biological agents if they are needed) (20) may have a small portion of its activi ties cut back, but the Base Commander, Colonel Clyde L. Frair, says: "We have no plans at this time. . . . It will be Laird's job and that of the DOD to come up with the procedures.” (21) If this base does give up storage of germs for biological warfare, it would still retain its stocks of chemical and nerve gas weapons, its stocks of bacteria-produced "toxins," its production facilities for incendiaries and its "defensive" biological research and development.

The Army's largest testing area, the Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah, apparently will not be affected. In fact, the President said nothing at all about the halting of open-air testing such as the kind that killed 6000 sheep outside of Dugway last year.

While little change is indicated in these three leading U.S. CBW installations, there have been reports of cuts in CBW staffs in some areas. (22) Such reports, however, should be carefully scrutinized in light of indications by White House spokesmen that "as much as possible, this [defensive] research will be shifted from the Defense Department to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare." (23) Senator Charles Mathias, in reporting on his interview with Secretary of Defense Laird on the day of the President's speech, also indicated a trend in this direction. (24) A shift of CBW research to such agencies as the National Institutes of Health would be a deceptive victory indeed for CBW critics.

If the purpose of the President's speech was not, then, to indicate a major change in U.S. CBW activities, what was its purpose? It is interesting to note that the President's speech was delivered at a time when the Song My revelations had generated an international atmosphere of anti-American feeling. The speech produced the expected wave of congratulation from European capitals.

The speech also came at a time when the big powers were becoming increasingly fearful of the proliferation of relatively cheap CBW munitions among the smaller nations of the world, as indicated by the final ratification of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty by the U.S. and the USSR the previous day. Perhaps even more important, the statement came within one day of the publication of Representative McCarthy's book, The Ultimate Folly: War by Pestilence, Asphyxiation, and Defoliation (Knopf, 1969), a high point in the anti-CBW movement.

Further, it came the day of the release of still another Congressional investigation which scrutinized U.S. CBW activities. (25)

Thus, while the President's minor restrictions may help the world to breathe a microscopic degree easier, the overall effects of the speech may be the opposite. The President's speech may have served to disarm the President's critics more than to disarm the U.S. CBW capacity.

-Written by Arthur Kanegis, NARMIC Research Assistant.

REFERENCES

1 Employment of Chemical and Biological Agents, Army Field Manual FM 3-10, March 31, 1966, p. 7.

2 This use is confirmed by sources as divergent as widespread newspaper accounts, first hand letters from soldiers in Vietnam (reprint in War/Peace Report, November, 1969, p. 17), testimony before congressional hearings (U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Hearings on CBW, 91st Cong., April 30, 1969, p. 34) and Army magazine itself ("Infantry Support Weapons," Army, October 1969), although the Pentagon officially insists that it uses these gases "to save lives" (Pentagon Press Release, September 23, 1969).

3 "Thalidomide Effects from Defoliants," Scientific Research, Vol. 4, No. 23, November 10, 1969, p. 12. 4 The Army classifies these chemical substances as incendiaries rather than chemical weapons, arguing that they kill people by burning and asphyxiation rather than by poisoning. However, the Encyclopedia Brittanica defines Napalm as "an aluminum soap of naphthenic and palmitic acids which when mixed with gasolines form sticky syrup used in CHEMICAL WARFARE." The thickening substances used in Napalm were first developed in 1944-1945 under contract to the Chemical Warfare Service, and improved more recently by U.S. chemical companies (Dow's Napalm "B"). White phosphorous is

also a chemical substance, and is manufactured in the chemical weapons production facilities at the Pine Bluff CBW Arsenal. (William Terry, "Huge Germ-War Arsenal Awaiting Orders to Close," Washington Post, November 27, 1969, p. A2.)

5 Robert M. Smith, "Germ War: What Nixon Gave Up," New York Times, November 26, 1969, p. 16.

6 Pierre Darcourt, "Le Temps des Massacres," L'Express, March 14-20, 1966. 7 Richard Homan, "Vietnam Use of Gas Could Block Treaty," Washington Post, November 26, 1969, p. A1.

8 U Thant, "Report of the Secretary General on Chemical and Bacteriological (Biological) Weapons and the Effects of Their Possible Use," July 1, 1969, pp. 6-7.

9 The 1969 edition of Who's Who included the following citations for Dr. Ivan L. Bennett: "special cons, Surgeon Gen, US Army Mem Commn on Epidemiological Survey 1966-" "Armed Forces Epidemiology Bd." "Research Contract Dir., Army Chem Corps." "men bd sci advisors, Armed Forces Inst Pathology."

10 Richard McCarthy, "Banning CB Weapons-the Pressure Mounts," War/ Peace Report, November, 1969, p. 19.

11 Telephone interview with Dr. Ivan L. Bennett at his N.Y.U. Medical Center office, December 4, 1969.

12 This definition, with emphasis added, was quoted from the Dictionary of US Military Terms for Joint Usage, August 1, 1968.

13 Robert M. Smith, "20,000 Poison Bullets Made and Stockpiled by Army," New York Times, October 31, 1969.

14 Telephone interview with Dr. Albert Hayward at the Pentagon, December 4, 1969.

15 John Hanrahan, "Germ Warfare Ban is Expected to have Slight Effect on Detrick," Washington Post, November 26, 1969, p. A6.

16 Ibid.

17 Richard McCarthy, Press Release, "Remarks of Rep. Richard D. McCarthy at Tufts University-Medford, Massachusetts, September 15, 1969-CBW as National Policy."

18 Defense Marketing Survey, as cited by Seymour Hersh, “On Uncovering the Great Nerve Gas Coverup," Ramparts, June, 1969, p. 15.

22 Seymour Hersh, Dispatch News Analysis, Dispatch News Service, 1969. 23 James M. Naughton, "Nixon Renounces Germ Weapons," New York Times, Nov. 26, 1969, p. 16.

24 Hanrahan, p. A6.

25 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Appropriations, Hearings, Department of Defense Appropriations for 1970, 91st Congress, July 1, 1969 (released November 26, 1969).

REPORT ON THE PRESIDENT'S CBW SPEECH

President Nixon's November 26th speech on CBW left many critics of chemical and biological warfare surprised and heartened at their apparent victory. Cautious jubilance, however, soon turned to scepticism when an article appeared in the Washington Post the same day as the reports of the President's speech, revealing that the nation's primary biological warfare installation would be continuing business as usual. We decided to research the consequences of the President's speech, and soon came to the conclusion, embodied in a report sent out to the press, that little or no change would actually occur in the activities of the U.S. chemical and biological warfare establishment.

Our primary disclosure, U.S. continuation of the production of toxins, (the poisonous by-products of bacteria), was picked up by numerous papers across the country. This report led to a dispute, aired in Congressional testimony, between the Arms Control and Disarmament agency, which insisted that toxins

38-044 0-70-18

were included in the ban on bacteriological warfare, and the Defense Department, which insisted they were not. During this controversy a report was issued, and then denied, that Henry A. Kissinger, the President's advisor on national security affairs, had ordered a temporary halt in the production of toxins until the dispute could be resolved. In addition, NARMIC's disclosures of the redefinition of toxins led to a clarification by the British that their ban would include toxins.

Meanwhile, NARMIC staff member Arthur Kanegis shared his report with Congressman Richard McCarthy (D. NY.), who, as the leading Congressional CBW critic, had provided resource materials essential to NARMIC's investigation. Immediately, McCarthy held a press conference in which he said that this retention of toxins, if upheld, would call into question the credibility of the President's original statement. He repeated this charge in a letter to the President. However, the production of toxins continues.

The NARMIC report's charges regarding the President's exemption of tear gas and defoliants from U.S. ratification of the Geneva ban were evidently shared by most of the nations of the world. For shortly thereafter the General Assembly resoundingly rebuffed the U.S. position on tear gas in an unprecedented vote which isolated the U.S. Although the Administration sent letters to virtually all nations urging them to vote with its position on tear gas and defoliants, the United Nations Political Committee, by a vote of 58 to 3, and then the General Assembly itself, by a vote of 80 to 3 (with 36 abstentions), accepted the resolution.

While the issues raised by the NARMIC report did receive wide coverage in much of the press across the country, NARMIC believes that the public needs even more information on this vital subject. Already the report in full has been printed in a few newspapers and numerous peace publications across the country, and in the Congressional Record. We are now in the process of revising it for publication in a medical journal and several national liberal magazines. NARMIC staff will continue to do research and education in this vital area. The anti-CBW struggle is not over.

APPENDIX B

PROTOCOL PROHIBITING THE USE IN WAR OF ASPHYXIATING, POISONOUS OR OTHER GASES, AND OF BACTERIOLOGICAL METHODS OF WARFARE, GENEVA, JUNE 17, 1925

The undersigned plenipotentiaries, in the name of their respective Governments:

Whereas the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices, has been justly condemned by the general opinion of the civilized world; and

Whereas the prohibition of such use has been declared in Treaties to which the majority of Powers of the world are Parties; and

To the end that this prohibition shall be universally accepted as a part of International Law, binding alike the conscience and the practice of nations; Declare:

That the High Contracting Parties, so far as they are not already Parties to Treaties prohibiting such use, accept this prohibition, agree to extend this prohibition to the use of bacteriological methods of warfare and agree to be bound as between themselves according to the terms of this declaration. The High Contracting Parties will exert every effort to induce other States to accede to the present Protocol. Such accession will be notified to the Government of the French Republic, and by the latter to all signatory and acceding Powers, and will take effect on the date of the notification by the Government of the French Republic.

The present Protocol, of which the French and English texts are both authentic, shall be ratified as soon as possible. It shall bear to-day's date.

The ratifications of the present Protocol shall be addressed to the Government of the French Republic, which will at once notify the deposit of such ratification to each of the signatory and acceding Powers.

The instruments of ratification of and accession to the present Protocol will remain deposited in the archives of the Government of the French Republic. The present Protocol will come into force for each signatory Power as from the date of deposit of its ratification, and, from that moment, each Power will be bound as regards other Powers which have already deposited their ratification. In witness whereof the Plenipotentiaries have signed the present Protocol. Done at Geneva in single copy, this seventeenth day of June, One Thousand Nine Hundred and Twenty-Five.

(269)

STATES PARTIES TO THE PROTOCOL FOR THE PROHIBITION OF THE USE IN WAR OF ASPHYXIATING, POISONOUS OR OTHER GASES AND OF BACTERIOLOGICAL METHODS OF WARFARE, DONE AT GENEVA JUNE 17, 1925 States which have deposited instruments of ratification, accession, or continue to be bound as the result of succession agreements concluded by them or by reason of notifications given by them to the Secretary-General of the United Nations:

Liberia-April 2, 1927

Lithuania-June 15, 1933

1 With reservation.

1

2 By virtue of agreement with former parent State or notification to the SecretaryGeneral of the United Nations of succession to treaty rights and obligations upon independence.

3 Applicable to all French territories.

Applicable to Surinam and Curacao.

5 With declaration.

It does not bind India or any British Dominion which is a separate member of the League of Nations and does not separately sign or adhere to the Protocol. It is applicable to all colonies.