Would you agree with that?

Dr. MESELSON. Well, it is very hard to compute an accurate number for the ratio of civilians to soldiers affected. It is easier to compute how many human beings could have eaten the food destroyed. We know how much food we have destroyed. It is enough to feed approximately 650,000 people for 1 year. That is the cumulative spraying from 1962 through 1969. It leaves out 1970.

Now 650,000 people for 1 year must have included a very large number of civilians, certainly far more than half, simply because in any 1 year there just were not anywhere near that many enemy soldiers growing their own food. Several official studies conclude that somewhere between 90 and 99 percent of the food being destroyed was destined for civilian consumption and not military.

I think this was a program that simply kept going under its own momentum. This program did require authorization at many levels, but the authorization became almost pro forma. We found that members of the principal committee that was authorizing these missions were unaware of the details of the targets which were being attacked. Now, as you know, the use of chemicals to destroy food crops in Vietnam has been stopped.

It is being done, according to newspaper reports, by another country, by Portugal in Angola, on the food crops of the people who are trying to displace the Portuguese from that African country.

IMPORTANCE OF RATIFYING PROTOCOL WITH HERBICIDES INCLUDED

I think this is the kind of warfare which, as Dr. Brennan has said, does not suit the kind of reputation and style and image which we have had in the past or which we should want to have in the future. Nor is it militarily effective, in my opinion. Beyond that it could stimulate thought regarding the possibilities of a far more dangerous tactic, biological anticrop warfare, something that could be a serious threat even to the United States.

I think that it is unlikely that the United States will use chemicals to destroy food crops again, but I think it is important that we now put ourselves in a position so that we can keep other countries from doing it. Ratifying the Geneva Protocol with herbicides included would give us that benefit. We would then be able to discourage others. We cannot do it now.

AUSTRALIAN USE OF RIOT GAS

The CHAIRMAN. You mentioned that Portugal was using this in Angola. This prompts me to ask you, since Portugal and ourselves were two of the three voting against the U.N. resolution, where is Australia using it and why did they vote against it?

Dr. MESELSON. Australia was using riot gas along with us in Viet

nam.

The CHAIRMAN. They are not using it on any of their native population?

Dr. MESELSON. Not as a military weapon.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you any other questions?
Senator AIKEN. No more.

377

IS UNITED STATES SUPPLYING GASES OR HERBICIDES TO ANYONE?

The CHAIRMAN. Do you know whether we are giving away or selling or supplying any of these chemicals or herbicides to anybody, whether it is in the Far East or any other area? I guess the herbicide is a chemical, too, but I mean the gases. Do you know?

Dr. MESELSON. Riot gas and herbicides can be obtained on the commercial market and so can gas masks, but I do not know whether we supply these items as part of any military assistance program.

The CHAIRMAN. Of course, you were recently in Vietnam. You do not know whether or not we have supplied the South Vietnamese Army with gases or herbicides?

Dr. MESELSON. We have supplied the Government of Vietnam Army with riot gas weapons. Generally speaking, the weapons they have are the smaller caliber ones, mainly grenades.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you have anything else you would like to add?

PROHIBITION OF WEAPONS IS IN U.S. INTEREST

You have covered it very well. I think you and Dr. Brennan are in general agreement upon the value of these weapons to us, and if I understand it, you both agree that it is in our own interests that they should both be included in the prohibition; is that correct?

Dr. MESELSON. That is my essential point, Senator. I would not add anything to that.

The CHAIRMAN. So that if there is any other consideration, moral or material, that would only be in addition to our own interests.

I appreciate very much your coming. You have always been most generous with your time. I thank you very much.

We will be adjourned. Thank you.

(Whereupon, at 12:25 p.m., the committee adjourned.)

58-743-72-25

APPENDIX

[From the Washington Evening Star, Mar. 25, 1971]

THE GENEVA PROTOCOL AND NIXON

(Milton Viorst)

It seems absurd that the Senate would reject American association with an international treaty that already is 46 years old. But the alternative is to accept President Nixon's interpretation of it-and that is plainly dangerous, if not downright immoral.

The treaty is the Geneva protocol to ban chemical and biological warfare. It was negotiated with American participation in 1925. The United States, however, never ratified it, although it has been approved by 84 governments, including all of the other major powers.

Last year, the President proposed to rectify this inexcusable oversight. But, in doing so, he insisted that the United States did not consider tear gas and defoliants, both of which we have used in great quantity in Vietnam, to be covered by the treaty.

The administration's position is that neither of these weapons is lethal. It even has claimed that they save lives.

It is clear, however, that the chief use to which American forces have put tear gas in Vietnam has been to flush enemy soldiers out of hiding places, after which conventional killer devices like bombs and bullets have been used on them.

As for defoliants, they have been used to destroy crops-starving civilians and military alike. Recent studies indicate, furthermore, that defoliants may have turned large areas of Vietnam into semi-permanent desert.

In short, neither tear gas nor defoliants are as harmless as the President blithely claims. And, if there was any doubt, the U.N. General Assembly in 1969 voted 80 to 3 to reject the administration's interpretation.

What is immoral about the President's proposal is that he is willing to outlaw all chemical and bacteriological weapons-except the ones used by American military forces.

It is true, as the administration says, that we are employing these weapons less than before. But that's not out of moral compunction; it's because the intensity of the war has diminished. We are now, unfortunately, training the South Vietnamese to take over these weapons-although the protocol provides that use by an ally is equivalent to use by the original country.

There, in fact, lies one of the grave dangers of the President's stipulation. The Russians now accept the Geneva protocol in its entirety. They have said, however, that if Nixon excludes tear gas and defoliants from American observance of the treaty, they will be free to use these weapons--not only against the United States, but against its allies.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries have recognized that the Russian response is justified, and have indicated they do not like the American interpretation.

Many diplomats, both friendly and unfriendly, believe furthermore that Nixon's reservation could very well start the unraveling of the Geneva protocol, which has been one of the most successful arms limitation treaties in the history of warfare.

Many fear that, once the unraveling process begins, the entire nature of warfare would change, especially among smaller countries, since gas is cheap to make and easy to deliver.

The administration all but admits that, once the Vietnam war ends, it would accept the treaty without limitations. This amounts to a confession that the current use violates the treaty's intent. But clearly, the Pentagon does not want to change its tactics in Vietnam-and Nixon, once again, has gone along.

In the Senate, there is considerable sentiment in favor of a resolution to ratify the treaty, explicitly rejecting the Nixon stipulation. But such a resolution probably could not get the necessary two-thirds vote and, besides, the President still would have the power to ignore it.

Senator Church of Idaho wants to send the treaty back to the President and require him to submit a new interpretation of it. But that would be a direct challenge to Nixon and probably would not pass the Senate either.

Right now, Chairman Fulbright of the Foreign Relations Committee seems inclined to let the treaty languish awhile. It would prolong America's shame in not ratifying it--but under the circumstances, it seems the best strategy that's available.

[From The Sunday (London) Times, Feb. 15, 1970]

TEAR GAS: A BLUNDER

(Robert Neild and Julian Perry Robinson)

One of the few encouraging features in the history of the arms race and war since 1918 is that chemical warfare has been used rarely and biological warfare probably never. The most important piece of international law helping to inhibit wider use of chemical and biological weapons is the 1925 Geneva Protocol "for the prohibition of the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases and of bacteriological means of warfare." Now the British Government has adopted a position which may seriously weaken this constraint on chemical and biological warfare. On February 2, Mr. Stewart declared in a Commons reply that the Government regarded "CS and other such gases" as being outside the scope of the Protocol.

CS is a tear gas widely used by the Americans and their allies in Vietnam as a chemical warfare agent and by police forces throughout the world as a riotcontrol agent. In exempting it, the Government is revoking an interpretation of the Protocol that was enunciated by the Labour Government of 1930 and has been upheld ever since. There are several reasons for concern over this decision. On the four past occasions when highly lethal chemical warfare agents have been used extensively-World War I, the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, the Japanese invasion of China and the Yemeni civil war-the use of tear gas always preceded resort to more lethal gases. In Vietnam this has not happened. But in Vietnam the danger lies in the fact that the most modern army in the world is getting accustomed to using gas after fifty years' abstention. Expertise that was once the sole concern of a specialised-and somewhat despised-chemical corps is pervading the entire army. Tens of thousands of soldiers are fighting in gas masks; they are learning to recognize the situations that favour the use of gas; they are asking for (and getting) more and improved gas weapons. In short, they are becoming gas-minded. Such a lowering of the psychological barriers against gas warfare in the American Army can hardly fail to produce a similar loosening of inhibitions in other armies. The legal constraint represented by the Geneva Protocol has been one of the bulwarks against this.

The undermining of the legal constraints is likely to be a cumulative process. If some kinds of chemical warfare are practised and condoned, people will become used to them, the limits of the law will be blurred and the force of public opinion in support of the law will be weakened. Public opinion is about the only force making for the observance of international laws of this kind.

The Government's decision seems the more unfortunate since the chances of securing international agreement on chemical and biological weapons (CBW) disarmament increased rapidly throughout 1969. Britain and the USSR proposed draft treaties; Japan announced her intention of doing so; several other nations contributed working papers and expert reports on the subject; and the next session of the Disarmament Committee in Geneva is expected to concentrate on CBW. One point of discord in all this has been whether to take biological weapons first. Britain proposed the latter but did not receive majority support because it was feared that in isolating BW for special treatment, CW would be condoned, especially with increasing American use of tear gas and anti-plant chemicals in Vietnam. Mr. Stewart's announcement will certainly increase their concern. The British approach to CBW disarmament has thus been sabotaged-and sabotaged without a credible justification.