CHEMICAL-BIOLOGICAL WARFARE: U.S. POLICIES AND INTERNATIONAL EFFECTS TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1969 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AND SCIENTIFIC DEVELOPMENTS, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 10:15 a.m., in room 2255, Rayburn House Office Building, the Hon. Clement J. Zablocki, chairman of the subcommittee, presiding. Mr. ZABLOCKI. The subcommittee will please come to order. Today the Subcommittee on National Security Policy and Scientific Developments continues its hearings on chemical and biological warfare, with particular emphasis on the ratification of the Geneva Proto col of 1925. Since the subcommittee last met, there has, of course, been a major development. In a statement last Wednesday, President Nixon announced that he will resubmit the protocol to the Senate for ratification and that he has renounced the use of all methods of biological warfare for the United States and will dispose of existing stocks of biological weapons. Without objection, I will insert a copy of the President's statement in the record. (The statement follows:) STATEMENT OF PRESIDENT RICHARD M. NIXON, NOVEMBER 25, 1969 Soon after taking office I directed a comprehensive study of our chemical and biological defense policies and programs. There had been no such review in over 15 years. As a result, objectives and policies in this field were unclear and programs lacked definition and direction. Under the auspices of the National Security Council, the Departments of State and Defense, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the Office of Science and Technology, the intelligence community and other agencies worked closely together on this study for over six months. These Government efforts were aided by contributions from the scientific community through the President's Scientific Advisory Committee. This study has now been completed and its findings carefully considered by the National Security Council. I am now reporting the decisions taken on the basis of this review. CHEMICAL WARFARE PROGRAM As to our chemical warfare program, the United States: Reaffirms its oft-repeated renunciation of the first use of lethal chemical weapons. Extends this renunciation to the first use of incapacitating chemicals. Consonant with these decisions, the Administration will submit to the Senate, for its advice and consent to ratification, the Geneva Protocol of 1925, which prohibits the first use in war of "asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases and bacteriological methods of warfare." The United States has long supported the principles and objectives of this protocol. We take this step toward formal ratification to reinforce our continuing advocacy of international constraints on the use of these weapons. BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH PROGRAM Biological weapons have massive, unpredictable and potentially uncontrollable consequences. They may produce global epidemics and impair the health of future generations. I have therefore decided that: The U.S. shall renounce the use of lethal biological agents and weapons, and all other methods of biological warfare. The U.S. will confine its biological research to defensive measures such as immunization and safety measures. The D.O.D. has been asked to make recommendations as to the disposal of existing stocks of bacteriological weapons. In the spirit of these decisions, the United States associates itself with the principles and objectives of the United Kingdom Draft Convention, which would ban the use of biological methods of warfare. We will seek, however, to clarify specific provisions of the draft to assure that necessary safeguards are included. Neither our association with the convention nor the limiting of our program to research will leave us vulnerable to surprise by an enemy who does not observe these rational restraints. Our intelligence community will continue to watch carefully the nature and extent of the biological programs of others. These important decisions, which have been announced today, have been taken as an initiative toward peace. Mankind already carries in its own hands too many of the seeds of its own destruction. By the examples we set today, we hope to contribute to an atmosphere of peace and understanding between nations and among men. Mr. ZABLOCKI. This action on the part of President Nixon deserves the highest commendation. It has the effect, however, of rendering moot the resolutions which the subcommittee has been considering. Despite this, the subcommittee hearings will continue. Additional sessions are planned for this room at 10 a.m. on December 9, 10, and 11. FUTURE OBJECTIVES OF HEARINGS Our objectives will be several. First, the subcommittee can help elaborate some of the factors which the Senate may find useful when making its decision on ratification of the Geneva Protocol. Second, we can shed light on other issues which have been raised internationally on America's CBW policies, specifically, the use of tear gas and herbicides in Vietnam. And lastly, we can look beyond the ratification of the protocol to new international agreements which may be required to control the spread and use of chemical and particularly biological weapons. As a vehicle to bring some of those ideas to focus, I introduced a new resolution on CBW yesterday. I intend it to be a "lightning rod" during the coming hearings, designed to elicit illuminating comments from witnesses and from members of the subcommittee. Without objection, I would like to submit the resolution for the record at this point. (The resolution follows:) 91ST CONGRESS 1ST SESSION H. RES. 733 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES DECEMBER 1, 1969 Mr. ZABLOCKI submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs RESOLUTION Whereas the use of chemical and biological weapons in warfare has been a source of universal dread and abhorrence; and Whereas the United States heretofore has failed to ratify the Geneva Protocol of 1925 banning the first use of chemical and bacteriological warfare; and Whereas the United States has been criticized in numerous international meetings for its failure to ratify the Geneva Protocol of 1925; and Whereas the President of the United States has announced the re-submission of the Geneva Protocol to the Senate and the unilateral renunciation of all methods of biological warfare: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that (1) the President be commended for re-submitting the Geneva Protocol to the Senate and for his efforts to control chemical and biological weapons; and that (2) the Senate is respectfully urged to ratify the Geneva Protocol as soon as possible and that ratification should be followed by a comprehensive review of United States policies in the fields of chemical and biological warfare; and be it further Resolved, That the other nations of the world, following the example of the United States, act to ban the use, stockpiling or production of biological weapons, thereby achieving a meaningful step toward further arms control and disarmament leading to eventual world peace. INTRODUCTION OF DR. LEDERBERG Mr. ZABLOCKI. This morning we will hear from Dr. Joshua Lederberg, professor of genetics at the Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, Calif. Dr. Lederberg received the 1958 Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine for his research into the genetics of bacteria. Much of his research, it should be pointed out, took place in my native State of Wisconsin, where Dr. Lederberg was a faculty member of the University of Wisconsin at Madison for 11 years, from 1947 to 1958. The author of a nationally syndicated column on science and modern living, Dr. Lederberg has written and spoken frequently on issues of chemical and biological warfare.1 Our second witness today is Mr. Han Swyter, who served from 1966 to 1969 on the staff of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Systems Analysis, where he was directly concerned with U.S. chemical and biological warfare policies and capabilities. Mr. Swyter spoke on CBW at a recent meeting of the National Academy of Sciences in Hanover, N.H., and was a participant in a July symposium on the subject, sponsored by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Salk Institute. 1 Columns by Dr. Lederberg relevant to chemical and biological warfare may be found on page 368 in the appendix. Our third witness will be Dr. Arthur W. Galston, whose plane has been delayed. Dr. Galston is a professor of biology and forestry at Yale University and director of the Marsh Botanical Garden, New Haven, Conn. A foremost investigator of the action of hormones and light on plants, he has made a careful study of environmental and other effects of the widespread use of defoliants in Vietnam. Dr. Lederberg, Mr. Swyter, we are pleased to have you with us. Dr. Lederberg, if you will begin, please. STATEMENT OF DR. JOSHUA LEDERBERG, PROFESSOR OF GENETICS, STANFORD UNIVERSITY Mr. LEDERBERG. I am indeed very grateful for this opportunity to express my profound concern about the urgency of our need for an international system to restrain the development of biological warfare. For that reason, I am very gratified about the resolution that you have just introduced, the text of which is before me. My only immediate comment is that I would advocate, on the third line from the bottom, where the resolution reads: "Resolved, that the other nations of the world, following the example of the United States, act to ban the use, stockpiling, or production of biological weapons ***," I would add the word, "development," and that the text read, "to ban the development, use, stockpiling, or production of biological weapons," since research leading to the capability of biological warfare is in many respects as dangerous from the point of view of the considerations that I will elaborate, and will in fact help to encourage the possible use. Mr. ZABLOCKI. A very good point, Dr. Lederberg. That is an oversight on my part. Mr. LEDERBERG. I am grateful for this opportunity to express my profound concern about the continued involvement of this and other nations in the development of biological warfare. This process puts the very future of human life on earth in serious peril. It is all the more tragic because the great powers who should be hastening to institute international controls have very little to gain and much to lose in relation to the present balance of nuclear deterrence. Except for incidental contagion, chemical warfare presents many similar issues; but I cannot speak to them with the same immediacy of personal expert knowledge. Our ratification of the Geneva Protocol would represent only the first small step toward the negotiation of international controls. However, so long as we have isolated ourselves as the only major power to refuse to enter into its commitment, this stands as an immediate distraction to further negotiation. It leaves on the record a very low and unconvincing reading, indeed, about our earnestness as a nation in seeking a world order for the management of this problem. RESEARCH PRIDE "TURNED INTO ASHES" BY WAR USE My own research career has centered on the genetics of bacteria. With Dr. E. L. Tatum, then at Yale, I had the thrill of discovering genetic recombination in bacteria. Later at the University of Wisconsin with my then graduate student Norton Zinder, like E. L. Tatum now a professor at Rockefeller University, I was again privileged to help unearth genetic transduction-the use of viruses to convey information from cell to cell. I have also studied bacterial mutation, for example to resistance against the action of antibiotic drugs, in work that complemented the pioneering studies of Drs. S. E. Luria and Max Delbrueck, named for the 1969 Nobel Prize in medicine. Basic scientists who have worked in the genetics of bacteria and viruses believe that these discoveries have ever growing importance for the prevention and healing of serious human diseases. We live, in the present era, in an incompletely justified optimism about having "conquered infectious bacterial disease" as the fruit of the development of the antibiotics. However, viruses are in general still beyond the reach of antibiotic therapy. Even bacteria, believed to be under firm control with antibiotics, are continuing their own evolution and continue their assaults upon human health with renewed vigor. In the long run, only our continued vigilance over bacterial evolution can justify our hope of maintaining a decisive lead in this life and death race. However, whatever pride I might wish to take in the eventual human benefits that may arise from my own research is turned into ashes by the application of this kind of scientific insight for the engineering of biological warfare agents. In this respect we are in somewhat the same position as the nuclear physicists who foresaw the development of atomic weapons. There is, however, a crucial difference. Nuclear weaponry depends on the most advanced industrial technology. It has then been monopolized by the great powers long enough to sustain a de facto balance of deterrence and to build a security system based on nonproliferation. Nuclear power has thus, ironically, become a stabilizing factor tending to reinforce the status quo in parallel with established levels of economic and industrial development. Germ power will work just the other way. The United Nations Study Report on chemical and biological weaponry has summarized some infectious agents that have served as points of departure for the development of biological weapons. Any knowledgeable virologist could suggest many more. I will not repeat these technical details, nor will I bludgeon you with the horrible diseases that some of these agents provoke. I will also leave to your own conscience the burden of moral judgments about using these kinds of weapons. Most Americans would be repelled by the thought, but perhaps no less by exposure to the human realities of any other form. of warfare. Overriding such comparisons should be the grave moral issue in a policy that risks the lives of a world of innocent bystanders. Fortunately, these concerns actually converge with our self-interest in calling for a halt to BW before it becomes established in the arms traffic of the world. |