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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
***
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
***
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
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_CHASE
Categories: Non-combat military operations involving the United States | Chemical weapons demilitarization | Ocean pollution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_CHASE
***
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.
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
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
***
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).
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
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_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
***
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
B
* Operation Big Buzz
* Harold Blauer
* Peter Buxtun
C
* Henry Cotton (doctor)
D
* Operation Dew
E
* Edgewood Arsenal experiments
F
* Walter E. Fernald State School
H
* Hofling hospital experiment
* Human radiation experiments
J
* Wendell Johnson
L
* Operation LAC
* Jesse William Lazear
M
* Clara Maass
* Madhouse: A Tragic Tale of Megalomania and Modern Medicine
* Operation May Day
* Medical Apartheid
* Milgram experiment
* Project MKULTRA
O
* Oklahoma City sonic boom tests
* Operation Top Hat
* David Orlikow
P
* The Plutonium Files
* Project 112
* Project SHAD
R
* Walter Reed
S
* Eugene Saenger
* Richard Seed
* Stanford prison experiment
* Stateville Penitentiary Malaria Study
T
* Tuskegee syphilis experiment
W
* 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
***
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).
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/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.
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/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.
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/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
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.
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/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
***
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
***
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).
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/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
v • d • e
United States chemical weapons program
Agents and chemicals
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Weapons
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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
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/Edgewood_Arsenal_experiments
Categories: History of the United States government | Military psychiatry | Mind control | Military history of the United States | Central Intelligence Agency operations | Psychedelic research | Biological warfare | Chemical warfare | Human experimentation in the United States
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
v • d • e
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Keeper of the Register A History of the National Register of Historic Places A Property types A Historic district A Contributing property
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List of entries
National Park Service A National Historic Landmarks A National Battlefields A National Historic Sites A National Historical Parks A National Memorials A National Monuments
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_E._Fernald_State_School
Categories: Historic districts in the United States | Human experimentation in the United States | Hospitals in Massachusetts | National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts | Special schools in the United States | Waltham, Massachusetts | Queen Anne architecture | 1888 architecture | Medical ethics
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
***
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
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendell_Johnson
Categories: 1906 births | 1965 deaths | American psychologists | General semantics | Human experimentation in the United States | People from McPherson County, Kansas | University of Iowa faculty
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendell_Johnson
***
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
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_William_Lazear
Categories: 1866 births | 1900 deaths | Deaths from yellow fever | Cuban-Americans | American physicians | Johns Hopkins Hospital physicians | Washington & Jefferson College alumni | Infectious disease deaths in Cuba | Human experimentation in the United States | Columbia Medical School alumni
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_William_Lazear
***
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
* Tournament theory
References
1. ^ Pending US patent applications listing Edward Lazear as a coinventor and their corresponding international counterparts
2. ^ Stamper, Dustin Bush Economist Listed as Inventor on Tax Strategy Patent Application , Tax Notes, September 17, 2001
External links
* Edward Lazear’s personal homepage.
* Lazear’s Hoover Institute bio.
Government offices
Preceded by
Ben Bernanke Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers
2006-2009 Succeeded by
Christina Romer
v • d • e
Chairs of the Council of Economic Advisers
Nourse A Keyserling A Burns A Saulnier A Heller A Ackley A Okun A McCracken A Stein A Greenspan A Schultze A Weidenbaum A Feldstein A Sprinkel A Boskin A Tyson A Stiglitz A Yellen A Baily A Hubbard A Mankiw A Rosen A Bernanke A Lazear A Romer
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Lazear
Categories: 1948 births | Living people | University of California, Los Angeles alumni | Harvard University alumni | University of Chicago faculty | Stanford University faculty | American economists | United States Council of Economic Advisors | George W. Bush Administration personnel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Lazear
***
Category:George W. Bush Administration personnel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Individuals who served in a significant capacity in the executive branch during the George W. Bush Administration.
Subcategories
This category has only the following subcategory.
G
*
[+] George W. Bush Administration cabinet members (42 P)
Pages in category George W. Bush Administration personnel
The following 124 pages are in this category, out of 124 total. This list may not reflect recent changes (learn more).
A
* Elliott Abrams
* David Addington
* Charles E. Allen
* Claude Allen
* Richard Armitage (politician)
B
* James Baker
* Stewart Baker
* Hector Barreto
* Thomas J. Barrett
* Merlin Bartz
* Rod Beckstrom
* Roy Bernardi
* Joshua Bolten
* Robert C. Bonner
* Eric M. Bost
* David Brailer
* Michael D. Brown
C
* Stephen Cambone
* Andrew Card
* Paul Cellucci
* David S. C. Chu
* Jay M. Cohen
* James B. Comey
* Charles F. Conner
* Seth Cropsey
* Jack Dyer Crouch, II
D
* Robert Delahunty
* William DeWitt, Jr.
* Susan Dudley
E
* Gary Edson
* Gordon R. England
* Clark Ervin
F
* J. Michael Farren
* Kenneth Feinberg
* Fred F. Fielding
* D. Cameron Findlay
* Linda Fisher
* Ari Fleischer
* Albert Frink
* Daniel Fried
* David Frum
G
* Greg Garcia
G cont.
* Pete Geren
* James K. Glassman
* Timothy Goeglein
* Alberto Gonzales
* Emilio T. Gonzalez
* Porter Goss
* Blake Gottesman
* J. Steven Griles
H
* Stephen Hadley
* Joe Hagin
* John P. Hannah
* William D. Hansen
* Michael Hayden
* Jay Hein
* Israel Hernandez
* Eugene W. Hickok
* Glenn Hubbard (economics)
* Karen Hughes
* Ray Lee Hunt
J
* Michael P. Jackson
* James Rispoli
* James Franklin Jeffrey
* Frank Jimenez
* John W. Keys
* Charles E. Johnson (government official)
* Stephen L. Johnson
* Robert Joseph
K
* Joel Kaplan
* Neel Kashkari
* Theodore Kassinger
* Eric Keroack
L
* Dave Lauriski
* Steven J. Law
* Edward Lazear
* James Loy
M
* Scott McClellan
* Leo Mackay, Jr.
* Paul McNulty
* John Magaw
* Gordon H. Mansfield
* Mary Matalin
* Kyle E. McSlarrow
M cont.
* Harriet Miers
* Alberto J. Mora
* Craig S. Morford
* Julie Myers
N
* John Negroponte
* Gale Norton
P
* Dana Perino
* Philip Perry
R
* Howard M. Radzely
* Robert C. Tapella
* John Rood
* Karl Rove
S
* David Safavian
* David Sampson
* Ellen Sauerbrey
* Lynn Scarlett
* Kori Schake
* Paul A. Schneider
* Clay Sell
* Robert J. Shea
* Raymond Simon
* Stewart Simonson
* Tony Snow
* William R. Steiger
* Hal Stratton
T
* Sara Taylor
* George Tenet
* Hugo Teufel III
* Carol Thompson
* Larry Thompson
* Randall L. Tobias
* Jim Towey
* Tevi Troy
W
* Jared Weinstein
* Christine Todd Whitman
* David Wilkins
* Richard S. Williamson
* Paul Wolfowitz
Y
* John Yoo
Z
* Robert Zoellick
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:George_W._Bush_Administration_personnel
Categories: Presidency of George W. Bush | United States government personnel by presidential administration | 21st-century United States government officials
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:George_W._Bush_Administration_personnel
***
And – Dick Cheney and John Bolton – (very, very bad humans)
***
Eric Keroack
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dr. Eric J. Keroack is an American obstetrician-gynecologist.[1]
In late 2006, he was named as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, the office that oversees federally funded teenage pregnancy, family planning, and abstinence programs, using its $283 million annual budget.[2]
The nomination of Keroack, an anti-contraceptive advocate, to a position responsible for ensuring low-income women get access to birth control has been criticized.[3][4][5][6]
The Massachusetts native has faced criticism before, after making the claim that sex with multiple partners hurts women’s ability to bond by altering their brain chemistry.[7] He claims that premarital sex suppresses the hormone oxytocin, thereby impairing one’s ability to forge a successful long-term relationship.[8]
Before assuming his position with HHS on November 20, 2006, Keroack was the medical director of A Woman’s Concern, a Christian nonprofit organization based in Dorchester, Massachusetts. It runs six centers in the state that offer free pregnancy testing, ultrasounds and counseling and works to help women escape the temptation and violence of abortion. Its crisis pregnancy centers oppose contraception and do not distribute information concerning birth control.[2]
In January 2007, Keroack received two formal warnings from the Massachusetts board of medicine ordering him to refrain from prescribing drugs to people who are not his patients and from providing mental health counseling without proper training. [9]
On March 29, 2007 Keroack resigned his position at HHS.[10]
References
1. ^ Health Grades, doctor profile for Dr. Eric Keroack
2. ^ a b Contraception, abortion foe to head family-planning office . Associated Press. November 17, 2006. http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/17/family.planning.ap/index.html. Retrieved 2006-11-22.
3. ^ Bush’s Latest Appointment . The Huffington Post. November 17, 2006. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/11/17/bushs-latest-appointment_n_34349.html.
4. ^ The Family Un-Planner . slate.com. November 21, 2006. http://www.slate.com/id/2154249/.
5. ^ A bad choice for families . San Francisco Chronicle. November 24, 2006. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/11/24/EDG0ELJ4EV1.DTL&hw=Keroack&sn=001&sc=1000. Retrieved 2006-11-24.
6. ^ Sack that Quack Keroack: Reproductive Rights Community Steps up Fight to Oust Anti-Abortion Appointee . The Indypendent. January 10, 2007. http://www.indypendent.org/?p=718.
7. ^ Too much sex? Controversy surrounds Bush appointee . SooToday.com. November 20, 2006. http://www.sootoday.com/content/news/full_story.asp?StoryNumber=20991.
8. ^ Stacy Schiff (January 20, 2007). Sex and the Single-Minded . The New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/2007/01/20/opinion/20schiff.html?th&emc=th. Retrieved 2007-01-21.
9. ^ Andrea Estes (2007-04-07). Doctor who quit US post was warned by state Medical board cited prescriptions . Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/04/07/doctor_who_quit_us_post_was_warned_by_state/.
10. ^ The Associated Press (2007-03-29]). U.S. family planning head resigns after state agency acts against him . International Herald Tribune. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/29/america/NA-GEN-US-Family-Planning-Resignation.php. Retrieved 2007-03-29.
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Categories: American obstetricians | Living people | George W. Bush Administration personnel | People in public health | People from Massachusetts | 1960 births | United States medical biography stubs
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(They’re Monsters – the whole damn bunch of ‘em are monsters. – my note)
***
Clara Maass
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Clara Maass.
Clara Louise Maass (June 28, 1876 – August 24, 1901) was an American nurse who died as a result of volunteering for medical experiments to study yellow fever. [1]
Contents
* 1 Early life
* 2 Army service
* 3 Yellow fever studies
* 4 Death
* 5 Legacy
* 6 References
* 7 External links
Early life
Clara Maass was born in East Orange, New Jersey to German immigrants Hedwig and Robert Maass. She was the oldest of 9 children in a devout Lutheran family.
In 1895 she became one of the first graduates of Newark German Hospital’s Christina Trefz Training School for Nurses. By 1898, she had been promoted to head nurse at Newark German Hospital where she was known for her hard work and dedication to her profession.
Army service
In April 1898, during the Spanish-American War, Maass volunteered as a contract nurse for the United States Army (the Army Nurse Corps did not yet exist). She served with the Seventh U. S. Army Corps from October 1, 1898 to February 5, 1899 in Jacksonville, Florida, Savannah, Georgia, and Santiago, Cuba. She was discharged in 1899 but then volunteered again with the Eighth U.S. Army Corps in the Philippines from November 1899 to mid-1900.
During her army service she saw few battle injuries, instead caring mostly for soldiers suffering from infectious diseases like typhoid, malaria, dengue and yellow fever. She contracted dengue in Manila and was sent home.
Yellow fever studies
Shortly after finishing her second assignment with the army, Maass returned to Cuba in October 1900 after being summoned by William Gorgas, who was working with the U.S. Army’s Yellow Fever Commission. The commission, headed by Major Walter Reed, was established during the post-war occupation of Cuba in order to investigate yellow fever, which was endemic in Cuba. One of the commission’s goals was to determine how the disease was spread: by mosquito bites or by contact with contaminated objects.
The commission recruited human subjects because they did not know of any animals that could contract yellow fever. In the first recorded instance of informed consent in human experiments, volunteers were told that participation in the studies might cause their deaths. As an incentive, volunteers were paid US$100, which was a large amount at the time, with an additional $100 if the volunteer became ill.
In March 1901, Maass volunteered to be bitten by a Culex fasciata mosquito (now called Aedes aegypti) that had been allowed to feed on yellow fever patients. She contracted a mild case of the disease from which she quickly recovered. By this time, the researchers were certain that mosquitoes were the route of transmission, but lacked the scientific evidence to prove it because some volunteers who were bitten remained healthy. Maass continued to volunteer for experiments.
Death
On August 14, 1901, Maass allowed herself to be bitten by infected mosquitoes for the second time. The researchers were hoping to show that her earlier case of yellow fever was sufficient to immunize her against the disease. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Maass once again became ill with yellow fever on August 18 and died on August 24. Her death roused public sentiment and put an end to yellow fever experiments on humans.[citation needed]
Maass was buried in Colon Cemetery in Havana with military honors. Her body was moved to Fairmount Cemetery, Newark, New Jersey, on February 20, 1902.[2]
Legacy
A 13¢ US postage stamp in Maass’ honor. The caption reads She gave her life .
* In 1951, the 50th anniversary of her death, Cuba issued a postage stamp in her honor.
* On June 19, 1952, Newark German Hospital (which had since moved to Belleville, New Jersey) was renamed Clara Maass Memorial Hospital, and it is now known as Clara Maass Medical Center.
* In 1976, the 100th anniversary of her birth, Maass was honored with a 13¢ United States commemorative stamp.
* Also in 1976, the American Nurses Association inducted her into its Nursing Hall of Fame.
* The Calendar of Saints of the Lutheran Church honors her on August 13 with Florence Nightingale as a Renewer of Society .
References
1. ^ Yellow Fever Experiments Have Deadly Results. Clara Maass, the Girl Martyr, Buried In Colon Cemetery. She Was the Third to Die Out of Eight Bitten -Hers Was a Pathetic Case, a Trained Nurse, Who Had Served on the Battlefields of Santiago and About Manila, Often Exposed to Fever Infection. Girl Martyr. Clara Maass, Trained Nurse, the Third to Die in the Yellow Fever Experiments in Havana, Order to Turn Over Testimony. Cuban Newspaper Man Killed. . Boston Globe. August 27, 1901. Of the eight persons bitten by infected mosquitoes in connection with yellow fever board during the last three weeks three have died.
2. ^ Clara Louise Maass, Find A Grave. Accessed August 23, 2007.
External links
* American Nurses Association Hall of Fame
* Clara Maass entry at Find A Grave with photos of her headstone, both before and after vandalism.
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Maass
Categories: 1876 births | 1901 deaths | Deaths from yellow fever | People from Essex County, New Jersey | American Lutherans | Female saints | German Americans | American nurses | People of the Spanish-American War | Female wartime nurses | Burials in Fairmount Cemetery, Newark | Scientific misconduct | Medical ethics | Infectious disease deaths in Cuba | Human experimentation in the United States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Maass
***
Madhouse: A Tragic Tale of Megalomania and Modern Medicine
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Madhouse: A Tragic Tale of Megalomania and Modern Medicine is a 2005 book which discusses the work of controversial psychiatrist Henry Cotton at Trenton State Hospital in New Jersey in the 1920s. Cotton became convinced that insanity was fundamentally a biological disorder and he surgically removed body parts to try to improve mental health.[1][2][3][4] This often began with the removal of teeth and tonsils:
An 18 year-old girl with agitated depression successively had her upper and lower molars extracted, a tonsillectomy, sinus drainage, treatment for an infected cervix, removal of intestinal adhesions — all without effecting improvement in her psychiatric condition. Then the remainder of her teeth were removed and she was sent home, pronounced cured.[1]
Scull argues that Cotton’s obsession with focal sepsis as the root cause of mental illness persisted in spite of all evidence to the contrary and the frightening incidence of death and harm from the operations he initiated .[1] Cotton’s approach attracted some detractors, but the medical establishment of the day did not effectively renounce or discipline him.[1]
One reviewer called Madhouse a fine piece of historical research with a modern relevance , and added that it makes compelling reading .[1]
References
1. ^ a b c d e 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.
2. ^ David Gollaher. Madhouse: A Tragic Tale of Megalomania and Modern Medicine (review), Journal of Social History, Volume 39, Number 4, Summer 2006, pp. 1221-1223.
3. ^ Book Review: Madhouse: A Tragic Tale of Megalomania and Modern Medicine, BMJ, 330:1276 (28 May 2005).
4. ^ Book Review: Madhouse: A Tragic Tale of Megalomania and Modern Medicine, History of Psychiatry, Vol. 17, No. 4, 499-500 (2006).
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhouse:_A_Tragic_Tale_of_Megalomania_and_Modern_Medicine
Categories: Psychiatry | Medical books | Ethics books | 2005 books | Human experimentation in the United States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhouse:_A_Tragic_Tale_of_Megalomania_and_Modern_Medicine
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Medical Apartheid
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present is a 2007 book by Harriet A. Washington. It is a comprehensive history of medical experimentation on African Americans. From the era of slavery to the present day, this book presents the first full account of black America’s mistreatment as unwitting subjects of medical experimentation. Medical Apartheid won the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.[1][2]
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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Tuskegee syphilis experiment
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male)
Jump to: navigation, search
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
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment
Categories: History of Alabama | Infectious diseases | Human experimentation in the United States | Tuskegee University | Medical ethics | Medical controversies | Health disasters | Clinical trials | History of racism in the United States | Scientific misconduct
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Study_of_Untreated_Syphilis_in_the_Negro_Male
***
(Above site includes photos of the doctors and scientists who did this and makes a virtual rogues morgue of very educated bad men)
***
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
* http://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
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenic_contamination_of_groundwater
Categories: Water pollution | Water chemistry | Aquifers | Water-borne diseases | Arsenic | Environment of Bangladesh | Health in Bangladesh | Health disasters
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]
Part of a series on
Toxicology and poison
Toxicology (Forensic) A Toxinology A History of poison
Concepts
Poison A Venom A Toxicant (Toxin) A Acceptable daily intake A Acute toxicity A Bioaccumulation A Biomagnification A Fixed Dose Procedure A LD50 A Lethal dose A Toxic capacity A Toxicity Class
Treatments
Antidote A Gastric lavage A Whole bowel irrigation A Activated carbon A Cathartic A Hemodialysis A Chelation therapy A Hemoperfusion
Incidents
Bradford A Minamata A Niigata
Alexander Litvinenko A Bhopal A 2007 pet food recalls A Seveso disaster A List of poisonings
Related topics
Hazard symbol A Carcinogen
Mutagen A List of Extremely Hazardous Substances A Biological warfare A Food safety
This box: view • talk • edit
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
Poisonings, toxicities, and overdoses (T36-T65, 960-989) (history)
Inorganic
Metals
Toxic metals
Lead A Mercury A Cadmium A Silver A Thallium A Tin A Beryllium A Cobalt
Dietary minerals
Manganese A Copper A Iron A Chromium A Zinc A Selenium
Metalloids
Arsenic
Nonmetals/halogen compounds
Fluoride A Chlorine
Other
Radiation poisoning
Organic
Phosphorus
Pesticides: Organophosphates
Nitrogen
Cyanide
CHO
alcohol (Ethanol, Methanol, Ethylene glycol)
Carbon monoxide A Oxygen toxicity
Pharmaceuticals
Drug overdoses
nervous system
Salicylate A Paracetamol A Opioids A Benzodiazepines A TCAs A Anticholinesterase
cardiovascular system
Digoxin toxicity A Dipyridamole
Vitamins
Vitamin A A Vitamin D A Vitamin E
Biological
(including venom,
toxin,
food poisoning)
Fish/seafood
Shellfish poisoning (Paralytic shellfish poisoning, Diarrheal shellfish poisoning, Amnesic shellfish poisoning, Neurotoxic shellfish poisoning) A Ciguatera A Ichthyoallyeinotoxism A Scombroid A Haff disease
Other vertebrates
snake venom (Alpha-Bungarotoxin, Ancrod, Batroxobin)
amphibian venom: Batrachotoxin A Bombesin A Bufotenin A Physalaemin
birds/quail: Coturnism
Arthropods
arthropod venom: Bee sting/bee venom (Apamin, Melittin) A spider venom (Latrotoxin/Latrodectism) A scorpion venom (Charybdotoxin)
Tick paralysis
Poisonous plants/
derivatives
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
Neighborhoods of the District of Columbia
Adams Morgan A American University Park A Anacostia A Arboretum A Barnaby Woods A Barney Circle A Barry Farm A Bellevue A Benning Heights A Benning Ridge A Benning A Berkley A Bloomingdale A Brentwood A Brightwood A Brightwood Park A Brookland A Buena Vista A Burleith A Burrville A Capitol Hill A Capitol View A Carver Langston A Cathedral Heights A Central Northeast/Mahaning Heights A Chevy Chase A Chinatown A Civic Betterment A Cleveland Park A Colonial Village A Colony Hill A Columbia Heights A Congress Heights A Crestwood A Deanwood A Douglass A Downtown A Dupont Circle A Dupont Park A Eastland Gardens A Eckington A Edgewood A Embassy Row A Fairfax Village A Fairlawn A Foggy Bottom A Forest Hills A Fort Davis A Fort Dupont A Fort Lincoln A Fort Stevens Ridge A Fort Totten A Foxhall A Friendship Heights A Garfield Heights A Gateway A Georgetown A Glover Park A Good Hope A Greenway A Hawthorne A Hillbrook A Hillcrest A Ivy City A Judiciary Square A Kalorama A Kenilworth A Kent A Kingman Park A Knox Hill A Langdon A Lanier Heights A LeDroit Park A Lincoln Heights A Logan Circle A Manor Park A Marshall Heights A Massachusetts Heights A Mayfair A McLean Gardens A Michigan Park A Mount Pleasant A Mount Vernon Square A Navy Yard/Near Southeast A Naylor Gardens A Near Northeast A NoMa A North Cleveland Park A North Michigan Park A North Portal Estates A Northeast Boundary A Observatory Circle A The Palisades A Park Naylor A Park View A Penn Branch A Penn Quarter A Petworth A Pleasant Hill A Pleasant Plains A Potomac Heights A Queens Chapel A Randle Highlands A Reed-Cooke A Riggs Park A River Terrace A Rock Creek Gardens A Shaw A Shepherd Park A Shipley Terrace A Sixteenth Street Heights A Skyland A Southwest Federal Center A Southwest Waterfront A Spring Valley A Stronghold/Metropolis View A Sursum Corda A Swampoodle A Takoma A Tenleytown A Trinidad A Truxton Circle A Twining A University Heights A Wakefield A Washington Highlands A Wesley Heights A West End A Woodland A Woodland-Normanstone Terrace A Woodley Park A Woodridge
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 …
http://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 …
http://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 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
***
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
Sodium-iodide symporter inhibitor
Perchlorate (Potassium perchlorate) A Pertechnetate (Sodium pertechnetate)
Thyroid peroxidase inhibitors (thioamide)
Thiouracils: Methylthiouracil A Propylthiouracil# A Benzylthiouracil
Sulfur-containing imidazole derivatives: Carbimazole A Thiamazole
Block conversion of T4 to T3
Ipodate sodium A Propylthiouracil#
Other
Diiodotyrosine A Dibromotyrosine
#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
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perchlorate
***
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
***
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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http://www.cacianalyst.org/newsite/?q=node/4583
***
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.
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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
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
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/Project_112
Categories: Clinical research | Biological warfare | Bioethics | Military projects | Chemical warfare | Human experimentation in the United States
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
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Reed
Categories: 1851 births | 1902 deaths | Burials at Arlington National Cemetery | Congressional Gold Medal recipients | American entomologists | American Methodists | People from Virginia | Military physicians | University of Virginia alumni | Deaths from peritonitis | Human experimentation in the United States | United States Army Medical Corps officers
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]
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Orlikow
Categories: 1918 births | 1998 deaths | Manitoba CCF MLAs | Manitoba New Democratic Party MLAs | Members of the Canadian House of Commons from Manitoba | New Democratic Party of Canada MPs | Canadian Jews | United Steelworkers | MKULTRA | 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/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.
Stub icon This biographical article related to medicine in the United States is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
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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
***
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
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/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
***
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.
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
v • d • e
Military of the United States
Portal (A A MC A N A AF A CG) A Category (A A MC A N A AF A CG A PHS A NOAA) A Navbox (A A MC A N A AF A CG)
Leadership
Commander-in-chief A Secretary of Defense A Deputy Secretary of Defense A Joint Chiefs of Staff (Chairman) A Senate Committee on Armed Services A House Committee on Armed Services A Active duty four-star officers A Highest ranking officers in history A Goldwater-Nichols Act
Organization
Service Departments
Department of Defense (Secretary): Army (Secretary) A Navy (Secretary) A Air Force (Secretary)
Department of Homeland Security (Secretary): Coast Guard
Branches
Army (Chief of Staff) A Marine Corps (Commandant) A Navy (Chief of Naval Operations) A Air Force (Chief of Staff) A Coast Guard (Commandant)
Other Uniformed Services
U.S. PHS Commissioned Corps (Surgeon General) A NOAA Commissioned Corps (Director)
Reserve Components
Reserves: (A A MC A N A AF A CG) A National Guard: (A A AF)
Civilian Auxiliaries
Military Affiliate Radio System A Merchant Marine A Maritime Service A Civil Air Patrol A Coast Guard Auxiliary
Unified Combatant Command
Northern A Central A European A Pacific A Southern A Africa A Joint Forces A Special Operations A Strategic A Transportation
Structure
United States Code (Title 10 A Title 14 A Title 32) A The Pentagon A Bases A Budget A Units: (A A MC A N A AF A CG) A Logistics A Media
Operations & History
Current Deployments A Conflicts A History: (A A MC A N A AF A CG) A Timeline A Wars
Personnel
Training
MEPS A ASVAB A Recruit training: (A A MC A N A AF A CG) A Officer Candidate School: (A A MC A N A AF) A Service Academies: (A (prep) A N (prep) A AF (prep) A CG A Merchant Marine A PHS) A Junior/Reserve Officers’ Training Corps: (A A MC/N A AF) A Other Education
Uniforms
Uniforms: (A A MC A N A AF A CG) A Awards & Decorations: (Inter-service A A A MC/N A AF A CG A Foreign A International A Devices) A Badges: (Identification A A A MC A N A AF A CG)
Ranks
Enlisted: (A A MC A N A AF A CG) A Warrant Officers A Officer: (A A MC A N A AF A CG A PHS A NOAA)
Other
Oath: (Enlistment A Office) A Code of Conduct A Service Numbers: (A A MC A N A AF A CG) A Military Occupational Specialty/Rating/Air Force Specialty Code A Pay A Uniform Code of Military Justice A Judge Advocate General’s Corps A Military Health System/TRICARE A Separation A Veterans Affairs A Conscription
Equipment
Land
Individual Weapons A Crew-Served Weapons A Vehicles (active)
Sea
All watercraft A Ships: (A A N (active) A AF A CG A MSC A NOAA) A Weapons: (N A CG) A Aircraft: (N A CG A NOAA) A Reactors
Air
Aircraft (active) A Aircraft Designation A Missiles A Helicopter Arms
Other
Electronics (designations) A Flags: (A A MC A N A AF A CG A Ensign A Jack A Guidons) A Food A WMDs: (Nuclear A Biological A Chemical)
Legend: A=Army, MC=Marine Corps, N=Navy, AF=Air Force, CG=Coast Guard, PHS=Public Health Service, NOAA=National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, MSC=Military Sealift Command
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
***
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Biological_Weapon_Testing
***
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)
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/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
***
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
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/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
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/Fort_Terry
Categories: Forts in New York | Biological warfare facilities | Plum Island (New York)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Terry
***
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.
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/Operation_Polka_Dot
Categories: Biological warfare | Non-combat military operations involving the United States | Military in Utah
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
1. ^ a b c d e Enemark, Christian. Disease and Security: Natural Plagues and Biological Weapons in East Asia, (Google Books), Routledge, 2007, pp. 173-75, (ISBN 0415422345).
2. ^ a b MacKenzie, Debora. Anthrax in Florida and New York the same strain , New Scientist, October 18, 2001, accessed January 6, 2009.
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.
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/Project_Bacchus
Categories: Arms control | Biological warfare | Military projects
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Bacchus
***
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
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/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
***
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 .
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
v • d • e
Army flag.gif United States Army
Portal:United States Army
Leadership
Secretary of the Army A Chief of Staff A Vice Chief of Staff A Sergeant Major of the Army A Active duty Army four-star generals
United States Department of the Army Seal.svg
Components and Commands
Regular Army A Army Reserve A Army National Guard A Active Units
Central A Europe A Pacific A North A South A Forces A Special Ops A Medical A Corps of Engineers A Signal Corps A Ordnance Corps A Chemical Corps A Test & Evaluation A Training & Doctrine A Materiel A Intelligence & Security A Military Police A Criminal Investigation Command A Judge Advocate General A Military District of Washington
Installations
The Pentagon A United States A Germany A Kuwait A Kosovo A South Korea
Training
Basic Training A OCS A BOLC A West Point A MOS
Uniforms and insignia
Uniforms A Awards A Badges A Officer A Warrant A Enlisted A Branch
Equipment
Individual Weapons A Crew-Served Weapons A Vehicles
History and traditions
History A Continental Army A National Army & Army of the United States A United States Army Air Forces A Center of Military History A Institute of Heraldry A Army Band A The Army Goes Rolling Along A Rangers A Flag A Draft A Army service numbers A America’s Army
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Bluff_Arsenal
Categories: United States Army
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Bluff_Arsenal
***
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)
***
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
* Tooele Army Depot
External links
* Dugway Proving Ground
* West Desert Test Center
* Article: Is Dugway’s Expansion an Alien Concept?
* Article: Does Utah Have an ‘Area 51′?
* Article: Dugway Expansion a Mystery
* High Resolution Fly’s Eye Experiment
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/Dugway_Proving_Ground
Categories: United States Army research facilities | Lincoln Highway | Military in Utah | National Register of Historic Places in Utah | Chemical warfare facilities | Biological warfare facilities | Tooele County, Utah
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dugway_Proving_Ground
(***(
Project Jefferson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Project Jefferson was a covert U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency program designed to determine if the current anthrax vaccine was effective against genetically-modified bacteria. The program’s legal status under the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention is disputed.
Contents
* 1 Revelation to the public
* 2 Project
* 3 Legality
* 4 References
* 5 Further reading
Revelation to the public
The secret Project Jefferson was revealed to the public in a September 4, 2001 article in The New York Times.[1][2]. 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 detailing Project Jefferson and its sister projects, Bacchus and Clear Vision.[1]
Project
Project Jefferson took place in early 2001.[1] Jefferson was designed to reproduce a strain of genetically-modified anthrax isolated by Russian scientists during the 1990s.[3] The goal of the secret project was to determine whether or not the strain was resistant to the commercially available U.S. anthrax vaccine.[3]
Legality
Project Jefferson was operated by the Defense Intelligence Agency and reviewed by lawyers at the Pentagon.[2] Those lawyers determined that Project Jefferson was in line with the international treaty banning the production of bio-weapons, the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC).[2] Despite assertions from the Clinton and Bush administrations that the project, and its sisters, were legal, several international legal scholars disagreed.[3]
Troubling was the fact that the clandestine program was omitted from BWC confidence-building measure (CBM) declarations.[3] These measures were introduced to the BWC in 1986 and 1991 to strengthen the treaty, the U.S. had long been a proponent of their value and these tests damaged American credibility.[3] U.S. desire to keep such programs secret was, according to Bush administration officials, a significant reason that the the U.S. President rejected a draft agreement signed by 143 nations to strengthen the BWC.[2]
References
1. ^ a b c d e Enemark, Christian. Disease and Security: Natural Plagues and Biological Weapons in East Asia, (Google Books), Routledge, 2007, pp. 173-75, (ISBN 0415422345).
2. ^ a b c d Miller, Judith, Engelberg, Stephen and Broad, William J. U.S. Germ Warfare Research Pushes Treaty Limits , The New York Times, September 4, 2001, accessed January 6, 2009.
3. ^ a b c d e Tucker, Jonathan B. Biological Threat Assessment: Is the Cure Worse Than the Disease? , Arms Control Today, October 2004, accessed January 6, 2009.
Further reading
* Miller, Judith, Engelberg, Stephen and Broad, William J. Germs: Biological Weapons and America’s Secret War, (Google Books), Simon and Schuster, 2002, (ISBN 0684871599).
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/Project_Jefferson
Categories: Arms control | Biological warfare | Military projects
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Jefferson
***
Tooele Army Depot
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Coordinates: 40E32?N 112E20?W? / ?40.533EN 112.333EW? / 40.533; -112.333
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
Tooele Army Depot (TEAD) is a storage site for war reserve and training ammunition. The depot stores, issues, receives, renovates, modifies, maintains and demilitarizes conventional munitions. The depot also serves as the National Inventory Control Point for ammunition peculiar equipment, developing, fabricating, modifying, storing and distributing such equipment to all services and other customers worldwide. TEAD provides base support to Deseret Chemical Depot. Information Provided by the Joint Munitions Command
Tooele Army Depot is a United States Army post located in Tooele County, Utah. It originally opened in 1942 during the early phase of U.S. involvement in World War II. The workforce at the post is now primarily composed of civilians. A full colonel serves as the commander.
Contents
* 1 Capabilities
* 2 History
* 3 Facilities
* 4 BRAC 2005
* 5 Environment
* 6 See also
* 7 External links
* 8 Contact Information
Capabilities
Capabilities of the depot include: engineering; explosives performance testing;; logistical support; machining, fabrication, assembly, repair; robotics; non-destructive testing; demilitarization; laser cutting; and Slurry Emulsion Manufacturing Facility. Information Provided by the Joint Munitions Command
History
Built in 1945, TEAD was originally called the Tooele Ordnance Depot and was a storage depot for war supplies. In 1988, TEAD acquired the general supply storage mission from Pueblo Army Depot. In BRAC 1993, it lost its troop support mission, maintenance and storage missions. TEAD retained its ammunition logistics support function. Information Provided by the Joint Munitions Command
Facilities
TEAD is housed on 23,610 acres with 1,093 buildings, 902 igloos and storage capacity of 2,483,000 square feet. Information Provided by the Joint Munitions Command
BRAC 2005
TEAD will gain the ammunition storage function from Sierra Army Depot, which will be realigning due to Base Realignment and Closure 2005. Information Provided by the Joint Munitions Command
Environment
TEAD was placed on the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Priority List (Superfund) in 1990. Information Provided by the Joint Munitions Command
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] .
v • d • e
Army flag.gif United States Army
Portal:United States Army
Leadership
Secretary of the Army A Chief of Staff A Vice Chief of Staff A Sergeant Major of the Army A Active duty Army four-star generals
United States Department of the Army Seal.svg
Components and Commands
Regular Army A Army Reserve A Army National Guard A Active Units
Central A Europe A Pacific A North A South A Forces A Special Ops A Medical A Corps of Engineers A Signal Corps A Ordnance Corps A Chemical Corps A Test & Evaluation A Training & Doctrine A Materiel A Intelligence & Security A Military Police A Criminal Investigation Command A Judge Advocate General A Military District of Washington
Installations
The Pentagon A United States A Germany A Kuwait A Kosovo A South Korea
Training
Basic Training A OCS A BOLC A West Point A MOS
Uniforms and insignia
Uniforms A Awards A Badges A Officer A Warrant A Enlisted A Branch
Equipment
Individual Weapons A Crew-Served Weapons A Vehicles
History and traditions
History A Continental Army A National Army & Army of the United States A United States Army Air Forces A Center of Military History A Institute of Heraldry A Army Band A The Army Goes Rolling Along A Rangers A Flag A Draft A Army service numbers A America’s Army
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tooele_Army_Depot
Categories: United States Army logistics facilities | 1942 establishments | Tooele County, Utah | Military in Utah | Utah geography stubs | United States Army
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
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/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.
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/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
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 1995.[7]
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 http://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
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer
Categories: Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange | Dow Jones Industrial Average | Pfizer | Companies based in New York City | Pharmaceutical companies | Multinational companies | Pharmaceutical companies of the United States | Companies established in 1849 | Corporate crime
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
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_Bj%C3%B6rk
Categories: 1918 births | 2009 deaths | People from Ludvika Municipality | People from Dalarna | Swedish surgeons | Karolinska Institutet faculty | Uppsala University faculty | Swedish people stubs | Medical biography stubs
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
Capital District Psychiatric Center (Albany) | Elmira Psychiatric Center | Greater Binghamton Health Center | Hutchings Psychiatric Center (Syracuse) | Mohawk Valley Psychiatric Center (Utica) | Rochester Psychiatric Center | South Beach Psychiatric Center (Staten Island) | St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center (Ogdensburg) |
Adult 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
Bronx Children’s Psychiatric Center | Brooklyn Children’s Psychiatric Center | Queens Children’s Psychiatric Center (Glen Oaks) | Rockland Children’s Psychiatric Center | Sagamore Children’s Psychiatric Center (Dix Hills) | Western NY Children’s Psychiatric Center (West Seneca) |
Forensic 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.
***
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
(Copyright 2009 by FederalNewsRadio.com. All Rights Reserved.)
Tags: Contracting, GSA, DHS, Coast Guard, Clark Design Build, St. Elizabeth’s, DHS headquarters
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.
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?
***
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.
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/radaccidents.html
***
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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***
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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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).
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Copyright © 2001-2006, 2008 by Wm. Robert Johnston. All rights reserved.
Last modified 13 May 2008.
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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.
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***
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:
* 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/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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***
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:
* 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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***
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.
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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.
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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.
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/1983ARG1.html
****
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.
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***
« 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)
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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
***
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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.
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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
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Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgewood_Arsenal_experiments
Categories: History of the United States government | Military psychiatry | Mind control | Military history of the United States | Central Intelligence Agency operations | Psychedelic research | Biological warfare | Chemical warfare | Human experimentation in the United States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgewood_Arsenal_experiments
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http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=740&page=1
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=9136&page=1
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http://www1.va.gov/environagents/docs/USHInfoLetterIL10-2005-004_March_14_2005.pdf
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04410.pdf
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.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgewood_Arsenal_experiments
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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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55. ^ John Walker Lindh Profile: The case of the Taliban American . CNN.com People in the News. http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/people/shows/walker/profile.html. Retrieved November 29 2005.
56. ^ Myers: Intelligence might have thwarted attacks . CNN. January 9, 2002. http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/central/01/08/ret.afghan.attacks/.
57. ^ Priest, Dana (December 27, 2004). Jet Is an Open Secret in Terror War . Washington Post. pp. A01. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27826-2004Dec26?language=printer.
58. ^ CIA Torture Jet sold in attempted cover up . Melbourne Indymedia. December 11, 2004. http://www.melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2004/12/84411.php.
59. ^ Grey, Stephen (November 14, 2004). Details of US ‘torture by proxy flights’ emerge . Not In Our Name. http://www.notinourname.net/restrictions/torture-flights-14nov04.htm.
60. ^ Brooks, Rosa (November 5, 2005). Torture: It’s the new American way . Los Angeles Times. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-brooks5nov05,0,2414917.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions.
61. ^ Duncan Campbell, Richard Norton-Taylor (June 2, 2008). US accused of holding terror suspects on prison ships . The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/02/usa.humanrights. Retrieved 2008-06-01.
62. ^ Duncan Campbell, Richard Norton-Taylor (June 2, 2008). Prison ships, torture claims, and missing detainees . The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/02/terrorism.terrorism. Retrieved 2008-06-01.
63. ^ Revealed: the full story of the Guantanamo Britons The Observer’s David Rose hears the Tipton Three give a harrowing account of their captivity in Cuba . The Guardian. March 14, 2004. http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,13743,1169147,00.html.
64. ^ Priest, Dana (November 2, 2005). CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons . CNN. pp. A01. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/01/AR2005110101644.html.
65. ^ “Enduring Freedom:” Abuses by U.S. Forces in Afghanistan (Human Rights Watch Report, March 2004)
66. ^ Dana Priest (2005-11-01). CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons . The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/01/AR2005110101644_pf.html. Retrieved 2007-04-15.
67. ^ a b Transcript of interview of Andrea Mitchell, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, Bill Bennett, John Harwood, Dana Priest and William Safire . MSNBC. 2006-06-02. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13615446/page/6/. Retrieved 2007-04-15.
68. ^ The Consequences of Covering Up . FAIR. November 4, 2005. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2715.
69. ^ Craig Whitlock (2005-11-03). U.S. Faces Scrutiny Over Secret Prisons . The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/03/AR2005110300422.html?nav=hcmodule. Retrieved 2007-04-15.
70. ^ Secret Prisons in Poland and Romania? . DW-World. November 4, 2005. http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1765288,00.html.
71. ^ Sliva, Jan (November 4, 2005). Nations Urged to Answer Prison Allegations . MagicValley.com. http://www.magicvalley.com/news_worldnation/?storyid=/dynamic/stories/C/CIA_SECRET_PRISONS.
72. ^ CNews
73. ^ United States of America / Yemen: Secret Detention in CIA Black Sites , AI Index: AMR 51/177/2005
74. ^ Nick Hawton. Hunt for CIA ‘black site’ in Poland . BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6212843.stm. Retrieved 2007-08-01.
75. ^ Jane Mayer (2007-08-13). The Black Sites; A rare look inside the C.I.A.’s secret interrogation program . The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/13/070813fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=1. Retrieved 2007-08-13.
76. ^ Joby Warrick (2007-09-14). Senate Intelligence Panel Seeks CIA Nominee’s Withdrawal . The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/12/AR2007091202353.html. Retrieved 2007-09-14.
77. ^ Scott Shane, David Johnston and James Risen (2007-10-04). Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations . The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/washington/04interrogate.html?pagewanted=print. Retrieved 2007-10-04.
78. ^ David Johnston (2007-10-04). Congress Seeks Justice Dept. Documents on Interrogation . The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/washington/14cnd-interrogate.html?pagewanted=print. Retrieved 2007-10-04.
79. ^ David Johnston and Scott Shane (2007-10-05). Debate Erupts on Techniques used by C.I.A. . The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/05/washington/05interrogate.html?hp=&pagewanted=print. Retrieved 2007-10-05.
80. ^ David Johnston and Scott Shane (2007-10-05). Bush Defends Treatment of Terrorism Suspects . The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/05/washington/05cnd-torture.html?hp=&pagewanted=print. Retrieved 2007-10-05.
81. ^ Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane (2007-10-11). Watchdog of C.I.A. Is Subject of C.I.A. Inquiry . The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/washington/12intel.html?pagewanted=print.
82. ^ Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane (2007-10-12). C.I.A. Internal Inquiry Troubling, Lawmakers Say . The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/washington/12cnd-cia.html?pagewanted=print.
83. ^ Sophia Tareen (2007-10-30). CIA Head Defends Interrogation Practices . Associated Press. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iPMxKLv8VMTyTbkVgGpLC53w3lQgD8SJTO280. Retrieved 2007-10-31.
84. ^ Mikkelsen, Randall (2007-12-06). CIA says it made and destroyed interrogation tapes . Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0654798320071207. Retrieved 2007-12-06.
85. ^ Hess, Pamela (2007-12-07). Democrats Want Probe of Tape Destruction . Associated Press. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/12/06/national/w132617S54.DTL&tsp=1. Retrieved 2007-12-07.
86. ^ Dick Marty. Alleged secret detentions in Council of Europe member states . Council of Europe. pp. chapter E: Preliminary analysis of the information already obtained, part C: Secret detention centres. http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=/CommitteeDocs/2006/20060124_Jdoc032006_E.htm. Retrieved 2007-04-15.
87. ^ El Gobierno canario pide explicaciones sobre vuelos de la CIA en Tenerife . El Pais. 16 November 2005. http://www.elpais.es/articulo/elpepinac/20051116elpepinac_3/Tes/Canarias%20pide%20explicaciones%20sobre%20las%20escalas%20de%20vuelos%20de%20la%20CIA%20en%20Tenerife.
88. ^ La Fiscalía de Canarias investigará las escalas de vuelos de la CIA en Tenerife y Gran Canaria . El Mundo. 18 November 2005. http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2005/11/18/espana/1132315880.html.
89. ^ Un supuesto avión de la CIA aterriza en la base portuguesa de Azores . Canarias 7. 28 November 2005. http://www.canarias7.es/articulo.cfm?Id=14607&dia=29/11/05.
90. ^ (French) La France enquête sur les avions de la CIA . Le Figaro. February 2, 2006. http://www.lefigaro.fr/france/20060302.FIG000000200_la_france_enquete_sur_les_avions_de_la_cia.html.
91. ^ a b c Portugal: Renditions: Judicial investigation into CIA flights begins , Statewatch News Online, February 5-6, 2007 (available here) (English)
92. ^ Portugal/CIA.- La Fiscalía General abre una investigación sobre los supuestos vuelos ilegales de la CIA en Portugal, Europa Press, February 5, 2007 (Spanish)
93. ^ Details about CIA flights requested to Portuguese government by MEP Ana Gomes. See Portugal: Evidence of illegal CIA rendition flights surfacing , Statewatch, October 2006 available here (including documents) (English)
94. ^ Ames, Paul (November 28, 2005). EU May Suspend Nations With Secret Prisons . ABC News. http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1352347.
95. ^ a b Associated Press (2005-12-13). CIA Prisons Moved To North Africa? . CBS News. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/12/13/world/main1121577.shtml?cmp=EM8706. Retrieved 2007-05-23.
96. ^ No Proof of Secret C.I.A. Prisons, European Antiterror Chief Says, New York Times, April 21, 2006
97. ^ Axis Information and Analysis. Eurasian Secret Services Daily Review, 28 November 2005.
98. ^ EU rendition report: Key excerpts, on the BBC News website
99. ^ The report itself, on the European Parliament website
100. ^ Obama issues torture ban Executive Order — Ensuring Lawful Interrogations, The White House, January 20, 2009
101. ^ James Rowley (2009-03-05). CIA Prisons to Be Evaluated in One-Year Review by Senate Panel . Bloomberg News. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aJchF0ELduak&refer=home. Retrieved 2009-03-15. mirror
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
***
***
Operation Midnight Climax
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Operation Midnight Climax was an operation initially established by Sidney Gottlieb and placed under the direction of Narcotics Bureau officer George Hunter White under the alias of Morgan Hall for the CIA as a sub-project of Project MKULTRA, the CIA mind-control research program that began in the 1950s.
The project consisted of a web of CIA-run safehouses in San Francisco, Marin, and New York. It was established in order to study the effects of LSD on unconsenting individuals. Prostitutes on the CIA payroll were instructed to lure clients back to the safehouses, where they were surreptitiously plied with a wide range of substances, including LSD, and monitored behind one-way glass. Several significant operational techniques were developed in this theater, including extensive research into sexual blackmail, surveillance technology, and the possible use of mind-altering drugs in field operations.
The safehouses were dramatically scaled back in 1962, following a report by CIA Inspector General John Earman that strongly recommended closing the facility. The San Francisco safehouses were closed in 1965, and the New York City safehouse soon followed in 1966.
The file destruction undertaken at the order of CIA Director Richard Helms and former MKULTRA chief Sidney Gottlieb in 1972 makes a full investigation of claims impossible. However, many records did survive the purge. News of the story began to leak following a landmark story by New York Times reporter Seymour Hersh on illegal CIA domestic surveillance. This report triggered Senate Subcommittee hearings which investigated MKULTRA, and brought Operation Midnight Climax to light.
In 2009 Strange Science LLC released a HD video series entitled Operation Midnight Climax, based on the CIA experiments of the same name. It starred Meredith Salenger, Todd Cahoon, and Quinton Flynn.
References
* Marks, John (1991). The Search for the Manchurian Candidate . W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
* http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,915244,00.html Mind-Bending Disclosures. Time. Aug. 15 1977
* http://www.strangescience.tv
Stub icon This United States government-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
v • d • e
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Midnight_Climax
Categories: United States government stubs | Psychedelic research | Mind control | Military psychiatry | Central Intelligence Agency operations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Midnight_Climax
***
Category:Human rights abuses
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The main article for this category is Human rights abuses.
Contents: Top A 0–9 A 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 Z
[+] Human rights abuses
(previous 200) (next 200)
Subcategories
This category has the following 33 subcategories, out of 38 total.
A
*
[+] Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse (1 C, 18 P, 4 F)
*
[+] Crime of aggression (1 C, 17 P)
*
[+] Antisemitic attacks and incidents (4 C, 37 P)
B
*
[+] Black Spring (Cuba) (2 P)
*
[+] Black sites (9 P)
*
[+] Blood diamonds (19 P)
C
*
[+] Collective punishment (2 C, 28 P, 1 F)
*
[+] Crimes against humanity (8 C, 29 P)
D
*
[+] Democides (6 C, 24 P)
*
[+] Dirty War (5 C, 26 P)
*
[+] Dirty wars (10 C, 29 P)
D cont.
*
[+] Discrimination (26 C, 255 P)
E
*
[+] Emergency laws (8 C, 63 P)
*
[+] Ethnic riots (1 C, 25 P)
*
[+] Extrajudicial killings (4 C, 35 P, 1 F)
*
[+] Extraordinary rendition program (1 C, 11 P)
F
*
[+] Forced disappearance (4 C, 33 P)
*
[+] Forced migration (18 C, 97 P)
G
*
[+] Guantanamo Bay detainment camp (1 C, 29 P)
H
*
[+] Historical deletion (2 C, 18 P)
*
[+] Honor killing (2 C, 10 P)
*
[+] Human experimentation (1 C, 7 P)
H cont.
*
[+] Human trafficking (4 C, 27 P)
L
*
[+] Lynchings (2 C, 11 P)
N
*
[+] Nazi eugenics (1 C, 25 P)
O
*
[+] Operation Condor (2 C, 38 P)
P
*
[+] Persecution (12 C, 36 P)
*
[+] Police brutality (5 C, 20 P)
*
[+] Political repression (9 C, 116 P)
R
*
[+] Religious persecution (18 C, 114 P)
*
[+] Religiously motivated violence in the United States (9 C, 34 P)
S
*
[+] Slavery (16 C, 132 P)
*
[+] Human rights abuses in Sri Lanka (1 C, 28 P)
Pages in category Human rights abuses
The following 167 pages are in this category, out of 186 total. This list may not reflect recent changes (learn more).
* Human rights
1
* 1932 Salvadoran peasant uprising
2
* 2007–2008 Ethiopian crackdown in Ogaden
A
* Agent Orange
* Ahmed Zaoui
* Homaidan Al-Turki
* Amnesty law
* Ankang (asylum)
* Anti-Slavism
* Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003
* Arbitrary arrest and detention
* Aso Mining forced labor controversy
B
* Bad Nenndorf interrogation centre
* Bagram Theater Internment Facility
* Bagram torture and prisoner abuse
* Wouter Basson
* Battalion 3-16 (Honduras)
* The Black Book of Communism
* Black site
* Blackbirding
* Body cavity search
* Bride kidnapping
C
* CIA transnational human rights actions
* Camp 1391
* Camp Bucca
* Camp Cropper
* Camp Nama
* Camp Whitehorse
* Canada’s role in the invasion of Afghanistan
* Canadian Afghan detainee abuse scandal
* Caning in Singapore
* Capital punishment in India
* Capital punishment in Iran
* Capital punishment in Iraq
* Capital punishment in Pakistan
* Carandiru massacre
* Children’s Aid Society (Canada)
* Civilian casualties of the War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
* Civilian casualties
* Collective punishment
* Command of Communist Hunting
* Command responsibility
* Communist crime
* Conflict in the Niger Delta
* Congo Free State
* Conspiracy of Silence (Church persecutions)
* Corporal punishment
* Jan Coucke and Pieter Goethals
* Crime against humanity
* Cristero War
* Criticism of the War on Terrorism
* Cruel and unusual punishment
* Cults and governments
* Cummins Unit
D
* DINA
* DOI-CODI
D cont.
* Danube–Black Sea Canal
* Death squad
* Debt bondage
* Dechristianisation of France during the French Revolution
* Dekulakization
* Democide
* Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project
* Deprogramming
* The Destruction of Thracian Bulgarians in 1913
* Dictatorship
E
* Ecological migration
* Electroconvulsive therapy
* Eliminationism
* Encounter killings
* Enhanced interrogation techniques
* Estadio Nacional de Chile
* Estadio Víctor Jara
* Ethiopian general election, 2005
* Ethnic cleansing
* Expulsion of Germans after World War II
* Expulsion of Poles by Germany
* Extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances in the Philippines
* Extrajudicial punishment
* Extraordinary rendition by the United States
F
* Faeq al-Mir arrest controversy
* Eynulla Fatullayev
* Forced marriage
* Forced disappearance
* Forced migration
* Freedom Memorial
* Frontier justice
G
* Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación
* German American internment
* Germanisation
* Ghost detainee
* Greek Military Police
* Grupo Colina
* Guantanamo Bay detention camp
H
* HIV trial in Libya
* Hate speech
* House demolition in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict
* Human rights in Cuba
* Human Rights Record of the United States
* Human shield
* Human trafficking
* Human trafficking in Australia
* Human zoo
I
* Imbros
* Impunity
* Incarceration
* International public opinion on the war in Afghanistan
* Involuntary commitment
* Involuntary servitude
* Involuntary treatment
* Iraq prison abuse scandals
* Iraq sanctions
I cont.
* Iron Guard death squads
* Italian American internment
J
* Japanese American internment
* Japanese war crimes
K
* Kahrizak detention center
* Khiam detention center
* Kidnapping
* Komsomolskoye massacre
* Kosovo organ theft
* Kulturkampf
L
* La Violencia
* Legality of prostitution
* Legitimacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq
* Lists of former Guantanamo captives alleged to have returned to terrorism
* London Charter of the International Military Tribunal
* Lord’s Resistance Army insurgency
M
* Eduardo Mathew
* Medical torture
* Military use of children
* Minors detained in the War on Terror
* Saeed Mortazavi
* Muluk murder case
N
* NKVD
* Nanoor massacre
* Nonperson
O
* One-child policy
* Operation Demetrius
* Operation Horseshoe
* Opposition to the War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
P
* Paracuellos del Jarama
* David Passaro
* Periodic Report of the United States of America to the United Nations Committee Against Torture
* Pites,ti prison
* Police brutality
* Political repression
* Politicide
* Protests against the War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
* Public opinion in Canada on the war in Afghanistan
R
* Rachid Mesli
* Ragging
* Red Terror (Spain)
* Rodrigo Franco Command
* Royal Proclamation of 2003
* Ernst Rüdin
S
* Scandals surrounding the RCMP
* Scorpions (Iraq)
* Second-class citizen
* Secret trial
* S?uz.ba Bezpieczen’stwa
* Social dangerousness
* Somalia Affair
* Soviet deportations from Estonia
* Starlight tours
* Stolen Generations
* Stratocide
(previous 200) (next 200)
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Human_rights_abuses
Categories: Human rights | Abuse | International criminal law | Crimes
Hidden categories: Categories requiring diffusion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Human_rights_abuses
***
1993 shootings at CIA Headquarters
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
CIA.svg
An attack took place on January 25, 1993 near the entrance of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters in Langley, Virginia where two CIA employees were killed and three others wounded. The perpetrator, Mir Aimal Kasi, shot CIA employees in their cars as they were waiting at a stoplight.
Kasi fled the country and was placed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, sparking a four year international manhunt. He was captured by FBI agents in Pakistan in 1997 and rendered back to the United States to stand trial. He admitted that he shot the victims of the attack, and was subsequently found guilty of capital and first-degree murder, and was executed by lethal injection in 2002.
Contents
* 1 Background
* 2 Shootings
* 3 Investigation
* 4 Capture and rendition
* 5 Trial and execution
* 6 Possible vendetta
* 7 Execution
* 8 Victims
* 9 Memorials
o 9.1 Central Intelligence Agency memorial wall
o 9.2 Route 123 Memorial
o 9.3 Lansing Bennett Forest
* 10 References
* 11 See also
* 12 External links
Background
Mir Aimal Kasi, shortly after his capture in 1997
Kasi (Arabic: ??? ????? ??????) was a Pakistani national, born in Quetta, Balochistan[1] on February 10, 1964,[2] and belonging to the Pashtun tribe of Kasi[1]. He went to the US in 1991, taking a substantial sum of cash he had inherited on the death of his father in 1989[1]. He travelled on forged papers he had purchased in Karachi, altering his name to Kansi , and later bought a fake green card in Miami[3]. He stayed with a Kashmiri friend, Zahed Mir[4], in his Reston, Virginia apartment, and invested in a courier firm[1] for which he also worked as a driver[5]. This work would be decisive in his choice of target: I used to pass this area almost every day and knew these two left-turning lanes [were] mostly people who work for CIA. [3]
According to Kasi, his first thoughts of an attack came after the purchase of an AK-47 from a Chantilly gun store. The plan soon became more important than any other thing to [him]. [3]
Shootings
At around 8 a.m. on January 25, 1993, Kasi stopped his brown station wagon behind a number of vehicles waiting at a red traffic light on the eastbound side of Route 123, Fairfax County.[6] The vehicles were waiting to make a left turn into the main entrance of CIA headquarters. Kasi emerged from his vehicle with an AK-47 and proceeded to move among the lines of vehicles, firing into them. Within seconds, he had killed Lansing H. Bennett MD, 66, and Frank Darling, 28. Three others were left with gunshot wounds.[5] Darling was shot first and later received additional gunshot wounds to the head after Kasi shot the other victims.
During his later confession, Kasi said that he’d only stopped firing because there wasn’t anybody else left to shoot , and that he only shot male passengers because it would be against [his] religion to shoot females .[5]
He was also surprised at the lack of an armed response: I thought I will be arrested, or maybe killed in a shootout with CIA guards or police. [3]
Kasi climbed back into his vehicle and drove to a nearby park. After 90 minutes of waiting, it became clear that he was not being actively sought and so he drove back to his Reston apartment[5]. He hid the assault rifle in a green plastic bag under a sofa, went to a McDonald’s for something to eat, and booked himself into a Days Inn for the night. The CNN news reports he watched made it clear that police had misidentified his vehicle and did not have his license plate number.[4] The next morning, he took a flight to Quetta, Pakistan.[1] According to Kasi, he killed American CIA people because, I was real angry with the policy of the U.S. government in the Middle East, particularly toward the Palestinian people, Kasi said in a prison interview with CNN affiliate WTTG.[7]
Investigation
An investigative task force (named Langmur for Langley murders ) was drawn together from both the FBI and local Fairfax County police. They began sifting through recent AK-47 purchases in Maryland and Virginia—there had been at least 1,600 over the previous year alone. Mir Aimal Kasi’s name was on the sales slip from a gun store in Chantilly, where he had exchanged another gun for the AK-47[4] just three days before the shootings.[5]
This information provided the first solid lead in the investigation when Kasi’s roommate, Zahed Mir, reported him missing two days after the shootings.[5] He also told police how Kasi would get angry watching CNN reports of attacks on Muslims[4] — in particular, Kasi would later cite the US attacks on Iraq, Israeli killings of Palestinians, and CIA involvement in Muslim countries.[3][5] Although Mir didn’t think much of it at the time, Kasi had said he wanted to do something big , with possible targets of the White House, the Israeli Embassy and the CIA.[4]
A police search of Kasi’s apartment turned up the hidden AK-47 under the couch. Ballistics tests confirmed it was the weapon used in the shootings, and Kasi became the chief suspect of the investigation.[4]
Kasi was listed as one of the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives.[8] The search was focused on Pakistan, and agents spent the next four years following hundreds of leads, taking them as far afield as Thailand, but to no avail.[4] Kasi would later reveal he had spent this time being sheltered by fellow Pashtun tribesmen, in the border regions of Afghanistan, making only brief visits to Pakistan.[3][5]
Capture and rendition
In May 1997, an informant walked into the US consulate in Karachi and claimed he could help lead them to Kasi. As proof, he showed a copy of a driver license application made by Kasi under a false name but bearing his photograph. Apparently, the Pashtun tribals who had been sheltering Kasi were now prepared to accept the multi-million dollar reward offer for his capture.[9] Other sources claim they were pressured by the Pakistani government.[1]
Kasi was in the Afghan border regions, so the informant was told to lure Kasi into Pakistan where he could be more easily apprehended. Kasi was tempted with a lucrative business offer—smuggling Russian electronic goods into Pakistan—which brought him to Dera Ghazi Khan, in the Punjab province of Pakistan, where he checked into a room at Shalimar Hotel.[9]
At 4 a.m. on the morning of June 15, 1997, an armed team of FBI agents, working with the Pakistani ISI, raided Kasi’s hotel room. His fingerprints were taken on the scene, confirming his identity.
There is some dispute over where Kasi was taken next—US authorities claim it was a holding facility run by Pakistani authorities[5], while Pakistani sources claim it was the US embassy in Islamabad[9] — before being flown to the US on June 17 in a C-141 transport.[5][10]
During the flight, Kasi made a full oral and written confession to the FBI.[5]
Kasi’s extrajudicial rendition was controversial in Pakistan—no formal request for his extradition was made, and no extradition proceedings were initiated.[10] US authorities would later assert the rendition was legal under an extradition treaty signed with the UK, before Partition when India was under colonial rule.[5] Kasi argued against his rendition in court but his assertions were found to have no basis in law. The Court wrote:
…the treaty between the United States and Pakistan contains no provision that bars forcible abductions, nor does it otherwise ‘purport to specify the only way in which one country may gain custody of a national of the other country for the purposes of prosecution.’ Id. at 664 (emphasis added). Nor does the treaty provide that, once a request for extradition is made, the procedures outlined in the treaty become the sole means of transferring custody of a suspected criminal from one country to the other. Finally, because Kasi was not returned to the United States via extradition proceedings initiated under the Extradition Treaty between the United States and Pakistan, Kasi’s reliance upon United States v. Rauscher does not avail him.[11]
Trial and execution
On February 16, 1993, Kasi, then a fugitive, had been charged in absentia. The charges involved capital murder of Darling, murder of Bennett, and three counts of malicious wounding for the other victims, along with related firearms charges.
Kasi was tried by a Virginia state court jury over a period of ten days in November 1997, on a plea of not guilty to all charges. The jury found him guilty, and fixed punishment for the capital murder charge at death.[5] On February 4, 1998, Kasi was sentenced to death for the capital murder of Darling, who was shot at the beginning of the attack and again after the other victims had been shot. Among his other punishments were a life sentence for the first-degree murder of Bennett, multiple 20-year sentences for the malicious woundings, and fines totalling $600,000.[5]
Possible vendetta
Two days before Kasi’s execution on November 12, 2002, four US oil executives and their Pakistani taxi driver were shot dead in Karachi, in what was has been described as a deliberate response to Kasi’s guilty verdict.[12]
Execution
Kasi was executed by lethal injection on November 14, 2002, at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Virginia.[13] Kasi’s body was repatriated to Pakistan, his funeral was attended by the entire civil hierarchy of Baluchistan, the local Pakistan Army Corps Commander and the Pakistani Ambassador to the United States, Ashraf Jahangir Qazi.[14]
Victims
The two fatalities of Kasi’s attack were Lansing H. Bennett M.D., 66, and Frank Darling, 28, both CIA employees. Bennett, with experience as a physician, was working as an intelligence analyst assessing the health of foreign leaders.[15] Darling worked in covert operations.[4]
The three people wounded in the attack were Calvin Morgan, 61, an engineer; Nicholas Starr, 60, a CIA analyst; and Stephen E. Williams, 48, an AT&T employee.[4]
Memorials
Central Intelligence Agency memorial wall
The CIA Memorial Wall at their Langley headquarters, on which Bennett and Darling are memorialized
Bennett and Darling were memorialized as the 69th and 70th entries on the CIA’s memorial wall of stars in the foyer of the Langley headquarters building,[16] although President Clinton, in an address to the CIA, attributed the two individuals as the 55th and 56th stars.[17]
Route 123 Memorial
The Route 123 Memorial, consisting of a granite wall and two benches facing each other near the site of the shooting, is dedicated to Bennett and Darling.[18] This memorial is illumnated at night. The memorial is not at the exact location of the shooting due to traffic reasons.
An inscription reads:
In Remembrance of Ultimate Dedication to Mission Shown by Officers of the Central Intelligence Agency Whose Lives Have Been Taken or Forever Changed by Events at Home and Abroad.
Dedicato Par Aevum
(Dedicated to Service)
May 2002
The memorial was dedicated May 24, 2002.[18]
Lansing Bennett Forest
A forest was renamed in Bennett’s honor—the Lansing Bennett Forest in Duxbury, Massachusetts, where he was formerly chair of the Duxbury Conservation Commission.[1]
Bennett is buried in the Dennis Village Cemetery, Route 6A, north of Bourne, Massachusetts.
References
1. ^ a b c d e f Baluch, S. Kasi’s funeral: mourners come in their thousands , DAWN, November 25, 2002.
2. ^ Mir Aimal Kasi. The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney. Retrieved on 2007-11-19.
3. ^ a b c d e f Stein, J. Convicted assassin: ‘I wanted to shoot the CIA director’ , Salon.com, January 22, 1998.
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Davis, P. & Glod, M. CIA Shooter Kasi, Harbinger of Terror, Set to Die Tonight , Washington Post, November 14, 2002.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Justice A. Christian Compton, Virginia Supreme Court Opinion on Mir Aimal Kasi, November 6, 1998.
6. ^ Steve Coll, Ghost Wars , New York: Penguin Books, 2004, pp. 246-247
7. ^ ARCHIVES CNN http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/11/14/cia.killings.execution/
8. ^ FBI-Ten Most Wanted Fugitive-Mir Aimal Kansi
9. ^ a b c Hasan, K. How Aimal Kasi was betrayed , Daily Times (Pakistan), June 23, 2004.
10. ^ a b Khan, R. In search of truth , DAWN, November 24, 2002.
11. ^ FindLaw for Legal Professionals – Case Law, Federal and State Resources, Forms, and Code
12. ^ Knowlton, B. Americans Abroad Face a Rising Risk of Terrorism , International Herald and Tribune, November 21, 1997.
13. ^ Glod, M. & Weiss, E. Kasi Executed For CIA Slayings, Washington Post, November 15, 2002.
14. ^ Pakistan’s Foreign Policy Predicaments Post 9/11 , South Asia Analyst Group, Paper No. 564, December 12, 2002
15. ^ Lansing Bennett, Physician Slain Outside CIA , Washington Post, January 27, 1993.
16. ^ http://gutenberg.com/eBooks/Government_Documents/CIA_Factbook_on_Intelligence_2002/memorial_stars.html
17. ^ Remarks from President to CIA employees
18. ^ a b CIA virtual tour
See also
* 1993 World Trade Center bombing
External links
* Article about Princeton alumnus, Lansing Bennett, M.D., detailing his medical career, State Department work, CIA work. [2]
* Princeton thesis written by Bennett [3]
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_shootings_at_CIA_Headquarters
Categories: Deaths by firearm in Virginia | 1993 crimes | 1993 in the United States | Presidency of Bill Clinton | Murder in Virginia | Extraordinary rendition program | History of the United States (1991–present) | Islamic terrorism | Terrorist incidents in 1993 | Terrorist incidents in the United States | Islamist terrorism in the United States | Central Intelligence Agency
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_shootings_at_CIA_Headquarters
***
Two days before Kasi’s execution on November 12, 2002, four US oil executives and their Pakistani taxi driver were shot dead in Karachi, in what was has been described as a deliberate response to Kasi’s guilty verdict.[12]
***
Americans Abroad Face A Rising Risk Of Terrorism
By Brian Knowlton
Published: Friday, November 21, 1997
When the State Department issued a worldwide caution on Wednesday to Americans traveling or living abroad because of the heightened possibility of terrorist violence, it was the fourth such alert issued in only two months.
More warnings can be expected in coming months, experts on terrorism say. Because of a confluence of events and the approach of the year-end holidays, when travel hits a peak and terrorists often have struck, travelers would be ill-advised to become complacent, particularly in Pakistan and parts of the Middle East, these experts say.
Making matters worse, some terrorist groups have shown a longer reach than in the past. Recent attacks also reflect a new taste for revenge against U.S. interests.
The three earlier State Department warnings cited heightened risks to Americans abroad following the conviction of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef in connection with the terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center; the murder conviction of Mir Aimal Kasi for the 1993 shootings outside CIA headquarters; and the issuance Oct. 8 of the annual list of foreign terrorist organizations.
The Kasi and Yousef cases were cited in the alert Wednesday, along with the killing of four Americans in Karachi, Pakistan, Nov. 12 and the terrorist attack Monday in Luxor, Egypt.
Although none of the 58 foreign tourists killed at Luxor was American, the Islamic Group, which claimed responsibility, demanded the freedom of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, who was convicted in the United States in 1995 for plotting to bomb New York landmarks.
The police in Karachi said they suspected an extremist group called Harkat ul Anasar was seeking revenge for the life sentence imposed in Virginia on Mr. Kasi.
The Karachi attack came a day after a State Department warning that cited the Kasi conviction.
Threats were also made against American interests in Malaysia.
It’s almost a throwback to earlier times, when there was a retaliation after each American action, said Frank McGuire, a consultant and author on terrorism.
This sort of thing seems to be back with a vengeance.
Middle East terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Islamic Group, which is also known as Jamaa Islamiyya, appear increasingly able to reach far beyond their home bases.
Some groups have supporters and networks around the world, said Hillary Mann, a specialist on counterterrorism at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. There’s an infrastructure that can be called on.
The Islamic Group, for example, was linked to a 1995 attempt to assassinate President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt while he was in Ethiopia, the first time the group was known to have carried out an attack abroad. Individual Malaysians are known to have trained at terrorist camps in Lebanon and Sudan.
Terror groups are using modern technology, including the Internet, to broaden and shift operations to other countries.
It’s a somewhat worrisome trend, Ms. Mann said, and qualitatively different from what we’ve seen before.
Just how far some of those groups reach is not clear.
Bernard Reich, a Georgetown University professor who follows terrorism issues, said that he expected the risks to remain focused in Pakistan and Egypt for now. Latin America, he said, is not likely to be a place where a Pakistani terrorist is going to strike an American tourist.
But he would not dismiss the threat in Malaysia, saying, When these things reach a high visibility, at a time of tension, yes, I take them seriously.
The possible defusing of the recent Iraqi crisis is expected to lower concerns in some regions. But the Kasi and Yousef cases are not over yet, and both have infuriated their supporters.
On Jan. 23, Mr. Kasi will be sentenced for the CIA attack. A jury has recommended the death sentence. And sometime early next year, Mr. Yousef is expected to be sentenced on the charges relating to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Mr. Reich emphasizes that odds are in the traveler’s favor, noting that 45 million Americans traveled abroad last year, and only a few hundred were involved in incidents targeting Americans. Still, he and others counsel caution and attention.
The State Department regularly issues alerts about heightened risks of violence, crime, political instability, border unrest, bomb threats to airlines, as well as public health dangers, transportation difficulties or natural disasters.
The information is available by phoning embassies or consulates, or the State Department in Washington (202-647-5225). It is also available at a department Web site on the Internet (http://travel.state.gov), which offers information sheets on every country.
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/21/news/21iht-warn.t.html
***
2 ABC Executives Killed
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***
A Soldier’s Last Letter From Afghanistan
CBS News – Clifden Kennedy – ?21 hours ago?
In 1998, Dick Cheney, then chief executive of a major oil services company, remarked: I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly …
***
Interior to Eliminate Royalty-In-Kind Program
By NOELLE STRAUB AND BEN GEMAN of Greenwire
Published: September 16, 2009
This story was updated at 12:42 p.m.
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The scandal-ridden program that allows industry to provide oil and natural gas directly to the Interior Department in lieu of cash royalty payments will be killed, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said today.
The royalty-in-kind program has been a blemish, in my view, on this department, Salazar said at a House Natural Resources Committee hearing. There were allegations of sex and drugs and a whole host of other inappropriate conduct. … My decision is that it’s time for us to end the royalty-in-kind program.
Because the program was created through an administrative action, Salazar said he has the authority to cancel it.
The secretary added that the program was set up at a time when it was thought Interior could make more money by taking product — which Interior then sells — instead of money from oil and gas producers. But he noted that the department does not have a similar program for its timber or grazing assets.
Natural Resources Chairman Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) has introduced a sweeping bill, H.R. 3534 (pdf), that would overhaul the federal royalty system and make other broad changes to Interior’s regulation of oil and gas drilling on federal lands and waters. Rahall’s bill would also eliminate the royalty-in-kind program.
Bravo, bravo, bravo, Rahall told Salazar after the announcement. I do think it will end the opportunity for mischief, or the temptation, and perhaps provide a more decent return for the American taxpayer, so I salute you for that.
A report by the Interior inspector general last year found that 19 employees, nearly one-third of the entire staff of the royalty-in-kind program, socialized with and received a wide array of gifts and gratuities from oil and gas companies with which the agency was conducting official business (E&ENews PM, Sept. 10, 2008). Rahall said the employees put partying and cozying up with industry officials above getting a fair return for the American taxpayer.
Also, several other outside reviews have found a suite of oversight and enforcement troubles with the program. Federal oil and gas royalties are one of the government’s largest sources of non-tax revenue.
Most recently, a Government Accountability Office report made public this week found that inadequate Interior tracking and verification of natural gas royalties paid in kind are leading to forgone federal revenue (E&ENews PM, Sept. 14). The report cited a host of problems with monitoring and data collection.
Oil industry calls Salazar plan a mistake
Salazar’s decision drew quick criticism from the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry’s biggest trade group, which argued that it remains a simpler system than calculating cash royalties owed.
Terminating this straightforward method of handling royalty payments runs the risk of raising administrative costs and adding additional layers of paperwork required to determine the value of oil and gas production, said API President Jack Gerard.
Interior’s Minerals Management Service has similarly argued in the past that the program can simplify royalty collections, lowering administrative costs and avoid conflicts with energy companies over the value of oil and gas produced.
The Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group that has criticized Interior’s royalties oversight, cheered the decision, alleging the program has been a failure.
Secretary Salazar’s testimony today is a big step to finally ending this gift to industry, and POGO congratulates him for taking this stand. The next important step is ensuring Congress puts the final nail in the RIK coffin so it doesn’t rise again, Executive Director Danielle Brian said in a statement.
The program began in earnest in the late 1990s with several pilot programs and grew substantially. Of the more than $12 billion in royalties that MMS collected in fiscal 2008, more than half came from the royalty-in-kind program rather than cash payments by producers, according to GAO.
While Rahall cheered the program’s demise, his Senate counterpart — Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) — said he wanted to learn more about the decision. We need to get a briefing from the department that led to this conclusion, he said. It may be the right decision. I haven’t seen the justification. We will be looking into that.
Salazar said he will issue a secretarial order in the next few weeks to end the royalty-in-kind program. The phasing out of the program will take at least a year, because there are contracts in place that must be honored, he added.
The restructuring will be overseen by Wilma Lewis, Interior’s assistant secretary for land and minerals management, and the directors of MMS and the Bureau of Land Management.
More changes to come?
Interior to Eliminate Royalty-In-Kind Program
Published: September 16, 2009
(Page 2 of 2)
Salazar today emphasized that ending the royalty-in-kind program is only one thing among many the department needs to tackle, including royalty simplification and creating a new organization and management structure for the federal agencies that oversee energy development on public lands.
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Rahall’s bill would forge a new Interior agency to govern oil and gas leasing on federal lands and overhaul the federal royalty system.
The measure also includes provisions to improve planning for offshore energy development, address wind and solar programs, and boost funding for ocean conservation and land acquisition. It comes largely as a response to a series of scandals and scathing government watchdog reports on the federal agencies that handle oil and gas drilling on public lands.
Salazar said the administration has not had an opportunity to fully analyze the legislation but is in agreement with its primary goals of ensuring a balanced approach to energy development on public lands and dependable oversight of the mineral royalty programs.
Salazar said Rahall’s bill is absolutely targeted on the right set of issues, especially those raised by the government watchdog agencies. He added that Interior officials will continue working with the committee to get the bill to a place where we believe it needs to get. … We do have some ideas we will continue to contribute to try to make the bill a better bill.
He said Interior is developing options to improve coordination with MMS and BLM in leasing and revenue management but stopped short of endorsing Rahall’s proposal to consolidate the two agencies.
The legislation would create the Office of Federal Energy and Minerals Leasing to handle onshore and offshore lease sales, inspection, enforcement and revenue collection. It would consolidate the oil and gas, wind, wave and solar programs now carried out by BLM and MMS. The Interior inspector general would take over the current functions of the MMS audit and compliance management section.
Having one agency do the leasing and one agency collect the money is inefficient, unnecessarily complex and potentially costs the American people millions in lost royalties, Rahall said.
As for the proposed merger of the BLM and MMS, Salazar agreed that there should be an office of energy within Interior that coordinates between the agencies. But he added that how that will be structured or carried out remains to be seen.
Salazar also called for raising onshore royalty rates. He noted that the Bush administration raised offshore rates but that the onshore royalty had not been increased in a long while. He said he’d consider a variable rate that would take into account the amount of risk that companies need to undertake while exploring.
Natural Resources Committee ranking member Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) objected to the proposed consolidation, saying that the legislation would simply create new problems.
This legislation creates a new bureaucracy, it raises the costs of producing energy with higher and new fees, and it potentially adds years of delay to energy development both offshore and on federal lands, Hastings said.
Reporter Katherine Ling contributed.
Copyright 2009 E&E Publishing. All Rights Reserved.
For more news on energy and the environment, visit http://www.greenwire.com.
***
MI5 Official History just released – covered on CNNI World Reports – 10-06-09
***
Report on Bailouts Says Treasury Misled Public
By LOUISE STORY
Published: October 5, 2009
WASHINGTON — The inspector general who oversees the government’s bailout of the banking system is criticizing the Treasury Department for some misleading public statements last fall and raising the possibility that it had unfairly disbursed money to the biggest banks.
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A Treasury official made incorrect statements about the health of the nation’s biggest banks even as the government was doling out billions of dollars in aid, according to a report on the Troubled Asset Relief Program to be released on Monday by the special inspector general, Neil M. Barofsky.
The report also provides new insight into the way the Treasury allocated billions of dollars to nine of Wall Street’s largest players. The report says that Bank of America appeared to qualify for more aid earlier, under the government plan. That assertion adds another element of intrigue to continuing investigations of the bank’s merger with Merrill Lynch and the role that regulators played in the deal, even as Merrill’s condition deteriorated.
The bailout formula called for banks to get an amount equal to as much as 3 percent of their risk-weighted assets, with aid capped at $25 billion for each institution, according to the report. By size, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America could have qualified for more, and the first two received $25 billion.
But Bank of America was given only $15 billion in October, since Merrill Lynch was earmarked for $10 billion. The two companies agreed to a merger, though their deal had not yet been approved by regulators or shareholders.
Bank of America ultimately received Merrill’s $10 billion in January — as well as $20 billion in additional bailout funds — but if the bank had not been involved in the Merrill deal, it would probably have received $25 billion at the outset, as did Citigroup and JPMorgan.
Another company in the process of a merger was not treated the same. Wells Fargo was acquiring Wachovia, and it received both companies’ money at the start, according to the inspector general.
Mr. Barofsky’s office also says that regulators were wrong to tell the public last year that the earliest bailout recipients were all healthy.
Former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., for instance, said on Oct. 14 that the banks were “healthy,” and that they accepted the money for “the good of the U.S. economy.” The banks, he said, would be better able to increase their lending to consumers and businesses.
In truth, regulators were concerned about the health of several banks that received that first bailout, the inspector general writes.
The inspector general said government officials need to be more careful when describing their actions and rationale. In a letter included with the report, the Federal Reserve concurred with Mr. Barofsky’s concern about the statements made last year, but the Treasury Department said that any review of announcements last year “must be considered in light of the unprecedented circumstances in which they were made.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/business/economy/05bank.html?_r=1&em
***
Pakistan Petroleum, Oil & Gas, Win Southwest Blocks (Update1)
By Khalid Qayum and Khaleeq Ahmed
Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) — Oil & Gas Development Co., Pakistan’s largest explorer, and Pakistan Petroleum Ltd. won eight licenses to search for oil and gas in southwestern Baluchistan province, where facilities have previously been hit by an insurgency.
Oil & Gas has been awarded five blocks and Pakistan Petroleum, the biggest gas producer, won three out of the total 14 onshore licenses given in Baluchistan on Sept. 30, according to a report by the Petroleum Ministry.
Oil & Gas plans to drill at least nine wells in Baluchistan for the first time in six years, tapping a region that borders Iran and Afghanistan and holds half of Pakistan’s gas reserves, Chief Executive Zahid Hussain said in an interview in July. Pakistan Petroleum has operated Sui, the nation’s biggest gas field, in the province since 1955.
Oil and Gas shares, which account for about one fifth of the benchmark Karachi 100 Index, fell 0.2 percent to 106.85 rupees at 10:39 a.m. local time in Karachi. Pakistan Petroleum shares dropped 1.1 percent to 185.25 rupees.
Pakistan’s government says insurgents have attacked pipelines and key installations in the province in the past. Tribal leaders deny the attacks saying they are demanding royalties on minerals and fuels discovered in their region.
Nawab Akbar Bugti, a Baluch tribal chief, was killed in August 2006 in a military operation ordered by the country’s former military ruler, Pervez Musharraf. Interior Minister Rehman Malik said in April Brahamdagh Bugti, Akbar’s grandson, is now leading the rebellion.
To contact the reporters on this story: Khalid Qayum in Islamabad at kqayum@bloomberg.net; Khaleeq Ahmed in Islamabad at paknews@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: October 2, 2009 01:33 EDT
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601091&sid=azCAsJcPATEI
***
Forest Service not completely behind Hidden Gems proposal
Scott Condon
Aspen Correspondent
Glenwood Springs, CO Colorado
The U.S. Forest Service doesn’t believe all the lands targeted for wilderness in the Hidden Gems campaign actually qualify for the special protection, according to the top local official in the agency.
White River National Forest Supervisor Scott Fitzwilliams said the agency is sticking to a finding it made in 2002 that 82,000 acres of the White River qualify as wilderness. Environmentalists are pushing for protection of a significantly larger amount of land in the Hidden Gems Wilderness Campaign. They say their assessment of backcountry lands show an additional 325,000 acres qualify as wilderness in the White River National Forest, and 400,000 acres overall when Bureau of Land Management parcels are added.
Conservationists are butting heads with user groups like mountain bikers and off-road vehicle enthusiasts about the proposal, but the Forest Service has stayed out of the fray.
“We’ve been relatively quiet about it. It’s not our proposal,” said Fitzwilliams, who took the post as the forest supervisor a month ago. He said he has studied the Hidden Gems proposal carefully along with other issues facing the White River. He wants the Forest Service, conservation groups and various forest user groups to concentrate on collaborative projects rather than fight over wilderness. Convincing Congress to protect that much additional land could take years.
“We need to shift. I think it’s a little small, short-sighted anyway, to say the biggest issue we have is we need to make more wilderness,” Fitzwilliams said. “I don’t think that’s the biggest issue in the Roaring Fork Valley.
“We could make (all forest lands) wilderness and the issues are still right here, the ones that are really going to monumentally change the characteristics and natural resources of the valley — like (bark beetles) and the huge fuel build up, development of private land and conservation of open spaces,” he continued.
Disagreement over wilderness qualification
When the White River National Forest staff updated a management plan in 2002 it recommended creation of two new wilderness areas totaling 62,000 acres and additions totaling 20,000 acres to existing wilderness areas.
Fitzwilliams said the agency’s process is designed to provide a “thorough vetting” of issues — such as the qualification of land and potential conflicts.
Wilderness advocates agree that the 82,000 acres targeted by the Forest Service should be protected, but they claim the agency missed some other lands that have wilderness characteristics and provide excellent wildlife habitat. Those additional lands are generally lower in elevation than existing wilderness.
“We’ll have to agree to disagree on the acres beyond the 82,000,” said Sloan Shoemaker, executive director of Wilderness Workshop, the Carbondale-based organization heading the Hidden Gems campaign.
He said the Forest Service assessment of wilderness lands got “politicized” by former U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis, a Republican who represented most of western Colorado earlier this decade. He believes there was pressure to limit protection of roadless lands because those are areas where oil and gas companies want to lease.
Shoemaker acknowledged that the Forest Service and environmentalists can look at the same pieces of ground and reach different conclusions about their worthiness for wilderness.
“There’s some bias in the agency against wilderness,” he said. “Unabashedly we’re looking for places to apply the Wilderness Act.”
Fitzwilliams said he shares Shoemaker’s passion for Wilderness lands. However, he feels the designation should be used sparingly, when lands clearly qualify. Overextending the designation diminishes the special quality of wilderness, he said.
About 750,000 acres of the 2.3 million acre White River National Forest are currently designated wilderness.
Lands leased by oil companies
The debate goes beyond the philosophical. Fitzwilliams said the Hidden Gems proposal poses at least two practical problems. First, it would create wilderness in areas where the Forest Service wants to remove trees killed by bark beetles. Second, the proposal would place the wilderness designation on lands that are leased to oil and gas companies.
Fitzwilliams said a top priority in the White River is forest management in areas where dead trees pose a threat to roads, power lines, campgrounds and other infrastructure. It is also working with communities in Eagle and Summit counties on a plan to remove deadfall and ease the fire risk in the urban interface, areas where the forest and development contact.
Shoemaker said the wilderness planning “is a dynamic process” and that the current proposal is likely to change. Representatives are working with community leaders to understand what projects they foresee. In some cases, the proposed wilderness boundary can be adjusted to allay concerns, he said.
Interference with existing oil and gas leases is another concern for the Forest Service. Fitzwilliams said that five proposed wilderness areas in Hidden Gems would affect 46 oil and gas leases totaling 36,584 acres. Those areas include Assignation Ridge and Thompson Creek southwest of Carbondale as well as East Willow, Hayes Creek and Clear Fork.
The Forest Service doesn’t have the option of ignoring those leases. “Existing oil and gas leases are essentially a binding contract — the lessor has the legal right to the oil and gas resources,” Fitzwilliams said.
Shoemaker said the Hidden Gems proponents were aware of the gas lease issues. Other battles already underway in court and in Congress may resolve the status of many of those leases. Critics of the Bush administration contend it ignored a Clinton administration ruling on roadless public lands. In western Colorado, leases were sold on roadless lands.
“Many of those leases were sold illegally and they shouldn’t exist,” Shoemaker said. If the conservationists prevail, those lands would be withdrawn from leasing opportunity.
“The fact that those leases exist doesn’t detract from the Wilderness characteristics on the ground,” Shoemaker said.
It is unknown if the difference in opinion between Wilderness advocates and the Forest Service will come into play in the Hidden Gems debate. Wilderness can only be approved by an act of Congress. Wilderness Workshop and its allies will shop for a sponsor for a bill after completing the preparation work. Fitzwilliams said the Forest Service typically offers a recommendation bills if asked by Congress.
scondon@aspentimes.com
http://www.postindependent.com/article/20091005/VALLEYNEWS/910049993/1083&ParentProfile=1074
***
Posted on Tue, Oct. 6, 2009
Bomb kills 5 U.N. aides; Taliban group suspected
By Chris Brummitt
Associated Press
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – A suicide bomber who killed five staffers at the U.N. food agency’s headquarters in Pakistan yesterday was dressed as a security officer and allowed to enter the heavily guarded building after he asked to use the bathroom.
The United Nations announced it was temporarily closing all its offices in Pakistan after the noontime bombing, which blew out windows and left victims lying in pools of blood in the lobby of the three-story World Food Program compound.
This is a heinous crime committed against those who have been working tirelessly to assist the poor and vulnerable on the front lines of hunger and other human suffering in Pakistan, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in Geneva, Switzerland.
Despite the office closures, the U.N. said its Pakistani partner organizations would continue distributing food, medicine, and other humanitarian assistance.
Pakistani authorities launched an investigation into the major security lapse, saying they would question guards who failed to stop the bomber from carrying out the first suicide attack in Islamabad in four months.
The attack came a day after the new Pakistani Taliban leader met reporters close to the Afghan border, vowing more attacks in response to U.S. missile strikes on militant targets in Pakistan. Ending speculation he had been killed, Hakimullah Mehsud denied government claims the militants were in disarray and said his fighters would repel any offensive on their stronghold in South Waziristan.
Authorities blamed Islamic militants for the bombing but did not single out the Taliban. It was unclear whether militants targeted the World Food Program because of its work in Pakistan or were simply looking to kill foreigners or those working with them. The dead were four Pakistanis and an Iraqi.
Extremists in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq seeking to attack high-profile Western targets have shown no hesitation in striking foreign humanitarian agencies, including the U.N., regardless of the work they are doing in relieving the suffering in the countries. A blast in June on a luxury hotel housing many foreign aid workers in Peshawar killed two U.N. staffers.
Sometimes the very nature of their work invites attack. In yesterday’s bombing, insurgents may have believed that by feeding refugees from the fighting in the Swat valley, the WFP is propping up a Pakistani government they see as a U.S. puppet.
The U.N. and various humanitarian agencies, including those funded by the U.S., expanded in Pakistan over the last year to help support its elected government.
The U.N. considers itself a major target in Pakistan. Many of its offices are surrounded by 12-foot-high blast walls. Its staff members are driven in bulletproof cars and not allowed to bring their families with them on assignment in the country.
This was one of the best-protected U.N. centers in all of Pakistan, said U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas.
Taliban and allied militants have carried out scores of suicide attacks in Pakistan over the last 21/2 years. Under U.S. pressure, Pakistani security forces have had some success combatting the extremists. Hakimullah’s predecessor, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed in a U.S. drone strike in August.
Yesterday’s bombing was one of at least four major strikes in the last three weeks appear to show Pakistani militants are regrouping and have the capacity to carry out attacks. It took place in a well guarded, upscale residential area close to where President Asif Ali Zardari has a home.
Hassan Abbas, a former official in the Bhutto and Musharraf governments, said the attack is significant because it shows militants can still breach high security zones.
Buzz up Buzz this story.
***
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
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Porter Goss
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Porter Johnston Goss
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Florida’s 13th and 14th district
In office
January 3, 1989 – January 3, 1993 (13th)
January 3, 1993 – September 23, 2004 (14th)
Preceded by Connie Mack III
Harry Johnston
Succeeded by Dan Miller
Connie Mack IV
19th Director of Central Intelligence/Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
In office
September 24, 2004 – May 5, 2006
President George W. Bush
Preceded by George Tenet
Succeeded by John Negroponte (as DNI)
Michael Hayden (as Director of the CIA
Born November 26, 1938 (1938-11-26) (age 70)
Waterbury, Connecticut
Political party Republican
Religion Christian
Porter Johnston Goss (born November 26, 1938) is an American politician, who was a Director of Central Intelligence and the first Director of the Central Intelligence Agency following the passage of the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, which abolished the DCI position. A CIA officer in Latin America during the Cold War, he served as a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1989 until he took up his post at the agency.[1]
Goss represented the Florida’s 14th congressional district, which includes Lee County, Fort Myers, Naples, and part of Port Charlotte. He served for a time as the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Goss was a cosponsor of the USA PATRIOT Act and was a co-chair of the Joint 9/11 Intelligence Inquiry.
Goss resigned as Director of the CIA on May 5, 2006 in a sit-down press conference with President George W. Bush from the Oval Office[2] On May 8, Bush nominated U.S. Air Force General Michael Hayden to be Goss’s successor.
Goss is an avid organic farmer.[3] According to a September 13, 2004 article in Roll Call, Goss has a farm in Virginia and spends his summers on Fishers Island in Long Island Sound.
Contents
* 1 Education and early CIA career
* 2 Government career
* 3 Career timeline
o 3.1 Intelligence inquiry: September 11, 2001
* 4 Director of CIA
o 4.1 Early change under Goss
o 4.2 Resignation
* 5 References
* 6 External links
Education and early CIA career
Goss was born in 1938 in Waterbury, Connecticut. His father, Richard W. Goss[4], was an executive of the Scovill Manufacturing Company, a corporation controlled by the Goss family.[5] He attended Camp Timanous in Raymond, Maine and was educated at the Fessenden School. In 1956 he graduated from the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut.
Goss went to Yale University, where received his Bachelor of Arts majoring in ancient Greek. (Goss also speaks Spanish and French). He is believed to have been a member of the Book and Snake (1960), a secret society at Yale. He was a member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity alongside William H.T. Bush, the uncle of President George W. Bush, and John Negroponte, who served as an Ambassador for George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, and as Goss’s superior in the post of Director of National Intelligence from 2005 to 2006.[6] Negroponte solicited Goss’s assistance, while Goss was Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, to get the position as US Ambassador at the UN in the first term of the Bush (43) Administration.
In his junior year at Yale, Goss was recruited by the CIA. He spent much of the 1960s — roughly from 1960 until 1971 — working for the Directorate of Operations, the clandestine services of the CIA. There he first worked in Latin America and the Caribbean and later in Europe. The full details are not known due to the classified nature of the CIA, but Goss has said that he had worked in Haiti, Santo Domingo, and Mexico. A photograph taken in Mexico City in January 1963 allegedly shows Goss with his arm around David Sánchez Morales, at a table with Barry Seal and other CIA members of Operation 40, a U.S.-backed right-wing assassination squad.
Photo allegedly shows Porter Goss in 1963 in the company of Morales, Seal, and others.
Goss, who has said that he has recruited and trained foreign agents, worked in Miami for much of the time. Goss was involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, telling the Washington Post in 2002 that he had done some small-boat handling and had some very interesting moments in the Florida Straits.
Towards the end of his career as a CIA officer, Goss was transferred to Europe, where, in 1970, he collapsed in his London hotel room because of a blood infection in his heart and kidneys. Goss says he does not know what happened, but says that he was not poisoned. Some sources now say that Goss suffered a staph infection. In any case, his health was severely affected, and he retired from the CIA.
Government career
Goss began his political career in 1974, when he was elected to the Sanibel City Council and was elected mayor by the council. In 1983, Bob Graham, then Florida governor, appointed Goss to the Lee County Board of Commissioners.
Rep. Goss talks to the press.
In 1988 Goss ran for Congress in what was then the 13th congressional district of Florida, encompassing Lee, Charlotte, and Sarasota counties. The seat was vacated by Connie Mack III when Mack ran successfully for the U. S. Senate. In the primaries Goss’s main opponent was Louis A. Skip Bafalis, a former holder of that congressional seat, which Bafalis had previously relinquished during an unsuccessful campaign for the Florida governorship. Due to his name recognition, Bafalis was the favorite to win the race, however, he only garnered 29% of the vote in the primary to Goss’s 38%, largely due to the fact that Goss’s campaign was much better financed. Goss went on to defeat Bafalis handily in the runoff election. In the general election, Goss faced the former first president of Common Cause, Jack T. Conway. Goss had no trouble winning the general election in the heavily Republican district, and did not have any significant opposition in his seven subsequent elections, as he won them all with more than 70 percent of the vote, and in 2002 he ran unopposed.
He served in Congress for 16 years until his appointment by President George W. Bush to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). While in the House, Goss served as chair of the House Intelligence Committee from 1997 until 2005 and the vice-chairman of the House Rules Committee. He also helped establish and served on the Homeland Security Committee. As a congressman, Goss consistently and emphatically defended the CIA and supported strong budget increases for the Agency, even during a time of tight budgets and Clintonian slashes to other parts of the Intelligence budgets. In mid-2004, Goss took a very strong position, during what had already been announced as his last congressional term, urging specific reforms and corrections in the way the CIA carried out its activities, lest it become just another government bureaucracy.
Goss has a consistently conservative voting record, with the exception of his views towards the environment; Goss supported the Kyoto Protocol and strengthening the Environmental Protection Agency. Most of his major legislation has been intelligence authorization bills, with some local constituent-services bills.
The legislation he sponsored include: a constitutional amendment to establish term limits limiting representatives to no more than three consecutive terms of four years[7]. Major bills sponsored by Goss include a bill to limit Congressional pay raises to no more than Social Security cost-of-living adjustments[8] (unpassed), The Public Interest Declassification Act of 1999[9] (unpassed), and the USA PATRIOT Act.
Career timeline
* CIA Director 22-Sep-2004 to 5-May-2006 (resigned)
* U.S. Congressman, Florida 14th (3-Jan-1993 to 23-Sep-2004, resigned)
* U.S. Congressman, Florida 13th (3-Jan-1989 to 3-Jan-1993)
* Mayor Sanibel, FL (1981–1982)
* Mayor Sanibel, FL (1975–1977)
* CIA employee 1962–1971
* Council on Foreign Relations
* Ripon Society
Intelligence inquiry: September 11, 2001
In August 2001 Goss, Senator Bob Graham (D-FL), and Senator Jon Kyl visited Islamabad, Pakistan. Meetings were held with President Pervez Musharraf and with Pakistan’s military and intelligence officials including the head of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) General Mahmud Ahmed, as well as with the Afghan ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef. On the morning 11 September, 2001, Goss and Graham were having breakfast with General Ahmad.[10][11] Ahmad’s network had ties to Osama bin Laden and directly funded, supported, and trained the Taliban[12]. They met with Musharraf and Zaeef on the 27th. As reported by Agence France Presse on August 28, 2001, Zaeef assured the US delegation that the Taliban would never allow bin Laden to use Afghanistan to launch attacks on the US or any other country. Goss fully defended the CIA and the Bush administration. With the White House and Sen. Graham, his counterpart in the Senate Intelligence Committee, Goss rebuffed calls for an inquiry in the weeks immediately following September 11.
After growing pressure, Congress established the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, a joint inquiry of the two intelligence committees, led by Graham and Goss. Goss and Graham made it clear that their goal was not to identify specific wrongdoing: Graham said the inquiry would not play the blame game about what went wrong from an intelligence perspective, , and Goss said, This is not a who-shall-we-hang type of investigation. It is about where are the gaps in America’s defense and what do we do about it type of investigation. [13]
The Washington Post reported statements made by Goss on May 17, 2002. Goss said he was looking for solutions, not scapegoats. He called the uproar over the President’s Daily Brief of August 6, 2001, Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US, a lot of nonsense. He also said, None of this is news, but it’s all part of the finger-pointing. It’s foolishness. The Post also reported that Goss refused to blame an intelligence failure for September 11, preferring to praise the agency’s fine work. (Washington Post, May 18, 2002, A Cloak But No Dagger; An Ex-Spy Says He Seeks Solutions, Not Scapegoats for 9/11 )
The inquiry’s final report was released in December 2002 and focused entirely on the CIA and FBI’s activities, including no information on the White House’s activities. Ray McGovern, a 27-year veteran of the CIA turned Democratic political activist and a frequent commentator on intelligence issues, believed the report showed that Goss gave clear priority to providing political protection for the president when conducting the inquiry.
Goss publicly declared his opposition to the creation of an independent 9-11 Commission. A year later, he declined to open committee hearings into the Plame affair, saying: Somebody sends me a blue dress and some DNA, I’ll have an investigation. [14]
Goss chiefly blames President Bill Clinton for the recent CIA failures. He confided in a reporter: The one thing I lose sleep about is thinking what could I have done better, how could I have gotten more attention on this problem sooner. When asked whether he ever brought up his concerns with the administration, Goss claimed he had met three times with President Clinton to discuss certain problems. The upshot? He was patient and we had an interesting conversation but it was quite clear he didn’t value the intelligence community to the degree President Bush does.
As Newsweek[15] and CNN[16] reported, in June 2004, while Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, in the face of withering attacks by the Democrats against the Bush Administration in a very tightly contested presidential and congressional election year, Goss defended the intelligence community and the Administration in decidedly partisan terms. During floor debate, fending off efforts by the Democrats in the House to cut the intelligence budget, Goss argued that Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the Democratic presidential nominee, did not appreciate the critical need for robust and sustained support for the CIA and the Intelligence Community. Goss noted a 1977 quote of Kerry’s arguing for intelligence budget cuts and calling Kerry’s proposals on nuclear security dangerously naive.
Director of CIA
Porter Goss addresses the media after President Bush nominated him to be the director of the CIA
Following the June 3, 2004 resignation of CIA director George Tenet, Goss was nominated to become the new director on August 10 by President George W. Bush. The appointment was challenged by some prominent Democrats, including former Vice President Al Gore, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV). Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, expressed concerns that Goss was too politically partisan, given his public remarks against Democrats while serving as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Another Democratic member of the committee, Ron Wyden (D-OR), expressed concerns that given Goss’s history within and ties to the CIA, he would be too disinclined to push for institutional change. In an interview carried out by Michael Moore’s production company on March 3, 2004, Goss described himself as probably not qualified for a job within the CIA, because the language skills the Agency now seeks are not languages he speaks and because the people applying today for positions within the CIA’s four directorates have such keen technical and analytic skills, which he did not have when he applied to the Agency in the early 60s. (See below)
The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee endorsed his nomination by a 12-4 vote on September 20, 2004, and on September 22 he was confirmed by the Senate in a 77-17 vote. Republican senators unanimously backed him, along with many prominent Democrats, including the two Democratic senators from Florida, Bob Graham and Bill Nelson, and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle.
While at the CIA, Goss reportedly began to reverse the acts of the previous Directors. Goss and others noted in numerous reports and writings their opposition to risk aversion which is the last thing you want in an intelligence agency. [17]
Early change under Goss
Goss arrived as CIA Director on September 24, 2004. He had promised the US Senate that he would bring change and reform to the CIA.
He brought with him five personal staff that were to implement change that became unpopular with CIA professionals. Goss’s chief of staff, Patrick Murray, is a former federal prosecutor who served as the House Intelligence Committee Chief Counsel for about 6 years, and as its staff director for the final year before coming to the CIA.
Murray also was appointed by President George W. Bush to the position of Associate Deputy Attorney General at the Department of Justice from 2001 to 2003. He served on the Bush-Cheney Transition Team for the Intelligence Community in 2000 through the Inauguration. Goss’s other staff included Dr. J. Jakub, who formerly served as a CIA DI analyst and was trained as an operations officer before leaving the Agency to attend Oxford University, where he obtained his D.Phil. He served on the House Intelligence Committee and for Senator Saxby Chambliss doing oversight work of the CIA and the Intelligence Community since 1998 before rejoining the CIA with Goss in October 2004. Merrell Moorhead worked for Goss for 10 years, seven of them on the House Intelligence Committee, including as the Committee’s Deputy Staff Director, doing oversight and budgetary/programmatic work regarding the CIA.
Almost immediately upon Director Goss’s and his former Congressional staffers arrival, Steve Kappes — the Director of Operations — and his subordinates including Michael Sulick, Kappes’ then-deputy began a series of confrontations with Goss and his personal staff immediately upon their arrival at the CIA.[citation needed] Kappes was rumored to have personally told DO officers that if they were seen or heard to be subservient to the new DCI and his staff their careers would be over. Ultimately, Kappes, Sulick, and Deputy Director John McLaughlin were reported to believe that Goss would back down .
Since Kappes reemergence at the CIA it has been reported that he quit the Agency rather than carry out a request by Goss to reassign Michael Sulick. It is also reported that this incident occurred because the chief of staff, Murray, heatedly admonished Sulick about the then assistant deputy director for counterintelligence, Mary Margaret Graham, about leaked classified information regarding another CIA officer.
Sulick reportedly left the Director’s office, leaving Kappes standing there stony-faced. Murray then made the point that if that was the way Sulick was going to act with the DCI’s chief of staff, Kappes needed to think about reassigning him to New York, because that sort of relationship just could not be good for the CIA or the DCI.[citation needed]
A week later, Kappes and Sulick, recognizing that Goss was going to protect his former Hill staff, announced that they were retiring, John McLaughlin, the then Deputy Director , who Goss reportedly believed had started the whole series of events by appointing Kappes to the DDO position without consulting Goss, announced his departure just two days later.
Following Goss’s departure, both Kappas and Sulick have returned to positions of higher authority in the U.S. Intelligence Community. Kappas is the Deputy Director of the CIA and Sulick was appointed Director of the National Clandestine Service on September 14, 2007.
**Added info – The National Clandestine Service (NCS) serves as the clandestine arm of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the national authority for the coordination, de-confliction, and evaluation of clandestine operations across the Intelligence Community of the United States.https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/clandestine-service/index.html
(cont. from wikipedia entry below)
Resignation
President George W. Bush and Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte (left) accept Goss’s resignation in the Oval Office on May 5, 2006.
On May 5, 2006 Goss’ resignation from the CIA directorship was announced at a joint press briefing with President Bush at the White House. There was speculation in the press concerning the reasons of the sudden announcement.
The Los Angeles Times reported Goss was pushed out by Negroponte after clashes between them over Goss’ management style, as well as his reluctance to surrender CIA personnel and resources to new organizations set up to combat terrorism and weapons proliferation. [18] Goss carried considerable integrity on the issues relating to the intelligence community, given his service as a CIA officer and as Chairman for 10 years on the House Intelligence Community.[original research?] Negroponte for his part had been an ambassador, and a consumer of intelligence. Goss made the point with Negroponte that pursuing changes Negroponte reportedly desired, in the manner upon which Negroponte reportedly insisted, contradicted the intent of the intelligence reform legislation; this was to add to the capabilities of the existing agencies in the intelligence community, not to detract and diminish those existing capabilities. The Weekly Standard also noted that Goss wanted intelligence analysts to get more exposure to intelligence gathering and Negroponte planned to move them from the CIA over to DNI, farther from intelligence gathering. While the editors of The Weekly Standard sided with Goss in this dispute, they believe Goss was forced out for other reasons:
[W]e are concerned that Goss left, or was eased out, for reasons of greater policy significance. And if this is the case, Goss’s leaving is not a good sign. Goss is a political conservative and an institutional reformer. He is pro-Bush Doctrine and pro-shaking-up-the-CIA.
John Negroponte, so far as we can tell, shares none of these sympathies. Negroponte is therefore more in tune with large swaths of the intelligence community and the State Department. If Negroponte forced Goss out and is allowed to pick Goss’s successor — if Goss isn’t replaced with a reformer committed to fighting and winning the war on terror, broadly and rightly understood — then Goss’s departure will prove to have been a weakening moment in an administration increasingly susceptible to moments of weakness.[19]
Goss was replaced by Negroponte’s Principal Deputy Director for National Intelligence, four-star Air Force General Michael Hayden.
Excerpt from the History of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence[20]
The idea of a Director of National Intelligence (DNI) dates to 1955 when a blue-ribbon study commissioned by Congress recommended that the Director of Central Intelligence should employ a deputy to run the CIA so that the director could focus on coordinating the overall intelligence effort.
Robert Novak’s May 11 column claimed Goss faced a disintegrating CIA. The major analytic functions were passed to the DNI. Special operations were going over to the Pentagon. Negroponte was no help to Goss. Although bizarre reasons for Goss’s resignation have been floated on the Internet, sources say Negroponte simply suggested his time was up.
Goss is now an active speaker on the lecture circuit.
References
1. ^ Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution states that no member serving in the legislative branch of the government (that is, in the House or Senate) may serve in a civil service concurrently: Goss had to resign his House seat in order to assume office as the Director.
2. ^ Jennifer Loven (May 5, 2006). CIA Director Porter Goss Resigns . Associated Press. http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/05/05/D8HDP7AG2.html. Retrieved 2006-11-27.
3. ^ [1]
4. ^ Richard W. Goss . New York Times. November 13, 1981. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE6DE1F39F930A25752C1A967948260. Retrieved 2007-06-28.
5. ^ In Naugatuck Valley . Time. January 6, 1930. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,882278,00.html. Retrieved 2007-06-28.
6. ^ Joshua Micah Marshall (May 7, 2006). Big world, small world. . Talking Points Memo. http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/008390.php. Retrieved 2006-11-27.
7. ^ Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to provide for four-year terms for Representatives and to limit the number of consecutive terms Senators and Representatives… . Library of Congress. January 7, 1997. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c105:H.J.RES.16:. Retrieved 2006-11-27.
8. ^ To provide that an annual pay adjustment for Members of Congress may not exceed the cost-of-living adjustment in benefits under title II of the Social Security Act for that year. . Library of Congress. May 4, 1999. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c106:H.R.1669:. Retrieved 2006-11-27.
9. ^ Public Interest Declassification Act of 1999 . Library of Congress. October 27, 1999. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c106:H.R.3152:. Retrieved 2006-11-27.
10. ^ Richard Leiby (May 18, 2002). A Cloak But No Dagger . Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36091-2002May17?language=printer. Retrieved 2006-11-27.
11. ^ Ward Harkavy (August 10, 2004). In the search for intelligence life, Porter Goss is strictly from hunger . Village Voice. http://villagevoice.com/blogs/bushbeat/archive/000273.php. Retrieved 2006-11-27.
12. ^ Pakistan’s support of the Taliban . Afghanistan: Crisis of Impunity: The Role of Pakistan, Russia, and Iran in Fueling the Civil War. Human Rights Watch. July 2001. http://hrw.org/reports/2001/afghan2/Afghan0701-02.htm#P350_92934. Retrieved 2006-11-27.
13. ^ Patrick Martin (March 6, 2002). Further delay in US congressional investigation into September 11 attacks . World Socialist Web Site. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/mar2002/prob-m06.shtml. Retrieved 2006-11-27.
14. ^ Dreyfuss, Robert (2006-05-08). The Yes Man . The American Prospect. http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_yesman. Retrieved 2008-03-31.
15. ^ Michael Hirsch; Michael Isikoff, Mark Hosenball (July 5, 2004). Secret Agent Man . Newsweek. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5305214/site/newsweek/. Retrieved 2006-11-27.
16. ^ David Ensor (June 24, 2004). Sources: Goss front-runner for CIA post . CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/06/24/cia.goss/. Retrieved 2006-11-27.
17. ^ Walter Shapiro (May 6, 2006). Porter Goss’ spooky demise . Salon. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/05/06/goss/. Retrieved 2006-11-27.
18. ^ Greg Miller (May 7, 2006). CIA Chief’s Ouster Points to Larger Issues . LA Times. http://www.latimes.com/wireless/avantgo/la-na-cia7may07,0,493322.story. Retrieved 2006-11-27.
19. ^ Weekly Standard Editors (May 15, 2006). The Agency Problem . Weekly Standard. http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/190waali.asp. Retrieved 2006-11-27.
20. ^ History of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence . Office of the Director of National Intelligence. http://www.odni.gov/aboutODNI/history.htm. Retrieved 2006-11-27.
External links
* Porter Goss at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
* Porter Goss — biography at Spartacus Education
* Porter Goss — biography at NNDB
* Pentagon cheers CIA shake-up
* Goss says CIA leak not worthy of committee action
* GOVEXEC.com: Rep. Porter Goss
* Sources: Goss front-runner for CIA post
* Porter Goss as CIA Director?
* OnTheIssues — Porter Goss
* Opening statement of Porter Goss to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, on September 14, 2004
* U.S. Senate voting record for the confirmation of Porter Goss
* Wikipedia ‘shows CIA page edits’
United States House of Representatives
Preceded by
Connie Mack, III Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Florida’s 13th congressional district
January 3, 1989–January 3, 1993 Succeeded by
Dan Miller
Preceded by
Harry Johnston Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Florida’s 14th congressional district
January 3, 1993–September 23, 2004 Succeeded by
Connie Mack IV
Political offices
Preceded by
Larry Combest
Texas
Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee
1997–2004 Succeeded by
Peter Hoekstra
Michigan
Government offices
Preceded by
George J. Tenet Director of Central Intelligence
September 24, 2004–April 21, 2005 Succeeded by
John Negroponte
(as DNI)
Director of the CIA
September 24, 2004–May 5, 2006 Succeeded by
Michael Hayden
v • d • e
Directors of Central Intelligence and Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence
Sidney Souers A Hoyt Vandenberg A Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter A Walter B. Smith A Allen W. Dulles A John A. McCone A William Raborn A Richard Helms A James R. Schlesinger A William Colby A George H. W. Bush A Stansfield Turner A William J. Casey A William H. Webster A Robert Gates A R. James Woolsey, Jr. A John M. Deutch A George Tenet
Seal of the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States
Central Intelligence Agency
Porter J. Goss A Michael Hayden A Leon Panetta
Persondata
NAME Goss, Porter Johnston
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION American politician and first Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
DATE OF BIRTH November 26, 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH Waterbury, Connecticut
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porter_Goss
Categories: 1938 births | Living people | Directors of the Central Intelligence Agency | George W. Bush Administration personnel | Members of the United States House of Representatives from Florida | People from Waterbury, Connecticut | Florida Republicans | Mayors of places in Florida | United States Army soldiers | People of the Central Intelligence Agency | American spies | Yale University alumni
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porter_Goss
***
Jeb Bush
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jeb Bush
43rd Governor of Florida
In office
January 5, 1999 – January 2, 2007
Lieutenant Frank Brogan (1999–2003)
Toni Jennings (2003–2007)
Preceded by Buddy MacKay
Succeeded by Charlie Crist
Born February 11, 1953 (1953-02-11) (age 56)
Midland, Texas
Political party Republican
Spouse(s) Columba Bush
Residence Coral Gables, Florida
Alma mater University of Texas at Austin
Profession banking, real estate
Religion Roman Catholic
Signature
John Ellis Jeb Bush (born February 11, 1953) is an American politician who served as the 43rd Governor of Florida. He is a prominent member of the Bush family: the younger brother of former President George W. Bush; the older brother of Neil Bush, Marvin Bush and Dorothy Bush Koch; and the second son of former President George H. W. Bush and former First Lady Barbara Bush.
Contents
* 1 Early years
* 2 Family
* 3 Early career
o 3.1 Business experience in Texas and abroad
o 3.2 Business and lobbying experience in Miami
o 3.3 Civic and charitable activities
o 3.4 Religious affiliation
* 4 Political career
o 4.1 Early campaigns
o 4.2 Governor of Florida
+ 4.2.1 Education
+ 4.2.2 Libraries
+ 4.2.3 Environment
+ 4.2.4 Health policy issues
+ 4.2.5 International trade
+ 4.2.6 Lieutenant Governors
+ 4.2.7 Florida Cabinet
+ 4.2.8 Other organizations
* 5 2002 gubernatorial election
o 5.1 The Democratic primary race
o 5.2 The 2002 election results
* 6 Political future
o 6.1 Political bases
o 6.2 Bush’s impact on his political party
o 6.3 Political interests and business activities
o 6.4 Bush as NFL commissioner
o 6.5 Speech at D.C. Summit
o 6.6 Possible run for U.S. Senate
* 7 Electoral history
* 8 See also
* 9 References
* 10 Further reading
* 11 External links
[edit] Early years
Bush enrolled at Phillips Andover, a private boarding school in Massachusetts, already attended by his brother, George. Bush made the honor roll in his first semester.
When Bush was 17, he went to León, Guanajuato, in Mexico, as part of his school’s student exchange program. He spent his time there teaching English, and it was there that he met his future wife, Columba Garnica Gallo.
Bush attended the University of Texas at Austin, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a Bachelor’s degree in Latin American Studies in 1973, taking only two and a half years to complete his work, and obtaining generally excellent grades. He had considered a career in Hollywood, but decided instead to pursue politics. He registered for the draft, but the Vietnam War ended before his number came up.
Family
After his early graduation, Bush married Columba Garnica Gallo, on February 23, 1974. Their three children are George P. Bush, Noelle Bush and John Ellis Bush, Jr. Their eldest son, George Prescott Bush (born April 24, 1976 in Texas), went to Gulliver Preparatory School, studied at Rice University, and earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Texas. Noelle Lucila Bush (born July 26, 1977 in Texas), their daughter and second child, studied at Tallahassee Community College, graduating in 2000. John Ellis Jebby Bush, Jr. (born December 13, 1983 in Miami, Florida), their youngest child, attended The Bolles School, a private boarding and day school in Jacksonville, and then the University of Texas.
John Ellis Bush, Jr., Bush’s youngest son, works for a Miami commercial real estate firm. In October 2007, he endorsed Rudy Giuliani for the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination, and supported the effort as chairman of Florida Young Professionals for Rudy .[1] On January 29, 2002, according to a police report made public via The Smoking Gun, Noelle Bush attempted to “fraudulently obtain a prescription” at a Walgreens Drug Store located in Tallahassee, Florida.[2] The attending officers, Bob Bascom and Mark E. Dent of the Tallahassee Police Department, ascertained that Bush had telephoned the pharmacy using the name “Noelle Scidmore” in an attempt to obtain Xanax, a prescription drug used to treat anxiety disorders. As a result of her arrest, Bush was ordered by a judge to attend a rehabilitation program at the Center for Drug-Free Living in Orlando, Florida.[3] During her time at the facility, Bush was found in contempt of court after being found in possession of two grams of cocaine, and was sentenced to 10 days in jail.[3] Upon completion of her rehabilitation program, the governor’s press office released a statement on his behalf. “Columba and I are pleased that our daughter Noelle has completed this step, and grateful for the treatment she’s received … . She has worked hard to get here. We are proud of her efforts and love her very much.”[4] Regarding her treatment, Noelle Bush herself told the court “It’s been quite a challenge, and I’m grateful.”[4]
Early career
Business experience in Texas and abroad
Bush went to work in an entry level position in the international division of Texas Commerce Bank, a job he received through James Baker, a long time family friend and chairman of the board of Texas Commerce Bank. Bush assisted in drafting communications for the company’s chairman, Ben Love.
In November 1977, he was sent to the Venezuelan capital of Caracas to open a new operation for the bank. Bush spent about two years there, working in international finance. He eventually worked for the bank’s executive program.
Bush returned to the United States to work without salary on his father’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 1980, explaining:
I wasn’t motivated for politics, I wasn’t motivated because of ideology or anything. My dad’s the greatest man I’ve ever met or will meet; I can predict that fairly confidently. It was payback time, simple as that.
His father ultimately lost the Republican nomination for President that year, but was chosen to be Ronald Reagan’s running mate. That fall, George H.W. Bush was elected Vice President of the United States, and won reelection in 1984. In 1988, the elder Bush won both the Republican Party’s presidential nomination and the election, becoming the nation’s 41st president. In 1992 Bush’s father was defeated for re-election by then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton.
Business and lobbying experience in Miami
Following the 1980 presidential election, Bush and his family moved to Miami-Dade County, Florida. He took a job in real estate with Armando Codina, a 32-year-old Cuban immigrant and self-made American millionaire. Codina had made a fortune in a computer business, and then formed a new company, IntrAmerica Investments Inc., to pursue opportunities in real estate.
In 1981, his first year with Codina’s new real estate venture, Bush earned $41,508. He soon became a valuable real estate salesman for Codina and helped him build a very successful property business in Florida.
During Bush’s years in Miami, he was involved in many different entrepreneurial pursuits, including working for a mobile phone company, serving on the board of a Norwegian-owned company that sold fire equipment to the Alaska oil pipeline, becoming a minority owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars, buying a shoe company that sold footwear in Panama, and getting involved in a project selling water pumps in Nigeria.
Codina eventually made Bush his partner in a new development business, which quickly became one of South Florida’s leading real estate development firms. As a partner, Bush received 40% of the firm’s profits.
There have been several allegations of this, but Bush was never on the payroll of Cuban exile Miguel Recarey. Bush worked at locating office spaces for IMC and did so like every other licensed Realtor; commission based on final performance. Jeb was provided with a detailed list of specifications of what was wanted. This included acceptable locations, a range of size and price per square foot parameters. Jeb’s search went on for several months and multiple locations that met the established criteria were actually found by Jeb. Each time, he was provided with a series of reasons why the particular site was not acceptable. In reality, Miguel Recarey was an extremely contradictory fellow, constantly changing his mind. The last property that Jeb Bush brought forth was a deal almost too good to be true: the building was in Coral Gables, right in the middle of the preferred location requested and square foot pricing was well below the going market rate. Miguel found himself in in a difficult predicament and decided to pay Jeb the $75,000 commission, not for purchase of political influence as so many are fond to accuse him of, but for 2 different reasons that don’t appear in the mainstream media: 1) Jeb had performed exactly as requested and he felt he had a legal liability to pay if so challenged. If so, he did not want to be embroiled in a legal fight with the son of an influential politician and be on the wrong side of the argument, 2) He felt he had a moral obligation to pay and had already run out of excuses of why the last property Jeb found would not be acceptable.[5] Recarey, who ran International Medical Centres (IMC), employed Bush as a real estate consultant and paid him a $75,000 fee for finding the company a new location, although the move never took place. Bush did, however, lobby the Reagan/Bush administration vigorously and successfully on behalf of Recarey and IMC. I want to be very wealthy, Jeb Bush told the Miami News when questioned during that period.[6]
Civic and charitable activities
After narrowly losing a 1994 election for Governor of Florida against Lawton Chiles, Bush pursued policy and charitable interests. He started a non-profit organization called The Foundation For Florida’s Future, a think tank that stated as its mission influencing public policy at the grassroots level. Jeb met with Noel Serrano, a member of the Latin Chamber of Commerce in 1991. Noel states, Jeb was always a dedicated Public Servant long before he became Governor He also volunteered time to assist the Miami Children’s Hospital, the United Way of Dade County and the Dade County Homeless Trust .[7]
Jeb Bush has also worked with The James Madison Institute, a free market public policy think tank based in Tallahassee, FL. He helped the institute in numerous ways and still has his think tank working in conjunction with it. In June 2008, Jeb’s institute, the Foundation for Excellence in Education,partnered with JMI to hold a summit called Excellence in Action: A National Summit on Education Reform .[8]
In 1996, The Foundation For Florida’s Future published a book that Bush had co-written, Profiles in Character (ISBN 0-9650912-0-1), a clear parallel to John F. Kennedy’s 1955 book Profiles in Courage. The foundation also published and distributed policy papers, such as A New Lease on Learning: Florida’s First Charter School , which Bush co-wrote.[9] Bush subsequently wrote the foreword to another book, published by the conservative Heritage Foundation and written by Nina Shokraii Rees, School Choice 2000: What’s Happening in the States (ISBN 0-89195-089-3).
Bush co-founded the first charter school in the State of Florida: Liberty City Charter School, a grades K-6 elementary school.[10] The school is situated in Liberty City, a Miami neighborhood that was the site, in 1980, of the first major race riot since the Civil Rights era.[11] The school’s co-founder, working alongside Bush, was T. Willard Fair, a well-known local black activist and head of the Greater Miami Urban League. The Liberty City Charter School still operates today as a charter school.
Additionally, Bush is an active rock climber, and a strong advocate for climber’s rights.
Religious affiliation
In addition to his business, civic and charitable activities, the Episcopalian Bush converted to Catholicism (1995). He and his wife belonged to the Epiphany Catholic Church in Miami for many years. Bush is also a Third Degree Knight of Columbus according to an August 3, 2004 speech his brother, George W. Bush, made at the 122nd Knights of Columbus Convention in Dallas. The following is an excerpt from the speech:
I’m proud to say that my family has contributed to your ranks. A few years ago, Governor Jeb became a Knight. And he – yes – and he recently took his Third Degree. I’ll see him this weekend. His son is getting married. I’ll pass on the word, aim for the Fourth.
In 2004, Jeb Bush (while still governor) was inducted into the Fourth Degree by Gary L. McLain at a ceremony held Nov. 1. Bush, a member of Father Hugon Council 3521 in Tallahassee, joined Father Hugon Assembly. Jeb Bush Being Knighted 4th Degree
Political career
Early campaigns
Bush got his start in Florida politics as the Chairman of the Dade County Republican Party. Dade County played an important role in the 1986 election of Bob Martinez to the Governor’s office. In return, Martinez appointed Bush as Florida’s Secretary of Commerce. He served in that role in 1987 and 1988, before resigning once again to work on his father’s presidential campaign. In 1989 he served as the campaign manager of Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the first Cuban-American to serve in Congress. He launched an unsuccessful bid for the Governor’s office in 1994 against incumbent Democratic Governor Lawton Chiles. Bush lost the election by only 63,940 votes out of 4,206,076 that were cast for the major party candidates (2,135,008; 50.8% to 2,071,068; 49.2%). In the same election year, his older brother, George, was elected Governor of Texas.
Governor of Florida
In 1998, Bush defeated the Democratic opponent Lt. Governor Buddy MacKay by over 418,000 votes (2,191,105; 55.3% to 1,773,054; 44.7%) to become Governor of Florida, after courting the state’s moderate voters and Hispanics. Simultaneously, his brother, George W. Bush won a landslide re-election victory for a second term as Governor of Texas, and the Bush brothers became the first siblings to govern two states at the same time since Nelson and Winthrop Rockefeller governed New York and Arkansas from 1967 to 1971. Bush is the first Republican governor of Florida to have served two full four-year terms.
Education
Bush’s administration was marked by a focus on public education reform. His A+ Plan mandated standardized testing in Florida’s public schools, eliminated social promotion and established a system of funding public schools based on a statewide grading system using the FCAT test. Bush has been a proponent of school vouchers and charter schools, especially in areas of the state with failing public schools, although to date very few schools have received failing grades from the state. One program that has seen fruition is the Florida Virtual School, a distance-learning program that allows students in rural areas of the state to take Advanced Placement classes for college credit. However, his policies have also been driven by a firm refusal to raise taxes for education, which led Bush to oppose a ballot initiative to amend the Florida Constitution to cap growing school class sizes. Bush said he had a couple of devious plans if this thing passes .[12][13] Despite his opposition, the amendment passed;[14] Bush’s subsequent suggestions that the amendment be repealed[15] have contributed to criticisms that he has failed to implement it in good faith. A similar concern about new expenditures has led to controversy over whether Florida has provided adequate resources to implement a subsequent voter-approved state constitutional amendment that requires a universal state-financed pre-Kindergarten program.[16]
In higher education, Bush approved three new medical schools during his tenure and also put forth the One Florida proposal, an initiative that effectively ended affirmative action admissions programs at state universities.[17] These moves were among the influencing concerns that led to the faculty of the University of Florida to deny Bush an honorary degree, whilst the University of Florida Alumni Association made him an honorary alumnus. North Miami Beach Attorney Larry R. Fleurantin, then a UF law student, on April 1, 2001, wrote an article in the Gainesville Sun challenging Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s Talented 20 Plan, the educational component of One Florida. In response to Attorney Fleurantin’s article, on April 7, 2001, Gov. Jeb Bush wrote a column in the Gainesville Sun defending his One Florida policy. [18]
Libraries
On May 2006, as part of an unprecedented $448.7-million line-item veto of state funding, Bush slashed a total of $5.8 million in grants to public libraries, pilot projects for library homework help and web-based high-school texts, and funding for a joint-use library in Tampa.[19]
After months of controversy that included thousands of e-mails, petition signatures and hundreds of picketers at the State Capitol, the Florida House voted to ditch Bush’s plan to give the biggest collection at the century-old State Library to Nova Southeastern University.[20]
Environment
Bush signed legislation to protect the Everglades and opposed federal plans to drill for oil off the coast of Florida. In early October 2005, Bush attempted to strike a compromise with fellow Republicans that would allow offshore drilling in an area that stretches 125 miles off Florida’s coastline and give the state legislature the power to permit drilling closer to the state’s coastlines. The compromise was warmly received by some Florida Republicans and U.S. Congressmen, such as bill sponsor Richard Pombo, but has yet to be agreed upon; others including Republican U.S. Senator Mel Martinez, objected to any backtracking on the drilling moratorium. Jeb Bush is skeptical about man-made global warming.
Health policy issues
Bush was involved in the Terri Schiavo case, involving a woman with massive brain damage, who was on a feeding tube for over 15 years, and whose husband and legal guardian, Michael Schiavo, wished to remove the tube. This move was opposed by Terry Schiavo’s parents in the courts. Bush signed Terri’s Law, a law passed by the Florida legislature that permitted the Governor to keep Schiavo on life support. The law was ruled unconstitutional by the Florida Supreme Court on September 23, 2004. That decision was appealed to the federal courts. On January 24, 2005, however, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case, thus allowing the Florida court’s ruling to stand. Bush took heated criticism from conservatives who were disappointed that he did not take further action to prevent Schiavo from having her feeding tube removed.[21]
Bush oversaw 21 executions as Governor[22] (more than Graham, Martinez and Chiles while they were in office). Bush never agreed to commute any sentence.[23]
Bush also presided over switching from electric chair (the only method of executions until 2000, now optional) to lethal injection, after a botched electrocution of Allen Lee Davis (first inmate executed under his administration and last, to date, electrocuted in Florida). After two previous botched executions (Jesse Tafero in 1990 and Pedro Medina in 1997) Governors Martinez and Chiles along with legislature declined to change methods.[24]
While he is an advocate of capital punishment, Bush suspended all executions in Florida on December 15, 2006, after the execution of Ángel Nieves Díaz was seemingly botched. The execution took 37 minutes to complete, and required a second injection of the lethal chemicals.
International trade
Bush said one of the most important goals of his final two years as Governor was to secure the FTAA Secretariat for Miami.
Lieutenant Governors
Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan, a former fifth-grade teacher, principal, and superintendent, served only one term with Bush. After Brogan remarried, he opted not to serve a second term. Brogan was reelected to a second term in 2002 with Bush and then resigned in March 2003. He and his new wife moved to Boca Raton, where he serves as president of Florida Atlantic University. In Tallahassee, a museum was named in honor of Brogan’s late wife, Mary, who died on June 27, 1999 of breast cancer and, like her husband, was a Florida school teacher.[25]
Following Brogan’s resignation, Bush appointed former Florida Senate President Toni Jennings, with whom he had occasionally disagreed in regards to public policy, as Lieutenant Governor.
Florida Cabinet
As Governor, Bush served as the chairman of the Florida Cabinet, which provides collective governance over part of state government.
Other organizations
Bush was a member of the National Governors Association and the Republican Governors Association.
[edit] 2002 gubernatorial election
Main article: Florida gubernatorial election, 2002
Before Bush’s re-election, no Republican in Florida had ever been re-elected to serve a second term as the state’s Governor. In addition, there was likely no precedent for any Governor to be branded by the opposition as its Number One Target for removal from office, as Bush was ranked in 2002. This was not merely a statewide effort to oust the Republican Governor, but a much-publicized goal of the DNC and its highest leadership during the 2002 election cycle.
The Democratic primary race
Bush almost faced Janet Reno in the 2002 Florida Governor’s race. However, a number of other Democratic candidates also wanted to become Florida’s next Governor, including Bill McBride. A prominent litigator with Holland & Knight and a novice candidate, McBride was favored by national Democratic Party leaders in part because of his military background and perceived ability to attract Florida’s more conservative voters.
In the ensuing Democratic primary contest (where only Democratic voters could vote, pursuant to state primary laws), circumstances surrounding McBride’s victory outraged many voters in South Florida. Some voting venues – located in Reno’s urban strongholds of Broward County and Dade County, and operated by Democrats elected as county election officials – reportedly opened hours late, and then ignored Bush’s Executive Order, issued at Reno’s request, to stay open later to accommodate all voters.
The 2002 election results
In the closely watched Florida Governor’s race that attracted national attention, Bush was re-elected in November 2002, becoming the first Republican in the state’s history to be re-elected as Governor. Bush defeated Democratic challenger Bill McBride with 56% to 43%, a greater margin of victory than in Bush’s 1998 campaign for the Governor’s office. Bush also increased the number of counties in his victory column, winning several Florida counties for the very first time. He campaigned all throughout North West Florida in Pensacola and Milton.
In January 2007, Bush became only the second Florida Governor to complete two full four-year terms in office, the first being Democrat Reubin O’Donovan Askew. (Bush was prevented from seeking a third term in the 2006 election, due to term limits under state law.)
Bush made Florida political history not only by becoming the first Republican Governor to ever win re-election in Florida, but also by being the first Florida Governor to select a woman, Toni Jennings, to serve as Florida’s Lieutenant Governor. No woman had ever been appointed or elected to that high office in Florida’s executive branch.
Bush is also the first Governor to hold office while having a brother simultaneously serve as President.
Political future
Due to term limits under state law, Bush was unable to seek a third term as Governor. Some speculated that Bush would run against Florida’s current Democratic senator, Bill Nelson, in the 2006 U.S. Senate election, but he did not; the Republican candidate was Katherine Harris, who lost to Nelson.
Notwithstanding rumors, he did not run for president in the 2008 election.
Political bases
Bush is popular among Cubans in Florida (winning 80 percent of the Cuban vote in 2002) and popular among non-Cuban Hispanics (56 percent in 2002, equaling the 56 percent he won statewide). As a longtime supporter of Israel,[26] Bush also maintains a significant connection to Florida’s Jewish voters. He was endorsed in his two winning Governor races by a national Jewish publication, and won 44 percent of the state’s Jewish vote in the 2002 Governor’s race.[27] Many black voters support his focus on public education and parental choice in education, and a number of Black Republican clubs have risen in Florida.[28] In his re-election in 2002, Bush surprised critics by winning the white female vote in the swing-voting battleground of Central Florida’s I-4 corridor.[29] Most recently, he has reached out extensively to Florida’s Haitian community.
Bush’s impact on his political party
Bush’s appeal to Florida’s highly diverse group of voters, along with his success in expanding the so-called big tent of the Florida Republican Party, appear to have propelled him into a commanding political position. Nationwide, American conservatives appear to be positive about Bush, seeing him as committed to upholding core conservative principles.[30]
Throughout his two administrations, Bush’s office touted his record of non–discrimination and rewarding merit, claiming he employed highly qualified women, blacks and other minorities more often in top-level government positions than any previous Florida Governor.
Outside of Florida, fellow Republican leaders throughout the country have sought Bush’s aid both on and off the campaign trail. Bush’s out-of-state campaign visits include Kentucky, where Republican challenger Ernie Fletcher appeared with Bush and won that state’s governorship in 2003,[31] ending a 32-year streak of Democratic governors. In California, after Democratic Governor Gray Davis was ousted in a recall vote, Bush dispatched Florida’s budget director[32] to that state to lead an independent audit of California’s budget, at the request of the state’s newly elected Republican Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Political interests and business activities
Bush has been active in the neoconservative think tank Project for the New American Century, whose stated goal is to promote American global leadership.
Since 2004, he has been serving a four-year term as a Board Member for the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB).[33] Created by Congress, this board’s purpose is to establish policy on reports examining K-12 students’ academic progress in America’s public and private schools. In 2008, Bush will be serving on the NAGB educational committee focused on Standards, Design and Methodology.
In April 2007, Jeb Bush joined Tenet Healthcare’s board of directors.[34] The following August, Bush joined investment bank, Lehman Brothers, as an adviser in its private equity group.[35]
Bush as NFL commissioner
In May 2006, AP reported that Bush was privately approached to become the next commissioner of the National Football League.[36] This is said to be an interest of his, but it was unknown whether or not he would take the position. The former commissioner, Paul Tagliabue, announced that his tenure would soon be over and he is searching for replacements. I’m flattered, Jeb Bush said May 24, 2006 of the NFL’s interest, but I’m Governor of the state of Florida and I intend to be Governor until I leave – which is January 2007. And I’m not going to consider any other options other than being Governor until I finish .[37] Roger Goodell eventually became the new NFL commissioner.
Speech at D.C. Summit
On January 27, 2007 Bush spoke as the keynote speaker at the National Review Institute’s Conservative Summit in Washington, D.C. speaking about the Democratic take over in Congress. He told political conservatives we lost, and there are significant reasons that happened, but it isn’t because conservatives were rejected. It’s because we rejected the conservative philosophy in this country. [38] He told them “don’t…abandon conservative principles…we don’t need to be the end all and be all for every special interest group, for every constituent that you like, for every person that’s given a fundraising check to your campaign, for everything that is just wrong about public policy and politics”.[39] In attendance at the summit was former chairman of the Republican National Committee Ed Gillespie who said if he, like Bush, “left office with approval ratings above 60 percent…he might be in Des Moines today [preparing for the presidential primary]”.[38] Bush denied rumors that he would run for President in 2008, but “when questioned did not rule out running as a vice presidential candidate.” He joked about being out of work for the first time in his life but said he is happy for the opportunity to “take a pause.”[39]
Possible run for U.S. Senate
In 2008, Bush indicated that he was considering running in the 2010 U.S. Senate race for the seat being vacated by Mel Martinez, who announced that he would retire at the end of his term.[40][41][42][43][44] But in January 2009, he announced that he would not run for the Senate. [45]
Electoral history
Florida Gubernatorial Election 1994
Party Candidate Votes % %
Democratic Lawton Chiles (incumbent) 2,135,008 50.75
Republican Jeb Bush 2,071,068 49.23
Florida Gubernatorial Election 1998
Party Candidate Votes % %
Republican Jeb Bush 2,191,105 55.27
Democratic Buddy MacKay 1,773,054 44.72
Florida Gubernatorial Election 2002
Party Candidate Votes % %
Republican Jeb Bush 2,856,845 56.01
Democratic Bill McBride 2,201,427 43.16
See also
Florida portal
* Bush family
References
1. ^ Giuliani Picks Up (Jeb) Bush (Jr.) Endorsement , Wall Street Journal Washington Wire, October 18, 2007. Retrieved November 19, 2007.
2. ^ Noelle Bush . The Smoking Gun. pp. 1-4. http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/01/29/jeb.bush.daughter.drugs/story.noelle.booking.jpg. Retrieved 2006-05-25.
3. ^ a b Noelle Bush given 10 days in jail for contempt . CNN. 8 August 2002. http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/10/17/noelle.bush/. Retrieved 2006-05-25.
4. ^ a b Jeb Bush’s Daughter Out of Rehab . Associated Press. 8 August 2003. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/national/main326007.shtml. Retrieved 2006-05-25.
5. ^ William Bowles (2003). International Medical Centers: The Jeb Bush Connection . Information Clearhinghouse. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3335.htm. Retrieved 2007-05-13.
6. ^ Duncan Campbell (2002). The Bush dynasty and the Cuban Criminals . The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,851913,00.html. Retrieved 2007-04-17.
7. ^ [1][dead link]
8. ^ Cato on Excellence in Action: A National Summit on Education Reform . Foundation for Excellence in Education. Foundation for Excellence in Education. http://www.excelined.org/Program/ViewPage.aspx?pr=4&pc=21. Retrieved 2008-08-23.
9. ^ (PDF)[dead link]
10. ^ Liberty City Charter School
11. ^ African American Registry: Riot erupts in Liberty City . Aaregistry.com. http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/895/Riot_erupts_in_Liberty_City. Retrieved 2009-04-03.
12. ^ [2][dead link]
13. ^ [3][dead link]
14. ^ Statutes & Constitution :Constitution : Online Sunshine . Leg.state.fl.us. http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?Mode=Constitution&Submenu=3&Tab=statutes#A09S01. Retrieved 2009-04-03.
15. ^ Devious Plan Ver. 4.0 . Flablog. 2005-02-15. http://www.flablog.net/2005/02/devious-plan-ver-40.htm. Retrieved 2009-04-03.
16. ^ [4][dead link]
17. ^ James, Joni. Jeb Bush on One Florida, St. Petersburg Times, March 18, 2007. Retrieved June 14, 2008.
18. ^ . 8:35 p.m. ET (2007-03-24). Jeb Bush denied one honor, wins another – Politics – MSNBC.com . MSNBC. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17768626/. Retrieved 2009-04-03.
19. ^ American Libraries – Gov. Jeb Bush Vetoes Florida Library Appropriations . ALA. 2006-05-26. http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/currentnews/newsarchive/2006abc/may2006ab/bushveto.cfm. Retrieved 2009-04-03.
20. ^ [Libs-Or] Florida library beats bush . Listsmart.osl.state.or.us. 2003-04-05. http://listsmart.osl.state.or.us/pipermail/libs-or/2003-April/000893.html. Retrieved 2009-04-03.
21. ^ [5][dead link]
22. ^ Execution List – Florida Department of Corrections . Dc.state.fl.us. http://www.dc.state.fl.us/oth/deathrow/execlist.html. Retrieved 2009-04-03.
23. ^ Clemency – Death Penalty Information Center.
24. ^ Freedberg, Sydney P. The story of Old Sparky, St. Petersburg Times, September 25, 1999. Retrieved June 14, 2008.
25. ^ The Mary Brogan Museum of Art and Science . Thebrogan.org. 2009-01-17. http://www.thebrogan.org. Retrieved 2009-04-03.
26. ^ Associated Press. State: Gov. Bush declares support for Israel’s fight, St. Petersburg Times, April 27, 2004. Retrieved June 14, 2008.
27. ^ Stewart, Russ. WILL IRAQI VICTORY CONVERT JEWS TO GOP?, Russ Stewart, April 16, 2003. Retrieved June 14, 2008.
28. ^ [6][dead link]
29. ^ The (Finally) Emerging Republican Majority . Weeklystandard.com. http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/259yvdec.asp?pg=2. Retrieved 2009-04-03.
30. ^ Fiscal Policy Report Card on America’s Governors: 2002 . Cato.org. 2002-09-20. http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-454es.html. Retrieved 2009-04-03.
31. ^ Wolfe, Charles. As Ky. governor, Fletcher vows to ‘clean up mess’, The Enquirer, November 5, 2003. Retrieved June 14, 2008.
32. ^ Schwarzenegger building team, October 10, 2003. Retrieved June 14, 2008.
33. ^ What is NAGB?[dead link]
34. ^ Koenig, David. Jeb Bush joins Tenet Healthcare’s board, USA Today, May 10, 2007. Retrieved June 14, 2008.
35. ^ Lehman hires Jeb Bush as private equity advisor . Reuters.com. 2007-08-30. http://www.reuters.com/article/fundsFundsNews/idUSN3046902620070830. Retrieved 2009-04-03.
36. ^ [7][dead link]
37. ^ Jeb Bush quashes NFL speculation . Usatoday.Com. 2006-05-25. http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-24-bush-tagliabue_x.htm. Retrieved 2009-04-03.
38. ^ a b Zachary A. Goldfarb (January 29, 2007). Jeb Bush preaches to conservative choir at summit . Washington Post. http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/politics/article/0,1406,KNS_356_5312155,00.html. Retrieved on February 2, 2007
39. ^ a b Nathan Burchfiel (January 29, 2007). Jeb Bush Calls for Reforms, Return to Civility . CNSNews. http://www.cnsnews.com/news/viewstory.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200701/POL20070129b.html. Retrieved on February 2, 2007
40. ^ Jeb: I am considering Senate run – Carol E. Lee and Jonathan Martin . Politico.com. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1208/16155.html. Retrieved 2009-04-03.
41. ^ Jeb Bush’s Prospects in a Florida Senate Race | Newsweek Politics . Newsweek.com. http://www.newsweek.com/id/172341. Retrieved 2009-04-03.
42. ^ [8][dead link]
43. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/us/04brfs-JEBBUSHSHOWS_BRF.html?ref=us
44. ^ Jeb Bush Ponders Florida Senate Run – Marc Ambinder . Marcambinder.theatlantic.com. http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/12/jeb_bush_ponders_florida_senat.php. Retrieved 2009-04-03.
45. ^ CNN.com: Jeb Bush not running for Senate . Politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/01/06/jeb-bush-not-running-for-senate/. Retrieved 2009-04-03.
Further reading
* Freedberg, Syndey P. Jeb Bush: The Son Rises Away from Dad’s Shadow. The Miami Herald, August 15, 1994.
* Huffington, Arianna. The latest Bush hypocrisy . Salon.com, September 16, 2002.
* Viglucci, Andres and Alfonso Chardy. Bush and business: Fast success, brushes with mystery . The Miami Herald, October 5, 2002.
* Yardley, William. Jeb Bush: His early values shape his politics. The Miami Herald, September 22, 2002.
* Barnes, Fred. Governor in Chief: Jeb Bush’s remarkable eight years of achievement in Florida. The Weekly Standard, June 12, 2006.
External links
Search Wikiquote Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Jeb Bush
Search Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jeb Bush
* Official website
* Official Florida Web portal
* Office of the Governor
* Official Governor’s portrait and biography from the State of Florida
Political offices
Preceded by
Kenneth H. Buddy MacKay, Jr. Governor of Florida
January 5, 1999 – January 2, 2007 Succeeded by
Charlie Crist
Party political offices
Preceded by
Bob Martinez Republican Party nominee for Governor of Florida
1994 (lost), 1998 (won), 2002 (won) Succeeded by
Charlie Crist
v • d • e
Bush family
Prescott Bush ancestors
Dorothy Walker Bush ancestors
Samuel Prescott Bush (1863–1948) • James Smith Bush (1825–1889) • Obadiah Newcomb Bush (1797-1851)
George Herbert Walker (1875–1953) • David Davis Walker (1840–1918) • George E. Walker (1797–1864) • Thomas Walker (1758–1799)
Samuel P. Bush & Flora Sheldon
Prescott Sheldon Bush (m.) Dorothy Wear Walker • Robert Bush • Mary House Bush • Margaret Clement Bush • James Bush
Prescott Bush (1895–1972)
Prescott Bush Jr. • George Herbert Walker Bush (m.) Barbara Pierce • Nancy Walker Bush Ellis • Jonathan James Bush • William Henry Trotter Bush
George H. W. Bush (1924–)
Jonathan Bush (1931–)
George Walker Bush (m.) Laura Lane Welch • Pauline Robinson Bush • Jeb Bush (m.) Columba Garnica Gallo • Neil Mallon Bush (m.) Sharon Smith • Marvin Pierce Bush (m.) Margaret Molster • Dorothy Walker Bush (m. 2nd) Robert P. Koch
Billy Bush (m.) Sydney Davis • Jonathan S. Bush
George W. Bush (1946–)
Jeb Bush (1953–)
Neil Bush (1955–)
Dorothy Koch (1959-)
Barbara Pierce Bush • Jenna Welch Bush (m.) Henry Hager
George Prescott Bush • Noelle Bush
Lauren Bush
Sam LeBlond • Ellie LeBlond • Robert Koch • Gigi Koch
See also
David Davis
The Bush Compound • Buckeye Steel Castings • G. H. Walker & Co. • The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty • Political line
v • d • e
Governors of Florida
Military (1821)
Jackson
Seal of Florida
Territorial (1822–1845)
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State (since 1845)
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Persondata
NAME Bush, Jeb
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Governor of Florida
DATE OF BIRTH February 11, 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH Midland, Texas
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeb_Bush
Categories: 1953 births | Living people | American Roman Catholics | American Roman Catholic politicians | Bolling family | Converts to Catholicism from Anglicanism | English Americans | Irish Americans | Irish-American politicians | Bush family | Children of Presidents of the United States | Converts to Roman Catholicism | FEMA critics | Florida Republicans | George H. W. Bush | Governors of Florida | Phi Beta Kappa Society | People from Houston, Texas | People from Midland, Texas | Phillips Academy alumni | Siblings of Presidents of the United States | State cabinet secretaries of Florida | University of Texas at Austin alumni
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeb_Bush
***
Zapata Corporation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Zapata Corporation (NYSE: ZAP) is a holding company based in Rochester, New York and originating from an oil company started by a group including the former United States president George H. W. Bush. Various writers have alleged links between the company and the United States Central Intelligence Agency.
Contents
* 1 Early business history
* 2 Connections with the CIA
o 2.1 FBI and CIA memos
o 2.2 Allegations by former CIA staff
o 2.3 Allegations of the involvement of a former CIA officer in the foundation of Zapata
o 2.4 Bay of Pigs
o 2.5 Watergate
o 2.6 Iran-Contra affair
* 3 Decline
* 4 Glazer era
* 5 References
o 5.1 Public records
o 5.2 Zapata
o 5.3 George Bush
o 5.4 CIA
o 5.5 Others
* 6 External links
Early business history
The company traces its origins to Zapata Oil, founded in 1953 by future-U.S. President George H. W. Bush, along with his business partners John Overbey, Hugh Liedtke, Bill Liedtke, and Thomas J. Devine. Bush and Thomas J. Devine were oil-wildcatting associates.[1] Their joint activities culminated in the establishment of Zapata Oil.[1] The initial $1 million investment for Zapata was provided by the Liedtke brothers and their circle of investors, by Bush’s father and maternal grandfather—Prescott Bush and George Herbert Walker, and his family circle of friends.
Hugh Liedtke was named president, Bush was vice president; Overbey soon left. In 1954, Zapata Off-Shore Company was formed as a subsidiary of Zapata Oil, with Bush as president of the new company. He raised some startup money from Eugene Meyer, publisher of the Washington Post, and his son-in-law, Phillip Graham.[2][3]
Zapata Off-Shore accepted an offer from an inventor, R. G. LeTourneau, for the development of a mobile but secure drilling rig. Zapata advanced him $400,000, which was to be refundable if the completed rig did not function. If it did function, LeTourneau would get an additional $550,000 together with 38,000 shares of Zapata Off-Shore common stock.
Zapata Corporation split in 1959 into independent companies Zapata Petroleum, headed by the Liedtkes,and Zapata Off-Shore, headed by Bush funded with $800,000.[4] Bush moved his offices and family that year from Midland, Texas to Houston. In 1963, Zapata Petroleum merged with South Penn Oil and other companies to become Pennzoil.
According to a George H. W. Bush-biographer Nicholas King, in the late-1950s and early-1960, Zapata Off-Shore concentrated its business in the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Central American coast.[5] The U.S. government began to auction off mineral rights to these areas in 1954. In 1958, drilling contracts with the seven large U.S. oil producers included wells 40 miles (64 km) north of Isabela, Cuba, near the island Cay Sal. In July 1959, Cuba’s Batista government was overthrown by Fidel Castro. Zapata also won a contract with Kuwait.
In 1962, Bush was joined in Zapata Off-Shore by a fellow Yale Skull and Bones member, Robert Gow. By 1963, Zapata Off-Shore had four operational oil-drilling — Scorpion (1956), Vinegaroon (1957), Sidewinder, and (in the Persian Gulf) Nola III.
In 1960, Jorge Diaz Serrano of Mexico was put in touch with Bush by Dresser. They created a new company, Perforaciones Marinas del Golfo, aka Permargo, in conjunction with Edwin Pauley of Pan American Petroleum, with whom Zapata had a previous offshore contract. The deal with Pemargo is not mentioned in Zapata’s annual reports. A Bush spokesman in 1988 claimed the deal only lasted seven months, from March to September 1960. Zapata sold Nola I to Pemargo in 1964.
By 1964, Zapata Off-Shore had a number of subsidiaries, including: Seacat-Zapata Offshore Company (Persian Gulf), Zapata de Mexico, Zapata International Corporation, Zapata Mining Corporation, Zavala Oil Company, Zapata Overseas Corporation, and a 41% share of Amata Gas Corporation.
Bush ran for the United States Senate in 1964 and lost; he continued as president of Zapata Off-Shore until 1966, when he sold his interest to his business partner, Robert Gow, and ran for the U.S. House of Representatives.
In 1966, William Stamps Farish III, age 28, joined the board Zapata Board.
Zapata’s filing records with the U.S.Securities and Exchange Commission are intact for the years 1955-1959, and again from 1967 onwards. However, records for the years 1960-1966 are missing. The commission’s records officer stated that the records were inadvertently placed in a session file to be destroyed by a federal warehouse and that a total of 1,000 boxes were pulped in this procedure. The destruction of records occurred either in October 1983 (according to the records officer) or in 1981 shortly after Bush became Vice President of the United States (according to, Wison Carpenter, a record analyst with the commission).
Connections with the CIA
Various writers have suggested that Zapata Off-Shore, and Bush in particular, cooperated with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) beginning in the late 1950s.
FBI and CIA memos
Memo from FBI Special Agent in Texas, regarding call by GHW Bush of Zapata Off-Shore Drilling Company received 75 minutes after JFK’s murder
Memo from J. Edgar Hoover, referring to Mr. George Bush of the CIA , briefed 24 hours after JFK’s murder
Two Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) memoranda have been offered to show connections between the CIA and George H. W. Bush during his time at Zapata. The first memo names Zapata Off-Shore and was written by FBI Special Agent Graham Kitchel on 22 November 1963, regarding the John F. Kennedy assassination at 12:30 p.m. CST that day. It begins: At 1:45 p.m. Mr. GEORGE H. W. BUSH, President of the Zapata Off-Shore Drilling Company, Houston, Texas, residence 5525 Briar, Houston, telephonically furnished the following information to writer. .. BUSH stated that he wanted to be kept confidential. .. was proceeding to Dallas, Texas, would remain in the Sheraton-Dallas Hotel.
A second FBI memorandum, written by J. Edgar Hoover, identifies George Bush with the CIA. It is dated 29 November 1963 and refers to a briefing given Bush on 23 November. The FBI Director describes a briefing about JFK’s murder orally furnished to Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency. .. [by] this Bureau on December 20, 1963.
When this second memorandum surfaced during the 1988 presidential campaign, Bush spokespersons (including Stephen Hart) said Hoover’s memo referred to another George Bush who worked for the CIA.[6] CIA spokeswoman Sharron Basso suggested it was referring to a George William Bush. However, others described this G. William Bush as a lowly researcher and coast and beach analyst who worked only with documents and photos at the CIA in Virginia from September 1963 to February 1964, with a low rank of GS-5.[7][8][9] Moreover, this G. William Bush swore an affidavit in federal court denying that Hoover’s memo referred to him:
I have carefully reviewed the FBI memorandum to the Director, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Department of State dated November 29, 1963 which mentions a Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency. … I do not recognize the contents of the memorandum as information furnished to me orally or otherwise during the time I was at the CIA. In fact, during my time at the CIA, I did not receive any oral communications from any government agency of any nature whatsoever. I did not receive any information relating to the Kennedy assassination during my time at the CIA from the FBI. Based on the above, it is my conclusion that I am not the Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency referred to in the memorandum. (United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Civil Action 88-2600 GHR, Archives and Research Center v. Central Intelligence Agency, Affidavit of George William Bush, September 21, 1988.)
Allegations by former CIA staff
US Army Brigadier General Russell Bowen wrote that there was a cover-up of Zapata’s CIA connections:
Bush, in fact, did work directly with the anti-Castro Cuban groups in Miami before and after the Bay of Pigs invasion, using his company, Zapata Oil, as a corporate cover for his activities on behalf of the agency. Records at the University of Miami, where the operations were based for several years, show George Bush was present during this time.[10]
Another writer[11] quotes four former U.S. intelligence officials saying Bush was involved with the CIA prior to the Bay of Pigs:
Robert T. Crowley and William Corson of the CIA:
Bush was officially considered a CIA business asset, according to Crowley and Corson. George’s insecurities were clay to someone like Dulles , William Corson said. To recruit young George Bush, Robert Crowley explained, Dulles convinced him that he could contribute to his country as well as get help from the CIA for his overseas business activities. [Bush] was, according to Corson, perfect at talent spotting and looking at potential recruits for the CIA. You have to remember, we had real fears of Soviet activity in Mexico in the 1950s. Bush was one of many businessmen that would be reimbursed for hiring someone the CIA was interested in, or simply carrying a message. –Chapter 2 page 14
John Sherwood of the CIA:
Bush was at first a tiny part of OPERATION MONGOOSE, the CIA’s code name for their anti-Castro operations. According to the late John Sherwood, Bush was like hundreds of other businessmen who provided the nuts-and-bolts assistance such operations require… What they mainly helped us with was to give us a place to park people that was discreet. –Chapter 2 page 16
An anonymous official connected to Operation Mongoose :
George Bush would be given a list of names of Cuban oil workers we would want placed in jobs… The oil platforms he dealt in were perfect for training the Cubans in raids on their homeland. –Chapter 2 page 16
John Loftus, in his book Secret War quotes former U.S. intelligence officials reporting the same story:
The Zapata-Permargo deal caught the eye of Allan Dulles, who the old spies report was the man who recruited Bush’s oil company as a part time purchasing front for the CIA. Zapata provided commercial supplies for one of Dulles’ most notorious operations: the Bay of Pigs Invasion. –Chapter 16 page 368
Finally, according to Cuban intelligence official Fabian Escalante in The Cuba Project: CIA Covert Operations 1959-62, Jack Crichton and George H.W. Bush raised funds for the CIA’s Operation 40.
Tracy Barnes functioned as head of the Cuban Task Force. He called a meeting on January 18, 1960, in his office in Quarters Eyes, near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, which the navy had lent while new buildings were being constructed in Langley. Those who gathered there included the eccentric Howard Hunt, future head of the Watergate team and a writer of crime novels; the egocentric Frank Bender, a friend of Trujillo; Jack Esterline, who had come straight from Venezuela where he directed a CIA group; psychological warfare expert David A. Phillips, and others. The team responsible for the plans to overthrow the government of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954 was reconstituted, and in the minds of all its members this would be a rerun of the same plan. Barnes talked at length of the goals to be achieved. He explained that Vice-President Richard Nixon was the Cuban case officer , and had assembled an important group of businessmen headed by George Bush [Snr.] and Jack Crichton, both Texas oilmen, to gather the necessary funds for [Operation 40]. Nixon was a protege of Bush’s father [Prescott], who in 1946 had supported Nixon’s bid for congress. In fact, [Presott] Bush was the campaign strategist who brought Eisenhower and Nixon to the presidency of the United States. With such patrons, Barnes was certain that failure was impossible. –Page 43-44
Fabian Escalante was in the Department of State Security (G-2) in Cuba in 1960. At the time of the Bay of Pigs, Escalante was head of a counter-intelligence unit and was part of a team investigating a CIA operation called Sentinels of Liberty, an attempt to recruit Cubans willing to work against Castro. His information about Bush apparently comes from a counterintelligence operation against Tracy Barnes of the CIA.
Allegations of the involvement of a former CIA officer in the foundation of Zapata
On January 8, 2007, newly released internal CIA documents revealed that Zapata had in fact emerged from Bush’s collaboration with a covert CIA officer in the 1950s. According to a CIA internal memo dated November 29, 1975, Zapata Petroleum began in 1953 through Bush’s joint efforts with Thomas J. Devine, a CIA staffer who had resigned his agency position that same year to go into private business, but who continued to work for the CIA under commercial cover. Devine would later accompany Bush to Vietnam in late 1967 as a cleared and witting commercial asset of the agency, acted as his informal foreign affairs advisor, and had a close relationship with him through 1975.[12]
Bay of Pigs
George Bush on Zapata oil rig, c.1963
The CIA codename for the Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961 was Operation Zapata .[13] Through his work with Zapata Off-Shore, Bush is alleged to have come into contact with Felix Rodriguez, Barry Seal, Porter Goss, and E. Howard Hunt, around the time of the Bay of Pigs operation.[14]
CIA liaison officer Col. L. (Leroy) Fletcher Prouty alleges[15] that Zapata Off-Shore provided or was used as cover for two of the ships used in the Bay of Pigs invasion: the Barbara J and Houston. Prouty claims he delivered two ships to an inactive Naval Base near Elizabeth City, North Carolina, for a CIA contact and he suspected very strongly that George Bush must have been involved:
They asked me to see if we could find – purchase – a couple of transport ships. We got some people that were in that business, and they went along the coast and they found two old ships that we purchased and sent down to Elizabeth City and began to load with an awful lot of trucks that the Army was sending down there. We deck-loaded the trucks, and got all of their supplies on board. Everything that they needed was on two ships. It was rather interesting to note, looking back these days, that one of the ships was called the Houston, and the other ship was called the Barbara J. Colonel Hawkins had renamed the program as we selected a name for the Bay of Pigs operation. The code name was Zapata. I was thinking a few months ago of what a coincidence that is. When Mr. Bush graduated from Yale, back there in the days when I was a professor at Yale, he formed an oil company, called Zapata , with a man, Lieddke, who later on became president of Pennzoil. But the company that Lieddke and Mr. Bush formed was the Zapata Oil Company. Mr. Bush’s wife’s name is Barbara J. And Mr. Bush claims as his hometown Houston, Texas. Now the triple coincidence there is strange; but I think it’s interesting. I know nothing about its meaning. But these invasion ships were the Barbara J and the Houston, and the program was Zapata. George Bush must have been somewhere around.[16]
John Loftus writes: Prouty’s credibility, however has been widely attacked because of his consultancy to Oliver Stone’s film JFK. but notes on page 598 that: While his credibility has suffered greatly because of his consultancy to Oliver Stone’s film JFK, his recollections about the CIA supply mission have been confirmed by other sources. [17]
Nevertheless, researcher James K. Olmstead claims to have discovered a CIA memorandum which states that the boats were leased, not purchased, by the Garcia Line Corporation with offices in Havana and New York City. The owners were Alfredo Garcia and his five sons. The CIA was using the Rio Escondido for exfiltrating anti-Castro leaders……prior to 1961 BOP planning. It had brought out Nino Diaz, and Manolo Ray. Its captain Gus Tirado was well known to the CIA. Eduardo Garcia met with two CIA agents in NYC and D.C. to arrange the use of the Garcia ships for the invasion. The alleged price was $600.00 per day per ship plus fuel, food and personnel.
Eduardo selected and hired 30 men who were executioners for Batista Miro Cardona of the Frente and the CIA did not like the choice of men hired to protect the Garcia ships. Nobody questioned that Eduardo was coming along with the expedition. I’m going to be in charge of my ships , he said.
Memorandum From the Chief of WH/4/PM, Central Intelligence Agency (Hawkins) to the Chief of WH/4 of the Directorate for Plans (Esterline) The Barbara J (LCI), now enroute to the United States from Puerto Rico, requires repairs which may take up to two weeks for completion. The sister ship, the Blagar, is outfitting in Miami, and its crew is being assembled. It is expected that both vessels will be fully operational by mid-January at the latest. In view of the difficulty and delay encountered in purchasing, outfitting and readying for sea the two LCI’s, the decision has been reached to purchase no more major vessels, but to charter them instead. The motor ship, Rio Escondido (converted LCT) will be chartered this week and one additional steam ship, somewhat larger, will be chartered early in February. Both ships belong to a Panamanian Corporation controlled by the Garcia family of Cuba, who are actively cooperating with this Project. These two ships will provide sufficient lift for troops and supplies in the invasion operation.
The Bay of Pigs operation was directed out of the Miami Station (also known as JM/WAVE ), which was the CIA’s largest station worldwide. It housed 200 agents who handled approximately 2,000 Cubans. Robert Reynolds was the CIA’s Miami station chief from September 1960 to October 1961. He was replaced by career-CIA officer Theodore Shackley, who oversaw Operation Mongoose, Operation 40 (including Porter Goss, Felix Rodriguez, Barry Seal), and others. When Bush became CIA Director in 1976 he appointed Ted Shackley as Deputy Director of Covert Operations. When Bush became Vice President in 1981, he appointed Donald Gregg as his National Security Advisor.
Kevin Phillips[18] discusses George Bush’s highly likely peripheral role in the Bay of Pigs events. He points to the leadership role of Bush’s fellow Skull and Bones alumni in organizing the operation. He notes an additional personal factor for Bush: the Walker side of the family (who initially funded Zapata Corporation) had apparently lost a small fortune when Fidel Castro nationalized their West Indies Sugar Co. Edwin Pauley was known for CIA connections , according to Phillips, it was Pauley who put Pemargo’s Diaz and Bush together.
Watergate
Phillips and others have detailed subsequent involvement by Zapata associates in the Watergate affair. George Bush, as Richard Nixon’s ambassador to the United Nations, urged his former Zapata partner Bill Liedtke to launder $100,000 to the White House plumbers. After Nixon’s 1972 re-election, he appointed Bush as Chairman of the Republican Party National Committee. When the laundering was exposed, those involved included several CIA officials: E. Howard Hunt, Frank Sturgis, Eugenio Martínez, Virgilio González, and Bernard Barker. A discussion of the laundering appears on the Nixon tapes for June 23, 1973.[19]
Iran-Contra affair
Note from Bush to Rodriguez, December 1988
Felix Rodriguez, Porter Goss, Barry Seal, and others, Mexico City 22 January 1963
Michael Maholy alleges[20] that Zapata Off-Shore was used as part of a CIA drug-smuggling ring to pay for arming Nicaraguan Contras in 1986-1988, including Rodriguez, Eugene Hasenfus and others. Mahony claims Zapata’s oil rigs were used as staging bases for drug shipments, allegedly named Operation Whale Watch. Mahony allegedly worked for Naval Intelligence, US State Department and CIA for two decades.
Decline
Zapata, under Robert Gow’s direction, acquired a controlling interest in the United Fruit Company in 1969. Robert’s father, Ralph Gow, was on United Fruit’s board of directors.
Gow apparently left Zapata in 1970. He took with him from Zapata Peter C. Knudtzon. Ties to the Bush family continued. In 1971 both Jeb Bush and George W. Bush worked for Gow’s new company, Stratford of Texas (also known as Stratford of Houston). Stratford imported tropical plants. According to Knudtzon, George W. Bush reportedly flew for Stratford to Florida and Guatemala.[21] Stratford evidently had ties to a large commercial plantation in La Democracia, Huehuetenango, Guatemala.
In the 1970s, under chairman and CEO William Flynn, Zapata expanded its business to include subsidiaries in dredging, construction, coal mining, copper mining and fishing.
By the late 1970s, saddled with weak operations, high debt and low return on investment, the company again began undergoing changes in management and direction. Lead by John Mackin, who succeeded William Flynn, the company began selling off some of those businesses and refocused on offshore oil and gas exploration and production.
In 1982 chief operating officer Ronald Lassiter assumed the role of CEO, and presided over a decade of loss-making brought on by the collapse of oil prices. Zapata Off-shore became Zapata Corporation in 1982. Its stock performed poorly. By 1986 Zapata was one of the bad loans that shook the foundations of San Francisco-based Bank of America, with a debt of more than $500 million and a fiscal year loss of $250 million. The company announced several restructurings during those years and managed to stave off bankruptcy, but continued to incur major losses. In 1990 the oil drilling company proposed selling its entire fleet of offshore drilling rigs to focus solely on fishing. The company had not had a profitable quarter in more than five years.
Zapata Offshore continued on as an offshore drilling company until the early 1990s when it was purchased by Arethusa Offshore which a few years later sold the rigs to Diamond Offshore. Still struggling with debt by 1993, Zapata signed a deal with Norex America to raise more than $100 million through a loan and stock sale. But financier Malcolm Glazer, owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers NFL franchise and at the time owner of 40 percent of Zapata, did not want his holdings diluted and filed a lawsuit to block the deal.
Glazer era
By 1994 the company had come under Glazer’s control, after a proxy fight. Glazer became chairman of Zapata, replacing Ronald Lassiter, and in 1995 Avram Glazer was named CEO and president of Zapata. De facto headquarters moved from Houston to Rochester, New York. It no longer engaged in exploration, but owned several natural gas service companies. It also produced protein products from the menhaden fish. In subsequent years Zapata sold its energy-related businesses and focused on marine protein.
Between 1998 and 2000, Zapata tried to position itself as an internet media company under the zap.com name. The company’s stock boomed and crashed along with other dot-coms, and in 2001 the company conducted a 1 for 10 reverse stock split. The venture was cited by many investment journalists as an example of a company jumping on the internet bandwagon without any relevant experience. This period is probably best remembered for Zapata’s unsolicited (and unsuccessful) takeover bid of the Excite internet portal.[22]
During this period Zapata also built up a controlling stake in Safety Components International, a manufacturer of air bag fabrics and cushions.
On December 2, 2005, Zapata Corporation Chairman, Avie Glazer, announced the sale of 4,162,394 shares, 77.3%, of Safety Components International to Wilbur L. Ross, Jr. for $51.2 million. The company sold its remaining stock in Omega Proteine on December 1, 2006, leaving it with no active subsidiary.
References
1. ^ a b Withheld (sanitized, unclassified document), Central Intelligence Agency (29 November 1975). Memorandum: To: Deputy Director of Operations; Subject: Messrs. George Bush and Thomas J. . NARA Record Number: 104-10310-10271. http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=12758&relPageId=2.
2. ^ Hasty, Michael (February 5, 2004). Secret admirers: The Bushes and the Washington Post . Online Journal. http://web.archive.org/web/20040405042234/http://onlinejournal.com/Media/020504Hasty/020504hasty.html.
3. ^ Perin, Monica (April 23, 1999). Adios, Zapata Colorful company founded by Bush relocates to N.Y. . Houston Business Journal. http://houston.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/1999/04/26/story2.html.
4. ^ Zapata Oil Files, 1943-1983 . George Bush Personal Papers. George Bush Presidential Library. Archived from the original on 2007-08-20. http://web.archive.org/web/20070820095146/http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/research/find/Doncol1/bushpaps.html#Series:%20Zapata%20Oil%20Files,%201943-1983.
5. ^ King, Nicholas (1980). George Bush: A Biography. Dodd Mead. ISBN 0396079199.
6. ^ John Fitzgerald Kennedy . American Patriot Friends Network. http://www.apfn.org/apfn/jfk2.htm.
7. ^ Bush called FBI when JFK died . The Houston Chronicle. December 21, 1991. http://www.newsmine.org/archive/deceptions/assassinations/jfk/bush-calls-fbi-on-jfk-assasination-cia-briefing.txt.
8. ^ [http://www.voxfux.com/features/bush_world_class_criminal.html George Bush: World Class Monster]
9. ^ Date: Thu, 4 January 1996 20:14:32 GMT
10. ^ Russell Bowen (1991). [1]title=The Immaculate Deception: The Bush Crime Family Exposed.
11. ^ Prelude to Terror Joseph J. Trento
12. ^ [2],[3],[4]
13. ^ See Beschloss, p.89
14. ^ Porter & ‘the boys’: Goss Made His Bones on CIA Hit Team
15. ^ in the book, UNDERSTANDING SPECIAL OPERATIONS (1989) and on his website
16. ^ Chp 1, Part III: 1961-1963: Prouty’s Military Experiences 1941-1963
17. ^ John-Loftus.com
18. ^ American Dynasty
19. ^ White
20. ^ CONTACT: The Phoenix Project, March 26, 1996
21. ^ Chapter 3: The 1970s
22. ^ Suzanne Galante (May 21, 1998). Excite rejects Zapata’s bid . CNET News.com. http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-211454.html.
Public records
* SEC filings of Zapata Corporation
* Zapata Offshore Annual Reports, Microform Reading Room, Library of Congress.
* Transcript and audioof a smoking gun tape of Nixon telling Haldeman and Ehrlichman about the Bay of Pigs and Texans.
* National Security Archives documentation of GHW Bush’s CIA involvement in the early 1960s.
* United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Civil Action 88-2600 GHR, Archives and Research Center v. Central Intelligence Agency, Affidavit of George William Bush, September 21, 1988.
* George Bush personal papers
Zapata
* Adios, Zapata Colorful company founded by Bush relocates to N.Y. , Houston Business Journal, April 26, 1999
* Franklin, H. Bruce, Net Losses , Mother Jones, March 2006 – extensive article on role of Menhaded in ecosystem and possible results of overfishing. Retrieved 21 February, 2006
George Bush
* Kevin Philips, Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush, (2004), esp. pp.200–208.
* Russell Bowen, The Immaculate Deception: The Bush Crime Family Exposed (1991).
* Joseph McBride, The Man Who Wasn’t There: ‘George Bush,’ CIA Operative , The Nation, July 16/23, 1988, p. 42.
* Joseph McBride, Where Was George? , The Nation, August 13/20, 1988, on the whereabouts of GHW Bush on 22 November 1963.
* Nicolas King, George Bush: A Biography.
* Webster Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin, George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, Chapter 8.2 (1991), and Bush as a covert CIA operative during the early 1960s . Tarpley and Chaitkin are associated with Lyndon LaRouche.
* Laura Hanning 2004, Study of Evil – A World Reappraised: supporting documents, photos, letters, part III George Herbert Walker Bush
* Anthony L. Kimery, George Bush and the CIA: In the Company of Friends , Covert Action Quarterly, Summer, 1992.
* George HW Bush and Felix Rodriguez: the tale of two old friends
* The Mafia, CIA & George [HW] Bush, Pete Brewton, S.P.I. Books, 1992
CIA
* Robert T. Crowley of the CIA (Quoted by Joseph J. Trento) Prelude to Terror (2005)
* William Corson of the CIA (Quoted by Joseph J. Trento) Prelude to Terror (2005)
* John Sherwood of the CIA (Quoted by Joseph J. Trento) Prelude to Terror (2005)
Prelude to Terror Chapter 2 pg. 13 Recruiting George H. W. Bush [5]
* Richard Bissell, Reflections of a Cold Warrior, (Yale University Press, 1996).
* David Atlee Phillips, The Night Watch.
* E. Howard Hunt, Give Us This Day (New Rochelle: Arlington Press, 1973)
* Michael R. Beschloss, The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960-63 (New York: Edward Burlingame Books, 1991), p. 89 refers to Operation Zapata as the codename for the Bay of Pigs operation.
Others
* Leroy Fletcher Prouty, The Secret Team (1973).
* Michael Maholy (of Yankton, SD)[6]
* Daniel Yergin, The Prize, (1991).
* Rodney Stich (former FAA investigator) Defrauding America (1994), and The Drugging of America (1999).
External links
* Zapata Corporation
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapata_Corporation
Categories: Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange | Agriculture companies of the United States | Family businesses
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapata_Corporation
***
Blackwater Disclosure Adds to CIA Worries
News of ‘Targeted Killing’ Program Precedes Interrogation Report, Possible Probe
You are going to have a hurricane coming through Washington that is aimed right at the intelligence community, former CIA director Porter J. Goss said. (By Lucian Perkins — The
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By R. Jeffrey Smith and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, August 21, 2009
The disclosure Wednesday of the CIA’s decision five years ago to let a private security contractor help manage its sensitive effort to kill senior al-Qaeda members drew congressional criticism Thursday on the eve of key decisions by the Obama administration that current and former intelligence officials fear could compound the spy agency’s political troubles.
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Those decisions include the expected release Monday of newly declassified portions of a 2004 CIA report that questions the legality and effectiveness of the agency’s harsh interrogations at secret prisons. Additionally, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. may order a probe of possible criminal actions by CIA officers and contractors during those interrogations.
In September, you are going to have a hurricane coming through Washington that is aimed right at the intelligence community, warned Porter J. Goss, the CIA’s director from September 2004 to May 2006. He noted that a Justice Department inquiry is also pending into whether laws were broken when CIA officers destroyed videotapes of the harsh interrogations.
Democratic House and Senate lawmakers and staff members have already described as inappropriate the Bush administration’s decision to hand management and training responsibility for the CIA’s targeted killing efforts to Blackwater USA, and they have reiterated their intent to press for speedier and more complete disclosure by the agency of such activities in the future. CIA Director Leon E. Panetta terminated the program in June, shortly before telling Congress about its existence.
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Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairman of the intelligence committee, sharpened her previous criticism of the program. It is clear to me that the failure to notify before now constituted a violation of law, she said in a statement Thursday.
She said she could not address the program’s parameters but emphasized that it had, in fact, gone beyond the simple planning stage.
I have believed for a long time that the Intelligence Community is over-reliant on contractors to carry out its work, she said. This is especially a problem when contractors are used to carry out activities that are inherently governmental.
Democrats have previously pushed to ban the use of contractors to conduct interrogations, and some suggested Thursday that the restriction should extend to hit squads. There is still too much being done by contractors that ought to be done by government employees, said a congressional staff member who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the CIA program remains classified.
Goss said he had not been fully briefed on the details of the CIA activities in question, many of which are classified, so he could not confirm the reported involvement of Blackwater, now known as Xe Services LLC. A spokeswoman for the firm did not return a phone call Thursday, but two former intelligence officers familiar with the effort said the company had received millions of dollars for helping train and equip teams to undertake the killings.
Goss alluded to that effort, stating that my standing orders were ‘field-forward’ mission.
We wanted to catch the people who brought down the trade centers and killed innocent people and wanted to kill more, he said. And we wanted to have every possible legal means at our disposal that we could to deal with them. That was certainly in my vision statement, and that is the briefing that was given to members of Congress during his tenure.
In my view, we should constantly be looking at all our options in terms of national security, Goss said. Suppose you got a high-value guy, a terrorist, part of al-Qaeda, a radical fundamentalist trained to kill innocent people, who you cannot talk down from the tree. What happens when you actually find that guy? Do you send the FBI? That’s probably not the best option for the tribal areas in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
CONTINUED 1 2 Next >
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/20/AR2009082004064.html?hpid=topnews
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Breaking News
‘Leaks Arrest’ MP Wins DNA Database Fight
11:54am UK, Thursday August 20, 2009
The MP arrested in a leaks inquiry has won a battle to get his DNA removed from the national database.
Damian Green outside Parliament after learning he will not be prosecuted over leaks
Charges against Tory MP Damian Green were dropped four months ago
Damian Green said it was a small but significant victory for freedom but called on the police to delete the details of thousands of other innocent people.
Current rules mean anyone arrested has their DNA stored, even if they are cleared of the offence.
Shadow immigration minister Mr Green was arrested in November after police controversially raided his office in Parliament.
He was accused of conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office after allegedly obtaining leaked Home Office documents, but the charges were dropped.
The battle over our DNA records is part of a wider struggle to roll back the database state, he wrote in the Daily Telegraph.
As citizens of a free country, our personal information belongs to us, not the state.
If we transgress, we lose some rights to privacy. No government has the authority to take away those rights from the innocent as well.
The Conservative MP for Ashford said the four months it took to remove his genetic fingerprint from the database had been fast by normal standards .
Chief constables have the power to delete the details but not all applications are successful.
Around 800,000 people have their DNA stored, despite not having been convicted.
Ministers are examining a change in the law to cut to 12 years the length of time data from innocent people is held.
It follows a judgement by European human rights judges which said a blanket policy breached privacy.
‘Leaks Arrest’ MP Wins DNA Database Fight
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* Christopher Galley
Apr 24,2009
Civil Servant Sacked Over Tory Leak
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Apr 18,2009
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* Damian Green outside Parliament after learning he will not be prosecuted over leaks
Apr 17,2009
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Apr 16,2009
Leaked Emails: Tory MP Not Charged
Comments to the story
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Please share with us Tory MP Damian Green how you did it?
I would like to live free. Not in a police state. Not in an EU dictatorship.
We are no longer Great Britain we are EU zones
Posted By :bobby Report This
*
The thing is this government are a bunch of crims and they think that we are the same.
Posted By :Nick Report This
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Having had my DNA taken by the police whom beleived they had cause in doing. Did such cause me injustice ?? YES I may have
felt offended, the police as far as I was concerned acted wrongly
in that I having committed no crime. However in puting personal feelings aside, having nothing to fear then there should be (NO)
concern that ones DNA being held in a national data base. The benefits far outweigh the loss ( where feelings against such an
national DNA data base coming from lawyers whom convincing
people their human rights are violated, where they truely mean
such DNA evidience is cutting their earnings by 60% where the
court case does not drag on for months, where dealt in a week.
CONCERNS) (ones DNA be left at the scene of a crime where
one framed for a crime .. where DNA results as fingerprints be
held to dispute.. However in taking the larger picture, that all by
law have their DNA in a national data base bring great benefits.
Posted By :william wallace Report This
Read more comments (Page Expands)
*
One leaves DNA almost everywhere, not only when about your daily crimes, er business. The recent news that it will soon be fabricated artifically should invalidate police logic anyway i.e. DNA = guilty. The police database could be compared to misuse of personal data with intent. Where the intent is to complete statistical targets through any means within their limited scope of operation considering they must not infringe real criminals rights..
Posted By :Nigel Report This
*
@PC:
Daily mail? What paper i read is irrelivant, i am just an englishman who wants his freedom back, the freedom that he and his family fought for…..the majority of people recognise that this is fast becoming a police state and europe is a federal state. YOU may feel comfortable with all your personal data in the hands of despots but i am not. I am surprised you didn’t use the worn out phrase well if you have nothing to hide ….you may wish to read the constitution…this government and previous have broken it and commited treason, there is no getting away from that
Posted By :A noyed Report This
*
‘A noyed’ clearly reads the Daily Mail
People, being arrested and having your DNA on a police operated database is of absolutely NO USE to anyone, unless your DNA is found (in the future) at a crime scene. THAT is then used to bring those responsible to justice. If DNA records are automatically deleted because A) the person is rightly innocent, or B) not enough evidence to convict a person; doesn’t mean those people will not commit an offence in the future. Until that time, their DNA record will not be used for anything.
Posted By :PC Report This
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For Mongolia’s Dukha Tribe, Reindeers Are Way of Life
Separated from Modern World, Reindeer Herders Face Real Threats to Existence
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Officials: Lithuania Hosted Secret CIA Prison To Get Our Ear
Irresponsible To Identify Secret Sites, Says CIA; Lithuania Denies Allegation
By MATTHEW COLE
August 20, 2009
A third European country has been identified to ABC News as providing the CIA with facilities for a secret prison for high-value al Qaeda suspects: Lithuania, the former Soviet state.
PHOTO A third European country has been identified to ABC News as providing the CIA with facilities for a secret prison for high-value al Qaeda suspects: Lithuania, the former Soviet state.
Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus (L) talks to U.S. President George W. Bush after a joint press conference at Society House in Riga, Latvia in this May 7, 2005 file photo.
(Jim Bourg/Reuters)
Former CIA officials directly involved or briefed on the highly classified program tell ABC News that Lithuanian officials provided the CIA with a building on the outskirts of Vilnius, the country’s capital, where as many as eight suspects were held for more than a year, until late 2005 when they were moved because of public disclosures about the program. Flight logs viewed by ABC News confirm that CIA planes made repeated flights into Lithuania during that period.
The CIA told ABC News that reporting the location of the now-closed prison was irresponsible.
The CIA does not publicly discuss where facilities associated with its past detention program may or may not have been located, said CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano. We simply do not comment on those types of claims, which have appeared in the press from time to time over the years. The dangers of airing such allegations are plain. These kinds of assertions could, at least potentially, expose millions of people to direct threat. That is irresponsible.
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EXCLUSIVE: Sources Tell ABC News Top Al Qaeda Figures Held in Secret CIA Prisons
List of 12 Operatives Held in CIA Prisons
More from Brian Ross and the Investigative Team
Former CIA officials tell ABC News that the prison in Lithuania was one of eight facilities the CIA set-up after 9/11 to detain and interrogate top al Qaeda operatives captured around the world. Thailand, Romania, Poland, Morocco, and Afghanistan have previously been identified as countries that housed secret prisons for the CIA.
According to a former intelligence official involved in the program, the former Soviet Bloc country agreed to host a prison because it wanted better relations with the U.S. Asked whether the Bush administration or the CIA offered incentives in return for allowing the prison, the official said, We didn’t have to. The official said, They were happy to have our ear.
Through their embassy in Washington, the Lithuanian government denied hosting a secret CIA facility.
The Lithuanian Government denies all rumors and interpretations about alleged secret prison that supposedly functioned on Lithuanian soil and possibly was used by [CIA], said Tomas Gulbinas, an embassy spokesman.
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Why Lithuania always has to be described as former Soviet state? if Lithuania was only temporary in Soviet union???? That is so misleading…and therefore people (mostly Americans) always think Lithuanians speak Russian…..and they speak not only a totally different unique language, but even have different culture, and once was a big country. That is so unprofessional and lazy to assume that people do not know Lithuania, and rather explain Lithuania as some previous part of Soviet Country…and to those who have never heard about Lithuania give association that Lithuania is one of Slavic countries, while Lithuania is a Baltic country. Please, do something good for your readers – research about Lithuania before you write, and do not just copy what Lithuania is from different, misleading and lazy journalists. Latvia and Lithuania are only two survived Baltic countries, and they are not Slavic, therefore, it is not correct and best way to associate them with Soviet Union. It does not explain a thing. It always just confuse people MORE, and then we get these funny questions, Oh but I read you were in Soviet union, how come you do not speak Russian??? these questions come up, just because of those like you, who write not in best way describing Lithuania, and therefore mislead people… Lithuania was only occupied by soviets…we simply have nothing that makes as alike…What if everyone would describe Greece as former Italy country? would not that sound funny to even you? That is how funny your description of Lithuanian sounds to Lithuanians…and it is big disgrace to many Lithuanians to always be confused with Slavic countries, and never be recognized in a more precise way – being people of Baltic countries. Please stop this misreadings, our country has a name, and you can find more description of Lithuania anywhere on internet than you need, without tagging misleading remarks. Lithuanians will be thankful, best R.
dewaliuko Aug-27
Lithuanian leaders and people never heard of this. No facts no sources are told in this article? So this article relies on gossiping, ruining countries reputation, without any feedback to it? Unbelievable.
dewaliuko Aug-27
National Security is a top priority for our Country, and should be. Disclosing information of potential and past places of prisons or whatever, should NOT be leaked. Our Security of our Nation will be lacking, and can place us in or more in danger. This is very stupid of this administration to allow this to happen.. might as well tell everyone where our nuckes and other security detail is too How about where the President and others will go in crisis. This is stupid and will show how weak our Nation is. For shame
SurferDudeUSA Aug-26
View All Comments (26)
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Report: Afghan Bill Allows Husbands to Starve Wives for Refusing Sex
Monday, August 17, 2009
An Afghan bill allowing a husband to starve his wife for refusing sex has become law, the U.K.’s Daily Mail newspaper reported Monday.
The amended version of the bill, which sparked international outrage earlier this year for its treatment of Afghan women, also permits nonconsensual sex within a marriage — a measure critics say condones marital rape, according to the newspaper.
An Afghan woman also needs permission from her husband to work — and Afghan fathers and grandfathers are given sole custody of their children under the new law, the newspaper reported.
The original version of the bill, which was struck by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, reportedly required women to have sexual relations with their husbands every four days.
The law applies only to Afghanistan’s Shia minority, which makes up about 15 percent of the country’s population.
Click here to read more on this story from the U.K. Daily Mail.
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http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/17/potter.health.insurance/index.html
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Hot Topics » Health Care in America • Commentary • Political Ticker • more topics »
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Watch Now: Live on CNN.com »
Commentary: How insurance firms drive debate
* Story Highlights
* Wendell Potter: In my former job, I helped shape public opinion on health care
* He says insurance companies quietly seek to counter reform measures
* Potter: Industry worked to kill the Clinton health reform plan
* He says he didn’t want to be part of another effort to kill a health care plan
updated 11:16 a.m. EDT, Mon August 17, 2009
* Next Article in Politics »
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By Wendell Potter
Special to CNN
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Editor’s note: Wendell Potter has served since May 2009 as senior fellow on health care at the Center for Media and Democracy, a nonprofit organization that says it seeks to expose corporate spin and government propaganda. After a 20-year career as a corporate public relations executive, Potter left his job last year as head of communications for one of the nation’s largest health insurers, CIGNA Corporation.
Ex-insurance company spokesman Wendell Potter says the industry seeks to drive the health care debate.
Ex-insurance company spokesman Wendell Potter says the industry seeks to drive the health care debate.
(CNN) — Having grown up in one of the most conservative and Republican places in the country — East Tennessee — I understand why many of the people who are showing up at town hall meetings this month are reacting, sometimes violently, when members of Congress try to explain the need for an expanded government role in our health care system.
I also have a lot of conservative friends, including one former co-worker who was laid off by CIGNA several years ago but who nonetheless worries about a government takeover of health care.
The most vocal folks at the town hall meetings seem to share the same ideology as my kinfolks in East Tennessee and my former CIGNA buddy: the less government involvement in our lives, the better.
That point couldn’t have been made clearer than by the man standing in line to get free care at Remote Area Medical’s recent health care expedition at the Wise County, Virginia, fairgrounds, who told a reporter he was dead set against President Obama’s reform proposal.
Even though he didn’t have health insurance, and could see the desperation in the faces of thousands of others all around him who were in similar straits, he was more worried about the possibility of having to pay more taxes than he was eager to make sure he and his neighbors wouldn’t have to wait in line to get care provided by volunteer doctors in animal stalls. Video Watch Potter interview with Sanjay Gupta »
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Friday morning my former CIGNA buddy sent me an e-mail challenging something he said his wife heard me say in a radio report about my press conference in the Capitol on Wednesday with Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-New York, chairwoman of the House Rules Committee.
She heard you say that these protestors are funded by the insurance companies. Frankly, nothing would surprise me, but certainly not each and every person, he wrote. If there was a meeting near me, I certainly would tell my local representative how I feel about this entire subject (and it wouldn’t be pretty), and I certainly am not funded by anyone. So I am ultimately wondering what proof there is that seemingly ordinary Americans are finally protesting what is going in Washington and there are all of these suggestions of a greater conspiracy.
If the radio report had carried more of my remarks, he might have a better understanding of how the health insurance and its army of PR people are influencing his opinions and actions without his even knowing it.
Until I quit my job last year, I was one of the leaders of that army. I had a very successful career and was my company’s voice to the media and the public for several years.
It was my job to promote and defend the company’s reputation and to try to persuade reporters to write positive stories about the industry’s ideas on reform. During the last couple of years of my career, however, I became increasingly worried that the high-deductible plans insurers were beginning to push Americans into would force more and more of us into bankruptcy.
The higher I rose in the company, the more I learned about the tactics insurers use to dump policyholders when they get sick, in order to increase profits and to reward their Wall Street investors. I could not in good conscience continue serving as an industry mouthpiece. And I did not want to be part of yet another industry effort to kill meaningful reform.
I explained during the press conference with Rep. Slaughter how the industry funnels millions of its policyholders’ premiums to big public relations firms that provide talking points to conservative talk show hosts, business groups and politicians. I also described how the PR firms set up front groups, again using your premium dollars and mine, to scare people away from reform.
What I’m trying to do as I write and speak out against the insurance industry I was a part of for nearly two decades is to inform Americans that when they hear isolated stories of long waiting times to see doctors in Canada and allegations that care in other systems is rationed by government bureaucrats, someone associated with the insurance industry wrote the original script.
The industry has been engaging in these kinds of tactics for many years, going back to its successful behind-the-scenes campaign to kill the Clinton reform plan.
A story in Friday’s New York Times about the origin of the absurdly false rumor that President Obama’s health care proposal would create government-sponsored death panels bears out what I have been saying.
The story notes that the rumor emanated from many of the same pundits and conservative media outlets that were central in defeating Bill Clinton’s health care proposal 16 years ago, including the editorial board of The Washington Times, the American Spectator magazine and Betsy McCaughey, whose 1994 health care critique made her a star of the conservative movement (and ultimately, the lieutenant governor of New York).
The big PR firms that work for the industry have close connections with those media outlets and stars in the conservative movement. One of their PR firms, which created and staffed a front group in the late ’90s to kill the proposed Patients’ Bill of Rights, launched a PR and advertising campaign in conservative media outlets to drum up opposition to the bill.
The message: President Clinton owed a debt to the liberal base of the Democrat Party and would try to pay back that debt by advancing the type of big government agenda on health care that he failed to get in 1994.
The industry goes to great lengths to keep its involvement in these campaigns hidden from public view. I know from having served on numerous trade group committees and industry-funded front groups, however, that industry leaders are always full partners in developing strategies to derail any reform that might interfere with insurers’ ability to increase profits.
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So the next time you hear someone warning against a government takeover of our health care system, or that the creation of a public health insurance option would send us down the slippery slope toward socialism, know that someone like I used to be wrote those terms, knowing it might turn many of the very people who would benefit most from meaningful reform into unwitting spokespeople for the industry.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Wendell Potter.
All About Health Care Policy • Bill Clinton
Sound Off: Your opinions and comments
InformYourself
updated Mon August 17, 2009
OhioGirl82
updated 7 minutes ago Mr. Potter, you give yourself too much credit. Why do so many comments on the UK DailyMail website bash the British NHS? That’s not a PR campaign — that’s fact. Why do Canadian …more
OhioGirl82
updated 7 minutes ago Mr. Potter, you give yourself too much credit. Why do so many comments on the UK DailyMail website bash the British NHS? That’s not a PR campaign — that’s fact. Why do Canadians with money choose to come here fo …more
Mr. Potter, you give yourself too much credit. Why do so many comments on the UK DailyMail website bash the British NHS? That’s not a PR campaign — that’s fact. Why do Canadians with money choose to come here for treatment? That’s not a PR campaign.
They don’t – when is the last time you heard about any of these countries voting to get rid of their health care system. More right wing distortion. Why are so many American taking medical vacations – having surgery in Thailand or India if our system is so great? less
Peter
updated Mon August 17, 2009
I too have lived in both Canada, and the USA, several times, and I too am sick of the outright lies. Frankly, in my experience the health care in Canada has always proven superior to the USA. First rate doctors, tim …more
I too have lived in both Canada, and the USA, several times, and I too am sick of the outright lies. Frankly, in my experience the health care in Canada has always proven superior to the USA. First rate doctors, time to do the work, and a single payer system is a winning combination. Just like with insurance here, you can still pay on your own dime if you want to do your own thing, But it is extremely rare to need to. Usually because someone didn’t get that free second opinion. Canadian doctors aren’t becoming doctors just for the money. Canadian Doctors get a superior education at a reasonable price and most don’t have the inflated ego the excessive earnings here cause. Also, I’ve seen my GP there out perform specialists at the #1 Clinic in the USA. Way out perform. That extra 10 minutes per patient is pretty important. less
Canadian
updated Mon August 17, 2009
Amanda are you working for the insurance companies? LOL
Well here goes my health care is awesome no matter what happens to me for whatever reason I go to the doctor or hospital and they do whatever I need to hel …more
Amanda are you working for the insurance companies? LOL
Well here goes my health care is awesome no matter what happens to me for whatever reason I go to the doctor or hospital and they do whatever I need to help me sure I’ve pre-paid with my taxes but hey my neighbor gets free health care that makes me feel good to see a young child get the care he needs even without insurance and I don’t mind at all now as a human being how could you say that isn’t good? less
Left Coast Mike
updated Mon August 17, 2009
Gee, do you think the R’ party givesa crap what this honest, industry insider has to say? Not likely. In the end, the spineless Congress will cave in to special interests, the American people will get scewed again, …more
Gee, do you think the R’ party givesa crap what this honest, industry insider has to say? Not likely. In the end, the spineless Congress will cave in to special interests, the American people will get scewed again, and all the loud-mouthed bullies and thugs sent by Rush and his subordinates in the R’ party to the town hall meetings will end up bearing the brunt of high costs, lousy care, and a painful, drug-masked last few years of their miserable lives. At least they’ll have their Bibles to read, so no big deal, right? less
phillip anderson
updated Mon August 17, 2009
i would like to see the increased cost breakdown on health insurance and some causes of the out of control condition. how much of the cost is directly tied to liability insurance to cover doctors and hospitals for pos …more
i would like to see the increased cost breakdown on health insurance and some causes of the out of control condition. how much of the cost is directly tied to liability insurance to cover doctors and hospitals for possible errors. special interest groups obviously are controlling this situation and not putting it up for debate. legislators and attorneys may be very interested in keeping this item quite? thanks for listeniing less
afmca
updated Mon August 17, 2009
I find it amazing that all the consevatives are going into their normal reactionary mode and attacking anyone that doesn’t agree with their facts as presented by Limbaugh, Coulter, Gingrich, Palin, Hannity, Dobbs, Th …more
I find it amazing that all the consevatives are going into their normal reactionary mode and attacking anyone that doesn’t agree with their facts as presented by Limbaugh, Coulter, Gingrich, Palin, Hannity, Dobbs, Their lemming like servitude to these corporate spokespeople is just amazing. Start doing your research and start to realize that these people got rich off of keeping us divided and swilling for their corporate masters. less
Newman
updated Mon August 17, 2009
@@DCNative wrote:
I have personal friends from both Canada and Britain who can attest to the long waiting times for care for life-threatening conditions
Hmm, I bet that explains why this country has …more
@@DCNative wrote:
I have personal friends from both Canada and Britain who can attest to the long waiting times for care for life-threatening conditions
Hmm, I bet that explains why this country has a higher life expectancy rate (78.11) than Great Britain (79.01) and Canada (81.23). Or maybe I don’t know how to compare :)
Source:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html less
Solution
updated Mon August 17, 2009
Set up limited liability policies so people covered are limited to how much they can sue for in the case of malpractice. Get rid of the liability and hospitals, doctors, and others can reduce costs. Anyone wishing t …more
Set up limited liability policies so people covered are limited to how much they can sue for in the case of malpractice. Get rid of the liability and hospitals, doctors, and others can reduce costs. Anyone wishing to have a policy that does not establish limits on liability can pay for the additional feature out of pocket. It reduces the costs for everyone. Corporations can afford coverage and it makes it more affordable to small business.
Bar anyone who receives care without insurance from the right to sue. They can always refuse treatment and if they are coherant enough to understand they forfeit the right automatically. If people want everyone to have care, then set up a charity and pay for it, but don’t expect everyone else to cover those who want a free ride. At best provide care at a reduced rate that excludes things like transplants, major surgeries, etc. Sorry, but you can’t pay for everything for everyone and health care is a business, not a right. When people find the access to higher quality care is through education and employment, more people will get motivated to pursue both over showing up at the hospital expecting it for free.
Show true global economics and open the US market to foreign made drugs. I have yet to hear of masses dying from poor quality foreign drugs. It will create competition and drive prices for drugs in this country down. Those steps alone would cost nothing and resolve a large part of the problem. less
maple syrup
updated Mon August 17, 2009
As a Canadian I can tell you our system isnt perfect but when my kids are sick I call the Dr office and I am in the same day – EVERY TIME.
My wife had a C section for both kids and it didnt cost us a cent …more
As a Canadian I can tell you our system isnt perfect but when my kids are sick I call the Dr office and I am in the same day – EVERY TIME.
My wife had a C section for both kids and it didnt cost us a cent It was medium risk. If we had to pay, we may have opted to try a riskier natural birth that could have ended very badly.
Our hospitals are clean with top notch staff. If you need a knee you will wait, if you are having a heart attack YOU GO THE FRONT OF THE LINE.
What both countries need is something in-between.
. less
Tom H
updated Mon August 17, 2009
Hey DCNative – I’ve lived in Canada and have many friends there. To them, these protests about government takeover are an absolute joke. They wonder how Americans can be so STUPID. Then I remind them that we elected …more
Hey DCNative – I’ve lived in Canada and have many friends there. To them, these protests about government takeover are an absolute joke. They wonder how Americans can be so STUPID. Then I remind them that we elected George Bush not once but twice Question answered Anyway, I’m sure the insurance companies appreciate you defending the. less
Sam
updated Mon August 17, 2009
Sorry, but I have personal friends from both Canada and Britain who can attest to the long waiting times for care for life-threatening conditions
Sorry, but I have personal friends from the United States who can attest to being denied healthcare because they are sick.
Sorry, but I have personal friends from both Canada and Britain who can attest to the long waiting times for care for life-threatening conditions
Sorry, but I have personal friends from the United States who can attest to being denied healthcare because they are sick. less
Mary
updated Mon August 17, 2009
Hello…. Not one of fhe wizards in Washington could see the financial meltdown coming. Not one of them was smart enough to be proactive. When the banks and the insurance comapnies came running in screaming The sky …more
Hello…. Not one of fhe wizards in Washington could see the financial meltdown coming. Not one of them was smart enough to be proactive. When the banks and the insurance comapnies came running in screaming The sky was falling, these same incompetents who you are willing to trust your health care to, bowed at the feet of the banks and the insurance companies and threw money at them. Now these people are going to protect you from the greed of the insurance companies. Yeah, I believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, too. If they didn’t intend to force old people to do without the medical treatment that they have been receiving, they wouldn’t have brought up end of life care. You will notice that congress and the president do not include themselves in this great new health care fiasco. That should tell you something about the good deal this is. If it were such a good thing for the citizens, congress would be the first to sign up They know that if they put congress on this plan, there are a number of them who would need to set up their end of life care conferences. How many members of congress have read this bill? How many people trying to sell it to you have read it? Have you read it? It sounds to me like the people who oppose the bill have read more of it than anyone else. Of course, Congress wouldn’t lie to you, the media wouldn’t lie to you. We know that both the liberals and the conservatives will always tell us the truth. Neither side would lie about something so important. less
Sam
updated Mon August 17, 2009
People in England and Canada are laughing at us. No one in England, Canada, Switzerland, or any other country with national health care is trying to change to the mess of a system that we have. In fact, health care is not an election issue in any of those countries. Why is that?
People in England and Canada are laughing at us. No one in England, Canada, Switzerland, or any other country with national health care is trying to change to the mess of a system that we have. In fact, health care is not an election issue in any of those countries. Why is that? less
joanne
updated Mon August 17, 2009
I guess no one has thought about the health care reform would make us healthy. WE already pay taxes into the system now for those who can not afford health care. It is called Medicaid. We also need to look at our chi …more
I guess no one has thought about the health care reform would make us healthy. WE already pay taxes into the system now for those who can not afford health care. It is called Medicaid. We also need to look at our children when they are no longer on Medicaid and they need care, but have nowhere to turn. Taxes are just another scare tactic. Anyone with any knowledge at all should see that health care has now become limited to a few. We can not let our politicians waste time with the issue and sending out negative out cries. They need to work together. They are suppose to be our elected officials. Why aren’t they spending more time at the table coming up with something that works instead of screaming against it? Makes me wander who’s getting their pockets full for going against the peoples of the USA’s health. It is called putting the money where the mouth is. Corporate has done this for years and acceptance of their money is shown in actions by politicians vs the people. We can learn more by looking up who got what from whom on each elected politician. It is all available at http://www.fec.gov/ less
Rodney Brown
updated Mon August 17, 2009
I have read all this reterhoric about health care all I know is I was created out of LOVE. In that LOVE Iam told to LOVE thy Neighbor as I LOVE thy self. In saying this there is no room for money to tell me what my he …more
I have read all this reterhoric about health care all I know is I was created out of LOVE. In that LOVE Iam told to LOVE thy Neighbor as I LOVE thy self. In saying this there is no room for money to tell me what my heart and respect for others should be. If I think with logic and compassion then is no room for not having UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE FOR EVERY MAN< WOMANless
poorspecimen
updated Mon August 17, 2009
I live in Canada and benefit from the health care plan here.
While not perfect it’s there when I need it, and when both my mother and father were diagnosed with cancer they were given immediate treatment and beca …more
I live in Canada and benefit from the health care plan here.
While not perfect it’s there when I need it, and when both my mother and father were diagnosed with cancer they were given immediate treatment and became survivors. I know some who have had to wait for life saving surgery, but never were in danger of missing it. Local media have delved into the case(s) of the Canadian woman highlighted in the Republican ads and have uncovered less than truthful facts about it. I’m pleased with what I have at a tax rate slightly more than yours – but I can sleep easy at night. Would I like to see improvements – of course – but at least Canada and other nations have taken the bold first steps to make things better. And our insurance companies are still making loads of money – so the ones down there shouldn’t worry…they’ll always find ways to line their pockets with your cash. less
Henry
updated Mon August 17, 2009
By the money, of the money, and for the money, American.. ready to buy insurance companies, health care, and drugs company stocks, if Obama’s heath reform fails.
By the money, of the money, and for the money, American.. ready to buy insurance companies, health care, and drugs company stocks, if Obama’s heath reform fails. less
laughingatthefascists
updated Mon August 17, 2009
it’s a surprise that’s there is still (idiots) scoffing at socialism when capitalism has been working so well – a nation will be judged in how it treats its poor and middle class. In the last 30 years – this is not a …more
it’s a surprise that’s there is still (idiots) scoffing at socialism when capitalism has been working so well – a nation will be judged in how it treats its poor and middle class. In the last 30 years – this is not a democracy – it’s an oligarchy. Some balance toward the other direction – i.e not the top 1% richest – is only reasonable. Making money is great – but not at someone else expense – that is just stealing – not profit less
to RGA Canadian
updated Mon August 17, 2009
To RGA-Canadian…
Basically you state that all of your procedures since you were a child were paid for by your gov’t plan and you never paid anything out of pocket. I have had this exact same experience h …more
To RGA-Canadian…
Basically you state that all of your procedures since you were a child were paid for by your gov’t plan and you never paid anything out of pocket. I have had this exact same experience here in America, multiple surgeries, paid nothing out of pocket, my private insurance paid for all this. 85% of Americans have had your experience. NEXT you state that you elected to pay $10,000 out of pocket to avoid delays in surgery. Hold on one minute You paid tons of money, out of pocket, because your gov’t plan did not provide the access you required. That’s exactly what we fear here in America. Sure a gov’t plan COSTS less, but nobody addresses the issues of Quality and Access. For 85% of American’s cost is already low enough, most of us do not pay out of pocket (employer ins., private supplemental ins., etc.) yet we will not allow our Quality or Access to suffer as you have in your system. When I need a surgery, my pricey private insurance pays for it today, and I don’t have to shell out $10k out of pocket to jump the waiting list. But thanks for proving our point less
JCG
updated Mon August 17, 2009
Hey, DC Native, You can just as easily find horror stories from the US as from Canada and the UK. For my part, every time I’ve talked to a Canadian they have always expressed satisfaction over their health care. And …more
Hey, DC Native, You can just as easily find horror stories from the US as from Canada and the UK. For my part, every time I’ve talked to a Canadian they have always expressed satisfaction over their health care. And they enjoy universal guaranteed coverage and spend only 10% of GDP as opposed to our 17%. less
aceshelman
updated Mon August 17, 2009
Do any of you staunch capitalism or die types want to tell everyone why it is desirable for insurance companies to be big wallstreet investment targets? Why? What are they providing by turning fat profits that benef …more
Do any of you staunch capitalism or die types want to tell everyone why it is desirable for insurance companies to be big wallstreet investment targets? Why? What are they providing by turning fat profits that benefits this nation? When Investment Bank A buys a bunch of insurance stock, are they using that money to provide better options to you at a lower premium?
For all the money they’re making, i’m only seeing higher premiums and higher deductibles. Let’s hear how their product and service is improved by them aiming for higher investment marks via increased profits… less
CanadaNative
updated Mon August 17, 2009
To DC Native: Sorry, but I have *never* heard of ‘long waiting times’ for emergency care, including both my grandmothers who fought painful battles with cancer. In the US, they would have been excluded due to ‘pre-e …more
To DC Native: Sorry, but I have *never* heard of ‘long waiting times’ for emergency care, including both my grandmothers who fought painful battles with cancer. In the US, they would have been excluded due to ‘pre-existing conditions,’ meaning we would have had to pay thousands of dollars for treatment. Up here, not only was the care handled quickly, it was FREE. Our families didn’t go bankrupt. We do have wait times yes, but mostly only for elective surgery. I myself had a non-emergency medical issue and was able to get it treated fully in less that a hear and a half, FOR FREE Now obviously it isn’t ‘free’ per say. We pay higher taxes compared to the US, but is paying higher taxes knowing that whatever happens, I won’t be charged a dime for my medical care worth it? Take it from someone who’s experienced the system. My answer: you’re damned right it is. less
Sofia
updated Mon August 17, 2009
Do not wonder, some of us who oppose Obama’s reform did read this bill and let me tell you that you need to a lawyer to understand that piece of junk. And yes there will be a panels that will be making recommendation …more
Do not wonder, some of us who oppose Obama’s reform did read this bill and let me tell you that you need to a lawyer to understand that piece of junk. And yes there will be a panels that will be making recommendations on the protocol for doctors and will letting us know about options for end of life. I came from socialist country to this wonderful country USA where people are free and now we are on the course to get back to something that we have seen not working because Soviet Union did break up. This person worked for 2 decades for insurance companies and span their truth, not he works for the government and spin their truth. I do not believe a word he is saying. While I agree we need a health reform, Obama is going a totally wrong way. Instead of challenging insurance industry and our law system to stop idiotic law suits, he wants us all on Medicare, system that just denied a medication to my grandma becase she is 95 and too old. This is what we will get once this reform goes thru. Good luck you all living in socialism. less
A concerned citizen
updated Mon August 17, 2009
The health coverage proposal would sound much better if :
a) It was uniform across the entire nation, if we abolished the existing system and established a new one that applies to all citizens, including governme …more
The health coverage proposal would sound much better if :
a) It was uniform across the entire nation, if we abolished the existing system and established a new one that applies to all citizens, including government and private sector workers, students, retirees – all the same;
b) The only role expected of the government would be to reign in insurance companies/doctors/hospital prices;
c) i would offer no exceptions for coverage, no pre-existing conditions, nothing hidden in a lowest possible case somewhere at the end of a 1000-page online policy;
d) it was priced comparable to the current contribution expected of those furtunate to have some insurance offered by employer.
If US governmen presented a similar plan that would offer all-encompassing, non-discriminating (governmnt plans and benefits today are way better than those for the rest of us, sluggers ) – the people of this country would be much more receptive and supportive. Unfortunately, it is always in someone’s interests (gov’t, insurance companies, doctors – to keep us in the dark and make proposals diffcult to interpret.
Lastly, as a naturalized citizen who spent enough years in te forer USSR health ‘realm’, I can testify to the system’s inefficiencies, inadequacies, in some cases – criminal flaws. Yet, it was officially free of charge, and no lengthy forms to fill less
deborah powell
updated Mon August 17, 2009
I say take away health insurance coverage from Congress and Senate until they find an answer for the millions who can’t afford it. Let them suffer along with the people who put them in office. True they all could affo …more
I say take away health insurance coverage from Congress and Senate until they find an answer for the millions who can’t afford it. Let them suffer along with the people who put them in office. True they all could afford private insurance, but they wouldn’t like it.
Certainly there are many many problems with the health care programs for the poor that currently exist, some of the biggest being that in most states one has to be under 18 years of age or over 65 to receive it, and the lack of preventive care that it covers, yet it is still preferable to nothing at all. Yes, the lines are long etc… etc… but try getting a prescription for antibiotics without seeing a doctor. A simple prescription of antibiotics can and does change peoples lives. Anything is better than nothing
We put Barak Obama in office, not Sara Palin. less
Bobo
updated Mon August 17, 2009
Similar views to the above Canadian poster. I have lived under the Canadian system for as many years as it has been running, ( I live in British Columbia now) and have good service all along. My families relatives are …more
Similar views to the above Canadian poster. I have lived under the Canadian system for as many years as it has been running, ( I live in British Columbia now) and have good service all along. My families relatives are all elderly and have had perferctly good access to whatever they need in a timely fashion, and they have had many major issues to resolve. Also, even if you are behind on your premiums, you can get any service you need. Its the law. By the way, British Columbia, and I guess most other provinces, has a program in place to temporarily lower or eliminate premuims when you have a nose dive in your income, a program my family had to access when I was out of work once. I would not trade this government run service for anything. less
Jared
updated Mon August 17, 2009
I am a Canadian and I have lived in Canada for my entire life. Never once did I have to wait any undue amount of time for a serious medical ailment, however, if my malady was non life threatening, I certainly didn’t …more
I am a Canadian and I have lived in Canada for my entire life. Never once did I have to wait any undue amount of time for a serious medical ailment, however, if my malady was non life threatening, I certainly didn’t expect to be at the front of the line. Any comments from Canadians who claim their system doesn’t work need to be taken with a grain of salt as it isn’t too hard to claim you’re from Canada when you’re not…or that you have a Canadian friend that had problems here. The bottom line is that we Canadians have this crazy notion that no one should need to be bankrupted because they need health care. We also have this crazy notion that our citizens are entitled to free health care, free policing, free fire departments, etc. And guess what, when Jesus healed the sick, he didn’t ask for their health insurance card It’s time to take a reality pill and see that the anti-public health politicians in the US have had their pockets greased by the HMO lobby for years…legalized bribery. Obama isn’t going far enough IMHO. less
Markie
updated Mon August 17, 2009
I was reading a comment by somebody who mentioned that if people in this country took better care of themselves, the cost of healthcare would be more affordable and so on. This is a good point, but it must be remember …more
I was reading a comment by somebody who mentioned that if people in this country took better care of themselves, the cost of healthcare would be more affordable and so on. This is a good point, but it must be remembered that in corporate America, keeping people ill is considered to be good business. It’s not hard to see how all the junk food manufacturers and fast food outlets with their well paid advertising firms have brainwashed the average American into thinking that going to McDonalds is a great thing to do, for example. Our kids are bombarded with commercials while they watch their cartoons advertising disgustingly sugary cereals designed to keep dentists and insulin manufacturers wealthy. Therefore, in a country driven by profit where wealth is synonymous with happiness, it is easy to see how it is important for corporate America to keep Americans unhealthy so they can sell us the cures for the ailments and diseases they have caused by promoting unhealthy eating habits. Ignorant people rail on about Obama being a Marxist and liberals being socialists and so on and so forth, and their ignorant arguments are fueled by the kind of ignorant commentators hired by corporate robber barons such as Rupert Murdoch, who owns Fox News. Once again, it it the gullibility of the average America that corporate America has always banked on, literally, to ensure that the wealth in this country is concentrated in the hands of a relatively small minority of those who are cynical, greedy, and could care less about their fellow human beings, as long as they have their lavish homes and expensive cars and can send their kids to expensive private schools. Corporate America is a large, profit driven parasite that feeds of the blood, literally, of every American who refuses to wake up and smell the pollution. less
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* Click on the ads to see the message and what groups are paying for them
updated 10:53 a.m. EDT, Mon August 17, 2009
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* Results of scientist’s research could expand recognition of bleed air
* Bleed air is air that passes through the engines of a plane, then into cabin
* Boeing and FAA say air quality on airplanes is as good as in office or home
* Flight attendant Terry Williams believes she is a victim of fumes in cabin air
updated 1:58 p.m. EDT, Mon August 17, 2009
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By Allan Chernoff and Laura Dolan
CNN
(CNN) — Inside a freezer in a research laboratory at the University of Washington are blood and blood plasma samples from 92 people who suffer from mysterious illnesses, including tremors, memory loss and severe migraine headaches.
Terry Williams hugs her two boys — Jake, left, and Zack — in 2006, before she says toxic cabin air made her sick.
They are mostly pilots and flight attendants who suspect they’ve been poisoned in their workplace — on board the aircraft they fly.
Clement Furlong, University of Washington professor of medicine and genome sciences, leads a team of scientists who have been collecting the samples for 2 ½ years.
Furlong said his team is a few months away from finalizing a blood analysis test that will be able to definitely confirm whether the study participants were indeed poisoned by toxic fumes.
Results of Furlong’s research could expand recognition of what a select group of researchers believes is a largely unrecognized risk of flying: the chance that poisonous fumes enter the cabin.
There’s a danger of inhaling compounds that are coming out of the engine, said Furlong in his laboratory. See a diagram of how the air is circulated »
The air we breathe on board a plane is a 50-50 mix of filtered, recirculated air and so-called bleed air — which bleeds off the engines, and then is pressurized and cooled before being sent into the cabin through vents. If an engine oil seal leaks, aviation engineers and scientists say, the bleed air can become contaminated with toxins.
In 2002 the National Academies of Sciences’ National Research Council reported contaminant exposures result from the intake of chemical contaminants (e.g., engine lubricating oils, hydraulic fluids, deicing fluids and their degradation products) into the Environmental Control System and then into the cabin.
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Of particular concern are toxic anti-wear agents in the oil, designed to prolong an engine’s life, called tricresyl phosphates.
The engine seals fail and there’s very potent toxins that can come on board, said Furlong.
Neuropsychologist Sarah Mackenzie Ross of University College London studied 27 British pilots who claimed they had inhaled contaminated air and subsequently had difficulty processing information and slowed reaction times. Her testing confirmed their symptoms.
They did appear to underperform on tasks that required attention, processing speed, reaction time, and what we call executive functioning, which is high-level decision making, said Ross.
Former flight attendant Terry Williams believes she is a victim of such a fume event. She complains of debilitating migraine headaches, tremors, and blind spots in her field of vision.
It’s been so constant and just continues to worsen so it’s extremely frustrating, said Williams, who is suing Boeing, the owner of McDonnell Douglas, which made the MD-82 aircraft on which she worked. I’m frustrated that I don’t feel any better and it’s over two years after the exposure.
Boeing told CNN, It is our belief that air quality on airplanes is healthy and safe.
In its response to Williams’ suit, the company said: The potential for bleed air contamination has been known through the aviation industry for many years. But Boeing denies any responsibility for Terry Williams’ illness.
While Williams’ symptoms appear to be quite rare, it appears that fume events occur with regularity.
A British study for the House of Lords found fume events in 1 of every 2,000 flights. In the U.S., airlines are required to report fume events to the Federal Aviation Administration. There were 108 such reports last year.
So why wouldn’t more flight attendants, pilots and passengers suffer symptoms?
Furlong said a small percentage of people (how small is not known) appear to be highly sensitive to the most toxic chemicals. They may be genetically disposed to a strong reaction, possessing multiple genes of metabolizing proteins in their livers, or temporarily have high enzyme levels (which can be triggered by prescription drugs) that will act on the inhaled chemicals to magnify their toxicity.
If you happen to be taking a medication that turns on the protein that converts pre-toxin to very potent toxin, you’ve got an issue, said Furlong.
As a result, someone sitting next to a victim may have inhaled the same contaminated fumes, but not suffer the same reaction.
How might you know that you may have been exposed to a fume event while flying? Experts say the telltale sign is a dirty sock smell. That’s butyric acid from engine oil, which itself is not highly toxic. But along with it comes the deadly nonodorous compounds tri-ortho-cresyl phosphate and mono-ortho-cresyl phosphate.
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Boeing’s new plane, the 787 Dreamliner, has been designed so that air entering the cabin from outside will not bleed off the engines. The company says that’s only for fuel efficiency purposes, not because of any concern about the quality of bleed air in its current fleet of aircraft.
Indeed, Boeing and the FAA say the air quality on airplanes is as good or better than that of the average office building or home.
CNN’s Jessica Ravitz contributed to this report.
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http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20090724_44_arrested_in_N_J__corruption_sweep.html
Posted on Fri, Jul. 24, 2009
44 arrested in N.J. corruption sweep
By Jonathan Tamari
Inquirer Trenton Bureau
Two New Jersey assemblymen, three mayors, and rabbis hailing from Brooklyn to the Shore were among dozens of people arrested yesterday as part of a federal investigation into international money laundering and homegrown political corruption.
***
Michael G. Vickers
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Michael G. Vickers
Michael G. Vickers (born 1953) is the United States Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict. He is a former Army Special Forces non-commissioned officer and officer, as well as a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) paramilitary operations officer from their elite Special Activities Division.[1] While in the CIA, he played a key role in the arming of the resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.[2] His role is featured in George Crile’s 2003 book Charlie Wilson’s War, and in the 2007 movie adaptation in which he is played by actor Christopher Denham.
Career
From 1973 to 1986, Mr. Vickers served as a Special Forces NCO, later as a commissioned officer, and CIA paramilitary operations officer. In the mid-1980s, Vicker’s became involved with Operation Cyclone, the CIA program to arm Islamist Mujahideen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. He was the head military strategist for the US, coordinating an effort that involved ten countries and providing direction to forces made up of over 500,000 Afghan fighters.[3] Later he was Senior Vice President, Strategic Studies, at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), during which he provided advice on Iraq strategy to US President George H.W. Bush and his war cabinet.[3] In July 2007 he was confirmed by the United States Senate as Assistant Secretary of Defense, where he is the senior civilian advisor to the US Secretary of Defense on such matters as counter-terrorism strategy and operational employment of special operations forces, strategic forces, and conventional forces.[4] In 2004, he wrote an Op-Ed piece for USA Today in which he stated that the United States can be successful in Iraq by using a much smaller force modeled on its deployment Afghanistan.[5]
Personal
Vickers attended the University of Alabama, where he graduated with honors, and went on to attend the Wharton Business School from which he received an MBA. He was also a doctoral candidate under Professor Eliot A. Cohen at The Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington DC. He is married with five daughters.[3]
See also
*
Main article: Operation Cyclone
* Charles Wilson (Texas politician)
* Gust Avrakotos
* Howard Hart
* Joanne Herring
* United States Special Operations Command
* Unmanned aerial vehicles (2007 and beyond)
* War in Afghanistan (2001-present)
* Low intensity conflict
* Mini-nuke
* (SADM) or Special Atomic Demolition Munition
* Suitcase nuke
* Force multiplication
* Proxy war
* Fourth generation warfare
References
1. ^ Crile, George (2003). Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History. Atlantic Monthly Press. ISBN 0871138549.
2. ^ Sorry Charlie this is Michael Vickers’s War , Washington Post, 27 December 2007
3. ^ a b c Bio page at the United States Department of Defense
4. ^ Nomination page at Whitehouse.gov
5. ^ For guidance on Iraq, look to Afghanistan: Use fewer U.S. troops, not more
External links
* SOF Advisor – Michael G. Vickers November 14, 2007
* U.S. adapts Cold-War Idea to Fight Terrorists NYTimes March 18, 2008
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_G._Vickers
Categories: 1953 births | Living people | People of the Central Intelligence Agency | Counter-insurgency theorists | Counter-terrorism theorists | Guerrilla warfare theorists | Psychological warfare theorists | Terrorism theorists | United States Army officers | United States Department of Defense officials | Members of the Special Forces of the United States | University of Alabama alumni | University of Pennsylvania alumni | American military writers
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Patrick G. Eddington
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Find sources: (Patrick G. Eddington – news, books, scholar)
Patrick Eddington is a former CIA imagery analyst, and currently a lobbyist, private researcher, author, and international security consultant. Eddington resigned in 1996 after working on a book (Gassed in the Gulf) that exposed the gulf war syndrome.
During his tenure at the CIA, his analytical assignments included monitoring the break up of the former Soviet Union; providing military assessments to policy makers on Iraqi and Iranian conventional forces and coordinating the CIA’s military targeting support to NATO during Operation Deliberate Force in Bosnia in 1995.
Eddington’s opinion pieces have appeared in a number of publications, including the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Washington Times, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and the Army Times, among others. Eddington is a frequent commentator on national security issues for the Fox News Channel, MSNBC, SKY News, CNN, and other domestic and international television networks.
External links
* Eddington home page
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Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_G._Eddington
Categories: Living people | People of the Central Intelligence Agency | Gulf War syndrome | American people stubs
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Grayston Lynch
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Grayston L. Lynch (14 June 1923 in Victoria, Texas – 10 August 2008 in Tampa, Florida) the son of an oil driller, was one of the two CIA agents who commanded the faction of the army that went to war in the Bay of Pigs Invasion. The other agent was William Rip Robertson. He was wounded at Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, and Heartbreak Ridge in Korea; served with the Special Forces in Laos; and received three Purple Hearts, two Silver Stars and one Bronze Star with a V for valor, among other awards. He was selected from the elite to become a Paramilitary Operations Officer in the CIA’s famed Special Activities Division in 1960. For his extraordinary heroism at the Bay of Pigs, Lynch was awarded the Intelligence Star, the CIA’s most coveted award. In the six years after the Bay of Pigs, he ran commando raids into Cuba. Lynch retired from the CIA in 1971. [1]
Contents
* 1 Military Service
* 2 Education
* 3 CIA career
* 4 References
* 5 External links
Military Service
Lynch lied about his age and enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1938 and was assigned to 5th Cavalry at Fort Clark, Texas. During World War II he was assigned to the Second Division as platoon sergeant. During D-day he landed at Omaha Beach and then fought in the Battle of the Bulge where he was seriously wounded. He served in the Korean War with the Second Division as Second Lt., promoted to First Lt., wounded at Battle of Bloody Ridge. Later served in Laos with 77th Special Forces Group as Captain, retiring from them in 1960.
Education
Lynch received a BA degree in political science from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1953.
CIA career
In 1960 he joined the CIA working under Theodore Shackley.
Just before midnight on April 16, 1961, Lynch landed in a 12-foot rubber raft to mark the beach for the invasion when he and his men were spotted by a two-man patrol from the Cuban military. Lynch fired, taking both of the men out. When the invasion failed, Lynch volunteered to return to help rescue 41 men from his assault brigade that had landed. I had never been in combat before, remembers Amado Cantillo, one of the Navy frogmen with him that night. It was very scary, but exciting at the same time because we were going to liberate Cuba. The only thing that failed was we didn’t get the air support we were supposed to get. [2]
He’s a born, caring leader – he cared about his men. He lead by doing, said Cantillo, who lives in Miami. He said Lynch is revered by the Cuban people: He believed in our cause. He was there, up front all the time. To me, he’s a hero. I just want people to know how great he was. [3]
He wrote a book, Decision for Disaster: Betrayal at the Bay of Pigs, based on his experience leading the rebel Brigade 2506. Lynch is referred to or mentioned in the following books:
Corn,D. Blond Ghost. 1994 (76, 82, 84, 111-2, 117) CounterSpy 1976-12 (11-2) Covert Action Information Bulletin 1978-#1 (8, 11-2) Dinges,J. Landau,S. Assassination on Embassy Row. 1981 (286) Escalante,F. The Secret War. 1995 (64, 137) Freed,D. Death in Washington. 1980 (195) Hersh,S. The Dark Side of Camelot. 1997 (172, 275) Hinckle,W. Turner,W. The Fish is Red. 1981 (vii, 61, 88, 99, 121-2, 341-2) Livingstone,N. The Cult of Counterterrorism. 1990 (362) NameBase NewsLine 1997-01 (10) New York Times 1996-04-29 (A10) Prados,J. Presidents’ Secret Wars. 1988 (185, 204, 265) Russell,D. The Man Who Knew Too Much. 1992 (518) Scott,P.D. Marshall,J. Cocaine Politics. 1991 (27, 29) Turner,W. Rearview Mirror. 2001 (191, 193, 203) Weiner,T. Legacy of Ashes. 2007 (177) Wyden,P. Bay of Pigs. 1979 (83-6, 301) [4]
References
1. ^ Decision for Disaster Betrayal at the Bay of Pigs, Grayston L. Lynch, Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.,Pub. Date: January 2000ISBN 9781574882377
2. ^ http://www.usa-patriotism.com/articles/hp/decorated_hero-01.htm
3. ^ http://www.usa-patriotism.com/articles/hp/decorated_hero-01.htm
4. ^ http://www.namebase.org/main2/Grayston-L-Lynch.html
External links
* Miami Herald article (1998)
* War of Wits Publishing Ltd Biographical Data on Lynch’s own website
* Spartacus Educational
Stub icon This biographical article related to the United States military is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
v • d • e
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grayston_Lynch
Categories: United States military personnel stubs | Irregular military | 1923 births | Living people | People of the Central Intelligence Agency | John F. Kennedy | Cold War spies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grayston_Lynch
***
Billy Waugh
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wiki letter w.svg
Please help improve this article by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (January 2007)
William Waugh
Born December 1929 (age 79)
Nickname Billy, Mustang
Place of birth Bastrop, Texas Flag of Texas
Allegiance United States of America Flag of the United States
Service/branch United States Army Special Forces
Years of service 1948–1972
Rank Sergeant Major
Unit 5th Special Forces Group, Studies and Observations Group
Battles/wars Korean War
Vietnam War
Operation Enduring Freedom – Afghanistan (OEF-A)
Awards SilverStar ribbon.jpg Silver Star
BronzeStar ribbon.jpg Bronze Star
Purple Heart ribbon.jpg Purple Heart (8)
(partial list)
Other work Central Intelligence Agency
Sergeant Major (SGM) William Billy Waugh (US Army-Ret.) (born December, 1929), is a highly decorated American Special Forces soldier and a Central Intelligence Agency Paramilitary Operations Officer who served in the United States military and CIA special operations for more than fifty years. SGM Waugh served in the U.S. Army’s elite Green Berets and the CIA’s famed Special Activities Division.
Contents
* 1 Early life
* 2 Military career
o 2.1 U.S. Army Special Forces
* 3 CIA career
* 4 Education
* 5 Awards and decorations
* 6 External links
* 7 See also
* 8 References
Early life
Waugh was born in Bastrop, Texas on 1 December 1929. In 1945, upon meeting two local Marines who returned from the fighting in World War II, the then-15 year-old Waugh was inspired to enlist in the Marine Corps. Knowing that it was unlikely that he would be admitted in Texas because of his young age, Waugh devised a plan to hitchhike to Los Angeles, where he believed a person had to only be 16 to enlist. He got as far as Las Cruces, New Mexico before he was arrested for having no identification and refusing to give his name to a local police officer. He was later released after securing enough money for a bus ticket back to Bastrop. Now committed to serving in the military once he finished school, Waugh became an excellent student at Bastrop High, graduating in 1947 with a 4.0 grade point average.[1]
Military career
Waugh enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1948, completing basic training at Fort Ord, California in August of that year. He was accepted into the United States Army Airborne School and became airborne qualified in December 1948. In April 1951, Waugh was assigned to the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team (RCT) in Korea.
U.S. Army Special Forces
Shortly after the end of the Korean War, Waugh began training for the Special Forces. He earned the Green Beret in 1954, joining the 10th Special Forces Group (SFG) in Bad Tolz, Germany.
As U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War increased, the United States began deploying Special Forces A-teams (Operational Detachment Alpha, or ODA, teams) to Southeast Asia in support of counterinsurgency operations against the Viet Cong, North Vietnamese and other Communist forces. Waugh arrived in South Vietnam with his ODA in 1961, and began working alongside Civilian Irregular Defense Groups (CIDGs) there, as well as in Laos.
Special Forces sleeve insignia, with Airborne tab
In 1965, while participating in a commando raid with his CIDG unit on a North Vietnamese Army encampment near Bong Son, Binh Dinh province, Waugh’s unit found itself engaged with much larger enemy force then anticipated. Expecting only a few hundred NVA, it was discovered that a force of Chinese regulars had joined the NVA Elite; combining for almost 4,000 soldiers. While he and his men attempted to retreat from the battle, Waugh received numerous severe wounds to his head and legs. Unconscious, he was taken for dead by NVA soldiers and left alone. Despite his injuries, with the assistance of his teammates Waugh was safely evacuated from the combat zone. He spent much of 1965 and 1966 recuperating at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C., eventually returning to duty with 5th SFG in 1966. He received a Silver Star and a Purple Heart (His 6th) for the battle of Bong Son.
Special Forces Regimental Insignia
At this time Waugh joined the Military Assistance Command-Vietnam Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG). While working for SOG, Waugh helped train Vietnamese and Cambodian forces in unconventional warfare tactics primarily directed against the North Vietnamese Army operating along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Prior to retirement from U.S. Army Special Forces service, Waugh was senior NCO (non-commissioned officer) of MACV-SOG’s Command & Control North (CCN) based at Marble Mountain on the South China Sea shore a few miles south of Da Nang, Vietnam. Waugh held this Command Sergeant Major role during the covert unit’s transition and name change to Task Force One Advisory Element (TF1AE). Waugh also led the last combat Special reconnaissance parachute insertion by American Army Special Forces High Altitude, Low Opening (HALO) parachutists into denied territory which was occupied by communist North Vietnamese Army (NVA) troops on 22 June 1971.
Waugh retired from active military duty at the rank of Sergeant Major (E-9) on 1 February 1972.
CIA career
Prior to Waugh’s retirement, he worked for the CIA’s elite Special Activities Division starting in 1961. After Waugh retired from the military, he worked for the United States Postal Service until he accepted an offer in 1977 from ex-CIA officer Edwin P. Wilson to work in Libya on a contract to train that country’s special forces. This was not an Agency-endorsed assignment and Waugh might have found himself in trouble with U.S. authorities if it weren’t for the fact that he was also approached by the CIA to work for the Agency while in Libya. The CIA tasked him with surveiling Libyan military installations and capabilities – this was of great interest to U.S. intelligence as Libya was receiving substantial military assistance from the Soviet Union at the time. This additional assignment quite possibly protected Waugh from prosecution after Wilson was later indicted and convicted in 1979 for illegally selling weapons to Libya.[2]
In the 1980s he was assigned to the Kwajalein Missile Range in the Marshall Islands to track Soviet small boat teams operating in the area and prevent them from stealing U.S. missile technology. Some of his more critical assignments took place in Khartoum, Sudan during the early 1990s, where he performed surveillance and intelligence gathering on terrorist leaders Carlos the Jackal and Osama bin Laden with Cofer Black.
At the age of 71, Waugh participated in Operation Enduring Freedom as a member of the CIA team led by Gary Schroen that went into Afghanistan to work with the Northern Alliance to topple the Taliban regime and Al Qaeda at the Battle of Tora Bora. Waugh was in-country from October to December 2001. Waugh spent many years being both a Blue Badger (employee) and a Green Badger (contractor). He continues to work as a Green Badger . It is unknown how many missions Waugh was involved in during his career.
Education
In 1985, Waugh was again requested by the CIA for clandestine work. Before he took the offer, he decided to further his education, earning Bachelors Degrees in Business and Police Science from Wayland Baptist University in 1987. He also earned a Masters Degree in Interdisciplinary Studies with a specialization in criminal justice administration (MSCJA) in 1988 from Texas State University (formerly Southwest Texas State), in San Marcos, TX.
Awards and decorations
* 2nd Award Combat Infantryman Badge (2nd award)
* SilverStar.gif Silver Star[3]
* Us legion of merit legionnaire rib.png Legion of Merit
* Bronze Star ribbon.svg Bronze Star (4 awards)
* Purple Heart BAR.svg Purple Heart (8 awards)
* Army Commendation Medal ribbon.svg Army Commendation Ribbon for Valor (4 awards)
* Air Medal ribbon.jpg Army Air Medal (14 awards)
* Presidential Unit Citation ribbon.svg Presidential Unit Citation (United States) 2001, Studies and Observations Group
* USASOC Military Free Fall Parachute Badge.jpgHALO Jumpmaster Parachute Badge with Gold Star for Combat, free-fall parachute operation, Vietnam War[4]
External links
* Billy Waugh’s website with information about his memoir Hunting the Jackal
* Waugh’s biography
* Hunting the Jackal: A Special Forces and CIA Soldier’s Fifty Years on the Frontlines of the War Against Terrorism 2004
* Green Berets outfought, outthought the Taliban USA Today 6 January 2002
See also
* Studies and Observations Group
* Bruce Allen Berg
United States Army portal
References
1. ^ Waugh, Billy; Tim Keown (2004). Hunting the Jackal. William Morrow. xix-xxii.
2. ^ Waugh. ibid.. pp. 133–154.
3. ^ Waugh. ibid.. xvi.
4. ^ The image included here is of the basic HALO/HAHO Parachutist Badge.
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Soviet and Russian espionage in U.S. A Soviet Union–United States relations A NATO-Russia relations
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2005–2006
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2007–2008
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2009–current
Attack on Sri Lankan cricket team A 2009 Yemen tourist attack A 2009 Lahore bombing A Pearl Continental hotel bombing A Jakarta bombings
See also
Abu Ghraib prison A Axis of evil A Bush Doctrine A CIA run Black sites A Combatant Status Review Tribunal A Enhanced interrogation techniques A Extrajudicial prisoners of the US A Extraordinary rendition A Guantanamo Bay detention camp A Military Commissions Act A NSA electronic surveillance program A President’s Surveillance Program A Protect America Act of 2007 A Unitary executive theory A Unlawful combatant A USA PATRIOT Act
Terrorism A War
Persondata
NAME Waugh, Billy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION United States Army soldier
DATE OF BIRTH
PLACE OF BIRTH
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Waugh
Categories: 1929 births | 2004 books | American military personnel of the Vietnam War | American spies | Members of the Special Forces of the United States | People from Bastrop County, Texas | Recipients of the Silver Star | Recipients of the Bronze Star Medal | Recipients of the Purple Heart medal | Recipients of the Special Forces tab | People of the Central Intelligence Agency | United States Army soldiers | Living people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Waugh
***
Edwin P. Wilson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Edwin P. Wilson
Born 1928 (age 80–81)
Place of birth Idaho
Allegiance Flag of the United States United States of America
Service/branch United States Marine Corps (USMC)
Years of service 1953-1956
Battles/wars Korean War
Other work Work infamously for the Central Intelligence Agency
Edwin P. Wilson (born 1928) was a former CIA officer who was convicted of illegally selling weapons to Libya. It was later found that the United States Department of Justice and the CIA had covered up evidence in the case.
Contents
* 1 Early life
* 2 CIA career
* 3 Arms for Libya controversy
o 3.1 Investigation and conviction
o 3.2 Legal defense
o 3.3 Civil Action
* 4 External links
* 5 References
Early life
Wilson was born to a poor farming family in Idaho. He worked as a merchant seaman, then earned a psychology degree from the University of Portland in 1953.[1] In 1953, he joined the Marines and fought in the last days of the Korean War. He was impressive in the Marines and, when he was discharged in 1956, went to work for the Central Intelligence Agency.
CIA career
His main role for the CIA was setting up front companies, like Consultants International, used to covertly ship supplies around the world for the CIA.[citation needed] As director of these firms, which also conducted legitimate business, he amassed a great deal of money. [1] In 1971 after 15 years with the CIA, he moved to Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI)[2] and at the request of the ONI, offered the assistance of the front companies.[citation needed] He retired on paper from ONI in 1976[2], continuing to run the businesses he had built under the guidance of the CIA, the largest of which was Consultants International. He amassed a fortune of 20 million dollars through these businesses,and continued to offer covert shipping services at the request of the CIA long after his official retirement..[citation needed]
Arms for Libya controversy
In the 1970s, he became involved in dealings with Libya. Wilson claims that a high ranking CIA official Theodore Blond Ghost Shackley asked him to go to Libya to keep an eye on Carlos the Jackal, the infamous terrorist, who was living there.[1] At the time, a strict sanctions regime was in place against Libya and the country was willing to pay a great deal for weapons and material. Wilson began conducting elaborate dealings and guns and military uniforms were smuggled into the country. Wilson also recruited a group of retired Green Berets – decorated Vietnam veteran Billy Waugh among them[3] – to go to Libya and train its military and intelligence officers. The Libyans used Wilson’s provisions to advance their interests around the world, including training terrorist cells to build explosive devices inside radios. One cell trained by Wilson’s operatives was the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLF-GC) under the command of a former Syrian Army Officer, Ahmad Jibril.[citation needed] Jibril was suspected of being behind the bombing of Pan Am 103 in Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988.[citation needed] In 1979, a gun that Wilson had arranged to be delivered to the Libyan embassy in Bonn was used to assassinate a prominent dissident. The next year, one of the Green Berets assassinated another dissident in Colorado. Wilson states that he regrets these incidents and had no prior knowledge of them. He states that he was still working for the CIA and his supplying of weapon to the Libyans was an attempt to get close to them and gain valuable intelligence.
The most dramatic deal, and the one that brought Wilson to the attention from the U.S. government, was for some twenty tons of military grade C-4 plastic explosives.[4] This was a massive quantity that was equal to the entire US domestic stockpile.[1] Most of Wilson’s connections were still under the impression that he was working for the CIA and a wide network in the United States supported his actions. The explosives were assembled by a California company and hidden in barrels of oil drilling mud. They were flown to Libya aboard a chartered jet.
Investigation and conviction
After a lengthy investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (then part of the US Department of the Treasury), Wilson was indicted by the US Justice Department for firearms and explosives violations. However, he was in Libya, which would not extradite him. Wilson was very unhappy in Libya, and the Libyans were suspicious of him and he feared for his safety. The prosecutors knew this and they sent a con-man with links to the CIA named Ernest Keiser to convince Wilson that he would be safe in the Dominican Republic.[5] Wilson flew to the Caribbean, but upon arrival was arrested and flown to New York.
He was put on trial four separate times. He was found not guilty of trying to hire a group of Cubans to kill a Libyan dissident. He was found guilty of exporting guns, including the one used in the Bonn assassination, and of shipping the explosives and sentenced to 15 years in prison for the former and 17 years for the latter. While awaiting trial, he allegedly approached a fellow prisoner and attempted to hire him to kill the federal prosecutors. This prisoner was never questioned by anyone outside the CIA. The prisoner instead went to the authorities and they set Wilson up with an undercover agent. The agent taped Wilson hiring him to kill the prosecutors, six witnesses and his ex-wife. In a subsequent trial, he was sentenced to an added twenty-four years in jail for conspiracy to murder. The voice in the recording was never solidly identified as Wilsons.
Legal defense
Wilson’s defence to the Libyan charges was that he was working at the behest of the CIA. The CIA gave the DOJ an affidavit stating that after his retirement he had not been employed directly or indirectly by the agency. The CIA later informed the DOJ that it should not use the affidavit at trial, but the prosecutor Ted Greenberg decided to use it anyway.
While in prison, Wilson campaigned vigorously for his innocence and repeatedly filed Freedom of Information Act requests with the government. Eventually he found information linked to the memo and hired a new lawyer. His lawyer was David Adler, a former CIA officer who had clearance to view classified documents. Adler spent long hours poring through thousands of files and eventually found eighty incidents where Wilson met on a professional basis with the CIA and proof that the CIA had indirectly used Wilson after his retirement.
A federal judge ruled that the prosecution had acted improperly. In October 2003, Wilson’s conviction on the explosives charge was thrown out. Wilson was released from prison on September 14, 2004, after being incarcerated for 27 years.
Civil Action
Wilson filed a civil suit against seven former federal prosecutors, two of whom are now federal judges, and a past executive director of the CIA. On 29 March 2007, U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal dismissed his case on the ground that all eight had immunity covering their actions.
External links
* Opinion on Conviction (PDF) US District Judges opinion on the Wilson Conviction
* Judge dismisses Wilson’s civil case
* justice denied article
* Peter Maas. Manhunt: The Incredible Pursuit of a CIA Agent Turned Terrorist (November 5, 2002 ed.). I Books. p. 320. ISBN 0743452682.
References
1. ^ a b c d Peter Carlson (June 22, 2004; Page C01). International Man of Mystery . washington post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A59212-2004Jun21?language=printer. Retrieved 2008-06-08.
2. ^ a b Michael C. Ruppert (2008). Ed Wilson’s Revenge:The Biggest CIA Scandal in History Has Its Feet in the Starting Blocks in a Houston Court House . pub. http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ciadrugs/Ed_Wilson_1.html. Retrieved 2008-06-08.
3. ^ Waugh, Billy; Tim Keown (2005). Hunting the Jackal. Avon Books. pp. 133–154.
4. ^ Keith Plocek (May 3, 2007). Spy Stories . houstonpress. http://www.houstonpress.com/2007-05-03/news/spy-stories/full. Retrieved 2008-06-08. In particular, Barcella, the former Assistant U.S. Attorney who tracked down Wilson and put him behind bars, pondered the 40,000 pounds of C-4 plastic explosive that Wilson, well schooled by the agency in intrigue and arms dealing, sold to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in 1977
5. ^ Eric Margolis (November 10, 2003). EDWIN WILSON: AMERICA’S MAN IN THE IRON MASK . ericmargolis. http://www.ericmargolis.com/archives/2003/11/edwin_wilson_am.php. Retrieved 2008-06-08.
Persondata
NAME Wilson, Edwin P.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION a former CIA officer who was convicted of illegally selling weapons to Libya
DATE OF BIRTH 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Idaho
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_P._Wilson
Categories: 1928 births | Living people | American spies | People of the Central Intelligence Agency | United States Marine Corps officers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_P._Wilson
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Ted Shackley
Theodore G. Ted Shackley, Jr. (July 16, 1927 – December 9, 2002) was an American CIA officer involved in many important and controversial CIA operations during the 1960s and 1970s. Shackley, whose nickname was the Blond Ghost (because of the deaths which accompanied his station postings) became involved in CIA’s Black Operations. This involved a policy that was later to become known as Executive Action (a plan to remove unfriendly foreign leaders from power). This included a coup d’état that overthrew the Guatemalan government of Jacobo Arbenz in 1954.
At a meeting of this committee (SGA) at the White House on 4th November, 1961, it was decided to call this covert action program for sabotage and subversion against Cuba, Operation Mongoose. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy also decided that General Edward Lansdale (Staff Member of the President’s Committee on Military Assistance) should be placed in charge of the operation. One of Lansdale’s first decisions was to appoint William Harvey as head of Task Force W. Harvey’s brief was to organize a broad range of activities that would help to bring down Castro’s government.
Ted%20Shackley.jpg
Table of Contents
Life in CIA and Black Operations
Vietnam, Laos and the Phoenix Program
Western Hemisphere Division and Chile
Deputy Director of Covert Operations
Coulumbia
Life After CIA
October Surprise
Iran-Contra Affair
Punishing Daniel Sheehan for Messing with CIA
Prominent Members of Shackley’s Secret Team
Life in CIA and Black Operations
In early 1962 Harvey brought Ted Shackley into the project as deputy chief of JM/WAVE. In April, 1962, Shackley was involved in delivering supplies to Johnny Roselli as part of the plan to assassinate Fidel Castro. Later that year he became head of the station. In doing so, he gained control over Operation 40 or what some now called Shackley’s Secret Team. Shackley was also responsible for gathering intelligence and recruiting spies in Cuba. Most of the anti-Castro Cubans that the CIA managed to infiltrate into Cuba were captured and either imprisoned or executed.
In the autumn of 1963 Ted Shackley and Carl E. Jenkins were using members of Operation 40 in their attempts to try and kill Fidel Castro. According to the interview he gave in 2005:
Gene Wheaton claims it was Jenkins who redirected this team to kill John F. Kennedy.
According to recently released AMWORLD documents it would seem that Shackley and Jenkins continued to use Operation 40 against Castro. In his book, The Crimes of a President, Joel Bainerman argues that during this period “Theodore Shackley headed a program of raids and sabotage against Cuba. Working under Shackley were Thomas Clines, Rafael Quintero, Luis Posada Carriles, Rafael and Raul Villaverde, Frank Sturges, Felix Rodriguez and Edwin Wilson.”
Vietnam, Laos and the Phoenix Program
In 1966 Shackley was placed in charge of the CIA secret war in Laos. He appointed Thomas G. Clines as his deputy. He also took Carl E. Jenkins, David Morales, Raphael Quintero, Felix Rodriguez and Edwin Wilson with him to Laos. According to Joel Bainerman it was at this point that Shackley and his Secret Team became involved in the drug trade. They did this via General Vang Pao, the leader of the anti-communist forces in Laos. Vang Pao was a major figure in the opium trade in Laos. To help him Shackley used his CIA officials and assets to sabotage the competitors. Eventually Vang Pao had a monopoly over the heroin trade in Laos. In 1967 Shackley and Clines helped Vang Pao to obtain financial backing to form his own airline, Zieng Khouang Air Transport Company, to transport opium and heroin between Long Tieng and Vientiane.
According to Alfred W. McCoy (The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade) Shackley and Clines arranged a meeting in Saigon in 1968 between Santo Trafficante and Vang Pao to establish a heroin-smuggling operation from Southeast Asia to the United States.
Shackley employed David Morales to take charge at Pakse, a black operations base focused on political paramilitary action within Laos. Pakse was used to launch military operations against the Ho Chi Minh Trial. In 1969 Shackley became Chief of Station in Vietnam and headed the Phoenix Program. This involved the killing of non-combatant Vietnamese civilians suspected of collaborating with the National Liberation Front. In a two year period, Operation Phoenix murdered 28,978 civilians.
Shackley also brought others into his drug operation. This included Richard L. Armitage, a US Navy official based in Saigon’s US office of Naval Operations, and Major General Richard Secord. According to Daniel Sheehan: “From late 1973 until April of 1975, Theodore Shackley, Thomas Clines and Richard Armitage disbursed, from the secret, Laotian-based, Vang Pao opium fund, vastly more money than was required to finance even the highly intensified Phoenix Project in Vietnam. The money in excess of that used in Vietnam was secretly smuggled out of Vietnam in large suitcases, by Richard Secord and Thomas Clines and carried into Australia, where it was deposited in a secret, personal bank account (privately accessible to Theodore Shackley, Thomas Clines and Richard Secord). During this same period of time between 1973 and 1975, Theodore Shackley and Thomas Clines caused thousands of tons of US weapons, ammunition, and explosives to be secretly taken from Vietnam and stored at a secret cache hidden inside Thailand.
This money, with the help of Raphael Quintero, found its way into the Nugan Hand Bank in Sydney. The bank was founded by Michael Hand, a CIA operative in Laos and Frank Nugan an Australian businessman.
Saigon fell to the NLF in April, 1975. The Vietnam War was over. Richard Armitage was dispatched by Shackley, from Vietnam to Tehran. In Iran, Armitage, set up a secret financial conduit inside Iran, into which secret Vang Pao drug funds could be deposited from Southeast Asia. According to Daniel Sheehan: “The purpose of this conduit was to serve as the vehicle for secret funding by Shackley’s Secret Team, of a private, non-CIA authorized Black operations inside Iran, disposed to seek out, identify, and assassinate socialist and communist sympathizers, who were viewed by Shackley and his Secret Team members to be potential terrorists against the Shah of Iran’s government in Iran. In late 1975 and early 1976, Theodore Shackley and Thomas Clines retained Edwin Wilson to travel to Tehran, Iran to head up the Secret Team covert anti-terrorist assassination program in Iran.”
Western Hemisphere Division and Chile
When Shackley was recalled in February, 1972, he was put in charge of the CIA’s Western Hemisphere Division. One of his major tasks was to undermine Philip Agee, an ex-CIA officer who was writing a book on the CIA. The book was eventually published as CIA Diary, but did not include the information that would have permanently damaged the reputation of the CIA.
Shackley also played an important role in the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile. As his biographer, David Corn points out: Salvador Allende died during the coup. When the smoke cleared, General Augusto Pinochet, the head of a military junta, was in dictatorial control… Elections were suspended. The press was censored. Allende supporters and opponents of the junta were jailed. Torture centers were established. Executions replaced soccer matches in Santiago’s stadiums. Bodies floated down the Mapocho River. Due in part to the hard work of Shackley and dozens of other Agency bureaucrats and operatives, Chile was free of the socialists.
Deputy Director of Covert Operations
After Richard Nixon resigned, Gerald Ford brought in George Bush (Senior) as Director of the CIA. This was followed by Shackley being appointed as Deputy Director of Operations. He therefore became second-in-command of all CIA covert activity.
Donald Freed (Death in Washington: The Murder of Orlando Letelier) claims that on 29th June, 1976, Townley had a meeting with Bernardo De Torres, Armando Lopez Estrada, Hector Duran and General Juan Manuel Contreras Sepulveda. The following month Frank Castro, Luis Posada, Orlando Bosch and Guillermo Novo established Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU). CORU was partly financed by Guillermo Hernández Cartaya, another Bay of Pigs veteran closely linked to the CIA. He was later charged with money laundering, drugs & arms trafficking and embezzlement. The federal prosecutor told Pete Brewton that he had been approached by a CIA officer who explained that:
Cartaya had done a bunch of things that the government was indebted to him for, and he asked me to drop the charges against him.
One Miami police veteran told the authors of Assassination on Embassy Row (1980): The Cubans held the CORU meeting at the request of the CIA. The Cuban groups… were running amok in the mid-1970s, and the United States had lost control of them. So the United States backed the meeting to get them all going in the same direction again, under United States control. It has been pointed out that George H. W. Bush was director of the CIA when this meeting took place.
Shackley was hoping to eventually replace Bush as director of the CIA. However, the election of Jimmy Carter was a severe blow to his chances. Carter appointed an outsider, Stansfield Turner, as head of the CIA. He immediately carried out an investigation of into CIA covert activities. Turner eventually found out about Shackley’s “Secret Team”. He was especially worried about the activities of Edwin Wilson and the Nugan Hand Bank.
One of the men Wilson employed was former CIA officer Kevin P. Mulcahy. He became concerned about Wilson’s illegal activities and sent a message about them to the agency. Shackley was initially able to block any internal investigation of Wilson. However, in April, 1977, the Washington Post, published an article on Wilson’s activities stating that he may be getting support from current CIA employees . Stansfield Turner ordered an investigation and discovered that both Shackley and Thomas G. Clines had close relationships with Wilson. Shackley was called in to explain what was going on. His explanation was not satisfactory and it was made clear that his career at the CIA had come to an end. Richard Helms, reportedly said:
Ted (Shackley) is what we call in the spook business a quadruple threat – Drugs, Arms, Money and Murder.
Columbia
“Bob Haynes” was the alias used by Shackley between 1979 and 1984 with pilots carrying drugs. As Harry Martin reports in the Napa Sentinel:
“[The pilot] also has a number of documents in safekeeping which prove the presence of Shackley in Medellin, not only directing the cocaine cartel, but orchestrating many of the activities in Panama and Costa Rica related to the contra war in Nicaragua, and the large-scale smuggling of cocaine into the United States. Included among them are a handwritten note from Haynes/Shackley directing him to deliver a DC-6A aircraft from the Dominican Republic to Floyd Carlton in Panama “for Col. Robert.”1
Haynes also furnished the pilot with his business card for INTERKREDIT, with offices in Medellin, Ft. Lauderdale and Amsterdam. INTERKREDIT was the corporate cover under which Shackley conducted business with General Noriega during 1983.
“The pilot has claimed that he functioned as one of an elite group of military intelligence agents with service dating back to World War II, who reported, until his imprisonment in 1984, directly to [former OSS agent and CIA DCI] William Casey, and maintains that he was directly involved with Theodore Shackley in the establishment of the arms network to the contras through Panama in the early 1980s. Among the letters received from Haynes/Shackley was one directing him to acquire a number of planes in the Dominican Republic and Aruba for the network. The list has been verified by the special U.S. Customs team in Miami investigating Munitions Control Board violations as planes they are familiar with having been used in such activities.
In addition to the pilot, witnesses allege Shackley maintained a home in Medellin, Colombia at one point, where he lived with his Colombian wife, Leona Ochoa, sister of cartel kingpin Jorge Ochoa.2h having been used in such activities.”
Life After CIA
After leaving the CIA in September, 1979, Shackley formed his own company, Research Associates International, which specialized in providing intelligence to business. He also joined with Thomas G. Clines, Raphael Quintero, and Ricardo Chavez (another former CIA operative) in another company called API Distributors. According to David Corn (Blond Ghost) Edwin Wilson provided Clines with half a million dollars to get his business empire going . Shackley also freelanced with API but found it difficult taking orders from his former subordinate, Clines. Shackley also established his own company, Research Associates International, which specialized in providing intelligence to business (in other words he sold them classified information from CIA files).
According to Daniel Sheehan: “In 1976, (Major General) Richard Secord moved to Tehran, Iran and became the Deputy Assistant Secretary of defense in Iran, in charge of the Middle Eastern Division of the Defense Security Assistance Administration. In this capacity, Secord functioned as the chief operations officer for the U.S. Defense Department in the Middle East in charge of foreign military sales of U.S. aircraft, weapons and military equipment to Middle Eastern nations allied to the U.S. Secord’s immediate superior was Eric Van Marbad, the former 40 Committee liaison officer to Theodore Shackley’s Phoenix program in Vietnam from 1973 to 1975.”
From 1977 until 1979, Richard Armitage operated a business named The Far East Trading Company. This company was in fact merely a front for Armitage’s secret operations conducting Vang Pao opium money out of Southeast Asia to Tehran and the Nugan Hand Bank in Australia to fund the ultra right-wing, private anti-communist anti-terrorist assassination program and unconventional warfare operation of Theodore Shackley’s and Thomas Cline’s Secret Team . (Daniel P. Sheehan’s affidavit).
In his book, The Crimes of a President, Joel Bainerman argues that the Secret Team still used the Nugan Hand Bank to hide their illegal profits from drugs and arms. The President of the Nugan Hand Bank was Admiral Earl P. Yates, former Chief of Staff for Strategic Planning of US Forces in Asia. Other directors of the bank included Dale Holmgree (also worked for Civil Air Transport, a CIA proprietary company) and General Edwin F. Black, (commander of U.S. troops in Thailand during the Vietnam War). George Farris (a CIA operative in Vietnam) ran the Washington office of the Nugan Hand Bank and the bank’s legal counsel was William Colby.
The bank grew and had offices or affiliates in 13 countries. According to Jonathan Kwitny, Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA, Crimes of Patriots), the bank did little banking. What it did do was to amass, move, collect and disburse great sums of money.
In 1980 Frank Nugan was found dead in his car. His co-founder, Michael Hand had disappeared at the same time. The Australian authorities were forced to investigate the bank. They discovered that Ricardo Chavez, the former CIA operative who was co-owner of API Distributors with Thomas G. Clines and Rafael Quintero, was attempting to take control of the bank. The Corporate Affairs Commission of New South Wales came to the conclusion that Chavez was working on behalf of Clines, Quintero and Wilson. They blocked the move but they were unable or unwilling to explore the connections between the CIA and the Nugan Hand Bank.
The Secret Team (Shackley, Thomas G. Clines, (Major General) Richard Secord, Ricardo Chavez, Rafael Quintero, Albert Hakim, Edwin Wilson, and Richard L. Armitage set up several corporations and subsidiaries around the world through which to conceal the operations of the Secret Team . Many of these corporations were set up in Switzerland. Some of these were: (1) Lake Resources, Inc.; (2) The Stanford Technology Trading Group, Inc.; and (3) Companie de Services Fiduciaria. Other companies were set up in Central America, such as: (4) CSF Investments, Ltd. and (5) Udall research Corporation. Some were set up inside the United States by Edwin Wilson. Some of these were: (6) Orca Supply Company in Florida and (7) Consultants International in Washington, D.C. Through these corporations the Secret Team laundered hundreds of millions of dollars of secret Vang Pao opium money.
Shackley had still not given up hope that he would eventually be appointed director of the CIA. His best hope was in getting Jimmy Carter defeated in 1980. Shackley had several secret meetings with George H. W. Bush as he campaigned for the Republican nomination (his wife, Hazel Shackley also worked for Bush). Ronald Reagan won the nomination but got the support of the CIA by selecting Bush as his vice president. According to Rafael Quintero, during the presidential campaign, Shackley met Bush almost every week.
It is believed that Shackley used his contacts in the CIA to provide information to Reagan and Bush. This included information that Carter was attempting to negotiate a deal with Iran to get the American hostages released. This was disastrous news for the Reagan/Bush campaign. If Carter got the hostages out before the election, the public perception of the man might change and he might be elected for a second-term.
According to Barbara Honegger, a researcher and policy analyst with the 1980 Reagan/Bush campaign, William Casey and other representatives of the Reagan presidential campaign made a deal at two sets of meetings in July and August at the Ritz Hotel in Madrid with Iranians to delay the release of Americans held hostage in Iran until after the November 1980 presidential elections. Reagan’s aides promised that they would get a better deal if they waited until Carter was defeated.
On 22nd September, 1980, Iraq invaded Iran. The Government of Iran was now in desperate need of spare parts and equipment for its armed forces. Carter now proposed that the US would be willing to hand over supplies in return for the hostages.
Once again, the CIA leaked this information to Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. This attempted deal was also passed to the media. On 11th October, the Washington Post reported rumours of a “secret deal that would see the hostages released in exchange for the American made military spare parts Iran needs to continue its fight against Iraq”.
In October, 1980, Shackley joined the company owned by Albert Hakim (Iranian-American businessman) (he was paid $5,000 a month as a part-time “risk analyst”). Hakim was keen to use Shackley’s contacts to make money out of the Iran-Iraq War that had started the previous month.
October Surprise
A couple of days before the election Barry Goldwater (US senator) was reported as saying that he had information that “two air force C-5 transports were being loaded with spare parts for Iran”. This was not true. However, this publicity had made it impossible for Jimmy Carter to do a deal. Ronald Reagan on the other hand, had promised the Iranian government that he would arrange for them to get all the arms they needed in exchange for the hostages. According to Mansur Rafizadeh, the former U.S. station chief of SAVAK, the Iranian secret police, CIA agents had persuaded Khomeini not to release the American hostages until Reagan was sworn in. In fact, they were released twenty minutes after his inaugural address (October Surprise).
Iran-Contra Affair
The arms the Iranians had demanded were delivered via Israel. By the end of 1982 all Regan’s promises to Iran had been made. With the deal completed, Iran was free to resort to acts of terrorism against the United States. In 1983, Iranian-backed terrorists blew up 241 marines in the CIA Middle-East headquarters.
The Iranians once again began taking American hostages in exchange for arms shipments. On 16th March, 1984, William Francis Buckley, a diplomat attached to the U.S. Embassy in Beirut was kidnapped by the Hezbollah, a fundamentalist Shiite group with strong links to the Khomeini regime. Buckley was tortured and it was soon discovered that he was the CIA station chief in Beirut.
Shackley was horrified when he discovered that Buckley had been captured. Buckley was a member of Shackley’s Secret Team that had been involved with Edwin Wilson, Thomas Clines, Carl E. Jenkins, Raphael Quintero, Felix Rodriguez and Luis Posada, in the CIA “assassination” program.
Buckley had also worked closely with William Casey (now the director of the CIA) in the secret negotiations with the Iranians in 1980. Buckley had a lot to tell the Iranians. He eventually signed a 400 page statement detailing his activities in the CIA. He was also videotaped making this confession. Casey asked Shackley for help in obtaining Buckley’s freedom.
Three weeks after Buckley’s disappearance, President Ronald Reagan signed the National Security Decision Directive 138. This directive was drafted by Oliver North and outlined plans on how to get the American hostages released from Iran and to “neutralize” terrorist threats from countries such as Nicaragua. This new secret counterterrorist task force was to be headed by Shackley’s old friend, General Richard Secord. This was the beginning of the Iran-Contra Affair.
Talks had already started about exchanging American hostages for arms. On 30th August, 1985, Israel shipped 100 TOW missiles to Iran. On 14th September they received another 408 missiles from Israel. The Israelis made a profit of $3 million on the deal.
In October, 1985, Congress agreed to vote 27 million dollars in non-lethal aid for the Contras in Nicaragua. However, members of the Ronald Reagan administration decided to use this money to provide weapons to the Contras and the Mujahideen in Afghanistan.
The following month, Shackley traveled to Hamburg where he met General Manucher Hashemi, the former head of SAVAK’s counterintelligence division at the Atlantic Hotel. Also at the meeting on 22nd November was Manuchehr Ghorbanifar (Israeli agent, but Israel denies it). According to the report of this meeting that Shackley sent to the CIA, Ghorbanifar had “fantastic” contacts with Iran.
At the meeting Shackley told Hashemi and Ghorbanifar that the United States was willing to discuss arms shipments in exchange for the four Americans kidnapped in Lebanon. The problem with the proposed deal was that William Francis Buckley was already dead (he had died of a heart-attack while being tortured).
Shackley recruited some of the former members of his CIA Secret Team to help him with these arm deals. This included Thomas Clines, Rafael Quintero, Ricardo Chavez and Edwin Wilson of API Distributors. Also involved was Carl E. Jenkins and Gene Wheaton of National Air. The plan was to use National Air to transport these weapons.
In May 1986 Wheaton told William Casey, director of the CIA, about what he knew about this illegal operation. Casey refused to take any action, claiming that the agency or the government were not involved in what later became known as Irangate.
Wheaton now took his story to Daniel Sheehan, a left-wing lawyer. Wheaton told him that Tom Clines and Ted Shackley had been running a top-secret assassination unit since the early 1960s. According to Wheaton, it had begun with an assassination training program for Cuban exiles and the original target had been Fidel Castro.
Gene Wheaton also contacted Newt Royce and Mike Acoca, two journalists based in Washington. The first article on this scandal appeared in the San Francisco Examiner on 27th July, 1986. As a result of this story, Congressman Dante Facell wrote a letter to the Secretary of Defense, Casper Weinberger, asking him if it true that foreign money, kickback money on programs, was being used to fund foreign covert operations. Two months later, Weinberger denied that the government knew about this illegal operation.
On 5th October, 1986, a Sandinista patrol in Nicaragua shot down a C-123K cargo plane that was supplying the Contras. Eugene Hasenfus, an Air America veteran, survived the crash and told his captors that he thought the CIA was behind the operation. He also provided information on two Cuban-Americans running the operation in El Savador. This resulted in journalists being able to identify Rafael Quintero and Felix Rodriguez as the two Cuban-Americans mentioned by Hasenfus. It gradually emerged that Thomas Clines, Oliver North, Edwin Wilson and Richard Secord were also involved in this conspiracy to provide arms to the Contras.
On 12th December, 1986, Daniel Sheehan submitted to the court an affidavit detailing the Irangate scandal. He also claimed that Shackley and Thomas Clines were running a private assassination program that had evolved from projects they ran while working for the CIA. Others named as being part of this assassination team included Rafael Quintero, Richard Secord, Felix Rodriguez and Albert Hakim. It later emerged that Gene Wheaton and Carl E. Jenkins (of National Air) were the two main sources for this affidavit.
It was eventually discovered that President Ronald Reagan had sold arms to Iran. The money gained from these sales was used to provide support for the Contras, a group of guerrillas engaged in an insurgency against the elected socialist Sandinista government of Nicaragua. Both the sale of these weapons and the funding of the Contras violated administration policy as well as legislation passed by Congress.
Ted Shackley died in Bethesda, Maryland, in December 2002. His autobiography, Spymaster: My Life in the CIA, was published in April, 2005.
Punishing Daniel Sheehan for Messing with CIA
On 23rd June, 1988, Judge James L. King ruled that Daniel Sheehan’s allegations were based on unsubstantiated rumor and speculation from unidentified sources with no firsthand knowledge . In February, 1989, Judge King ruled that Sheenan had brought a frivolous lawsuit and ordered his Christic Institute to pay the defendants $955,000. This was one of the highest sanction orders in history and represented four times the total assets of the Christic Institute.
Prominent Members of Shackley’s Secret Team
* Albert Hakim
* David Morales
* Donald Gregg
* Edwin Wilson
* Frank Sturges
* Felix Rodriguez
* Luis Posada Carriles
* Rafael Quintero
* Ricardo Chavez
* Richard Armitage
* Richard Secord
* Thomas Clines
Also See
* Mafia List
* Nugan Hand Bank
* William King Harvey
* Spearhead Ltd
* Eugene Tafoya
* Frank E. Terpil
* Russell S. Bowen
Footnotes
1. Harry V. Martin, Lars C. Hansson, “Noriega,” Napa Sentinel series, 1995.
2. Harry V. Martin, Lars C. Hansson, “Noriega,” Napa Sentinel series, 1995.
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Footnote 1.
Harry V. Martin, Lars C. Hansson, “Noriega,” Napa Sentinel series, 1995.
(click to scroll to footnotes)
Footnote 2.
Harry V. Martin, Lars C. Hansson, “Noriega,” Napa Sentinel series, 1995.
(click to scroll to footnotes)
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Ted Shackley.jpg
***
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***
Pakistan Awards 41 Blocks for Oil, Gas Exploration
by Hamza Khan posted on Thursday: 01 October, 2009
Pakistan awarded licenses for 41 blocks to companies including BP Plc., Eni SpA and Pakistan Petroleum Ltd. to search for oil and gas in the south Asian country, in a bid to attract investment in the energy sector.
“The successful bidders will be issued licenses within 15 days,” G.A. Sabri, special secretary at the Islamabad-based Petroleum Ministry said today in a phone interview. The companies bid yesterday for 41 blocks out of 53 offered by the government, he said.
Pakistan Petroleum, the nation’s biggest gas producer, won 13 licenses, the most, while Oil & Gas Development Co., Pakistan’s largest explorer, will get six blocks, he said. Pakistan Oilfield Ltd., the third biggest exploration company, will get two licenses while BP and ENI will be issued two and one licenses, respectively, he said.
One of the winners, Eni SpA (E) won an exploration license for Pakistan’s onshore Sukhpur block and is in long-term talks with Islamabad to bring gas from the Caspian Sea to Pakistan, India and China, Chief Executive Paolo Scaroni said Wednesday after a meeting in Rome with a Pakistani delegation.
Eni’s partners at Sukhpur block will be Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA) and local player Pakistan Petroleum Ltd. (PPL.KA), the company in a statement Wednesday.
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Eni has been present in Pakistan since 2000 and is the biggest international company operating in the country in terms of exploration and production of gas, with an equity production of 56,000 barrels a day, the company said in its statement.
by – Hamza Khan
***
William Rip Robertson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William Rip Robertson was an American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative.
Robertson was born in Texas. During World War II he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and served in the Pacific Theater. He later entered the CIA and served as a counterintelligence agent.
He was assigned to the Executive Action operation that was designed to remove unsatisfactory (to the CIA) foreign leaders from power. One such action was the overthrow of the head of Guatemala Jacobo Arbenz in 1954. Later Robertson was discovered to be responsible for ordering a British ship bombed, he had misidentified it as a Russian ship. Afterwards he was deemed an outcast by the CIA. He then worked as an advisor to Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza Garcia. Prior to the Bay of Pigs invasion he resumed work for the CIA. During the battle he commanded the ship Barbara J while Grayston Lynch commanded the ship Blagar.
Robertson died in 1973 in Laos due to the effects of malaria.
See also
World War II portal
United States Marine Corps portal
References
Spartacus Educational – William Robertson
Persondata
NAME Robertson, William Rip
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION United States Marine
DATE OF BIRTH
PLACE OF BIRTH
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_%22Rip%22_Robertson
Categories: 1973 deaths | People from Texas | American military personnel of World War II | People of the Central Intelligence Agency | Deaths from malaria | Infectious disease deaths in Laos | United States Marines
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_%22Rip%22_Robertson
***
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.
http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/732/732.F2d.404.83-2125.html
***
Clark Clifford
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Clark Clifford
9th United States Secretary of Defense
In office
February 29, 1968 – January 20, 1969
President Lyndon B. Johnson
Deputy Paul H. Nitze
Preceded by Robert McNamara
Succeeded by Melvin Laird
2nd White House Counsel
In office
1946 – 1950
President Harry S. Truman
Preceded by Samuel Irving Rosenman
Succeeded by Charles S. Murphy
Born December 25, 1906(1906-12-25)
Fort Scott, KS, U.S.
Died October 10, 1998 (aged 91)
Political party Democratic
Spouse(s) Margery Kimball Marny Clifford (1931-1998, died 2000)
Alma mater Washington University
Profession Lawyer Political adviser
Military service
Service/branch United States Navy
Years of service 1944-1946
Rank Captain
Clark McAdams Clifford (December 25, 1906 – October 10, 1998) was a highly influential American lawyer who served Presidents Truman, Kennedy, Johnson and Carter, serving as United States Secretary of Defense for Johnson.
Contents
* 1 Early life and career
* 2 Presidential advisor
* 3 Secretary of Defense
* 4 Vietnam
* 5 Special presidential emissary to India
* 6 Bank of Credit and Commerce International
* 7 Portrayal in popular culture
* 8 External links
* 9 Notes
Early life and career
Clifford was born in Fort Scott, Kansas. He attended college and law school at Washington University, and built a solid reputation practicing law in St. Louis, Missouri between 1928 and 1943. He served as an officer with the United States Navy from 1944 to 1946, reaching the rank of captain and serving as assistant naval aide and then naval aide to President Truman, for whom he became a trusted personal adviser and friend.
Presidential advisor
Clifford went to Washington, D.C., first to serve as Assistant to the President’s Naval Advisor, after the naming of a personal friend from Missouri as the President’s Naval Advisor. Following his discharge from the Navy, he remained at Truman’s side as White House Counsel from 1946-1950, as Truman came rapidly to trust and rely upon Clifford.
Clifford was a key architect of Truman’s campaign in 1948, when he pulled off a stunning upset victory over Republican nominee Thomas Dewey. Clifford encouraged Truman to embrace a left wing populist image in hope of undermining the impact on the race of third party Progressive candidate Henry A. Wallace, who had served as FDR’s Vice-President 1941-45. Clifford also believed that a strong pro-civil rights stance, while sure to alienate traditional Southern Democrats, would not result in a serious challenge to the party’s supremacy in that region. This prediction was foiled by Strom Thurmond’s candidacy as a splinter States’ Rights Democrat, but Clifford’s strategy nonetheless helped win Truman election in his own right and establish the Democratic Party’s position in the Civil Rights Movement. In his role as presidential advisor, perhaps his most significant contribution was his successful advocacy, along with David Niles, of prompt 1948 recognition of the new state of Israel.[1]
After leaving the government in 1950, Clifford practiced law in Washington, D.C., but continued to advise Democratic Party leaders. One of his law clients was U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy, and Clifford tried to assuage Truman’s suspicion of Kennedy and his father, Joseph P. Kennedy.
In 1960, Clifford was a member of President-elect Kennedy’s Committee on the Defense Establishment, headed by Stuart Symington. In May 1961, Kennedy appointed Clifford to the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, which he chaired beginning in April 1963 and ending in January 1968.
After President Lyndon B. Johnson took office in November 1963 following Kennedy’s assassination, Clifford served frequently as an unofficial White House Counsel and sometimes undertook short-term official duties, including a trip with General Maxwell Taylor in 1967 to Vietnam and other countries in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
Secretary of Defense
On January 19, 1968, President Johnson announced his selection of Clifford to succeed Robert McNamara as United States Secretary of Defense. Clifford estimated that, in the year just prior to his appointment, he had spent about half of his time advising the President and the other half working for his law firm.
Young clark clifford.jpg
Widely known and respected in Washington and knowledgeable on defense matters, Clifford was generally hailed as a worthy successor to McNamara. Many regarded the new secretary as more of a hawk on Vietnam than McNamara, and thought his selection might presage an escalation of the U.S. military effort there. Clifford attempted to allay such fears when, responding to a query about whether he was a hawk (favoring aggressive military action) or a dove (favoring a peaceful resolution to the Vietnam War), he remarked, I am not conscious of falling under any of those ornithological divisions.
The new Secretary did not change the management system McNamara had installed at The Pentagon, and for the most part assigned internal administration to Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul H. Nitze. Clifford made no effort to depart from McNamara’s policies and programs on such matters as nuclear strategy, NATO, and military assistance, but he favored the Sentinel Anti-ballistic missile system, to which McNamara had given only lukewarm backing. Clifford wanted to deploy the system, and supported congressional appropriations for it. One important effect of Sentinel construction, he thought, would be to encourage the Soviet Union to enter arms control talks with the United States. Indeed, before Clifford left office, the Johnson administration made arrangements for negotiations that eventually led to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972.
Clifford continued McNamara’s highly-publicized Cost Reduction Program, announcing that over $1.2 billion had been saved in fiscal year (FY) 1968 as a result of the effort. Faced with a congressionally-mandated reduction of expenditures in FY 1969, Clifford suspended the planned activation of an infantry division and deactivated 50 small ships, 9 naval air squadrons, and 23 Nike-Hercules missile launch sites.
By the time Clifford became secretary, Defense Department work on the FY 1969 budget was complete. It amounted in total obligational authority to $77.7 billion, almost $3 billion more than in FY 1968. The final FY 1970 budget, which Clifford and his staff worked on before they left office after the election of Richard Nixon to the Presidency, amounted to $75.5 billion TOA.
Vietnam
Clifford took office committed to rethinking President Johnson’s Vietnam policies, and Vietnam policy consumed most of his time. He had argued against escalation in 1965 in private counsel with the President, but then provided public support for the President’s position once the decision was made. At his confirmation hearing, he told the Armed Services Committee of the United States Senate that the limited objective of the United States was to guarantee to the people of South Vietnam the right of self-determination. He opposed ending the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam at the time, but acknowledged that the situation could change. In fact, on March 31, 1968, just a month after Clifford arrived at the Pentagon, President Johnson, in an effort to get peace talks started, ordered the cessation of bombing north of the 20th parallel, an area comprising almost 80 percent of North Vietnam’s land area and 90 percent of its population. In the same address, Johnson announced that he would not be a candidate for reelection in 1968, surprising everyone, Clifford included. Soon the North Vietnamese agreed to negotiations, which began in Paris in mid-May 1968. Later, on October 31, 1968, to encourage the success of these talks, the President, with Clifford’s strong support, ordered an end to all bombing in North Vietnam.
Clifford, like McNamara, had to deal with frequent requests for additional troops from military commanders in Vietnam. When he became secretary, the authorized force in Vietnam was 525,000. Soon after moving into his Pentagon office, Clifford persuaded Johnson to deny General William Westmoreland’s request for an additional 206,000 American troops in Vietnam.
At the end of March 1968, however, the president agreed to send 24,500 more troops on an emergency basis, raising authorized strength to 549,500, a figure never reached. Even as he oversaw a continued buildup, Clifford preferred to emphasize the points President Johnson had made in his March 31, 1968 address: that the South Vietnamese army could take over a greater share of the fighting, that the administration would place an absolute limit on the number of U.S. troops in Vietnam, and that it would take steps, including the bombing restrictions, to reduce the combat level.
Eventually Clifford moved very close, with Johnson’s tacit support, to the views McNamara held on Vietnam just before he left office—no further increases in U.S. troop levels, support for the bombing halt, and gradual disengagement from the conflict. By this time Clifford clearly disagreed with Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who believed, according to The Washington Post, that the war was being won by the allies and that it would be won if America had the will to win it. After he left office, Clifford, in the July 1969 issue of Foreign Affairs, made his views very clear: Nothing we might do could be so beneficial… as to begin to withdraw our combat troops. Moreover… we cannot realistically expect to achieve anything more through our military force, and the time has come to begin to disengage. That was my final conclusion as I left the Pentagon…. Clifford received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Johnson on the President’s last day in office, January 20, 1969.
Although the Johnson Administration ended under the cloud of the Vietnam War, Clifford concluded his short term as Secretary of Defense with his reputation actually enhanced. He got along well with the United States Congress, and this helped him to secure approval of at least some of his proposals. He settled into his duties quickly and efficiently, and capably managed the initial de-escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam; indeed, he apparently strongly influenced Johnson in favor of a de-escalation strategy. As he left office to return to his law practice in Washington, Clifford expressed the hope and expectation that international tensions would abate, citing the shift in the Vietnam confrontation from the battlefield to the conference table, and the evident willingness of the Soviet Union to discuss limitations on strategic nuclear weapons.
Special presidential emissary to India
Clifford’s legal practice and lobbying work made him wealthy, and he was considered one of Washington’s superlawyers due to the reach of his influence and seemingly limitless connections. Clifford’s office overlooked the White House, emphasizing his long experience in the capital. Clifford was renowned for his seemingly-effortless charm, style, tact and discretion.
In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed him as special presidential emissary to India. Clifford made waves by threatening the newly-established regime of Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran with war for its intransigence in negotiating the release of the hostages seized from the U.S. embassy in Tehran.
Bank of Credit and Commerce International
Main article: Bank of Credit and Commerce International
In 1991, Clifford’s memoirs Counsel to the President (co-authored with Richard Holbrooke, later U.S. ambassador to the United Nations) were published just as his name was implicated in the unfolding Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) scandal. The scandal focused on the criminal conduct of the international bank and its control of financial institutions nationwide.
The bank was found by regulators in the United States and the United Kingdom to be involved in money laundering, bribery, support of terrorism, arms trafficking, the sale of nuclear technologies, the commission and facilitation of tax evasion, smuggling, illegal immigration, and the illicit purchases of banks and real estate. The bank was found to have at least $13 billion unaccounted for.
Clifford served as chairman of First American Bankshares, which grew to become the largest bank in Washington, D.C.. Robert Morgenthau, the district attorney of Manhattan, disclosed that his office had found evidence that the parent company of Clifford’s bank was secretly controlled by BCCI. Morgenthau convened a grand jury to determine whether Clifford and his partner, Robert A. Altman, had deliberately misled federal regulators when the two men assured them that BCCI would have no outside control. An audit by Price Waterhouse revealed that contrary to agreements between First American’s nominal investors and the Federal Reserve, many of the investors had borrowed heavily from BCCI. Even more seriously, they had pledged their First American stock as collateral, and when they didn’t make interest payments, BCCI took control of the shares. It was later estimated that in this manner, BCCI had ended up with 60 percent or more of First American’s stock.
Clifford’s predicament worsened when it was disclosed he had made about $6 million in profits from bank stock that he had bought with an unsecured loan from BCCI. The grand jury handed up indictments, and the U.S. Justice Department opened its own investigation. Clifford’s assets in New York, where he kept most of his investments, were frozen.
Clifford insisted that he had no knowledge of illegal activity at First American, and insisted that he himself had been deceived about the extent of BCCI’s involvement. However, both Morgenthau and federal regulators argued that Clifford should have known.
The Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations of the United States Senate, prepared by U.S. senators John Kerry and Hank Brown, noted that a key strategy of BCCI’s successful secret acquisitions of U.S. banks in the face of regulatory suspicion was its aggressive use of a series of prominent Americans, Clifford among them.[2] Clifford, who prided himself on decades of meticulously ethical conduct, summed his predicament up when he sadly told a reporter from the New York Times, I have a choice of either seeming stupid or venal. Most observers believed the former, and concluded that Clifford had not paid sufficiently close attention to the bank or its management structure.
Indictments against Clifford were set aside because of his failing health. After a final, frail appearance in the 1997 PBS documentary Truman, Clifford died in 1998 from natural causes at age 91. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington, Virginia.[3]
Portrayal in popular culture
* Tony Goldwyn portrayed Clark M. Clifford in the 1995 HBO movie Truman.
* Donald Sutherland portrayed Clifford in the 2002 HBO movie Path to War.
External links
* Oral History Interviews with Clark M. Clifford, Truman Presidential Library
* Transcript, Clark M. Clifford Oral History Interview, 3/13/69, by Joe B. Frantz, Internet Copy, LBJ Library. Accessed 3 April 2005.
* Interview about the Berlin Blockade for the WGBH series, *War and Peace in the Nuclear Age
Notes
1. ^ Truman Adviser Recalls May 14, 1948 Decision to Recognize Israel, Richard H. Curtiss, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May, June 1991
2. ^ http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/
3. ^ http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/cclifford.htm
Political offices
Preceded by
Robert McNamara United States Secretary of Defense
Served Under: Lyndon B. Johnson
1968–1969 Succeeded by
Melvin Laird
Legal offices
Preceded by
Samuel Irving Rosenman White House Counsel
1946-1950 Succeeded by
Charles Murphy
v • d • e
United States Secretaries of Defense
Forrestal • Johnson • Marshall • Lovett • Wilson • McElroy • T. Gates • McNamara • Clifford • Laird • Richardson • Schlesinger • Rumsfeld • Brown • Weinberger • Carlucci • Cheney • Aspin • Perry • Cohen • Rumsfeld • R. Gates
Seal of the United States Department of Defense
v • d • e
Cabinet of President Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969)
Vice President
None (1963-1965) • Hubert Humphrey (1965-1969)
Lyndon Baines Johnson, thirty-sixth President of the United States
Secretary of State
Dean Rusk (1963-1969)
Secretary of the Treasury
C. Douglas Dillon (1963-1965) • Henry H. Fowler (1965-1968) • Joseph W. Barr (1968-1969)
Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara (1963-1968) • Clark Clifford (1968-1969)
Attorney General
Robert F. Kennedy (1963-1964) • Nicholas Katzenbach (1965-1966) • Ramsey Clark (1967-1969)
Postmaster General
John A. Gronouski (1963-1965) • Lawrence O’Brien (1965-1968) • W. Marvin Watson (1968-1969)
Secretary of the Interior
Stewart Udall (1963-1969)
Secretary of the Agriculture
Orville Freeman (1963-1969)
Secretary of Commerce
Luther H. Hodges (1963-1965) • John Thomas Connor (1965-1967) • Alexander Buel Trowbridge (1967-1968) • C. R. Smith (1968-1969)
Secretary of Labor
W. Willard Wirtz (1963-1969)
Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare
Anthony J. Celebrezze (1962-1965) • John William Gardner (1965-1968) • Wilbur Joseph Cohen (1968-1969)
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Robert Clifton Weaver (1963-1968) • Robert Coldwell Wood (1969)
Secretary of Transportation
Alan Stephenson Boyd (1967-1969)
v • d • e
White House Counsels
Rosenman • Clifford • Murphy • Stephens • Shanley • Morgan • Kendall • Sorensen • Feldman • Serner • Temple • Colson • Dean • Garment • Casselman • Buchen • Lipshutz • Cutler • Fielding • Wallison • Culvahouse • Gray • Nussbaum • Cutler • Mikva • Quinn • Davis • Ruff • Nolan • Gonzales • Miers • Fielding • Craig
US-WhiteHouse-Logo.svg
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_Clifford
Categories: United States Secretaries of Defense | White House Counsels | American people of the Vietnam War | United States Navy officers | People from Bourbon County, Kansas | Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients | Burials at Arlington National Cemetery | Washington University in St. Louis alumni | 1906 births | 1998 deaths
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_Clifford
***
********
Pakistan’s foreign office spokesman had confirmed that there was a heavy influx of foreigners aiding the Taliban and that weapons were coming from the adjacent country of Afghanistan. Many Pakistani defence analysts and experts had publicly accused India, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, of aiding the Taliban to destablize Pakistan. On May 19, 2009, the Pakistan Army captured three foreign fighters from Mingora District. According to the Pakistani Army, all these foreign fighters were Libyan nationals. The Pakistani Army also captured five Saudi nationals during the search operation.
**
Operation Black Thunderstorm
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Operation Black Thunderstorm
Part of the War in North-West Pakistan
Date April 26, 2009–June 14, 2009 [1]
Location Swat,Buner,Lower Dir,Shangla, Pakistan
Result Minor Decisive Pakistan Army Victory; Ongoing Operation.
Belligerents
Flag of Pakistan Pakistan Army Infantry SSG Commandos
Flag of Pakistan Pro-government tribes[2]
Flag of Afghanistan TTP
Flag of Jihad.svg TNSM
Commanders
Flag of Pakistan Lt Gen Masood Aslam
Flag of Pakistan Maj Gen Ijaz Awan
Flag of Jihad.svg Maulana Fazlullah
Flag of Jihad.svg Sufi Muhammad #
Maulana Ameer Izzat # ?[3]
Syed Wahab #[4]
Maulana Muhammad Alam # ?[3]
Strength
15,000 Regular
300+ SSG commando 5,000
Casualties and losses
128 killed,
95 captured (18 rescued),
317 wounded
(Military claim),
~15 SSG wounded,
~5 SSG KIA 1,475 killed (23 foreign militants), 114 captured
(Military claim)
Unknown number of civilians killed
3.4 million displaced
[hide]
v • d • e
War in North-West Pakistan
Wana – Lal Masjid – Mir Ali – 1st Swat – Sararogha Fort – Bajaur – Angoor Ada – Black Thunderstorm (2nd Swat) – Rah-e-Nijat – Khyber Pass
American airstrikes
Damadola – Chenagai – Daande Darpkhel – Miranshah – Baghar Cheena – Laghman – Shrawangai Nazarkhel
2009 refugee crisis in Pakistan
Operation Black Thunderstorm[5] was an operation that commenced on April 26, 2009 conducted by the Pakistani Army, with the aim of retaking Buner, Lower Dir, Swat and Shangla districts from the Taliban after the militants took control of them since the start of the year.[6]
Contents
* 1 Background
* 2 Operation
o 2.1 Attack on Lower Dir
o 2.2 Attack on Buner
o 2.3 Operation Rahe Rast
o 2.4 Battle for Mingora
o 2.5 Alleged capture of Sufi Muhammad and other leaders
o 2.6 Sporadic fighting
* 3 Casualties
* 4 Later revelations about the Swat deal
* 5 Foreign Involvement
* 6 References
Background
A temporary ceasefire was called in the Malakand region on February 16, 2009.[7] The provincial government agreed to allow the implementation of Sharia in the region once violence had stopped.[7][8][9] Muhammad traveled to Swat to discuss peace with Fazlullah and his followers,[10] who agreed to observe the ceasefire.[11][9][8] On February 24, 2009 Muslim Khan, spokeperson of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) publicly announced that his group would observe an indefinite ceasefire.[12] The ANP sent the bill to President Asif Ali Zardari, who delayed signing it into law until the the writ of the government [had] been established. [13] Soon after that the militants expanded their territory into other districts and by mid-April they took Buner, Lower Dir and Shangla. With the Taliban takeover the militants came within 60 miles (100 kilometers) of the capital of Pakistan, Islamabad.[14] This raised the alarm among western countries, particularly the United States, that a collapse of the country and a Taliban takeover was playing out. And the government was highly criticized for making peace deals with the militants. Under pressure from Washington, the Pakistani government launched an operation in late April to retake all territory lost in the previous months.
Operation
Attack on Lower Dir
Operation Toar Tander-I (Black Thunderstorm-I) began in Lower Dir as the Frontier Corps (FC) killed 26 Taliban, including key commanders Maulana Shahid and Qari Quraish.
The operation was launched on April 26, after the Taliban, in violation of the peace agreement, attacked security forces and government officials and closed roads for the movement of government and FC convoys. In some villages, the Taliban had looted shops and tortured villagers to gain their support, adding that a jirga had also been forced to back them.
Officials said the forces were gaining ground against the Taliban and their hideouts in Kalkot, Islam Dara and Hoshyari Dara were targeted. Paramilitary troops and helicopter gunships bombed suspected Taliban bases during the operation. Eight soldiers and around 50 militants were killed in two days of fighting. The operation mostly cleared the Lower Dir district of Taliban forces by April 28. However, the military was still fighting with pockets of militant resistance in the coming weeks.[15][15]
Attack on Buner
The second phase of the operation started the same day as fighting in Lower Dir was dying down. The Pakistan Army’s push to retake control of Buner, which was only 100 km away from the capital city Islamabad, started. Pakistani SSG commandos swarmed down ropes from helicopters to enter the town of Daggar, which lies in the strategically important Buna valley to the northwest of Islamabad, killing nearly 50 militants [16]. Pakistan Army leaders hoped to trap about 500 militants in between the airdropped troops and a second force that is advancing on the ground towards Taliban positions at the valley’s entrance. The fate of 75 police officers taken hostage by the Taliban in Buner the previous night remained unclear. 18 were rescued the next day but the others were still prisoners. The operation in Daggar came on the third day of the Army’s offensive to roll back the Taliban advance that had caused concern not just in Islamabad – which is just 65 miles away – but also in Washington. Major General Athar Abbas, a military spokesman, told reporters in Rawalpindi that the Army and Frontier Corps paramilitary units launched the operation in Buner district, building on a several-day offensive in the region. Abbas said an estimated 450 to 500 Taliban are believed active in Buner, many believed to be engaged in criminal activities.
The US had been repeatedly pressing the Pakistan government to take action, fearful that the militants were gaining too much ground and might even use Buner as a bridgehead for an attack on the capital city.[17][18]
On May 2, another 10 soldiers were captured in Buner. The military confirmed that some 87 militants and four soldiers had been killed in fighting in the district between April 28 and May 4. The military also stated that its troops were confronted during the fighting with wave attacks of suicide car-bombers. At least 27 suicide bombers were killed in the fighting. By May 5, troops started to push back the Taliban militants in Buner.[19][20]
Operation Rahe Rast
Main article: Second Battle of Swat
On May 5, the third phase of the operation started as troops stormed the militant-held valley of Swat. The name of this sub-operation of Black Thunderstorm has been referred to as Operation Rah e Raast in Urdu[citation needed] (the name of the whole operation is Rahe Rast never was Thunderstorm ). In more than a month of fighting, by June 15, 106 soldiers and 1,040 militants were killed. Militant fighters were holed up in the emerald mines and in the main town of Swat district, Mingora. The mines were secured by the Army by May 7, but the militants were still holding their positions in Mingora and on a strategic hilltop overlooking the town. Meanwhile, on May 7, in Lower Dir, which was previously declared clear of the Taliban by the military, militants overran a paramilitary fort killing three paramilitary soldiers and capturing 10 policemen. On May 10, troops attacked a Taliban training camp at Banai Baba in Shangla district, which is just east from Swat. In the fighting at Banai Baba the military reported killing 150 militants for the loss of two soldiers. At the same time as the fighting in Shangla, some sporadic fighting was still continuing in Lower Dir where, over four days, 109 more militants were killed. Also, further west, in the Mohmand agency, a group of 300 militants attacked a military outpost, in the fighting that ensued 26 militants were killed and 14 soldiers were wounded. On May 12, Pakistani commandos were inserted by helicopters into the Piochar area, a rear-support base for the militants, in the northern part of the Swat valley to conduct search-and-destroy operations.[21][22][23][24][25][26][27]
By May 15, the Army claimed that Buner was finally completely cleared of Taliban forces, however artillery bombardment of Taliban positions in the hills was still ongoing. And it was reported that the Taliban were more dug in and in larger numbers in Buner than the military previously assumed. Meanwhile, the Pakistani military continued with their push up the Swat valley. As the military approached Mingora, the Taliban were digging in for a bloody urban battle against the Pakistani army in a hotly disputed city in the north-western part of the country. The Taliban began concentrating forces in Mingora – digging trenches, laying mines and taking positions on rooftops.
Stratfor, a private firm that describes itself as a global intelligence company, mentioned that it is not clear if the Pakistani military is trained and even equipped to go into a situation like that, adding that even the United States military would have to think twice about such an offensive. Pakistani military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas, who is the spokesman for Pakistan’s army said the military intends to drive the Taliban out of the contested area, even if the kind of fighting resembles that of the Battle of Stalingrad. He said that the whole resolve of the government and the military is to once and for all finish the Taliban from the Swat valley. The army has about 15,000 troops on the ground and is estimated that there are still over 5,000 Taliban fighters in the area.[28]
On May 17, heavy street fighting started in the towns of Kanju and Matta and the Army was slowly advancing towards Mingora. Also, a few days later fighting started in the area of the Takhtaband bridge for control of this crossing point.[29] On May 20, a key town in Buner was captured by the Army. The Army captured Sultanwas in fighting which, according to the military, killed one soldier and 80 militants, another nine soldiers were wounded.[30] By May 23, Kanju, Matta and the Takhtaband bridge had been secured by the military, but fighting was still going on in Takhtaband itself and the Buner and Dir districts, where nine more militants were killed. Meanwhile, the military was surrounding the main militant base in the Peochar Valley.[31]
Battle for Mingora
On May 23, the battle for the capital of Swat, Mingora, started. The street fighting was heavy and it was street-to-street and hand-to-hand. Fighters had dug themselves into bunkers built into hotels and government buildings. On the first day of the battle, fighting was mainly in the center of the city, at the central bus terminal and along the main road near the city’s primary gateway.[32] By the next day, the military captured several intersections and three squares, including Green Square, which had been known as Bloody Intersection , because the Taliban were dumping bodies of people who they executed at that location. Intense fighting was going on in the Nawa Kilay neighbourhood and the western suburb of Qambar.[33]
By May 27, the military took control of 70 percent of the city, including the city’s airport, and Taliban forces across Swat were in retreat, but fighting was still continuing. At the same time, in continuing battles in Lower Dir and Shangla, three more soldiers and eight militants were killed.[34]
On May 29, the Army cleared Aman Kot and the Technical Institute College on the Mingora-Kokarai road in Mingora. On the same day, the village of Peochar in the Peochar Valley, as well as the town of Bahrain in the north of Swat, had been taken by the military.[35]
On May 30, the Pakistani military had taken back the city of Mingora from the Taliban, calling it a significant victory in its offensive against the Taliban. However, some sporadic fighting was still continuing on the city’s outskirts. Also, sporadic fighting was continuing in the rest of Swat and in the Shangla district where on June 2, two soldiers and five militants were killed.[36][37][38]
In the battle for Mingora 286 militants were killed.[39]
Alleged capture of Sufi Muhammad and other leaders
On June 4, it was reported that Sufi Muhammad, the founder of Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi or TNSM, was arrested in Amandarra along with other militant leaders.[40] In the coming days there was confusion over this claim since the Taliban themselves said that Muhammad was missing. However, several days later it was confirmed that Muhammad was not captured and was in hiding, while two of his aides were captured by the Army. Those two aides, Muhammad Maulana Alam and Ameer Izzat Khan, were killed when militants attacked the prison transport they were in on June 7. On 26 July 2009, the government confirmed the arrest of Sufi Mohammad for encouraging violence and terrorism.[41][42]
Sporadic fighting
By this point, the Pakistan Military was in control of much of Swat, however sporadic fighting still continued, especially in the Upper Dir District.[43] After a bomb explosion in Hayagai Sharki village’s masjid in Dir, which killed 38 civilians,[43] local tribesmen, between 1,000 and 1,500, formed a Lashkar (citizen’s militia) and retaliated against the Taliban and TNSM by taking up arms and surrounding almost 300 militants.[43] In support of the Lashkars, the Pakistan Military sent its helicopter gunships to the villages of Shatkas and Ghazi Gai where the heaviest fighting was ongoing.[44][45] Paramilitary soldiers also set up mortars on high ground above the villages.[44][46]
On June 12, troops captured the town of Chuprial in Swat in a major battle that left 39 militants and 10 soldiers dead. This was the last major battle, and one of the most bloody, of the operation.[47]
On June 14, the operation ended with Pakistani troops consolidating their positions in the four districts and going after the remaining pockets of resistance, primarily in the Swat valley.[1]
Casualties
Main article: 2009 refugee crisis in Pakistan
In all, according to the military, 128 soldiers and at least 1,475 militants were killed and 317 soldiers were wounded during operation Black Thunderstorm. 95 soldiers and policemen were captured by the militants, 18 of them were rescued while the fate of the others remained undetermined. 114 militants were captured, including some local commanders. Furthermore, a team of Special Services Group commandos was engaged to complete this deadly operation. [47][48][49][50][51][52] At least 23 of the militants killed were foreigners.[53]
Later revelations about the Swat deal
On May 13, 2009, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani revealed on The Daily Show to Jon Stewart that Pakistan’s decision to strike a peace deal with Taliban militants earlier, which effectively ceded control of large swathes of the country’s northwest, was all part of a cunning plan to fool the Taliban, which is now coming to fruition with the commencement of Operation Black Thunderstorm. The ambassador mentioned to Jon Stewart that President Asif Ali Zardari’s signing of the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation, which was the Swat peace deal, was nothing more than a trick to lure the Taliban from the mountains and countryside to the main towns where it would be much easier for the Pakistani military to kill or capture them.
[President Zardari] did something very smart. When he was with President Obama recently, he explained it. He actually told the American government that I’m going to do this deal to try and prove to those within Pakistan, and in Pakistan’s state apparatus, who think that these guys can be negotiated with — I will negotiate with them only to prove that you can’t negotiate with them, because they will break the deal. And as soon as they broke the deal, the army is back in, the fighting is going on, and you can see the results. [54]
The Swat peace-deal was heavily criticised by Hillary Clinton when she accused Pakistan’s government of abdicating to the Taliban in agreeing to impose Islamic law in the Swat valley.[55] However, Clinton was unaware[original research?] that the Pakistani Government was simply using reverse psychology, as Jon Stewart phrased it, on the Taliban.[54][56][57]
Foreign Involvement
Pakistan’s foreign office spokesman had confirmed that there was a heavy influx of foreigners aiding the Taliban and that weapons were coming from the adjacent country of Afghanistan. Many Pakistani defence analysts and experts had publicly accused India, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, of aiding the Taliban to destablize Pakistan. On May 19, 2009, the Pakistan Army captured three foreign fighters from Mingora District. According to the Pakistani Army, all these foreign fighters were Libyan nationals. The Pakistani Army also captured five Saudi nationals during the search operation.
In Khybar Pass, a police raid on a local house resulted in the arrest of 20 Tajik nationals. In heavy fighting in Malakand Division, Pakistani commandos killed five Uzbek fighters. Many Pakistani political parties, such as PML-N, accused India, of providing economic and financial support to the Taliban. According to a White house press release, the United States and NATO were working with Pakistan to find out who’s providing the financial support and what routes were they using to smuggle the weapons. According to the Daily Jang’s investigative report, a large amount of Afghan National Army’s weapons was stolen by the Taliban, and also the report claimed that there is no formal security for their weapons depos. Daily Jang also cited that a large number of Uzbeks and Tajiks were freely crossing Afghanistan’s border into Pakistan to fight against Pakistan.
Parliamentarian Khawaja Muhammad Asif of PML-N held a press conference in the Parliament media lounge, where he warned Afghan President Hamid Karzai. He said that Karzai became President with the support of Pakistan . He also warned him that Afghanistan should not play with Pakistan’s security. After the convincing evidence, Pakistan, along with United States and NATO, found out the significant routes that were using to supply heavy weaponry to Talibans. Pakistan blocked the routes successfully. On May 20, in Khyber Pass, Pakistani SSG Commandos confronted a large numbers of foreign fighters and Taliban. After a heavy fighting, Pakistani Commandos killed a number of Taliban and foreign fighters, various reports stated that foreign fighters were Uzbek and Tajik nationals. Pakistani Commandos also recovered a large amount of weaponry in a truck. Pakistani commandos were also able to secure NATO’s supply trucks that were targeted by the Taliban.
Aftermath The Taliban suffered many losses and lost key territories in Swat, and such. They also were forced to leave Pakistan, and probably move to Afghanistan. Pakistan greatly benefited, as bombings were decreased almost none, and Pakistan is now focusing on rebuilding its economy, which has been going smoothly.
References
1. ^ a b http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=20096\15\story_15-6-2009_pg7_13
2. ^ http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090608/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan
3. ^ a b http://pakobserver.net/200906/12/Articles01.asp
4. ^ http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=91512
5. ^ 26 killed as troops hit Taliban hideouts in Dir Daily Times
6. ^ http://www.cosmopolis.ch/english/politics/107/obama_foreign_policy_e0107.htm
7. ^ a b Jan, Delawar (2009-02-17). Nizam-e-Adl Regulation for Malakand, Kohistan announced (in English). The News International. http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=20372. Retrieved 2009-04-30.
8. ^ a b Pakistan agrees Sharia law deal . BBC News. 2009-02-16. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7891955.stm. Retrieved 2009-04-27.
9. ^ a b Ali, Zulfiqar; Laura King (2009-02-17). Pakistan officials allow Sharia in volatile region (in English). Los Angeles Times. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan-pact17-2009feb17,0,6631935.story. Retrieved 2009-04-22.
10. ^ Pakistan Blasted for Creating Taliban Safe Haven With Islamic Law Deal (in English). Fox News. 2009-02-17. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,494446,00.html. Retrieved 2009-04-22.
11. ^ Top Pakistani militant released . BBC News. 2008-04-21. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7359523.stm. Retrieved 2009-04-22.
12. ^ Perlez, Jane (2009-02-24). Taliban Accepts Pakistan Cease-Fire . New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/world/asia/25pstan.html. Retrieved 2009-04-22.
13. ^ Khan, M Ilyas (2009-04-15). Doubts remain as Sharia bill signed . Islamabad: BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7998390.stm. Retrieved 2009-04-27.
14. ^ Defiant Taliban Forces Advance To Within 60 Miles of Islamabad
15. ^ a b http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0428/p99s01-duts.html
16. ^ http://www.thecitizen.co.za/index/article.aspx?pDesc=1,1,22&type=top&File=newsmlmmd.b74b163deb04cf0580d3b37b6aaabe38.a1.xml
17. ^ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6190513.ece
18. ^ http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-tc-nw-pakistan-attack-0429apr29,0,1708792.story
19. ^ http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90851/6650759.html
20. ^ http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90851/6649943.html
21. ^ http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/07/2563218.htm?section=justin
22. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8037281.stm
23. ^ http://www.kwqc.com/Global/story.asp?S=10327270
24. ^ http://www.seattlepi.com/national/1104ap_as_pakistan.html
25. ^ http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/05/10/pakistan.swat.taliban.fighting/index.html?eref=ib_topstories
26. ^ http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Pakistan/Fighting-flares-in-northwest-Pakistan-230-Taliban-killed/articleshow/4506410.cms
27. ^ http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-05-11-pakistan_N.htm
28. ^ http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/05/14/pakistan.refugees.aid/index.html
29. ^ http://bigpondnews.com/articles/World/2009/05/19/Pakistan_troops_in_Taliban_urban_warfar_333492.html
30. ^ http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-05-20-pakistan-taliban-battle_N.htm?csp=34
31. ^ http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/05/23/pakistan.fighting/index.html?eref=ib_topstories
32. ^ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/23/AR2009052301775.html?wprss=rss_world
33. ^ http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/5591994
34. ^ http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/270435,six-troops-29-taliban-killed-in-pakistans-swat-valley–summary.html
35. ^ http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/04-army-clears-militant-stronghold-of-peochar-qs-06
36. ^ http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/05/30/pakistan.mingora/index.html
37. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8075136.stm
38. ^ http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/271389,pakistan-army-rescues-scores-of-cadets-others-missing–summary.html
39. ^ http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/ASAZ-7SGGZA?OpenDocument
40. ^ http://www.geo.tv/6-4-2009/43492.htm Banned NSM confirms Maulana Sufi’s arrest
41. ^ Pakistan holds pro-Taliban cleric . BBC News. 2009-07-26. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8169385.stm. Retrieved 2009-09-19.
42. ^ Sufi Mohammad arrested: NWFP Information Minister . Dawn Media Group. 2009-07-26. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/04-outlawed-tnsm-chief-sufi-mohammad-arrested-qs-17. Retrieved 2009-09-19.
43. ^ a b c http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8088621.stm
44. ^ a b http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8091945.stm
45. ^ http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/provinces/04-military-sends-gunships-support-anti-taliban-militia-qs-09 Military sends gunships to support Upper Dir tribesmen
46. ^ http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/provinces/04-military-sends-gunships-support-anti-taliban-militia-qs-09 Military sends gunships to support Upper Dir tribesmen
47. ^ a b http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/latest_news.php?nid=17457
48. ^ http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/5660449/tribesmen-kill-28-taliban-militants-in-nw-pakistan/
49. ^ http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/273047,pakistan-pounds-militants-after-moderate-clerics-murder–summary.html
50. ^ http://www.ispr.gov.pk/front/main.asp?o=t-press_release&id=707
51. ^ http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90851/6670186.html
52. ^ http://news.webindia123.com/news/Articles/Asia/20090609/1271347.html
53. ^ http://www.presstv.ir/classic/detail.aspx?id=95000§ionid=351020401
54. ^ a b http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/pakistans-daily-show-diplomacy/?hp
55. ^ http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE53L69J20090422?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews
56. ^ http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=22143
57. ^ http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/05/pakistans_peace_accords_embrac.asp
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Black_Thunderstorm
Categories: Conflicts in 2009 | Operations involving Pakistani special forces | 2009 in Pakistan | Al-Qaeda activities | Military history of Pakistan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Black_Thunderstorm
***
http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/profiles/mujahideen_shura_council.htm
Mujahideen Shura Council
Details
Center of Gravity Iraq
[Yellow Bullet] Scope National
Leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri
[Green Bullet] Status Active
[Green Bullet] Status Supported by al-Qaeda
Possibly the same as Al-Qaeda in Iraq
Former leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
Key members Abdullah bin Rashid
Formed 2005
Narrative and Notes
[Green Bullet] Reliable Unclear if AKA for Al-Qaeda in Iraq or some kind of umbrella organization comprising al-Qaeda and other Sunni insurgent groups.
Key to bullets
[Green Bullet] High confidence
[Yellow Bullet] Some confidence
[Red Bullet] Low confidence
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Click here for a disclaimer and detailed explanation of the confidence ratings.
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Pakistan Nuclear Weapons
A Brief History of Pakistan’s Nuclear Program
Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program was established in 1972 by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who founded the program while he was Minister for Fuel, Power and Natural Resources, and later became President and Prime Minister. Shortly after the loss of East Pakistan in the 1971 war with India, Bhutto initiated the program with a meeting of physicists and engineers at Multan in January 1972.
India’s 1974 testing of a nuclear device gave Pakistan’s nuclear program new momentum. Through the late 1970s, Pakistan’s program acquired sensitive uranium enrichment technology and expertise. The 1975 arrival of Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan considerably advanced these efforts. Dr. Khan is a German-trained metallurgist who brought with him knowledge of gas centrifuge technologies that he had acquired through his position at the classified URENCO uranium enrichment plant in the Netherlands. Dr. Khan also reportedly brought with him stolen uranium enrichment technologies from Europe. He was put in charge of building, equipping and operating Pakistan’s Kahuta facility, which was established in 1976. Under Khan’s direction, Pakistan employed an extensive clandestine network in order to obtain the necessary materials and technology for its developing uranium enrichment capabilities.
In 1985, Pakistan crossed the threshold of weapons-grade uranium production, and by 1986 it is thought to have produced enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon. Pakistan continued advancing its uranium enrichment program, and according to Pakistani sources, the nation acquired the ability to carry out a nuclear explosion in 1987.
# Pakistan Nuclear Weapons – A Chronology
Nuclear Tests
On May 28, 1998 Pakistan announced that it had successfully conducted five nuclear tests. The Pakistani Atomic Energy Commission reported that the five nuclear tests conducted on May 28 generated a seismic signal of 5.0 on the Richter scale, with a total yield of up to 40 KT (equivalent TNT). Dr. A.Q. Khan claimed that one device was a boosted fission device and that the other four were sub-kiloton nuclear devices.
On May 30, 1998 Pakistan tested one more nuclear warhead with a reported yield of 12 kilotons. The tests were conducted at Balochistan, bringing the total number of claimed tests to six. It has also been claimed by Pakistani sources that at least one additional device, initially planned for detonation on 30 May 1998, remained emplaced underground ready for detonation.
Pakistani claims concerning the number and yields of their underground tests cannot be independently confirmed by seismic means, and several sources, such as the Southern Arizona Seismic Observatory have reported lower yields than those claimed by Pakistan. Indian sources have also suggested that as few as two weapons were actually detonated, each with yields considerably lower than claimed by Pakistan. However, seismic data showed at least two and possibly a third, much smaller, test in the initial round of tests at the Ras Koh range. The single test on 30 May provided a clear seismic signal.
DEVICE DATE YIELD
[announced] YIELD
[estimated]
[boosted device?] 28 May 1998 25-36 kiloton total 9-12 kiloton
Fission device 28 May 1998 12 kiloton
Low-yield device 28 May 1998 sub-kiloton —
Low-yield device 28 May 1998 sub-kiloton —
Low-yield device 28 May 1998 sub-kiloton —
Fission device 30 May 1998 12 kiloton 4-6 kiloton
Fission device not detonated 12 kiloton —
This table lists the nuclear tests that Pakistan claims to have carried out in May 1998 as well as the announced yields. Other sources have reported lower yields than those claimed by Pakistan. The Southern Arizona Seismic Observatory reports that the total seismic yield for the May 28th tests was 9-12 kilotons and that the yield for the May 30th tests was 4-6 kilotons.
According to a preliminary analysis conducted at Los Alamos National Laboratory, material released into the atmosphere during an underground nuclear test by Pakistan in May 1998 contained low levels of weapons-grade plutonium. The significance of the Los Alamos finding was that Pakistan had either imported or produced plutonium undetected by the US intelligence community. But Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and other agencies later contested the accuracy of this finding.
These tests came slightly more than two weeks after India carried out five nuclear tests of its own on May 11 and 13 and after many warnings by Pakistani officials that they would respond to India.
Pakistan’s nuclear tests were followed by the February 1999 Lahore Agreements between Prime Ministers Vajpayee and Sharif. The agreements included confidence building measures such as advance notice of ballistic missile testing and a continuation of their unilateral moratoria on nuclear testing. But diplomatic advances made that year were undermined by Pakistan’s incursion into Kargil. Under US diplomatic pressure, Prime Minister Sharif withdrew his troops, but lost power in October 1999 due to a military coup in which Gen. Pervez Musharraf took over.
#
Satellite Imagery of Pakistan’s May 28 and May 30 nuclear testing sites
Nuclear Infrastructure
Pakistan’s nuclear program is based primarily on highly enriched uranium (HEU), which is produced at the A. Q. Khan research laboratory at Kahuta, a gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facility. The Kahuta facility has been in operation since the early 1980s. By the early 1990s, Kahuta had an estimated 3,000 centrifuges in operation, and Pakistan continued its pursuit of expanded uranium enrichment capabilities.
In the 1990s Pakistan began to pursue plutonium production capabilities. With Chinese assistance, Pakistan built the 40 MWt (megawatt thermal) Khusab research reactor at Joharabad, and in April 1998, Pakistan announced that the reactor was operational. According to public statements made by US officials, this unsafeguarded heavy water reactor generates an estimated 8-10 kilotons of weapons grade plutonium per year, which is enough for one to two nuclear weapons. The reactor could also produce tritium if it were loaded with lithium-6. According to J. Cirincione of Carnegie, Khusab’s plutonium production capacity could allow Pakistan to develop lighter nuclear warheads that would be easier to deliver with a ballistic missile.
Plutonium separation reportedly takes place at the New Labs reprocessing plant next to Pakistan’s Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (Pinstech) in Rawalpindi and at the larger Chasma nuclear power plant, neither of which are subject to IAEA inspection.
Nuclear Arsenal
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) estimates that Pakistan has built 24-48 HEU-based nuclear warheads, and Carnegie reports that they have produced 585-800 kg of HEU, enough for 30-55 weapons. Pakistan’s nuclear warheads are based on an implosion design that uses a solid core of highly enriched uranium and requires an estimated 15-20 kg of material per warhead. According to Carnegie, Pakistan has also produced a small but unknown quantity of weapons grade plutonium, which is sufficient for an estimated 3-5 nuclear weapons.
Pakistani authorities claim that their nuclear weapons are not assembled. They maintain that the fissile cores are stored separately from the non-nuclear explosives packages, and that the warheads are stored separately from the delivery systems. In a 2001 report, the Defense Department contends that Islamabad’s nuclear weapons are probably stored in component form and that Pakistan probably could assemble the weapons fairly quickly. However, no one has been able to ascertain the validity of Pakistan’s assurances about their nuclear weapons security.
Pakistan’s reliance primarily on HEU makes its fissile materials particularly vulnerable to diversion. HEU can be used in a relatively simple gun-barrel-type design, which could be within the means of non-state actors that intend to assemble a crude nuclear weapon.
The terrorist attacks on September 11th raised concerns about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. According to press reports, within two days of the attacks, Pakistan’s military began relocating nuclear weapons components to six new secret locations. Shortly thereafter, Gen. Pervez Musharraf fired his intelligence chief and other officers and detained several suspected retired nuclear weapons scientists, in an attempt to root out extremist elements that posed a potential threat to Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.
Concerns have also been raised about Pakistan as a proliferant of nuclear materials and expertise. In November, 2002, shortly after North Korea admitted to pursuing a nuclear weapons program, the press reported allegations that Pakistan had provided assistance in the development of its uranium enrichment program in exchange for North Korean missile technologies.
Foreign Assistance
In the past, China played a major role in the development of Pakistan’s nuclear infrastructure, especially when increasingly stringent export controls in western countries made it difficult for Pakistan to acquire materials and technology elsewhere. According to a 2001 Department of Defense report, China has supplied Pakistan with nuclear materials and expertise and has provided critical assistance in the construction of Pakistan’s nuclear facilities.
In the 1990s, China designed and supplied the heavy water Khusab reactor, which plays a key role in Pakistan’s production of plutonium. A subsidiary of the China National Nuclear Corporation also contributed to Pakistan’s efforts to expand its uranium enrichment capabilities by providing 5,000 custom made ring magnets, which are a key component of the bearings that facilitate the high-speed rotation of centrifuges.
According to Anthony Cordesman of CSIS, China is also reported to have provided Pakistan with the design of one of its warheads, which is relatively sophisticated in design and lighter than U.S. and Soviet designed first generation warheads.
China also provided technical and material support in the completion of the Chasma nuclear power reactor and plutonium reprocessing facility, which was built in the mid 1990s. The project had been initiated as a cooperative program with France, but Pakistan’s failure to sign the NPT and unwillingness to accept IAEA safeguards on its entire nuclear program caused France to terminate assistance.
According to the Defense Department report cited above, Pakistan has also acquired nuclear related and dual-use and equipment and materials from the Former Soviet Union and Western Europe.
Intermittent US Sanctions
On several occasions, under the authority of amendments to the Foreign Assistance Act, the U.S. has imposed sanctions on Pakistan, cutting off economic and military aid as a result of its pursuit of nuclear weapons. However, the U.S. suspended sanctions each time developments in Afghanistan made Pakistan a strategically important frontline state, such as the 1981 Soviet occupation and in the war on terrorism.
Pakistan’s Nuclear Doctrine
Several sources, such as Jane’s Intelligence Review and Defense Department reports maintain that Pakistan’s motive for pursuing a nuclear weapons program is to counter the threat posed by its principal rival, India, which has superior conventional forces and nuclear weapons.
Pakistan has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). According to the Defense Department report cited above, Pakistan remains steadfast in its refusal to sign the NPT, stating that it would do so only after India joined the Treaty. Consequently, not all of Pakistan’s nuclear facilities are under IAEA safeguards. Pakistani officials have stated that signature of the CTBT is in Pakistan’s best interest, but that Pakistan will do so only after developing a domestic consensus on the issue, and have disavowed any connection with India’s decision.
Pakistan does not abide by a no-first-use doctrine, as evidenced by President Pervez Musharraf’s statements in May, 2002. Musharraf said that Pakistan did not want a conflict with India but that if it came to war between the nuclear-armed rivals, he would respond with full might. These statements were interpreted to mean that if pressed by an overwhelming conventional attack from India, which has superior conventional forces, Pakistan might use its nuclear weapons.
Sources and Resources
* UN Nuclear Chief Warns of Global Black Market Mohammed ElBaradei commenting on questions raised by the Khan confession, February 6, 2004.
* Abdul Qadeer Khan Apologizes for Transferring Nuclear Secrets Abroad, broadcast on Pakistani television, February 4, 2004.
* Documents Indicate A.Q. Khan Offered Nuclear Weapon Designs to Iraq in 1990: Did He Approach Other Countries? By David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, February 4, 2004
*
Deadly Arsenals, chapter on Paksitan – by Joseph Cirincione, John B.Wolfsthal and Miriam Rajkumar (Carnegie, June 2002). The chapter discusses Pakistan’s WMD, missile and aircraft capabilities. It also presents the strategic context of the nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan and the history of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, touching on foreign assistance from China and on-and-off US economic assistance.
*
Proliferation: Threat and Response, Jan. 2001 – A Defense Department report on the status of nuclear proliferation in South Asia. It includes a brief historical background on the conflict between India and Pakistan as well as an assessment of their nuclear capabilities, chem/bio programs, ballistic missile programs and other means of delivery.
*
ENHANCING NUCLEAR SECURITY IN THE COUNTER-TERRORISM STRUGGLE: India and Pakistan as a New Region for Cooperation – by Rose Gottemoeller, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, August 2002. This working paper explores possible cooperative programs that could enhance the security of Pakistan and India’s nuclear arsenals, in order to prevent the diversion of dangerous materials into the hands of terrorists or rogue state leaders.
*
Pakistan’s Nuclear Forces, 2001 from NRDC Nuclear Notebook, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Jan/Feb 2002. A Two-page update on the state of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. It makes rough estimates of the number of nuclear weapons and the amount of fissile material in Pakistan’s possession and touches on fissile material production capabilities. Also included is a brief discussion of delivery mechanisms such as aircraft and missiles.
*
Monterey Institute Resource Page on India and Pakistan – last updated July 7, 2000. This page has many useful links to relevant maps, news articles and analytical pieces on India and Pakistan’s nuclear programs.
*
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace – Pakistan resources
*
Pakistan Nuclear Weapons – A Chronology – a timeline of the Pakistan’s Nuclear Development program since 1965.
*
The Threat of Pakistani Nuclear Weapons – a CSIS report by Anthony H. Cordesman (Last updated Nov. 2001). – This report tells the history of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program and discusses China role in its development. It also lists recent US intelligence reports on Pakistan’s activities.
*
From Testing to Deploying Nuclear Forces: The Hard Choices Facing India and Pakistan – Gregory S. Jones. (Rand, 2000). This issue paper describes the requirements for a nuclear deterrent force in general terms, discusses how the Indian-Pakistani nuclear relationship is affected by China, and then considers the specific decisions that still must be made in India and Pakistan.
*
Pakistan Nuclear Update, 2001 – Wisconsin Project. This three-page document provides a brief summary of Pakistan’s main nuclear sites and an update on developments in Pakistan’s nuclear program.
*
Securing Pakistan’s Nuclear Arsenal: Principles for Assistance – by David Albright, Kevin O’Neill and Corey Hinderstein, Oct. 4, 2001. An ISIS issue brief on the potential threats to the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.
*
The May 1998 India and Pakistan Nuclear Tests – by Terry C. Wallace, Southern Arizona Seismic Observatory (SASO), 1998. This technical paper provides a seismic analysis of India and Pakistan’s 1998 nuclear tests. It concludes that Pakistan’s May 28 tests had a seismic yield of 9-12 kt, and the May 30 test had a yield of 4-6 kt. An updated web page on this report can be found here
*
Satellite Imagery of Pakistan’s May 28 and May 30 nuclear testing sites, hosted on the Center for Monitoring Research Commercial Satellite Imagery Page
*
Pakistan’s Nuclear Dilemma – September 23 2001, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Transcripts from a Carnegie panel on developments in Pakistan in the aftermath of the Septempber 11th attacks. The panel included three speakers — Shirin Tahir-Kheli, George Perkovich and Rose Gottemoeller– and was moderated by Joseph Cirincione.
*
Chapter on Pakistan, from Tracking Nuclear Proliferation: A Guide in Maps and Charts, 1998 by Rodney W. Jones, Mark G. McDonough, with Toby F. Dalton and Gregory D. Koblentz (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment, July 1998). This chapter documents the history of Pakistan’s nuclear program and tracks the development of its nuclear infrastructure. It also covers in detail the sanctions the US imposed on Pakistan in light of these developments, as well Pakistan’s missile program.
*
U.S. Appears to be Losing Track of Pakistan’s Nuclear Program and U.S. Now Believes Pakistan to use Khushab Plutonium in Bomb Program By Mark Hibbs July, 1998. Two brief articles written in the aftermath of Paksistan’s 1998 nuclear tests — they discuss Pakistan’s weapons grade uranium and plutonium production capacities and the implications for its nuclear arsenal.
*
U.S. Labs at Odds on Whether Pakistani Blast Used Plutonium, by Dana Priest Washington Post Sunday, January 17, 1999; Page A02. This article discusses the controversy over the preliminary analysis carried out by Los Alamos National Laboratory, which found that plutonium traces had been released into the atomosphere during Pakistan’s May 30th underground nuclear test. Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Labs contested the accuracy of this finding and alleged that Los Alamos had contaminated and then lost the air sample. At the time, Los Alamos’ findings were highly controversial because they implied that Pakistan had obtained plutonium either though imports or indigenous production, and there was uncertainty about Pakistan’s plutonium production capabilities. It is now public knowledge that Pakistan can produce and isolate plutonium at its Khusbab reactor and at the New Labs and Chasma separation facilities.
*
NUCLEARISATION OF SOUTH ASIA AND ITS REGIONAL AND GLOBAL IMPLICATIONS Munir Ahmed Khan REGIONAL STUDIES Autumn 1998
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Pakistan and weapons of mass destruction
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pakistan
Location of Pakistan
Nuclear program start date 1 January 1972
First nuclear weapon test 28 May 1998
Last nuclear test 30 May 1998
Largest yield test 25-36 kT (PAEC claim) [1]
Total tests 6 detonations
Peak stockpile 70-90 warheads
(2009 estimate) [2][3]
Current stockpile 70-90 warheads
(2009 estimate) [2][3]
Maximum missile range 2,500 km (Shaheen-II) [4]
NPT signatory No
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United States A Russia A United Kingdom A France A China A India A Pakistan
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Israel A North Korea A South Africa (fmr.)
Pakistan began focusing on nuclear development in January 1972 under the leadership of Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. This program, known as Project-706, would reach fruition under President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. Pakistan’s nuclear weapons development program was in response to neighboring India’s development of nuclear weapons. Bhutto called a meeting of senior scientists and engineers on 20 January 1972, in Multan. It was here that Bhutto rallied Pakistan’s scientists to build the atomic bomb for national survival. At the Multan meeting, Bhutto also appointed Pakistani nuclear scientist, Munir Ahmad Khan (a U.S. trained scientist), as chairman of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), who till then had been working as Director of Nuclear Power and Reactor Division at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in Vienna, Austria. This marked the beginning of Pakistan’s pursuit of nuclear capability. Following India’s surprise nuclear test, codenamed Smiling Buddha in 1974, the first confirmed nuclear test by a nation outside the permanent five members of the United Nations Security Council, the goal to develop nuclear weapons received considerable impetus.[citation needed]
Consequently, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, a metallurgical engineer, working at the Dutch research firm URENCO, also joined Pakistan’s nuclear weapons-grade Uranium enrichment program. The uranium enrichment program had been launched in 1974 by PAEC chairman Munir Ahmad Khan as Project-706. A.Q. Khan joined the project in the spring of 1976 and was made Project-Director in July 1976 after taking over from another nuclear scientist, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood. In 1983, Khan was convicted by a Dutch court in absentia for stealing the blueprints, though the conviction was overturned on a legal technicality.[5]
Through the late 1970s, Pakistan’s program acquired sensitive uranium enrichment technology and expertise. The 1975 arrival of Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan considerably advanced these efforts. Dr. Khan is a German-trained metallurgist who brought with him knowledge of gas centrifuge technologies that he had through his position at the classified URENCO uranium enrichment plant in the Netherlands. He was put in charge of building, equipping and operating Pakistan’s Kahuta facility, which was established in 1976. Under Khan’s direction, Pakistan employed an extensive clandestine network in order to obtain the necessary materials and technology for its developing uranium enrichment capabilities.[3]
On 28 May 1998, a few weeks after India’s second nuclear test (Operation Shakti), Pakistan detonated five nuclear devices in the Chagai Hills in the Chaghai district, Balochistan. This operation was named Chagai-I by Pakistan, the base having been long-constructed by provincial martial law administrator Rahimuddin Khan during the 1980s. Pakistan’s fissile material production takes place at Kahuta and Khushab/Jauharabad, where weapons-grade plutonium is made by the scientists.[6]
Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons Program was established in 1974 when the Directorate of Technical Development (DTD) was set up in PAEC by chairman Munir Ahmad Khan.Munir Ahmad Khan was credited as the one of the pioneers of Pakistan’s atomic bomb by a recent study from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), London’s dossier on Pakistan’s nuclear program. DTD was assigned the task of developing the implosion design, trigger mechanism, physics calculations, high-speed electronics, high-precision chemical and mechanical components, high explosive lenses for Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. The DTD had come up with its first implosion design of a nuclear weapon by 1978 which was then improved and later tested on 11 March 1983 when PAEC carried out Pakistan’s first successful cold test of a nuclear device.
Between 1983 and 1990, PAEC carried out 24 more cold tests of various nuclear weapon designs. DTD had also developed a miniaturized weapon design by 1987 that could be delivered by all Pakistan Air Force fighter aircraft.[7]
Contents
* 1 Nuclear weapons
o 1.1 Origins
o 1.2 Initial refusal to start a nuclear programme
o 1.3 The Civilian Nuclear Programme
o 1.4 Policy
o 1.5 Protection
o 1.6 Modernisation and Expansion
* 2 Infrastructure
o 2.1 Uranium Infrastructure
o 2.2 Plutonium Infrastructure
o 2.3 Arsenal
o 2.4 Second strike capability
o 2.5 Foreign assistance
o 2.6 Doctrine
o 2.7 U.S. aid in guarding the nuclear weapons
o 2.8 National Security Council
* 3 Weapons development agencies
o 3.1 National Engineering & Scientific Commission (NESCOM)
o 3.2 Ministry of Defense Production
o 3.3 Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC)
o 3.4 Space and Upper Atmospheric Research Commission (SUPARCO)
o 3.5 Precision Engineering Complex (PEC)
o 3.6 Ministry of Industries & Production
* 4 Delivery systems
o 4.1 Missiles
o 4.2 Aircraft
* 5 Notes
* 6 See also
* 7 External links
Nuclear weapons
See also: Project-706
Origins
In February 1948, the founder of Pakistan Muhammad Ali Jinnah announced:
“ The weak and the defenseless in this world invite aggression from others. The best way we can serve peace is by removing the temptation from the path of those who think we are weak and, for that reason, they can bully or attack us. That temptation can only be removed if we make ourselves so strong that nobody dare entertain any aggressive designs against us. Pakistan has come to stay and no power on earth can destroy it.[8][9] ”
In 1972, in response to India’s Smiling Buddha nuclear tests, Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto announced:
“ If India builds the bomb, we will eat grass and leaves for a thousand years, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own. The Christians have the bomb, the Jews have the bomb and now the Hindus and the Sikhs have the bomb. Why not the Muslims too have the bomb?[10][11] ”
Initial refusal to start a nuclear programme
Pakistan’s civilian nuclear programme started in 1956 under the Government of Prime Minister of Pakistan, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy. When President Ayub Khan imposed martial law in Pakistan, the Pakistani civilian nuclear programme was frozen until 1972. On December 11 1965, President Ayub Khan had a brief meeting with Pakistani nuclear engineer Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan (late) at the Dorchester Hotel in London. The meeting was arranged by the then foreign minister of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. During the meeting, Munir Ahmad Khan told President Ayub Khan that Pakistan must acquire the necessary facilities that would give the country a nuclear deterrent capability, which were available free of safeguards and at an affordable cost. Munir Ahmad Khan also told President Ayub Khan that there were no restrictions on nuclear technology, that it was freely available, and that India and Israel were moving forward in deploying it.
Munir Ahmad Khan estimated the cost of nuclear technology at that time. Because things were less expensive, the then costs were not more than $150 million. President Ayub Khan listened to him very patiently, but at the end of the meeting, Ayub Khan remained unconvinced. Ayub Khan clearly refused Munir Ahmad Khan’s offer and said that Pakistan was too poor to spend that much money. Moreover, President Ayub Khan mentioned that if Pakistan ever needed the bomb, Pakistan could somehow acquire it off the shelf.[12]
The Civilian Nuclear Programme
Main article: Nuclear power in Pakistan
Pakistan’s civilian nuclear programme started in 1956 when the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) was established, with the initial target of capitalizing on the U.S-Pakistan’s quest for acquiring the sensitive nuclear technology. U.S President Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace Programme , and its first chairman was Dr. Nazir Ahmad[13]. In 1961, PAEC set up a Mineral Centre at Lahore and a similar multidisciplinary Centre was set up in Dhaka, in the then East Pakistan. With these two centers, the basic research work started[13].
The first thing that was to be undertaken was the search for Uranium. This continued for about 3 years from 1960 to 1963. Uranium deposits were discovered in the Dera Ghazi Khan district and the first-ever national award was given to the PAEC. Mining of Uranium began in the same year. Dr. Abdus Salam and Dr. I. H. Usmani also sent a large number of scientists to pursue doctorate degrees in the field of Nuclear Technology and nuclear reactor technology. In December 1965, then-Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto visited Vienna where he met with known Pakistani nuclear engineer, Munir Ahmad Khan. At a Vienna meeting on december, Munir A. Khan informed Bhutto about the statue of Indian nuclear programme[13].
The next landmark under Dr. I. H. Usmani, was the establishment of PINSTECH – Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology, at Nilore near Islamabad. The principal facility there was a 5 MW research reactor, commissioned in 1965 and consisting of the Pakistan Atomic Research Reactor (PARR-1), which was upgraded to 10 MW under Munir Ahmad Khan in 1990. A second Atomic Research Reactor, PARR-2, was a Pool-type, light-water, 27-30 kW, training reactor that went critical in 1989 under Munir Ahmad Khan. Both reactors were provide by the United States[13]. Canada build Pakistan’s first civil-purpose nuclear power plant[13].
The PAEC in 1970 began work on a pilot-scale plant at Dera Ghazi Khan for the concentration of uranium ores. The plant had a capacity of 10,000 pounds a day[14].
Dr. I. H. Usmani’s contribution to the nuclear programme is fundamental to the development of atomic energy for civilian purposes as he established PINSTECH, that subsequently developed into Pakistan’s premier nuclear research institution. In addition to sending hundreds of young Pakistanis abroad for training, he laid the foundations of the Muslim world’s first nuclear power reactor KANUPP, which was inaugurated by Munir Ahmad Khan in 1972. Thus, Usmani laid solid groundwork for the civilian nuclear programme[15]
On September 3, 2004, Pakistan signed an agreement with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). According to the media sources in Pakistan, IAEA has mandated Pakistan to extensively use and establish more nuclear power plants to use nuclear energy for civilian purposes in agriculture, industrial, health, education, environment, energy and power sectors [16].
Policy
Pakistan acceded to the Geneva Protocol on 15 April 1960, the Biological Weapons Convention in 1974 and the Chemical Weapons Convention on 28 October 1997.In 1999 Pakistan signed the Lahore Accords with India, agreeing on a bilateral moratorium on nuclear testing. However, Pakistan, like India and Israel, is not a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and, consequently, not bound by any of its provisions.
Protection
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton informed that Pakistan has dispersed its nuclear weapons throughout the country, increasing the security so that they could not fall into terrorist hands. Her comments came as new satellite images released by the ISIS suggested Pakistan is increasing its capacity to produce plutonium, a fuel for atomic bombs. The institute has also claimed that Pakistan has built two more nuclear reactors at Khoshab increasing the number of plutonium producing reactors to three.[17]
In May 2009, during the anniversary of Pakistan’s first nuclear weapons test, former Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif claimed that Pakistan’s nuclear security is the strongest in the world.[18] According to Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan’s nuclear safety program and nuclear security program is the strongest program in the world and there is no such capability in any other country for radical elements to steal or possess nuclear weapons[19].
Modernisation and Expansion
Pakistan is increasing its capacity to produce plutonium at its Khushab nuclear facility, a Washington-based science think tank has reported.[20] Estimated Pakistani nuclear weapons is probably in the neighborhood of more than 200 by the end of 2009. “The sixth Pakistani nuclear test (May 30, 1998) at Kharan was a successful test of a sophisticated, compact, but powerful bomb designed to be carried by missiles. The Pakistanis are believed to be spiking their plutonium based nuclear weapons with tritium. Only a few grams of tritium can result in an increase of the explosive yield by 300% to 400%.”[21]. Citing new satellite images of the facility, the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) said the imagery suggests construction of the second Khushab reactor is “likely finished and that the roof beams are being placed on top of the third Khushab reactor hall”.[22]
Infrastructure
Uranium Infrastructure
Pakistan’s nuclear weapons development program is based, primarily, on highly-enriched uranium (HEU))[1], which is produced at the Khan Research Laboratories at Kahuta, a Zippe centrifuge-based uranium-enrichment facility. The Kahuta facility has been in use since the early 1980s. By the early 1990s, Kahuta had an estimated 3,000 centrifuges in operation, and Pakistan has continued its pursuit of expanded uranium-enrichment capabilities.
Plutonium Infrastructure
In the mid 1980s, Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission began to pursue Plutonium production capabilities. Consequently Pakistan built the 40-50 MW (megawatt, thermal) Khushab Research Reactor at Joharabad, and in April 1998, Pakistan announced that the nuclear reactor was operational. The Khushab reactor project was initiated in 1986 by PAEC chairman Munir Ahmad Khan, who informed the world that the reactor was totally indigenous, i.e. that it was designed and built by Pakistani scientists and engineers. Various Pakistani industries contributed in 82% of the reactor’s construction. The Project-Director for this project was Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood. According to public statements made by the U.S. Government officials, this heavy-water reactor can produce up to 8 to 10 kg of plutonium per year with increase in the production by the development of newer facilities,[23] sufficient for at least one nuclear weapon.[24] The reactor could also produce tritium if it were loaded with lithium-6, although this is unnecessary for the purposes of nuclear weapons, because modern nuclear weapon designs use 6Li directly. According to J. Cirincione of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Khushab’s Plutonium production capacity has allowed Pakistan to develop lighter nuclear warheads that would be easier to deliver to any place in the range of the ballistic missiles.[citation needed]
Plutonium separation takes place at the New Labs Reprocessing Plant, which was completed by 1981 by PAEC and is next to the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (PINSTECH) near Islamabad, which is not subject to IAEA inspections and safeguards.
Television screenshot of the first known Pakistani Nuclear Test, 28 May 1998.
In late 2006, the Institute for Science and International Security released intelligence reports and imagery showing the construction of a new plutonium reactor at the Khushab nuclear site. The reactor is deemed to be large enough to produce enough plutonium to facilitate the creation of as many as 40 to 50 nuclear weapons a year. [25][26][27] The New York Times carried the story with the insight that this would be Pakistan’s third plutonium reactor[28], signaling a shift to dual-stream development, with Plutonium-based devices supplementing the nation’s existing HEU stream to atomic warheads.
Arsenal
Pakistani IRBMs on display at the IDEAS 2008 defence exhibition in Karachi, Pakistan.
A truck-mounted launch system (TEL) armed with 4 Babur cruise missiles on display at the IDEAS 2008 defence exhibition in Karachi, Pakistan.
Truck-mounted IRBMs on display at the IDEAS 2008 defence exhibition in Karachi, Pakistan.
The U.S.-based Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) estimated that Pakistan had built 24–48 HEU-based nuclear warheads with HEU reserves for 30-52 additional warheads.[29][30] In 2003, the U.S. Navy Center for Contemporary Conflict estimated that Pakistan possessed between 35 and 95 nuclear warheads, with a median of 60.[31]
The NRDC’s and the Carnegie Foundation’s estimates of approximately 50 weapons are from 2002–03 estimations. In 2000, U.S. Military intelligence estimated that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal may be as large as 100 warheads.[32] The actual size is hard for experts to gauge owing to the extreme secrecy which surrounds the program in Pakistan. In recent developments, retired Brig. General Feroz Khan, previously second in command at the Strategic Arms Division of Pakistans’ Military told a Pakistani newspaper the nation has about 80 to 120 genuine warheads, and also revealed that Pakistan has decoy or dummy warheads to complicate any designs by aggressors.[33][34]
Pakistan tested plutonium capability in the sixth nuclear test of 30 May 1998 at Kharan. In this test the most compact and sophisticated design, made to be carried by small delivery vehicles such as MIRV and cruise missiles, was tested. Compactness can also be an issue when small aircraft such as fighter-bombers are being used as delivery vehicles, unless the platform happens to be a dedicated strategic bomber.
The critical mass of a bare mass sphere of 90% enriched uranium-235 is 52 kg. Correspondingly, the critical mass of a bare mass sphere of plutonium-239 is 8–10 kg. The bomb that destroyed Hiroshima used 60 kg of U-235 while the Nagasaki Pu bomb used only 6 kg of Pu-239. Since all Pakistani bomb designs are implosion-type weapons, they will typically use between 15–25 kg of U-235 for their cores. Reducing the amount of U-235 in cores from 60 kg in gun-type devices to 25 kg in implosion devices is only possible by using good neutron reflector/tamper material such as beryllium metal, which increases the weight of the bomb. And the uranium, like plutonium, is only usable in the core of a bomb in metallic form. Add about 50 or so chemical high-explosive lenses, triggering circuits, and outer aluminium casing, all this adds to the overall weight of the device. Therefore if a bomb has to use only U-235, that will impose serious restrictions on the amount of U-235 that can be used, and the size of the bomb itself, thus restricting its explosive yield. True PAEC did develop bomb designs that could be carried by all PAF aircraft, but after years of effort and R&D, and then too, there were serious limitations on the further extent of miniaturization of the bombs. If uranium is used as bomb fuel, it cannot be miniaturized beyond a certain point.
However, only 2–4 kg of plutonium is needed for the same device that would need 20–25 kg of U-235. Additionally, a few grams of tritium (a by-product of plutonium production reactors and thermonuclear fuel) can increase the overall yield of the bombs by a factor of three to four. “The sixth Pakistani nuclear test (May 30, 1998) at Kharan was a successful test of a sophisticated, compact, but powerful bomb designed to be carried by missiles. The Pakistanis are believed to be spiking their plutonium based nuclear weapons with tritium. Only a few grams of tritium can result in an increase of the explosive yield by 300% to 400%.”[21]
A whole range and variety of weapons using Pu-239 can be easily built, both for aircraft delivery and especially for missiles (in which U-235 cannot be used). So if Pakistan wants to be a nuclear power with an operational deterrent capability, both first and second strike, based on assured strike platforms like ballistic and cruise missiles (unlike aircraft), the only solution is with plutonium, which has been the first choice of every country that built a nuclear arsenal.
As for Pakistan’s plutonium capability, it has always been there, from the early 1980s onwards. There were only two problems. One was that Pakistan did not want to be an irresponsible state and so did not divert spent fuel from the safeguarded KANUPP for reprocessing at New Labs. This was enough to build a whole arsenal of nuclear weapons straight away. So PAEC built its own plutonium and tritium production reactor at Khushab, beginning in 1985. The second one was allocation of resources.
Ultra-centrifugation for obtaining U-235 cannot be done simply by putting natural uranium through the centrifuges. It requires the complete mastery over the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle, beginning at uranium mining and refining, production of uranium ore or yellow cake, conversion of ore into uranium dioxide UO2 (which is used to make nuclear fuel for natural uranium reactors like Khushab and KANUPP), conversion of UO2 into uranium tetrafluoride UF4 and then into the feedstock for enrichment (UF6).
The complete mastery of fluorine chemistry and production of highly toxic and corrosive hydrofluoric acid and other fluorine compounds is required. The UF6 is pumped into the centrifuges for enrichment. The process is then repeated in reverse until UF4 is produced, leading to the production of uranium metal, the form in which U-235 is used in a bomb.
It is estimated that there are approximately 10,000-20,000 centrifuges in Kahuta. This means that with P2 machines, they would be producing between 75–100 kg of HEU since 1986, when full production of weapons-grade HEU began. Also the production of HEU was voluntarily capped by Pakistan between 1991 and 1997, and the five nuclear tests of 28 May 1998 also consumed HEU. So it is safe to assume that between 1986 and 2005 (prior to the 2005 earthquake), KRL produced 1500 kg of HEU. Accounting for losses in the production of weapons, it can be assumed that each weapon would need 20 kg of HEU; sufficient for 75 bombs as in 2005.
Pakistan’s first nuclear tests were made in May 1998, when six warheads were tested. It is reported that the yields from these tests were 12kt, 30 to 35kt and four low-yield (below 1 kt) tests. From these tests Pakistan can be estimated to have developed operational warheads of 20 to 25kt and 150kt in the shape of low weight compact designs and may have 300–500kt [35] large-size warheads. The low-yield weapons are probably in nuclear bombs carried on fighter-bombers such as the Dassault Mirage III and fitted to Pakistan’s short-range ballistic missiles, while the higher-yield warheads are probably fitted to the Shaheen series and Ghauri series ballistic missiles.[35]
Second strike capability
According to a US congressional report, Pakistan has addressed issues of survivability in a possible nuclear conflict through second strike capability. Pakistan has been dealing with efforts to develop new weapons and at the same time, have a strategy for surviving a nuclear war. Pakistan has built hard and deeply buried storage and launch facilities to retain a second strike capability in a nuclear war.[36]
It was confirmed that Pakistan has built Soviet-style road-mobile missiles, state-of-the-art air defences around strategic sites, and other concealment measures. Pakistan has also built hard and deeply buried storage and launch facilities to retain a second strike capability in case of a nuclear war. In 1998, Pakistan had ‘at least six secret locations’ and since then it is believed Pakistan may have many more such secret sites. In 2008, the United States admitted that it did not know where all of Pakistan’s nuclear sites are located. Pakistani defence officials have continued to rebuff and deflect American requests for more details about the location and security of the country’s nuclear sites.[37]
Foreign assistance
Historically, China is alleged to have played a major role in the establishment of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons development infrastructure, especially, when increasingly stringent export controls in the western countries made it difficult for Pakistan to acquire nuclear materials and technology from elsewhere. Additionally, Pakistani officials have supposedly been present to observe at least one Chinese nuclear test. In a recent revelation by a high-ranking former U.S. official, it was disclosed that China had allegedly transferred nuclear technology to Pakistan and conducting Proxy Test for it in 1980.[38] According to a 2001 Department of Defense report, China has supplied Pakistan with nuclear materials and has provided critical technical assistance in the construction of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons development facilities, in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which China is a signatory.[39]
In 1986, Pakistan and China signed a civilian nuclear technology agreement in which China would supply Pakistan a civil-purpose nuclear technology. A grand ceremony was held in Beijing where Pakistan’s then Foreign Minister Sahibzada Yaqub Khan signed on behalf of Pakistan in the presence of Munir Ahmad Khan and Chinese Prime Minister. Therefore, in 1989, Pakistan reached agreement with China for the supply of a 300MW CHASHNUPP-1 nuclear power plant.
In February, 1990, President François Mitterrand of France visited Pakistan and announced that France had agreed to supply a 900 MWe nuclear power reactor to Pakistan. However, after the Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (late) was dimissed in August, 1990, the French nuclear power plant deal went into cold storage and the agreement could not be implemented due to financial constraints and the Pakistani government’s apathy. Also in February 1990, Soviet Ambassador to Pakistan, V.P. Yakunin, says that the USSR is considering a request from Pakistan for the supply of a nuclear power plant. The soviet and French civilian nuclear power plant was on its way during 1990s. However, Bob Oakley, the U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, expressed U.S. displeasure at the recent agreement made between France and Pakistan for the sale of a nuclear power plant[40]. After the U.S. concerns the civilian-nuclear technology agreements were cancelled by France and Soviet Union.
Doctrine
Pakistan’s motive, as stated by its former President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in 1985, for pursuing a nuclear weapons development program is to counter the threat posed by its principal rival, India.[3]
Pakistan has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). According to the U.S. Defense Department report cited above, Pakistan remains steadfast in its refusal to sign the NPT, stating that it would do so only after India joined the Treaty. Consequently, not all of Pakistan’s nuclear facilities are under IAEA safeguards. Pakistani officials have stated that signature of the CTBT is in Pakistan’s best interest, but that Pakistan will do so only after developing a domestic consensus on the issue, and have disavowed any connection with India’s decision.
The organization authorized to make decisions about Pakistan’s nuclear posturing is the NCA. Here is a link showing NCA of Pakistan. [1] It was established in February 2000. The NCA is composed of two committees that advise the present President of Pakistan, on the development and deployment of nuclear weapons; it is also responsible for war-time command and control. In 2001, Pakistan further consolidated its nuclear weapons infrastructure by placing the Khan Research Laboratories and the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission under the control of one Nuclear Defense Complex.
It has been recently reported by the Pakistani Press namely Jang that Pakistan has the ability to MIRV its missiles. This has been seen as possibly one of the greatest achievement to date for Pakistan. It has also been reported that Pakistan would likely MIRV its Shaheen-II and Ghauri II missiles.
U.S. aid in guarding the nuclear weapons
From the end of 2001 the United States has provided material assistance to aid Pakistan in guarding its nuclear material, warheads and laboratories. The cost of the program has been almost $100 million. Specifically the USA has provided helicopters, night-vision goggles and nuclear detection equipment.[41]
Pakistan turned down the offer of Permissive Action Link (PAL) technology, a sophisticated weapon release program which initiates use via specific checks and balances, possibly because it feared the secret implanting of dead switches . But Pakistan is since believed to have developed and implemented its own version of PAL and U.S. military officials have stated they believe Pakistan’s nuclear weaponry to be well secured.[42][43][44]
National Security Council
* National Command Authority
* Ministry of Defence
* Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (JCSC)
* Strategic Planning Directorate (SPD – ex CDD)
Weapons development agencies
National Engineering & Scientific Commission (NESCOM)
* National Development Complex (NDC), Islamabad
* Pakistan Missile Organization (PMO), Khanpur
* Air Weapon Complex (AWC), Hasanabdal
* Maritime Technologies Complex (MTC), Karachi
Ministry of Defense Production
* Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF), Wah
* Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC), Kamra
* Defense Science and Technology Organization (DESTO), Chattar
Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC)
* Directorate of Technical Development
* Directorate of Technical Equipment
* Directorate of Technical Procurement
* Directorate of Science & Engineering Services
* Institute of Nuclear Power, Islamabad
* Pakistan Institute of Science & Technology (PINSTECH)
* New Laboratories, Rawalpindi
* Pilot Reprocessing Plant
* PARR-1 and PARR-2 Nuclear Research Reactors
* Center for Nuclear Studies (CNS), Islamabad
* Computer Training Center (CTC), Islamabad
* Nuclear Track Detection Center (Solid State Nuclear Track Detection Center)
* Khushab Reactor, Khushab
* Atomic Energy Minerals Centre, Lahore
* Hard Rock Division, Peshawar
* Mineral Sands Program, Karachi
* Baghalchur Uranium Mine, Baghalchur
* Dera Ghazi Khan Uranium Mine, Dera Ghazi Khan
* Issa Khel/Kubul Kel Uranium Mines and Mills, Mianwali
* Multan Heavy Water Production Facility, Multan, Punjab
* Uranium Conversion Facility, Islamabad
* Golra Ultracentrifuge Plant, Golra
* Sihala Ultracentrifuge Plant, Sihala
* Directorate of Quality Assurance,Islamabad
* New Labs Nilore,Islamabad
Space and Upper Atmospheric Research Commission (SUPARCO)
* Aerospace Institute, Islamabad.
* Computer Center, Karachi.
* Control System Laboratories.
* Sonmian Satellite Launch Center, Sonmiani Beach.
* Instrumentation Laboratories, Karachi.
* Material Research Division.
* Quality Control and Assurance Unit.
* Rocket Bodies Manufacturing Unit.
* Solid Composite Propellant Unit.
* Liquid Composite Propellant Unit
* Space and Atmospheric Research Center (space Center), Karachi
* Static Test Unit, Karachi
* Tilla Satellite Launch Center, Tilla, Punjab
Precision Engineering Complex (PEC)
Ministry of Industries & Production
* State Engineering Corporation (SEC)
* Heavy Mechanical Complex Ltd. (HMC)
* Peoples Steel Mills Limited, Karachi.
Delivery systems
Missiles
Below is a list of all known missiles, either in development or operational with Pakistan’s armed forces, that are believed to be capable of carrying a non-conventional (nuclear) payload.
Pakistan’s Nuclear Capable Missiles Name/Designation Class Range
(varies with payload weight) Payload Status
Hatf-I SRBM 100 km 500 kg Operational
Abdali SRBM 180 km 500 kg Operational
Ghaznavi SRBM 290 km 500 kg Operational
M-11 SRBM 300 km 500 kg Operational
Shaheen-I SRBM 750 km 850 kg Operational
Ghauri-I MRBM 1,500 km 750 kg Operational
Ghauri-II MRBM 2,300 km 750-1,200 kg Operational
Shaheen-II IRBM 2,500 km 700 kg Operational [4]
Ghauri-III IRBM 3,500+ km 1,200+ kg Under Development
Shaheen-III IRBM 4,500+ km 1,200+ kg Under Development
Babur (Hatf 7) Cruise Missile 700 km 500 kg Operational
Ra’ad (Hatf 8) Air Launched Cruise Missile 350 km 500 kg Operational
Aircraft
The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) is believed to have practised toss-bombing in the 1990s, a method of launching weapons from fighter-bombers which can also be used to deliver nuclear warheads. The PAF has two units (No. 16 Sqn and No. 26 Sqn) operating around 50 of the Chinese-built Nanchang A-5C, believed to be the preferred vehicle for delivery of nuclear weapons due to its long range. The others are various variants of the Dassault Mirage III and Dassault Mirage 5, of which around 156 are currently operated by the Pakistan Air Force. The PAF also operates some 46 F-16 fighters, the first 32 of which were delivered in the 1980s and believed by some to have been modified for nuclear weapons delivery.
It has also been reported that an air-launched cruise missile (ALCM) with a range of 350 km has been developed by Pakistan, designated Hatf 8 and named Ra’ad ALCM, which may theoretically be armed with a nuclear warhead. It was reported to have been test-fired by a Dassault Mirage III fighter and, according to one Western official, is believed to be capable of penetrating some air defence/missile defence systems.[45]
Notes
1. ^ a b http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/pakistan/nuke/index.html
2. ^ a b http://thebulletin.metapress.com/content/f828323447768858/fulltext.pdf
3. ^ a b c d http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2009/08/pakistan2009.php
4. ^ a b http://www.missilethreat.com/missilesoftheworld/id.54/missile_detail.asp
5. ^ A.Q. Khan . http://www.globalsecurity.org. http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/pakistan/khan.htm. Retrieved 2009-04-10.
6. ^ Pakistan Nuclear Weapons . http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/pakistan/nuke/index.html. Retrieved 2007-02-22.
7. ^ http://www.defencejournal.com/2000/june/chagai.htm
8. ^ http://groups.google.com.pk/group/paknationalists/web/jinnah-pakistans-grey-wolf
9. ^ http://www.quaid.gov.pk/speech25.htm
10. ^ http://www.weeklyblitz.net/index.php?id=295
11. ^ http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-152972617.html
12. ^ http://www.pakdef.info/nuclear&missile/speech_munirahmed.html
13. ^ a b c d e http://pakdef.info/forum/archive/index.php?t-8346.html
14. ^ http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1989/890516-cr.htm
15. ^ Pakistan’s Nuke History: Part1 From A PAEC Perspective
16. ^ http://www.pakissan.com/english/news/newsDetail.php?newsid=6791
17. ^ http://www.apakistannews.com/pakistan-builds-2-more-reactors-isis-117565
18. ^ http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=20095\29\story_29-5-2009_pg7_1
19. ^ http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=180186
20. ^ http://www.bu.edu/globalbeat/nucwatch/nucwatch071798.html
21. ^ a b http://www.1913intel.com/2008/12/27/the-dangers-of-india-pakistan-war/
22. ^ http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=Pakistan+building+third+nuclear+reactor+at+Khushab&artid=pQqZ2l/ffuU=&SectionID=oHSKVfNWYm0=&MainSectionID=oHSKVfNWYm0=&SectionName=VfE7I/Vl8os=&SEO=
23. ^ Uranium Institute News Briefing 00.25 14 – 22 June 2000 . Uranium Institute. 2000. http://www.world-nuclear.org/nb/nb00/nb0025.htm. Retrieved 2006-05-07.
24. ^ Key Issues: Nuclear Energy: Issues: IAEA: World Plutonium Inventories
25. ^ BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | Pakistan nuclear report disputed
26. ^ Pakistan Expanding Nuclear Program – washingtonpost.com
27. ^ BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | Pakistan ‘building new reactor’
28. ^ U.S. Group Says Pakistan Is Building New Reactor – New York Times
29. ^ Federation of American Scientists
30. ^ Center for Defense Information
31. ^ US Navy Strategic Insights. Feb 2003 . US Navy. 2003. http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/feb03/southAsia2.asp. Retrieved 2006-10-28.
32. ^ Pakistan’s Nuclear Arsenal Underestimated, Reports Say
33. ^ Impact of US wargames on Pakistan N-arms ‘negative’ -DAWN – Top Stories; 3 December 2007
34. ^ Calculating the Risks in Pakistan – washingtonpost.com
35. ^ a b http://defense-update.com/analysis/analysis_pakistan_240409.html
36. ^ http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/world/11-pakistan-enhances-second-strike-n-capability–us-report–il–12
37. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/world/asia/04nuke.html?_r=1&hp
38. ^ China tested N-weapons for Pak: US insider The Times of India 6 September 2008
39. ^ http://www.csis-scrs.gc.ca/pblctns/prspctvs/200110-eng.asp
40. ^ http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Pakistan/Nuclear/chronology_1990.html
41. ^ U.S. Secretly Aids Pakistan in Guarding Nuclear Arms . The New York Times. 2007-11-18. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/washington/18nuke.html?ref=us. Retrieved 2007-11-18.
42. ^ New York Times/18 November 2007
43. ^ http://www.iiss.org/publications/strategic-dossiers/nbm/nuclear-black-market-dossier-a-net-assesment/pakistans-nuclear-oversight-reforms/
44. ^ http://forums.csis.org/poni/?p=34
45. ^ http://powerpolitics.org/?p=161
See also
* Chronology of Pakistan’s rocket tests
* Nuclear power in Pakistan
* Pakistan Army
* List of countries with nuclear weapons
External links
* BCCI May have funded Bomb
* The Islamic Bomb – Tashbih Sayyed
* The South Asian Strategic Stability Institute Weapons Related Datasets
* Pakistan Security Research Unit (PSRU) Military and Weapons Section
* China,Pakistan and the Bomb The Declassified File on U.S. Policy, 1977-1997—–National Security Archives.
* http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/pakistan/nuke/index.html
* Nuclear Notebook: Pakistan’s nuclear program, 2005, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Jan/Feb 2002.
* Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons Program – The Beginning
* Pakistani Military Consortium
* Nuclear Files.org Pakistan’s nuclear conflict with India- background and the current situation
* Nuclear Files.org Current information on nuclear stockpiles in Pakistan
* Ideas Pakistan – International Defense Exhibition at Karachi, Pakistan
* Defense Export Promotion Organization – Ministry of Defense
* Time line of Pakistan’s nuclear weapon development and tests
* – Pakistani & Indian Missile Forces (Tarmuk missile mentioned here)
* – Annotated bibliography on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons from the Alsos Digital Library
v • d • e
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Chairman Joint Chiefs A National Defence University A Paramilitary forces A Coast Guard A National Command Authority A Military history A UN peacekeeping missions A Weapons of mass destruction A Awards and decorations A Nuclear Doctrine A Inter-Services Intelligence A Arms industry A Inter Services Public Relations A Nuclear power A List of missiles
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Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction
Categories: Military of Pakistan | Nuclear technology in Pakistan | Weapons of mass destruction
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The First Afghan Hydrocarbon Bidding Round
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Please be advised that the revised Model EPSC with the updated Article 34 is now on the website.
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Date: September 15, 2009
News update from the Ministry of Mines, Kabul
Afghan Hydrocarbon bid deadline extended
As several potential bidders have indicated that they will need more time to evaluate the potential of the blocks on offer, the Ministry of Mines has decided to extend the bid deadline of the First Afghan Hydrocarbon Bidding Round to 15 November 2009. Further information will be posted on the web site http://www.afghanistanpetroleum.com.
—–
On the basis of further information and documents received, the Ministry of Mines’ decision 28 June 2009 related to Nations Petroleum is amended and Nations Petroleum is qualified to bid for the Jangalikalan, Juma-Bashikurd and Kashkari blocks on offer during this First Afghan Bidding Round. The list of pre-qualified companies is updated as follows:
Addax Petroleum
Nations Petroleum
Oil & Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL)
ORIENT PETROLEUM INTERNATIONAL INC’s (OPII)
Redwood Petroleum Co, Ltd
Sinochem Petroleum Exploration & Production Co. Ltd.
TOTAL Exploration & Production
Turkiye Petrolleri A.O. Genel Mudurlugu (TPAO)
Of the eleven companies that have submitted EOIs, seven are pre-qualified to bid in the First Afghan Hydrocarbon Bidding Round
A committee was formed by the Ministry of Mines to review the eleven Expressions of Interests (EOI) submitted before the June 15, 2009 deadline. The committee focused in particular on the financial standing, the average daily operated production and the experience in dealing with gas containing high H2S (sour gas) for each of these companies.
The following companies are qualified to bid for the Jangalikalan, Juma-Bashikurd and Kashkari blocks on offer during this First Afghan Bidding Round:
Addax Petroleum
Oil & Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL)
ORIENT PETROLEUM INTERNATIONAL INC’s (OPII)
Redwood Petroleum Co, Ltd
Sinochem Petroleum Exploration & Production Co. Ltd.
TOTAL Exploration & Production
Turkiye Petrolleri A.O. Genel Mudurlugu (TPAO)
The following companies do not pre-qualify to bid during this First Afghan Hydrocarbon Bidding Round:
AfghCana Energy (Asia) Corp. ( AfghCana )
CALIK ENERJI
Ghazanfar Group Co Ltd
Zurmat Group of Companies Nations Petroleum Calgary Canada
The pre-qualified companies are required to keep the MoM informed of any material change that may affect their pre-qualifications. The MoM reserves the right to change the pre-qualification status of any company based on the occurrence of any event, or the availability of any new or previously undisclosed information, that may affect a company’s ability to perform its contractual commitments should it be awarded one or more blocks in Afghanistan.
Eleven companies submitted Expression of Interests (EOI)
Eleven companies from eight different countries submitted EOI before the June 15, 2009 deadline. A list of pre-qualified companies will be announced by the Ministry of Mines on July 01, 2009. A copy of the minutes of the official document listing the 11 companies can be reviewed in the Documents section of this web site (https://www.afghanistanpetroleum.com/documents.php?cat=1).
List of companies (in alphabetical order):
Addax Petroleum – New Ventures
AfghCana Energy (Asia) Corp. (“AfghCana”)
CALIK ENERJI
Ghazanfar Group Co Ltd
Oil & Gas Development Company Limited
ORIENT PETROLEUM INTERNATIONAL INC’s (“OPII”)
Redwood Petroleum Co, Ltd
Sinochem Petroleum Exploration &Production Co. Ltd.
TOTAL Exploration & Production
Turkiye Petrolleri A.O. Genel Mudurlugu
Zurmat Group of Companies Nations Petroleum Calgary, Canada
Public opening of pre-qualification applications:
Pre-qualification applications shall be opened by the Ministry of Mines on 15 June 2009 at 1400 hrs during a public procedure. The applicants themselves, or their respective authorized representatives are welcome to attend the proceedings. However, attendance at the proceedings is voluntary and the evaluation of the applicants for pre-qualification shall not be affected by whether of not a party has been present during this procedure. The Ministry of Mines should be notified in advanced of the names of any representatives who wish to be present at the opening of applications.
The Ministry of Mines will ensure that minutes are kept of the opening proceedings. The names and addresses of all applicants or authorized representatives present will be recorded in the minutes to be signed by the representatives of the Ministry of Mines and all applicants or authorized representatives present.
The minutes will, on request, be available for applicants after the application has been considered. The minutes will be prepared and disclosed in such manner that avoids disclosure of confidential commercial information.
Announcement Of The First Afghan Hydrocarbon Bidding Round 2009
The Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, represented by the Ministry of Mines, is pleased to announce that it has initiated the process that will lead to the Bidding Round for the award of Exploration and Production Sharing Contracts for Hydrocarbon Operations in the following blocks in Northern Afghanistan:
• Jangalikalan (Gas)
• Juma-Bashikurd (Gas)
• Kashkari (Oil)
View Full Announcement
EITI Implementation in Afghanistan
View Full Document
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http://www.afghanistanpetroleum.com/
***
Coal geology
By Larry Thomas
***
Thomas G. Clines
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Thomas G. Clines
Thomas G. Clines was a Central Intelligence Agency covert operations agent who was a prominent figure in the Iran-Contra Affair.
Contents
* 1 CIA career
* 2 After the CIA
* 3 Iran-Contra
o 3.1 The Brill Memo
o 3.2 Trial
* 4 References
* 5 External links
CIA career
As a CIA agent, between 1961-1962, Clines was involved in covert operations in Cuba.
Between 1966-1970, during the Vietnam War, Clines worked as Ted Shackley’s deputy in charge of the CIA’s secret war in Laos.
Clines later joined Ted Shackley, David Atlee Phillips and David Sanchez Morales at JM WAVE, the CIA’s operational headquarters in Miami, Florida for the Cuban Project also known as Operation Mongoose, a project to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro in Cuba.
Clines left Laos in 1970 and spent a year at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.
In 1972, Clines was put in charge of CIA operations in Chile, and in 1973, he helped Augusto Pinochet overthrow Chile’s democratically elected president, Salvador Allende.
While working on the attempt to undermine the government of Fidel Castro in Cuba, Clines became friends with Rafael Quintero ( Chi Chi ). When he was given responsibility for Nicaragua in 1978, Thomas Clines recruited Quintero to help the CIA in its efforts against the socialist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) that governed Nicaragua. This included helping Anastasio Somoza Debayle to develop a counter-subversion program in the country.
After the CIA
In 1978, Clines left the CIA and joined several other ex-CIA agents, including Rafael Quintero, Ted Shackley and Ricardo Chavez in establishing API Distributors.
In 1979, Clines established International Research and Trade Limited in Bermuda. Later that year, he worked with Hussein Salem to provide Egypt with U.S. military hardware.
Iran-Contra
On July 27, 1986, the first article on the Iran-Contra scandal appeared in the San Francisco Examiner after Gene Wheaton told a lawyer named Daniel Sheehan and two Washington journalists that he had been recruited to use National Air to transport $27 million dollars worth of weapons to Nicaragua (money that Congress had funded for non-lethal aid for the Contras in Nicaragua), and that Thomas Clines and Ted Shackley had been running a top-secret assassination unit since the early 1960s. According to Wheaton, it had begun with an assassination training program for Cuban exiles and the original target had been Fidel Castro.
On October 5, 1986, a C-123K cargo plane that was supplying the Contras was shot down by a Sandinista patrol. Eugene Hasenfus (a CIA Air America veteran) survived the crash and told his captors that he believed the CIA was behind the operation. It eventually emerged that Clines, as well as Oliver North, Edwin Wilson and Richard Secord, were involved in the conspiracy to provide arms to the Contras, and Clines himself as a key player[1] in the web of business operations founded by Secord and Iranian arms dealer Albert Hakim known as the Enterprise .
The Brill Memo
In 1988, Shirley Brill, a former CIA official who had lived with Clines in 1977, published an affidavit claiming that Clines was involved in illegal activities with Rafael Quintero and a drug dealer living in Miami.
Brill claimed that after Clines retired from the CIA in 1978, Clines had partnered with Ted Shackley, Richard Secord and Edwin P. Wilson to gain Pentagon contracts. Brill also argued that she heard Clines, Secord, Quintero and Shackley plotting to frame Wilson.
Trial
On February 22, 1990, Clines was indicted on four felony counts of underreporting to the IRS his earnings from his business enterprises for the 1985 and 1986 tax years by at least $260,000, and failing to disclose on his 1985 and 1986 tax returns that he had foreign overseas bank accounts.
On September 18, 1990, Clines was found guilty of all charges.
On December 13, 1990, U.S. District Judge Norman P. Ramsey sentenced Clines to 16 months in prison, $40,000 in fines, and Clines was ordered to pay the cost of the prosecution. The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, on February 27, 1992, upheld his convictions, and Clines served his prison sentence.
References
1. ^ Walsh Iran/Contra Report
External links
* Spartacus notes on Thomas G. Clines
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_G._Clines
Categories: Iran–Contra affair | People of the Central Intelligence Agency | Americans convicted of tax crimes | American spies | American anti-communists
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_G._Clines
***
Robert Keith Gray
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Robert Keith Gray was a Republican activist and public relations executive who founded Gray and Company in 1981 after working with Hill & Knowlton.
Contents
* 1 Career
* 2 Books
* 3 External links
* 4 References
Career
Grey served in the Eisenhower Eisenhower administration in various roles. In the 1960s and 1970s, Gray provided services to accounts that included the American Petroleum Institute, Procter and Gamble, and the National Association of Broadcasters and El Paso Natural Gas. El Paso hired Hill and Knowlton to drum up support for legislation that would allow El Paso to buy out its competitor, Pacific Northwest Pipeline Company. [1] Between 1961 and 1981 as the head of the Washington office of, and eventually as vice chairman of, Hill and Knowlton, a major public relations and lobbying firm. He started his own firm, Gray and Company in 1981, only to sell it back to Hill and Knowlton in 1986.
Throughout his thirty years in Washington, Robert Gray’s style has been consistent — he parties and charms his way into the power elite, and then sells access to his Rolodex for fees sometimes running into the millions. Gray was for many years active in Republican politics and a leading figure in public relations in Washington, D.C. In 1967 he joined the 50-person committee responsible for charting Richard Nixon’s path to the White House. During the Watergate era, Robert Keith Gray served on the board of Consultants International, founded by CIA agent Edwin Wilson. When Wilson and fellow agent Frank Terpil got caught running guns abroad, Gray tried to deny his connection with Wilson.
He worked in the 1980 Reagan-Bush presidential campaign, serving directly under William Casey.
Gray’s firm came to prominence after the Kuwaiti government in the run-up to the first Gulf War in 1990. Besides Kuwait, Gray represented China after 1989, Haiti under Duvalier, supporters of Rev. Moon, the Church of Scientology, BCCI, the late British publisher Robert Maxwell, the Teamsters under Jackie Presser, and the Catholic Bishops Conference in their campaign against abortion.
In July 1992, St. Martin’s Press, Inc., published a book by Susan Trento entitled ‘The Power House: Robert Keith Gray and the Selling of Access and Influence in Washington. Focusing on Gray’s career, the book sought to show the influence of powerful and well-connected lobbyists on the federal government. In June 1995, Gray brought suit both against St. Martin’s Press and Trento in the federal district court in New Hampshire, claiming that eight separate statements made in the book were defamatory. A jury found for Susan Trento on all issues. Mr. Gray’s appeals were all dismissed.
Books
* Susan B. Trento, The Power House: Robert Keith Gray and the Selling of Access and Influence in Washington, New York, St.Martin’s Press, 1992. ISBN 0-312-08319-X
External links
* Robert Keith Gray at NameBase
References
1. ^ Susan B. Trento, Lord of the lies; how Hill and Knowlton’s Robert Gray pulls Washington’s strings – Washington, D.C. public relations consultant Washington Monthly Sept, 1992
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Keith_Gray
Categories: American lobbyists
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Keith_Gray
***
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1998 – 2003 From The Wilderness Publications
Ed Wilson’s Revenge
The Biggest CIA Scandal in History Has Its Feet in the Starting Blocks in a Houston Court House
by Michael C. Ruppert
[The following article appeared in the January, 2000 issue of From The Wilderness – Copyright and Reprint Policy]
The following is written after examining more than 900 pages of documents, in four volumes, filed since last September, in Houston Federal Court, by attorneys representing former CIA operative Edwin P. Wilson and the United States Department of Justice. As strange as it may seem, FTW assures you that there is a document on file or an on-the-record quote to support everything we now tell you.
On February 2, 1983, the Houston trial of former CIA agent Edwin P. Wilson, on Federal charges that he had unlawfully sold explosives to Libya, hung at a truly precarious moment. In chambers, the Judge hearing the case had refused to allow a CIA witness, using the pseudonym William Larson, to testify using a false name. The CIA, and prosecutors like aggressive Northern Virginia Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) Ted Greenberg, relying on investigative materials produced under the direction of Washington, D.C. AUSAs Larry Barcella and Carol Bruce, were also concerned about limiting Wilson’s ability to cross examine Larson for security reasons. Larson’s intended testimony would have included statements that, according to CIA records under Larson’s care, Ed Wilson had not been a CIA employee or done any work for the Agency since 1971.
According to Barcella, who gave a detailed interview to FTW for this story, the Judge’s ruling raised serious security concerns for the Justice Department. The CIA records issue still needed to be addressed from another angle – and quickly. Wilson’s defense had already made the case that the CIA had known and sanctioned the activities for which he was now on trial. That position needed to be countered in the rebuttal phase before the case went to the jury. Time was running out.
Ed Wilson stood accused of shipping 42,000 pounds of the plastic explosive C-4 directly to Libyan dictator Moammar Qadaffy in 1977, and then hiring U.S. experts – former U.S. Army Green Berets – to teach Qadaffy’s people how to make bombs shaped like lamps, ashtrays and radios. Bombs were actually made, and foes of Qadaffy were actually murdered. This was the ongoing crime that had made Wilson, and his still-missing accomplice, former CIA employee Frank Terpil, the most infamous desperadoes in the world. C-4, according to some experts, is the most powerful non-nuclear explosive made. Two pounds in the right places can bring down a jumbo jet. Hence, 42,000 pounds would be enough to bring down 21,000 jumbo jets. C-4 is highly prized on the world’s black markets and is much in demand. It is supposedly very tightly controlled where it is manufactured – in the U.S.
At the time it was shipped from Houston International Airport, in 1977, the 42,000 pounds of C-4 represented almost the entire United States domestic supply. It had been collected for Wilson by one California explosives distributor who collected it from a number of manufacturers around the country. Surprisingly, no one had officially noticed. Wilson had, in earlier and subsequent deals, also sold a number of handguns to Qadaffy, and several had been used in assassinations of Libyan dissidents in a number of countries, including the United States. It was these and other firearms violations by Wilson, including a scheme to ship more than a thousand M16 rifles to Qadaffy, that had put the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) and Larry Barcella on Wilson’s trail back in late 1977.
That investigation, which resulted in a 1982 Virginia conviction, led to the discovery of the C-4 shipment to Qadaffy. By January of 1983 Barcella and a team of dedicated BATF agents had been on Ed Wilson’s trail for five long years. Barcella, in Houston as an observer and advisor, had been twiddling his thumbs most of the time, but he did testify as a witness. He was, by virtue of his role as the originator of the cases, the institutional memory of DoJ. Ted Greenberg had, from the other side of the Potomac in Alexandria, taken over other investigations stemming from Wilson’s activities which led eventually to the Eatsco scandal. That investigation involved Wilson cronies Tom Clines, Air Force General Richard Secord, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Eric von Marbod and the legendary Ted Shackley.
Shackley had served in the hottest CIA posts in history. He had run the Miami station known as JM-WAVE, targeting Fidel Castro in the early 1960s, and had been a key planner in the Bay of Pigs invasion. He was also directly involved in CIA attempts on Castro’s life in concert with the Mafia. In the mid-sixties he had been the Chief of Station (COS) in Laos, running the largest covert operation in CIA history – a secret war intimately tied with opium and heroin smuggling and the abandonment of large numbers of American POWs. In the late sixties and early seventies he had served as COS in Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War. After leaving Saigon, Shackley had, for a time, served as Chief of the Western Hemisphere Division as the CIA orchestrated the overthrow of Chile’s Salvador Allende. He had then become Associate Deputy Director of Operations (running all covert operations) in time to, as FTW believes, preside over Ed Wilson’s Libyan affairs and the events that would ultimately result in the downfall of the Shah of Iran. Everywhere you looked in Wilson’s life – post 1971 – you found either Shackley or his career-long deputy and sidekick, Tom Clines.
Shackley testified twice before Federal grand juries in the Wilson case. In one of those sessions, included in Wilson’s recent court filings, he denied anything other than social contacts and a few meetings to evaluate information that never amounted to much. CIA Inspector General records (some still classified) belied Shackley’s testimony. In light of voluminous CIA material, investigative reports, witness statements, BATF interviews with Shackley associates and a long litany of other records, Ted Shackley’s testimony made a lot of people at CIA and DoJ very nervous. [FTW found it very interesting to note that, in his first testimony, Ted Shackley denied having ever met Ronald Reagan’s CIA Director, William Casey. That may have to be the subject of another FTW article.]
Notes made by Justice Department lawyers in meetings held in late 1983, after Wilson’s conviction, indicate their belief that Ted Shackley lied to the grand juries. Unattributed quotes found in meeting notes include the statements Stupid -TS lied to GJ.
The Houston prosecution, for which Greenberg had served as the primary classified record handler, and AUSAs Jim Powers and Karen Morrissette, had no difficulty establishing that Wilson, in 1976, had secured plans for miniature timing devices from CIA contractors and, subsequently, had thousands manufactured and shipped to Libya. The Houston prosecution had no difficulty – using Barcella’s, Bruce’s and Greenberg’s investigations – to establish that Wilson had conspired to obtain and ship the C-4 in 1977. Greenberg, Barcella, Bruce, Karen Morrissette and local Houston AUSAs also had absolutely no difficulty establishing that Wilson then chartered a DC-8 to ship the C-4 to Libya using falsified records. A hapless lawyer friend of Wilson’s California explosives honcho, believing he had clearance from the CIA and other government agencies, even went along on the delivery. He had also been arrested and charged in the case. All of this took place under the guidance of Deputy Assistant Attorney General Mark Richard, and the supervision of Assistant Attorneys General Steven Trott and D. Lowell Jensen,
Evidence of Wilson’s venality was not hard to find and put before the jury. While living in Libya for extended periods between 1977 and 1981, Wilson hired former Green Berets, some of whom were, according to FTW sources, alleged to be active-duty troops posing as rogues and retirees out for money. Using them, he set up an intensive instructional training program for Qadaffy that was intended to make the Libyan Colonel a credible terrorist threat – and credible foe – to any opponent, anywhere in the world. That effort was an unqualified success. People and things started blowing up and dying all over the place.
All the while, Wilson traveled the globe first-class, an ostentatiously wealthy man owning more than 6,000 acres of prime properties in Virginia, Great Britain and Malta. Much of that, the prosecution argued, had been paid for with millions from a Libyan dictator who had subsequently dispatched in 1982, if you believed the press, assassination teams to blow up Ronald Reagan in the White House.
Making Ed Wilson out to be a very nasty and unlikable individual was the easy part of the prosecution’s case.
The second part of the prosecution’s case was that one-time career CIA Agent Edwin P. Wilson had had absolutely no official relationship with the Agency since 1971. Wilson was, they argued, a good guy gone hopelessly bad who had abused his contacts, experience and the trust placed in him to commit horrible crimes behind the backs of his former colleagues. And that was where both the Department of Justice – and the CIA – were in deep, deep trouble on February 2, 1983.
Wilson, a one time career CIA agent, who had also worked for the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), was fighting for his life. An open source paper trail from CIA showed that he had not worked at Langley since 1971. Shortly thereafter he began working for a secret Navy operation known as Task Force 157. But, according to other records from both CIA and the Navy, he stopped working for the ONI in 1976 and none of his Navy work was connected to Libya. After that, or so it seemed, even though he continuously socialized with some of the most powerful people in the U.S. intelligence community and the military, he did no official work for anyone. It was in late 1975 and 1976, when George Bush ran the CIA, that Wilson, as an alleged rogue, opened ties to Qadaffy and began selling weapons, explosives and other services and equipment to the terrorist regime.
This would not be the last time that a so-called enemy of the United States in the Arab world would be supplied with weapons and bomb making materials on a watch under the command of George H. W. Bush. While Ed Wilson was training and equipping Qadaffy, he was also lunching with Bush prot g Shackley. He was providing personal airplanes for Air Force General Richard Secord to fly around in, and loaning large sums of money to Shackley’s sidekick, Tom Clines. His company, Consultants International, once a CIA proprietary, which Wilson bought in 1971, was still receiving referral contacts from the Agency. And while former U.S. Army Green Berets, in Wilson’s employ, were teaching Libyans how to blow things up, Clines, a high-ranking active CIA officer, was walking Wilson employee Douglas Schlachter through the halls at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. In 1977 Clines even introduced Schlachter to Jimmy Carter’s newly appointed CIA Director, Navy Admiral Stansfield Turner. Exclusive parties, horseback riding events and private hunting parties were held for the A list at Wilson’s expansive Mount Airy farm in Northern Virginia.
With the January 1977 change in Presidents from Ford to Carter it was inevitable that George Bush (the elder) would have to leave as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI). Shackley, however, remained in charge of covert operations until December of that year. Then, with a kiss of death, as Wilson’s work and life became increasingly high-profile, Turner removed Shackley from the prestigious post of ADDO and transferred him to a non hands-on post out of the loop. It was the signal that Shackley’s career was over. This came at the same time that Turner gave 800 CIA career covert operatives pink slips and early retirement. FTW believes that it is no coincidence that Barcella’s and the BATF investigations of Wilson began at exactly the same time.
President Jimmy Carter had already begun the groundbreaking work with Menachem Begin of Israel and Anwar Sadat of Egypt that would lead to the Camp David peace accords. It would not be good PR for the U.S. to be exposed secretly arming Sadat’s bitter enemy and next door neighbor, Moammar Qadaffy – especially since Qadaffy intended to kill Sadat.
The problem with the government’s position in the Wilson case was absolutely huge. It was almost beyond huge. And the rationale implied during the trial, with the preceding and ensuing vilification of Wilson in major newspapers, People Magazine and best selling books like Manhunt by Peter Maas, was that the heinousness of his crimes justified obsession and even rule-bending in order to bring the monster to justice. CIA Inspector General investigations, some partially redacted, made available to Wilson’s prosecutorial team, dating as far back as 1977, proved that Wilson had provided a number of often embarrassing services for the Agency since 1971. Those records also showed no less than 80 non-social contacts between Wilson and the CIA between 1971 and 1978. The Agency had many records, some still classified, of Wilson meeting with Agency personnel – especially Shackley, Clines or Shackley’s secretary.
Contrary to what would later become almost nonsensical hairsplitting by some of the most powerful, and supposedly ethical, lawyers in the country, the CIA – according to incredibly detailed reports compiled by the BATF, the FBI and the CIA’s own Inspector General – was operationally tasking Wilson and his employees to accomplish specific objectives in Libya before, during and after delivery of the C-4. Both the Justice Department and the CIA had witness statements that the CIA had been tasking and debriefing Wilson’s employees at exactly the same time that Wilson’s employees were teaching Qadaffy’s people how to blow things up.
Wilson’s defense against the government’s case had concluded at the end of January. His attorneys had made a compelling argument that apparently threw the Justice Department and the CIA into a crisis mode. Exhibits filed in Wilson’s motion show that Greenberg and Barcella were concerned about it in advance. The defense was simple: Edwin P. Wilson, a loyal American whose company, Consultants International, received CIA referral business throughout the period, had been sanctioned by the CIA for the purposes of gathering intelligence, gaining access to Soviet military equipment in Libyan hands and other murky objectives. If Ed Wilson had not been sanctioned, he certainly believed that he had been, and the litany of his CIA contacts reasonably justified that belief. It was more than enough to raise doubt in the mind of the jury.
Wilson and his trial lawyers had introduced evidence from 1977 CIA Inspector General reports and other records that supported his claims. It was not enough to dismiss the case, perhaps, but it was a point that the prosecution could not let go unchallenged. There was too much at stake. Contrary to Barcella’s suggestion to FTW that he was essentially an observer in Houston he did say that, One of the problems that I had certainly had, from prior cases involving claims of a CIA defense, was that the Agency’s compartmentalization oftentimes required two or three different people to be doing record searches because only certain people would be allowed to search certain components of the Agency.
It was a pain in the ass from a trial lawyer’s standpoint because you would oftentimes end up with three different witnesses. And any good defense lawyerÉ. can make mincemeat out of them by bouncing back and forth between one and the otherÉ One of the things that I wanted was one person as a witness to be given the authority by the CIA to search all components of the Agency, not just a single component of the Agency.
The man originally scheduled to perform that role, to speak for all of the records in the Central Intelligence Agency, the man with the pseudonym Larson , had just been exposed to cross examination by Wilson and been withdrawn. There had to be another way.
The Briggs Declaration
Charles A. Briggs was, on February 3, 1983, the third highest-ranking official at the Central Intelligence Agency. He was one of few men at CIA who could break through the compartments and search anywhere for records. He was the man to solve the problem in Houston. In Langley, Virginia, at 2:23 P.M., Houston time (according to a government teletype), Charles Briggs signed a declaration stating that on November 8th of 1982 he had authorized a search of all records of the CIA for any material that in any way pertains to Edwin P. Wilson or the various allegations concerning his activities after 28 February 1971, when he resigned from the CIA.
Paragraph 4 of the Briggs Declaration states, According to CIA records, with one exception while he was employed by Naval Intelligence in 1972, Mr. Edwin P. Wilson was not asked or requested, directly or indirectly, to perform or provide any services, directly or indirectly, for CIA.
At 2:30 P.M., Houston time, CIA General Counsel Stanley Sporkin certified the affidavit and affixed the seal of the Central Intelligence Agency to it. It was also notarized by a notary public licensed in Fairfax County, Virginia. Harold Fahringer, one of Wilson’s attorneys was served with a copy of the affidavit at 3:55 P.M. Houston time – presumably in Houston. According to a partially declassified CIA memorandum, included in Wilson’s filings, dated March 15, 1983 (40 days after Wilson’s conviction), on the day and evening of February 3, 1983 CIA attorneys stated to Assistant U.S. Attorney (AUSA) Ted Greenberg that the Briggs affidavit should not be admitted into evidence as then written, and requested that Greenberg not introduce the affidavit.
The signers of the affidavit further state that CIA General Counsel Stanley Sporkin stated that, at minimum, the word ‘indirectly’ should be removed from paragraph four of the Briggs affidavit.
The signers of the document further state in the document that AUSA Greenberg decided against complying with the CIA attorneys’ requests described above.
Apparently, through the evening of February 3rd, the phone lines between Langley and Houston were smoking. FTW has interviewed a number of people close to the trial and none indicate that Ted Greenberg left Houston to retrieve the declaration. Stanley Sporkin knew that the affidavit was incorrect and so did a great many people at CIA. The Houston time apparently indicates that a copy was telexed to Wilson’s lawyer and another copy was placed in the master DoJ case files in Houston. Larry Barcella has no recollection of being involved in those phone conversations. No phone logs listing participants in them have, as yet, been disclosed.
In researching this story FTW contacted best-selling author Peter Maas who wrote the book Manhunt which detailed the hunt for Ed Wilson and the four and a half year mission by Barcella, et al to bring him to justice. Maas indicated that he had been aware of the Briggs affidavit and questions surrounding its use in court. He was careful to state that it was his belief that Barcella had no knowledge of the inaccuracies in the document – or the controversy surrounding it – until after it had been introduced into evidence. The paper trail seems to contradict this position. Barcella was in almost every pre-trial conference discussing Wilson’s history. He was aware of the affidavit’s existence and, therefore, had to have been aware that it was inaccurate.
Maas was, however, more open on the subject of Ted Greenberg who apparently had the power to override the CIA’s top lawyer and number three executive. Maas said simply that Greenberg was aggressive and not well liked by the other lawyers. He was, in Mass’ opinion, Capable of anything.
On February 4th 1983, apparently without objection, the Briggs declaration was entered into evidence by Assistant U.S. Attorneys. Both the prosecution and the defense rested and, in the afternoon, the jury began deliberations.
On the morning of February 5th, 1983, the jury sent a note to the trial judge requesting that the Briggs affidavit be reread. At 9:50 A.M. the Judge empanelled the jury and reread the affidavit to them. The jury returned to deliberations and, at 10:45 A.M., sent a note announcing that they had reached a verdict. Wilson was guilty on all counts. The jury never asked for any other exhibit to be reread.
That same day a UPI wire service story described the deliberations. Juror Betty Metzler said the panel was divided 11-1 almost from the start, and one juror was not convinced until Saturday morning by rereading of Briggs’ affidavit denying Wilson’s actions had anything to do with the CIA.
A week later, on February 10, 1983, Attorney Kim E. Rosenfield in the Attorney General’s office sent a memorandum to Deputy Assistant Attorney General Mark Richard who ran DoJ’s Criminal Division. The title of the memorandum was Duty to Disclose Possibly False Testimony and the memorandum pulled no punches. It went straight to prevailing case law (then and now) as decided by the U.S. Supreme Court and cited two cases known as Brady and Napue. The Napue case held that, Failure of prosecutor to correct testimony which he knows to be false violates due process, whether the falsehood bears on credibility of witness or guilt of defendant, if it is in any way relevant to the case. In Brady the court ruled that Suppression of material evidence by the government requires a new trial, irrespective of good or bad faith.
The memorandum continued, Prosecutor has duty to correct false testimony even if falsehood was inadvertent or caused by another government officer. New trial required if the false testimony could in any reasonable likelihood have affected the judgement of the jury.
The Forrest and the Trees
FTW has, unfortunately, interviewed no less than six lawyers in researching this article. The problem with that is that if one talks to too many lawyers, for too long, one gets confused – very confused. Medication, meditation and/or prayer is sometimes required. Clarity vanishes. Occasionally, however, an attorney will utter statements of breathtaking logic that confirm what the layman already suspected. We want to thank Larry Barcella for giving us that kind of clarity in one instance but he may not like what we did with it.
It would be easy to pull example after example out of the 900 pages of Exhibits filed by Ed Wilson’s attorney, David Adler, to show various and sundry shocking examples of Wilson’s ongoing contacts with Agency personnel and Ted Shackley. But, to do that would distract from the real issues. We could laughingly try to lay out some of the pretzel-bending logic expended by an array of legal horsepower, up to and including Assistant Attorneys General of the United States. We could pull quotes, like one in notes from a meeting including Mark Richard, Lowell Jensen and a half dozen other lawyers in which someone quipped, We’re bending over backwards to fall down.
From the documents in the filing it is apparent that through November of 1983, long after Edwin Wilson had been sentenced to 17 years on the C-4 violations, every lawyer from the Justice Department who became aware of the inaccuracy of the Briggs affidavit kept their moth shut about it. A reading of the law and an easily understandable sense of fair play suggest that this was wrong. That many people were worried about the use of the memorandum is clear. Both Stanley Sporkin and Mark Richard can be seen, in a variety of memoranda and meetings, arguing for disclosure or some remedy. It is apparent that either their consciences or their fears of exposure were very sensitized.
And, on close scrutiny, the remedy that was found does not sit well either. From exhibits filed by Adler on Wilson’s behalf it is apparent that Assistant Attorney General Steven Trott, now a Judge on the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, gave permission to the worried lawyers to disclose some inaccuracies in the Briggs affidavit in an obscure paragraph in filings to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. This was long after the conviction. If the Appeals court said to do something they would, if not, they were off the hook. Adler’s response on this point is clear and compelling. The problem with the logic is, at least, twofold. The ‘disclosure’ was made to the appeals court, not the trial court. I don’t believe the Supreme Court’s prohibition on the government’s knowing use of false testimony is rectified by admitting the truth to an entirely different court. The second problem is that telling the truth and admitting a lie has been told are two different statementsÉ It [DoJ’s attempt to satisfy disclosure requirements] simply mentioned (in a document only a few select people had access to) that Wilson had provided ‘a few services’. The trial court and, more importantly, the jury were never told.
Barcella’s position is that a lot of honorable people engaged in a lot of mental effort, that may have gotten too technical to protect the integrity of a conviction that doesn’t need to be undermined.
While the inaccuracies in the Briggs affidavit are unfortunate, Barcella said, they really don’t go to the heart of the defense. To have an authorization defense you have got to be able to show that the act that you are charged with was authorizedÉ Wilson never even alleged that he was authorized to ship the C-4. He didn’t want to admit that he had anything to do with the C-4É He never called Shackley or Clines to the stand because he knew what they would have said. That claim would have been very easy to refute.
People can claim the CIA does weird, bizarre, strange counterproductive things. And they may be able to claim that with some good, solid basis behind it. But what kind of logic would have to be employed to assume that the CIA would authorize the shipment of 40,000 pounds, 20 tons, of C-4, to the guy that was then the biggest terrorist in the world?
Ironically Barcella’s own logic is called into question on three accounts. Once, by the very CIA witness whose testimony the prosecution refused to allow under the conditions imposed by the court – William Larson. In a deposition before the Judge’s ruling, according to Adler’s motion, Larson told prosecutors Éthat the Agency might consider providing 40,000 pounds of explosives to Libya if the source who needed to provide the explosives could obtain ‘great’ information in return. Larson said the Agency would deal with the devil if needed.
Second, as regular FTW readers know, we have often spoken of the pattern of the U.S. secretly arming its enemies for the purposes of expanding budgets, stimulating the economy and ensuring election victories. Abundant documentation – irrefutable documentation – exists to indicate that the Rockefellers, Henry Ford and major American firms financed Adolph Hitler both before and during the Second World War. Fletcher Prouty, using Department of Defense Records has documented how, in 1946, we gave half the weapons intended for use by the U.S. military in the aborted invasion of Japan to Ho Chi Minh. Iraqgate and the scandal around Banco Nacional de Lavoro (BNL) and Kennametal showed us how George Bush had secretly armed Saddam Hussein before the Gulf War. Even Ted Shackley’s own book, The Third Option (McGraw-Hill, 1981), suggests that arming both sides of a conflict is often the best way to control the outcome, sharpen skills and make a profit.
Third, the concept of plausible deniability is not a theoretical abstract from spy novels. It is an enshrined principle of covert operations around the world. There is a point in the food chain at which deniability by higher ups is essential to the conduct of all covert operations. Ed Wilson made millions of dollars because he was taking the risks. He knew that if Shackley or (the now deceased) Tom Clines ever took the stand, they would deny any connection to his actions. That, FTW believes, was the deal from the start. Deniability is reportedly one of Ted Shackley’s favorite words.
Is it really so hard to believe? It is harder for FTW to believe that Ed Wilson had so much contact with Agency employees and they didn’t know about the C-4. Is that possible when Wilson’s personal assistant Douglas Schlachter was walking the halls at CIA headquarters with Clines? That would kind of make the reported $30 billion CIA budget a waste of money wouldn’t it? And, as it plays right now, believing that we live in a nation governed by the rule of law doesn’t make much sense either. Our favorite quote from all of the exhibits so far is not an exact quote but rather a note included with the exhibits. It was made during a meeting of lawyers held on an undetermined date after the trial. Attending the meeting were D. Lowell Jensen, Mark Richard, Stanley Sporkin, Larry Barcella,, Houston AUSA Jim Powers, CIA Attorney David Pearline, DoJ Lawyer Kim Rosenfield (who wrote the Duty to Disclose memorandum) and several other people.
Jensen, now a sitting U.S. District Court Judge in Oakland said that the premise was that DoJ didn’t need to disclose because Wilson already knew the facts. As recorded in the notes Stanley Sporkin the replied, Goes beyond thatÉ this is record affidavit, if found things in records, must be disclosed. – Not in someone’s mind.
We wish that Justice was that simple.
NEXT?
In a response made public on January 18, the Department of Justice acknowledged that Ted Greenberg introduced inaccurate testimony at Wilson’s trial. David Adler has told FTW that he has until February 11th to file his response to the DoJ at which time the court may grant Wilson’s motion to set aside the conviction, reject it, or hold a hearing. Adler has told FTW of his intention to subpoena all of the involved attorneys and judges and put them on the stand if a hearing is granted. Adler also intends to call Ted Shackley. Former CIA Director, Admiral Stansfield Turner was also on the list of potential witnesses until he was critically injured in an airplane accident on Jan 15th.
If the hearing takes place David Adler may then have to admonish each witness of their rights against self-incrimination before asking them about their role in the submission of, and their ensuing silence about, the Briggs affidavit.
FTW will be following every development closely. We are in the process of obtaining a copy of the government’s response and we will report on that next month. We have secured permission from Wilson and his lawyer for a telephone interview but, as of press time, the Federal Prison at Allenwood, Pennsylvania has not put me on the approved phone list. – We are not holding our breath. FTW has already been denied permission to interview Wilson in person.
If Edwin Wilson’s conviction is vacated then a great deal more than just one man will be on trial next. And it is hard to believe that the government, after the mountains of press devoted to Wilson, could let him walk without another trial. It is also not inconceivable that the first conviction could be placed in jeopardy as well. Wilson’s last conviction, 25 years for conspiracy to murder Larry Barcella and other prosecutors, remains intact but Wilson has now served 17 years. If two convictions are thrown out then he is at least eligible for a parole hearing. At 71, and with reportedly failing health, there might remain little justification for keeping him locked up in a maximum security prison.
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The Houston prosecution, for which Greenberg had served as the primary classified record handler, and AUSAs Jim Powers and Karen Morrissette, had no difficulty establishing that Wilson, in 1976, had secured plans for miniature timing devices from CIA contractors and, subsequently, had thousands manufactured and shipped to Libya.
The Houston prosecution had no difficulty – using Barcella’s, Bruce’s and Greenberg’s investigations – to establish that Wilson had conspired to obtain and ship the C-4 in 1977. Greenberg, Barcella, Bruce, Karen Morrissette and local Houston AUSAs also had absolutely no difficulty establishing that Wilson then chartered a DC-8 to ship the C-4 to Libya using falsified records.
Wilson, a one time career CIA agent, who had also worked for the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), was fighting for his life. An open source paper trail from CIA showed that he had not worked at Langley since 1971. Shortly thereafter he began working for a secret Navy operation known as Task Force 157. But, according to other records from both CIA and the Navy, he stopped working for the ONI in 1976 and none of his Navy work was connected to Libya. After that, or so it seemed, even though he continuously socialized with some of the most powerful people in the U.S. intelligence community and the military, he did no official work for anyone. It was in late 1975 and 1976, when George Bush ran the CIA, that Wilson, as an alleged rogue, opened ties to Qadaffy and began selling weapons, explosives and other services and equipment to the terrorist regime.
This would not be the last time that a so-called enemy of the United States in the Arab world would be supplied with weapons and bomb making materials on a watch under the command of George H. W. Bush. While Ed Wilson was training and equipping Qadaffy, he was also lunching with Bush prot g Shackley. He was providing personal airplanes for Air Force General Richard Secord to fly around in, and loaning large sums of money to Shackley’s sidekick, Tom Clines. His company, Consultants International, once a CIA proprietary, which Wilson bought in 1971, was still receiving referral contacts from the Agency. And while former U.S. Army Green Berets, in Wilson’s employ, were teaching Libyans how to blow things up, Clines, a high-ranking active CIA officer, was walking Wilson employee Douglas Schlachter through the halls at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
(Excerpt from above – there’s also more – )
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check this –
ICF International
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
ICF International, Inc. Type Public corporation
Founded 1969
Headquarters Fairfax, Virginia
Key people Sudhakar Kesavan
Chairman and CEO
Industry Professional Services Consulting
Revenue ca. $697 mil (2008)
Employees ca. 3,500 (2009)
Website www.icfi.com
ICF International, formerly known as ICF Consulting, is a management, technology, and policy consulting firm based in Fairfax, Virginia. With offices in business centers across the Americas, Asia, and Europe, the firm develops solutions to energy, climate change, environment, transportation, social programs, health, defense, and emergency management issues. Since 1969, ICF has been serving government at all levels, major corporations, and multilateral institutions. ICF employs more than 3,500 employees worldwide. ICF International went public in 2006. In 2009, ICF acquired Macro International.[1]
[edit] References
1. ^ [1], ICF International to Acquire Macro International Inc.
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Sexual Blackmail
Judging from Washington’s perennial sex scandals, power truly is the ultimate aphrodisiac – to paraphrase that seventies-epoch Casanova, Henry Kissinger, in a slightly different context. For young wonks and old goats alike, political prowess tends to breed hubris and hormones.
Not surprisingly, then, in the nation’s pulsing capital, the fine art of sexual blackmail has what you might call a history.
The pioneering figure of Washington sexmail was that creepiest of peeping G-men, J. Edgar Hoover. Thanks to his infamous sex files, which contained dirt on just about everyone in Washington short of his shoeshine boy, Hoover managed to dominate the capital (and eight presidents) for nearly half a century.
Not surprisingly, Hoover’s busiest period came while John F. Kennedy occupied the White House and its many bedrooms. By several accounts, when rumors were rampant that Kennedy was going to pinkslip the aging, annoying FBI chief, Hoover put his plenary Kennedy files to work, thereby saving his own hide. With an obsession more than verging on the pathological, Hoover had bugged JFK’s legion love nests and tapped the princess phones of assorted Kennedy playmates, including mob moll Judith Campbell Exner and superstarlet Marilyn Monroe – whose bedroom was purportedly heavily trafficked by both Kennedy brothers.
The bug-eyed Hoover also glommed onto in-flight tapes of Jack and actress Angie Dickinson summiting in the boudoir of a chartered aircraft. Typically playing both sides against the middle, Hoover leaked info to the tabloid press about an old Kennedy affair with a senate secretary and about Kennedy’s rumored former marriage, and then put Kennedy in his debt by supplying background for the Newsweek rebuttal, according to journalist Anthony Summers.
When it came to recording Jack and Bobby’s compromising positions, Hoover had company. The Mafia and Jimmy Hoffa also managed to plant electronic bedroom ears in Marilyn Monroe’s inner sanctum, especially at roue actor and Kennedy in-law Peter Lawford’s beach house.
Hoover used the same tactics in his vendetta against Martin Luther King, Jr., bugging the civil rights leader’s tryst spots with assorted paramours, spreading untrue gossip that King was a switch-hitter, even marshaling surveillance photographs of King in the same room as a known – GASP – homosexual. Transcripts were leaked to the press, but the media didn’t bite.
Hoover even had a bimbo file on Richard Nixon, of all the unlikely party animals. As Anthony Simmers reports in his revisionist Hoover biography, Official and Confidential, while Nison was vice president, he met a young Hong Kong travel guide named Marianna Liu. Convinced that Liu was a spy for communist China (a Chicom ), the CIA had British intelligence train its infrared camera lenses on Nixon’s bedroom window during his visits to Hong Kong. Liu and Nixon swore to Summers that there was never any sex, but Hoover was described as reading the Nixon-Chicom file gleefully and showing it to Dick before be became president.
Never one to let evidence get in the way of salacious innuendo, Hoover later came up with a report claiming that future Watergate boys H. R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, and Dwight Chapin were homosexual lovers. This was in 1969, before Watergate, and Hoover’s source, an unidentified bartender, was claiming that the three were whooping it up at homosexual parties in the Watergate hotel. Of course, it wasn’t true, and as Ehrlichman told Summers, I came to think that Hoover did this to show his claws, or ingratiate himself to Nixon – probably both.
In Washington, what going around come around, and Hoover’s actual homosexuality was hardly a secret among his numerous enemies. Mob boss Meyer Lansky liked to boast that he fixed that son of a bitch Hoover, purportedly by acquiring graphic photos of Hoover fellating his lifelong companion, Clyde Tolson. According to Summers, by the late 1940s there were also pictures of Hoover vamping as a closet drag queen. Even that quintessential CIA garbologist, counterspy catcher James Jesus Angleton was in on the act, purportedly having his mits on incriminating Hoover sex pics.
Blackmail or not, the mob’s sway over Hoover was enormous: Publicly, the all-American, morally unimpeachable lingerie-wearing FBI director refused to admit that the Mafia even existed.
Hoover went to his grave more than two decades ago, taking his voluminous personal and confidential sex files with him. Of course they mysteriously vanished, giving rise to assorted conspiracy theories, including the possibility that Hoover loyalists destroyed them, that the CIA snatched them up, and even that Nixon’s Watergate Plumbers made a bungled attempts to get their hot little mits on the explosive cache.
So, with Hoover out of the picture, is sexual extortion in Washington merely a historical idiosyncrasy, like Hoover, and the Kennedys, the product of a more reckless era?
Well, sexual blackmail may have a more enduring place in Washington politics than we ten to suspect. More than one vice investigator in Washington believes that mob-controlled call girls, intelligence operatives, and even Washington lobbyists have long run an underground racket aimed at sexually compromising Congress and the administration. Conspiracy researcher Peter Dale Scott calls it an ongoing, highly organized, and protected operation. Scott, a former Canadian diplomat and professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, goes so far as to suggest that Washington’s sex syndicate, exploited by intelligence spooks and the mob, has driven the major scandals of Washington since at least the beginning of the Cold War.
Apparently, behind every good political scandal is a prostitute. Scott isn’t alone in this thinking. According to Scott, a retired Washington detective, one who played a small but important role in Watergate, believes that mob pimps and bigwig lobbyists use pricey call girls to put the squeeze on key officials. This is apparently a reference to Carl Shoffler, incidentally the arresting police officer who slapped cuffs on the Watergate burglars.
During a 1982 investigation into the use of drugs and sexual activity to lobby congressmen, Shoffler did indeed advise congressional investigators to look into a male prostitution ring that serviced Capitol Hill. The veteran police detective believed that the sex ring might be linked to a high-flying Washington lobbyist, Robert Keith Cray, who had more than a few connections to CIA folk. According to Peter Dale Scott, some Washington investigators also suspected that the gay sex ring was connected to D.C. crime boss Joe the Possum Nesline.
Unfortunately, the congressional probe petered out before it got anywhere. Summing up the untested Libido-gate hypothesis, however, one of the congressional investigators put it this way to author Susan Trento: If a lobbyist wants to use hookers to influence legislation, there’s a pool of talent he draws from. There are certain madams in town that they make connections with. By simple logic, if you’re in the business of influencing people with male prostitutes of kids, there has to be that supply chain…. [If] we start to identify some of the clients, it’s possible we could find the suppliers for intelligence, organized crime, and lobbyists. In other words, follow the honey.
Former (and fugitive) CIA officer Frank Terpil had no compunction about identifying one such client, his former employer. Terpil told investigative author Jim Hougan that CIA-run sexual blackmail setups were common in Washington during the Watergate years. Terpil fingered his former partner, Ed Wilson, as the facilitator of one such CIA operation. Terpil claimed that Wilson ran the CIA mantrap from Korean agent Tong Sun Park’s George Town Club, the Korean intelligence front that figured in the 1970s Koreagate scandal.
Historically, Terpil explained, one of Wilson’s agency jobs was to subvert members of both houses [of Congress] by any means necessary…. Certain people could be easily coerced by living out their sexual fantasy in the flesh…. A remembrance of these occasions [was] permanently recorded via selected cameras.
Of course, we should note the Terpil hasn’t offered any proof to back up that claim, and ex-CIA officers – not least of all, ones who have been convicted in absentia for terrorist activities – aren’t celebrated for their candor. On the other hand, sexual blackmail was indeed a favorite CIA method of turning foreign agents or otherwise compromising them to do Uncle Sam’s bidding. Considering all of the Agency’s illegal doings on domestic soil during the last four decades, Terpil’s story certainly seems plausible. Interestingly, Robert Keith Gray, the omnipresent superlobbyist whose name came up during the 1982 gay sex ring investigation, also pops into the George Town Club-Terpil milieu. Gray, who (coincidentally or not) gravitates toward spy nests, was the club’s first overseer and also a director at Terpil’s firm, Consultants International, a notorious CIA proprietary front.
And speaking of strange coincidences, it might be nothing more than evidence that networking is key in D.C., but Terpil’s and Korean lobbyist Park’s names turned up a few years earlier in the trick book of a cathouse madam linked to yet another famous scandal, the biggest scandal of all: Watergate.
The theory that the Watergate affair sprang, unintentionally, from the bosom of a political sex ring was first proposed by journalist Jim Hougan in his book, Secret Agenda.
The madam, Heidi Rikan, worked out of the Washington’s posh Columbia Plaza apartment building, located across the street from the Watergate office complex. Hougan suggests that Rikan’s call-girl ring may have been either a CIA operation or the target of a CIA operation.
Briefly, Hougan’s hypothesis is this: The Columbia Plaza girls were servicing a very interesting political clientele: Democratic muckamucks who placed their orders for companionship from a phone inside the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate building. Discovering this fruitful setup, Nixon’s henchmen decided to target the Democratic fornicators. But in doing so, they stood a good chance of exposing the heavy breather already bugging the phone lines: the CIA. Ergo, the CIA’s moles in the White House (allegedly superpatriotic conspirators James McCord and E. Howard Hunt) were forced to sabotage the Watergate break-ins in order to protect the CIA’s highly illegal sex sting from Nixon’s overeager burglars.
An illegal CIA sexpionage gambit unintentionally triggering the downfall of Richard Nixon? Say it ain’t so
Does the sexpionage industry go back even further in history than the babes of Watergate? Conspiracy theorist-emeritus Peter Dale Scott is game enough to hazard an affirmative. Employing the semiotics of conspiracy research – wherein names connect to other names, dates, and misdeeds, creating a tableau of suspicion that is usually intriguing, if not always conclusive – Scott has connected the dots.
Most interestingly, the Watergate madam, Heidi Rikan, was a girlfriend of mobster Joe the Possum Nesline, whose alleged connection to the Capitol Hill gay sex scandal a decade late aroused the suspicions of Washington detectives.
Assorted boyfriends and former husbands of both Rikan and her sometime roommate, Mo Biner (who married key Watergate figure John Dean, which makes Mo a pivotal character, according to scandal revisionists), were associated with the Quorum, an early 1960s swingles club run by Bobby Baker, a former aide to Lyndon Johnson. Scott surmises that all roads led to Baker’s club for a reason: the Quorum functioned a lot like the mob-and-intelligence-infested sex traps of the 1970s.
It was Bobby Baker who introduced President Kennedy to an East German bombshell named Ellen Rometsh, whom JFK, true to form, promptly bedded. Scott speculates that J. Edgar Hoover leaked word of this international indiscretion to the press. Whether or not Hoover was behind the leaks, they nearly ignited a global scandal. That’s because JFK’s nubile Valkyrie also happened to be sleeping with a Soviet diplomat, a coincidence that, if revealed, wouldn’t have served Kennedy well at the height of the Cold War. The threat of a bimbo eruption with international implications forced Bobby Kennedy into scandal-kibosh mode.
Scott notes that the JFK-Rometsch peccadillo paralleled the scandalous 1962 affair that toppled British war minister John Profumo. Profumo publicly confessed to romping with Christine Keller, a party doll/prostitute working for sexual procurer Stephen Ward. That scandal proved doubly damaging to Profumo because Keller was simultaneously servicing, yes, a Soviet diplomat. And more recent revelations have disclosed that the British intelligence agency MI5 had been using the Stephen Ward sex ring for some time to compromise the Soviet agent. Scott wonders, did MI5 set out to compromise Profumo as well? Did the hyperlibidinous JFK blunder into a similar sex trap?
Interestingly, there is a more direct connection between JFK’s peccadilloes and the MI5-manipulated Profumo affair. During the summer of 1963, Hoover’s porous sex files began leaking again, resulting in press reports that a high U.S. official had slept with two members of Britain’s Ward-Keeler sex ring, the very ring that toppled Profumo. That high U.S. official, no surprise, was the prodigious JFK. Scott observes that MI5, as Britain’s counterintelligence agency, maintained direct relations with both Hoover in the FBI and the CIA. Did the Brits help Hoover set up Kennedy for a fall?
Bobby Baker, catalyst of the JFK-Rometsch affair, later boasted that he had in his possession letters from the east Germain woman that could prove embarrassing to the Kennedys, which per Scott, strengthens the impression of an ongoing, sophisticated blackmail operation in this nation’s carnal capital.
Perhaps. Or maybe it just proves that in Washington eventually everyone gets screwed.
Roswell, New Mexico Home Slick Willy
Copyright © 2000 CarpeNoctem. All rights reserved.
Revised: April 2003.
You are Visitor No:
http://www.carpenoctem.tv/cons/sex.html
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Detective Techniques
APPRAISING
Appraisal Glossary
ANALYZING ART
BALLISTICS
Weapon Dating
BUILDING BACKGROUND
Property Search
DOCUMENT EXAMINATION
Paper Analysis
Printed Items
FINDING EXPERTS
FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGY
GENEALOGY
Getting Started
Oral History
Census Information
African-American Genealogy
DNA Analysis
GEOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
Stones and Minerals
HISTORICAL RESEARCH
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MILITARY HISTORY
PATENT SEARCH
PHOTOGRAPHS
PRESERVATION
TEXTILE ANALYSIS
TIMBER DATING
TRACKING PEOPLE
VERY OLD OBJECTS
DO’S AND DON’TS
GLOSSARY
Overview
Historical sleuthing involves a variety methods to get to the bottom of a case.
Discover how to be a history detective with these guides that give you the all the information, tips and trade secrets to help solve your own historical mysteries.
Appraising
Look closely and see: An appraisal is a formal estimation of the provenance, veracity, significance, and in some cases, value of something.
Also see: Appraisal Glossary
Analyzing Art
Rogue’s gallery: Get the big picture on detection and identification.
Ballistics
Aim to find out: You can collect clues and evidence from bullets and firearms.
Weapon dating: These techniques determine the age, origin or authenticity of a weapon.
Building Background
Under cover: Investigate the history of buildings.
Property search: Find out more about locating land records and sources.
Document Examination
See the signs: Documents are examined from three different aspects: historical, scientific, and stylistic.
Paper analysis: Looking closely you can determine age, make-up and origin.
Printed items: How to examine documents and personal papers.
Finding Experts
The right person: One of the most important aspects of any investigation is finding the best expert in their field to consult.
Forensic Anthropology
Science of the dead: Analyzing human remains can reveal the identity, age and cause of death.
Genealogy
Investigating family: Finding out more about where you came from is a popular passion for many.
Where to start: A step-by-step guide.
Oral history: Tips for recording spoken history before it is too late.
Searching the census: This is a great place to get considerable detail about individuals.
African-American genealogy: Reaching back can be challenging, but a host of tools are available if you know where to look.
Sample the technique: DNA analysis can prove kinship and ethnic origin.
Geological Analysis
Rock stories : Using scientific techniques, investigators can learn where, when, and how stone and clay artifacts were made.
Stones & minerals: Find out how to identify a type of rock or mineral.
Historical Research
Checking out: Factual records and sources can help to pin down facts.
Searching through history: Archives are a treasure trove of material.
Military History
Fighting forebears: How to target official military records to find out more about soldiers and their wwar experience.
Patent Search
Patently obvious: Find out the origin and detail surrounding an invention or innovation.
Photographs
Picture perfect: How to investigate photographs and their provenance.
Preservation
Fading away: Learn how to protect fragile family treasures.
Textile Analysis
Material worth: Analyze textiles and materials to determine their age and source.
Timber Dating
Dead wood: Determine the absolute age of wood and organic artifacts.
Tracking People
Skeletons in the closet: It takes tenacity and patience to research a person, but the payoff can often be dramatic and surprising.
Very Old Objects
Back in time: Investigating old objects can take you on a journey that predates history itself
If you have a professional-grade puzzle to solve tell us all about it.
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DIY Investigations
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Finding Family
The History Detectives Team | September 3, 2009 9:56 AM | 12 Responses
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Are you interested in investigating your roots? Genealogical research allows you to find out the history of your family.
If you want to research your family, your first step should be to decide what you’re looking for, compile a list of what you want to know. It is usually easier to research a male line of descent. Start with what you know and then try and fill in the blanks. Consult older relatives as they will probably have information that can start you off.
Common records are a good way to dip your feet in and start the search and they will show you how to work backwards, starting from you. Your birth certificate will give you information about your parents, and their marriage records will give information about their parents and so forth.
Check local libraries to see if they have a genealogy section that contains guides on how to do it yourself. Some libraries will subscribe to genealogy magazines and may even have a link to a local genealogy society. There are over 3,000 local genealogy societies in the United States, mostly containing marriage and cemetery records. Your local society is a good place to go for advice and also to contact other people who are conducting research. You may even find someone who is researching into your family. You can find listings of societies across the country in libraries in the Genealogical Periodical Annual Index (GPAI). Click here for the 2000 version.
You will come across familiar names, historical facts and locations during your search. Use the encyclopaedias, books and old maps in the reference section of your local library to check facts and follow the trail. Also be sure to inquire at your library about other invaluable resources like newspaper archives and telephone directories.
As you start to identify people, separate them out onto individual cards and note down any vital information you have on them, such as birth and death records, parents’ names and marriage records. Start to map the relatives you uncover onto a rough family tree, tentatively working out the links between everyone. You can also use pedigree charts or family group sheets. (Requires Adobe Acrobat)
You can contact a number of sources to find more records, notably national, regional or local offices. You can use them to find birth, death or marriage dates. Before visiting the offices, make sure you’ve done as much background research as you can to optimise your time. Some archive offices will have information about their records online and you can confirm what you need in advance. If you are investigating family members before 1920 you can find information in census records. Find out more about investigating census records here.
During your search you may come across obstacles that inhibit your progress, for example if you’re investigating African-American lineage an obstacle you will encounter is slavery, an institution that broke family bonds and made record keeping nearly impossible. There are often ways around these obstacles, in the case of African-American genealogy we have a section here that you can visit for pointers.
Make sure you record your steps as your investigation will expose other branches of the family you may want to research in future. Also try and use primary sources as much as possible. Make sure that you assess secondary sources thoroughly and always approach them with a degree of scepticism. Where does the document come from and what are the motivations of the author? Most importantly verify all of your research.
Have you found out any information about your family history? What did you discover? Do you have any tips? We would like to know. Let us know in the form below.
You can also join our Facebook group where you can meet other fans and share information.
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Comments
Bertruce,
There’s a good chance you’ll find some of the information you seek at your college library. Many colleges offer their students access to digital resources like Ancestry, LexisNexis and extensive historical newspaper databases such as Proquest. Likewise, you may be able to borrow New York records on microfilm through an inter-library loan. Finally, you should contact the historical society in your ancestors hometown or region. Best of luck with your search.
Posted by The History Detectives Team Author Profile Page on September 29, 2009 5:32 PM
Hello. I am a college student researching my own family history in Michigan. SInce I cannot physically go look at records-my family was so reclusive-I was wondering how I would find my family in the middle 1800’s in New York State? I don’t have any money for Ancestry.com.
Posted by Bertruce L. Beals IV on September 25, 2009 1:34 PM
Julia, check out our Fighting Forebears post for a list of tips. And let us know how it goes
Posted by The History Detectives Team Author Profile Page on September 22, 2009 11:55 AM
I’m trying to find out how to get a copy of my father and my grandfather’s military records. I know they were both in the army. And I am in the army now. I have asked my dad, but he claims to only have his DD242. Does anyone have any hint’s or tips for me?
Posted by Julia J. Tippie on September 20, 2009 3:39 PM
In seeking an ancestor I ran into a person with the same name and age but disregarded it because I thought that the occupation was listed as a Lawyer . Since it was a family known fact and also put in almost every census that he could not read or write, we thought that it was not him. I came acrossed this person again after transcribing other censuses that it said Sawyer . It was our person.
Posted by Cindy on September 15, 2009 5:33 PM
I have been doing genealogy work for many years. I have come across a brickwall that I cannot seem to get over. Do you have any suggestions about researching orpan train riders? My great grandfather was born arouund 1874. In 1878 he found his way from New York City to the rural area of St. Mary’s Co. Maryland. He appears in the 1880 census records living in Maryland. A cousin found information that he was placed at the New York Foundling Hospital at the age of 3 weeks.
Tracing his journey has been difficult. We are anxious to locate any extended family who also descended from Peter Cameron. Thank you.
Posted by Paul Mandel on September 13, 2009 6:06 PM
Don’t get locked into a specific spelling for first and last names, especially if your ancestor came from a country that does not use the Latin-based alphabet. My husband’s family came from Russia and Moskovitz was transliterated in many humorous and nearly unrecognizable ways until the family settled on a single spelling. (My favorite: Mushoitz) Also, many people Americanized their first names (Rachel to Rose, Golda to Gertrude). You have to look for family patterns, not just your individual ancestor.
Take time to record information on neighbors and other people with the your distinctive surname. They may turn out to be cousins or married-in relatives. You’ll save yourself a second trip to the archives if you collect the information into a pending file and review it periodically against newly discovered family data.
Posted by Denise Pagel Moskovitz on September 10, 2009 6:25 PM
I have been told throughout my life that my father Vincent Aster Woodson was a decedent of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Henning. The Woodson lineage has been documented already through DNA testing. However my siblings and I would like to know if we are a part of that lineage.
Thank you
Robin Michelle Woodson Robinson
Posted by Robin on September 10, 2009 10:49 AM
The History Detectives is a great show I enjoy watching.
Some of the tips I have learned over the past 30 years of researching my family
history are as follows:
1. Talk to and record information from family members while they are still living.
This is how I obtained some of the family history from my grandparents. I am still at a
few ‘brick walls’ from not asking questions, though.
2. As mentioned in this article, go to your local library. While there, ask if they have
newspaper obituaries on microfilm. I have found many family members from the
late 1800’s to the present on microfilms.
3. Every state has a GenWeb project site. From these states, individual counties may
have their own information also. Log on to http://www.usgenweb.org/
Posted by Dennis McDowell on September 8, 2009 12:32 PM
This is by far the best show on TV — cable or not Thank you for all your insights over the years. You are definitely the best thing about Summer.
To Rachel — thank you for the family tree tips. I started doing mine in May right before a family reunion and was completely struck with how easy it was to go further than anyone alive even knew. I am on ancestry.com. I especially love your tip about two people with the same name in the same immediate family. I have a Thomas Campbell (1799-1880) and seemingly his brother Thomas Edward Campbell (1807-1887). So I am stumped on that one right now.
I wanted to add one thing I learned from another who intersected my family tree. Sometimes a date they signed their will will be misreported as the death date. I had this happen with Archibald Campbell (father of both Thomases). I found his dates to be 1763-1857 and then I found a 108 year-old Archibald in the 1870 census and found another death date of 1871. That can be tricky and puzzling. But I figure the census was more right than that family tree that recorded 1857.
Posted by Kelly J Kitchens Wickersham on September 8, 2009 3:18 AM
You mention in your link on Census Records that Ancestry.com has online records through the year 1920. They actually have records through 1930. I prefer the Census Records because they are more factual , but there are some things to keep in mind. Here are a few tips:
1. For better accuracy, cross reference the Census Records with one another before making a hard assumption. There are often multiple people with the same name in the same area… just like today.
2. Check for little things… does it say in one census that he/she can read/write and then in another census state that he/she cannot? Don’t automatically discard it, because information can be different depending on who answered the Census Taker’s questions. But take the time to double-check before assuming one way or another.
3. If a child died young, parents would often re-use the name, I presume in honor of the first child. My Great-Great-Grandfather was the second child in his family named Samuel. I have found other instances, as well. So watch your Date of Birth You could be looking at the right family, just sooner than you thought
4. Keep historical facts in mind. Remember what you KNOW is true, and base your investigation on how the facts you’re seeing compare to what you KNOW. An example from my own research… in the 1850 US Federal Census in Morgan County, Indiana, the Census Taker abbreviated Indiana as IA, not IN. Iowa had been a state for only three years at that point and there was no standard for abbreviations. I figured it out when I realized that no one from that county was listed as having been born in Indiana, but there was name after name after name of people listed as being born in Iowa. The only explanations would be a mass migration from Iowa to Indiana in the 1840’s (which we know didn’t happen), or there was something wrong with how I was reading the Census.
5. Don’t forget to think outside the box. I had a major breakthrough simply by realizing that a particular family was blended … each spouse had been married before and each had come to the marriage with a child. To make it worse, both children had the same name
6. Check your resources. It’s good to get information from other people’s trees, but do not add it blindly without checking where they got the information. If one person makes a mistake and 20 people blindly add it (which happens all the time), then you have a pretty messed up family tree ( I’m my own Grandpa sort of thing )
Hope that’s helpful
Posted by Rachel Tiede on September 7, 2009 10:45 PM
In tonight’s story about the location of the bridge in Columbia, SC, in the wrap up comments afterwards you stated that Appomatox Court House where Lee surrended was in Northern Virginia. In fact it is in Southside Virginia, hundreds of miles from Northern Virginia. Otherwise the whole program tonight was one of best ever. We really enjoy History Detectives and have told many friends about it.
Posted by David F Wayland on September 7, 2009 10:15 PM
http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/diyinv/
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JFKshackley2.jpg
Theodore (Ted) Shackley was born in 1927. His mother was a Polish immigrant and he spent much of his childhood living with his grandmother. Shackley was raised in West Palm Beach, Florida and in October, 1945, joined the United States Army. After basic training he was sent to Germany where he was part of the Allied occupation force. As a result of his knowledge of the Polish language he was recruited into the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corp. In 1947 he was sent to study at the University of Maryland.
Shackley returned to Germany in 1951 as a 2nd Lieutenant. As a member of Army Counter Intelligence Corp he was involved in recruiting Polish agents. He was also recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency. By 1953 he was working for William Harvey at the CIA Berlin Station.
Shackley, whose nickname was the Blond Ghost (because he hated to be photographed) became involved in CIA’s Black Operations. This involved a policy that was later to become known as Executive Action (a plan to remove unfriendly foreign leaders from power). This included a coup d’état that overthrew the Guatemalan government of Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 after he introduced land reforms and nationalized the United Fruit Company.
After the Bay of Pigs disaster President John F. Kennedy created a committee (SGA) charged with overthrowing Castro’s government. The SGA, chaired by Robert F. Kennedy (Attorney General), included John McCone (CIA Director), McGeorge Bundy (National Security Adviser), Alexis Johnson (State Department), Roswell Gilpatric (Defence Department), General Lyman Lemnitzer (Joint Chiefs of Staff) and General Maxwell Taylor. Although not officially members, Dean Rusk (Secretary of State) and Robert S. McNamara (Secretary of Defence) also attended meetings.
At a meeting of this committee at the White House on 4th November, 1961, it was decided to call this covert action program for sabotage and subversion against Cuba, Operation Mongoose. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy also decided that General Edward Lansdale (Staff Member of the President’s Committee on Military Assistance) should be placed in charge of the operation. One of Lansdale’s first decisions was to appoint William Harvey as head of Task Force W. Harvey’s brief was to organize a broad range of activities that would help to bring down Castro’s government.
In early 1962 Harvey brought Ted Shackley into the project as deputy chief of JM/WAVE. In April, 1962, Shackley was involved in delivering supplies to Johnny Roselli as part of the plan to assassinate Fidel Castro. Later that year he became head of the station. In doing so, he gained control over Operation 40 or what some now called Shackley’s Secret Team. Shackley was also responsible for gathering intelligence and recruiting spies in Cuba. Most of the anti-Castro Cubans that the CIA managed to infiltrate into Cuba were captured and either imprisoned or executed.
In the winter of 1962 Eddie Bayo claimed that two officers in the Red Army based in Cuba wanted to defect to the United States. Bayo added that these men wanted to pass on details about atomic warheads and missiles that were still in Cuba despite the agreement that followed the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Bayo’s story was eventually taken up by several members of the anti-Castro community including William Pawley, Gerry P. Hemming, John Martino, Felipe Vidal Santiago and Frank Sturgis. Pawley became convinced that it was vitally important to help get these Soviet officers out of Cuba.
William Pawley contacted Shackley at JM WAVE. Shackley decided to help Pawley organize what became known as Operation Tilt. He also assigned Rip Robertson, a fellow member of the CIA in Miami, to help with the operation. David Morales, another CIA agent, also became involved in this attempt to bring out these two Soviet officers.
In June, 1963, a small group, including William Pawley, Eddie Bayo, Rip Robertson, John Martino, and Richard Billings, a journalist working for Life Magazine, secretly arrived in Cuba. They were unsuccessful in their attempts to find these Soviet officers and they were forced to return to Miami. Bayo remained behind and it was rumoured that he had been captured and executed.
In the autumn of 1963 Ted Shackley and Carl E. Jenkins were using members of Operation 40 in their attempts to try and kill Fidel Castro. According to the interview he gave in 2005, Gene Wheaton claims it was Jenkins who redirected this team to kill John F. Kennedy.
Spymaster
Blond Ghost
According to recently released AMWORLD documents it would seem that Shackley and Jenkins continued to use Operation 40 against Castro. In his book, The Crimes of a President, Joel Bainerman argues that during this period “Theodore Shackley headed a program of raids and sabotage against Cuba. Working under Shackley was Thomas Clines, Rafael Quintero, Luis Posada Carriles, Rafael and Raul Villaverde, Frank Sturges, Felix Rodriguez and Edwin Wilson.”
In 1966 Shackley was placed in charge of the CIA secret war in Laos. He appointed Thomas G. Clines as his deputy. He also took Carl E. Jenkins, David Morales, Raphael Quintero, Felix Rodriguez and Edwin Wilson with him to Laos. According to Joel Bainerman it was at this point that Shackley and his Secret Team became involved in the drug trade. They did this via General Vang Pao, the leader of the anti-communist forces in Laos. Vang Pao was a major figure in the opium trade in Laos. To help him Shackley used his CIA officials and assets to sabotage the competitors. Eventually Vang Pao had a monopoly over the heroin trade in Laos. In 1967 Shackley and Clines helped Vang Pao to obtain financial backing to form his own airline, Zieng Khouang Air Transport Company, to transport opium and heroin between Long Tieng and Vientiane.
According to Alfred W. McCoy (The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade) Shackley and Clines arranged a meeting in Saigon in 1968 between Santo Trafficante and Vang Pao to establish a heroin-smuggling operation from Southeast Asia to the United States.
Shackley employed David Morales to take charge at Pakse, a black operations base focused on political paramilitary action within Laos. Pakse was used to launch military operations against the Ho Chi Minh Trial. In 1969 Shackley became Chief of Station in Vietnam and headed the Phoenix Program. This involved the killing of non-combatant Vietnamese civilians suspected of collaborating with the National Liberation Front. In a two year period, Operation Phoenix murdered 28,978 civilians.
Shackley also brought others into his drug operation. This included Richard L. Armitage, a US Navy official based in Saigon’s US office of Naval Operations, and Major General Richard Secord. According to Daniel Sheehan: “From late 1973 until April of 1975, Theodore Shackley, Thomas Clines and Richard Armitage disbursed, from the secret, Laotian-based, Vang Pao opium fund, vastly more money than was required to finance even the highly intensified Phoenix Project in Vietnam. The money in excess of that used in Vietnam was secretly smuggled out of Vietnam in large suitcases, by Richard Secord and Thomas Clines and carried into Australia, where it was deposited in a secret, personal bank account (privately accessible to Theodore Shackley, Thomas Clines and Richard Secord). During this same period of time between 1973 and 1975, Theodore Shackley and Thomas Clines caused thousands of tons of US weapons, ammunition, and explosives to be secretly taken from Vietnam and stored at a secret cache hidden inside Thailand.
This money, with the help of Raphael Quintero, found its way into the Nugan Hand Bank in Sydney. The bank was founded by Michael Hand, a CIA operative in Laos and Frank Nugan an Australian businessman.
Saigon fell to the NLF in April, 1975. The Vietnam War was over. Richard Armitage was dispatched by Shackley, from Vietnam to Tehran. In Iran, Armitage, set up a secret financial conduit inside Iran, into which secret Vang Pao drug funds could be deposited from Southeast Asia. According to Daniel Sheehan: “The purpose of this conduit was to serve as the vehicle for secret funding by Shackley’s Secret Team, of a private, non-CIA authorized Black operations inside Iran, disposed to seek out, identify, and assassinate socialist and communist sympathizers, who were viewed by Shackley and his Secret Team members to be potential terrorists against the Shah of Iran’s government in Iran. In late 1975 and early 1976, Theodore Shackley and Thomas Clines retained Edwin Wilson to travel to Tehran, Iran to head up the Secret Team covert anti-terrorist assassination program in Iran.”
When Shackley was recalled in February, 1972, he was put in charge of the CIA’s Western Hemisphere Division. One of his major tasks was to undermine Philip Agee, an ex-CIA officer who was writing a book on the CIA. The book was eventually published as Inside the Company: CIA Diary, but did not include the information that would have permanently damaged the reputation of the CIA.
Shackley also played an important role in the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile. As his biographer, David Corn points out: Salvador Allende died during the coup. When the smoke cleared, General Augusto Pinochet, the head of a military junta, was in dictatorial control… Elections were suspended. The press was censored. Allende supporters and opponents of the junta were jailed. Torture centers were established. Executions replaced soccer matches in Santiago’s stadiums. Bodies floated down the Mapocho river. Due in part to the hard work of Shackley and dozens of other Agency bureaucrats and operatives, Chile was free of the socialists.
After Richard Nixon resigned, Gerald Ford brought in George H. W. Bush as Director of the CIA. This was followed by Shackley being appointed as Deputy Director of Operations. He therefore became second-in-command of all CIA covert activity.
Donald Freed (Death in Washington: The Murder of Orlando Letelier) claims that on 29th June, 1976, Townley had a meeting with Bernardo De Torres, Armando Lopez Estrada, Hector Duran and General Juan Manuel Contreras Sepulveda. The following month Frank Castro, Luis Posada, Orlando Bosch and Guillermo Novo established Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU). CORU was partly financed by Guillermo Hernández Cartaya, another Bay of Pigs veteran closely linked to the CIA. He was later charged with money laundering, drugs & arms trafficking and embezzlement. The federal prosecutor told Pete Brewton that he had been approached by a CIA officer who explained that Cartaya had done a bunch of things that the government was indebted to him for, and he asked me to drop the charges against him.
One Miami police veteran told the authors of Assassination on Embassy Row (1980): The Cubans held the CORU meeting at the request of the CIA. The Cuban groups… were running amok in the mid-1970s, and the United States had lost control of them. So the United States backed the meeting to get them all going in the same direction again, under United States control. It has been pointed out that George H. W. Bush was director of the CIA when this meeting took place.
Shackley was hoping to eventually replace Bush as director of the CIA. However, the election of Jimmy Carter was a severe blow to his chances. Carter appointed an outsider, Stansfield Turner, as head of the CIA. He immediately carried out an investigation of into CIA covert activities. Turner eventually found out about Shackley’s “Secret Team”. He was especially worried about the activities of Edwin Wilson and the Nugan Hand Bank.
One of the men Wilson employed was former CIA officer Kevin P. Mulcahy. He became concerned about Wilson’s illegal activities and sent a message about them to the agency. Shackley was initially able to block any internal investigation of Wilson. However, in April, 1977, the Washington Post, published an article on Wilson’s activities stating that he may be getting support from current CIA employees . Stansfield Turner ordered an investigation and discovered that both Shackley and Thomas G. Clines had close relationships with Wilson. Shackley was called in to explain what was going on. His explanation was not satisfactory and it was made clear that his career at the CIA had come to an end. Richard Helms, reportedly said: Ted (Shackley) is what we call in the spook business a quadruple threat – Drugs, Arms, Money and Murder.
After leaving the CIA in September, 1979, Shackley formed his own company, Research Associates International, which specialized in providing intelligence to business. He also joined with Thomas G. Clines, Raphael Quintero, and Ricardo Chavez (another former CIA operative) in another company called API Distributors. According to David Corn (Blond Ghost) Edwin Wilson provided Clines with half a million dollars to get his business empire going . Shackley also freelanced with API but found it difficult taking orders from his former subordinate, Clines. Shackley also established his own company, Research Associates International, which specialized in providing intelligence to business (in other words he sold them classified information from CIA files).
According to Daniel Sheehan: “In 1976, Richard Secord moved to Tehran, Iran and became the Deputy Assistant Secretary of defense in Iran, in charge of the Middle Eastern Division of the Defense Security Assistance Administration. In this capacity, Secord functioned as the chief operations officer for the U.S. Defense Department in the Middle East in charge of foreign military sales of U.S. aircraft, weapons and military equipment to Middle Eastern nations allied to the U.S. Secord’s immediate superior was Eric Van Marbad, the former 40 Committee liaison officer to Theodore Shackley’s Phoenix program in Vietnam from 1973 to 1975.”
From 1977 until 1979, Richard Armitage operated a business named The Far East Trading Company. This company was in fact merely a front for Armitage’s secret operations conducting Vang Pao opium money out of Southeast Asia to Tehran and the Nugan Hand Bank in Australia to fund the ultra right-wing, private anti-communist anti-terrorist assassination program and unconventional warfare operation of Theodore Shackley’s and Thomas Cline’s Secret Team . (Daniel P. Sheehan’s affidavit).
In his book, The Crimes of a President, Joel Bainerman argues that the Secret Team still used the Nugan Hand Bank to hide their illegal profits from drugs and arms. The President of the Nugan Hand Bank was Admiral Earl P. Yates, former Chief of Staff for Strategic Planning of US Forces in Asia. Other directors of the bank included Dale Holmgree (also worked for Civil Air Transport, a CIA proprietary company) and General Edwin F. Black, (commander of U.S. troops in Thailand during the Vietnam War). George Farris (a CIA operative in Vietnam) ran the Washington office of the Nugan Hand Bank and the bank’s legal counsel was William Colby.
The bank grew and had offices or affiliates in 13 countries. According to Jonathan Kwitny, Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA, Crimes of Patriots), the bank did little banking. What it did do was to amass, move, collect and disburse great sums of money.
In 1980 Frank Nugan was found dead in his car. His co-founder, Michael Hand had disappeared at the same time. The Australian authorities were forced to investigate the bank. They discovered that Ricardo Chavez, the former CIA operative who was co-owner of API Distributors with Thomas G. Clines and Rafael Quintero, was attempting to take control of the bank. The Corporate Affairs Commission of New South Wales came to the conclusion that Chavez was working on behalf of Clines, Quintero and Wilson. They blocked the move but they were unable or unwilling to explore the connections between the CIA and the Nugan Hand Bank.
The Secret Team (Shackley, Thomas G. Clines, Richard Secord, Ricardo Chavez, Rafael Quintero, Albert Hakim, Edwin Wilson, and Richard L. Armitage set up several corporations and subsidiaries around the world through which to conceal the operations of the Secret Team . Many of these corporations were set up in Switzerland. Some of these were: (1) Lake Resources, Inc.; (2) The Stanford Technology Trading Group, Inc.; and (3) Companie de Services Fiduciaria. Other companies were set up in Central America, such as: (4) CSF Investments, Ltd. and (5) Udall research Corporation. Some were set up inside the United States by Edwin Wilson. Some of these were: (6) Orca Supply Company in Florida and (7) Consultants International in Washington, D.C. Through these corporations the Secret Team laundered hundreds of millions of dollars of secret Vang Pao opium money.
Shackley had still not given up hope that he would eventually be appointed director of the CIA. His best hope was in getting Jimmy Carter defeated in 1980. Shackley had several secret meetings with George H. W. Bush as he campaigned for the Republican nomination (his wife, Hazel Shackley also worked for Bush). Ronald Reagan won the nomination but got the support of the CIA by selecting Bush as his vice president. According to Rafael Quintero, during the presidential campaign, Shackley met Bush almost every week.
It is believed that Shackley used his contacts in the CIA to provide information to Reagan and Bush. This included information that Carter was attempting to negotiate a deal with Iran to get the American hostages released. This was disastrous news for the Reagan/Bush campaign. If Carter got the hostages out before the election, the public perception of the man might change and he might be elected for a second-term.
According to Barbara Honegger, a researcher and policy analyst with the 1980 Reagan/Bush campaign, William Casey and other representatives of the Reagan presidential campaign made a deal at two sets of meetings in July and August at the Ritz Hotel in Madrid with Iranians to delay the release of Americans held hostage in Iran until after the November 1980 presidential elections. Reagan’s aides promised that they would get a better deal if they waited until Carter was defeated.
On 22nd September, 1980, Iraq invaded Iran. The Iranian government was now in desperate need of spare parts and equipment for its armed forces. Carter now proposed that the US would be willing to hand over supplies in return for the hostages.
Once again, the CIA leaked this information to Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. This attempted deal was also passed to the media. On 11th October, the Washington Post reported rumours of a “secret deal that would see the hostages released in exchange for the American made military spare parts Iran needs to continue its fight against Iraq”.
The Very Best Men
The Mighty Wurlitzer
In October, 1980, Shackley joined the company owned by Albert Hakim (he was paid $5,000 a month as a part-time “risk analyst”). Hakim was keen to use Shackley’s contacts to make money out of the Iran-Iraq War that had started the previous month.
A couple of days before the election Barry Goldwater was reported as saying that he had information that “two air force C-5 transports were being loaded with spare parts for Iran”. This was not true. However, this publicity had made it impossible for Jimmy Carter to do a deal. Ronald Reagan on the other hand, had promised the Iranian government that he would arrange for them to get all the arms they needed in exchange for the hostages. According to Mansur Rafizadeh, the former U.S. station chief of SAVAK, the Iranian secret police, CIA agents had persuaded Khomeini not to release the American hostages until Reagan was sworn in. In fact, they were released twenty minutes after his inaugural address (October Surprise).
The arms the Iranians had demanded were delivered via Israel. By the end of 1982 all Regan’s promises to Iran had been made. With the deal completed, Iran was free to resort to acts of terrorism against the United States. In 1983, Iranian-backed terrorists blew up 241 marines in the CIA Middle-East headquarters.
The Iranians once again began taking American hostages in exchange for arms shipments. On 16th March, 1984, William Francis Buckley, a diplomat attached to the U.S. Embassy in Beirut was kidnapped by the Hezbollah, a fundamentalist Shiite group with strong links to the Khomeini regime. Buckley was tortured and it was soon discovered that he was the CIA station chief in Beirut.
Shackley was horrified when he discovered that Buckley had been captured. Buckley was a member of Shackley’s Secret Team that had been involved with Edwin Wilson, Thomas Clines, Carl E. Jenkins, Raphael Quintero, Felix Rodriguez and Luis Posada, in the CIA “assassination” program.
Buckley had also worked closely with William Casey (now the director of the CIA) in the secret negotiations with the Iranians in 1980. Buckley had a lot to tell the Iranians. He eventually signed a 400 page statement detailing his activities in the CIA. He was also videotaped making this confession. Casey asked Shackley for help in obtaining Buckley’s freedom.
Three weeks after Buckley’s disappearance, President Ronald Reagan signed the National Security Decision Directive 138. This directive was drafted by Oliver North and outlined plans on how to get the American hostages released from Iran and to “neutralize” terrorist threats from countries such as Nicaragua. This new secret counterterrorist task force was to be headed by Shackley’s old friend, General Richard Secord. This was the beginning of the Iran-Contra deal.
Talks had already started about exchanging American hostages for arms. On 30th August, 1985, Israel shipped 100 TOW missiles to Iran. On 14th September they received another 408 missiles from Israel. The Israelis made a profit of $3 million on the deal.
In October, 1985, Congress agreed to vote 27 million dollars in non-lethal aid for the Contras in Nicaragua. However, members of the Ronald Reagan administration decided to use this money to provide weapons to the Contras and the Mujahideen in Afghanistan.
The following month, Shackley traveled to Hamburg where he met General Manucher Hashemi, the former head of SAVAK’s counterintelligence division at the Atlantic Hotel. Also at the meeting on 22nd November was Manuchehr Ghorbanifar. According to the report of this meeting that Shackley sent to the CIA, Ghorbanifar had “fantastic” contacts with Iran.
At the meeting Shackley told Hashemi and Ghorbanifar that the United States was willing to discuss arms shipments in exchange for the four Americans kidnapped in Lebanon. The problem with the proposed deal was that William Francis Buckley was already dead (he had died of a heart-attack while being tortured).
Shackley recruited some of the former members of his CIA Secret Team to help him with these arm deals. This included Thomas Clines, Rafael Quintero, Ricardo Chavez and Edwin Wilson of API Distributors. Also involved was Carl E. Jenkins and Gene Wheaton of National Air. The plan was to use National Air to transport these weapons.
In May 1986 Wheaton told William Casey, director of the CIA, about what he knew about this illegal operation. Casey refused to take any action, claiming that the agency or the government were not involved in what later became known as Irangate.
Wheaton now took his story to Daniel Sheehan, a left-wing lawyer. Wheaton told him that Tom Clines and Ted Shackley had been running a top-secret assassination unit since the early 1960s. According to Wheaton, it had begun with an assassination training program for Cuban exiles and the original target had been Fidel Castro.
Gene Wheaton also contacted Newt Royce and Mike Acoca, two journalists based in Washington. The first article on this scandal appeared in the San Francisco Examiner on 27th July, 1986. As a result of this story, Congressman Dante Facell wrote a letter to the Secretary of Defense, Casper Weinberger, asking him if it true that foreign money, kickback money on programs, was being used to fund foreign covert operations. Two months later, Weinberger denied that the government knew about this illegal operation.
On 5th October, 1986, a Sandinista patrol in Nicaragua shot down a C-123K cargo plane that was supplying the Contras. Eugene Hasenfus, an Air America veteran, survived the crash and told his captors that he thought the CIA was behind the operation. He also provided information on two Cuban-Americans running the operation in El Savador. This resulted in journalists being able to identify Rafael Quintero and Felix Rodriguez as the two Cuban-Americans mentioned by Hasenfus. It gradually emerged that Thomas Clines, Oliver North, Edwin Wilson and Richard Secord were also involved in this conspiracy to provide arms to the Contras.
On 12th December, 1986, Daniel Sheehan submitted to the court an affidavit detailing the Irangate scandal. He also claimed that Shackley and Thomas Clines were running a private assassination program that had evolved from projects they ran while working for the CIA. Others named as being part of this assassination team included Rafael Quintero, Richard Secord, Felix Rodriguez and Albert Hakim. It later emerged that Gene Wheaton and Carl E. Jenkins were the two main sources for this affidavit.
It was eventually discovered that President Ronald Reagan had sold arms to Iran. The money gained from these sales was used to provide support for the Contras, a group of guerrillas engaged in an insurgency against the elected socialist Sandinista government of Nicaragua. Both the sale of these weapons and the funding of the Contras violated administration policy as well as legislation passed by Congress.
On 23rd June, 1988, Judge James L. King ruled that Sheehan’s allegations were based on unsubstantiated rumor and speculation from unidentified sources with no firsthand knowledge . In February, 1989, Judge King ruled that Sheenan had brought a frivolous lawsuit and ordered his Christic Institute to pay the defendants $955,000. This was one of the highest sanction orders in history and represented four times the total assets of the Christic Institute.
Ted Shackley died in Bethesda, Maryland, in December 2002. His autobiography, Spymaster: My Life in the CIA, was published in April, 2005.
Namebase: Theodore G. Shackley
Wikipedia: Ted Shackley
Ted Shackley: Hall of Fame
AlterNet: Theodore Shackley
Time Search: Spartacus Educational
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKshackley.htm
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John Hinckley, Jr.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Hinckley, Jr.
Born John Warnock Hinckley, Jr.
May 29, 1955 (1955-05-29) (age 54)
Ardmore, Oklahoma
Parents John Warnock Hinckley, Sr., and Jo Ann Moore
John Warnock Hinckley, Jr., (born May 29, 1955) attempted to assassinate U.S. President Ronald Reagan in Washington, D.C., on March 30, 1981, as the culmination of an effort to impress actress Jodie Foster. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and has remained under institutional psychiatric care since then.
Contents
* 1 Early life
* 2 Obsession with Jodie Foster
* 3 Assassination attempt
* 4 Bush-Hinckley family connections
* 5 Trial
o 5.1 Reaction to verdict
* 6 St. Elizabeths
* 7 Further reading
* 8 References
* 9 External links
Early life
John Hinckley, Jr., was born in Ardmore, Oklahoma. His father was John Warnock Hinckley, Sr., and his mother was Jo Ann Moore Hinckley. He has two siblings – sister Diane and brother Scott. Hinckley grew up in University Park, Texas[1] and attended Highland Park High School in Dallas County, Texas. The family, owners of the Hinckley Oil company, later settled in Evergreen, Colorado. Hinckley graduated in 1973 from high school in Texas which prompted the move to Evergreen, Colorado (Hansell & Damour, 2005). An off-and-on student at Texas Tech University from 1974 to 1980, in 1975 he headed to Los Angeles in the hope of becoming a songwriter. These efforts were unsuccessful, and his letters home to his parents were full of tales of misfortune and pleas for money. He also spoke of a girlfriend, Lynn Collins, who turned out to be a fabrication. He returned to his parents’ home in Evergreen before the year was out. During the next few years, he developed a pattern of living on his own for a while and then returning home poor.
Obsession with Jodie Foster
Hinckley developed an obsession with Foster, who played the 12-year-old child prostitute Iris/Easy in Taxi Driver.
After repeated viewings of the 1976 movie Taxi Driver, in which a disturbed protagonist, Travis Bickle, played by Robert De Niro, plots to assassinate a presidential candidate, Hinckley developed an obsession with actress Jodie Foster, who had played a child prostitute in the film.[2] The Bickle character was in turn based on the diaries of Arthur Bremer, the attempted assassin of George Wallace.[1] When Foster entered Yale University, Hinckley moved to New Haven, Connecticut for a short time to stalk her, slipping poems and messages under her door and repeatedly contacting her by telephone.
Failing to develop any meaningful contact with Foster, Hinckley developed such plots as hijacking an airplane and committing suicide in front of her to gain her attention. Eventually he settled on a scheme to win her over by assassinating the president, with the theory that as an historical figure he would be her equal. To this end, he trailed President Jimmy Carter from state to state, but was arrested in Nashville, Tennessee on a firearms charge. Penniless, he returned home once again, and despite psychiatric treatment for depression, his mental health did not improve. In 1981, he began to target the newly elected president, Ronald Reagan. It was also at this time that he started collecting information on Lee Harvey Oswald, John F. Kennedy’s assassin, whom he saw as a role model.
Just prior to Hinckley’s failed attempt on Reagan’s life, he wrote to Foster:[3]
“ Over the past seven months I’ve left you dozens of poems, letters and love messages in the faint hope that you could develop an interest in me. Although we talked on the phone a couple of times I never had the nerve to simply approach you and introduce myself. […] the reason I’m going ahead with this attempt now is because I cannot wait any longer to impress you.”
Assassination attempt
Main article: Reagan assassination attempt
Chaos outside the Washington Hilton Hotel after the assassination attempt on President Reagan.
On March 30, 1981, Hinckley fired a .22 caliber Röhm RG-14 revolver six times at Reagan as he left the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., after addressing an AFL-CIO conference. The gun, which cost $47.00, was manufactured by Röhm Gesellschaft, a West German company, and assembled in Miami by its American subsidiary, R.G. Industries, Inc.[4] ATF agents determined that the gun was bought at Rocky’s Pawn Shop in Dallas, Texas.[5] It was loaded with six Devastator rounds, which have lead azide-filled centers within lacquer-sealed aluminum tips designed to explode on impact, though all failed to do so.[6]
Hinckley wounded press secretary James Brady, police officer Thomas Delahanty, and Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy. Hinckley did not directly hit Reagan, but seriously wounded him when a bullet ricocheted off the side of the presidential limousine and hit him in the chest.[7] Hinckley did not attempt to flee and was arrested at the scene. All of the shooting victims survived, although Brady, who was hit in the right side of the head, endured a long recuperation period and remained paralyzed on the left side of his body.[8]
Bush-Hinckley family connections
According to the March 31, 1981, edition of the Houston Post, and reported by AP, UPI, NBC News and Newsweek, Hinckley is the son of one of George H.W. Bush’s political and financial supporters in his 1980 presidential primary campaign against Ronald Reagan; John Hinckley, Jr.,’s elder brother, Scott Hinckley, and Bush’s son Neil Bush had a dinner appointment scheduled for the next day.[9]
Associated Press published the following short note on March 31, 1981:
“ The family of the man charged with trying to assassinate President Reagan is acquainted with the family of Vice-President George Bush and had made large contributions to his political campaign … Scott Hinckley, brother of John W. Hinckley, Jr., was to have dined tonight in Denver at the home of Neil Bush, one of the Vice-President’s sons … The Houston Post said it was unable to reach Scott Hinckley, vice-president of his father’s Denver-based firm, Vanderbilt Energy Corporation, for comment. Neil Bush lives in Denver, where he works for Standard Oil Company of Indiana. In 1978, Neil Bush served as campaign manager for his brother, George W. Bush, the Vice-President’s eldest son, who made an unsuccessful bid for Congress. Neil lived in Lubbock, Texas, throughout much of 1978, where John Hinckley lived from 1974 through 1980. ”
Trial
At the trial in 1982, charged with 13 offenses, Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity on June 21. The defense psychiatric reports found him to be insane while the prosecution reports declared him legally sane.[10] Hinckley was confined at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C.[10]
Reaction to verdict
The verdict led to widespread dismay; as a result, the U.S. Congress and a number of states rewrote laws regarding the insanity defense. Idaho, Montana and Utah have abolished the defense altogether.[11] In the United States prior to the Hinckley case, the insanity defense had been used in less than 2% of all felony cases and was unsuccessful in almost 75% of the trials in which it was used.[10] Hinckley’s parents wrote a book in 1985, Breaking Points, about their son’s mental condition.[10]
As further fallout from the verdict, federal and some state rules of evidence exclude or restrict testimony of an expert witness’ conclusions on ultimate issues drawn by expert witnesses, including that of psychologist and psychiatrist expert witnesses on the issue of whether a criminal defendant is legally insane. [12] However, such is not the majority rule among the states today.[13]
St. Elizabeths
Shortly after his trial, Hinckley wrote that the shooting was the greatest love offering in the history of the world, and was upset that Foster did not reciprocate his love.[14]
After being admitted, tests found that Hinckley was an unpredictably dangerous man who may harm himself, Jodie Foster or any other third party. In 1983 he told Penthouse that on a typical day he will see a therapist, answer mail, play (his) guitar, listen to music, play pool, watch television, eat lousy food and take delicious medication. [15]
He was allowed to leave the hospital for supervised visits with his parents in 1999, and longer unsupervised releases in 2000.[1] These privileges were revoked when he was found to have smuggled materials about Foster back into the hospital. Hinckley was later allowed supervised visits in 2004 and 2005. Court hearings were held in September 2005 on whether he could have expanded privileges to leave the hospital. Some of the testimony during the hearings centered on whether Hinckley is capable of having a normal relationship with a woman and, if not, whether that would have any bearing on what danger he would pose to society.
On December 30, 2005, a federal judge ruled that Hinckley would be allowed visits, supervised by his parents, to their home in Williamsburg, Virginia. The judge ruled that Hinckley could have up to three visits of three nights and then four visits of four nights, each depending on the successful completion of the last. All of the experts who testified at Hinckley’s 2005 conditional release hearing, including the government experts, agreed that his depression and psychotic disorder were in full remission and that he should have some expanded conditions of release.
After requesting further freedoms including two one-week visits with his parents as well as a month long visit, the U.S. District Judge, Paul L. Friedman, denied that request on Wednesday, June 6, 2007, but not because Hinckley wasn’t ready.
“ The reasons the court has reached this decision rest with the hospital, not with Mr. Hinckley… the hospital has not taken the steps it must take before any such transition can begin.[16] ”
On June 17, 2009, a Federal judge ruled that Hinckley would be given the ability to visit his mother for nine days at a time, rather than six, spend more time outside of the hospital, and even have a driver’s license. This was done over the objections of the prosecutors who said that he was still a danger to others and had unhealthy and inappropriate thoughts about women. Records show that he has had sexual relations with two women, one who was married for a long time, and another who has bipolar disorder. Hinckley also has recorded a song, entitled Ballad of an Outlaw which the prosecutors claim is reflecting suicide and lawlessness. [17]
Further reading
* Clarke, James W. (1990). On Being Mad or Merely Angry: John W. Hinckley, Jr., and Other Dangerous People. Princeton University Press.
* Hinckley, John W. The Insanity Defense and Me . Newsweek, September 20, 1982.
References
1. ^ a b c The American Experience – John Hinckley Jr by Julie Wolf. Retrieved March 5, 2006.
2. ^ Taxi Driver: Its Influence on John Hinckley, Jr.
3. ^ Letter written to Jodie Foster by John Hinckley, Jr., March 30, 1981.
4. ^ The Gun: A Saturday Night Special From Miami, by Pete Earley, Washington Post, March 31, 1981. Retrieved February 28, 2007.
5. ^ Guns Traced in 16 Minutes to Pawn Shop in Dallas, Charles Mohr, New York Times, April 1, 1981. Retrieved February 28, 2007.
6. ^ Pete Barley and Charles Babcock (1981-04-04). The Exploding Bullets . The Washington Post. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost_historical/access/142619462.html?dids=142619462:142619462&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT. Retrieved 2007-02-28.
7. ^ Reagan, Ronald (Reagan said this on January 11, 1990. The episode of Larry King aired on March 30, 2001.), Larry King Live: Remembering the Assassination Attempt on Ronald Reagan, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0103/30/lkl.00.html, retrieved November 13, 2008 .
8. ^ Jim Brady, 25 Years Later, CBS News Exclusive: Reagan Aide And Wife Reflect On Life Since Shooting – CBS News.
9. ^ Bush’s Son Was To Dine With Suspect’s Brother, by Arthur Wiese and Margaret Downing, The Houston Post, March 31, 1981
10. ^ a b c d The Trial of John W. Hinckley, Jr., by Doug Linder. 2001 Retrieved March 10, 2007.
11. ^ The John Hinckley Trial & Its Effect on the Insanity Defense by Kimberly Collins, Gabe Hinkebein, and Staci Schorgl.
12. ^ Barring ultimate issue testimony . Springerlink. http://www.springerlink.com/content/j0116723h6r18kp0/. Retrieved 2007-10-25.
13. ^ C. McCormick, Evidence (3d Ed.) § 12, p. 30.
14. ^ Hinckley Hails ‘Historical’ Shooting To Win Love by Stuart Taylor, Jr. New York Times. July 9, 1982. Retrieved March 21, 2007.
15. ^ Life at St. Elizabeths by Denise Noe. Crime Library. Courtroom Television Network, LLC. Retrieved April 15, 2007.
16. ^ http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-06-20-2215243452_x.htm
17. ^ http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/06/17/john.hinckley/index.html
External links
* The Trial of John Hinckley, Jr., – University of Missouri at Kansas City Law School
* The American Experience – John Hinckley, Jr., by Julie Wolf.
* Crime Library – The John Hinckley Case by Denise Noe.
* The Hinckley Double – underreported.com
* The Day Hinckley Shot Reagan
* Stalking Hinckley by Eddie Dean, Washington City Paper, July 25-31, 1997.
Person data
NAME Hinckley, John, Jr.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hinckley, John Warnock, Jr.
SHORT DESCRIPTION Failed assassin
DATE OF BIRTH May 29, 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH Ardmore, Oklahoma
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hinckley,_Jr.
Categories: 1955 births | Living people | Failed assassins of U.S. presidents | People acquitted by reason of insanity | People from Carter County, Oklahoma | People from Dallas County, Texas | Ronald Reagan | Texas Tech University alumni
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hinckley,_Jr.
***
Assassination attempt
Main article: Reagan assassination attempt
Chaos outside the Washington Hilton Hotel after the assassination attempt on President Reagan.
On March 30, 1981, Hinckley fired a .22 caliber Röhm RG-14 revolver six times at Reagan as he left the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., after addressing an AFL-CIO conference. The gun, which cost $47.00, was manufactured by Röhm Gesellschaft, a West German company, and assembled in Miami by its American subsidiary, R.G. Industries, Inc.[4] ATF agents determined that the gun was bought at Rocky’s Pawn Shop in Dallas, Texas.[5] It was loaded with six Devastator rounds, which have lead azide-filled centers within lacquer-sealed aluminum tips designed to explode on impact, though all failed to do so.[6]
Hinckley wounded press secretary James Brady, police officer Thomas Delahanty, and Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy. Hinckley did not directly hit Reagan, but seriously wounded him when a bullet ricocheted off the side of the presidential limousine and hit him in the chest.[7] Hinckley did not attempt to flee and was arrested at the scene. All of the shooting victims survived, although Brady, who was hit in the right side of the head, endured a long recuperation period and remained paralyzed on the left side of his body.[8]
[edit] Bush-Hinckley family connections
According to the March 31, 1981, edition of the Houston Post, and reported by AP, UPI, NBC News and Newsweek, Hinckley is the son of one of George H.W. Bush’s political and financial supporters in his 1980 presidential primary campaign against Ronald Reagan; John Hinckley, Jr.,’s elder brother, Scott Hinckley, and Bush’s son Neil Bush had a dinner appointment scheduled for the next day.[9]
Associated Press published the following short note on March 31, 1981:
“ The family of the man charged with trying to assassinate President Reagan is acquainted with the family of Vice-President George Bush and had made large contributions to his political campaign … Scott Hinckley, brother of John W. Hinckley, Jr., was to have dined tonight in Denver at the home of Neil Bush, one of the Vice-President’s sons … The Houston Post said it was unable to reach Scott Hinckley, vice-president of his father’s Denver-based firm, Vanderbilt Energy Corporation, for comment. Neil Bush lives in Denver, where he works for Standard Oil Company of Indiana. In 1978, Neil Bush served as campaign manager for his brother, George W. Bush, the Vice-President’s eldest son, who made an unsuccessful bid for Congress. Neil lived in Lubbock, Texas, throughout much of 1978, where John Hinckley lived from 1974 through 1980.
(Excerpt from above )
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Who Me
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Who Me was a top secret sulfurous stench weapon developed by the American Office of Strategic Services during World War II to be used by the French Resistance against German officers. Who Me smelled strongly of fecal matter, and was issued in pocket atomizers intended to be unobtrusively sprayed on a German officer, humiliating him and, by extension, demoralizing the occupying German forces.
The experiment was very short-lived, however. Who Me had a high concentration of extremely volatile sulfur compounds that were very difficult to control: more often than not, the person who did the spraying also ended up smelling as bad as the one targeted. After only two weeks it was concluded that Who Me was a dismal failure.
External links
* Kahn, Jennifer (May 22, 2001). Aroma Therapy In The Military, It’s Known As ‘Nonlethal Weapons Development’ . SFGate.com.
* Slotnick, Rebecca Sloan (May–June 2002). Science that Stinks . American Scientist Online.
* Pain, Stephanie (July 7, 2001). Stench Warfare . New Scientist
Stub icon This military-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
v • d • e
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Me
Categories: Less-lethal weapons | World War II military equipment | Military stubs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Me
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Psychochemical weapons
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The USA was highly interested in the military use of LSD
Psychochemical weapons, also known as drug weapons, are psychopharmacological agents used within the context of military aggression. They fall within the range of mid-spectrum agents, i.e. an intermediate range between chemical weapons and biological weapons. Drug weapons are typically considered as non-lethal weapons[1].
Contents
* 1 Cold War suspicions
* 2 Dissidents from the Soviet Bloc
* 3 Recent findings from the former Soviet Bloc
* 4 The Iraqi weapon
* 5 See also
* 6 References
Cold War suspicions
Potential weapon: BZ
Potential weapon: LSD
In the early 1950s Western experts were convinced that the communists had already developed and used highly effective mind control and behavior-modification drugs. Public testimonies of US prisoners of war in Korea, or that of Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary admitting to unrealistic crimes in fabricated trials appeared supported this opinion [2]. And indeed, decades later Mindszenty mentioned pills that got him to make a confession [3]. Therefore, the CIA launched a project called MKULTRA to counter perceived Soviet and Chinese advances in brainwashing methods. A new branch of science, neuropharmacology, emerged in parallel with its immediate political and military misuse. The USA [4] and Britain were secretly working on the weaponization of LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) and BZ (3-quinuclidinyl benzilate) as nonlethal battlefield drug-weapons to develop psychochemicals for mind control in the battlefield [1].
However, evidence supporting the suspicions against communist regimes was scarce, and MKULTRA evolved into an offensive program. When accidentally uncovered, it involved about 150 research projects. The project was revealed by the US congressional Rockefeller Commission report. Details are not well understood since its records were deliberately destroyed. The British also concluded that the desired effects of drug weapons were unpredictable under battlefield conditions and gave up experimentation. Many experts in the East and the West equally suggested that drug weapon stories associated with the Soviet bloc were unreliable hints given the apparent absence of documentation in state archives [5].
Dissidents from the Soviet Bloc
General Jan Sejna defected to the United States after the brutal suppression of the Prague Spring by Warsaw Pact tanks in 1968. Formerly, he had been the head of the Defense Council Secretariat and Chief of Staff to the Minister of Defense in Czechoslovakia. He claimed to have been involved in planning and monitoring Czechoslovakia’s participation in drug warfare programs from 1956 [5]. He noted there had been two programs. The program code-named Peoples’ Friendship aimed at large-scale drug trafficking with the goal to harm western societies at their own expenses. Another program, code-named Flute was targeting the political and religious opponents within the homeland.
Ion Mihai Pacepa
A decade later, Lieutenant General Ion Mihai Pacepa defected to the USA. Ha had been the head of the Securitate (the secret police of communist Romania) – the highest-ranking intelligence officer ever to defect from the communist era. He also mentioned these two types of drug misuses [6] partially in collaboration with Cuba [7].
Finally, Kanatjan Alibekov (aka Ken Alibek), the 1st Deputy Chief of the Soviet Union’s (later Russia’s) illegal bioweapons program, defected in 1992. He mentions the project code-named Flute in his memoirs [8] as a major project aimed to develop psychotropic and behavior-modification drugs. He claims that this development took the form of a large-scale project pursued in major psychiatry clinics of Moscow.
These three defectors were knowledgeable high-ranked officers; however after their defections they earned money by selling their stories. This gave rise to skepticism about the reliability of their claims. Independent reports of former target persons verify the widespread misuse of psychoactive drugs in the psychiatry clinics of the Warsaw Pact. However, they refer to drug misuse in a medical sense, while direct military aspects were not known up to recently [9][10]. Thus, contrary to widespread rumors, there was little, if any, evidence to support the view that the Soviet Union or its satellite states considered drug weapons in a militarily context.
Recent findings from the former Soviet Bloc
Methylamphetamine: a potent truth drug ?
This view has changed recently, when the Hungarian State Archives opened up declassified records of Hungary’s State Defense Council meetings (1962–78) [11]. These include documents describing the coordinative meetings of the Warsaw Pact military medical services. Research into possible countermeasures against psychotropic drugs is listed as a research priority assigned to Hungary in 1962. Hungary rejected this task in 1963, but joined the ongoing project again in 1965. Methylamphetamine was produced in Budapest for use as an experimental model. Contemporary Western experts considered this drug as an interrogation tool, so-called truth-drug. Similarly to contemporary CIA, Hungary also failed to develop an antidote and the Hungarian project was terminated fruitlessly in 1972. In fact, these documents serve as evidence that a Warsaw Pact forum had considered a psychochemical agent as a weapon [11].
The Iraqi weapon
The existence of a BZ-related compound, called Agent-15, in Iraq’s arsenals was revealed in 1998. Apparently, Iraq possessed large quantities of the agent since the 1980s. A document found by the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) in 1995 contained a brief reference to this agent and subsequent assessment of relevant scientific and other background material indicated the size of the stockpile. [12]
See also
* Biological weapon
* Chemical weapon
* Punitive psychiatry in the Soviet Union
References
1. ^ a b Dando M, Furmanski M 2006. Mid-spectrum incapacitant programs. In: Wheelis M et al. (eds). Deadly cultures: the history of biological weapons since 1945. Cambridge, US: Harvard University Press.
2. ^ Douglass JD 2001. Influencing behavior and mental processing in covert operations. Medical Sentinel, 6, 130-136.
3. ^ Mindszenty J 1974. Memories [in Hungarian]. Toronto: Vörösváry.
4. ^ Szinicz L 2005. History of chemical and biological warfare agents. Toxicology, 214, 167-181. accessed: 30. 03. 2009.
5. ^ a b Douglass JD 1999. Red cocaine – the drugging of America and the west. London and New York: Edward Harle Limited.
6. ^ Pacepa IM 1993. The Kremlin Legacy [in Romanian]. Bucharest: Editura Venus.
7. ^ Pacepa IM 2006. Who is Raul Castro? A tyrant only a brother could love. National Review Online, August 10. accessed: 30. 03. 2009.
8. ^ Alibek K, Handelman S 1999. Biohazard: The chilling true story of the largest covert biological weapons program in the world — told from inside by the man who ran it. New York: Random House.
9. ^ Rózsa L, Nixdorff K 2006. Biological weapons in non-Soviet Warsaw Pact countries. In: Wheelis M et al. (eds.) Deadly cultures: the history of biological weapons since 1945. Cambridge, US: Harvard University Press.
10. ^ López-Munoz F et al. 2006. Psychiatry and political-institutional abuse from the historical perspective: the ethical lessons of the Nuremberg Trial on their 60th anniversary. Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry, 31, 791–806. accessed: 30. 03. 2009.
11. ^ a b Rózsa L 2009. A psychochemical weapon considered by the Warsaw Pact: a research note. Substance Use & Misuse, 44, 172-178. accessed: 30. 03. 2009.
12. ^ Zanders JP: CW Agent Factsheet – Agent-15 accessed: 30. 03. 2009
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychochemical_weapons
Categories: Psychiatry | Political abuses of psychiatry | Biological warfare | Bioethics | Less-lethal weapons | Incapacitating agents | Mind control
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Category:Political abuses of psychiatry
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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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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
http://www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/over/lebedst.htm
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St. Elizabeths Hospital
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
St. Elizabeth’s Hospital redirects here. For the facility in Boston formerly known as St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, see St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center (Boston).
St. Elizabeths Hospital
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
The Center Building at St. Elizabeths in 2006
Location: 2700 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave SE
Washington, D.C.
Area: 176 acres (71 ha)
Built/Founded: 1852
Architect: Thomas U. Walter; Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge
Architectural style(s): Italianate Revival, Italian Gothic Revival
Added to NRHP: 1979-04-26[1]
Designated NHL: 1990-12-14[2]
NRHP Reference#: 79003101
The Center Building at St. Elizabeths, one of the oldest on the campus, as it appeared in the early 20th Century.
St. Elizabeths [sic] Hospital, located in Washington, D.C., was the first large-scale, federally-run psychiatric hospital in the United States. It is known colloquially as St. E’s .[citation needed]
Housing several thousand patients at its peak, St. Elizabeths had a fully functioning medical-surgical unit and offered accredited internships and psychiatric residencies. It has since fallen into disrepair and is mostly abandoned, although it is still operational. The Department of Homeland Security announced in March 2007 plans to relocate its headquarters, along with most of its Washington, D.C.-area facilities, to the abandoned federal western campus of St. Elizabeths, beginning in 2010.[3]
Contents
* 1 History
* 2 Decline
* 3 Campus
* 4 Revitalization plans
* 5 In media
* 6 WWII
* 7 References
* 8 Bibliography
* 9 External links
History
The hospital was founded by Congress in 1852, largely as the result of the efforts of Dorothea Dix, a pioneering advocate for people living with mental illnesses. It opened in 1855 as the Government Hospital for the Insane, and rose to prominence during the Civil War as it was converted temporarily into a hospital for wounded soldiers.[4] In 1916, its name was officially changed to St. Elizabeths, the colonial-era name for the tract of land on which the hospital was built. The hospital had been casually known by this name since the time of the Civil War, when—in their letters home to loved ones—patients of army hospitals temporarily located on the grounds were reluctant to refer to the institution by its full title.[5]
An elderly patient at St. Elizabeths, ca. 1917
Several important therapeutic techniques were pioneered at St. Elizabeths, and it served as a model for later institutions.[4] Carl Jung, for example, studied African-American patients at St. Elizabeths to examine the concept of race in mental health. Well-known patients of St. Elizabeths include would-be presidential assassins Richard Lawrence and John Hinckley, Jr., successful assassin Charles J. Guiteau (until his execution), as well as Mary Fuller, Ezra Pound, and William Chester Minor.[4]
It is speculated that St. Elizabeths has treated over 125,000 patients, though an exact number is not known due to poor recordkeeping.[6] Additionally, thousands of patients are believed to be buried in unmarked graves across the campus, but, again, records for the individuals buried in the graves have been lost. More than 15,000 known autopsies were performed at St. Elizabeths between 1884 and 1982, and a collection of over 1,400 brains preserved in formaldehyde, 5,000 photographs of brains, and 100,000 slides of brain tissue was maintained by the hospital until it was transferred to a museum in 1986.[6] In addition to the mental health patients buried on the campus, several hundred Civil War soldiers are interred there as well.
Decline
The Main Building on the western campus at St. Elizabeths.
At its peak, the St. Elizabeths campus housed 7,000 patients and employed 4,000 people.[4] Beginning in the 1950s, however, large institutions such as St. Elizabeths were being criticized for hindering the treatment of patients. Community-based healthcare, which included local outpatient facilities and drug therapy, was seen as a more effective means of allowing patients to live near-normal lives. The patient population of St. Elizabeths steadily declined.
By 1996, only 850 patients remained at the hospital, and years of neglect had become apparent; equipment and medicine shortages occurred frequently, and the heating system was broken for weeks at a time. By 2002, all remaining patients on the federal western campus were transferred to other facilities.[4] Although it continues to operate, it does so on a far smaller scale than it once did. As of January 31, 2009, the current patient census was 404 in-patients.[7] Approximately one-half of St. Elizabeths patients are civilly committed, the remaining patients are forensic in-patients. [8] Forensic patients are those who are adjudicated to be criminally insane or incompetent to stand trial. A new state-of-the-art civil and forensic hospital is being built on the East Campus by the District of Columbia Department of Mental Health and will open in 2010, housing approximately 297 total patients.
In 2007 the U.S. Department of Justice and the District of Columbia reached a settlement over allegations that the the civil rights of patients housed at St. Elizabeths were violated by the District.[9] As of April 16, 2008, St. Elizabeth’s is in substantial noncompliance with the terms of the Settlement Agreement.[10]
Campus
The campus of St. Elizabeths sits on bluffs overlooking the confluence of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers in the southeast quadrant of Washington, D.C. It is divided by Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue between the 118-acre (48 ha) east campus (owned by the D.C. Government) and the 182-acre (74 ha) west campus (owned by the Federal Government).[5] It has many important buildings, foremost among them the Center Building, designed according to the principles of the Kirkbride Plan by Thomas U. Walter (1804-1887), who is perhaps better known as the primary architect of the expansion of the U.S. Capitol that was begun in 1851.[4]
Much of St. Elizabeths’ campus has now fallen into disuse and is in serious disrepair. It has been named one of the nation’s 11 Most Endangered Places in 2002 by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.[11] Access to many areas of the campus, including the abandoned western campus (which houses the Center Building) is restricted.[12]
Revitalization plans
The view of the Washington, D.C. skyline from St. Elizabeths.
After several decades in decline, the large campus could not be maintained. In 1987, hospital functions on the eastern campus were transferred from the United States Department of Health and Human Services to the District of Columbia government, with the federal government retaining ownership of the western campus.[12] Several commercial redevelopment opportunities were proposed by the D.C. government and consultants, including relocating the University of the District of Columbia to the campus or developing office and retail space. However, the tremendous cost of bringing the facilities up to code (estimated at $50–$100 million) kept developers away.[4]
With little interest in developing the site privately, the Federal Government stepped in. Control of the western campus—home of the oldest building on the campus, the Center Building—was transferred to the General Services Administration in 2004.[4] The GSA improved security around the campus, shored up roofs, and covered the windows with plywood in an attempt to preserve the campus until a tenant could be found.
After three years of searching for an occupant, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on March 20, 2007 that it would spend approximately US$4.1 billion to move its headquarters and most of its Washington-based offices to a new 4,500,000-square-foot (418,000 m2) facility on the site, beginning with the United States Coast Guard in 2010.[13] DHS, whose operations are scattered around dozens of buildings in the Washington, D.C. area, hopes to consolidate at least 60 of its facilities at St. Elizabeths and to save $64 million per year in rental costs. DHS also hopes to improve employee morale and unity by having a central location from which to operate.[13]
The plans to locate DHS to St. Elizabeths have been met with criticism, however. Historic preservationists argue that the move will destroy dozens of historic buildings located on the campus and that other alternatives should be considered.[4][11] Community activists have also expressed concern that the planned high-security facility will not be interactive with the community, and will do little to revitalize the economically depressed area.[4]
A ceremonial groundbreaking for the DHS consolidated headquarters took place at St. Elizabeths on September 9, 2009. The event was attended by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, DC Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, DC Mayor Adrian Fenty, and acting GSA Administrator Paul Prouty.
In media
Part of the campus was featured as the outside of the Judge Advocate General’s building in the movie A Few Good Men.[14]
WWII
During American involvement in World War II the OSS used facilities and staff at St. Elizabeths hospital to test truth serums . The OSS unsuccessfully tested a mescaline and scopolamine cocktail as a truth drug on two volunteers at St. Elizabeths Hospital. Separate tests of THC as a truth serum were equally unsuccessful.[15]
References
1. ^ National Register Information System . National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2007-01-23. http://www.nr.nps.gov/.
2. ^ St. Elizabeths Hospital . National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=1812&ResourceType=District. Retrieved 2008-07-02.
3. ^ Sheridan, Mary Beth (2009-01-09). Planning Agency Approves Homeland Security Complex: Preservationists Fear Effect on St. Elizabeths Campus. Washington Post, p B1, 9 January 2009. Retrieved on 2009-03-04 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/08/AR2009010803122.html.
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Holley, Joe (17 June 2007). Tussle Over St. Elizabeths . The Washington Post. pp. C01. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/16/AR2007061601192.html. Retrieved 2007-08-20.
5. ^ a b District of Columbia Department of Mental Health. About St. Elizabeths Hospital . http://dmh.dc.gov/dmh/cwp/view,a,3,q,516064.asp. Retrieved 2007-08-20.
6. ^ a b O’Meara, Kelly Patricia (6 August 2001). Forgotten Dead of St. Elizabeths . Insight on the News. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_29_17/ai_77074788. Retrieved 2007-08-20.
7. ^ See Dist. of Columbia Dept. of Mental Health, Dec. 31, 2008 Trend Analysis, available at http://dmh.dc.gov/dmh/frames.asp?doc=/dmh/lib/dmh/pdf/sehmonthlytrendanalysisDecember2008.pdf Retrieved on 2009-03-04.
8. ^ See id.http://dmh.dc.gov/dmh/frames.asp?doc=/dmh/lib/dmh/pdf/sehmonthlytrendanalysisDecember2008.pdf. Retrieved on 2009-03-04.
9. ^ See Settlement Agreement, available at http://dmh.dc.gov/dmh/cwp/view,A,3,Q,639789.asp Retrieved on 2009-03-04.
10. ^ See U.S. Dept. of Justice, Letter Re Baseline Report (April 16, 2008) available at http://dmh.dc.gov/dmh/frames.asp?doc=/dmh/lib/dmh/pdf/doj_letter_re_baseline_reportapril1608.pdf Retrieved on 2009-03-04.
11. ^ a b National Trust for Historic Preservation (2007). List of America’s most endangered historic places – St. Elizabeths . http://www.preservationnation.org/travel-and-sites/sites/southern-region/st-elizabeths-hospital.html. Retrieved 2007-08-20.
12. ^ a b National Institutes of Health. Historic Medical Sites in the Washington, D.C. Area – St. Elizabeths Hospital . http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/medtour/elizabeths.html. Retrieved 2007-08-20.
13. ^ a b Losey, Stephen (17 March 2007). Homeland Security plans move to hospital compound . Federal Times. http://www.federaltimes.com/index.php?S=2626923. Retrieved 2007-08-20.
14. ^ Filming locations for A Few Good Men . The Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104257/locations. Retrieved 2008-05-10.
15. ^ Erowid War Vault : Timeline
Bibliography
* Streatfeild, D. Brainwash. St. Martin’s Press. 2007.
External links
Search Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons has media related to: St. Elizabeths Hospital
* Listing at the National Park Service
Coordinates: 38E50?57?N 76E59?23?W? / ?38.8492EN 76.9896EW? / 38.8492; -76.9896
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Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Elizabeths_Hospital
Categories: Psychiatric hospitals in the United States | Hospitals in Washington, D.C. | National Historic Landmarks in Washington, D.C. | American Civil War hospitals | Hospitals established in 1852
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Elizabeths_Hospital
***
Johnston’s Archive
Nuclear Weapons
North Korea’s first nuclear test
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o see also at The Brownsville Herald.
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* foreign government sources:
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* organizations and sources in the United States:
o Arms Control Association.
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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.
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o Nautilus.
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* organizations outside the United States:
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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
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WWII
During American involvement in World War II the OSS used facilities and staff at St. Elizabeths hospital to test truth serums . The OSS unsuccessfully tested a mescaline and scopolamine cocktail as a truth drug on two volunteers at St. Elizabeths Hospital. Separate tests of THC as a truth serum were equally unsuccessful.[15]
Several important therapeutic techniques were pioneered at St. Elizabeths, and it served as a model for later institutions.[4] Carl Jung, for example, studied African-American patients at St. Elizabeths to examine the concept of race in mental health. Well-known patients of St. Elizabeths include would-be presidential assassins Richard Lawrence and John Hinckley, Jr., successful assassin Charles J. Guiteau (until his execution), as well as Mary Fuller, Ezra Pound, and William Chester Minor.[4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Elizabeths_Hospital
**
Truth drug
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A truth drug (or truth serum) is a psychoactive medication used to obtain information from subjects who are unable or unwilling to provide it otherwise. The unethical use of truth drugs is classified as a form of torture according to international law [1] However, they are properly and productively utilized in the evaluation of psychotic patients in the practice of psychiatry [2]. That application was first documented by Dr. William Bleckwenn in 1930 [3], and it still has selected uses today. In the latter context, the controlled administration of intravenous hypnotic medications is called narcosynthesis or narcoanalysis. It may be used to procure diagnostically- or therapeutically- vital information, and to provide patients with a functional respite from catatonia or mania [4] [5].
Contents
* 1 Active chemical substances
* 2 Allegedly improper historical applications
* 3 Reliability
* 4 See also
* 5 Further reading
* 6 References
Active chemical substances
Amobarbital
Sedatives or hypnotics that alter higher cognitive function include ethanol, scopolamine, 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate, temazepam, and various barbiturates including sodium thiopental (commonly known as sodium pentothal) and sodium amytal (amobarbital) (see figure at right) [6].
Allegedly improper historical applications
A defector from the biological weapons department of the Soviet secret police (KGB) claimed that a truth drug code-named SP-17 was highly effective and that it was used to interrogate detainees in the former Soviet Union. [7] Allegedly, India’s Central Bureau of Investigation has also used intravenous barbiturates for interrogation. [8]
Reliability
According to prevailing medical thought, information obtained under the influence of intravenously-administered sodium amytal can be unreliable; subjects may mix fact and fantasy in that context [9]. Skeptics imply that much of the claimed effect of the drug relies on the belief of the subject that he or she cannot tell a lie while under its influence [10] [11]. Some observers also feel that amobarbital does not increase truth-telling, but merely increases talking; hence, both truth and fabrication are more likely to be revealed in that construct [12]. Thus, the truth in truth drugs is contextual; when they are used by skilled, unbiased, and properly-trained mental health professionals, such medications can be extremely beneficial. On the other hand, their administration by non-psychiatrists may well produce erroneous information.
See also
* Microexpression
* Polygraph
Further reading
* Brown, David. Some Believe ‘Truth Serums’ Will Come Back , The Washington Post, Monday 20 November 2006; page A08.
References
1. ^ Brugger W: May governments ever use torture? Am J Compar Law 2000; 48: 661-678.
2. ^ Naples M, Hackett TP: The amytal interview: history and current uses. Psychosomatics 1978; 19: 98-105.
3. ^ Bleckwenn WJ: Sodium amytal in certain nervous and mental conditions. Wis Med J 1930; 29: 693-696.
4. ^ Tollefson GD: The amobarbital interview in the differential diagnosis of catatonia. Psychosomatics 1982; 23: 437-438.
5. ^ Bleckwenn WJ: Production of sleep and rest in psychotic cases. Arch Neurol Psychiatry 1930; 24: 365-375.
6. ^ Anonymous: Barbiturates. http://www.surgeryencyclopedia.com/A-Ce/Barbiturates.html, Accessed 9-21-2009.
7. ^ Alexander Kouzminov Biological Espionage: Special Operations of the Soviet and Russian Foreign Intelligence Services in the West, Greenhill Books, 2006, ISBN 1-853-67646-2 [1].
8. ^ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/3661948/Mumbai-attacks-Militant-kept-in-underwear-to-prevent-suicide.html
9. ^ Op cit., Ref. 2
10. ^ Redlich FC, Ravitz LJ, Dession GH: Narcoanalysis and truth. Am J Psychiatry 1951; 107: 586-593.
11. ^ Mann J: The use of sodium amobarbital in psychiatry. Ohio State Med J 1969; 65: 700-702.
12. ^ Piper A Jr: ‘Truth serum’ and ‘recovered memories’ of sexual abuse: a review of the evidence. J Psychiatry & Law 1993: 3: 447-471.
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_drug
Categories: Sedatives | Psychiatric treatments | Barbiturates
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_drug
***
Sodium thiopental
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pentothal redirects here. For the fictional truth drug from the television series 24, see Hyoscine-pentothal.
C11H17N2O2S Na redirects here. For the song by Anthrax, see Sound of White Noise.
Sodium thiopental
Systematic (IUPAC) name
(RS)-[5-ethyl-4,6-dioxo-5-(pentan-2-yl)-1,4,5,6-tetrahydropyrimidin-2-yl]sulfanide sodium
Identifiers
CAS number 71-73-8 (sodium salt)
76-75-5 (free acid)
ATC code N01AF03 N05CA19
PubChem 3000714
DrugBank APRD00660
ChemSpider 2272257
Chemical data
Formula C11H17N2NaO2S
Mol. mass 264.32 g/mol
Pharmacokinetic data
Bioavailability ?
Metabolism ?
Half life 5.5[1]-26 hours[2]
Excretion ?
Therapeutic considerations
Pregnancy cat.
Legal status
Schedule III(US)
Routes Oral, intravenous
Yes check.svgY(what is this?) (verify)
Sodium thiopental, better known as Sodium Pentothal (a trademark of Abbott Laboratories), thiopental, thiopentone sodium, or trapanal, is a rapid-onset short-acting barbiturate general anaesthetic. It is an intravenous ultra-short-acting barbiturate. Sodium thiopental is a depressant and is sometimes used during interrogations—not to cause pain (in fact, it may have just the opposite effect), but to weaken the resolve of the subject and make him or her more compliant to pressure.[3] Thiopental is a core medicine in the World Health Organization’s Essential Drugs List , which is a list of minimum medical needs for a basic health care system.[4]
Contents
* 1 Barbiturates
* 2 Uses
o 2.1 Anesthesia
o 2.2 Medically induced coma
o 2.3 Euthanasia
o 2.4 Lethal injection
o 2.5 Truth serum
o 2.6 Psychiatry
* 3 Metabolism
* 4 Dosage
* 5 Side effects
* 6 Drug interaction
* 7 History
* 8 References
* 9 External links
Barbiturates
Main article: Barbiturate
Barbiturates are a class of drugs that act on the GABAA receptor in the brain and spinal cord. The GABAA receptor is an inhibitory channel that decreases neuronal activity, and barbiturates enhance the inhibitory action of the GABAA receptor. Barbiturates, benzodiazepines, and alcohol all bind to the GABAA receptor. Barbiturates that act on the barbiturate binding site of the GABAA receptor directly gate the chloride ion channel of the GABAA receptor, whereas benzodiazepines acting on the benzodiazepine site on the GABAA receptor increase the opening frequency of the chloride ion channel. This explains why overdoses of barbiturates may be lethal whereas overdoses of benzodiazepines alone are typically not lethal. Another explanation is that barbiturates can activate GABA receptors in the absence of the GABA molecule, whereas benzodiazepines need GABA to be present to have an effect: this may explain the more widespread effects of barbiturates in the central nervous system. Barbiturates have anesthetic, sedative, and hypnotic properties. Benzodiazepines do not have analgesic effects.[5]
Uses
Anesthesia
Thiopental is an ultra-short-acting barbiturate and has been used commonly in the induction phase of general anesthesia. Its use in the United States and elsewhere has been largely replaced with that of propofol. Following intravenous injection the drug rapidly reaches the brain and causes unconsciousness within 30–45 seconds. At one minute, the drug attains a peak concentration of about 60% of the total dose in the brain. Thereafter, the drug distributes to the rest of the body and in about 5–10 minutes the concentration is low enough in the brain such that consciousness returns.
A normal dose of thiopental (usually 4–6 mg/kg) given to a pregnant woman for operative delivery (caesarian section) rapidly makes her unconscious, but the baby in her uterus remains conscious. However, larger or repeated doses can depress the baby.
Thiopental is not used to maintain anesthesia in surgical procedures because, in infusion, it displays zero-order elimination kinetics, leading to a long period before consciousness is regained. Instead, anesthesia is usually maintained with an inhaled anesthetic (gas) agent. Inhaled anesthetics are eliminated relatively quickly, so that stopping the inhaled anesthetic will allow rapid return of consciousness. Thiopental would have to be given in large amounts to maintain an anesthetic plane, and because of its 11.5–26 hour half-life, consciousness would take a long time to return.[6]
In veterinary medicine, thiopental is also used to induce anesthesia in animals. Since thiopental is redistributed to fat, certain breeds of dogs, primarily the sight hounds can have prolonged recoveries from thiopental due to their lack of body fat and lean body mass. Thiopental is always administered intravenously, as it can be fairly irritating; severe tissue necrosis and sloughing can occur if it is injected incorrectly into the tissue around a vein.
Medically induced coma
In addition to anesthesia induction, thiopental was historically used to induce medical comas. It has now been superseded by drugs such as propofol.
Thiopental has a long Context Sensitive Half Time (CSHT) meaning infusions saturate peripheral compartments (fat, muscle etc). When the infusion is stopped, the drug re-distributes from the peripheral tissues back into the blood, prolonging the effect.
Thiopental also exhibits zero order kinetics at higher doses. The rate of clearance becomes fixed which slows elimination from the body.
Patients with brain swelling, causing elevation of the intracranial pressure, either secondary to trauma or following surgery may benefit from this drug. Thiopental, and the barbiturate class of drugs, decrease neuronal activity and therefore decrease the production of osmotically active metabolites which in turn decreases swelling. Patients with significant swelling have improved outcomes following the induction of coma. Reportedly, thiopental has been shown to be superior to pentobarbital[7] in reducing intracranial pressure.
Euthanasia
Thiopental is used intravenously for the purposes of euthanasia. The Belgians and the Dutch have created a protocol that recommends sodium thiopental as the ideal agent to induce coma followed by pancuronium bromide.[8]
Intravenous administration is the most reliable and rapid way to accomplish euthanasia and therefore can be safely recommended. A coma is first induced by intravenous administration of 20 mg/kg thiopental sodium (Nesdonal) in a small volume (10 ml physiological saline). Then a triple intravenous dose of a non-depolarizing neuromuscular muscle relaxant is given, such as 20 mg pancuronium dibromide (Pavulon) or 20 mg vecuronium bromide (Norcuron). The muscle relaxant should preferably be given intravenously, in order to ensure optimal availability. Only for pancuronium dibromide (Pavulon) are there substantial indications that the agent may also be given intramuscularly in a dosage of 40 mg.[8]
Lethal injection
Along with pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride, thiopental is used in 35 states of the U.S. to execute prisoners by lethal injection. A very large dose is given which places the subject into a rapidly induced coma. Executions using the three drug combination are usually effective in approximately 10 minutes, but have been known to take several times this length. The use of thiopental alone is hypothesized to cause death in approximately 45 minutes.[citation needed] The use of sodium thiopental has been the cause of current Supreme Court challenges to the lethal injection protocol, after a study in the medical journal the Lancet, where autopsy studies on executed inmates revealed that there was not a high enough concentration of thiopental in their blood to have caused unconsciousness. The exclusion of physicians participating in executions is partly to blame for inept administration of the drugs.[citation needed]
Truth serum
Thiopental is still used in some places as a truth serum.[3] The barbiturates as a class decrease higher cortical brain functioning. Some psychiatrists hypothesize that because lying is more complex than telling the truth, suppression of the higher cortical functions may lead to the uncovering of the truth . However, the reliability of confessions made under thiopental is dubious; the drug tends to make subjects chatty and cooperative with interrogators, but a practiced liar or someone who has a false story firmly established would still be quite able to lie while under the influence of the drug.[9]
Psychiatry
Psychiatrists have used thiopental to desensitize patients with phobias,[10] and to facilitate the recall of painful repressed memories. [11] One psychiatrist who worked with thiopental is Professor Jan Bastiaans, who used this procedure to help release trauma in victims of the Nazis.[12]
Metabolism
As with all lipid soluble anaesthetic drugs, the short duration of action of STP is almost entirely due to its redistribution away from central circulation towards muscle and fat tissue. Once redistributed the free fraction in the blood is metabolised in the liver. Sodium thiopental is mainly metabolized to pentobarbital,[13] 5-ethyl-5-(1′-methyl-3′-hydroxybutyl)-2-thiobarbituric acid, and 5-ethyl-5-(1′-methyl-3′-carboxypropyl)-2-thiobarbituric acid.[14]
Dosage
The usual dose range for induction of anesthesia using thiopental is from 3 to 7 mg/kg; however, there are many factors that can alter this. Premedication with sedatives such as benzodiazepines or clonidine will reduce requirements, as do specific disease states and other patient factors.
Side effects
As with nearly all anesthetic drugs, thiopental causes cardiovascular and respiratory depression resulting in hypotension, apnea and airway obstruction. For these reasons, only suitably trained medical personnel should give thiopental in an environment suitably equipped to deal with these effects. Side effects include headache, emergence delirium, prolonged somnolence and nausea. Intravenous administration of sodium thiopental is followed instantly by an odor sensation, sometimes described as being similar to rotting onions. The hangover effects may last up to 36 hours.
Although molecules of thiopental contain one sulfur atom, it is not a sulfonamide, and does not show allergic reactions of sulfa/sulpha drugs.
Drug interaction
Co-administration of pentoxifylline and thiopental causes death by acute pulmonary oedema in rats. This pulmonary oedema was not mediated by cardiac failure or by pulmonary hypertension but was due to increased pulmonary vascular permeability.[15]
History
Sodium thiopental was discovered in the early 1930s by Ernest H. Volwiler and Donalee L. Tabern, working for Abbott Laboratories. It was first used in human beings on March 8, 1934, by Dr. Ralph M. Waters[16] in an investigation of its properties, which were short-term anesthesia and surprisingly little analgesia.[17] Three months later,[18] Dr. John S. Lundy started a clinical trial of thiopental at the Mayo Clinic at the request of Abbott.[19]
It is famously associated with a number of anesthetic deaths in victims of the attack on Pearl Harbor. These deaths, relatively soon after its discovery, were due to excessive doses given to shocked trauma patients. Evidence has become available through freedom of information legislation and has been reviewed in the British Journal of Anaesthesia .[20] Thiopental anaesthesia was in its early days, but nevertheless only 13 of 344 wounded admitted to the Tripler Army Hospital did not survive.
Thiopental is still rarely used as a recreational drug, usually stolen from veterinarians or other legitimate users of the drug; however, more common sedatives such as benzodiazepines are usually preferred as recreational drugs, and abuse of thiopental tends to be uncommon and opportunistic.
References
1. ^ Russo H, Brès J, Duboin MP, Roquefeuil B (1995). Pharmacokinetics of thiopental after single and multiple intravenous doses in critical care patients . Eur. J. Clin. Pharmacol. 49 (1-2): 127–37. doi:10.1007/BF00192371. PMID 8751034.
2. ^ Morgan DJ, Blackman GL, Paull JD, Wolf LJ (June 1981). Pharmacokinetics and plasma binding of thiopental. II: Studies at cesarean section . Anesthesiology 54 (6): 474–80. PMID 7235275.
3. ^ a b Sydney Morning Herald, Truth serum used on ‘serial child killers’, January 12, 2007, Reuters.
4. ^ WHO Model List of Essential Medicines (PDF). World Health Organization. March 2005. http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2005/a87017_eng.pdf. Retrieved 2006-03-12.
5. ^ ANESTHESIA AND ANALGESIA . http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/ccm/Anesth/aneshome.cfm. Retrieved 2007-08-05.
6. ^ Morgan DJ, Blackman GL, Paull JD, Wolf LJ (1981). Pharmacokinetics and plasma binding of thiopental. II: Studies at cesarean section . Anesthesiology 54 (6): 474–80. PMID 7235275.
7. ^ Pérez-Bárcena J, Barceló B, Homar J, et al. (February 2005). [Comparison of the effectiveness of pentobarbital and thiopental in patients with refractory intracranial hypertension. Preliminary report of 20 patients] (in Spanish; Castilian). Neurocirugia (Astur) 16 (1): 5–12; discussion 12–3. PMID 15756405. http://www.revistaneurocirugia.com/web/artics/v16n1/1.pdf. Retrieved 2008-07-18.
8. ^ a b Royal Dutch Society for the Advancement of Pharmacy (1994). Administration and Compounding of Euthanasic Agents . The Hague. http://wweek.com/html/euthanasics.html. Retrieved 2008-07-18.
9. ^ Anne Bannon; Stevens, Serita Deborah (2007). The Howdunit Book of Poisons (Howdunit). Cincinnati: Writers Digest Books. ISBN 1-58297-456-X.
10. ^ Pearlman, T. (1980). Behavioral desensitization of phobic anxiety using thiopental sodium . The American Journal of Psychiatry (American Psychiatric Association) (137): 1580–1582. http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/137/12/1580.
11. ^ Drugged Future? . TIME. February 24, 1958. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,863001,00.html.
12. ^ Snelders, Stephen (1998). The LSD Therapy Career of Jan Bastiaans, M.D. . Newsletter of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) 8 (1): 18–20. http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v08n1/08118sne.html.
13. ^ WINTERS WD, SPECTOR E, WALLACH DP, SHIDEMAN FE (July 1955). Metabolism of thiopental-S35 and thiopental-2-C14 by a rat liver mince and identification of pentobarbital as a major metabolite . J. Pharmacol. Exp. Ther. 114 (3): 343–57. PMID 13243246. http://jpet.aspetjournals.org/cgi/pmidlookup?view=long&pmid=13243246. Retrieved 2008-07-18.
14. ^ Bory C, Chantin C, Boulieu R, et al. (1986). [Use of thiopental in man. Determination of this drug and its metabolites in plasma and urine by liquid phase chromatography and mass spectrometry] (in French). C. R. Acad. Sci. III, Sci. Vie 303 (1): 7–12. PMID 3093002.
15. ^ Pereda J, Gómez-Cambronero L, Alberola A, et al. (October 2006). Co-administration of pentoxifylline and thiopental causes death by acute pulmonary oedema in rats . Br. J. Pharmacol. 149 (4): 450–5. doi:10.1038/sj.bjp.0706871. PMID 16953192.
16. ^ This Month in Anesthesia History: March . Anesthesia History Association. http://www.anesthesia.wisc.edu/AHA/Calendar/March.html.
17. ^ Steinhaus, John E. The Investigator and His ‘Uncompromising Scientific Honesty’ American Society of Anesthesiologists. NEWSLETTER. September 2001, Volume 65, Number 9.
18. ^ Imagining in Time—From this point in time: Some memories of my part in the history of anesthesia—John S. Lundy, MD August 1997, AANA Archives-Library
19. ^ History of Anesthesia with Emphasis on the Nurse Specialist Archives of the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists. 1953
20. ^ Bennetts FE (September 1995). Thiopentone anaesthesia at Pearl Harbor . Br J Anaesth 75 (3): 366–8. PMID 7547061. http://bja.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/pmidlookup?view=long&pmid=7547061. Retrieved 2008-07-18.
External links
* PubChem Substance Summary: Thiopental
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Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_thiopental
Categories: Drugboxes which contain changes to watched fields | General anesthetics | Barbiturates | Lethal injection components | Sodium compounds | Thiobarbiturates | World Health Organization essential medicines
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_thiopental
***
Amobarbital
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Sodium amytal)
Amobarbital
Systematic (IUPAC) name
5-ethyl-5-(3-methylbutyl)-1,3-diazinane-2,4,6-trione
Identifiers
CAS number 57-43-2 64-43-7 (sodium salt)
ATC code N05CA02
PubChem 2164
DrugBank none
ChemSpider 2079
Chemical data
Formula C11H18N2O3
Mol. mass 226.272
SMILES eMolecules & PubChem
Pharmacokinetic data
Bioavailability ?
Metabolism Hepatic
Half life 8-42 hours
Excretion Renal
Therapeutic considerations
Pregnancy cat.
Legal status
Schedule IV(CA) Schedule II/Schedule III (US)
Routes Oral, IM, IV, Rectal
Yes check.svgY(what is this?) (verify)
Amobarbital (formerly known as amylobarbitone) is a drug that is a barbiturate derivative. It has sedative-hypnotic and analgesic properties. It is a white crystalline powder with no odor and a slightly bitter taste. It was first synthesized in Germany in 1923. If amobarbital is taken for extended periods of time, physical and psychological dependence can develop.
Contents
* 1 Pharmacology
* 2 Metabolism
* 3 Indications
o 3.1 Approved
o 3.2 Unapproved/Off-Label
* 4 Contraindications
* 5 Overdose
* 6 See also
* 7 References and End Notes
* 8 External links
Pharmacology
According to an in vitro study conducted at the University of British Columbia, amobarbital works by activating GABAA receptors, which decreases input resistance, depresses burst and tonic firing, especially in ventrobasal and intralaminar neurons, while at the same time increasing burst duration and mean conductance at individual chloride channels; this increases both the amplitude and decay time of inhibitory postsynaptic currents.[1]
It has an LD50 in mice of 212 mg/kg s.c.
Metabolism
Amobarbital undergoes both hydroxylation to form 3′-hydroxyamobarbital,[2] which has both levorotatory and dextrorotatory isomers[3] and N-glucosidation[4] to form 1-(beta-D-glucopyranosyl)amobarbital.[5]
Indications
Approved
* Amnesia
* Insomnia
* Epilepsy
Unapproved/Off-Label
* When given slowly by an intravenous route, sodium amobarbital has a reputation for having activity as a so-called truth serum. A person under the influence of the drug in this circumstance will relate information that he or she would otherwise block. As such, the drug was first employed clinically by Dr. William Bleckwenn at the University of Wisconsin to circumvent inhibitions in psychiatric patients.[6] It has been used to convict alleged murderers such as Andres English-Howard, who strangled his girlfriend to death but claimed innocence. He was surreptitiously administered the drug, by his attorney, and under the influence of it he revealed why he strangled her and under which circumstances. A year later he confessed, on the stand, and was convicted on the basis of these statements; he later committed suicide in his cell.[7] The use of amobarbital as a truth serum has lost credibility due to the discovery[citation needed] that the subject can be coerced into having a ‘false memory’ of the event. In controlled doses, it is used in the Narco Analysis test to trace crime and criminals in modern forensics.[citation needed]
* The drug may be used intravenously to interview patients with Catatonic mutism, sometimes combined with caffeine to prevent sleep.[8]
* It was used by the U.S. Army during World War II’s Battle of the Bulge to get shell-shocked GI’s back to the frontline.[9]
Contraindications
A vial of amytal sodium.
The following drugs should be avoided when taking amobarbital:
* Alcohol
* Caffeine[citation needed]
* Chloramphenicol
* Chlorpromazine
* Cyclophosphamide
* Ciclosporin
* Digitoxin
* Doxorubicin
* Doxycycline
* Methoxyflurane
* Metronidazole
* Quinine
* Theophylline
* Warfarin
* Benzodiazepines, such as diazepam, clonazepam or nitrazepam
* Antiepileptics, such as phenobarbital or carbamazepine
* Antihistamines, such as doxylamine and clemastine
* Narcotic analgesics, such as morphine and oxycodone
* Steroids, such as prednisone and cortisone
* Antidepressants[citation needed]
* Antihypertensives, such as atenolol and propranolol
* Antiarrhythmics, such as verapamil and digoxin
Amobarbital has been known to decrease the effects of hormonal birth control, sometimes to the point of uselessness. Being chemically related to phenobarbital, it might also do the same thing to digitoxin, a cardiac glycoside.
In 1988, Miller et al. reported that amobarbital increases benzodiazepine receptor binding in vivo with less potency than secobarbital and pentobarbital (in descending order), but greater than phenobarbital and barbital (in ascending order).[10]
Overdose
Some side effects of overdose include confusion (severe); decrease in or loss of reflexes; drowsiness (severe); fever; irritability (continuing); low body temperature; poor judgment; shortness of breath or slow or troubled breathing; slow heartbeat; slurred speech; staggering; trouble in sleeping; unusual movements of the eyes; weakness (severe). Death can be a result, as in the case of the Hollywood actor, Robert Walker.
See also
* Depressants
* Barbiturates
* Wada test
* Blue 88
References and End Notes
1. ^ Kim HS, Wan X, Mathers DA, Puil E. Selective GABA-receptor actions of amobarbital on thalamic neurons. British Journal of Pharmacology. 2004 Oct;143(4):485-94. Epub 2004 Sep 20. PMID 15381635
2. ^ Maynert EW. The alcoholic metabolites of pentobarbital and amobarbital in man. Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. 1965 Oct;150(1):118-21. PMID 5855308
3. ^ Chemicals: 3′-hydroxyamobarbital The Comparative Toxicology Database.
4. ^ Tang BK, Kalow W, Grey AA. Amobarbital metabolism in man: N-glucoside formation. Research Communications in Chemical Pathology and Pharmacology. 1978 Jul;21(1):45-53. PMID 684279
5. ^ Soine PJ, Soine WH. High-performance liquid chromatographic determination of the diastereomers of 1-(beta-D-glucopyranosyl)amobarbital in urine. Journal of Chromatography. 1987 Nov 27;422:309-14. PMID 3437019
6. ^ Bleckwenn WJ Sodium amytal in certain nervous and mental conditions. Wis Med J 1930; 29: 693-696.
7. ^ Truth Serum: A Possible Weapon, 60 Minutes, April 23, 2003.
8. ^ McCall WV. The addition of intravenous caffeine during an amobarbital interview. Journal of Psychiatry & Neuroscience. 1992 Nov;17(5):195-7. PMID 1489761
9. ^ Use of sodium amytal during WWII
10. ^ Miller LG, Deutsch SI, Greenblatt DJ, Paul SM, Shader RI (1988). Acute barbiturate administration increases benzodiazepine receptor binding in vivo . Psychopharmacology (Berl) 96 (3): 385–90. doi:10.1007/BF00216067. PMID 2906155
1. Controlled Substances in Schedule II Office of Diversion Control, Drug Enforcement Administration.
2. Controlled Substances in Schedule III Office of Diversion Control, Drug Enforcement Administration.
External links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_amytal
***
Truth drug
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Narco Analysis)
A truth drug (or truth serum) is a psychoactive medication used to obtain information from subjects who are unable or unwilling to provide it otherwise. The unethical use of truth drugs is classified as a form of torture according to international law [1] However, they are properly and productively utilized in the evaluation of psychotic patients in the practice of psychiatry [2]. That application was first documented by Dr. William Bleckwenn in 1930 [3], and it still has selected uses today. In the latter context, the controlled administration of intravenous hypnotic medications is called narcosynthesis or narcoanalysis. It may be used to procure diagnostically- or therapeutically- vital information, and to provide patients with a functional respite from catatonia or mania [4] [5].
Contents
* 1 Active chemical substances
* 2 Allegedly improper historical applications
* 3 Reliability
* 4 See also
* 5 Further reading
* 6 References
Active chemical substances
Amobarbital
Sedatives or hypnotics that alter higher cognitive function include ethanol, scopolamine, 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate, temazepam, and various barbiturates including sodium thiopental (commonly known as sodium pentothal) and sodium amytal (amobarbital) (see figure at right) [6].
Allegedly improper historical applications
A defector from the biological weapons department of the Soviet secret police (KGB) claimed that a truth drug code-named SP-17 was highly effective and that it was used to interrogate detainees in the former Soviet Union. [7] Allegedly, India’s Central Bureau of Investigation has also used intravenous barbiturates for interrogation. [8]
Reliability
According to prevailing medical thought, information obtained under the influence of intravenously-administered sodium amytal can be unreliable; subjects may mix fact and fantasy in that context [9]. Skeptics imply that much of the claimed effect of the drug relies on the belief of the subject that he or she cannot tell a lie while under its influence [10] [11]. Some observers also feel that amobarbital does not increase truth-telling, but merely increases talking; hence, both truth and fabrication are more likely to be revealed in that construct [12]. Thus, the truth in truth drugs is contextual; when they are used by skilled, unbiased, and properly-trained mental health professionals, such medications can be extremely beneficial. On the other hand, their administration by non-psychiatrists may well produce erroneous information.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco_Analysis
***
Temazepam
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Temazepam
Systematic (IUPAC) name
7-Chloro-1,3-dihydro-
3-hydroxy-1-methyl-5-phenyl-
1,4-benzodiazepin-2-one
Identifiers
CAS number 846-50-4
ATC code N05CD07
PubChem 5391
DrugBank APRD00676
ChemSpider 5198
Chemical data
Formula C16H13ClN2O2
Mol. mass 300.7 g/mol
SMILES eMolecules & PubChem
Pharmacokinetic data
Bioavailability 96%
Metabolism Hepatic
Half life 8–20 hours
Excretion Renal
Therapeutic considerations
Pregnancy cat.
C(AU) X(US)
Legal status
Prescription Only (S4)(AU) Schedule IV(CA) Class C(UK) Schedule IV(US) IV (International)
Routes Therapeutic: Oral
Recreational Abuse: Intravenous (IV), Intramuscular (IM), Insufflated, Sprinkled in ethanol, smoked
Temazepam (marketed under brand names Normison, Temtabs, Euhypnos, Restoril, Remestan, Tenox and Norkotral) is an intermediate-acting 3-hydroxy benzodiazepine. It is generally prescribed for the short-term treatment of sleeplessness in patients who have difficulty maintaining sleep. Temazepam is not effective for induction of sleep.[1] In addition, temazepam has anxiolytic (anti-anxiety), anticonvulsant, and skeletal muscle relaxant properties.[2][3][4]
Contents
* 1 History
* 2 Indications
* 3 Contraindications
o 3.1 Special caution needed
o 3.2 Patients at a high risk for abuse and dependence
* 4 Adverse effects
o 4.1 Common
o 4.2 Less common
* 5 Tolerance and physical dependence
* 6 Pharmacology
* 7 Pharmacokinetics
* 8 Interactions
* 9 Overdose
* 10 Abuse
o 10.1 North America
o 10.2 Australia
o 10.3 United Kingdom
* 11 Street terms
* 12 Legal status
* 13 See also
* 14 References
* 15 External links
History
Temazepam was first synthesized in 1964, but it first came into use in 1969 when its ability to counter insomnia was realized.[5] By the late 1980s, temazepam was one of the most popular and widely prescribed hypnotics on the market and it became one of the most widely prescribed drugs.
Indications
A prescription bottle and capsules of temazepam manufactured by Mylan Inc.
Temazepam is a hypnotic agent. In sleep laboratory studies, temazepam significantly decreased the number of nightly awakeningsm[6] but has the drawback in that it distorts the normal sleep pattern.[7]
Temazepam is officially indicated for severe insomnia and other severe or disabling sleep disorders. The prescribing guidelines limit prescribing of hypnotics to two-four weeks due to concerns of tolerance and dependence.[8]
The United States Air Force uses temazepam as one of the hypnotics approved as no-go pills to help aviators and special duty personnel sleep in support of mission readiness. Ground tests are required prior to authorization being issued to use the medication in an operational situation. [1]
Contraindications
Use of temazepam should be avoided, when possible, in individuals with the following conditions:
* Ataxia (gross lack of coordination of muscle movements)
* Severe hypoventilation
* Acute narrow-angle glaucoma
* Severe hepatic deficiencies (hepatitis and liver cirrhosis decrease elimination by a factor of 2)
* Severe renal deficiencies (e.g. patients on dialysis)
* Severe sleep apnea
* Severe depression, particularly when accompanied by suicidal tendencies
* Acute intoxication with alcohol, narcotics, or other psychoactive substances
* Myasthenia gravis (autoimmune disorder causing muscle weakness)
* Hypersensitivity or allergy to any drug in the benzodiazepine class
Special caution needed
Temazepam should not be used in pregnancy, as it may cause harm to the fetus. The safety and effectiveness of temazepam has not been established in children; temazepam should therefore generally not be given to individuals under 18 years of age, and should not be used at all in children under 6 months old.
The smallest possible effective dose should be used in elderly or very ill patients, as there is a risk of apnea and/or cardiac arrest. This risk is increased when temazepam is given concomitantly with other drugs that depress the central nervous system.[9]
Patients at a high risk for abuse and dependence
Since benzodiazepines can be abused and lead to dependence, their use should be avoided in people in certain particularly high risk groups. High risk groups include people with a history of alcohol or drug abuse or dependence, emotionally unstable patients, people with severe personality disorders (such as Borderline Personality Disorder). If temazepam is indeed prescribed to people in these groups, they should generally be monitored very closely for signs of abuse and development of dependence.[8]
Adverse effects
Common
Side effects typical of hypnotic benzodiazepines are related to CNS depression, and include somnolence, dizziness, fatigue, ataxia, headache, lethargy, impairment of memory and learning, increased reaction time and impairment of motor functions (including coordination problems),[10] slurred speech, decreased physical performance, numbed emotions, reduced alertness, muscle weakness, blurred vision (in higher doses), and inattention. Euphoria was rarely reported with the use of temazepam. According to the FDA, temazepam had an incidences of euphoria of 1.5%, much more rarely reported than headaches and diarrhea.[9] Anterograde amnesia may also develop, as may respiratory depression in higher doses.
Less common
Hyperhydrosis, hypotension, burning eyes, changes in libido, hallucinations, faintness, nystagmus, vomiting, pruritus, gastrointestinal disturbances, nightmares, palpitation and paradoxical reactions including restlessness, aggression, violence, overstimulation and agitation have been reported, but are rare (less than 0.5%).
Before taking temazepam, one should ensure that at least 8 hours are available to dedicate to sleep. Failing to do so can increase the side effects of the drug.
The use of this drug in combination with alcohol potentiates the side effects, and can lead to toxicity and death.
Though rare, residual ‘hangover’ effects after night time administration of temazepam such as sleepiness, impaired psychomotor and cognitive functions may persist into the next day, which may impair the ability of users to drive safely or may increase the risks of falls and hip fractures.[11]
Tolerance and physical dependence
See also: benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome
Tolerance
Chronic or excessive use of temazepam may cause drug tolerance, which can develop rapidly,[12] so this drug is therefore not recommended for long-term use.[9][13] In 1979 the Institute of Medicine (USA) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse stated that most hypnotics lose their sleep-inducing properties after about 3 to 14 days.[14] In use longer than 1–2 weeks, tolerance will frequently develop towards the ability of temazepam to maintain sleep, so that the drug loses effectiveness.[15] Some studies have observed tolerance to temazepam after as little as one week’s use.[16] Another study examined the short-term effects of the accumulation of temazepam over 7 days in elderly inpatients, and found that little tolerance developed during the accumulation of the drug.[17] Other studies examined the use of temazepam over six days and saw no evidence of tolerance.[18][19] A study in 11 young male subjects showed that significant tolerance occurs to temazepam’s thermoregulatory effects and sleep inducing properties after 1 week of use of 30 mg temazepam. Body temperature is well correlated with the sleep inducing or insomnia promoting properties of drugs.[20]
In one study the drug sensitivity of people who had used temazepam for 1–20 years was no different from that of controls.[21] In an additional study in which at least one of the authors is employed by multiple drug companies examined the efficacy of temazepam treatment on chronic insomnia over three months and saw no drug tolerance, with the authors even suggesting that the drug might become more effective over time.[22][23][24]
The Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine published a paper which had carried out a systematic review of the medical literature concerning insomnia medications and raised concerns about benzodiazepine receptor agonist drugs, the benzodiazepines and the Z-drugs that are used as hypnotics in humans. The review found that almost all trials of sleep disorders and drugs are sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry. It was found that the odds ratio for finding results favorable to industry in industry-sponsored trials was 3.6 times higher than non-industry-sponsored studies and that 24% of authors did not disclose being funded by the drug companies in their published paper when they were funded by the drug companies. The paper found that there is little research into hypnotics that is independent from the drug manufacturers.[25] Establishing continued efficacy beyond a few weeks can be complicated by the difficulty in distinguishing between the return of the original insomnia complaint and withdrawal or rebound related insomnia. Sleep EEG studies on hypnotic benzodiazepines show that tolerance tends to occur completely after one to four weeks with sleep EEG returning to pretreatment levels. The paper concluded that due to concerns about long term use both toxicity and tolerance and dependence as well as controversy over long term efficacy that wise prescribers should restrict benzodiazepines to a few weeks and avoid continuing prescriptions for months or years.[26] A review of the literature found that non-pharmacological treatment options were a more effective treatment option for insomnia due to their sustained improvements in sleep quality.[27]
Physical dependence
Temazepam like other benzodiazepine drugs can cause physical dependence and addiction. Withdrawal from temazepam or other benzodiazepines after regular use often leads to a benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome, which resembles symptoms during alcohol and barbiturate withdrawal. The higher the dose and the longer the drug is taken for, the greater the risk of experiencing unpleasant withdrawal symptoms. Withdrawal symptoms can also occur from standard dosages and after short term use. Abrupt withdrawal from therapeutic doses of temazepam after long term use may result in a severe benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome. Gradual and careful reduction of the dosage, preferably with a long-acting benzodiazepine with long half life active metabolites such as chlordiazepoxide or diazepam is recommended, to prevent severe withdrawal syndromes from developing. Other hypnotic benzodiazepines are not recommended.[28] A study in rats found that temazepam is cross tolerant with barbiturates and is able to effectively substitute for barbiturates and suppress barbiturate withdrawal signs.[29] There are rare reports in the medical literature of psychotic states developing after abrupt withdrawal from benzodiazepines, even from therapeutic doses.[30] Antipsychotics increase the severity of benzodiazepine withdrawal effects with an increase in the intensity and severity of convulsions.[31] Patients who were treated in the hospital with temazepam or nitrazepam have continued taking these after leaving the hospital. It was recommended that hypnotics in the hospital be limited to 5 nights use only, to avoid the development of withdrawal symptoms like insomnia.[32]
Pharmacology
It is a white, crystalline substance, is very slightly soluble in water and sparingly soluble in alcohol. The main pharmacological action of temazepam is to increase the effect of the neurotransmitter GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) at the GABAA receptor. This causes sedation, motor-impairment, ataxia, anxiolysis, anticonvulsant effect, muscle relaxation and reinforcing effect.[33] As a premedication before surgery, temazepam decreased cortisol in elderly patients.[34] In rats, temazepam triggered the release of vasopressin into paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus and decreased the release of ACTH under stress.[35]
Pharmacokinetics
Oral administration of 15 to 45 mg temazepam in man resulted in rapid absorption with significant blood levels achieved in less than 30 minutes and peak levels at 2 to 3 hours.[36] In a single and multiple dose absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME) study, using tritium (3H) labelled drug, temazepam was well absorbed and found to have minimal (8%) first pass drug metabolism. There were no active metabolites formed and the only significant metabolite present in blood was the O-conjugate. The unchanged drug was 96% bound to plasma proteins. The blood level decline of the parent drug was biphasic with the short half-life ranging from 0.4-0.6 hours and the terminal half-life from 3.5–18.4 hours (mean 8.8 hours), depending on the study population and method of determination.[37]
Temazepam has very good bioavailability with 100% being absorbed from the gut. The drug is metabolized through conjugation and demethylation prior to excretion. Most of the drug is excreted in the urine, with about 20% appearing in the feces. The major metabolite was the O-conjugate of temazepam (90%); the O-conjugate of N-desmethyl temazepam was a minor metabolite (7%).[38]
Interactions
As other benzodiazepines, temazepam produces additive CNS depressant effects when co-administered with other medications which themselves produce CNS depression, such as barbiturates, alcohol,[39] opiates, tricyclic antidepressants, non-selective MAO inhibitors, phenothiazines and other antipsychotics, skeletal muscle relaxants, antihistamines and anaesthetics. Administration of theophylline or aminophylline has been shown to reduce the sedative effects of temazepam and other benzodiazepines.
Unlike many benzodiazepines, pharmacokinetic interactions involving the P450 system have not been observed with temazepam. Temazepam shows no significant interaction with CYP3A4 inhibitors (e.g. itraconazole, erythromycin).[40] Oral contraceptives may decrease the effectiveness of temazepam and speed up its elimination half life.[41]
Overdose
Main article: Benzodiazepine overdose
Overdosage of temazepam results in increasing CNS effects, including:
* Somnolence (difficulty staying awake)
* Mental confusion
* Respiratory depression
* Hypotension
* Impaired motor functions
o Impaired or absent reflexes
o Impaired coordination
o Impaired balance
o Dizziness
* Coma
* Death
Temazepam has the highest rate of drug intoxication, including overdose, among the common benzodiazepines.[42] Temazepam and nitrazepam were the two benzodiazepines most commonly detected in overdose-related deaths in an Australian study of drug deaths.[43] A 1993 British study found temazepam to have the highest number of deaths per million prescriptions among medications commonly prescribed in the 1980s (11.9, versus 5.9 for benzodiazepines overall, taken with or without alcohol).[44] A 1995 Australian study of patients admitted to hospital after benzodiazepine overdose corroborated these results, and found temazepam overdose much more likely to lead to coma in comparison to other benzodiazepines (odds ratio 1.86). The authors note that several factors—such as differences in potency, receptor affinity, and rate of absorption between benzodiazepines—could explain this higher toxicity.[42]
Although benzodiazepines have a high therapeutic index, temazepam is one of the more dangerous of this group of drugs.
The combination of alcohol and temazepam makes death by alcohol poisoning more likely.[45]
Abuse
See also: Benzodiazepine drug misuse
Temazepam DOJ.jpg
Temazepam is a drug with the potential for misuse. Drug misuse is defined as taking the drug to achieve a high, or continuing to take the drug in the long term against medical advice.[46]
North America
In North America, temazepam abuse is not widespread. Other benzodiazepines are more commonly prescribed for insomnia. In the United States, temazepam is the fifth most prescribed benzodiazepine. Individuals abusing benzodiazepines obtain the drug by getting prescriptions from several doctors, forging prescriptions, or buying diverted pharmaceutical products on the illicit market.[47] North America never had a serious problem with temazepam abuse, but is becoming increasingly vulnerable to the illicit trade of temazepam.[48]
Australia
Temazepam accounts for most benzodiazepine sought by forgery of prescriptions and through pharmacy burglary in Victoria.[49] Due to intravenous abuse, the Australian government decided to put it under a more restrictive schedule than it previously was,[50] and since March 2004 temazepam capsules have been withdrawn from the Australian market.[51][52] Benzodiazepines are commonly detected by Customs at different ports and airports, arriving by mail, also found occasionally in the baggage of air passengers, mostly small or medium quantities (up to 200–300 tablets) for personal use. From 2003 to 2006 customs detected approximately 500 illegal importations of benzodiazepines per year, most frequently diazepam. Quantities varied from single tablets to 2,000 tablets.[53][54]
United Kingdom
In 1987, Temazepam was the most widely-abused legal prescription drug in the United Kingdom. The use of benzodiazepines by street drug abusers was part of a polydrug abuse pattern, but many of those entering treatment facilities were declaring temazepam as their main drug of abuse. Temazepam was the most commonly used benzodiazepine in a study, published 1994, of injecting drug users in seven cities and had been injected from preparations of capsules, tablets and syrup.[55] The increase in use of heroin, often mixed with other drugs, which most often included temazepam, diazepam and alcohol, was a major factor in the increase in drug related deaths in Glasgow and Edinburgh 1990-1992.[56] Temazepam use was particularly associated with violent or disorderly behaviours and contact with the police in a 1997 study of young single homeless people in Scotland.[57]
Street terms
Street terms for temazepam include king kong pills (formerly referred to barbiturates, now more commonly refers to temazepam), jellies, jelly, Edinburgh eccies, tams, terms, mazzies, temazies, tammies, temmies, beans, eggs, green eggs, wobbly eggs, knockouts, hardball, norries, oranges (common term in Australia and New Zealand), rugby balls, ruggers, terminators, red and blue, no-gos, blackout, green devils, drunk pills, brainwash, mind erasers, tem-tem’s (combined with buprenorphine), mommy’s big helper, vitamin T, big T, TZ, and others.[58][59]
Legal status
Ambox content.png
This section’s factual accuracy is disputed. Please see the relevant discussion on the talk page. (September 2009)
Temazepam is currently a Schedule III drug under the international Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971.[60]
In the United Kingdom, temazepam is a Class C controlled drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Schedule 3 under the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001).[61] Temazepam is available only by a special controlled drug prescription form and requires special procedures in its storage and dispensing.[62] Additionally, all manufacturers in the UK have replaced the gel-capsules with solid tablets. Temazepam prepared for injection is classed as a Class A drug.
In the USA, temazepam is a Schedule IV drug and is only available by prescription. Specially coded prescriptions may be required in certain States.
In Canada, temazepam is a Schedule IV controlled substance requiring a registered doctors prescription.
In Ireland, temazepam is a Schedule 3 controlled substance with strict restrictions.[63]
In Portugal, temazepam is a Schedule IV controlled drug under Decree-Law 15/93.[64]
In the Netherlands temazepam is a List 2 substance of the Opium Law and is available for prescription as 10–20 mg tablets. The 20 mg gel-capsules are a List 1 substance of the Opium Law and thus is subject to stringent regulation.
In Sweden, temazepam is a narcotic drug list as both a List II (Schedule II) which denotes that it is a drug with limited medicinal use and a high risk of addiction, and it’s also listed as a List V (Schedule V) substance which denotes that the drug is prohibited in Sweden under the Narcotics Drugs Act (1968).[65] Temazepam is banned in Sweden and possession and distribution of even small amounts is punishable by a prison sentence and a fine.
In Australia, prescription is restricted as a Schedule 4 controlled drug.[66] It is used primarily for the treatment of severe insomnia that has not responded to other treatments.
In Slovenia, it is regulated as a Group II (Schedule 2) controlled substance under The Production and Trade in Illicit Drugs Act.[67][68]
In South Africa, temazepam is a Schedule 6 drug, requiring a special prescription, and is restricted to 10–20 mg doses.
In Hong Kong, temazepam is regulated under Schedule 1 of Hong Kong’s Chapter 134 Dangerous Drugs Ordinance. Temazepam can only be used legally by health professionals and for university research purposes. The substance can be given by pharmacists under a prescription. Anyone who supplies the substance without prescription can be fined $10000 (HKD). The penalty for trafficking or manufacturing the substance is a $5,000,000 (HKD) fine and life imprisonment. Possession of the substance for consumption without license from the Department of Health is illegal with a $1,000,000 (HKD) fine and/or 7 years of jail time.[69]
See also
* Long term effects of benzodiazepines
* Benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome
* Benzodiazepine dependence
* Benzodiazepines
* Flunitrazepam
* Nitrazepam
* Nimetazepam
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External links
* Professor Heather Ashton, Benzodiazepines; How they work and How to Withdraw
* Rx-List – Temazepam
* Inchem – Temazepam
* Medline Plus (US Government supported website) entry for Temazepam
* Active Ingredients information
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temazepam
***
Category:Hypnotics
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For more information, see Hypnotic.
Search Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Hypnotics
Subcategories
This category has the following 3 subcategories, out of 3 total.
B
*
[+] Barbiturates (1 C, 55 P)
C
*
[+] Cyclopyrrolones (7 P)
P
*
[+] Pyrazolopyrimidines (5 P)
Pages in category Hypnotics
The following 83 pages are in this category, out of 83 total. This list may not reflect recent changes (learn more).
A
* Adinazolam
* Alfadolone
* Alprazolam
* Apronal
B
* Bentazepam
* Benzodiazepine
* Bromazepam
* Bromisoval
* Brotizolam
C
* Camazepam
* Carbromal
* Centalun
* Chloral hydrate
* Chloralodol
* Chlordiazepoxide
* Chlorobutanol
* Cinolazepam
* Clobazam
* Clomethiazole
* Clonazepam
* Clorazepate
* Clotiazepam
* Cloxazolam
* Cyclopyrrolones
D
* Delorazepam
* Diazepam
* Dichloralphenazone
* Diphenhydramine
D cont.
* Doxefazepam
E
* Embutramide
* Eplivanserin
* Estazolam
* Eszopiclone
* Ethinamate
* Ethyl loflazepate
* Etizolam
* Evoxine
F
* Fludiazepam
* Flunitrazepam
* Flurazepam
G
* Gidazepam
H
* Halazepam
* Hypnotic
I
* Indiplon
L
* List of psychotropic medications
* Loprazolam
* Lorazepam
* Lormetazepam
M
* Medazepam
* Meprobamate
* Midazolam
N
* Narcosynthesis
* Nimetazepam
* Nitrazepam
O
* Oleamide
* Org 20599
O cont.
* Oxazepam
* Oxazolam
P
* Paraldehyde
* Phenazepam
* Phenobarbital
* Pinazepam
* Prazepam
* Premazepam
* Promethazine
* Propiomazine
* Purple drank
* Pyrithyldione
Q
* QH-II-66
* Quazepam
* Quetiapine
S
* SH-053-R-CH3-2?F
* Sulazepam
* Sulfonmethane
T
* Temazepam
* Tetrahydrodeoxycorticosterone
* Tetronal
* Triazolam
* Trional
Z
* Z-drug
* Zaleplon
* Zolpidem
* Zopiclone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Hypnotics
***
3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate)
3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate
Bonding model
Space filling model
IUPAC name
[show]
1-azabicyclo[2.2.2]oct-3-yl hydroxy(diphenyl)acetate
Identifiers
CAS number 6581-06-2
PubChem 23056
MeSH Quinuclidinyl+benzilate
Properties
Molecular formula C21H23NO3
Molar mass 337.41 g/mol
Except where noted otherwise, data are given for materials in their standard state (at 25 EC, 100 kPa)
Infobox references
QNB redirects here. For the spoof amateur radio Q code, see QNB (amateur radio).
3-quinuclidinyl benzilate (QNB, BZ, EA-2277), IUPAC name 1-azabicyclo[2.2.2]Oct-3-yl ?-hydroxy-?-phenylbenzeneacetate, is an odorless military incapacitating agent.[1] Its NATO code is BZ. The Iraqi incapacitating agent Agent 15 is believed either to be the same as or similar to BZ.
BZ is a glycolate anticholinergic compound related to atropine, scopolamine, hyoscyamine, and other deliriants. Dispersal would be as an aerosolized solid (primarily for inhalation) or as agent dissolved in one or more solvents for ingestion or percutaneous absorption.
Acting as a competitive inhibitor of acetylcholine at postsynaptic and postjunctional muscarinic receptor sites in smooth muscle, exocrine glands, autonomic ganglia, and the brain, BZ decreases the effective concentration of acetylcholine seen by receptors at these sites. Thus, BZ causes PNS effects that in general are the opposite of those seen in nerve agent poisoning. CNS effects include stupor, confusion, and confabulation with concrete and panoramic illusions and hallucinations, and with regression to automatic phantom behaviors such as plucking and disrobing.
Physostigmine, which increases the concentration of acetylcholine in synapses and in neuromuscular and neuroglandular junctions, is a specific antidote.
Production of BZ is controlled under schedule 2 of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Contents
* 1 Background
* 2 History
* 3 Military use
* 4 Sources other than military
* 5 Physiochemical characteristics
o 5.1 Detection and protection
o 5.2 Toxicokinetics
o 5.3 Toxicity
o 5.4 Toxicodynamics (mechanism of action)
o 5.5 Clinical effects
o 5.6 Central effects
o 5.7 Time course of effects
o 5.8 Differential diagnosis
o 5.9 Signs and symptoms
o 5.10 Anticholinergics
o 5.11 Medical management
o 5.12 History and toxicity of physostigmine
o 5.13 Triage
* 6 Chemistry
* 7 References
* 8 External links
Background
Following World War II, the United States military investigated a wide range of possible nonlethal, psychobehavioral chemical incapacitating agents to include psychedelic indoles such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD-25) and marijuana derivatives, certain tranquilizers like ketamine or fentanyl, as well as several glycolate anticholinergics. Copious amounts of phencyclidine are also documented as having been tested on active military personel,[2][3] such as in the Edgewood Arsenal experiments.
History
One of the anticholinergic compounds, 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate, was assigned the NATO code BZ and was weaponized at the beginning of the 1960s for possible battlefield use. BZ was invented by Hoffman-LaRoche in 1951.[4] The company was investigating anti-spasmodic agents, similar to Tropine, for treating gastrointestinal issues when the chemical was discovered.[4] In 1959 the United States Army began to show interest in using the chemical as a chemical warfare agent.[4] The agent was originally designated TK but when it was standardized by the U.S. Army in 1961 it was designated BZ.[4] The agent commonly became known as Buzz because of this abbreviation and the effects it had on the mental state of its casualties.[4]
Military use
In February 1998, the British Ministry of Defence released an intelligence report that accused Iraq of having stockpiled large amounts of a glycolate anticholinergic incapacitating agent known as Agent 15.[citation needed] Agent 15 is an alleged Iraqi incapacitating agent that is likely to be chemically either identical to BZ or closely related to it. Agent 15 was reportedly stockpiled in large quantities prior to and during the Persian Gulf War. The combination of anticholinergic PNS and CNS effects aids in the diagnosis of patients exposed to these agents.
Also in 1998, there were allegations that elements of the Army of the Republika Srpska used incapacitating agents, inherited from Yugoslav People’s Army arsenal, against fleeing Bosnian refugees during Srebrenica massacre in 1995 that caused hallucinations and irrational behavior.[5] Physical evidence of BZ use in Bosnia is unsupported, however.[citation needed]
Sources other than military
BZ and related anticholinergic compounds can be synthesized in clandestine laboratories, but its recreational use is nonexistent, because of its unpleasant effects. 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate, called QNB in the scientific community, is used in pharmacology as a muscarinic receptor antagonist.
Physiochemical characteristics
BZ is odorless. It is stable in most solvents, with a half-life of three to four weeks in moist air; even heat-producing munitions can disperse it. It is extremely persistent in soil and water and on most surfaces. It is slightly soluble in water; soluble in dilute acids, trichloroethylene, dimethylformamide, most organic solvents, insoluble with aqueous alkali.[6]
Detection and protection
BZ is odorless and nonirritating with delayed symptoms several hours after contact.[1] In the field the only immediate indications of its use may be the white smoke emanating from delivered weapons. Though detection methods have been developed for BZ, these have not been standardized for field use and are limited to laboratory analysis or specialized monitoring in industrial facilities (past).
Protection from BZ means blocking it from entry into the body. At dosages adequate for a lung effect there is little risk of absorption through the skin or contact hazards from aerosols that have settled out onto surfaces. The amount of BZ that may settle out on surfaces from an aerosol is too small to represent a hazard from secondary aerosols. Therefore, the most appropriate protective response is to don a protective mask with a good quality aerosol filter. Even improvised respiratory protection (e.g., several folded pieces of cloth over the nose and mouth) may render BZ employment ineffectual.
There is the possibility that BZ could be employed for a skin effect by adding to a skin penetrating solvent, or used for a secondary aerosol through contaminating terrain with bulk micro-pulverized BZ. However, both of these employment schemes are unlikely owing to the high cost and uncontrolled dose (potentially lethal). In any situation where BZ is present in liquid or bulk powder form, adequate skin protection with impermeable protective clothing and gloves is warranted.
Toxicokinetics
BZ is dispersed as an aerosol. It may be micropulverized for dissemination by a disperser (90% dissemination efficiency), or mixed with a pyrotechnic burning mixture for dissemination in burning munitions (70% dissemination efficiency). Alternately, it may be dissolved in a solvent such as DMSO to enhance percutaneous absorption, though experiments before this proved unsatisfactory for military purposes.
Bioavailability via ingestion and by inhalation of particles 1 micrometer in size approximates 80%, and 40 to 50%, respectively, of a parenterally delivered dose of BZ. Percutaneous absorption of BZ dissolved in propylene glycol yields, after a latent period of up to 24 hours, serum levels approximately 5 to 10% of those achieved with intravenous or intramuscular administration.
Following absorption, BZ is systemically distributed to most organs and biological tissues of the body. Its ability to reach synapses and neuromuscular and neuroglandular junctions throughout the body is responsible for its PNS effects, whereas its ability to cross the blood-brain barrier confers upon it the ability to cause CNS effects. Atropine and hyoscyamine both cross the placenta and can be found in small quantities in breast milk; whether this is also true for BZ is unclear.
Metabolism of BZ would be expected to occur primarily in the liver, with elimination of unchanged agent and metabolites chiefly in the urine.
Toxicity
The characteristic that makes BZ an incapacitating rather than a toxic chemical warfare agent is its high safety ratio (~40x). In terms of Ct products, the ICt50 (median incapacitating dosage) for BZ is 112 mgAmin/m³ (mild activity), whereas the LD50 is estimated to be around 3,800 – 41,300 mgAmin/m³.
Toxicodynamics (mechanism of action)
The agent BZ and other anticholinergic glycolates act as competitive inhibitors of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine neurons (1) at postjunctional muscarinic receptors in cardiac and smooth muscle and in exocrine (ducted) glands and (2) at postsynaptic receptors in neurons. As the concentration of BZ at these sites increases, the proportion of receptors available for binding to acetylcholine decreases and the end organ sees less acetylcholine. (One way of visualizing this process is to imagine BZ coating the surface of the end organ and preventing acetylcholine from reaching its receptors.) Because BZ has little to no agonist activity with respect to acetylcholine, high concentrations of BZ essentially substitute a dud for acetylcholine at these sites and lead to clinical effects reflective of understimulation of end organs.
Clinical effects
Peripheral effects:
* Mydriasis, blurred vision
* Dry mouth, skin
* Initially rapid heart rate declining to normal or slow heart rate over time
* Possible flushing of the skin
The PNS effects of BZ are, in general, readily understood as those of understimulation of end organs and are qualitatively similar to those of atropine. Decreased stimulation of eccrine and apocrine sweat glands in the skin results in dry skin and a reduction in the ability to dissipate heat by evaporative cooling. The skin becomes warm partly from decreased sweating and partly from compensatory cutaneous vasodilatation, (also causing red skin discolouration) as the body attempts to shunt a higher proportion of core-temperature blood as close as possible to the surface of the skin. With decreased heat loss, the core temperature itself rises.
Understimulation of other exocrine glands leads to xerostomia (dry mouth), thirst, and decreased secretions from lacrimal, nasal, bronchial, and gastrointestinal glands.
Decreased cholinergic stimulation of pupillary sphincter muscles allows alpha-adrenergically innervated pupillary dilating muscles to act essentially unopposed, resulting in mydriasis. Similar effects on cholinergic ciliary muscles produce paralysis of accommodation. Other smooth muscle effects from BZ intoxication include decreased bladder tone and decreased urinary force with possibly severe bladder distention.
BZ typically raises the heart rate initially, but hours later, depending on the dose of BZ, the heart rate falls to normal or may become slow. Either the peripheral vagal blockade has ceased or the stimulation of the vagal nucleus has occurred.
Neither atropine nor BZ can act directly at the postjunctional nicotinic receptors found in skeletal muscle, but BZ-exposed patients nonetheless exhibit muscle weakness. This weakness, along with incoordination, heightened stretch reflexes, and ataxia, is probably due to the effects of BZ at CNS sites.
The PNS effects of BZ are essentially side effects that are useful in diagnosis, but incidental to the CNS effects for which the incapacitating agents were developed. These CNS effects include a dose-dependent decrease in the level of consciousness, beginning with drowsiness and progressing through sedation to stupor and coma. The patient is often disoriented to time and place. Disturbances in judgment and insight appear. The patient may abandon socially imposed restraints and resort to vulgar and inappropriate behavior. Perceptual clues may no longer be readily interpretable, and the patient is easily distracted and may have memory loss, most notably short-term memory. In the face of these deficits, the patient still tries to make sense of his environment and will not hesitate to make up answers on the spot to questions that confuse him. Speech becomes slurred and often senseless, and loss of inflection produces a flat, monotonous voice. References become concrete and semiautomatic with colloquialisms, clichés, profanity, and perseveration. Handwriting also deteriorates. Semiautomatic behavior may also include disrobing (perhaps partly because of increased body temperature), mumbling, and phantom behaviors such as constant picking, plucking, or grasping motions ( woolgathering or carphology).
BZ was referenced in the Vietnam War film Jacob’s Ladder, but the effects depicted in the film are not accurate. No evidence exists that BZ sends people exposed to it into a homicidal frenzy, as the film suggests.
BZ was also featured as a gas and was used to murder an army commander in the NCIS episode Sharif Returns when aside from the victim (who went so crazy he cut out his own eye and ate it).
Central effects
* Disturbances in level of consciousness
* Misperceptions and difficulty in interpretation (delusions, hallucinations)
* Poor judgment and insight (denial of illness)
* Short attention span, distractibility, impaired memory (particularly recent)
* Slurred speech, perseveration
* Disorientation
* Ataxia
* Variability (quiet/restless)
Central nervous system mediated perceptual disturbances in BZ poisoning include both illusions (misidentification of real objects) and hallucinations (the perception of objects or attributes that have no objective reality). Hallucinations resulting from anticholinergics such as BZ tend to be realistic, distinct, easily identifiable (often commonly encountered objects or persons), panoramic, and difficult to distinguish from reality. They also have the tendency to decrease in size during the course of the intoxication. This is in contrast to the typically vague, ineffable, and transcendent-appearing hallucinations induced by psychedelics such as LSD.
Another prominent CNS finding in BZ poisoning is behavioral lability, with patients swinging back and forth between quiet confusion and self-absorption in hallucinations, to frank combativeness. Moreover, as other symptoms begin to resolve, intermittent paranoia may be seen. Automatic behaviors common during resolution include the crawling or climbing motions called progresso obstinato in old descriptions of dementia.
BZ produces effects not just in individuals, but also in groups. Sharing of illusions and hallucinations (folie à deux, folie en famille, and mass hysteria ) is exemplified by two BZ-intoxicated individuals who would take turns smoking an imaginary cigarette clearly visible to both of them but to no one else.[2] [Clarification] When one observed subject mumbled, Gotta cigarette? His delirious companion held out an invisible pack, he followed with, S’okay, don’t wanna take your last one. In another test it was reported two victims of BZ played tennis with imaginary rackets.[3]
Time course of effects
Clinical effects from ingestion or inhalation of BZ appear after an asymptomatic or latent period that may be as little as 30 minutes, or as long as 20 hours; the usual range is 0.5 to 4 hours, with a mean of 2 hours. However, effects may not appear up to 36 hours after skin exposure to BZ.
Once effects appear, their duration is typically 72 to 96 hours and are dose-dependent. Following an ICt50 of BZ, severe effects may last 36 hours, but mild effects may persist for additional days.
The clinical course from BZ poisoning can be divided into the following four stages:
1. Onset or induction (zero to four hours after exposure), characterized by parasympathetic blockade and mild CNS effects.
2. Second phase (4 to 20 hours after exposure), characterized by stupor with ataxia and hyperthermia.
3. Third phase (20 to 96 hours after exposure), in which full-blown delirium is seen but often fluctuates from moment to moment.
4. Fourth phase, or resolution, characterized by paranoia, deep sleep, reawakening, crawling or climbing automatisms, and eventual reorientation.
Differential diagnosis
The differential diagnosis for irrational and confused patients is a long one and includes anxiety reactions as well as intoxication with a variety of agents, to include hallucinogenic indoles (such as LSD), cannabinoids (such as the delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol in marijuana), lead, barbiturates, and bromides. All of these conditions can lead to restlessness, lightheadedness (with associated vertigo and ataxia), confusion, and erratic behavior with or without vomiting. Clues that specifically point to BZ or a related compound are the combination of anticholinergic PNS effects with the CNS effects of slurred and monotonous speech, automatic behavior (perseveration, disrobing, and phantom behaviors (such as woolgathering )), and vivid, realistic, describable hallucinations (decreasing in size over time) in a patient slipping into and out of delirium.
Signs and symptoms
* Restlessness
* Dizziness or giddiness
* Failure to obey orders
* Confusion
* Erratic behavior
* Stumbling or staggering
* Drymouth (cottonmouth)
* Tachycardia at rest
* Elevated temperature
* Flushing of face
* Blurred vision
* Pupillary dilation
* Slurred or nonsensical speech
* Hallucinations
* Disrobing
* Mumbling
* Stupor and coma
* Inappropriate smiling or laughter
* Irrational fear
* Distractibility
* Difficulty expressing self
* Elevated blood pressure
* Stomach cramps and vomiting
* Euphoric, relaxed, unconcerned attitude
* Hypotension and/or dizziness on sudden standing
* Tremor
* Clinging or pleading
* Seemingly reasonless crying
* Decrease in disturbance with reassurance
Anticholinergics
* Indoles (Schizophrenic psychosis may mimic in some respects.)
* Cannabinols
* Anxiety reaction
Atropine intoxication from MARK I autoinjector use in a patient not exposed to nerve agents may create similar PNS effects to those seen in BZ intoxication. However, marked confusion from atropine is not normally seen until a total of six or seven autoinjectors have been given (in a hot, dehydrated, or battle-stressed individual, less atropine would probably suffice). Circumstantial evidence may be helpful in this situation. Heat stroke may also generate hot, dry, and confused or stuporous casualties and needs to be considered in the differential diagnosis. Patients with anxiety reactions are usually oriented to time, place, and person but may be trembling, crying, or otherwise panicked. The classic picture of unconcern or la belle indifférence may characterize a patient with a conversion reaction, but these patients are also likely to be oriented and lack the anticholinergic PNS signs of BZ poisoning.
Medical management
The admonition to protect oneself first may be difficult when dealing with any intoxication involving a latent period, since initially asymptomatic exposure to health care providers may already have occurred during the same time frame in which patients were exposed. Protection of medical staff from already absorbed and systemically distributed BZ in a patient is not needed.
General supportive management of the patient includes decontamination of skin and clothing (ineffective for already absorbed agent but useful in preventing further absorption of any agent still in contact with the patient), confiscation of weapons and related items from the patient, and observation. Physical restraint may be required in moderately to severely affected patients. The greatest risks to the patient’s life are (1) injuries from his or her own erratic behavior (or from the behavior of similarly intoxicated patients) and (2) hyperthermia, especially in patients who are in hot or humid environments or are dehydrated from overexertion or insufficient water intake. A severely exposed patient might be comatose with serious cardiac arrhythmias and electrolyte disturbances. Management of heat stress assumes a high priority in these patients. Because of the prolonged time course in BZ poisoning, consideration should always be given to evacuation to a higher echelon of care.
As a competitive inhibitor of acetylcholine, BZ effectively decreases the amount of acetylcholine seen by postsynaptic and postjunctional receptors throughout the body. Specific antidotal therapy in BZ poisoning is therefore geared toward raising the concentration of acetylcholine in these synapses and junctions. Any compound that causes a rise in acetylcholine concentration can potentially overcome BZ-induced inhibition and restore normal functioning; even the nerve agent VX has been shown to be effective when given under carefully controlled conditions. The specific antidote of choice in BZ poisoning is the carbamate anticholinesterase physostigmine (eserine; Antilirium), which temporarily raises acetylcholine concentrations by binding reversibly to anticholinesterase on the postsynaptic or postjunctional membrane. Physostigmine is similar in many ways to pyridostigmine and is equally effective when used as a pre-exposure antidotal enhancer ( pretreatment ) in individuals at high risk for subsequently encountering soman. However, physostigmine is not used for this purpose because the doses required cause vomiting through CNS mechanisms. In the case of BZ poisoning, a nonpolar compound such as physostigmine is used specifically because penetration into the brain is required in those individuals who already have CNS effects from BZ.
In BZ-intoxicated patients, physostigmine is minimally effective during the first four hours after exposure but is very effective after four hours. Oral dosing generally requires one and a half times the amount of antidote as does IM or IV administration. However, effects from a single intramuscular injection of physostigmine last only about 60 minutes, necessitating frequent re-dosing. It must be emphasized that physostigmine does not shorten the clinical course of BZ poisoning and that relapses will occur if treatment is discontinued prematurely. The temptation to substitute a slow intravenous infusion for intramuscular injections should be tempered by the awareness that IV infusion may lead to nerve-agent-like bradycardia, and too rapid infusion might cause arrhythmias, excessive secretions (to the point of compromising air exchange), and convulsions. Moreover, the sodium bisulfite in commercially available preparations of physostigmine may cause life-threatening allergic responses.
History and toxicity of physostigmine
The antagonism between physostigmine (the elixir of calabar bean) and atropine (tincture of belladonna) was first reported in 1864 by a physician who successfully treated prisoners who had become delirious after drinking tincture of belladonna. Physicians did not notice this report until the 1950s when atropine coma (in which 50 mg or so of atropine were given to certain psychiatric patients) was successfully treated with physostigmine after the therapeutic benefit had been attained. Again, this went unnoticed until a controlled study, reported in 1967, indicated that anticholinergic intoxication could be successfully, albeit transiently, reversed by physostigmine.
The administration of physostigmine by the IV route in a delirious but conscious and otherwise healthy patient is not without peril. It is sometimes difficult to keep a delirious patient quiet long enough to administer the drug (at 1 mg/min is the marketed solution of 1 mg/ml). Even if administered correctly (very slowly), the heart rate may decline from 110 to 45 beat/min over a period of 1 to 2 minutes. The difference in the onset of the effects after IM and IV administration of physostigmine is a matter of only several minutes. Since its use is rarely lifesaving, this slight difference in time of response is inconsequential.
Physostigmine is a safe and effective antidote if used properly. In a conscious and delirious patient it will produce very effective but transient reversal of both the peripheral and central effects of cholinergic blocking compounds. Its use by the IV route is not without hazards. It absolutely should NOT be used in a patient with cardiorespiratory compromise, hypoxia, or acid-base imbalance with a history of seizure disorders or arrhythmias.
Triage
An immediate casualty (possible but unlikely) would be one with cardiorespiratory compromise or severe hyperthermia.
The delayed casualty would present with pronounced or worsening anticholinergic signs.
A minimal casualty from a strictly medical standpoint might have mild PNS or CNS anticholinergic effects.
An expectant casualty (also possible but unlikely) would have severe cardiorespiratory compromise in a situation in which treatment or evacuation resources are too limited to allow the necessary attention to be directed to him or her.
Chemistry
Preparation of 3-QUINUCLIDONE (c.f. quinuclidine) has been documented.[7] 3-Quinuclidone synth.png
The last step of the procedure appears to be a Dieckmann cyclization (intramolecular Claisen condensation) followed by decarboxylation.
Additionally, benzilic acid is made in a few steps starting from benzaldehyde and cyanide catalyst.
3-Quinuclidone is a useful drug precursor for medicinal (neuroprotective) as well as military applicatons, c.f. PNU-282,987.
References
1. ^ a b QNB: Incapacitating Agent. Emergency Response Safety and Health Database. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Accessed April 20, 2009.
2. ^ Possible Long-Term Health Effects of Short-Term Exposure To Chemical Agents, Volume 2: Cholinesterase Reactivators, Psychochemicals and Irritants and Vesicants. (1984)
3. ^ Ketchum – Chemical Warfare: Secrets Almost Forgotten (2006)
4. ^ a b c d e Kirby, Reid. Paradise Lost: The Psycho Agents , The CBW Conventions Bulletin, May 2006, Issue no. 71, pp. 2-3, accessed December 11, 2008.
5. ^ [1]
6. ^ US Army FM 3-9
7. ^ Organic Syntheses, Coll. Vol. 5, p.989 (1973); Vol. 44, p.86 (1964).
External links
* Erowid – BZ Vault
* Tear Gases and Chemical Agents – Agent BZ
* eMedicine – Incapacitating Agents: 3-Quinuclidinyl Benzilate
* Possible Abuse of BZ by Insurgents in Iraq
* Center for Disease Control – BZ Incapacitating Agent
* Paradise Lost: The Psycho Agents by Reid Kirby
* Department of Defense – Agent BZ use in Hawaii April through June 1966.
* [4] – Quinuclidinyl benzilate.
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
v • d • e
Deliriants (anticholinergic hallucinogens)
Tropanes
Atropine • CAR-226,086 • Hyoscyamine • Scopolamine
Benzilates
Benactyzine • CAR-301,060 • CAR-302,196 • CAR-302,282 • CAR-302,368 • CAR-302,537 • CAR-302,668 • CS-27349 • Ditran • EA-3167 • EA-3443 • EA-3580 • EA-3834 • N-Ethyl-3-piperidyl benzilate • N-Methyl-3-piperidyl benzilate • 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate • WIN-2299
Antihistamines
Benzhydryl compounds (Cyclizine • Dimenhydrinate • Diphenhydramine), Doxylamine • Promethazine
Others
Benzydamine • Dicyclomine • Biperiden • Trihexyphenidyl
v • d • e
Chemical agents
Blood agents
Cyanogen chloride (CK) A Hydrogen cyanide (AC)
Blister agents
Ethyldichloroarsine (ED) A Methyldichloroarsine (MD) A Phenyldichloroarsine (PD) A Lewisite (L) A Sulfur mustard gas (HD, H, HT, HL, HQ) A Nitrogen mustard gas (HN1, HN2, HN3)
Nerve agents
G-Agents: Tabun (GA) A Sarin (GB) A Soman (GD) A Cyclosarin (GF) A GV — V-Agents: EA-3148 A VE A VG A VM A VR A VX — Novichok agents
Pulmonary agents
Chlorine A Chloropicrin (PS) A Phosgene (CG) A Diphosgene (DP)
Incapacitating agents
Agent 15 (BZ) A EA-3167 A KOLOKOL-1
Riot control agents
Pepper spray (OC) A CS gas A CN gas (mace) A CR gas
Seal of the US Department of the Army.svg This article incorporates text in the public domain from the United States Army.
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-Quinuclidinyl_benzilate
Categories: Deliriants | Anticholinergics | Incapacitating agents | Mind control | Quinuclidines
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-quinuclidinyl_benzilate
800px-3-Quinuclidone_synth.png
***
Scopolamine
Scopolamine
Systematic (IUPAC) name
(-)-(S)-3-hydroxy-2-phenyl-propionic acid (1R,2R,4S,7S,9S)-9-methyl-3-oxa-9-aza-tricyclo[3.3.1.02,4]non-7-yl ester
Identifiers
CAS number 51-34-3
ATC code A04AD01 N05CM05, S01FA02
PubChem 5184
DrugBank APRD00616
ChemSpider 10194106
Chemical data
Formula C17H21NO4
Mol. mass 303.353 g/mol
Pharmacokinetic data
Bioavailability 10 – 50% [1]
Metabolism ?
Half life 4.5 hours[1]
Excretion ?
Therapeutic considerations
Pregnancy cat.
C(US)
Legal status
P(UK) ?-only(US)
Routes transdermal, ocular, oral, subcutaneous, intravenous, sublingual, rectal, buccal transmucousal, intramuscular
Yes check.svgY(what is this?) (verify)
Scopolamine, also known as levo-duboisine, and hyoscine, is a tropane alkaloid drug with muscarinic antagonist effects. It is obtained from plants of the family Solanaceae (nightshades), such as henbane, jimson weed and Angel’s Trumpets (Datura resp. Brugmansia spec.), and corkwood (Duboisia species [3]). It is among the secondary metabolites of these plants. Therefore, scopolamine is one of three main active components of belladonna and stramonium tinctures and powders used medicinally along with atropine and hyoscyamine. Scopolamine was isolated from plant sources by scientists in 1881 in Germany and description of its structure and activity followed shortly thereafter.
Scopolamine has anticholinergic properties and has legitimate medical applications in very minute doses. As an example, in the treatment of motion sickness, the dose, gradually released from a transdermal patch, is only 330 microgrammes (:g) per day. In rare cases, unusual reactions to ordinary doses of scopolamine have occurred including confusion, agitation, rambling speech, hallucinations, paranoid behaviors, and delusions.
Contents
* 1 Etymology
* 2 Physiology
* 3 Medical use
o 3.1 Nausea
o 3.2 Ophthalmic
o 3.3 Memory research
o 3.4 Addiction
o 3.5 Other medical uses
o 3.6 Routes of administration
* 4 Recreational use
* 5 Use in interrogation
* 6 Criminal use and urban legends
* 7 Shamanic use
* 8 Witchcraft and sorcery
* 9 Adverse effects
o 9.1 Drug interactions: side effects and use against pain
* 10 History
* 11 Popular culture
* 12 References
* 13 External links
Etymology
Scopolamine is named after the plant genus Scopolia. The name hyoscine is from the scientific name for henbane, Hyoscyamus niger.
Physiology
Scopolamine acts as a competitive antagonist at muscarinic acetylcholine receptors, specifically M1 receptors; it is thus classified as an anticholinergic,anti-muscarinic drug. (See the article on the parasympathetic nervous system for details of this physiology.)
Medical use
In medicine, scopolamine has these uses:
* Primary:
o Treatment of nausea and motion sickness
o Treatment of intestinal cramping
o For ophthalmic purposes.
o As a general depressant and adjunct to narcotic painkillers
* Less often:
o As a preanesthetic agent
o As a drying agent for sinuses, lungs, and related areas.
o To reduce motility and secretions in the GI tract—most frequently in tinctures or other belladonna or stramonium preparations, often used in conjunction with other drugs as in Donnagel original forumulation, Donnagel-PG (with paregoric), Donnabarb/Barbadonna/Donnatal (with phenobarbital), and a number of others
o Uncommonly, for some forms of Parkinsonism.
o As an adjunct to narcotic analgesia, such as the product Twilight Sleep which contained morphine and scopolamine, some of the original formulations of Percodan and some European brands of methadone injection.[citation needed]
o To enhance the pain-killing ability of various opioids.
o As an occasional sleep aid, and was available in some over-the-counter-products in the United States for this purpose until November 1990.
Nausea
Its use as an antiemetic in the form of a transdermal patch.
Ophthalmic
The drug is used in eye drops to induce mydriasis (pupillary dilation) and cycloplegia (paralysis of the eye focusing muscle), primarily in the treatment of eye disorders that benefit from its prolonged effect, e.g. uveitis, iritis, iridocyclitis, etc.
Memory research
Because of its anticholinergic effects, scopolamine has been shown to prevent the activation of medial temporal lobe structures for novel stimuli during spatial memory tasks.
Addiction
Scopolamine has been used in the past to treat addiction to drugs such as heroin and cocaine. The patient was given frequent doses of scopolamine until they were delirious. This treatment was maintained for 2 to 3 days after which they were treated with pilocarpine. After recovering from this they were said to have lost the acute craving to the drug to which they were addicted. [2]
Currently, scopolamine is being investigated for its possible usefulness alone or in conjunction with other drugs in assisting people in breaking the nicotine habit.[citation needed] The mechanism by which it mitigates withdrawal symptoms is different from that of clonidine meaning that the two drugs can be used together without duplicating or canceling out the effects of each other.
Other medical uses
* It can be used as a depressant of the central nervous system, and was formerly used as a bedtime sleep aid.
* Anesthetic; Its use in general anesthesia is favored by some[citation needed] due to its amnesic effect. Scopolamine causes memory impairments to a similar degree as diazepam.[3]
* In otolaryngology it is used to dry the upper airway (anti-sialogogue action) prior to instrumentation of the airway.
* In October 2006 researchers at the US National Institute of Mental Health found that scopolamine reduced symptoms of depression within a few days, and the improvement lasted for at least a week after switching to a placebo.[4]
* Due to its effectiveness against sea-sickness it has become commonly used by scuba divers.[5][6]
Routes of administration
Scopolamine can be administered by transdermal patches,[7] oral, subcutaneous, ophthalmic and intravenous routes. The transdermal patch (e.g. Transderm Sco-p) for prevention of nausea and motion sickness employs scopolamine base. The patch is effective for up to 3 days[8]. The oral, ophthalmic and intravenous forms are usually scopolamine hydrobromide (for example in Scopace, soluble 0.4 mg tablets or Donnatal).
Recreational use
The use of medical scopolamine/opioid combination preparations for euphoria is uncommon but does exist and can be seen in conjunction with opioid use. Doses of scopolamine by itself near the therapeutic range create euphoria and anxiolysis of anticholinergic origin, similar to that of some first-generation antihistamines and similar drugs.
Another separate group of users prefer dangerously high doses, especially in the form of datura preparations, for the deliriant and hallucinogenic effects. The hallucinations produced by scopolamine, in common with other potent anticholinergics, are especially real-seeming, with many users reporting hallucinations such as spiders crawling on walls and ceilings, especially in the dark. While some users find this pleasent, often the experience is not one that the user would want to repeat. An overdose of scopolamine is also physically exceedingly unpleasant and can be fatal, unlike the effect of other more commonly used hallucinogens. For these reasons, naturally occurring anticholinergics are rarely used for recreational purposes.
Scopolamine in transdermal, oral, sublingual, and injectable formulations can produce a cholinergic rebound effect when high doses are stopped. This is the opposite of scopolamine’s therapeutic effects: sweating, runny nose, abdominal cramps, nausea, vomiting, vertigo, dizziness, irritability, and diarrhea. Psychological dependence is also possible when the drug is taken for its tranquilizing effects.
Use in interrogation
The Use of Scopolamine in Criminology by Robert E. House appeared in the Texas State Journal of Medicine in September, 1922 and was reprinted in The American Journal of Police Science, Vol. 2, No. 4, Jul. – Aug., 1931.[citation needed]
The use of scopolamine as a truth drug was investigated in the 1950s by various intelligence agencies, including the CIA as part of Project MKULTRA.
In 2009, it has been proved that Czechoslovak communist secret police used scopolamine at least three times to obtain confession from alleged anti-state conspirators. [9]
The fictional truth drug Hyoscine-pentothal does not describe real hyoscine accurately.
…if you inject it into the spine (amount classified), it causes absolutely incredible pain, accompanied by violent convulsions and seizures. If injected into the spine in the appropriate amount, more than 95% of all prisoners will tell the truth — not something fabricated to stop the pain — within 24 hours (Source: classified). http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Torture%2C_interrogation_and_intelligence
Criminal use and urban legends
Scopolamine poisoning is sometimes reported as a way used by murderers or robbers, although largely exaggerated in many unfounded rumors. In 1910 it was detected in the remains believed to be those of Cora Crippen, wife of Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen, and was accepted at the time as the cause of her death since her husband was known to have bought some at the start of the year.[10]
There are unfounded circulating rumors that a transcutaneous delivery mechanism using business cards, pamphlets or flyers laced with the drug, could be effective. Indeed, the quantity of toxin diffusing through the skin barrier after one short contact of the fingers with an object is much too small to be readily absorbed in the body and to have any significant effect. The use of burundanga impregnated visit cards to attack and to rob isolated people is often propagated by chain emails and is presently reported as hoax or urban legend by many specialised web sites [11][12][13]. Meanwhile, spiked alcoholic drinks (direct ingestion) could have been occasionally used. In recent years the criminal use of scopolamine has become epidemic in Colombia. Approximately one in five emergency room admissions for poisoning in Bogotá have been attributed to scopolamine.[14] In a bizarre case, a band of female thieves would impregnate their breasts with scopolamine and then would lure potential victims to lick their nipples. Under the drug’s effects, the victims would lose concience and would give them access to their bank accounts. [15] In June 2008, more than 20 people were hospitalized with psychosis in Norway after ingesting counterfeit Rohypnol tablets containing scopolamine. [4]
Shamanic use
In Colombia a plant admixture containing scopolamine called Burundanga has been used shamanically for decades.[citation needed]
Witchcraft and sorcery
Scopolamine was one of the active principles in many of the flying ointments used by witches, sorcerers and fellow travellers of many countries and cultures from millennia ago ostensibly down to the late 19th century or even to the present day. Scopolamine and related tropanes contributed both to the flying sensations and hallucinations sought by users of these compounds. Potions, solids of various types, and other forms were also used in some cases.
These ointments could contain any number of ingredients with belladonna, henbane, and other plants of the belladonna and datura families being present almost invariably; they were applied to the vaginal and/or anal mucosa and/or large areas of the skin and other mucous membranes (often using a broom as an applicator, the origin[citation needed] of the image of a witch riding a broom) with the objective being to see the Gods or spirits, and/or be transported to the Sabbat.
The hallucinations, sensation of flying, often a rapid increase in libido, and other characteristic effects of this practice are largely attributable to the CNS and peripheral effects of scopolamine and other active drugs present in the ointments such as atropine, hyoscyamine, mandragorine, scopoline, solanine, optical isomers of scopolamine and other tropane alkaloids. The inclusion of belladonna/datura type plants amongst the dozens of ingredients in the Haitian zombie drug is thought by some authorities to be at least somewhat likely, although scopolamine-bearing plant matter is almost certainly not the main active ingredient, which has been theorised to possibly be Tetrodotoxin or a related substance.
Adverse effects
The common side effects are related to the anticholinergic effect on parasympathetic postsynaptic receptors: dry mouth, throat and nasal passages in overdose cases progressing to impaired speech, thirst, blurred vision and sensitivity to light, constipation, difficulty urinating and tachycardia. Other effects of overdose include flushing and fever, as well as excitement, restlessness, hallucinations, or delirium. These side effects are commonly observed with oral or parenteral uses of the drug and generally not with topical ophthalmic use.
Use in scuba diving to prevent sea sickness has led to the discovery of another side effect. In deep water, below 50–60 feet, some divers have reported pain in the eyes that subsides quickly if the diver ascends to a depth of 40 feet or less. Mydriatics can precipitate an attack of glaucoma in susceptible patients, so the medication should be used with extra caution among divers who intend to go below 50 feet.
Drug interactions: side effects and use against pain
When combined with morphine, scopolamine is useful for pre-medication for surgery or diagnostic procedures and was widely used in obstetrics in the past; the mixture also produces amnesia and a tranquillised state known as Twilight Sleep, also the name of a proprietary drug available in the past in ampoules of injectable fluid containing morphine sulphate and scopolamine hydrobromide (and in some cases the phenothiazine anti-nauseants prochlorperazine or promethazine as a third ingredient). Although originally used in obstetrics, it is now considered dangerous for that purpose for both mother and baby.[citation needed]
History
Scopolamine was one of the earlier alkaloids isolated from plant sources and has been in use in isolated, purified forms such as free base and various salts, especially hydrochloride, hydrobromide, hydroiodide and sulphate, since its isolation by German chemists in 1881 and in the form of plant-based preparations since antiquity and perhaps pre-historic times.
Scopolamine was one of the active ingredients in Asthmador, an over the counter smoking preparation marketed in the 1950s and 60’s claiming to combat asthma and bronchitis.
Scopolamine was used from the 1940s to the 1960s to put mothers in labor into a kind of twilight sleep that did not stop pain, but merely eliminated the memory of pain by attacking the brain functions responsible for self-awareness and self-control. Often, this caused a kind of psychosis, followed by post-traumatic stress-like memories in thousands of new mothers.[16]
Scopolamine was an ingredient used in some over-the-counter sleep aids before November 1990 in the United States, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration forced several hundred ingredients allegedly not known to be effective off the market. Scopolamine shared a small segment of this market with diphenhydramine, phenyltoloxamine, pyrilamine, doxylamine and other first generation antihistamines, many of which are still used for this purpose in drugs like Sominex, Tylenol PM, NyQuil, etc.
Popular culture
Scopolamine’s use as a truth serum features in a number of fictional works such as Farewell, My Lovely, The Guns of Navarone, and The Matarese Dynasty. In 1957, scopolamine achieved a moderate level of notoriety via its mention in the film I Was a Teenage Werewolf, where Dr. Alfred Brandon uses it as part of his endeavor to regress the titular character to his primitive roots. According to Dr. Liz Kingsley’s film review site And You Call Yourself a Scientist, Brandon’s line Prepare the scopolamine is the only scientifically accurate line in the whole film.
Its recreational use is recounted in a 1955 letter from Tangier to Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs recounts an incident in which he shot up a series of ampoules of a methadone preparation containing scopolamine without considering the effect of the latter drug; later in the evening he was reportedly red as a beet, had totally disrobed and was running around yelling and trying to get away from monsters; he needed to be restrained by the owner of the building in which he rented an apartment.
In Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson, Dr. Gonzo mentions an incident in which he was given an entire datura root as a gift, ate the entire thing at once, and subsequently went blind, had to be taken back to his house in a wheelbarrow, and started making noises like a raccoon.
In Carlos Castaneda’s series of books The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, the datura plant is the favored shamanic, revelatory drug of the titular character. The book explores, in depth, Castaneda’s alleged experiences under the influence of the drug, as well as the alleged rites surrounding its use and preparation.
Scopolamine appears in Stephen King’s novel Misery, which depicts the protagonist self-administering a morphine-scopolamine injectable to stave off pain and withdrawal symptoms after being deliberately given narcotic analgesics to produce physical dependence.
In Smut, a tenth-season episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a serial rapist uses scopolamine as a date rape drug. This allows him to operate with near-impunity, as none of his victims recall ever meeting him, let alone being raped. It also allows him to make pornographic videos of himself committing the rapes, but still have a defense, as the women are shown being compelled to say they consent to the sex.
In the 1990 film Robocop 2, the film’s antagonist, Cain, directs a lab tech to add Scopolamine to a new drug called Blue Velvet, a flavour of the film’s fictional designer drug, Nuke. Upon sampling a prototype of the drug, Cain says to the lab tech, Benzedrine’s got my teeth wiggling. Cut it with scopolamine. 5 mils per.
References
1. ^ a b Putcha L, Cintrón NM, Tsui J, Vanderploeg JM, Kramer WG (June 1989). Pharmacokinetics and oral bioavailability of scopolamine in normal subjects . Pharm. Res. 6 (6): 481–5. doi:10.1023/A:1015916423156. PMID 2762223.
2. ^ Evelyn Clare Pearce (1941). Pearce’s Medical and Nursing Dictionary and Encyclopaedia. Faber & Faber.
3. ^ Jones DM; Jones ME, Lewis MJ, Spriggs TL. (May 1979). Drugs and human memory: effects of low doses of nitrazepam and hyoscine on retention. . Br J Clin Pharmacol. 7 (5): 479–83. PMID 475944.
4. ^ Furey, ML; Drevets, WC (October 2006). Antidepressant efficacy of the antimuscarinic drug scopolamine: a randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial . Archives of General Psychiatry, vol 63, p 1121 63: 1121. doi:10.1001/archpsyc.63.10.1121. PMID 17015814. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?orig_db=PubMed&db=PubMed&cmd=Search&term=%22Archives+of+general+psychiatry%22%5BJour%5D+AND+63%5Bvolume%5D+AND+1121%5Bpage%5D.
5. ^ Bitterman N, Eilender E, Melamed Y (May 1991). Hyperbaric oxygen and scopolamine . Undersea Biomed Res 18 (3): 167–74. PMID 1853467. http://archive.rubicon-foundation.org/2573. Retrieved 2008-08-13.
6. ^ Williams TH, Wilkinson AR, Davis FM, Frampton CM (March 1988). Effects of transcutaneous scopolamine and depth on diver performance . Undersea Biomed Res 15 (2): 89–98. PMID 3363755. http://archive.rubicon-foundation.org/2495. Retrieved 2008-08-13.
7. ^ White PF, Tang J, Song D, et al. (2007). Transdermal scopolamine: an alternative to ondansetron and droperidol for the prevention of postoperative and postdischarge emetic symptoms . Anesth. Analg. 104 (1): 92–6. doi:10.1213/01.ane.0000250364.91567.72. PMID 17179250. http://www.anesthesia-analgesia.org/cgi/pmidlookup?view=long&pmid=17179250.
8. ^ Transderm Scop patch prescribing information
9. ^ Gazdík, Jan; Navara, Lude(k (2009-08-08). Sve(dek: Grebeníc(ek ve(zne( nejen mlátil, ale dával jim i drogy [A witness: Grebeníc(ek not only beat prisoners, he also administered drugs to them] (in Czech). iDnes. http://zpravy.idnes.cz/svedek-grebenicek-vezne-nejen-mlatil-ale-daval-jim-i-drogy-pmd-/domaci.asp?c=A090807_205833_domaci_vel. Retrieved 2009-08-10.
10. ^ The Trial of H.H. Crippen ed. by Filson Young (Notable British Trials series, Hodge, 1920), p. xxvii; see also evidence, pp. 68-77.
11. ^ Hoax: Burundanga Business Card Drug Warning
12. ^ Urband legend: Burundanga Drug Warning
13. ^ Snopes.com: Burundanga Business Card
14. ^ Manuel Uribe G., Claudia L. Moreno L, Adriana Zamora S., Pilar J. Acosta (2005) Perfil epidemiológico de la intoxicación con burundanga en la clínica Uribe Cualla S. A. de Bogotá, D. C. Acta Neurol Colomb, 21, 197-201 [1]
15. ^ http://www.biopsychiatry.com/scopolamine/borrachero.html
16. ^ The Business of Being Born, [2]
External links
* The Erowid Scopolamine Vault
* Scopolamine Transdermal Patch Information:
* Sober Circle Article on Dangers of Scopolamine
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopolamine
Categories: Deliriants | Entheogens | Epoxides | Mind control | Muscarinic antagonists | Natural tropane alkaloids | Plant toxins
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopolamine
***
Torture, interrogation and intelligence
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December 19, 2007
Summary
Lecture on torture techniques by Dr. Larry Forness of the American Military University (Dec 2005). The document explains the rationale behind torturing prisoners, torture methods, and a justification for ignoring international law. Forness advocates the injection of truth serums, threatening to inject Muslim prisoners with pigs’ blood, and torturing detainees’ friends and family.
Dr. Larry Forness is a professor at American Military University. He has earned nine degrees, including three doctorates and two law degrees, with over half the degrees obtained via distance education. He completed his undergraduate training at Notre Dame and his advanced degree and training from prestigious universities such as Duke University and UCLA. He also earned two Law degrees (JD and LL.M.). A former Marine, Dr. Forness provides classified consulting to U.S. Military Special Operations units. Specialties include unconventional warfare and intelligence. (AMU biography)
Although the document was likely intended for Forness’ students, it was subsequently circulated within the US military, where it came to the attention of the Wikileaks whistleblower Peryton, who also disclosed Guantanamo Bay’s main manual Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedure (2004), which was authenticated publicly by Joint Task Force Guantanamo.
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TORTURE, INTERROGATION AND INTELLIGENCE
What I want you to keep in mind as you read this is that we are to assume the following situation: We have somebody in our custody, who we believe has knowledge of an impending terrorist attack, and we think that attack could be VERY serious, but we have less than five days to find out what this person knows about the impending attack.
In this piece, I’m going to specifically address using drugs known as truth serums as the means by which we get the intelligence that we need. Some would call this a form of torture.
I want you to know that I don’t glory torture for its own sake. I accept it as a means to survival.
To digress for a moment, and to add a little humor to it, I don’t get any pleasure inflicting pain on anybody, unless you’re a quarterback. I hate quarterbacks. I was a linebacker. Quarterbacks live a charmed life. Think about it. A quarterback never had zits as a kid. He never sweat. He always got the best looking cheerleader. He or his parents always had the best car. The teachers and coaches would let him get away with murder, and yet call him a saint. He always had his picture on the front cover of the football guide and the game-day program. He was the class valedictorian. He never had to dig ditches in 100-degree heat in the summer to make money. Even during practice, he got to wear a different color jersey from anybody else. He could sit down, kneel down, slide down, fall down, lie down, down the damn ball or throw it away, and if you even breathed on him you got penalized 15 yards for roughing the quarterback. I ask you, when was the last time you ever saw any official at any football game — peewee through the pros — ever throw flag on anybody for roughing the linebacker? I rest my case.
When Israel suffers a terrorist attack, almost invariably they retaliate within 24 hours. The reason that they can do this is that they have the world’s best human intelligence (humint), and they know how to interrogate people. Their intelligence is so good and they keep it so current that they know who has attacked them, and they already have plans in existence for retaliation. Their humint sources are not just Israelis, but actual members of the society on which they are spying. They use humint and supplement it by signal intelligence (sigint). We do it just ass-backwards, because we CAN’T do it the way the Israeli’s do it — we simply do not have enough people on the ground. It takes $500,000-1,000,000 and 3-5 years to train and put in place a good humint source (assume this is an American hired by, say, the CIA, to try and infiltrate some terrorist group). NOTHING that is going on at present can quickly change this equation or situation. Forget the hearings, the posturing, the proposals, the realignments, the debate. It’s all based on the INCORRECT assumption that we already have the tools, they just need to be rearranged. We do NOT have all the tools and no flow chart or organization chart can change that.
The Geneva Convention was not signed by any terrorist group. No terrorist should be provided any protection whatsoever under the Geneva Convention.
We are supposed to be a nation of laws. If you are not a United States citizen, don’t expect protection of our laws.
Therefore, no terrorist — whether running free or in custody — is entitled to any protection under any international law to which we are a signatory or law of the United States.
Most of what follows is what I have learned from Israelis, South Koreans, Russians, as well as Americans.
I want to address several fallacies of interrogation.
Fallacy #1. Torture never works, because a prisoner will tell the interrogators whatever they want to hear just to stop the torture.
That’s based on a faulty assumption. That faulty assumption is that, if you act on the fabricated intelligence provided by the prisoner, and then you find out that it is not correct, that the prisoner does not have to pay a price for lying. Before you ask the prisoner for information, you tell that prisoner that if he or she lies, you will torture the prisoner, the family, the friends, the parakeet, whomever. And then do it.
Fallacy #2. Any prisoner can outwit his or her interrogators.
This doesn’t work with interrogators who are members of a free society, and have very good to excellent intelligence sources to confirm and verify what a prisoner says.
Part of this fallacy was created as a result of what our American POWs told their North Vietnamese interrogators, when those POWs were held in and around Hanoi during the Vietnam War.
North Vietnam was a closed society. That society only heard and saw what their leaders wanted them to hear and see. Our prisoners’ Code of Conduct was changed in response to the brutal torture that our POW’s endured.
Our POWs held out under that torture as long as they could. When they could hold out no longer, they made up something to stop the torture. Incredibly, and to show you how stupid and uninformed the North Vietnamese were, our POWs made up names of superior officers. These names included General Mills (the cereal company), Major Domo, Captain Video, etc. The North Vietnamese interrogators dutifully wrote down this information, smiled smugly, and assumed that they had extracted critical information from their prisoners.
In this sense, yes, the prisoners did outwit the interrogators. In contrast, when our POWs were interrogated by Russians, Cubans, East Germans, and Bulgarians, when they tried to pull the same stunt as they did with the North Vietnamese, our guys were beaten, starved, and tortured unmercifully. Our guys said that you could fool North Vietnamese, but don’t even think about trying it with those other guys.
Fallacy #3. Torture as a means of interrogation is generally not accepted throughout the world.
In point of fact, within the last three years, more than three-quarters of all countries in the world have practiced torture as a means of interrogation. This applies to their own citizens, as well as foreigners, whether combatants or not.
Bleeding hearts just don’t get it. On the one hand, they kept telling us to allow the weapons inspectors in Iraq more and more and more time and more and more and more time to uncover weapons of mass destruction. On the other hand, once the President declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq, the bleeding hearts started screeching that the rebuilding and democratization of Iraq wasn’t happening fast enough. On the third hand, they run their hands at how quickly we had placed prisoners into detention facilities. This herky-jerky, stop-and-go, inconsistency is nothing more than political opportunism.
Even the ACLU got involved, not on behalf of Americans, but on behalf of our enemies. If you didn’t know this, read this and burn it in your memory: The ACLU was founded by a card-carrying member of the Communist Party. You should never again wonder why the ACLU is trying to tear apart the moral and legal fiber of this country.
Fallacy #4. These things called truths serums don’t really work.
They do work to varying degrees of success.
There are three primary truth serums.
Here they are.
Scopolamine (scopolamine hydrobromide; first word pronounced: skoh-PAW-lah-mean), also known by another name — hyoscine (hyoscine hydrobromide). It is colorless, odorless and tasteless. Its clinical uses are primarily as a sedative, and applied locally (directly) as a mydriatic, which causes the pupil of the eye to dilate. When used as a sedative, the primary uses are to combat vertigo and motion sickness. When used with morphine and pentobarbital, to a woman in labor, it produces a twilight sleep. It is also used as a premedication preliminary to surgery anesthesia.
Since scopolamine completely blocks the formation of memories, unlike most date-rape drugs used in the United States and elsewhere, it is usually impossible for victims to ever identify their aggressors (or interrogators, if you were a prisoner).
To use scopolamine most effectively to get a prisoner to tell you what he or she knows, the key is where you inject it, and in what amounts. Normally it is introduced into the body by a transdermal patch or intravenously in the arm. However, if you inject it into the spine (amount classified), it causes absolutely incredible pain, accompanied by violent convulsions and seizures. If injected into the spine in the appropriate amount, more than 95% of all prisoners will tell the truth — not something fabricated to stop the pain — within 24 hours (Source: classified).
A far milder form of psychological abuse involves exposing prisoners (intravenously or orally) to sodium pentathol—commonly known as truth serum. Sodium pentathol is an ultra-short-acting barbiturate that depresses the central nervous system, slows heart rate, and lowers blood pressure. In the relaxed state produced by the drug, subjects are more susceptible to suggestion and are therefore easier to interrogate. The drug does not actually guarantee that prisoners will tell the truth, however. Often, it makes subjects gabby without revealing any important information.
Sodium amythal, also known as a type of truth serum, with its clinical application in psychoanalysis, is used primarily to help in memory recovery and dealing with false memories. If you can confuse the prisoner as to what is a real memory and what is a false memory, you might be able to crack their resistance to telling the truth. However, if the prisoner is smart, he or she will simply shut up and you’ll get nothing from them.
What is interesting is that a prisoner could have been subjected to a truth serum singularly, or two or three over enough time given the appropriate washout of the prisoner’s system, and flatly state that he or she did not tell his or her interrogators anything. From his or her perspective, he or she is telling the truth — because he or she has no memory of telling interrogators anything. That’s the truth in his or her own mind, but it is not the fact of the situation.
In terms of training individuals to resist the three aforementioned truth serums, it is easiest to train someone to resist the sodium amythal, followed by sodium pentathol. There is no known training that will allow anyone to resist scopolamine, when injected into the spine in the correct amount.
What you don’t want to do is stack scopolamine with sodium pentathol and sodium amythal. Stacking means adding one drug on top of another before the previous drug(s) has/have washed out of the system. You stack on somebody, you’ll kill them.
When time is not a consideration, and when used in conjunction with skilled interrogators on a prisoner who has not been trained to resist the effects, sodium pentathol and sodium amythal will get you the truth in approximately 10% to one third of the cases. When the truth absolutely positively has to be there within five days, forget them – use scopolamine injected into the spine.
I don’t honestly know if we have used any of these truth serums on Saddam Hussein. Too bad if we didn’t. My clearance doesn’t extend that high. For those of you who don’t know — and to oversimplify it — there are four different levels of security clearances. They are: secret; top-secret; top-secret/code word; beyond top-secret/code word. The words code word could be something like UMBRA. So if I had that level, I would be cleared top-secret/UMBRA, which means I would be allowed to see or hear anything that is secret, top-secret, and — separately — anything that a classified under the code word UMBRA.
In 1909, before World War I, there were a number of terrorist attacks on the United States forces in the island of Mindanao in the Philippines, by Muslim extremists. General Black Jack Pershing was the appointed military governor of the Moro Province. He captured 50 terrorists and ordered them to be tied to posts for execution. Since all the prisoners were Muslim, he asked his men to bring two pigs and slaughter them in front of the prisoners. He then proceeded by dipping bullets into the pig’s blood.
In the process he executed 49 of the terrorists by firing squad. Then, the soldiers dug a big hole in the ground and dumped in the terrorists’ bodies and covered them in pig’s blood and viscera. The last man was set free. For 42 years there was not a single Muslim attack anywhere in the world.
His rationale was quite simple and effective. Since a radical Muslim is willing to give his life for his religion in a Jihad war, killing him would not make much difference. He would be seen as a martyr (shahada).
But the General knew that all Muslims believe in eternal life after death with 72 virgins waiting for them in paradise. He also knew that those that embrace Jihad usually prepare themselves physically and spiritually in case they die in combat.
Since the pig is considered forbidden food (haram) in Islam, Pershing introduced this variable to thwart their hopes to enter Allah’s kingdom. The pig’s blood automatically nullified any prior purification by contaminating their bodies.
My interrogation technique is quite simple. I follow General Pershing’s example and order a pig to be slaughtered near the prisoner. The blood of the animal run’s freely toward the prisoner’s feet. He will immediately lift his knees to avoid making contact with it. I fill a syringe with the pig’s blood and threaten to inject him in the arm. The prisoner will talk — and quickly.
Fair? Depends on your perspective. Effective? Extremely.
A century ago, General Pershing’s quick thinking installed a great fear in a large sector of the Muslim population in Mindanao putting an end to any type of subversion in an Island that resents the presence of non-Muslims.
Last, here are a few tips in terms of determining if who you have in custody really is a Muslim: Since most of the concentration is on Islamic terrorism, these are a few signs that very few people know about.
A serious Muslim that prays 5 times a day has a small dark discoloration on his forehead.
If he wears jewelry, it has to be silver and not gold — usually a silver ring with a space inside where there is a passage from the Koran.
Another important pointer comes from physical anthropology, and deals with faces and body structures. A real Muslim keeps his left hand away from his food, usually under the table.
Bottom line: there are effective ways to get the truth from a prisoner under interrogation. Some work better than others. When drugs are used, both the person administering the drug, as well as the interrogator, must be expert at their profession. When time is the most important consideration, you’re left with very few options. Whatever the situation, KNOW YOUR ENEMY.
What I say here are my own opinions, based upon fact. They are not to be construed as the policy or official position of APUS. As always, you are free to accept or reject anything I say, and verify it by any means you wish.
Thank you.
Doc
Retrieved from https://secure.wikileaks.org/wiki/Torture%2C_interrogation_and_intelligence
Categories: Leaked files | 2007 | 2007-12 | Analysis requested | United States | Military or intelligence (ruling) | US Department of Defense | English
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Torture%2C_interrogation_and_intelligence
***
250px-Utah_array_pat5215088.jpg
Schematic of the Utah Electrode Array
Category:Mind control
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Schematic of the Utah Electrode Array
This category covers the subject of individual or mass persuasion, facilitated by coercive psychological, medical, or other technological methods.
As a field of study which is often conducted under conditions of secrecy, many of the topics in this group are not necessarily objectively verifiable in a traditional sense—however, please limit additions to articles about individuals or topics which are extensively and/or exclusively associated with the subject of mind control.
Subcategories
This category has the following 6 subcategories, out of 6 total.
B
*
[+] Books about mind control (10 P)
*
[+] Brain-computer interfacing (1 C, 18 P)
*
[+] Brainwashing techniques (4 P)
M
*
[+] Mind control methods (3 C, 8 P)
*
[+] Mind control theorists (1 C, 15 P)
P
*
[+] Psychological torture techniques (12 P)
Pages in category Mind control
The following 49 pages are in this category, out of 49 total. This list may not reflect recent changes (learn more).
* Mind control
A
* Aziz al-Abub
* APA Task Force on Deceptive and Indirect Techniques of Persuasion and Control
* Project ARTICHOKE
B
* Backmasking
* Brain implant
C
* Project CHATTER
* Cognotechnology
* Covert hypnosis
D
* Francis E. Dec
* Deep Sleep Therapy
E
* Echo chamber (media)
* Edgewood Arsenal experiments
* Electroconvulsive therapy
* Exit counseling
G
* Gaslighting
H
* Scientology and hypnosis
I
* Mind control in popular culture
J
* Candy Jones
L
* Bob Lansberry
* Lobotomy
* Rauni-Leena Luukanen-Kilde
* Lysergic acid diethylamide
M
* Project MKDELTA
* Project MKNAOMI
* Microwave auditory effect
* Project MKULTRA
N
* Diana Napolis
* Gloria Naylor
* Richard Nongard
O
* Cathy O’Brien
* Frank Olson
* Operation Midnight Climax
* David Orlikow
P
* Pites,ti prison
* Propaganda
* Propaganda techniques
* Psychochemical weapons
* Psychological warfare
Q
* 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate
S
* Scopolamine
* Sensory deprivation
* Special (film)
* Stockholm syndrome
* Subliminal message
T
* Tin foil hat
U
* United States President’s Commission on CIA activities within the United States
W
* White torture
Z
* Zombie
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mind_control
Categories: Conspiracy theories | Psychological warfare | Science fiction themes
***
White torture
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
White torture is a type of psychological torture[1][2] that includes extreme sensory deprivation and isolation[2].[3][4] Carrying out this type of torture makes the detainee lose personal identity and decrease human production through long terms of isolation.[5][6]
Contents
* 1 Iran
* 2 United States
* 3 Turkey
* 4 Art
* 5 Britain and Northern Ireland
* 6 References
Iran
In Iran, white torture (Persian: ????? ????) has been practiced on political prisoners.[7] Most political prisoners who experience this type of torture are journalists[8] held in the Evin prison.[9] According to Hadi Ghaemi, carrying out such tortures in Evin are not necessarily authorized directly by the Iranian government.[10]
It can include prolonged periods of solitary confinement, often in detention centres outside the control of the prison authorities, including Section 209 of Evin Prison.
In an Amnesty International report in 2004[3] there were documented evidence of white torture on Amir Abbas Fakhravar, by the revolutionary guards. According to the report, which called his case the first known example of white torture in Iran[11] claimed that his cells had no windows, and the walls and his clothes were white. His meals consisted of white rice on white plates. To use the toilet, he had to put a white piece of paper under the door. He was forbidden to speak, and the guards reportedly wore shoes that muffled sound.[12][13][14] Upon his arrival in the US, Fakhravar confirmed this report in an interview with Christian Broadcasting Network.[15]
On a telephone call to the Human Rights Watch in 2004, Ebrahim Nabavi the well known Iranian journalist, regarding why this type of torture is referred to as White torture has claimed that:
Since I left Evin, I have not been able to sleep without sleeping pills. It is terrible. The loneliness never leaves you, long after you are “free.” Every door that is closed on you … This is why we call it “white torture.” They get what they want without having to hit you. They know enough about you to control the information that you get: they can make you believe that the president has resigned, that they have your wife, that someone you trust has told them lies about you. You begin to break. And once you break, they have control. And then you begin to confess[16]
Kianush Sanjari, an Iranian blogger and activist who had allegedly experienced this type of torture in 2006 claimed that:
I feel that solitary confinement – which wages war on the soul and mind of a person – can be the most inhuman form of white torture for people like me, who are arrested solely for [defending] citizens’ rights. I only hope the day comes when no one is put in solitary confinement [to punish them] for the peaceful expression of his ideas. [17]
United States
The United States has been accused by Amnesty International and other international Human Rights organizations of using extreme isolation and sensory deprivation … detainees confined to windowless cells … days without seeing daylight along with other torture techniques with the approval of the George W. Bush administration.[18][19]
The organization European Democratic Lawyers (EDL) has explicitely accused the United States of white torture: Fundamental rights are violated on the part of the United States. In Guantánamo prisoners are held under sensory deprivation, ears and eyes covered, hands and feet tied, hands in thick gloves, held in cages without any privacy, always observed, light day and night: This is called white torture. [20]
Turkey
There are concerns that the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan is under white torture.[21][22] Since his arrest, he has been under solitary confinement at the maximum-security prison island I.mral?.[23]
Art
* German artist Gregor Schneider based his room design of Weiße Folter (lit. German for White torture) on this idea[24][25]
Britain and Northern Ireland
John McGuffin’s book The Guinea Pigs details the use of sensory deprivation used in Northern Ireland by the British Army until the UK conviction in 1971 of torture before the European Court in the Hague, later downgraded to severe maltreatment .[citation needed] This consisted of hooding and dressing in thick boiler suits and being made to stand against a wall on tip-toe and being subject to white noise . This technique was developed largely in order to avoid accusations of torture (by not inflicting physical pain, but an absence of stimulus) but to provide an interrogation tool.
The antecedents of this had been experiments carried out in Canada on volunteers, ostensibly in support of a manned space programme. These had to be discontinued due to the severity of the psychiatric symptoms induced. The UK Government brought together experience of previous torture carried out in various colonial wars – Fort Morbut in Yemen, Hola Camp in Kenya and in Cyprus – in a conference held at Ashford Joint Intelligence Centre in Kent. Photographs taken during the Abu-Ghraib scandal indicate similar techniques being employed by the US Army.
References
1. ^ Ruxandra Cesereanu, An Overview of Political Torture in the Twentieth CenturyPDF (703.3 KiB), Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies (JSRI), Summer 2006.
2. ^ a b Educational Aids to Work with Survivors of Torture and Organized ViolencePDF (704 KiB), Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture (CCVT), 2004
3. ^ a b Helping to break the Silence: Urgent Actions on Iran, Amnesty International, April 1, 2004.
4. ^ Lionel Beehner, Iran’s Waning Human Rights, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), August 9, 2006.
5. ^ Call for Action Against Isolation and Torture, TML Daily, December 12, 2003.
6. ^ David Morgan, Violations of human…rights of the Kurds in Turkey, Kurdish Media, March 22, 2005.
7. ^ Karl Vick, Report Cites ‘Climate of Fear’ in Iran, The Washington Post, June 7, 2004.
8. ^ UN human rights commission urged to sanction Iran, Reporters Without Borders, March 15, 2005.
9. ^ Amnesty International, Iran:… Kianoosh Sanjari, January 10, 2007.
10. ^ Doug Saunders, Few know who is held behind the tiled walls of Tehran’s Evin prison, February 19, 2007
11. ^ Sarah Baxter. Fugitive pleads with US to ‘liberate’ Iran, The Sunday Times, May 21, 2006. Retrieved on March 10, 2007.
12. ^ United States Department of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices – Iran in 2006, March 6, 2007.
13. ^ Cathy McCann [1], NEAR International, March 17, 2004.
14. ^ Eli Lake, Iranian Dissident to Seek Support For Opposition, The New York Sun, May 9, 2006.
15. ^ Kenneth R. Timmerman, Sins of Omission, Sins of Commission, Frontpagemag, September 8, 2006.
16. ^ Like the Dead…Crushing of dissidents in Iran, Human Rights Watch, June 2004
17. ^ Golnaz Esfandiar, Iranian activist believes blog caused detention, International Relations and Security Network (ISN), January 12, 2007
18. ^ Guantanemo conditions ‘worsening’ BBC News April 4, 2007
19. ^ US: Did President Bush Order Torture Human Rights Watch, Dec. 21, 2004
20. ^ European Democratic Lawyers (EDL) statement on Guantanamo Bay and other detention centres European Democratic Lawyers July, 2004
21. ^ Kurdish Issue in Turkey Unresolved, February 11, 2005.
22. ^ International initiative, Freedom for Abdullah OcalanPDF (112 KiB) p10. January, 2005.
23. ^ Bent Endresen, Kurd leader Abdullah Öcalan probably poisened in prison, March 29, 2007.
24. ^ Jan Thorn-Prikker, Gregor Schneider: When Violence Takes the Form of a Room, January, 2007.
25. ^ ARTSGATE, News, March 17, 2007.
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_torture
Categories: Psychological torture techniques | Mind control | Torture in Iran
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_torture
***
Zombie
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Zombie (disambiguation).
People dressed as zombies for Halloween
A zombie is a creature that appears in folklore and popular culture typically as a reanimated corpse or a mindless human being. Stories of zombies originated in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system of Vodou, which told of the people being controlled as laborers by a powerful sorcerer. Zombies became a popular device in modern horror fiction, largely because of the success of George A. Romero’s 1968 film Night of the Living Dead.[1]
Contents
* 1 Etymology
* 2 Voodoo Magic
* 3 Popular culture
o 3.1 Impact of Night of the Living Dead
o 3.2 In other media
* 4 Philosophical zombie
* 5 Social activism
* 6 References
* 7 External links
Etymology
There are several possible etymologies of the word zombie. One possible origin is jumbie, the West Indian term for ghost .[2] Another is nzambi, the Kongo word meaning spirit of a dead person. [2] According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word entered English circa 1871 and is derived from the Louisiana Creole or Haitian Creole zonbi, which in turn is of Bantu origin.[3] A zonbi is a person who is believed to have died and been brought back to life without speech or free will.[4] It is akin to the Kimbundu nzúmbe ghost.
Voodoo Magic
See also: History of Haiti
According to the tenets of Voodoo, a dead person can be revived by a bokor, or sorcerer. Zombies remain under the control of the bokor since they have no will of their own. Zombi is also another name of the Vodou snake lwa Damballah Wedo, of Niger-Congo origin; it is akin to the Kikongo word nzambi, which means god . There also exists within the voudon tradition the zombi astral which is a human soul that is captured by a bokor and used to enhance the bokor’s power.
In 1937, while researching folklore in Haiti, Zora Neale Hurston encountered the case of a woman that appeared in a village, and a family claimed she was Felicia Felix-Mentor, a relative who had died and been buried in 1907 at the age of 29. Hurston pursued rumors that the affected persons were given powerful drugs, but she was unable to locate individuals willing to offer much information. She wrote:
“ What is more, if science ever gets to the bottom of Voodoo in Haiti and Africa, it will be found that some important medical secrets, still unknown to medical science, give it its power, rather than gestures of ceremony. – Zora Neale Hurston.[5] ”
Several decades later, Wade Davis, a Harvard ethnobotanist, presented a pharmacological case for zombies in two books, The Serpent and the Rainbow (1985) and Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie (1988). Davis traveled to Haiti in 1982 and, as a result of his investigations, claimed that a living person can be turned into a zombie by two special powders being entered into the blood stream (usually via a wound). The first, coup de poudre (French: ‘powder strike’), includes tetrodotoxin (TTX), the poison found in the pufferfish. The second powder is composed of dissociatives such as datura. Together, these powders were said to induce a death-like state in which the victim’s will would be entirely subject to that of the bokor. Davis also popularized the story of Clairvius Narcisse, who was claimed to have succumbed to this practice.
Davis’ claim has been criticized for a number of scientific inaccuracies. One of these is the unlikely suggestion that Haitian witchdoctors can keep “zombies” in a state of pharmacologically induced trance for many years.[6] Symptoms of TTX poisoning range from numbness and nausea to paralysis, unconsciousness, and death, but do not include a stiffened gait or a deathlike trance. According to neurologist Terence Hines, the scientific community dismisses tetrodotoxin as the cause of this state, and Davis’ assessment of the nature of the reports of Haitian zombies is overly credulous.[7]
Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing further highlighted the link between social and cultural expectations and compulsion, in the context of schizophrenia and other mental illness, suggesting that schizogenesis may account for some of the psychological aspects of zombification.[8]
Popular culture
Main article: Zombies in popular culture
Zombies from George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, a zombie film
Impact of Night of the Living Dead
In 1968 director George Romero released the independent black-and-white zombie film Night of the Living Dead. The story, which was cited as groundbreaking, was first modern zombie film. Although not the first zombie film, Night of the Living Dead became the predecessor for many films with the same main idea.
The movie ushered in the splatter film sub-genre. As many film historian pointed out, horror prior to Romero’s film had mostly involved rubber masks and costumes, cardboard sets, or mysterious figures lurking in the shadows. They were set in locations far removed from rural and suburban America.
The film and its successors spawned countless imitators that borrowed elements instituted by Romero: Tombs of the Blind Dead, Zombie, Hell of the Living Dead, The Evil Dead, Night of the Comet, Return of the Living Dead, Night of the Creeps, Braindead, Children of the Living Dead, and the video game series Resident Evil (later adapted as films in 2002, 2004, and 2007), Dead Rising, and House of the Dead. Night of the Living Dead is parodied in films such as Night of the Living Bread and Shaun of the Dead, and in episodes of The Simpsons ( Treehouse of Horror III , 1992), South Park ( Pink Eye , 1997; Night of the Living Homeless , 2007) and Invader Zim (Halloween Spectacular of Spooky Doom, 2001;).[9][10][11] The word zombie is never used, but Romero’s film introduced the theme of zombies as reanimated, flesh-eating cannibals.ref>Andrew Tudor, Monsters and Mad Scientists: A Cultural History of the Horror Movie (Oxford, Eng.: Blackwell Publishing, 1989), p. 101, ISBN 0-631-16992-X .</ref>
[edit] In other media
Modern zombies, as portrayed in books, films, games, and haunted attractions, are different from both voodoo zombies and those of folklore. Modern zombies are typically depicted in popular culture as mindless, unfeeling monsters with a hunger for human flesh, a prototype established in the seminal 1968 film Night of the Living Dead. Typically, these creatures can sustain damage far beyond that of a normal, living human. Generally these can only be killed by a wound to the head, such as a headshot, or being set on fire, and can pass whatever syndrome that causes their condition onto others through bites or cuts.
Usually, zombies are not depicted as thralls to masters, as in the film White Zombie or the spirit-cult myths. Rather, modern zombies are depicted in mobs, flocks or waves, seeking either flesh to eat or people to kill, and are typically rendered to exhibit signs of physical decomposition such as rotting flesh, discolored eyes, and open wounds, and moving with a slow, shambling gait. They are generally incapable of communication and show no signs of personality or rationality, though George Romero’s zombies appear capable of learning and very basic levels of speech as seen in the films Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead.
Modern zombies are closely tied to the idea of a zombie apocalypse, the collapse of civilization caused by a vast plague of undead. The ideas are now so strongly linked that zombies are rarely depicted within any other context.
There are still significant differences among the depictions of zombies by various media; for one comparison see the contrasts between zombies by Night of the Living Dead authors George A. Romero and John A. Russo as they evolved in the two separate film series that followed. In some zombie apocalypse narratives, such as The Return of the Living Dead and Dead Set, zombies are depicted as being as quick and nimble as the living, a further departure from the established genre stereotype.
Another departure may consist of the image of zombies as loveable creatures, being tamed, Disneyfied and made suitable for children , as featured in zom-coms (derived from the abbreviation of situation comedies, sit-coms) such as Fido, starring comic actor Billy Connolly as a boy’s pet zombie [12].
Philosophical zombie
Main article: Philosophical zombie
A philosophical zombie is a concept used in the philosophy of mind, a field of research which examines the association between conscious thought and the physical world. A philosophical zombie is a hypothetical person who lacks full consciousness but has the biology or behavior of a normal human being; it is used as a null hypothesis in debates regarding the identity of the mind and the brain. The term was coined by philosopher David Chalmers. [13]
Social activism
A zombie walk in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Main article: Zombie walk
Some zombie fans continue the George A. Romero tradition of using zombies as a social commentary. Organized zombie walks, which are primarily promoted through word of mouth, are regularly staged in some countries. Usually they are arranged as a sort of surrealist performance art but they are occasionally put on as part of a unique political protest. [14][15][16][17][18]
References
Find more about zombie on Wikipedia’s sister projects:
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1. ^ Smith, Neil. Zombie maestro lays down the lore . BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7280793.stm. Retrieved 2009-10-01.
2. ^ a b How Zombies Work . HowStuffWorks. http://science.howstuffworks.com/zombie.htm. Retrieved 2009-10-01.
3. ^ Definition of zombie . Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/zombie. Retrieved 2009-10-01.
4. ^ Definition of zombie . Merriam-Webster Student Dictionary. http://www.wordcentral.com/cgi-bin/student?zombie. Retrieved 2009-10-01.
5. ^ Hurston, Zora Neale. Dust Tracks on a Road. 2nd Ed. (1942: Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984, p. 205).
6. ^ Booth, W. (1988), “Voodoo Science”, Science, 240: 274-277.
7. ^ Hines, Terence; Zombies and Tetrodotoxin ; Skeptical Inquirer; May/June 2008; Volume 32, Issue 3; Pages 60-62.
8. ^ Oswald, Hans Peter (2009 (84 pages)). Vodoo. BoD – Books on Demand. pp. 39. ISBN 3837059049.
9. ^ Rockoff, Going to Pieces, p. 36.
10. ^ Treehouse of Horror III , episode 64, The Simpsons, October 29, 1992, at the Internet Movie Database; last accessed June 24, 2006.
11. ^ Pink Eye , episode 107, South Park, October 29, 1997, on South Park: The Complete First Season (DVD, Warner Bros., 2002)
12. ^ The Guardian Weekly of 10 July 2009, p.35
13. ^ Chalmers, David. 1995. Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness , Journal of Consciousness Studies, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 200-219
14. ^ Colley, Jenna. Zombies haunt San Diego streets . signonsandiego.com. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20070726-9999-1n26zombies.html. Retrieved 2009-10-01.
15. ^ Kemble, Gary. They came, they saw, they lurched . abc.net. http://www.abc.net.au/news/arts/articulate/200604/s1627099.htm. Retrieved 2009-10-01.
16. ^ Dalgetty, Greg. The Dead Walk . Penny Blood Magazine. http://www.pennyblood.com/zombiewalk1.html. Retrieved 2009-10-01.
17. ^ Horgen, Tom. Nightlife: ‘Dead’ ahead . StarTribune.com. http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/dining/31116719.html?elr=KArksD:aDyaEP:kD:aUt:aDyaEP:kD:aUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiU. Retrieved 2009-10-01.
18. ^ Dudiak, Zandy. Guinness certifies record for second annual Zombie Walk . yourpenntrafford.com. http://www.yourpenntrafford.com/penntraffordstar/article/guinness-certifies-record-second-annual-zombie-walk. Retrieved 2009-10-01.
External links
* Discussion of zombies in film at NPR’s On The Media
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie
Categories: Corporeal undead | Film genres | Horror | Pop culture words of Bantu origin | Mind control | Vodou | Zombies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie
***
Tin foil hat
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A man wearing a tin foil hat.
A tin foil hat is a piece of headgear made from one or more sheets of aluminium foil or similar material. Alternatively it may be a conventional hat lined with foil. Some people wear the hats in the belief that they act to shield the brain from such influences as electromagnetic fields, or against mind control and/or mind reading.
The concept of wearing a tin foil hat for protection from such threats has become a popular stereotype and term of derision; the phrase serves as a byword for paranoia and is associated with conspiracy theorists.
The reasons for their use include the supposed prevention of perceived harassment from governments, spies or paranormal beings. These draw on the stereotypical images of mind control operating by ESP or technological means, like microwave radiation. The effectiveness of tin foil hats is disputable; however, the belief in their necessity is popularly associated with paranoia or mental illness.[1]
Contents
* 1 Scientific basis
o 1.1 Electromagnetic hearing
* 2 In popular culture
* 3 See also
* 4 References
* 5 External links
Scientific basis
The notion that a tin foil hat can significantly reduce the intensity of incident radio frequency radiation on the wearer’s brain has some scientific validity, as the effect of strong radio waves has been documented for quite some time. [2] A well constructed tin foil enclosure would approximate a Faraday cage, reducing the amount of (typically harmless) radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation inside. A common high school physics demonstration involves placing an AM radio on tin foil, and then covering the radio with a metal bucket. This leads to a noticeable reduction in signal strength. The efficiency of such an enclosure in blocking such radiation depends on the thickness of the tin foil, as dictated by the skin depth, the distance the radiation can propagate in a particular non-ideal conductor. For half-millimeter-thick tin foil, radiation above about 20 kHz (i.e., including both AM and FM bands) would be partially blocked, although tin foil is not sold in this thickness, and numerous layers of tin foil would be required to sustain this effect.[3]
The effectiveness of the tin foil hat as electromagnetic shielding for stopping radio waves is greatly reduced by the fact that it is not a complete enclosure. Placing an AM radio under a metal bucket without a conductive layer underneath demonstrates the relative ineffectiveness of such a setup. Indeed, because the effect of an ungrounded Faraday cage is to partially reflect the incident radiation, a radio wave that is incident on the inner surface of the hat (i.e., coming from underneath the hat-wearer) would be reflected and partially ‘focused’ towards the user’s brain. While tin foil hats may have originated in some understanding of the Faraday cage effect, the use of such a hat to attenuate radio waves belongs properly to the realm of pseudoscience.
A study by graduate students at MIT determined that a tin foil hat could either amplify or attenuate incoming radiation depending on frequency; the effect was observed to be roughly independent of the relative placement of the wearer and radiation source.[4] At GHz wavelengths, the skin depth is less than the thickness of even the thinnest foil.[citation needed]
Tin foil hats are seen by some as a protective measure against the effects of electromagnetic radiation (EMR). Despite some allegations that EMR exposure has negative health consequences,[5] at this time, no link has been verifiably proven between the radio-frequency EMR that tin foil hats are meant to protect against and subsequent ill health.[6]
Electromagnetic hearing
Main article: microwave auditory effect
Humans are able to detect modulated radio-frequency electromagnetic signals in the microwave range, hearing them as sounds. The perceived source of induced sound is located inside of or directly behind the head of the recipient, regardless of the location of the transmitter. The effect is believed to be caused by thermoelastic expansion of the brain exposed to microwaves.[7]
During the Cold War, electromagnetic hearing was clinically studied in the United States for applications including covert message transmission and use as a non-lethal weapon. As a declassified National Ground Intelligence Center document points out:
It may be useful to provide a disruptive condition to a person not aware of the technology. Not only might it be disruptive to the sense of hearing, it could be psychologically devastating if one suddenly heard voices within one’s head .[8]
A number of patents was granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office for various applications of the technology, including nervous system excitation , and remotely monitoring and altering brain waves .
In 1962, Allan H. Frey discovered that reception of the induced sound can be blocked by a patch of wire mesh (not foil) placed above the temporal lobe.[7]
In popular culture
Tin foil hats were worn in the movie Signs to protect from alien mind-reading tactics, and coincidentally were alluded to in another Mel Gibson movie, Conspiracy Theory.
Tin foil hats are frequently used in popular culture to indicate paranoia, especially as induced by mental illness.[1]
EastEnders character Joe Wicks was briefly portrayed constructing and wearing his own tin foil hat as part of a storyline which saw him suffering from schizophrenia.
In an episode of the Discovery Channel television show MythBusters dealing with microwave oven myths, Adam Savage constructed a tin foil hat to wear while working in the shop, as Jamie Hyneman had taken apart a microwave in an attempt to design a microwave gun. That hat was not intended to provide serious protection for Adam, and was a tongue-in-cheek reference to their use. However, Adam was seriously concerned for the safety of the show’s cast and crew while working with an uncovered microwave.
In April 2007, MMORPG World of Warcraft announced a new in-game item on its website named the ‘Tinfoil Hat’. The hat came complete with tongue-in-cheek statistics such as hiding the player’s profile from The Armory (an online character database), and allowing the player to see ‘the truth’. The item was later revealed to be an April Fool’s Day joke.
FactCheck suggested that those who espouse Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories should first equip themselves with a high-quality tinfoil hat. [9]
In the Artemis Fowl series, Foaly is initially described as wearing a tinfoil hat
In the Futurama movie Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder many characters wear tinfoil hats to prevent others from reading their thoughts/stop reading other people’s thoughts.
See also
* List of hats and headgear
* Electromagnetic radiation and health
References
1. ^ a b Hey Crazy–Get a New Hat . Bostonist. 15 November 2005. http://www.bostonist.com/archives/2005/11/15/hey_crazyget_a_new_hat.php. Retrieved 2007-04-05.
2. ^ Neurophysiologic effects of Radiofrequency and Microwave Radiation, Bulletin of New York Academy of Medicine, vol. 55, no. 11,. December, 1979. p. 1079 – 1093.
3. ^ Jackson, John David (1998). Classical Electrodynamics. Wiley Press.
4. ^ Rahimi, Ali; Ben Recht, Jason Taylor, Noah Vawter (17 February 2005). On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets . Ali Rahimi. http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/. Retrieved 2007-04-05.
5. ^ Electronic smog – Environment – The Independent . News.independent.co.uk. 2006-05-07. http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article362557.ece. Retrieved 2009-06-09.
6. ^ Safety and Health Topics: Radiofrequency and Microwave Radiation – Health Effects . Osha.gov. http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/radiofrequencyradiation/healtheffects.html. Retrieved 2009-06-09.
7. ^ a b Elder, Joe A.; Chou, C.K. (2003). Auditory response to pulsed radiofrequency energy . Bioelectromagnetics (Wiley-Liss) 24 (S6). ISSN 0197-8462. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/106565261/abstract.
8. ^ Bioeffects of Selected Nonlethal Weapons . Nonlethal Technologies – Worldwide. National Ground Intelligence Center. 1998. http://sigint.wordpress.com/2008/02/17/bioeffects-of-selected-nonlethal-weapons/.
9. ^ Born in the U.S.A. . FactCheck. August 21, 2008. http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html. Retrieved October 24 2008.
http://zapatopi.net/blog/?post=200511112730.afdb_effectiveness
External links
* Do tinfoil helmets provide adequate protection against mind control rays? – from The Straight Dope
* Aluminium Foil Deflector Beanie – parody
* Tinfoil hats attract mind-control signals, boffins learn
* Mind Games -Washington Post
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_foil_hat
Categories: Paranoia | Hats | Mind control | Pseudoscience
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_foil_hat
***
Microwave auditory effect
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The microwave auditory effect, also known as the microwave hearing effect or the Frey effect, consists of audible clicks induced by pulsed/modulated microwave frequencies. The clicks are generated directly inside the human head without the need of any receiving electronic device. The effect was first reported by persons working in the vicinity of radar transponders during World War II. These induced sounds are not audible to other people nearby. The microwave auditory effect was later discovered to be inducible with shorter-wavelength portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. During the Cold War era, the American neuroscientist Allan H. Frey studied this phenomenon and was the first to publish (Journal of Applied Physiology, Vol. 17, pages 689-692, 1962) information on the nature of the microwave auditory effect; this effect is therefore also known as the Frey effect.
Dr. Don R. Justesen published Microwaves and Behavior in The American Psychologist (Volume 30, March 1975, Number 3).
Research by NASA in the 1970s[citation needed] showed that this effect occurs as a result of thermal expansion of parts of the human ear around the cochlea, even at low power density. Later, signal modulation was found to produce sounds or words that appeared to originate intracranially. It was studied for its possible use in communications but has not been developed due to the possible hazardous biological effects of microwave radiation. Similar research conducted in the USSR studied its use in non-lethal weaponry.[citation needed]
The existence of non-lethal weaponry that exploits the microwave auditory effect appears to have been classified Secret NOFORN in the USA from (at the latest) 1998, until the declassification on 6 December 2006 of Bioeffects of Selected Non-Lethal Weaponry in response to a FOIA request.
The technology gained further public attention when a company announced in early 2008 that they were close to fielding a device called MEDUSA (Mob Excess Deterrent Using Silent Audio) based on the principle.[1]
Contents
* 1 Natural sources of electromagnetic perception
* 2 Primary Cold War-era research in the US
* 3 Peaceful applications
* 4 Patented applications
* 5 See also
* 6 Notes
* 7 References
* 8 External links
Natural sources of electromagnetic perception
For centuries, humans have reported hearing unexplained noises in conjunction with meteors including thunder-like sounds at the scene of the Tunguska event on June 30, 1908. Astronomer Edmund Halley collected several such accounts after a widely-observed meteor burned up in the sky over England [1]. The Leonid meteor shower in November 2001 also led to many reports of observers hearing crackling or fizzing noises. Similar observations have been reported by soldiers near the site of nuclear explosions.
Colin Keay, a physicist at the University of Newcastle in Australia, has advanced a hypothesis that purports to explain these phenomena. According to Keay’s theory, meteor trails give off very low frequency (VLF) radio signals that the human ear cannot sense directly but are heard because a transducer on the ground must be converting the radio waves into sound waves. He has produced experiments that demonstrate that materials as commonplace as aluminum foil, thin wires, pine needles, and wire-framed glasses can act as suitable transducers.
Powerful VLF waves can induce physical vibrations in these objects, which are transmitted to the air as sound waves. Keay defines the field of geophysical electrophonics link to Colin Keay’s geophysical electronphonics websiteas the production of audible noises of various kinds through direct conversion by transduction of very low frequency electromagnetic energy generated by a number of geophysical phenomena. [2] Some scientists state[citation needed] that electrophonic effects may also be caused by lightning strikes, very bright auroras, and earthquakes.
Electroreception has also been studied in the animal world. Ritz et al., in A Model for Photoreceptor-Based Magnetoreception in Birds , hypothesize that transduction of the Earth’s geomagnetic field is responsible for the magnetoreception systems of birds. Specifically, they propose that this transduction may take place in a class of photoreceptors known as cryptochromes.
References:
* Listening to Leonids , NASA Science and Technology Directorate
* Colin Keay’s web site
Primary Cold War-era research in the US
The first American to publish on the microwave hearing effect was Allan H. Frey, in 1961. In his experiments, the subjects were discovered to be able to hear appropriately pulsed microwave radiation, from a distance of 100 meters from the transmitter. This was accompanied by side effects such as dizziness, headaches, and a pins and needles sensation.
Sharp and Grove developed receiverless wireless voice transmission technologies for the Advanced Research Projects Agency at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, in 1973. In the above mentioned journal entry to The American Psychologist, Dr. Don Justesen reports that Sharp and Grove were readily able to hear, identify, and distinguish among the single-syllable words for digits between 1 and 10 . Justesen writes, The sounds heard were not unlike those emitted by persons with artificial larynxes. Communication of more complex words and of sentences was not attempted because the averaged densities of energy required to transmit longer messages would approach the [still] current 10mW/cm² limit of safe exposure. (D.R. Justesen. Microwaves and Behavior , Am Psychologist, 392(Mar): 391-401, 1975.)
Peaceful applications
Devices exist for scaring birds away from aircraft near airfields by microwave hearing and induction of vertigo.[2]
Patented applications
* Flanagan GP. Patent #3393279 “Nervous System Excitation Device” USPTO granted 7/16/68.
* Puharich HK and Lawrence JL. Patent #3629521 “Hearing systems” USPTO granted 12/21/71.
* Malech RG. Patent #3951134 “Apparatus and method for remotely monitoring and altering brain waves” USPTO granted 4/20/76.
* Stocklin PL. Patent #4858612 “Hearing device” USPTO granted 8/22/89.
* Brunkan WB. Patent #4877027 “Hearing system” USPTO granted 10/31/89.
* Thijs VMJ. Application #WO1992NL0000216 “Hearing Aid Based on Microwaves” World Intellectual Property Organization Filed 1992-11-26, Published 1993-06-10.
* Mardirossian A. Patent #6011991 “Communication system and method including brain wave analysis and/or use of brain activity” USPTO granted 1/4/00.
* O’Loughlin, James P. and Loree, Diana L. Patent #6470214 Method and device for implementing the radio frequency hearing effect USPTO granted 22-OCT-2002.
See also
* Biophoton
* Brain-computer interface
* Cosmic ray visual phenomena
* Electroreception
* Mind control
* Tinfoil hat
Notes
1. ^ Hambling, David (03 July 2008). Microwave ray gun controls crowds with noise . http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn14250-microwave-ray-gun-controls-crowds-with-noise.html.
2. ^ Kreithen ML. Patent #5774088 “Method and system for warning birds of hazards” USPTO granted 6/30/98
References
* R.C. Jones, S.S. Stevens, and M.H. Lurie. J. Acoustic. Soc. Am. 12: 281, 1940.
* H. Burr and A. Mauro. Yale J Biol. and Med. 21:455, 1949.
* H. von Gierke. Noise Control 2: 37, 1956.
* J. Zwislocki. J. Noise Control 4: 42, 1958.
* R. Morrow and J. Seipel. J. Wash. Acad. SCI. 50: 1, 1960.
* A.H. Frey. Aero Space Med. 32: 1140, 1961.
* P.C. Neider and W.D. Neff. Science 133: 1010,1961.
* R. Niest, L. Pinneo, R. Baus, J. Fleming, and R. McAfee. Annual Report. USA Rome Air Development Command, TR-61-65, 1961.
* A.H. Frey. Human auditory system response to modulated electromagnetic energy. J Applied Physiol 17 (4): 689-92, 1962.
* A.H. Frey. Behavioral Biophysics , Psychol Bull 63(5): 322-37, 1965.
* F.A. Giori and A.R. Winterberger. Remote Physiological Monitoring Using a Microwave Interferometer , Biomed Sci Instr 3: 291-307, 1967.
* A.H. Frey and R. Messenger. Human Perception of Illumination with Pulsed Ultrahigh-Frequency Electromagnetic Energy , Science 181: 356-8, 1973.
* R. Rodwell. Army tests new riot weapon , New Scientist Sept. 20, p 684, 1973.
* A.W. Guy, C.K. Chou, J.C. Lin, and D. Christensen. Microwave induced acoustic effects in mammalian auditory systems and physical materials , Annals of New York Academy of Sciences, 247:194-218, 1975.
* D.R. Justesen. Microwaves and Behavior , Am Psychologist, 392(Mar): 391-401, 1975.
* S.M. Michaelson. Sensation and Perception of Microwave Energy , In: S.M. Michaelson, M.W. Miller, R. Magin, and E.L. Carstensen (eds.), Fundamental and Applied Aspects of Nonionizing Radiation. Plenum Press, New York, p 213-24, 1975.
* E.S. Eichert and A.H. Frey. Human Auditory System Response to Lower Power Density Pulse Modulated Electromagnetic Energy: A Search for Mechanisms , J Microwave Power 11(2): 141, 1976.
* W. Bise. Low power radio-frequency and microwave effects on human electroencephalogram and behavior”, Physiol Chem Phys 10(5): 387-98, 1978.
* J.C. Lin. Microwave Auditory Effects and Applications, Thomas, Springfield Ill, p 176, 1978.
* P.L. Stocklin and B.F. Stocklin. Possible Microwave Mechanisms of the Mammalian Nervous System , T-I-T J Life Sci 9: 29-51, 1979.
* H. Frolich. The Biological Effects of Microwaves and Related Questions , Adv Electronics Electron Physics 53: 85-152, 1980.
* H. Lai. “Neurological Effects of Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Radiation” In: J.C. Lin (ed.), Advances in Electromagnetic Fields in Living Systems vol 1, Plenum, NY & London, p 27-80, 1994.
* R.C. Beason and P. Semm. Responses of neurons to an amplitude modulated microwave stimulus , Neurosci Lett 333: 175-78, 2002.
* J.A. Elder and C.K. Chou. Auditory Responses to Pulsed Radiofrequency Energy , Bioelectromagnetics Suppl 8: S162-73, 2003.
External links
* Seaman, Ronald L., “Transmission of microwave-induced intracranial sound to the inner ear is most likely through cranial aqueducts,“ Mckesson Bioservices Corporation, Wrair US Army Medical Research Detachment. (PDF)
* Lin, J.C., 1980, “The microwave auditory phenomenon,“ Proceedings of the IEEE, 68:67-73. Navy-NSF-supported research.
* Lin, JC., Microwave auditory effect- a comparison of some possible transduction mechanisms . J Microwave Power. 1976 Mar;11(1):77-81. 1976.
* Guy, A.W., C.K. Chou, J.C. Lin and D. Christensen, 1975, Microwave induced acoustic effects in mammalian auditory systems and physical materials, Annals of New York Academy of Sciences, 247:194-218
* Fist, Stewart, Australian exposure standards . Crossroads, The Australian, March 1999.
* Microwave auditory effects and applications, James C. Lin; Publisher: Thomas; ISBN 0-398-03704-3
* Malech, Robert G., US3951134 : Apparatus and method for remotely monitoring and altering brain waves . April 20, 1976.
* McMurtrey, John J., Inner Voice, Target Tracking, and Behavioral Influence Technologies . Nov. 14, 2004.
* US Department of Defense, Air Force Research Laboratory comprehensive review on RFR-auditory effect in humans
* Thijs VMJ. Application #WO1992NL0000216 “Hearing Aid Based on Microwaves” World Intellectual Property Organization Filed 1992-11-26, Published 1993-06-10.
* Kohn B. “Communicating Via the Microwave Auditory Effect” Defense Department Awarded SBIR Contract # F41624-95-C9007, 1993.
* “Auditory Responses to Pulsed Radiofrequency Energy” Bioelectromagnetics Suppl 8: S162-73, 2003.
* Suppes P, Lu Z, and Han B. “Brain wave recognition of words” Proc Natl Acad Sci 94: 14965-69, 1997.
* Suppes P, Han B, and Lu Z. “Brain-wave recognition of sentences” Proc Natl Acad Sci 95: 15861-66, 1998.
* Assadullahi R and Pulvermuller F. “Neural Network Classification of Word Evoked Neuromagnetic Brain Activity” In: Wermter S, Austin J, and Willahaw D (eds.) Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence: Emergent Neurocomputational Architectures Based on Neuroscience Heidelberg Springer, p 311-20, 2001.
* Smith C. “On the Need for New Criteria of Diagnosis of Psychosis in the Light of Mind Invasive Technology” J Psycho-Social Studies 2(2) #3, 2003.
* McMurtrey JJ. “Microwave Bioeffect Congruence with Schizophrenia” In press, 2003.
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect
Categories: Espionage | Human physiology | Less-lethal weapons | Cognitive neuroscience | Hearing | Mind control | Radio spectrum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect
***
Subliminal message
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hidden messages
Subliminal messages
Audio
* Backmasking
* Reverse speech
* Spectrogram
Numeric
* Numerology
* Theomatics
* Bible code
* Cryptography
Visual
* Fnord
* Paranoiac-critical method
* Pareidolia
* Psychorama
* Sacred geometry
* Steganography
See also:
* Anagram
* Apophenia
* Easter egg (media)
* Clustering illusion
* Observer-expectancy effect
* Pattern recognition (psychology)
* Paradox
* Palindrome
* Unconscious mind
v • d • e
A subliminal message is a signal or message embedded in another medium, designed to pass below the normal limits of the human mind’s perception. These messages are unrecognizable by the conscious mind, but in certain situations can affect the subconscious mind and can negatively or positively influence subsequent later thoughts, behaviors, actions, attitudes, belief systems and value systems. The term subliminal means beneath a limen (sensory threshold). This is from the Latin words sub, meaning under, and limen, meaning threshold.
The two most famous types of alleged subliminal messages are:
* Spoken messages which are recorded backward onto a track that is meant to be played forward (called backmasking)
* Written messages which are quickly flashed during videos (sometimes called 25th frame)
While there is some empirical evidence supporting limited effectiveness of the flashed messages[1][2], subliminal influence of backmasking is not supported by scientific experiments.[3][4]
Contents
* 1 Origin
* 2 Further developments
* 3 Effectiveness
o 3.1 Visual
o 3.2 Audio
* 4 Instances
* 5 Allegations
* 6 Fictional references
* 7 References
* 8 Further reading
* 9 External links
Origin
The director of Yale Psychology laboratory Ph.D. E. W. Scripture published The New Psychology in 1897 (The Walter Scott Ltd, London), which described the basic principles of subliminal messages.[5]
In 1900, Knight Dunlap, an American professor of psychology, flashed an imperceptible shadow to subjects while showing them a Müller-Lyer illusion containing two lines with pointed arrows at both ends which create an illusion of different lengths. Dunlap claimed that the shadow influenced his subjects subliminally in their judgment of the lengths of the lines.
Although these results were not verified in a scientific study, American psychologist Harry Levi Hollingworth reported in an advertising textbook that such subliminal messages could be used by advertisers.[6]
Further developments
During World War II, the tachistoscope, an instrument which projects pictures for an extremely brief period, was used to train soldiers to recognize enemy airplanes.[5] Today the tachistoscope is used to increase reading speed or to test sight.[7]
In 1957, market researcher James Vicary claimed that quickly flashing messages on a movie screen, in Fort Lee, New Jersey, had influenced people to purchase more food and drinks. Vicary coined the term subliminal advertising and formed the Subliminal Projection Company based on a six-week test. Vicary claimed that during the presentation of the movie Picnic he used a tachistoscope to project the words Drink Coca-Cola and Hungry? Eat popcorn for 1/3000 of a second at five-second intervals. Vicary asserted that during the test, sales of popcorn and Coke in that New Jersey theater increased 57.8 percent and 18.1 percent respectively.[5][8]
However, in 1962 Vicary admitted to lying about the experiment and falsifying the results, the story itself being a marketing ploy.[9][10] An identical experiment conducted by Dr. Henry Link showed no increase in cola or popcorn sales.[8] A trip to Fort Lee, where the first experiment was alleged to have taken place, would have shown straight away that the small cinema there couldn’t possibly have had 45,699 visitors through its doors in the space of 6 weeks. This has led people to believe that Vicary actually did not conduct his experiment at all.[8]
However, before Vicary’s confession, his claims were promoted in Vance Packard’s book The Hidden Persuaders,[11] and led to a public outcry, and to many conspiracy theories of governments and cults using the technique to their advantage[12]. The practice of subliminal advertising was subsequently banned in the United Kingdom and Australia,[6] and by American networks and the National Association of Broadcasters in 1958.[8]
But in 1958, Vicary conducted a television test in which he flashed the message telephone now hundreds of times during a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation program, and found no noticeable increase in telephone calls.[5]
In 1973, commercials in the United States and Canada for the game Hu-sker Du-? flashed the message Get it .[11] During the same year, Wilson Bryan Key’s book Subliminal Seduction claimed that subliminal techniques were widely used in advertising.[8] Public concern was sufficient to cause the FCC to hold hearings in 1974. The hearings resulted in an FCC policy statement stating that subliminal advertising was contrary to the public interest and intended to be deceptive .[8] Subliminal advertising was also banned in Canada following the broadcasting of Hu-sker Du-? ads there.[5]
A study conducted by the United Nations concluded that the cultural implications of subliminal indoctrination is a major threat to human rights throughout the world. [13]
In 1985, Dr. Joe Stuessy testified to the United States Senate at the Parents Music Resource Center hearings that:
The message of a piece of heavy metal music may also be covert or subliminal. Sometimes subaudible tracks are mixed in underneath other, louder tracks. These are heard by the subconscious but not the conscious mind. Sometimes the messages are audible but are backwards, called backmasking. There is disagreement among experts regarding the effectiveness of subliminals. We need more research on that.[14]
Stuessy’s written testimony stated that:
Some messages are presented to the listener backwards. While listening to a normal forward message (usually nonsensical), one is simultaneously being treated to a back-wards message. Some experts believe that while the conscious mind is trying to absorb the forward lyric, the subconscious is working overtime to decipher the backwards message.[15]
Effectiveness
Visual
Used in advertising to create familiarity with new products, subliminal messages make familiarity into a preference for the new products. Johan Karremans suggests that subliminal messages have an effect when the messages are goal-relevant.[1] Karremans did a study assessing whether subliminal priming of a brand name of a drink would affect a person’s choice of drink, and whether this effect is caused by the individual’s feelings of being thirsty.
His study sought to ascertain whether or not subliminally priming or preparing the participant with text or an image without being aware of it would make the partaker more familiar with the product. Half of his participants were subliminally primed with Lipton Ice ( Lipton Ice was repeatedly flashed on a computer screen for 24 milliseconds), while the other half was primed with a control that did not consist of a brand. In his study he found that subliminally priming a brand name of a drink (Lipton Ice) made those who were thirsty want the Lipton Ice. Those who were not thirsty, however, were not influenced by the subliminal message since their goal was not to quench their thirst.[1]
Subconscious stimulus by single words is well known to be modestly effective in changing human behavior or emotions. This is evident by a pictorial advertisement that portrays four different types of rum. The phrase U Buy was embedded somewhere, backwards in the picture. A study (Key, 1973)[16] was done to test the effectiveness of the alcohol ad. Before the study, participants were able to try to identify any hidden message in the ad, none found any. In the end, the study showed 80% of the subjects unconsciously perceived the backward message, meaning they showed a preference for that particular rum. Though many things can be perceived from subliminal messages, only a couple words or a single image of unconscious signals can be internalized. As only a word or image can be effectively perceived, the simpler features of that image or word will cause a change in behavior (i.e., beef is related to hunger). This was demonstrated by Byrne in 1959. The word beef was flashed for several, five millisecond intervals during a sixteen-minute movie to experimental subjects, while nothing was flashed to controlled subjects. Neither the experimental nor controlled subjects reported for a higher preference for beef sandwiches when given a list of five different foods, but the experimental subjects did rate themselves as hungrier than the controlled subjects when given a survey.[17] If the subjects were flashed a whole sentence, the words would not be perceived and no effect would be expected.
In 2007, to mark the 50th anniversary of James Vicary’s original experiment, it was recreated at the International Brand Marketing Conference MARKA 2007.[18] As part of the Hypnosis, subconscious triggers and branding presentation 1,400 delegates watched part the opening credits of the film PICNIC that was used in the original experiment. They were exposed to 30 subliminal cuts over a 90 second period. When asked to choose one of two brands 81% of the delegates picked the brand suggested by the subliminal cuts.[2]
Studies in 2004 and 2006 showed that subliminal exposure to images of frightened faces or faces of people from another race will increase the activity of the amygdala in the brain and also increase skin conductance.[19][20]
In 2007, it was shown that subliminal exposure to the Israeli flag had a moderating effect on the political opinions and voting behaviors of Israeli volunteers. This effect was not present when a jumbled picture of the flag was subliminally shown.[21]
Audio
The manpage for the popular sound program SoX pokes fun at subliminal messages. The description of the reverse option says Included for finding satanic subliminals.
Backmasking, an audio technique in which sounds are recorded backwards onto a track that is meant to be played forwards, produces messages that sound like gibberish to the conscious mind. Gary Greenwald, a fundamentalist Christian preacher, claims that these messages can be heard subliminally, and can induce listeners towards, in the case of rock music, sex and drug use.[3] However, this is not generally accepted as fact.[22]
Following the 1950s subliminal message panic, many businesses have sprung up purporting to offer helpful subliminal audio tapes that supposedly improve the health of the listener. However, there is no evidence for the claimed effects of such tapes.[23]
The most extensive study of therapeutic effectiveness of subliminal audiotapes was conducted to see if the self-esteem audiotapes would raise self-esteem. 237 volunteers were provided with tapes of three manufacturers and completed post tests after one month of use. The study showed clearly that subliminal audiotapes made to boost self-esteem did not produce effects associated with subliminal content within one month’s use.[24]
Instances
Subliminal message
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hidden messages
Subliminal messages
Audio
* Backmasking
* Reverse speech
* Spectrogram
Numeric
* Numerology
* Theomatics
* Bible code
* Cryptography
Visual
* Fnord
* Paranoiac-critical method
* Pareidolia
* Psychorama
* Sacred geometry
* Steganography
See also:
* Anagram
* Apophenia
* Easter egg (media)
* Clustering illusion
* Observer-expectancy effect
* Pattern recognition (psychology)
* Paradox
* Palindrome
* Unconscious mind
A subliminal message is a signal or message embedded in another medium, designed to pass below the normal limits of the human mind’s perception. These messages are unrecognizable by the conscious mind, but in certain situations can affect the subconscious mind and can negatively or positively influence subsequent later thoughts, behaviors, actions, attitudes, belief systems and value systems. The term subliminal means beneath a limen (sensory threshold). This is from the Latin words sub, meaning under, and limen, meaning threshold.
The two most famous types of alleged subliminal messages are:
* Spoken messages which are recorded backward onto a track that is meant to be played forward (called backmasking)
* Written messages which are quickly flashed during videos (sometimes called 25th frame)
While there is some empirical evidence supporting limited effectiveness of the flashed messages[1][2], subliminal influence of backmasking is not supported by scientific experiments.[3][4]
Contents
* 1 Origin
* 2 Further developments
* 3 Effectiveness
o 3.1 Visual
o 3.2 Audio
* 4 Instances
* 5 Allegations
* 6 Fictional references
* 7 References
* 8 Further reading
* 9 External links
Origin
The director of Yale Psychology laboratory Ph.D. E. W. Scripture published The New Psychology in 1897 (The Walter Scott Ltd, London), which described the basic principles of subliminal messages.[5]
In 1900, Knight Dunlap, an American professor of psychology, flashed an imperceptible shadow to subjects while showing them a Müller-Lyer illusion containing two lines with pointed arrows at both ends which create an illusion of different lengths. Dunlap claimed that the shadow influenced his subjects subliminally in their judgment of the lengths of the lines.
Although these results were not verified in a scientific study, American psychologist Harry Levi Hollingworth reported in an advertising textbook that such subliminal messages could be used by advertisers.[6]
Further developments
During World War II, the tachistoscope, an instrument which projects pictures for an extremely brief period, was used to train soldiers to recognize enemy airplanes.[5] Today the tachistoscope is used to increase reading speed or to test sight.[7]
In 1957, market researcher James Vicary claimed that quickly flashing messages on a movie screen, in Fort Lee, New Jersey, had influenced people to purchase more food and drinks. Vicary coined the term subliminal advertising and formed the Subliminal Projection Company based on a six-week test. Vicary claimed that during the presentation of the movie Picnic he used a tachistoscope to project the words Drink Coca-Cola and Hungry? Eat popcorn for 1/3000 of a second at five-second intervals. Vicary asserted that during the test, sales of popcorn and Coke in that New Jersey theater increased 57.8 percent and 18.1 percent respectively.[5][8]
However, in 1962 Vicary admitted to lying about the experiment and falsifying the results, the story itself being a marketing ploy.[9][10] An identical experiment conducted by Dr. Henry Link showed no increase in cola or popcorn sales.[8] A trip to Fort Lee, where the first experiment was alleged to have taken place, would have shown straight away that the small cinema there couldn’t possibly have had 45,699 visitors through its doors in the space of 6 weeks. This has led people to believe that Vicary actually did not conduct his experiment at all.[8]
However, before Vicary’s confession, his claims were promoted in Vance Packard’s book The Hidden Persuaders,[11] and led to a public outcry, and to many conspiracy theories of governments and cults using the technique to their advantage[12]. The practice of subliminal advertising was subsequently banned in the United Kingdom and Australia,[6] and by American networks and the National Association of Broadcasters in 1958.[8]
But in 1958, Vicary conducted a television test in which he flashed the message telephone now hundreds of times during a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation program, and found no noticeable increase in telephone calls.[5]
In 1973, commercials in the United States and Canada for the game Hu-sker Du-? flashed the message Get it .[11] During the same year, Wilson Bryan Key’s book Subliminal Seduction claimed that subliminal techniques were widely used in advertising.[8] Public concern was sufficient to cause the FCC to hold hearings in 1974. The hearings resulted in an FCC policy statement stating that subliminal advertising was contrary to the public interest and intended to be deceptive .[8] Subliminal advertising was also banned in Canada following the broadcasting of Hu-sker Du-? ads there.[5]
A study conducted by the United Nations concluded that the cultural implications of subliminal indoctrination is a major threat to human rights throughout the world. [13]
In 1985, Dr. Joe Stuessy testified to the United States Senate at the Parents Music Resource Center hearings that:
The message of a piece of heavy metal music may also be covert or subliminal. Sometimes subaudible tracks are mixed in underneath other, louder tracks. These are heard by the subconscious but not the conscious mind. Sometimes the messages are audible but are backwards, called backmasking. There is disagreement among experts regarding the effectiveness of subliminals. We need more research on that.[14]
Stuessy’s written testimony stated that:
Some messages are presented to the listener backwards. While listening to a normal forward message (usually nonsensical), one is simultaneously being treated to a back-wards message. Some experts believe that while the conscious mind is trying to absorb the forward lyric, the subconscious is working overtime to decipher the backwards message.[15]
Effectiveness
Visual
Used in advertising to create familiarity with new products, subliminal messages make familiarity into a preference for the new products. Johan Karremans suggests that subliminal messages have an effect when the messages are goal-relevant.[1] Karremans did a study assessing whether subliminal priming of a brand name of a drink would affect a person’s choice of drink, and whether this effect is caused by the individual’s feelings of being thirsty.
His study sought to ascertain whether or not subliminally priming or preparing the participant with text or an image without being aware of it would make the partaker more familiar with the product. Half of his participants were subliminally primed with Lipton Ice ( Lipton Ice was repeatedly flashed on a computer screen for 24 milliseconds), while the other half was primed with a control that did not consist of a brand. In his study he found that subliminally priming a brand name of a drink (Lipton Ice) made those who were thirsty want the Lipton Ice. Those who were not thirsty, however, were not influenced by the subliminal message since their goal was not to quench their thirst.[1]
Subconscious stimulus by single words is well known to be modestly effective in changing human behavior or emotions. This is evident by a pictorial advertisement that portrays four different types of rum. The phrase U Buy was embedded somewhere, backwards in the picture. A study (Key, 1973)[16] was done to test the effectiveness of the alcohol ad. Before the study, participants were able to try to identify any hidden message in the ad, none found any. In the end, the study showed 80% of the subjects unconsciously perceived the backward message, meaning they showed a preference for that particular rum. Though many things can be perceived from subliminal messages, only a couple words or a single image of unconscious signals can be internalized. As only a word or image can be effectively perceived, the simpler features of that image or word will cause a change in behavior (i.e., beef is related to hunger). This was demonstrated by Byrne in 1959. The word beef was flashed for several, five millisecond intervals during a sixteen-minute movie to experimental subjects, while nothing was flashed to controlled subjects. Neither the experimental nor controlled subjects reported for a higher preference for beef sandwiches when given a list of five different foods, but the experimental subjects did rate themselves as hungrier than the controlled subjects when given a survey.[17] If the subjects were flashed a whole sentence, the words would not be perceived and no effect would be expected.
In 2007, to mark the 50th anniversary of James Vicary’s original experiment, it was recreated at the International Brand Marketing Conference MARKA 2007.[18] As part of the Hypnosis, subconscious triggers and branding presentation 1,400 delegates watched part the opening credits of the film PICNIC that was used in the original experiment. They were exposed to 30 subliminal cuts over a 90 second period. When asked to choose one of two brands 81% of the delegates picked the brand suggested by the subliminal cuts.[2]
Studies in 2004 and 2006 showed that subliminal exposure to images of frightened faces or faces of people from another race will increase the activity of the amygdala in the brain and also increase skin conductance.[19][20]
In 2007, it was shown that subliminal exposure to the Israeli flag had a moderating effect on the political opinions and voting behaviors of Israeli volunteers. This effect was not present when a jumbled picture of the flag was subliminally shown.[21]
Audio
The manpage for the popular sound program SoX pokes fun at subliminal messages. The description of the reverse option says Included for finding satanic subliminals.
Backmasking, an audio technique in which sounds are recorded backwards onto a track that is meant to be played forwards, produces messages that sound like gibberish to the conscious mind. Gary Greenwald, a fundamentalist Christian preacher, claims that these messages can be heard subliminally, and can induce listeners towards, in the case of rock music, sex and drug use.[3] However, this is not generally accepted as fact.[22]
Following the 1950s subliminal message panic, many businesses have sprung up purporting to offer helpful subliminal audio tapes that supposedly improve the health of the listener. However, there is no evidence for the claimed effects of such tapes.[23]
The most extensive study of therapeutic effectiveness of subliminal audiotapes was conducted to see if the self-esteem audiotapes would raise self-esteem. 237 volunteers were provided with tapes of three manufacturers and completed post tests after one month of use. The study showed clearly that subliminal audiotapes made to boost self-esteem did not produce effects associated with subliminal content within one month’s use.[24]
Instances
In 1978, Wichita, Kansas TV station KAKE-TV received special permission from the police to place a subliminal message in a report on the BTK Killer (Bind, Torture, Kill) in an effort to get him to turn himself in. The subliminal message included the text Now call the chief, as well as a pair of glasses. The glasses were included because when BTK murdered Nancy Fox, there was a pair of glasses lying upside down on her dresser; police felt that seeing the glasses might stir up remorse in the killer. The attempt was unsuccessful, and police reported no increased volume of calls afterward.[25]
During the 2000 U.S. presidential campaign, a television ad campaigning for Republican candidate George W. Bush showed words (and parts thereof) scaling from the foreground to the background on a television screen. When the word BUREAUCRATS flashed on the screen, one frame showed only the last part, RATS.[26][27] The FCC looked into the matter,[28] but no penalties were ever assessed in the case.[citation needed]
In the British alternative comedy show The Young Ones, a number of subliminal images were present in the original and most repeated broadcasts of the second series. Images included a gull coming into land, a tree frog jumping through the air, a man gurning[vague], and the end credits of the movie Carry On Cowboy.[citation needed] These were included to mock the then-occurring matter of subliminal messages in television. Although they may fall foul of the FCC guidelines, these images do appear in the U.S. boxset DVD Every Stoopid Episode.
Chris Morris famously used subliminal messages to display a half-frame of the last episode of Brass Eye, stating Grade is a cunt in reference to Michael Grade, the Channel 4 executive responsible for the heavy editing of Morris’s show [29].[citation needed]
Shaun Micallef’s Australian ‘Micallef P(r)ogram(me)’ shows contained strange subliminal messages that can be seen on the DVDs. As they are of random, humorous statements, questions, etc, they are not regarded as advertising. They were usually images of politicians, as is the case with his more recent Newstopia.[citation needed]
In Warner Brothers’ 1943 animated film Wise Quacking Duck , Daffy Duck spins a statue which is holding a shield. For one frame the words BUY BONDS are visible on the shield.
In the film Metropolis, there are many instances of single-frame sentences or photos included to make the audience feel like a worker in the underground cities so that the film would have a larger and greater impact on them. Some instances include single frames with the words ‘Bow to Government’ And ‘Work to please.’ It also included photos of atom bombs and massacres in attempt to scare the audience subconsciously, to almost brainwash them like the workers in the film have been.
The December 16, 1973 episode of Columbo titled Double Exposure , is based on subliminal messaging: it is used by the murderer, Dr. Bart Keppler, a motivational research specialist, played by Robert Culp, to lure his victim out of his seat during the viewing of a promotional film and by Lt. Columbo to bring Keppler back to the crime scene and incriminate him. Lt. Columbo is shown how subliminal cuts work in a scene mirroring James Vicary’s experiment.[30][31]
The horror film the Exorcist is well-known for its frightening yet effective use of subliminal images throughout the film, depicting a white-faced demon named Captain Howdy. This image is shown in the character Father Karras’s nightmare, where it flashes across the screen for a few seconds before fading away.
A McDonald’s logo appeared for one frame during the Food Network’s Iron Chef America series on 2007-01-27, leading to claims that this was an instance of subliminal advertising. The Food Network replied that it was simply a glitch.[32]
In Formula One racing, the paint scheme of many cars would carry messages intended to look as if they were of banned tobacco products in many Grands Prix where tobacco advertising was banned, though many of these were jokes on the part of the teams (for example, Jordan Grand Prix ran Benson and Hedges sponsorship as Bitten and Hisses with a snake-skin design on their cars). A similar procedure was used by NASCAR driver Jeff Burton after the AT&T Mobility advertising was banned by a court order in 2007, and by Penske Championship Racing in NASCAR (where Cellco Partnership is prohibited) and the IRL (Marlboro). In both instances, a distinctive design where the banned company’s identity (the Verizon V and the Marlboro chevron) were integrated into the car’s design.
On November 7, 2007, Network Ten Australia’s broadcast of the ARIA Awards was called out for using subliminal advertising in an exposé by the Media Watch program on the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).[33]
In June-July 2007, Sprite used a type of obvious subliminal message, involving yellow (lemon) and green (lime) objects such as cars. The objects would then be shown inconspicuously in the same setting, while showing the word lymon (combining the words lime and lemon) on screen for a second at a time. They called this Sublymonal Advertising. [34] The previous year, Sprite used a similar advertising campaign, but this time it was tied in to Lost Experience, an alternate reality game.
In Sunshine 2007, three pictures of the crew are shown subliminally during part of the film.
In Brainiac: Science Abuse, there is an experiment carried out to see if viewers would react to subliminal messages. One was shown during an experiment to discover which substance provides the best skid; the message appeared when a brainiac hit a bale of hay. The second message appeared across a T-Shirt of a brainiac saying ‘Call your mum’, and the third said ‘scratch your nose’ when a sound wave hit the Brainiac logo. At the end of the show, people were shown in a theatre watching that episode. The test showed that the messages barely impacted the audience. The subliminal content in this episode was legal, as its presence was announced at the beginning and end of the episode.
In Week 11 of The Apprentice: Martha Stewart in which candidates have to create an ad for the Delta’s former low-cost commercial airlines Song, the team Matchstick used a 1/48th of a frame image at the bottom-right corner with the Song Airlines logo.
In the film Cloverfield, three subliminal pictures can be seen during various parts of the film, when the camera footage distorts. The photos are actually frames from classic monster films. The images are shown one at a time: the first, from Them , appears when the group play the footage back, the second, from The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, appears when they close the door on the ‘parasites’ and the third, from King Kong appears when the helicopter crashes.
Allegations
Campaigners have suggested subliminal messages appear in music. In 1985, two young men – James Vance and Raymond Belknap, attempted suicide. At the time of the shootings, Belknap died instantly. Vance was severely injured and survived. Their families were convinced it was because of a British rock band, Judas Priest. The families claimed subliminal messages told listeners to do it in the song Better by You, Better Than Me . The case was taken to court and the families sought more than US$6 million in damages. The judge, Jerry Carr Whitehead said that freedom of speech protections would not apply to subliminal messages. He said he was not convinced the hidden messages actually existed on the album, but left the argument to attorneys[35]. The suit was eventually dismissed. In turn, he ruled it probably would not have been perceived without the power of suggestion or the young men would not have done it unless they really intended to.[36]
Another well known incident with subliminal message happened a few months after Judas Priest’s acquittal, Michael Waller, the son of a Georgia minister, shot himself in the head while supposedly listening to Ozzy Osbourne’s song Suicide Solution (despite the fact that the song Suicide Solution was not on the record [Ozzy Osbourne’s Speak Of The Devil] found playing in his room when his suicide was discovered). His parents claimed that subliminal messages may have influenced his actions. The judge in that trial granted the summary judgment because the plaintiffs could not show that there was any subliminal material on the record. He noted, however, that if the plaintiffs had shown that subliminal content was present, the messages would not have received protection under the First Amendment because subliminal messages are, in principle, false, misleading or extremely limited in their social value (Waller v. Osbourne 1991). Justice Whitehead’s ruling in the Judas Priest trial was cited to support his position[37].
In February 2007, it was discovered that 87 Konami slot machines in Ontario (OLG) casinos displayed a brief winning hand image before the game would begin. Government officials worried that the image subliminally persuaded gamblers to continue gambling; the company claimed that the image was a coding error. The machines were removed pending a fix by Konami.[38]
Fictional references
While their ultimate efficacy is somewhat controversial, subliminal messages have a long history in television shows, movies, and novels.
Governments are often depicted as employing subliminal messages in propaganda:
* The novel FREEZE FRAME by B. David Warner depicts the election of a corrupt president candidate using subliminal advertising to sway the votes in his favor.
* The movie Josie and the Pussycats described a long lasting plot whereby the U.S. government was controlling trends by inserting subliminal messages in popular music. Furthermore, towards the end of the film, a government agent shuts down the operation, saying that subliminal advertising works better in films. The words Josie and the Pussycats is the best movie ever are then spoken rapidly in voice-over and displayed quickly on screen, with the words Join the Army in smaller letters below it.
* In the 2005 science fiction movie Serenity, the Alliance uses subliminal messages broadly disseminated in commercials and other video to cause River Tam to go berserk. It only works on River because she was subjected to Alliance training and conditioning.
Many references deal specifically with the military:
* An episode of The Simpsons involved Bart and his friends joining a boy band, the Party Posse. While watching a video for the Party Posse, Lisa notices the phrase Yvan Eht Nioj being repeated continuously by belly-dancers. She plays the video in reverse and finds that it means Join the Navy . Also, an Uncle Sam I Want You poster can be seen in the video frame by frame. The joke was that the United States sends subliminal messages in order to recruit people. In addition, the art of superliminal messages was demonstrated to Lisa; a Navy representative leans out a window, sees Lenny Leonard and Carl Carlson, and shouts Hey you Join the Navy
* In an episode of Malcolm in the Middle titled Reese joins the Army (2) , one of the drill sergeants comments about the other’s restored confidence in the Army ( I guess the subliminal advertising’s working after all. ) his fellow drill sergeant then matter-of-factly states the army doesn’t use subliminal ads and then the pair slowly turn and look at each other.
* Not too different from the joke in The Simpsons episode mentioned above, this episode was a joking reference to the low military recruiting numbers in 2004 suggesting that the U.S. military uses such things in a tactic of desperation.
* In an episode of Babylon 5, during a scene which represents a public service announcement for Psi Corps, the words TRUST THE CORPS and THE CORPS IS YOUR FRIEND appear on screen for four frames. J. Michael Straczynski wanted the audience to recognize the subliminal message; I had my staff find out what constitutes subliminal material–and it’s two frames per second, which is illegal, you can’t do things at that speed–so I went four frames per second .[39]
* An early episode of the X-Files deals with a small town plagued by killings where the perpetrators are influenced by messages appearing on ATMs and other electronic devices. Mulder refers to the use of subliminal messages in several instances.
* The Family Guy episode Mr. Griffin Goes to Washington jokes about subliminal messages for smoking in television. It shows an old black and white TV show whose dialogue is repeatedly interrupted by a suited man stating Smoke and later Are you smoking yet? in a monotone voice. Later in the episode, when Peter is arguing with his bosses about smoking, the same man interrupts while saying Smoke.
The advertising element is mocked in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novel Moving Pictures, when, to please a sponsor, a movie producer inserts a still image lasting several minutes of a serving of spare ribs. The producer reasoned that if showing just a few frames would have a positive impact, showing it for several minutes would have a huge effect.
Subliminal psychological influence is also referenced frequently by the British mentalist Derren Brown who alleges their use as the basis of many of his effects. Often, these claims are just decoys to divert attention from the real workings of his effects[40].
In the episode With Fans Like These… of the animated TV show Kappa Mikey, Lily and Gonard threaten Guano made the public do their bidding by using subliminal messages in a fish stick commercial.
The television show Chuck has a plot which is based around subliminal encoding. The main character receives an e-mail in which thousands and thousands of pictures flash right before his eyes, resulting in an ability to ‘mind flash’ on certain things, for example a ring or a picture of someone.
In an episode of The IT Crowd, Douglas attempts to seduce Jen by putting a quick flash of his photo into a presentation.
Sue Townsend’s 1992 novel/play The Queen and I is based on an alternate reality in which a leftist government takes power in the UK by the use of subliminal messages via television.
References
1. ^ a b c Karremans, Johan C.; Stroebe, Wolfgang; Claus, Jasper (2006), Beyond Vicary’s fantasies: The impact of subliminal priming and brand choicestar , Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 42 (6): 792–798, doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2005.12.002
2. ^ a b bizcovering.com: Hypnosis in Advertising
3. ^ a b Vokey, John R. (2002), Subliminal Messages , in John R. Vokey and Scott W. Allen (PDF), Psychological Sketches (6th ed.), Lethbridge, Alberta: Psyence Ink, pp. 223–246, http://people.uleth.ca/~vokey/pdf/Submess.pdf, retrieved 2006-07-05
4. ^ The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry: A Skeptical Analysis of Reverse Speech
5. ^ a b c d e The Straight Dope: Does subliminal advertising work?, The Straight Dope, http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_187.html, retrieved 2006-08-11
6. ^ a b Pratkanis, Anthony R. (Spring 1992), The Cargo-Cult Science of Subliminal Persuasion , Skeptical Inquirer (Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal): pp. 260-272, http://www.csicop.org/si/9204/subliminal-persuasion.html, retrieved 2006-08-11
7. ^ tachistoscope – Definitions from Dictionary.com
8. ^ a b c d e f Urban Legends Reference Pages: Business (Subliminal Advertising), The Urban Legends Reference Pages, http://www.snopes.com/business/hidden/popcorn.asp, retrieved 2006-08-11
9. ^ Boese, Alex (2002). The Museum of Hoaxes: A Collection of Pranks, Stunts, Deceptions, and Other Wonderful Stories Contrived for the Public from the Middle Ages to the New Millennium, E. P. Dutton, ISBN 0-525-94678-0. pages. 137-38.
10. ^ The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry: The Cargo-Cult Science of Subliminal Persuasion by Anthony R. Pratkanis
11. ^ a b Lantos, Geoffrey P. (PDF), The Absolute Threshold Level and Subliminal Messages, Stonehill College, http://faculty.stonehill.edu/glantos/Lantos1/PDF_Folder/BA344_PDF/Exercise%2046.pdf, retrieved 2007-03-01
12. ^ Subliminal messages in movies and media, http://www.chokingonpopcorn.com/popcorn/?p=391, retrieved 2008-05-21 [citation needed]
13. ^ Hammarskjol, Dag (1974), 31st Session, 7 October 1974, E/Cn.4/1142/Add 2., United Nations Human Rights Commission
14. ^ U.S. Senate, page 118.
15. ^ U.S. Senate, page 125.
16. ^ Key, W. B. (1973), Subliminal seduction: Ad media’s manipulation of a not so innocent America, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, ISBN 0138590907
17. ^ Byrne, D. (1959), The effect of a subliminal food stimulus on verbal responses , Journal of Applied Psychology 43 (4): 249–251, doi:10.1037/h0043194
18. ^ ([dead link]) Marka conference.com, http://www.markaconference.com/lang_id2/index.html
19. ^ Williams, Leanne M.; Belinda J. Liddell, Andrew H. Kemp, Richard A. Bryant, Russell A. Meares, Anthony S. Peduto, Evian Gordon (2006), Amygdala-prefrontal dissociation of subliminal and supraliminal fear , Human Brain Mapping 27 (8): 652–661, doi:10.1002/hbm.20208
20. ^ Brain Activity Reflects Complexity Of Responses To Other-race Faces , Science Daily, 14 December 2004, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/12/041208231237.htm
21. ^ Hassin, Ran R.; Ferguson, Melissa J.; Shidlovski, Daniella; Gross, Tamar (2007), Subliminal exposure to national flags affects political thought and behavior , PNAS 104 (50): 19757–19761, doi:10.1073/pnas.0704679104, PMID 18056813
22. ^ Robinson, B.A., Backmasking on records: Real, or hoax?, http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_cul5.htm, retrieved 2006-07-04
23. ^ Moore, Timothy E. (Spring 1992), Subliminal Perception: Facts and Fallacies , Skeptical Inquirer (Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal): pp. 273-81, http://www.csicop.org/si/9204/subliminal-perception.html, retrieved 2006-08-11
24. ^ Eskenazi, J., & Greenwald, A.G., Pratkanis, A.R. (1990). What you expect is what you believe (but not necessarily what you get): On the ineffectiveness of subliminal self-help audiotapes. Unpublished manuscript. University of California. Santa Cruz.
25. ^ BTK Back
26. ^ Crowley, Candy. Bush says ‘RATS’ ad not meant as subliminal message CNN.com, 2000-9-12. Retrieved on December 16, 2006
27. ^ Smoking Pistols: George Rat Ad Bush and the Subliminal Kid
28. ^ 9/19/00 Speech by Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth: The FCC’s Investigation of Subliminal Techniques:
29. ^ Brasseye Wiki
30. ^ Error – – New York Times
31. ^ Re: [AMIA-L] Reply: Sherlock Jr.
32. ^ It was a glitch, not a subliminal ad, for McDonald’s on Food Network, Canadian Press, 2007-01-25, http://www.cbc.ca/cp/media/070125/X01259AU.html, retrieved 2007-03-11
33. ^ Subliminal advertising. – ninemsn Video
34. ^ The Coca-Cola Company press center: Sprite redifines itself
35. ^ http://www.totse.com/en/ego/can_you_dance_to_it/jud-prst.html
36. ^ Vance, J., et al. v. Judas Priest et al., No. 86-5844, 2nd Dist. Ct. Nev. (August 24, 1990)
37. ^ http://www.csicop.org/si/9611/judas_priest.html
38. ^ Agency asks slot-machine maker to halt subliminal messages
39. ^ Killick, Jane (1997), Babylon 5: The Coming of Shadows, The Ballantine Publishing Group, pp. 131
40. ^ Singh, Simon (June 10, 2003), I’ll bet £1,000 that Derren can’t read my mind , The Daily Telegraph, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2003/06/10/ecfmagic.xml, retrieved 2008-03-12
Further reading
* Boese, Alex (2006), Hippo Eats Dwarf: A Field Guide to Hoaxes and Other B.S., Orlando: Harcourt, pp. 193–195, ISBN 0156030837
* Dixon, Norman F. (1971), Subliminal Perception: The nature of a controversy, New York: McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0070941475
* Greeenwald, Anthony W. (1992), New Look 3: Unconscious Cognition Reclaimed , American Psychologist 47 (6): 766–779, doi:10.1037/0003-066X.47.6.766
* Holender, D. (1986), Semantic activation without conscious identification in dichotic listening, parafoveal vision, and visual masking: A survey and appraisal , Behavioral and Brain Sciences 9 (1): 1–23
* Merikle, P. M.; Daneman, M. (1998), Psychological Investigations of Unconscious Perception , Journal of Consciousness Studies 5 (1): 5–18
* Watanabe, Takeo; Sasaki, José E.; Nanez, Yuka (2001), Perceptual learning without perception , Nature 413 (6858): 844–848, doi:10.1038/35101601
* Seitz, Aaron R.; Watanabe, Takeo (2003), Is subliminal learning really passive? , Nature 422 (6927): 36, doi:10.1038/422036a
* United States Senate, Ninety-ninth Congress, First Session on Contents of Music and the Lyrics of Records (September 19, 1985), Record Labeling: Hearing before the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, http://www.joesapt.net/superlink/shrg99-529/
External links
* Subliminal Seduction: How Did the Uproar over Subliminal Advertising Affect the Advertising Industry?
* Scientific Consensus and Expert Testimony: Lessons from the Judas Priest Trial
* Examples of subliminal messages encoded in music
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subliminal_message
Categories: Consciousness studies | Perception | Popular psychology | Advertising techniques | Propaganda techniques | Human communication | Urban legends | Mind control
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subliminal_message
***
Operation Midnight Climax
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Operation Midnight Climax was an operation initially established by Sidney Gottlieb and placed under the direction of Narcotics Bureau officer George Hunter White under the alias of Morgan Hall for the CIA as a sub-project of Project MKULTRA, the CIA mind-control research program that began in the 1950s.
The project consisted of a web of CIA-run safehouses in San Francisco, Marin, and New York. It was established in order to study the effects of LSD on unconsenting individuals. Prostitutes on the CIA payroll were instructed to lure clients back to the safehouses, where they were surreptitiously plied with a wide range of substances, including LSD, and monitored behind one-way glass. Several significant operational techniques were developed in this theater, including extensive research into sexual blackmail, surveillance technology, and the possible use of mind-altering drugs in field operations.
The safehouses were dramatically scaled back in 1962, following a report by CIA Inspector General John Earman that strongly recommended closing the facility. The San Francisco safehouses were closed in 1965, and the New York City safehouse soon followed in 1966.
The file destruction undertaken at the order of CIA Director Richard Helms and former MKULTRA chief Sidney Gottlieb in 1972 makes a full investigation of claims impossible. However, many records did survive the purge. News of the story began to leak following a landmark story by New York Times reporter Seymour Hersh on illegal CIA domestic surveillance. This report triggered Senate Subcommittee hearings which investigated MKULTRA, and brought Operation Midnight Climax to light.
In 2009 Strange Science LLC released a HD video series entitled Operation Midnight Climax, based on the CIA experiments of the same name. It starred Meredith Salenger, Todd Cahoon, and Quinton Flynn.
References
* Marks, John (1991). The Search for the Manchurian Candidate . W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
* http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,915244,00.html Mind-Bending Disclosures. Time. Aug. 15 1977
* http://www.strangescience.tv
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Midnight_Climax
Categories: United States government stubs | Psychedelic research | Mind control | Military psychiatry | Central Intelligence Agency operations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Midnight_Climax
***
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.
However, Italian Gladio was more far reaching. A briefing minute of June 1, 1959, reveals Gladio was built around ‘internal subversion’. It was to play ‘a determining role… not only on the general policy level of warfare, but also in the politics of emergency’. In the 1970s, with communist electoral support growing and other leftists looking menacing, the establishment turned to the ‘Strategy of Tension’ … with Gladio eager to be involved. [4]
CIA director Allen Dulles was one of the key people in instituting Operation Gladio, and most of Gladio’s operations were financed by the CIA.[citation needed] The anti-communist networks, which were present in all of Europe, including in neutral countries like Sweden and Switzerland, were partly funded by the CIA.[5] Some went as far as claiming that Democrazia Cristiana leader Aldo Moro had been the founder of (Italian) Gladio .[6] However, whether these allegations are correct or not, his murder in 1978 put an end to the “historic compromise” (sharing of power) attempt between the PCI and the Christian Democrats (DC), thus accomplishing one of the alleged objectives of the strategy of tension.
Operating in all of NATO and even in some neutral countries such as Spain before its 1982 admission to NATO, 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 retreat from NATO — which was not followed by the dissolution of the French stay-behind paramilitary movements.
Ganser alleges that:[7]
Next to the CPC, a second secret army command center, labeled Allied Clandestine Committee (ACC), was set up in 1957 on the orders of NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe (SACEUR). This military structure provided for significant US leverage over the secret stay-behind networks in Western Europe as the SACEUR, throughout NATO’s history, has traditionally been a US General who reports to the Pentagon in Washington and is based in NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Mons, Belgium. The ACC’s duties included elaborating on the directives of the network, developing its clandestine capability, and organizing bases in Britain and the United States. In wartime, it was to plan stay-behind operations in conjunction with SHAPE. According to former CIA director William Colby, it was ‘a major program’.
Coordinated by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), {the secret armies} were run by the European military secret services in close cooperation with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the British foreign secret service Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, also MI6). Trained together with US Green Berets and British Special Air Service (SAS), these clandestine NATO soldiers, armed with underground arms-caches, prepared against a potential Soviet invasion and occupation of Western Europe, as well as the coming to power of communist parties. The clandestine international network covered the European NATO membership, including Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, and Turkey, as well as the neutral European countries of Austria, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland.
The existence of these clandestine NATO armies remained a closely guarded secret throughout the Cold War until 1990, when the first branch of the international network was discovered in Italy. It was code-named Gladio, the Latin word for a short double-edged sword [gladius]. While the press said that the NATO secret armies were ‘the best-kept, and most damaging, political-military secret since World War II’, the Italian government, amidst sharp public criticism, promised to close down the secret army. Italy insisted identical clandestine armies had also existed in all other countries of Western Europe. This allegation proved correct and subsequent research found that in Belgium, the secret NATO army was code-named SDRA8, in Denmark Absalon, in Germany TD BJD, in Greece LOK, in Luxemburg Stay-Behind, in the Netherlands I&O, in Norway ROC, in Portugal Aginter, in Switzerland P26, in Turkey Ergenekon Counter-Guerrilla, In Sweden AGAG (Aktions Gruppen Arla Gryning, and in Austria OWSGV. However, the code names of the secret armies in France, Finland and Spain remain unknown.
Upon learning of the discovery, the parliament of the European Union (EU) drafted a resolution sharply criticizing the fact (…) Yet only Italy, Belgium and Switzerland carried out parliamentary investigations, while the administration of President George H. W. Bush refused to comment, being in the midst of preparations for war against Saddam Hussein in the Persian Gulf, and fearing potential damages to the military alliance.
If Gladio was effectively the best-kept, and most damaging, political-military secret since World War II ,[8] it must be underlined, however, that on several occasions, arms caches were discovered and stay-behind paramilitary organizations officially dissolved – only to be created again. But it was not until the 1990s that the full international scope of the program was disclosed to public knowledge. Giulio Andreotti, the main character of Italy’s post-WWII political life, was described by Aldo Moro to his captors as too close to NATO , Moro thus advising them to be wary. Indeed, before Andreotti’s 1990 acknowledgement of Gladio’s existence, he had unequivocally denied it in 1974, and then in 1978 to judges investigating the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing. And even in 1990, Testimonies collected by the two men [judges Felice Casson and Carlo Mastelloni investigating the 1972 Peteano fascist car bomb] and by the Commission on Terrorism on Rome, and inquiries by the Guardian, indicate that Gladio was involved in activities which do not square with Andreotti’s account. Links between Gladio, Italian secret services bosses and the notorious P2 masonic lodge are manifold (…) In the year that Andreotti denied Gladio’s existence, the P2 treasurer, General Siro Rosetti, gave a generous account of ‘a secret security structure made up of civilians, parallel to the armed forces’ There are also overlaps between senior Gladio personnel and the committee of military men, Rosa dei Venti (Wind Rose), which tried to stage a coup in 1970.”[4]
European Parliament resolution concerning Gladio
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European Parliament resolution on Gladio
On November 22, 1990, the European Parliament passed a resolution condemning Gladio, requesting full investigations – which have yet to be done – and total dismantlement of these paramilitary structures – which, as of 2005, has not been proven. The resolution condemned the existence for 40 years of a clandestine parallel intelligence as well as armed operations organization in several Member States of the Community , which escaped all democratic controls and has been run by the secret services of the states concerned in collaboration with NATO. Denouncing the danger that such clandestine network may have interfered illegally in the internal political affairs of Member States or may still do so, especially before the fact that in certain Member States military secret services (or uncontrolled branches thereof) were involved in serious cases of terrorism and crime, the Parliament demanded a a full investigation into the nature, structure, aims and all other aspects of these clandestine organizations or any splinter groups, their use for illegal interference in the internal political affairs of the countries concerned, the problem of terrorism in Europe and the possible collusion of the secret services of Member States or third countries. Furthermore, the resolution protested vigorously at the assumption by certain US military personnel at SHAPE and in NATO of the right to encourage the establishment in Europe of a clandestine intelligence and operation network, asking the Member States to dismantle all clandestine military and paramilitary networks and to draw up a complete list of organizations active in this field, and at the same time to monitor their links with the respective state intelligence services and their links, if any, with terrorist action groups and/or other illegal practices. Finally, the Parliament called on its competent committee to consider holding a hearing in order to clarify the role and impact of the ‘Gladio’ organization and any similar bodies, and instructed its President to forward this resolution to the Commission, the Council, the Secretary-General of NATO, the governments of the Member States and the United States Government.
Allegations
Gladio has been accused of trying to influence policies through the means of false flag operations: a 2000 Italian Parliamentary Commission report from the Olive Tree left-wing coalition concluded that the strategy of tension used by Gladio had been supported by the United States to stop the PCI (Italian Communist Party), and to a certain degree also the PSI (Italian Socialist Party), from reaching executive power in the country .
Propaganda Due (aka P2), a quasi-freemasonic organization, whose existence was discovered in 1981, was said closely linked to Gladio.
P2 was outlawed and disbanded in 1981, in the wake of the Banco Ambrosiano scandal, which was linked to the Mafia and to the Vatican Bank. Its Grand Master, Licio Gelli, was involved in most of Italy’s scandals in the last three decades of the 20th century: Banco Ambrosiano’s crash; Tangentopoli, which gave rise to the Mani pulite ( Clean hands ) anticorruption operation in the 1990s; the kidnapping and the murder of Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978 – the head of the secret services at the time, accused of negligence, was a piduista (P2 member). Licio Gelli has often said he was a friend of Argentine President Juan Perón. In any case, some members of Jorge Videla’s junta were discovered to be piduista, such as José López Rega, founder of the infamous anticommunist organization Triple A, Raúl Alberto Lastiri or Emilio Massera. The Vatican Bank was also accused of funneling covert US funds for the Solidarnosc trade union movement in Poland and the Contras in Nicaragua.[9]
Furthermore, Gladio has been linked to other events, such as Operation Condor[10]and the 1969 killing of anticolonialist/independentist Mozambican leader Eduardo Mondlane by Aginter Press, the Portuguese stay-behind secret army, headed by Yves Guérin-Sérac – the allegation on Mondlane’s death is disputed, with several sources stating that FRELIMO guerrilla leader Eduardo Mondlane was killed in a struggle for power within FRELIMO. In 1995, Attorney General Giovanni Salvi accused the Italian secret services of having manipulated proofs of the Chilean secret police’s (DINA) involvement in the 1975 terrorist attack on former Chilean Vice-President Bernardo Leighton in Rome. A similar mode of operation can also be recognized in various Cold War events, for example between the June 20, 1973 Ezeiza massacre in Buenos Aires (Argentina), the 1976 Montejurra massacre in Spain and the 1977 Taksim Square massacre in Istanbul (Turkey).
After Giulio Andreotti’s revelations and the disestablishment of Gladio, the last meeting of the Allied Clandestine Committee (ACC), was held according to the Italian Prime minister on October 23 and 24, 1990. Despite this, various events have raised concerns about stay-behind armies still being in place. In 1996, the Belgian newspaper Le Soir revealed the existence of a racist plan operated by the military intelligence agencies. In 1999, Switzerland was suspected of again creating a clandestine paramilitary structure, allegedly to replace the former P26 and P27 (the Swiss branches of Gladio). Furthermore, in 2005, the Italian press revealed the existence of the Department of Anti-terrorism Strategic Studies (DSSA), accused of being another Gladio .
Gladio’s strategy of tension and internal subversion operations
Further information: Strategy of tension
NATO’s stay-behind organizations were never called upon to resist a Soviet invasion, but their structures continued to exist after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Internal subversion and false flag operations were explicitly considered by the CIA and stay-behind paramilitaries. According to a November 13, 1990 Reuters cable,[11] André Moyen – a former member of the Belgian military security service and of the [stay-behind] network – said Gladio was not just anti-Communist but was for fighting subversion in general. He added that his predecessor had given Gladio 142 million francs ($4.6 millions) to buy new radio equipment. [12] Ganser alleges that on various occasions, stay-behind movements became linked to right-wing terrorism, crime and attempted coups d’état:[7]
Prudent Precaution or Source of Terror? the international press pointedly asked when the secret stay-behind armies of NATO were discovered across Western Europe in late 1990. After more than ten years of research, the answer is now clear: both. The overview aboves shows that based on the experiences of World War II, all countries of Western Europe, with the support of NATO, the CIA, and MI6, had set up stay-behind armies as precaution against a potential Soviet invasion. While the safety networks and the integrity of the majority of the secret soldiers should not be criticized in hindsight after the collapse of the Soviet Union, very disturbing questions do arise with respect to reported links to terrorism.
There exist large differences among the European countries, and each case must be analyzed individually in further detail. As of now, the evidence suggests the secret armies in the seven countries, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Luxemburg, Switzerland, Austria, and the Netherlands, focused exclusively on their stay-behind function and were not linked to terrorism. However, links to terrorism have been either confirmed or claimed in the nine countries, Italy, Ireland, Turkey, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Sweden, demanding further investigation.
According to Daniele Ganser, only Italy, Belgium and Switzerland carried on parliamentary investigations, while the prosecution of various black terrorists (terrorismo nero, neofascist terrorism) in Italy was difficult.
A 1990 article from The Guardian featured the following quote from judge Libero Mancuso:[13]
On the eve of the 1980 Bologna bombing anniversary, Liberato [sic] Mancuso, the Bologna judge who had led the investigation and secured the initial convictions [of the Bologna bombers] broke six months of silence: It is now understood among those engaged in the matter of democratic rights that we are isolated, and the objects of a campaign of aggression. This is what has happened to the commission into the P2, and to the magistrates. The personal risks to us are small in comparison to this offensive of denigration, which attempts to discredit the quest for truth. In Italy there has functioned for some years now a sort of conditioning, a control of our national sovereignty by the P2 – which was literally the master of the secret services, the army and our most delicate organs of state.
Examples of such alleged terrorist acts include the strategy of tension in Italy, or the Oktoberfest bomb blast of 1980 in Munich.[citation needed] A Gladio official said that depending on the cases, we would block or encourage far-left or far-right terrorism .[14][15]
Gladio operations in NATO countries
First discovered in Italy
Main article: Gladio in Italy
The Italian NATO stay-behind organization, dubbed Gladio , was set up under Minister of Defense (from 1953 to 1958) Paolo Taviani’s (DC) supervision.[16] However, Gladio’s existence came to public knowledge when Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti revealed it to the Chamber of Deputies on October 24, 1990, although far-right terrorist Vincenzo Vinciguerra had already revealed its existence during his 1984 trial. According to media analyst Edward S. Herman, both the President of Italy, Francesco Cossiga, and Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, had been involved in the Gladio organization and coverup… [17][verification needed]
[edit] Giulio Andreotti’s October 24, 1990 revelations
Prime minister Giulio Andreotti (member of the Christian Democracy, DC) publicly recognized the existence of Gladio on October 24, 1990. Andreotti spoke of a structure of information, response and safeguard , with arms caches and reserve officers. He gave to the Commissione Stragi, the parliamentary commission led by senator Giovanni Pellegrino in charge of investigations on bombings committed during the Years Of Lead in Italy, a list of 622 civilians who according to him were part of Gladio. Andreotti also assured that 127 weapons’ cache had been dismantled, and pretended that Gladio had not been involved in any of the bombings committed from the 1960s to the 1980s (further evidence implicated neofascists linked to Gladio, in particular concerning the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing, the 1972 Peteano attack by Vincenzo Vinciguerra, the 1980 Bologna massacre in which SISMI officers were condemned for investigation diversion, along with Licio Gelli, head of Propaganda Due masonic lodge, etc.). Andreotti declared that the Italian military services (predecessors of the SISMI) had joined in 1964 the Allied Clandestine Committee created in 1957 by the US, France, Belgium and Greece, and which was in charge of directing Gladio’s operations.[18] However, Gladio was actually set up under Minister of Defense (from 1953 to 1958) Paolo Taviani’s supervision.[16] Beside, the list of Gladio members given by Andreotti was incomplete. It didn’t include, for example, Antonio Arconte, who described an organization very different from the one brushed by Giulio Andreotti: an organization closely tied to the SID secret service and the Atlantist strategy.[19][20] According to Andreotti, the stay-behind organisations set up in all of Europe did not come under broad NATO supervision until 1959. [21]
2000 Parliamentary report: a strategy of tension
In 2000, a Parliament Commission report from the Gruppo Democratici di Sinistra l’Ulivo concluded that the strategy of tension had been supported by the United States to stop the PCI, and to a certain degree also the PSI, from reaching executive power in the country . A 2000 Senate report, stated that Those massacres, those bombs, those military actions had been organized or promoted or supported by men inside Italian state institutions and, as has been discovered more recently, by men linked to the structures of United States intelligence. According to The Guardian, The report [claimed] that US intelligence agents were informed in advance about several rightwing terrorist bombings, including the December 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing in Milan and the Piazza della Loggia bombing in Brescia five years later, but did nothing to alert the Italian authorities or to prevent the attacks from taking place. It also [alleged] that Pino Rauti [current leader of the MSI Fiamma-Tricolore party], a journalist and founder of the far-right Ordine Nuovo (new order) subversive organisation, received regular funding from a press officer at the US embassy in Rome. ‘So even before the ‘stabilising’ plans that Atlantic circles had prepared for Italy became operational through the bombings, one of the leading members of the subversive right was literally in the pay of the American embassy in Rome,’ the report says. [22]
General Maletti’s testimony concerning alleged CIA involvement
General Gianadelio Maletti, commander of the counter-intelligence section of the Italian military intelligence service from 1971 to 1975, alleged in March 2001 during the eight trial for the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombings that the CIA had foreknowledge of the event.[23] According to the Guardian, he said:[24]
…his men had discovered that a rightwing terrorist cell in the Venice region had been supplied with military explosives from Germany. Those explosives may have been obtained with the help of members of the US intelligence community, an indication that the Americans had gone beyond the infiltration and monitoring of extremist groups to instigating acts of violence…
General Maletti told the Italian court that the CIA, following the directives of its government, wanted to create an Italian nationalism capable of halting what it saw as a slide to the left and, for this purpose, it may have made use of rightwing terrorism, and continued on by declaring: I believe this is what happened in other countries as well. Gianadelio Maletti also said to the court: Don’t forget that Nixon was in charge and Nixon was a strange man, a very intelligent politician but a man of rather unorthodox initiatives.
General Maletti himself in the first Piazza Fontana trial received a four year sentence for providing a false passport to one of the accused bombers, this sentence was overturned in 1985.[25] Maletti received, while in exile, a 15-years sentence in 2000 for his role in trying to cover up a 1973 bomb attack in Milan against the Interior minister, Mariano Rumor (DC – 4 killed and 45 injured), but was acquitted on appeals.[26] According to the court, General Maletti knew in advance of the plan of the attacker, Gianfranco Bertoli, allegedly an anarchist but in reality a right-wing activist and a long-standing SID informant according to The Guardian, but had deliberately failed to inform the interior minister of it.[24]
Responding to charges made by Maletti in La Repubblica one year earlier, the CIA called the allegation that it was involved in the attacks in Italy ludicrous. [27]
A quick chronology of Italy’s strategy of tension
* 1964 Operation Solo
In 1964, Gladio was involved in a silent coup d’état when General Giovanni de Lorenzo in Operation Solo forced the Italian Socialists Ministers to leave the government.[28]
* 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing
According to Avanguardia Nazionale member Vincenzo Vinciguerra: The December 1969 explosion was supposed to be the detonator which would have convinced the politic and military authorities to declare a state of emergency [29]
* 1970 Golpe Borghese
In 1970, the failed coup attempt Golpe Borghese gathered, around fascist Junio Valerio Borghese, international terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie and P2 headmaster Licio Gelli.
* 1972 Gladio meeting
According to The Guardian, General Geraldo Serravalle, a former head of Office R , told the terrorism commission that at a crucial Gladio meeting in 1972, at least half of the upper echelons had the idea of attacking the communists before an invasion. They were preparing for civil war. Later, he put it more bluntly: They were saying this: Why wait for the invaders when we can make a preemptive attack now on the communists who would support the invader? The idea is now emerging of a Gladio web made up of semi-autonomous cadres which – although answerable to their secret service masters and ultimately to the NATO-CIA command – could initiate what they regarded as anti-communist operations by themselves, needing only sanction and funds from the existing ‘official’ Gladio column (…) General Nino Lugarese, head of SISMI from 1981-84 testified on the existence of a ‘Super Gladio’ of 800 men responsible for ‘internal intervention’ against domestic political targets. [4]
* May 31, 1972 Peteano massacre
Magistrate Felice Casson discovered that the explosives used in the attack came from one of 139 secret weapons depots of a secret army organized under the code name Operation Gladio .[17] Neofascist Vincenzo Vinciguerra confessed in 1984 to judge Felice Casson of having carried out the Peteano terrorist attack, in which three policemen died, and for which the Red Brigades (BR) had been blamed before. Vinciguerra explained during his trial how he had been helped by Italian secret services to escape the police and to fly away to Francoist Spain. However, he was abandoned by NATO as soon as he started talking about Gladio, declaring for example during his 1984 trial:
with the massacre of Peteano and with all those that have followed, the knowledge should now be clear that there existed a real live structure, occult and hidden, with the capacity of giving a strategic direction to the outrages. [This structure] lies within the states itself. There exists in Italy a secret force parallel to the armed forces, composed of civilians and military men, in an anti-Soviet capacity, that is, to organise a resistance on Italian soil against a Russian army… A super-organization which, lacking a Soviet military invasion which might not happen, took up the task, on NATO’s behalf, of preventing a slip to the left in the politcial balance of the country. This they did, with the assistance of the official secret services and the political and military forces… He then said to The Guardian, in 1990: I say that every single outrage that followed from 1969 fitted into a single, organised matrix… Avanguardia Nazionale, like Ordine Nuovo (the main right-wing terrorist group active during the 1970s), were being mobilised into the battle as part of an anti-communist strategy originating not with organisations deviant from the institutions of power, but from within the state itself, and specifically from within the ambit of the state’s relations within the Atlantic Alliance. [4][7]
* November 23, 1973 Bombing of the plane Argo 16
General Geraldo Serravalle, head of Gladio from 1971 to 1974, told a television programme that he now thought the explosion aboard the plane Argo 16 on 23 November 1973 was probably the work of gladiatori who were refusing to hand over their clandestine arms. Until then it was widely believed the sabotage was carried out by Mossad, the Israeli foreign service, in retaliation for the pro-Libyan Italian government’s decision to expel, rather than try, five Arabs who had tried to blow up an Israeli airliner. The Arabs had been spirited out of the country on board the Argo 16.[30]
* 1974 Piazza della Loggia bombing, Italicus Express massacre, and arrest of Vito Miceli, chief of the Army intelligence service and member of P2, on charges of conspiracy against the state
In 1974, a massacre committed by Ordine Nuovo, during an anti-fascist demonstration in Brescia, kills eight and injures 102. The same year, a bomb in the Rome to Munich train Italicus Express kills 12 and injures 48. Also in 1974, Vito Miceli, P2 member, chief of the SIOS (Servizio Informazioni), Army Intelligence’s Service from 1969 and SID’s head from 1970 to 1974, got arrested on charges of conspiration against the state concerning investigations about Rosa dei venti, a state-infiltrated group involved in terrorist acts. During his trial, he revealed the existence of the NATO stay-behind secret army.
* 1977 Reorganization of Italian secret services following Vito Micelli’s arrest
In 1977, the secret services were thus reorganized in a democratic attempt. With law#801 of 24/10/1977, SID was divided into SISMI (Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare), SISDE (Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Democratica) and CESIS (Comitato Esecutivo per i Servizi di Informazione e Sicurezza). The CESIS was given a coordination role, led by the President of Council.
* 1978 Murder of Aldo Moro
Prime minister Aldo Moro was murdered in May 1978 by the Second Red Brigades (BR), headed by Mario Moretti, in obscure circumstances. The head of the Italian secret services, accused of negligence, was a P2 member. The so-called historic compromise between the Christian-Democracy and the PCI was abandoned:[31]
As the conspiracy theorists would have it, Mr. Moro was allowed to be killed either with the acquiescence of people high in Italy’s political establishment, or at their instigation, because of the historic compromise he had made with the Communist Party
During his captivity, Aldo Moro wrote several letters to various political figures, including Giulio Andreotti. In October 1990, a cache of previously unknown letters written by the former Prime Minister, Aldo Moro, just prior to his execution by Red Brigade terrorists in 1978… was discovered in a Milan apartment which had once been used as a Red Brigade hideout. One of those letters made reference to the involvement of both NATO and the CIA in an Italian-based secret service, ‘parallel’ army. [32] This safe house had been thoroughly searched at the time by Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, the head of counter-terrorism. How is it that the papers had not been revealed before? asked The Independent[31] Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa was murdered in 1982 (see below).
In May 1978, investigative journalist Mino Pecorelli thought that Aldo Moro’s kidnapping had been organised by a lucid superpower and was inspired by the logic of Yalta . He painted the figure of General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa as general Amen, explaining that it was him that, during Aldo Moro’s kidnap, had informed Interior Minister Francesco Cossiga of the localization of the cave where Moro was detained. In 1978, Pecorelli wrote that Dalla Chiesa was in danger and would be assassinated (Dalla Chiesa was murdered four years later). After Aldo Moro’s assassination, Mino Pecorelli published some confidential documents, mainly Moro’s letters to his family. In a cryptic article published in May 1978, wrote The Guardian in May 2003, Pecorelli drew a connection between Gladio, NATO’s stay-behind anti-communist organisation (which existence was publicly acknowledged by Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti in October 1990) and Moro’s death. During his interrogation, Aldo Moro had referred to NATO’s anti-guerrilla activities. [33] Mino Pecorelli, who was on Licio Gelli’s list of P2 members discovered in 1980, was assassinated on March 20, 1979. The ammunitions used, a very rare type, where the same as discovered in the Banda della Magliana ‘s weapons stock hidden in the Health Minister’s basement. Pecorelli’s assassination has been thought to be directly related to Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, who was condemned to 20 years of prison for it in 2002 before having the sentence cancelled by the Supreme Court of Cassation in 2003.
* 1980 Bologna massacre
The makings of the bomb… came from an arsenal used by Gladio… according to a parliamentary commission on terrorism… The suggested link with the Bologna massacre is potentially the most serious of all the accusations levelled against Gladio, and comes just two days after the Italian Prime Minister, Giulio Andreotti, cleared Gladio’s name in a speech to parliament, saying that the secret army did not drift from its formal Nato military brief. [34] In November 1995, Neo-Fascists terrorists Valerio Fioravanti and Francesca Mambro, members of the Nuclei Armati Revoluzionari (NAR), were convicted to life imprisonment as executors of the 1980 Bologna massacre. The NAR neofascist group worked in cooperation with the Banda della Magliana, a Mafia-linked gang which took over Rome’s underground in the 1970s and was involved in various political events of the strategy of tension, including the Aldo Moro case, the 1979 assassination of Mino Pecorelli, a journalist who published articles alleging links between Prime minister Giulio Andreotti and the mafia, as well as the assassination of God’s Banker Roberto Calvi in 1982. The investigations concerning the Bologna bombing proved Gladio’s direct influence: Licio Gelli, P2’s headmaster, received a sentence for investigation diversion, as well as Francesco Pazienza and SISMI officers Pietro Musumeci and Giuseppe Belmonte. Avanguardia Nazionale founder Stefano Delle Chiaie, who was involved in the Golpe Borghese in 1970, was also accused of involvement in the Bologna massacre[35][15]
* 1982 murder of General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, head of counter-terrorism.
General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa’s 1982 murder, in Palermo, by Pino Greco, one of the Mafia Godfather Salvatore Riina’s (aka Toto Riina) favorite hitmen, is allegedly part of the strategy of tension. Alberto Dalla Chiesa had arrested Red Brigades founders Renato Curcio and Alberto Franceschini in September, 1974, and was later charged of investigation concerning Aldo Moro. He had also found Aldo Moro’s letters concerning Gladio.
* October 24, 1990 Giulio Andreotti’s acknowledgement of Operazione Gladio
After the discovery by judge Felice Casson of documents on Gladio in the archives of the Italian military secret service in Rome, Giulio Andreotti, head of Italian government, revealed to the Chamber of deputies the existence of Operazione Gladio on October 24, 1990, insisting that Italy has not been the only country with secret stay-behind armies. He made clear that each chief of government had been informed of the existence of Gladio . Former Socialist Prime Minister Bettino Craxi said that he had not been informed until he was confronted with a document on Gladio signed by himself while he was Prime Minister. Former Prime Minister Giovanni Spadolini (Republican Party), at the time President of the Senate, and former Prime Minister Arnaldo Forlani, at the time secretary of the ruling Christian Democratic Party claimed they remembered nothing. Spadolini stressed that there was a difference between what he knew as former Defence Secretary and what he knew as former Prime Minister. Only former Prime Minister Francesco Cossiga (DC) confirmed Andreotti’s revelations, explaining that he was even proud and happy for his part in setting up Gladio as junior Defence Minister of the Christian Democratic Party. This lit up a political storm, requests were made for Cossiga’s (Italian President since 1985) resignation or impeachment for high treason. He refused to testify to the investigating Senate committee. Cossiga narrowly escaped his impeachment by stepping down on April 1992, three months before his term expired.[36]
* 1998 David Carrett, officer of the U.S. Navy
David Carrett, officer of the U.S. Navy, was indicted by magistrate Guido Salvini on charge of political and military espionage and his participation to the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing, among other events. Judge Guido Salvini also opened up a case against Sergio Minetto, Italian official for the US-NATO intelligence network, and pentito Carlo Digilio. La Repubblica underlined that Carlo Rocchi, CIA’s man at Milan, was surprised in 1995 searching for information concerning Operation Gladio, thus demonstrating that all was not over.[29]
1969 Piazza Fontana bombing, which started Italy’s anni di piombo, and the 1974 Italicus Expressen train bombing were also attributed to Gladio operatives. In 1975, Stefano Delle Chiaie met with Pinochet during Franco’s funeral in Madrid, and would participate afterward in operation Condor, preparing for example the attempted murder of Bernardo Leighton, a Chilean Christian Democrat, or participating in the 1980 ‘Cocaine Coup’ of Luis García Meza Tejada in Bolivia. In 1989, he was arrested in Caracas, Venezuela and extradited to Italy to stand trial for his role in the Piazza Fontana bombing. Despite his reputation, Delle Chiaie was acquitted by the Assize Court in Catanzaro in 1989, along with fellow accused Massimiliano Fachini (as yet no convictions have been made for the attack). According to Avanguardia Nazionale member Vincenzo Vinciguerra: The December 1969 explosion was supposed to be the detonator which would have convinced the political and military authorities to declare a state of emergency. [29]
[edit] The DSSA, another Gladio?
In July 2005, the Italian press revealed the existence of the Department of Anti-terrorism Strategic Studies (DSSA), a parallel police created by Gaetano Saya and Riccardo Sindoca, two leaders of the National Union of the Police Forces (UNPF), a trade-union present in all the state security forces. Both said they were former members of Gladio. According to the DSSA website — closed after these revelations — Fabrizio Quattrocchi, murdered in Iraq after being taken hostage, was there for the DSSA . According to the Italian investigators, the DSSA was trying to obtain international and national recognition by intelligence agencies, in order to obtain finances for its parallel activities. Furthermore, Il Messaggero, quoted by The Independent, declared that, according to judicial sources, wiretaps suggested DSSA members had been planning to kidnap Cesare Battisti, a former communist activist. We were seeing the genesis of something similar to the death squads in Argentina (the AAA groups) the magistrate is reported to have said.[37][38][39][40][41]
Belgium
Main article: Belgian stay-behind network
After the 1966 retreat of France from NATO, the SHAPE headquarters were displaced to Mons in Belgium. In 1990, following France’s denial of any stay-behind French army, Giulio Andreotti publicly said the last Allied Clandestine Committee (ACC) meeting, at which the French branch of Gladio was present, had been on October 23 and 24, 1990, under the presidency of Belgian General Van Calster, director of the Belgian military secret service SGR. In November, Guy Coëme, the Minister of the Defense, acknowledged the existence of a Belgium stay-behind army, lifting concerns about a similar implication in terrorist acts as in Italy. The same year, the European Parliament sharply condemned NATO and the United States in a resolution for having manipulated European politics with the stay-behind armies.[28]
New legislation governing intelligence agencies’ missions and methods was passed in 1998, following two government inquiries and the creation of a permanent parliamentary committee in 1991, which was to bring them under the authority of Belgium’s federal agencies. The Commission was created following events in the 1980s, which included the Brabant massacres and the activities of far right group Westland New Post.[42]
France
In 1947, Interior Minister Edouard Depreux revealed the existence of a secret stay-behind army in France codenamed Plan Bleu . The next year, the Western Union Clandestine Committee (WUCC) was created to coordinate secret unorthodox warfare. In 1949, the WUCC was integrated into NATO, whose headquarters were established in France, under the name Clandestine Planning Committee (CPC). In 1958, NATO founded the Allied Clandestine Committee (ACC) to coordinate secret warfare.
The network was supported with elements from SDECE, and had military support from the 11th Choc regiment. The former director of DGSE, admiral Pierre Lacoste, alleged in a 1992 interview with The Nation, that certain elements from the network were involved with terrorist activities against de Gaulle and his Algerian policy. A section of the 11th Choc regiment split over the 1962 Evian peace accords, and became part of the Organisation armée secrète (OAS), but it is unclear if this also involved members of the French stay-behind network.[43][44]
La Rose des Vents and Arc-en-ciel ( Rainbow ) network were part of Gladio. François de Grossouvre was Gladio’s leader for the region around Lyon in France until his alleged suicide on April 7 1994. Grossouvre would have asked Constantin Melnik, leader of the French secret services during the Algerian War of Independence (1954-62), to return to activity. He was living in comfortable exile in the US, where he maintained links with the Rand Corporation. Constantin Melnik is alleged to have been involved in the creation in 1952 of the Ordre Souverain du Temple Solaire, an ancestor of the Order of the Solar Temple, created by former A.M.O.R.C. members, in which the SDECE (French former military intelligence agency) was interested.[45]
Denmark
The Danish stay-behind army was code-named Absalon, after a Danish archbishop, and led by E.J. Harder. It was hidden in the military secret service Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste (FE). In 1978, William Colby, former director of the CIA, released his memoirs in which he described the setting-up of stay-behind armies in Scandinavia:[46]
The situation in each Scandinavian country was different. Norway and Denmark were NATO allies, Sweden held to the neutrality that had taken her through two world wars, and Finland were required to defer in its foreign policy to the Soviet power directly on its borders. Thus, in one set of these countries the governments themselves would build their own stay-behind nets, counting on activating them from exile to carry on the struggle. These nets had to be co-ordinated with NATO’s plans, their radios had to be hooked to a future exile location, and the specialised equipment had to be secured from CIA and secretly cached in snowy hideouts for later use. In other set of countries, CIA would have to do the job alone or with, at best, unofficial local help, since the politics of those governments barred them from collaborating with NATO, and any exposure would arouse immediate protest from the local Communist press, Soviet diplomats and loyal Scandinavians who hoped that neutrality or nonalignment would allow them to slip through a World War III unharmed.
On November 25, 1990, Danish daily newspaper Berlingske Tidende, quoted by Daniele Ganser (2005), confirmed William Colby’s revelations, by a source named Q :
Colby’s story is absolutely correct. Absalon was created in the early 1950s. Colby was a member of the world spanning laymen Catholic organisation Opus Dei, which, using a modern term, could be called right-wing. Opus Dei played a central role in the setting up of Gladio in the whole of Europe and also in Denmark… The leader of Gladio was Harder who was probably not a Catholic. But there are not many Catholics in Denmark and the basic elements making up the Danish Gladio were former [WW II] resistance people – former prisoners of Vestre Fængsel, Frøslevlejren, Neuengamme and also of the Danish Brigade.
Germany
Reinhard Gehlen, Nazi intelligence agent on the East front during the war, turned towards the US after the war, and set up the Gehlen Organisation, which used many former Nazi party members for intelligence purposes during the Cold War. But alongside the Gehlen organisation, which became the nucleus of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND, Federal Intelligence Service), West Germany’s intelligence agency created in 1956, US intelligence also set up a German stay-behind network parallel (and juxtaposed) to the Gehlen Org (which also had a role in the organisation of the ODESSA network, used to exfiltrate Nazi war criminals). CIA documents released in June 2006 under the 1998 Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, more than fifteen years after Prime minister Giulio Andreotti’s revelations concerning Gladio, show that the CIA organized stay-behind networks of German agents between 1949 and 1955.[47]
One of these networks supported by the CIA was the Technische Dienst (TD, Technical Service) section within the Bund Deutscher Jugend (BDJ, Union of German Youth). The anti-communist BDJ was founded in 1950 by ex-Nazis Erhard Peters and Paul Lüth. The existence of TD came to light, after a speech in the Hesse Landtag by PM Georg August Zinn.[48] During the investigations into BDJ, which started in September 1952, a couple of arms caches were found, including one in the Odenwald region, Hesse.[49] The claim by August Zinn that the BDJ supposedly was in the possession of a list of Social Democracts and Communists to be liquidated in case of a Soviet invasion, including leading figures of the opposition Social Democratic Party[50]) was denied by German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer.[49] The BDJ was outlawed in January 1953.[51][52]
Documents shown to the Italian parliamentary terrorism committee revealed that in the 1970s British and French officials involved in the network visited a training base in Germany built with US money.[50]
In 1976, the secret service BND secretary Heidrun Hofer was arrested after having revealed the secrets of the German stay-behind army to her husband, who was a spy of the KGB.[28]
The 1980 Oktoberfest bomb blast
Revelations of a witness in the investigation of the Oktoberfest bomb blast of 1980 in Munich lead to the conclusion that the explosives might have come from the German Neo-Nazi Heinz Lembke.[citation needed] In 1981, German police by chance found an arms cache in the Lüneburg Heath, which led to the arrest of Lembke and the discovery of other arms caches in Lower Saxony. A few days later, Lembke hanged himself in prison. Lembke had been questioned in Oktoberfest investigation, but the public prosecutors found no evidence that he supplied the explosives for the bombing.[53]
Lembkes arms caches were supposed to be connected to Gladio by a number of researchers and journalists.[7]
CIA’s documents released in June 2006
One network included Staff Sergent Heinrich Hoffman and Lieutenant Colonel Hans Rues, and another one, codenamed Kibitz-15, was run by Lieutenant Colonel Walter Kopp, a former Wehrmacht officer, described by his own North American handlers as an unreconstructed Nazi. [54] In an April 1953 CIA memo released in June 2006, the CIA headquarters wrote: The present furore in Western Germany over the resurgence of the Nazi or neo-Nazi groups is a fair example — in miniature — of what we would be faced with. Therefore some of these networks were dismantled. These documents stated that the ex-Nazis were a complete failure in intelligence terms. According to Timothy Naftali, a US historian from the University of Virginia who reviewed the CIA documents then released, The files show time and again that these people were more trouble than they were worth. The unreconstructed Nazis were always out for themselves, and they were using the West’s lack of information about the Soviet Union to exploit it. [54] The US NARA Archives themselves stated in a 2002 communique, concerning Reinhard Gehlen’s recruiting of former Nazis, that Besides the troubling moral issues involved, these recruitments opened the West German government, and by extension the United States, to penetration by the Soviet intelligence services. [55]
Hans Globke, who had worked for Adolf Eichmann in the Jewish Affairs department and helped draft the 1935 Nuremberg laws, became Chancellor Konrad Adenauer’s national security advisor in the 1960s, and was the main liaison with the CIA and NATO according to The Guardian.[54] A March 1958 memo from the German BND agency to the CIA wrote that Adolf Eichmann is reported to have lived in Argentina under the alias CLEMENS since 1952. However, the CIA did not pass the information on to the Israeli MOSSAD, as it feared revelations concerning its use of former Nazis for intelligence purposes — Eichmann, who was in charge of the Jewish Affairs department, was abducted by the MOSSAD two years later. Among these information that might have been revealed by Eichmann were the ones concerning Hans Globke, CIA’s liaison in West Germany. At the request of Bonn, the CIA persuaded Life magazine to delete any reference to Globke from Eichmann’s memoirs, which it had bought from his family.[47]
Norbert Juretzko’s 2004 revelations
In 2004 the German spymaster Norbert Juretzko published a book about his work at the BND. He went into details about recruiting partisans for the German stay-behind network. He was sacked from BND following a secret trial against him, because the BND could not find out the real name of his Russian source Rübezahl whom he had recruited. A man with the name he put on file was arrested by the KGB following treason in the BND, but was obviously innocent, his name having been chosen at random from the public phone book by Juretzko.
According to Juretzko, the BND built up its branch of Gladio, but discovered after the fall of the German Democratic Republic that it was 100% known to the Stasi early on. When the network was dismantled, further odd details emerged. One fellow spymaster had kept the radio equipment in his cellar at home with his wife doing the engineering test call every 4 months, on the grounds that the equipment was too valuable to remain in civilian hands. Juretzko found out because this spymaster had dismantled his section of the network so quickly, there had been no time for measures such as recovering all caches of supplies. Civilians recruited as stay-behind partisans were equipped with a clandestine shortwave radio with a fixed frequency. It had a keyboard with digital encryption, making use of traditional Morse code obsolete. They had a cache of further equipment for signalling helicopters or submarines to drop special agents who were to stay in the partisan’s homes while mounting sabotage operations against the communists.
Greece
The aim of British Prime minister Winston Churchill was to prevent the communist-led EAM resistance movement from taking power after the end of World War II. After the suppression of a pro-EAM uprising in April 1944 among the Greek forces in Egypt, a new and firmly reliable unit was formed, the Third Greek Mountain Brigade, which excluded almost all men with views ranging from moderately conservative to left wing. [56] After liberation in October 1944, EAM controlled most of the country. When it organized a demonstration in Athens on December 3, 1944 , members of rightist and pro-royalist paramilitary organizations, covered by British troops and police with machine guns… posited on the rooftops , suddenly shot on the crowd, killing 25 protesters (including a six-year-old boy) and wounding 148.[57] This marked the outbreak of the Dekemvriana, which would lead to the Greek Civil War.
When Greece joined NATO in 1952, the country’s special forces, the LOK (Lochoi Oreino-n Katadromo-n, i.e. Mountain Raiding Companies ) were integrated into the European stay-behind network. The CIA and LOK reconfirmed on March 25, 1955 their mutual co-operation in a secret document signed by US General Trascott for the CIA, and Konstantinos Dovas, chief of staff of the Greek military. In addition to preparing for a Soviet invasion, the CIA instructed LOK to prevent a leftist coup. Former CIA agent Philip Agee, who was sharply criticized in the US for having revealed sensitive information, insisted that paramilitary groups, directed by CIA officers, operated in the sixties throughout Europe [and he stressed that] perhaps no activity of the CIA could be as clearly linked to the possibility of internal subversion. [58]
The LOK was involved in the Greek military coup d’État on April 21, 1967,[59][not in citation given] which took place one month before the scheduled national elections for which opinion polls predicted an overwhelming victory of the centrist Center Union of George and Andreas Papandreou. Under the command of paratrooper Lieutenant Colonel Costas Aslanides, the LOK took control of the Greek Defence Ministry while Brigadier General Stylianos Pattakos gained control over communication centers, the parliament, the royal palace, and according to detailed lists, arrested over 10,000 people. Phillips Talbot, the US ambassador in Athens, disapproved of the military coup which established the Regime of the Colonels (1967-1974), complaining that it represented a rape of democracy – to which Jack Maury, the CIA chief of station in Athens, answered: How can you rape a whore? .[28][not in citation given]
Arrested and then exiled in Canada and Sweden, Andreas Papandreou later returned to Greece, where he won the 1981 election for Prime minister, forming the first socialist government of Greece’s post-war history. According to his own testimony, he discovered the existence of the secret NATO army, then codenamed Red Sheepskin , as acting prime minister in 1984 and had given orders to dissolve it.
Following Giulio Andreotti’s revelations in 1990, the Greek defence minister confirmed that a branch of the network, known as Operation Sheepskin, operated in his country until 1988.[60] The socialist opposition called for a parliamentary investigation into the secret army and its alleged link to terrorism and the 1967 coup d’état. Public order minister Yannis Vassiliadis declared that there was no need to investigate such fantasies as Sheepskin was one of 50 NATO plans which foresaw that when a country was occupied by an enemy there should be an organised resistance. It foresaw arms caches and officers who would form the nucleus of a guerilla war. In other words, it was a nationally justifiable act.
In December 2005, journalist Kleanthis Grivas published an article in To Proto Thema, a Greek Sunday newspaper, in which he accused Sheepskin for the assassination of CIA station chief Richard Welch in Athens in 1975, as well as the assassination of British military attaché Stephen Saunders in 2000. This was denied by the US State Department, who responded that the Greek terrorist organization ’17 November’ was responsible for both assassinations , and that Grivas’s central piece of evidence had been the Westmoreland Field Manual which the State department, as well as an independent Congressional inquiry have alleged to be a Soviet forgery.[61] The document in question, however, makes no specific mention of Greece, November 17, nor Welch. The State Department also highlighted the fact that, in the case of Richard Welch, Grivas bizarrely accuses the CIA of playing a role in the assassination of one of its own senior officials while Sheepskin couldn’t have assassinate Stephen Saunders for the simple reason, according to the US government, that the Greek government stated it dismantled the “stay behind” network in 1988. [61]
The Netherlands
A large arms cache was discovered in 1983 near the village Velp. In 1990 the government by means of then-prime-minister Ruud Lubbers was forced to confirm that the arms were related to planning for unorthodox warfare. He insisted that the Dutch organisation was, contrary to the operations in other European countries, totally independent from NATO command, and during wartime occupation would be commanded by the Dutch government in exile. The operating bureaus of the organisation would also move to safety in England or the USA at the first sign of trouble.
In his television show of 22 April 2007 Dutch crime journalist Peter R. De Vries revealed that weapons had been illegally supplied to Gladio well after the network was supposed to have been disbanded.[28]
A Dutch investigative television program revealed on September 9, 2007, that an arms cache that belonged to Gladio was ransacked in the 1980s. The cache was located in a forest near Scheveningen. Some of stolen weapons later turned up, including hand grenades and machine guns, when police officials arrested criminals Sam Klepper and John Mieremet in 1991. The Dutch military intelligence agency, MIVD, feared at that time that the disclosure of the Gladio history of these weapons was politically explosive.[62][63]
Norway
In 1957, the director of the secret service NIS, Vilhelm Evang, protested strongly against the pro-active intelligence activities at AFNORTH, as described by the chairman of CPC: [NIS] was extremely worried about activities carried out by officers at Kolsås. This concerned SB, Psywar and Counter Intelligence. These activities supposedly included the blacklisting of Norwegians. SHAPE denied these allegations. Eventually, the matter was resolved in 1958, after Norway was assured about how stay-behind networks were to be operated.[64][page needed]
In 1978, the police discovered an arms cache at a mountain cabin and arrested Hans Otto Meyer, a NIS officer. Meyer claimed that these were supplied by Norwegian intelligence. Rolf Hansen, defense minister at that time, stated the network was not in any way answerable to NATO and had no CIA connection.[65]
Portugal
Further information: Aginter Press
In 1966, the CIA set up Aginter Press which, under the direction of Captain Yves Guérin-Sérac (who had taken part in the founding of the OAS), ran a secret stay-behind army and trained its members in covert action techniques amounting to terrorism, including bombings, silent assassinations, subversion techniques, clandestine communication and infiltration and colonial warfare. Aginter Press was suspected of having assassinated General Humberto Delgado (1906-1965), founder of the Portuguese National Liberation Front against Salazar’s dictatorship (prominent historians and several sources also claim Delgado’s assassination was performed by PIDE operational Rosa Casaco), as well as anti-colonialist leader Amilcar Cabral (1924-1973), founder of the PAIGC (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde) and Eduardo Mondlane leader of the liberation movement FRELIMO (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique), in 1969 (prominent historians and several sources also claim Cabral’s assassination was performed by indivuduals within Cabral’s guerrilla movemment, the PAIGC, and Mondlane’s death was work of his enemies inside FRELIMO – according to these versions, both assassinations were the result of struggles for power within the independentist movements).[28][66]
Turkey
Main article: Counter-Guerrilla
Further information: Deep state, Ergenekon network, and Jandarma I.stihbarat ve Terörle Mücadele
As one of the nations that prompted the Truman Doctrine, Turkey is one of the first countries to participate in Operation Gladio and, some say, the only country where it has not been purged.[67] According to Italian magistrate Felice Casson, the Turkish stay-behind forces are two-pronged: the military Counter-Guerrilla , and the civilian Ergenekon .[68] An offshoot of the latter organization is currently the subject of a major investigation. Casson says Turkey is home to the most powerful branch of Operation Gladio.[69]
The counter-guerrilla’s existence was revealed by prime minister Bülent Ecevit in 1973.[70]
The United Kingdom
In Great Britain, Prime Minister Winston Churchill created the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in 1940 to assist resistance movements and carry out subversive operations in enemy-held territory across occupied Europe. Guardian reporter David Pallister wrote in December 1990 that a guerrilla network with arms caches had been put in place following the fall of France. It included Brigadier Mad Mike Calvert, and was drawn from a special-forces ski battalion of the Scots Guards which was originally intended to fight in Nazi-occupied Finland.[21] Known as Auxiliary Units, they were headed by Major Colin Gubbins, an expert in guerrilla warfare who would later lead the SOE. The Auxiliary Units were attached to GHQ Home Forces, and concealed within the Home Guard. The units were created in preparation of a possible invasion of the British Isles by the Third Reich. These units were allegedly stood down only in 1944. Several of their members subsequently joined the Special Air Service and saw action in France in late 1944. The units’ existence did not generally become known by the public until the 1990s though a book on the subject was published in 1968.[71] In fiction, Owen Sheers’ Resistance (2008), set in Wales, takes as one of its central characters a member of the Auxiliary Units called to resist a successful German invasion.
After the end of World War II, the stay-behind armies were created with the experience and involvement of former SOE officers.[28] Following Giulio Andreotti’s October 1990 revelations, General Sir John Hackett (1910-1997), former commander-in-chief of the British Army on the Rhine, declared on November 16, 1990 that a contingency plan involving stay behind and resistance in depth was drawn up after the war. The same week, Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley (1924-2006), former commander-in-chief of NATO’s Forces in Northern Europe from 1979 to 1982, declared to The Guardian that a secret arms network was established in Britain after the war.[50] General John Hackett had written in 1978 a novel, The Third World War: August 1985, which was a fictionalized scenario of a Soviet Army invasion of West Germany in 1985. The novel was followed in 1982 by The Third World War: The Untold Story, which elaborated on the original. Farrar-Hockley had aroused controversy in 1983 when he became involved in trying to organise a campaign for a new Home Guard against eventual Soviet invasion.[72]
Gladio membership included mostly ex-servicemen but also followers of Oswald Mosley’s pre-war fascist movement.[citation needed] Among the 200,000+ Polish ex-servicemen in the UK after the end of WW2, unable to return home for fear of communist repression, were conspiratorial groups maintaining combat readiness ready to fight for a free Poland should the Warsaw Pact attack western Europe. The ‘Pogon’ organisation, linked to the Polish Government-in-Exile held regular paramilitary exercises until the 1970s; many of its members were associated with the Polish scouting movement in the UK which had a strong paramilitary flavour. Links with ‘Stay-behind’ networks are strongly suspected.[citation needed]
General Serravalle’s revelations
General Gerardo Serravalle, who commanded the Italian Gladio from 1971 to 1974, related that in the 1970s the members of the CPC [Coordination and Planning Committee] were the officers responsible for the secret structures of Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Luxemburg, the Netherlands and Italy. These representatives of the secret structures met every year in one of the capitals… At the stay-behind meetings representatives of the CIA were always present. They had no voting rights and were from the CIA headquarters of the capital in which the meeting took place… members of the US Forces Europe Command were present, also without voting rights. .[73] Next to the CPC a second secret command post was created in 1957, the Allied Clandestine Committee (ACC). According to the Belgian Parliamentary Committee on Gladio, the ACC was responsible for coordinating the ‘Stay-behind’ networks in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Holland, Norway, United Kingdom and the United States . During peacetime, the activities of the ACC included elaborating the directives for the network, developing its clandestine capability and organising bases in Britain and the United States. In wartime, it was to plan stay-behind operations in conjunction with SHAPE; organisers were to activate clandestine bases and organise operations from there .[74] General Serravale declared to the Commissione Stragi headed by senator Giovanni Pellegrino that the Italian Gladio members trained at a military base in Britain.[50] Documents shown to the committee also revealed that British and French officials members of Gladio had visited in the 1970s a training base in Germany built with US money.[50]
The Guardian’s November 1990 revelations concerning plans under Margaret Thatcher
The Guardian reported on November 5, 1990, that there had been a secret attempt to revive elements of a parallel post-war plan relating to overseas operations in the early days of Mrs Thatcher’s Conservative leadership . According to the British newspaper, a group of former intelligence officers, inspired by the wartime Special Operations Executive, attempted to set up a secret unit as a kind of armed MI6 cell. Those behind the scheme included Airey Neave, Mrs Thatcher’s close adviser who was killed in a terrorist attack in 1979, and George Kennedy Young, a former deputy chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6. The newspaper stated that Thatcher had been initially enthusiastic but dropped the idea after the scandal surrounding the attack by the French secret service on the Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior, in New Zealand in 1985. [59] The Swiss branch, P-26, as well as Italian Gladio, had trained in the UK in the early 1970s.[59][75]
Parallel stay-behind operations in non-NATO countries
Austria
In Austria, the first secret stay-behind army was exposed in 1947. It had been set up by far-right Soucek and Rössner, who both insisted during their trial that they were carrying out the secret operation with the full knowledge and support of the US and British occupying powers. Sentenced to death, they were then pardoned under mysterious circumstances by President Körner (1951-1957).
Franz Olah set up a new secret army codenamed Österreichischer Wander-Sport-und Geselligkeitsverein (OWSGV, literally Austrian hiking, sports and society club ), with the cooperation of MI6 and the CIA. He later explained that we bought cars under this name. We installed communication centres in several regions of Austria , confirming that special units were trained in the use of weapons and plastic explosives . He precised that there must have been a couple of thousand people working for us… Only very, very highly positioned politicians and some members of the union knew about it .
In 1965, the police forces discovered a stay-behind arms cache in an old mine close to Windisch-Bleiberg and forced the British authorities to hand over a list with the location of 33 other caches in Austria.[28]
In 1990, when secret stay-behind armies were discovered all around Europe, the Austrian government said that no secret army had existed in the country. However, six years later, the Boston Globe revealed the existence of a secret CIA arms caches in Austria. Austrian President Thomas Klestil and Chancellor Franz Vranitzky insisted that they had known nothing of the existence of the secret army and demanded that the US launch a full-scale investigation into the violation of Austria’s neutrality, which was denied by President Bill Clinton. State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns – appointed in August 2001 by President George Bush as the US Permanent Representative to the Atlantic treaty organization, where, as ambassador to NATO, he headed the combined State-Defense Department United States Mission to NATO and coordinated the NATO response to the September 11, 2001 attacks – insisted: The aim was noble, the aim was correct, to try to help Austria if it was under occupation. What went wrong is that successive Washington administrations simply decided not to talk to the Austrian government about it. [7]
Finland
In 1945, Interior Minister Yrjö Leino exposed a secret stay-behind army which was closed down (so called Weapons Cache Case). This operation was organized by Finnish general staff officers (without foreign help) in 1944 to hide weapons in order to sustain a large-scale guerilla warfare in the event the Soviet Union tried to occupy Finland in the aftermath of the Continuation War. See also Operation Stella Polaris.
In 1991, the Swedish media claimed that a secret stay-behind army had existed in neutral Finland with an exile base in Stockholm. Finnish Defence Minister Elisabeth Rehn called the revelations a fairy tale , adding cautiously or at least an incredible story, of which I know nothing. .[28] However, in his memoirs, former CIA director William Colby described the setting-up of stay-behind armies in Scandinavian countries, including Finland, with or without the assistance of local governments, to prepare for a Soviet invasion.[46]
Spain
Main article: Montejurra Incidents
Several events prior to Spain’s 1982 membership in NATO have also been tied to Gladio: In May 1976, a year after Franco’s death, two left-wing Carlist members were shot down by far-right terrorists, among whom Gladio operative Stefano Delle Chiaie and members of the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (Triple A), demonstrating connections between Gladio and the South American Dirty War . This incident became known as the Montejurra massacre.[76] According to a report by the Italian CESIS (Executive Committee for Intelligence and Security Services), Carlo Cicuttini (who took part in the 1972 Peteano bombing in Italy alongside Vincenzo Vinciguerra), participated in the 1977 Massacre of Atocha in Madrid, killing five people (including several lawyers), members of the Workers’ Commissions trade-unions closely linked with the Spanish Communist Party. Cicuttini was naturalized Spanish and exiled in Spain since 1972 (date of the Peteano bombing)[77]
Following Andreotti’s 1990 revelations, Adolfo Suárez, Spain’s first democratically elected Prime minister after Franco’s death, denied ever having heard of Gladio.[78] President of the Spanish government in 1981-82, during the transition to democracy, Calvo Sotelo stated that Spain had not been informed of Gladio when it entered NATO. Asked about Gladio’s relations to Franquist Spain, he said that such a network was not necessary under Franco, since the regime itself was Gladio. [79]
According to General Fausto Fortunato, head of Italian SISMI from 1971 to 1974, France and the US had backed Spain’s entrance to Gladio, but Italy would have opposed its veto to it. Following Andreotti’s revelations, however, Narcís Serra, Spanish Minister of Defense, opened up an investigation concerning Spain’s links to Gladio.[80][81] Furthermore, Canarias 7 newspaper revealed, quoting former Gladio agent Alberto Volo, who had a role in the revelations of the existence of the network in 1990, that a Gladio meeting had been organized in August 1991 in the Gran Canaria island.[82] Alberto Vollo also declared that as a Gladio operative, he had received trainings in Maspalomas, in the Gran Canaria island between the 1960s and the 1970s.[83] El País daily also revealed that the Gladio organization was suspected of having used former NASA installations in Maspalomas, in the Gran Canaria island, in the 1970s.[84]
André Moyen, former Belgian secret agent, also declared that Gladio had operated in Spain.[85] He said that Gladio had bases in Madrid, Barcelona, San Sebastián and the Canarias islands.
Sweden
In 1951, CIA agent William Colby, based at the CIA station in Stockholm supported the training of stay-behind armies in neutral Sweden and Finland and in the NATO members Norway and Denmark. In 1953, the police arrested right winger Otto Hallberg and discovered the Swedish stay-behind army. Hallberg was set free and charges against him were mysteriously dropped.[28]
Switzerland
Main article: Projekt-26
In Switzerland, a secret army named P26 was discovered, by coincidence months before Giulio Andreotti’s October 1990 revelations. After the secret files scandal (Fichenaffäre), Swiss parliamentaries started investigating the Defense Department in the summer of 1990. According to Felix Würsten of the ETH Zurich, P26 was not directly involved in the network of NATO’s secret armies but it had close contact to MI6. [86] Daniele Ganser (ETH Zurich) wrote in the Intelligence and National Security review that following the discovery of the stay-behind armies across Western Europe in late 1990, Swiss and international security researchers found themselves confronted with two clear-cut questions: Did Switzerland also operate a secret stay-behind army? And if yes, was it part of NATO’s stay-behind network? The answer to the first question is clearly yes… The answer to the second question remains disputed… [87]
Swiss Major Hans von Dach published in 1958 Der totale Widerstand, Kleinkriegsanleitung für jedermann ( Total Resistance, Bienne, 1958) concerning guerrilla warfare, a book of 180 pages about passive and active resistance to a foreign invasion, including detailed instructions on sabotage, clandestinity, methods to dissimulate weapons, struggle against police moles, etc.[88]
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]
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]
The Order of the Solar Temple mystery
Psychiatrist Jean-Marie Abgrall has alleged[90][verification needed] 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.
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
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* 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
Cold War
Participants NATO A Non-Aligned Movement A SEATO A Warsaw Pact
1940s
Yalta Conference A Operation Unthinkable A Potsdam Conference A Gouzenko Affair A Iran crisis of 1946 A Greek Civil War A Restatement of Policy on Germany A First Indochina War A Truman Doctrine A Marshall Plan A Czechoslovak coup d’état of 1948 A Tito–Stalin split A Berlin Blockade A Western betrayal A Iron Curtain A Eastern Bloc A Chinese Civil War (Second round)
1950s
Korean War A 1953 Iranian coup d’état A Uprising of 1953 in East Germany A 1954 Guatemalan coup d’état A Partition of Vietnam A First Taiwan Strait Crisis A Geneva Summit (1955) A Poznan’ 1956 protests A Hungarian Revolution of 1956 A Suez Crisis A Sputnik crisis A Second Taiwan Strait Crisis A Cuban Revolution A Kitchen Debate A Asian-African Conference A Bricker Amendment A McCarthyism A Operation Gladio A Hallstein Doctrine
1960s
Congo Crisis A Sino-Soviet split A 1960 U-2 incident A Bay of Pigs Invasion A Cuban Missile Crisis A Berlin Wall A Vietnam War A 1964 Brazilian coup d’état A U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic A South African Border War A Transition to the New Order A Domino theory A ASEAN Declaration A Laotian Civil War A Greek military junta of 1967–1974 A Cultural Revolution A 1962 Sino-Indian War A Prague Spring A Goulash Communism A Sino-Soviet border conflict
1970s
Détente A Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty A Black September in Jordan A Cambodian Civil War A Ping Pong Diplomacy A Four Power Agreement on Berlin A 1972 Nixon visit to China A 1973 Chilean coup d’état A Yom Kippur War A Strategic Arms Limitation Talks A Angolan Civil War A Mozambican Civil War A Ogaden War A Cambodian-Vietnamese War A Sino-Vietnamese War A Iranian Revolution A Operation Condor A Bangladesh Liberation War A Korean Air Lines Flight 902
1980s
Soviet war in Afghanistan A Olympic boycotts A History of Solidarity A Contras A Central American Crisis A RYAN A Korean Air Lines Flight 007 A Able Archer 83 A Strategic Defense Initiative A Invasion of Grenada A Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 A Invasion of Panama A Fall of the Berlin Wall A Revolutions of 1989 A Glasnost A Perestroika
1990s
Breakup of Yugoslavia A Dissolution of the USSR A Dissolution of Czechoslovakia
See also
Soviet and Russian espionage in U.S. A Soviet Union–United States relations A NATO-Russia relations
Organizations
ASEAN A Central Intelligence Agency A Comecon A European Community A KGB A Stasi
Races
Arms race A Nuclear arms race A Space Race
Ideologies
Capitalism A Liberal democracy A Communism A Stalinism A Trotskyism A Maoism
Propaganda
Pravda A Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty A Red Scare A Voice of America A Voice of Russia
Foreign policy
Truman Doctrine A Marshall Plan A Containment A Eisenhower Doctrine A Domino theory A Kennedy Doctrine A Peaceful coexistence A Ostpolitik A Johnson Doctrine A Brezhnev Doctrine A Nixon Doctrine A Ulbricht Doctrine A Carter Doctrine A Reagan Doctrine A Rollback
Timeline of events A Portal A Category
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
***
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
Mexico City orphaned source, 1962
compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston
last modified 26 October 2008
Date: 21 March-August 1962
Location: Mexico City, Mexico
Type of event: lost radiography source
Description:
In March 1962 a 10-year-old boy discovered a 5-Ci cobalt-60 industrial radiography source, not in its shielded container. The boy carried the source in a pocket for several days, then it was placed in a kitchen cabinet in his home. Four family members died of resulting radiation sickness: the boy died 29 April (day 38), his mother on 19 July, his 2-year-old sister on 18 August, and his grandmother on 15 October. Radiation exposure was not identified as the cause of the deaths until July-August. The father survived with lesser symptoms. Estimated doses for the four who died were 4,700-5,200 rad, 3,500 rad, 3,000 rad, and 2,870 rad; dose to the father was about 990-1,200 rad.
Consequences: 4 fatalities, 1 injury.
References:
* IAEA, 1988, The Radiological Accident in Goiania, IAEA (Vienna, Austria), on line at IAEA [http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub815_web.pdf].
* Molecular Biology Working Group, 27 August 1969, Radiation sickness or death caused by surreptitious administration of ionizing radiation to an individual, on line at Mindfully.org [http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/Surreptitious-Radiation-Administration.htm].
* Mould, R. F., 2000, Chernobyl Record: The Definitive History of the Chernobyl Catastrophe, Institute of Physics Publ. (Bristol, UK).
* Nenot, J.-C., 2002, Second Henri Jammet Memorial Lecture. Radiation accidents–an overview and feedback, 1950-2000, in 8th Coordination Meeting of World Health Organization Collaborating Centres in Radiation Emergency Medical Preparedness and Assistance Network, REMPAN, WHO [http://www.helid.desastres.net/?e=d-000who–000–1-0–010—4—–0–0-10l–11en-5000—50-about-0—01131-001-110utfZz-8-0-0&a=d&cl=CL1.6&d=Js2993e.4].
* Ortiz, P., M. Oresegun, and J. Wheatley, 2000, Lessons from major radiation accidents, on line, Internationl Radiation Protection Association [http://www.irpa.net/irpa10/cdrom/00140.pdf].
* Smith, H., 1983, Dose-effect relationships for early response to total body irradiation, Journal of the Society for Radiological Protection, 3:5-10.
2004-2007, 2008 by Wm. Robert Johnston.
Last modified 26 October 2008.
Return to Home. Return to Nuclear Weapons Resources. Return to Database of radiological incidents and related events.
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/1962MEX1.html
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Database of radiological incidents and related events–Johnston’s Archive
Scotland radiography accident, 1969
compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston
last modified 18 September 2007
Date: 20 September 1969
Location: Scotland, United Kingdom
Type of event: accidental exposure to radiography source
Description:
On 20 September a radiographer was transporting a 25 curie iridium-192 source to a work site for radiography of gas pipelines. He loaded the source into the front seat of his car and drove 3 hours to his destination, when a co-worker noticed that the source housing was open, directing a radiation beam towards the driver’s seat. The radiographer developed skin injury on the chest on 2 October, with symptoms worse by 5 October when he went to a doctor. Injury to one hand also developed. A large ulcer developed on the chest, requiring surgery in April 1970. Damage to two ribs and the heart muscle were identified, with an estimated dose of 2,000-20,000 rad to the skin, 2,000 to the heart muscle, and 1,500 to the hand; whole body dose was estimated at 60 rad. Accident reconstruction suggested that the source may have been adjacent to the skin of the chest, but the radiographer denied this possibility.
Consequences: 1 injury.
References:
* Harrison, N. T., P. C. Escott, G. W. Dolphin, R. J. Purrott, J. L. Alexander, and K. E. Hainan, Sept. 1973, The investigation and reconstruction of a severe radiation injury to an industrial radiography in Scotland, 3rd IRPA Congress Proceedings, on line, IRPA [http://www2000.irpa.net/irpa3/cdrom/VOL.3A/W3A_115.PDF].
2004-2006, 2007 by Wm. Robert Johnston.
Last modified 18 September 2007.
Return to Home. Return to Nuclear Weapons Resources. Return to Database of radiological incidents and related events.
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/1969UKG1.html
***
Scientific misconduct
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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v • d • e
Scientific misconduct is the violation of the standard codes of scholarly conduct and ethical behavior in professional scientific research. A Lancet review on Handling of Scientific Misconduct in Scandinavian countries provides the following sample definitions:[1] (reproduced in The COPE report 1999[2])
* Danish Definition: Intention(al) or gross negligence leading to fabrication of the scientific message or a false credit or emphasis given to a scientist
* Swedish Definition: Intention(al) distortion of the research process by fabrication of data, text, hypothesis, or methods from another researcher’s manuscript form or publication; or distortion of the research process in other ways.
The consequences of scientific misconduct can be severe at a personal level for both perpetrators and any individual who exposes it. In addition there are public health implications attached to the promotion of medical or other interventions based on dubious research findings.
Contents
* 1 Motivation to commit scientific misconduct
* 2 Forms of scientific misconduct
* 3 Responsibility of authors and of coauthors
* 4 Photo manipulation
* 5 Suppression/non-publication of data
* 6 Consequences for science
* 7 Consequences for those who expose misconduct
* 8 Exposure of falsified data
* 9 Alleged cases
* 10 See also
o 10.1 Categories
* 11 Notes
* 12 References
* 13 External links
Motivation to commit scientific misconduct
According to David Goodstein of Caltech, there are three main motivators for scientists to commit misconduct, which are briefly summarised here.
Career pressure
Science is still a very strongly career-driven discipline. Scientists depend on a good reputation to receive ongoing support and funding; and a good reputation relies largely on the publication of high-profile scientific papers. Hence, there is a strong imperative to publish or perish . Clearly, this may motivate desperate (or fame-hungry) scientists to fabricate results.
To this category may also be added a paranoia that there are other scientists out there who are close to success in the same experiment, which puts extra pressure on being the first one. It is suggested as a cause of the fraud of Hwang Woo-Suk.[citation needed][3] A main source of detection comes when other research teams in fact fail or get different results.
Pride
Even on the rare occasions when scientists do falsify data, they almost never do so with the active intent to introduce false information into the body of scientific knowledge. Rather, they intend to introduce a fact that they believe is true, without going to the trouble and difficulty of actually performing the experiments required.
The ability to get away with it
In many scientific fields, results are often difficult to reproduce accurately, being obscured by noise, artifacts and other extraneous data. That means that even if a scientist does falsify data, they can expect to get away with it – or at least claim innocence if their results conflict with others in the same field. There is no scientific police which is trained to fight scientific crimes, all investigations are made by experts in science but amateurs in dealing with criminals. It is relatively easy to cheat.
Money
There is the additional incentive of money. If one has a promising proposal in area where federal or other grant money or funding is available especially in new technologies where there is no existing standard against which to compare, the submission of preliminary data cannot be confirmed until further research is done.
Ideology
While perhaps the least common incentive, it is still there. The classic example would be anti-abortionists claiming sonograms show the silent scream of an aborted fetus demonstrates the fetus is alive with feeling, while pro-abortionists would submit demographic studies showing that woman who considered abortion but later decided against it are doomed to life of dependency on welfare, lower socio-economic status, relationship abuse, child abuse, drug abuse, etc.
Forms of scientific misconduct
Forms of scientific misconduct include:
* fabrication – the publication of deliberately false or misleading research, often subdivided into:
o Obfuscation – The Omission of critical data or results. Example: Only reporting positive outcomes and not adverse outcomes.
o Fabrication – the actual making up of research data and (the intent of) publishing them, sometimes referred to as drylabbing .[4]
o Falsification – manipulation of research data and processes in order to reflect or prevent a certain result.[5]
o bare assertions – making entirely unsubstantiated claims
Another form of fabrication is where references are included to give arguments the appearance of widespread acceptance, but are actually fake, and/or do not support the argument.[6]
* plagiarism – the act of taking credit (or attempting to take credit) for the work of another.[7] A subset is citation plagiarism – willful or negligent failure to appropriately credit other or prior discoverers, so as to give an improper impression of priority. This is also known as, citation amnesia , the disregard syndrome and bibliographic negligence .[8] Arguably, this is the most common type of scientific misconduct. Sometimes it is difficult to guess whether authors intentionally ignored a highly relevant cite or lacked knowledge of the prior work. Discovery credit can also be inadvertently reassigned from the original discoverer to a better-known researcher. This is a special case of the Matthew effect.[9]
* self-plagiarism – or multiple publication of the same content with different titles and/or in different journals is sometimes also considered misconduct; scientific journals explicitly ask authors not to do this. It is referred to as salami (i.e. many identical slices) in the jargon of medical journal editors (MJE). According to some MJE this includes publishing the same article in a different language.[10]
* the violation of ethical standards regarding human and animal experiments – such as the standard that a human subject of the experiment must give informed consent to the experiment.[11]
* ghostwriting – the phenomenon where someone other than the named author(s) makes a major contribution. Typically, this is done to mask contributions from drug companies. It incorporates plagiarism and has an additional element of financial fraud.
* Conversely, research misconduct is not limited to NOT listing authorship, but also includes the conferring authorship on those that have not made substantial contributions to the research.[12][13] This is done by senior researchers who muscle their way onto the papers of inexperienced junior researchers[14] as well as others that stack authorship in an effort to guarantee publication. This is much harder to prove due to a lack of consistency in defining authorship or substantial contribution .[15][16][17]
* Misappropriation of data – Literally stealing the work and results of others and publishing as to make it appear the author had performed all the work under which the data was obtained.
In addition, some academics consider suppression–the failure to publish significant findings due to the results being adverse to the interests of the researcher or his/her sponsor(s)–to be a form of misconduct as well; this is discussed below.
In some cases, scientific misconduct may also constitute violations of the law, but not always. Being accused of the activities described in this article is a serious matter for a practicing scientist, with severe consequences should it be determined that a researcher intentionally or carelessly engaged in misconduct.
Three percent of the 3,475 research institutions that report to the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Research Integrity, indicate some form of scientific misconduct. (Source: Wired Magazine, March 2004) However the ORI will only investigate allegations of impropriety where research was funded by federal grants. They routinely monitor such research publication for red flags.
Other private organizations like the Committee of Medical Journal Editors (COJE) can only police their own member-journals.
The validity of the methods and results of scientific papers are often scrutinized in journal clubs. In this venue, members can decide amongst themselves with the help of peers if a scientific paper’s ethical standards are met.
The U.S. National Science Foundation defines three types of research misconduct: fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism.[18][19] Fabrication is making up results and recording or reporting them. Falsification is manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record. Plagiarism is the appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit.
Responsibility of authors and of coauthors
Authors and coauthors of scientific publications have a variety of responsibilities. Contravention of the rules of scientific authorship may lead to a charge of scientific misconduct. All authors, including coauthors, are expected to have made reasonable attempts to check findings submitted to academic journals for publication. Simultaneous submission of scientific findings to more than one journal or duplicate publication of findings is usually regarded as misconduct, under what is known as the Ingelfinger rule, named after the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine 1967-1977, Franz Ingelfinger.[20]
Guest authorship (where there is stated authorship in the absence of involvement, also known as gift authorship) and ghost authorship (where the real author is not listed as an author) are commonly regarded as forms of research misconduct. In some cases coauthors of faked research have been accused of inappropriate behavior or research misconduct for failing to verify reports authored by others or by a commercial sponsor. Examples include the case of Gerald Schatten who co-authored with Hwang Woo-Suk, the case of Professor Geoffrey Chamberlain who co-authored papers with Pearce,[21] and the coauthors with Jan Hendrik Schön at Bell Laboratories. More recent cases include the Charles Nemeroff, then the editor-in-chief of Neuropsychopharmacology, and a well documented case involving the drug Actonel Sheffield Actonel affair.
Authors are expected to keep all study data for later examination even after publication. The failure to keep data may be regarded as misconduct. Some scientific journals require that authors provide information to allow readers to determine whether the authors might have commercial or non-commercial conflicts of interest. Authors are also commonly required to provide information about ethical aspects of research, particularly where research involves human or animal participants or use of biological material. Provision of incorrect information to journals may be regarded as misconduct. Financial pressures on universities have encouraged this type of misconduct. The majority of recent cases of alleged misconduct involving undisclosed conflicts of interest or failure of the authors to have seen scientific data involve collaborative research between scientists and biotechnology companies (Nemeroff, Blumsohn).
Photo manipulation
In 2006, the Journal of Cell Biology gained publicity [22] for instituting tests to detect photo manipulation in papers that were being considered for publication. This was in response to the increased usage of programs by scientists such as Adobe Photoshop, which facilitate photo manipulation. Since then more publishers, including the Nature Publishing Group have instituted similar tests and require authors to minimize and specify the extent of photo manipulation when a manuscript is submitted for publication
Although the type of manipulation that is allowed can depend greatly on the type of experiment that is presented and also differ from one journal to another, in general the following manipulations are not allowed:
* splicing together different images to represent a single experiment
* changing brightness and contrast of only a part of the image
* any change that conceals information, even when it is considered to be aspecific, which includes:
o changing brightness and contrast to leave only the most intense signal
o using clone tools to hide information
* showing only a very small part of the photograph so that additional information is not visible
And more in general, most journals nowadays urge authors to use photo manipulation with restraint and great care.
Suppression/non-publication of data
A related issue concerns the deliberate suppression, failure to publish, or selective release of the findings of scientific studies. Such cases may not be strictly definable as scientific misconduct as the deliberate falsification of results is not present. However, in such cases the intent may nevertheless be to deliberately deceive. Studies may be suppressed or remain unpublished because the findings are perceived to undermine the commercial, political or other interests of the sponsoring agent or because they fail to support the ideological goals of the researcher. Examples include the failure to publish studies if they demonstrate the harm of a new drug, or truthfully publishing the benefits of a treatment while omitting harmful side-effects.
This is distinguishable from other concepts such as bad science, junk science or pseudoscience where the criticism centres on the methodology or underlying assumptions. It may be possible in some cases to use statistical methods to show that the datasets offered in relation to a given field are incomplete. However this may simply reflect the existence of real-world restrictions on researchers without justifying more sinister conclusions.
Some cases go beyond the failure to publish complete reports of all findings with researchers knowingly making false claims based on falsified data. This falls clearly under the definition of scientific misconduct, even if the result was achieved by suppressing data. In the case of Raphael B. Stricker, M.D.[23], for instance, the U.S. Office of Research Integrity has found the removal of samples from a data set in order to reach a desired conclusion to be grounds for disbarment from funding.
Consequences for science
The consequences of scientific fraud vary based on the severity of the fraud, the level of notice it receives, and how long it goes undetected. For cases of fabricated evidence, the consequences can be wide ranging, with others working to confirm (or refute) the false finding, or with research agendas being distorted to address the fraudulent evidence. The Piltdown Man fraud is a case in point: The significance of the bona-fide fossils being found was muted for decades because they disagreed with Piltdown Man and the pre-conceived notions that those faked fossils supported. In addition, the prominent paleontologist Arthur Smith Woodward spent time at Piltdown each year until he died trying to find more Piltdown Man remains. The misdirection of resources kept others from taking the real fossils more seriously and delayed the reaching of a correct understanding of human evolution. (The Taung Child, which should have been the death knell for the view that the human brain evolved first, was instead treated very critically because of its disagreement with the Piltdown Man evidence.)
In the case of Dr Albert Steinschneider, two decades and tens of millions of research dollars were lost trying to find the elusive link between infant sleep apnea, that Steinschneider said he had observed and recorded in his laboratory and claimed was a precursor of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). The cover was blown in 1994, 22 years after Steinschneider’s 1972 Pediatrics paper claiming such an association,[24] when Waneta Hoyt, the mother of the patients in the paper, was arrested, indicted and convicted on 5 counts of second degree manslaughter for the smothering deaths of her five children.[25] While that in itself was bad enough, the paper, presumably written as an attempt in trying to save infants’ lives, ironically was ultimately used as a defense in cases where parents were suspected in multiple deaths of their own children in cases of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. The 1972 Pediatrics’ paper was cited by 404 papers in the interim and is still listed on Pubmed without comment. [26]
Consequences for those who expose misconduct
The potentially severe consequences for individuals who are found to have engaged in misconduct also reflect back on the institutions that host or employ them and also on the participants in any peer review process that has allowed the publication of questionable research. This means that a range of actors in any case may have a motivation to suppress any evidence or suggestion of misconduct. This means that persons who expose such cases can find themselves open to retaliation by a number of different means.[21] These negative consequences for exposers of misconduct have driven the development of whistle blowers charters – designed to protect those who raise concerns. A whistleblower is almost always alone in his fight – his career becomes completely dependent on the decision about alleged misconduct. If the accusations prove false, his career is completely destroyed, but even in case of positive decision the career of the whistleblower can be under question: his reputation of troublemen will prevent many employers from hiring him. There is no international body where a whistleblower could give his concerns. If a university fails to investigate suspected fraud or provides a fake investigation to save their reputation the whistleblower has no right of appeal. High profile journals like Nature and Science usually forward all allegations to the university where the authors are employed, or may do nothing at all.
Exposure of falsified data
With the advancement of the internet, there are now several tools available to aid in the detection of plagiarism and multiple publication within biomedical literature. One tool developed in 2006 by researchers in Dr. Harold Garner’s laboratory at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas is Déjà Vu, an open-access database containing several thousand instances of duplicate publication. All of the entries in the database were discovered through the use of text data mining algorithm eTBLAST, also created in Dr. Garner’s laboratory. The creation of Déjà Vu and the subsequent classification of several hundred articles contained therein have ignited much discussion in the scientific community concerning issues such as ethical behavior, journal standards, and intellectual copyright. Studies on this database have been published in journals such as Nature and Science, among others.[27][28]
Other tools which may be used to detect falsified data include error analysis. Measurements generally have a small amount of error, and repeated measurements of the same item will generally result in slight differences in readings. These differences can be analyzed, and follow certain known mathematical and statistical properties. Should a set of data appear to be too faithful to the hypothesis, i.e., the amount of error that would normally be in such measurements does not appear, a conclusion can be drawn that the data may have be forged. Error analysis alone is typically not sufficient to prove that data has been falsified, but it may provide the supporting evidence necessary to confirm suspicions of misconduct.
Alleged cases
Below are some cases of alleged scientific misconduct.
* Richard Eastell – Actonel Affair; resigned after allegations of financial irregularities; (Medicine)[29][30] (citations linked from [31])
* Woo-Suk Hwang (Hwang Woo-Suk) (cloning) [32]
* Leo A. Paquette[33][34] (chemistry)
* Karen M. Ruggiero (social psychology), fabricated data on 240 participants in a study supported by NIH[35][36]
* Albert Steinschneider – Sleep apnea, SIDS[24][37][38][39][25][32]
* Kazunari Taira [40] (molecular biology)
See also
* Archaeological forgery
* Betrayers of the Truth: Fraud and Deceit in the Halls of Science
* Bioethics
* Cudos
* DCSD – Danish committee which investigated Bjørn Lomborg
* Engineering ethics
* Fabrication (science)
* List of cognitive biases
* List of fallacies
* List of memory biases
* List of plagiarism controversies
* Lysenkoism
* Politicization of science
* Problematic physics experiments
* Reproducibility
* Research ethics
* Retraction
* Semmelweis Society
* Scientific method
* Scientific plagiarism in India
* Sham peer review
* Source criticism
* Straight and Crooked Thinking
* The Great Betrayal: Fraud In Science
Categories
* Category:Hoaxes in science
* Category:Scientific misconduct
* Category:Scientific skepticism
Notes
1. ^ Nylenna, Magne; Daniel Andersen, Gisela Dahiquist, Matti Sarvas, Asbjørn Aakvaag (3 July 1999). Handling of scientific dishonesty in the Nordic countries . The Lancet 354. Definition of dishonesty .
2. ^ Coping with fraud (PDF). The COPE Report 1999: 11–18. Archived from the original on 2007-09-28. http://web.archive.org/web/20070928151119/http://www.publicationethics.org.uk/reports/1999/1999pdf3.pdf. Retrieved 2006-09-02. It is 10 years, to the month, since Stephen Lock … Reproduced with kind permission of the Editor, The Lancet. . [dead link]
3. ^ Phenomenon of Collective Nobel-Prize Paranoia vs Phenomenon of Nobel-Prize Hunger
4. ^ Shapiro, M.F. (1992), Data audit by a regulatory agency: Its effect and implication for others , Accountability in Research 2 (3): 219–229, doi:10.1080/08989629208573818, http://www.informaworld.com/index/793939942.pdf
5. ^ Emmeche, slide 3
6. ^ Emmeche, slide 5
7. ^ Publication Ethics Policies for Medical Journals — The World Association of Medical Editors . Wame.org. http://www.wame.org/resources/publication-ethics-policies-for-medical-journals#plagiarism. Retrieved 2009-07-30.
8. ^ meher mistry. Demand Citation Vigilance, The Scientist, 16(2):6, January 21, 2002 . Garfield.library.upenn.edu. http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/papers/demandcitationvigilance012102.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30.
9. ^ Emmeche, slide 3, who refers to the phenonemon as Dulbecco’s law
10. ^ Publication Ethics Policies for Medical Journals — The World Association of Medical Editors . Wame.org. http://www.wame.org/resources/publication-ethics-policies-for-medical-journals#orig. Retrieved 2009-07-30.
11. ^ Publication Ethics Policies for Medical Journals — The World Association of Medical Editors . Wame.org. http://www.wame.org/resources/publication-ethics-policies-for-medical-journals#study. Retrieved 2009-07-30.
12. ^ http://www.icmje.org/#author
13. ^ Publication Ethics Policies for Medical Journals — The World Association of Medical Editors . Wame.org. http://www.wame.org/resources/publication-ethics-policies-for-medical-journals#authorship. Retrieved 2009-07-30.
14. ^ Kwok LS (September 2005). The White Bull effect: abusive coauthorship and publication parasitism . J Med Ethics 31 (9): 554–6. doi:10.1136/jme.2004.010553. PMID 16131560. PMC: 1734216. http://jme.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/31/9/554.
15. ^ Bates T, Anic’ A, Marusic’ M, Marusic’ A (July 2004). Authorship criteria and disclosure of contributions: comparison of 3 general medical journals with different author contribution forms . JAMA 292 (1): 86–8. doi:10.1001/jama.292.1.86. PMID 15238595. http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/292/1/86.
16. ^ Bhopal R, Rankin J, McColl E, et al. (April 1997). The vexed question of authorship: views of researchers in a British medical faculty . BMJ 314 (7086): 1009–12. PMID 9112845. PMC: 2126416. http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/314/7086/1009?view=long&pmid=9112845.
17. ^ Wager E (2007). Do medical journals provide clear and consistent guidelines on authorship? . MedGenMed 9 (3): 16. PMID 18092023. PMC: 2100079. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2100079.
18. ^ New Research Misconduct Policies, NSF
19. ^ 45 CFR Part 689 [1]
20. ^ http://www.councilscienceeditors.org/members/securedDocuments/v25n6p195-198.pdf
21. ^ a b Lessons from the Pearce affair: handling scientific fraud , BMJ (310): 1547, 17 June 1995, http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/310/6994/1547?ijkey=96921f60856061f95125fe2d11452a1a4e7623f3&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha, retrieved 2009-09-08, in Britain … brushed under the carpet, and the whistleblower would probably have been hounded out of his or her job. (requires free registration)
22. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/24/science/24frau.html?_r=1
23. ^ Nih Guide: Final Findings Of Scientific Misconduct . Grants.nih.gov. http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/not93-177.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30.
24. ^ a b Steinschneider A (October 1972). Prolonged apnea and the sudden infant death syndrome: clinical and laboratory observations . Pediatrics 50 (4): 646–54. PMID 4342142. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/50/4/646.
25. ^ a b Talan, Jamie; Firstman, Richard (1997). The death of innocents. New York: Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-10013-0. http://www.amazon.com/Death-Innocents-Medicine-High-Stake-Science/dp/0553100130/.
26. ^ Prolonged apnea and the sudden infant death syndro…[Pediatrics. 1972] – PubMed Result
27. ^ Errami M, Garner HR (2008-01-23). A tale of two citations . Nature. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/451397a.
28. ^ Long TC, Errami M, George AC, Sun Z, Garner HR (2009-03-06). SCIENTIFIC INTEGRITY: Responding to Possible Plagiarism . Science. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1167408.
29. ^ Jo Revill (2006-01-15). Doctor in drug research row quits NHS post . Observer. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2006/jan/15/health.healthandwellbeing. Retrieved 2009-09-08.
30. ^ Phil Baty (2006-01-06). Drugs trial row scientist resigns . Times Higher Education. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=200608. Retrieved 2009-09-08. did not indicate that initial inquiries uncovered wrongdoing
31. ^ Actonel Case Media Reports – Scientific Misconduct Wiki
32. ^ a b Altman, Larry (May 2, 2006). For Science’s Gatekeepers, a Credibility Gap . New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/02/health/02docs.htm. Retrieved 2008-03-26. Recent disclosures of fraudulent or flawed studies in medical and scientific journals have called into question as never before the merits of their peer-review system. The system is based on journals inviting independent experts to critique submitted manuscripts. The stated aim is to weed out sloppy and bad research, ensuring the integrity of the what it has published.
33. ^ ScienceWeek . ScienceWeek. 1998-03-20. http://scienceweek.com/1998/sw980320.htm. Retrieved 2009-09-08. agreed to a legally binding settlement, in which Paquette excludes himself from receiving any federal funding for the next 2 years, while NSF agrees not to issue a finding of scientific misconduct. … university’s chemistry department, however, considers the plagiarism charge insignificant, saying that Paquette’s actions could be considered sloppy, but do not constitute plagiarism by most definitions.
34. ^ C:\Documents and Settings\JEgbert\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\D1I6JYFV\Vol1no3[1].wpd (PDF). http://ori.dhhs.gov/documents/newsletters/vol1_no3.pdf. Retrieved 2009-07-30.
35. ^ Nih Guide: Findings Of Scientific Misconduct . United States Department of Health and Human Services. 2001-12-13. http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-02-020.html. Retrieved 2009-09-08. NOTICE: NOT-OD-02-020
36. ^ Bridget Murray (February 2002), Research fraud needn’t happen at all , Monitor on Psychology (American Psychological Association) 33 (2), http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb02/fraud.html, retrieved 2009-09-08
37. ^ Hick JF (July 1973). Letter to editor: Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and Child Abuse . Pediatrics 52 (1): 147. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/52/1/147.
38. ^ Steinschneider A (June 1994). Prolonged apnea and the sudden infant death syndrome: clinical and laboratory observations . Pediatrics 93 (6): 944. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/93/6/944.
39. ^ Lucey JF (June 1994). Woman Confesses in Deaths of Children . Pediatrics 93 (6): 944. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/93/6/944-b.
40. ^ Nature. Access : Doubts over biochemist’s data expose holes in Japanese fraud laws . Nature. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v439/n7076/full/439514a.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30.
References
* Broad, William & Wade, Nicholas (1982). Betrayers of the Truth. Oxford University Press.
* Kilbourne, Brock K. & Kilbourne, Maria T. (1983). The Dark Side of Science, Proc. of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Pacific Division, AAAS, April 30, 1983.
* Claus Emmeche. An old and a recent example of scientific fraud (PowerPoint). http://www.nbi.dk/natphil/kur/phd/3.Fraud_def_ex_01a.ppt. Retrieved 2007-05-18.
* Mounir Errami, Justin M. Hicks, Wayne Fisher, David Trusty, Jonathan D. Wren, Tara C. Long, and Harold R. Garner. (2007).Déjà vu – A Study of Duplicate Citations in Medline. Bioinformatics, Dec 2007.
* Kochan, Carol Ann & Budd, John M. (1992). The persistence of fraud in the literature: The Darsee Case. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 43(7), 488-493.
External links
* Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE )
* World Association of Medical Editors (WAME)
* International Committee of Medical Journal Editors
* [2][dead link]
* http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/homeopathy.shtml
* [3][dead link]
* [4][dead link]
* Scientists exposed as sloppy reporters
* Lancet article on the handling of Scientific Misconduct in Scandinavian countries[dead link]
* Accountability in Research (journal)
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_misconduct
Categories: Scientific misconduct | Types of scientific fallacy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_misconduct
***
Category:Types of scientific fallacy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Subcategories
This category has the following 2 subcategories, out of 2 total.
[+] Cognitive biases (2 C, 127 P)
[+] Pseudoscience (27 C, 257 P)
Pages in category Types of scientific fallacy
The following 16 pages are in this category, out of 16 total. This list may not reflect recent changes (learn more).
C
* Cargo cult science
E
* Experimenter’s bias
F
* Fabrication (science)
* Flat Earth Society
* Folk psychology
O
* Observer effect
P
* Pathological science
* Politicization of science
* Popular psychology
* Pseudoscience
* Psychobabble
S
* Scientific misconduct
* Scientism
V
* Valence effect
* Voodoo science
W
* Wishful thinking
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Types_of_scientific_fallacy
Categories: Scientific method | Causal fallacies | Belief | Communication of falsehoods | Philosophy of science | Science and culture | Scientific folklore
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Types_of_scientific_fallacy
***
08 Sunday Mar 2015
Posted cricketdiane, Human Rights
inTags
Civil Rights, cricketdiane, gender pay gap, Human Rights, international women's day, women, women's day, Women's Rights
I was thinking about the recent trend that says beauty offers equality for women. It isn’t equality. When a fat ugly man is paid the same as a handsome man of average size, it isn’t that for women. A fat, ugly or even an aging woman is not paid the same as a beautiful woman for the same job and neither are paid as much as a man doing it. That isn’t equality.
The problem is, this bias is cheating everybody. It steals from the families that third of an earned income she is actually entitled to earn for doing that job. It steals from the community in which she and her family lives. And, it steals from income that would be serving businesses and organizations in the community where that money would be spent.
Every time a business chooses to pay a woman less than another in the same job for the same efforts and time spent, it is theft of economic resources which would be spent in that community and available to her family’s resources. Men are allowing it to go on this way unabated because they do not understand that they are stealing from themselves and from their own communities, from their own families.
It doesn’t seem that way to the business decision-makers who are making those choices based on their own perceptions of inherent value given to various employee groups. But it is taking funds away from sales and income within the community to serve states, to serve the tax base, to serve businesses and their sales, to serve organizations who also purchase within communities, and to serve families who provide the base for all of it.
This year on International Women’s Day, I’ve been thinking about the vast majority of women who face such an uneven playing field despite all the efforts to correct it. We can name the first woman Chief Technology Officer for a Forturne 500 company this year. How many years and how many corporations have maintained that seat in their companies all this time without ever considering any woman to fill it regardless of their capacity to do a good job in that seat?
How many weeks and months, even years of value and economic resources have been cheated from our communities and our families because businesses refuse to consider a woman’s pay for the same job to be the same as a man’s? That is money not spent as groceries, not spent for families to prosper, not spent anywhere, in fact.
– cricketdiane
**
03 Wednesday Sep 2014
Tags
America, Civil Rights, cricketdiane, diversity, equality, Freedom, Human Rights, Liberty, people, USA
Last week, I received a tweet from someone I’m following that had a link to an article about how diversity is bad for America. It was from a far right wing Christian group with a family supportive name and yet it is far from that. There must be those in the US who believe that the “all men are created equal” words from our Constitution doesn’t amount to much in practice. They are wrong.
Aside from the words in our Constitution, whether by nature or by author of a Creator as many religious faiths believe – our world is filled with not one single flower of all the same type and color, but many. In fact, there are thousands of flower types with varieties within each and even the single flower among them shows its own diversity from the vast majority.
There is a strength in diversity that has made America great. It is shown in nature by the very variety of plant and animal species which by God or nature ordained may be why that diversity exists. Each individual in a diverse system contributes what the rest cannot and in that way the fabric of the whole is strengthened.
In the fabric of our nation, it is the poor who bring a practicality of thinking to the table that no other could and it is the cultural differences among out people that bring strengths together which no other nation or peoples could gather. By being woven into one nation, we are each a part of something greater to which we are contributing and by our unique suitability are strengthening in our part as it is woven together with others.
Our weaknesses are but weakness when they have no context or useful purpose as a weed out of place in a garden. But those weaknesses can become strengths together with applying their lessons and using those ways of thinking they make possible, such as impatience applied where it’s use is helpful as ambition or refusing to wait when it isn’t helpful to be waiting any longer.
And when our individual weaknesses are joined with others – with both their strengths and weaknesses and unique perspectives and experiences, the strengthening and possibilities are heightened exponentially. That is what has made America great.
It is her people.
– cricketdiane
**
26 Tuesday Aug 2014
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#Copwatch is for the kids. And the elders. Matter of fact the whole damn barrio. #StandWithFergusonOrganizeYourHood
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Georgia restores gun rights to ex-cop who attempted to rape a woman with his gun http://slnm.us/4fVDRUc
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Philadelphia Earns Millions By Seizing Cash And Homes From People Never Charged With A Crime http://onforb.es/1viwyq8 via @forbes
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Victim reflects on police beating: “That’s when I expected to be shot.” @BojorquezCBS reports: http://cbsn.ws/1payazK
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A woman working full time at #minimumwage will earn $14,500 annually-$4,000 below poverty line for mom w/ 2 kids. #WEmatter #RaisetheWage
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Over 10,000 streets in Britain now have an average property price of more than £1 million http://fw.to/40mRB0W
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All police forces sign up to Best Use of #stopandsearch scheme ensuring powers are used more effectively and openly http://bit.ly/1mMGeBd
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BREAKING: An investigation has found evidence of “appalling” abuse of at least 1,400 children in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, over 16 years.
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Big news to share: Our latest annual count shows fewer than 50K homeless veterans in America—a 33% drop since 2010. http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/press/press_releases_media_advisories/2014/HUDNo_14-103 …
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Edward Baptist traces American management practices back to slavery in his new book, ‘The Half Has Never Been Told.’ http://pwne.ws/1qgFhFN
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CNN: New audio reveals 10 shots fired at Michael Brown. Cluster of 6… A pause… And then 4 more http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/26/us/michael-brown-ferguson-shooting/?c=&page=1 …
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2 of 3 Americans say police don’t do a good job in force, fairness, accountability, @USATODAY @PewResearch poll finds http://usat.ly/1p9Lmot
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The daily racism of Ferguson, as reported on by @DerSPIEGEL. “They’re like cockroaches.” http://spon.de/aejbq
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Police union, some union members upset that teachers & other unions join protest for Eric Garner, dead from chokehold http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/24/nyregion/at-eric-garner-rally-new-york-labor-groups-support-both-police-and-protestors.html?_r=0 …
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Young black man shoots himself in chest while hands cuffed behind him (in back of police car) http://bit.ly/1t6HXIP
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RT @Richard_Florida: Where More Americans Die at the Hands of Police – My latest @CityLab – http://www.citylab.com/crime/2014/08/where-more-americans-die-at-the-hands-of-police/379067/ … pic.twitter.com/jRnVhXOtTi
19 Tuesday Aug 2014
Tags
America, Civil Rights, Constitution, ferguson, Human Rights, police, police brutality, rights, USA
When I was growing up (I’m 56), there were terrible stories coming from other parts of the world, particularly from Russia about things their police would do to people. My grandaddy was a police officer, my uncle was a police officer and because it was the midst of the Cold War, everyone talked about those things. But it wasn’t that way here in America and it could never be that way here in America. But it is. It really is.
As an adult, I’ve experienced those brutalities at the hands of police that acted more like some dictator’s private armies than police officers. I’ve seen them act the same way to others, heard the stories of other women, other people with disabilities and brain injuries, from other people with epilepsy and mental difficulties, from other families whose members had the same experiences as well as seeing case after case by the thousands over the years on the news, in newspapers, in books and now online.
I didn’t go looking for these stories, they jumped out at me because of the wrongness with it compared to what I was taught about the country that is supposed to be the protector of human rights and the guarantor of citizens’ civil rights. I didn’t go looking for those experiences with police either and they weren’t a result of my having been some dangerous criminal. It didn’t have to be because of that. In fact, my research shows that people who do crimes, even the most heinous are more protected in their rights as a result of police wanting to insure the case against them goes forward. That isn’t true when it is someone like me who, by virtue of a lower social class, by disability, poverty, race or gender, is treated commonly with harassment, bullying, endangerment, abuse, brutality and wrongful treatment in every way by police.
In many years of being an adult in America, I can honestly say there have been maybe three law enforcement officers that I’ve ever met who were not like this out of thousands I’ve known and met for various reasons over the years since I was about 14. And that excludes the two in my family, but does include three officers in law enforcement who were decent but were not typical uniformed officers since they worked in other capacities as detectives and specialties. But, three people out of thousands with only those handful I interacted with that were good and decent, not engaged in adrenalin junkie, trigger happy beatings of people, didn’t man-handle and brutalize people like me, and did use the common sense one would expect. The rest of those thousands I’ve met were a human nightmare to the lives of others.
It was as if I had awakened into an America of Soviet KGB tactics or Gestapo days in Nazi run Germany but there was the American flag and everybody said everything was alright. And yet, it wasn’t. I knew it wasn’t. Those experiences couldn’t be right that I was having when police got anywhere near any situation and that others were experiencing too from what I could read about it and the news commonly was telling about it. Yet, those are the facts. They aren’t just mine. They aren’t some delusion about the United States in my adult lifetime. They are facts.
Maybe because my grandaddy was a policeman back when people could call a police officer – “a policeman” – maybe I noticed when Southern police departments struck out at others in their community to “keep them in their place” contrary to the legal demands against racism and for equality under the law. Maybe I noticed more because my family comes from the South, but I wasn’t raised there. But it wasn’t just the South where police were behaving that way. Something changed in how police did things and how they thought about the people in their communities they were supposed to be protecting and serving.
In California where we lived, police would sit near intersections waiting for a car’s hood to dip as it went across to hand out tickets for not yielding the right of way or going too fast through it or for a left-turning car having to slow down yet every intersection had two dips in them for water to drain away during rains. They caught a lot of people that way, gave out a lot of tickets and people became angrier and angrier with them. Each opportunity, when police in California would hand out that ticket, they would try to add as many things as they could to up the ante received by the city from it. Reminded me of the Georgia and Florida, Carolinas and Alabama kangaroo courts and speed traps that the FBI had to come into those towns and counties in order to put to an end.
And, we all watched as the Watts’ riots happened and Kent State and Trenton, NJ where in every case, the people had become the targeted enemy police had defined with intent to kill with little cause or no cause for it and using lethal force even when for a cause but not necessary in the situation. The entire nation watched horrified at those things and some changes seemed to be made and then they weren’t because that infection of brutality from police seem to spread into communities rather than during specific well-publicized events where they could get in trouble for it.
I read the other day on a website timeline about the drug wars and policing in US, that in 1970 the law was changed requiring police to knock first. At some point, the law was changed about needing some reasonable probable cause too, but it could have been undone piecemeal where effectively the laws requiring probable cause meant none was required anymore. None of it stopped the drugs nor the drug trade, but the police war on drugs pumped billions of dollars into equipment and gave entire armies of very psychotic personality-types of people good jobs and nice houses. There are now massive industries built upon the revenues from it, including prisons as businesses and too many others to name here or just about anywhere.
Somewhere in the midst of this government effort to gain control of the country and then to fight the drug wars, police became more like a well equipped hate force running rampant on the streets of America. Again in California, the Highway Patrol was so involved in harassing people and endangering people, brutalizing citizens in the process that for a while people would see their patrol cars coming, let them come up to the car and just shoot the officers and drive off. People were sick and tired of it. I watched people outraged that everything in their day and in their life had to be stopped by some police action on them over a ticket given for the least excuse as if police had a quota to meet. Then if the person came out of it alive, often having their car impounded, many times arrested because officers didn’t like something they said, and having to spend their hard earned money to pay bail, fines, spend time going to deal with it, destroying their household budget, sometimes costing their job too, and too often costing people their lives or ending up with them in the hospital.
And believe it or not, then it got worse. From the Watts’ riots onward in this country, the police, law enforcement, sheriff’s departments, drug enforcement agents eventually too, IRS agents, and drug interdiction agents among others, had no accountability. When something they did was wrong and obviously wrong to nearly any person across the entire public spectrum, they still wouldn’t be found accountable. Attorneys for cities, counties and the state which were funded by taxpayers, and their union lawyers, pr firms and lobbyists would come into the situation. And, regardless of how heinous a thing the officers did, they would be found innocent or exonerated or never taken to trial or never taken to grand jury to decide. (Although that never seemed to matter, grand juries would give the officer more than the benefit of the doubt, sometimes doing mentally and morally twisted backflips to give police the free rein to do as they might think is necessary – so would find them not guilty of any wrongdoing no matter what evidence was shown for it.)
As a result of the effective removal of any real checks and balances on abuses of power by police, across the nation policing became more commonly abusive, often underhanded tactics were used, violations of people’s rights fairly rampant and common, sneaky ways of covering what they had done amongst records they were supposed to keep was business as usual and people knew it was wrong but allowed it to go on. Often during the years of the drug wars in America, police would not go after those they knew were heavily involved in it because of the dangers but would turn to others in the community including those most vulnerable and use highly dangerous and often military style weapons, tactics and brutality on them.
This is the America where I’ve spent my adult life. After growing up middle class, all of my adult life has been spent in poverty, so I can honestly say that rights, freedoms, justice, Constitutional guarantees, civil rights and liberties, even the most basic human rights of people – including those in “protected” classes under the ADA and other laws to protect minorities and women – are not extended to all and not extended to all equally in America. I’ve seen it. I’ve experienced it. People I know have experienced it and we are still experiencing it today in 2014. For every one of us, there is a reason that police consider us differently than those they “must” treat morally, ethically, decently, humanely, reasonably, legally and Constitutionally.
– cricketdiane
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