The United States biological weapons program officially began in spring 1943 on orders from U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt. Research continued following World War II as the U.S. built up a large stockpile of biological agents and weapons. Over the course of its 27-year history, the program weaponized and stockpiled seven bio-agents Bacillus anthracis (anthrax), Francisella tularensis (tularemia), Brucella spp (brucellosis), Coxiella burnetii (Q-fever), Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus, Botulinum toxin (botulism), and Staphylococcal enterotoxin B. The U.S. also pursued basic research on many more bio-agents. Throughout its history, the U.S. bioweapons program was secret. It was later revealed that laboratory and field testing (some of the latter using simulants on non-consenting individuals) had been common. The official policy of the United States was first to deter the use of bio-weapons against U.S. forces and secondarily to retaliate if deterrence failed.
In 1969, President Richard Nixon ended all offensive (i.e., non-defensive) aspects of the U.S. bio-weapons program. In 1975 the U.S. ratified both the 1925 Geneva Protocol and the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC)—international treaties outlawing biological warfare.
History Early history (1918–1941) Initial interest in any form of biological warfare came at the close of World War I. The only agent the U.S. tested was the toxin ricin, a product of the castor plant. The U.S. conducted tests concerning two methods of ricin dissemination: the first, which involved adhering the toxin to shrapnel for delivery by artillery shell, was successful; the second, delivering an aerosol cloud of ricin, was proven less successful in these tests. Neither delivery method was perfected before the war in Europe ended.Smart, Jeffery K. Medical Aspects of Chemical and Biological Warfare: Chapter 2 – History of Chemical and Biological Warfare: An American Perspective, (PDF: p. 14), Borden Institute, Textbooks of Military Medicine, PDF via Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base. Retrieved January 3, 2009.
In the early 1920s suggestions that the U.S. began a biological weapons program were coming from within the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS). Chief of the CWS, Amos Fries, decided that such a program would not be "profitable" for the U.S. Japan's Shirō Ishii, who later served as the director of the infamous Unit 731, began promoting biological weapons during the 1920s and toured biological research facilities worldwide, including in the United States. Though Ishii concluded that the U.S. was developing a bio-weapons program, he was incorrect. In fact, Ishii concluded that each major power he visited was developing a bio-weapons program. As the interwar period continued, the United States did not emphasize biological weapons development or research. While the U.S. was spending very little time on biological weapons research, its future allies and enemies in the upcoming second World War were researching the potential of biological weapons as early as 1933.
World War II (1941–45) Despite the World War I-era interest in ricin, as World War II erupted, the United States Army still maintained the position that biological weapons were, for the most part, impractical. Other nations, notably France, Japan and the United Kingdom, thought otherwise and had begun their own biological weapons programs.Garrett, Laurie. Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health, (Google Books), Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 340–41, (). Thus, as late as 1942 the U.S. had no biological weapons capabilities. Initial interest in biological weapons by the Chemical Warfare Service began in 1941.Croddy, Weapons of Mass Destruction, p. 303. That fall, U.S. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson requested that the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) undertake consideration of U.S. biological warfare. He wrote to Dr. Frank B. Jewett, then president of the NAS:
Because of the dangers that might confront this country from potential enemies employing what may be broadly described as biological warfare, it seems advisable that investigations be initiated to survey the present situation and the future possibilities. I am therefore, asking if you will undertake the appointment of an appropriate committee to survey all phases of this matter. Your organization already has before it a request from The Surgeon General for the appointment of a committee by the Division of Medical Sciences of the National Research Council to examine one phase of the matter.Covert, Norman M. (2000), , 4th Edition: 2000.
In response the NAS formed a committee, the War Bureau of Consultants (WBC), which issued a report on the subject in February 1942. The report, among other items, recommended the research and development of an offensive biological weapons program.
The British, and the research undertaken by the WBC, pressured the U.S. to begin biological weapons research and development and in November 1942 U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt officially approved an American biological weapons program. In response to the information provided by the WBC, Roosevelt ordered Stimson to form the War Research Service (WRS).Moreno, Jonathan D. Undue Risk: Secret State Experiments on Humans, (Google Books), Routledge, 2001, pp. 44–46, (). Established within the Federal Security Agency, the WRS' stated purpose was to promote "public security and health", but, in reality, the WRS was tasked with coordinating and supervising the U.S. biological warfare program.Zilinskas, Raymond A. Biological Warfare, (Google Books), Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder, Colorado: 2000 pp. 228–30, (). In the spring of 1943 the U.S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories were established at Camp Detrick (now Fort Detrick) in Frederick, Maryland.Ryan, Jeffrey R. and Glarum, Jan F. Biosecurity and Bioterrorism: Containing and Preventing Biological Threats, (Google Books), Butterworth-Heinemann, 2008, p. 14, ().Guillemin, Jeanne. Biological Warfare, p. 63.
Though initially, under George Merck, the WRS contracted several universities to participate in the U.S. biological weapons program, the program became large quickly and before long it was under the full control of the CWS. By November 1943 the biological weapons facility at Detrick was completed, in addition, the United States constructed three other facilities - a biological agent production plant at Vigo County near Terre Haute, Indiana (Vigo Ordnance Plant), a field-testing site on Horn Island in Mississippi (Horn Island Testing Station), and another field site near Granite Peak in Utah (Granite Peak Installation). According to an official history of the period, "the elaborate security precautions taken [at Camp Detrick] were so effective that it was not until January 1946, 4 months after VJ Day, that the public learned of the wartime research in biological weapons".Clendenin, Lt. Col. Richard M. (1968), Science and Technology at Fort Detrick, 1943–1968; Technical Information Division.
Cold War (1947–1969) Following World War II, the United States biological warfare program progressed into an effective, military-driven research and production program, covered in controversy and secrecy.David R. Franz, D.V.M., PH.D.; Cheryl D. Parrott; and Ernest T. Takafuji, M.D., M.P.H., "Chapter 19 – The U.S. Biological Warfare and Biological Defense Programs", Air University, n.d. Production of U.S. biological warfare agents went from "factory-level to laboratory-level". By 1950 the principal U.S. bio-weapons facility was located at Camp Detrick in Maryland under the auspices of the Research and Engineering Division of the U.S. Army Chemical Corps.Whitby, Simon M. Biological Warfare Against Crops, (Google Books), Macmillan, 2002, pp. 104–08, 117, (). Most of the research and development was done there, while production and testing occurred at Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and Dugway Proving Ground, Utah. Pine Bluff Arsenal began production of weapons-grade agents by 1954.Zubay, Geoffrey L. Agents of Bioterrorism: Pathogens and Their Weaponization, (Google Books), Columbia University Press, 2005, p. 132, (). From 1952 to 1954 the Chemical Corps maintained a biological weapons research and development facility at Fort Terry on Plum Island, New York.Guillemin, Jeanne. Biological Weapons, p. 96.Wheelis, Mark, et al. Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons Since 1945, (Google Books), Harvard University Press, 2006 pp. 225–28, (). Fort Terry's focus was on anti-animal biological weapon research and development; the facility researched more than a dozen potential BW agents. From the end of World War II through the Korean War, the U.S. Army, the Chemical Corps and the U.S. Air Force all expanded their biological warfare programs significantly, especially concerning delivery systems. Throughout the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union would combine to produce enough biological weapons to kill everyone on Earth.Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg and William J. Broad, "U.S. Germ Warfare Research Pushes Treaty Limits" , San Francisco State University, 2001
At the trial of John W. Powell and two other defendants for sedition for reporting that the U.S. used biological weapons during the Korean War, the U.S. Attorney in the case, Robert H. Schnacke and the former Chief of the Special Operations Division at Ft. Detrick during the Korean War (and long-time U.S. Chemical Corps officer), John L. Schwab, entered sworn affidavits that the U.S. Army had the capability to use both offensive and defensive biological and chemical weapons "during the period from January 1, 1949 through July 27, 1953.... based upon resources available and retained only within the continental limits of the United States."
Another substantive expansion phase was during the Kennedy-Johnson years, after McNamara initiated Project 112 as a comprehensive initiative, starting in 1961. Despite an increase in testing, the readiness for biological warfare remained limited after this program. A 10 November 1969 report by the Interdepartmental Political-Military Group submitted its findings to the Nixon administration that the American BW capability was limited:2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/nixon/e2/83586.htm
Field testing of the biological weapons was completed covertly and successfully with simulants and agents dispersed over wide, open areas. The first American large-scale aerosol vulnerability test, code-named Operation Sea-Spray, occurred in the San Francisco Bay Area in September 1950, using two types of bacteria, Bacillus globigii and Serratia marcescens, and fluorescent particles. Bacillus species were chosen in these tests because of their spore-forming abilities and their similarities to Bacillus anthracis, a causing agent of anthrax. S. marcescens was used because it is easily identifiable from its red pigment. In 1966, the New York City Subway was contaminated with Bacillus globigii in an attempt to simulate the spreading of anthrax in a large urban population. More field tests involving pathogenic species were conducted at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah and anti-animal studies were conducted at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida.