bility of ending in Armageddon, or worldwide disaster. I think that the only real hope for us is to both eliminate causes of disputes between nations and engage in meaningful discussions with these nations, where we sit down and talk through. hard as that is, and lengthy as these procedures are, and come to agreements that are in the mutual interest of the nations involved and which will be made in the form of agreements that would be binding upon the parties involved.

So I am personally watching with the same interest that every member of the subcommittee is, that which is happening in the negotiations which have now begun with our friends from the U.S.S.R. I think those are very important for the future of the world, and I think that they can be another step, again which will not be the final

step.

I may be idealistic, but I am not, hopefully, with my head completely in the clouds, so far as what this road can lead to. I think we must take these things a step at a time, but down that road of hard discussion, and realizing that for the sake of the people of the world, we must come to agreement, and we must be able to arrive at limitations of the weapons systems of the various powers of the world.

NEED TO LOOK AT DIFFICULT QUESTIONS ON CBW

Mr. TAFT. Well, let me say that I find myself very much in agreement with your general feelings. I also might say that I certainly share in the feeling that it is an excellent idea for this committee to go into this matter, and go into it very thoroughly. I think there are some awfully difficult questions on sides of it that people haven't been willing to face in the past. And perhaps the reason we haven't moved since 1925 is that these difficult kinds of questions keep coming up. The main thrust is lost when they get off into the side issues, discussing these difficult questions.

I don't think it should be lost. I think we ought to continue to direct attention toward it. In that regard I am not sure I should direct this question to you, but perhaps to the staff.

OTHER TREATIES SPECIFIED IN PROTOCOL

Mr. Chairman, the protocol refers to other treaties. I wonder what the other treaties are and to what extent the United States has or has not considered such treaties or may or may not be a party to such treaties.

I would like to get the full background on that before we move further, because I don't see how you can talk intelligently about it without knowing what the other treaties were.

Do you have any knowledge on that, Mr. Dellenback?

Mr. DELLENBACK. I do not, Mr. Taft. No, I do not.

Mr. ZABLOCKI. Bob, the staff will obtain the information to clarify the references in the second whereas clause.

(The requested information follows:)

STAFF MEMORANDUM ON "OTHER TREATIES" REFERRED TO IN 1925 GENEVA PROTOCOL

The "other treaties" referred to in the Geneva Protocol of 1925 refer to the Hague Gas Declaration of 1899, the Versailles Treaty and the 1922 Washington Treaty on Submarines and Noxious Gases. The Washington Treaty,

however, ultimately failed because of French objections to its provisions on submarines.

Mr. DELLENBACK. I would think, if I may, that the only knowledge I have, and it is very limited, is in this one article to which the chairman referred earlier, where they make reference to the Hague Gas Declaration, which goes back to the 19th century, and the 1919 Versailles Treaty.

There are a few of this nature. I don't know what else may be embraced by it, Mr. Taft.

Mr. ZABLOCKI. Bob. I think Mr. George Bunn, who is to be with us on Thursday, will be able to clarify those questions thoroughly. Mr. TAFT. Very good. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

POLICING A BAN ON BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS

Mr. ZABLOCKI. I have but one final question, which goes beyond your first priority about resubmission of the Geneva Protocol, which I think we all agree on. The suggestion is that the United States support the British proposal of eliminating biological weapons production.

I am reminded of the problems that weve spelled out before this committee during the MIRV hearings on banning testing of the MIRV's, that it would be very difficult to police and verify a MIRV

ban.

How could a BW ban be policed and verified, so that we could be confident that no nation, particularly the Soviet, would be cheating if an agreement was reached on eliminating biological weapons production. Have you any idea?

Mr. DELLENBACK. That is an excellent question, Mr. Chairman.
Are there any other questions?

Obviously, it is a very difficult one, Mr. Chairman. You know, I don't have any specifics that I would put forward at this time. Again, if you will shift to this, which is a very important part of what you are talking about, I would want to do more research before I can say that I could give you something that was worth the committee's giving it the same serious consideration that I hope it will give to what I have had to say within this very limited scope of the protocol and the CBW this morning,

Mr. ZABLOCKI. Thank you, Mr. Dellenback. You have presented to the committee a very thoughtful statement, and your responses to the questions were most helpful.

I want to commend you for your presentation today, and I particularly want to express our appreciation to you for sharing with the subcommittee the recent study of CBW and national security, of which you were the principal sponsor, issued by a number of Republican Congressmen.

Mr. DELLENBACK. I certainly don't claim to be the principal sponsor of it. I was merely one of those involved, and I happened to occupy a particular role in connection with it. We are all equally involved in it, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you very much.

Mr. ZABLOCKI. Thank you, Mr. Dellenback.

38-044-70-3

Mr. ZABLOCKI. Our next and last witness for this morning is the Honorable Richard D. McCarthy.

Mr. McCarthy is the author and principal sponsor of the resolution which is before the subcommittee. He has achieved a national reputation, during the past several months, because of his work on issues relating to CBW.

STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD D. McCARTHY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK

Mr. MCCARTHY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

If I may, I would like your permission to have my valuable associate, Mr. Pigman, a member of my staff, join me at the table. Mr. ZABLOCKI. If he will.

Mr. MCCARTHY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee.

Rather than duplicate what has already been covered in these very good statements by our distinguished colleague, Mr. Fraser, from Minnesota, and Mr. Dellenback, I would like your permission to submit my full statement for the record.

Mr. ZABLOCKI. Without objection, your formal or prepared statement will appear at this point in the record.

STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE RICHARD D. MCCARTHY

Mr. Chairman: I welcome the chance to testify to your Committee on House Resolutions 439, 444, 457, 490 and 549 urging President Nixon to resubmit the Geneva Protocol of 1925 banning the use of chemical and bacteriological warfare to the United States Senate for ratification. Ninety-eight other Members have joined me in co-sponsoring these resolutions, indicating some measure of the support for this action.

Although the United States took the lead both in 1922 at the Washington Arms Limitation Conference and at the Geneva Conference of 1925 in working for a ban on the use of chemical warfare, we remain one of the two major industrial nations not to have ratified the Geneva Protocol of 1925. It strikes me as strange indeed that this arms limitation agreement, one of the few that has worked, has not been ratified by us. Such action is long overdue.

It would be useful to recount some of the history connected with the Geneva Protocol at this time. The Washington Arms Limitation Conference of 1922 included a provision that banned the use of "asphyxiating, poisonous, or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials, or devices." The United States signed the Conference Treaty of 1922 and the United States ratified it unanimously. Unfortunately, the Treaty did not go into effect because the French failed to ratify the Treaty. Their objection was not to the prohibition on gas but rather to the limitation on submarines.

The United States delegation to the Geneva Conference of 1925 was led by the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Theodore Burton. Chairman Burton proposed at the Conference that a Protocol banning the use of chemical weapons be included in the Treaty. Another delegation added bacteriological weapons to this ban. The language that was eventually adopted by the Conference was the same as that which had been used in 1922. The Protocol was signed by the American delegation and was submitted to the United States Senate by President Coolidge. Although the Senate Foreign Relations Committee reported out the Protocol in 1926 by the favorable margin of eight to one, the treaty was never brought to a vote in the Senate. The issue was debated during the lame duck session of Congress in 1926 and Senator Borah did not believe that he had the votes to pass the treaty. There are indications that the Executive Branch had taken too much for granted after the ratification of the 1922 Treaty and had not done its homework in the Senate.

The Senate did not consider the Protocol again. In the post-World War II period Senator Vandenberg sent back to the White House "without prejudice" a

number of treaties that had not been acted upon and which remained on the schedule. As a result, the Senate cannot act upon the Geneva Protocol of 1925 unless President Nixon resubmits it.

NO USE OF CBW IN WORLD WAR II OR KOREA

The United States did not use either gas or bacteriological warfare in World War II or the Korean War. The North Koreans and the Chinese Communists accused us, falsely, of using germ warfare in the Korean War. We went to great efforts to make it perfectly clear that we had not and would not engage in this form of warfare. We have also taken the position in the United Nations and in statements to the Congress that the United States supports the principles of the Geneva Protocol. We have even sponsored and voted for resolutions in the United Nations calling on all nations to ratify the Geneva Protocol.

Confusion arises, however, when we compare our actions in Vietnam with our professed policy. We now use tear gas on a massive scale, albeit under ambiguous policy guidelines, to help kill the enemy. We use anti-plant chemicals-defoliants and herbicides both as anti-food weapons and against foliage. The widespread belief by most nations that have ratified the Protocol, that it applies to tear gas, makes the United States an exception rather than the rule. The recent information that the main ingredient of our defoliants, 2,4,5-T, is harmful to humans, means that these chemicals are prohibited by the ban on poisons in the Protocol.

PROBLEM OF TOXINS

There are several areas of possible controversy that may arise in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and on the floor of the Senate should the Geneva Protocol be brought up for discussion. It should be clear that the ban on bacteriological weapons includes toxins, the deadly by-products of bacteria. These poisons are in some cases, such as bottulinus toxin, more deadly than nerve gas. They are produced with much of the same equipment that is used to produce germ weapons. In the early stages of discussion between the various agencies of the U.S. Government on chemical and biological warfare, some of the military argued that toxins are chemicals rather than bacteriological weapons. The problem with this approach is, first, that these toxins are biologically produced. Secondly, if we continue to produce toxins, we must keep the equipment necessary to produce germ weapons. This would call into question in the minds of other nations our intentions concerning germ weapons.

Mr. George Thomson of the United Kingdom shed some light on this problem when he recently commented on the British draft convention tabled at the Geneva Committee on Disarmament. This convention would bar development, production, storage or use of biological weapons. Mr. Thomson said of the convention:

"Provisions for inspection of biological installations has not been made because this would have been so intrusive as to be politically unacceptable to many states and would in any case provide no guarantee against clandestine production of biological warfare agents. Toxins, although produced by living organisms, do not themselves multiply and are usually regarded as chemical substances. However, if it was widely felt that toxins should be covered by our draft Biological Warfare Convention because of their biological origin, Her Majesty's Government would be very ready to consider appropriate amendments."

I have urged President Nixon to support the United Kingdom convention and to have the United States press to adopt an amendment clearly stating that toxins are included under the draft convention.

THE USE OF INCAPACITATING AGENTS

A second area of controversy that may arise should the Geneva Protocol be considered by the United States Senate concerns the use of incapacitating agents. I believe that the United States should not be the first to use gas, either deadly or incapacitating. According to most nations, incapacitating agents include tear gas. I believe that we should reaffirm our policy of only using the so-called tear gases in riot control or riot control-like situations. This has been United States policy over the years. We only used tear gas for this purpose in World War II and the Korean War despite the availability of large supplies in the United States and requests by field commanders in the Korean War to do so. Our top political leaders have also stated in the current conflict in Vietnam that we will only use tear gas in those situations where it is humane to do so. In the spring

of 1965, when it became known that the U.S. had used tear gas on a number of occasions in Vietnam, Secretary of State Dean Rusk said:

"We do not expect that gas will be used in ordinary military operations. The anticipation is, of course, that these weapons be used only in those situations involving riot control or situations analogous to riot control."

This was not a casual statement because in 1966 the United States Ambassador to the United Nations James M. Nabrit, Jr. said:

"It would be unreasonable to contend that any rule of international law prohibits the use in combat against an enemy, for humanitarian purposes, of agents that Governments around the world commonly use to control riots by their own people."

Most recently, in the discussions now underway in the Executive Branch, the top United States State Department legal authorities reiterated that tear gas could only be used in those cases involving humanitarian grounds.

THE ISSUE OF TEAR GAS

The controversy regarding tear gases-riot control agents-incapacitating gases arises because the United States has been using a modern version of tear gas on a massive scale in Vietnam. Over 13.7 million pounds of CS-2 gas and its predecessors has been used as an aid to killing with conventional weapons. CS-2 is dropped on bunkers and fortified positions to drive the enemy out in the open where he can more easily be killed with artillery, bombs or bullets. Although we call CS-2 a tear gas it can more accurately be considered a lung gas. Another "miracle" of modern science, CS-2 is microminiaturized-made so small-that it penetrates into the deepest recesses of your lungs and makes it absolutely necessary for you to seek fresh air. This gas is a far cry from the tear gas that was known in the past.

This lung gas has been used in combat in Vietnam without clear policy guidelines. Although gas can only be used by U.S. forces with the permission of the President, I am unable to find an order from President Johnson authorizing its use in Vietnam. If such an order was given, it must have been given verbally. I believe that we must remedy this vagueness in policy and make it clear that gas is only to be used in riot control or riot control-like situations.

In all fairness it must be pointed out that there is some genuine ambiguity concerning the use of tear gas under the Geneva Protocol that may have provided our military with what they considered a reasonable justification for its use. The ambiguity lies both in the wording of the Protocol which some claim does not cover tear gas and in the fact that tear gas is permitted for riot control purposes. The argument has centered on whether the wording of the Protocol meant only gases "harmful" to man or whether it includes other gases.

LEAGUE OF NATIONS PREPARATORY COMMISSION

I believe that the question was resolved in a series of international conferences that occurred during the early thirties. Because some confusion had arisen on the question of whether the original treaty had included incapacitating agents, the League of Nations Preparatory Commission for the Disarmament Conference that met in Geneva on January 15, 1931, discussed the problem at some length. The nations that had ratified the Geneva Protocol generally agreed that tear gas was covered by the Protocol. Ironically, even then, the United States took an equivocal stand.

To briefly quote from the minutes of the Commission: ". . . the British Delegation. 'It may be recalled that during the first part of the sixth session, certain delegations assumed that the intention was to prohibit the use of all chemical methods of warfare of every kind. On the other hand there were some indications that this view is not shared by all States. It is at least possible that this difference in interpretation owes its origin to a serious ambiguity in the Geneva Gas Protocol of 1925, as well as in all Treaties and Conventions regulating gas warfare signed since the war. In the Geneva Protocol of June, 1925, though the relevant portion of the French text is identical with the article quoted above, in the English text the French word 'similaires' is translated by 'other'. Basing itself on this English text, the British Government has taken the view that the use in war of 'other' gases, including lachrymatory gases, was prohibited.' They also considered that the intention was to incorporate the same prohibition in the present Convention."