Preventing a Biological Arms Race edited by Susan Wright ares The MIT Press 19 qo Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England Evolution of Biological Warfare Policy, 1945-1990 37 covert operation attack against crops and Causing severe crop loss” in anticipation of actual use.28 In summary, the end result of the expansion of CBW activity in the 1950s and 1960s was an unprecedented assimilation of CB weaponry by the military and the CIA. The period saw the forma- tion of a huge chemical and biological warfare infrastructure of laboratories, test facilities, and production plants, and a network of institutional ties with the civilian sector. This system produced biological and chemical weapons systems capable of dispersing lethal CB agents over vast areas. Plans for use both in military and covert operations were formed. The United States used herbicides and irritant agents on a massive scale in Vietnam, thereby under- mining the clarity of the 1925 Geneva Protocol’s ban on “the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous and other gases and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices.” Possibly in response to growing pub- lic and international criticism of such use, a no-first-use policy for lethal chemical and biological agents began to be articulated by U.S. spokesmen in the mid-1960s. Other aspects of the United States CBW policy remained obscure to the public and by no means unambiguously restrained by international law.29 CBW Disarmament Efforts, 1969-1975 The second phase of U.S. policy began in the 1960s when interna- tional and domestic pressures for CBW disarmament mounted, stimulated partly by dissemination of information about the nature of these weapons, partly by strong opposition to the continued use of herbicides and irritant agents in Vietnam, and partly by several well-publicized events within the United States, including a major accident resulting from the testing of nerve gas at Dugway Proving Ground.3° In various international arenas, the question of chemical and biological disarmament achieved prominence. The United Nations heard repeated complaints against American use of chemicals in Vietnam.3! U.N. Resolution 2603A introduced by Sweden in November 1969 affirmed the position of the majority of nations that _ the Geneva Protocol prohibited “any chemical agents of warfare ; ++. which might be employed because of their direct toxic effects on - humans, animals or plants” and implicitly censured American use ~ of defoliants and irritant agents. (Only the United States, Aus- tralia, and Portugal voted against the Resolution.) In addition, 38 S. Wright i ical and es were taken to place the question ° aan aust i auionz nda. In i ‘ the international age i ical disarmament on ; ae eee” che United Kingdom submitted a working P P fo me i ht en-Nation Disarmament Committce proposi s be UN yan issuc .N. tion banning biological weapons. A report ithe srowing Secretary-Gencral U Thant in July 5 sarees an oes 1 acity \B weaponry. In a strong ive capacity of C : S ocuks word, he a vealed to all nations to accept the Weneva ana word, he ap the use of chemical and biological agents, ng Soe ayent liminate them from military arsena S. i bout how best to i 2 national debate a idst considerable imter ! ON ven ae chemical and biological disarmament, two < ee ieve gical ° tic ns, the first aimed at biological disarmamne ae ae ime i ical and biologica chemical an ‘ i at comprehensive : aia aes sroposed by the United Kingdom anos co wer | , eastern bloc respectively in the summer oO 60. drew the fire of Within the United States, the BM progt oe ee Crit ic] n . licity of modern sci¢e appalled at the comp it} m sc banned fee attacked the use of herbicides and anti persoun im oO pone Vi : am, the open-air testing of chemical and a ost eee 4 cenerally the use of science for the creation 0 sina hy publ de action Scientists contributed to the growing protes oy Pate - i ion on the m i i sing attention trad i hese issues and focusing Be a atist ces entailed by weapons research. In 1967, thousands ° she ° in signed a petition to President Lyndon Johnson eae neyo i i-crop weapons 1n and a! -personnel and anti-cr "ay arn use ot ros. CBW programs and policies. A number of ° nuh eM etal ition to - soci ties took action to express concern over or Oppos societies ical and biological warfare.** f Congress were also in i tthe CBW issue and pressing for a change of policy. Congres ity o as activated in i i ecret CBW program w Sparen gies the issue that focused public with the storage, transporta- f chemical weapons. Con- the spring of 1969 further n. various initiativ irritant agents, and to ¢€ fluential in raising the visibil- siona part by growing media coverage of attention on the hazards associated i oO tion, disposal and open-air testing o" gressional hearings on these matters fi ; w 0 g g their muscles. B ul > a House res lution urgin the I I side ad ained 9 cospons rs. In ddition member of Co ess were h 5 ors . Ss ngr g d e Evolution of Biological Warfare Policy, 1945-1990 39 threatening major cuts in the authorization for the CBW program. In the same month, the Senate Armed Services Committee voted to eliminate the entire $16 million CBW research and development. defense procurement authorization authorization for offensive In August, amendments to the bill placed a series of restrictive conditions on the CBW program including prohibitions on open- air tests of lethal CBW agents and procurement of delivery systems for such agents and a requirement that the Sccretary of Defense submit semiannual reports to Congress accounting for expenditures on the CBW program. By the middle of 1969, the U.S. CBW pro- grams had become the focus of a major public controversy.36 In this climate of strong criticism of the CBW program at home and abroad, the Nixon administration initiated a review of CBW policy by the National Security Council (NSC) in May 1969. In- formation and policy proposals flowed to the NSC from a variety of sources including the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the President’s Science Advisory Committee, the DOD Ollice of Systems Analysis, and the State Department’s Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs. Following a lengthy process of discussion and negotiation, Richard Nixon announced in November 1969 several major changes in CBW policy: an unconditional renunciation of the development, produc- tion, and stockpiling of biological weapons; the renunciation of first use of lethal chemicals and incapacitating agents; and finally, his historic renunciation of biological weapons. Henceforth, Nixon afirmed, U.S. interests in biological warfare would be confined to research for defensive purposes, and stockpiles of biological weapons would be destroyed.37 Toxin weapons were not mentioned in the president’s Statement, but following substantial congression- al comment on the omission, the U.S. renunciation was extended in February 1970 to include these weapons. 38 The precise reasons for Nixon’s decision to alter U.S. CBW policy remain obscure. In a general way, the policy change responded to growing public and international criticism of the U.S. CBW policy. An some respects, the decision may be seen as a compromise, going part way to satisfy the demands of critics of U.S. policy by renouncing those weapons which had the least military utility yet Preserving the U.S. option to use herbicides and tear gas in Viet- nam. As critics of the U.S. CBW policy noted immediately after Nixon’s announcement, the United States did not consider those chemicals to be covercd cither by the Geneva Protocol or by Nixon’s renunciation of “lethal chemical weapons.” In addition, 40 S. Wright arsenal defined as an and unreliable. Its clim- 1.39 the only chemical agent im the Ve incapacitant——-BZ—was both expensi caer ination | impact on the conduct of the ic om the Ne ne ‘nun lation of biological and toxin weapons was, nine Nr hand, comp hensive. It is likely that several factors nie a oN one dministration’s calculations. First, the miinary into ne Nixon " weapons was seen as dubious; thus renuncin ‘idnot oe the U S. an advantage over chemical or conven ona oe ood ‘es ossible also that the decision was In one apy nce i within the scientific community about t re ure military, se of advances in biology.*” Evidence for this en ton con es fro the reasons for supporting biological disarmet ent ziven by t ‘dir tor of the Arms Control and Disarmamen Agen oh 2 “the Nixon Administration, Fred ae od. Arnon er the Sena i ati mmittee in . f 7 kh Forei e enithout such a prohibition, new Cevelor: aan “bi 0 ical sciences might give rise to concern cause they eid be abused for weapons Purposes Such Fees od foster se ii ition in a field of scien se sr a co and be used wviely for :he ben ft f mankind.’’#! A-third and possibly cecsive eee et oh : sc of policy was that advances in piologica a wen “unlikel to serve US. interests. As one observe - US. CBV evolicy h dar ued in 1964: ‘“The introduction 0 rae ity cheap weap ‘ P mass destruction into the arsenals et the oot won! not act as much to strengthen the big powers ast Mot no endow dozens of relatively weak countries with grea yo ceili. is obviously to the advantage of great ‘ery ox x ive.”!2 This argument was also powers to keep war very expensive. ; ata adviser Han Swyter nse Department a . stressed by former Defe biological warfare at the National er 1969: “The proliferation of chem ili hange the world’s ical and biological capability would tend .° nage he worn ba f ower reducing ours. We would lose ° ean Pivantages f nuclear and conventional capabi Wy w ot ee in hs ar ave a f advant 4s and to the Soviets. Consequently, we | ca strong Contive discourage other nations from acquiring centive to f art’ | iologi abilities. . re artic oe ae nils of Nixon’s new biological warfare policy meal by etails olos “ td in National Security Decision sienna O. a Py Ni National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger, ixon’s Nz al $ structive capability. . symposium on chemical and Academy of Sciences in Octob Evolution of Biological Warfare Policy, 1945-1990 41 the same day as Nixon’s renunciation of biological weapons. The memorandum defined the permissible areas of biological research: The United States, . . biological Program will be confined to re- search and development for defensive purposes... . This does not preclude research into those offensive aspects of. . . biological agents necessary to determine what defensive measures are re- quired.” According to this guideline, the operative criterion for per- missible biological defense research was not the product of research but the motive guiding it. This criterion thus allowed rese gray area where defensive and ollensive easily distinguished. Meanwhile, at the intern arch ina activities could not be ational level, the question of whether the problem of chemical and biological disarmament should be addressed by a single comprehensive convention or by separate conventions remained controversial, with the socialist and non- aligned nations favoring the former and the United Kingdom, the United States, and some other western nations the latter. However, the virtual deadlock on this issue at the Geneva Conference on the Committee on Disarmament (CCD) was broken in the s 1971 when the Soviet Union reversed its convention for biological disarmament may have played an important role in this reversal, signalling to the Soviet Union a new willingness to negotiate on BW disarmament.+3 Rapid progress on a Biological Weapons Conventior biological and toxin weapons followed. The Conv pleted in September 197] and opened for si Moscow and Washington on April 10, 1972.46 The treaty was (and is) a major achievement in the history of disarmament. Until the 1988 INF treaty, modern times to prohib pring of position and tabled a draft only. Nixon’s renunciation 1 prohibiting ention was com- gnature in London, it was the only treaty in well as use of weapons. However, the formal language of the treaty is in some respects weak and does not entirely preclude the possibility of activities aimed at the development of biological weapons. (For a discussion of the Convention’s provisions, sce chapter 11.) In addition, the treaty does not contain Provisions for verification of compliance. To a great extent, the Biological Weapons Convention depended on the good faith, self-interest, and commitment of the parties to it.?7 fIn 1975, when the treaty entered into force, the United States also ratified the Geneva Protocol and committed itself once again to a policy of no-first-use of chemical weapons. A period of relative restraint with respect to chemical and biological weapons followed. it possession as {2 S Wright Stockpiles of biological and toxin weapons were ordered to be dismantled.*® The Biological Warfare Program (now renamed the Biological Defense Program) was cut back, confined to research, and reoriented toward defense, as defined by National Security De- cision Memorandum 35. The program also underwent some impor- tant institutional changes at this point. Research and development activities related to biological agents and toxins were transferred from the Army Matéricl Command to the Health Services Gom- mand under the Army Surgeon General. Research related to crop diseases was transferred to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Physical defense—that is, activities related to detection devices and protective clothing—continued under the Army Matericl Com- mand at Edgewood Arsenal. Testing and evaluation remained under the Testing and Evaluation Command and continued to be carried out, with reduced stafling, at Dugway Proving Ground.?? In effect, rescarch and development activities focusing on the prop- erties of biological warfare agents appear to have been separated from the Chemical Warfare Program and reoriented toward de- fense. At the same time, an unollicial moratorium on the manufac- ture of chemical weapons occurred. (No chemical weapons were produced from 1969 until December 1987.) Support for research and development for the Chemical Warfare and Biological Defense Programs continued to decline, reaching its lowest point in the post-war period in 1975 (figure 2.1). The CBW programs were essentially mothballed. Also in the 1970s, negotiations on the development of a treaty prohibiting chemical weapons were initiated between the two superpowers. (These bilateral talks supplemented the multilateral efforts being pursued under joint U.S.-Soviet leadership by the Conference of the Committee on Disarmament.) President Nixon and Secretary Brezhnev’s intention to begin such negotiations, announced at the Moscow summit mecting in 1974, was reafhirmed by President Ford and Secretary Brezhnev at Vladivostok, and bilateral negotiations began in Geneva in August 1976. Progress was slow, but it was not insignificant. By August 1979, broad agree- ment had been reached on the scope of the treaty (the quantities and types of chemicals to be covered) and on the national and in- ternational measures for verifying comphance, including the use of on-site inspection. In the joimt communiqué issued by President Carter and Sccretary Brezhnev in Vienna in June 1979, the super- powers agreed to intensify their efforts to produce a joint draft con- Evolution of Ph: aution af Biological Warfare Policy, 1945-196 | | I CV, FFD 1990 45 vention for pr I ; resenta ] sccantea an Con, Hon te the Committee on Disarmam aaa 2. Although pressure from the U.S naires uction of binary chemic Md began RY tein th € AG 4 ¥ anc C t | I ] 1 > . y y l y | Or 1 . er administrations and C Ong ess seem d enera l comn " ed t eC king to disarm, rather than rearm, ‘hernicall ’ i pects fo an eve ‘ 4 \ | | are ua C he mical W ‘ on J ti / and the TOs _ wan € nt Capo S Conven on al pe . al weapons had begun to mount >