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Perhaps the most troubling and terrifying development in the
wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11th is the emergence of biological
warfare as a real, instead of a potential, threat for our government and
the public to confront. To provide the historical context for this new
threat, the National Security Archive published on October 25, 2001 key
declassified documents on President Richard Nixon's decision to halt the
U.S. biological warfare program. In this updated briefing book, the Archive
is making available the official history of the U.S. Army's activities
in the U.S. biological weapons program (see Document
No. 26). New revelations in the news now make this history even
more vital to understand, since the mailed anthrax that has killed five
Americans in recent weeks may have come from the U.S. program, not from
foreign sources. According to William Broad in The New York Times
(December 3, 2001),
"The dry powder used in the anthrax attacks
is virtually indistinguishable in critical technical aspects from that
produced by the United States military before it shut down its biowarfare
program, according to federal scientists and a report prepared for a military
contractor.
The preliminary analysis of the powder
shows that it has the same extraordinarily high concentration of deadly
spores as the anthrax produced in the American weapons program. While it
is still possible that the anthrax could have a foreign source, the concentration
is higher than any stock publicly known to be produced by other governments.
The similarity to the levels achieved by
the United States military lends support to the idea that someone with
ties to the old program may be behind the attacks that killed five people."(1)
The threat of biological attack is placing new strains upon the public
health system, posing new challenges for those responsible for protecting
against new threats, and fostering both public fear and uncertainty about
personal safety and the risks of exposure to new terrorist biological attacks.
The possibility that terrorists may obtain access to far more virulent
biological agents, such as smallpox, eradicated decades earlier as a public
health menace, but still existent in U.S. and Russian laboratories, further
compounds the concerns and the challenge, as the possible U.S. source for
the anthrax attacks underscores.
Even before the terrorist attacks of September 11th, international efforts
to cage the biological warfare threat had made news in the U.S. and abroad.
The Bush administration this past July decided not to sign the protocol
to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention by providing monitoring
and compliance provisions, citing the administration's doubts about the
ability to verify compliance with the treaty and its concerns about the
impact both on the ability to continue work on biological warfare studies
deemed defensive, and on confidential business information. This decision
elicited extensive criticism among scientists and arms control analysts.(2)
Public attention was also drawn to the threat posed by biological warfare
and the hidden history of U.S. efforts in this line by the publication
of Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War by New
York Times journalists, whose findings were first given widespread
publicity in an article published in the Times just one week before the
terrorist attacks.(3)
The documents included in this briefing book shed light upon the decision
made by President Richard M. Nixon in 1969 to end all U.S. offensive biological
(and chemical) weapons programs, as well as upon the history of the U.S.
program. Remarkably, neither Nixon nor Henry A. Kissinger, his National
Security Advisor at the time, makes any mention of this decision in their
memoirs. But at the time, the administration felt an urgent need to do
something to address growing public criticism of U.S. biological warfare
programs, fueled by the Vietnam War. One key critic was Kissinger's former
Harvard colleague, biologist Matthew Meselson, who provided Kissinger with
studies demonstrating the high risk and limited utility of biological weapons
as part of the American arsenal.(4) The range of
experimentation on human subjects carried out by the U.S. biological weapons
program, as summarized by Jeanne Guillemin, a Boston College sociologist
and the wife of Matthew Meselson, makes for chilling reading:
"The entire experimental legacy is dismaying,
from the hundreds of dead monkeys at Fort Detrick to the spectacle of Seventh
Day Adventist soldiers, the vaccinated volunteers in Project Whitecoat,
strapped to chairs amid cages of animals in the Utah sunlight as Q fever
aerosols are blown over them. Most chilling are the mock scenarios played
out in urban areas: light bulbs filled with simulated BW agents being dropped
in New York subways, men in Washington National Airport spraying pseudo-BW
from briefcases, and similar tests in California and Texas and over the
Florida Keys."(5)
Thinking was progressing along similar lines within
the administration, as the documents reveal. Secretary of Defense Melvin
Laird recommended an NSC study of U.S. biological and chemical warfare
programs in April 1969, again in light of anticipated criticisms of these
programs (see Documents 1-3). Kissinger and
his staff were equally convinced of the need, so May 28, 1969, studies
were initiated to provide the basis for a new statement of U.S. policy.
Throughout the summer and into the fall, the NSC worked on the study, submitted
on November 10th (see Documents 6a and 6b),
which presented the key policy issues and options for consideration. Soon
after, Nixon would approve the recommended end of all U.S. offensive biological
and chemical weapons programs, as set down in NSDM 35 of November 25, 1969
(see Document 8), though making provision for
continued research aimed at defending against foreign biological warfare
threats. With this decision, the administration also agreed to submit the
1925 Geneva Protocol banning biological and chemical weapons to the Senate
for ratification (see Documents 10-11, 21),
and in 1972 joined over 100 other nations in signing the Biological and
Toxin Weapons Convention, which banned the possession of biological weapons
except for defensive research. Acting to maximize the anticipated favorable
publicity and portray himself as a peacemaker, Nixon made the public announcement
on November 25th at Ft. Detrick, and the next day had Kissinger brief the
White House staff on this and other recent accomplishments to drive home
the point that former president Lyndon Johnson "couldn't have gotten ...
CBW," or other arms control accomplishments such as the nuclear non-proliferation
treaty "because [he] didn't have the confidence of the people or the world
leaders. [Nixon] Thinks this gives our house liberals something to think
about."(6)
Nixon made a similar decision ending the U.S. toxins
program in February 1970 (see Documents 16,
19
and 20). Pursuant to these decisions, the Department
of Defense developed plans to destroy all the existing stocks of U.S. biological
and toxin weapons, which at the time included over 200 pounds of anthrax
(see Document 22). A subsequent report, the
first in a series of annual reports on the U.S. chemical weapon and biological
research programs, detailed the steps taken to implement Nixon's decisions
(see Documents 24a and 24b).
As the discussions leading up to Nixon's decision
and the initial annual report reveal, one important issue was the extent
of continued defensive research that would still be required to maintain
U.S. defenses against such weapons, and to what degree such research should
remain classified. Within Kissinger's staff, concern was expressed early
on about the need to obtain detailed information on the classified programs
(see Document 23). As subsequent revelations
made clear, continued classified biological warfare programs did continue,
and the ordered destruction of biological and toxin agents was not as thorough
as first believed. The book by the New York Times journalists details the
subsequent history of U.S. classified research on biological warfare agents,
one critical piece of which was provided by the Church Committee investigations
into the activities of the CIA in 1975. As detailed in the committee hearings
(see Document 25) and discussed in Germs,
these hearings revealed that the CIA had long been involved in stockpiling
biological agents for use in assassination attempts on foreign leaders,
most notably Cuba's Fidel Castro, and had worked closely with Ft. Detrick
in this program between 1952 and 1970. Equally troubling was the evidence
that the CIA had maintained a small stockpile of biological agents and
toxins in violation of Nixon's ban that were capable of sickening or killing
millions of people. Among this stockpile was 100 grams of anthrax, as well
as smallpox, Venezuelan equine encephalomyelitis virus, salmonella, and
clostridium botulinum, or botulism germs.(7)
Such revelations likely played a role as one important
motivation for the Cold War biological warfare programs of the former Soviet
Union, whose legacy is still creating problems for Russia and the world
equal to or even greater than those posed by control of the Russian nuclear
weapon stockpile.(8) Taken with earlier statements,
such as that made in 1964 by the retired head of the U.S. biological warfare
program, General J.H. Rochschild, that a Soviet conventional attack on
Western Europe could be effectively stopped by disseminating aerosolized
brucellosis bacteria over the USSR, and the difficulties surrounding a
defensive program that left room for investigating offensive uses, these
pieces of the biowarfare puzzle led Soviets to suspect the U.S. never gave
up its biological weapons program.(9) As will be
documented in another briefing book, the Soviet program produced the most
deadly accident in biological warfare programs during the Cold War, the
anthrax release at Sverdlovsk in 1979.
Note: The following documents are in PDF format.
You will need to download and install the free Adobe
Acrobat Reader to view.
|
Document
1
Memorandum, Secretary of Defense
Laird to National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, April 30, 1969. Confidential,
1 p. |
|
Source: NARA, Nixon Presidential
Materials, NSC Files, Subject Files, Box 310, Chemical, Biological Warfare
(Toxins, etc.), Vol. I. |
In this memorandum, Laird recommends that, in light of anticipated
growing criticism of the Nixon administration's policies and programs relating
to chemical and biological warfare, the National Security Council should
initiate studies immediately on this subject.
|
Document
2
Memorandum, Morton H. Halperin To National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger,
Subject: Memorandum to Secretary Laird on CBW Study, May 7, 1969. Confidential,
1 p. |
|
Source: NARA, Nixon Presidential
Materials, NSC Files, Subject Files, Box 310, Chemical, Biological Warfare
(Toxins, etc.), Vol. I. |
In this document, Morton Halperin, a member of Kissinger's
NSC staff, forwards a draft reply to Laird's April 30 memorandum, and in
his cover memorandum, adds his voice in support of the need for an "early
study" on CBW, adding that a draft NSSM (National Security Study Memorandum)
was in preparation.
|
Document
3
Memorandum, National Security Advisor
Henry Kissinger to Secretary of Defense Laird, Subject: CBW Study, May
9, 1969. Confidential, 1 p. |
|
Source: NARA, Nixon Presidential
Materials, NSC Files, Subject Files, Box 310, Chemical, Biological Warfare
(Toxins, etc.), Vol. I. |
Replying to Laird's April 30 memorandum, Kissinger states he
shares the concern over U.S. chemical and biological warfare policies and
programs, and says a NSC study will be started soon.
|
Document
4
National Security Study Memorandum
(NSSM) 59, U.S. Policy on Chemical and Biological Warfare and Agents, from
National Security Advisor Henry A. Kissinger to the Secretary of State,
Secretary of Defense, Director of Central Intelligence, the Special Assistant
to the President for Science and Technology, and the Director, U.S. Arms
Control and Disarmament Agency. 5/28/69. Secret, 2 pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information
Act Request |
This NSSM initiates the studies of U.S. chemical and biological
warfare programs authorized by President Nixon, including examinations
of the threat to the U.S. and its allies from such weapons, their utility
and the operational concepts relating to their use, testing and stockpiling,
R&D objectives, the approaches to distinguishing lethal and non-lethal
CBW agents, and the issue of U.S. ratification of the Geneva Protocol of
1925 that outlaws chemical and biological weapons.
|
Document
5
Memorandum, Presidential Science
Advisor Lee A. DuBridge to National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, October
22, 1969. Top Secret, 3 pp. |
|
Source: NARA, Nixon Presidential
Materials, NSC Files, Subject Files, Box 310, Chemical, Biological Warfare
(Toxins, etc.), Vol. I. |
Here, DuBridge, a member of the PSAC, writes to Kissinger to
underscore the findings of a PSAC study concluded the previous summer which
recommended that the U.S. renounce all offensive BW, stop completely the
procurement of material for offensive BW, and destroy its existing stockpiles
of BW agents, with no new stockpiles maintained in the future. Stating
his agreement with these recommendations, DuBridge urges that the new review
be completed as quickly as possible and, if the President decides to end
the U.S. offensive BW program, give extensive publicity to this decision
to counteract the "large reservoir of skepticism, cynicism, and incredulity"
that DuBridge feels has resulted from prior lack of policy and consistency
in U.S. policy on this subject.
|
Document
6a
Report to the National Security
Council, "US Policy on Chemical and Biological Warfare and Agents," submitted
by the Interdepartmental Political-Military Group in response to NSSM 59,
November 10, 1969. Top Secret, 52 pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information
Act Request |
|
Document
6b
[Same as 6a, but with different
excisions, 53 pp.] |
|
Source: Freedom of Information
Act Request |
(Note: There are
two versions of this document, released with different excisions. To provide
the fullest possible text, both versions are provided. Document 6a, released
on 4/25/96, is 52 pages; 6b, released on 8/15/97, is 53 pages. To facilitate
comparison of the two versions, readers should open both documents in the
Adobe Acrobat Reader, then go to the Window command on the toolbar and
choose Tile-Vertically, to display the documents side by side. The size
command in the upper right-hand corner can be used to increase the text
size as needed.)
This report provides the key findings
of the review of U.S. chemical and biological warfare policies and programs
initiated by NSSM 59 (See Document No. 4 above).
Part I provides background information on U.S. policies and programs relevant
to the policy issues under review, while Part II examines these policy
issues and options, summarizing the pros and cons of each option and indicating
where needed the differing agency viewpoints. The background information
includes information on the Soviet biological and chemical warfare programs,
the lack of an existing clear U.S. policy on the subject, current U.S.
capabilities, stockpiles and R&D efforts, military considerations,
and current arms control initiatives.
Part II lays out
the policy issues and options, which for biological weapons include such
questions as
1) Should the U.S.
maintain a lethal biological capability?
2) Should the U.S. maintain
a capability for the use of incapacitating biologicals?
3) Should the U.S. maintain
only an R&D program either in both offensive and defensive weapons,
or just in defensive areas?
Extensive consideration
is given to the question of whether the U.S. should ratify the Geneva Protocol
of 1925 prohibiting the use in war of chemical and biological weapons,
and if so, with what reservations.
Among the points of agreement
are the need to continue R&D on defensive programs, to develop and
improve controls and safety measures for chemical and biological programs,
to obtain better intelligence on other nations' CBW capabilities, and that
U.S. declaratory policy regarding lethal chemical and biological agents
should remain one of "no first use."
|
Document
7
Memorandum, Ronald I. Spiers to
Secretary of State William Rogers, Subject: US Policy on Chemical and Biological
Warfare, November 17, 1969. Secret, 5 pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information
Act Request |
With reference to the NSC meeting scheduled for November 18
on NSSM 59, this memorandum lays out the key policy issues to be decided,
following the presentation found in Document No. 6, above. With respect
to the biological warfare issues, Spiers indicates that the State Department's
recommended position is that Rogers support the Secretary of Defense's
position that the U.S. maintain a biological R&D and testing program
only for defense purposes and to guard against technological surprise.
|
Document
8
National Security Decision Memorandum
(NSDM) 35, United States Policy on Chemical Warfare Program and Bacteriological/Biological
Research Program, from National Security Advisory Henry A. Kissinger to
the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, etc.,
November 25, 1969. Top Secret/Nodis, 3 pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information
Act Request |
This NSC document states the decisions
of President Nixon, based on the studies undertaken in response to NSSM
59, regarding the U.S. chemical and biological warfare programs. First,
Nixon decided that henceforth, there would be two distinct programs, chemical
and biological, rather than one combined program, given the important differences
between the two. Regarding biological weapons, Nixon agreed that the U.S.
would renounce the use of lethal as well as all other types of biological
warfare. Future U.S. biological programs would be limited to R&D for
defensive purposes, though this did not foreclose work on offensive uses
necessary to develop defensive measures. The Secretary of Defense was instructed
to make recommendations for disposal of existing U.S. stocks of biological
weapons. An annual review would be conducted of U.S. biological research
programs, and the Secretary of Defense would work with the Director of
the Office of Science and Technology to develop controls and safety measures
for all such programs. Though excised from this copy, the next document
[Document 9] indicates that the Director of
the CIA would continue to monitor the biological warfare capabilities of
other nations. Finally, the U.S. would support the principles and goals
of the Draft Convention Prohibiting the Use of Biological Methods of Warfare
presented by the U.K. at the Geneva Disarmament Conference. (It is interesting
to note that the version of this document released to the Church Committee
contains different deletions; see Document No. 25, pages 207-209, original
pagination.)
|
Document
9
Draft NSDM re United States Policy
on Chemical Warfare Program and Bacteriological/Biological Research Program
[ca. November 1969] Top Secret/Nodis, 4 pp. |
|
Source: NARA, Nixon Presidential
Materials, NSC Files, Subject Files, Box 310, Chemical, Biological Warfare
(Toxins, etc.), Vol. I. |
This is an earlier draft version of NSDM 35 [Document
8 above], providing additional details that were excised from the
signed document released under the FOIA.
|
Document
10
The President's Talking Points –
Congressional Leadership Meeting [Tuesday, November 25, 1969] re the results
of the review of US chemical and biological warfare programs and policies.
Top Secret/Nodis, 5 pp. |
|
Source: NARA, Nixon Presidential
Materials, NSC Files, Subject Files, Box 310, Chemical, Biological Warfare
(Toxins, etc.), Vol. I. |
These talking points provide background on Nixon administration's
review of CBW policies and the key decisions, as laid down in NSDM 35.
The document also lays out the administration's reasons for deciding to
submit the Geneva Protocol of 1925 to the Senate for ratification.
|
Document
11
HAK [National Security Advisor Henry
Kissinger] Talking Points – Briefings for Congressional Leadership and
Press [re administration decisions on biological and chemical warfare],
ca. November 25, 1969. Top Secret/Nodis, 9 pp. |
|
Source: NARA, Nixon Presidential
Materials, NSC Files, Subject Files, Box 310, Chemical, Biological Warfare
(Toxins, etc.), Vol. I. |
This document provides the key talking points for Kissinger's
remarks to the Congressional leadership after President Nixon's remarks
(outlined in Document No. 10). These provide more
detail on the policy issues and key considerations that drove the administration's
decisions. The presentation of the pros and cons on the two principal questions
surrounding biological weapons – what should be the nature and scope of
U.S. policy and programs, and what position should the U.S. take toward
the British draft convention banning biological warfare – mirror those
found in Document Nos. 6a-b, as does the discussion
of the factors surrounding the decision to seek ratification of the Geneva
Protocol.
|
Document
12
Memorandum to Secretary of State,
et al. from Secretary of Defense Laird re Chemical Warfare and Biological
Research—Terminology, December 9, 1969. Secret, 2 pp. |
|
Source: NARA, Nixon Presidential
Materials, NSC Files, Subject Files, Box 310, Chemical, Biological Warfare
(Toxins, etc.), Vol. I. |
This document spells out in greater detail the reasons why
the U.S. government needs to carefully distinguish between chemical warfare
and biological research, instead of combining the two as chemical/biological
warfare, or CBW. The memorandum outlines the key differences between the
two programs in terms of the strategic concept, the deterrent value, the
tactical aspects of retaliation, and the "potential humanitarian dividends"
to be secured from referring to them separately. Furthermore, Laird argues
that it is not possible to conceive of joint chemical/biological warfare,
as the CBW term would seem to suggest.
|
Document
13
Memorandum to National Security
Advisor Henry Kissinger from Michael A. Guhin, Subject: The Toxins Issue,
December 18, 1969. Top Secret, Nodis, 3 pp. |
|
Source: NARA, Nixon Presidential
Materials, NSC Files, Subject Files, Box 310, Chemical, Biological Warfare
(Toxins, etc.), Vol. I. |
This memorandum provides background information for Kissinger
on the policy issue raised by toxins, which are chemicals produced by biological
processes, and so straddle the divide between chemical and biological weapons.
The memorandum goes on to describe the current U.S. toxins program as not
large – the stockpile included 23,000 cartridges of a lethal botulinum
toxin, a few hundred pounds of staphylococcal enterotoxin, an incapacitant,
and very small research quantities of shellfish poison and snake venom
– of which the JCS finds only the incapacitant worthy of R&D. After
laying out the pros and cons for keeping a complete toxin program, or confining
it to R&D for defensive purposes, Buhin recommends that the U.S. affirm
the definition of toxins as chemicals and decide on the future of the program
based on their utility as chemical weapons.
|
Document
14
Basic Chronology of Chemical Warfare
and Biological Research Issues (ca. January 1970). Secret, 2 pp. |
|
Source: NARA, Nixon Presidential
Materials, NSC Files, Subject Files, Box 310, Chemical, Biological Warfare
(Toxins, etc.), Vol. I. |
This document provides a good overview of the decision-making
process and key documents leading to the Nixon administration's decisions
on biological and chemical weapons.
|
Document
15
Memorandum, PSAC Member Lee DuBridge
to National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, re next steps in U.S. chemical
and biological weapons policy, December 22, 1969. No Classification, 2
pp. |
|
Source: NARA, Nixon Presidential
Materials, NSC Files, Subject Files, Box 310, Chemical, Biological Warfare
(Toxins, etc.), Vol. I. |
Here, DuBridge recommends that the administration take steps
to address two issues that he believes are needed to build upon the favorable
public response to the renunciation of chemical and biological warfare
programs. The first is to find some policy that will answer critics of
the U.S. use of tear gas and herbicides in Vietnam, and the second is to
arrange for good publicity for the planned destruction of U.S. biological
weapons stockpiles, in order to preserve the world's belief that the new
policies will be implemented. Finally, DuBridge states his agreement with
the decision to classify toxins as chemical agents, despite their biological
origin, holding that the key distinction for biological agents is their
ability to replicate.
|
Document
16
National Security Study Memorandum
No. 85, Subject: U.S. Policy on Toxins, December 31, 1969. Secret, 1 p. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information
Act Request |
This memorandum from National Security Advisor Henry A. Kissinger
to the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Director, Office
of Science and Technology, and the Director, Arms Control and Disarmament
Agency, requests a review of U.S. policies on toxins, as a follow-up to
NSSM 59 and in light of the decisions in NSDM 35.
|
Document
17
Memorandum, Michael A. Guhin to
National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, Subject: Memorandum from Secretary
of Defense Laird re Chemical Warfare and Biological Research Terminology
and Our Request for White House Review of Statements for Senate and House
Hearings, January 2, 1970. Secret, 2 pp. |
|
Source: NARA, Nixon Presidential
Materials, NSC Files, Subject Files, Box 310, Chemical, Biological Warfare
(Toxins, etc.), Vol. I. |
This memorandum states the NSC Staff agreement with Laird's
arguments [see Document No. 12 above] for carefully
distinguishing between chemical warfare and biological research programs,
and forwards an attached draft memorandum [not reproduced] to the addressees
of NSDM 35 emphasizing the need to make these distinctions in reference
to other nations' programs. The draft memorandum also asks agencies to
submit draft statements and question and answer guidelines for Congressional
hearings on the Geneva Protocol or on the chemical warfare and biological
research program for review.
|
Document
18
Memorandum, Michael A. Guhin to
National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, Subject: Dr. DuBridge's Comments
on Reactions to the President's Chemical Warfare and Biological Research
Announcement, January 5, 1970. Official Use Only, 2 pp. |
|
Source: NARA, Nixon Presidential
Materials, NSC Files, Subject Files, Box 310, Chemical, Biological Warfare
(Toxins, etc.), Vol. I. |
This memorandum summarizes the main points in the DuBridge
memorandum of December 22 [see Document No. 10
above], and notes that NSSM 85 on toxins and a draft NSSM on U.S. policy
on tear gas and herbicides are both underway, which would initiate studies
on both issues.
|
Document
19
Memorandum for the Assistant to
the President for National Security Affairs from Deputy Secretary of Defense
David Packard, Subject: Program Options on Toxins, February 12, 1970, with
cover Memorandum, Alexander Haig to National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger,
Subject: Defense Position on Toxins, February 12, 1970. Secret, 4 pp. |
|
Source: NARA, Nixon Presidential
Materials, NSC Files, Subject Files, Box 310, Chemical, Biological Warfare
(Toxins, etc.), Vol. I. |
This memorandum lays out the rationale of the Secretary of
Defense on U.S. policy regarding toxins. This memorandum notes that the
U.S. currently lacked the technical ability to produce toxins by chemical,
as opposed to biological, means, and suggests that the Secretary of Defense's
position supports maintaining a research program to develop such means.
The memorandum also notes the differing views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
and attaches the rationale for their position, which focuses on the military
implications and stresses the need to reserve the option to develop and
stockpile toxins produced by either biological processes or chemical synthesis.
|
Document
20
National Security Decision Memorandum
No. 44, Subject: United States Policy on Toxins, February 20, 1970. Secret,
1 p. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information
Act Request |
This document states President Nixon's decision to renounce
the production for operational purposes, stockpiling and use in retaliation
of toxins produced by bacteriological or biological processes, or by chemical
synthesis. Any future military program for toxins would be confined to
R&D for defensive purposes only. It also asks the Secretary of Defense
to prepare recommendations for destruction of the existing stockpiles of
toxin weapons and/or agents.
|
Document
21
Memorandum for the President from
National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, Subject: Issues for Decision
re Submission of the Geneva Protocol to the Senate for Its Advice and Consent
to Ratification, July 3, 1970. Secret/Sensitive, 6 pp. |
|
Source: NARA, Nixon Presidential
Materials, NSC Files, Subject Files, Box 310, Chemical, Biological Warfare
(Toxins, etc.), Vol. II. |
Here, Kissinger summarizes for President Nixon the key issues
surrounding the decision to submit the Geneva Protocol to the Senate for
ratification, based on a joint assessment by the State Department, Defense
Department and ACDA, and provides his recommendations among the options
offered. As Kissinger stresses, the most complex issue is how to handle
the administration's view that that Protocol does not prohibit the use
of tear gas and herbicides in war, as this is directly related to the U.S.
war effort in Vietnam. After noting recent developments in this area regarding
decisions to suspend the agricultural use of herbicide 2,4,5-T as well
as by U.S. forces pending further evaluation, and expressions of Senate
and House concerns on this issue, Kissinger recommends that the administration
advise the Senate of its interpretation on this point, but neither include
this in the proposed Senate resolution on the Protocol nor communicate
it to other Parties as part of the U.S. instrument of ratification, which
would serve to avoid explicit statements inviting opposition.
|
Document
22
Memorandum for the President from
Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, Subject: National Security Decision
Memoranda 35 and 44, July 6, 1970. Secret, 3 pp. |
|
Source: NARA, Nixon Presidential
Materials, NSC Files, Subject Files, Box 310, Chemical, Biological Warfare
(Toxins, etc.), Vol. II. |
This memorandum provides information on the Defense Department's
plans to destroy all biological agents, toxins and associated weapons.
For the future, Defense plans to reduce the biological R&D program
from around $20 million per year to $10 million. As part of this reduction,
the U.S. Army Biological Laboratories at Fort Detrick and the production
facility at Pine Bluff Arsenal would not longer be required by the Defense
Department, and would be transferred to HEW. An attached inventory of the
biological warfare stocks to be destroyed indicates that the U.S. stockpile
included 220 pounds of anthrax.
|
Document
23
Memorandum, Michael A. Guhin to
National Security Advisor Henry A. Kissinger, Subject: Further Explanation
of Proposed Review re Necessity of Classified Biological Research Program,
July 17, 1970. Secret/Sensitive, 2 pp. |
|
Source: NARA, Nixon Presidential
Materials, NSC Files, Subject Files, Box 310, Chemical, Biological Warfare
(Toxins, etc.), Vol. II. |
This memorandum provides a response to Kissinger's request
for further explanation of the proposal to review whether the U.S.
requires classified biological research programs under the administration's
new policies, and if so, where such programs should best be located within
the government. The memorandum provides evidence of a lack of clear understanding
on this issue, as seen in statements by Kissinger himself, as well as numerous
requests from Congress for information and clarification. There is also
no information regarding the Defense Department's views on the need for
classified research. In order to secure ongoing information on this issue,
Guhin recommends that the annual review of U.S. chemical warfare, toxin
and biological research programs include any classified programs.
|
Document
24a
Memorandum for the President from
John Irwin (NSC Under Secretaries Committee), Subject: Annual Review
of US Chemical Warfare and Biological Research Program, February 4, 1971,
with attached report (Document
24b – best available
copy). Both Secret, 79 pp. total. |
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Source: Freedom of Information
Act Request |
This document is the first annual review of U.S. chemical warfare
and biological research programs, including riot control agents (RCAs)
and chemical herbicides, mandated by NSDM 35. Among the points noted by
the cover memorandum, the report recommends that the U.S. give greater
attention and priority to the collection and analysis of chemical and biological
warfare intelligence, noting the inadequacy of current intelligence on
the Soviet and Chinese programs, and that an Ad Hoc Interagency Committee
be formed to define more precisely the biological and toxin research program
and determine which areas should be classified. The key issues raise by
the review all revolved around the use of riot control agents and herbicides
in Vietnam. The report itself provides details on the destruction of the
U.S. biological warfare and toxin stockpiles. The one program which the
report identifies as possibly requiring classification concerned the characteristics
of warning systems, which is public might enable enemies to circumvent
U.S. defensive measures.
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Document
25
Hearings before the Select Committee
to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities
of the United States Senate [Church Committee], Ninety-fourth Congress,
First Session, Volume I: Unauthorized Storage of Toxic Agents, September
16, 17 and 18, 1975 (U.S. GPO, 1976). 125 pp. |
This document provides the full text of the hearings and related
exhibits relating to the Church Committee's hearings in September 1975
into the CIA's unauthorized storage and attempted use of toxins, in apparent
violation of the Nixon administration's decisions in 1969 and 1970. In
addition to testimony from then-CIA Director William E. Colby and former
director Richard Helms, the committee questioned Nathan Gordon, the former
Chief of the CIA's Chemistry Branch, Technical Services Division, and Charles
A. Senseney, a Defense Department employee who formerly worked in the Special
Operations Division of Ft. Detrick, Maryland, which was a key Defense Department
biological and toxin research facility. Among the exhibits are excerpts
from a CIA inventory of lethal and incapacitating agents found at a CIA
building (including 100 grams of anthrax), and papers found at a CIA building
listing shellfish toxins presumably held by the agency.
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Document
26
U.S. Army Activity in the U.S. Biological Warfare Programs (Volumes
I and II), U.S. Department of the Army, February 24, 1977, reprinted in
Biological Testing Involving Human Subjects by the Department of Defense,
1977, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research
of the Committee on Human Resources, March 8 and May 23, 1977, United States
Senate, 95th Congress, First Session (U.S. GPO, 1977), 107 pp.
[Note: Readers will need to use
the image rotate button on the Adobe Reader to orient some of the images,
starting with the first 2-page image.] |
This official U.S. Army history of its involvement in the U.S.
biological warfare program provides a detailed account of its activities
from the early Cold War through the end of the U.S. biological warfare
program in 1969. Supplementing this history (found in Volume I) is supporting
documentation in Volume II, which include information on biowarfare research
and development contracts between Fort Detrick and U.S. universities and
private industry, biological field testing of potential biowarfare agents,
safety concerns regarding open air tests with pathogens, and testing on
human volunteers.
Notes
1. William J. Broad, "Terror Anthrax Linked to
Type Made by U.S.," The New York Times, December 3, 2001.
2. There are a number of useful Internet sites
providing a wealth of detail on the current debate over the Bush administration's
decision. See for example the Federation of American Scientists collection
of documents on the biological weapons convention at http://www.fas.org/bwc/bio.htm,
its links to commentary and official reports at http://www.fas.org/bwc/news.htm,
and its background information on biological weapons at http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/bw/intro.htm;
the Stimson Center's Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Project
at http://www.stimson.org/cwc/index.html;
and the Arms Control Association's biological weapons webpage found at
http://www.armscontrol.org/subject/bw/default.asp.
3. Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg and William
Broad, Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War, Simon
& Schuster, 2001. The three published "U.S. Germ Warfare Research Pushes
Treaty Limits" in the Times on September 4, 2001. This article described
a series of secret U.S. biological warfare experiments and programs conducted
under the Clinton and Bush administrations, including a Pentagon plan to
engineer genetically a potentially more deadly version of anthrax, and
concerns within the government that these programs might violate the 1972
treaty banning the development or acquisition of biological weapons.
4. Miller, et al., Germs, p. 62.
5. Quoted from Jeanne Guillemin, Anthrax: The
Investigation of a Deadly Outbreak, University of California Press,
1999, pp. 176-177.
6. On the announcement at Ft. Detrick, see Miller,
et al., Germs, p. 63. The staff meeting is recalled by H.R. Haldeman
in his November 25, 1969 diary entry; see H.R. Haldeman, The Haldeman
Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House, Berkley Books, 1995, p. 133.
7. See Miller, et al., Germs, pp. 72-73,
and Exhibit No. 2, page 192 (original pagination), Document 25.
8. See Alan Sipress, "U.S. to Help Uzbekistan
Clean Up Anthrax Site," The Washington Post, October 23, 2001, p.
A2, and Judith Miller, "U.S. Agrees to Clean Up Anthrax Site in Uzbekistan,"
The
New York Times, October 23, 2001, page B1.
9. Guillemin, Anthrax, p. 186-187.
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