Orginial Source
Cold War Bioweapon Tests Included
California
Defense: Secret trials in six
states, from '62 to '73, were to track
dispersal patterns, officials say.
By JOHN HENDREN
TIMES STAFF WRITER
October 10 2002
WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon sprayed
biological and chemical agents off the
coast of San Diego during the Cold
War, part of a series of previously
undisclosed tests in several states
that exposed troops and perhaps
thousands of civilians to the
compounds, defense officials said
Wednesday.
In all, 27 newly disclosed secret
tests were conducted in California,
Alaska, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland and
Utah, officials said. The tests,
conducted from 1962 to 1973, were also
carried out in Canada and the United
Kingdom.
In February 1966, a Navy vessel in the
Pacific Ocean off the coast of San
Diego was sprayed with
methylacetoacetate, or MA, a chemical
that irritates the eyes, skin and
respiratory tract but is not
considered hazardous by the
Environmental Protection Agency.
In a second test in the summer of
1968, MA and Bacillus globigii, or BG,
were released in the same waters. A
bacterium related to anthrax, BG was
later found to infect people with weak
immune systems. No civilians are
thought to have been exposed to
harmful agents in those tests because
they were carried out over the ocean.
It was the first time the Pentagon has
acknowledged that it used the agents
on U.S. soil and that civilians may
have been exposed during the tests.
The Defense Department previously
revealed that 10 tests were carried
out during the Cold War on U.S. ships
to determine how they would perform
under chemical or biological attack.
The Defense Department released the
information at a House Veterans
Affairs Committee meeting Wednesday;
some elements were leaked to reporters
Tuesday.
Military officials insisted that none
of the agents used near civilians was
thought at the time to be dangerous,
although some--including E. coli
bacteria--were later found to be
harmful, even deadly.
In 21 tests on land and six newly
reported tests at sea overseen by the
Deseret Test Center at Ft. Douglas,
Utah, live biological agents and
lethal chemicals--including sarin and
VX--were sprayed not only in the six
states, but at or near military
facilities in Puerto Rico, Canada, the
United Kingdom, the Marshall Islands,
Baker Island and over international
waters in the Pacific Ocean.
The 37 tests disclosed so far affected
about 5,000 service members at sea and
500 on land from 1962 to 1973, defense
officials said. The Pentagon has
notified about 1,400 of those soldiers
about the secret testing regimen,
dubbed "Project 112."
The Deseret test center reported that
four people were infected at the time
and successfully treated. Veterans
Affairs officials said they were
studying the phenomenon; 53 veterans
have filed health claims since the
1990s. The claims blame what they say
was their exposure to the chemical or
biological agents for a variety of
ailments, including muscular,
skeletal, digestive, hearing, skin and
cardiovascular disorders.
Defense officials said the Pentagon
has no process for notifying civilians
who may have been exposed in the U.S.,
including those possibly numbering
"into the thousands" on
Oahu, Hawaii.
Pentagon officials believe local
authorities were notified of the tests
at the time, said William Winkenwerder
Jr., assistant Defense secretary for
health affairs, but most citizens
apparently were not. Veterans
advocates said lower-level soldiers
also were unaware, although defense
officials insisted the soldiers were
protected by chemical gear and masks.
"We're making this information
available so that anyone who believes
there may have been some ill effect
could come forward," Winkenwerder
said.
Civilians were not believed to have
been affected in California because
the four tests conducted
there--including two first reported
Wednesday--were all conducted off the
San Diego coast in the Pacific Ocean,
according to the Pentagon analysis.
Defense officials insisted that
civilians were exposed only to live
biological agents that simulated more
deadly agents in the way they spread,
but were themselves believed to be
harmless. However, the simulated
substances included E. coli and other
agents that were later found to be
harmful or fatal to young children,
the elderly and those with compromised
immune systems.
Even soldiers and sailors exposed
during the tests "may not have
known all the details of these
tests," Winkenwerder said.
"Most of these people didn't have
a clue what they were part of,"
said Kirt Love, a veterans advocate
with the Desert Storm Battle Registry
who contended that in many cases only
senior officers were aware of the
tests. "These were not safe
agents at the time."
After the report was released of the
House Veterans Affairs Committee
hearing, it was detailed at a Pentagon
briefing. Defense officials said the
tests were conducted for potential
offensive use against U.S. enemies and
for defense against the Cold War
biological and chemical weapons
arsenal amassed by the Soviet Union.
The Navy trials tested the ability of
ships and sailors, clad in chemical
defense gear, to perform under a
chemical or biological attack at sea.
The land-based tests were done to
evaluate how the agents dispersed,
officials said. Desert tests such as
those in Utah helped the Pentagon
amass much of the information the
military has on how chemical and
biological agents would perform in
desert areas such as Iraq, said Anna
Johnson-Winegar, the Pentagon's
assistant secretary for chemical and
biological defense.
"The purpose of these operational
tests was to test equipment,
procedures, military tactics, etc.,
and to learn more about biological and
chemical agents," Winkenwerder
said. "The tests were not
conducted to evaluate the effects of
dangerous agents on people."
The United States ended its biological
weapons program in the 1960s and in
1997 signed a treaty agreeing to
destroy all of its chemical weapons.
Funding and disposal issues have
delayed much of that process, leaving
stores of lethal chemicals at several
military sites throughout the nation.
Today, defense officials insist that
the only testing of toxic and
biological agents in the United States
is given to chemical specialists among
the armed services at a tightly
contained testing facility at Ft.
Leonard Wood, Mo. So-called stimulants
still are used elsewhere.
The disclosures are unlikely to be the
last from Project 112. The military
had planned 134 tests; 46 were
conducted, 62 were canceled and the
status of the remainder is unclear.
The newly disclosed tests used a
variety of agents under various
conditions.
Tests in the late 1960s in Porton
Down, England, and Ralson, Canada,
used tabun and soman, two deadly nerve
agents.
In the 1965 Oahu test, BG was sprayed
in a simulated attack called "Big
Tom." Near Ft. Greely, Alaska,
researchers tested how deadly sarin
gas, the toxin members of the Aum
Supreme Truth cult used in 1995 to
kill commuters in the Tokyo subway,
would disperse after being released
from artillery shells and rockets in
dense forests in a test dubbed
"Devil Hole I" in 1965. A
year later, VX agent, which lingers
like motor oil in deadly pools, was
released by artillery shells in
"Devil Hole II."
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