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111  Swift Biological Advance
     Can Be Bent to Genocide
     The Washington Post  Saturday, August 17, 1968

     The phrase "germ warfare evokes a moral revulsion which is not
strictly justified.  War is already awful; how nice it would be to
bypass its blood and guts and evoke some clean, almost symptomless
disease instead.

     From a military standpoint, the ideal agent for BW (biological
warfare) would be a completely nonlethal but highly contagious virus
that merely stupefied its victims for a few hours or days and for 
which the good guys had a reliable antidote or preventive anti- 
body.  This hypnovirus is a logically plausible ideal, just as is the
thought of using mind-altering drugs as chemical warfare agents.  (LSD
was in fact studied by the U.S. Army long before the hippies 
discovered it.)

     Having the hypnovirus would, however, make very little difference
to the maneuverings of the great powers, with their highly automated
nuclear missile systems.  Could we persuade the Kremlin to exclude
biological attack from the threats it intends retaliate against?  The
impact of hypnovirus on small-country politics, and on the "policing"
of the world by the major powers, would be another matter, one that
deserves a more leisurely discussion.

     For the moment, hypnovirus is a pipedream.  Most BW research is
claimed to be defensive.  That is, it seeks to anticipate the worst 
horrors an enemy might develop, then beat to it so as to know how to
defend the population.  Needless to say, there is no more ingenious
device to ensure the rapid escalation of offensive capabilities.

     Whether work is actively proceeding in BW laboratories on 
producing a hypnovirus, I do not know.  They have, however, published
abundant reports showing their preoccupation with plague, anthrax,
rickettsia, tularemia, encephalitis virus and other equally unpleasant
and highly lethal disease agents.

     The most chilling thought is that BW research has only just begun
to tap the potential offered by chemical genetics for the systematic 
construction of new disease agents.  The announcement of the artificial
replication of a virus DNA last December was followed by some 
rather premature talk about the moral problems of replicating, and 
altering human DNA.  We have a much more immediate concern for the moral
problems of the engineering of virus DNA for military purposes.

     These anxieties have provoked considerable bitterness in the
scientific community and even demonstrations pointlessly misdirected
at the Army's biological research laboratories at Ft. Detrick, Md.
In recent years, this installation has concentrated on the technology
of handling dangerous, infectious materials for research purposes.
Its experience is quite valuable for public health work and has been
openly published.

     Nevertheless, even these positive contributions have a seamier
side.  The hazards of dealing with dangerous viruses is one of the few
discouragements to keep a smaller country from starting its own BW
program.  As we develop and publicize this technology, we make easier
the proliferation of the darkest arts throughout the world.

     The makers of policy in Washington, not the technicians at Ft. 
Detrick, are the just targets of criticism.  And they should be 
chastised less for any malevolent motives in this field than for mere
inertia , for technical unfamiliarity, for blindness to the peace of
biological advance and its accessibility to the most perilous 
genocidal experimentation.

     The U.N. has had a long history of abortive attempts to start
discussions on the control of BW.

     Now, the British delegation has introduced new initiatives for BW
controls and, evidently with some reluctance, the U.S. State Department
for the first time agreed to substantial technical studies.  Time
is running out, and too little is left to let BW remain merely another
minor pawn whose disposition is incidental to other settlements.


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