Birmingham News (AL)
Brady Franklin vividly remembers the bone-chilling experience of standing lookout watches aboard a Navy destroyer plowing through the North Atlantic in January and February 1965.
Temperatures plunged to minus 30 degrees at times, and salty ice coated the heaving ship.
"It was all you could do to hold on," recalled Franklin, 57, of Tuscaloosa.
But crew members aboard the USS Power were exposed to hazards more insidious than the brutal weather and pounding waves, as they are learning decades later. They were part of secret exercises in which thousands of unprotected sailors were exposed to biological and chemical agents, usually without their knowledge or permission.
Sketchy details of Project SHAD, or Shipboard Hazard and Defense, have slipped out in recent years, alarming veterans who believe they have ailments associated with their unwitting service as human guinea pigs. The departments of defense and veterans affairs have promised a full investigation, disclosure of health risks and, if needed, disability benefits.
But SHAD sailors are experiencing the same delays and frustration encountered by veterans exposed to atomic radiation after World War II, Agent Orange in the Vietnam War and chemical contamination in the Persian Gulf War.
"I am appalled that the finest country in the world would submit its own people to such stuff," Franklin said. "It's got to stop."
Franklin signed up in the was the ship's barber. Project
The Power was deployed to Argentia, Newfoundland, in January 1965 for "special operations," according to the ship's deck log. From Jan. 24 until Feb. 25, the Power embarked on 11 daylong cruises when the weather cleared enough to permit operations, according to the log.
The crew didn't know the reason for the operations, but there were suspicious occurrences, Franklin said. Special ventilators were installed on the ship, and about a dozen Department of Defense and Army personnel came aboard during exercises. Sometimes they swabbed the tongues and noses of sailors for samples, he said.
"They had protective gear," Franklin said. "Nobody else had it."
In fact, Franklin said, sailors were not even issued sufficient clothing to protect them against the bitter cold. At times, sailors were able to endure only 15 minutes of shivering misery while tethered to lifelines on exposed decks, he said.
Disability claim denied
Franklin said he developed sinus and skin problems. Shipmates became ill, too.
The exercises ended, and the Power returned to homeport in Mayport, Fla. Franklin left active duty in 1966, never knowing details about his stint in the North Atlantic.
He returned to Tuscaloosa and developed kidney and bladder problems along with skin cancer. His son was born in 1970 with spina bifida, a congenital defect of the spinal column.
About 1975, Franklin began suffering from recurrent nightmares and insomnia. The Veterans Administration eventually diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition usually associated with combat experiences. It forced him to retire from his job at B.F. Goodrich in Tuscaloosa, but the VA denied his claim for disability compensation, he said.
Franklin thought his PTSD was connected with the stress he encountered in the North Atlantic, but he never suspected any of his conditions were caused by biological or chemical exposures in the military.
"I didn't put two and two together," he said. "Everybody's got ailments."
Franklin changed his mind about four years ago, when a shipmate from the Power told him that an investigative journalist, Eric Longabardi, was looking into the North Atlantic exercises. Longabardi worked with CBS News, which aired a series of stories on Project SHAD in May 2000.
Tests acknowledged
Under pressure, the military promised to investigate and, after much delay, has acknowledged there were at least 46 tests from 1962 to 1973 in which 15 ships in the Atlantic and Pacific were sprayed - usually by an airplane - with real biological and chemical warfare agents or simulants, and were then decontaminated with a dangerous chemical.
Beyond that, veterans say the investigation has produced a less-than-satisfactory assessment of the circumstances and risks surrounding the SHAD experiments.
For instance, the SHAD exercise Franklin participated in was code-named Copper Head. It was designed to test the vulnerability of ships to biological or chemical attack in cold weather.
A "Fact Sheet" issued by the Department of Defense says crew members of the Power "were not test subjects but test conductors."
That's a stance the military has taken on all the operations, but Franklin believes he was a test subject. Why else would Defense and Army workers be issued protective clothing while everybody else was left exposed, he said. And why would they take swab tests from the crews?
The Fact Sheet states that the crew should have been given details of the test, special training and protective equipment.
"We were not advised to take any special precautions," Franklin said.
Troublesome materials
And then there's the military's assessment of the biological and chemical agents used in the experiments.
The Fact Sheet said the biological simulant Bacillus globigii (BG) was used, and described it as "harmless to humans." What the Fact Sheet doesn't say is that there has been a longrunning dispute over the military's use of the simulant BG. The agent is a common bacterium that closely resembles anthrax, and some scientists believe it causes infections in people with weak immune systems.
A fluorescent compound, zinc cadmium sulfide, also was used. The Fact Sheet describes it as a relatively harmless simulant but acknowledges that in a worstcase scenario, repeated exposures could be toxic to kidneys and bones and cause lung cancer.
More troublesome than the simulants was the chemical decontaminant used in Copper Head - betapropiolactone. The Fact Sheet acknowledges there is evidence that the chemical causes cancer in animals but says the studies that determined the hazard were "questionable."
Actually, there's little question about betapropiolactone's being a carcinogen. The National Toxicology Program, an authoritative federal agency, says it is "reasonably anticipated to be a carcinogen based on sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals."
And National Toxicology Program literature states: "This compound is highly toxic by ingestion, inhalation, skin absorption. . . . It is a strong irritant of the skin, eyes and respiratory tract. . . . It is corrosive and extremely destructive to the tissues of the mucous membranes and upper respiratory tract, eyes and skin. . . . It is also a human carcinogen."
Austin Camacho, a spokesman for the Department of Defense, said he wasn't aware of all the data on betapropiolactone, and he described it as "potentially hazardous." He said the chemical was considered safe when it was used in 1965. The military still contends BG is harmless, he said.
"Almost anything can be harmful to somebody," Camacho said. "Nothing is 100 percent safe."
Lawyer: Stop misery
Camacho insisted that sailors aboard the Power were not test subjects because the chemical and biological agents used were thought to be harmless.
"I think it has to do with the purpose of the test," he said.
Camacho said there were some real biological and chemical warfare agents used in other SHAD tests, but everybody involved wore protective gear. He said the testing involved the nerve agents Sarin, Soman and VX, and the biological agents that cause Q fever and tularemia.
"These are pretty dangerous things," he said. "The people involved were very aware of it."
Camacho said he understands that veterans are concerned, but he said the military is conducting a thorough investigation.
"We're going through an awful lot of material," he said. "I don't think there's any attempt to alter the facts."
Doug Rosinski, an attorney representing SHAD veterans, their families and the Vietnam Veterans of America, said the military's response is ridiculously transparent.
"Everybody knows they're lying," he said. "They know they're lying. Who suffers? The veteran."
Rosinski said it's time to put a stop to the misery caused by what he called the military and VA's intentional mishandling of issues such as nuclear fallout, Agent Orange and Gulf War syndrome.
His firm, Shaw Pittman of Washington, has filed what could become a precedent-setting lawsuit against six government officials involved in the SHAD experiments and investigation. What makes the lawsuit different is that it is filed against individuals, who are normally protected by immunity in making policy decisions for the government.
"We are going for accountability on these people," Rosinski said.
He said the actions of government officials in the SHAD case have been so outrageous that they should not be protected by governmental immunity. That will be a key issue in the lawsuit, he said.
This is not a matter of national security, Rosinski said, and he produced a copy of a White House memo from Dec. 3, 1965, describing why government officials kept the SHAD tests secret:
"If reasonable security procedures are followed, these tests should not constitute any greater public relations risk than previous operations," the memo said.
"What's the national security interest?" Rosinski asked. "We think this is way outside the bounds of what immunity is for."
Claims pending
Veterans began filing claims for health problems related to SHAD as early as 1980, Rosinski said. The military simply denied that such an operation ever existed, and the VA denied claims, Rosinski said.
Franklin said it is difficult to accept the military's belated reports on the chemical and biological agents used in the tests, given the deception that has surrounded the issue.
Whatever agents were used would have been frozen into the ice that coated the ship, he said. At times sailors went on deck and peeled off chunks of the contaminated ice and threw them at each other, not realizing the hazard.
"I know we got it all over us," he said.
Franklin still has claims pending before the VA for himself and the son born with spina bifida. Other shipmates have had children with birth defects and have had more than their share of health problems, he said.
He requested an examination, and the VA called him for a 20-minute interview. "There was no physical exam even offered," he said.
Beyond that, he has serious concerns about the cold reality of what happened to him in the North Atlantic and its impact on the nation's military.
"We cannot use our armed forces as guinea pigs," he said. "How are you going to find people to protect this great country? How are we going to keep our strong military?"
NEW STAFF/DAVE PARKS BRADY FRANKLIN WITH A PHOTO OF HIS OLD SHIP USS POWER, WHICH PARTICIPATED IN SECRET CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WARFARE TESTS., SPECIAL Brady Franklin during the winter of 1965 aboard an ice-encrusted USS Power in the North Atlantic, the location of secret cold-weather tests for chemical and biological agents.
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