Stephens, Duke University Press, c2002, Durham, N.C., ISBN 0-8223-2811-9
* Holly M. Barker, Bravo for the Marshallese: Regaining Control in a Post-Nuclear, Post-Colonial World, Wadsworth, 2004. ISBN 0-534-61326-8
* Chair’s Perspective on the Work of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments by Ruth Faden

External links

* PROJECT SUNSHINE AND THE SLIPPERY SLOPE
* The nuclear bodysnatchers
* Grave injustices
* A Little of the Buchenwald Touch : America’s Secret Radiation Experiments
* Cheryl Welsh, Outlaw nonconsensual human experiments now The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, June 16, 2009.
* Embassy of the Republic of the Marshall Islands
* The Final Report of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments
* Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_radiation_experiments
Categories: Radiobiology | Bioethics | Human experimentation in the United States | Radiation health effects
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_radiation_experiments

***

Totskoye range nuclear tests
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Coordinates: 52E38.54?N 52E48.55?E? / ?52.64233EN 52.80917EE? / 52.64233; 52.80917
Nuclear bombing test during the 1954 military exercises on Totskoye range
Georgy Zhukov (then Deputy Defence Minister) and Vyacheslav Malyshev (then Minister of Medium Machinebuilding) during the exercises on Totskoye range

Totskoye is a military range established in September 1941 to the north of Totskoye village, about 40 km from Buzuluk in Orenburg Oblast, Russia (in Southern Urals) under the jurisdiction of the South Urals Military District
[edit] History

In 1954, nuclear bombing tests were performed in Totskoye range during the training exercise Snezhok (Snowball) with some 45,000 people, Soviet soldiers and prisoners[1], were exposed to radiation from a bomb twice as powerful as the one dropped on Hiroshima nine years earlier. The exercise was commended by the Marshal of the Soviet Union, G. Zhukov. At 9:33 a.m. on 14 September 1954, a Soviet Tu-4 bomber dropped a 40 kiloton atomic weapon from 8,000 m (25,000 feet). The bomb exploded 350 m (1,200 feet) above Totskoye range 13 km from Totskoye.

The experiment was similar to others performed at the time by USA, UK and other atomic countries,[2][3] and was designed to test the performance of military hardware and soldiers in the event of a nuclear war. It involved the 270th Rifle Division,[4] 320 planes, 600 tanks and 600 armoured personnel carriers. Deputy Defence Minister Georgy Zhukov witnessed the blast from an underground nuclear bunker. Five minutes after the blast, the planes were ordered to bomb the explosion site, and three hours later (after the demarcation of the radioactive zone) the armoured vehicles were ordered to practice the taking of a hostile area after a nuclear attack.[5]

The local population was never warned and therefore never evacuated as they were part of this big experiment. After the explosion the people were even encouraged to utilize the wood of the trees that fell because of the explosion.

Consequences

Thousands are believed to have died as a result of radiations, both immediately and in the years following. The pilot flying the Tu-4 developed leukemia and his co-pilot developed bone cancer. There are no official figures showing how many of the 45,000 men sent to the range died as a result of the test. People exposed to radiation during tests were denied medical care, their military records were falsified to show different serving places and the test remained secret.[6] The sick people that sought their help in local hospitals later were surprised to find out that their medical cards with their histories of sickness disappeared out of the hopitals.

Tamara Zlotnikova, a former member of the Russian Duma, is helping survivors fight for compensation. She believes that the toll from the test was enormous. A study carried out by the health ministry on cities with the worst health problems puts Orenburg second out of 88. Even today, the incidence of some cancers in Orenburg, a city 130 miles from the range, is double that of the people who suffered in Chernobyl.[1][2] However, there may be other factors such as high pollution levels in the Ural River which contributed to the health problems in Orenburg.

Over half of a century later this fact is still under a strict supervision of the federal government. The local law enforcement personnel continues to harass the journalists that try to obtain a footage from that range. First the exercise became widely known only in 1993. Even the soldiers that participated in the exercise did not know what they were part of as were told that there will be an imitation of the nuclear explosion. Local population was never examined for medical issues, although a numerous pathalogies were recorded since then. The government congratulated the local population for their heroism to provide the nuclear shield for their Motherland.

References

1. ^ Orenbug’s Nagasaki (Russian)
2. ^ Human Nuclear Experiments (last retrieved: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 10:09:06 +0100)
3. ^ Exercise Desert Rock Staff Film Reports No 177 of The Armed Force (U.S. Department of Defense), 1951
4. ^ V.I. Feskov et al., ‘The Soviet Army in the Cold War 1945-90, Tomsk, 2004, p.94
5. ^ Nuclear test in Totskoye in 1954 (last retrieved: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 10:09:06 +0100).
6. ^ The Sunday Times (UK) article, 24 June 2001.

* Nuclear Testing in the USSR. Volume 2. Soviet Nuclear Testing Technologies. Environmental Effects. Safety Provisions. Nuclear Test Sites , Begell-House, Inc., New York, 1998

* A.A. Romanyukha, E.A. Ignatiev, D.V. Ivanov and A.G. Vasilyev , The Distance Effect on the Individual Exposures Evaluated from the Soviet Nuclear Bomb Test in 1954 at Totskoye Test Site in 1954 , Radiation Protection Dosimetry 86:53-58 (1999) online abstract
* ?????? ????????? ?????? (Totskoye Military Exercise), a book (Russian)

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totskoye_range_nuclear_tests
Categories: Nuclear test sites | Orenburg Oblast | Human experimentation in Russia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totskoye_range_nuclear_tests

180px-Totskoe-Zhukov_Malyshev.jpg
Georgy Zhukov (then Deputy Defence Minister) and Vyacheslav Malyshev (then Minister of Medium Machinebuilding) during the exercises on Totskoye range

180px-Totskoe-nuke.jpg
Nuclear bombing test during the 1954 military exercises on Totskoye range

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Wendell Johnson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dr. Wendell Johnson (April 16, 1906 – August 29, 1965) was an American psychologist, speech pathologist and author and was a proponent of General Semantics (or GS). He was born in Roxbury, Kansas and died in Iowa City, Iowa. The Wendell Johnson Speech and Hearing Center, part of the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics is named after this scientific pioneer.

Stuttering contributions

Considered one of the earliest and most influential speech pathologists in the field, he spent most of his life trying to find the cause and cure for stuttering — through teaching, research, scholarly and other writing, lecturing, supervision of graduate students, and persuading K-12 schools, the Veterans Administration and other institutions of the need for speech pathologists. He played a major role in the creation of the American Speech and Hearing Association.

A recent lawsuit was settled in 2007 regarding a stuttering experiment that Dr. Johnson created and oversaw on 22 orphan children in Davenport, Iowa, in 1939. The victims of Johnson’s experiment received nearly $1 million in the settlement.

Johnson chose one of his graduate students, Mary Tudor (researcher), to conduct the experiment and he supervised her research. Many of the orphan children were psychologically scarred by Johnson’s experiment after Tudor spent four months in 1939 conditioning them to stutter through negative speech therapy in which she belittled them for their own normal speech imperfections. Dubbed The Monster Study by some of his peers who were horrified that Johnson would experiment on orphan children to prove a theory, the experiment was kept hidden for fear Johnson’s reputation would be tarnished in the wake of human experiments conducted by the Nazis during World War II. The University of Iowa publicly apologized for the Monster Study in 2001. A university spokesman called the experiment regrettable and added: This is a study that should never be considered defensible in any era…In no way would I ever think of defending this study. In no way. It’s more than unfortunate. Before her death, Mary Tudor expressed deep regret about her role in the Monster Study and maintained that Wendell Johnson should have done more to reverse the negative effects on the orphan children’s speech. In spite of Wendell Johnson’s role in the creation of the Monster Study, Tudor still felt he had made many positive contributions to speech pathology and stuttering research.

Johnson’s book People in Quandaries: The Semantics of Personal Adjustment (1946; still in print from the Institute of General Semantics) is an excellent introduction to general semantics applied to psychotherapy. In 1956 his Your Most Enchanted Listener was published; in 1972, his Living With Change: The Semantics of Coping, a collection of selected portions of transcriptions of hundreds of his talks, organized by Dorothy Moeller, provided further general semantic insights. He also published many articles in his lifetime, in journals, including ETC: A Review of General Semantics. [1] Neil Postman acknowledges the influence of People in Quandaries in his own excellent general semantics book Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk (1976, Delacorte, New York):

I am tempted to say that there are two kinds of people in the world — those who will learn something from this book (People in Quandaries) and those who will not. The best blessing I can give you is to wish that as you go through life you will be surrounded by the former and neglected by the latter.

Patricia Zebrowski, University of Iowa assistant professor of speech pathology and audiology, notes, The body of data that resulted from Johnson’s work on children who stutter and their parents is still the largest collection of scientific information on the subject of stuttering onset. Although new work has determined that children who stutter are doing something different in their speech production than non-stutterers, Johnson was the first to talk about the importance of a stutterer’s thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, and feelings. We still don’t know what causes stuttering, but the ‘Iowa’ way of approaching study and treatment is still heavily influenced by Johnson, but with an added emphasis on speech production.

One of the most thorough single Web site collections of material regarding Wendell Johnson is http://www.uiowa.edu/~cyberlaw/oldinav/wjhome.html . It contains links to his Who’s Who in America entry and c.v., bibliographies, excerpts from his writing, audio of his general semantics lectures, articles by others about Johnson, and an excerpt from Robert Goldfarb, editor, Ethics: A Case Study from Fluency (2005).

The latter is a book devoted to an impartial scientific evaluation of the Monster Study after the experiment became national news in the wake of a series of articles conducted by an investigative reporter at the San Jose Mercury News in 2001. The panel of authors in the book consists mostly of speech pathologists who fail to reach any consensus on either the ethical ramifications or scientific consequences of the Monster Study. Richard Schwartz concludes in Chapter 6 of the book that the Monster Study was unfortunate in Tudor and Johnson’s lack of regard for the potential harm to the children who participated and in their selection of institutionalized children simply because they were easily available. The deception and the apparent lack of debriefing were also not justifiable. Other authors concur claiming the orphan experiment was not within the ethical boundaries of acceptable research. Others, however, felt that the ethical standards in 1939 were different from those used today. Some felt the study was poorly designed and executed by Tudor, and as a result the data offered no proof of Johnson’s subsequent theory that stuttering begins, not in the child’s mouth but in the parent’s ear — i.e., that it is the well-meaning parent’s effort to help the child avoid what the parent has labelled stuttering (but is in fact within the range of normal speech) that contributes to what ultimately becomes the problem diagnosed as stuttering.

External links
* http://www.uiowa.edu/~cyberlaw/oldinav/wjhome.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendell_Johnson

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Jesse William Lazear
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jesse William Lazear

Jesse William Lazear
Born     2 May 1866
Baltimore
Died     26 September 1900
Quemados, Cuba
Nationality     American
Alma mater     Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons

Jesse William Lazear (2 May 1866, Baltimore – 26 September 1900 in Quemados, Cuba) was an American physician[1][2][3][4].

He was the son of William and Charlotte née Pettigrew. He attended Washington & Jefferson College [5] and obtained his Bachelor of Arts in 1889 from Johns Hopkins University and his PhD in Medicine in 1892 from the Medical School at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He did his specialization in Paris at the Institut Pasteur. In 1896 he married Mabel Houston with whom he had two children.

He was a physician at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore starting in 1895; he studied malaria and yellow fever. In 1900 he reported for duty as the assistant surgeon at Columbia Barracks (Quemados) for the United States Army.

After a few months in Quemados, Lazear, together with Walter Reed (1851-1902), James Carroll (1854-1907) and Aristides Agramonte (1869-1931), participated in a commission studying the transmission of yellow fever, the Yellow Fever Board. During his research at Camp Colombia, he confirmed the 1881 theory of Carlos Finlay that mosquitos transmitted this disease. A portion of his study, though, had been conducted on himself: without telling his colleagues, he had allowed himself to be bitten by yellow fever-infected mosquitoes and died of the disease at age 34. A dormitory at Johns Hopkins University was named after him in honor of his sacrifice, as was the chemistry building at Washington & Jefferson College, Lazear’s alma mater.
[edit] References

1. ^ del Regato, J A (1986), Jesse William Lazear: the successful experimental transmission of yellow fever by the mosquito. , Medical heritage 2 (6): 443–52, PMID 11613919
2. ^ Carmichael, E B (1972), Jesse William Lazear. , The Alabama journal of medical sciences 9 (1): 102–14, 1972 Jan, PMID 4556484
3. ^ Osler; Paton; Thayer (Aug 1901), JESSE WILLIAM LAZEAR MEMORIAL. , Science (New York, N.Y.) 14 (345): 225, 1901 Aug 9, doi:10.1126/science.14.345.225, ISSN 0036-8075, PMID 17797834
4. ^ JESSE WILLIAM LAZEAR. , Science (New York, N.Y.) 12 (311): 932–933, Dec 1900, 1900 Dec 14, doi:10.1126/science.12.311.932, ISSN 0036-8075, PMID 17796027
5. ^ Biography of Jesse W. Lazear | Military Medicine | Find Articles at BNET.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_William_Lazear

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Edward Lazear
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Edward Paul Lazear

24th Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors
In office
2006 – 2009
President     George W. Bush
Preceded by     Ben Bernanke
Succeeded by     Christina Romer
Born     1948
Alma mater     University of California, Los Angeles
Harvard University

Edward Paul Ed Lazear (born 1948) is an award-winning American economist, considered the founder of personnel economics, and was the chief economic advisor to President George W. Bush.

Contents

* 1 Career
* 2 Research
* 3 Awards
* 4 Books
* 5 Patents
* 6 See also
* 7 References
* 8 External links

Career

Lazear graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in economics in 1971. He received his doctorate in economics from Harvard University in 1974.

From 1985 to 1992, he was a professor of Urban and Labor Economics at the University of Chicago. Since 1992, he has been an economics professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Lazear has served as a research assistant at the National Bureau of Economic Research, as well as a research fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research and the Institute for the Study of Labor. He is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. In 1996, he founded the Society of Labor Economists. Prior to his nomination and confirmation as chief economic advisor to the President, Lazear was a member of Bush’s tax reform advisory panel in 2005.

Research

Lazear is the founding editor of the Journal of Labor Economics. He has published over 100 scholarly articles. [1]

Most of his work has to do with motivating and compensating workers. One of his most famous papers, Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts, argues that in certain circumstances, it is in a firm’s best interest to rank its employees and pay particularly high wages to the top-ranked employees. This helps explain why the highest jobs, like chief executive officer, often draw paychecks that are much higher than the next-highest jobs, even though the skill differences between those employees are not very high. It also helps explain the partnership structure of law firms, in which associate lawyers compete to become partners and earn a much higher salary. He has also analyzed how peer pressure and mandatory retirement can help reduce principal-agent problems in companies.

Awards

Lazear has won a number of awards over his career. Among those that he has won are:

* 1998 Leo Melamed Biennial Prize.
* 2003 Adam Smith Prize, European Association of Labor Economists.
* 2004 Prize in Labor Economics, Institute for the Study of Labor.

Books

* Lazear, Edward (1995). Personnel Economics. MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-12188-3.
* Edward Lazear, ed (1996). Culture Wars in America. Hoover Institution Press. ISBN 0-8179-5762-6.
* Lazear, Edward (1995). Economic Transition in Eastern Europe and Russia: Realities of Reform. Hoover Institution Press. ISBN 0-8179-9332-0.
* Lazear, Edward (2002). Education in the Twenty-first Century. Hoover Institution Press. ISBN 0-8179-2892-8.
* Lazear, Edward (2008). Personnel Economics in Practice. Wiley. ISBN 0-471-67592-1.

Patents

Edward Lazear is listed as a coinventor on 5 pending US patent applications.[1] Some of these pending patent applications are considered to be tax patents.[2] This has led to criticism of Lazear by organizations opposed to tax patents, such as Citizens for Tax Justice. Lazear, however, no longer has any ownership rights in these pending applications and cannot receive any royalties from them should they ever issue as valid patents. The full ownership rights to these applications are owned by Liquid Engines.

See also

* Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male
* The Plutonium Files
* Acres of Skin

References

1. ^ Medical Apartheid
2. ^ Unequal Treatment
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_Apartheid
Categories: 2007 books | Medical books | American books | Human experimentation in the United States | National Book Critics Circle Award winner

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_Apartheid

***

Acres of Skin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Acres of Skin: Human Experiments at Holmesburg Prison is a 1998 book by Allen M. Hornblum, published by Routledge, ISBN 0-415-91990-8. The book documents clinical non-therapeutic medical experiments on prison inmates at Holmesburg Prison in Philadelphia from 1951 to 1974, conducted under the direction of dermatologist Albert M. Kligman.[1] The title of the book is a reference to Kligman’s reaction on seeing hundreds of prisoners when he entered the prison: All I saw before me were acres of skin … It was like a farmer seeing a fertile field for the first time .[2]

The publication of Acres of Skin in 1998 attracted considerable international media interest.[3] The book has been reviewed in several journals including the International Journal of Dermatology,[4] Social History of Medicine[5] and Canadian Journal of History.[1]

References

1. ^ a b Theresa Richardson. Acres of Skin: Human Experiments at Holmesburg Prison (Review) Canadian Journal of History, April 1, 2001.
2. ^ Allen M. Hornblum. Sentenced to Science: One Black Man’s Story of Imprisonment in America, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007, p. 52.
3. ^ Allen M. Hornblum. Sentenced to Science: One Black Man’s Story of Imprisonment in America, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007, p. ix.
4. ^ Jeanine Millikan. Book Review: Acres of Skin International Journal of Dermatology, 38(2): 158, February 1999.
5. ^ T.W. Laqueur. Book Review: Acres of Skin: Human Experiments at Holmesburg Prison Social History of Medicine, Volume 16, Number 1, April 2003 , pp. 159-161.

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acres_of_Skin
Categories: Human experimentation | Medical books | 1998 books

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acres_of_Skin

***

The Plutonium Files
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Plutonium Files: America’s Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War is a 1999 book by Eileen Welsome. It is a history of U.S. government-engineered radiation experiments on unwitting Americans, based on the Pulitzer Prize–winning series Welsome wrote for the Albuquerque Tribune.[1][2]

The purpose of the experiments was to assess the effect of radioactivity on the human body. For example, between April 1945 and July 1947, 18 people were injected with plutonium by doctors associated with the Manhattan Project. None of these men, women, and children were told what was being done, and none gave informed consent. Most of the subjects, Welsome writes, were the poor, the powerless, and the sick — the very people who count most on the government to protect them .[3]

These medical experiments were covered up for 40 years. When they became public, the government apologized but not a single doctor or hospital was publicly blamed.[3]

One reviewer stated that the Welsome’s book is a powerful indictment of an important part of the Manhattan Project and a warning of the evil that supposedly high-minded people can do when convinced of their own superiority and devoted to a goal that blinds them to simple humanity .[3]

See also

* Research Involving Prisoners
* Medical apartheid
* Acres of Skin

References

1. ^ Book review The New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 341:1941-1942, December 16, 1999.
2. ^ Book Review Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Volume 76, Number 3, Fall 2002, pp. 637-638.
3. ^ a b c R.C. Longworth. Injected Book review:The Plutonium Files: America’s Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Nov/Dec 1999, 55(6): 58-61.

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Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plutonium_Files
Categories: 1999 books | Medical books | Books about nuclear issues | Human experimentation in the United States | United States history book stubs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plutonium_Files

***

Tuskegee syphilis experiment
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(Redirected from Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male)
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Tuskegee study redirects here. For the studies associated with the recruitment and training of the Tuskegee Airmen, see Tuskegee Airmen.
Depression-era U.S. poster advocating early syphilis treatment. Although treatments were available, participants in the study did not receive them.

The Tuskegee syphilis experiment[1] (also known as the Tuskegee syphilis study or Public Health Service syphilis study) was a clinical study conducted between 1932 and 1972 in Tuskegee, Alabama, by the U.S. Public Health Service. Investigators recruited 399 impoverished African-American sharecroppers with syphilis for research related to the natural progression of the untreated disease, in hopes of justifying treatment programs for blacks.[2]

The 40-year study was controversial for reasons related to ethical standards, primarily because researchers failed to treat patients appropriately after the 1940s validation of penicillin as an effective cure for the disease. Revelation of study failures led to major changes in U.S. law and regulation on the protection of participants in clinical studies. Now studies require informed consent, communication of diagnosis, and accurate reporting of test results.[3]

When the study began in 1932, standard medical treatments for syphilis were toxic, dangerous, and of questionable effectiveness. Part of the study goal was to determine if patients were better off not being treated with such toxic remedies. Additionally, researchers wanted to understand each stage of the disease in hopes of developing suitable treatments for each.

By 1947 penicillin had become the standard treatment for syphilis. Choices might have included treating all syphilitic subjects and closing the study, or splitting off a control group for testing with penicillin. Instead, the Tuskegee scientists continued the study, withholding penicillin and information about it from the patients. In addition, scientists prevented participants from accessing syphilis treatment programs available to others in the area. The study continued, under numerous supervisors, until 1972, when a leak to the press resulted in its termination. Victims included numerous men who died of syphilis, wives who contracted the disease, and children born with congenital syphilis.[4]

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study, cited as arguably the most infamous biomedical research study in U.S. history, [5] led to the 1979 Belmont Report and the establishment of the Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP).[6] It also led to federal regulation requiring Institutional Review Boards for protection of human subjects in studies involving human subjects. The Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) manages this responsibility within the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).[7]

Contents

* 1 History
o 1.1 Study clinicians
o 1.2 Study details
* 2 Study termination and aftermath
* 3 Ethical implications
* 4 In popular culture
* 5 Original Study papers
* 6 See also
* 7 References
* 8 Further reading
* 9 External links

History
Study clinicians
Some of the Tuskegee Study Group clinicians. Dr. Reginald D. James (third to right), a black physician involved with public health work in Macon County, was not directly involved in the study. Nurse Rivers is on the left.

The venereal disease section of the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) formed a study group at its national headquarters. Dr. Taliaferro Clark was credited with its origin. His initial goal was to follow untreated syphilis in a group of black men for 6 to 9 months, and then follow up with a treatment phase. When he understood the intention of other study members to use deceptive practices, Dr. Clark disagreed with the plan to conduct an extended study.[clarification needed] He retired the year after the study began.

Representing the PHS, Clark had solicited the participation of the Tuskegee Institute (a historically black college (HBCU) that was well-known in Alabama) and of the Arkansas regional PHS office. Dr. Eugene Dibble, an African-American doctor, was head of the John Andrew Hospital at the Tuskegee Institute. Dr. Oliver C. Wenger was director of the regional PHS Venereal Disease Clinic in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He and his staff took a lead in developing study procedures.

Wenger and his staff played a critical role in developing early study protocols. Wenger continued to advise and assist the Tuskegee Study when it turned into a long-term, no-treatment observational study.[8]

Dr. Raymond H. Vonderlehr was appointed on-site director of the research program and developed the policies that shaped the long-term follow-up section of the project. For example, he decided to gain the consent of the subjects for spinal taps (to look for signs of neurosyphilis) by depicting the diagnostic test as a special free treatment . In correspondence from the time, Wenger congratulated Vonderlehr for his flair for framing letters to negros . Vonderlehr retired as head of the venereal disease section in 1943, shortly after penicillin had first been shown to be a cure for syphilis.

Nurse Eunice Rivers, an African-American trained at Tuskegee Institute who worked at its affiliated John Andrew Hospital, was recruited at the start of the study. Dr. Vonderlehr was a strong advocate for her participation, as she was the direct link to the community. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Tuskegee Study began by offering lower class African Americans, who often could not afford health care, the chance to join Miss Rivers’ Lodge . Patients were to receive free physical examinations at Tuskegee University, free rides to and from the clinic, hot meals on examination days, and free treatment for minor ailments.

As the study became long term, Nurse Rivers became the chief person with continuity. Unlike the changing slate of national, regional and on-site PHS administrators, doctors, and researchers, Rivers stayed at Tuskegee University. She was the only study staff person to work with participants for the full 40 years. By the 1950s, Nurse Rivers had become pivotal to the study—her personal knowledge of the subjects enabled maintenance of long-term follow up. In the study’s later years, Dr. John R. Heller led the national division.
“ For the most part, doctors and civil servants simply did their jobs. Some merely followed orders, others worked for the glory of science. ”
—Dr John Heller, Director of the Public Health Service’s Division of Venereal Diseases[9]

By the late 1940s, doctors, hospitals and public health centers throughout the country routinely treated diagnosed syphilis with penicillin. In the period following World War II, the revelation of the Holocaust and related Nazi medical abuses brought about changes in international law. Western allies formulated the Nuremberg Code to protect the rights of research subjects. No one appeared to have reevaluated the protocols of the Tuskegee Study according to the new standards.

In 1972 the Tuskegee Study was brought to public and national attention by a whistleblower, who gave information to the Washington Star and the New York Times. Heller of PHS still defended the ethics of the study, stating: The men’s status did not warrant ethical debate. They were subjects, not patients; clinical material, not sick people. [10]

Dr. Taliaferro Clark

Dr. Oliver Wenger

Dr. Raymond Vonderlehr

Dr. John Heller

Dr. Eugene Dibble

Eunice Rivers, nurse and study co-ordinator

Charlie Pollard, survivor

Herman Shaw, survivor

Study details

Subject blood draw, circa 1953
The Tuskegee Study Group Letter inviting subjects to receive special treatment , actually a diagnostic lumbar puncture.
The study began as a clinical trial of the incidence of syphilis in the Macon County population. Initially, subjects were studied for six to eight months, then treated with contemporary methods including Salvarsan, mercurial ointments, and bismuth. These methods were, at best, mildly effective; the disadvantage that these were all highly toxic was balanced by the fact that no other methods were known. The Tuskegee Institute participated in the study, as its representatives understood the intent was to benefit public health in this poor population.[11] The Tuskegee University-affiliated hospital effectively loaned the PHS its medical facilities. Other predominantly black institutions and local black doctors also participated. The Rosenwald Fund, a major Chicago-based philanthropy devoted to black education and community development in the South, provided financial support to pay for the eventual treatment of the patients. Initially, study researchers recruited 399 syphilitic Black men, and 201 healthy Black men as controls.

Continuing effects of the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the beginning of the Great Depression led the Rosenwald Fund to withdraw its offer of funding. Study directors initially thought this might mean the end of the study, as there was no funding to buy medication for the treatment phase of the study. They issued a final report.

In 1928 the Oslo Study in Norway had reported on the pathologic manifestations of untreated syphilis in several hundred white males. This study was a retrospective study; investigators pieced together information from patients who had already contracted syphilis and had remained untreated for some time.

The Tuskegee study group decided to salvage their work and perform a prospective study equivalent to the Oslo Study. This was not inherently unethical; since there was nothing the investigators could do therapeutically at the time, they could study the natural progression of the disease as long as they did not harm their subjects. They reasoned that the knowledge gained would benefit humankind. In the end, however, they did harm their subjects, by depriving them of appropriate treatment after it had been discovered. The study was characterized as the longest non-therapeutic experiment on human beings in medical history. [12]

Ethical considerations were limited from the start, and rapidly deteriorated. For example, to ensure that the men would show up for the possibly dangerous, painful, diagnostic and non-therapeutic spinal tap, the doctors sent the 400 patients a misleading letter titled, Last Chance for Special Free Treatment (see insert). The study also required all participants to undergo an autopsy after death—in order to receive funeral benefits. After penicillin was discovered as a cure, researchers continued to deny such treatment to many study participants. Many patients were lied to and given placebo treatments— so that researchers could observe the progression of the fatal disease.[11] In 1934, the Tuskegee Study published its first clinical data, and issued their first major report in 1936. This was prior to the discovery of penicillin as a treatment for syphilis. The study was not secret; it issued several published reports and data sets appeared throughout its duration.

By 1947 penicillin had become standard therapy for syphilis. The US government sponsored several public health programs to form rapid treatment centers to eradicate the disease. When campaigns to eradicate venereal disease came to Macon County, however, study researchers prevented their patients from participating.[13] During World War II, 250 of the subject men registered for the draft. They were consequently diagnosed and ordered to obtain treatment for syphilis before they could be taken into the armed services.[13]

PHS researchers prevented them from getting treatment, thus depriving them of chances for a cure, service to the nation, and gaining the benefit of the GI Bill for education, passed after the war. At the time, the PHS representative was quoted as saying: So far, we are keeping the known positive patients from getting treatment. [13]

By the end of the study in 1972, only 74 of the test subjects were alive. Twenty-eight of the original 399 men had died of syphilis, 100 were dead of related complications, 40 of their wives had been infected, and 19 of their children were born with congenital syphilis.

Study termination and aftermath

Peter Buxtun, a PHS venereal disease investigator, the whistle-blower .

In 1966 Peter Buxtun, a PHS venereal-disease investigator in San Francisco, sent a letter to the national director of the Division of Venereal Diseases to express his concerns about the ethics and morality of the extended Tuskegee Study. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) (which by then controlled the study) reaffirmed the need to continue the study until completion (until all subjects had died and been autopsied). To bolster its position, the CDC sought and gained support for the continuation of the study from local chapters of the National Medical Association (representing African-American physicians) and the American Medical Association (AMA).

In 1968 William (Bill) Carter Jenkins, an African-American statistician in the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS), part of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), founded and edited The Drum, a newsletter devoted to ending racial discrimination in HEW. The cabinet-level department included the CDC. In The Drum, Jenkins called for an end to the Tuskegee Study. He did not succeed; it is not clear who read his work.[14]

Buxtun finally went to the press in the early 1970s. The story broke first in the Washington Star on July 25, 1972. It became front-page news in the New York Times the following day. Senator Ted Kennedy called Congressional hearings, at which Buxtun and HEW officials testified. As a result of public outcry, in 1972, the CDC and PHS appointed an ad hoc advisory panel to review the study. It determined the study was medically unjustified and ordered its termination. As part of a settlement of a class action lawsuit subsequently filed by the NAACP, the U.S. government paid $9 million and agreed to provide free medical treatment to surviving participants, as well as to surviving family members infected as a consequence of the study.

In 1974 Congress passed the National Research Act and created a commission, to study and write regulations governing studies involving human participants. On May 16, 1997, President Bill Clinton formally apologized and held a ceremony for the Tuskegee study participants: What was done cannot be undone. But we can end the silence. We can stop turning our heads away. We can look at you in the eye and finally say on behalf of the American people, what the United States government did was shameful, and I am sorry … To our African American citizens, I am sorry that your federal government orchestrated a study so clearly racist. [15] Five of the eight remaining study survivors attended the White House ceremony.

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study significantly damaged the trust of the black community toward public health efforts in the United States. [16] As a result, many distrust the medical community and are reluctant to participate in programs such as organ donation. The study may also have contributed to the reluctance of many poor black people to seek routine preventive care.[17] Two groups of researchers at Johns Hopkins debated the effects that the Tuskegee Study has had on blacks and their willingness to participate in medical trials.[18] Distrust of the government because of the study has contributed to persistent rumors in the black community that the government was responsible for the HIV/AIDS crisis by having introduced the virus to the black community. In 1990, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference conducted a survey among 1056 African American Church members in five cities. They found that 34% of the respondents believed that AIDS was an artificial virus, 35% believed that AIDS is a form of genocide, and 44% believed that the government is not telling the truth about AIDS. [10]

Ethical implications

The ethics of the early stages of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study can be considered in contrast to developments after the use of penicillin was verified as valid treatment. In 1932 treatments for syphilis were relatively ineffective and had severe side effects.[19] Researchers knew that syphilis was particularly prevalent in poor, black communities.[20] Prevailing medical ethics at the time did not have the exacting standards for informed consent, which is now expected. Doctors routinely withheld information about patients’ conditions from them.[citation needed]

After penicillin was found to be an effective treatment for syphilis, the study continued for another 25 years without treating those suffering from the disease. After the study and its consequences became front-page news, it was ended in a day.[19] The aftershocks of this study led directly to the establishment of the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research and the National Research Act. This act requires the establishment of Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) at institutions receiving federal grants.

In popular culture

* Gil Scott-Heron released a 33-second song Tuskeegee 626 on the Bridges album.
* Dr. David Feldshuh wrote a stage play in 1992 based on the history of the Tuskegee study, titled Miss Evers’ Boys. It was a runner-up for the 1992 Pulitzer Prize in drama,[21] In 1997 it was adapted for an HBO made-for-TV movie. The HBO adaptation was nominated for eleven Emmy Awards,[22] and won in four categories.[23]
* Frank Zappa’s musical Thing-Fish was loosely inspired by the events.
* Don Byron’s debut album, Tuskegee Experiments, is named after the study.
* The television series New York Undercover used the study as the subject of a second-season episode titled Bad Blood .
* Marvel Comics’ limited series Truth: Red, White & Black reinterpreted the Tuskegee Experiment as part of the Weapon Plus program.
* In novel Rant by Chuck Palahniuk epidemiologist Phoebe Truffeau tells about this experiment.
* In the pilot episode of House, Dr. Cuddy refers to House’s experimental treatments with You don’t prescribe medicine based on guesses. At least we don’t since Tuskegee and Mengele.

Original Study papers
* Caldwell, J. G; E. V. Price, et al. (1973). Aortic regurgitation in the Tuskegee study of untreated syphilis . J Chronic Dis 26 (3): 187–94.
* Hiltner, S. (1973). The Tuskegee Syphilis Study under review . Christ Century 90 (43): 1174–6.
* Kampmeier, R. H. (1972). The Tuskegee study of untreated syphilis . South Med J 65 (10): 1247–51.
* Kampmeier, R. H. (1974). Final report on the Tuskegee syphilis study . South Med J 67 (11): 1349–53.
* Olansky, S.; L. Simpson, et al. (1954). Environmental factors in the Tuskegee study of untreated syphilis . Public Health Rep 69 (7): 691–8.
* Rockwell, D. H.; A. R. Yobs, et al. (1964). The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis; the 30th Year of Observation . Arch Intern Med 114: 792–8.
* Schuman, S. H.; S. Olansky, et al. (1955). Untreated syphilis in the male negro; background and current status of patients in the Tuskegee study. . J Chronic Dis 2 (5): 543–58.

See also

* World Medical Association
* International Conference on Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use
* Declaration of Geneva
* Declaration of Helsinki
* Operation Whitecoat

References

1. ^ Tuskegee Study – Timeline . NCHHSTP. CDC. 2008-06-25. http://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/timeline.htm. Retrieved 2008-12-04.
2. ^ http://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/timeline.htm
3. ^ Final Report of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study Legacy Committee . Tuskegee Syphilis Study Legacy Committee. 1996-05-20. http://www.hsl.virginia.edu/historical/medical_history/bad_blood/report.cfm. Retrieved 2008-12-04.
4. ^ Heller J (1972-07-26). Syphilis Victims in U.S. Study Went Untreated for 40 Years; Syphilis Victims Got No Therapy . New York Times (Associated Press). http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40616F6345A137B93C4AB178CD85F468785F9. Retrieved 2008-12-04.
5. ^ Katz RV, Kegeles SS, Kressin NR, et al. (November 2006). The Tuskegee Legacy Project: willingness of minorities to participate in biomedical research . J Health Care Poor Underserved 17 (4): 698–715. doi:10.1353/hpu.2006.0126. PMID 17242525. PMC: 1780164. http://muse.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/resolve_openurl.cgi?issn=1049-2089&volume=17&issue=4&spage=698&aulast=Katz.
6. ^ Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) (2005-06-23). Protection of Human Subjects . Title 45, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 46. US Department of Health and Human Services. http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/humansubjects/guidance/45cfr46.htm. Retrieved 2008-12-04.
7. ^ Office for Human Research Protections . Department of Health and Human Services. 2008-09-28. http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/. Retrieved 2008-12-04.
8. ^ DiClemente RJ, Blumenthal DS (2003). Community-based health research: issues and methods. New York: Springer Pub. pp. 50. ISBN 0-8261-2025-3. http://www.google.co.in/books?id=KN_-9lwSI5oC.
9. ^ Alexander Cockburn; Jeffrey St. Clair (1998). Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press. London: Verso. pp. 67. ISBN 1859841392. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=s5qIj_h_PtkC&pg=PA67&lpg=PA67&dq=%22some+merely+followed+orders,+others+worked+for+the+glory+of+science+&source=web&ots=zcnx0d0xsd&sig=M-IcQ5KHCBmaEjNgZG1B72FA0aQ&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result.
10. ^ a b Research Ethics: The Tuskegee Syphilis Study . Tuskegee University. http://www.tuskegee.edu/Global/Story.asp?s=1207598. Retrieved 2008-12-04.
11. ^ a b Parker, Laura (1997-04-28). ‘Bad Blood’ Still Flows In Tuskegee Study . USA Today. http://www.tuskegee.edu/global/Story.asp?s=1209852. Retrieved 2008-12-04.
12. ^ Jones J (1981). Bad Blood: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. New York: Free Press. ISBN 0029166764.
13. ^ a b c Doctor of Public Health Student Handbook (PDF). University of Kentucky College of Public Health. 2004. pp. 17. http://www.ukcph.org/Portals/0/DoctorofPublicHealth/Dr.P.HStudentHandbook.pdf.
14. ^ Bill Jenkins left the PHS in the mid-1970s for doctoral studies. In 1980, he joined the CDC Division of Sexually Transmitted Diseases, where he managed the Participants Health Benefits Program that ensured health services for survivors of the Tuskegee Study.
15. ^ Remarks by the President in apology for study done in Tuskegee . Office of the Press Secretary, The White House. 1997-05-16. http://clinton4.nara.gov/textonly/New/Remarks/Fri/19970516-898.html. Retrieved 2009-09-06.
16. ^ Thomas SB, Quinn SC (November 1991). The Tuskegee Syphilis Study, 1932 to 1972: implications for HIV education and AIDS risk education programs in the black community . Am J Public Health 81 (11): 1498–505. PMID 1951814. PMC: 1405662. http://www.ajph.org/cgi/pmidlookup?view=long&pmid=1951814.
17. ^ Cohen E (2007-02-26). Tuskegee’s ghosts: Fear hinders black marrow donation . CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/02/07/bone.marrow/index.html. Retrieved 2008-12-04.
18. ^ Did Tuskegee damage trust on clinical trials? . CNN. 2008-03-17. http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/03/17/clinical.trials.ap/index.html. Retrieved 2008-12-04.
19. ^ a b Chadwick A (2002-07-25). Remembering the Tuskegee Experiment . NPR. http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/jul/tuskegee/. Retrieved 2008-12-04.
20. ^ Merril RM, Timmreck TC (2006). Experimental Studies in Epidemiology – Ethics in Experimental Research . Introduction to Epidemiology. Sudbury, Mass.: Jones and Bartlett Publishers. pp. 195. ISBN 0763735825.
21. ^ The Pulitzer Prizes : Drama . The Pulitzer Prizes — Columbia University. http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/Drama.
22. ^ Geddes, Darryl (1997-09-11). HBO’s adaptation of Feldshuh’s play Miss Evers’ Boys is up for 12 Emmys . Cornell Chronicle. http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/97/9.11.97/Emmys.html.
23. ^ Awards for Miss Evers’ Boys . IMDb. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119679/awards.

Further reading
* Gjestland T. The Oslo study of untreated syphilis: an epidemiologic investigation of the natural course of the syphilitic infection based upon a re-study of the Boeck-Bruusgaard material, Acta Derm Venereol (1955) 35(Suppl 34):3-368.
* Gray, Fred D. (1998). The Tuskegee Syphilis Study: The Real Story and Beyond. Montgomery, Alabama: NewSouth Books.
* Jones, James H. (1981). Bad Blood: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. New York: Free Press.
* The Deadly Deception, by Denisce DiAnni, PBS/WGBH NOVA documentary video, 1993.
* Reverby, Susan M. (1998). History of an Apology: From Tuskegee to the White House . Research Nurse.
* Reverby, Susan M. (2000). Tuskegee’s Truths: Rethinking the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. University of North Carolina Press.
* Reverby, Susan M. (2009). Examining Tuskegee: The Infamous Syphilis Study and its Legacy. University of North Carolina Press.
* Jean Heller (Associated Press), Syphilis Victims in the U.S. Study Went Untreated for 40 Years New York Times, July 26, 1972: 1, 8.
* Thomas, Stephen B; Sandra Crouse Quinn (1991). The Tuskegee Syphilis Study, 1932-1972: Implications for HIV Education and AIDS Risk Programs in the Black Community . American Journal of Public Health 81 (1503).
* Carlson, Elof Axel (2006). Times of triumph, times of doubt : science and the battle for the public trust. Cold Spring Harbor Press. ISBN 0-87969-805-5.
* Washington, Harriet A. (2007). Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans From Colonial Times to the Present.

External links

* CDC Tuskegee Syphilis Study Page
* Excellent review of the TSS
* Patient medical files held at National Archives and Records Administration Southeast Region, Morrow, GA
* Mary Harper; Leader in Minority Health
* Interview at Democracy Now : Ogg Vorbis recording, interview transcript
* Interview at NPR: ‘Medical Apartheid’ Tracks History of Abuses
* IHT book review: Book Review: Medical Apartheid
* Tuskegee Syphilis Study article, Encyclopedia of Alabama
* New York Times review of HBO movie Miss Evers’ Boys

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Study_of_Untreated_Syphilis_in_the_Negro_Male

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(Above site includes photos of the doctors and scientists who did this and makes a virtual rogues morgue of very educated bad men)

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Oklahoma City sonic boom tests
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Oklahoma City sonic boom tests, also known as Operation Bongo II, refer to a controversial experiment in which 1,253 sonic booms were carried out over Oklahoma City, Oklahoma over a period of six months in 1964. The experiment, which ran from February 3 through July 29, 1964 inclusive, intended to quantify the effects of transcontinental supersonic transport (SST) aircraft on a city. The program was managed by the Federal Aviation Administration, which enlisted the aid of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the U.S. Air Force. Public opinion measurement was subcontracted to the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) of the University of Chicago.

It was not the first experiment, as tests had been done at Wallops Island, Virginia in 1958 and 1960, at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada in 1960 and 1961, and in St. Louis, Missouri in 1961 and 1962. However, none of these tests examined sociological and economic factors in any detail. The Oklahoma City experiments were vastly larger in scope, seeking to measure the boom’s effect on structures and public attitude, and to develop standards for boom prediction and insurance data.

Oklahoma City was chosen, as the region’s population was perceived to be relatively tolerant for such an experiment. The city had an economic dependency on the FAA’s Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center and Tinker Air Force Base, both of which were based there.

The sonic booms
Starting on February 3, 1964, the first sonic booms began, eight booms per day that began at 7 a.m. and ended in the afternoon. The noise was limited to 1.0 to 1.5 pound-force per square foot (48 to 72 pascal) for the first twelve weeks, then increased to 1.5 to 2.0 psf (72 to 96 pascal) for the final fourteen weeks. This range was about equal to that expected from an SST. Though eight booms per day were harsh, the peak overpressures of 2.0 psf were an order of magnitude lower than that needed to shatter glass, and are considered marginally irritating according to published standards. The Air Force used F-104 and B-58 aircraft, with the occasional F-101 and F-106.

Oklahomans initially took the tests in stride. This was chalked up to the booms being predictable and coming at specific times. An FAA-hired camera crew, filming a group of construction workers, were surprised to find that the booms signaled their lunch break.

However, in the first 14 weeks, 147 windows in the city’s two tallest buildings, the First National Bank and Liberty National Bank, were broken. By late spring, organized civic groups were already springing into action, but were rebuffed by city politicians, who asked them to show legislators their support. An attempt to lodge an injunction against the tests was denied by district court Judge Stephen Chandler, who said that the plaintiffs could not establish that they suffered any mental or physical harm and that the tests were a vital national need. A restraining order was then sought, which brought a pause to the tests on May 13 until it was decided that the court had exceeded its authority.

Pressure mounted from within. The federal Bureau of the Budget lambasted the FAA about poor experiment design, while complaints flooded into Oklahoma Senator A. S. Mike Monroney’s office. Finally, East Coast newspapers began to pick up the issue, turning on the national spotlight. On June 6 the Saturday Review published an article titled The Era of Supersonic Morality, which criticized the manner in which the FAA had targeted a city without consulting local government. By July, the Washington Post reported on the turmoil at the local and state level in Oklahoma. Oklahoma City council members were finally beginning to respond to citizen complaints and put pressure on Washington.

The pressure put a premature end to the tests. On July 30, the tests were over. An Oklahoma City Times headline reported: Silence is deafening Zhivko D. Angeluscheff, a prominent hearing specialist serving with the National Academy of Science, recalled: I was witness to the fact that men were executing their brethren during six long months … with their thunder, the sonic boom, they were punishing all living creatures on earth.

The fallout

The results of the experiment, reported by NORC, were released beginning in February, 1965.[1][2][3] The FAA was displeased by the overly academic style of the report, but stressed the positive findings, saying the overwhelming majority felt they could learn to live with the numbers and kinds of booms experienced. Indeed, the NORC reported that 73% of subjects in the study said that they could live indefinitely with eight sonic booms per day, while 25% said that they couldn’t. About 3% of the population telephoned, sued, or wrote protest letters, but Oklahoma City surgeons and hospitals filed no complaints.

However, with the city population at 500,000, that 3% figure represented 15,000 upset individuals. At least 15,452 complaints and 4,901 claims were lodged against the U.S. government, most for cracked glass and plaster. The FAA rejected 94% of all the claims it received, fueling a rising tide of anger that soared even after the experiment’s conclusion. By 1965, Oklahoma Senator Mike Monroney had grown extremely upset over hundreds of letters from his constituents complaining about the FAA’s cavalier manner of dismissing claims, and began demanding frequent reports from the agency. As late as May 1966, the FAA was still attempting to respond to all of Monroney’s inquiries. The SST program lost all support from Monroney, who had initially been a key supporter.

The Oklahoma City experiments were partly to blame for weakening the FAA’s authority in sonic boom issues. After the tests, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidential advisory committee transferred matters of policy from the FAA to the National Academy of Science. Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall complained that the NAS did not include one environmental preservationist, and pointed out that although the Oklahoma City tests were stacked in favor of the SST, they were still extremely negative. Indeed by 1966, national grassroots campaigns against sonic booms were beginning to affect public policy.
The FAA’s poor handling of claims and its payout of only $123,000 led to a class action lawsuit against the U.S. government. On March 8, 1969, the government lost its appeal. The negative publicity associated with the tests partially influenced the 1971 cancellation of the Boeing 2707 project and led to the United States’ complete withdrawal from SST design.

References

1. ^ dtic.mil, COMMUNITY REACTIONS TO SONIC BOOMS IN THE OKLAHOMA CITY AREA
2. ^ dtic.mil, COMMUNITY REACTIONS … VOLUME 2
3. ^ dtic.mil, COMMUNITY REACTIONS … VOLUME 3

* Sonic Boom and the Supersonic Transport, Maj. Richard M. Roberds, Air University, U.S. Air Force, 1971.
* OKC endured 1,494 sonic booms in 1964, Steve Gust, Edmond Life & Leisure, 2005.[dead link]
* The Effects of Sonic Boom and Similar Impulsive Noise on Structures (PDF), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1971.
* Clipped Wings, Mel Horwitch, MIT Press, 1982.
* The SST: Here It Comes Ready or Not, Don Dwiggins, Doubleday & Company, 1968.

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_sonic_boom_tests
Categories: Sound | Human experimentation in the United States | Psychology experiments | Aviation history | Aviation in the United States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_sonic_boom_tests

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Operation Top Hat
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Operation Top Hat was a local field exercise [1] conducted by the United States Army Chemical Corps in 1953. The exercise involved the use of Chemical Corps personnel to test biological and chemical warfare decontamination methods. These personnel were deliberately exposed to these contaminants, so as to test decontamination.

Contents

* 1 Background
* 2 Tests
* 3 References
* 4 Further reading

Background

In June 1953 the United States Army formally adopted guidelines regarding the use of human subjects in chemical, biological, or radiological testing and research.[1] The guidelines were adopted per an Army Chief of Staff memo (MM 385) and closely mirrored the Nuremberg Code.[1] These guidelines also required that all research projects involving human subjects receive approval from the Secretary of the Army.[1] The guidelines, however, left a loophole; they did not define what types of experiments and tests required such approval from the secretary, thus encouraging selective compliance with the guidelines.[1]

Tests

Under the guidelines, seven research projects involving chemical weapons and human subjects were submitted by the Chemical Corps for Secretary of the Army approval in August 1953.[1][2] One project involved vesicants, one involved phosgene, and five were experiments which involved nerve agents; all seven were approved.[1][2] Operation Top Hat, however, was not among the projects submitted to the Secretary of the Army for approval.[2]

Operation Top Hat was termed a local field exercise by the Army and took place from September 15–19, 1953 at the Army Chemical School at Fort McClellan, Alabama.[1][2] In a 1975 Pentagon Inspector General’s report, the military maintained Top Hat was not subject to the guidelines requiring approval because it was a line of duty exercise in the Chemical Corps.[2] The experiments used Chemical Corps personnel to test decontamination methods for biological and chemical weapons,[2] including sulfur mustard and nerve agents.[1] Chemical Corps personnel participating in the tests were not volunteers and were not informed of the tests.[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Pechura, Constance M. and Rall, David P. Veterans at Risk: The Health Effects of Mustard Gas and Lewisite, (Google Books), U.S. Institute of Medicine: Committee to Survey the Health Effects of Mustard Gas and Lewisite, National Academies Press, 1993, p. 379–80, (ISBN 030904832X).
2. ^ a b c d e f Moreno, Jonathan D. Undue Risk: Secret State Experiments on Humans, (Google Books), Routledge, 2001, pp. 179–80, (ISBN 0415928354).

Further reading

* Taylor, James R. and Johnson, William N. Research Report Concerning the Use of Volunteers in Chemical Agent Research, DAIG-IN 21-75, 1975, Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, Office of the Inspector General and Auditor General

v • d • e
United States chemical weapons program
Agents and chemicals
3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate (BZ) A Chlorine A Methylphosphonyl difluoride (DF) A Phosgene A QL A Sarin (GB) A Sulfur mustard (HD) A VX
Weapons
Bigeye bomb A M1 chemical mine A M104 155mm Cartridge A M110 155mm Cartridge A M121/A1 155mm Cartridge A M125 bomblet A M134 bomblet A M138 bomblet A M139 bomblet A M2 mortar A M23 chemical mine A M34 cluster bomb A M360 105mm Cartridge A M426 8-inch shell A M43 BZ cluster bomb A M44 generator cluster A M55 rocket A M60 105mm Cartridge A M687 155mm Cartridge A XM-736 8-inch projectile A MC-1 bomb A M47 bomb A Weteye bomb
Operations and testing
Dugway sheep incident A Edgewood Arsenal experiments A MKULTRA A Operation CHASE A Operation Geranium A Operation LAC A Operation Red Hat A Operation Steel Box A Operation Ranch Hand A Operation Top Hat A Project 112 A Project SHAD
Facilities
Anniston Army Depot A Anniston Chemical Activity A Blue Grass Army Depot A Deseret Chemical Depot A Edgewood Chemical Activity A Hawthorne Army Depot A Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal System A Newport Chemical Depot A Pine Bluff Chemical Activity A Pueblo Chemical Depot A Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility A Umatilla Chemical Depot
Units and formations
1st Gas Regiment A U.S. Army Chemical Corps A Chemical mortar battalion
Equipment
Chemical Agent Identification Set A M93 Fox A MOPP A People sniffer
Related topics
Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory A Chlorine bombings in Iraq A Herbicidal warfare A List of topics A Poison gas in World War I A Tyler poison gas plot
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Top_Hat
Categories: Human experimentation in the United States | Chemical warfare | Non-combat military operations involving the United States | 1953 in the United States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Top_Hat

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Abderhalden reaction
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Abderhalden reaction is a now defunct blood test for pregnancy developed by Emil Abderhalden.

In 1909 Abderhalden found that on identification of a foreign protein in the blood, the body reacts with a defensive fermentation (in modern terms, a protease reaction) that causes disintegration of the protein. He developed the test in 1912. This test was apparently contentious soon after its development and a significant body of work was published both in support of and refuting the test’s reliability. One such publication concluded …the individual variations of both pregnant and non-pregnant sera make the results from both overlap so completely as to render the reaction, even with quantitative technique, absolutely indecisive for either positive or negative diagnosis of pregnancy. (Van Slyke et al. 1915). The test’s overall unreliability led to its being superseded in 1928 by the Aschheim-Zondek test. Due to Abderhalden’s high reputation, it was not internationally acknowledged until long after his death that the underlying theory of defensive enzymes (Abwehrfermente) was entirely fraudulent (Deichmann & Müller-Hill 1998).

References

* Deichmann, U. & Müller-Hill, B. (1998): The fraud of Abderhalden’s enzymes. Nature 393:109-111. HTML abstract
* Firkin, B. G. & Whitworth, J. A. (1987): Dictionary of Medical Eponyms. Parthenon Publishing. ISBN 1-85070-333-7
* Van Slyke, Donald D.; Vinograd-Villchur, Mariam; and Losee, J.R. (1915): The Abderhalden Reaction. Journal of Biological Chemistry 23(1):377-406. PDF fulltext experimental evidence of the unreliability of the Abderhalden pregnancy test
* Who Named It?

v • d • e
Eponymous medical signs for reproductive system and obstetrics
Reproductive system
John Thomas sign A Prehn’s sign
Obstetrics
Braxton Hicks contraction

pregnancy (Abderhalden reaction, Chadwick sign, Goodell’s sign, Hegar’s sign, Ladin’s sign, Piskacek’s sign, Von Braun-Fernwald’s sign)

hydrops fetalis (Bart hemoglobin)
Leopold’s maneuvers A Naegele’s rule
reproductive system navs: anat female,male/physio/dev, noncongen/congen/neoplasia, symptoms+signs/eponymous, proc
obstetric navs: conditions, eponymous signs, proc

Stub icon This medical diagnostic article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
v • d • e
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abderhalden_reaction
Categories: Scientific misconduct | Pregnancy tests | History of medicine | Medical diagnostic stubs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abderhalden_reaction

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Arsenic contamination of groundwater
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Main article: Water pollution

Arsenic contamination of groundwater is a natural occurring high concentration of arsenic in deeper levels of groundwater, which became a high-profile problem in recent years due to the use of deep tubewells for water supply in the Ganges Delta, causing serious arsenic poisoning to large numbers of people. A 2007 study found that over 137 million people in more than 70 countries are probably affected by arsenic poisoning of drinking water.[1] Arsenic contamination of ground water is found in many countries throughout the world, including the USA. [2]

Approximately 20 incidents of groundwater arsenic contamination have been reported from all over the world. [3] Of these, four major incidents were in Asia, including locations in Thailand, Taiwan, and Mainland China.[4][5] South American countries like Argentina and Chile have also been affected. There are also many locations in the United States where the groundwater contains arsenic concentrations in excess of the Environmental Protection Agency standard of 10 parts per billion adopted in 2001.

Arsenic is a carcinogen which causes many cancers including skin, lung, and bladder as well as cardiovascular disease.

Some research concludes that even at the lower concentrations, there is still a risk of arsenic contamination leading to major causes of death. A study was conducted in a contiguous six-county study area of southeastern Michigan to investigate the relationship between moderate arsenic levels and twenty-three selected disease outcomes. Disease outcomes included several types of cancer, diseases of the circulatory and respiratory system, diabetes mellitus, and kidney and liver diseases. Elevated mortality rates were observed for all diseases of the circulatory system. The researchers acknowledged a need to replicate their findings.[6]

A study preliminarily shows a relationship between arsenic exposure measured in urine and Type II diabetes. The results supported the hypothesis that low levels of exposure to inorganic arsenic in drinking water may play a role in diabetes prevalence.[7]

Arsenic in drinking water may also compromise immune function Scientists link influenza A (H1N1) susceptibility to common levels of arsenic exposure . http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/mbl-sli052009.php. .

Contents

* 1 Contamination specific nations and regions
o 1.1 Bangladesh and West Bengal
o 1.2 United States
* 2 Water purification solutions
o 2.1 Small-scale water treatment
o 2.2 Large-scale water treatment
* 3 Dietary intake
* 4 See also
* 5 Notes
* 6 References
* 7 External links

Contamination specific nations and regions
Bangladesh and West Bengal

The story of the arsenic contamination of the groundwater in Bangladesh is a tragic one. Many people have died from this contamination. Diarrheal diseases have long plagued the developing world as a major cause of death, especially in children. Prior to the 1970s, Bangladesh had one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world. Ineffective water purification and sewage systems as well as periodic monsoons and flooding exacerbated these problems. As a solution, UNICEF and the World Bank advocated the use of wells to tap into deeper groundwater for a quick and inexpensive solution. Millions of wells were constructed as a result. Because of this action, infant mortality and diarrheal illness were reduced by fifty percent. However, with over 8 million wells constructed, it has been found over the last two decades that approximately one in five of these wells is now contaminated with arsenic above the government’s drinking water standard.

In the Ganges Delta, the affected wells are typically more than 20 m and less than 100 m deep. Groundwater closer to the surface typically has spent a shorter time in the ground, therefore likely absorbing a lower concentration of arsenic; water deeper than 100 m is exposed to much older sediments which have already been depleted of arsenic.[4][8]

Dipankar Chakraborti from West Bengal brought the crisis to international attention in a research paper published in The Analyst in 1995 and reported on by David Bradley (The Guardian, January 5, 1995, Drinking the water of death ). [9][10] Beginning his investigation in West Bengal in 1988, he eventually published, in 2000, the results of a study conducted in Bangladesh, which involved the analysis of thousands of water samples as well as hair, nail and urine samples. They found 900 villages with arsenic above the government limit.

Chakraborti has criticized aid agencies, saying that they denied the problem during the 1990s while millions of tube wells were sunk. The aid agencies later hired foreign experts, who recommended treatment plants which were not appropriate to the conditions, were regularly breaking down, or were not removing the arsenic.[11]

Chakraborti says that the arsenic situation in Bangladesh and West Bengal is due to negligence. He also adds that in West Bengal water is mostly supplied from rivers. Groundwater comes from deep tubewells, which are few in number in the state. Because of the low quantity of deep tubewells, the risk of arsenic patients in West Bengal is comparatively less. [12]

According to the World Health Organisation, “In Bangladesh, West Bengal (India) and some other areas, most drinking-water used to be collected from open dug wells and ponds with little or no arsenic, but with contaminated water transmitting diseases such as diarrhoea, dysentery, typhoid, cholera and hepatitis. Programmes to provide ‘safe’ drinking-water over the past 30 years have helped to control these diseases, but in some areas they have had the unexpected side-effect of exposing the population to another health problem—arsenic.” [13] The acceptable level as defined by WHO for maximum concentrations of arsenic in safe drinking water is 0.01 mg/L. The Bangladesh government’s standard is at a slightly higher rate, at 0.05 mg/L being considered safe. WHO has defined the areas under threat: Seven of the nineteen districts of West Bengal have been reported to have ground water arsenic concentrations above 0.05 mg/L. The total population in these seven districts is over 34 million, with the number using arsenic-rich water is more than 1 million (above 0.05 mg/L). That number increases to 1.3 million when the concentration is above 0.01 mg/L. According to a British Geological Survey study in 1998 on shallow tube-wells in 61 of the 64 districts in Bangladesh, 46% of the samples were above 0.01 mg/L and 27% were above 0.050 mg/L. When combined with the estimated 1999 population, it was estimated that the number of people exposed to arsenic concentrations above 0.05 mg/L is 28-35 million and the number of those exposed to more than 0.01 mg/L is 46-57 million (BGS, 2000). [13]

Throughout Bangladesh, as tube wells get tested for concentrations of arsenic, ones which are found to have arsenic concentrations over the amount considered safe are painted red to warn residents that the water is not safe to drink.

The solution, according to Chakraborti, is “By using surface water and instituting effective withdrawal regulation. West Bengal and Bangladesh are flooded with surface water. We should first regulate proper watershed management. Treat and use available surface water, rain-water and others. The way we’re doing at present is not advisable. [12]
[edit] United States

There are many locations across the United States where the groundwater contains naturally high concentrations of arsenic. Cases of groundwater-caused acute arsenic toxicity, such as those found in Bangladesh, are unknown in the United States where the concern has focused on the role of arsenic as a carcinogen. The problem of high arsenic concentrations has been subject to greater scrutiny in recent years because of changing government standards for arsenic in drinking water.

Some locations in the United States, such as Fallon, Nevada, have long been known to have groundwater with relatively high arsenic concentrations (in excess of 0.08 mg/L).[14] Even some surface waters, such as the Verde River in Arizona, sometimes exceed 0.01 mg/L arsenic, especially during low-flow periods when the river flow is dominated by groundwater discharge.[15]

A drinking water standard of 0.05 mg/L (equal to 50 parts per billion, or ppb) arsenic was originally established in the United States by the Public Health Service in 1942. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) studied the pros and cons of lowering the arsenic Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) for years in the late 1980s and 1990s. No action was taken until January 2001, when the Clinton administration in its final weeks promulgated a new standard of 0.01 mg/L (10 ppb) to take effect January 2006.[16] The incoming Bush administration suspended the midnight regulation, but after some months of study, the new EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman approved the new 10 ppb arsenic standard and its original effective date of January 2006.[17]

Many public water supply systems across the United States obtained their water supply from groundwater that had met the old 50 ppb arsenic standard but exceeded the new 10 ppb MCL. These utilities searched for either an alternative supply or an inexpensive treatment method to remove the arsenic from their water. In Arizona, an estimated 35% of water-supply wells were put out of compliance by the new regulation; in California, the percentage was 38%.[18]

The proper arsenic MCL continues to be debated. Some have argued that the 10 ppb federal standard is still too high, while others have argued that 10 ppb is needlessly strict. Individual states are able to establish lower arsenic limits; New Jersey has done so, setting a maximum of 0.005 mg/L for arsenic in drinking water.[19]

A study of private water wells in the Appalachian mountains found that 6% of the wells had arsenic above the US MCL of 0.010 mg/L.[20].

Water purification solutions
Small-scale water treatment

Chakraborti claims that arsenic removal plants (ARPs) installed in Bangladesh by UNDP and WHO were a colossal waste of funds due to breakdowns, inconvenient placements and lack of quality control.[12]

A simpler and less expensive form of arsenic removal is known as the Sono arsenic filter, using 3 pitchers containing cast iron turnings and sand in the first pitcher and wood activated carbon and sand in the second.[21] Plastic buckets can also be used as filter containers.[22] It is claimed that thousands of these systems are in use can last for years while avoiding the toxic waste disposal problem inherent to conventional arsenic removal plants. Although novel, this filter has not been certified by any sanitary standards such as NSF, ANSI, WQA and does not avoid toxic waste disposal similar to any other iron removal process.

In the United States small under the sink units have been used to remove arsenic from drinking water. This option is called point of use treatment. The most common types of domestic treatment use the technologies of adsorption (using media such as Bayoxide E33, GFH, or titanium dioxide) or reverse osmosis. Ion exchange and activated alumina have been considered but not commonly used.

Large-scale water treatment

In some places, such as the United States, all the water supplied to residences by water utilities must meet primary (health-based) drinking water standards. This may necessitate large-scale treatment systems to remove arsenic from the water supply. The effectiveness of any method depends on the chemical makeup of a particular water supply. The aqueous chemistry of arsenic is complex, and may affect the removal rate that can be achieved by a particular process.

Some large utilities with multiple water supply wells could shut down those wells with high arsenic concentrations, and produce only from wells or surface water sources that meet the arsenic standard. Other utilities, however, especially small utilities with only a few wells, may have no available water supply that meets the arsenic standard.

Coagulation/filtration removes arsenic by coprecipitation and adsorption using iron coagulants. Coagulation/filtration using alum is already used by some utilities to remove suspended solids and may be adjusted to remove arsenic.

Iron oxide adsorption filters the water through a granular medium containing ferric oxide. Ferric oxide has a high affinity for adsorbing dissolved metals such as arsenic. The iron oxide medium eventually becomes saturated, and must be replaced.

Activated alumina is another filter medium known to effectively remove dissolved arsenic. It has also been used to remove undesirably high concentrations of fluoride.

Ion Exchange has long been used as a water-softening process, although usually on a single-home basis. It can also be effective in removing arsenic with a net ionic charge. (Note that arsenic oxide, As2O3, is a common form of arsenic in groundwater that is soluble, but has no net charge.)

Both Reverse osmosis and electrodialysis (also called electrodialysis reversal) can remove arsenic with a net ionic charge. (Note that arsenic oxide, As2O3, is a common form of arsenic in groundwater that is soluble, but has no net charge.) Some utilities presently use one of these methods to reduce total dissolved solids and therefore improve taste. A problem with both methods is the production of high-salinity waste water, called brine, or concentrate, which then must be disposed of.

A new solution to this pressing problem is the Subterranean Arsenic Removal (SAR) technology where aerated groundwater is being recharged back into the aquifer to create an oxidation zone which will bind the iron & arsenic. The oxidation zone will boost up the activity of the arsenic oxidizing micro-organisms which can enzymatically oxidize arsenic from +3 to +5 state. Seven such plants have been installed in rural West Bengal and they are delivering 3000 lt arsenic & iron free water everyday to the rural people. The first community water treatment plant based on SAR technology was set up near Kolkata by a team of European and Indian engineers led by Dr. Bhaskar Sen Gupta of Queen’s University Belfast. This technology is expected to provide a long term solution to arsenic contamination in groundwater and is targeted towards treatment of the aquifer as a whole. Also, Germany has used this technology for the past hundred years to remove iron effectively from groundwater without any negetive effect. SAR Technology

Dietary intake

Researchers from Bangladesh and the United Kingdom have recently claimed that dietary intake of arsenic adds a significant amount to total intake, where contaminated water is used for irrigation.[23] [24][25]

See also

* Arsenic poisoning
* Grainger challenge
* Groundwater
* Water pollution

Notes

1. ^ Arsenic in drinking water seen as threat . Associated Press. 2007-08-30. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-08-30-553404631_x.htm,.
2. ^ Twarakavi, N. K. C., Kaluarachchi, J. J. (2006). Arsenic in the shallow ground waters of conterminous United States: assessment, health risks, and costs for MCL compliance . Journal of American Water Resources Association 42 (2): 275–294. doi:10.1111/j.1752-1688.2006.tb03838.x. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118632836/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0.
3. ^ Mukherjee A., Sengupta M. K., Hossain M. A. (2006). Arsenic contamination in groundwater: A global perspective with emphasis on the Asian scenario . Journal of Health Population and Nutrition 24 (2): 142–163. http://202.136.7.26/images/jhpn242_Arsenic-contamination.pdf.
4. ^ a b The UNESCO Courier, Bangladesh’s arsenic poisoning: who is to blame?
5. ^ Chowdhury U. K., Biswas B. K., Chowdhury T. R. (2000). Groundwater arsenic contamination in Bangladesh and West Bengal, India . Environmental Health Perspectives 108 (4): 393–397. doi:10.2307/3454378. http://www.ehponline.org/members/2000/108p393-397chowdhury/chowdhury-full.html.
6. ^ , Jaymie R. Meliker, Arsenic in drinking water and cerebrovascular disease, diabetes mellitus, and kidney disease in Michigan: a standardized mortality ratio analysis Environmental Health Magazine. Volume 2:4. 2007. Accessed 9 Sept. 2008.
7. ^ Ana Navas-Acien, Arsenic Exposure and Prevalence of Type 2 Diabetes in US Adults, Journal of American Medical Association, v.300, n.7 (August 2008).
8. ^ Singh A. K. (2006). Chemistry of arsenic in groundwater of Ganges-Brahmaputra river basin . Current Science 91 (5): 599–606. http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/sep102006/599.pdf.
9. ^ Amit Chatterjee, Dipankar Das, Badal K. Mandal, Tarit Roy Chowdhury, Gautam Samanta and Dipankar Chakraborti (1995). Arsenic in ground water in six districts of West Bengal, India: the biggest arsenic calamity in the world. Part I. Arsenic species in drinking water and urine of the affected people . Analyst 120: 643–651. doi:10.1039/AN9952000643.
10. ^ Dipankar Das, Amit Chatterjee, Badal K. Mandal, Gautam Samanta, Dipankar Chakraborti and Bhabatosh Chanda (1995). Arsenic in ground water in six districts of West Bengal, India: the biggest arsenic calamity in the world. Part 2. Arsenic concentration in drinking water, hair, nails, urine, skin-scale and liver tissue (biopsy) of the affected people . Analyst 120: 917–925. doi:10.1039/AN9952000917.
11. ^ New Scientist, Interview: Drinking at the west’s toxic well31 May 2006.
12. ^ a b c The Times of India, ‘Use surface water. Stop digging’, interview, 26 Sep, 2004.
13. ^ a b World Health Organization, Arsenic in Drinking Water, accessed 5 Feb 2007.
14. ^ Frederick Rubel Jr. and Steven W. Hathaway (1985) Pilot Study for removal of arsenic from drinking water at the Fallon, Nevada, Naval Air Station, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA/600/S2-85/094.
15. ^ M. Taqueer A. Qureshi (1995) Sources of Arsenic in the Verde River and Salt River Watersheds, Arizona, M.S. thesis, Arizona State University, Tempe.
16. ^ The history of arsenic regulation, Southwest Hydrology, May/June 2002, p.16.
17. ^ EPA announces arsenic standard for drinking water of 10 parts per billion, EPA press release, 10/31/2001.
18. ^ Alison Bohlen (2002) States move forward to meet new arsenic standard, Southwest Hydrology, May/June 2002, p.18-19.
19. ^ Megan A. Ferguson and others, Lowering the detection limit for arsenic: implications for a future practical quantitation limit, American Water Works Association Journal, Aug. 2007, p.92-98.
20. ^ John G. Shiber, Arsenic in domestic well water and health in Central Appalachia, USA
21. ^ Evaluation of Performance of Sono 3-Kolshi Filter for Arsenic Removal from Groundwater Using Zero Valent Iron Through Laboratory and Field StudiesPDF (272 KiB)
22. ^ SONO ARSENIC FILTER FROM BANGLADESH – 1PDF (102 KiB) – pictures with descriptions.
23. ^ Mustak Hossain (2006-07-13). Toxic rice harvested in southwestern Bangladesh . SciDev.Net. http://www.scidev.net/News/index.cfm?fuseaction=readNews&itemid=2975&language=1.
24. ^ Williams, P.N. (2006). Increase in Rice Grain Arsenic for Regions of Bangladesh Irrigating Paddies with Elevated Arsenic in Groundwaters . Environ. Sci. Technol 40 (16): 4903–4908. doi:10.1021/es060222i.
25. ^ *Raghvan T. Screening of Rice Cultivars for Grain Arsenic Concentration and Speciation . American Society of Agronomy Proceding.

References

* Smedley PL, Kinniburgh DG (2002). A review of the source, behaviour and distribution of arsenic in natural waters . Applied Geochemistry 17 (5): 517–568. doi:10.1016/S0883-2927(02)00018-5.
* Nickson RT, McArthur JM, Ravenscroft P (2000). Mechanism of arsenic release to groundwater, Bangladesh and West Bengal . Applied Geochemistry 15 (4): 403–413. doi:10.1016/S0883-2927(99)00086-4.
* Korte N. E., Fernando Q. (1991). A Review of Arsenic(III) in Groundwater . Critical Reviews in Environmental Control 21 (1): 1–39.
* Smith AH, Lingas EO, Rahman M (2000). Contamination of drinking-water by arsenic in Bangladesh: a public health emergency . Bulletin of the World Health Organization 78 (9): 1093–1103. http://www.scielosp.org/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0042-96862000000900005&lng=en&nrm=iso.
* Harvey CF, Swartz CH, Badruzzaman ABM (2002). Arsenic mobility and groundwater extraction in Bangladesh . Science 298 (5598): 1602–1606. doi:10.1126/science.1076978. PMID 12446905.
* Raghvan T. Screening of Rice Cultivars for Grain Arsenic Concentration and Speciation . American Society of Agronomy Proceding.
* Hossain MF (2006). Arsenic contamination in Bangladesh – An overview . Agriculture Ecosystem & Environment 113 (1-4): 1–16. doi:10.1016/j.agee.2005.08.034.

External links

* ATSDR – Case Studies in Environmental Medicine: Arsenic Toxicity
* Arsenic in groundwater IGRAC International Groundwater Resources Assessment Centre
* Arsenic in Groundwater: A World Problem – IAH publication, Netherlands National Chapter, 2008
* SOS-Arsenic.net – information and awareness raising site, focused on Bangladesh.
* Contamination of drinking-water by arsenic in Bangladesh: a public health emergency – at SOS-Arsenic.net
* Subterranean Arsenic Treatment Technology in West Bengal
* www.wbphed.gov.in – Arsenic Scenario of West Bengal
* Drinking Death in Groundwater: Arsenic Contamination as a Threat to Water Security for Bangladesh, ACDIS Occasional Paper by Mustafa Moinuddin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenic_contamination_of_groundwater

***

Arsenic poisoning
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Arsenic poisoning
Classification and external resources
ICD-10     T57.0
ICD-9     985.1
eMedicine     emerg/42
MeSH     [1]
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Arsenic poisoning kills by allosteric inhibition of essential metabolic enzymes, leading to death from multi-system organ failure. It primarily inhibits enzymes that require lipoic acid as a cofactor, such as pyruvate and alpha-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase. Because of this, substrates before the dehydrogenase steps accumulate, such as pyruvate (and lactate). It particularly affects the brain, causing neurological disturbances and death.

Contents

* 1 Toxicity
* 2 Pathophysiology
* 3 Diagnosis
* 4 Treatment
* 5 Unintentional poisoning
o 5.1 Occupational Exposures
o 5.2 Arsenicosis: chronic arsenic poisoning from drinking water
* 6 Intentional poisoning
* 7 Famous victims (known and alleged)
o 7.1 Francesco I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany
o 7.2 George III of Great Britain
o 7.3 Napoleon Bonaparte
o 7.4 Charles Francis Hall
o 7.5 Huo Yuan Jia
o 7.6 Clare Boothe Luce
o 7.7 Impressionist painters
o 7.8 Phar Lap
* 8 See also
* 9 Footnotes
* 10 External links

Toxicity

The toxicity of arsenic and its compounds is highly variable.[1](citation does not accurately reflect information in previous statement). Organic forms appear to have a lower toxicity than inorganic forms of arsenic. Research has shown that arsenites (trivalent forms) have a higher acute toxicity than arsenates (pentavalent forms).[2] The acute minimal lethal dose of arsenic in adults is estimated to be 70 to 200 mg or 1 mg/kg/day.[3] Most reported arsenic poisonings are not caused by elemental arsenic, but by one of arsenics compounds, especially arsenic trioxide, which is approximately 500 times more toxic than pure arsenic.[citation needed] Symptoms include violent stomach pains in the region of the bowels; tenderness and pressure; retching; excessive saliva production; vomiting; sense of dryness and tightness in the throat; thirst; hoarseness and difficulty of speech; the matter vomited, greenish or yellowish, sometimes streaked with blood; diarrhea; tenesmus; sometimes excoriation of the anus; urinary organs occasionally affected with violent burning pains and suppression; convulsions and cramps; clammy sweats; lividity of the extremities; countenance collapsed; eyes red and sparkling; delirium; death. Some of these symptoms may be absent where the poisoning results from inhalation, as of arseniuretted hydrogen.

Symptoms of arsenic poisoning start with mild headaches and can progress to lightheadedness and usually, if untreated, will result in death.

Arsenic poisoning can lead to a variety of problems, from skin cancer to keratoses of the feet.

Chronic exposure to inorganic arsenic may lead to cutaneous hyperpigmentation.[4]:859

Pathophysiology
Main article: Arsenic toxicity

Arsenic disrupts ATP production through several mechanisms. At the level of the citric acid cycle, arsenic inhibits pyruvate dehydrogenase and by competing with phosphate it uncouples oxidative phosphorylation, thus inhibiting energy-linked reduction of NAD+, mitochondrial respiration, and ATP synthesis. Hydrogen peroxide production is also increased, which might form reactive oxygen species and oxidative stress. These metabolic interferences lead to death from multi-system organ failure, probably from necrotic cell death, not apoptosis. A post mortem reveals brick red colored mucosa, due to severe hemorrhage. Although arsenic causes toxicity, it can also play a protective role.[5]

Diagnosis

There are tests available to diagnose poisoning by measuring arsenic in blood, urine, hair, and fingernails. The urine test is the most reliable test for arsenic exposure within the last few days. Urine testing needs to be done within 24–48 hours for an accurate analysis of an acute exposure. Tests on hair and fingernails can measure exposure to high levels of arsenic over the past 6–12 months. These tests can determine if one has been exposed to above-average levels of arsenic. They cannot predict, however, whether the arsenic levels in the body will affect health.[6]

Hair is a potential bioindicator for arsenic exposure due to its ability to store trace elements from blood. Incorporated elements maintain their position during growth of hair. Thus for a temporal estimation of exposure, an assay of hair composition needs to be carried out with a singe hair which is not possible with older techniques requiring homogenization and dissolution of several strands of hair. This type of biomonitoring has been achieved with newer microanalytical techniques like Synchroton radiation based X ray fluorescence (SXRF) spectroscopy and Microparticle induced X ray emission (PIXE).The highly focused and intense beams study small spots on biological samples allowing analysis to micro level along with the chemical speciation. In a study, this method has been used to follow arsenic level before, during and after treatment with Arsenious oxide in patients with Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia.[7].

Treatment

Chemical and synthetic methods are now used to treat arsenic poisoning. Dimercaprol and dimercaptosuccinic acid are chelating agents which sequester the arsenic away from blood proteins and are used in treating acute arsenic poisoning. The most important side-effect is hypertension. Dimercaprol is considerably more toxic than succimer.[8]

In the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology, Keya Chaudhuri of the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology in Kolkata, and her colleagues reported giving rats daily doses of arsenic in their water, in levels equivalent to those found in groundwater in Bangladesh and West Bengal. Those rats which were also fed garlic extracts had 40 percent less arsenic in their blood and liver, and passed 45 percent more arsenic in their urine. The conclusion is that sulfur-containing substances in garlic scavenge arsenic from tissues and blood. The presentation concludes that people in areas at risk of arsenic contamination in the water supply should eat one to three cloves of garlic per day as a preventative. [9][10][11]

Unintentional poisoning

In addition to its use as a poison, arsenic was used medicinally for centuries and was used extensively to treat syphilis before penicillin was introduced. Arsenic was replaced as a therapeutic agent by sulfa drugs and then by antibiotics. Arsenic was also an ingredient in many tonics (or patent medicines ). In addition, during the Victorian era, some women used a mixture of vinegar, chalk, and arsenic applied topically to whiten their skin. The use of arsenic was intended to prevent aging and creasing of the skin, but some arsenic was inevitably absorbed into the blood stream.

Some pigments, most notably the popular Emerald Green (known also under several other names), were based on arsenic compounds. Overexposure to these pigments was a frequent cause of accidental poisoning of artists and craftsmen.

Occupational Exposures

Industries that use inorganic arsenic and its compounds include wood preservation, glass production, nonferrous metal alloys, and electronic semiconductor manufacturing. Inorganic arsenic is also found in coke oven emissions associated with the smelter industry.[12]

Occupational exposure to arsenic may occur with copper or lead smelting and wood treatment, among workers involved in the production or application of pesticides containing organic arsenicals. Humans are exposed to arsenic through air, drinking water, and food (meat, fish, and poultry); this food is usually the largest source of arsenic. Arsenic was also found in wine if arsenic pesticides are used in the vineyard. Arsenic is well absorbed by oral and inhalation routes, widely distributed and excreted in urine; most of a single, low-level dose is excreted within a few days after consuming any form of inorganic arsenic. Remains of arsenic in nails and hair can be detected years after the exposure.

Arsenicosis: chronic arsenic poisoning from drinking water
Main article: Arsenic contamination of groundwater

Chronic arsenic poisoning results from drinking water with high levels of arsenic over a long period of time. This may occur due to arsenic contamination of groundwater.[13] The World Health Organization recommends a limit of 0.01 mg/L (10ppb) of arsenic in drinking water. This recommendation was established based on the limit of detection of available testing equipment at the time of publication of the WHO water quality guidelines. More recent findings show that consumption of water with levels as low as 0.00017 mg/L (0.17ppb) over long periods of time can lead to arsenicosis.[citation needed]

Intentional poisoning

Arsenic became a favorite murder weapon of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, particularly among ruling classes in Italy, notably the Borgias. Because the symptoms are similar to those of cholera, which was common at the time, arsenic poisoning often went undetected. By the 19th C., it had acquired the nickname inheritance powder, perhaps because impatient heirs were known or suspected to use it to ensure or accelerate their inheritances.

In ancient Korea, and particularly in Joseon Dynasty, arsenic-sulfur compounds have been used as a major ingredient of sayak (??; ??), which was a poison cocktail used in capital punishment of high-profile political figures and members of the royal family.[14] Due to social and political prominence of the condemned, many of these events were well-documented, often in the Annals of Joseon Dynasty; they are sometimes portrayed in historical television miniseries because of their dramatic nature.[15]

On April 27, 2003, sixteen members of the Gustaf Adolph Lutheran Church in New Sweden, Maine, became ill following the church coffee hour; one died a short time later. Investigation revealed that the coffee had been heavily laced with arsenic. As of the 2005 publication of Christine Ellen Young’s A Bitter Brew, no one had been formally charged with the crime. However, the Discovery Health channel (date?) reported that Daniel Bondeson, who was found with bullet wounds to his chest at a farm, wrote a note saying that he was responsible for the poisoning. He succumbed to the injuries while undergoing surgery.

Murder mystery stories often feature arsenic poisoning, although they commonly omit the more disagreeable symptoms.

Famous victims (known and alleged)

Arsenic poisoning, accidental or deliberate, has been implicated in the illness and death of a number of prominent people throughout history.

Francesco I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany

Recent forensic evidence uncovered by Italian scientists suggests that Francesco and his wife were poisoned possibly by his brother and successor Fernando.[16]

George III of Great Britain

George III’s (1738 – 1820) personal health was a concern throughout his long reign. He suffered from periodic episodes of physical and mental illness, five of them disabling enough to require the King to withdraw from his duties. In 1969, researchers asserted that the episodes of madness and other physical symptoms were characteristic of the disease porphyria, which was also identified in members of his immediate and extended family. In addition, a 2004 study of samples of the King’s hair[17] revealed extremely high levels of arsenic, which is a possible trigger of disease symptoms. A 2005 article in the medical journal The Lancet[18] suggested the source of the arsenic could be the antimony used as a consistent element of the King’s medical treatment. The two minerals are often found in the same ground, and mineral extraction at the time was not precise enough to eliminate arsenic from compounds containing antimony.
Napoleon Bonaparte

It has been theorized that Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 – 1821) suffered and died from arsenic poisoning during his imprisonment on the island of Saint Helena. Forensic samples of his hair did show high levels, 13 times the normal amount, of the element. This, however, does not prove deliberate poisoning by Napoleon’s enemies: copper arsenite has been used as a pigment in some wallpapers, and microbiological liberation of the arsenic into the immediate environment would be possible. The case is equivocal in the absence of clearly authenticated samples of the wallpaper. As Napoleon’s body lay for nearly 20 years in a grave on the island, before being moved to its present resting place in Paris, arsenic from the soil could not have polluted the sample as the arsenic was found within his hair, which can only be possible when the arsenic was already in the body. Even without contaminated wallpaper or soil, commercial use of arsenic at the time provided many other routes by which Napoleon could have consumed enough arsenic to leave this forensic trace.

Charles Francis Hall

American explorer Charles Francis Hall (1821–1871) died unexpectedly during his third Arctic expedition aboard the ship Polaris. After returning to the ship from a sledging expedition Hall drank a cup of coffee and fell violently ill.[19] He collapsed in what was described as a fit. He suffered from vomiting and delirium for the next week, then seemed to improve for a few days. He accused several of the ship’s company, including ship’s physician Dr. Emil Bessels with whom he had longstanding disagreements, of having poisoned him.[19] Shortly thereafter, Hall again began suffering the same symptoms, died, and was taken ashore for burial. Following the expedition’s return a US Navy investigation ruled that Hall had died from apoplexy.[20]

In 1968, however, Hall’s biographer Chauncey C. Loomis, a professor at Dartmouth College, traveled to Greenland to exhume Hall’s body. Due to the permafrost, Hall’s body, flag shroud, clothing and coffin were remarkably well preserved. Tissue samples of bone, fingernails and hair showed that Hall died of poisoning from large doses of arsenic in the last two weeks of his life,[21] consistent with the symptoms party members reported. It is possible that Hall dosed himself with quack medicines which included the poison, but it is more likely that he was murdered by Dr. Bessels or one of the other members of the expedition.[22]

Huo Yuan Jia

Huo Yuan Jia made his name as a Chinese martial artist. There was rumour that he was poisoned in 1910 during his fight with the Japanese, who accused China and the Chinese of being the sick man of Asia . His death was not due to the fight but of his chronic illness.

Clare Boothe Luce

A later case of arsenic poisoning is that of Clare Boothe Luce, (1903 – 1987) the American ambassador to Italy 1953–1956. Although she did not die from her poisoning, she suffered an increasing variety of physical and psychological symptoms until arsenic poisoning was diagnosed, and its source traced to the old, arsenic-laden flaking paint on the ceiling of her bedroom. Another source (see below) explains her poisoning as resulting from eating food contaminated by flaking of the ceiling of the embassy dining room.

Impressionist painters

Emerald Green, a pigment frequently used by Impressionist painters, is based on arsenic. Cezanne developed severe diabetes, which is a symptom of chronic arsenic poisoning. Monet’s blindness and Van Gogh’s neurological disorders could have been partially due to their use of Emerald Green. Poisoning by other commonly used substances, including liquor and absinthe, lead pigments, mercury-based Vermilion, and solvents such as turpentine, could also be a factor in these cases.

Phar Lap

75 years after his death in 1932, forensic scientists determined the famous and largely successful Australian racehorse Phar Lap died after ingesting a massive dose of arsenic.[23]

See also

* Forensic toxicology
* 2007 Peruvian meteorite event – a meteorite impact that is believed to have caused arsenic poisoning.
* James Marsh was a chemist, who invented the Marsh test for detecting arsenic.
* Arsine is a compound of Arsenic that is highly toxic and dangerously flammable.

Footnotes

1. ^ Mathieu D, Mathieu-Nolf M, Germain-Alonso M, Neviere R, Furon D, Wattel F (1992). Massive arsenic poisoning–effect of hemodialysis and dimercaprol on arsenic kinetics . Intensive Care Med 18 (1): 47–50. doi:10.1007/BF01706427. PMID 1578049.
2. ^ Kingston RL, Hall S, Sioris L (1993). Clinical observations and medical outcome in 149 cases of arsenate ant killer ingestion . J. Toxicol. Clin. Toxicol. 31 (4): 581–91. PMID 8254700.
3. ^ Dart, RC (2004). Medical toxicology. Philadelphia: Williams & Wilkins. pp. 1393–1401. ISBN 0-7817-2845-2.
4. ^ James, William; Berger, Timothy; Elston, Dirk (2005). Andrews’ Diseases of the Skin: Clinical Dermatology. (10th ed.). Saunders. ISBN 0721629210.
5. ^ Klaassen, Curtis; Watkins, John (2003). Casarett and Doull’s Essentials of Toxicology. McGraw-Hill. pp. 512. ISBN 978-0071389143.
6. ^ ToxFAQs for Arsenic . Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts2.html. Retrieved 2009-01-06.
7. ^ *Nicolis, I (2009), Arsenite medicinal use, metabolism, pharmacokinetics and monitoring in human hair , Biochimie. [Epub ahead of print] (Jun 13) }
8. ^ Dimercaprol Drug Information, Professional
9. ^ Food and Chemical Toxicology – Elsevier . http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/237/description#description++. Retrieved 2009-03-05.
10. ^ Garlic combats arsenic poisoning – health – 14 January 2008 – New Scientist . http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19726385.100-garlic-combats-arsenic-poisoning.html. Retrieved 2009-03-05.
11. ^ ScienceDirect – Food and Chemical Toxicology : In vitro and in vivo reduction of sodium arsenite induced toxicity by aqueous garlic extract . http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T6P-4PT0Y7V-2&_user=961305&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000049425&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=961305&md5=b0917537375df1e9de7fe4f4f897af03. Retrieved 2009-03-05.
12. ^ OSHA Arsenic . United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration. http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/arsenic/index.html. Retrieved 2007-10-08.
13. ^ WHO Water-related diseases
14. ^ ??? ‘??’ ??
15. ^ ???, ‘?? ?’ ???? ???? ?? ?? ??
16. ^ Mari F, Polettini A, Lippi D, Bertol E (December 2006). The mysterious death of Francesco I de’ Medici and Bianca Cappello: an arsenic murder? . BMJ 333 (7582): 1299–301. doi:10.1136/bmj.38996.682234.AE. PMID 17185715. PMC: 1761188. http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/333/7582/1299.
17. ^ BBC NEWS | Health | King George III: Mad or misunderstood?
18. ^ Madness of King George Linked to Arsenic – AOL News
19. ^ a b Mowat Farley. ‘The Polar Passion: The Quest for the North Pole’. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1967, p. 124
20. ^ Parry, Richard. ‘Trial By Ice: The True Story of Murder and Survival on the 1871 Polaris Expedition’. New York: Ballantine Books, 2001, p. 293
21. ^ Fleming, Fergus. ‘Ninety Degrees North: The Quest for the North Pole’. New York: Grove Press, 2001, p. 142
22. ^ Chauncey Loomis. Charles Francis Hall 1821–1871 . http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic35-3-442.pdf.
23. ^ Phar Lap ‘died from arsenic poisoning’ . The Age. 19 June 2008. http://news.theage.com.au/national/phar-lap-died-from-arsenic-poisoning-20080619-2t3m.html. Retrieved 2008-01-09.

External links

* Arsenic poisoning at the Open Directory Project
* Subterranean Arsenic Removal Technology in West Bengal

v • d • e
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Inorganic
Metals

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Other vertebrates

snake venom (Alpha-Bungarotoxin, Ancrod, Batroxobin)
amphibian venom: Batrachotoxin A Bombesin A Bufotenin A Physalaemin
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arthropod venom: Bee sting/bee venom (Apamin, Melittin) A spider venom (Latrotoxin/Latrodectism) A scorpion venom (Charybdotoxin)
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Mushroom poisoning A Lathyrism A Ergotism A Strychnine poisoning A Cinchonism A Locoism (Pea struck)

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenic_poisoning
Categories: Arsenic | Disturbances of human pigmentation | Element toxicology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenic_poisoning

***
Spring Valley, Washington, D.C.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Map of Washington, D.C., with Spring Valley in red.

Spring Valley is an affluent neighborhood in northwest Washington, D.C., known for its large homes and tree-lined streets.

The neighborhood houses the main campus of American University at 4400 Massachusetts Avenue, as well as Wesley Theological Seminary at 4500 Massachusetts Avenue. Nebraska Avenue and Loughboro Road are to its south, Dalecarlia Parkway is to its west, and Massachusetts Avenue is to its northeast. Paradoxically, the neighborhood to the northeast is called American University Park, even though the bulk of the main campus is located in Spring Valley.

Spring Valley’s residents include notable media personalities (e.g., Ann Compton, Tim Russert, Jim Vance), lawyers (e.g., United States Attorney General Eric Holder, Brendan Sullivan), politicians, corporate officers, and elite Washington society (e.g., Washington Nationals principal owners Ed and Debra Cohen). Richard Nixon lived in Spring Valley before becoming President; his immediate predecessor, Lyndon B. Johnson, after becoming Vice President under John F. Kennedy, purchased a three-story mansion named Les Ormes (The Elms) in Spring Valley that had previously been the home of socialite and ambassador Perle Mesta[1]. George H.W. Bush also lived in the neighborhood prior to his White House years.

During World War I Spring Valley was an undeveloped area that the army used for testing chemical weapons. During excavations for new construction workers found unexploded ordnance, and scientists have found high levels of arsenic in the soil. The Army Corps of Engineers has undergone extensive testing and clean-up efforts in select parts of Spring Valley, a process that has been going on for years.
South Korean embassy residence on Glenbrook Road

Several embassy residences are located in the neighborhood, such as the ambassador’s houses of South Korea, Bahrain, Qatar, and Yemen. Spring Valley’s median home sale price in 2007 was US$2.725 and in 2008 $3.022 million.[2]

v • d • e
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US capitol icon.png

Coordinates: 38E56?25?N 77E05?48?W? / ?38.94018EN 77.09677EW? / 38.94018; -77.09677
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Valley,_Washington,_D.C.
Categories: Neighborhoods in Washington, D.C.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Valley,_Washington,_D.C.

***

D.C. Tour Offers Fewer Monuments, More Munitions – washingtonpost.com
Kent Slowinski leads a tour of the Spring Valley World War I munitions site in Northwest Washington, which the Army Corps of Engineers has been working for …
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/…/AR2009092001961.html

Current Site Information, Washington, D.C. Army Chemical Munitions …
Thirty nine monitoring wells have been installed near the Dalecarlia reservoir, adjacent to waste and munition disposal sites in the Spring Valley …
www.epa.gov/reg3hwmd/npl/DCD983971136.htm

***

Washington, D.C. Army Chemical Munitions (Spring Valley)
Current Site Information
EPA Region 3 (Mid-Atlantic)
Delaware
New Castle County
2 miles southwest of the City of New Castle
EPA ID# DCD983971136
1st Congressional District

Last Update: January 2009
Other Names
Spring Valley
Current Site Status

The Army maintains a Spring Valley internet site.
Site Description

In January, 1993 a contractor who was digging a utility trench unearthed World War I munitions in the Spring Valley area of the District of Columbia. During further investigations, munitions were discovered in pits located on the Korean Ambassador property, adjacent to American University and additional pits were also found on the adjacent residential property. The pit excavation and other work at the Korean property has been completed. An additional pit on the adjacent residence found numerous additional munitions and the work has not been completed yet. That work began in 2007 and was completed in 2009.

The Army Corps of Engineers budget for this site is approximately $11 million dollars per year. Site work is expected to continue thru 2011.

The USACE intends to destroy recovered munitions currently stored at the site in 2009.

Site Responsibility
USACE is the lead agency at this site.

Region 3 | Mid-Atlantic Cleanup | Mid-Atlantic Superfund |EPA Home | EPA Superfund Homepage

http://www.epa.gov/reg3hwmd/npl/DCD983971136.htm

***

Perchlorate
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The structure and dimensions of the perchlorate ion
A space-filling model of the perchlorate ion

Perchlorates are the salts derived from perchloric acid (HClO4). They occur both naturally and through manufacturing. They have been used as a medicine for more than 50 years to treat thyroid gland disorders. They are also used as an oxidizer in rocket fuel and explosives and can be found in airbags and fireworks. Both potassium perchlorate (KClO4) and ammonium perchlorate (NH4ClO4) are used extensively within the pyrotechnics industry, and ammonium perchlorate is also a component of solid rocket fuel. Lithium perchlorate, which decomposes exothermically to give oxygen, is used in oxygen candles on spacecraft, submarines and in other esoteric situations where a reliable backup or supplementary oxygen supply is needed. Most perchlorate salts are soluble in water.[1]

Contents

* 1 Chemical definition
* 2 Reactivity as an oxidant
* 3 Use
o 3.1 Oxidizer
o 3.2 Medical applications
* 4 Production
o 4.1 Natural formation of perchlorates
o 4.2 Industrial production
* 5 Environmental presence
* 6 Health effects
* 7 Biological functions
* 8 Discovery of perchlorate on Mars
* 9 Perchlorate-free product development
* 10 Types of perchlorates
* 11 Other oxyanions
* 12 References
* 13 External links

Chemical definition

The chemical notation for the perchlorate ion is Cl O4- . The ion has a molecular mass of 99.45 amu.

A perchlorate (compound) is a compound containing this group, with chlorine in oxidation state +7.

Reactivity as an oxidant

The perchlorate ion is the least reactive oxidizer of the generalized chlorates. This is apparently paradoxical, since higher oxidation numbers are expected to be progressively stronger oxidizers, and less stable. Perchlorate does in fact have the highest redox potential and is least stable thermodynamically, but the central chlorine is a closed shell atom and well protected by the four oxygens. Hence, perchlorate reacts sluggishly. Most perchlorate compounds, especially salts of electropositive metals such as sodium perchlorate or potassium perchlorate, are slow to react unless heated. This property is useful in many applications, such as flares, where the device should not explode, or even catch fire spontaneously.

Mixtures of perchlorates with organic compounds are more reactive. Although they do not usually catch fire or explode unless heated, there are a number of exceptions. Large amounts of improperly stored ammonium perchlorate led to the PEPCON disaster, in which an explosion destroyed one of the two large scale production plants for ammonium perchlorate in the US.

Use
Oxidizer

The high oxygen content and the high stability of perchlorates make them ideal oxidizers for fireworks and airbags and as key compounds in solid rocket fuel. The solid rocket boosters of the space shuttle contain 350 metric tons of ammonium perchlorate each.

Medical applications

Perchlorate has been used as a medication to treat hyperthyroidism since the 1950s.[2] At very high doses (70,000–300,000 ppb) the administration of potassium perchlorate was considered the standard of care in the United States, and remains the approved pharmacologic intervention for many countries. In the early 1960s, potassium perchlorate was implicated in the development of aplastic anemia—a condition where the bone marrow fails to produce new blood cells in sufficient quantity—in thirteen patients, seven of whom died.[3] Subsequent investigations have indicated the connection between administration of potassium perchlorate and development of aplastic anemia to be equivocable at best , which means that the benefit of treatment, if it is the only known treatment, outweighs the risk, and it appeared a contaminant poisoned the 13.[4]

Production
Natural formation of perchlorates

There are several well-documented mechanisms for natural formation of perchlorate. Involving ozone or hydroxyl radicals as oxidizer for sodium chloride from the sea and are somewhat similar to the formation processes of iodates also present in the atmosphere.

As most perchlorates are readily soluble in water, an accumulation of perchlorates in the environment only occurs in arid areas with little or no rainfall. It is known since the beginning of the 20th century that the Atacama Desert not only contains large amounts of nitrates but also trace amounts of perchlorates. The concentration varies but is in the mg/kg range. The dry southwest of the United States also shows accumulation of perchlorates. With the use of nitrates from the Atacama Desert, so called Chile saltpeter as fertilizer the chlorates were also distributed into the environment. As the Chile saltpeter was mostly substituted by nitrates produced by the Haber Bosch process, which contains no perchlorates this source of perchlorates nearly vanished.

In 2006 a mechanism for the formation of perchlorates was proposed which is particularly apropos to the discovery of perchlorate at the Mars Phoenix lander site. It was shown that soils with high concentrations of natural salts could have some of their chloride converted to perchlorate in the presence of sunlight and/or ultraviolet light. The mechanism was reproduced in the lab using chloride rich soils from Death Valley.[5]

Industrial production

Perchlorates are either produced by electrolysis of chloride salts or by the neutralisation of perchloric acid, which is produced by electrolysis of chlorine, with ammonia or other base.

The electrolysis involves the following reactions:

3 Cl2 + 6 OH- ? 5 Cl- + ClO3- + 3 H2O
ClO3- + H2O ? ClO4- + 2 H+

The industrial scale synthesis for sodium perchlorates starts from sodium chloride. If the electrolysis is not done with the method described at chlorine, but a mixing of the chlorine evolved and the sodium hydroxide is allowed, the reaction mentioned above takes place. The hypochlorite and the chlorate are intermediates in this process.

Environmental presence

Low levels of perchlorate have been detected in both drinking water and groundwater in 35 states in the US according to the Environmental Protection Agency. In 2004, the chemical was also found in cow’s milk in the area with an average level of 1.3 parts per billion ( ppb or :g/L), which may have entered the cows through feeding on crops that had exposure to water containing perchlorates.[6] According to the Impact Area Groundwater Study Program, the chemical has been detected as high as 5 :g/L in Massachusetts, well over the state regulation of 2 :g/L[7].

In some places, perchlorate is detected because of contamination from industrial sites that use or manufacture it. In other places, there is no clear source of perchlorate. In those areas it may be naturally occurring, or could be present because of the use of Chilean fertilizers, which were imported to the U.S. by the hundreds of tons in the early 19th century. One recent area of research has even suggested that perchlorate can be created when lightning strikes a body of water, and perchlorates are created as a byproduct of chlorine generators used in swimming pool chlorination systems.[8]

Fireworks are also a source of perchlorate in lakes.[9]

As of April 2007, the EPA has not yet determined whether perchlorate is present at sufficient levels in the environment to require a nationwide regulation on how much should be allowed in drinking water.[10] In 2005, U.S. EPA issued a recommended Drinking Water Equivalent Level (DWEL) for perchlorate of 24.5 :g/L. In early 2006, EPA issued a “Cleanup Guidance” for this same amount. Both the DWEL and the Cleanup Guidance were based on a thorough review of the existing research by the National Academy of Science (NAS). This followed numerous other studies, including one which suggested human breast milk had an average of 10.5 :g/L of perchlorate.[11] Both the Pentagon and some environmental groups have voiced questions about the NAS report, but no credible science has emerged to challenge the NAS findings. In February 2008, U.S. Food and Drug Administration said that U.S. toddlers on average are being exposed to more than half of the U.S. EPA’s safe dose from food alone[12]. In March 2009, a Centers for Disease Control study found 15 brands of infant formula contaminated with perchlorate. Combined with existing perchlorate drinking water contamination, infants could be at risk for exposure to perchlorate above the levels considered safe by E.P.A.[13]

The US Environmental Protection Agency has issued substantial guidance and analysis concerning the impacts of perchlorate on the environment as well as drinking water. [1] California has also issued guidance regarding perchlorate use. [2]

Several states have enacted drinking water standard for perchlorate including Massachusetts in 2006. California’s legislature enacted AB 826, the Perchlorate Contamination Prevention Act of 2003, requiring California’s Department of Toxic Substance Control (DTSC) to adopt regulations specifying best management practices for perchlorate and perchlorate-containing substances. The Perchlorate Best Management Practices were adopted on December 31, 2005 and became operative on July 1, 2006. [3] California issued drinking water standards in 2007. Several other states, including Arizona, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, and Texas have established non-enforceable, advisory levels for perchlorate.

Courts have been called upon to take action with regard to perchlorate. For example, in 2003, a federal district court in California found that Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) applied because perchlorate is ignitable and therefore a “characteristic” hazardous waste. (see Castaic Lake Water Agency v. Whittaker, 272 F. Supp. 2d 1053, 1059-61 (C.D. Cal. 2003)).

One example of perchlorate related problems was found at the Olin Flare Facility, Morgan Hill, California – Perchlorate contamination beneath a former flare manufacturing plant in California was first discovered in 2000, several years after the plant had closed. The plant had used potassium perchlorate as one of the ingredients during its 40 years of operation. By late 2003, the state of California and the Santa Clara Valley Water District had confirmed a groundwater plume currently extending over nine miles through residential and agricultural communities.

The Regional Water Quality Control Board and the Santa Clara Valley Water District have engaged in a major outreach effort that has received extensive press and community response. A well testing program is underway for approximately 1,200 residential, municipal, and agricultural wells in the area. Large ion exchange treatment units are operating in three public water supply systems that include seven municipal wells where perchlorate has been detected. The potentially responsible parties, Olin Corporation and Standard Fuse Incorporated, are supplying bottled water to nearly 800 households with private wells. The Regional Water Quality Control Board is overseeing potentially responsible party (PRP) cleanup efforts.[4]

The two production sites of PEPCON and Kerr McGee in Henderson, Nevada, which were the biggest producers until the explosion of PEPCON in 1988 and the closure of the Kerr McGee plant in 1998, leaked significant amounts of perchlorates into the Las Vegas Wash and from there into Lake Mead and the Colorado River.

The disposal of unused rocket motors and ammunition has led to contamination by perchlorates of several military installations.

Health effects

Perchlorate adversly affects human health by interfering with iodide uptake into the thyroid gland. In adults, the thyroid gland helps regulate the metabolism by releasing hormones, while in children, the thyroid helps in proper development. Perchlorate is becoming a serious threat to human health and water resources.[14]

The NAS found that perchlorate only affects the thyroid gland. It is not stored in the body, it is not metabolized, and any effects of perchlorate on the thyroid gland are fully reversible once exposure stops.[15] There has been some concern on perchlorate’s effects on fetuses, newborns and children, but several peer-reviewed studies on children and newborns also provide reason to believe that low levels of perchlorate do not pose a threat to these populations.[citation needed] On October 1, 2004, the American Thyroid Association (ATA) reported that perchlorate may not be as harmful to newborns, pregnant women and other adults as previously thought.[16]

A study involving healthy adult volunteers determined that at levels above 0.007 milligrams per kilogram per day (mg/(kgAd)), perchlorate can temporarily inhibit the thyroid gland’s ability to absorb iodine from the bloodstream ( iodide uptake inhibition , thus perchlorate is a known goitrogen).[17] The EPA converted this dose into a reference dose of 0.0007 mg/(kgAd) by dividing this level by the standard intraspecies uncertainty factor of 10. The agency then calculated a drinking water equivalent level of 24.5 ppb by assuming a person weighs 70 kilograms (154 pounds) and consumes 2 liters (68 ounces) of drinking water per day over a lifetime.[18] Thus, 25 ppb was set as the recommended drinking water standard (the DWEL). For that reason, most media reports call this the safe level of exposure. The NAS report also stated additional research would be helpful, but emphasized that the existing database on perchlorate was sufficient to make its reference dose recommendation and ensure it would be protective for everyone.[citation needed]

Recent research, however, has shown inhibition of iodide uptake in the thyroids of women at much lower levels, levels attainable from normally contaminated water and milk.[19]

Biological functions

Several phylogenetically diverse proteobacteria have been found, which can use perchlorate as an electron acceptor. [20]

Discovery of perchlorate on Mars

NASA reports that: Within the last month [July 2008], two samples have been analyzed by the Wet Chemistry Lab (WCL) of the lander’s Microscopy, Electrochemistry, and Conductivity Analyzer, or MECA, suggesting one of the soil constituents may be perchlorate….

The salts formed from perchlorates discovered at the Phoenix landing site act as “anti-freeze” and have the potential to be found in a liquid water solution under the temperature and pressure conditions on present-day Mars, say professor Vincent F. Chevrier and graduate students Jennifer Hanley and Travis S. Altheide of the University of Arkansas. Their research is published in the May 2009 issue of Geophysical Research Letters.

The extreme temperatures found on Mars typically lead to either crystallization or evaporation of water, making it difficult to imagine that water could be found in liquid form. However, salts have been shown to lower the freezing point of water—which is why street crews use salt on the roads to melt ice, Hanley said. Some salts, like perchlorates, lower the freezing point substantially. It turns out that the temperature for the liquid phase of magnesium perchlorate—206 kelvins—is a temperature found on Mars at the Phoenix landing site. Based on temperature findings from the Phoenix lander, conditions would allow this perchlorate solution to be present in liquid form for a few hours each day during the summer.

The source of the perchlorate has not yet been evaluated fully, and may represent possible extra-Martian (Earth-sourced) contamination via the Phoenix lander itself. Nevertheless, the ultrapure hydrazine used in the Phoenix retro rockets make this type of contamination unlikely. In addition, perchlorate found below the surface is more highly concentrated than would be expected from contamination during Earth launch operations. [21]

In a statement issued after the discovery of perchlorate on Mars (see above), NASA declared, among other things, that perchlorates are found naturally on Earth at such places as Chile’s hyper-arid Atacama Desert.[22]

New Scientist magazine on 18 Feb. 2009 reported that the perchlorates detected by the lander were most likely sodium or magnesium perchlorate which could form briny solutions with freezing points of -37 EC and -72 EC respectively.
Perchlorate-free product development

In response to concerns regarding perchlorate, efforts have been undertaken to produce substitutes for products using perchlorate. For example, efforts to create perchlorate-free flares include both spectrally balanced decoy and colored flare compositions which included nitrate or oxide oxidizers. Because nitrate oxidizers are less reactive than perchlorate oxidizers, high-energy fuels have used to compensate for this energy shortfall. Some of these high-energy fuels were produced using mechanical alloying technology.

Types of perchlorates

* Ammonium perchlorate, NH4ClO4
* Caesium perchlorate, CsClO4
* Lithium perchlorate, LiClO4
* Magnesium perchlorate, Mg(ClO4)2
* Perchloric acid, HClO4
* Potassium perchlorate, KClO4
* Rubidium perchlorate, RbClO4
* Silver perchlorate, AgClO4
* Sodium perchlorate, NaClO4

Other oxyanions

Using Stock naming, if a Roman numeral in brackets follows the word chlorate , this indicates the oxyanion contains chlorine in the indicated oxidation state, namely:
Common name     Stock name     Oxidation state     Formula
Hypochlorite     Chlorate(I)     +1     ClO-
Chlorite     Chlorate(III)     +3     ClO2-
Chlorate     Chlorate(V)     +5     ClO3-
Perchlorate     Chlorate(VII)     +7     ClO4-

Using this convention, chlorate means any chlorine oxyanion. Commonly, chlorate refers only to the oxyanion where chlorine is in the +5 oxidation state.

References

1. ^ Draft Toxicological Profile for Perchlorates, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, September, 2005.
2. ^ Godley, A. F.; Stanbury, J. B. (1954). Preliminary experience in the treatment of hyperthyroidism with potassium perchlorate . J Clin Endocrinol Metab 14: 70–78. PMID 13130654.
3. ^ National Research Council (2005). Perchlorate and the thyroid . Health implications of perchlorate ingestion. Washington, D.C: National Academies Press. pp. 7. ISBN 0-309-09568-9. http://books.google.com/books?id=EMX4ZTF6pusC&pg=PA7&lpg=PA7. Retrieved on April 3, 2009 through Google Book Search.
4. ^ Clark, JJJ (2000). Toxicology of perchlorate . in Urbansky ET (ed.). Perchlorate in the environment. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers. pp. 19–20. ISBN 978-0-306-46389-1. http://books.google.com/books?id=aN1nV174zVIC&pg=PA19. Retrieved on April 3, 2009 through Google Book Search.
5. ^ Miller, Glen.. Photooxidation of chloride to perchlorate in the presence of desert soils and titanium dioxide . American Chemical Society. March 29, 2006
6. ^ Associated Press. Toxic chemical found in California milk . MSNBC. June 22, 2004.
7. ^ http://www.mass.gov/dep/water/dwstand.pdf
8. ^ William E. Motzer (2001). Perchlorate: Problems, Detection, and Solutions . Environmental Forensics 2 (4): 301–311. doi:10.1006/enfo.2001.0059.
9. ^ Fireworks Displays Linked To Perchlorate Contamination In Lakes
10. ^ EPA Press Release EPA Issues Determination on 11 Contaminants April 4, 2007
11. ^ McKee, Maggie. Perchlorate found in breast milk across US . New Scientist. February 23, 2005
12. ^ Perchlorate In Food
13. ^ CDC Scientists Find Rocket Fuel Chemical In Infant Formula. Anila Jacob, M.D., M.P.H.. Environmental Working Group. 2 April 2009.
14. ^ California Department of Toxic Substances Control Jan 26, 2008
15. ^ J. Wolff (1998). Perchlorate and the Thyroid Gland . Pharmacological Reviews 50 (1): 89–105.
16. ^ American Thyroid Association (1 October 2004). Various Levels of Perchlorate Exposure Found Not to Be Harmful to Newborns, Pregnant Women, and Other Adults . Press release. http://www.thyroid.org/professionals/publications/news/04_10_01_perchlorate.html.
17. ^ Greer, M.A., Goodman, G., Pleuss, R.C., Greer, S.E. (2002). Health effect assessment for environmental perchlorate contamination: The dose response for inhibition of thyroidal radioiodide uptake in humans (free online). Environmental Health Perspectives 110 (9): 927–937. http://www.ehponline.org/docs/2002/110p927-937greer/abstract.html.
18. ^ US EPA Memorandum Jan 26, 2006
19. ^ Benjamin C. Blount, James L. Pirkle, John D. Osterloh, Liza Valentin-Blasini, and Kathleen L. Caldwell (2006). Urinary Perchlorate and Thyroid Hormone Levels in Adolescent and Adult Men and Women Living in the United States . Environmental Health Perspectives 114 (12). doi:10.1289/ehp.9466.
20. ^ John D. Coates, Laurie A. Achenbach (2004). Microbial perchlorate reduction: rocket-fuelled metabolism . Nature Reviews Microbiology 2: 569–580. doi:10.1038/nrmicro926.
21. ^ Miles O’Brien and Kate Tobin (2008-08-04). Toxin in soil may mean no life on Mars . CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/08/04/nasa.mars/index.html. Retrieved 2008-08-05.
22. ^ Phoenix Mars Team Opens Window on Scientific Process, NASA web site, August 5, 2008.

External links

* NAS Report: The Health Effects of Perchlorate Ingestion
* Facts and truth about perchlorate (Sponsored by the chemical companies that produce it)
* NRDC’s criticism of NAS report
* Environment California report (Executive Summary with link to full text)
* Macho Moms: Perchlorate pollutant masculinizes fish: Science News Online, Aug. 12, 2006
* New Scientist Space Blog: Phoenix discovery may be bad for Mars life
* State Threatening To Sue Military Over Water Pollution , Associated Press, May 19, 2003.
* Health Effects Of Perchlorate From Spent Rocket , SpaceDaily.com, July 11, 2002.
* = Dept of Defense, Dept of Energy, and US Environmental Protection Agency’s Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program, Elimination of Perchlorate Oxidizers from Pyrotechnic Flare Compositions, 2009

v • d • e
Thyroid therapy (H03)
Thyroid hormones
Levothyroxine sodium# A Liothyronine sodium A Tiratricol A Thyroid gland preparations
Antithyroid preparations
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Perchlorate (Potassium perchlorate) A Pertechnetate (Sodium pertechnetate)
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Thiouracils: Methylthiouracil A Propylthiouracil# A Benzylthiouracil
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#WHO-EM. ‡Withdrawn from market. CLINICAL TRIALS: †Phase III. §Never to phase III
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perchlorate
Categories: Perchlorates | Oxoanions | Pyrotechnic oxidizers | Non-coordinating anions

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Nuclear Smuggling Incidents Increasing, Agency Warns

Wednesday, October 03, 2001

More than 20 attempts at smuggling nuclear materials have been confirmed this year, according to Jane’s Information Group Foreign Report. The incidents this year, in addition to more than 370 which have occurred in the last seven years — including 15 incidents involving plutonium or weapon-grade uranium — have prompted the International Atomic Energy Agency to step up its programs to improve the physical security of nuclear materials.

A collaborative law enforcement program under IAEA leadership was started earlier this year to help with the smuggling problem. In conjunction with the World Customs Organization, Interpol and the FBI, the IAEA program will seek better information exchanges between law enforcement agencies as well as training programs for police and customs organizations (Foreign Report, Oct. 4).

Even more IAEA action is needed to prevent nuclear materials from falling into terrorist hands, according to two nonproliferation specialists writing in Arms Control Today. George Bunn and Fritz Steinhausler write that adoption of stronger physical protection standards against these threats is essential, and the sooner the better.

The two supported a recent decision by IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei to convene a meeting of experts to draft a new amendment to the 1980 Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, which currently only applies to nuclear materials in transit.

The new amendment should add some sort of verification or reporting requirement, Bunn and Steinhausler said, adding that the convention should apply to domestic facilities and include measures on preventing sabotage (Bunn/Steinhausler, Arms Control Today, Oct. 2001).

http://www.unwire.org/unwire/20011003/19010_story.asp

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NUCLEAR SMUGGLING CASE DEEPENS GEORGIAN-RUSSIAN TENSIONS
By Richard Weitz (04/05/2007 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Revelations in January 2007 about the details of a recent smuggling incident in the Republic of Georgia have intensified concerns about the security of nuclear materials in the South Caucasus. Although the initial effect of the case has been to sharpen tensions between Russia and Georgia, over the long-term it could result in enhanced nonproliferation cooperation in the region. Indeed, the only two seizures of Highly Enriched Uranium in recent years have taken place in Georgia, indicating the need for greater involvement by the international community in countering WMD smuggling in the South Caucasus.

BACKGROUND: On January 25, 2007, a Georgian court sentenced a citizen of the Russian region of North Ossetia to eight years in prison for attempting to sell 100 grams of weapons-grade Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) for $1 million on the black market. The authorities had detained Oleg Khintsagov for almost a year following his arrest in February 1, 2006, in a complex multinational sting operation that eventually involved the CIA, the FBI, and the U.S. Department of Energy. The Georgian government provided details about the case only after the court reached its verdict.

Although the court also sentenced three Georgian citizens to between four and six years in prison, the immediate effect of the new revelations surrounding the case was to worsen the already problematic relationship between Russia and Georgia. The Russian Ambassador to Georgia, Vyacheslav Kovalenko, had only just returned to Tbilisi after having been absent for four months following revelations about alleged Russian espionage activity in Georgia. The two countries have also experienced acute bilateral disputes over Georgian efforts to join NATO, Russian economic sanctions on Georgia, and Russian support for the two remaining separatist governmentsâ ”in Abkhazia and South Ossetiaâ ”on Georgian territory.
The Georgian authorities have offered different reasons why they delayed providing details about the case until now. Some Georgian officials said they needed time to investigate the incident thoroughly. At least one Georgian legislator said the United States had requested a temporary media blackout. At a press conference announcing the verdict, however, Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili implied that his government had decided to publicize the case because it had lost patience waiting for greater Russian cooperation in investigating the incident.

Russian officials insisted they have cooperated fully with the investigation. Some attributed the delay to a Georgian attempt, supported by some U.S. officials, to release the information at the most opportune time for embarrassing the Russian government. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, â œI hope very much that this is not an attempted political provocation.â Lavrov asserted that experts from Russiaâ ™s Federal Security Service (FSB) and Federal Atomic Energy Agency (Rosatom) had interrogated Khintsagov, but he â œcould say nothing coherent.â

A representative of the Office of the Russian Prosecutor General told the ITAR-TASS news agency that the Georgian Prosecutor Generalâ ™s Office had asked for legal assistance in investigating Khintsagov. He claimed, however, that the Georgian authorities had failed to respond to the Russian governmentâ ™s request for copies of the materials Russia needed to launch an investigation. Under Russian law, it is illegal for unauthorized personnel to acquire, store, or sell radioactive materials.

Several influential Russians speculated that Georgian and American officials had colluded to exploit the incident to damage Russiaâ ™s reputation as a responsible steward of sensitive nuclear materials. Konstantin Zatulin, director of the Institute of CIS Countries and a deputy in the Duma, noted the resemblance between the Khintsagov incident and the case of former Russian security agent Alexander Litvinenko, killed with radioactive polonium also widely thought to have originated in Russia: â œI see only one reason to again return to the theme of mysterious Russian spies who are transporting uranium and plutonium and other such substances all over the world.â

Andrei Cherkasenko, chairman of the board of AtomPromResursy, a Russian manufacturer of nuclear power equipment, explicitly accused Georgian and American officials of deliberately timing the release of the information about the Khintsagov case to coincide with Russian President Vladimir Putinâ ™s visit to India, where he signed a memorandum of intent to construct four additional Russian nuclear power plants. Russian, American, and other foreign companies are expected to compete vigorously to sell nuclear equipment to India if the Nuclear Suppliers Group authorizes such sales, a decision expected to occur sometime this year.

Whatever the reason for the timing, the Georgian government did cite the smuggling incident to reaffirm its call for the deployment of international observer missions in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, including along the Georgian-Russian border, to supplement or replace the Russian peacekeeping forces there. After meeting with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on February 26, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said EU governments might deploy peacekeepers in Georgia provided the mission had a clear and achievable objective. Publicizing the arrest of uranium smugglers operating in the breakaway regions supports the Georgian argument that neither the local authorities nor Russian peacekeepers have proven able to secure the territories from serious nonproliferation threats and dangerous criminal networks.

In the past, Russian officials as well as both regionsâ ™ unrecognized separatist governments have rejected proposals for deploying permanent observer missions from non-CIS countries on their territories. Murat Dzhoyev, the South Ossetian de facto governmentâ ™s designated foreign minister, dismissed claims that his autonomous region had become a transit zone for nuclear trafficking as â œlaughable.â His office issued a formal statement accusing Georgia of engineering the scandal to discredit the South Ossetian government. The separatist authorities in Abkhazia also denounced the timing of the Georgian announcement, hinting that Tbilisi sought to influence UN Security Council deliberations by spreading alarm about the security situation in Georgiaâ ™s separatist regions. In mid-February 2006, the â œforeign ministersâ of Abkhazia and South Ossetia conferred in Moscow with their counterpart from the separatist region of Transnistria on how to strengthen their autonomous positions.

Representatives of the Russian Federal Customs Service also expressed skepticism that the material in Khintsagovâ ™s possession came from Russia. They insist that the Russian government has installed very effective Russian-made â œYantarâ radiation monitoring equipment along its southern borders and other trafficking routes that would have detected any smuggled radioactive materials. Georgian officials subsequently revealed that Khintsagov smuggled the uranium across a border checkpoint near Kazbegi, a remote town in eastern Georgia where radiation detection devices might have been less advanced than those deployed at more heavily used transit points.

IMPLICATIONS: The Khintsagov incident underscores the potential nonproliferation threats associated with the anarchic conditions existing in the breakaway regions in the South Caucasus and the other â œfrozen conflictâ regions of the former Soviet Union. The weak law enforcement and porous borders in both Abkhazia and South Ossetia (which permit easy transit with neighboring Russian regions as well as into Georgia) facilitate trafficking in nuclear materials as well as more conventional forms of contraband (e.g., narcotics, counterfeit currency, persons).

Although the Georgian government has made a number of efforts to enhance the safety and security of the nuclear materials under its control, especially after Georgia joined the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in February 1997, the country remains especially vulnerable to nuclear trafficking through its territory. Besides the lack of effective political authority in the two separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia., foreign governments and nonproliferation experts have expressed concern about the level of corruption in Georgian law enforcement agencies, the growing strength of transnational criminal organizations in the South Caucasus, and the republicâ ™s pivotal location at the crossroads between Europe, Russia, Asia, and the Middle East.
In June 2003, Georgian authorities apprehended Garik Dadayan, an Armenian national, in the border town of Sadakhlo for attempting to smuggle 170 grams of weapons-grade HEU across Georgiaâ ™s borders with Armenia and Azerbaijan. Smuggling had become rampant in the region after relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan deteriorated following their war over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Dadayan told investigators that he had acquired the material from intermediaries of Russian and other nationalities in Vladikavkaz, the same North Ossetian city where Khintsagov resided. Georgian authorities concluded that the HEU originated in Novosibirsk. According to the media, however, the FSB sent a confidential letter in May 2006 to the Georgian authorities asserting that Russian experts had concluded that the uranium smuggled by Dadayan and Khintsagov were produced at separate times and seriously differ in composition.

CONCLUSIONS: The two cases demonstrate the vulnerability of the South Caucasus, especially Georgia, to the smuggling of nuclear materials. According to IAEA, of the 481 occurrences of nuclear smuggling reported between May 2002 and early 2006, only the Dadayan incident involved weapons-grade nuclear material. The Khintsagov case now falls into that category. The international community clearly needs to adopt urgent measures to shore up its nonproliferation defenses in the region. Priorities include improving WMD detection capabilities, extending best practices into private industry, and strengthening the rule of law throughout Georgian territory.

AUTHORâ ™S BIO: Richard Weitz is Senior Fellow and Director for Project Management at the Hudson Institute.
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Nuclear Terrorism Incidents

compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston
last updated 28 September 2003

Nuclear terrorism–acts of violence (political and non-political) involving radioactive materials, assaults on nuclear facilities, and thefts of nuclear warheads

* 3 Jan 1961: United States–criticality accident at SL-1 test reactor kills 3; according to reports, the excursion was a murder-suicide by the worker who extracted a control rod.
* 1966-1977: Europe–10 terrorist incidents against European nuclear installations.2
* before 1974: Austria–Radioisotope indium-113 applied to a railroad car.3
* 1974-1986: United States–32 acts of intentional damage or suspected sabotage at domestic nuclear facilities.4
* 1974-1985: Total of nearly 100 instances that involved response by NEST.5
* 1974-1980: United States–total of about 80 instances of nuclear threats deemed credible; only two prompted NEST deployment.6
* 15 Aug 1975: France–Two bombs exploded at Mt. d’Arree NPS in Brittany: one at far end of canal between plant and cooling lake, the other damaging a air chimney for plant buildings in the compound. The reactor was shut down temporarily for inspection.7
* 12 May 1976: Maine–Two bombs exploded in the headquarters of the Central Maine Power Company in Augusta; a Fred Hampton Unit of the People’s Forces claimed responsibility and demanded end to expansion of nuclear powerplants.8
* 10 Oct 1977: Oregon–Bomb exploded next to visitor center at Trojan NPS, with Environmental Assault Unit of the New World Liberation Front claiming responsibility.9
* 18 Dec 1977: Spain–4 ETA terrorists attack guard post at Lemoniz NPS, with one terrorist killed; ETA later claimed to have planned to blow up the reactors.10
* 17 Mar 1978: Spain–Bomb exploded in steam generator of Lemoniz NPS killing 2 construction workers and injuring 14, ten minutes after ETA phone call warned of bomb; damage amounted to $6,000,000.11
* 1979: France–Environmental terrorists cause $20 million in damages at a nuclear plant.12
* 1979: Virginia–2 plant operator trainees entered fuel storage building at Surry NPS and damaged four new fuel assemblies by pouring sodium hydroxide on them.13
* Jan 1979: North Carolina–An employee of a GE subcontractor sent extortion letter with sample of uranium dioxide to general manager of GE nuclear faility in Wilmington. Individual had stolen two 5-gallon containers of uranium dioxide and threatened to disperse them in unnamed U.S. city unless he received $100,000 ransom. He was arrested and sentenced to 15 years.14
* 13 Jun 1979: Spain–Two ETA guerrillas planted bomb in turbine room of Lemoniz NPS which was later detonated 25 minutes after a warning call. One worker who did not evacuate was killed; a tank containing 5,000 liters of oil was ignited and turbine components were moderately damaged. The ETA claimed responsibility on 16 June.15
* 11 Nov 1979: Spain–5 ETA guerrillas entered Equipos Nucleares (Nuclear Instruments) factory in Maliano, planted explosives and kidnapped the 10 guards on duty; guards were released near Santander-Vizcaya border. Charges exploded after midnight, causing $6,000,000 in damage mostly to one end of main factory building. ETA claimed responsibility on 13 November.16
* before 1980: France–Radioactive graphite fuel element plugs placed under driver’s seat of a car; victim sustained 25-30 rad dose to his spinal bone marrow and 400-500 rads to his testes. Perpetrator was tried and convicted of poisoning by radiation, fined $1,000, and served 9 months in prison.17
* 1981: New York–fuel oil filter drains were closed on backup diesel power generators at Nine Mile Point Unit 1, apparently intentionally, preventing their startup.18
* 1981: Ohio–water valve was found shut, apparently intentionally, at Beaver Valley NPS, leaving high-pressure portion of emergency cooling system disabled.19
* 1982: France–Five rockets fired into Creys-Malville nuclear facility, causing minor damage.20
* Aug 1982: New Jersey–values were found closed on backup diesel generator at Salem Unit II NPS, apparently intentionally, which would prevent generator start-up.21
* 1983: West Germany–Four West Germans gain forced entry to a Pershing missile site and attempt to destroy a missile with crowbars.22
* 12 Nov 1984: Missouri–Four Catholic peace activists of the Silo Pruning Hooks entered Minuteman ICBM site near Higginsville and did over $10,000 worth of damage to equipment with a jack hammer; all were arrested and charged with destruction of federal property.23
* Apr 1985: New York–Credible claim emerged that New York City’s water reservoirs had been contaminated with plutonium; testing detected femtocurie levels of plutonium in the water.24
* Jun 1985: Arizona–Report of intentional tampering with water valves at Palo Verde NPS.25
* after 1987: Pennsylvania–Mentally ill man drives his station wagon through the fence at Three Mile Island nuclear power plant and wanders on foot for a period of time before being captured.26
* 28 Nov 1987: California–Bomb exploded at 1:30 A.M. in parking lot of Sandia National Laboratories (next to LLNL); 32 hours later a caller claimed responsibility for the Nuclear Liberation Front, although link was unconfirmed.27
* Feb 1990: Azerbaijan–Azerbeijani rebels unsuccessfully attacked a Soviet military depot near Baku where nuclear weapons are stored; Soviet troops were sent to secure the base.28
* Jan 1992: Iran–Egyptian newspaper claimed Iran had bought three Soviet nuclear warheads from Kazakhstan for $150 million; Kazakhstan denied the report. In April Russian intelligence reported Iran had obtained at least two warheads from Kazakhstan; in July a Kazakh official said the three reportedly missing warheads were in test shafts at the Kazakh test site; in September a U.S. congressional task force alleged Iran had obtained 4 Soviet warheads (including 2 operational): two 40 kt SRBM warheads, one 50 kt NGB, and one 0.1 kt AFAP. By 1994 Russia said the warheads were accounted for; Israeli officials suggest the warheads were borrowed for disassembly and reverse engineering.29
* Mar 1992: Commonwealth of Independent States–Reportedly, box of radioactive material stolen from Pridniestroviye, Transdnestr; thieves threatened to blow up the material if fighting in Moldova was not stopped.30
* 1993: Russia–A radioactive substance was planted in the chair of Vladimir Kaplun, director of a Russian packing company; over several weeks Kaplun contracted radiation sickness and died.31
* Nov 1993: Russia–Two nuclear warheads reportedly stolen by two employees of the Zlatoust-36 Instrument Building Plant near Chelyabinsk, a weapons assembly facility; weapons recovered in a nearby residential garage and the employees arrested shortly afterwards.32
* Mar 1994: Russia–At SS-25 ICBM site at Barnaul in Siberia, a Russian soldier opens fire with sub-machine gun and kills commander and two other soldiers; other soldiers could not return fire because they would have had to fire towards the SS-25; the soldier was persuaded to surrender after three hours, having taking refuge in an armoured vehicle.33
* 23 Nov 1995: Russia–Shamil Basayev, Chechen rebel commander, directs television news crew to a parcel of cesium-137 buried in Izmailovsky Park, eastern Moscow; parcel reportedly posed no threat and was removed. Parcel weighed 32 kg, contained 10-50 mCi, and was part of a hospital x-ray machine taken in a prior raid.34
* Dec 1995: France–Saboteurs put salt into a cooling contour of one of the Blayais nuclear power reactors.35
* 9 Jan 1996: Russia–Chechen fighters attack a Russian military airfield at Kizlyar unsucessfully, then temporarily take about 2,000 civilian hostages.36
* Jun 1996: New York–several individuals arrested in plot to kill Republican officials; seized weapons included radioactive materials.37
* after 1996: Russia–Gunman barracades himself in a nuclear submarine and holds police at bay for several hours.38
* May 1997: Russia–Aleksandr Lebed claims privately and later publicly that a number of Soviet ADMs disguised as suitcases are missing; his claims are affirmed by some but no concrete evidence emerges.39
* Nov 1997: Russia–Several threats to sabotage submarine nuclear reactors are made by one or more Murmansk shipyard workers in demanding back pay they are owed.40
* 19 Aug 1999: United States–Andris Blakis spread phosphorous-32 on the chair of a co-worker in Los Angeles, CA, causing a dose to the co-worker of a few tenths of a rem; Blakis was arrested and charged.41
* 6-8 Jun 2000: Japan–Tsugio Uchinishi sent letters laced with monazite (a thorium-containing mineral) to 10 government offices in Tokyo in protest of illegal uranium exports to North Korea.42
* 20 Dec 2000: Japan–A man scattered a small amount of iodine-125 at a subway ticket gate in Osaka; the man was arrested, and no injuries resulted.43
* 2001: worldwide–6 incidents involving terrorism with nuclear or radiological materials.44

NOTES:

2. Denton, p. 152.
3. Mullen, pp. 242, 246.
4. Denton, p. 152.
5. ITFPNT, p. 17.
6. Gates, p. 402.
7. Kellen, pp. 123-124.
8. Kellen, p. 124.
9. Kellen, p. 124.
10. Kellen, p. 124.
11. Kellen, p. 125.
12. Denton, p. 152.
13. Hirsch, p. 212.
14. Hirsch, p. 212.
15. Kellen, p. 126.
16. Kellen, pp. 126-127.
17. Mullen, pp. 242, 246.
18. Hirsch, p. 211.
19. Hirsch, p. 211.
20. Denton, p. 152.
21. Hirsch, p. 212.
22. Denton, p. 153.
23. Missile Protesters, p. 4.
24. Mullen, p. 243; Spector, 1985, p. 5.
25. The Washington Post, p. A5a.
26.
27. Hoffman, p. 1.
28. High Frontier, April 1990, p. 2, and July 1991, p. 5.
29. Potter, pp. 125-148; Hedges, p. A10.
30. Potter, p. 135.
31. Lee, p.
32. Lee, p. 124.
33. Jane’s, p. 15.
34. Lee, pp. 135-136; FAS, 27 March 1996.
35. Bukharin, p. 8.
36. Bukharin, p. 10; Lieven, pp. 137-138.
37.
38.
39. Parrish.
40. Bellona, 9 Nov. 1997.
41. Center for Nonproliferation Studies, on line.
42. Center for Nonproliferation Studies, on line.
43. Center for Nonproliferation Studies, on line.
44. Center for Nonproliferation Studies, on line.

SOURCES

Arnold, Sandi, and Michael Barletta, Overview of Reported Nuclear Trafficking Incidents Involving Turkey, 1993-1999, July 1999, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, on line.
Bellona, 3.8 Kilograms Stolen Uranium Seized in Caucasus, 21 Sept. 1997, Bellona, on line [http://www.bellona.no].
Bellona, Kola Shipyard Workers: ‘We Will Arrange Another Chernobyl’ , 9 Nov. 1997, Bellona, on line [http://www.bellona.no].
Bellona, The Orgin of the Uranium Has Not Been Identified, 19 Feb. 1998, Bellona, on line [http://www.bellona.no].
Belyaninov, A., Nuclear Nonsense, Black-Market Bombs, and Fissile Flim-Flam , Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Mar./Apr. 1994, pp. 44-50.
Bukharin, Oleg, Problems of Nuclear Terrorism, The Monitor, Spring 1997, pp. 8-10.
Burrows, William E., and Robert Windrem, Critical Mass: The Dangerous Race for Superweapons in a Fragmenting World, 1994, New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
Cockburn, Andrew, and Leslie Cockburn, One Point Safe, 1997, New York, NY: Bantam Doubleday Dell.
Cordesman, Anthony H., Terrorism and the Threat From Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East, 22 October 1996, CSIS, on line [http://www.csis.org/]
Denton, Jeremiah, International Terrorism–The Nuclear Dimension, in Nuclear Terrorism: Defining the Threat, ed. by Paul Leventhal and Yonah Alexander, 1986, Washington, DC: Pergamon-Brassey’s, pp. 150-157.
Federation of American Scientists, Appendix A: Chronology of Nuclear Smuggling Incidents, 27 March 1996, Federation of American Scientists, on line [http://www.fas.org/ irp/cia/product/go_appendixa_032796.html]
Gates, Mahlon E., The Nuclear Emergency Search Team , in Preventing Nuclear Terrorism: The Report and Papers of the International Task Force on Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism, ed. by Paul Leventhal and Yonah Alexander, 1987, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, pp. 397-402.
Gordon, Michael, Stolen Uranium Intercepted Near Border of Georgia and Turkey, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 25 Sept. 1999.
Hedges, Chris, Iran May Be Able to Build an Atomic Bomb in 5 Years, U.S. and Israeli Officials Fear , The New York Times, 5 January 1995, p. A10.
Hersh, Seymour M., The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy, 1991, New York, NY: Random House.
Hibbs, Mark, Plutonium, Politics, and Panic , Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Nov./Dec. 1994, pp. 24-31.
High Frontier, In the News , High Frontier Newswatch, Arlington, VA: High Frontier: April 1990, p. 2; Sept. 1990, p. 3; May 1991, p. 3; July 1991, p. 5; Sept. 1992, p. 2.
Hirsch, Daniel, The Truck Bomb and Insider Threats to Nuclear Facilities , in Preventing Nuclear Terrorism: The Report and Papers of the International Task Force on Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism, ed. by Paul Leventhal and Yonah Alexander, 1987, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, pp. 207-222.
Hoffman, Bruce, Recent Trends and Future Prospects of Terrorism in the United States, May 1988, Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation.
Hughes, David, Uranium Seizures Heighten Terrorism Concerns , Aviation Week and Space Technology, 3 April 1995, pp. 63-64.
International Task Force on Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism, Task Force Report , in Preventing Nuclear Terrorism: The Report and Papers of the International Task Force on Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism, ed. by Paul Leventhal and Yonah Alexander, 1987, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, pp. 7-49.
Jane’s, Silo Shooting a Cause for Concern , Jane’s Defence Weekly, 9 April 1994, p. 15.
Kaplan, David E., and Andrew Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 1996, New York, NY: Crown Publ.
Kellen, Konrad, The Potential for Nuclear Terrorism: A Discussion , with Appendix: Nuclear-Related Terrorist Activities by Political Terrorists , in Preventing Nuclear Terrorism: The Report and Papers of the International Task Force on Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism, ed. by Paul Leventhal and Yonah Alexander, 1987, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, pp. 104-122 ( The Potential … ) and pp. 123-133 ( Appendix ).
Kupperman, Robert, and Jeff Kamen, Final Warning: Averting Disaster in the New Age of Terrorism, 1989, New York, NY: Doubleday.
Leader, Stefan, Osama Bin Laden and the Terrorist Search for WMD, Jane’s Intelligence Review, June 1999, pp. 34-37.
Lee, Rensselaer W. III, Smuggling Armageddon: The Nuclear Black Market in the Former Soviet Union and Europe, 1998, New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press.
Lieven, Anatol, Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power, 2nd ed., 1999, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Mann, Paul, Mass Weapons Threat Deepens Worldwide, Aviation Week and Space Technology, 17 June 1996, pp. 58-60.
Mastrangelo, Eugene, Terrorist Activities by Region , in Preventing Nuclear Terrorism: The Report and Papers of the International Task Force on Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism, ed. by Paul Leventhal and Yonah Alexande r, 1987, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, pp. 134-145.
Mazur, Allan, Research Note: Bomb Threats Against American Nuclear-Energy Facilities , Journal of Military and Political Sociology, Spring 1983, pp. 109-121.
The Monterey Institute of International Studies and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Nuclear Successor States of the Soviet Union: Status Report on Nuclear Weapons, Fissile Material, and Export Controls, No. 5, March 1998, on line, Center for Nonproliferation Studies [http://cns.miis.edu].
Mullen, Robert K., Nuclear Violence , in Preventing Nuclear Terrorism: The Report and Papers of the International Task Force on Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism, ed. by Paul Leventhal and Yonah Alexander, 1987, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, pp. 231-247.
Nuclear Smuggling Incidents , 1994, on line [http://www.infomanage.com/timeline.html].
Parrish, Scott, Are Suitcase Nukes on the Loose? The Story Behind the Controversy, 1997, on line.
Phillips, John Aristotle, and David Michaelis, Mushroom: The True Story of the A-Bomb Kid, 1978, New York, NY: Pocket Books.
The Plutonium Racket , Economist, 20 Aug. 1994, pp. 39-40.
Potter, William C., Before the Deluge? Assessing the Threat of Nuclear Leakage From the Post-Soviet States, Arms Control Today, Oct. 1995, pp. 9-16.
Potter, William C., Nuclear Profiles of the Soviet Successor States, 1993, Monterey, CA: Monterey Institute of International Studies.
Robitaille, A., and R. Purver, Smuggling Special Nuclear Materials, May 1995, on line, Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
Rossnagel, Alexander, Physical Protection of Special Nuclear Materials in the Federal Republic of Germany , in Preventing Nuclear Terrorism: The Report and Papers of the International Task Force on Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism, ed. by Paul Leventhal and Yonah Alexander, 1987, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, pp. 223-230.
Spector, Leonard S., Clandestine Nuclear Trade and the Threat of Nuclear Terrorism , in Preventing Nuclear Terrorism: The Report and Papers of the International Task Force on Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism, ed. by Paul Leventhal and Yonah Alexander, 1987, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, pp. 78-87.
Spector, Leonard S., Going Nuclear: The Spread of Nuclear Weapons 1986-1987, 1987, Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publ. Co. for Carnegie Endowment.
Spector, Leonard S., The New Nuclear Nations: The Spread of Nuclear Weapons 1985, 1985, New York, NY: Random House.
Spector, Leonard S., Nuclear Proliferation Today: The Spread of Nuclear Weapons 1984, 1984, New York, NY: Random House.
Spector, Leonard S., The Undeclared Bomb: The Spread of Nuclear Weapons 1987-1988, 1988, Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publ. Co. for the Carnegie Endowment.
Valente, Judith, Checking the Threat of Nuclear Terrorism , The News-Sun (Lake County, IL), 13/14 Aug. 1983, p. 5B.
The Washington Post, 12 July 1985, p. A5a.

(excerpt from Nuclear Terrorism and Related Incidents, version 5)
2000-2002, 2003 by Wm. Robert Johnston.
Last modified 28 September 2003.
Return to Home. Return to Nuclear Weapons.

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/wrjp1855.html

***

Russia: Are Suitcase Nukes on the Loose? The Story Behind the Controversy

Scott Parrish and John Lepingwell
Center for Nonproliferation Studies
Monterey Institute of International Studies
November 1997

General Aleksandr Lebed’s recent allegation that some former Soviet suitcase size nuclear weapons may be missing has generated a storm of negative media commentary in Moscow and concern and unease in Washington. Even though many contradictory reports have been published, some patterns are discernable that provide important clues to unraveling the story of the suitcase nukes.

In a meeting with a US Congressional delegation in May 1997, and again in an interview broadcast on 60 Minutes on 7 September 1997, Lebed claimed that the Soviet Union created perhaps one hundred atomic demolition munitions (ADMs), or atomic land mines. These low-yield (circa 1 kiloton) devices were to be used by special forces for wartime sabotage and thus were small, portable, and not equipped with standard safety devices to prevent unauthorized detonation. According to Lebed, some of the ADMs were deployed in the former Soviet republics, and might not have been returned to Russia after the Soviet Union’s collapse. During his short tenure as Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Lebed started an investigation into the whereabouts of these weapons, but was fired by President Yeltsin before the investigation was completed.

Lebed’s statements are not the first indication that the Soviet Union built ADMs, or that some might have gone astray. In January 1996, the Monterey Institute’s Center for Nonproliferation Studies received information from a Russian presidential advisor that an unspecified number of ADMs had been manufactured in the 1970s for the KGB. Indeed, in the wake of Lebed’s charges, former Russian presidential advisor Aleksey Yablokov told a US Congressional subcommittee on 2 October 1997 that he was absolutely sure that ADMs had been built in the 1970s for the KGB’s special forces, and that these weapons were not included in the Russian Ministry of Defense nuclear weapons inventory nor covered by its accounting and control systems. Even earlier, in the summer of 1995, the Russian press published several articles claiming that Chechen separatists had either obtained, or tried to obtain, small nuclear weapons. Lebed’s claims are thus not completely new, but they are noteworthy because he was in a position to gain access to information on such weapons.

Official Russian reactions to Lebed’s statements were negative and derisory. Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin termed Lebed’s allegations absolute absurdity, while a presidential spokesman said such superfantasies can only be the product of a diseased imagination. But as the official denials continued, they became increasingly self-contradictory and less credible. Some Russian military and atomic energy officials denied that the Soviet Union had ever created ADMs, and even stated that such weapons were either technically impossible, or prohibitively expensive. Others admitted that such weapons might have existed, but that they were all accounted for and under strict control. All agreed, however, that Lebed’s claims were motivated by his desire to regain the political limelight and prepare for a future presidential campaign.
The official denials may well have been orchestrated and coordinated to impugn Lebed’s reputation and reliability. If so, they were poorly conceived and raised more questions than they answered. Seemingly authoritative statements by Russian officials that portable ADMs are technically infeasible are belied by the fact that the United States built hundreds of them during the 1960s. The Soviet Union certainly had the technical capability to create portable ADMs, and may well have had military requirements to do so. Soviet strategy included diversionary actions and special force operations behind enemy lines, and ADMs might well have been stockpiled for use in a nuclear war. Certainly, if the United States developed and deployed ADMs it would be unusual for the Soviet Union not to follow suit. Thus, the claims that the Soviet Union did not produce ADMs are not convincing.

The claim that all nuclear weapons are accounted for is perhaps more credible, but is impossible to confirm. The misleading statements on the technical feasibility of ADMs do not bolster confidence in the claims that all Russian nuclear weapons are securely stored. However, most reports of the loss or theft of nuclear weapons have turned out to be based on weak evidence. The articles on nuclear theft that appeared in the Russian press in mid-1995 were apparently partly based on a report in the extreme right-wing Russian newspaper Zavtra (which in turn evidently was inspired by an article in the Russian-language edition of Soldier of Fortune, which claimed that suitcase nukes were smuggled through Lithuania to Iraq and possibly other countries). Zavtra’s correspondent claimed to have met with a former Chechen agent who participated in the diversion of two suitcase-size nuclear weapons to Chechnya in 1992. To bolster its claim, Zavtra published the technical details of the devices. However, the technical details appear to be inaccurate, and weaken, rather than strengthen, the report’s credibility. After publishing the article, the Zavtra correspondent was abducted, beaten, and threatened with death if he pursued the story. But after reporting the abduction, Zavtra retracted the original article, claiming that the meeting with the agent, and the subsequent beating, had been perpetrated by Chechen agents who hoped that rumors of nuclear weapons in Chechnya would strengthen Chechnya’s hand in negotiations with Moscow. Nevertheless, the original article triggered a string of media reports and speculation concerning nuclear weapons in Chechnya, eventually prompting an explicit denial of the story by Chechen military leader Shamil Basayev. Thus, while there have been a number of reports of the smuggling of portable nuclear weapons, the most publicized reports do not seem to be based on firm evidence, and have been propounded by sources of dubious reliability.

Lebed’s charges have therefore not been adequately dismissed by his critics, nor fully substantiated by his supporters. The claims that the Soviet Union never built ADMs ring hollow, but neither is there any solid evidence indicating the loss or diversion of such weapons. This does not mean that the threat of diversion does not exist, though. The social, political, and economic stresses that wrack Russia provide strong incentives for military insiders to steal nuclear weapons. While organizing such a theft would be extremely difficult, the consequences of a successful theft would be disastrous. Increasing security at nuclear weapons facilities, and especially at civilian nuclear facilities with weapons-grade fissile material, must therefore be at the forefront of the US-Russian security agenda. Increased work in this regard may help to ensure that stories of weapons or fissile material diversion remain fiction, and do not become fact.

Dr. Scott Parrish is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies.

Dr. John Lepingwell is Senior Scholar in Residence and Manager of the NIS Nuclear Profiles Database, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies.

A longer version of this article, with full citations, is also available. An article on Less Well-Known Cases of Nuclear Terrorism and Nuclear Diversion in the Former Soviet Union, written in August 1997, by CNS Director William Potter is also available in the database. Many of the reports referred to in the longer article are also abstracted in the CNS Illicit Transactions Involving Nuclear Materials from the Former Soviet Union database, available on the CNS Web Site or via CD-ROM. For more information on the CNS Databases and subscriptions, please contact CNS Database Marketing Manager Gary Ackerman at (831) 647-6545 or by email at Gary.Ackerman@miis.edu.

Comments or questions? E-mail Cristina Chuen at MIIS CNS: Cristina.ChuenATmiis.edu

CNSThis material is produced independently for NTI by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of and has not been independently verified by NTI or its directors, officers, employees, agents. 2002 by MIIS.
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Project 112
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Project 112 was a biological and chemical weapons experimentation project conducted by the US Army from 1962 to 1973. The project started under John F. Kennedy’s administration, and was authorized by his Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, as part of a total review of the US military. The name of the project refers to its number in the review process. Every branch of the armed services contributed funding and staff to the project.

Experiments were planned and conducted by the Deseret Test Center at Fort Douglas, Utah. They were designed to test the effects of biological weapons and chemical weapons on service personnel. They involved unknowing test subjects, and took place on land and at sea via tests conducted upon unwitting US Naval vessels. The existence of the project (along with the related Project SHAD) was categorically denied by the military until May 2000, when a CBS Evening News investigative report produced dramatic revelations about the tests. This report caused the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs to launch an extensive investigation of the experiments, and reveal to the affected personnel their exposure to toxins.

External links

* Project SHAD at the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, includes pocket guides and Q&A
* Force Protection and Readiness information page for SHAD (Project 112)
* GAO

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_112

***

Project SHAD
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Project SHAD stands for Project Shipboard Hazard and Defense, a series of Cold War-era tests by the United States Department of Defense of biological weapons and chemical weapons. Exposures of uninformed and unwilling humans during the testing to the test substances, particularly the exposure to United States military personnel then in service, has added controversy to recent revelations of the project.

Contents

* 1 History
* 2 Declassification
* 3 See also
* 4 Notes
* 5 References
* 6 External links

History

Project SHAD was part of a larger effort by the Department of Defense called Project 112. The Project began in 1962 during John F. Kennedy’s administration, and it is largely believed that neither Kennedy nor subsequent Presidents knew of Project 112 or SHAD.[citation needed] However, Robert McNamara, Kennedy’s Secretary of Defense, did know of and approved these tests. There is also some evidence that demonstrates local governments were involved with these tests, though it is unclear how exactly they aided with Project SHAD.

The official statement on Project SHAD’s purpose was …to identify U.S. war ships vulnerabilities to attacks with biological or chemical warfare agents and to develop procedures to respond to such attacks while maintaining a warfighting capability. 134 tests were planned initially, but only 46 tests were actually completed. In these tests, chemical and biological agents were introduced to military personnel, who were at the time ignorant that they were involved in such an experiment. Nerve agents and chemicals include, but are not limited to, VX nerve gas, Tabun gas, Sarin, Soman, and the marker chemicals zinc sulfide, cadmium sulfide, and QNB. Biologics include Bacillus globigii, Coxiella burnetti (which causes Q fever), and Francisella tularensis (which causes tularemia or ‘rabbit fever’).

Declassification

Revelations concerning Project SHAD were first exposed by Independent Producer and Investigative Journalist Eric Longabardi of TeleMedia News Productions, now based in Los Angeles, CA. Longabardi’s 6-year investigation into the still secret program began in early 1994. It ultimately resulted in a series of investigative reports produced by him, which were broadcast on the CBS Evening News in May 2000. After the broadcast of these exclusive reports, the Pentagon and Veteran’s Administration opened their own on going investigations into the long classified program. In 2002, Congressional hearings on Project SHAD, in both the Senate and House, further shed media attention on the still classified program. In 2002, a class action federal lawsuit was filed on behalf of the US Navy sailors exposed in the testing. Additional actions, including a multi-year medical study was conducted by National Academy of Sciences/Institute of Medicine to assess the potential medical harm caused to the thousands of unwitting US Navy sailors, civilians, and others who were exposed in the secret testing. The results of that study were finally released in May 2007.

28 fact sheets have been released, focusing on the Deseret Test Center in Dugway, Utah, which was built entirely for Project SHAD and was closed after the Project was finished in 1973.

The US Department of Defense (DoD) has come under great scrutiny because those that were involved with Project 112 and SHAD were unaware of any tests being done. No effort was made to ensure the informed consent of the military personnel. Until 1998, the Department of Defense stated officially that Project SHAD did not exist. Because the DoD refused to acknowledge the program, surviving test subjects have been unable to obtain disability payments for health issues related to the project. US Representative Mike Thompson said of the program and the DoD’s effort to conceal it, They told me – they said, but don’t worry about it, we only used simulants. And my first thought was, well, you’ve lied to these guys for 40 years, you’ve lied to me for a couple of years. It would be a real leap of faith for me to believe that now you’re telling me the truth. [1]

The Department of Veterans Affairs has commenced a three-year study comparing known SHAD-affected veterans to veterans of similar ages who were not involved in any way with SHAD or Project 112. The study cost approximately US$3 million, and results are being compiled for future release.

See also

* Operation Whitecoat

Notes

1. ^ Martin, David, Retired Navy Officer Seeks Justice , CBS News, June 12, 2008.

References

* United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Armed Services. Subcommittee on Personnel, The Department of Defense’s inquiry into Project 112/Shipboard Hazard and Defense (SHAD) tests: hearing before the Subcommittee on Personnel of the Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, One Hundred Seventh Congress, second session, October 10, 2002, United States Congress, S. hrg. 107–810 (2003), 1–39.
* United States. Congress. House. Report, “Health care for veterans of Project 112/Project SHAD Act of 2003: report (to accompany H.R. 2433),” United States Congress, Report/108th Congress, 1st session, House of Representatives, 108–213, 1–19.
* United States. Congress. House. Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Subcommittee on Health, “Military operations aspects of SHAD and Project 112: hearing before the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, House of Representatives, One Hundred Seventh Congress, second session, October 9, 2002”, 107th Congress, 2nd session, 107–43, 1–19.

External links

* Columbia Journalism Review, Laurels November/December 2000
* Vietnam Veteran’s of America – The Veteran December2000/January 2001
* http://archive.vva.org/TheVeteran/2002_01/hazardous.htm
* Project SHAD at the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, includes pocket guides and Q&A
* Force Protection and Readiness information page for SHAD (Project 112)
* Vietnam Veterans of America
* GAO

v • d • e
United States chemical weapons program
Agents and chemicals
3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate (BZ) A Chlorine A Methylphosphonyl difluoride (DF) A Phosgene A QL A Sarin (GB) A Sulfur mustard (HD) A VX
Weapons
Bigeye bomb A M1 chemical mine A M104 155mm Cartridge A M110 155mm Cartridge A M121/A1 155mm Cartridge A M125 bomblet A M134 bomblet A M138 bomblet A M139 bomblet A M2 mortar A M23 chemical mine A M34 cluster bomb A M360 105mm Cartridge A M426 8-inch shell A M43 BZ cluster bomb A M44 generator cluster A M55 rocket A M60 105mm Cartridge A M687 155mm Cartridge A XM-736 8-inch projectile A MC-1 bomb A M47 bomb A Weteye bomb
Operations and testing
Dugway sheep incident A Edgewood Arsenal experiments A MKULTRA A Operation CHASE A Operation Geranium A Operation LAC A Operation Red Hat A Operation Steel Box A Operation Ranch Hand A Operation Top Hat A Project 112 A Project SHAD
Facilities
Anniston Army Depot A Anniston Chemical Activity A Blue Grass Army Depot A Deseret Chemical Depot A Edgewood Chemical Activity A Hawthorne Army Depot A Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal System A Newport Chemical Depot A Pine Bluff Chemical Activity A Pueblo Chemical Depot A Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility A Umatilla Chemical Depot
Units and formations
1st Gas Regiment A U.S. Army Chemical Corps A Chemical mortar battalion
Equipment
Chemical Agent Identification Set A M93 Fox A MOPP A People sniffer
Related topics
Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory A Chlorine bombings in Iraq A Herbicidal warfare A List of topics A Poison gas in World War I A Tyler poison gas plot
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_SHAD
Categories: Clinical research | Biological warfare | Bioethics | Military projects | United States Department of Defense | Human experimentation in the United States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_SHAD

***

Walter Reed
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the U.S. army surgeon. For other people and things with the name Walter Reed, see Walter Reed (disambiguation).
Walter Reed

Walter Reed
Born     September 13, 1851(1851-09-13)
Belroi, Virginia, U.S.
Died     November 23, 1902 (aged 51)
Washington, DC
Alma mater     University of Virginia
New York University
Johns Hopkins University
Occupation     Physician in U.S. army
Spouse(s)     Emilie Lawrence (m. 1876) «start: (1876-04-26)» Marriage: Emilie Lawrence to Walter Reed Location: (linkback:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Reed)
Children     one son and daughter, one adopted Indian daughter
Parents     Lemuel Sutton Reed and Pharaba White

Major Walter Reed, M.D., (September 13, 1851 – November 23, 1902) was a U.S. Army physician who in 1900 led the team which postulated and confirmed the theory that yellow fever is transmitted by mosquitoes, rather than by direct contact. This insight gave impetus to the new fields of epidemiology and biomedicine and most immediately allowed the resumption and completion of work on the Panama Canal (1904–14) by the United States.

Contents

* 1 Biography
* 2 Legacy
* 3 References
o 3.1 Citations
o 3.2 Other sources
* 4 External links

Biography

Walter Reed was born in Belroi, Virginia and moved to Lebanon, Missouri, an unincorporated community in Laclede County, to Lemuel Sutton Reed (a Methodist minister) and Pharaba White.
Walter Reed Birthplace

After two year-long classes at the University of Virginia, Reed completed the M.D. degree in 1869, at the age of 17. He then enrolled at the New York University’s Bellevue Hospital Medical College in Manhattan, New York, where he obtained a second M.D. in 1870. After interning at several New York City hospitals, he worked for the New York Board of Health until 1875. He married Emilie (born Emily) Lawrence on April 26, 1876 and took her west with him. Later, Emilie would give birth to a son and a daughter and the couple would adopt an Indian girl while posted in frontier camps.[1]

With his youth apparently limiting his influence, Reed joined the U.S. Army Medical Corps, both for its professional opportunities and the modest financial security it could provide. He spent much of his Army career until 1893 at difficult postings in the American West, at one point, looking after several hundred Apache Indians, including Geronimo. During one of his last tours, he completed advanced coursework in pathology and bacteriology in the Johns Hopkins University Hospital Pathology Laboratory.

Reed joined the faculty of the newly-opened Army Medical School in Washington, D.C. in 1893, where he held the professorship of Bacteriology and Clinical Microscopy. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, he actively pursued medical research projects and served as the curator of the Army Medical Museum, which later became the National Museum of Health and Medicine (NMHM).

Reed first traveled to Cuba in 1899 to study disease in U.S. Army encampments there. Yellow fever became a problem for the Army during the Spanish-American War, felling thousands of soldiers in Cuba.

In May 1900, Reed, a major, returned to Cuba when he was appointed head of the Army board charged by Surgeon General George Miller Sternberg to examine tropical diseases including yellow fever. Sternberg was one of the founders of bacteriology during this time of great advances in medicine due to widespread acceptance of Louis Pasteur’s germ theory of disease as well as the methods of studying bacteria developed by Robert Koch.

During Reed’s tenure with the US Army Yellow Fever Commission in Cuba, the board confirmed both the transmission by mosquitoes and disproved the common belief that yellow fever could be transmitted by clothing and bedding soiled by the body fluids and excrement of yellow fever sufferers – articles known as fomites.

The board conducted many of its dramatic series of experiments at Camp Lazear, named in November 1900 for Reed’s assistant and friend Jesse William Lazear who had died two months earlier of yellow fever while a member of the Commission.

The risky but fruitful research work was done with human volunteers, including some of the medical personnel such as Lazear and Clara Maass who allowed themselves to be deliberately infected. The research work with the disease under Reed’s leadership was largely responsible for stemming the mortality rates from yellow fever during the building of the Panama Canal, something that had confounded the French attempts to build in that region only 30 years earlier.

Although Dr. Reed received much of the credit in history books for beating yellow fever, Reed himself credited Dr. Carlos Finlay with the discovery of the yellow fever vector, and thus how it might be controlled. Dr. Reed often cited Finlay’s papers in his own articles and gave him credit for the discovery, even in his personal correspondence [2]

Following Reed’s return from Cuba in 1901, he continued to speak and publish on yellow fever. He received honorary degrees from Harvard and the University of Michigan in recognition of his seminal work.

In November 1902, Reed’s appendix ruptured; he died on November 23, 1902, of the resulting peritonitis, at age 51. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Legacy

Reed’s breakthrough in yellow fever research is widely considered a milestone in biomedicine, opening new vistas of research and humanitarianism.

* Walter Reed General Hospital (WRGH), Washington, D.C. was opened on May 1, 1909, seven years after his death.
* Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) opened in 1977 as the successor to WRGH; it is the world-wide tertiary care medical center for the U.S. Army and is utilized by congressmen and presidents.
* Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), near Washington, DC, is the largest biomedical research facility administered by the DoD.
* Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, a new hospital complex to be constructed on the grounds of the National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland by 2011.
* Riverside Walter Reed Hospital in Gloucester, Virginia (near Reed’s birthplace) opened on September 13, 1977.

* Walter Reed Medal (1912 to present) was awarded posthumously to Reed for his yellow fever work.
* Walter Reed Middle School, North Hollywood, California is named in Reed’s honor.

* Reed was portrayed dramatically by actor Lewis Stone in a 1938 Hollywood movie, Yellow Jack (from a 1934 play). The same storyline was again presented in television episodes (both titled “Yellow Jack”) of Celanese Theatre (1952) and of Producers’ Showcase (1955), in the latter of which Reed was portrayed by actor Broderick Crawford.
* A song, Walter Reed , was released by Michael Penn and tells of a soldier’s desire to be taken to Walter Reed Medical Center.
* PBS’s American Experience series broadcast a 2006 episode, The Great Fever, on the Reed yellow fever campaign.
* Philip S. Hench Walter Reed Yellow Fever Collection at the University of Virginia Health Sciences Library
* Walter Reed Army Medical Center Firefighters Washington D.C. IAFF F151

References
Citations

1. ^ Crosby, Molly Caldwell (2006). The American Plague:The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic that Shaped Our History, p. 134. New York: Berkley Books. ISBN 0-425-21202-5
2. ^ Pierce J.R., J, Writer. 2005. Yellow Jack: How Yellow Fever Ravaged America and Walter Reed Discovered its Deadly Secrets. John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 0-471-47261-1

Other sources

* Bean, William B., Walter Reed: A Biography, Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1982.
* Bean, William B., “Walter Reed and Yellow Fever,” JAMA 250.5 (August 5, 1983): 659–62.
* Pierce J.R., J, Writer. 2005. Yellow Jack: How Yellow Fever Ravaged America and Walter Reed Discovered its Deadly Secrets. John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 0-471-47261-1

External links

* Video: Reed Medical Pioneers Biography on Health.mil – The Military Health System provides a look at the life and work of Walter Reed.
* WRAMC Website Reed History
* WRAIR Website Reed History
* University of Virginia, Philip S. Hench – Walter Reed Yellow Fever Collection: Walter Reed Biography

* Walter Reed at Find a Grave

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Reed

***

David Orlikow
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

David Orlikow (April 20, 1918 – January 19, 1998) was a Canadian politician, and a long-serving member of the Canadian House of Commons. He represented the riding of Winnipeg North from 1962 to 1988 as a member of the New Democratic Party.

Contents

* 1 Family
* 2 Municipal politics
* 3 Manitoba Legislature
* 4 Federal politics
* 5 Suing the CIA
* 6 References

Family

Orlikow was the son of Louis Orlikow and Sarah Cherniack. He was related to Saul Cherniack, also a prominent Manitoba politician and a cabinet minister in the provincial government of Edward Schreyer.

He was educated at the University of Manitoba, and worked as a labour educator and pharmacist. Orlikow married Velma (Val) Kane on June 1, 1946. They had one daughter, Leslie.[1]

His brother Lionel was also a trustee on the Winnipeg school board from 1988 to 1998.[2] When Lionel Orlikow retired, he was succeeded by his son John, now a Winnipeg City Councillor.[2]

Municipal politics

He served as a trustee on the Winnipeg School Board from 1945 to 1951, and was an alderman in the city of Winnipeg from 1951 to 1959. He also served on the board of directors for Winnipeg’s John Howard & Elizabeth Fry Society from 1958 to 1961, and was a board member of the Welfare Council of Greater Winnipeg in 1958.

Orlikow was also involved with the Jewish Labour Society and the Canadian Labour Congress. He helped to organize a steelworkers’ union in the northern Manitoba town of Thompson, after INCO set up operations in the area. Other organizations of which Orlikow was involved included the Union Centre and the Manitoba Society of Seniors.

Orlikow was a founding member of the NDP and a lifetime member of the CCF/NDP. In 1961, Orlikow took part in Manitoba CCF’s transition to the New Democratic Party.

Manitoba Legislature

In the provincial election of 1958, Orlikow was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba for the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation in the north-end Winnipeg constituency of St. John’s. He defeated his Progressive Conservative and Liberal-Progressive opponents by a significant margin. He was re-elected in the 1959 election, by the reduced margin of 251 votes over Progressive Conservative opponent Dan Zaharia. David Orlikow was an NDP MLA from June 16, 1958 to May 1962.

Orlikow maintained an interest in the Manitoba NDP after switching to federal politics. In 1968-69, he helped facilitate the party’s transition of leadership from Russell Paulley to Edward Schreyer.

The Manitoba Legistlature paid tribute to Orlikow on Thursday June 25, 1998.[3]
Judy Wasylycia-Leis, whose riding, both as an MLA and an MP included much of the area earlier represented by Orlikow, recalled the advice and information she used to receive from Orlikow and his many phone calls. Wasylycia-Leis’s provincial counterparts NDP MLAs Dave Chomiak and Doug Martindale also admitted to being among those on the receiving end of those phone calls.

According to Doug Martindale, Orlikow “never really retired” from politics in that Orlikow was always researching various issues and providing the information he gathered to various Manitoba NDP MLAs and MPs. Orlikow was a frequent visiter to the Manitoba Legislature’s library and, even when hospitalized, he managed to transform his hospital room into a mini office. During the last week of his life, Orlikow was researching the financial impact of smoking on the health care system, and what types of lawsuits he figured the Federal and Provincial governments should launch against the tobacco industry to recover some of the cost.

Federal politics

Orlikow resigned his legislative seat in May 1962 to run for the Canadian House of Commons. He was elected in Winnipeg North in the federal election of 1962, defeating Liberal Paul Parashin by just under 4,000 votes. He defeated Parashin again by a narrower margin in the 1963 election, but increased his majority to nearly 10,000 votes in the election of 1965.

He came close to losing his seat in the Trudeaumania election of 1968, defeating Liberal Cecil Semchyshyn by only 963 votes. After this, he was returned by safe majorities in the elections of 1972 and 1974, 1979, 1980 and 1984.

There was a provincial swing against the NDP in the federal election of 1988, and Orlikow unexpectedly lost the Winnipeg North riding to Liberal Rey Pagtakhan by fewer than 2,000 votes. After a twenty-six year career in the Commons, Orlikow was genuinely surprised by the result. Orlikow was an NDP MP from June 18, 1962 to November 21, 1988.

Throughout his career, Orlikow fought for progressive policies in fields such as immigration, refugees, social justice and labour. During the 1980s, he sought reforms to Canada’s Bank Act which would have required banks to invest a portion of their money in local development projects. In the very last week of his life, he was researching ways for the federal and provincial governments to recover monies from tobacco companies for the social costs of cigarette use.

After his death in January 1998, former staffer Dan O’Connor wrote the following elegy:

David was always on the side of the ordinary person. He was relentless in the pursuit of justice from big government or big business. The most important job in his office was the individual case work, and he didn’t trust it to anyone else. He made every phone call and wrote every letter. [4]

The Canadian House of Commons paid tribute to Orlikow on February 4, 1998.

Suing the CIA

During the 1950s, Velma Orlikow was a patient at the Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal at a time when the American Central Intelligence Agency was conducting its notorious MK-ULTRA brainwashing experiments at the facility. She was unwittingly dosed with LSD and was exposed to brainwashing tapes. Along with eight other former patients, she later sued the CIA for mistreatment and won.[5]

Early in 1979, Orlikow called office of barristers Joseph Rauh and Jim Turner after reading New York Times story concerning CIA involvement in Ewen Cameron’s research. The Tuesday, August 2, 1977 story, written by Nicholas Horrock, was entitied Private Institutions Used In CIA Effort To Control Behavior. Horrock’s article referred to the work of John Marks whose documentation of CIA activities, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, was used in what was to be referred to as the Orlikow, et al. v. United States case.[6] The other plaintiffs eventually included Jean-Charles Page, Robert Logie, Rita Zimmerman, Louis Weinstein, Janine Huard, Lyvia Stadler, Mary Morrow, and Mrs. Florence Langleben. The CIA settled in 1988. Velma died in 1990.

Near the end of his life, David Orlikow encouraged NDP MPs such as Svend Robinson to seek government compensation for the Allan Institute’s victims, and for their families.
References

1. ^ [1].
2. ^ a b His decades of service touched many . Winnipeg Free Press, December 12, 2008.
3. ^ [2]
4. ^ [3]
5. ^ [4]
6. ^ [5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Orlikow

***

Eugene Saenger
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dr. Eugene Saenger (March 5, 1917 – September 30, 2007)[1] was an American university professor and physician. A graduate of Harvard University,[1] Saenger was a pioneer in radiation research and nuclear medicine.[2]

He is perhaps best known for the controversial radiation experiments he conducted on human cancer patients during the 1960s and early 70s. In 1994, he was sued by families of the patients. In 1999, a $3.6 million settlement was approved.[2]

Notes

1. ^ a b Thomas H. Maugh, Eugene Saenger, 90; pioneer in radiation research ,Los Angeles Times, October 6, 2007
2. ^ a b Peggy O’Farrell. Radiology guru Saenger dies . Cincinnati Enquirer. http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071004/NEWS01/710040398/1077/COL02. Retrieved 2007-10-04.

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Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Saenger
Categories: 1917 births | 2007 deaths | American academics | Harvard University alumni | Human experimentation in the United States | Radiation health effects researchers | Radiologists | United States medical biography stubs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Saenger

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Richard Seed
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Richard Seed, a nuclear physicist from Chicago, is best known for forcing a national debate on human cloning in the late 1990s. On December 5, 1997, Harvard graduate Richard Seed announced that he planned to clone a human being before any federal laws could be enacted to ban the process. Seed’s announcement added fuel to the raging ethical debate on human cloning that had been sparked by Ian Wilmut’s creation of Dolly the sheep, the first clone obtained from adult cells. Seed’s plans were to use the same technique used by the Scottish team. Seed’s announcement went against President Clinton’s 1997 proposal for a voluntary private moratorium against human cloning.

In the media frenzy that followed, the story of a 69 year old eccentric, and maverick scientist emerged, but Seed possessed impressive credentials and was not dismissed immediately. While virtually no mainstream scientist believed Seed would succeed, there began a subtle shift in attitudes after Seed made his announcement. Seed put into words what many scientists were thinking, and few were surprised to hear soon after that a team in South Korea claimed to have begun work on human cloning.

Richard Seed graduated cum laude from Harvard and received a Ph.D. in physics in 1953. His interests soon shifted to the new frontier of biomedicine. In the 1970s Seed co-founded a company that commercialized a technique for transferring embryos in cattle. Later, he and his brother, Chicago surgeon Randolph Seed, started another company, Fertility & Genetics Research Inc., to help infertile women conceive children using the same technique. His efforts were published in The Lancet and The Journal of the American Medical Association, whose 1984 article reported the birth of a healthy child in the year prior, making Richard Seed the first to successfully transplant a human embryo from one woman to a surrogate mother who suffered from infertility problems. But the procedure was cumbersome—it involved flushing embryos out of the uterus of the egg donor—and was soon eclipsed by in-vitro fertilization. Ultimately the venture failed.

Unemployed at the time of his announcement to clone the first human, Seed was reported to have dabbled in ill-fated ventures in the past. He claimed at one time to have commitments for $800,000 toward a goal of $2.5 million needed to clone the first human before 2000. Seed first said that he was going to make little baby clones for infertile couples. Later, “to defuse criticism that I’m taking advantage of desperate women –he announced that he would first clone himself. Still later he announced that he would re-create his wife Gloria.

God made man in his own image, he told National Public Radio correspondent Joe Palca in December 1997 . God intended for man to become one with God. Cloning, is the first serious step in becoming one with God. In a later interview on CNN, Seed elaborated: Man, he said, will develop the technology and the science and the capability to have an indefinite life span.

Seed is retired and living in the Chicago area. He is now a director of a son’s company.

References

* Bonnicksen, Andrea L. 2002. Crafting a Cloning Policy: From Dolly to Stem Cells. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
* http://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/24/us/eccentric-s-hubris-set-off-global-frenzy-over-cloning.html
* http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/jan-june98/cloning_1-8.html
* http://www.sciencefriday.com/pages/1998/Jan/hour1_010998.html
* http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9801/07/cloning.folo/

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seed
Categories: Living people | People from Chicago, Illinois | Human experimentation in the United States | Cloning

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seed

***

Stanford prison experiment
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Stanford prison experiment was a study of the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. The experiment was conducted in 1971 by a team of researchers led by Psychology Professor Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University. Twenty-four undergraduates were selected out of 70 to play the roles of both guards and prisoners and live in a mock prison in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. Those selected were chosen for their lack of psychological issues, crime history, and medical disabilities, in order to obtain a representative sample. Roles were assigned based on a coin toss.[1]

Prisoners and guards rapidly adapted to their roles, stepping beyond the boundaries of what had been predicted and leading to dangerous and psychologically damaging situations. One-third of the guards were judged to have exhibited genuine sadistic tendencies, while many prisoners were emotionally traumatized and two had to be removed from the experiment early. After being confronted by Christina Maslach, a graduate student in psychology whom he was dating,[2] and realizing that he had been passively allowing unethical acts to be performed under his direct supervision, Zimbardo concluded that both prisoners and guards had become too grossly absorbed in their roles and terminated the experiment after six days.[3]

Ethical concerns surrounding the famous experiment often draw comparisons to the Milgram experiment, which was conducted in 1961 at Yale University by Stanley Milgram, Zimbardo’s former college friend. Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman Jr wrote in 1981 that the Milgram experiment and the Stanford prison experiment were frightening in their implications about the danger which lurks in the darker side of human nature.[4]

Contents

* 1 Goals and methods
* 2 Results
* 3 Conclusions
* 4 Criticism of the experiment
* 5 Comparisons to Abu Ghraib
* 6 Similar incidents
o 6.1 BBC Prison Study
o 6.2 Experiments in the US
* 7 In multimedia
* 8 See also
* 9 Footnotes
* 10 References
* 11 External links

Goals and methods

Zimbardo and his team set out to test the idea that the inherent personality traits of prisoners and guards were summarily key to understanding abusive prison situations. Participants were recruited and told they would participate in a two-week prison simulation. Of the 70 respondents, Zimbardo and his team selected the 24 males whom they deemed to be the most psychologically stable and healthy. These participants were predominantly white and middle-class.

The prison itself was in the basement of Stanford’s Jordan Hall, which had been converted into a mock jail. An undergraduate research assistant was the warden and Zimbardo the superintendent . Zimbardo set up a number of specific conditions on the participants which he hoped would promote disorientation, depersonalisation and deindividualisation.

The researchers provided weapons — wooden batons — and clothing that simulated that of a prison guard — khaki shirt and pants from a local military surplus store. They were also given mirrored sunglasses to prevent eye contact.

Prisoners wore ill-fitting smocks and stocking caps, rendering them constantly uncomfortable. Guards called prisoners by their assigned numbers, sewn on their uniforms, instead of by name. A chain around their ankles reminded them of their roles as prisoners.

The researchers held an orientation session for guards the day before the experiment, during which they were told that they could not physically harm the prisoners. In The Stanford Prison Study video, quoted in Haslam & Reicher, 2003, Zimbardo is seen telling the guards, You can create in the prisoners feelings of boredom, a sense of fear to some degree, you can create a notion of arbitrariness that their life is totally controlled by us, by the system, you, me, and they’ll have no privacy… We’re going to take away their individuality in various ways. In general what all this leads to is a sense of powerlessness. That is, in this situation we’ll have all the power and they’ll have none.

The participants chosen to play the part of prisoners were arrested at their homes and charged with armed robbery. The local Palo Alto police department assisted Zimbardo with the arrests and conducted full booking procedures on the prisoners, which included fingerprinting and taking mug shots. At the prison, they were transported to the mock prison where they were strip-searched and given their new identities.

Results

The experiment quickly grew out of hand. Prisoners suffered — and accepted — sadistic and humiliating treatment from the guards. The high level of stress progressively led them from rebellion to inhibition. By the experiment’s end, many showed severe emotional disturbances.
After a relatively uneventful first day, a riot broke out on the second day. The guards volunteered to work extra hours and worked together to break the prisoner revolt, attacking the prisoners with fire extinguishers without supervision from the research staff.

A false rumor spread that one of the prisoners, who asked to leave the experiment, would lead companions to free the rest of the prisoners. The guards dismantled the prison and moved the inmates to another secure location. When no breakout attempt occurred, the guards were angry about having to rebuild the prison, so they took it out on the prisoners.

Guards forced the prisoners to count off repeatedly as a way to learn their prison numbers, and to reinforce the idea that this was their new identity. Guards soon used these prisoner counts as another method to harass the prisoners, using physical punishment such as protracted exercise for errors in the prisoner count. Sanitary conditions declined rapidly, made worse by the guards refusing to allow some prisoners to urinate or defecate. As punishment, the guards would not let the prisoners empty the sanitation bucket. Mattresses were a valued item in the spartan prison, so the guards would punish prisoners by removing their mattresses, leaving them to sleep on concrete. Some prisoners were forced to go nude as a method of degradation, and some were subjected to sexual humiliation, including simulated homosexual sex.

Zimbardo cited his own absorption in the experiment he guided, and in which he actively participated as Prison Superintendent. On the fourth day, some prisoners were talking about trying to escape. Zimbardo and the guards attempted to move the prisoners to the more secure local police station, but officials there said they could no longer participate in Zimbardo’s experiment.

Several guards became increasingly cruel as the experiment continued. Experimenters said that approximately one-third of the guards exhibited genuine sadistic tendencies. Most of the guards were upset when the experiment concluded early.

Zimbardo argued that the prisoner participants had internalized their roles, based on the fact that some had stated that they would accept parole even with the attached condition of forfeiting all of their experiment-participation pay. Yet, when their parole applications were all denied, none of the prisoner participants quit the experiment. Zimbardo argued they had no reason for continued participation in the experiment after having lost all monetary compensation, yet they did, because they had internalized the prisoner identity, they thought themselves prisoners, hence, they stayed.

Prisoner No. 416, a newly admitted stand-by prisoner, expressed concern over the treatment of the other prisoners. The guards responded with more abuse. When he refused to eat his sausages, saying he was on a hunger strike, guards confined him in a closet and called it solitary confinement.[5] The guards used this incident to turn the other prisoners against No. 416, saying the only way he would be released from solitary confinement was if they gave up their blankets and slept on their bare mattresses, which all but one refused to do.

Zimbardo concluded the experiment early when Christina Maslach, a graduate student he was then dating (and later married), objected to the appalling conditions of the prison after she was introduced to the experiment to conduct interviews. Zimbardo noted that of more than fifty outside persons who had seen the prison, Maslach was the only one who questioned its morality. After only six days of a planned two weeks’ duration, the Stanford Prison experiment was shut down.
Conclusions

The Stanford experiment ended on August 20, 1971, only six days after it began instead of the fourteen it was supposed to have lasted. The experiment’s result has been argued to demonstrate the impressionability and obedience of people when provided with a legitimizing ideology and social and institutional support. It is also used to illustrate cognitive dissonance theory and the power of authority.

In psychology, the results of the experiment are said to support situational attribution of behaviour rather than dispositional attribution. In other words, it seemed the situation caused the participants’ behaviour, rather than anything inherent in their individual personalities. In this way, it is compatible with the results of the also-famous Milgram experiment, in which ordinary people fulfilled orders to administer what appeared to be damaging electric shocks to a confederate of the experimenter. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, a book by Malcolm Gladwell, addresses this experiment.

Shortly after the study had been completed, there were bloody revolts at both the San Quentin and Attica prison facilities, and Zimbardo reported his findings on the experiment to the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary.

Criticism of the experiment

The experiment was widely criticized as being unethical and unscientific. Current ethical standards of psychology would not permit such a study to be conducted today. The study would violate the Ethics Code of the American Psychological Association, the Canadian Code of Conduct for Research Involving Humans, and the Belmont Report. Critics including Erich Fromm challenged how readily the results of the experiment could be generalized. Fromm specifically writes about how the personality of an individual does in fact affect behavior when imprisoned (using historical examples from the Nazi concentration camps). This runs counter to the study’s conclusion that the prison situation itself controls the individual’s behavior. Fromm also argues that the amount of sadism in the normal subjects could not be determined with the methods employed to screen them.

Because it was a field experiment, it was impossible to keep traditional scientific controls. Dr Zimbardo was not merely a neutral observer, but influenced the direction of the experiment as its superintendent . Conclusions and observations drawn by the experimenters were largely subjective and anecdotal, and the experiment would be difficult for other researchers to reproduce.

Some of the experiment’s critics argued that participants based their behavior on how they were expected to behave, or modelled it after stereotypes they already had about the behavior of prisoners and guards. In other words, the participants were merely engaging in role-playing. Another problem with the experiment was certain guards, such as John Wayne , changed their behavior because of wanting to conform to the behavior that they thought Zimbardo was trying to elicit. In response, Zimbardo claimed that even if there was role-playing initially, participants internalized these roles as the experiment continued.

Additionally, it was criticized on the basis of ecological validity. Many of the conditions imposed in the experiment were arbitrary and may not have correlated with actual prison conditions, including blindfolding incoming prisoners , not allowing them to wear underwear, not allowing them to look out of windows and not allowing them to use their names. Zimbardo argued that prison is a confusing and dehumanizing experience and that it was necessary to enact these procedures to put the prisoners in the proper frame of mind; however, it is difficult to know how similar the effects were to an actual prison, and the experiment’s methods would be difficult to reproduce exactly so that others could test them.

Some said that the study was too deterministic: reports described significant differences in the cruelty of the guards, the worst of whom came to be nicknamed John Wayne. (This guard alleges he started the escalation of events between guards and prisoners after he began to emulate a character from the Paul Newman film Cool Hand Luke. He further intensified his actions because he was nicknamed John Wayne though he was trying to mimic actor Strother Martin who played the role of the sadistic Captain in the movie.[6]) Most of the other guards were kinder and often did favors for prisoners. Zimbardo made no attempt to explain or account for these differences.

Also, it has been argued that selection bias may have played a role in the results. Researchers from Western Kentucky University recruited students for a study using an advertisement similar to the one used in the Stanford Prison Experiment, with and without the words prison life. It was found that students volunteering for a prison life study possessed dispositions toward abusive behavior.

Additionally, the sample size was very small, with only twenty-four participants taking part over a relatively short period of time. This reality means that it is difficult to generalize across a wider scale.

Comparisons to Abu Ghraib

When the Abu Ghraib military prisoner torture and abuse scandal was published in March 2004, many observers immediately were struck by its similarities to the Stanford Prison experiment — among them, Philip Zimbardo, who paid close attention to the details of the story. He was dismayed by official military and government efforts shifting the blame for the torture and abuses in the Abu Ghraib American military prison on to a few bad apples rather than acknowledging it as possibly systemic problems of a formally established military incarceration system.

Eventually, Zimbardo became involved with the defense team of lawyers representing Abu Ghraib prison guard Staff Sergeant Ivan Chip Frederick. He had full access to all investigation and background reports, testifying as an expert witness in SSG Frederick’s court martial, which resulted in an eight-year prison sentence for Frederick in October 2004.
Zimbardo drew on the knowledge he gained from participating in the Frederick case to write The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (Random House, 2007), dealing with the striking similarities between the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Abu Ghraib abuses.[5]

Similar incidents
BBC Prison Study

Alex Haslam and Steve Reicher, psychologists from the University of Exeter and University of St Andrews, conducted the BBC Prison Study in 2002,[7] a partial replication of the experiment with the assistance of the BBC, who broadcast scenes from the study in a documentary program called The Experiment. Their results and conclusions differed from Zimbardo’s and led to a number of publications on tyranny, stress and leadership. Moreover, unlike results from the SPE, these were published in leading academic journals such as British Journal of Social Psychology, Journal of Applied Psychology, Social Psychology Quarterly.

While their procedure was not a direct replication of Zimbardo’s, their study does cast further doubt on the generality of his conclusions. Specifically, it questions the notion that people slip mindlessly into role and the idea that the dynamics of evil are in any way banal. Their research also points to the importance of leadership in the emergence of tyranny (of the form displayed by Zimbardo when briefing guards in the Stanford experiment).[8] [9]

Experiments in the US

The Third Wave was a 1967 recreation of Nazi Germany by high school teacher Ron Jones in Palo Alto, California.

In April 2007, it was reported that high school students in Waxahachie, Texas who were participating in a role-playing exercise fell into a similar abusive pattern of behavior as exhibited in the original experiment.[10]

In multimedia

* In 1992, Quiet Rage: The Stanford Prison Experiment, a documentary about the experiment, was made available via the Stanford Prison Experiment website. The documentary was written by Zimbardo and directed and produced by Ken Musen.[11]
* In 1977, Italian director Carlo Tuzii adapted the story of the experiment to an Italian environment, and Italian students and made a film out of his adaptation, called La Gabbia (The Cage). In the film, prisoners and guards were all together in a huge room, parted in two halves by a row of iron bars in the middle, and with a small window in each half.
* The Wave, a novel by Todd Strasser based on the incident
o The Wave , a short film based on the incident
o The Wave, a 2008 feature film based on the incident
* The novel Black Box by Mario Giordano, inspired by the experiment, was adapted to cinema in 2001 by German director Oliver Hirschbiegel into the movie Das Experiment.
* A 30 minute 2002 BBC documentary produced and directed by Kim Duke.
* Breathing Room, a 2008 horror film
* Not for Nothing , Episode 4 of Season 2 of the fictional US television series Life, was loosely based on the Stanford prison experiment.
* A film about the experiment, entitled The Stanford Prison Experiment, is in production by Maverick Films. It was written by Christopher McQuarrie and Tim Talbott. It is said to feature actors Channing Tatum, Cam Gigandet, Paul Dano, Ryan Phillippe, Giovanni Ribisi, Benjamin McKenzie, Charlie Hunnam, Kieran Culkin, Jesse Eisenberg, and Dylan Purcell, and is slotted for release in 2011.
* In the episode My Big Fat Greek Rush Week of the TV series Veronica Mars, Wallace and Logan take part in an experiment that is similar to the Stanford Prison Experiment.

See also

* Archives of the History of American Psychology, facility that has in its collection prison gowns used in the experiment and other items, including a door from a jail cell.
* Milgram experiment on obedience to authority
* Peer pressure
* Lord of the Flies, a 1954 novel by William Golding, in which a group of youths degrade into dictatorship
* The Dispossessed, a 1974 novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, in which the protagonist Shevek took the part of a jail guard in a childhood game with very similar conditions and outcome
* Infinite Ryvius, a 1999 animated series by Sunrise, in which 500 young people in an isolated environment go through several power regimes with different levels of oppressiveness and brutality
* Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse
* When I Was Ming the Merciless , a science fiction short story by Gene Wolfe, discusses an experiment similar to the Stanford Prison Experiment.
* Banality of Evil

Footnotes

1. ^ Slideshow on official site
2. ^ Stanford University News Service – The Standard Prison Experiment
3. ^ Stanford Prison Experiment – Conclusion
4. ^ Peters, Thomas, J.,, Waterman, Robert. H., In Search of Excellence , 1981. Cf. p.78 and onward.
5. ^ a b The Lucifer Effect website
6. ^ John Wayne (name withheld). Interview. The Science of Evil. Primetime. Basic Instincts. KATU. 3 Jan. 2007.
7. ^ The BBC Prison Study
8. ^ Interview at The Guardian
9. ^ Interview at OffTheTelly
10. ^ Holocaust Lesson Gets Out Of Hand , Sydney Morning Herald, 11 April 2007.
11. ^ Justice videos

References

* Carnahan, C. & McFarland, S. (2007). Revisiting the Stanford Prison Experiment: Could Participant Self-Selection Have Led to the Cruelty? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 33, No. 5, 603-614.
* Haney, C., Banks, W. C., & Zimbardo, P. G. (1973). Study of prisoners and guards in a simulated prison. Naval Research Reviews, 9, 1–17. Washington, DC: Office of Naval Research
* Haney, C., Banks, W. C., & Zimbardo, P. G. (1973). Interpersonal dynamics in a simulated prison. International Journal of Criminology and Penology, 1, 69–97.
* Haslam, S. Alexander & Reicher, Stephen (2003). Beyond Stanford: Questioning a role-based explanation of tyranny. Dialogue (Bulletin of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology), 18, 22–25.
* Musen, K. & Zimbardo, P. G. (1991). Quiet rage: The Stanford prison study. Videorecording. Stanford, CA: Psychology Dept., Stanford University.
* Reicher, Stephen., & Haslam, S. Alexander. (2006). Rethinking the psychology of tyranny: The BBC Prison Study. British Journal of Social Psychology, 45, 1–40.
* Zimbardo, P. G. (1971). The power and pathology of imprisonment. Congressional Record. (Serial No. 15, 1971-10-25). Hearings before Subcommittee No. 3, of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Ninety-Second Congress, First Session on Corrections, Part II, Prisons, Prison Reform and Prisoner’s Rights: California. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
* Zimbardo, P. G (2007) Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. Interview transcript. Democracy Now , March 30, 2007. Accessed March 31, 2007

External links

* Official Site
* Summary of the experiment
* Zimbardo, P. (2007). From Heavens to Hells to Heroes. In-Mind Magazine.
* Fromm’s criticism of the experiment
* The official website of the BBC Prison Study
* The Experiment (IMDb) — German movie (Das Experiment) from 2001 inspired by the Stanford Experiment
* The Lie of the Stanford Prison Experiment — Criticism from Carlo Prescott, ex-con and consultant/assistant for the experiment
* The Artificial Prison of the Human Mind Article with Comments.
* Philip Zimbardo on Democracy Now March 30 2007
* Philip Zimbardo on The Daily Show, March, 2007

Abu Ghraib and the experiment:

* BBC News: Is it in anyone to abuse a captive?
* BBC News: Why everyone’s not a torturer
* Ronald Hilton: US soldiers’ bad behavior and Stanford Prison Experiment
* Slate.com: Situationist Ethics: The Stanford Prison Experiment doesn’t explain Abu Ghraib, by William Saletan
* IMDb: Untitled Stanford Prison Experiment Project
* VIDEO: Talk to MIT re: new book: The Lucifer Effect
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
Categories: 1971 in the United States | Imprisonment and detention | Social psychology | Group processes | Psychology experiments | Stanford University | Human experimentation in the United States | Academic scandals | 1971 in science | Research ethics | History of psychology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

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Stateville Penitentiary Malaria Study
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Stateville Penitentiary malaria study was a controlled study of the effects of malaria on the prisoners of Stateville Penitentiary near Joliet, Illinois. The study was conducted by the Department of Medicine at the University of Chicago in conjunction with the United States Army and the State Department. The study is notable for its impacts on the Nuremberg Medical Trial and subsequent medical experimentation on prisoners.

Contents

* 1 Malaria
* 2 Malaria Research Project
* 3 Nuremberg medical trial
* 4 Effect on prisoner experimentation
* 5 See also
* 6 References
* 7 External links

Malaria

As the United States military fought battles in the Pacific theater during World War II, malaria and other tropical diseases hindered their efforts. The need for human subjects to test new antimalarial drugs was met by taking the research into the prison system.

Malaria Research Project

The Malaria Research Project was primarily conducted on a floor of the prison hospital in the Stateville Penitentiary. The study aimed to understand the effect of various antimalarial drugs on relapses of malaria, primarily from the 8-aminoquinoline group of compounds. The study marked the first human test of the antimalarial drug primaquine[1]. For the experiment, doctors from the University of Chicago bred Anopheles quadrimaculatus mosquitoes. The mosquitoes were infected with a plasmodium vivax malaria strain that was isolated from a military patient.

In the study, each patient received bites from 10 infected mosquitoes[2]. 441 inmates volunteered for the study. Infamous murderer Nathan Leopold participated in the study and later wrote about his experiences in his autobiography, Life Plus 99 Years[3]. Over the course of the experiments, one prisoner died, suffering a heart attack after several bouts of fever. The researchers insisted that the death was unrelated to their research[4]. The experiments gained much media attention and praise. Malaria research continued at Stateville Penitentiary for 29 years.

Nuremberg medical trial

In 1946, during the Nuremberg Medical Trial, defense attorneys argued that, ethically, there was no difference between research conducted in American prisons and the experiments that took place in Nazi concentration camps. The malaria study was specifically mentioned. Andrew Conway Ivy, medical researcher and vice president of the University of Illinois, served as a witness and consultant for the prosecution. Ivy encouraged Illinois Governor Dwight H. Green to form a committee to analyze the ethics of prison research. Green appointed Ivy to be chair of the committee and, though the committee never met, it produced the Green report. The report justified the experimentation on the Stateville prisoners. Ivy’s testimony at the Medical Trial asserted that the Stateville malaria research was an example of human experiments which were ideal because of their conformity [with the highest ethical standards of human experimentation]. The trial resulted in the formation of the Nuremberg Code, a set of principles concerning human experimentation. The code includes principles such as informed consent and the absence of coercion.

Effect on prisoner experimentation

Public opposition to medical experimentation on prisoners was scant during the war. The Green Report was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and opened the door for legal, ethical experimentation on prisoners in the United States. The medical community in the United States largely regarded the Nuremberg Code to be applicable to war criminals and not to the practices of U.S. researchers.
See also

* Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments
* Research Involving Prisoners

References

1. ^ Clinical Treatment of Malaria, Alf S. Alving, M.D.
2. ^ Procedures Used at Stateville Penitentiary for the Testing of Potential Antimalarial Agents
3. ^ Time Magazine, April 7, 1958
4. ^ Strangers at the Bedside: A history of how law and bioethics transformed medical decision making, David J. Rothman

External links

* They were cheap and available: Prisoners as research subjects in twentieth century America, Allen M. Hornblum

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stateville_Penitentiary_Malaria_Study
Categories: Infectious diseases | Human experimentation in the United States | Clinical trials

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stateville_Penitentiary_Malaria_Study

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Operation Whitecoat
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Operation Whitecoat was the name given to a secret operation carried out by the US Army during the period 1954-1973, which included conducting medical experiments on volunteers nicknamed White Coats . The volunteers, all conscientious objectors and many members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, consented to the research before participating. The stated purpose of the experiments was to defend troops and civilians against biological weapons, and it was believed that the Soviet Union was engaged in similar activities.

Contents

* 1 Experiments
o 1.1 Results
* 2 US accountability office report
* 3 Long term health effects
* 4 See also
* 5 Notes
* 6 External links

Experiments
Over 2300 U.S. Army soldiers, most of which were trained medics, contributed to the experiment by allowing themselves to be infected with viruses and bacteria that were considered likely choices for a biological attack. Whitecoat volunteers were exposed to Q fever, yellow fever, Rift Valley fever, Hepatitis A, Yersinia pestis (Plague), tularemia (rabbit fever), and Venezuelan equine encephalitis and other diseases. Also referred to as white coats [1] they were then treated for the illness to determine the effectiveness of antibiotics and vaccines against the agent. Some soldiers were given two weeks of leave in exchange for being used as a test subject. These experiments took place at Fort Detrick which is a US Army research center located outside Washington, D.C.[2]

This experiment is a good example of the proper employment of informed consent as dictated by the Nuremberg Code. The volunteers were allowed to consult with outside sources such as family and clergy members before deciding to participate. The participants were required to sign consent forms after discussing the risks and treatments with a medical officer. Of the soldiers that were approached about participating, 20% declined.[3] Much of the testing remains classified and Fort Detrick allows no visitors. Not even ex-soldiers who were exposed as part of the tests can visit.

Results

Many of the vaccines that protect against bio-warfare agents were first tested on humans in Operation Whitecoat.[4]

According to USAMRIID, the Whitecoat operation contributed to vaccines approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for yellow fever and hepatitis; investigational drugs for Q fever, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, Rift Valley fever, and tularemia. USAMRIID also states that Operation Whitecoat helped develop biological safety equipment including hooded safety cabinets, decontamination procedures, fermentors, incubators, centrifuges, and particle sizers.[5]

US accountability office report

The United States Government Accountability Office issued a report on September 28, 1994, which stated that between 1940 and 1974, the United States Department of Defense and other national security agencies studied hundreds of thousands of human subjects in tests and experiments involving hazardous substances.

A quote from the study:
“ Many experiments that tested various biological agents on human subjects, referred to as Operation Whitecoat, were carried out at Fort Detrick, Maryland, in the 1950s. The human subjects originally consisted of volunteer enlisted men. However, after the enlisted men staged a sitdown strike to obtain more information about the dangers of the biological tests, Seventh-day Adventists who were conscientious objectors were recruited for the studies.[6] ”

Long term health effects

No Whitecoats died during the tests, nor are there any known post-test deaths attributable to the experiments.[1] The Army only has addresses for 1000 of the 2300 people known to have volunteered.[4] Only about 500 (23%) of the whitecoats have been surveyed and the military chose not to fund blood tests.[1] A handful of respondents claim to have lingering health effects[4], and at least one subject claims to have serious health problems as a result of the experiments.[1]

See also

* US Senate Report on chemical weapons
* Project SHAD
* Tuskegee Syphilis Study
* US Biological Weapon Testing

Notes

1. ^ a b c d Operation Whitecoat . PBS Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly. 2003-09-24. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week708/cover.html. Retrieved 2007-03-09.
2. ^ Hidden history of US germ testing . BBC. February 13 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/file_on_4/4701196.stm.
3. ^ Stephenson, Jeffery; Arthur Anderson (2007). Ethical and Legal Dilemmas in Biodefense Research (pdf). http://www.bordeninstitute.army.mil/published_volumes/biological_warfare/BW-ch24.pdf. Retrieved 2009-04-16.
4. ^ a b c Snyder, David; staff researcher Bobbye Pratt (2003-05-06). The Front Lines of Biowarfare . Washington Post. http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/Bioter/frontlinesbiowarfare.html. Retrieved 2007-03-16.
5. ^ Linden, Caree (2005-06). USAMRIID Celebrates 50 Years of Science . U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. http://www.armymedicine.army.mil/news/mercury/05-06/usamriid.cfm. Retrieved 2007-03-16.
6. ^ Staff Report prepared for the committee on veterans’ affairs December 8, 1994 John D. Rockefeller IV, West Virginia, Chairman. . http://www.gulfweb.org/bigdoc/rockrep.cfm. Retrieved 2006-07-30.

External links

* The Living Weapon, chapter 8 about Operation Whitecoat, from the American Experience documentary video
* Adventist Volunteers Lauded on Operation Whitecoat Anniversary – Adventist News Network
* O’Neal, Glenn (December 19, 2001). The risks of Operation Whitecoat (subscription required). USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/bioterrorism/2001-12-20-whitecoat-sidebar.htm.
* Linden, Caree Vander United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases celebrates 50-year research tradition March 3, 2005 Operation Whitecoat served as a model for the ethical use of human subjects in research

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Whitecoat
Categories: Clinical research | Non-combat military operations involving the United States | Seventh-day Adventist history | Human experimentation in the United States | Biological warfare

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Whitecoat

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180px-Chemical_agent_protection.jpg

A Swedish Army soldier wearing a chemical agent protective suit (C-vätskeskydd) and his protection mask (skyddsmask 90).

(From)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_weapons#United_States_Senate_Report

***

450px-Chemical_agent_protection.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chemical_agent_protection.jpg

Description Chemical agent protection.jpg

A chemical agent protective suit and a protection mask worn by a Swedish Army soldier.
Date

9 September 2003.
Source

Photo taken by myself, User:Johan Elisson.
Author

User:Johan Elisson.
Permission
(Reusing this image)

See licensing below.

***

United States biological weapons program
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from US Biological Weapon Testing)

The United States biological weapons program officially began in the spring 1943 on orders from U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt. Research continued following World War II as the U.S. built up a large stockpile of biological agents and weapons. Throughout its history the program was secret. It became controversial when it was later revealed that laboratory and field testing (some of the latter using simulants on non-consenting individuals) had been common. The official policy of the United States was first to deter the use of bio-weapons against U.S. forces and secondarily to retaliate if deterrence failed. There exists no evidence that the U.S. ever used biological agents against an enemy in the field (see below for alleged uses).

In 1969, President Richard Nixon ended all offensive (i.e., non-defensive) aspects of the U.S. bio-weapons program. In 1975 the U.S. finally ratified both the 1925 Geneva Protocol and the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) — these are international treaties outlawing biological warfare. Recent U.S. biodefense programs, however, have raised concerns that it may be pursuing research that is outlawed by the BWC.

Contents

* 1 History
o 1.1 Early history (1918-41)
o 1.2 World War II (1941-45)
o 1.3 Cold War (1946-69)
o 1.4 End of the program (1969-73)
* 2 Budget history
* 3 Geneva Protocol and BWC
* 4 Post-1969 bio-defense program
* 5 Agents and weapons
* 6 Alleged use
o 6.1 Cuba
o 6.2 Korean War
* 7 Experimentation and testing
o 7.1 Entomological testing
o 7.2 Experiments on consenting individuals
o 7.3 Experiments on non-consenting individuals
o 7.4 GAO Report
* 8 See also
* 9 Notes
* 10 References
* 11 External links

History
Early history (1918-41)

The United States’ first interest in any form of biological warfare came at the close of World War I. The only agent the U.S. tested was the toxin, ricin.[1] The U.S. conducted tests concerning two methods of ricin dissemination, the first, involved adhering the toxin to shrapnel for delivery by artillery shell, which was successful.[1] The other method, delivering an aerosol cloud of ricin, proved less successful.[1] Neither delivery method was perfected before the war in Europe ended.[1]

In the early 1920s suggestions that the U.S. begin a biological weapons program were coming from within the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS).[1] Chief of the CWS, Amos Fries, decided that such a program would not be profitable for the U.S.[1] Japan’s Shiro Ishii began promoting BW during the 1920s and toured biological research facilities worldwide, including in the United States.[1] Though Ishii concluded that the U.S. was developing a bio-weapons programs he was incorrect.[1] In fact, Ishii concluded that all major powers he visited was developing a bio-weapons program.[1] As the interwar period continued, the United States did not emphasize biological weapons development or research.[1] While the U.S. was spending very little time on BW research, its future allies and enemies in the upcoming second World War were researching the potential of BW as early as 1933.[1]

World War II (1941-45)

Despite the World War I-era interest in ricin, as World War II erupted the United States Army still maintained the position that BW was, for the most part, impractical.[2] Other nations, notably France, Japan and the United Kingdom, thought otherwise and had begun their own BW programs.[2] Thus, as late as 1942 the U.S. had no biological weapons capabilities. Initial interest in BW by the Chemical Warfare Service began in 1941.[3] That fall, U.S. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson requested that the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) undertake consideration of U.S. biological warfare.[4] He wrote to Dr. Frank B. Jewett, then president of the NAS:

Because of the dangers that might confront this country from potential enemies employing what may be broadly described as biological warfare, it seems advisable that investigations be initiated to survey the present situation and the future possibilities. I am therefore, asking if you will undertake the appointment of an appropriate committee to survey all phases of this matter. Your organization already has before it a request from The Surgeon General for the appointment of a committee by the Division of Medical Sciences of the National Research Council to examine one phase of the matter. [5]
In response the NAS formed a committee, the War Bureau of Consultants (WBC), which issued a report on the subject in February 1942.[4] The report, among other items, recommended the research and development of an offensive BW program.[4]

The British, and the research undertaken by the WBC, pressured the U.S. to begin BW research and development and in November 1942 U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt officially approved an American BW program.[6] In response to the information provided by the WBC, Roosevelt ordered Stimson to form the War Research Service (WRS).[4][7] Established within the Federal Security Agency, the WRS’ stated purpose was to promote public security and health ,[7] but, in reality, the WRS was tasked with coordinating and supervising the U.S. biological warfare program.[4] In the spring of 1943 the U.S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories were established at Fort (then Camp) Detrick in Maryland.[6] [8]

Though initially, under George Merck, the WRS contracted several universities to participate in the U.S. BW program, the program became large quickly and before long it was under the full control of the CWS.[7] By November 1943 the BW facility at Detrick was completed, in addition, the United States constructed three other facilities – a biological agent production plant at Vigo County near Terre Haute, Indiana, a field-testing site on Horn Island in Mississippi, and another field site near Granite Peak in Utah.[7] According to an official history of the period, the elaborate security precautions taken [at Camp Detrick] were so effective that it was not until January 1946, 4 months after VJ Day, that the public learned of the wartime research in BW [9].

Cold War (1946-69)

Immediately following World War II, production of U.S. biological warfare (BW) agents went from factory-level to laboratory-level .[10] Meanwhile, work on BW delivery systems increased.[10] By 1950 the principal U.S. bio-weapons facility was located at Camp Detrick in Maryland under the auspices of the Research and Engineering Division of the U.S. Army Chemical Corps.[11] The U.S. also maintained bio-warfare facilities at Fort Terry, an animal research facility on Plum Island.[12] From the end of World War II through the Korean War, the U.S. Army, the Chemical Corps and the U.S. Air Force all made great strides in their biological warfare programs, especially concerning delivery systems.[10]
The U.S. biological program expanded significantly during the Korean War.[13] From 1952-1954 the Chemical Corps maintained a BW research and development facility at Fort Terry on Plum Island, New York.[14] The Fort Terry facility’s focus was on anti-animal biological weapon research and development; the facility researched more than a dozen potential BW agents.[14] A facility was opened in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Pine Bluff Arsenal and by 1954 the production of weapons-grade agents began.[13]

End of the program (1969-73)
Main article: Statement on Chemical and Biological Defense Policies and Programs

President Richard M. Nixon issued his Statement on Chemical and Biological Defense Policies and Programs on November 25, 1969 in a speech from Fort Detrick.[15] The statement ended, unconditionally, all U.S. offensive biological weapons programs.[16] Nixon noted that biological weapons were unreliable[16] and stated:[15]

The United States shall renounce the use of lethal biological agents and weapons, and all other methods of biological warfare. The United States will confine its biological research to defensive measures such as immunization and safety measures.

In his speech Nixon called his move unprecedented ; and it was in fact the first review of the U.S. BW program since 1954.[17] Despite the lack of review, the BW program had increased in cost and size since 1961; when Nixon ended the program the budget was $300 million annually.[17][18] Nixon’s statement confined all biological weapons research to defensive-only and ordered the destruction of the existing U.S. biological arsenal.[19]

U.S. biological weapons stocks were destroyed over the next few years. A $12 million disposal plan was undertaken at Pine Bluff Arsenal,[20] where all U.S. anti-personnel biological agents were stored.[19] That plan was completed in May 1972 and included decontamination of facilities at Pine Bluff.[20][19] Other agents, including anti-crop agents such as wheat stem rust, were stored at Beale Air Force Base and Rocky Mountain Arsenal.[19] These anti-crop agents, along with agents at Fort Detrick used for research purposes were destroyed in March 1973.[19]

Budget history

From the onset of the U.S. biological weapons program in 1943 through the end of World War II the United States spent $400 million on BW, mostly on research and development.[21] When Nixon ended the U.S. bio-weapons program it represented the first review of the U.S. BW program since 1954.[17] Despite the lack of review, the BW program had increased in cost and size since 1961; when Nixon ended the program the budget was $300 million annually.[17][18]

Geneva Protocol and BWC

The 1925 Geneva Protocol, ratified by most major powers in the 1920s and 30s, had still not been ratified by the United States at the dawn of World War II.[16] Among the Protocol’s provisions, was a ban on bacteriological warfare.[22] The Geneva Protocol had encountered opposition in the U.S. Senate, in part due to strong lobbying against it by the Chemical Warfare Service, and it was never brought to the floor for a vote when originally introduced.[16] Regardless, on June 8, 1943 President Roosevelt affirmed a no-first-use policy for the United States concerning biological weapons.[16][22] Even with Roosevelt’s declaration opposition to the Protocol remained strong; in 1949 the Protocol was among several old treaties returned to President Harry S. Truman unratified.[16]

When Nixon ended the U.S. bio-weapons program in 1969 he also announced that he would resubmit the Geneva Protocol to the U.S. Senate.[19] This was a move Nixon was considering as early as July 1969.[19] The announcement included language that indicated the Nixon administration was moving toward an international agreement on an outright ban on bio-weapons.[19] Thus, the Nixon administration became the world’s leading anti-BW voice calling for an international treaty.[15] The Eighteen Nation Disarmament Committee was discussing a British draft of a biological weapons treaty which the United Nations General Assembly approved in 1968 and that NATO supported.[17] These arms control talks would eventually lead to the Biological Weapons Convention, the international treaty outlawing biological warfare.[23] Prior, to the Nixon announcement only Canada supported the British draft.[19] Beginning in 1972, the Soviet Union, United States and more than 100 other countries signed the BWC.[15] The United States finally ratified the Geneva Protocol in 1975.[24]

Post-1969 bio-defense program

Both the U.S. bio-weapons ban and the Biological Weapons Convention restricted any work in the area of biological warfare to defensive in nature. In reality, this gives BWC member-states wide latitude to conduct BW research because the BWC contains no provisions for monitoring of enforcement.[25][26] The treaty, essentially, is a gentlemen’s agreement amongst members backed by the long-prevailing thought that biological warfare should not be used in battle.[25]

After Nixon declared an end to the U.S. bio-weapons program debate in the Army centered around whether or not toxin weapons were included in the president’s declaration.[19] Following Nixon’s November 1969 order, scientists at Fort Detrick worked on one toxin, Staphylococcus enterotoxin type B (SEB), for several more months.[19] Nixon ended the debate when he added toxins to the bio-weapons ban in February 1970.[17] The U.S. also ran a series of experiments with anthrax, code named Project Bacchus, Project Clear Vision and Project Jefferson in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

In recent years certain critics have claimed the U.S. stance on biological warfare and the use of biological agents has differed from historical interpretations of the BWC.[27] For example, it is said that the U.S. now maintains that the Article I of the BWC (which explicitly bans bio-weapons), does not apply to non-lethal biological agents.[27] Previous interpretation was stated to be in line with a definition laid out in Public Law 101-298, the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989.[28] That law defined a biological agent as:[28]

any micro-organism, virus, infectious substance, or biological product that may be engineered as a result of biotechnology, or any naturally occurring or bioengineered component of any such microorganism, virus, infectious substance, or biological product, capable of causing death, disease, or other biological malfunction in a human, an animal, a plant, or another living organism; deterioration of food, water, equipment, supplies, or material of any kind…

According to the Federation of American Scientists, U.S. work on non-lethal agents exceeds limitations in the BWC.[27]

Agents and weapons

When the U.S. BW program ended in 1969 it had developed seven mass-produced, battle-ready biological weapons in the form of agents that cause: anthrax, tularemia, brucellosis, Q-fever, VEE, and botulism.[10] In addition Staphylococcal Enterotoxin B was produced as an incapacitating agent.[10] In addition to the agents that were ready to be used the U.S. program conducted research into the weaponization of more than 20 other agents. They included: smallpox, EEE and WEE, AHF, Hantavirus, BHF, Lassa fever, glanders,[29] melioidosis,[29] plague, yellow fever, psittacosis, typhus, dengue fever, Rift Valley fever (RVF), CHIKV, late blight of potato, rinderpest, Newcastle disease, bird flu, and the toxin ricin.[30]

Besides the numerous pathogens that afflict human beings, the U.S. had developed an arsenal of anti-agriculture biological agents. These included rye stem rust spores (stored at Edgewood Arsenal, 1951 – 1957), wheat stem rust spores (stored at the same facility 1962 – 1969),[11] and the causative agent of rice blast (stored at Fort Detrick 1965 – 1966).[11]

A U.S. facility at Fort Terry primarily focused on anti-animal biological agents. The first agent that was a candidate for development was foot and mouth disease (FMD).[14] Besides FMD, five other top secret BW projects were commissioned on Plum Island.[31] The other four programs researched included RVF, rinderpest, African swine fever, plus eleven miscellaneous exotic animal diseases.[31][14] The eleven miscellaneous pathogens were: Blue tongue virus, bovine influenza, bovine virus diarrhea (BVD), fowl plague, goat pneumonitis, mycobacteria, N virus, Newcastle disease, sheep pox, Teschers disease, and vesicular stomatitis.[14]

Work on delivery systems for the U.S. bio-weapons arsenal led to the first mass-produced biological weapon in 1952, the M33 cluster bomb.[32] The M33′s sub-munition, the pipe bomb like, cylindrical M114 bomb, was also completed and battle-ready by 1952.[1][32] Other delivery systems researched and at least partially developed during the 1950s included the E77 balloon bomb and the E86 cluster bomb.[11] The peak of U.S. biological weapons delivery system development came during the 1960s.[1] Production of cluster bomb sub-muntions began to shift from the cylindrical bomblets to spherical bomblets, which had a larger coverage area.[33] Development of the spherical E120 bomblet took place in the early 1960s[34] as did development of the M143 bomblet, similar to the chemical M139 bomblet.[1] The experimental Flettner rotor bomblet was also developed during this time period.[35] The Flettner rotor was called, probably one of the better devices for disseminating microorganisms , by William C. Patrick III.[36]

Alleged use
Cuba

It has been rumored that the U.S. employed biological weapons against the Communist island nation of Cuba. Noam Chomsky claimed to have found proof of such covert U.S. BW in Cuba,[37] though his evidence has been disputed.[38][39] Allegations in 1962 held that CIA operatives had contaminated a shipment of sugar while it was in storage in Cuba.[40] Again, in 1962, a Canadian agricultural technician assisting the Cuban government claimed he was paid $5,000 to infect Cuban turkeys with the deadly Newcastle disease.[40][41] Though the technician later claimed he had just pocketed the money, many Cubans and some Americans believed a clandestinely administered BW agent was responsible for a subsequent outbreak of the disease in Cuban turkeys.[40] In 1971 the first serious outbreak of swine flu in the Western Hemisphere occurred in Cuba, and Cubans alleged that U.S. covert BW was responsible for this outbreak, which led to the preemptive slaughter of 500,000 pigs.[38] Evidence linking these incidents to biological warfare has not been confirmed.[38]

Accusations have continued to come out of Havana charging U.S. use of bio-weapons on the island. The Cuban government blamed the U.S. for a 1981 outbreak of dengue fever that sickened more than 300,000.[38] Dengue, a vector-borne disease usually carried by mosquitoes,[40] killed 158 people that year in Cuba, including 101 children under 15.[38] Poor relations between Cuba and the United States coupled with confirmed U.S. research into entomological warfare during the 1950s made these charges seem not implausible.[38][40] However, dengue fever occurs naturally in the region of the world where Cuba is located.[38]

Korean War

North Korean and Chinese officials leveled accusations that during the Korean War the United States engaged in biological warfare in North Korea. The claim is dated to the period of the war, and has been thoroughly denied by the U.S.[42] In 1998, Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagermann claimed that the accusations were true in their book, The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets from the Early Cold War and Korea[43] The book received mixed reviews, some called it bad history [44] and appalling ,[42] while other praised the case the authors made.[44] Others have revived these claims more recently.[45]

In 1952 the Chinese and North Koreans insinuated that mysterious outbreaks of disease in North Korea and China[46] were due to U.S. biological attacks. Despite assertions that this did not occur from the International Red Cross and World Health Organization, whom the Chinese denounced as Western-biased, the Chinese government pursued an investigation by the World Peace Council.[47] A committee led by Joseph Needham gathered evidence for a report that included eyewitness testimony, and testimony from doctors as well as four American Korean War prisoners who confirmed the U.S. use of BW.[47] The U.S. government denied the accusations and their denial was generally supported by top scientists in the West.[47] In Eastern Europe, and China, North Korea it was widely believed that the accusations were true.[46]
The same year Endicotts’ book was published Kathryn Weathersby and Milton Leitenberg of the Cold War International History Project at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington released a cache of Soviet and Chinese documents which revealed the North Korean claim was an elaborate disinformation campaign.[45] In addition, a Japanese journalist claims to have seen similar evidence of a Soviet disinformation campaign and that the evidence supporting its occurrence was faked.[47]

Experimentation and testing
Entomological testing
Further information: U.S. Cold War entomological warfare program

The United States seriously researched the potential of entomological warfare (EW) during the Cold War. EW is a specific type of biological warfare which aims to use insects as weapon, either directly or through their potential to act as vectors. During the 1950s the United States conducted a series of field tests using entomological weapons. Operation Big Itch, in 1954, was designed to test munitions loaded with uninfected fleas (Xenopsylla cheopis).[48] In May 1955 over 300,000 yellow fever mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti) were dropped over parts of the U.S. state of Georgia to determine if the air-dropped mosquitoes could survive to take meals from humans.[49] The mosquito tests were known as Operation Big Buzz.[50] The U.S. engaged in at least two other EW testing programs, Operation Drop Kick and Operation May Day.[49] A 1981 Army report outlined these tests as well as multiple cost-associated issues that occurred with EW.[49]

Experiments on consenting individuals

Operation Whitecoat involved the controlled testing of many serious agents on military personnel consented to experimentation, and understood the risks involved. No deaths are known to have resulted from this program.

Experiments on non-consenting individuals

In August of 1949 a U.S. Army Special Operations Division, operating out of Fort Detrick in Maryland, set up its first test at The Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Operatives sprayed harmless bacteria into the building’s air conditioning system and observed as the microbes spread throughout the Pentagon.[51]

There were massive medical experiments that involved civilians who had not consented to participate. Often, these experiments took place in urban areas in order to test dispersion methods. Questions were raised about detrimental health effects after experiments in San Francisco, California, were followed by a spike in hospital visits; however, in 1977 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention determined that there was no association between the testing and the occurrence of pneumonia or influenza.[52] The San Francisco test involved a U.S. Navy ship that sprayed Serratia marcescens from the bay; it traveled more than 30 miles.[52] One dispersion test involved laboratory personnel disguised as passengers spraying harmless bacteria in Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.[52]

Scientists tested biological pathogens, including Bacillus globigii, which were thought to be harmless, at public places such as subways. A light bulb containing Bacillus globigii was dropped on New York City’s subway system; the result was strong enough to affect people prone to illness (also known as Subway Experiment).[53] Based on the circulation measurements, thousands of people would have been killed if a dangerous microbe was released in the same manner.[52]

A jet aircraft released material over Victoria, Texas, that was monitored in the Florida Keys.[52]

GAO Report

In February, 2008, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released report GAO-08-366 titled, Chemical and Biological Defense, DOD and VA Need to Improve Efforts to Identify and Notify Individuals Potentially Exposed during Chemical and Biological Tests. The report stated that tens of thousands of military personnel and civilians may have been exposed to biological and chemical substances through DOD tests. In 2003, the DOD reported it had identified 5,842 military personnel and estimated 350 civilians as being potentially exposed during the testing, known as Project 112.[54]

The GAO asserts that the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DOD) 2003 decision to stop searching for people affected by the tests was premature. They also claimed that the DOD made no effort to inform civilians of exposure; furthermore, they assert that the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is not using available resources to inform veterans of possible exposure or to determine if they were deceased. After the DOD halted efforts to find those who may have been affected by the tests, non-DOD sources identified approximately 600 additional individuals who were potentially exposed during Project 112.[54] Some of the individuals were identified after the GAO reviewed records stored at the Dugway Proving Ground, others were identified by the Institute of Medicine.[55] Many of the newly identified suffer from long term illnesses that may have been caused by the biological or chemical testing.[56]

See also

* United States Army Biological Warfare Laboratories
* Soviet biological weapons program
* Iraqi biological weapons program
* Project SHAD
* Tuskegee Syphilis Study

Notes

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Smart, Jeffery K. Medical Aspects of Chemical and Biological Warfare: Chapter 2 – History of Chemical and Biological Warfare: An American Perspective, (PDF: p. 14), Borden Institute, Textbooks of Military Medicine, PDF via Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base, accessed January 3, 2009.
2. ^ a b Garrett, Laurie. Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health, (Google Books), Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 340-41, (ISBN 0198526830).
3. ^ Croddy, Weapons of Mass Destruction, p. 303.
4. ^ a b c d e Zilinskas, Raymond A. Biological Warfare, (Google Books), Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder, Colorado: 2000 pp. 228-30, (ISBN 1555877613).
5. ^ Covert, Norman M. (2000), A History of Fort Detrick, Maryland , 4th Edition: 2000.
6. ^ a b Ryan, Jeffrey R. and Glarum, Jan F. Biosecurity and Bioterrorism: Containing and Preventing Biological Threats, (Google Books), Butterworth-Heinemann, 2008, p. 14, (ISBN 0750684895).
7. ^ a b c d Moreno, Jonathan D.. Undue Risk: Secret State Experiments on Humans, (Google Books), Routledge, 2001, pp. 44-46, (ISBN 0415928354).
8. ^ Guillemin, Jeanne. Biological Warfare, p. 63.
9. ^ Clendenin, Lt. Col. Richard M. (1968), Science and Technology at Fort Detrick, 1943-1968; Technical Information Division.
10. ^ a b c d e Croddy, Eric C. and Hart, C. Perez-Armendariz J., Chemical and Biological Warfare, (Google Books), Springer, 2002, pp. 30-31, (ISBN 0387950761).
11. ^ a b c d Whitby, Simon M. Biological Warfare Against Crops, (Google Books), Macmillan, 2002, pp. 104-08 and p. 117, (ISBN 0333920856).
12. ^ Guillemin, Jeanne. Biological Weapons, p. 96.
13. ^ a b Zubay, Geoffrey L. Agents of Bioterrorism: Pathogens and Their Weaponization, (Google Books), Columbia University Press, 2005, p. 132, (ISBN 0231133464).
14. ^ a b c d e Wheelis, Mark, et al. Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons Since 1945, (Google Books), Harvard University Press, 2006 p. 225-228, (ISBN 0674016998).
15. ^ a b c d Miller, pp. 61-64.
16. ^ a b c d e f Graham, Thomas. Disarmament Sketches: Three Decades of Arms Control and International Law, (Google Books), University of Washington Press, 2002, pp. 21-30, (ISBN 0295982128).
17. ^ a b c d e f Guillemin, Jeanne. Biological Weapons, pp. 122-27.
18. ^ a b Cirincione, Joseph, et al. Deadly Arsenals, p. 212.
19. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Mauroni, Albert J. America’s Struggle with Chemical-Biological Weapons, (Google Books), Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000, p. 49-60, (ISBN 0275967565).
20. ^ a b Mangold, Tom. Plague Wars: The Terrifying Reality of Biological Warfare, (Google Books), Macmillan, 1999, pp. 54-57, (ISBN 0312203535).
21. ^ Guillemin, Biological Weapons, pp. 71-73.
22. ^ a b O’Brien, Neil. An American Editor in Early Revolutionary China: John William Powell and the China Weekly/monthly Review, (Google Books), Routledge, 2003, p. 217-19, (ISBN 0415944244).
23. ^ Carter, April, (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute). Success and Failure in Arms Control Negotiations, (Google Books), Oxford University Press, 1989, p. 298, (ISBN 0198291280).
24. ^ PROTOCOL FOR THE PROHIBITION OF THE USE IN WAR OF ASPHYXIATING, POISONOUS OR OTHER GASES, AND OF BACTERIOLOGICAL METHODS OF WARFARE , via Federation of American Scientists, April 29, 1975, accessed January 5, 2009.
25. ^ a b Littlewood, Jez. The Biological Weapons Convention: A Failed Revolution, (Google Books), Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2005, p. 9, (ISBN 0754638545).
26. ^ Cirincione, Joseph, et al. Deadly Arsenals, p. 35.
27. ^ a b c Introduction to Biological Weapons , Federation of American Scientists, official site, accessed January 9, 2009.
28. ^ a b Original U.S. Interpretation of the BWC , (PDF),Federation of American Scientists, official site, accessed January 9, 2009.
29. ^ a b The United States is known to have researched both B. mallei (the causal agent of glanders) and B. pseudomallei (the causal agent of melioidosis) from 1943-1944. Neither bacteria was weaponized. See Khardori, Bioterrorism Preparedness, p. 16.
30. ^ Chemical and Biological Weapons: Possession and Programs Past and Present , James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Middlebury College, April 9, 2002, accessed January 3, 2009.
31. ^ a b Carroll, Michael C. Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government’s Secret Plum Island Germ Laboratory, (Google Books), HarperCollins, 2004, pp. 45-48, (ISBN 0060011416).
32. ^ a b Croddy, Weapons of Mass Destruction, p. 75.
33. ^ Kirby, Reid. The CB Battlefield Legacy: Understanding the Potential Problem of Clustered CB Weapons , Army Chemical Review, pp. 25-29, July-December 2006, accessed January 5, 2009.
34. ^ Countermeasures, Chapter 6 – An Overview of Emerging Missile State Countermeasures, p. 14, accessed January 5, 2009.
35. ^ Eitzen, Edward M. Medical Aspects of Chemical and Biological Warfare: Chapter 20 – Use of Biological Weapons, (PDF: p. 6), Borden Institute, Textbooks of Military Medicine, PDF via Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base, accessed January 5, 2009.
36. ^ U.S. Public Health Service, Office of Emergency Preparedness, Proceedings of the Seminar Responding to the Consequences of Chemical and Biological Terrorism , Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, Bethesda, Md; July 11–14, 1995, p. 70, via LSU Law Center’s Medical and Public Health Law Site, accessed January 5, 2009.
37. ^ Chomsky, Noam. Rogue States: The Rule of Force in World Affairs, (Google Books), Pluto Press, 2000, p. 27, (ISBN 0745317081).
38. ^ a b c d e f g Levy, Barry S. and Sidel, Victor W. War and Public Health, (Google Books), American Public Health Association, 2000, pp. 110-11, (ISBN 0875530230).
39. ^ Nieto, Clara, Brandt, Chris, and Zinn, Howard. Masters of War: Latin America and United States Aggression from the Cuban Revolution Through the Clinton Years, (Google Books), Seven Stories Press, 2003, pp. 458-59, (ISBN 1583225455).
40. ^ a b c d e Blum, William. Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, (Google Books), Zed Books Ltd., 2003, p. 188-90, (ISBN 1842773690).
41. ^ It is known that the viral causal agent for Newcastle disease was researched for use as a weapon by the U.S. bio-weapons program. See: Global Guide to Bioweapons .
42. ^ a b Regis, Ed. Wartime Lies? , The New York Times, June 27, 1999, accessed January 7, 2009.
43. ^ Endicott, Stephen, and Hagermann, Edward. The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets from the Early Cold War and Korea, (Google Books, relevant excerpt), Indiana University Press, 1998, pp. 75-77, (ISBN 0253334721), links accessed January 7, 2009.
44. ^ a b Reviews of The United States and Biological Warfare: secrets of the Early Cold War and Korea , York University, compiled book review excerpts, accessed January 7, 2009.
45. ^ a b Auster, Bruce B. Unmasking an Old Lie , U.S. News and World Report, November 16, 1998, accessed January 7, 2009.
46. ^ a b Stueck, William Whitney. The Korean War in World History, (Google Books), University Press of Kentucky, 2004, p. 83-84, (ISBN 0813123062).
47. ^ a b c d Guillemin, Jeanne. Biological Weapons, p. 99-105.
48. ^ Croddy, Weapons of Mass Destruction, p. 304.
49. ^ a b c Rose, William H. An Evaluation of Entomological Warfare as as Potential Danger to the United States and European NATO Nations , U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command, Dugway Proving Ground, March 1981, via thesmokinggun.com, accessed January 3, 2009.
50. ^ Novick, Lloyd and Marr, John S. Public Health Issues Disaster Preparedness, (Google Books), Jones & Bartlett Publishers, 2001, p. 87, (ISBN 0763725005).
51. ^ Timeline: Biological Weapons . American Experience. 2006-12-15. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/weapon/timeline/index.html. Retrieved 2007-04-09.
52. ^ a b c d e Biological Weapons-United States . Global Security.org. http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/bw.htm. Retrieved 2007-04-09.
53. ^ Hidden history of US germ testing . BBC. 2006-02-13. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/file_on_4/4701196.stm. Retrieved 08-04-2007.
54. ^ a b Chemical and Biological Defense: DOD and VA Need to Improve Efforts to Identify and Notify Individuals Potentially Exposed during Chemical and Biological Tests . GAO-08-366. Government Accountability Office. 2008-02-28. http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/abstract.php?rptno=GAO-08-366. Retrieved 2008-03-17.
55. ^ LaPlante, Matthew (2008-02-29). Report: Military lagged in contacting Utahns, others exposed to tests . Salt Lake Tribune. http://www.sltrib.com//ci_8399208. Retrieved 08-04-2007.
56. ^ LaPlante, Matthew (2008-02-28). Report: Army still reluctant to find those affected by Utah weapons tests . Salt Lake Tribune. http://www.sltrib.com//ci_8399208. Retrieved 08-04-2007.

References

* Cirincione, Joseph, et al. Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Threats, (Google Books), Carnegie Endowment, 2005, (ISBN 087003216X).
* Croddy, Eric and Wirtz, James J. Weapons of Mass Destruction: An Encyclopedia of Worldwide Policy, Technology, and History, (Google Books), ABC-CLIO, 2005, (ISBN 1851094903).
* Global Guide to Bioweapons , Nova Online - Bioterror , PBS, accessed January 7, 2009.
* Guillemin, Jeanne. Biological Weapons: From the Invention of State-sponsored Programs to Contemporary Bioterrorism, (Google Books), Columbia University Press, 2005, pp. 122-27 and p. 63, (ISBN 0231129424).
* Khardori, Nancy. Bioterrorism Preparedness: Medicine – Public Health – Policy, (Google Books), Wiley-VCH, 2006, (ISBN 3527607730).
* Miller, Judith, Engelberg, Stephen and Broad, William J. Germs: Biological Weapons and America’s Secret War, (Google Books), Simon and Schuster, 2002, (ISBN 0684871599).

External links

* The Living Weapon , American Experience, PBS, link to full one hour video included, accessed January 12, 2009.

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Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_biological_weapons_program
Categories: Clinical research | Biological warfare | Bioethics | Military history of the United States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Biological_Weapon_Testing

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Biological_Weapon_Testing

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United States Army Biological Warfare Laboratories
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The U.S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories (USBWL) were a suite of research laboratories and pilot plant centers operating at Camp (later Fort) Detrick, Maryland, USA beginning in 1943 under the control of the U.S. Army Chemical Corps Research and Development Command. The USBWL undertook pioneering research and development into biocontainment, decontamination, gaseous sterilization, and agent production and purification for the U.S. offensive biological warfare program[1]. The Laboratories and their projects were discontinued in 1969.

Contents

* 1 History
o 1.1 Origins
o 1.2 World War II
o 1.3 Cold War
o 1.4 Disestablishment
* 2 Operations
* 3 See also
* 4 References

History

Researchers working with Class III cabinets at the USBWL, Camp Detrick, Maryland (1940s). Cabinet air was filtered and drawn by negative pressure from the room and cabinet systems.

Origins

The USBWL were created after Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson requested the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in 1941 to review the feasibility of biological warfare (BW). The following year, the NAS reported that BW might be feasible and recommended that steps be taken to reduce U.S. vulnerability to BW attack. Thereafter, the official policy of the United States was first to deter the use of BW against U.S. forces, and secondarily to retaliate if deterrence failed.

World War II

Throughout the war years, Dr Ira L. Baldwin, professor of bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was scientific director of the Laboratories[2].

Cold War

The USBWL were the United States’ front-line defense against BW during the first half of the Cold War.

Disestablishment

In 1969, the USBWL ceased to exist when President Richard Nixon disestablished all offensive BW studies and directed the destruction of all stock piles of BW agents and munitions.

Operations

At Fort Detrick, the USBWL consisted of various labs and divisions, including:

* The Safety S Division, first to be activated (1943)
o Biological Protection Branch
* The Special Operations Division (1949-68), conducted hundreds of field tests of aerosolized simulants
* The Crops Division (called Plant Sciences Laboratories after 1966), evaluated thousands of compounds for herbicidal activity (including Agent Orange; see Herbicidal warfare)

The USBWL was also a parent facility overseeing testing and production centers elsewhere, including:

* Pine Bluff Arsenal, Arkansas
* Horn Island, Mississippi
* Dugway Proving Ground including Granite Peak Installation
* Vigo Ordnance Plant, near Terre Haute, Indiana

See also

* Building 470
* Fort Terry
* One-Million-Liter Test Sphere

References

1. ^ Martin, James W., George W. Christopher and Edward M. Eitzen (2007), “History of Biological Weapons: From Poisoned Darts to Intentional Epidemics”, In: Dembek, Zygmunt F. (2007), Medical Aspects of Biological Warfare, (Series: Textbooks of Military Medicine), Washington, DC: The Borden Institute, pg 5.
2. ^ A History of Fort Detrick, Maryland , by Norman M. Covert (4th Edition, 2000)

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Biological_Warfare_Laboratories
Categories: Former United States Army facilities | Former United States Army research facilities | Former United States Army medical research facilities | Cold War | Cold War military equipment | Cold War weapons | Biological warfare facilities

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Biological_Warfare_Laboratories

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One-Million-Liter Test Sphere
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

One-Million-Liter Test Sphere
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Nearest city:     Frederick, Maryland
Coordinates:     39E26?3.36?N 77E25?44.52?W? / ?39.4342667EN 77.4290333EW? / 39.4342667; -77.4290333
Built/Founded:     1951
Architect:     Unknown
Governing body:     United States Army
Added to NRHP:     November 23, 1977
NRHP Reference#:     77000696 [1]

The One-Million-Liter Test Sphere, also known as the Test Sphere, the Horton Test Sphere, the Cloud Study Chamber, Building 527, and the “Eight Ball” (or “8-ball”), is a decommissioned biological warfare (BW) chamber and testing facility located on Fort Detrick, Maryland, USA. It was constructed and utilized by the U.S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories as part of its BW research program from 1951 to 1969. It is the largest aerobiology chamber ever constructed and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.

Contents

* 1 The structure
* 2 History
* 3 See also
* 4 References
* 5 External links

The structure

The stainless steel test sphere, a cloud chamber used to study static microbial aerosols, is a four-story high, 131-ton, other-worldly looking structure. Its one inch thick, carbon steel hull was designed to withstand the internal detonation of hot biological bombs without risk to outsiders. It was originally contained within a cubical brick building.

Its purpose was the study of infectious agent aerosols and testing of pathogen-filled munitions. The device was designed to allow exposure of animals and humans to carefully controlled numbers of organisms by an aerosol (inhalational) route. Live, tethered animals were inserted into the chamber along with BW bombs for exposure tests. Human volunteers breathed metered aerosols of Q fever or tularemia organisms through ports along the perimeter of the sphere.

History

Herbert G. Tanner, the head of Camp (now Fort) Detrick’s Munitions Division, had envisioned an enclosed environment where biological tests could be conducted on site, rather than at remote places like Dugway Proving Ground, Utah and Horn Island, Mississippi.

The facility was constructed during 1947 and 1948 and became operational at Camp Detrick in 1950 .

The test sphere was utilized during the Operation Whitecoat studies (1954-73), the first exposure taking place on January 25, 1955.

The test sphere has not been used since 1969, when the US offensive BW program was disestablished by President Nixon. The building housing the test sphere was destroyed by fire in 1974. However, the chamber itself was placed on the National Register of Historic Places [1] in 1977.

See also

* Aerobiology
* United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases
* United States biological weapons program
* Building 470

References

1. ^ National Register Information System . National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2006-03-15. http://www.nr.nps.gov/.

External links

* Photos of the “Eight Ball” [2][3][4]
* Ethical and Legal Dilemmas in Biodefense Research

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-Million-Liter_Test_Sphere
Categories: Former United States Army facilities | Former United States Army research facilities | Former United States Army medical research facilities | National Register of Historic Places in Maryland | Biological warfare facilities

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-Million-Liter_Test_Sphere
***

Fort Terry
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fort Terry was a coastal fortification on Plum Island, a small island just off Orient Point, New York. This strategic position afforded it a commanding view over the Atlantic entrance to the commercially vital Long Island Sound. It was established in 1897 and used intermittently through the end of World War II. In 1952 it became an anti-animal biological warfare research facility, a mission it continued under military and later, civilian control until 1969.

Contents

* 1 History
* 2 Research
* 3 Facilities and weaponry
* 4 See also
* 5 Notes
* 6 References
* 7 External links

History

Fort Terry was constructed after the federal government acquired Plum Island from A.S. Hewitt, a former mayor of New London, Connecticut.[1] Fort Terry, named for Major General Alfred Terry,[2] began operation in 1897 and was expanded several times from the time of the Spanish–American War through World War II.[3][4][1] The initial federal purchase was for 150 acres with the rest of the island turned over to the federal government in 1901.[2]

Fort Terry served as an artillery post during the Spanish–American War, and it was to attack enemy ships as they headed toward New York City.[4] The post continued to serve in that capacity throughout World War I.[4] Following the end of WWI, Fort Terry was declared surplus and put under the control of personnel at Fort H.G. Wright.[2] During World War II the post was put to use again, this time as a training facility and supply depot.[2] On the east side of Plum Island a network of trenches remains from the area’s tenure as an artillery post.[4] The fort was once again declared surplus in 1948.[3]

It served as a U.S. Army Chemical Corps facility beginning April 15, 1952.[5] As a Chemical Corps facility, it was under the control of the First Army, Fort Terry was small and focused primarily on anti-animal biological warfare (BW) research aimed at enemy livestock.[6][5] Anti-animal agents rinderpest and foot and mouth disease were the main areas of research at Fort Terry.[6] When Fort Terry was planned it was envisioned that it would be staffed by less than 20 personnel.[5] The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) took over the island in 1954[5] and began to use it as an animal disease research center. When Fort Terry was transferred to the USDA it was staffed by at least 9 military and 8 civilian employees.[5] Most of the original buildings and batteries still stand today[3] and in many cases were incorporated in one way or another into the island’s new role as a disease research center.[2] Most of the disease research done by the USDA was also focused on biological warfare until Richard Nixon ended the U.S. bio-weapons program in 1969.[2] The former Fort Terry facilities were operated, and later overseen by the USDA until responsibility for Plum Island and its security was transferred to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on June 1, 2003.[7]

Research

The original anti-animal BW mission at Fort Terry was to establish and pursue a program of research and development of certain anti-animal BW agents.[5] The first agent that was a candidate for development was foot and mouth disease (FMD).[5] Besides FMD, five other top secret BW projects were commissioned on Plum Island.[8] The other four programs researched included Rift Valley fever (RVF), rinderpest, African swine fever, and a slew of miscellaneous exotic animal diseases.[8] Among the miscellaneous diseases were 11[9] other animal pathogens.[5] Shortly before the handover of the facility to the Department of Agriculture in 1954, Fort Terry’s mission was altered. The number of pathogens studied was reduced to two, rinderpest and FMD, and the mission was changed to defensive research of those two diseases.[8]

Facilities and weaponry

As an artillery post Fort Terry was heavily armed. By 1914 the fort had 11 gun batteries and the ability to extensively mine the area against submarines.[10] During World War I the post had anti-aircraft artillery installed.[10] In addition the post was home to an advanced fire regulation system as well as a position finding system.[2]

Fort Terry’s Chemical Corps installation covered three acres and included many of the amenities traditionally associated with U.S. military installations.[5] Included on the grounds were various administration buildings, laboratories, a dock, a motor pool, a commissary, a hospital, a fire station, staff housing and animal housing.[5] When the Chemical Corps took control of Fort Terry, in 1952, it required the remodeling of 18 original buildings on post.[2] The Army had been developing plans for the animal disease facility at Fort Terry since 1951.[10] A laboratory was planned for the circa 1911 Building 257, originally known as Combined Torpedo Storehouse and Cable Tanks building.[10] The lab was not completed by the time the Chemical Corps transferred the fort to the USDA but it and the rest of the remodeled buildings were eventually incorporated into the civilian facility.[2]
A 2008 DHS report recommended that the remnants of Fort Terry, its buildings and batteries, be opened to the public and preserved.[11] The Town of Southold, New York formed a Local Waterfront Revitalization Program (LWRP) which noted that many of the island’s structures, including those at Fort Terry, could qualify for listing on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.[11]

See also

* Building 101
* Fort Detrick
* Plum Island Animal Disease Center

Notes

1. ^ a b Bleyer, Bill. Plum Island Animal Disease Center , from Newsday, via The Baltimore Sun, April 26, 2004, accessed January 10, 2009.
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Cella, Alexandra. An Overview of Plum Island: History, Research and Effects on Long Island , Long Island Historical Journal, Fall 2003/Spring 2004, Vol. 16, Nos. 1 and 2, pp. 176-181 (194-199 in PDF), accessed January 10, 2009.
3. ^ a b c Fort Terry , New York State Military Museum and Veterans Research Center, NYS Division of Military and Naval Affairs, accessed January 9, 2009.
4. ^ a b c d Grossman, Karl. Target: Plum Island , The New York Times, September 11, 2005, accessed January 10, 2009.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wheelis, Deadly Cultures, p. 225-228.
6. ^ a b Chauhan, Sharad S. Biological Weapons, (Google Books), APH Publishing Corporation, 2004, p. 197, (ISBN 8176487325).
7. ^ Combating Bioterrorism: Actions Needed to Improve Security at Plum Island Animal Disease Center , General Accounting Office, September 19, 2003, accessed January 10, 2008.
8. ^ a b c Carroll, Michael C. Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government’s Secret Plum Island Germ Laboratory, (Google Books), HarperCollins, 2004, pp. 45-48, (ISBN 0060011416).
9. ^ pathogens. These were Blue tongue virus, Bovine influenza, Bovine virus diarrhea (BVD), fowl plague, goat pneumonitis, mycobacteria, N virus, Newcastle disease, sheep pox, Teschers disease, and vesicular stomatitis. See, Wheelis, p. 226.
10. ^ a b c d 1669-2003: A Partial History of Plum Island , United States Animal Health Association Newsletter, Vol. 30, No. 4, October 2003, pp. 5, 26, accessed January 10, 2009.
11. ^ a b National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility Environmental Impact Statement – Scoping Report , Department of Homeland Security, February 2008, pp. 3-8 to 3-9 (pp. 27-28 in PDF), accessed January 10, 2009.

References

* Wheelis, Mark, et al. Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons Since 1945, (Google Books), Harvard University Press, 2006, (ISBN 0674016998).

External links

* Official USDA site

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Terry
Categories: Forts in New York | Biological warfare facilities | Plum Island (New York)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Terry

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Operation Polka Dot
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Operation Polka Dot was a U.S. Army test of a biological cluster bomb during the early 1950s.

Operation

Operation Polka Dot was a field test of the E133 cluster bomb undertaken at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah during the early 1950s.[1][2] The operation was detailed in a July 18, 1955 U.S. Army report that also detailed Operation Trouble Maker.[1] The operation was classified secret [2] and involved filling the munitions with the biological agent simulant, Bacillus globigii.[1]

See also

* Operation Dew
* Operation LAC

References

1. ^ a b c U.S. National Research Council, Subcommittee on Zinc Cadmium Sulfide. Toxicologic Assessment of the Army’s Zinc Cadmium Sulfide Dispersion, (Google Books), National Academies Press, 1997, pp. 44-52, (ISBN 0309057833).
2. ^ a b Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on National Security Policy and Scientific Developments. U.S. Chemical Warfare Policy , (Google Books), 93rd U.S. Congress – 2nd Session, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974, p. 340.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Polka_Dot
***

Project Bacchus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Project Bacchus was a covert investigation by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency US Defense Department to determine whether it is possible to construct a bioweapons production facility with off-the-shelf equipment.

Contents

* 1 Revelation to the public
* 2 Project
* 3 References
* 4 Further reading

Revelation to the public

The secret Project Bacchus was revealed to the public in a September 2001 article in The New York Times.[1] Reporters Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg and William J. Broad collaborated to write the article.[1] It is presumed that the reporters had knowledge of the program for at least several months; shortly after the article appeared they published a book that detailed the story further.[1] The book, Germs: Biological Weapons and America’s Secret War, and the article are the only publicly available sources concerning Project Bacchus and its sister projects, Clear Vision and Jefferson.[1]

Project

Bacchus ran from 1999-2000 and investigated whether would-be terrorists could build an anthrax production facility and remain undetected.[1] In the two-year simulation, the facility was constructed, and production of anthrax-like bacterium was successfully completed.[2] The participating scientists were able to produce about one kilogram of highly-refined bacterial particles.[2]

References

Further reading

* Tucker, Jonathan B. Biological Threat Assessment: Is the Cure Worse Than the Disease? , Arms Control Today, October 2004, accessed January 6, 2009.
* Miller, Judith, Engelberg, Stephen and Broad, William J. Germs: Biological Weapons and America’s Secret War, (Google Books), Simon and Schuster, 2002, (ISBN 0684871599).
* – U.S. Germ Warfare Research Pushes Treaty Limits , The New York Times, September 4, 2001, accessed January 6, 2009.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Bacchus

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Building 470
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Building 470, called the “Pilot Plant” or sometimes “Anthrax Tower”, was a notorious seven-story steel and brick building at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland, USA, used in the small-scale production of biological warfare (BW) agents. The building, a Cold War era structure, was transferred from the Department of Defense to the National Cancer Institute-Frederick (a unit of the National Institutes of Health) in 1988, to which it belonged until 2003 when it was demolished.

Contents

* 1 Structure and design
* 2 History
o 2.1 Construction and use
o 2.2 Decommissioning
o 2.3 Demolition
* 3 Urban legends
* 4 See also
* 5 References
* 6 External links

Structure and design

Building 470 was the tallest structure on the Fort Detrick grounds and for many years was the tallest in Frederick County. The structure of the building was unique: a seven-story tower, the configuration of which was dictated by the two 2,500-gallon, three-story high fermentors housed within. Several of the floors of the building were catwalks (steel grating), such that someone, for example, on the fifth floor looked down upon other workers three floors below. (These tanks were used to perfect methods of bacteriological agent production and to provide a source of small amounts of these agents for the development and testing work done elsewhere on the facility. Production of anthrax in bulk for use in actual munitions was done at larger facilities in Arkansas and Indiana.)

The bottom two floors were, in the 1950s and ’60s, where scientists showered and changed into street clothes after working with lethal agents. (After work, they returned home to their families where they were prohibited from talking about their livelihood.) A network of pipes fed into two large kill tanks in the basement, where unused biological agents were flushed and subjected to a treatment that rendered them harmless.

The top floor contained a powerful ventilation system that kept the building at negative pressure (air pressure outside was always greater than inside), a redundant safety feature. If a door to the outside was opened unintentionally, or if a crack appeared in a wall, air would rush in, not out. If any contaminants escaped into the building’s hallways, they would not escape to the outside world.

History
Construction and use
The U.S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories constructed Building 470 in 1953, at a cost of $1.3 million, as a pilot plant for the production of biological agents as part of the United States’ offensive BW program. The program was a part of the nation’s Cold War defense against the generally understood threat of biological warfare. From 1954 to 1965, the building was used for production of the bacteria Bacillus anthracis (the cause of anthrax), Francisella tularensis (the cause of tularemia), and Brucella suis (a cause of brucellosis).

Production of biological agents in Building 470 ceased in 1965 and all production and processing equipment were subsequently sterilized. In 1969 President Richard Nixon declared that the U.S. would unilaterally withdraw from the biological arms race, and turned over many Fort Detrick buildings to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for cancer research. Many buildings (although Building 470 was not yet among them) that had been dedicated to BW research were then deeded to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), decontaminated and renovated for use. In all, approximately 70 acres (280,000 m2) on Fort Detrick were designated as a campus for the NCI. Laboratory work continued in Building 470 until 1970, but no infectious agents were again produced there.

Decommissioning

In 1970, Building 470 was vacated and a thorough decontamination began. The final decontamination process was completed in June 1971. Electric frying pans with a solid form of paraformaldehyde were placed throughout the building, then heated, releasing clouds of gas inside the sealed structure. Simulant bacteria, similar to anthrax, were left inside to serve as markers indicating whether or not the gas had worked. Thereafter, the Army carried out extensive testing and found no evidence of any of the biological agents previously produced there. Samples from approximately 1,500 locations throughout the building tested negative for B. anthracis. The Army declared the building safe for occupancy – although not for renovation – including by workers who had not been immunized against anthrax.

In 1988, the NCI acquired Building 470 as well with the expectation that it, too, might be remodeled and converted to cancer research laboratories. It had been vacant for 17 years, serving only as storage space where employees stashed files or excess lab supplies. Because of the unique (and anachronistic) design structure of the building, however, this was deemed to be prohibitively expensive.

In September 2000, safety experts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Duke University, and Science Applications International Corporation reviewed the post-decontamination quality assurance test data and concluded that there was no evidence of any residual contamination in the building. The success of the decontamination was tested the following month, when examination of an additional 790 samples revealed no trace of living or dead B. anthracis. These samples were analyzed by either conventional culture methods or by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a more sensitive DNA-based test.

Ultimately, Building 470 fell into alarmingly poor structural condition. The exterior mortar and brick of the building buckled and the roof leaked. Corroded beams and columns, cracked and peeling plaster, and blistering paint contributed to the disrepair of the building, which was in close proximity to several other buildings. It was determined that this deterioration could lead to significant structural failure and risk to adjacent buildings and the employees occupying them.

Demolition

Due to the significant structural deterioration, the demolition of Building 470 was recommended in 1999 by NCI engineers. Carol Shearer, the 470 Project Engineer and an expert in dismantling former bioweapons facilities in the former Soviet Union, stated the main concern was not anthrax, but noise and vibration—and most importantly, the disruption of science in the adjoining and adjacent buildings.

After an EIS and period for public comment, the state of Maryland approved removal of the building. The NIH dismantled the building between February and December 2003. Officials did not concern themselves much with possible anthrax contamination, but concentrated rather on asbestos and lead paint.

Urban legends

Residents of Frederick County are familiar with many stories about deaths occurring in Building 470 or as a result of working there. One of the more lurid stories had it that a dead man was sealed within its walls. [1] According to Robert H. Wiltrout, associate director of the NCI-Frederick, the building, although “an anachronism and a throwback, was a lightning rod for all of the things that happened at Fort Detrick .

One perennial tale held that because of a massive accident involving deadly biological agents, the government could never be entirely sure that the building was safe to occupy and therefore it was closed and sealed up. [1] It had to be left standing because officials couldn’t be sure the bacteria were truly gone. In fact, a large spill did occur in Building 470 in 1958. A technician, trying to pry open a stuck valve at the bottom of a fermentor, unintentionally released approximately 2,000 gallons of liquid B. anthracis culture. Because of the design of the building and the safety measures in place, it was possible to isolate the spill to one room. There was no contamination of Fort Detrick or the local community, and no one (including the technician) became ill. The outcome of the incident was taken to indicate the effectiveness of the biological safety practices pioneered during the early days of “bioweaponeering” at Fort Detrick.

In the lead up to its demolition, Dr. George Anderson of Southern Research Institute, an internationally recognized expert on B. anthracis, exhaustively reviewed documents on Building 470 and interviewed many of the men, some still residing in Frederick, who had worked in the building. He learned that no one working in Building 470 had died of anthrax, although three workers elsewhere on Fort Detrick had died of infection with agents that were being researched as biological weapons: one, a microbiologist in 1951, and another, an electrician in 1958, died of inhalational anthrax. The third worker died of Bolivian hemorrhagic fever.

See also

* William C. Patrick III
References

1. ^ a b Snyder, David, Fort Detrick’s Tower of Doom To Come Down , The Washington Post, Sunday, February 9, 2003; Page C01.

External links

* NCI Website on Building 470, with photos

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_470
Categories: Former United States Army facilities | Former United States Army research facilities | Former United States Army medical research facilities | Biological warfare facilities

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_470

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Pine Bluff Arsenal
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Joint Munitions Command (JMC)
Active     2003 – present
Country     United States
Type     Major Subordinate Command of the United States Army Materiel Command (AMC)
Role     Operate a nationwide network of facilities where conventional ammunition is produced and stored.
Size     Employs 20 military, over 5800 civilians and 8300 contractor personnel
Colors     red, yellow, white, black, blue
Commanders
Current
commander     Brigadier General Larry Wyche

The Pine Bluff Arsenal (PBA) is a US Army installation located in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. PBA is one of the six Army installations in the United States which stores chemical weapons.[1] PBA supplies specialized production, storage, maintenance and distribution of readiness products, and delivers technical services to the Armed Forces and Homeland Security. PBA also designs, manufactures and refurbishes smoke, riot control, and incendiary munitions, as well as chemical/biological defense operations items. It serves as a technology center for illuminating and infrared munitions and is also the only place in the Northern Hemisphere where white phosphorus munitions are filled. Its Homeland Security mission includes first-responder equipment training and surveillance of prepositioned equipment.

Contents

* 1 Capabilities
* 2 History
* 3 Facilities
* 4 References
* 5 External links

Capabilities

Capabilities of the center include: chemical defense and test equipment; individual and collective chemical protection and decontamination systems; chemical materiel surveillance program; machining, fabrication and assembly; specialty ammunition production; less than lethal ammunition production; and quality assurance and joint logistics services.

History

PBA was established in November 1941 for the manufacture of incendiary grenades and bombs. It was originally named the Chemical Warfare Arsenal but was renamed four months later.[2] The mission expanded to include production and storage of pyrotechnic, riot control, and chemical-filled munitions. At the height of World War II, the plant expanded from making magnesium and thermite incendiary munitions to a chemical warfare manufacturing facility as well, producing lethal gases and chemical compounds installed in artillery shells and specifically designed bombs.[3]
In an incident after WWII, several captured German rockets containing mustard agents were accidentally launched into the surrounding countryside.[citation needed]

Biological weapons operations were conducted at PBA from 1953 to 1969;[2] but operations ceased when President Nixon banned biological weapons after public outcry over Agent Orange.[3] Between 1954 and 1967, at least seven different biological agents were produced at the facility. All agents were destroyed between 1971 and 1973.[4]

Pine Bluff Arsenal was also the home for the Binary Chemical Weapons Facility. The facility was to create the two toxic agents – QL and DF – that would combine to form VX as well as build the bombs to deliver the nerve agent. Construction of the facility began in the mid-1980s and was mothballed prior to completion in the early 1990s as part of the chemical weapons treaties.[5][6]

The Associated Press reported a leak in a container of white phosphorus was suspected to have ignited the fire that destroyed a warehouse at the Pine Bluff Arsenal on June 6, 2005. White smoke from the fire was seen as far away as six miles. When the fire was extinguished, approximately 19 hours later, officials reported the fire destroyed more than 7,500 canisters of white phosphorus. In the same article the AP reported. The Pine Bluff Arsenal is home to 12 percent of the nation’s chemical weapons stockpile, and destruction of nerve and mustard gas weapons began recently. [7][8]

Facilities

PBA is housed on 13,493 acres (54.60 km2; 21.083 sq mi) with 665 buildings, 271 igloos and storage capacity of 2,090,563 square feet (190,000 m2). Additionally, PBA has more than 5,000 acres (20 km2; 7.8 sq mi) of developable land.

References

1. ^ [http://www.cma.army.mil/pinebluff.aspx Summary of PBA from the US Army Chemical Materials Agency website
2. ^ a b Pine Bluff Chemical Activity (PBCA)
3. ^ a b Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture, Pine Bluff Arsenal
4. ^ Larsen, Jeff; Wirtz, James J.; Croddy, Eric. Weapons of Mass Destruction: An Encyclopedia of Worldwide Policy, Technology, and History (2 volume set). ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1851094903, 9781851094905.
5. ^ [http://www.cma.army.mil/fndocumentviewer.aspx?docid=003673283 Pine Bluff Integrated Binary Production Facilities demolition Fact Sheet]
6. ^ Binary Chemical Weapons information at the Army Chemical Material Agency
7. ^ Pine Bluff Arsenal Fact Sheet
8. ^ Leak Suspected Cause in Arkansas Arsenal Fire

External links

PD-icon.svg This article incorporates public domain material from the United States Government document Joint Munitions Command website .PD-icon.svg This article incorporates public domain material from the United States Government document Pine Bluff Arsenal website .

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Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Bluff_Arsenal
Categories: United States Army
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470px-Mississippi-Coast-towns-NOAA.jpg

Location of Horn Island, Mississippi, south of Ocean Springs (center right)

Horn Island (Mississippi)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Location of Horn Island, Mississippi, south of Ocean Springs (center right)

Horn Island is a long, thin barrier island off the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, south of Ocean Springs. It is part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore. Horn Island is several miles long, but less than a mile wide at its widest point. It occupies about 11 square kilometers.

Contents

* 1 Description
* 2 History
* 3 Nearby Islands
* 4 See also
* 5 References

Description

The island, in part, shelters and bounds the Mississippi Sound to its north, and has a long beach on the Gulf of Mexico on its south side. The island is undeveloped, except for a small ranger station mid-island. Part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore, it is a favorite boating destination for those living on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Horn Island has long stretches of sugar-white sand, dunes punctuated with sea oats, tall pines on small groves, and a few inland lagoons. It is home to varied wildlife including alligators, ospreys, pelicans, ducks, tern, herons, and other migratory birds. The Sound and the Gulf host innumerable species of sea life.

History

From 1943 to 1945 Horn Island was closed to all public access and activity for use as a biological weapons testing site by the U.S. Army.[1] After World War II, Ocean Springs, Mississippi artist, Walter Inglis Anderson, spent the years between 1946-1965 drawing and painting the landscapes and life on the island.[1] Many of his works are on display at the Walter Anderson Museum in Ocean Springs.[1]

Nearby Islands
South Side of Horn Island

Horn is not alone in its small island group. Similar nearby islands include Petit Bois Island to the east, and Ship Island and Cat Island to the west. Of the group, Horn Island is the largest.

See also

* Gruinard Island
* Horn Island Testing Station
* Plum Island

References

1. ^ a b c McGinnis, Helen. Hiking Mississippi: A Guide to Trails and Natural Areas, (Google Books), University Press of Mississippi , 1995, pp. 100-03, (ISBN 0878056645).

Coordinates: 30E15?41?N 88E40?52?W? / ?30.26139EN 88.68111EW? / 30.26139; -88.68111
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horn_Island_(Mississippi)
Categories: Islands of Mississippi | Barrier islands of Mississippi | History of Mississippi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horn_Island_(Mississippi)

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300px-Dugway_Proving_Ground.jpg
Dugway Proving Ground testing area encompasses a vast area of the western Utah desert.

Dugway Proving Ground
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dugway Proving Ground (DPG) is a US Army facility located approximately 85 miles (140 km) southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah in southern Tooele County and just north of Juab County. It encompasses 801,505 acres (3,243.576 km², or 1,252.352 sq mi) of the Great Salt Lake Desert and is surrounded on three sides by mountain ranges. It had a resident population of 2,016 persons as of the 2000 census, all of whom lived in the community of Dugway, Utah, at its extreme eastern end.
Dugway Proving Ground testing area encompasses a vast area of the western Utah desert.
The transcontinental Lincoln Highway passed through the present site of the Dugway Proving Ground, the only significant section of the old highway closed to the public. At least one old wooden bridge over a creek still stands.[2]

Contents

* 1 Mission
* 2 History
* 3 U.S. General Accounting Office report
* 4 Alien speculation and Experimental Aircraft Testing
* 5 References
* 6 See Also
* 7 External links

Mission

Dugway’s mission is to test US and Allied biological and chemical weapon defense systems in a secure and isolated environment. DPG also serves as a facility for US Army Reserve and US National Guard maneuver training, and US Air Force flight tests. DPG is controlled by the U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC). The area has also been used by US Army Special Forces for training in preparation for deployments to the War in Afghanistan.[1]

History

In 1941, the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) determined it needed a testing facility more remote than the US Army’s Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland. The CWS surveyed the Western U.S. for a new location to conduct its tests, and, in the spring of 1942, construction of Dugway Proving Ground began.

Testing commenced in the summer of 1942. During World War II, DPG tested toxic agents, flamethrowers, chemical spray systems, biological warfare weapons, antidotes for chemical agents, and protective clothing. In October 1943, DPG established biological warfare facilities at an isolated area within DPG known as the Granite Peak Installation. DPG was slowly phased out after World War II, until becoming inactive in August 1946. The base was reactivated during the Korean War and in 1954 was confirmed as a permanent Department of the Army installation. In October 1958, DPG became home to the U.S. Army Chemical, Biological, and Radiological (CBR) Weapons School, which moved from the U.S. Army Chemical Center, Maryland.

In March 1968, 6,249 sheep died in Skull Valley, an area nearly thirty miles from Dugway’s testing sites. When examined, the sheep were found to have been poisoned by an organophosphate chemical. The sickening of the sheep, known as the Dugway sheep incident, coincided with several open-air tests of the nerve agent VX at Dugway. Local attention focused on the Army, which initially denied that VX had caused the deaths, instead blaming the local use of organophosphate pesticides on crops. Necropsies conducted on the dead sheep later definitively identified the presence of VX. The Army never admitted liability, but did pay the ranchers for their losses. On the official record, the claim was for 4,372 disabled sheep, of which about 2,150 were either killed outright by the VX exposure or were so critically injured that they needed to be euthanized on-site by veterinarians. Another 1,877 sheep were temporarily injured, or showed no signs of injury but were not marketable due to their potential exposure. All of the exposed sheep which survived the initial exposure were eventually euthanized by the ranchers, since even the potential for exposure had rendered the sheep permanently unsalable for either meat or wool.

The incident, coinciding with the birth of the environmental movement and anti-Vietnam War protests, created an uproar in Utah and the international community. The incident also starkly underscored the inherent unpredictability of air-dispersal of chemical warfare agents, as well as the extreme lethality of next-generation persistent nerve agents at even extremely low concentrations.

On September 8, 2004 the Genesis spacecraft crashed into the desert floor of the Dugway Proving Ground[3].

Dugway Proving Ground was also home to the High Resolution Fly’s Eye Cosmic Ray Detector, which discovered the first Oh-My-God particle .

U.S. General Accounting Office report

The U.S. General Accounting Office issued a report on September 28, 1994, which stated that between 1940 and 1974, DOD and other national security agencies studied hundreds, perhaps thousands of weapons tests and experiments involving hazardous substances.

The quote from the study:
“ … Dugway Proving Ground is a military testing facility located approximately 80 miles from Salt Lake City. For several decades, Dugway has been the site of testing for various chemical and biological agents. From 1951 through 1969, hundreds, perhaps thousands of open-air tests using bacteria and viruses that cause disease in human, animals, and plants were conducted at Dugway… It is unknown how many people in the surrounding vicinity were also exposed to potentially harmful agents used in open-air tests at Dugway.[2] ”

Alien speculation and Experimental Aircraft Testing

Following the public attention drawn to Area 51 in the early 1990s, UFOlogists and conspiracy theorists have suggested that whatever covert operations, if any, may have been underway at that location were subsequently transferred to DPG.[3][4][5][6][7][8]

The Deseret News reported that Dave Rosenfeld, president of Utah UFO Hunters, stated:
“ Numerous UFOs have been seen and reported in the area in and around Dugway…[military aircraft can't account for] all the unknowns seen in the area. It might be that our star visitors are keeping an eye on Dugway too…[Dugway is] the new area 51. And probably the new military spaceport.[3] ”

Additionally, the nearby Michael Army Airfield has been called the new Area 51 by some, with the Dugway Proving Ground serving as a buffer zone, as the Nevada Test Site served for Groom Lake. One frequently rumored test project is the Lockheed Martin X-33.[6]

References

1. ^ Logan, Laura, Special Forces Prepare For Afghanistan In Utah Desert , CBS Evening News, July 14, 2009.
2. ^ Is Military Research Hazardous to Veterans Health? Lessons Spanning Half A Century 103rd Congress, 2nd Session-S. Prt. 103-97; Staff Report prepared for the committee on veterans’ affairs, December 8, 1994, John D. Rockefeller IV, West Virginia, Chairman.[1]
3. ^ a b Bauman, Joe (November 4 2004). Is Dugway’s expansion an alien concept? . Deseret Morning News. http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595102911,00.html.
4. ^ Davidson, Lee (August 1). Dugway’s size unclear . Deseret Morning News. http://bailey83221.livejournal.com/96302.html.
5. ^ Rothstein, Linda (May 15). Area 51: The Dreamland Chronicles; book reviews . Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 54 (3): 64. ISSN 0096-3402. http://bailey83221.livejournal.com/96302.html#A.
6. ^ a b Wilson, Jim (June 1997). The new ‘Area 51.’U.S. Air Force moves its top-secret test site . Popular Mechanics 174 (6): 54. ISSN 0032-4558. http://bailey83221.livejournal.com/96302.html#B.
7. ^ Smith, Christopher (May 23 1997). Report: Utah Town, Air Force Headed for Close Encounter; Secret Base: Is It Headed For Utah? . Salt Lake Tribune ( ): A1. http://bailey83221.livejournal.com/96302.html#C.
8. ^ Manning, Mary (May 20 1997). Magazine: Area 51 gear moving to Utah ([dead link]). Los Vegas Sun. http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/1997/may/20/505914267.html.

* Dugway Proving Ground: Blocks 3000, 3001, 3004, and 3005, Census Tract 1306, Tooele County, Utah United States Census Bureau

See also

* Deseret Chemical Depot
* Deseret Test Center
* Dugway Proving Ground
* Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility
* Umatilla Chemical Depot
* Kambarka
* Porton Down
* Edgewood Chemical Activity
* Dzerzhinsk, Russia
* Pine Bluff Arsenal

External links

* Tooele Army Depot website
* Joint Munitions Command website
* Information compiled from [1]
* Pike, John E. Tooele Army Depot (TEAD) Tooele, Utah, accessed November 15, 2008.

Contact Information

Tooele Army Depot, ATTN: SJMTE-CO, Tooele, Utah, 84074-5000, Phone: (435) 833-2693, E-mail: webmaster@conus.army.mil

PD-icon.svg This article incorporates public domain material from the United States Government document [2] .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tooele_Army_Depot

***

Ultra-high-energy cosmic ray
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In high-energy physics, an ultra-high-energy cosmic ray (UHECR) or extreme-energy cosmic ray (EECR) is a cosmic ray (subatomic particle) which appears to have extreme kinetic energy, far beyond both its rest mass and energies typical of other cosmic rays. These particles are significant because they have energy comparable to (and sometimes exceeding) the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin limit.

Contents

* 1 Observational history
* 2 Active galactic cores as one possible source of the particles
* 3 Other possible sources of the particles
* 4 Relation with dark matter
o 4.1 Conversion of dark matter into ultra-high-energy particles
o 4.2 Dark matter particles as ultra-high-energy particles
* 5 Pierre Auger Observatory
* 6 Ultra-high-energy cosmic ray observatories
* 7 References
* 8 Further reading
* 9 External links

Observational history

The first observation of a cosmic ray with an energy exceeding 1020 electronvolts was made by John Linsley at the Volcanic Ranch experiment in New Mexico in 1962.[1][2]
Cosmic rays with even higher energies have since been observed. Among them was the Oh-My-God particle (a play on the nickname God particle for the Higgs boson) observed on the evening of 15 October 1991 over Dugway Proving Grounds, Utah. Its observation was a shock to astrophysicists, who estimated its energy to be approximately 3 H 1020 electronvolts (50 joules)—in other words, a subatomic particle with macroscopic kinetic energy equal to that of a baseball (142 g or 5 ounces) traveling at 96 km/h (60 mph).

It was most probably a proton with a speed very close to the speed of light. To a static observer, such a proton, traveling at 1 – (5H10-24) times c, would travel only 47 nanometers (5H10-24 light-years) less than a light-year in one year.[3]

Since the first observation, by the University of Utah’s Fly’s Eye Cosmic Ray Detector, at least fifteen similar events have been recorded, confirming the phenomenon. These very high energy cosmic rays are very rare; the energy of most cosmic rays is between 107 eV and 1010 eV.
See also: Cosmic ray observatory

Active galactic cores as one possible source of the particles

The source of such high energy particles has been a mystery for many years. Recent results from the Pierre Auger Observatory show that ultra-high-energy cosmic ray arrival directions appear to be correlated with extragalactic supermassive black holes at the center of nearby galaxies called active galactic nuclei (AGN).[4] Interactions with blue-shifted cosmic microwave background radiation limit the distance that these particles can travel before losing energy; this is known as the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin limit or GZK limit.

AGN have been proposed as likely sources of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays, and results from the Pierre Auger Observatory suggest that these objects may be their source. However, since the angular correlation scale is fairly large (3 degrees or more) these results do not unambiguously identify the origins of such cosmic rays. In particular, the AGN may be tracers of the actual sources, which may be found, for example, in galaxies or other astrophysical objects that are clumped with matter on large scales within 100 Mpc.

Additional data collection will be important for further investigating a possible AGN source for these highest energy particles, which might be protons accelerated to those energies by magnetic fields associated with the rapidly growing black holes at the AGN centers. According to a recent study,[5] short-duration AGN flares resulting from the tidal disruption of a star or from a disk instability can be the main source of the observed flux of super GZK cosmic rays.

Some of the supermassive black holes in AGN are known to be rotating, as in the Seyfert galaxy MCG 6-30-15[6] with time-variability in their inner accretion disks.[7] Black hole spin is a potentially effective agent to drive UHECR production,[8] provided ions are suitably launched to circumvent limiting factors deep within the nucleus, notably curvature radiation[9] and inelastic scattering with radiation from the inner disk. Low-luminosity, intermittent Seyfert galaxies may meet the requirements with the formation of a linear accelerator several light years away from the nucleus, yet within their extended ion tori whose UV radiation ensures a supply of ionic contaminants.[10] The corresponding electric fields are commensurably small, on the order of 10 V/cm, whereby the observed UHECRs are indicative for the astronomical size of the source. Improved statistics by the Pierre Auger Observatory will be instrumental in identifying the presently tentative association of UHECRs (from the Local Universe) with Seyferts and LINERs.[11]

Other possible sources of the particles

Other possible sources of the UHECR are:[12]

* radio lobes of powerful radio galaxies
* intergalactic shocks created during the epoch of galaxy formation
* hypernovae
* gamma-ray bursts
* decay products of supermassive particles from topological defects, left over from phase transitions in the early universe
* Particles undergoing the Penrose effect

Relation with dark matter

Main article: Dark matter
Conversion of dark matter into ultra-high-energy particles

It is hypothesized that active galactic nuclei are capable of converting dark matter into high energy protons. Yuri Pavlov and Andrey Grib at the Alexander Friedmann Laboratory for Theoretical Physics at St. Petersburg hypothesize that dark matter particles are about 15 times heavier than protons, and that they can decay into pairs of particles of a type that interacts.

Near an active galactic nucleus, one of these particles can fall into the black hole, while the other escapes, as described by the Penrose process. Some of the particles that escape will collide with incoming particles creating collisions of very high energy. It is in these collisions, according to Pavlov, that ordinary visible protons can form. These protons would have very high energies. Pavlov claims that evidence of this is present in the form of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays.[13]
Dark matter particles as ultra-high-energy particles

High energy cosmic rays traversing intergalactic space suffer the GZK cutoff above 1020 eV due to interactions with cosmic background radiation if the primary cosmic ray particles are protons or nuclei. The Pierre Auger Project, HiRes and Yakutsk Extensive Air Shower Array found the GZK cutoff, while Akeno-AGASA observed the events above the cutoff (11 events in the past 10 years). The result of the Akeno-AGASA experiment is smooth near the GZK cutoff energy. If one assumes that the Akeno-AGASA result is correct and consider its implication, a possible explanation for the AGASA data on GZK cutoff violation would be a shower caused by a dark matter particles. A dark matter particle is not constrained by the GZK cutoff, since it interacts weakly with cosmic background radiation. Recent measurements by the Pierre Auger Project have found a correlation between the direction of high energy cosmic rays and the location of AGN.[14]

Pierre Auger Observatory
Main article: Pierre Auger Observatory

Pierre Auger Observatory is an international cosmic ray observatory designed to detect ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (sub-atomic particles (protons or other nuclei) with energies beyond 1020 electron-volts). These high energy particles have an estimated arrival rate of just 1 per square kilometer per century, therefore, in order to record a large number of these events, the Auger Observatory has created a detection area of 3,000 km² (the size of Rhode Island, USA) in Mendoza Province, western Argentina.

A larger cosmic ray detector array is also planned for the northern hemisphere as part of the Pierre Auger complex.

The Pierre Auger Observatory, in addition to obtaining directional information from the cluster of water tanks used to observe the cosmic ray shower components, also has four telescopes trained on the night sky to observe fluorescence of the Nitrogen molecules as the shower particles traverse the sky, giving further directional information on the original cosmic ray.

Ultra-high-energy cosmic ray observatories
See also: Category:High energy particle telescopes
See also: Cosmic-ray observatory

* AGASA – Akeno Giant Air Shower Array in Japan
* Antarctic Impulse Transient Antenna (ANITA) detects ultra-high-energy cosmic neutrinos believed to be caused by ultra-high-energy cosmic rays
* Extreme Universe Space Observatory
* GRAPES-3 (Gamma Ray Astronomy PeV EnergieS 3rd establishment) is a project for cosmic ray study with air shower detector array and large area muon detectors at Ooty in southern India.
* High Resolution Fly’s Eye Cosmic Ray Detector (HiRes)
* LOPES (telescope) – LOFAR PrototypE Station is located in Karlsruhe, Germany is part of the LOFAR project.
* MARIACHI – Mixed Apparatus for Radar Investigation of Cosmic-rays of High Ionization located on Long Island, USA.
* Pierre Auger Observatory
* Telescope Array Project
* Yakutsk Extensive Air Shower Array

References

1. ^ John Linsley (1963). Evidence for a Primary Cosmic-Ray Particle with Energy 1020 eV . Physical Review Letters 10: 146. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.10.146. http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v10/i4/p146_1.
2. ^ physics world.com
3. ^ Walker, John (January 4, 1994). The Oh-My-God Particle . http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/OhMyGodParticle/.
4. ^ The Pierre Auger Collaboration (November 9 2007). Correlation of the Highest-Energy Cosmic Rays with Nearby Extragalactic Objects . http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/318/5852/938.
5. ^ Glennys R. Farrar and Andrei Gruzinov, Giant AGN Flares and Cosmic Ray Bursts, e-Print archive
6. ^ Tanaka, Y., Nandra, K., Fabian, A.C., et al., 1995, Nature, 375, 659
7. ^ Iwasawa, K., Fabian, A.C., Reynolds, C.S., et al., 1996, MNRAS, 282, 1038
8. ^ Boldt, E., Gosh, P., 1999, MNRAS, 307, 491
9. ^ Levinson, A., 2000, Phys. Rev. Lett., 85, 912
10. ^ van Putten, M.H.P.M., Gupta, A.C., 2009, MNRAS, 394, 2238
11. ^ Moskalenko, I.V., Stawarz, L., Porter, T.A., Cheung, C.-C., 2008, preprint (ArXiv:0805.1260)
12. ^ Lofar – Astronomy
13. ^ e-Print archive – Do Active Galactic Nuclei Convert Dark Matter into Visible Particles?
14. ^ e-Print archive

Further reading

* The Pierre Auger Collaboration (2007). Correlation of the Highest-Energy Cosmic Rays with Nearby Extragalactic Objects . Science 318 (5852): 938–943. doi:10.1126/science.1151124.
* Clay, Roger; Dawson, Bruce (1997). Cosmic Bullets: High Energy Particles in Astrophysics. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books. ISBN 0738201391. ? A good introduction to ultra-high-energy cosmic rays.
* Elbert, Jerome W.; Sommers, Paul (1995). In search of a source for the 320 EeV Fly’s Eye cosmic ray . The Astrophysical Journal 441: 151–161. doi:10.1086/175345. ar?iv:astro-ph/9410069.
* Seife, Charles (2000). Fly’s Eye Spies Highs in Cosmic Rays’ Demise . Science 288 (5469): 1147. doi:10.1126/science.288.5469.1147a.

External links

* The Highest Energy Particle Ever Recorded The details of the event from the official site of the Fly’s Eye detector.
* John Walker’s lively analysis of the 1991 event, published in 1994
* Origin of energetic space particles pinpointed, by Mark Peplow for news@nature.com, published January 13, 2005.

* Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays – (1908) Ritzian relativity in action?

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-energy_cosmic_ray
Categories: Subatomic particles | Particle physics | Astroparticle physics | Cosmic ray

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-energy_cosmic_ray

On September 8, 2004 the Genesis spacecraft crashed into the desert floor of the Dugway Proving Ground[3].

Dugway Proving Ground was also home to the High Resolution Fly’s Eye Cosmic Ray Detector, which discovered the first Oh-My-God particle .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dugway_Proving_Ground

***

Operation Dark Winter
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Operation Dark Winter was the code name for a senior-level bio-terrorist attack simulation conducted on June 22-23, 2001.[1][2][3] It was designed to carry out a mock version of a covert and widespread smallpox attack on the United States. Tara O’Toole and Thomas Inglesby of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies (CCBS) / Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and Randy Larsen and Mark DeMier of Analytic Services were the principal designers, authors, and controllers of the Dark Winter project.

Dark Winter was focused on evaluating the inadequacies of a national emergency response during the use of a biological weapon against the American populace. The exercise was solely intended to establish preventive measures and response strategies by increasing governmental and public awareness on the magnitude and potential of such a threat posed by biological weapons.

Dark Winter’s simulated scenario involved a localized smallpox attack on Oklahoma City. The simulation was then designed to spiral out of control. This would create a contingency in which the National Security Council struggles to determine both the origin of the attack as well as deal with containing the spreading virus. By not being able to keep pace with the disease’s rate of spread, a new catastrophic contingency emerges in which massive civilian casualties would overwhelm America’s emergency response capabilities.

The disastrous contingencies that would result in the massive loss of civilian life were used to exploit the weaknesses of the U.S. health care infrastructure and its inability to handle such a threat. The contingencies were also meant to address the widespread panic that would emerge and of which would result in mass social breakdown and mob violence. Exploits would also include the many difficulties that the media would face when providing American citizens with the necessary information regarding safety procedures.

Key participants

President     The Hon. Sam Nunn
National Security Advisor     The Hon. David Gergen
Director of Central Intelligence     The Hon. R. James Woolsey
Secretary of Defense     The Hon. John White
Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff     General John Tilelli (USA, Ret.)
Secretary of Health & Human Services     The Hon. Margaret Hamburg
Secretary of State     The Hon. Frank Wisner
Attorney General     The Hon. George Terwilliger
Director, Federal Emergency Management Agency     Mr. Jerome Hauer
Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation     The Hon. William Sessions
Governor of Oklahoma     The Hon. Frank Keating
Press Secretary, Gov. Frank Keating (OK)     Mr. Dan Mahoney
Correspondent, NBC News     Mr. Jim Miklaszewski
Pentagon Producer, CBS News     Ms. Mary Walsh
Reporter, British Broadcasting Corporation     Ms. Sian Edwards
Reporter, The New York Times     Ms. Judith Miller (journalist)
Reporter, Freelance     Mr. Lester Reingold

References

1. ^ O’Leary, N. P. M. (2005). Bio-terrorism or Avian Influenza: California, The Model State Emergency Health Powers Act, and Protecting Civil Liberties During a Public Health Emergency . California Western Law Review (California Western School of Law) 42 (2): 249-286. ISSN 0008-1639.
2. ^ Chauhan, Sharad S. (2004). Biological Weapons. APH Publishing. pp. 280–282. ISBN 9788176487320.
3. ^ Kunstler, James Howard (2006). The Long Emergency. Grove Press. pp. 175–178. ISBN 9780802142498.

External links

* Dark Winter – Terrorism Information Center
* Operation Dark Winter
* Journal/Issues/Dark Winter PDF
* Dark Winter Research
* Local Response to a National Threat
* Preventing “Dark Winter”
* CNN: Dark Winter and lack of USA Preparedness
* Dark Winter Teaches Bioterror Lessons
* Dark Winter at SourceWatch

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Dark_Winter
Categories: Biological warfare

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Dark_Winter

***

Vigo Ordnance Plant
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not to be confused with the nearby Terre Haute Ordnance Depot.

The Vigo Ordnance Plant, also known as the Vigo Chemical Plant or simply Vigo Plant, was a U.S. Army facility built in 1942 to produce conventional weapons. In 1944 it was converted to produced biological agents for the U.S. bio-weapons program. The plant never produced any bio-weapons before the end of World War II but did produce 8000 pounds of an anthrax simulant. The plant was transferred to Pfizer after the war, the company operated it until announcing its closure in 2008.

Contents

* 1 Location
* 2 History
o 2.1 Construction and conversion
o 2.2 Bio-weapons production
o 2.3 Demilitarization
* 3 Pfizer’s ownership
* 4 Russian tour
* 5 See also
* 6 Notes
* 7 External links

Location

The Vigo Ordnance Plant was located on 700 acres (2.8 km2) of a more than 6,000-acre (24 km2) government-owned tract and cost $21 million to build.[1] The facility was constructed in the Honey Creek Township in Vigo County, Indiana.[1] The plant was located near the small community of Vigo, Indiana, about six miles (10 km) south of Terre Haute.[1] The area surrounding the plant was flat, covered with cornfields and dotted by hog farms.[1] The site of the former Vigo Plant is south of Interstate 70 near Highway 41 and Indiana State Highways 150 and 63.[2]

History
Construction and conversion

The U.S. Army Ordnance Corps constructed the Vigo Plant in 1942, prior to the official start of the U.S. biological weapons program.[1] The Vigo Ordnance Plant began producing conventional explosives and munitions on February 18, 1942.[3] The Army decommissioned the factory less than year later,[1] and on June 30, 1943 the plant was transferred to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.[3] Portions of the Vigo Plant were then leased to the Delco Radio Corporation for the manufacture of military electronics equipment.[1] The plant served in this capacity until May 1944.[1]

On May 8, 1944 the Army Special Projects Division (SPD) directed the Vigo Plant to convert its facilities for full-scale biological agent production.[1][3] The plant was converted for biological warfare (BW) use by the H.K. Ferguson Construction Company; they added fermenter tanks, slurry heaters, laboratories and the other necessities of a biological warfare facility.[1] The plant was to be the first U.S. anthrax factory and would be utilized filling a British order for anthrax bombs.[4] In March 1944 the British had placed an order for 500,000 of these bombs which Winston Churchill, remarked, should only be considered a first installment .[5]

Bio-weapons production

When it was conceived, the initial plan was for the Vigo Plant to be a production facility for anthrax and botulinum toxin.[5] The 1944 order converting the plant to a BW facility directed that it become a factory capable of producing 275,000 boutlin bombs or one million anthrax bombs per month.[3] The core of the Vigo Plant’s BW operation was the anthrax fermenters installed during the renovations in 1944.[1] There were 12 20,000 gallon fermenter tanks at Vigo, the total of 240,000 gallons which made it the largest bacterial mass-production line anywhere in the world at the time.[1]

After U.S. BW scientists worked through the problems presented by trying to mass-produce bombs that were to be filled with a deadly biological agent, the production line was essentially ready to operate.[1] The line would fill the British four pound anthrax bombs[6] with an anthrax slurry and then cluster them into the M26 cluster adapter, to form the M33 cluster bomb.[1] Before production could begin, however, safety testing commenced. The scientific director of the U.S. BW program, Ira Baldwin, selected Walter Nevius, a specialist in pathogen containment, to lead the safety inspections which began when he arrived at Vigo in the summer 1944.[1]

Nevius was considered conscientious, so much so that at one point the Army wanted to replace him; this resulted in Baldwin resigning his position and becoming an advisor to the U.S. BW program.[7] The testing regimen that followed extended well into 1945. The first tests ran water through the system, to ensure there were no leaks. A second round of tests were run with an anthrax simulant, Bacillus globigii.[1] The plant was pronounced water-tight by Nevius in April 1945 and trial runs with the simulant began in June.[1]
By the time the plant was ready to produce the simulant the end of World War II was on the horizon. The plant was able to produce about 8,000 pounds of B. globgii before production was halted in October 1945,[3][7] but was never able to produce any BW agents, including anthrax, before the war ended.[4] As October 1945 ended, approximately $800,000 worth of equipment at Vigo was declared surplus.[7] Eighteen boxcars were loaded with caustics, sulfuric acid, bleach, tributyl phosphate and 765,000 explosive detonators and shipped elsewhere for storage.[3][7] Vigo Ordnance plant was placed on stand-by in December 1945, in reality, the demilitarization process had already begun.[3]

Demilitarization

The plant remained on standby to produce highly classified material and in February 1947 four areas of the plant were declared restricted.[3] On April 30, 1947 demilitarization of the Vigo Plant began; this allowed prospective buyers to inspect the site.[3] Even with the earlier equipment removal, the fermenters remained behind.[7] On December 15, 1947 the Pfizer company executed a 20 year lease agreement with the government to take over the Vigo site.[3][5] The company would begin antibiotic manufacture at Vigo in 1948 but the military continued to liquidate the surrounding land into 1949.[3] That year a 1,500-acre (6.1 km2) tract was acquired by the Bureau of Prisons to be used as agricultural land, other portions of the Vigo property were acquired by various private entities.[3] The BW production facilities at Vigo were eventually replaced by a more modern factory at Pine Bluff Arsenal in 1954.[5]
Pfizer’s ownership

After the lease agreement, and later the sale of the plant,[5] was finalized the company transferred John E. McKeen to the Vigo site in 1948 in preparation for the production of streptomycin.[3] The main objective of Pfizer’s Vigo operation in the years after the war was the production of veterinary antibiotics.[5] The large fermenters were used during the period after the war to produce penicillin but afterwards sat dormant for decades.[4] Of the areas at Vigo not utilized by Pfizer, most were left undisturbed.[4] Adjacent to the old BW buildings the company constructed their own facilities for drug manufacturing.[4]

After operating the Vigo plant since 1948 Pfizer announced in October 2007 that 600 of the plant’s 750 employees would be placed on paid leave.[8] The announcement followed disappointing sales for the plant’s flagship product, an inhaled insulin known as Exubera.[8] Beginning in 1999, Pfizer had invested $300 million in the plant and hired 400 additional employees,[9][10] Pfizer’s Vigo location was declared the sole producer of Exubera.[10] In January 2008 those employees on paid leave were permanently eliminated.[9] The company announced in May 2008 the remaining 140 jobs, occupied making antibiotics Cefobid and Unasyn,[8] at the plant would be eliminated and the plant closed.[9] In November 2008 the company announced the site and its buildings were for sale.[9]

Russian tour

Per a 1994 arms-control agreement between the United States and Russia each nation was permitted to inspect three sites in the other country that it suspected were biological warfare facilities.[11] The Russians chose to tour Pfizer’s main research center in Groton, Connecticut,[4] the Plum Island facilities, including Building 101, and the Vigo Ordnance Plant.[11] The Russians were shown the decrepit military facilities at Vigo, many of which were shuttered, padlocked and in an obvious state of disrepair.[4] When the Russians observed the fermenters, they asserted that it was evidence of a secret, illegal U.S. BW program.[4] Russian reaction to the tours, in general, was not good, and a negative report of their visit followed when they returned to Russia.[4] The report maintained that the facilities could potentially be used for BW.[4]

See also

* Fort Detrick
* Fort Terry
* Granite Peak Installation
* Horn Island Testing Station
* Plum Island Animal Disease Center

Notes

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Regis, Ed. The Biology of Doom: The History of America’s Secret Germ Warfare Project, (Google Books), Macmillan, 2000 pp. 71-74, (ISBN 080505765X).
2. ^ Pfizer Terre Haute Plant on The Market , Inside Indiana Business, November 10, 2008, accessed January 11, 2009.
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m McCormick, Mike. Terre Haute: Queen City of the Wabash, (Google Books), Arcadia Publishing, 2005, pp. 129-130, (ISBN 0738524069).
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Mangold, Tom. Plague Wars: A True Story of Biological Warfare, (Google Books), Macmillan, 1999, pp. 200-208, (ISBN 0312203535).
5. ^ a b c d e f Meselson, Matthew. Bioterror: What Can Be Done? , The New York Review of Books, Vol. 48, No. 20, December 20, 2001, accessed January 11, 2009.
6. ^ See also: M114 bomb.
7. ^ a b c d e Guillemin, Jeanne. Biological Weapons: From the Invention of State-sponsored Programs to Contemporary Bioterrorism, (Google Books), Columbia University Press, 2005, pp. 71-73, (ISBN 0231129424).
8. ^ a b c Greninger, Howard. Pfizer resolves contractual issues tied to Exubera, Nektar Therapeutics , Tribune-Star, November 13, 2007, accessed January 11, 2009.
9. ^ a b c d Staff. Pfizer puts closed Terre Haute plant up for sale , Associated Press via Chicago Tribune, November 10, 2008, accessed January 11, 2009.
10. ^ a b Editorial board. Pfizer’s track record provides ray of hope on sad day , (Editorial), Tribune-Star, October 18, 2007, accessed January 11, 2009.
11. ^ a b Carroll, Michael. Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government’s Secret Plum Island Germ Laboratory, (Google Books), HarperCollins, 2004, pp. 233-34, (ISBN 0060011416).

External links

* Records of Chemical Plants, National Archives, Records of the Chemical Warfare Service, Guide to Federal Records, accessed January 11, 2009.

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigo_Ordnance_Plant
Categories: Vigo County, Indiana | Biological warfare facilities | Pfizer | Former United States Army facilities | Indiana in WWII

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigo_Ordnance_Plant

***

Building 101

The structure is a 164,000-square-foot (15,200 m2) T-shaped white building.[9] It is situated on Plum Island’s northwest plateau on a 10-acre (40,000 m2) site where it is buttressed by a steep cliff which leads into the ocean.[9] To the east of the building’s site is the old Plum Island Lighthouse.[9]

Construction on Plum Island’s new laboratory Building 101 began around July 1, 1954, around the same time that the Army’s anti-animal bio-warfare (BW) facilities at Fort Terry were transferred to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.[7] Following the transfer the facilities on Plum Island became known as the Plum Island Animal Disease Center.[7] The USDA’s $7.7. million[9] Building 101 laboratory facility was dedicated on September 26, 1956.[7] Prior to the building’s opening the area around it was sprayed with chemicals to deter insect or animal life from approaching the facility.[9] Upon its opening a variety of tests using pathogens and vectors were conducted on animals in the building.[9] Research on biological weapons at PIADC did not cease until the entire program was canceled in 1969 by Richard Nixon.[8]

A modernization program in 1977 aimed to update both Building 101 and another laboratory, Building 257, but the program was canceled in 1979 because of construction contract irregularities.[7] PIADC facilities were essentially unchanged until a new modernization began in 1990.[7] Two-thirds of the laboratory facilities inside Building 101 were renovated and a operations from Building 257 were consolidated into Building 101.[7] Building 257 was closed, and a major expansion, known as Building 100, was completed on Building 101 in 19

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_101#Building_101

Plum Island Animal Disease Center
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Building 101)

Plum Island Animal Disease Center
The Plum Island Animal Disease Center (PIADC) is a United States federal research facility dedicated to the study of animal diseases. It is part of the DHS Directorate for Science and Technology.

Since 1954, the center has had the goal of protecting America’s livestock from animal diseases. During the Cold War a secret biological weapons program targeting livestock was conducted at the site. This program has been the subject of controversies, and the facility has gained a cult status.

Contents

* 1 Location and description
* 2 History
* 3 Diseases studied and outbreaks
* 4 Historical buildings
o 4.1 Building 257
o 4.2 Building 101
* 5 Replacement facility
* 6 Activities
o 6.1 Bio-weapons research
* 7 Controversy and fiction
* 8 References
* 9 External links

Location and description

The center is located on Plum Island, off the northeast coast of Long Island in New York state. During the Spanish-American War, the island was purchased by the government for the construction of Fort Terry, which was later deactivated after World War II and then reactivated in 1952 for the Army Chemical Corps. The center comprises 70 buildings (many of them dilapidated) on 840 acres (3.4 km2).[1][2]

Plum Island has its own fire department, power plant, and water treatment plant.[1][2] Any wild mammal seen on the island is killed on sight.[1] However, as Plum Island was named an important bird area by the New York Audubon Society, it has successfully attracted different birds, Plum Island had placed osprey nests and bluebird boxes throughout the island and will now add kestrel houses.[3]

History

In response to disease outbreaks in Mexico and Canada in 1954, the Army gave the island to the Agriculture Department to establish a research center dedicated to the study of foot and mouth disease in cattle.[1]

The island was opened to news media for the first time in 1992.[2] In 1995, the Department of Agriculture was issued a $111,000 fine for storing hazardous chemicals on the island.[2]
Local Long Island activists prevented the center from expanding to include diseases that affect humans in 2000, which would require a Biosafety Level 4 designation; in 2002, Congress again considered the plan.[1]

The Wall Street Journal reported in January 2002 that many scientists and government officials wanted the lab to close, believing that the threat of foot and mouth disease was so remote that the center did not merit its $16.5 million annual budget.[1] In 2002, the Plum Island Animal Disease Center was transferred from the United States Department of Agriculture to the United States Department of Homeland Security.

In 2003, a whistleblower who voiced concerns about safety at the facility was fired by the contractor he worked for. He had discussed his concerns with aides to Senator Hillary Clinton.[4] A National Labor Relations Board judge found that the contractor, North Fork Services, had discriminated against the whistleblower.[4]

Diseases studied and outbreaks

As a diagnostic facility, PIADC scientists study more than 40 foreign animal diseases and several domestic diseases, including hog cholera and African swine fever.[1] PIADC runs about 30,000 diagnostic tests each year. PIADC operates Biosafety Level 3 Agriculture (BSL-3Ag), BSL-3 and BSL-2 laboratory facilities. The facility’s research program includes developing diagnostic tools and preventatives (such as vaccines) for foot-and-mouth disease and other diseases of livestock.[1]

Plum Island’s freezers also contain samples of polio and diseases that can be transferred from animals to humans.[1] In 1991, the center’s freezers were threatened following a power outage caused by a hurricane.[1]

Because Congressional law stipulates that live foot-and-mouth disease virus cannot be studied on the mainland, PIADC is unique in that it is currently the only laboratory in the U.S. equipped with research facilities that permit the study of foot-and-mouth disease[5].

Foot-and-mouth disease is extremely contagious among cloven-hoofed animals, and people who have come in contact with it can carry it to animals.[4] Accidental outbreaks of the virus have caused catastrophic livestock and economic losses in many countries throughout the world. Plum Island has experienced outbreaks of its own, including one in 1978 in which the disease was released to animals outside the center, and two incidents in 2004 in which foot and mouth disease was released within the center.[4] Foot-and-mouth disease was eradicated from the U.S. in 1929 (with the exception of the stocks within the Plum Island center)[1] but is currently endemic to many parts of the world.

In response to the two 2004 incidents, New York Senator Hillary Clinton and Congressman Tim Bishop wrote a letter to the Department of Homeland Security regarding their concerns about the center’s safety: We urge you to immediately investigate these alarming breaches at the highest levels, and to keep us apprised of all developments. [4]
Lab 257, a book by Michael C. Carroll, Ph.D., has alleged a connection between Plum Island Animal Disease Center the outbreaks of three infectious diseases: West Nile virus in 1999, Lyme disease in 1975, and Dutch duck plague in 1967.[6]

Historical buildings

Building 257
Main article: Building 257

Building 257 located at Fort Terry was completed around 1911. The original purpose of the building was to store weapons, such as mines, and the structure was designated the Combined Torpedo Storehouse and Cable Tanks building.[7] Fort Terry went through a period of activations and deactivations through World War II until the U.S. Army Chemical Corps took over the facility in 1952 for use in anti-animal biological warfare (BW) research. The conversion of Fort Terry to a BW facility required the remodeling of Building 257 and other structures.[8] As work neared completion on the lab and other facilities in the spring of 1954 the mission of Fort Terry changed.[9] Construction was completed on the facilities on May 26, 1954, but the Fort Terry was officially transferred to the USDA on July 1, 1954. At the time scientists from the Bureau of Animal Industry were already working in Building 257.[7]

Building 101

Replacement facility

A modernization program in 1977 aimed to update both Building 101 and another laboratory, Building 257, but the program was canceled in 1979 because of construction contract irregularities. Plum Island facilities were essentially unchanged until a new modernization began in 1990. Two-thirds of the laboratory facilities inside Building 101 were renovated and a operations from Building 257 were consolidated into Building 101.[7] Building 257 was closed, and a major expansion, known as Building 100, was completed on Building 101 in 1995.[7] According to the Department of Homeland Security, Building 257 currently poses no health hazard.[10]

On September 11, 2005, the United States Department of Homeland Security announced that the Plum Island Animal Disease Research Center will be replaced by a new federal facility. The location of the new high-security animal disease lab, to be called the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF), has been recommended to be built in Manhattan, Kansas[11]. However, this plan has been called into question by a recent GAO study which states that claims by the DHS that the work performed on Plum Island can be performed safely on the mainland is not supported by evidence [12].

Activities

PIADC’s mission can be grouped into three main categories: diagnosis, research, and education.[citation needed]

Since 1971, PIADC has been educating veterinarians in foreign animal diseases. The center hosts several Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostic schools each year to train federal and state veterinarians and laboratory diagnostic staff, military veterinarians and veterinary school faculty.

At PIADC, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) work together; DHS’ Targeted Advanced Development unit partners with USDA, academia and industry scientists to deliver vaccines and antivirals to the USDA for licensure and inclusion in the USDA National Veterinary Vaccine Stockpile.[citation needed]

USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) performs basic and applied research to better formulate countermeasures against foreign animal diseases, including strategies for prevention, control and recovery. ARS focuses on developing faster-acting vaccines and antivirals to be used during outbreaks to limit or stop transmission. Antivirals prevent infection while vaccine immunity develops. The principal diseases studied are foot-and-mouth disease, classical swine fever, and vesicular stomatitis virus.

USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services (APHIS) operates the Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory, an internationally recognized[citation needed] facility performing diagnostic testing of samples collected from U.S. livestock. APHIS also tests animals and animal products being imported into the U.S. APHIS maintains the North American Foot and Mouth Disease Vaccine Bank at PIADC and hosts the Foreign Animal Disease Diagnosticians training program, offering several classes per year to train veterinarians to recognize foreign animal diseases.

Research on biological weapons at PIADC did not cease until the entire program was canceled in 1969 by Richard Nixon.[8]

Bio-weapons research
The original anti-animal BW mission was to establish and pursue a program of research and development of certain anti-animal (BW) agents .[13] By August 1954 animals occupied holding areas at Plum Island and research was ongoing within Building 257.[9] The USDA facility, known as the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, continued work on biological warfare research until the U.S. program was ended by Richard Nixon in 1969.[8] The bio-weapons research at Building 257 and Fort Terry was shrouded in aura of mystery and secrecy.[10][14] The existence of biological warfare experiments on Plum Island was denied for several decades by the U.S. government. In 1993 Newsday unearthed documents proving otherwise.[14]

Controversy and fiction

The number of building 257 is a moniker for the entire site in 2004 when Michael Carroll, an attorney, published Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government’s Secret Plum Island Germ Laboratory.[15] Many of the assertions and accusations made in the book are counter to the government’s position and have been criticized and challenged.[10][16] The review in Army Chemical Review concluded Lab 257 would be cautiously valuable to someone writing a history of Plum Island, but is otherwise an example of fringe literature with a portrayal of almost every form of novelist style. The author has unfortunately wasted an opportunity to write a credible history. [16] The book advances the idea that Lyme disease originated at Plum Island and conjectures several means by which animal diseases could have left the island. David Weld, the executive director of the American Lyme Disease Foundation, commented that I personally just don’t think that has any merit. [10]

The testing facility at Plum Island also is the subject of a novel, The Poison Plum, by author Les Roberts,[17] and one entitled Plum Island, by Nelson DeMille. DeMille has said, How could anthrax not be studied there? Every animal has it. His novel portrays the island as the scene of an incubator for germ warfare.[1]

The center was also mentioned in the movie Silence of the Lambs as a place used by the FBI agents in the film who claimed Dr Hannibal Lecter would be transferred to if he helped in locating a serial killer who had abducted the daughter of a US Senator. Lecter referred to it as Anthrax Island.

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Bioterrorism Fears Revifunky chicken ve Waning Interest In Agricultural Disease Lab on Plum Island . The Wall Street Journal. 2002-01-08. http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/bioterrorismplumisland.html. Retrieved 2008-05-17.
2. ^ a b c d Long Island Lab May Do Studies Of Bioterrorism . The New York Times. 1999-09-22. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D02EED7163FF931A1575AC0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2. Retrieved 2008-05-18.
3. ^ About Plum Island Animal Disease Center . Department of Homeland Security. 2008-12-28. http://www.dhs.gov/xres/labs/editorial_0902.shtm. Retrieved 2008-08-04.
4. ^ a b c d e Plum Island Reports Disease Outbreak . The New York Times. 2004-08-22. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C01E1D6113FF931A1575BC0A9629C8B63. Retrieved 2008-05-17.
5. ^ U.S. General Accounting Office. HIGH-CONTAINMENT BIOSAFETY LABORATORIES: DHS Lacks Evidence to Conclude That Foot-and-Mouth Disease Research Can Be Done Safely on the U.S. Mainland. GAO-08-821T. 22 May, 2008. Page 1.
6. ^ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E03E6DF133DF931A15751C0A9629C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 1669-2003: A Partial History of Plum Island , United States Animal Health Association Newsletter, Vol. 30, No. 4, October 2003, pp. 5, 26, accessed January 10, 2009.
8. ^ a b c d Cella, Alexandra. An Overview of Plum Island: History, Research and Effects on Long Island , Long Island Historical Journal, Fall 2003/Spring 2004, Vol. 16, Nos. 1 and 2, pp. 176-181 (194-199 in PDF), accessed January 10, 2009.
9. ^ a b c d e f g h Carroll, Michael C. Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government’s Secret Plum Island Germ Laboratory, (Google Books), HarperCollins, 2004, pp. 45-48 and p. 60, (ISBN 0060011416).
10. ^ a b c d Dunn, Adam. The mysterious lab off New York’s shore , CNN.com, April 2, 2004, accessed January 10, 2009.
11. ^ http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/releases/pr_1232132671186.shtm
12. ^ http://www.newsday.com/long-island/study-spurs-request-to-not-phase-out-plum-island-1.1341825
13. ^ Wheelis, Mark, et al. Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons Since 1945, (Google Books), Harvard University Press, 2006 p. 225-228, (ISBN 0674016998).
14. ^ a b Lambert, Bruce. Closely Guarded Secrets: Some Islands You Can’t Get to Visit , The New York Times, May 17, 1998, accessed January 10, 2009.
15. ^ Bleyer, Bill. Plum Island Animal Disease Center , from Newsday, via The Baltimore Sun, April 26, 2004, accessed January 10, 2009.
16. ^ a b Kirby, Reid. Book Reviews , Army Chemical Review, January-June 2005, accessed January 10, 2009.
17. ^ The Poison Plum . Les Roberts. http://www.poisonplum.com/. Retrieved 2008-05-17.

External links

* Official website
* PIADC site
* The Plum Island Animal Disease Laboratory hosted by the UNT Government Documents Department
* CNN.com The mysterious lab off New York’s shore Friday, April 2, 2004 by Adam Dunn
* NBDF Information

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plum_Island_Animal_Disease_Center#Building_101
Categories: United States Department of Homeland Security | Plum Island (New York) | United States Department of Agriculture

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_101#Building_101

180px-Plum_Island_Animal_Disease_Center.jpg

***

Pfizer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fizer redirects here. For the American professional basketball player, see Marcus Fizer.
Pfizer, Inc. Pfizer logo.svg
Type     Public (NYSE: PFE)
Founded     Brooklyn, NY, USA (1849)
Headquarters     Flag of the United States New York City, NY, USA
Key people     Jeff Kindler, CEO
David Shedlarz, VC
Ian Read, Pres. of Pharma.
Martin Mackay, Pres. of R&D
Amy Schulman, GC
Industry     Health Care
Products     Accupril
Lipitor
Viagra
See complete products listing.
Revenue     $48.296 billion USD (2008), ? 1% from 2007
Net income     $8.104 billion USD (2008), ? 1% from 2007[1]
Employees     86,600 (2008)[2]
Website     www.pfizer.com

Pfizer Incorporated (NYSE: PFE) is a pharmaceutical company, ranking number one in sales in the world. The company is based in New York City, with its research headquarters in Groton, Connecticut. It produces Lipitor (atorvastatin, used to lower blood cholesterol); the neuropathic pain/fibromyalgia drug Lyrica (pregabalin); the oral antifungal medication Diflucan (fluconazole), antibiotic Zithromax (azithromycin), Viagra (sildenafil citrate), and the anti inflammatory Celebrex (celecoxib) (also known as Celebra in some countries outside USA and Canada, mainly in South America).

Pfizer’s shares were made a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average on April 8, 2004.

Pfizer pleaded guilty in 2009 to the largest health care fraud in U.S. history and received the largest criminal penalty ever levied for illegal marketing of four of its drugs. Called a repeat offender, this was Pfizer’s fourth such settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice in the last ten years.[3][4]
On January 26, 2009, Pfizer agreed to buy pharmaceutical giant Wyeth for US$68 billion, a deal financed with cash, shares and loans.[5]

Contents

* 1 History
* 2 Corporate structure
o 2.1 Warner-Lambert / Parke-Davis / Agouron
o 2.2 Pharmacia / Upjohn / Searle
o 2.3 SUGEN
o 2.4 Wyeth
+ 2.4.1 Critics of the merger
o 2.5 Development of torcetrapib
o 2.6 Pharmaceuticals
o 2.7 Animal health brands
* 3 Legislation and litigation
o 3.1 Kelo case
o 3.2 Quigley Co.
o 3.3 Bjork-Shiley heart valve
o 3.4 Tort reform legislation contributions
o 3.5 Off-label promotional practices
+ 3.5.1 Record fine in 2009 fraudulent promotion and bribery case
o 3.6 Nigeria
* 4 Research and development
* 5 Environmental record
* 6 Employment and diversity
* 7 AIDS involvement
o 7.1 AIDS drugs manufactured by Pfizer
* 8 See also
* 9 Notes and references
* 10 External links

History

Pfizer is named after German-American cousins Charles Pfizer and Charles Erhardt (they were originally from Ludwigsburg, Germany) who launched a fine chemicals business, Charles Pfizer and Company, from a building at the intersection of Harrison Avenue and Bartlett Street[6] in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in 1849. There, they produced an antiparasitic called santonin. This was an immediate success, although it was the production of citric acid that really kick-started Pfizer’s growth in the 1880s. Pfizer continued to buy property to expand its lab and factory on the block bounded by Bartlett Street; Harrison Avenue; Gerry Street; and Flushing Avenue. That facility was used by Pfizer until 2005, when Pfizer closed its original plant along with several others. Pfizer established its original administrative headquarters at 81 Maiden Lane in Manhattan[6]. By 1906, sales totaled nearly $3 million.

World War I caused a shortage of calcium citrate that Pfizer imported from Italy for the manufacture of citric acid, and the company began a search for an alternative supply. Pfizer chemists learned of a fungus that ferments sugar to citric acid and were able to commercialize production of citric acid from this source in 1919. As a result Pfizer developed expertise in fermentation technology. These skills were applied to the mass production of penicillin during World War II, in response to a need from the U.S. government. The antibiotic was needed to treat injured Allied soldiers. In fact, most of the penicillin that went ashore with the troops on D-Day was made by Pfizer.

Following the success of penicillin production in the 1940s, penicillin became very inexpensive and Pfizer made very little profit for its efforts. As a result, in the late 1940s Pfizer decided to search for new antibiotics with greater profit potential. The discovery and commercialization of Terramycin (oxytetracycline) by Pfizer in 1950 moved the company on the path of change from a manufacturer of fine chemicals to a research-based pharmaceutical company. To augment its research in fermentation technology, Pfizer began a program to discover drugs through chemical synthesis. Pfizer also established an animal health division in 1959 with an 700-acre farm and research facility in Terre Haute, Indiana.

By the 1950s, Pfizer was established in Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Cuba, Iran, Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico, Turkey and the United Kingdom. In 1960, the Company moved its medical research laboratory operations to a new facility in Groton, Connecticut. In 1980 Pfizer launched Feldene (piroxicam), a prescription anti-inflammatory medication that became Pfizer’s first product to reach a total of a billion United States dollars in sales.

During the 1980s and 1990s Pfizer underwent a period of growth sustained by the discovery and marketing of Zoloft, Lipitor, Norvasc, Zithromax, Aricept, Diflucan, and Viagra. Pfizer has recently grown by mergers, including those with Warner-Lambert (2000), with Pharmacia (2003), and an agreement to merge with Wyeth (2009).

Corporate structure
Pfizer world headquarters

Current members of the board of directors of Pfizer are: Michael S. Brown, M. Anthony Burns, Robert Burt, Don Cornwell, William H. Gray, Constance Horner, William R. Howell, Stanley Ikenberry, Jeff Kindler (chairman), George Lorch, Dana Mead, Ruth J. Simmons, and William Steere.

* Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chairman of the Board: Jeff Kindler
* Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President: Frank A. D’Amelio
* Vice Chairman: David L. Shedlarz
* Strategy and Business Development and Senior Vice President: William R. Ringo Jr.
* General Counsel, Corporate Secretary and Senior Vice President: Amy W. Schulman
* Chief Communications Officer and Senior Vice President: Sally Susman
* President of Worldwide Pharmaceutical Operations and Senior Vice President: Ian Read
* President of Global R&D and Senior Vice President: Martin Mackay
* Senior Vice President and President – Pfizer Global Manufacturing: Natale S. Ricciardi
* Senior Vice President – Worldwide Human Resources: Mary S. McLeod
* Regional President of U.S., Oncology Business Unit: Elizabeth Barrett
* 2007 Pharmacist of the Year: Mike Militello, Pharm.D., BCPS

Pfizer has four divisions: Human Health ($44.28B in 2005 sales), Consumer Healthcare ($3.87B in 2005 sales), Animal Health ($2.2B in 2005 sales), and Corporate Groups (which includes legal, finance, and HR). On June 26, 2006, Pfizer announced that it would sell its Consumer Healthcare unit (manufacturer of Listerine, Nicorette, Visine, Sudafed and Neosporin) to Johnson & Johnson for $16.6B.[7]

Warner-Lambert / Parke-Davis / Agouron

In 2000, Pfizer merged with Warner-Lambert and acquired full rights to Lipitor (atorvastatin), which was previously jointly marketed by Warner-Lambert and Pfizer. Warner-Lambert was based in Morris Plains, New Jersey, where former headquarters became a major base of operations for Pfizer. The majority of the facility, and Pfizer’s consumer healthcare department, was sold to Johnson and Johnson in 2006 for $16.6 billion.

Parke-Davis was acquired by Warner-Lambert in 1970, which in turn was merged into Pfizer in 2000. The headquarters of Parke-Davis was sold several years ago. Pfizer sold the near-174-acre Parke-Davis research complex in Ann Arbor, Michigan to the University of Michigan in 2008 for $108 million. It would ‘accelerate the expansion’ of the university’s research activities.[8] Some renovations would be needed’ and create 2,000 new research jobs, the university said.

Agouron Pharmaceuticals was acquired by Warner Lambert in 1999 and is now a subsidiary of Pfizer. Nelfinavir (Viracept), an antiretroviral drug used in the treatment of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), was developed by Agouron Pharmaceuticals as part of a joint venture with Japan Tobacco, Inc.

Pharmacia / Upjohn / Searle

Searle was founded in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1888. The founder was Gideon Daniel Searle. In 1908, the company was incorporated in Chicago. In 1941, the company established headquarters in Skokie, Illinois. It was acquired by the Monsanto Company, headquartered in St. Louis, in 1985.

The Upjohn Company was a pharmaceutical manufacturing firm founded in 1886 in Kalamazoo, Michigan by Dr. William E. Upjohn, an 1875 graduate of the University of Michigan medical school. The company was originally formed to make friable pills, which were specifically designed to be easily digested.
In 1995, Upjohn merged with Pharmacia, to form Pharmacia & Upjohn. Pharmacia was created in April 2000 through the merger of Pharmacia & Upjohn with the Monsanto Company and its G.D. Searle unit. The merged company was based in Peapack, New Jersey. The agricultural division was spun off from Pharmacia, as Monsanto, in preparation for the close of the acquisition by Pfizer.

In 2002, Pfizer merged with Pharmacia. The merger was again driven in part by the desire to acquire full rights to a product, this time Celebrex (celecoxib), the COX-2 selective inhibitor previously jointly marketed by Searle (acquired by Pharmacia) and Pfizer. In the ensuing years, Pfizer commenced with a massive restructuring resulting in numerous site closures and loss of jobs including: Terre Haute, IN; Holland, MI; Groton, CT; Brooklyn, NY; Sandwich, UK and Puerto Rico.

In 2008, Pfizer announced 275 job cuts at the Kalamazoo manufacturing facility. Kalamazoo was previously the world headquarters for the Upjohn Company.

SUGEN

SUGEN, customarily written with capital letters, was founded in 1991 in Redwood City, California, as a partnership between the laboratories of Joseph Schlessinger at New York University Medical School and Axel Ullrich at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, with Steven Evans-Freke as a third co-founder. The name, SUGEN, is derived from combining the first S in Schlessinger followed by the U in Ullrich with GEN – a commonly used suffix by biotech companies (short for GENetics or GENesis ). The focus of the enterprise was to develop drugs targeting intracellular signaling pathways to treat cancer. Specifically, the company sought to discover competitive ATP small-molecule kinase inhibitors which block common cancer pathways. Pharmacia acquired SUGEN in 1999, which merged with the pharmaceutical division of Monsanto Company in 2000 and was purchased by Pfizer in 2003. In 1999, Pharmacia advanced two of SUGEN’s lead compounds into clinical trials for colon cancer: SU5416 (Semaxanib) and SU6668; the trials were discontinued but a third and closely related compound named SU11248 was pursued. SUGEN’s laboratories were closed in 2003 as part of the reorganization following Pfizer’s purchase of Pharmacia. From the acquisition, SUGEN compounds SU11248 and SU14813 entered Pfizer’s pipeline.[9][10] In January 2006, SU11248 was approved by the FDA for treatment of GIST and RCC, and it is now marketed as Sutent (sunitinib). Sutent is packed by Plant in Ascoli Piceno, Italy.

Wyeth

On 26 January 2009, after more than a year of talks between the two companies, Pfizer agreed to buy pharmaceuticals rival Wyeth for a combined US$68 billion in cash, shares and loans, including some US$22.5 billion lent by five major Wall Street banks. This deal would cement Pfizer’s place as the largest pharmaceutical company in the world, with the merged company generating over US$20 billion in cash each year, and represents the largest corporate merger since AT&T and BellSouth’s US$70 billion deal in March 2006.[11] Wyeth’s management team is expected to depart following the merger. The combined company could save US$4 billion annually through the streamlining of operations; however, as part of the deal, both companies must repatriate billions of dollars in revenue from foreign sources to the United States, which will result in higher tax costs.

Critics of the merger

The merger received a vast array of criticism. Harvard Business School’s Gary Pisano told the WSJ:
The record of big mergers and acquisitions in Big Pharma has just not been good. There’s just been an enormous amount of shareholder wealth destroyed. [12]

The Warner-Lambert and Pharmacia mergers do not appear to have achieved gains for shareholders so it is unclear who will benefit from the Wyeth-Pfizer merger to many critics.

Development of torcetrapib

Development of torcetrapib, a drug that increases production of HDL, or good cholesterol , which reduces LDL thought to be correlated to heart disease, was cancelled in December 2006. During a Phase III clinical trial involving 15,000 patients there were more deaths than expected in the group that took the medicine, and a 60% increase in deaths was seen among patients taking torcetrapib plus Lipitor versus Lipitor alone. There was no suggestion these results called into question the safety of Lipitor. Pfizer lost nearly $1 billion invested developing the failed drug, and the market value of the company plummeted in the aftermath.[13][14][15]

Pharmaceuticals

The following is a list of key prescription pharmaceutical products. The names shown are all registered trademarks of Pfizer Inc.[16]

* Accupril (quinapril) for hypertension treatment.
* Aricept (donepezil) for Alzheimer’s disease.
* Aromasin (exemestane) for the prevension of breast cancer and the prevension of osteoporosis and menopause for women.
* Bextra (Valdecoxib) for arthritis.
* Ben-Gay a sports cream co marketed by Johnson and Johnson, and McNeil Laboratories.
* Caduet (amlodipine) and (atorvastatin) for cholesterol and hypertension.
* Camptosar (irinotecan) for cancer and Chemotherapeutic agents.
* Celebrex (celecoxib) for arthritis.
* Chantix (Varenicline) for Nicotinic agonists, and anti nicotine drugs.
* Cefobid a cephalosporin antibiotic.
* Depo-Medrol (methylprednisolone) for asthma.
* Solu-Medrol (methylprednisolone) for asthma.
* Depo Provera for birth control.
* Detrol, and Detrol LA (tolterodine), for bladder control problems.
* Diflucan (fluconazole) for antifungal drug.
* Ellence (epirubicin) for cancer and chemotherapy drug.
* Eraxis (anidulafungin) for antifungal drug.
* Exubera (inhalable insulin) for diabetes, and insulin therapies.
* Flagyl (metronidazole) for bacterial and protozoal infections.
* Genotropin (Growth hormone) for N/A.
* Geodon (ziprasidone) for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
* Inspra (eplerenone) for diuretics.
* Lipitor (atorvastatin) for cholesterol.
* Lyrica (pregabalin) for neuropathic pain.
* Macugen (pegaptanib) for N/A
* Norvasc (amlodipine) for hypertension
* Neurontin (gabapentin) for neuropathic pain.
* Rebif (interferon beta-1a) for Multiple Sclerosis
* Relpax (eletriptan) for including the sulfonamide group of migrane .
* Rescriptor (delavirdine) for HIV.
* Selzentry (maraviroc) for HIV.
* Somavert (pegvisomant) for Acromegaly.
* Sutent (sunitinib) for cancer and chemotherapy drug.
* Spiriva (tiotropium) for asthma.
* Tikosyn (dofetilide) for atrial fibrillation and flutter.
* Vfend (voriconazole) for antifungal drug.
* Viagra sildenafil for erectile dysfunction.
* Viracept (nelfinavir) for AIDS.
* Xalatan (latanoprost) for glaucoma
* Xalacom latanoprost and timolol Medication for glaucoma.
* Xanax and Xanax XR (alprazolam) for anxiety and panic disorders.
* Zoloft (sertraline) for an antidepressant.
* Zyrtec (cetirizine) for allergies.
* Zyvox (linezolid) for antibiotics.

Animal health brands

The following is a partial list of Animal Health brands manufactured by Pfizer:

* Bovi-Shield Gold
* Cerenia
* Convenia
* Dectomax
* Draxxin
* Excede
* Excenel
* Inovocox
* Mycitracin
* Pirsue
* A180
* Revolution Pet Medicine
* Rimadyl
* Simplicef
* Slentrol
* Solitude IGR
* Spectramast
* Stellamune
* Stronghold

Legislation and litigation
Pfizer is party to a number of suits stemming from companies it has acquired or merged with, including asbestos litigation as well as litigation stemming from its medicinal products.

Kelo case

Pfizer’s interest in obtaining property in New London, Connecticut for expanded facilities led to the Kelo v. New London case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Quigley Co.

Pfizer acquired Quigley in 1968, and the division sold asbestos-containing insulation products until the early 1970s.[17] Asbestos victims and Pfizer have been negotiating a settlement deal which calls for Pfizer to pay $430 million to 80 percent of existing plaintiffs. It will also place an additional $535 million into an asbestos settlement trust that will compensate future plaintiffs as well as the remaining 20 percent of current plaintiffs with claims against Pfizer and Quigley. The compensation deal is worth $965 million all up.Of that $535 million, $405 million is in a 40-year note from Pfizer, while $100 million will come from insurance policies.

Bjork-Shiley heart valve

Pfizer purchased Shiley in 1979 at the onset of its Convexo-Concave valve ordeal, involving the Bjork-Shiley heart valve. Approximately 500 people died when defective valves failed and, in 1994, the United States ruled against Pfizer for ~$200 million.[1]

Tort reform legislation contributions

Pfizer proposed a ban on all lawsuits against manufacturers of body implant parts which was proposed in the United States Congress as part of tort reform legislation.[citation needed]

Off-label promotional practices

Access to pharmaceutical industry documents has revealed marketing strategies used to promote Neurontin for off-label use.[18] In 1993, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved gabapentin (Neurontin, Pfizer) only for treatment of seizures. Warner-Lambert, which merged with Pfizer in 2000, used activities not usually associated with sales promotion, including continuing medical education and research, sponsored articles about the drug for the medical literature, and alleged suppression of unfavorable study results, to promote gabapentin. Within 5 years the drug was being widely used for the off-label treatment of pain and psychiatric conditions. In 2004, Warner-Lambert admitted to charges that it violated FDA regulations by promoting the drug for pain, psychiatric conditions, migraine, and other unapproved uses, and paid $430 million to resolve criminal and civil health care liability charges.[19][20] Today it is a mainstay drug for migraines, even though it was not approved for such use in 2004.[21]

Record fine in 2009 fraudulent promotion and bribery case

Pfizer in 2009 agreed to pay $2.3 billion to settle civil and criminal allegations that it had illegally marketed four drugs: Bextra, Geodon, Zyvox, and Lyrica with the intent to defraud or mislead by promoting the drugs for non-approved uses; this marks Pfizer’s fourth such settlement in the previous decade. Pharmacia and Upjohn, a Pfizer subsidiary, agreed to plead guilty to violating the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act for illegal promotion of Bextra, a federal felony. The settlement is also the largest health care fraud settlement ever, and included the largest ever criminal penalty fine, $1.3 billion. Pfizer admitted it had illegally promoted the drugs and caused false claims to be submitted to Medicare and Medicaid for uses that were not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. In addition to the False Claims Act the Anti-Kickback Act [22] was invoked. Pfizer has entered a corporate integrity agreement and will be required to make substantial disclosures, on its website, about its activities, including payments to doctors. The settlement also addressed allegations that Pfizer paid bribes to health care providers as inducements to prescribe the four drugs. Six whistle-blowers will receive $102 million; one, John Kopchinski, a former sales representative, will receive $50 million..[3][4][23]

Nigeria

In 1996, an outbreak of measles, cholera, and bacterial meningitis occurred in Nigeria. Pfizer representatives traveled to Kano, Nigeria to assist in treating the affected population. An experimental antibiotic, trovafloxacin, was administered to approximately 200 children. Local Kano officials report that more than 50 children died from infection, while many others developed mental and physical deformities.[24] In 2001, families of the children, as well as the governments of Kano and Nigeria, filed lawsuits regarding the treatment[25]. According to the lawsuits, Pfizer administered the trovafloxacin (now marketed as Trovan) without parental consent. The lawsuits also accuse Pfizer of using the outbreak to perform unapproved human testing, as well as allegedly under-dosing a control group being treated with traditional antibiotics in order to skew the results of the trial in favor of Trovan. Pfizer denied these claims, and subsequently produced an approval letter for testing from the Nigerian Ethics Committee; the Nigerian government claims it is a fake.[26]

In 2007, Pfizer published a Statement of Defense letter.[27] The letter makes several claims which deserve mention:

18 million in Nigerian Naira (NGN) in donations.

The figure in NGN is approximately $216,000 in 1996 US dollars (USD).[28]

The drug’s oral form was presented as safer and easier to administer.

The more likely reason for Pfizer’s insistence on the oral form is the result of testing trovafloxacin intravenously in 1995, which found that the drug precipitated in saline, making it ineffective in patients receiving IV fluids. This is inferred from an FDA communication[29] to ex-CEO William C. Steere, regarding Trovan’s compatibility with saline etc., which was omitted from Trovan’s labeling until January 1999. The administration of Trovan saved lives according to the company.

According to the figures given by their own defense, 94.4% of patients receiving Trovan survived, while only 89.3% of untreated Nigerians survived. This is not a statistically significant difference, i.e. the success of the drug was negligible and possibly circumstantial.

No unusual side effects, unrelated to meningitis, were observed after 4 weeks.

In June 1999, the FDA released a public health statement warning against the use of Trovan except in life-or-death situations, due to high risk of liver failure. In some cases, liver damage occurred after only two days of treatment.[30]

Research and development

Pfizer’s human research and development organization is headquartered in New London, CT while their animal health research and development organization is headquartered in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The company has R&D labs in the following locations: Groton, Connecticut; Sandwich, England; La Jolla, California; Cambridge, Massachusetts; Kalamazoo, Michigan; St. Louis, Missouri. In La Jolla, Pfizer has 1,000 people with plans to create cancer drugs because they are so expensive, a departure from the company’s cardiovascular specialties.[31]

Spending $8.1 billion in research & development (R&D) in 2007, Pfizer has the industry’s largest pharmaceutical R&D organization: Pfizer Global Research and Development.[32]

In 2007, Pfizer announced plans to close or sell on the Loughbeg API facility, located at Loughbeg, Ringaskiddy Co.Cork Ireland by mid to end of 2008

In 2007, Pfizer announced plans to completely close the Ann Arbor, Nagoya and Amboise Research facilities by the end of 2008, eliminating 2,160 jobs and idling the $300-million dollar Michigan facility, which had seen millions of dollars of expansion in recent years.[33]

On June 18, 2007 Pfizer announced it will move the Sandwich, England Animal Health Research (VMRD) division to Kalamazoo, Michigan.[2]

Pipeline:

* dimebon
* tanezumab

Environmental record

According to the EPA, Pfizer is among the top ten companies in America with the most numerous emissions sources. [34] A landfill and two wastewater lagoons in Ledyard, CT near the Pfizer plant in Groton, Connecticut, are a source of groundwater pollution in the area. According to the Connecticut Department of Environmnetal Protection (CT DEP), the Pfizer site is active under the CT DEP Site Remediation program.[35] In June 2002, a chemical explosion at the Groton plant injured seven people and caused the evacuation of over 100 homes in the surrounding area.[36]
Pfizer has provided funding to the Competitive Enterprise Institute[36]
Employment and diversity

Pfizer received a 100% rating on the Corporate Equality Index released by the Human Rights Campaign starting in 2004, the third year of the report. In 2007, Pfizer’s Canadian division was named one of Canada’s Top 100 Employers, as published in Maclean’s magazine, the only research-based pharmaceutical company to receive this honor.[37] In 2008, there was controversy, including inquiries from members of Congress, around Pfizer’s practice of replacing US workers with H-1b guest workers[38]

AIDS involvement

Pfizer has been involved in controversies over the medicine Diflucan (generic name fluconazole). In 1998, a campaign by Thai public health groups led to the elimination of the Pfizer monopoly on selling fluconazole in Thailand, and the price of the antifungal drug decreased from 200 baht to 6.5 baht in nine months, vastly expanding access to the medicine for AIDS patients. Faced with pressure for compulsory licenses to the Pfizer patent on this drug, Pfizer later established a program for limited access to the medicine in Africa.[39]

In the United States, 46 percent of all new HIV/AIDS cases occur in the South. From 2003–2006 the Pfizer Foundation has funded 23 innovative HIV/AIDS prevention programs and strengthened the capacity of community-based organizations to reach and serve their communities. [40] Since 2003, Pfizer has committed a $3 Million grant toward supporting the Southern HIV/AIDS Prevention Initiative.

However, there are criticisms of the way Pfizer is testing its AIDS drug. The European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG), collection of activists from 31 European Countries,[41] said the design of the trial for Pfizer’s CCR5 inhibitor Maraviroc (previously known as UK-427,857) is putting people with HIV infection at unnecessary risk of developing AIDS. [42]

On June 20, 2007, Maraviroc received an approvable letter from the FDA advisory board. The letter was a product of expedited review of the novel HIV compound.

In 2001, Pfizer asked the U.S. government to pressure the Brazilian government against issuing compulsory licenses for the patents on the AIDS drug nelfinavir.

AIDS drugs manufactured by Pfizer

* Viracept (nelfinavir mesylate)
* Selzentry/Celsentri (maraviroc)
* Rescriptor (delavirdine mesylate)

See also

* Peter Rost
* Viking Bjork

Notes and references

1. ^ Pfizer, Inc. Financial Review . Pfizer, Inc.. August 12, 2009. http://media.pfizer.com/files/annualreport/2008/financial/financial2008.pdf. Retrieved 2009-04-23.
2. ^ Company Profile for Pfizer Inc (PFE) . http://zenobank.com/index.php?symbol=PFE&page=quotesearch. Retrieved 2008-10-01.
3. ^ a b Harris, Gardiner (September 2, 2009). Pfizer Pays $2.3 Billion to Settle Marketing Case . The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/business/03health.html.
4. ^ a b Johnson, Carrie (3 September 2009). In Settlement, A Warning To Drugmakers: Pfizer to Pay Record Penalty In Improper-Marketing Case . Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/02/AR2009090201449_pf.html.
5. ^ Andrew Ross Sorkin and Duff Wilson (January 26, 2009). Pfizer Agrees to Pay $68 Billion for Rival Drug Maker Wyeth . New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/business/26drug.html.
6. ^ a b Kenneth T. Jackson: The Encyclopedia of New York City: The New York Historical Society; Yale University Press; 1995. P. 895.
7. ^ Johnson & Johnson to Buy Pfizer Unit . MoneyNews.com. June 26, 2006. http://www.newsmax.com/money/archives/articles/2006/6/26/082230.cfm. Retrieved 2007-07-19.
8. ^ U-M to buy Pfizer’s former Ann Arbor property, University of Michigan press release, 18 December 2008. Accessed 25 February 2009.
9. ^ Pfizer (2003). Annual Review 2003. Annual Report.
10. ^ Schlessinger, Joseph (2005). SU11248: Genesis of a New Cancer Drug . The Scientist 19(7):17-24. (subscription required)
11. ^ Pfizer Agrees to Pay $68 Billion for Rival Drug Maker Wyeth By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN and DUFF WILSON Published: January 25, 2009 – The New York Times
12. ^ The Pfizer-Wyeth Deal Worst-Case Scenario By Jim Edwards | January 23rd, 2009 – BNET
13. ^ Pfizer Shares Plummet on Loss of a Promising Heart Drug By ALEX BERENSON and ANDREW POLLACK Published: December 5, 2006 – New York Times report
14. ^ Berenson, Alex (December 3, 2006). Pfizer Ends Studies on Drug for Heart Diseas . The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/03/health/03pfizer.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin. Retrieved 2006-12-03.
15. ^ Theresa Agovino (Associated Press) (December 3, 2006). Pfizer ends cholesterol drug development . Yahoo News. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061203/ap_on_he_me/pfizer_cholesterol_drug_5&printer=1. Retrieved 2006-12-03. Each study arm (torcetrapib + Lipitor vs. Lipitor alone) had 7500 patients enrolled; 51 deaths were observed in the Lipitor alone arm, while 82 deaths occurred in the torcetrapib + Lipitor arm.
16. ^ Prescription Pharmaceuticals and Consumer Health Care (Over-the-Counter) Products by Pfizer . Pfizer Inc. http://www.pfizer.com/do/index.html. Retrieved 2005-03-27.
17. ^ [www.quigleyreorg.com Quigleyreorg.com]
18. ^ Michael A. Steinman, MD; Lisa A. Bero, PhD; Mary-Margaret Chren, MD; and C. Seth Landefeld, MD (15 Aug 2006). Narrative Review: The Promotion of Gabapentin: An Analysis of Internal Industry Documents . Annals of Internal Medicine 145 (4): 284–293. PMID 16908919. http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/abstract/145/4/284. Retrieved 2006-08-14.
19. ^ Jane E. Henney, MD (15 Aug 2006). Editorial: Safeguarding Patient Welfare: Who’s In Charge? . Annals of Internal Medicine 145 (4): 305–307. PMID 16908923. http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/145/4/305?etoc. Retrieved 2006-08-14.
20. ^ US Department of Justice Press Release: Warner-Lambert to pay $430 million to resolve criminal and civil health care liability charges Retrieved 14 August 2006
21. ^ Mathew, NT; Rapoport A, Saper J, Magnus L, Klapper J,hello Ramadan N, Stacey B, Tepper S (2001). Efficacy of gabapentin in migraine prophylaxis . Headache 41 (2): 119–28. doi:10.1046/j.1526-4610.2001.111006119.x. PMID 11251695. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=11251695&itool=pubmed_citation. Retrieved 2009-01-12.
22. ^ Compliance Readiness – Law Firms The False Claims Act & The Anti-Kickback Act – A Potent Combination Against The Health Care Industry And Growing Even Stronger? article by Shannon S. Quill, Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, LLP, October 01, 2006 on metrocorpcounsel.com, accessed February 3, 2009
23. ^ Pfizer agrees record fraud fine . BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8234533.stm.
24. ^ BBC NEWS | Africa | Anger at deadly Nigerian drug trials
25. ^ BBC News | BUSINESS | Nigerians sue Pfizer over test deaths
26. ^ Panel Faults Pfizer in ’96 Clinical Trial In Nigeria – washingtonpost.com
27. ^ http://www.pfizer.com/files/news/trovan_statement_defense_summary.pdf
28. ^ FXHistory – Historical Currency Exchange Rates
29. ^ http://www.fda.gov/CDER/warn/dec98/020760_war_ltr.pdf
30. ^ Trovan Information
31. ^ Pollack, Andrew (September 1, 2009). For Profit, Industry Seeks Cancer Drugs . The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/health/research/02cancerdrug.html. Retrieved 2009-09-03.
32. ^ http://www.pfizer.com/investors/financial_reports/financial_reports_annualreview_2007.jsp
33. ^ Pfizer’s cuts blindside Ann Arbor workers, Kalamazoo Gazette, Sunday, January 23, 2007.
34. ^ What’s Happening at KLD
35. ^ Find New England Sites – PFIZER, INC
36. ^ a b The tempest – Washingtonpost.com
37. ^ Reasons for Selection, 2007 Canada’s Top 100 Employers . http://www.eluta.ca/einfo?en=Pfizer+Canada+Inc.&ri=6a24852a7f1d493ca1615bbec1e4e6aa&rk=2530d7bedc69eed8a38cea9bbe668b30.
38. ^ Pfizer’s American Workers Training Their Replacements . http://blog.vdare.com/archives/2008/11/10/pfizers-american-workers-training-their-replacements.
39. ^ Sithole, Emelia (2001-02-21). S.Africa okays Pfizer AIDS drug distribution . Reuters NewMedia. http://ww4.aegis.org/news/re/2001/RE010226.html. Retrieved 2006-05-15.
40. ^ Global HIV/AIDS Partnerships: Southern HIV/AIDS Prevention Initiative . Pfizer. http://www.pfizer.com/pfizer/subsites/philanthropy/caring/global.health.hiv.southern.jsp. Retrieved 2006-05-15.
41. ^ European AIDS Treatment Group . http://www.eatg.org/. Retrieved 2006-05-15.
42. ^ Hirschler, Ben (2005-04-12). Activists attack ethics of Pfizer AIDS drug trial . AIDS Meds.com. http://www.aidsmeds.com/news/20050412ethc002.html. Retrieved 2006-05-15.

Notes

* “Nigeria: Court Adjourns Killer Drug Case Against Pfizer”. All Africa Global Media. 3 October 2007.
* “Value of Black Bodies”. BlackWomb: History, Culture, and Power. 6 June, 2007.
* “Double Standards in Nigerian Health”. The American. 26 June 2007.
* “Nigeria Sues Pfizer Over Child Drug Trial”. West Africa Review. 10 June 2007.
* “Pfizer Faces $8.5 Billion Suit Over Nigeria Drug Trial”. Yahoo News. 24 October 207.
* “Pfizer Statement Concerning 1996 Nigerian Clinical Study” Pfizer.

External links
Companies portal

* Pfizer Company Website – UK corporate site
* Pfizer Company Website – U.S. corporate site
o Company history
o Full product list
o Investor relations
o Corporate governance
o Philanthropy info.
* Yahoo – Pfizer Inc Company Profile
* Bugs and Drugs – article by Gunjan Sinha
* Boston Globe Pfizer Offers Discounts for the Uninsured
* Pfizer Settlement Clears Asbestos Litigation Law.com
* Pfizer’s savings program for people without prescription drug coverage Pfizer Helpful Answers
* Pfizer 4Q06 Earnings Press Release
* Barry Yeoman, Putting Science in the Dock, The Nation
* GlaxoSmithKline will overtake Pfizer to become world’s largest pharmaceutical company by 2012 URCH Publishing (Press Release)

v • d • e
Dow Jones Industrial Average components
Current
3M A Alcoa A American Express A AT&T A Bank of America A Boeing A Caterpillar A Chevron A Cisco Systems A The Coca-Cola Company A DuPont A ExxonMobil A General Electric A Hewlett-Packard A The Home Depot A Intel A IBM A Johnson & Johnson A JPMorgan Chase A Kraft Foods A McDonald’s A Merck & Co. A Microsoft A Pfizer A Procter & Gamble A The Travelers Companies A United Technologies Corporation A Verizon Communications A Wal-Mart A The Walt Disney Company
Selected former
Altria Group A American International Group A American Telephone & Telegraph A American Tobacco Company A Bethlehem Steel A Citigroup A Colorado Fuel and Iron A Eastman Kodak A General Foods A General Motors A Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company A Honeywell A International Paper A Johns-Manville A Nash Motors A Navistar International A North American Company A Owens-Illinois A Sears, Roebuck and Company A Union Carbide A United States Rubber Company A F. W. Woolworth Company

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer

***

Peter Rost
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Peter Rost may refer to:

* Peter Rost (doctor), former vice president of the drug company Pfizer
* Peter Rost (UK politician) (born 1930), British Conservative Party MP 1970–1992
* Peter Rost (handballer) (born 1951), German team handball player

Disambig gray.svg This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same personal name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Rost
Categories: Human name disambiguation pages

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Rost

***

Viking Björk
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Viking Bjork)
Viking Olov Björk (3 December 1918 – 18 February 2009) was a Swedish cardiac surgeon.

In 1968, he collaborated with American engineer Donald Shiley to develop the first monostrut tilting disc valve used to replace the aortic or mitral valve. [1]

The Bjork-Shiley heart valve was manufactured by Pfizer after they bought the Shiley company in 1979. In 1980 Björk wrote to Pfizer threatening to publish cases of valve failures — often fatal to the patients — unless corrective action was taken. This eventually led to long lawsuit that involved the recall of all existing valves and Pfizer allocating up to US$20 million to pay compensation.
Björk died on 18 February 2009.[2]

References

1. ^ H, Ahn; Kim KH, Kim DJ, Jeong DS (2007-12-22). Long-term experience with the Bjork-Shiley Monostrut tilting disc valve . PubMed. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18162723. Retrieved 2009-02-14.
2. ^ Obituary in Svenska Dagbladet, 22 February 2009

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_Bjork

***

Willowbrook State School
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Willowbrook State School was a state-supported institution for children with mental retardation located in central Staten Island in New York City from the 1930s until 1987.

The school which was designed for 4,000 and had a population of 6,000 in 1965. At the time it was the biggest state run institution for mentally retarded in the United States.[1] Conditions and questionable medical practices and experiments prompted Robert Kennedy to call it a snake pit. [2]
Public outcry eventually led to its closure in 1987 and civil rights legislation protecting the handicapped.

Its grounds are now the College of Staten Island.

Contents

* 1 History
o 1.1 Construction
o 1.2 Hepatitis Studies
o 1.3 More Scandals and Abuses
o 1.4 Closing the School
* 2 See also
* 3 References
History
Construction

In 1938, plans were formulated to build a facility for children with mental retardation on a 375 acres (1.52 km2) site in the Willowbrook section of Staten Island. Construction was completed in 1942, but instead of opening for its original purpose, it was converted into a United States Army hospital and named Halloran General Hospital, after the late Colonel Paul Stacey Halloran. After the war, proposals were introduced to turn the site over to the Veterans Administration, but in October, 1947 the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene opened its facility there as originally planned, and the institution was named Willowbrook State School.

Hepatitis Studies

Throughout the first decade of its operation, outbreaks of hepatitis were common at the school[citation needed], and this led to a highly controversial medical study being conducted there between 1963 and 1966 by medical researcher Saul Krugman, in which healthy children were intentionally inoculated, orally and by injection, with the virus that causes the disease, then monitored to gauge the effects of gamma globulin in combating it. A public outcry forced the study to be discontinued.

More Scandals and Abuses

Further problems plagued the institution: In early 1972, Geraldo Rivera, then an investigative reporter for television station WABC-TV in New York City, conducted a series of investigations at Willowbrook (on the heels of a previous series of articles in the Staten Island Advance and Staten Island Register newspapers), uncovering a host of deplorable conditions, including overcrowding, inadequate sanitary facilities, and physical and sexual abuse of residents by members of the school’s staff. Rivera later appeared on the nationally televised Dick Cavett Show with film of patients at the school.

The school was originally intended to house 2000 students, but around the time the scandals at the institution gained attention there were almost 5000 residents. This resulted in a class-action lawsuit being filed against the State of New York in federal court on March 17, 1972. A settlement in the case was reached on May 5, 1975, mandating reforms at the site, but several years would elapse before all of the violations were corrected. The publicity generated by the case was a major contributing factor to the passage of a federal law, called the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act of 1980.

Closing the School

In 1975, a Willowbrook Consent Decree was signed. This committed New York State to improve community placement for the now designated Willowbrook class .[3]

In 1983, the State of New York announced plans to close Willowbrook, which had been renamed the Staten Island Developmental Center in 1974. By the end of March 1986, the number of residents housed there had dwindled to 250 (down from 5,000 at the height of the scandal exposed by Rivera), and the last children left the grounds on September 17, 1987.

After the developmental center closed, the site became the focus of intense local debate about what should be done with the property. In 1989 a portion of the land was acquired by the City of New York, with the intent of using it to establish a new campus for the College of Staten Island, and the new campus opened at Willowbrook in 1993 (at the same time, one of CSI’s two other existing campuses, located in the island’s Sunnyside neighborhood, was closed and that site became the home of a new high school, Michael Petrides). At 0.8 square kilometres (200 acres), this campus is the largest maintained by the City University of New York.

The remaining 0.7 square kilometres (170 acres) of the state school’s original property, at the south end, is still under the administration of the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene, which maintains a research laboratory facility there called the Institute For Basic Research in Developmental Disorders.

On February 25, 1987, the Federal Court approved the Willowbrook 1987 Stipulation , which set forth guidelines for OMRDD that required OMRDD community placement for the Willowbrook Class .[3]

See also

* New Jersey State Hospital at Trenton
* Walter E. Fernald State School
* Developmental disability
* Tuskegee Syphilis Study
* Geraldo Rivera

References

1. ^ The Praeger Handbook of Special Education – by Alberto M. Bursztyn – Praeger Publishers; 1 edition (December 30, 2006) ISBN 0313332622
2. ^ [http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/archives/WillowbrookRG.htm A GUIDE TO WILLOWBROOK STATE SCHOOL RESOURCES AT OTHER INSTITUTIONS - csi.cuny.edu - Retrieved August 25, 2009
3. ^ a b Milestones in OMRDD's History, OMRDD, (2001-09-19). Retrieved on 2007-09-05.

Coordinates: 40E35?58?N 74E09?02?W? / ?40.59944EN 74.15056EW? / 40.59944; -74.15056
Flag of New York State of New York Psychiatric hospitals
Adult\Children Facilities

Bronx Psychiatric Center | Buffalo Psychiatric Center | Creedmoor Psychiatric Center (Queens Village) | Hudson River Psychiatric Center (Poughkeepsie) | Kingsboro Psychiatric Center (Brooklyn) | Manhattan Psychiatric Center | Pilgrim Psychiatric Center (Brentwood) | Rockland Psychiatric Center (Orangeburg) | Washington Heights Community Mental Health Center (Washington Heights)
Children's Facilities

Central New York Psychiatric Center (Marcy) | Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center (Ward's Island) | Mid-Hudson Forensic Psychiatric Center (New Hampton) | Rochester Regional Forensic Unit
Research Facilities

Nathan S. Kline Institute (Orangeburg) | New York State Psychiatric Institute (New York City)
Closed Facilities

Asylum on Blackwell's Island (New York City) | Bloomington Lunatic Asylum (Morningside Heights) | Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane (Buffalo) Central Islip Psychiatric Center (Central Islip) | Dannemora State Hospital (Dannemora) Now know as Clinton Correctional Facility | Gowanda State Hospital (Collins) | Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center (Dover Plains) | Hudson River State Hospital (Poughkeepsie) | Kings Park Psychiatric Center (Kings Park) | Letchworth Village Home for the Feeble Minded and Epileptics (Thiells) | Long Island Developmental Center (Melville) | Manhattan Children's Psychiatric Center | Matteawan State Hospital (Matteawan) Now known as Fishkill Correctional Facility | Middletown Psychiatric Center (Middletown) | Mohansic State Hospital (Yorktown Heights) | Newville State Hospital (Newville) | New York Asylum for Idiots (Syracuse) | New York State Inebriate Asylum (Binghamton) | Utica State Hospital | (Utica) | Western New York Institution for Deaf-Mutes (Rochester) | Willard State Hospital (Willard) | Willowbrook State School (Staten Island) Institution for children with mental retardation
Sanatorium

Loomis Sanatorium (Liberty) | Interpines Sanatorium (Goshen)
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willowbrook_State_School
Categories: 1942 establishments | Buildings and structures in Staten Island | Medical ethics | Human experimentation in the United States | Defunct hospitals in the United States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willowbrook_State_School

***

Remembering the man behind homeland security center

October 5, 2009 By JAMES BERNSTEIN james.bernstein@newsday.com

They had a memorial service Monday for Ken Morrelly, the president of the Long Island Forum for Technology and a leading figure in the Island's business community, who died last week.

The white hard hat with an American flag decal that Morrelly wore every day to oversee construction at the soon-to-be-opened homeland security center in Bethpage was placed atop a slim pole outside the facility, reminiscent of the way soldiers who have died in battle are memorialized.

About 50 construction workers lined up behind the pole, hats off. Shortly before noon, a hearse carrying the body of Morrelly, 64, drove slowly past what is formally known as the Applied Science Center of Innovation and Excellence in Homeland Security, being constructed at the old Plant 5 once owned by Grumman.

Morrelly, who died of a heart attack Thursday, was the guiding force behind the homeland security center.

He was everything to this project, said Ray Donnelly, LIFT's deputy executive director. He was the original conceiver.

The center is to open in about three months. Eight companies, including Northrop Grumman Corp., have already signed on as tenants. The companies are to work on technology to counter terrorist attacks.

There was a sense of irony as Morrelly's hearse drove past the site. He had moved the project ahead from the beginning and watched over it every step, but he would not be there to see it open.

To many college students, the idea of a career in the real estate industry would probably seem as appealing as study hall in the summer.

But Dannielle Schoepfer and Michelle Suconick, both 21-year-old Hofstra students, don't feel that way. They are among 12 Hofstra students selected for a brand new program organized by the Long Island Real Estate Group. The program, which began Friday, will expose the students to different aspects of the industry. They will visit six different management or development firms over the next few weeks, and get one college credit while doing so.

I never really thought about real estate, said Suconick, an international business major. But once she heard about the program, Suconick said, it sounded appealing.

Schoepfer, a marketing major, said her family owns property. To me, this is really interesting, the zoning [regulations] and what they make the properties into.

LIREG president David Einbinder said the program has never been done before. I don’t think college students understand how much is involved in real estate, Einbinder said.
Rob Merker, co-founder of the program called LIREG@Work, agreed many students may not think the industry is fascinating. But, he added, they may change their minds when they see an an idea can be taken from nothing and a building can be created that never existed before.

http://www.newsday.com/columnists/other-columnists/remembering-the-man-behind-homeland-security-center-1.1502556

***

GSA to reveal plans, update on new DHS headquarters project

October 5, 2009 – 2:31pm

By Jason Miller
Executive Editor
FederalNewsRadio

Vendors wanting to get in on the $3.4 billion Homeland Security Department headquarters project should mark Oct. 26 on their calendars.

The General Services Administration will hold an industry day for all types of vendors in Washington to find out about the project at St. Elizabeth’s. GSA says there will be a separate industry day for technology vendors as well.

This one day event will provide an in depth discussion of the project’s development schedule, overview of the prospectus, GSA and DHS strategies for small business inclusion as prime and subcontractors, as well as a premiere networking opportunities for large and small business owners, GSA states in the recent notice on FedBizOpps.gov.

DHS last month broke ground on the Coast Guard’s new headquarters on St. Elizabeth’s campus.
And in August, GSA awarded a $435 million contract to design the site’s first phase-the new, 1.18 million-square-foot Coast Guard headquarters facility-to Clark Design Build, LLC.

—
On the Web:

FedBizOpps.gov — Industry Day notice for DHS headquarters

DHS — Coast Guard headquarters ground breaking press release

FederalNewsRadio — DHS marks new milestone with St. E’s campus groundbreaking

http://www.federalnewsradio.com/index.php?nid=35&sid=1778825

***

As the Feds Take Over, St. E’s Moves Further Into Shadow
A view of Washington from an elevated section of the old St. Elizabeths Hospital campus, which will house U.S. security operations.
A view of Washington from an elevated section of the old St. Elizabeths Hospital campus, which will house U.S. security operations. (By Gerald Martineau — The Washington Post)

By Philip Kennicott
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 10, 2009

Councilman Marion Barry was late, and Mayor Adrian Fenty even later, but both arrived in time to grab a golden shovel and turn a little earth on the lush green lawn of St. Elizabeths Hospital. And with that, ground was officially broken for the $3.4 billion headquarters of the Department of Homeland Security, a vast new federal complex that will be built on the quiet hilltop with spectacular views where once stood the city’s main hospital for the mentally ill.

Barry joked that most of the crowd — filled with Coast Guard uniforms and suits from the DHS and the General Services Administration — probably needed a GPS to find it. Which was a sly reference to what many of his Ward 8 constituents, also in the crowd, were thinking: that the federal government was finally investing, in a big way, east of the Anacostia River, in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

Barry thanked Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent who helped create the grab-bag department of security-related agencies after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. And apropos of nothing, he reminisced about the days of the civil rights struggle, when he and the district’s congressional delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, had to fight those mean, mean white people.

They didn’t amen that one, as they did some other remarks of the morning. In general, the mood was celebratory. Norton was ecstatic and noted the critical role of $162 million in stimulus funding in moving the project forward. Lieberman hailed the largest federal project built in the region since the Pentagon. And Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the new campus, which will be home to 14,000 employees when finished in 2016, will help her fledgling agency grow into a more cohesive entity with a unified culture.

But for others around the city, and around the country, the shovels of earth might as well have fallen on a coffin lid. After years of wrangling and public hearings, after complaints and impassioned pleas from historic-preservation groups and skeptical analysis from think tanks (the Brookings Institution has cast doubt on the economic benefits to Ward 8), the fight was over. What had begun in the 1850s as one of the country’s most innovative facilities for treating mental illness, and remains one of the city’s largest and most sylvan sites for development, is beginning the long, slow process of rebirth as a modern, Level 5 security complex, to be surrounded by double perimeter walls and all but closed forever to the public.

Richard Moe, head of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, didn’t attend the event, but found it all rather sad. We have been involved with this for at least six years, and we have constantly tried to make the case that they are trying to shoehorn too much square footage of new construction into a national landmark site, said Moe. The trust, he noted, did help reduce the amount of new building on the 176-acre site, and pressured the GSA to preserve and rehabilitate 52 of 62 historic buildings that are part of St. Elizabeths landmark designation.

But he’s still worried about the amount of parking that will be built and plans for an access road that have yet to be approved. Even though a backhoe with a grappler bucket was already tearing an old concrete building to shreds near the ceremonial tent, Moe thinks the groundbreaking may be premature.

Over the past years, as plans were made public and worked their way through the approval process, there was a recurring refrain from beyond the preservation community: St. Elizabeths could be something else. There was a proposal to make the west campus (the east campus is still in use for various city purposes) into the home of a university. Or to renovate it as a mixed-use urban village with housing and retail, an anchor to a revitalized Southeast neighborhood.

Although the site had been closed to most of the public during its many decades as a mental institution, there was a powerful cultural memory of its landscape and the magnificent views from the Point, an overlook with a sweeping vista of the city below. There was hope that a newly enlivened St. E’s, as it is known, would be a local amenity, a hub that could transform the distressed Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, and extend the booming development of the pre-crash years into a neighborhood where Barry says there is 35 percent unemployment.

Against that, there was pragmatism. No entity but the federal government had deep enough pockets to renovate and rebuild St. E’s, it was said. The longer the campus remained empty (the last outpatient treatment there ended in 2003), the more the buildings would deteriorate, perhaps past hope of revival.

On a tour of the campus last winter, GSA representatives pointed to the challenge of renovating the central building, where poet Ezra Pound was confined after cavorting with Italian Fascists during the Second World War. Much of the historic structure, a somber brick building with an imposing square tower where the hospital’s superintendent and his family once lived, is subdivided into small, dark rooms, each with load-bearing walls. To open up these cells into a free-flowing, contemporary office space will require expensive structural retrofitting.

The government was also looking for a large site, in or near the District, to consolidate some 35 DHS offices around the region. St. E’s made perfect sense. And now, with stimulus money burning a hole in the bureaucratic pocket, things are moving very quickly.

Norton spoke Wednesday as if that were all still true. She hailed a new day, the first time in memory that residents and visitors will be able to visit the Point, the most panoramic view of the city.

This is where an architectural obituary ends with a bland statement of it remains to be seen . . . But St. E’s deserves better than that. So here’s a test, to be taken 10 or 15 years from now.
Does anyone walk outside its gates to eat lunch? Have property values risen near the site? Do the same people live there? Did GSA in fact save and repair all 52 buildings as planned? Has there ever been an open performance in the old theater? Is the Civil War cemetery on anyone’s tourist map? Do people gather at sunset on the Point and watch the light fade over the city? If you say Ezra Pound to anyone leaving the central building, is there a glimmer of recognition?

Or have all the intangibles of cultural landscape been lost?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/09/AR2009090902436.html?hpid=moreheadlines

***

Database of radiological incidents and related events–Johnston’s Archive

Radiation accidents and other events causing radiation casualties–tabulated data
compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston
last updated 29 January 2009

This is a listing (incomplete) of radiation accidents and other events (e.g. intentional acts) that resulted in acute radiation exposures to humans sufficient to cause casualties. For sources and for details on specific events see individual pages at Database of Radiological Incidents and Related Events or follow links in table.

Notes and codes:

* code: coding for type of accident. Codes:
o A — radiation accident (unspecified or other)
o A-R — accident involving nuclear reactor
o A-NR — accident involving naval reactor
o A-PR — accident involving power reactor
o AC — criticality accident
o AC-RR — criticality accident involving research reactor
o A-a — accelerator accident
o A-d — accidental dispersal of radioactive material
o A-i — accidental internal exposure to radioisotope
o A-ir — irradiator accident
o A-mr — medical radiotherapy accident
o A-mx — medical x-ray accident
o A-os — orphaned source accident
o A-osd — accidental dispersal of orphaned source
o A-rg — radiography accident
o A-s — accidental exposure to source
o A-x — x-ray accident
o I-a — intentional exposure of individual (assault)
o I-c — criminal act (unspecified)
o I-s — intentional self-exposure
o I-t — exposures resulting from theft of source
o NT — nuclear weapon test
o NW — combat use of nuclear weapon
* highest dose: highest dose to any individual; in cases of more than one casualty, most doses were significantly lower. Codes:
o L — casualties involving localized exposures
o N — the individual(s) receiving the highest dose died from effects other than ionizing radiation
* deaths: figures are for ionizing radiation-induced deaths only; parenthetical figures include those from other effects (e.g. thermal and mechanical results of explosions). Code:
o F — indicates fetal deaths.
* public: codes indicating case involved known exposure to the public (i.e. non-employees). Codes:
o c — criminal acts in which only perpetrators were injured
o m — medical, exposure of patients
o x — exposures among public
* source: radioisotope involved, if known. Codes:
o * NW — nuclear detonations
o * — criticality accidents
* release: radioactive release into the environment, if any; for point events (e.g. criticality accidents or nuclear detonations), activity is for 1 hour after event.

date    location/link to entry    type of accident/event    code    highest dose (rem)    deaths    injuries    public    source    release
~ 1896    Chicago, Illinois, USA    radiography overexposure    A-mx    L    0    1    m
~ 1905    Washington, District of Columbia, USA    radiography overexposure    A-mx    L    0    1    m
1920 – 1926    United States    ingestion of radioisotope, chronic injury    A-i         9    70         Ra-226
06 Aug 1945    Hiroshima, Japan    combat use of nuclear weapon    NW    (~80,000–N)    45,000 (130,000)    60,000? (86,000)    x    * NW
09 Aug 1945    Nagasaki, Japan    combat use of nuclear weapon    NW    (~200,000–N)    20,000 (65,000)    50,000? (75,000)    x    * NW
21 Aug 1945    Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA    criticality accident with plutonium assembly    AC    510    1    1         * Pu
21 May 1946    Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA    criticality accident with plutonium assembly    AC    2,100    1    1         * Pu
05 Jul 1950    Chelyabinsk-40, Ozersk, Russia, USSR    accident at nuclear reactor site    A    ?    0    5
19 Aug 1950    Mayak Enterprise, Russia, USSR    accident at radiochemical plant    A    ?    0    1
13 Sep 1950    Mayak Enterprise, Russia, USSR    accident at radiochemical plant    A    ?    0    1
20 Sep 1950    Mayak Enterprise, Russia, USSR    accident at radiochemical plant    A    ?    0    1
28 Sep 1950    Chelyabinsk-40, Ozersk, Russia, USSR    accident at nuclear reactor site    A    ?    0    1
Jan 1951    Chelyabinsk-40, Ozersk, Russia, USSR    accident involving nuclear reactor    A-R    ?    0    1
Jul 1951    Chelyabinsk-40, Ozersk, Russia, USSR    radiation accident    A    ?    0    1
01 Oct 1951    Mayak Enterprise, Russia, USSR    accident at nuclear reactor site    A    ?    1    3
02 Dec 1951    Mayak Enterprise, Russia, USSR    accident involving nuclear reactor    A-R    ?    0    3
15 Dec 1951    Mayak Enterprise, Russia, USSR    accident at nuclear reactor site    A    ?    0    2
04 Mar 1952    Mayak Enterprise, Russia, USSR    accident involving nuclear reactor    A-R    ?    0    1
02 Jun 1952    Argonne National Laboratory, Illinois, USA    criticality accident with uranium    AC    136    0    2         * U
04 Jul 1952    Mayak Enterprise, Russia, USSR    accident involving nuclear reactor    A-R    ?    0    2
20 Sep 1952    Mayak Enterprise, Russia, USSR    accident at radiochemical plant    A    ?    0    1
1952    Chelyabinsk-40, Ozersk, Russia, USSR    radiation accident    A    ?    0    3
04 Jan 1953    Mayak Enterprise, Russia, USSR    accidental internal exposure to radioisotope    A-i    ?    2    0         H-3
15 Mar 1953    Mayak Enterprise, Russia, USSR    criticality accident with plutonium solution    AC    1,000    0    3         * Pu
09 Sep 1953    Moscow, Russia, USSR    criticality accident    AC    ?    0    4
18 Sep 1953    Mayak Enterprise, Russia, USSR    accident involving nuclear reactor    A-R    ?    0    2
13 Oct 1953    Mayak Enterprise, Russia, USSR    accident involving nuclear reactor    A-R    ?    0    5
28 Dec 1953    Mayak Enterprise, Russia, USSR    accident involving nuclear reactor    A-R    ?    0    11
1953    Mayak Enterprise, Russia, USSR    accidental internal exposure to radioisotope    A-i    ?    0    2
01 Mar 1954    Bikini Atoll, Pacific Ocean    fallout from atmospheric nuclear test    NT    300    1    93+         * NW
11 Mar 1954    Obninsk, Russia, USSR    criticality accident    AC    ?    0    1
28 Jun 1954    Arzamas-16, Sarov, Russia, USSR    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    1    1         Po-210
14 Sep 1954    Totsk range, Russia, USSR    nuclear test    NT    ?    0    ?         * NW
06 Nov 1954    Mayak Enterprise, Russia, USSR    accident at radiochemical plant    A    ?    0    1
24 Jan 1955    Moscow, Russia, USSR    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    0    1         Sb-124
03 Jun 1955    Mayak Enterprise, Russia, USSR    accident at nuclear reactor site    A    ?    0    4
27 Jul 1955    Idaho RTA, Idaho Falls, Idaho, USA    accidental exposure to source    A-s    L    0    1
22 Dec 1955    Mayak Enterprise, Russia, USSR    accident at radiochemical plant    A    ?    0    1
21 Apr 1957    Mayak Enterprise, Russia, USSR    criticality accident with uranium solution    AC    3,000    1    10         * U
Jun 1957    Moscow, Russia, USSR    accelerator accident    A-a    ?    0    1
29 Sep 1957    Chelyabinsk, Russia, USSR    chemical explosion in stored nuclear wastes    A-d    150    0    0
02 Jan 1958    Mayak Enterprise, Russia, USSR    criticality accident with uranium solution    AC    6,000    3    1         * U
16 Jun 1958    Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA    criticality accident with uranium solution    AC    460    0    5         * U
15 Oct 1958    Vinca, Yugoslavia    criticality accident at research reactor    AC-RR    430    1    5         * U
30 Dec 1958    Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA    criticality accident with plutonium solution    AC    12,000    1    0         * Pu
08 Mar 1960    Lockport, New York, USA    x-ray accident    A-x    1000    0    2
08 Jun 1960    Moscow, Russia, USSR    intentional overexposure    I-s    1,750    1    0    c    Cs-137
13 Oct 1960    K-8 submarine, Barents Sea    reactor leak    A-NR    200    0    3
1960    USSR    ingestion of radioactive material    A-i    L    1    0         Ra
1960    Kazakhstan, USSR    radiation accident    A    ?    0    1
03 Jan 1961    SL-1 reactor, Idaho RTA, Idaho, USA    criticality excursion with uranium research reactor    AC-RR    (~350–N)    3    0         * U
20 Mar 1961    Moscow, Russia, USSR    radiation accident    A    ?    0    1         Co-60
26 Jun 1961    Moscow, Russia, USSR    criticality accident    AC    ?    0    4
04 Jul 1961    K-19 submarine, North Atlantic    reactor accident    A-NR    6,000    8    31
14 Jul 1961    Siberian Chemical Combine, Russia, USSR    criticality accident with uranium    AC    200    0    1         * U
30 Sep 1961    Moscow, Russia, USSR    radiation accident    A    ?    0    1
1961    Switzerland    accidental exposure to radioisotope    A    300    1    2         H-3
1961    Plymouth, United Kingdom    x-ray accident    A-mx    L    0    11?    m
06 Feb 1962    Moscow, Russia, USSR    x-ray accident    A-x    ?    0    1
21 Mar 1962 – Aug 1962    Mexico City, Mexico    lost radiography source    A-os    5,200    4    1    x    Co-60
07 Apr 1962    Hanford, Washington, USA    criticality accident with plutonium solution    AC    110    0    2         * Pu
10 Apr 1962    Moscow, Russia, USSR    radiation accident    A    ?    0    1
02 Nov 1962    Obninsk, Russia, USSR    criticality accident    AC    ?    0    2
11 Jan 1963    Sanlian, PRC    lost source    A-os    8,000    2    4         Co-60
11 Mar 1963    Arzamas-16, Sarov, Russia, USSR    criticality accident with plutonium assembly    AC    550    0    2         * Pu
28 Jun 1963    Sverdlovsk, Russia, USSR    radiation accident    A    ?    0    3
26 Jul 1963    Chelyabinsk-40, Ozersk, Russia, USSR    radiation accident    A    ?    0    1
1963    Chelyabinsk-40, Ozersk, Russia, USSR    accident involving nuclear reactor    A-R    ?    0    1
1963    Chelyabinsk-40, Ozersk, Russia, USSR    radiation accident    A    ?    0    1
24 Jul 1964    Wood River, Rhode Island, USA    criticality accident with uranium solution    AC    10,000    1    1         * U
1964    FR Germany    accidental exposure to radioisotope    A    1,000    1    3         H-3
12 Feb 1965    K-11 submarine, Severodvinsk, USSR    accident during refueling of naval reactor    A-NR    ?    0    7              ?
29 May 1965    Moscow, Russia, USSR    accelerator accident    A-a    ?    0    1
30 Dec 1965    Mol, Belgium    criticality accident with uranium in water    AC    500    0    1         * U
1965    Illinois, USA    irradiator accident    A-ir    L    0    1
20 May 1966    Moscow, Russia, USSR    radiation accident    A    ?    0    1
11 Jun 1966    Kaluga, Russia, USSR    x-ray accident    A-x    ?    0    1
1966    Chelyabinsk-40, Ozersk, Russia, USSR    radiation accident    A    ?    0    1
15 Apr 1967    Frunze, Kirgyzstan, USSR    x-ray accident    A-x    ?    0    1
24 May 1967    Moscow, Russia, USSR    x-ray accident    A-x    ?    0    1
May 1967    New Delhi, India    accidental exposure to source    A-s    L    0    1         Co-60
04 Oct 1967    Harmarville, Pennsylvania, USA    irradiator accident    A-ir    600    0    3
09 Dec 1967    Moscow, Russia, USSR    x-ray accident    A-x    ?    0    1
22 Dec 1967    Moscow, Russia, USSR    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    0    1         Sc-46
~ 1965 – 1968    Pennsylvania, USA    attempt to self-induce abortion using x-ray machine    I-s    ?    0    1    c
05 Apr 1968    Chelyabinsk-70, Russia, USSR    criticality accident with uranium in assembly    AC    3,000    2    0         * U
May 1968    Moscow, Russia, USSR    x-ray accident    A-x    ?    0    1
03 May 1968 – Jun 1968    La Plata, Argentina    lost source    A-os    L    0    1         Cs-137
24 May 1968    K-27 submarine, Barents Sea    naval reactor accident    A-NR    ?    9    83
27 Jun 1968    Arzamas-16, Sarov, Russia, USSR    accidental internal exposure to radioisotope    A-i    ?    0    2         Po-210
01 Aug 1968    Wisconsin, USA    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    ~450    1    0    m    Au-198
18 Sep 1968    FR Germany    accidental exposure to source    A-s    100    0    1
07 Dec 1968    Moscow, Russia, USSR    x-ray accident    A-x    ?    0    1
10 Dec 1968    Mayak Enterprise, Russia, USSR    criticality accident with plutonium solution    AC    2,450    1    1         * Pu
02 Jan 1969    Moscow, Russia, USSR    x-ray accident    A-x    ?    0    1
20 Jan 1969    Obninsk, Russia, USSR    accident involving nuclear reactor    A-R    ?    0    2
11 Feb 1969    Moscow, Russia, USSR    accelerator accident    A-a    ?    0    1
11 Mar 1969    Melekes, Russia, USSR    radiation accident    A    ?    0    1         Co-60
22 Apr 1969    Russia, USSR    accident at nuclear reactor site    A    ?    0    2
07 May 1969    Voronezh, Russia, USSR    accident involving nuclear reactor    A-R    ?    0    2
20 Sep 1969    Scotland, United Kingdom    accidental exposure to radiography source    A-rg    L    0    1         Ir-192
24 Sep 1969    Tomsk-7, Seversk, Russia, USSR    radiation accident    A    ?    0    1
13 Oct 1969    Moscow, Russia, USSR    x-ray accident    A-x    ?    0    1
13 Oct 1969    Russia, USSR    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    1         Ir-192
14 Oct 1969    Novaya Zemlya, Russia, USSR    venting from underground nuclear test    NT    80    0    ?         * NW
24 Nov 1969    Novomoskovsk, Russia, USSR    radiation accident    A    ?    0    3         Cs-137
20 Dec 1969    Moscow, Russia, USSR    x-ray accident    A-x    ?    0    1
1969    Moscow, Russia, USSR    x-ray accident    A-x    ?    0    1
1969    USSR    radiation accident    A    ?    0    1
1969    Chelyabinsk-40, Ozersk, Russia, USSR    radiation accident    A    ?    0    1
18 Jan 1970    Sormovo, Russia, USSR    construction accident on submarine nuclear reactor    A-NR    ?    3    2
04 Feb 1970    Kiev, Ukraine, USSR    possible criticality accident    AC    ?    0    1
13 Feb 1970    Russia, USSR    radiation accident    A    ?    0    1         Co-60
15 Apr 1970    Moscow, Russia, USSR    accelerator accident    A-a    ?    0    1
23 Jun 1970 – 25 Jun 1970    Australia    x-ray accident    A-x    L    0    2
Sep 1970    Chelyabinsk, Russia, USSR    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    0    1         Cs-137
04 Feb 1971    United States    irradiator accident    A-ir    ~260    0    1         Co-60
15 Feb 1971    Kurtchatov, Russia, USSR    criticality accident with uranium    AC    330    0    3         * U
Mar 1971    Tula, Russia, USSR    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    0    1         Cs-137
26 May 1971    Kurtchatov, Russia, USSR    criticality accident with uranium in water    AC    6,000    2    2         * U
Sep 1971    Voronezh, Russia, USSR    radiation accident    A    ?    0    1
05 Dec 1971    Arkhangelsk region, USSR    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    0    3         Cs-137
1971    Chiba, Japan    lost source    A-os    130    0    3         Ir-192
1971    Ufa, Russia, USSR    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    0    1         Cs-137
29 Feb 1972    Sichuan, PRC    irradiator accident    A-ir    147    0    1         Co-60
31 Mar 1972    Moscow, Russia, USSR    x-ray accident    A-x    ?    0    1
8 Apr 1972 – Oct 1972    Harris county, Texas, USA    intentional exposure to individual    I-a    L    0    1    x    Cs-137
Jun 1972    Moscow, Russia, USSR    x-ray accident    A-x    ?    0    1
Jul 1972    India    x-ray accident    A-x    L    0    1
04 Oct 1972    Moscow, Russia, USSR    x-ray accident    A-x    ?    0    1
09 Oct 1972    Primorsky region, Russia, USSR    criminal act using radioactive source    I-c    ?    0    1    x    Ir-192
22 Dec 1972    Irkutsk, Russia, USSR    x-ray accident    A-x    ?    0    1
Dec 1972    Wuhan, PRC    medical radiation accident    A-s    245    0    1+    m    Co-60
1972    Bulgaria    self-inflicted radiation exposure    I-s    L    1    0    c    Cs-137
11 Jan 1973    Moscow, Russia, USSR    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    0    1         Co-60
17 Mar 1973    Odessa, Ukraine, USSR    criminal act using radioactive source    I-c    ?    0    1    x    Co-60
Mar 1973    Kaliningrad, Russia, USSR    x-ray accident    A-x    ?    0    1
Apr 1973    Moscow, Russia, USSR    x-ray accident    A-x    ?    0    1
26 Jul 1973    Elektrogorsk, Moscow region, Russia, USSR    radiation accident    A    ?    0    1         Co-60
05 Sep 1973    Khokhol, Vladimir region, Russia, USSR    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    0    4         Cs-137
Dec 1973    Donetsk, Ukraine, USSR    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    0    1         Cs-137
09 Jan 1974    Novosibirsk, Russia, USSR    x-ray accident    A-x    ?    0    1
24 May 1974    Tomsk-7, Seversk, Russia, USSR    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    0    1         Rh-106
31 May 1974    Semipalatinsk test site, Kazakhstan, USSR    venting from underground nuclear test    NT    150    0    100    x?    * NW
Jun 1974    Parsippany, New Jersey, USA    irradiator accident    A-ir    400    0    1         Co-60
09 Aug 1974    India    x-ray accident    A-x    L    0    1
24 Oct 1974    Perm’, Russia, USSR    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    0    1         Co-60
15 Dec 1974    Lipetsk, Russia, USSR    criminal act using radioactive source    I-c    ?    0    2    x    Cs-137
1974    Sverdlovsk, Russia, USSR    x-ray accident    A-x    ?    0    1
1974 – 1976    Columbus, Ohio, USA    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L    10    88    m    Co-60
20 Jun 1975    Kazan’, Russia, USSR    radiation accident    A    ?    0    2         Co-60
11 Jul 1975    Sverdlovsk, Russia, USSR    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    1    2         Co-60
1975    Tucuman, Argentina    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L    0    2    m    Co-60
1975    Rossendorf, GDR    accidental exposure to source    A-s    L    0    1
1975    Halle, GDR    x-ray accident    A-x    L    0    1
1975    FR Germany    x-ray accident    A-x    ~100    0    1
1975    FR Germany    x-ray accident    A-x    L    0    1
1975    FR Germany    x-ray accident    A-x    L    0    1
1975    Iraq    radiography accident    A-rg    L    0    1         Ir-192
13 May 1975    Brescia, Lombardia, Italy    food irradiator accident    A-ir    1,200    1    0         Co-60
Mar 1976    Moscow, Russia, USSR    x-ray accident    A-x    ?    0    1
12 Jul 1976    Moscow, Russia, USSR    irradiator accident    A-ir    400    0    1         Co-60
22 Jul 1976    Melekes, Russia, USSR    radiation accident    A    ?    0    1
12 Nov 1976    Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA    radiography accident    A-rg    L    0    1         Ir-192
1976    FR Germany    x-ray accident    A-x    100    0    1
1976    Hanford, Washington, USA    accidental intake of radioisotope    A-i    L    0    1
? 1976    United States    fluoroscopy accidents    A-mx    L    0    2    m
08 Jan 1977    Sasolburg, Transvaal, South Africa    radiography accident    A-rg    116    0    1         Ir-192
01 Mar 1977    Obninsk, Russia, USSR    possible criticality accident    AC    ?    0    1
05 Mar 1977    Kiev, Ukraine, USSR    accelerator accident    A-a    L    0    1
02 Apr 1977    Atucha, Argentina    accidental intake of radioisotope through wound    A-i    L    0    1
Sep 1977    Rockaway, New Jersey, USA    irradiator accident    A-ir    200    0    1         Co-60
1977    La Plata, Argentina    x-ray accident    A-x    L    0    1
1977    Pardubice, Czechoslovakia    radiography accident    A-rg    L    0    1         Ir-192
1977    FR Germany    radiography accident    A-rg    L    0    1         Ir-192
1977    Gyor, Hungary    accidental exposure to industrial source    A-rg    120    0    1
1977    Zona del Oleoducto, Peru    accidental exposure to source    A-s    200    0    3         Ir-192
1977    United Kingdom    accidental exposure to radioisotope    A    64    0    2         H-3
1977    United Kingdom    radiography accident    A-rg    L    0    1         Ir-192
07 Mar 1978    Primorsky region, Russia, USSR    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    1         Ir-192
04 Apr 1978    Primorsky region, Russia, USSR    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    1         Ir-192
05 May 1978    Setif, Algeria    lost radiography source    A-os    140    1 (+1 F)    6    x    Ir-192
03 Jun 1978    Protvino, Kaluga region, Russia, USSR    accelerator accident    A-a    ?    0    1
17 Jul 1978    West Monroe, Louisiana, USA    radiography accident    A-rg    L    0    1         Ir-192
21 Sep 1978    Moscow, Russia, USSR    accelerator accident    A-a    L    0    1
17 Oct 1978    Moscow, Russia, USSR    accident at nuclear reactor site    A    ?    0    1
25 Nov 1978    Udmurtia, Russia, USSR    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    1         Ir-192
13 Dec 1978    Siberian Chemical Combine, Russia, USSR    criticality accident with plutonium assembly    AC    250    0    1         * Pu
28 Dec 1978    K-171 submarine, Pacific Ocean    submarine reactor accident    A-NR    ?    3
1978    Buenos Aries, Argentina    accidental exposure to industrial source    A-s    L    0    1         Ir-192
1978    Nancy, France    accidental x-ray exposure    A-x    L    0    1
1978    Nykoping, Sweden    accidental exposure at research reactor    A    L    0    1
1978    United Kingdom    intentional self-exposure to radiography source    I-s    152    0    1    c    Ir-192
1978    United States    accelerator accident    A-a    L    0    1
08 May 1979    Sverdlovsk, Russia, USSR    accident involving nuclear reactor    A-R    ?    0    1
11 May 1979    La Hague, France    radiological assault    I-a    L    0    1    x
05 Jun 1979    Los Angeles, California, USA    lost source    A-os    L    0    5         Ir-192
20 Jul 1979    Leningrad, Russia, USSR    accelerator accident    A-a    ?    0    2
20 Sep 1979    Frunze, Kirgyzstan, USSR    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    1         Ir-192
01 Dec 1979    Semipalatinsk, Kazahkstan, USSR    radiation accident    A    ?    0    1         Co-60
1979    Parana, Argentina    x-ray accident    A-x    94    0    1
1979    Sokolov, Czechoslovakia    radiography accident    A-rg    L    0    1         Ir-192
1979    Montpelier, France    radiography accident    A-rg    L    0    1         Ir-192
1979    FR Germany    x-ray accident    A-x    L    0    1
1979    Freiberg, GDR    x-ray accident    A-x    L    0    1
1979    USSR nuclear submarine, unknown location    submarine reactor accident    A-NR    ?    0    4
23 May 1980    Chelyabinsk-40, Ozersk, Russia, USSR    x-ray accident    A-x    ?    0    1
01 Sep 1980    Leningrad, Russia, USSR    irradiator accident    A-ir    ?    1    0         Co-60
19 Sep 1980    Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia, USSR    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    1    0         Ir-192
Sep 1980    Shanghai, PRC    irradiator accident    A-ir    500    0    1         Co-60
03 Dec 1980    Vladivostok, Russia, USSR    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    1         Ir-192
1980    FR Germany    radiography accident    A-rg    L    0    2
1980    Bohlen, GDR    x-ray accident    A-x    L    0    1
1980    Rossendorf, GDR    accidental exposure to radioisotope    A    L    0    1         P-32
1980    Houston, Texas, USA    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L?    7    ?    m    Y-90
02 Apr 1981    Saintes, France    accidental exposure to medical source    A-s    L    0    3         Co-60
29 Jul 1981    Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA    intentional self-exposure to industrial radiography source    I-s    ?    1    0    c    Ir-192
1981    Buenos Aires, Argentina    accidental exposure to industrial source    A-s    L    0    2         Ir-192
1981    FR Germany    x-ray accident    A-x    L    0    1
1981    Berlin, GDR    x-ray accident    A-x    L    0    1
09 Jan 1982    Kramatorsk, Ukraine, USSR    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    2    0         Cs-137
15 Mar 1982    Krasnodar, Russia, USSR    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    0    1         Ir-192
19 May 1982    Smolensk, Russia, USSR    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    1         Ir-192
14 Jun 1982    Ashkhabad, Turkmenistan, USSR    criminal act using radioactive source    I-c    ?    0    7    x    Co-60
02 Sep 1982    Kjeller, Norway    accident at industrial irradiator    A-ir    2,200    1    0         Co-60
05 Oct 1982    Baku, Azerbaidjan, USSR    lost source    A-os    ?    5    13         Cs-137
18 Dec 1982    Uregoy, Russia, USSR    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    2         Ir-192
1982    La Plata, Argentina    accident with radiotherapy unit    A-x    L    0    1
1982    Prague, Czechoslovakia    accidental exposure to radiography source    A-os    L    0    1    x    Ir-192
1982    Berlin, GDR    x-ray accident    A-x    L    0    1
1982    Vikhroli, Bombay, India    lost source    A-os    L    0    1    x    Ir-192
1982    Badak, East Borneo, Indonesia    radiography accident    A-rg    L    0    1         Ir-192
27 Jan 1983    Moscow, Russia, USSR    x-ray accident    A-x    ?    0    1
28 Apr 1983    Kharkov, Ukraine, USSR    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    2         Cs-137
17 May 1983    Volgograd, Russia, USSR    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    1         Ir-192
11 Jun 1983    Ufa, Russia, USSR    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    1         Cs-137
23 Sep 1983    Constituyentes, Argentina    criticality accident with uranium in water    AC    3,700    1    0         * U
07 Dec 1983    Ufa, Russia, USSR    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    1         Ir-192
1983    Buenos Aires, Argentina    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L    0    2    m    Co-60
1983    FR Germany    accidental x-ray exposure    A-x    L    0    1
1983    Schwarze Pumpe, GDR    accidental exposure to industrial source    A-s    L    0    1         Ir-192
1983    Mulund, Bombay, India    accidental exposure to source    A-rg    L    0    1         Ir-192
6 Dec 1983 – Feb 1984    Ciudad Juarez, Mexico    dispersal of lost radiography source    A-osd    450    1    4    x    Co-60    400 Ci
07 Feb 1984    Perm’, Russia, USSR    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    5         Ir-192
19 Mar 1984    Casablanca, Morocco    lost radiography source    A-os    ?    8    3    x    Ir-192
21 Apr 1984    Chelyabinsk-40, Ozersk, Russia, USSR    x-ray accident    A-x    ?    0    1
12 Jun 1984    Ufa, Russia, USSR    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    1         Ir-192
15 Jun 1984    Gorky, Russia, USSR    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    0    8         Ir-192
24 Oct 1984    Russia, USSR    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    1         Sb-124
1984    Mendoza, Argentina    radiography accident    A-rg    L    0    1         Ir-192
1984    Tiszafured, Hungary    accidental exposure to radiography source    A-rg    L    0    1         Ir-192
1984    Lima, Peru    x-ray accident    A-x    L    0    6
03 Mar 1985    Norilsk, Russia, USSR    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    0    3         Cs-137
03 Jun 1985    Marietta, Georgia, USA    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L    0    1    m
26 Jul 1985    Hamilton, Ontario, Canada    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L    0    1    m
10 Aug 1985    K-431 submarine, Chazhma Bay, Vladivostok, Russia, USSR    reactor accident during refueling    A-NR    220    0 (10)    49              ~1 kCi
26 Sep 1985    Ignalinskaya, Lithuania, USSR    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    1         Ir-192
Sep 1985    Shanghai, PR China    accelerator accident    A-a    L    0    2
16 Oct 1985    Podolsk, Moscow region, Russia, USSR    radiation accident    A    ?    0    1
1985    PR China    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L    1    1    m    Au-197
1985    PR China    radiation accident    A    L?    0    3         Cs-137
1985    Petrvald, Czechoslovakia    accidental intake of radioisotope    A-i    L    0    1         Am-241
1985    Visakhapatnam, India    radiography accident    A-rg    L    0    1         Co-60
1985    Yamuananager, India    radiography accident    A-rg    L    0    2         Ir-192
1985    Odessa, Texas, USA    radiography accident    A-rg    L    0    1
1985    United Kingdom    accidental ingestion of radioisotope    A-i    L    0    1         I-125
Sep 1985 – 06 Jan 1986    Yakima, Washington, USA    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L    0    1    m
Mar 1986    Beijing, PRC    accidental exposure to irradiator source    A-ir    80    0    2         Co-60
21 Mar 1986 – 11 Apr 1986    Tyler, Texas, USA    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L    2    0    m
26 Apr 1986 – 06 May 1986    Chernobyl, Ukraine, USSR    steam explosion and fire in graphite-moderated power reactor    A-PR    1,600    28 (31)    238+    x         52 MCi
May 1986    Kaifeng City, PRC    accidental exposure to irradiator source    A-ir    350    0    2         Co-60
11 Jun 1986    Obninsk, Russia, USSR    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    0    1         Co-60
05 Aug 1986    Kalinin, Russia, USSR    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    1         Ir-192
1986    United Kingdom    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L    0    1    m    Co-60
17 Jan 1987    Yakima, Washington, USA    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L    1    0    m
19 Feb 1987    Moscow, Russia, USSR    x-ray accident    A-x    ?    0    1
Jul 1987 – Sep 1987    Koko, Nigeria    radiological exposure to low-level waste    A    ?    0    26
12 Sep 1987 – 29 Sep 1987    Goiania, Goias, Brazil    accidental dispersal of lost radiography source    A-osd    700    5    20    x    Cs-137    1375 Ci
1987    Cirebon, West Java, Indonesia    radiography accident    A-rg    L    0    1
1987    Zhengzhou City, PRC    irradiator accident    A-ir    135    0    1         Co-60
22 Mar 1988    Sverdlovsk, Russia, USSR    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    0    3         Sr-90, Y-90
05 Apr 1988    Tashkent, Uzbekistan, USSR    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    2         Ir-192
02 Jul 1988    Sao Paulo, Brazil    radiography accident    A-rg    L    0    3         Ir-192
18 Aug 1988    Riga, Latvia, USSR    criminal act using radioactive source    I-c    ?    0    1    x    Cf-252
1988    Zhao Xian, PRC    irradiator accident    A-ir    520    0    1         Co-60
1988    Jena, GDR    x-ray accident    A-x    L    0    1
1988    Trustetal, GDR    x-ray accident    A-x    L    0    2
1988    Rotterdam, Netherlands    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L    0    1    m
1988    Exeter, United Kingdom    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    ?    0    1+?    m
05 Feb 1989    San Salvador, El Salvador    irradiator accident    A-ir    800    1    2         Co-60
20 Mar 1989    Moscow, Russia, USSR    x-ray accident    A-x    ?    0    1
04 Aug 1989    Russia, USSR    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    1         Ir-192
14 Aug 1989    Zagorsk, Sergiev Posad, Russia, USSR    accelerator accident    A-a    ?    0    1
30 Oct 1989    Moscow, Russia, USSR    x-ray accident    A-x    ?    0    1
1989    Bangladesh    accident with industrial source    A-s    230    0    1         Ir-192
1989    Beijing, PRC    accidental exposure to source    A-s    89    0    2         Co-60
1989    PR China    radiography accident    A-rg    L    0    1         Ir-192
1989    Paks, Hungary    accidental exposure to source    A-s    L    0    1
1989    Hazira, Gujarat, India    radiography accident    A-rg    L    0    1         Ir-192
1989    Witbank, Transvaal, South Africa    radiography accident    A-rg    225    0    1         Ir-192
27 Feb 1990    Kalinin, Russia, USSR    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    0    1         Ir-192
13 Mar 1990    Moscow, Russia, USSR    accelerator accident    A-a    ?    0    1
29 Mar 1990    United States    fluoroscopy accident    A-mx    L    0    1    m
19 Jun 1990    Honolulu, Hawaii, USA    ingestion of radioisotope    A-i    L    0    1    x    I-131
21 Jun 1990    Soreq, Israel    accident at commerical irradiation facility    A-ir    1,500    1    0         Co-60
25 Jun 1990    Shanghai, PRC    irradiator accident    A-ir    1,200    2    5         Co-60
13 Sep 1990    Kharkov, Ukraine, USSR    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    0    1         Ir-192
01 Nov 1990    Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Russia, USSR    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    1         Ir-192
10 Dec 1990 – 20 Dec 1990    Zarragosa, Spain    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L    18    9    m
1990    Sasolburg, Transvaal South Africa    orphaned source    A-os    L    0    4    x    Co-60
24 Aug 1991    Bratsk, Irkutsk, Russia, USSR    attempted homicide using radioactive source    I-a    ?    0    1    x    Cs-137
13 Aug 1991    Forbach, France    irradiator accident    A-ir    L    0    3
26 Oct 1991    Nesvizh, Belarus    irradiator accident    A-ir    1,250    1    0         Co-60
11 Dec 1991    Maryland, USA    irradiator accident    A-ir    L    0    1
? 1977 – 1991    United Kingdom    radiography accident    A-rg    L    1    0         Ir-192
09 Jan 1992    Riazan’, Russia    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    2         Ir-192
25 May 1992    Axay, Kazakhstan    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    1         Ir-192
16 Nov 1992 – 21 Nov 1992    Indiana (city), Pennsylvania, USA    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L    1    0    m    Ir-192
19 Nov 1992    Jilin, Xinzhou, PRC    lost industrial source    A-os    800    3    5    x    Co-60
17 Nov 1992    Hanoi, Vietnam    irradiation accident    A-ir    L    0    1
Nov 1992    Wuhan, PR China    irradiator accident    A-ir    ?    0    4
1992    Switzerland    radiography accident    A-rg    L    0    1         Ir-192
1992    San Antonio, Texas, USA    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L    0    1    m    I-131
14 Apr 1993    Moscow, Russia    homicide using radioactive source    I-a    ?    1    0    x    Cs-137?
12 Jul 1993    Vologda, Russia    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    0    1         Ir-192
07 Aug 1993    Dimitrovograd, Russia    accident at nuclear reactor site    A         0    1
09 Nov 1993    Tula region, Russia    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    0    1         Ir-192
1993    United Kingdom    radiography accident    A-rg    L    0    1
28 Apr 1994    Tokyo, Japan    x-ray accident    A-x    L    0    1
21 Oct 1994 – 18 Nov 1994    Tammiku, Estonia    exposure to stolen source    I-t    400    1    4    x    Cs-137
28 Nov 1994    Voronezh, Russia    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    1         Ir-192
1994    Texas City, Texas, USA    radiography accident    A-rg    L    0    1
~ Feb 1995 – 07 Jul 1995    Zheleznodorozhny, Moscow region, Russia    criminal act using radioactive source    I-a    800    1    0    x    Cs-137
18 Mar 1995    Pervouralsk, Russia    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    1         Ir-192
23 May 1995    Smolensk, Russia    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    0    1         Ir-192
11 Sep 1995    Moscow, Russia    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    0    1         Cs-137
03 Oct 1995    Nizhny Novgorod, Russia    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    1         Ir-192
1995    France    radiography accident    A-rg    L    0    1         Ir-192
1995    France    orphaned source    A-os    L    0    1    x    Cs-137
1995    Tyler, Texas, USA    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L    0    1    m    I-131
01 Oct 1994 – 15 Feb 1996    Republic of China (Taiwan)    intentional poisoning using radioactive material    I-a    ?    0    1    x    P-32
05 Jan 1996    Jilin, Xinzhou, PRC    exposure to lost source    A-os    290    0    1         Ir-192
23 Feb 1996    Moscow, Russia    accelerator accident    A-a    ?    0    1
27 Feb 1996 – 05 Mar 1996    Houston, Texas, USA    exposure to stolen source    I-t    L    0    1    x    Co-60
08 Jun 1996    Nizhny Novgorod, Russia    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    1         Ir-192
Jun 1996 – 09 Oct 1997    Lilo Training Center, Tbilisi, Georgia    lost sources    A-os    590    0    11         Ra-226, ?
24 Jul 1996    Gilan, Iran    lost industrial radiography source    A-os    450    0    1         Ir-192
22 Aug 1996 – 27 Sep 1996    San Jose, Costa Rica    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L    7    81    m    Co-60
17 Jun 1997    Arzamas-16, Sarov, Russia    criticality accident with uranium assembly    AC    4,850    1    0         * U
29 Nov 1997    Grozny, Russia    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    0    3         Co-60
02 Dec 1997    Volgograd, Russia    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    0    1         Ir-192
1997    Georgia    lost source    A-os    ?    1    ?    x    Co-60
18 Mar 1998    Moscow, Russia    accidental exposure to source    A-s    ?    0    1         Co-60
06 Oct 1998    Kansas City, Missouri, USA    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L    0 (+2 F)    0    m    I-131
31 Dec 1998    Aransas Pass, Texas, USA    radiography accident    A-rg    L    0    1         Ir-192
10 Dec 1998 – 08 Jan 1999    Istanbul, Turkey    lost radiograpy sources    A-os    310    0    10    x    Co-60    636 Ci
20 Feb 1999    Yanango, Peru    lost source    A-os    150    0    1         Ir-192
26 Apr 1999 – 28 Apr 1999    Henan, PRC    lost source    A-os    610    0    3    x    Co-60
04 Aug 1999    Houston, Texas, USA    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L    0    1    m    I-131
13 Sep 1999    Grozny, Russia    attempted theft of sources    I-t    high    3    3    c    Co-60
30 Sep 1999 – 01 Oct 1999    Toki-mura, Ibarakin, Japan    criticality accident with uranium solution    AC    1,800    2    1         * U
1999    Kingisepp, Russia    exposure to stolen source    I-t    ?    3    0    c
24 Jan 2000 – 20 Feb 2000    Samut Prakarn, Thailand    lost radiography source    A-os    200    3    7    x    Co-60
05 Jun 2000 – 03 Jul 2000    Meet Halfa, Qaluobiya, Egypt    lost radiography source    A-os    750    2    5    x    Ir-192
16 Aug 2000    Samara, Russia    lost radiography source    A-os    275    0    3         Ir-192
13 Oct 2000    Dubna, Russia    accelerator accident    A-a    ?    0    1
Aug 2000 – 24 Mar 2001    Panama City, Panama    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L    17    11    m
06 Feb 2001    Nizhny Novgorod, Russia    x-ray accident    A-x    L    0    4
27 Feb 2001    Bialystok, Poland    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L    0    5    m
24 Jun 2001    Stavropolskij Kraj, Russia    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    1         Ir-192
01 Aug 2001    Salavat, Russia    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    2         Ir-192
summer 2001    Kandalaksha, Russia    exposure to stolen source    I-t    ?    0    4    c
early Dec 2001 – Feb 2002    Liya, Georgia    exposure to stolen source    I-t    ?    0    3    c    Sr-90
May 2002    Guangzhou, PRC    intentional exposure using radioactive sources    I-a    ?    0    75    x    Ir-192
01 Sep 2002    Nizhny Novgorod, Russia    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    1         Ir-192
09 Jun 2003 – 11 Jun 2003    Houston, Texas, USA    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L    0    1    m
08 Aug 2003    Anderson, Indiana, USA    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L    0    1    m    I-131
2003 – 13 Nov 2003    Kola Harbor, Russia    exposure to stolen sources    I-t    ?    ?    1+?    c    Sr-90
26 Jan 2004 – 22 Mar 2004    South Bend, Indiana, USA    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L    0    3    m    Cs-137
~03 Sep 2004 – 24 Sep 2004    St. Petersburg, Russia    intentional poisoning using radioactive substance    I-a    ?    1    0    x
02 Nov 2004 – 16 Nov 2004    Columbus, Ohio, USA    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L    0    1    m    I-131, I-123
Nov 2004    Lyon, France    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L    1    0    m
May 2004 – May 2005    Epinal, France    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L    1    13    m
14 Dec 2005 – 15 Dec 2005    Ranquil, Chile    lost radiography source    A-os    ?    0    4         Ir-192
05 Jan 2006 – 01 Feb 2006    Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L    1    0    m
11 Mar 2006    Fleurus, Belgium    irradiator accident    A-ir    460    0    1         Co-60
26 May 2006    Florence, South Carolina, USA    radiotherapy accident    A-mr    L    0    1    m    I-131, Tc-99m
~ Aug 2006    Dakar, Senegal, and Abidjan, Ivory Coast    radiography accident    A-rg    ?    0    4         Ir-192
01 Nov 2006    London, United Kingdom    intentional poisoning using radioactive substance    I-a    ?    1    2    x    Po-210
Aug 2007    Clinton, Michigan, USA    theft of sources    I-t    L?    0    1?    c

© 2004-2008, 2009 by Wm. Robert Johnston.
Last modified 29 January 2009.
Return to Home. Return to Nuclear Weapons. Return to Database of Radiological Incidents.

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Database of radiological incidents and related events–Johnston’s Archive

Clinton radioactive source theft, 2007
compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston
last modified 17 October 2007

Date: 1 August 2007

Location: Clinton, Michigan, United States

Type of event: exposure related to theft of radioactive sources

Description:

David Hahn was arrested 1 August 2007 for stealing smoke detectors, apparently to collect radioactive sources from them. He was specifically charged with stealing at least 13 smoke detectors (containing americium-241) from several buildings in his apartment complex. At the time his face was covered with open sores reported related to exposure to radioactive materials. On 27 August he plead guilty. On 2 October he was sentenced to a 90-day jail term to be served in six months after he is assessed and treated by doctors at a Veterans Administration Hospital.

Hahn had, around 1993 at age 17, accumulated large amounts of commercial radioactive sources including americium, thorium, radium, and tritium, in an effort to build a homemade breeder reactor. The effort was accidentally discovered by local authorities; the radioactive materials were eventually disposed of by federal authorities.
Consequences: 1 injury?

References:

* AP, 27 Aug. 2007, Man dubbed ‘radioactive boy scout’ pleads guilty, Detroit Free Press, on line [http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070827/BUSINESS05/70827091].
* AP, 4 Aug. 2007, ‘Radioactive boy scout’ charged in smoke detector theft, Fox News, on line [http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,292111,00.html].
* Cardenas, Edward L., and Charles E. Ramirez, 14 Aug. 2007, Former Scout is held in thefts, Detroit News, on line [http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070814/METRO03/708140362/1014].
* ClickOnDetroit, 4 Oct. 2007, ‘Radioactive Boy Scout’ sentenced, ClickOnDetroit, on line [http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/14269131/detail.html].
* Silverstein, Ken, 2004, The Radioactive Boy Scout: The Frightening True Story of a Whiz Kid and His Homemade Nuclear Reactor, Villard.
* WNN, 2 Aug. 2007, ‘Radioactive boy scout’ arrested, World Nuclear News, on line [http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/regulationSafety/Former_Radioactive_Boy_Scout_arrested_for_stealing_smoke_detectors-030807.shtml].

2007 by Wm. Robert Johnston.
Last modified 17 October 2007.
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Database of radiological incidents and related events–Johnston’s Archive

London radiological homicide, 2006
compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston
last modified 7 July 2008

Date: ~1 November 2006

Location: London, United Kingdom

Type of event: assasination by poisoning using ingested radioactive substance

Description:

Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB agent and recent critic of Russia’s Putin administration, fell ill in London and eventually died of poisoning. Litvinenko had been granted asylum in the United Kingdom in 2000 following persecution in Russia. Recently he had been investigating the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist critical of the Putin administration. On 1 November he met with two Russians, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, at Pine Bar in London’s Millennium Hotel, then met with Italian Mario Scaramella at a London sushi bar. A few hours later he fell ill and was admitted to a London hospital. Doctors came to suspect poisoning, with poisoning by a radioactive substance suggested on 21 November. Litvinenko died on 23 November, and on 24 November his death was linked to a major dose of radioactive polonium-210. Polonium-210 is an alpha emitter with a half-life of 138 days and is a fairly volatile metal; the ingested maximum permissible body burden is 0.03 microcuries, or about 7 nanograms. Reportedly Litvinenko’s symptoms and time from exposure to death are consistent with the ingestion of about 5 microcuries of polonium-210 (about 1 microgram, equivalent to a sphere 0.6 millimeters in diameter).

Litvinenko’s wife was found to be contaminated with polonium-210 but did not suffer injury. On 24 November unusually high levels of polonium-210 were found at the sushi restaurant visited by Litvinenko as well as Litvinenko’s home and a portion of the hospital where Litvinenko was treated; these sites were closed off for decontamination. Trace levels of polonium-210 contamination were reported on 27 November at two other central London locations, on 29 November on two British Airways 767s that served the London-Moscow route, and on 30 November at a total of 12 London locations, including a soccer stadium visited by Lugovi and Kovtun on 1 November. Checks at additional locations proved negative, including some of 30 locations identified as actually or potentially contaminated as of 20 December. As of 5 December 3,233 people had called the British health service regarding possible exposures. Of these, 244 were identified for followup and 28 had been referred for assessment of possible radiation exposure. (These figures were up from 1,325 callers, 68 identified for checking, and 21 referred, through 29 November). In addition, 238 workers at the two hospitals where Litvinenko was treated were investigated for possible exposure and 71 were referred for testing. No additional positive exposures were identified through 6 December; this includes negative results on workers at the hospitals where Litvinenko was treated, all staff at the sushi bar, and 3 individuals referred after reporting possible radiation exposure. However, on 7 December it was announced that 7 bar staff of the Millenium Hotel’s Pine Bar were found contaminated with polonium-210. Following an interview of Lugovoi by British investigators at the British embassy in Moscow on 4 December, trace amounts of radioactive contamination were found there. Radioactive material has been ruled out in the poisoning of former Russian prime minister Yegor Gaidar in Dublin, Ireland, on 24 November.

On 6 December UK authorities officially announced Litvinenko’s death was being investigated as a homicide. On 7 December Russian authorities announced they were opening a criminal case, additionally stating that Kovtun had fallen ill. Disputed reports state that Kovtun is in critical condition and in a coma. On 8 December Lugovoi was reported ill as well. The use of polonium-210 in a poisoning would require access to the product from a nuclear research-type reactor and/or sophistication laboratory separation techniques. The Russian government has denied any involvement in the poisoning. On 28 May 2007 UK authorities formally requested extradition of Lugovoi from Russia under charges for Litvinenko’s murder. Russia formally refused the request on 5 July, asserting that the Russian constitution did not permit extradition of citizens. The United Kingdom and Russia expelled four of each other’s diplomats in the rift that followed. In July 2008 it was reported that British officials had concluded there were strong indications that the murder was backed by the Russian government.

In 2007 UK authorities reported results of tests on a total of 735 people for Po-210 contamination: 596 were not contaminated; 120 showed probable contact with Po-210 but with levels indicating no health risk; and 17 people (one relative of Litvinenko, probably his wife, and 16 motel staff) with Po-210 levels not significant enough to cause any illness in the short term and any increased risk in the long term is likely to be very small.

Consequences: 1 death, 2 injuries.

References:

* AP, 7 Dec. 2006, Criminal case opened in ex-spy’s death, Yahoo News, on line [http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061207/ap_on_re_eu/poisoned_spy].
* BBC, 7 Dec. 2006, Funeral service for murdered spy, BBC News, on line [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6216202.stm].
* BBC, 24 Nov. 2006, ‘No radiation risk’ public told, BBC News, on line [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6181190.stm].
* BBC, 6 Dec. 2006, Radiation find in British embassy, BBC News, on line [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6215168.stm].
* BBC, 24 Nov. 2006, Radiation tests after spy death, BBC News, on line [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6180682.stm].
* BBC, 19 July 2007, Russia expels four embassy staff, BBC News, on line [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6906481.stm].
* BBC, 7 Dec. 2006, Russian ex-PM blames ‘poisoners’, BBC News, on line [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6216842.stm].
* BBC, 24 Nov. 2006, Spy’s death-bed Putin accusation, BBC News, on line [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6180068.stm].
* BBC, 8 Dec. 2006, Tests for spy murder bar visitors, BBC News, on line [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6220026.stm].
* BBC, 8 Dec. 2006, Timeline: Former Russian spy case, BBC News, on line [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6179074.stm].
* BBC, 27 July 2007, Timeline: Litvinenko death case, BBC News, on line [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6179074.stm].
* BBC, 7 July 2008, Russia ‘backed Litvinenko murder’, BBC News, on line [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7494142.stm].
* Harrison, John, Rich Leggett, David Lloyd, Alan Phipps, and Bobby Scott, 2007, Polonium-210 as a poison, Journal of Radiological Protectin, 27:17-40.
* Health Protection Agency, 19 Sept. 2007, Public health response to the polonium-210 incident, Health Protection Agency, on line [http://www.hpa.org.uk/hpa/news/articles/press_releases/2007/070919_polonium.htm].
* Health Protection Agency, 29 Nov. 2006, Updated on public health issues related to Polonium-210 investigation, Health Protection Agency, on line [http://www.hpa.org.uk/hpa/news/articles/press_releases/2006/291106_pol210.htm].
* Health Protection Agency, 3 Dec. 2006, Updated on public health issues related to Polonium-210 investigation, Health Protection Agency, on line [http://www.hpa.org.uk/hpa/news/articles/press_releases/2006/031206_pol210.htm].
* Health Protection Agency, 6 Dec. 2006, Updated on public health issues related to Polonium-210 investigation, Health Protection Agency, on line [http://www.hpa.org.uk/hpa/news/articles/press_releases/2006/061206_pol210.htm].
* Health Protection Agency, 15 March 2007, Updated on public health issues related to Polonium-210 investigation, Health Protection Agency, on line [http://www.hpa.org.uk/hpa/news/articles/press_releases/2007/070315_polonium-210.htm].
* Ionactive, 2007, Polonium-210 poisoning, Ionactive Consulting, on line [http://www.ionactive.co.uk/news_article.html?n=42].
* London Resilience Partnership, 20 Dec. 2006, Agencies announce progress on the Litvinenko remediation process, London Resilience, on line [http://www.londonprepared.gov.uk//statements/statement-20061220.jsp].
* Los Alamos National Laboratories Chemistry Division, 12 Dec. 2003, Polonium, LANL, on line [http://periodic.lanl.gov/elements/84.html].
* Reuters, 7 Dec. 2006, Litvinenko contact Kovtun critically ill: Ifax, Yahoo News, on line [http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061207/ts_nm/britain_poisoning_kovtun_dc].
* Ricon, Paul, 28 Nov. 2006, Sophistication behind spy’s poisoning, BBC News, on line [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6190144.stm].

2006-2007, 2008 by Wm. Robert Johnston.
Last modified 7 July 2008.
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http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/2006UKG2.html

***

Database of radiological incidents and related events–Johnston’s Archive

Florence radiotherapy accident, 2006
compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston
last modified 1 November 2007

Date: 26 May 2006

Location: McLeod Regional Medical Center, Florence, South Carolina, United States

Type of event: accidental radiotherapy exposure to fetus

Description:

A pregnant woman was administered a thyroid ablation treatment involving 15 mCi of metastable technetium-99 (Tc-99m) and 14 uCi of iodine-131. The woman signed a statement that she was not pregnant and persuaded the administering technician that she was not pregnant; the technician failed to perform a pregnancy test as required by procedure. The woman was 17 weeks’ pregnant at the time, however. Her obstetrician reported the issue to the nuclear medicine licensee on 3 October 2006, who estimated the dose to the fetus as 5.17 rad whole body and 13,920 rad to the thyroid. The child was born November 2006 with underactive thyroid gland but no other apparent health problems. The child is receiving thyroid supplement.

Consequences: 1 injury

References:

* Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 2007, Report to Congress on Abnormal Occurrences, Fiscal Year 2006, NUREG-0090 Vol. 29, NRC, on line [http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/commission/secys/2007/secy2007-0037/2007-0037scy-attachment1.pdf].

2007 by Wm. Robert Johnston.
Last modified 1 November 2007.
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Dakar radiography accident, 2006
compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston
last modified 24 September 2007
Date: ~August 2006

Location: Dakar, Senegal, and Abidjan, Ivory Coast

Type of event: accidental exposure to radiography source

Description:

Following use of an iridium-192 source in radiography equipment in Dakar, Senegal, the source failed to retract into the shielded storage container. Users were not aware that the source was not secure, and the equipment was stored under a staircase for several weeks and later moved to Abidjan, Ivory Coast, for use there. Operators discovered the source was not secure when preparing to use it again. Between the two locations, four employees suffered sufficient exposure to warrant transfer to Paris, France, for medical treatment: all with localized radiation injuries and one additionally reportedly in particularly serious condition. Other employees at both sites are being tested for exposure.

Consequences: 4 injuries.

References:

* Bureau Veritas, 1 Sept. 2006, Accidental exposure to ionising radiation in Senegal and the Ivory Coast: four people receive treatment in France, Bureau Veritas, on line [http://www.bureauveritas.com/webapp/servlet/RequestHandler?mode=displayArchiveDetail&contentID=63992&nextpage=ViewArticle.jsp].
* IRSN, 31 Aug. 2006, Accident de gammagraphie en Afrique: l’IRSN apporte son assistance et mobilise ses experts dans le domaine de l’irradiation accidentelle, IRSN, on line [http://www.irsn.fr/].
* IRSN, 15 Feb. 2007, Les accidents dus aux rayonnements ionisants: le bilan sur un demi-siecle, IRSN, on line [http://www.irsn.org/document/site_1/fckfiles/File/Internet/documents_doctrines_et_syntheses/les_accidents_dus_aux_rayonnements_ionisants.pdf].

© 2006, 2007 by Wm. Robert Johnston.
Last modified 24 September 2007.
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***

Fleurus irradiator accident, 2006
compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston
last modified 24 September 2007

Date: 11 March 2006

Location: Fleurus, Belgium

Type of event: accident with industrial irradiator

Description:

A worker received an accidental radiation exposure at a facility for irradiation of medical devices. The facility uses a cobalt-60 source in an exposure cell but stowed in a pool when personnel are present, using a safety interlock system. On 11 March the employee noticed a radiation monitor alarm was activated with no irradiation in progress and the cell door open. He reset the alarm and entered the cell for 20 seconds to close the cell door. The worker was not carrying a Geiger counter as required by company procedures. He suffered nausea and vomiting soon afterward but made no connection to the irradiator. Several weeks later he suffered massive hair loss and went to a doctor, when it was determined he suffered an exposure of 420 rem; this estimate was subsequently revised to 440-480 rem. The individual was admitted to a French hospital for treatment of radiation sickness on 31 March. Primary cause of the accident has been suggested to be a failure of the hydraulic control system that raises and lowers the source from safe storage in its pool.

Consequences: 1 injury.

References:
* FANC, 12 April 2006, Information file: Sterigenics, FANC, on line [http://fanc.fgov.be/FANC/en/sterigenics_2006_04_11_dossier1.htm].
* Ionactive Consulting, 2006, Overexposure–irradiation facility, Ionactive Consulting, on line [http://www.ionactive.co.uk/news_article.html?n=37].
* Ionactive Consulting, Jan. 2007, Overexposure–irradiation facility, Ionactive Consulting Newsletter, 1:16, on line at Ionactive Consulting, on line [http://www.radprocalculator.com/Files/Ionactive_Radiation_Protection_newsletter_January_2007.pdf].
* NucNet, 2006, Belgium overexposure incident provisionally rated INES level 4, NucNet, on line [http://www.csvts.cz/cns/news06/060407n.htm].
* VRT FlandersNews, 6 April 2006, Man critical after accident, VRT FlandersNews, on line [http://www.vrtnieuws.be/nieuwsnet_master/versie2/english/details/060406_nuclear/index.shtml].

2006, 2007 by Wm. Robert Johnston.
Last modified 24 September 2007.
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***

St. Petersburg radiological homicide, 2004
compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston
last modified 24 September 2007

Date: ~3-24 September 2004

Location: St. Petersburg, Russia

Type of event: homicide possibly using radioactive material

Description:

Roman Tsepov died 24 September 2004 of poisoning with unknown material. He fell ill shortly after a business trip to Moscow, and in less than three weeks later died. A post mortem analysis reportedly suggested that radioactive material was used in the murder, with contamination of an unspecified radioactive element found at one million times background levels. Other reports suggest the poison was a medicine used to treat leukemia. Tsepov’s symptoms prior to death have been described as severe radiation sickness. Tsepov was general director of the Baltik-Escort private security company, whose clients had included Vladimir Putin when Putin was deputy mayor of St. Petersburg. Both Tsepov and Alexander Litvinenko had connections to a scandal involving the Russian oil company Yukos.

Consequences: 1 fatality.
References:

* Calvert, Jonathan, and Pazit Ravina, 31 Dec. 2006, Litvinenko murder may be linked to mystery Russian poisonings, TimesOnLine, on line [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/newspapers/sunday_times/britain/article1265372.ece].
* Krasov, Petr, 22 Nov. 2006, Famous poisonings, Kommersant, on line [http://www.kommersant.com/p723709/Alexander_Livinenko_assassination_poisoning/].
* O’Halloran, Julian, 6 Feb. 2007, Russia’s poisoning ‘without a poison’, BBC News, on line [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/file_on_4/6324241.stm].
* Yasmann, Victor, 20 Dec. 2006, Russia: The KGB’s post-Soviet ‘commercialization’, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, on line [http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticleprint/2006/12/888236cc-139d-4212-a28d-88451fdaccab.html].
* Zaitseva, Lyudmila, Aug. 2007, Organized crime, terrorism and nuclear trafficking, Strategic Insights, 6(5), on line at Center for Contemporary Conflict [http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/2007/Aug/zaitsevaAug07.asp].

2007 by Wm. Robert Johnston.
Last modified 24 September 2007.
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***

Kola Harbor orphaned sources, 2003
compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston
last modified 8 April 2005

Date: 2003-13 November 2003

Location: Kola Harbor, near Polyarny, Russia

Type of event: orphaned sources

Description:

On 12 November 2003, inspectors found the radiothermal generator at navigation lighthouse 414.1 in Olenya Bay, Kola Harbor, had been dismantled. Most of the shielding had been stolen, including the depleted uranium radiation shield. One radioisotope heat source was found nearby in the water 2-3 meters deep. The following day inspectors found a similar situation at lighthouse 437 on Yuzhny Goryachinsky Island, Kola Harbor. Again, the shielding had been stolen, including the depleted uranium shielding, and one source was recovered near the island’s north shore. Both RTGs were BETA-M RTGs, each containing 35,000-curie strontium-90 sources (5 kg each). Without the shielding, the dose rate is 800-1000 roentgens/hour at a distance of 2-5 cm from the sources; the sources generate 230 W of heat. Both cases appear to have involved individuals seeking to steal metal to sell as scrap. It is probable that the perpetrators incurred radiation injury or even a fatal dose; no success was reported in attempts to track down the perpetrators.

Consequences: At least 1 injury presumed.

References:

* Alimov, Rashid, 2 April 2005, Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators, on line, Bellona [http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/navy/northern_fleet/incidents/37598.html].
* Kudrik, Igor, Rashid Alimov, and Charles Digges, 17 Nov. 2003, Two strontium powered lighthouses vandalised on the Kola Peninsula, on line, Bellona [http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/navy/northern_fleet/incidents/31767.html].

2005 by Wm. Robert Johnston.
Last modified 8 April 2005.
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http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/2003RUS1.html

Liya orphaned sources, 2001-2002
compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston
last modified 23 November 2005

Date: early December 2001-February 2002

Location: Liya, Tsalenjikha district, Republic of Georgia

Type of event: orphaned radiothermal generators

Description:

Three men found two radiothermal generators in the woods 27 km from Liya, western Georgia. They removed the shielding, apparently to recover the material as scrap metal. In early December 2001 they removed both strontium-90 sources, each one 35,000 curies, and took them back to their campsite where they used them as heat sources. All three became sick from radiation exposure within hours. After they sought medical treatment, Georgian authorities contacted the IAEA on 24 December for assistance in securing the sources. A team attempted to reach the sources in January 2002 but was unable to due to heavy snow and rugged terrain. A team successfully reached the sources on 4 February 2002 after which they were secured. Subsequently investigators concluded that the men had been using and selling lead from the RTG shields for a period of months; 20 kg of contaminated lead was recovered in a Liya house. One report claims the men were offered $10,000 to transport the sources to Turkey.

Consequences: 3 injuries.
References:

* IAEA, 2003, Safety related events and issues worldwide during 2002: A report supporting the nuclear safety review for the year 2002, on line, IAEA [http://www.iaea.org/ns/CoordiNet/documents/nsr2002_events.pdf].
* Kudrik, Igor, Rashid Alimov, and Charles Digges, 17 Nov. 2003, Two strontium powered lighthouses vandalised on the Kola Peninsula, on line, Bellona [http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/navy/northern_fleet/incidents/31767.html].
* Parrish, Scott, ed., 1 May 2002, Radiothermal generators containing strontium-90 discovered in Liya, Georgia, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, on line at Nuclear Threat Institute [http://www.nti.org/db/nistraff/2002/20020030.htm].
* Standring, W. J. F., O. G. Selanaes, M. Sneve, I. E. Finne, A. Hosseini, I. Amundsen, and P. Strand, 2005, Assessment of environmental, health and safety consequences of decommissioning radioisotope thermal generators (RTGs) in Northwest Russia, StralevernRapport 2005:4, on line at Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority [http://www.nrpa.no/dokumentarkiv/StralevernRapport4_05.pdf].

2004, 2005 by Wm. Robert Johnston.
Last modified 23 November 2005.
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***

Guangzhou radiological assault, 2002
compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston
last modified 18 September 2007

Date: May 2002

Location: Guangzhou, P.R. China

Type of event: use of radioactive material in intentional assault on an individual

Description:

A Chinese nuclear scientist, Gu Jiming, used radioactive iridium-192 pellets in an attack on a business rival. Gu used forged papers to obtain an industrial machine containing the iridium-192, then placed them above the ceiling panels in the hospital office of the rival. The victim soon reported symptoms including memory loss, fatigue, appetite loss, headaches, vomiting, and bleeding gums. Another 74 staff members of the hospital, including one pregnant woman, also had symptoms. Gu was convicted 29 September 2003, given a suspended death sentence (life in prison), and an assistant was sentenced to a 15-year prison term.

Consequences: 75 injuries.

References:

* Mohtadi, Hamid, and Antu Murshid, 7 July 2006, A global chronology of incidents of chemical, biological, radioactive and nuclear attacks: 1950-2005, on line, National Center for Food Protection and Defense [http://www.ncfpd.umn.edu/docs/GlobalChron.pdf].
* Nature, 9 Oct. 2003, Researcher faces life in prison for revenge radiation poisoning, Nature, 425:552.

2007 by Wm. Robert Johnston.
Last modified 18 September 2007.
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http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/2002PRC1.html

***
Kandalaksha orphaned source, 2001
compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston
last modified 28 February 2008

Date: May-June 2001

Location: Kandalaksha Nature Preserve, Murmansk region, Russia

Type of event: orphaned source

Description:

In May four individuals partially dismantled a radiothermal generator shielding at a lighthouse near Kandalaksha, seeking to steal metal to sell as scrap; they removed three radioisotope power sources. All four were hospitalized with radiation injuries. The sources were recovered in June 2001. The recovery operation was supported by the government of Finnmark, a province of Norway.

Consequences: 4 injuries.

References:

* Alimov, Rashid, April 2005, Radioisotope thermoelectric generators, Bellona, on line [http://www.bellona.org/english_import_area/international/russia/navy/northern_fleet/incidents/37598].
* Standring, W. J. F., M. Dowdall, M. Sneve, O. G. Selnaes, and I. Amundsen, 2007, Environmental, health and safety assessment of decommisioning radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) in northwest Russia, Journal of Radiological Protection, 27:321-331.
* Standring, W. J. F., O. G. Selanaes, M. Sneve, I. E. Finne, A. Hosseini, I. Amundsen, and P. Strand, 2005, Assessment of environmental, health and safety consequences of decommissioning radioisotope thermal generators (RTGs) in Northwest Russia, StralevernRapport 2005:4, on line at Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority [http://www.nrpa.no/dokumentarkiv/StralevernRapport4_05.pdf].

2005-2007, 2008 by Wm. Robert Johnston.
Last modified 28 February 2008.
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http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/2001RUS2.html

***

doe1x.jpg

Johnston’s Archive

Nuclear Weapons

North Korea’s first nuclear test

on weapons effects:

* The Effects of a Nuclear Attack on the Rio Grande Valley

* The Effects of a Global Thermonuclear War, 4th ed.

* Nuclear weapons effects–an overview
* Nuclear weapons effects: Some data

* High-altitude nuclear explosions

* Graphs of weapons effects

* Your annual radiation dose

on weapons design:

* Simplified schematic of a nuclear fission implosion weapon (typical atomic bomb, diagram)
* Simplified schematic of a multistage thermonuclear weapon (typical hydrogen bomb, diagram)

* Nuclear weapon yields vs. weight (graph)

on programs, weapons, and deployments:

* Strategic and theater nuclear forces:
o Part 1: Introduction and sources
o Part 2: United States
o Part 3: Russia
o Part 4: United Kingdom, France, and P.R. China
o Part 5: Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Iran
o Part 6: Summary data

* U.S. and Soviet/Russian strategic warheads, 1984-1994 (graph)

Nuclear stockpiles, cumulative estimates and graphs
o including Cumulative estimates, introduction

* Listings of nuclear warhead types:
o Introduction
o United States
o Soviet Union/Russia
o United Kingdom
o France
o People’s Republic of China
o Other countries

* Multimegaton weapons: the largest nuclear weapons

* Nuclear weapons and fissile material in Israel

* Iran: WMD-related facilities

* Listings of strategic missile submarines:
o United States
o Soviet Union/Russia
o United Kingdom
o France
o People’s Republic of China
o Israel

* Missile designations:
o Missile designations, introduction
o Soviet/Russian missile designations
o PR Chinese missile designations

* Listing of Soviet/Russian naval vessels:
o Introduction
o Listing of Soviet/Russian naval vessels
on strategic defense:

* Ballistic Missile Defense and the Strategic Defense Initiative
* U.S. should have missile defense system
o see also at The Brownsville Herald.

* President George W. Bush’s Speech on National Missile Defense, 1 May 2001.

on nuclear testing:

Nuclear tests–databases and other material

general material:

* Nuclear weapon milestones
o Part 1
o Part 1-B
o Part 2

other material:

*
Database of Radiological Incidents and Related Events
o including List of radiation accidents and other events causing radiation casualties
o Statistical summary of radiation accidents and other events causing radiation casualties
o List of criticality accidents
o and pages on individual incidents

* Nuclear terrorism:
o Nuclear terrorism incidents
o Osama bin Laden and nuclear weapons
o Dirty bombs and other radiological weapons

* Nuclear Weapons in Film

NUCLEAR WEAPONS–INFORMATION LINKS

* United States government sources:
o U.S. Department of Defense.
o DOE Nevada Operations Office.

* foreign government sources:
o CEA (French atomic energy agency) (English).

* organizations and sources in the United States:
o Arms Control Association.
o Brookings Institution.
o Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
o Center for Defense Information.
o Center for Nonproliferation Studies–at the Monterrey Institute for International Studies.
o Center for Strategic and International Studies.
o Federation of American Scientists.
o GlobalSecurity.org.
o Heritage Foundation.
o High Energy Weapons Archive–in depth information, including some of the most detailed information on the Internet regarding nuclear weapon physics.
o High Frontier.
o Institute for Science and International Security.
o National Institute for Public Policy.
o Nautilus.
o Natural Resources Defense Council.
o Submarine World Network.
o Trinity Atomic Web Site.

* organizations outside the United States:
o Bellona Foundation–foundation in Norway.
o Center for Arms Control, Energy and Environmental Studies–at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.
o Centre for Defense and International Security Studies (CDISS)–in the United Kingdom.
o Jane’s Information Group–publisher in the United Kingdom.
o British American Security Information Council (BASIC).

Some recommended nuclear weapon documents

Banner image: Plumbbob Stokes, a 19 kt airburst test of the XW-30 conducted 7 August 1957 (credit: U.S. Department of Energy photograph).

Comments? Questions? Corrections? Contact me.

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/index.html

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/wrjp1855.html
Nuclear terrorism incidents

SL-1 reactor excursion, 1961
compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston
last modified 17 October 2007

Date: 3 January 1961

Location: SL-1 reactor, National Reactor Testing Station, Idaho, USA

Type of event: criticality excursion in research reactor

Description:

The SL-1 reactor was a prototype of a reactor intended for easy assembly at remote facilities such as DEW line stations in the Arctic. It used 15 kg of uranium fuel (enriched to 91% U-235), was water moderated, and had a thermal power capacity of 3 MWt. Five aluminum-clad cadmium control rods provided reactor control. The SL-1 had operated 2 years, with an 11-day shutdown for maintenance being completed at the time of the incident.

Three workers were reassembling the control rod drives on 3 January in preparation for startup the following day. At about 9:01 PM the three workers were on top of the reactor when one manually removed the center control rod as rapidly as possible, over a 0.5-second period. The reactor became supercritical, with a total energy release of 1.3 x 108 joules (comparable to 30 kg of TNT), producing a steam explosion. The worker who extracted the rod was killed instantly, impaled on the building’s ceiling by a control rod. The other two men were burned and thrown by the steam explosion, one dying instantly from impact with a shielding block and the other sustaining head injuries of which he died 2 hours later (maximum dose sustained was possibly 350 rad). The release of radioactive material was largely contained to the building.

Emergency responders were alerted by an automated alarm and arrived at the site at 9:10 PM. High radiation readings were measured in the reactor building, delaying entry. At 10:50 PM several responders and contractor personnel removed one man alive, who died shortly afterwards. One body was removed from the reactor building on 4 January and the other on 9 January. Of personnel/responders involved, 22 received doses of 3-27 rads from entering the building and/or handling the casualties.

The reason that the control rod was withdrawn is unknown, since none of the workers survived and the facility did not have appropriate data recording systems. The control rods in SL-1 had some tendency to stick, sometimes causing difficulty during manual extraction. One hypothesis is that the worker accidentally withdrew the control rod too far in an effort to overcome a stuck condition. The amount of withdrawal involved was about 50 cm, possibly difficult to achieve accidentally, and the particular control rod involved had not been sticking for the past six months. Another hypothesis is that the rod was intentionally withdrawn in an act of murder-suicide; this was the conclusion of the investigation of the incident.

Consequences: 3 fatalities, all from mechanical/thermal effects of the explosion.

References:

* Combustion Engineering, 15 May 1961, SL-1 Reactor Accident on January 3, 1961: Interim Report, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, on line at Idaho Operations Office [http://www.id.doe.gov/foia/IDO-19300a.pdf].
* Flight Propulsion Laboratory Department, General Electric Company, 21 Nov. 1962, Additional Analysis of the SL-1 Excursion: Final Report of Progress July through October 1962, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, on line at Idaho Operations Office [http://www.id.doe.gov/foia/IDO-19313.pdf].
* Horan, J. R., 1968, Major health physics experiences during 15 years of reactor testing, in Radiation Protection, Part 1, ed. by W. S. Snyder, H. H. Abee, L. K. Burton, R. Maushart, A. Benco, F. Duhamel, and B. M. Wheatley, Pergamon Press (New York, NY), pp. 541-546.
* McKeown, William, 2003, Idaho Falls: The Untold Story of America’s First Nuclear Accident, ECW Press.
* McLaughlin, Thomas P., Shean P. Monahan, Norman L. Pruvost, Vladimir V. Frolov, Boris G. Ryazanov, and Victor I. Sviridov, May 2000, A Review of Criticality Accidents, 2000 Revision, Los Alamos National Laboratory (Los Alamos, NM), on line at CSRIC [http://www.csirc.net/docs/reports/la-13638.pdf].
* RNSI, June 2002, The International Accident Dosimetry Comparison Programme 10-21 June 2002 , on line at IRSN [http://www.irsn.fr/va/04_act/04_act_2/04_act_21dossiers_irsn/pdf/va_dp_intercomp.pdf].
* SL-1 Report Task Force, Jan. 1962, IDO Report on the Nuclear Incident at the SL-1 Reactor on January 3, 1961 at the National Reactor Testing Station, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, on line at Idaho Operations Office [http://www.id.doe.gov/foia/IDO-19302.pdf].
* Stacy, Susan M., 2000, Proving the Principle: A History of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, 1949-1999, U.S. DOE, on line at Idaho National Laboratory [http://www.inl.gov/proving-the-principle/].

2004-2006, 2007 by Wm. Robert Johnston.
Last modified 17 October 2007.
Return to Home. Return to Nuclear Weapons Resources. Return to Database of radiological incidents and related events.

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/1961USA1.html

***

Database of radiological incidents and related events–Johnston’s Archive

Wood River criticality accident, 1964
compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston
last modified 14 September 2005

Date: 24 July 1964

Location: Wood River, Rhode Island, USA

Type of event: criticality accident with uranium solution
Description:

The accident occurred at a facility which reprocessed for recovery highly enriched uranium in scrap material from fuel element production. A tank containing uranium (93% U-235) in sodium carbonate solution was being agitated by a stirrer. A worker, intending to add a bottle of trichloroethane to remove organics, erroneously added a bottle of uranium solution to the tank, producing a criticality excursion accompanied by a flash of light and the splashing of about 20% of the tank’s contents (about 10 liters out of 40-50 liters, including the bottle contents) out of the tank. The worker fled to the site’s emergency building. Two plant administrators returned to the building; one turned off the agitator, producing a lesser criticality excursion that was not recognized until their dosimeters were examined. The administrators incurred doses of 100 rads and 60 rads. The worker absorbed about 10,000 rads and died 49 hours after the accident.

Consequences: 1 fatality (10,000 rem), 1 injury.

References:

2004, 2005 by Wm. Robert Johnston.
Last modified 14 September 2005.
Return to Home. Return to Nuclear Weapons Resources. Return to Database of radiological incidents and related events.

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/1964USA1.html

***

List of Criticality Accidents
last updated 20 September 2007

date    location    type of accident    deaths    injuries    highest dose (rem)    activity release    fissions (x1015)
11 Feb 1945    Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA    uranium in styrex    0    0    0        6
6 Jun 1945    Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA    uranium in water    0    0    66        40
21 Aug 1945    Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA    plutonium assembly    1    1    510        10
21 May 1946    Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA    plutonium assembly    1    4    2100        3
? Dec 1949    Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA    uranium in solution    0    0    2.5        35
~1950?    Chalk River, Ontario, Canada    uranium in water    0    0    >5?        ?
1 Feb 1951    Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA    uranium in water    0    0    ~0        100
16 Nov 1951    Hanford Works, Washington, USA    plutonium in solution    0    0    low        80
18 Apr 1952    Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA    uranium assembly    0    0    ~0        15
2 Jun 1952    Argonne, Illinois, USA    uranium in water    0    2    140        122
12 Dec 1952    Chalk River, Ontario, Canada    uranium in water    0    0    low        120000
9 Apr 1953    Sarov, Russia, USSR    plutonium assembly    0    0    1.6        11
15 Mar 1953    Mayak Enterprise, Russia, USSR    plutonium in solution    1    1    1000        200
3 Feb 1954    Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA    uranium assembly    0    0    ~0        56
26 May 1954    Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA    uranium in solution    0    0    0.9        100
22 Jul 1954    Idaho RTA, Idaho, USA    uranium in water    0    0    ~0        4680
29 Nov 1955    Argonne, Illinois, USA    uranium    0    0    ~0        470
1 Feb 1956    Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA    uranium in solution    0    0    0.6        160
3 Jul 1956    Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA    uranium    0    0    0        32
12 Feb 1957    Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA    uranium assembly    0    0    ~0        120
21 Apr 1957    Mayak Enterprise, Russia, USSR    uranium in solution    1    5    3000        100
2 Jan 1958    Mayak Enterprise, Russia, USSR    uranium in solution    3    1    6000        230
16 Jun 1958    Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA    uranium in solution    0    5    460        1300
15 Oct 1958    Vinca, Yugoslavia    uranium in water    1    5    430        2600
18 Nov 1958    Reactor Testing Area, Idaho, USA    uranium    0    0    ~0        25000
30 Dec 1958    Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA    plutonium in solution    1    0    12000        150
16 Oct 1959    Idaho RTA, Idaho, USA    uranium in solution    0    0    50    some    40000
15 Mar 1960    Saclay, France    uranium in water    0    0    ~0        3000
17 Jun 1960    Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA    uranium assembly    0    0    ~0        60
5 Dec 1960    Mayak Enterprise, Russia, USSR    plutonium in solution    0    0    2        250
3 Jan 1961    Idaho RTA, Idaho, USA    uranium in water    3    0    fatal*        4400
25 Jan 1961    Idaho RTA, Idaho, USA    uranium in solution    0    0    <0.06        600
14 Jul 1961    Siberian Chemical Combine, Russia, USSR    uranium    0    1    200        12
10 Nov 1961    Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA    uranium assembly    0    0    ~0        10
7 Apr 1962    Hanford, Washington, USA    plutonium in solution    0    3    110        800
7 Sep 1962    Mayak Enterprise, Russia, USSR    plutonium in solution    0    0    low        200
5 Nov 1962    Idaho RTA, Idaho, USA    uranium in water    0    0    ~0        1000
11 Dec 1962    Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA    uranium    0    0    ~0        30
30 Jan 1963    Siberian Chemical Combine, Russia, USSR    uranium in solution    0    0    17        790
11 Mar 1963    Sarov, Russia, USSR    plutonium assembly    0    2    550        5
26 Mar 1963    Livermore, California, USA    uranium assembly    0    0    0.12        376
2 Dec 1963    Siberian Chemical Combine, Russia, USSR    uranium in solution    0    0    <5        60
24 Jul 1964    Wood River, Rhode Island, USA    uranium in solution    1    1    10000        130
28 May 1965    White Sands, New Mexico, USA    uranium assembly    0    0    ~0        150
30 Dec 1965    Mol, Belgium    uranium in water    0    1    500        430
3 Nov 1965    Electrostal Plant, Russia, USSR    uranium oxide slurry    0    0    3        8
16 Dec 1965    Mayak Enterprise, Russia, USSR    uranium in solution    0    0    0.27        550
30 Jan 1968    Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA    uranium in solution    0    0    low        11
5 Apr 1968    Chelyabinsk-70, Russia, USSR    uranium assembly    2    0    3000        60
6 Sep 1968    Aberdeen, Maryland, USA    uranium assembly    0    0    ~0    0    609
10 Dec 1968    Mayak Enterprise, Russia, USSR    plutonium in solution    1    1    2450        130
24 Aug 1970    Windscale Works, England, United Kingdom    plutonium in solution    0    0    2        1
15 Feb 1971    Kurtchatov, Russia, USSR    uranium    0    2    ?        20000
26 May 1971    Kurtchatov, Russia, USSR    uranium in water    2    2    6000        2000
17 Oct 1978    Idaho CPP, Idaho, USA    uranium in solution    0    0    low        2700
13 Dec 1978    Siberian Chemical Combine, Russia, USSR    plutonium assembly    0    1    250        3
23 Sep 1983    Constituyentes, Argentina    uranium in water    1    0    3700        400
10 Aug 1985    Chazhma Bay, Vladivostock, Russia, USSR    uranium reactor    10    49    220    ~7 MCi    5000
15-16 May 1997    Novosibirsk Plant, Russia    uranium in solution    0    0    <0.4        5.5
17 Jun 1997    Arzamas-16, Russia    uranium assembly    1    0    4800        10000
30 Sep 1999    Toki-mura, Japan    uranium in solution    2    1    1800        2500

2002, 2007 by Wm. Robert Johnston.
Last modified 20 September 2007.
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http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radcrit.html

***

Kurtchatov SF-3 criticality accident, 1971
compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston
last modified 14 September 2005

Date: 26 May 1971

Location: Kurtchatov, Russia, USSR

Type of event: criticality accident with uranium in water

Description:

Experiments were being conducted to determine the number of uranium fuel rods (90% U-235) required to produce a critical configuration. Rods were placed in various geometries within a Plexiglas tank which was filled with water, with additional rods added a few at a time. Insufficient calculations had been performed regarding such an apparatus. At the completion of one experiment, the water was being rapidly drained, causing the rods to slump into a supercritical configuration. The excursion ejected water and fuel rod fragments from the tank. One technician received about 6,000 rem and died 5 days later; a supervisor received 2,000 rem and died 15 days later. Two others in the room received doses of 700-800 rem and suffered acute radiation sickness; they survived with long term health effects.

Consequences: 2 fatalities (6,000 and 2,000 rem), 2 injuries (700-800 rem).

References:

2004, 2005 by Wm. Robert Johnston.
Last modified 14 September 2005.
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Database of radiological incidents and related events–Johnston’s Archive

Toki-mura criticality accident, 1999
compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston
last modified 11 June 2006

Date: 30 September-1 October 1999

Location: JCO Fuel Fabrication Plant, Toki-mura, Ibarakin, Japan

Type of event: criticality accident at fuel fabrication plant

Description:

Three operators were engaged in processes combining uranium oxide with nitric acid to produce a uranium-containing solution for shipment. The uranium involved was 18.8% U-235. The procedure used deviated from that licensed to the facility. In particular the uranium solution was being placed in a precipitation tank for dispensing into shipment containers, not the more narrow vessel (geometrically favorable to minimizing criticality risks) prescribed by license. At about 10:35 AM, while two workers were adding a seventh batch of uranium solution to the tank, a criticality excursion occurred. The two workers, along with a third worker nearby, observed a blue flash and fled the location; simultaneously, gamma-radiation detectors went off in the building and two adjacent buildings, prompting all workers to evacuate to a muster area. Workers were relocated following higher than background radiation readings. The two workers who had been pouring both began vomiting during transport to the hospital. The excursion continued for 20 hours (the facility did not have a procedure for dealing with criticality events) until outside experts were brought in to drain the tank, shortly after midnight. At 3:18 PM an evacuation of residents within 350 meters of the site had been ordered due to 5 rad/hr readings at the facility boundary; at 10:30 PM an advisory was issued to residents within a radius of 10 km to stay indoors. Of the three workers involved in the accident, the one pouring the solution received 600-1,000 rem and died 210 days later; the one holding the funnel received 1,600-2,000 rem and died 82 days later; and the one at a nearby desk received 100-450 rem and was hospitalized for three months. Both workers who died had received transplants of blood stem cells. The highest doses to neighboring residents were between 5 and 25 rem in the case of about 20 residents.

Consequences: 2 fatalities (1,700 and 800 rem), 1 injury (300 rem).

References:

* Fujimoto, Kenzo, Dec. 1999, Nuclear accident in Tokai, Japan, Journal of Radiological Protection, 19:377-380.
* McLaughlin, Thomas P., Shean P. Monahan, Norman L. Pruvost, Vladimir V. Frolov, Boris G. Ryazanov, and Victor I. Sviridov, May 2000, A Review of Criticality Accidents, 2000 Revision, Los Alamos National Laboratory (Los Alamos, NM), on line at CSRIC [http://www.csirc.net/docs/reports/la-13638.pdf].
* UNSCEAR, 2000, Annex E: Occupational radiation exposures, in Sources and Effects of Ionizing Radiation: United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation UNSCEAR 2000 Report to the General Assembly, with Scientific Annexes, Volume I: Sources, UNSCEAR, on line at UNSCEAR [http://www.unscear.org/docs/reports/annexe.pdf].

2004, 2005, 2006 by Wm. Robert Johnston.
Last modified 11 June 2006.
Return to Home. Return to Nuclear Weapons Resources. Return to Database of radiological incidents and related events.

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Database of radiological incidents and related events–Johnston’s Archive

Arzamas-16 criticality accident, 1997
compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston
last modified 14 September 2005

Date: 17 June 1997

Location: Russian Federal Nuclear Center (Arzamas-16), Sarov, Russia

Type of event: criticality accident with uranium metal assembly

Description:

A criticality accident occurred at the Russian Federal Nuclear Center, formerly Arzamas-16. An experimenter was attempting to replicate a successful 1972 experiment involving a sphere of highly enriched uranium (90%) surrounded by a spherical copper reflector. However, he had incorrectly recorded the outside reflector dimensions and as a result used a much larger reflector; further, he had failed to complete appropriate paperwork on the experiment and was working alone. He had assembled the uranium sphere within a hemisphere of the copper reflector in an experimental cell. While adding the first layer of the second copper hemisphere, it dropped onto the assembly and produced a supercritical assembly at 10:40 AM. A flash of light resulted, after which the experimenter left the cell. The uranium core reached a calculated peak temperature of 865E C before power output declined to a steady 480 W. The assembly remained in this state until 12:45 AM on 24 June 1997 when it was remotely disassembled. The experimenter received a dose of 4850 rem, from which he died the morning of 20 June, 66 hours after the accident.

Consequences: 1 fatality (4850 rem).

References:

* IAEA, 2001, The Criticality Accident at Sarov, IAEA (Vienna, Austria), on line at IAEA [http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub1106_scr.pdf].
* McLaughlin, Thomas P., Shean P. Monahan, Norman L. Pruvost, Vladimir V. Frolov, Boris G. Ryazanov, and Victor I. Sviridov, May 2000, A Review of Criticality Accidents, 2000 Revision, Los Alamos National Laboratory (Los Alamos, NM), on line at CSRIC [http://www.csirc.net/docs/reports/la-13638.pdf].

2004, 2005 by Wm. Robert Johnston.
Last modified 14 September 2005.
Return to Home. Return to Nuclear Weapons Resources. Return to Database of radiological incidents and related events.

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/1997RUS1.html

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Database of radiological incidents and related events–Johnston’s Archive

Constituyentes research reactor accident, 1983
compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston
last modified 14 September 2005

Date: 23 September 1983

Location: RA-2 Facility, Constituyentes, Argentina

Type of event: criticality accident in research reactor

Description:

An accident occurred during operation of the RA-2 research reactor. Two fuel elements had been placed outside the graphite reflector surrounding the reactor but had not been removed from the tank. A technician was changing the fuel configuration from the control room while moderating water was in the reactor, a procedural violation. A criticality excursion occurred, exposing the operator to a 3,700-rad dose (2000 rad gamma and 1700 rad neutron), with the upper right side of the body exposed the worst. The operator died 2 days later. Two others in the control room received doses of 35 rad each.

Consequences: 1 fatality.

References:

* McLaughlin, Thomas P., Shean P. Monahan, Norman L. Pruvost, Vladimir V. Frolov, Boris G. Ryazanov, and Victor I. Sviridov, May 2000, A Review of Criticality Accidents, 2000 Revision, Los Alamos National Laboratory (Los Alamos, NM), on line at CSRIC [http://www.csirc.net/docs/reports/la-13638.pdf].
© 2004, 2005 by Wm. Robert Johnston.
Last modified 14 September 2005.
Return to Home. Return to Nuclear Weapons Resources. Return to Database of radiological incidents and related events.

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****

Vinca reactor accident, 1958
compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston
last modified 14 September 2005

Date: 15 October 1958

Location: Boris Kidrich Institute, Vinca, Yugoslavia

Type of event: criticality accident at research reactor

Description:

The accident involved a research reactor using 3,995 kg of aluminum-clad natural uranium fuel in a tank filled with heavy water for moderator. A subcritical foil counting experiment was being performed when an experimenter noticed the smell of ozone and realized a criticality excursion was occurring. The power buildup had gone undetected as the water level was raised due to saturation of both detecting chambers. The total energy release was about 80 million joules (about 2 kg of TNT equivalent). The six individuals in the room received doses of 433, 422, 415, 410, 320, and 205 rem. All developed severe radiation sickness and one died. The five survivors all received experimental bone marrow transplants, which were rejected in all patients, although before rejection the transplants probably contributed to survival.

Consequences: 1 fatality (433 rem?), 5 injuries (422, 415, 410, 320, 205 rem).
References:

* Cosset, Jean Marc, 2002, ESTRO Breur Gold Medal Award Lecture 2001: Irradiation accidents–lessons for oncology?, Radiotherapy and Oncology, 63:1-10.
* McLaughlin, Thomas P., Shean P. Monahan, Norman L. Pruvost, Vladimir V. Frolov, Boris G. Ryazanov, and Victor I. Sviridov, May 2000, A Review of Criticality Accidents, 2000 Revision, Los Alamos National Laboratory (Los Alamos, NM), on line at CSRIC [http://www.csirc.net/docs/reports/la-13638.pdf].

2004, 2005 by Wm. Robert Johnston.
Last modified 14 September 2005.
Return to Home. Return to Nuclear Weapons Resources. Return to Database of radiological incidents and related events.
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/1958YUG1.html

***

« up

732 F.2d 404

15 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 978

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
Edwin P. WILSON, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 83-2125.

United States Court of Appeals,
Fifth Circuit.

May 4, 1984.

Marian S. Rosen, Houston, Tex., for defendant-appellant.

Daniel K. Hedges, U.S. Atty., James R. Gough, Asst. U.S. Atty., Houston, Tex., for defendant-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Before GEE, POLITZ and JOHNSON, Circuit Judges.

POLITZ, Circuit Judge:
1

Convicted by jury of conspiracy, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 371, and of substantive counts arising out of an illegal shipment of plastic explosives, contrary to 18 U.S.C. Secs. 2 and 1001, 22 U.S.C. Sec. 2778(c), and 49 U.S.C. Sec. 1809(b), Edwin P. Wilson appeals, assigning multiple errors. Finding no reversible error, we affirm.

Procedural Background
2

Wilson, Edward Bloom and Donald Thresher were indicted for conspiracy to make an illegal shipment of twenty tons of C-4 plastic explosives from Houston, Texas to Tripoli, Libya in October 1977. Bloom and Thresher were severed. Bloom was separately tried and convicted; Thresher pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge.
3
The indictment contains four counts. Count one charges the conspiracy, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 371. Count two charges the presentation of a falsified Shipper’s Export Declaration, which listed the explosives as drilling mud, 18 U.S.C. Secs. 2 and 1001. Count three charges the export of cyclotrimethylene trinitramine (the active ingredient in the C-4 explosive) without obtaining the required license from the State Department, in violation of 22 U.S.C. Sec. 2778(c), 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2, and Title 22 C.F.R. Secs. 121.01 (category V), 121.11, 123.01. Count four charges the illegal transportation of a hazardous material by cargo aircraft, in violation of 49 U.S.C. Sec. 1809(b), 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2, and 49 C.F.R. Secs. 172.100, 172.101.
4

Prior to trial two hearings were conducted. The first involved Wilson’s motion to dismiss the indictment because of the manner in which he was taken into custody and brought before the court. Wilson maintained that the government had acted improperly in luring him back to the United States. The district court denied this motion. The court then conducted a James hearing and made the requisite findings of a conspiracy and Wilson’s involvement in it. After trial, the jury returned verdicts of guilty on all four counts.

Factual Background
5

In early 1977, Jerome S. Brower, a manufacturer and distributor of explosives from Pomona, California, met with Wilson to discuss the purchase by Wilson of C-4 explosives for shipment to Libya. Brower obtained 40,000 pounds which he sold to Wilson for $13.75 per pound, payable in advance to Brower’s account in a Swiss bank. The payment was made on August 18, 1977. At Wilson’s direction, Brower prepared an invoice reflecting a price of $20 per pound.
6

After acquiring the C-4 from different sources Brower packaged it in five-gallon cans and covered it with drilling mud. Brower completed the disguise by affixing fictitious drilling mud labels.
7

The camouflaged explosives were trucked to Houston and loaded on a chartered DC-8 for ostensible shipment to Lisbon, Portugal. The flight did not terminate in Portugal, but continued to Tripoli, Libya where the aircraft was met by Wilson who directed the ultimate delivery of the explosives.
8

In the shipping process, Wilson’s representative falsified the shipping documents by claiming that the cargo was drilling mud additive and by falsely declaring the destination. No license to export was secured and the cargo carrier was not informed of the hazardous nature of the shipment.

Assignments of Errors
9

1. CIA Defense
10

Wilson contends that he was denied a fair trial because evidence probative of his intent was excluded, thus denying him an opportunity to present his CIA defense. He maintains that he was precluded from introducing evidence that he was either employed by the Central Intelligence Agency or his actions were welcomed and sanctioned by that agency. By showing the government’s approval of his actions and that the apparent criminal acts were a cover for governmental operations, Wilson argues that he could have demonstrated his lack of specific intent to commit the violations charged.
11

The record belies Wilson’s assertions that he was not accorded an opportunity to develop his CIA defense. 1 He was allowed that opportunity. Wilson claims, however, that the exclusion of the testimony of former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and a portion of the proposed testimony of Victor L. Marchetti, undercut the development of this defense. There is no suggestion that Clark had personal knowledge of Wilson or of his activities. Marchetti denied having such knowledge. There is an indication that in an earlier case Clark testified that the CIA had once claimed non-involvement in an incident. This later proved untrue. The record also reflects that Marchetti formerly worked for the CIA but had left that employment 14 years before the trial and eight years before the C-4 shipment. Thereafter his knowledge about CIA activities and practices was limited to public information and conversations with friends in the agency. We find nothing to support a suggestion that Clark or Marchetti had any expert knowledge about the specific types of activities Wilson purportedly engaged in or about the CIA involvement in such activities.
12

Since neither Clark nor Marchetti had pertinent personal knowledge of Wilson or of his association or involvement with the CIA, their testimony could only relate to irrelevant issues or to facts involving the internal practices and procedures of the agency. Clark had no such knowledge and Marchetti’s knowledge was dated. If they were ostensible expert witnesses on agency practices and procedures it fell within the trial judge['s] broad discretion in the matter of the admission or exclusion of expert testimony, and his action is to be sustained unless manifestly erroneous. Salem v. United States Lines Co., 370 U.S. 31, 35, 82 S.Ct. 1119, 1122, 8 L.Ed.2d 313 (1962). Considering the attenuated nature of the proffered testimony, we cannot say that the trial court’s exclusion constituted reversible error. See Perkins v. Volkswagen of America, Inc., 596 F.2d 681 (5th Cir.1979).

2. Good Faith Defense
13

Wilson contends that he was denied a fair trial because the trial judge declined to instruct the jury on his good faith defense. The trial judge refused the instruction for lack of sufficient evidence to support the claimed defense. We agree. United States v. Caicedo-Asprilla, 632 F.2d 1161 (5th Cir.1980). The evidence which Wilson marshals in support of this assigned error was insufficient to instruct the jury on the availability of that defense. Id. at 1171. Wilson’s evidence indicates that during the period of his activities in Libya, Wilson twice met with United States government officials, received a list of Russian military equipment from a CIA agent, discussed with U.S. officials the possibility of acquiring a Russian aircraft through Libya and delivered what was purportedly a set of plans for an atomic weapon. But there is no evidence of government authorizations, express or implied, for the C-4 shipment to Libya. The trial judge did not err in denying the good faith defense instruction.

3. Extraneous Offenses
14

Defendant contends that his trial was tainted by the government’s introduction of evidence concerning extraneous offenses and incidents involving terrorism. Wilson complains of testimony that in 1976 he supported terrorist activities including the building of booby traps, letter bombs and the shipment of explosives to England. He complains of evidence that in 1979 similar cans as were involved in the instant shipment were seen in a Rotterdam warehouse and two such cans were recovered in 1982. He further complains of the use of a videotape showing the recovery of cans containing C-4 and detonation tests reflecting the explosive power of C-4. Wilson further complains of testimony by Brower about a contract Brower had to furnish personnel for production of certain clandestine devices in Libya. These devices included lamps that exploded instead of lighting, fire extinguishers that blew up instead of spraying an apyrous material, and briefcases which detonated on command. In closing argument the prosecutor stressed the terrorist training schools, explosive devices and the contents of the videotape.
15

The evidence was offered by the government under Fed.R.Evid. 404(b).2 Admissibility of such evidence is governed by the rule as expressed in United States v. Beechum, 582 F.2d 898, 911 (5th Cir.1978):
16

First, it must be determined that the extrinsic offense evidence is relevant to an issue other than the defendant’s character. Second, the evidence must possess probative value that is not substantially outweighed by its undue prejudice and must meet the other requirements of Rule 403.
17

The first prong is immediately satisfied; the government offered the evidence to establish Wilson’s motive, intent and plan. The more difficult question is posed by the second requirement.
18

The advisory committee notes to Rule 404(b) caution that
19

No mechanical solution [to the issue of admissibility of extrinsic offense evidence] is offered. The determination must be made whether the danger of undue prejudice outweighs the probative value of the evidence in view of the availability of other means of proof and other factors appropriate for making decisions of this kind under Rule 403.
20

28 U.S.C.A. Rules of Evidence at 109 (1975). The determination of probative value vs. unfair prejudice calls for a commonsense assessment of all the circumstances surrounding the extrinsic offense. Beechum, 582 F.2d at 914. Wilson sought to justify his acts by claiming that he had no intent to commit the charged crimes. The prosecution’s evidence was probative of that essential element, and the particular extrinsic acts were sufficiently proximate to the alleged offenses. We perceive no error in the decision that the probative value was not substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. Nor do any of the other Rule 403 grounds for exclusion apply.

4. Evidence Before Grand Jury
21

Wilson submits that the indictment was defective because the grand jury process was abused by the presentation of certain evidence, including extraneous offense evidence. The grand jury which returned the indictment at bar received testimony previously presented to two other grand juries.
22

Traditionally, the grand jury has been accorded wide latitude in its investigation of possible criminal offenses. The grand jury may draw its information from a wide variety of sources, and the validity of an indictment is not affected by the character of the evidence considered. United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 343-45, 94 S.Ct. 613, 617-18, 38 L.Ed.2d 561 (1974). A grand jury is not limited to the witnesses or alleged offenders brought before it and is not confined to the evidence or charges presented to it. United States v. Thompson, 251 U.S. 407, 40 S.Ct. 289, 64 L.Ed. 333 (1970). The grand jury is free of the restraints of technical, procedural and evidentiary rules that govern the conduct of criminal trials. United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 94 S.Ct. 613, 38 L.Ed.2d 561 (1974); United States v. McKenzie, 678 F.2d 629 (5th Cir.1982). It may consider any evidence bearing upon the defendant’s guilt, regardless of whether that evidence would be excluded at trial. Courts have consistently refused to dismiss an indictment when the challenge primarily questioned the quality or quantity of the evidence before the grand jury. See United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 94 S.Ct. 613, 38 L.Ed.2d 561 (1974) (refusing to dismiss indictment based upon evidence obtained in unlawful search and seizure); United States v. Costello, 350 U.S. 359, 76 S.Ct. 406, 100 L.Ed. 397 (1956) (refusing to dismiss indictment based upon hearsay); United States v. Ocanas, 628 F.2d 353 (5th Cir.1980) (refusing to dismiss indictment based upon evidence obtained in violation of Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(e)(6)). Wilson’s challenge to the indictment is without merit.

5. Biased Jurors
23

Wilson claims denial of a fair trial because the court refused to excuse for cause two jurors who purportedly were biased against him. The record does not support this contention.
24
One of the challenged jurors testified during voir dire examination that he had seen a television broadcast about Wilson, and although he thought it placed Wilson in a bad light, he could not recall any specifics. This juror said he understood the presumption of innocence, and he expressly assured that any prior media exposure would not affect his ability to serve impartially. Wilson does not indicate the basis for the challenge to the second juror other than to note her prior close affinity to law enforcement, through employment and marriage, and because of answers which would support a conclusion that she had no opinion of Wilson’s guilt or innocence. Of this juror, Wilson suggests it was very apparent she was trying to give noncomittal type answers so that she could be on the jury and was obviously not being truthful with the Court. The trial judge was not so impressed, nor are we.
25

It is within the discretion of the trial judge to accept jurors exposed to pretrial publicity when the court is satisfied the juror can return a verdict based solely on the evidence adduced and the law as charged. United States v. Jimenez-Diaz, 659 F.2d 562 (5th Cir.1981). Mere awareness of some of the allegations in a case does not disqualify a potential juror. United States v. Dozier, 672 F.2d 531 (5th Cir.1982). A trial court will be reversed only upon a showing of clear abuse of discretion. United States v. Giacalone, 588 F.2d 1158 (5th Cir.1978). We find no abuse in the trial court’s refusal to allow these two jurors to be challenged for cause.
26

6. Misconduct in Securing Custody of Defendant
27

Wilson charges that the court’s jurisdiction over his person was secured by fraud and force and the court should dismiss the indictment. Alleging governmental misconduct Wilson cites as authority United States v. Toscanino, 500 F.2d 267 (2d Cir.1974).
28

In Ker v. Illinois, 119 U.S. 436, 7 S.Ct. 225, 30 L.Ed. 421 (1886), the Supreme Court held that the power of a court to try a person for a crime would not be impaired by the fact that the person was forcibly brought within the court’s jurisdiction. The Court has consistently so ruled through a line of cases3 leading to Frisbie v. Collins, 342 U.S. 519, 72 S.Ct. 509, 96 L.Ed. 541 (1952), and beyond, Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 95 S.Ct. 854, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975); United v. Crews, 445 U.S. 463, 100 S.Ct. 1244, 63 L.Ed.2d 537 (1980).
29

Wilson cites Toscanino for the proposition that the courts have moved away from the Ker-Frisbie rule, and, taking a broader view of due process, would deny jurisdiction when the defendant’s physical presence is obtained through fraud or force. We are not persuaded. In Toscanino, the defendant was kidnapped, beaten and tortured. The Second Circuit, appalled at the violation of the standard of human decency, concluded that due process required dismissal of the indictment. Citing Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165, 72 S.Ct. 205, 96 L.Ed. 183 (1952), our colleagues noted that a court can be presented with a situation in which the conduct of law enforcement agents is so outrageous that due process principles would absolutely bar the government from invoking judicial processes to obtain a conviction. Toscanino, 500 F.2d at 274. The Supreme Court had noted such in Ker: We do not intend to say that there may not be proceedings previous to the trial, in regard to which the presence could invoke in some manner the provisions of [the due process] clause of the Constitution. Ker, 119 U.S. at 440, 7 S.Ct. at 227.
30

We earlier indicated that we did not accept Toscanino as a departure from the long standing rule, and we made it clear that we would not follow it if it were. United States v. Herrera, 504 F.2d 859 (5th Cir.1974), citing Ker and Frisbie, and our decisions in United States v. Caramian, 468 F.2d 1370 (5th Cir.1972); United States v. Vicars, 467 F.2d 452 (5th Cir.1972), and that of our sister circuits, United States v. Cotten, 471 F.2d 744 (9th Cir.1973), and Hobson v. Crouse, 332 F.2d 561 (10th Cir.1964).
31

The Second Circuit subsequently clarified its Toscanino holding in United States Ex Rel Lujan v. Gengler, 510 F.2d 62 (2d Cir.1975), a case factually similar to that now before us. In Lujan the defendant was induced to fly from Argentina to Bolivia, supposedly for business reasons. Instead, American agents were waiting to apprehend him for a return to the United States to face criminal charges. Apparently conscious of the concerns about the possible sweep of its Toscanino decision, the Second Circuit stated:
32

[I]n recognizing that Ker and Frisbie no longer provided a carte blanche to government agents bringing defendants from abroad to the United States by the use of torture, brutality and similar outrageous conduct, we did not intend to suggest that any irregularity in the circumstances of a defendant’s arrival in the jurisdiction would vitiate the proceedings of the criminal court. In holding that Ker and Frisbie must yield to the extent they were inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s more recent pronouncements we scarcely could have meant to eviscerate the Ker-Frisbie rule, which the Supreme Court has never felt impelled to disavow. Although we cited other cases in Toscanino as evidence of the partial erosion of Ker and Frisbie, the twin pillars of our holding were Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165, 72 S.Ct. 205, 96 L.Ed. 183 (1952) and dictum in United States v. Russell, 411 U.S. at [423,] 431-432, 93 S.Ct. 1637 [1642-43, 36 L.Ed.2d 366], both of which dealt with government conduct of a most shocking and outrageous character.
33

510 F.2d at 65. Our analysis of Ker and its progeny compels the conclusion that unless the government conduct in securing custody of the defendant is shocking and outrageous, the court should not dismiss the indictment on a due process basis.
34

When Wilson was indicted he was not within the jurisdiction of the United States. He was considered a fugitive. He was duped by agents of the government who persuaded him to travel to the Dominican Republic. With the cooperation of the authorities there Wilson was placed on a commercial aircraft bound for the United States. Upon arrival he was taken into custody by federal agents. We perceive no factual basis for a deviation from the Ker-Frisbie rule. Wilson was the victim of a nonviolent trick. The district court correctly declined to dismiss the indictment.

7. Insufficient Evidence of Intent
35

Wilson contends that there was insufficient evidence of his specific intent to commit the crimes charged, specific intent being an element of all three offenses for which he was charged. United States v. Hernandez, 662 F.2d 289 (5th Cir.1981); United States v. Wieschenberg, 604 F.2d 326 (5th Cir.1979). Appellant correctly notes the items of proof required for a conviction but fails to note why the proof offered should be found wanting.
36

The standard for review of the sufficiency of the evidence in a criminal case is whether, viewing the evidence and all reasonable inferences most favorable to the prosecution, a reasonable jury could find the guilt of defendant proven beyond a reasonable doubt. The record before us is replete with evidence of Wilson’s knowledge and involvement in the scheme to ship the explosives in an illegal manner. That he willfully intended to conspire and commit the alleged offenses was a matter for the jury’s determination. Its finding is amply supported by the evidence.

8. Exclusion of Classified Information
37

Wilson sought to offer classified information claimed to be relevant to his CIA defense and the issue of intent. In conformity with the requirements of the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA), 18 U.S.C. Appendix 3 (Supp.1983), 94 Stat. 2025, Wilson filed a Confidential Statement. The government responded by requesting an in camera hearing, as provided for by section 6 of CIPA, to determine the use, relevance and admissibility of the classified information. The government also sought a protective order on use and release of classified information. After a chambers conference the district judge orally stated his ruling on defendant’s request. Wilson’s filing listed nine general subjects areas, none of which related to the October 1977 shipment of C-4 from Houston to Libya. The trial court found this proposed evidence irrelevant and immaterial. Upon completion of our review of this record, including a studied examination of the classified filings, we conclude that the district court correctly found this evidence inadmissible under the ordinary rules of evidence, separate and apart from any CIPA consideration. CIPA does not undertake to create new substantive law governing admissibility. United States v. Collins, 720 F.2d 1195, 1199 (11th Cir.1983).

9. Suppression of Subpoenas Duces Tecum
38

On the day jury selection was completed, Wilson served nine subpoenas duces tecum on various persons and agencies, including the Attorney General of the United States, the General Counsel of four intelligence agencies, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the National Security Agency. The subpoenas were identical except that the U.S. Attorney was asked for two items not requested from the other witnesses. The government viewed the subpoenas as an effort to circumvent the court’s prior order and as a delay and harassment tactic. All were quashed.
39

Some of the information sought by the subpoenas previously had been found immaterial and irrelevant, a ruling we have approved. In addition, the subpoenas were general, overbroad and untimely. The district court did not err in quashing them. Fed.R.Crim.P. 17(c).
40

10. Denial of Compulsory Process and Confrontation
41

Wilson claims that in quashing the various subpoenas the district court violated his sixth amendment rights to compulsory process and confrontation. This claim is intertwined with issues earlier discussed, particularly those related to the CIA defense and to Wilson’s assertion that specific intent and knowing criminal acts were not proven. Wilson was not denied an opportunity to offer his defense. He was not denied an opportunity to challenge the government’s proof of specific intent. He called six witnesses. The limitations imposed by the district court’s rulings on evidentiary matters did no violence to Wilson’s constitutional guarantees. The criminal defendant’s right to compulsory process is not absolute and the Constitution does not grant the right to subpoena any and all witnesses a party might wish to call. Ross v. Estelle, 694 F.2d 1008 (5th Cir.1983). The matter is addressed to the trial court’s discretion. United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 94 S.Ct. 3090, 41 L.Ed.2d 1039 (1974).11. Error in Applying CIPA
42

Wilson complains that the district judge’s ruling on the CIPA submissions was oral whereas CIPA requires that the basis for the court’s determination is to be set forth in writing. Section 6(a) of CIPA. The government concedes that the trial court failed to enter a written order or ruling but contends that Wilson failed to object timely and was not prejudiced. The trial judge on two occasions orally articulated his reasons for that ruling. Although CIPA requires that this determination be in writing, we are convinced that the dictation of reasons into the record, timely transcribed by the court reporter, obviated any likelihood of prejudice in this case. The noncompliance with CIPA, in this case, does not justify a reversal, for the court’s failure to reduce its ruling to writing did not impact on the defense or upon the verdict of the jury. See United States v. Heller, 625 F.2d 594 (5th Cir.1980).

12. Evidence by Affidavit
43

The government introduced an affidavit of Charles A. Briggs, the Executive Director of the CIA and its third-ranking official, subordinate only to the Director and Deputy Director. In this affidavit Briggs declared that he authorized the Chief of the Information Management Staff to have access to all records of the CIA for the purpose of making a search for material that in any way pertains to Mr. Edwin P. Wilson. Access was also authorized to the results of any prior search.
44

The government proposed to present the live testimony of the CIA employee who conducted and supervised the search, presumably the Chief of Information Management Staff. As a security matter the government sought permission to tender the witness under a pseudonym but proposed to disclose to the jury his position in the CIA, his access to and review of CIA records, and a description of his background sufficient to qualify him as an expert in covert operations. The government sought an order prohibiting cross-examination about the proposed witness’s real name, his exact address and specific details of his CIA covert activities. The defendant objected to the restrictions and the court sustained the objection. The government offered the Briggs affidavit in the place of the testimony of that witness.
45

The court permitted introduction of the Briggs affidavit under Fed.R.Evid. 803(7) & (10). Wilson contends that admission of this affidavit was error because: (1) it was inadmissible hearsay, (2) if admissible as an exception to the hearsay rule it violated his right of confrontation, and (3) it was procedurally defective.
46

The affidavit was not inadmissible hearsay. It comes within the purview of the exception contained in Rule 803(10), which provides for proof of the absence of a record by a certification in accordance with Fed.R.Evid. 902. The affidavit, read as a whole, substantially conforms to Rules 803(10) and 902. It was executed by the third highest official of the CIA whose duties include overall management, and it is attested to by the General Counsel of the CIA, the custodian of the seal of the CIA.
47

Wilson argues that introduction of the affidavit violated his right to confrontation of witnesses. The claim is not devoid of merit but it is not sufficient to render the affidavit inadmissible as a matter of law. Most exceptions to the hearsay rule necessarily implicate an interruption of the right of confrontation. That fact alone does not bar use of otherwise relevant, material evidence which satisfies sufficient guarantees of trustworthiness and reliability.
48

In the present case, Wilson sought to justify his criminal activity by claiming a special relationship with the CIA. It need hardly be noted that the CIA operates and seeks to operate with a minimum public profile. Its internal workings and activities are not made public and evidence about such is carefully guarded, as it should be. The apparent dilemma presented by the instant case was real. The government was called upon to prove the negative, that Wilson was not directly or indirectly associated with the CIA, or acting with the CIA’s knowledge and approbation when he arranged and concluded the C-4 shipment from Houston to Libya. The approach taken by the government was to first offer a live witness with personal knowledge of CIA records, subject to what the government perceived as reasonable security limitations, and, when blocked by defendant’s objection, to offer the certification of the lack of record evidence, as provided for by the Rules of Evidence. This procedure was not constitutionally impermissible.
49
Wilson’s complaint that the affidavit was procedurally defective is not persuasive. Although preferable, the affidavit need not contain, as an essential element, the words that diligent search failed to disclose the record …, Fed.R.Evid. 803(10); United States v. Harris, 551 F.2d 621 (5th Cir.1977). It suffices that the affidavit, and all relevant circumstances, reflect an adequate search. In this regard, the determination by the district court will be accorded wide discretion. There is no merit to this assigned error.

13. Unconstitutionality of CIPA
50

Wilson contends that CIPA is unconstitutional on its face and as applied because it: (1) is void for vagueness, (2) violates the privilege against self-incrimination, (3) violates the confrontation rule, and (4) permits unilateral appeal by the government. Consistent with the court’s obligation to eschew deciding unnecessary points of constitutional law, we do not address these constitutional complaints. United States v. Raines, 362 U.S. 17, 80 S.Ct. 519, 4 L.Ed.2d 524 (1960). We perceive no significant evidence which was allowed or disallowed solely on the basis of CIPA. Certain classified material was ruled out as irrelevant and immaterial, certain subpoenas duces tecum were quashed because they were overbroad, directed to material previously ruled inadmissible, or tardily served. The questions posed by this assignment of error remain for another day for this court.

14. Brady Violation
51

Appellant claims a Brady violation, suggesting that the government had information about associations of certain people with the CIA which would have materially aided Wilson’s defense. Our review of the record, with particular emphasis on the classified filings, briefs and oral arguments, satisfies us beyond peradventure that no Brady violation occurred.
52

Finding no reversible error in any assignment of error, and none as a consequence of the cumulative total of the assignments, we AFFIRM.
1

The trial court made it clear that Wilson was free to develop this defense:

The Court: … There will be no evidence offered at the trial concerning the details of that. If you want to get up there and say, yes, I was sending back valuable information; I was involved in projects before, during and after, but we are not going to talk about the projects or the information.

[Defense counsel]: Do I understand your ruling, that we will be permitted to discuss the projects, as a defensive matter, but we can’t go into detail?

The Court: What do you mean by discuss the projects?

[Defense counsel]: During this entire timeframe, Your Honor, that Mr. Wilson was working over there with the full knowledge of some high officials with the Government, that they knew he had a cover company, that he had been operating in the same manner that he had to some extent previously, and that he was to a great extent given free license to do whatever would be necessary in order to establish the confidence of the Libyans, and during this timeframe that he was doing things, reporting to certain people here with the Government. It seems to me that all of that is very relevant to the man’s defense.

The Court: Yes, to that extent, I would certainly permit it.
2

Fed.R.Evid. 404(b) provides:

OTHER CRIMES, WRONGS, OR ACTS. Evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts is not admissible to prove the character of a person in order to show that he acted in conformity therewith. It may, however, be admissible for other purposes, such as proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident.
3

See, e.g., Mahon v. Justice, 127 U.S. 700, 8 S.Ct. 1204, 32 L.Ed. 283 (1888); Lascelles v. Georgia, 148 U.S. 537, 13 S.Ct. 687, 37 L.Ed. 549 (1893); and In re Johnson, 167 U.S. 120, 17 S.Ct. 735, 42 L.Ed. 103 (1897)

CC? | Transformed by Public.Resource.Org

http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/732/732.F2d.404.83-2125.html

***

Edwin W. Pauley
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Edwin Pauley)
Edwin Wendell Pauley Sr. (January 7, 1903 – July 28, 1981) was an American oilman and political appointee.

Contents

* 1 Early life
* 2 Oil career
* 3 Politics
* 4 1965-1972: CIA, FBI, and UC Berkeley anti-war protests
* 5 References

Early life

Born in Indiana to Elbert L. Pauley and the former Ellen Van Petten, he attended Occidental College northeast of Los Angeles during 1919-20 before getting a degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1922, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, and an M.S. a year later.

Oil career

Pauley made his fortune running oil companies from the mid-1920s onward. He founded The Petrol Corp. in 1923. Pauley was president of Fortuna Petroleum by 1933. In 1938 he was appointed to fill an unexpired term on the UC Berkeley Board of Regents, and remained a regent until 1972. In 1940 he served as a member of the Interstate Oil and Compact Commission; then in 1941 became Roosevelt’s petroleum coordinator for war in Europe on petroleum lend-lease supplies for Russia and England. He was involved in a wide variety of oil business deals, and was sometimes described as an oil king-pin. In 1947 he bought Coconut Island in Hawaii, as a private retreat.[1]Several of his deals involved Zapata Corporation, run by George H. W. Bush, including a joint-venture with Pemargo in 1960. In 1958 he founded Pauley Petroleum which, with Howard Hughes, expanded oil production in the Gulf of Mexico.

Later Pauley also became a part owner of the Los Angeles Rams football team and a director of Western Airlines.

Politics

Pauley became involved with the Democratic Party as a fundraiser in 1930s, eventually becoming treasurer of the Democratic National Committee. He was director of the Democratic convention in 1944. He was a friend and confidante of Harry S. Truman, and through Truman’s influence he was appointed as Petroleum Coordinator of Lend-Lease Supplies for the Soviet Union and Britain. As president, Truman appointed him United States representative to the Allied Reparations Committee from 1945-1947. With the rank of ambassador, as well as industrial and commercial advisor to the Potsdam Conference, his chief task was to renegotiate the reparations agreements formulated at Yalta (many of which affected Dulles’ former clients). When Truman tried to appoint him Undersecretary of the Navy in 1946, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes resigned in protest at the conflict of interest given Pauley’s ties to the oil industry. Ickes’ resignation scuttled the appointment, and Pauley worked behind the scenes thereafter.

Pauley left government in the late 1940s and returned to being an independent oil-man.

By successive appointments from several California governors, Pauley served as a University of California Regent from 1940 to 1972. The Pauley Pavilion at University of California, Los Angeles is named in the honor of his parents for Edwin’s philanthropy and service as a Regent. A much smaller but still significant dedication to Edwin Pauley himself, rather than his parents, is the Pauley Ballroom, which can seat up to 1,000 people in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Student Union on the UC Berkeley campus.

By the 1960s, Pauley came to support Ronald Reagan. He was the Board of Regents’ harshest critic of student protests on UC campuses.[2]

1965-1972: CIA, FBI, and UC Berkeley anti-war protests

In 1965, Pauley was serving as a Regent at the University of California, when anti-Vietnam war campus protests began to grow. At Pauley’s request, CIA Director John McCone met with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover on January 28 and Hoover agreed to leak to Pauley information about UC Berkeley President Clark Kerr. (See memo regarding McCone’s request to meet with Hoover. McCone graduated from UC Berkeley in 1922, the year before Pauley.) At that meeting, McCone told Hoover that Pauley was very upset about the situation at Berkeley , and was anxious to get a line on any persons who are communists or have communist associations, either on the faculty or in the student body. As soon as McCone left his office, Hoover phoned Los Angeles FBI chief Wesley Grapp, and ordered him to give Pauley anonymous memos on regents, faculty members, and students who were causing trouble at Berkeley. Hoover admonished Grapp, It must be impressed upon Mr. Pauley that this data is being furnished in strict confidence. [3]
1965 memo to J. Edgar Hoover from CIA Director John McCone, re: UC Berkeley protests.

Five days later (February 2) Grapp met with Pauley for two hours at his office in the Pauley Petroleum Building in Los Angeles. Grapp provided him information from FBI files on other Regents, faculty, and students who were considered ultra-liberal. The CIA and FBI worked in conjunction with Ronald Reagan, who sought to mount a psychological warfare campaign against the budding Free Speech Movement and anti-war sit-ins, including using tax-evasion and any other available charges in which the FBI agreed to assist. This has been done in the past, and has worked quite successfully, Hoover noted.[4][5] [6]

(This information was not made public until 2002, after a fifteen-year legal battle with the FBI that went all the way to the US Supreme Court, as a result of a FOIA request for an in-depth San Francisco Chronicle investigation. The FBI had claimed it needed to maintain secrecy to protect law enforcement operations. The National Security Act of 1947 bars the CIA from engaging in domestic intelligence activities.) [7]

Pauley began the February 2, 1965 meeting with Grapp by saying he was upset about the Free Speech Movement and recalled that obnoxious question… concerning the FBI being a secret police (referring to a 1959 entry exam question.) He told Grapp he had no use for [UC President] Kerr and had accused Kerr of being a communist or a communist follower. Pauley explained that the 24-member Board of Regents was divided and that his faction wanted strong positive action taken immediately to clean up the mess. [citation needed] The problem, he said, was that so far he’d been unable to muster the votes to fire Kerr. He blamed the impasse on three ultra-liberal regents who staunchly backed Kerr. Governor Pat Brown (D)) had named to the board: William Coblentz (Brown’s former special counsel); William M. Roth (member of the ACLU executive committee); and Elinor Raas Heller (member of the Democratic National Committee).

Pauley told Grapp that in the 1950s the FBI secretly gave the university reports on professors it was considering hiring. He said he wanted to restore the procedure—which the FBI had code-named the Responsibilities Program — and offered to pay someone to check FBI files. After obtaining Pauley’s promise not to reveal that the FBI was his source, Grapp handed him Hoover’s memos. Pauley quickly read one. This is perfect, he said. This is just what I need. [citation needed] It was a three-page report on UC Berkeley immunology professor Leon Wofsy that summarized news stories from 1945 to 1956, noting that Wofsy had been a self-avowed Communist Party official who tried to get young people involved with the party. (The report failed to note that since 1957 the FBI had found no evidence that Wofsy had been involved with the party.)

Two days later, Grapp reported to Hoover that Pauley would be an excellent source of information about internal university affairs. Pauley could also use his influence to curtail, harass and at times eliminate communists and ultra-liberal members on the faculty [citation needed] — and on the Board of Regents. About a week later, Grapp secretly gave Pauley verbal reports containing confidential information about regents Coblentz, Roth and Heller—even though they had fully disclosed it to the bureau and held top-level security clearances. Pauley, Grapp reported to Hoover, was most appreciative of the information on his opponents. As Pauley saw it, according to Grapp’s report, UC would remain in turmoil as long as the current officials were in power at the university.

That fall, thousands of students joined the escalating protests. To Pauley and the FBI, it was further proof that Kerr had lost control of the university. Pauley confided to Grapp that two alumni were taking things into their own hands. They had recruited athletes to beat up the demonstrators and hired a barber to forcibly ‘shear’ the students who need it. [citation needed] Grapp continued to slip Pauley anonymous memos about students and faculty—at least two dozen more—that he could use in persuading the regents to fire Kerr. But in October, a frustrated Pauley told Grapp he was still two votes short to fire Clark Kerr. [citation needed] Kerr would remain in charge of the university, it seemed, as long as Brown remained governor.

When Ronald Reagan was elected California’s governor in 1966, after campaigning against campus malcontents and filthy speech advocates at Berkeley, one of his first moves was to fire Kerr. Reagan’s Legal Affairs Secretary, Herbert Ellingwood, met with FBI agent Cartha Deke DeLoach at FBI Headquarters, and noted that Reagan was dedicated to the destruction of disruptive elements on college campuses. [8]

After his retirement from the UC system, Pauley concentrated on his many philanthropic interests and business concerns. He was particularly interested in promoting the use of his Coconut Island in Kane`ohe Bay, O`ahu, Hawai`i by the University of Hawai`i and its Hawai`i Institute of Marine Biology.[1] He kept about half of the island for the use of his family—his wife Bobbi, his sons and daughter, and eventually their families. After Pauley’s death in 1981, his surviving wife Bobbi Pauley established the Edwin W. Pauley Foundation to continue their philanthropic work. In 1995, the Pauley family presented the University of Hawai`i with a gift of the private portion of the ca. 24 acre island to the University, and provided funds for the building of a new library and laboratory buildings for the Institute. Built on a living coral reef, the Institute is now one of the world’s premier locations for the study of marine biology.

References

* Saxon, Wolfgang (July 29, 1981). Edwin Wendell Pauley Sr., 78. New York Times
* Biographical sketches: Edwin W. Pauley via Truman Library
* Minor, Linda (2002). Follow The Yellow Brick Road: From Harvard to Enron.
* San Francisco Chronicle, Reagan, Hoover, and the UC Red Scare, 9 June, 2002.

1. ^ Klieger, P. Christiaan, 2008. Moku o Lo`e: A History of Coconut Island, Bishop Museum Press, Honolulu

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_W._Pauley
Categories: American businesspeople | 1903 births | 1981 deaths | University of California regents | Bohemian Club members
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Pauley

***

United Press International – News. Analysis. Insight.™ – 100 Years of Journalistic Excellence

Town told to get tested for mining toxins
Arabs say Israel damaging Temple Mount
Toys ‘R’ Us gets reprimand in Sweden
Israeli K-9 unit uses remote control
Uganda releases Somali defense minister

River Trent cyanide spill investigated
Russian firm renovates Iranian power plant

Published: Aug. 21, 2009 at 3:32 PM

TEHRAN, Aug. 21 (UPI) — Iran’s Ahwaz Power Generation Management Co. is teaming up with Russia-based power equipment supplier Power Machines to renovate a 300 MW steam turbine at the Ramin thermal power plant Unit 1 in Iran.

Under the contract, Power Machines will manufacture and supply parts and components to renovate the steam turbine’s intermediate pressure cylinder flow path, according to the Russian company.

The contract price is valued at $5 million.

In a related move, Montenegro’s Elektroprivreda Crne Gore has agreed to renovate the Pljevlja thermal power plant.

In that deal, Power Machines will renovate a 210 MW power unit, extending the economic life of the K-210-130-3 turbine and renovating the low pressure cylinder flow path (including rotor and diaphragm replacement), according to Middle East business intelligence reports.

The unit’s TBB-200 turbo generator will also be inspected by Russia engineers.

Half of the estimated $11 million contract will be by the Russian state as part of a debt owed to the former Yugoslav republic.

The renovation projects are scheduled for completion by the end of 2009.

The renovation will increase Pljevlja TPP’s turbine power by 10 MW at a steam rate of 670 tons per hour, according to Power Machines.
2009 United Press International, Inc.

1.
Russia launches new Mideast arms push
2.
Bolivia defends Chinese aircraft purchases
3.
Israeli navy to deploy robot craft
4.
Iran looms over Turkish role in missiles
5.
China parade has home-made emphasis

High court hears depictions of animal cruelty case
Tuesday, October 6

Reaction: N. Korea reportedly ready for nuke talks
Tuesday, October 6

Dozens of arrests made outside of White House
Monday, October 5

Reaction: Deadly attacks in Afghanistan
Monday, October 5
Daily Poll
Would it be appropriate if the United States instituted a large surge in the number of troops in an attempt to quickly end the war in Afghanistan?
Yes
No
Town told to get tested for mining toxins (4 min)
Arabs say Israel damaging Temple Mount (10 min)
Toys ‘R’ Us gets reprimand in Sweden (11 min)
Ultrasound pioneer Dr. John Wild dead (17 min)
U.S. markets mixed Wednesday morning (22 min)
Israeli K-9 unit uses remote control (27 min)
Uganda releases Somali defense minister (36 min)
fark
The new pumpkin cannon in Hurley, NY is all kinds of long-distance awesome (with video)
Man rescued from septic tank after getting into barking contest with local dog. Good dog, Murphy …
Henry VIII abdicates. Catherine Parr unavailable for comment
The seasonal flu vaccine either doubles or quarters your risk of H1N1, depending on if you’re Canadian…
Man gets two-day erection and $9 million. Sounds like a win-win
Typical Alabama Birthday. Step 1: Drink to the point of legal intoxication. Step 2: Drive to the…iiiii/

2009 United Press International, Inc.

http://www.upi.com/Security_Industry/2009/08/21/Russian-firm-renovates-Iranian-power-plant/UPI-28691250883133/

***

Strange Conspiracy in a Land of Freedom, Honor and Integrity 2 – Do these people in Washington even know what human rights and civil rights are?

Posted by cricketdiane on October 12, 2009

***

Edgewood Arsenal experiments
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

* lachrymatory agents, e.g., CN;

* riot control agents, e.g., CS;

* chloropicrin (PS);

* Diphenylaminochlorarsine (DM, Adamsite);

* other ocular and respiratory irritants; and

* mustard agents.

* 1,073 Subjects were exposed to aerosolized CS;

* 180 Subjects were exposed dermally;

* 82 subjects had both skin applications and aerosol exposures;

and finally

* 31 subjects experienced ocular exposure via direct CS application to their eyes.

Most of these experiments involved tests of protective equipment and of subjects’ ability to perform military tasks during exposure.

The report cites three earlier studies for its data, namely;

GAO explains at the outset of their report the rationale for the study:

External links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgewood_Arsenal_experiments

***

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=740&page=1

http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=9136&page=1

http://www1.va.gov/environagents/docs/USHInfoLetterIL10-2005-004_March_14_2005.pdf

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04410.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgewood_Arsenal_experiments

***

Black site
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In military terminology, a black site is a location at which a black project is conducted. Recently the term has gained notoriety in describing secret prisons operated by the Central Intelligence Agency, generally outside of US territory and legal jurisdiction. It can refer to the facilities that are controlled by the CIA used by the US in its War on Terror to detain alleged unlawful enemy combatants.[1]

US President George W. Bush acknowledged the existence of secret prisons operated by the CIA during a speech on September 6, 2006.[2][3] A claim that the black sites existed was made by The Washington Post in November 2005 and before this by human rights NGOs.[4]

Many European countries[who?] have officially denied they are hosting black sites to imprison terrorists or cooperating in the US extraordinary rendition program. Not one country has confirmed that it is hosting black sites. However, an EU report adopted on February 14, 2007 by a majority of the European Parliament (382 MEPs voting in favour, 256 against and 74 abstaining) stated the CIA operated 1,245 flights and that it was not possible to contradict evidence or suggestions that secret detention centres were operated in Poland and Romania.[1][5]

In early 2009, the U.S. administration ordered the black sites to be closed.

Contents

* 1 Official Recognition of Black Sites
o 1.1 2006 Bush announcement
o 1.2 2007 Red Cross report to the U.S. government
o 1.3 2009 closure of black sites by U.S.
* 2 Controversy over the Legality and Secrecy of Black Sites
o 2.1 Legal status of black site detainees
o 2.2 Legal authority for black site operation
o 2.3 Public information about black site operation
+ 2.3.1 Representations by the Bush administration
+ 2.3.2 Information derived from investigative reporting
* 3 Specific Facts Surrounding Black Sites
o 3.1 Detainees
+ 3.1.1 Khaled el-Masri
+ 3.1.2 Imam Rapito
+ 3.1.3 Dr. Aafia Siddiqui
o 3.2 Suspected black sites
+ 3.2.1 Asia
+ 3.2.2 Middle East
+ 3.2.3 Africa
+ 3.2.4 Indian Ocean
+ 3.2.5 Europe
+ 3.2.6 Mobile sites
* 4 Media and investigative history
o 4.1 Media
+ 4.1.1 The Washington Post December 2002
+ 4.1.2 Human Rights Watch March 2004 report
+ 4.1.3 Village March 2005 report
+ 4.1.4 Washington Post November 2005 article
+ 4.1.5 Human Rights Watch’s report
+ 4.1.6 BBC December 2006 report
+ 4.1.7 New Yorker August 2007 article
+ 4.1.8 September 2007 media reports to present
o 4.2 European investigations
+ 4.2.1 Spain investigations
+ 4.2.2 France investigations
+ 4.2.3 Portugal investigations
+ 4.2.4 Other European investigations
+ 4.2.5 The Onyx-intercepted fax
+ 4.2.6 The European Parliament’s February 14, 2007 report
o 4.3 Obama administration
* 5 See also
* 6 References
* 7 External links

Official Recognition of Black Sites

Black sites operated by the U.S. government and its surrogates were first officially acknowledged by President George Bush in fall, 2006. The International Committee of the Red Cross reported details of black site practices to the U.S. government in early 2007, and the contents of that report became public in March, 2009. President Barack Obama ordered the black sites closed in January, 2009.

2006 Bush announcement

On September 6, 2006 President Bush publicly admitted the existence of secret prisons[6] and announced that many of the detainees held there were being transferred to Guantanamo Bay.[7]

2007 Red Cross report to the U.S. government

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) prepared a report based on interviews with black site detainees, conducted between October 6 and 11 and December 4 and 14, 2006, after their transfer to Guantanamo.[8] The report was submitted to Bush administration officials.

On March 15, 2009, Mark Danner provided a report in the New York Review of Books (with an abridged version in the New York Times) describing and commenting on the contents of the ICRC report.[9][10] According to Danner, the report was marked confidential and was not previously made public before being made available to him. Danner provided excerpts of interviews with detainees, including Abu Zubaydah, Walid bin Attash, and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Danner also provided excerpts of the ICRC report characterizing procedures used at the black sites, dubbed an alternative set of procedures by President George Bush, and discussed whether they fit the definition of torture.

2009 closure of black sites by U.S.
Search Wikisource Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Message from the Director: Interrogation Policy and Contracts

Newly inaugurated President Barack Obama issued an executive order closing the CIA’s black sites on January 23, 2009.[11] In April, 2009, CIA director Leon Panetta announced that the CIA no longer operates detention facilities or black sites, in a letter to staff and that [r]emaining sites would be decommissioned . He also announced that the CIA was no longer allowing outside contractors to carry out interrogations and that the CIA no longer employed controversial harsh interrogation techniques .[12][13][14] Panetta informed his fellow employees that the CIA would only use interrogation techniques authorized in the US Army interrogation manual, and that any individuals taken into custody by the CIA would only be held briefly, for the time necessary to transfer them to the custody of authorities in their home countries, or the custody of another US agency.

Controversy over the Legality and Secrecy of Black Sites

Black sites are embroiled in controversy over the legal status of the detainees held there, the legal authority for the operation of the sites (including the collaboration between governments involved), and full (or even minimal) disclosure by the governments involved.

Legal status of black site detainees

An important aspect of black site operation is that the legal status of black site detainees is not clearly defined.

The revelation of such black sites adds to the controversy surrounding US government policy regarding those whom it describes as unlawful enemy combatants . According to government sources, the detainees are broken into two groups. Approximately 30 detainees are considered the most dangerous or important terrorism suspects and are held by the CIA at black sites under the most secretive arrangements.

The second group is more than 70 detainees who may have originally been sent to black sites, but were soon delivered by the CIA to intelligence agencies in allied Middle Eastern and Asian countries such as Afghanistan, Morocco, and Egypt.

A further 100 ghost detainees kidnapped in Europe and rendered to other countries must be counted, according to Swiss senator Dick Marty’s report of January 2006. This process is called extraordinary rendition . Marty also underlined that European countries probably had knowledge of these covert operations. Furthermore, the CIA apparently financially assists and directs the jails in these countries.

While the US and host countries have signed the United Nations Convention Against Torture, CIA officers are allowed to use what the agency calls enhanced interrogation techniques . These have been alleged to constitute severe pain or suffering under the UN convention, which would be a violation of the treaty and thus US law.

Legal authority for black site operation

There is little or no stated legal authority for the operation of black sites by the United States or the other countries believed to be involved. In fact, the specifics of the network of black sites remains controversial.

The United Nations has begun to intervene in this aspect of black sites.

The fourteen European countries Marty listed as collaborators in unlawful inter-state transfers are Britain, Germany, Isle Of Man, Italy, Sweden, Bosnia, Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, Spain, Cyprus, Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Romania and Poland. Named airport bases include Glasgow Prestwick Airport (Britain), Shannon (Ireland), Ramstein and Frankfurt (Germany), Aviano Air Base (Italy), Palma de Mallorca Airport (Spain), Tuzla Air Base (Bosnia-Herzegovina), Skopje (Republic of Macedonia), Athens (Greece), Larnaca (Cyprus), Prague (Czech Republic), Stockholm, as well as Rabat (Morocco) and Algiers (Algeria) [15].

Polish Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz characterized the accusation as libel , while Romania similarly said there was no evidence. Britain’s Tony Blair said that the report added absolutely nothing new whatever to the information we have. [16][17] Poland and Romania received the most direct accusals, as the report claims the evidence for these sites is strong. The report cites airports in Timis,oara, Romania, and Szymany, Poland, as detainee transfer/drop-off point[s]. Eight airports outside Europe are also cited.

On May 19, 2006, the United Nations Committee Against Torture (the U.N. body that monitors compliance with the United Nations Convention Against Torture, the world’s anti-torture treaty) recommended that the United States cease holding detainees in secret prisons and stop the practice of rendering prisoners to countries where they are likely to be tortured. The decision was made in Geneva following two days of hearings at which a 26-member U.S. delegation defended the practices.[18] PDF file of report

Public information about black site operation
The U.S. government does not provide information about the operation of black sites, and for a period of time did not provide information about the existence of black sites.

Representations by the Bush administration

Responding to the allegations about black sites, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated on December 5 that US had not violated any country’s sovereignty in the rendition of suspects, and that individuals were never rendered to countries where it was believed that they might be tortured. Some media sources have noted her comments do not exclude the possibility of covert prison sites operated with the knowledge of the host nation,[19] or the possibility that promises by such host nations that they will refrain from torture may not be genuine.[20] On September 6, 2006 President Bush finally publicly admitted the existence of the secret prisons[6] and that many of the detainees held there were being transferred to Guantanamo Bay[7].

In December 2002, The Washington Post reported that the capture of al Qaeda leaders Ramzi Binalshibh in Pakistan, Omar al-Faruq in Indonesia, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in Kuwait and Muhammad al Darbi in Yemen were all partly the result of information gained during interrogations. The Post cited U.S. intelligence and national security officials in reporting this.[21]

On April 21, 2006, Mary O. McCarthy, a longtime CIA analyst, was fired for allegedly leaking classified information to a Washington Post reporter, Dana Priest, who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her revelations concerning the CIA’s black sites. Some have speculated that the information allegedly leaked may have included information about the camps.[22] McCarthy’s lawyer, however, claimed that McCarthy did not have access to the information she is accused of leaking. [23] The Washington Post posited that McCarthy had been probing allegations of criminal mistreatment by the CIA and its contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan , and became convinced that CIA people had lied in a meeting with US Senate staff in June 2005.[24]

In a September 29, 2006 speech, President Bush stated: Once captured, Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi Binalshibh, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were taken into custody of the Central Intelligence Agency. The questioning of these and other suspected terrorists provided information that helped us protect the American people. They helped us break up a cell of Southeast Asian terrorist operatives that had been groomed for attacks inside the United States. They helped us disrupt an al Qaeda operation to develop anthrax for terrorist attacks. They helped us stop a planned strike on a U.S. Marine camp in Djibouti, and to prevent a planned attack on the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, and to foil a plot to hijack passenger planes and to fly them into Heathrow Airport and London’s Canary Wharf. [25]

On July 20, 2007 President Bush made an executive order banning torture of captives by intelligence officials.[26]

In a September 7, 2007 public address to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, rare for a sitting Director of Central Intelligence, General Michael Hayden praised the program of detaining and interrogating prisoners, and credited it with providing 70 percent of the National Intelligence Estimate on the threat to America released in July. Hayden said the CIA has detained fewer than 100 people at secret facilities abroad since 2002, and even fewer prisoners have been secretly transferred to or from foreign governments. In a 20-minute question-and-answer session with the audience, Hayden disputed assertions that the CIA has used waterboarding, stress positions, hypothermia and dogs to interrogate suspects — all techniques that have been broadly criticized. That’s a pretty good example of taking something to the darkest corner of the room and not reflective of what my agency does Hayden told one person from a human rights organization. [27]
Information derived from investigative reporting

The vast majority of information that has been provided to the public about black sites has been the result of investigative reporting. For full details, see the section below on the media and investigative history.

Specific Facts Surrounding Black Sites

As discussed in the preceding section, many of the facts surrounding black sites remain controversial. The identity of detainees and the location of sites are known with varying degrees of certainty, though many facts have been discovered in substantial detail.

Detainees
Main article: Detainees in CIA custody
The list of those thought to be held by the CIA include suspected al-Qaeda members Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Nurjaman Riduan Isamuddin, Ramzi Binalshibh and Abu Zubaydah. The total number of ghost detainees is presumed to be at least one hundred, although the precise number cannot be determined because fewer than 10% have been charged or convicted. However, Swiss senator Dick Marty’s memorandum on alleged detention in Council of Europe states stated that about 100 persons have been kidnapped by the CIA on European territory and subsequently rendered to countries where they may have been tortured. This number of 100 persons does not overlap, but adds itself to the U.S.-detained 100 ghost detainees.[28]

A number of the alleged detainees listed above were transferred to the U.S.-run Guantanamo Bay prison on Cuba in the fall of 2006. With this publicly announced act, the United States government de facto also acknowledged the existence of secret prisons abroad in which these prisoners were held.

Khaled el-Masri
Main article: Khalid El-Masri

Khalid El-Masri is a German citizen who was detained, flown to Afghanistan, interrogated and allegedly tortured by the CIA for several months, and then released in remote Albania in May 2004 without having been charged with any offense. This was apparently due to a misunderstanding that arose concerning the similarity of the spelling of El-Masri’s name with the spelling of suspected terrorist Khalid al-Masri. Germany had issued warrants for 13 people suspected to be involved with the abduction, but dropped them in September, 2007.

On October 9, 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court declined without comment to hear an appeal of El-Masri’s civil lawsuit against the United States, letting stand an earlier verdict by a federal district court judge, which was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Those courts had agreed with the government that the case could not go forward without exposing state secrets. In May 2007, Masri was committed to a psychiatric institution after he was arrested in the southern German city of Neu-Ulm on suspicion of arson. His attorney blamed his troubles on the CIA, saying the kidnapping and detention had left Masri a psychological wreck. [29]
Imam Rapito
Main article: Imam Rapito affair

The CIA abducted Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr (also known as Abu Omar) in Milan and transferred him to Egypt where he was allegedly tortured and abused. Hassan Nasr was released by Egyptian justice in February 2007, who considered his detention unfounded, and has not been indicted for any crime in Italy. Ultimately, twenty-six Americans and nine Italians have been indicted with a trial pending.

Dr. Aafia Siddiqui
Main article: Aafia Siddiqui

The defense for Dr. Aafia currently under trial in the US has alleged that she was held and tortured in a secret US facility at Baghram for several years. The case of Dr. Aafia gained notoriety due to the allegations of Yvon Ridley in her book the grey lady of baghram

Suspected black sites

The U.S. and suspected CIA black sites Extraordinary renditions allegedly have been carried out from these countries Detainees have allegedly been transported through these countries Detainees have allegedly arrived in these countries Sources: Amnesty International[30], Human Rights Watch, Black sites article on Wikipedia[citation needed]

Asia

In Thailand, the Voice of America relay station in Udon Thani was reported to be a black site. Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has denied these reports.[31]

Middle East

In Afghanistan, the prison at Bagram Air Base was initially housed in an abandoned brickmaking factory outside Kabul known as the Salt Pit [32], but later moved to the base some time after a young Afghan died of hypothermia after being stripped naked and left chained to a floor. During this period, there were several incidents of torture and prisoner abuse, though they were related to non-secret prisoners, and not the CIA-operated portion of the prison. At some point prior to 2005, the prison was again relocated, this time to an unknown site. Metal containers at Bagram Air Base were reported to be black sites.[33] Some Guantanamo detainees report being tortured in a prison they called the dark prison , also near Kabul.[34] Also in Afghanistan, Jalalabad and Asadabad have been reported as suspected sites.[35]
In Iraq, Abu Ghraib was disclosed as also working as a black site, and was the center of an extensive prisoner abuse scandal.[36] Additionally, Camp Bucca (near Umm Qasr) and Camp Cropper (near the Baghdad International Airport) were reported.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Al Jafr prison in Jordan as a black site.[37]

Black sites have also been reported in Alizai, Kohat,[35] and Pesha-war, Pakistan. The Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram reported in December 2001 that 275 prisoners, charged with illegally entering Pakistan, were interrogated by the FBI and CIA at Kohat prison, writing that while Pakistani Taliban were questioned by Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Arabs were at the mercy of the FBI and CIA. [38]

Africa

Some reported sites in Egypt, Libya, and Morocco [39][40], as well as Djibouti [41] The al-Tamara interrogation centre, five miles outside the Moroccan capital, Rabat, is cited as one such site.[42]

On January 23, 2009, The Guardian reported that the CIA ran a secret detention center in Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, a former French Foreign Legion base.[11]

Indian Ocean

The U.S. Naval Base in Diego Garcia was reported to be a black site, but UK and U.S. officials initially attempted to suppress these reports.[43][44] However, it has since been revealed by Time Magazine and a senior American official source that the UK isle was indeed used by the US as a secret prison for war on terror detainees.

While the revelation is expected to cause considerable embarrassment for both governments, UK officials may face considerable exposure since they had previously quelled public outcry over US detainee abuse by falsely reassuring the public no US detainment camps were housed any on UK bases or territories. The UK may also face liabilities over apparent violations of international treaties. [45]

Europe

Several European countries (particularly the former Soviet satellites and republics) have been accused of and denied hosting black sites: the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Armenia, Georgia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan[8]. Slovak ministry spokesman Richard Fides said the country had no black sites, but its intelligence service spokesman Vladimir Simko said he would not disclose any information about possible Slovak black sites to the media.[citation needed] EU Justice commissioner Franco Frattini has repeatedly asserted suspension of voting rights for any member state found to have hosted a CIA black site.

The interior minister of Romania, Vasile Blaga, has assured the EU that the Mihail Koga (lniceanu Airport was used only as a supply point for equipment, and never for detention, though there have been reports to the contrary. A fax intercepted by the Onyx Swiss interception system, from the Egyptian Foreign Ministry to its London embassy stated that 23 prisoners were clandestinely interrogated by the U.S. at the base.[46][47][48] In 2007, it was disclosed by Dick Marty (investigator) that the CIA allegedly had secret prisons in Poland and Romania.[49]

There are other reported sites in Ukraine[50], who denied hosting any such sites [51], and the Republic of Macedonia.[8]

In June 2008 a New York Times article claimed citing unnamed CIA officers that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was held in a secret facility in Poland near Szymany Airport, about 100 miles north of Warsaw and it was there where the he was interrogated and the waterboarding was applied. It is claimed that waterboarding was used about 100 times over a period of two weeks before Khalid Sheikh Mohammed began to cooperate.[52]

In September 2008 two anonymous Polish intelligence officers made the claims about facilities being located in Poland in the Polish daily newspapewr Dziennik. One of them stated that between 2002 and 2005 the CIA held terror suspects inside a military intelligence training base in Stare Kiejkuty in north-eastern Poland. The officer said only the CIA had access to the isolated zone, which was used because it was a secure site far from major towns and was close to a former military airport. Both the then Prime Minister, Leszek Miller, and President, Aleksander Kwasniewski, knew about the base, the newspaper reported. However the officer said it was unlikely either man knew if the prisoners were being tortured because the Poles had no control over the Americans’ activities. [53]

On January 23, 2009 The Guardian reported that the CIA had run black sites at Szymany Airport in Poland, Camp Eagle in Bosnia and Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo.[11]

Mobile sites

* U.S. warship USS Bataan[54][55][56]- By definition as a U.S. military vessel, this is not technically a black site as defined above. However, it has been used by the United States military as a temporary initial interrogation site (after which, prisoners are then transferred to other facilities, possibly including black sites).

* N221SG a Learjet 35
* N44982 a Gulfstream V[57][58] (also known as N379P)
* N8068V a Gulfstream V
* N4476S a Boeing Business Jet[59][60]

* On May 31, 2008 The Guardian reported that the human rights group Reprieve said up to seventeen US Naval vessels may have been used to covertly hold captives.[61][62] In addition to the USS Bataan The Guardian named: USS Peleliu and the USS Ashland, USNS Stockham, USNS Watson, USNS Watkins, USNS Sister, USNS Charlton, USNS Pomeroy, USNS Red Cloud, USNS Soderman, and USNS Dahl; MV PFC William B Baugh, MV Alex Bonnyman, MV Franklin J Phillips, MV Louis J Huage Jr and MV James Anderson Jr. The Ashland was stationed off the coast of Somalia, in 2007, and, Reprieve expressed concern it had been used as a receiving ship for up to 100 captives taken in East Africa.

Media and investigative history

Media

The Washington Post December 2002

The Washington Post on December 26, 2002 reported about a secret CIA prison in one corner of Bagram Air Force Base (Afghanistan) consisting of metal shipping containers.[3] On March 14, 2004, The Guardian reported that three British citizens were held captive in a secret section (Camp Echo) of the Guantánamo Bay complex.[63] Several other articles reported the retention of ghost detainees by the CIA, alongside the other official enemy combatants . However, it was the revelations of the Washington Post, in a November 2, 2005 article, that would start the scandal. (below)[64]

Human Rights Watch March 2004 report
Further information: Enduring Freedom – Abuses by US Forces in Afghanistan

A report by the human rights organization Human Rights Watch, entitled Enduring Freedom – Abuses by US Forces in Afghanistan, states that the CIA has operated in Afghanistan since September, 2001[65]; maintaining a large facility in the Ariana Chowk neighborhood of Kabul and a detention and interrogation facility at the Bagram airbase.

Village March 2005 report

In the 26 February-4 March 2005 edition of Ireland’s Village magazine, an article titled Abductions via Shannon claimed that Dublin and Shannon airports in Ireland were used by the CIA to abduct suspects in its ‘war on terror’ . The article went on to state that a Boeing 737 (registration number N313P, later reregistered N4476S) was routed through Shannon and Dublin on fourteen occasions from 1 January 2003 to the end of 2004. This is according to the flight log of the aircraft obtained from Washington DC by Village. Destinations included Estonia (1/11/03); Larnaca, Sale, Kabul, Palma, Skopje, Baghdad, Kabul (all 16 January 2004);Marka (10 May 2004 and 13 June 2004). Other flights began in places such as Dubai (2 June 2003 and 30 December 2003), Mitiga (29 October 2003 and 27 April 2004), Baghdad (2003) and Marka (8 February 2004, 4 March 2004, 10 May 2004), all of which ended in Washington DC.

According to the article, the same aircraft landed in Guantanamo on September 23, 2003 having travelled from Kabul to Szymany (Poland), Mihail Koga(lniceanu (Romania) and Salé (Morocco). It had been used in connection with the abduction in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia, of Khalid El-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, on 31 December 2003, and his transport to a US detention centre in Afghanistan on 23 January 2004.

In the article, it was noted that the aircraft’s registration showed it as being owned by Premier Executive Transport Services, based in Massachusetts, though as of February 2005 it was listed as being owned by Keeler and Tate Management, Reno, Nevada (US). On the day of registration transference, a Gulfstream V jet (number N8068V) used in the same activities, was transferred from Premier Executive Transport Services to a company called Baynard Foreign Marketing.

Washington Post November 2005 article

A story by reporter Dana Priest published in The Washington Post of November 2, 2005, reported: The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important alleged al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement. [66] According to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats, there is a network of foreign prisons that includes or has included sites in several European democracies, Thailand, Afghanistan, and a small portion of the Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba – this network has been labeled by Amnesty International as The Gulag Archipelago , in a clear reference to the novel of the same name by Russian writer and activist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.[67][68]

The reporting of the secret prisons was heavily criticized by members and former members of the Bush Administration. However, Dana Priest states no one in the administration requested that the Washington Post not print the story. Rather they asked they not publish the names of the countries in which the prisons are located.[67] The Post has not identified the East European countries involved in the secret program at the request of senior U.S. officials who argued that the disclosure could disrupt counter-terrorism efforts .[69]

Human Rights Watch’s report

On November 3, 2005, Tom Malinowski of the New York-based Human Rights Watch cited circumstantial evidence pointing to Poland and Romania hosting CIA-operated covert prisons. Flight records obtained by the group documented the Boeing 737 ‘N4476S’ leased by the CIA for transporting prisoners leaving Kabul and making stops in Poland and Romania before continuing on to Morocco, and finally Guantánamo Bay in Cuba.[70][71] Such flight patterns might corroborate the claims of government officials that prisoners are grouped into different classes being deposited in different locations. Malinowski’s comments prompted quick denials by both Polish and Romanian government officials as well as sparking the concern of the International Committee of the Red Cross ( ICRC ), who called for access to all foreign terrorism suspects held by the United States.

The accusation that several EU members may have allowed the United States to hold, imprison or torture detainees on their soil has been a subject of controversy in the European body, who announced in November 2005 that any country found to be complicit could lose their right to vote in the council.[72]

Amnesty International November 2005 report

On November 8, 2005, rights group Amnesty International provided the first comprehensive testimony from former inmates of the CIA black sites.[73] The report, which documented the cases of three Yemeni nationals, was the first to describe the conditions in black site detention in detail. In a subsequent report, in April 2006, Amnesty International used flight records and other information to locate the black site in Eastern Europe or Central Asia.
BBC December 2006 report

On 28 December 2006, the BBC reported that during 2003, a well-known CIA Gulfstream aircraft implicated in extraordinary renditions, N379P, had on several occasions landed at the Polish airbase of Szymany. The airport manager reported that airport officials were told to keep away from the aircraft, which parked at the far end of the runway and frequently kept their engines running. Vans from a nearby intelligence base (Stare Kiejkuty) met the aircraft, stayed for a short while and then drove off. Landing fees were paid in cash, with the invoices made out to probably fake American companies. [74]

New Yorker August 2007 article

An August 13, 2007 story by Jane Mayer in The New Yorker reported that the CIA has operated black site secret prisons by the direct Presidential order of George W. Bush since shortly after 9/11, and that extreme psychological interrogation measures based at least partially on the Vietnam-era Phoenix Program were used on detainees. These included sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, keeping prisoners naked indefinitely and photographing them naked to degrade and humiliate them, and forcibly administering drugs by suppositories to further break down their dignity. According to Mayer’s report, CIA officers have taken out professional liability insurance, fearing that they could be criminally prosecuted if what they have already done became public knowledge. [75]

September 2007 media reports to present

On September 14, 2007, The Washington Post reported that members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence had requested the withdrawal of the nomination of John Rizzo – a career CIA lawyer – for the position of general counsel, due to concerns about his support for Bush administration legal doctrines permitting enhanced interrogation of terrorism detainees in CIA custody. [76]

On October 4, 2007, The New York Times reported that despite a public legal opinion issued in December 2004 that declared torture abhorrent, that shortly after Alberto Gonzales became Attorney General in February 2005 that the Justice Department issued another, secret opinion which for the first time provided CIA explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures. Gonzales reportedly approved the legal memorandum on “combined effects” over the objections of James B. Comey, the outgoing deputy attorney general, who told colleagues at the Justice Department that they would all be “ashamed” when the world eventually learned of it. According to The Times report, the 2005 Justice Department opinions remain in effect, and their legal conclusions have been confirmed by several more recent memorandums. [77]

Patrick Leahy and John Conyers, chairmen of the respective Senate and House Judiciary Committees, requested that the Justice Department turn over documents related to the secret February 2005 legal opinion to their committees for review. [78] The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, John D. Rockefeller IV, wrote to acting attorney general Peter D. Keisler, asking for copies of all opinions on interrogation since 2004. I find it unfathomable that the committee tasked with oversight of the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation program would be provided more information by The New York Times than by the Department of Justice, Rockefeller’s letter read in part. [79] On October 5, 2007, President George W. Bush responded, saying This government does not torture people. You know, we stick to U.S. law and our international obligations. The President said that the interrogation techniques have been fully disclosed to appropriate members of Congress. [80]

On October 11, 2007, The New York Times reported that CIA director Gen. Michael V. Hayden had ordered an unusual internal inquiry into the work of the agency’s inspector general, John L. Helgerson, whose aggressive investigations of the CIA’s detention and interrogation programs and other matters have created resentment among agency operatives. The inquiry is reportedly being overseen by Robert L. Deitz, a lawyer who served as general counsel at the National Security Agency when General Hayden ran it, and also includes Michael Morrell, the agency’s associate deputy director.

A report by Helgerson’s office completed in the spring of 2004 warned that some CIA-approved interrogation procedures appeared to constitute cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, as defined by the international Convention Against Torture. Some of the inspector general’s work on detention issues was conducted by Mary O. McCarthy, who was fired from the agency in 2006 after being accused of leaking classified information. Helgerson’s office is reportedly nearing completion on a number of inquiries into CIA detention, interrogation, and renditions. [81] Members of the House and Senate intelligence committees expressed concern about the inquiry, saying that it could undermine the inspector general’s role as independent watchdog. Senator Ron Wyden said he was sending a letter to Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, asking him to instruct General Hayden to drop the inquiry.[82]

In an October 30, 2007 address to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, CIA Director General Michael Hayden defended the agency’s interrogation methods, saying, Our programs are as lawful as they are valuable. Asked a question about waterboarding, Hayden mentioned attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey, saying, Judge Mukasey cannot nor can I answer your question in the abstract. I need to understand the totality of the circumstances in which this question is being posed before I can give you an answer. [83]

On December 6, 2007, the CIA admitted that it had destroyed videotapes recordings of CIA interrogations of terrorism suspects involving harsh interrogation techniques, tapes which critics suggest may have documented the use of torture by the CIA, such as waterboarding. The tapes were made in 2002 as part of a secret detention and interrogation program, and were destroyed in November 2005. The reason cited for the destruction of the tapes was that the tapes posed a security risk for the interrogators shown on the tapes. Yet the department also stated that the tapes had no more intelligence value and were not relevant to any inquiries . [84] In response, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., stated: You’d have to burn every document at the CIA that has the identity of an agent on it under that theory. Other Democrats in Congress also made public statements of outrage about the destruction of the tapes, suggesting that a violation of law had occurred. [85]

European investigations

After a media and public outcry in Europe concerning headlines about secret CIA prisons in Poland and other US allies, the EU through its Committee on Legal Affairs investigated whether any of its members, especially Poland, the Czech Republic or Romania had any of these secret CIA prisons. After an investigation by the EU Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, the EU determined that it could not find any of these prisons. In fact, they could not prove if they had ever existed at all. To quote the report, At this stage of the investigations, there is no formal, irrefutable evidence of the existence of secret CIA detention centres in Romania, Poland or any other country. Nevertheless, there are many indications from various sources which must be considered reliable, justifying the continuation of the analytical and investigative work. [86]

Spain investigations

In November 2005, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported that CIA planes had landed in the Canary Islands and in Palma de Mallorca. An attorney opened up an investigation concerning these landings which, according to Madrid, were made without official knowledge, thus being a breach of national sovereignty.[87][88][89]
France investigations

The prosecutor of Bobigny court, in France, opened up an investigation in order to verify the presence in Le Bourget Airport, on July 20, 2005, of the plane numbered N50BH. This instruction was opened following a complaint deposed in December 2005 by the Ligue des droits de l’homme (LDH) NGO ( Human Rights League ) and the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH) NGO on charges of arbitrary detention , crime of torture and non-respect of the rights of war prisoners . It has as objective to determine if the plane was used to transport CIA prisoners to Guantanamo Bay detainment camp and if the French authorities had knowledge of this stop. However, the lawyer defending the LDH declared that he was surprised that the judicial investigation was only opened on January 20, 2006, and that no verifications had been done before. On December 2, 2005, conservative newspaper Le Figaro had revealed the existence of two CIA planes that had landed in France, suspected of transporting CIA prisoners. But the instruction concerned only N50BH, which was a Gulfstream III, which would have landed at Le Bourget on July 20, 2005, coming from Oslo, Norway. The other suspected aircraft would have landed in Brest on March 31, 2002. It is investigated by the Canadian authorities, as it would have been flying from St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada, via Keflavík in Iceland before going to Turkey [90].

Portugal investigations

Portugal opened an investigation concerning CIA flights in February 2007, on the basis of declarations by Socialist MEP Ana Gomes and by Rui Costa Pinto, a journalist for the Visão review. The Portuguese general prosecutor, Cândida Almeida, head of the Central Investigation and Penal Action Department ( DCIAP ), announced the opening of investigations on February 5, 2007. They center on the issue of torture or inhuman and cruel treatment, and are instigated by allegations of illegal activities and serious human rights violations made by MEP Ana Gomes to the attorney general, Pinto Monteiro, on January 26, 2007 [91].
Ana Gomes was highly critical of the Portuguese government’s reluctance to comply with the European Parliament Commission investigation into the CIA flights, leading to tensions with Foreign Minister Luís Amado, a member of the her party. She declared that she had no doubt that permission of these illegal flights were frequent during Durão Barroso (2002-2004) and Santana Lopes (2004-2005)’ governments, and that during the [Socialist] government of José Sócrates [2005-], 24 flights which passed through Portuguese territory are registered [92]. She has declared herself satisfied with the opening of the investigations, but underlined that she had always claimed that a parliamentary inquiry would be necessary [91].

Journalist Rui Costa Pinto was heard by the DCIAP after having written an article, refused by Visão, about flights passing through Lajes Field in the Azores, a Portuguese airbase used by the US Air Force[91].

Approximatively 150 CIA flights which have flown through Portugal have been identified. [93].

Other European investigations

Report regarding the Egyptian fax intercepted on 10 November 2005 by the Swiss Onyx interception system, as published in the Swiss press.

The European Union (EU) as well as the Council of Europe pledged to investigate the allegations. On November 25, 2005, the lead investigator for the Council of Europe, Swiss lawmaker Dick Marty announced that he had obtained latitude and longitude coordinates for suspected black sites, and he was planning to use satellite imagery over the last several years as part of his investigation. On November 28, 2005, EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini asserted that any EU country which had operated a secret prison would have its voting rights suspended.[94]

On 13 December 2005 Dick Marty, investigating illegal CIA activity in Europe on behalf of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, reported evidence that individuals had been abducted and transferred to other countries without respect for any legal standards . His investigation has found that no evidence exists establishing the existence of secret CIA prisons in Europe, but added that it was highly unlikely that European governments were unaware of the American program of renditions. However, Marty’s interim report, which was based largely on a compendium of press clippings has been harshly criticised by the governments of various EU member states.[95] The preliminary report declared that it was highly unlikely that European governments, or at least their intelligence services, were unaware of the CIA kidnapping of a hundred persons on European territory and their subsequent rendition to countries where they may be tortured [28].

On April 21, 2006 the New York Times reported that European investigators said they had not been able to find conclusive evidence of the existence of European black sites.[96]

On 27 June 2007, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe voted on Resolution 1562 and Recommendation 1801 backing the conclusions of the report by Dick Marty. The Assembly declared that it was established with a high degree of probability that secret detention centres had been operated by the CIA under the High Value Detainee (HVD) program for some years in Poland and Romania.[95]
The Onyx-intercepted fax

In its edition of January 8, 2006, the Swiss newspaper Sonntagsblick published a document intercepted on November 10 by the Swiss Onyx interception system (similar to the UKUSA’s ECHELON system). Purportedly sent by the Egyptian embassy in London to foreign minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the document states that 23 Iraqi and Afghan citizens were interrogated at Mihail Koga(lniceanu base near Constant,a, Romania. According to the same document, similar interrogation centers exist in Bulgaria, Kosovo, the Republic of Macedonia, and Ukraine [50].

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry later explained that the intercepted fax was merely a review of the Romanian press done by the Egyptian Embassy in Bucharest. It probably referred to a statement by controversial Senator and Great Romania party leader Corneliu Vadim Tudor.[97]

The Swiss government did not officially confirm the existence of the report, but started a judiciary procedure for leakage of secret documents against the newspaper on 9 January 2006.

The European Parliament’s February 14, 2007 report

The European Parliament’s report, adopted by a large majority (382 MEPs voting in favour, 256 against and 74 abstaining) passed on February 14, 2007 concludes that many European countries tolerated illegal actions of the CIA including secret flights over their territories. The countries named were: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. [1]

The report…

denounces the lack of co-operation of many member states and of the Council of the European Union with the investigation, Regrets that European countries have been relinquishing control over their airspace and airports by turning a blind eye or admitting flights operated by the CIA which, on some occasions, were being used for illegal transportation of detainees; Calls for the closure of [the US military detention mission in] Guantanamo and for European countries immediately to seek the return of their citizens and residents who are being held illegally by the US authorities; Considers that all European countries should initiate independent investigations into all stopovers by civilian aircraft [hired by] the CIA; Urges that a ban or system of inspections be introduced for all CIA-operated aircraft known to have been involved in extraordinary rendition. [98][99]

The report criticized a number of European countries (including Austria, Italy, Poland, Portugal and the UK) for their unwillingness to co-operate with investigators.and the action of secret services for lack of cooperation with the Parliaments’ investigators and acceptal of the illegal abductions. The European Parliament voted a resolution condemning member states which accepted or ignore the practice. According to the report, the CIA had operated 1,245 flights, many of them to destinations where suspects could face torture. The Parliament also called for the creation of an independent investigation commission and the closure of Guantanamo camp. According to Italian Socialist Giovanni Fava, who drafted the document, there was a strong possibility that the intelligence obtained under the extraordinary rendition illegal program had been passed on to EU governments who were aware of how it was obtained. The report also uncovered the use of secret detention facilities used in Europe, including Romania and Poland. The report defines extraordinary renditions as instances where an individual suspected of involvement in terrorism is illegally abducted, arrested and/or transferred into the custody of US officials and/or transported to another country for interrogation which, in the majority of cases involves incommunicado detention and torture .

Obama administration

On January 22, 2009 new US President Barack Obama signed an executive order requiring the CIA to use only the 19 interrogation methods outlined in the United States Army Field Manual unless the Attorney General with appropriate consultation provides further guidance. The order also provided that The CIA shall close as expeditiously as possible any detention facilities that it currently operates and shall not operate any such detention facility in the future. [100]

On March 5, 2009, Bloomberg News reported that the United States Senate intelligence committee was beginning a one-year inquiry in the CIA’s detention program.[101]

See also

* Torture chamber
* Extrajudicial prisoners of the United States
* Enemy combatant
* Extraordinary rendition by the United States
* Forced disappearance
* Geneva Conventions
* Ghost detainee
* Political prisoner
* Prisoner of war
* Rendition aircraft
* Rendition
* United Nations Convention Against Torture
* Camp 1391

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External links

Search Wikisource Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against Terrorism

* CIA Interrogation Centre The Salt Pit . Altopix. http://explorer.altopix.com/map/x4ha1r/CIA_Interrogation_Centre_The_Salt_Pit.htm.
* Priest, Dana (May 11, 2004). Secret World of U.S. Interrogation Long History of Tactics in Overseas Prisons Is Coming to Light . Washington Post. pp. A01. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A15981-2004May10?language=printer.
* Hersh, Seymour M. (May 24, 2005). The Gray Zone – How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib . The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040524fa_fact.
* U.S. Holding Prisoners in More Than Two Dozen Secret Detention Facilities Worldwide, New Report Says . Human Rights First. June 17, 2004. http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/media/2004_alerts/0617.htm.
* Priest, Dana (December 16, 2004). At Guantanamo, a Prison Within a Prison CIA Has Run a Secret Facility for Some Al Qaeda Detainees, Officials Say . Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5918-2004Dec16.html.
* CIA Avoids Scrutiny of Detainee Treatment Afghan’s Death Took Two Years to Come to Light; Agency Says Abuse Claims Are Probed Fully . Washington Post. March 2, 2005. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2576-2005Mar2.html.
* Priest, Dana (March 3, 2005). CIA Avoids Scrutiny of Detainee Treatment Afghan’s Death Took Two Years to Come to Light; Agency Says Abuse Claims Are Probed Fully . Washington Post. http://gnn.tv/headlines/1291/CIA_Avoids_Scrutiny_of_Detainee_Treatment.
* Terror Interrogations Held in Old Soviet Facility . Fox News. November 2, 2005. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,174338,00.html.
* Priest, Dana (November 2, 2005). Secret prison system detains high-level terrorism suspects . Washington Post. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002598646_detain02.html.
* CIA ‘running secret terror jails’ . BBC. November 2, 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4400728.stm.
* CIA ‘has secret terror jails’ . Aljazeera. November 2, 2005. http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/9E6F94FB-130A-49A5-A556-5174AFCA1629.htm.
* Priest, Dana (November 3, 2005). Policies on Terrorism Suspects Come Under Fire: Democrats Say CIA’s Covert Prisons Hurt U.S. Image; U.N. Official on Torture to Conduct Inquiry . Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/02/AR2005110202988.html?nav=hcmodule.
* Thailand denies being interrogation site . The Age. November 3, 2005. http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/Thailand-denies-being-interrogation-site/2005/11/03/1130823333738.html.
* Get out of the torture business – Mistreating detainees is unAmerican and puts our own soldiers at risk . Oregon Live. February 10, 2005. http://www.oregonlive.com/editorials/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/editorial/1130981107165890.xml&coll=7.
* Robinson, Eugene (November 4, 2005). Out of a Bad Spy Novel . Washington Post. pp. A23. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/03/AR2005110301732.html.
* ‘Black site’ prisons invite unchecked abuse . News Tribune. November 3, 2005. http://www.thenewstribune.com/opinion/story/5303355p-4808433c.html.
* Silva, Jan (November 4, 2005). Nations urged to answer prison allegations . Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/04/AR2005110400502.html.
* Brookes, Peter (November 9, 2005). CIA ‘black sites’: A black eye for U.S. . Philadelphia Inquirer. http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/13116843.htm.
* Frist concerned more about leaks than secret prisons . CNN. November 10, 2005. http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/11/10/frist.secretprisons.ap/index.html.
* The Hunt for Hercules N8183J . Der Spiegel. November 28, 2005. http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,387185,00.html.
* Revealed: the terror prison US is helping build in Morocco . The Sunday Times. February 12, 2006. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2036185,00.html.
* Europe ‘aided US in CIA flights’, BBC News, June 7, 2006
* Secret prisons, human rights and elections
* CIA allegations: MEPs regret Polish authorities’ unwillingness to engage
* EU to vote on CIA flights report, BBC News, February 14, 2007

v • d • e
High Value Captives in the War on Terror
Captives transferred to
Guantanamo Bay from CIA black sites
Mustafa al-Hawsawi, Ahmed Ghailani, Ramzi Binalshibh, Walid bin ‘Attash, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Abu Zubaydah, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, Ammar al-Baluchi, Riduan Isamuddin (Hambali), Mohamad Farik Amin, Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Majid Khan, Gouled Hassan Dourad, Abdul Hadi al Iraqi
Unaccounted-for captives
Abdul Aziz, Abdul Rahim al-Sharqawi, Muhammed al-Darbi, Mohammed Omar Abdel-Rahman, Yassir al-Jazeeri, Adil al-Jazeeri, Tariq Mahmood, Hassan Ghul, Musaad Aruchi
Died in custody
Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_site
Categories: Black sites | Central Intelligence Agency operations | Counter-terrorism | Locations in the history of espionage | Detention centers for extrajudicial prisoners of the United States | George W. Bush administration controversies | Human rights abuses | Imprisonment and detention | Prisons | National security | Anti-terrorism policy of the United States | Torture in the United States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_site

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Operation Midnight Climax
From Wikipedia, the free

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Monthly Archives: October 2009

Video – Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

This is amazing – a one wheeled stable motorcycle hybrid from Honda – talk about extreme engineering and applied intelligence – woww!

Caught on tape: Cop assaults 15-year-old special needs student

Strange Conspiracy in a Land of Freedom, Honor and Integrity 4 – Washington and what human rights and civil rights are? Have our leaders ever had integrity, decency and honor?

Strange Conspiracy in a Land of Freedom, Honor and Integrity 3 – Does Washington even know what human rights and civil rights are? Have our leaders ever had integrity, decency and honor?

Strange Conspiracy in a Land of Freedom, Honor and Integrity 2 – Do these people in Washington even know what human rights and civil rights are?

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Caught on tape: Cop assaults 15-year-old special needs student

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