V. LEVEL OF FINANCIAL SUPPORT FOR CBW

Since there are no detailed budgetary breakdowns for the total of chemical and biological warfare it is difficult to be precise in estimates of past and current funding levels. In the 1967 hearings,30 Senator Symington noted that, around 1966 "we had a briefing on the subject [research, development, test, and evaluation concerned with chemical and biological warfare], and were spending about $50 million." In 1959, the House Committee on Science and Astronautics in its report. estimated that CB research was supported at the level of about $35 million to $40 million a year at that time.31

The current CBW program is the product of decisions made and steps taken during the late 1950's and early 1960's. It is reported 32 that in fiscal 1961 the R. & D. budget for CBW for all three military services was about $57 million. By 1964 it had risen to about $158 million. It is estimated that the spending through 1967 for research and development remained at about that level.33

In fiscal 1961 only the Army had funds for CBW procurementabout $46 million. In fiscal year 1964 the Army received about $117 million for procurement related to CBW; the Navy $11 million; and the Air Force $87 million.34 Procurement figures since that time are classified, although Senator Clark reported that the Air Force had requested $70.8 million for herbicides for defoliation in Vietnam for fiscal year 1969.35

These sums for procurement are in addition to the amount spent for research and development. Combining estimates for research, development, and procurement costs, it can be calculated that between $300 million and $350 million is the on-going cost for all aspects of this program.

Op. cit. U.S. Armament and Disarmament Problems (p 63).

31 Op. cit. Research in CBR (p. 14).

32"Chemical and Biological Warfare (I): The Research Program." Elinor Langer, Science, vol. 155, Jan. 13, 1967 (p. 174).

35 Senator Clark reports in a Senate statement (Congressional Record, Senate, July 15, 1968, S8633): "The Department of the Army has requested funds for research, development, and production of chemical and biological agents as part of the budget request for ordnance, combat vehicles, and related equipment. The total budget request for these items in fiscal 1969 was $175.7 million."

VI. DIFFICULTIES IN CB WEAPON CONTROL AND DISARMAMENT

The first reaction one has to the question of viable approaches to the control of chemical and biological weapons is that there are no such approaches. And it is most difficult to dispense with this first reaction. The reasons are that the nations, including some of the smaller ones, are already downstream too far. The larger arsenals for CB warfare may be restricted to the major powers, but there is little doubt that an increasing capability is proliferating to some of the smaller and developing countries. What used to be largely a picture of research has turned to development and development has turned to manufacturing and stockpiling. The subject is shrouded in secrecy and it is the secrecy which seems to provide a nonstop momentum to realize the full potential of these types of weapons. No one really knows what someone else may have ready for employment, in a military situation. The large and expensive programs in the United States and the Soviet Union are attributed to each other's "large and expensive programs." Knowledge and capability required for detection and defense are tied to knowledge and capability for retaliation. The "no first use" policy of the United States and other major nations implies that this retaliation be in kind and this requires that weapons of the CB class be available.

A philosophy of mutual deterrence is developing in CB warfare comparable to that in nuclear warfare. In fact, much of the literature on the subject repeats that the stalemate in the latter opens up the need for capability in the former. As an arms race, CBW does not present the spiraling costs of the ICBM-ABM systems, hence a movement to CB weapons (especially chemical) among some smaller nations. S. M. Hersh believes there are at least 13 nations prepared or getting prepared in CBW 36 So far as the major powers are concerned, the elements in CBW which are in common with the nuclear arms race include the now-accepted approach to that race. Thus, in discussing control of CB warfare, an editorial in the British journal, Nature, concluded:

"The balance of terror between the great power blocs may not be to everybody's taste, but it is probably still the best way of avoiding war." 37

The primary frustration rests upon the fact that arms control measures do not really change the general posture of the opposing sides. The specific posture with respect to CBW may be similar to that dictated by poor chemical warfare intelligence during World War II, which "credited the enemy with a capability commensurate with the assumed diabolical nature of his intentions ***"' 38 And how does one get at a viable approach to what may be largely a kind

36 Hersh, Seymour M., "Chemical and Biological Weapons-The Secret Arsenal," the New York Times Magazine, Aug. 25, 1968 (p. 82). Can Biological War Be Stopped?" Nature, Aug. 17, 1968 (pp. 665-666).

38 Op cit., Brown (p. 295).

of psychological warfare? The known centers of research, stockpiles, and munitions activities of the United States, especially in chemical warfare, suggest that our Nation is prepared to engage in chemical warfare if it is forced to do so in accordance with its policy of retaliation to initiation by an opponent. But Herman Kahn believes the nations are playing a game of facade in this area of weaponry:

"The other point I would like to make about cheap, unconventional war involves the chemical-bacteriological field. It is not that these fields really look promising as weapons systems. Much of the public discussion about them has exaggerated their capability. But who really knows? If a country claims to have a decent capability in this area, who could tell whether they were lying or exaggerating? Even the people who procure or develop biological and chemical agents do not really know how well they work. So how is the enemy to tell? This is another example of the game of facade." 39

Assuming that a serious CBW capability is a present and growing reality, a ban or limitation on its possession would be hard to police even if mutual inspection were permitted. In fact, this is not regarded as a feasible objective, even among those who are intensely interested in disarmament.40 The argument is that the weapon processing is too similar, or could be made to appear similar to its industrial counterpart. Nonmilitary laboratories and plants which singly or in concert could produce significant quantities of CB weapons are simply too numerous in advanced nations to be effectively inspected. Policing a ban on the production or possession of CB weapons by means of intrusive inspection conducted by an international organization is unthinkable. Our own citizens have only limited access to our own manufacturing plants and even to some university laboratories for fear of industrial and scientific espionage. As D. E. Viney

states:

Confirmation by foreign inspectors would be highly vulnerable to political scorn as well as commercially inspired complaint.11 Perhaps the most important impediment to progress in CW arms control is that the choices are primarily political and the working room for those choices is restricted to the imponderables of a United States-Soviet consensus. And a consensus on what type of chemicals and targets should be included or exempted in international law is not to be expected "while the Vietnamese war occupies the position that it does in the strategic and propaganda policies of the Superpowers." While the national and international rhetoric in support of the "principles and objectives" of the Geneva Protocol becomes stronger and stronger and the number of votes in favor of it continue to mount, the meaning of it is different so far as the present conflict is concerned. To the United States, marginal forms of CW in Vietnam do not count; to the U.S.S.R. they do.

39 Kahn, Herman, et al., "The Prospects for Arms Control." Edited by J. E. Dougherty, with J. F. Lehman, Jr., Macfadden-Bartell (based on the Philadelphia Collegiate Disarmament Conference).

40" Arms Control and Disarmament-The Critical Issues," the Center for Strategic Studies, Georgetown University, Washington D.C., 1966 (p. 64).

41 Viney, D. E., "International Law on Chemical Warfare: The Scope for Reform," SIPRI symposium on chemical warfare, July 1968.

42 Ibid., p. 7.

VII. APPROACHES TO REDUCING THE THREAT AND DANGER OF CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WARFARE

There has been little, if any, U.S. initiative in genuine CBW control or disarmament so far as we have been able to determine." 43 But it must be assumed that the central question of this request to the Legislative Reference Service, i.e., "suggestions for lessening the threat and danger of chemical and biological warfare" has and is being given deep study by the executive branch. Therefore the current U.S. program of research and development and stockpiling must be considered to be the best available response to the problem from persons who have much more complete data than is available to the Congress. However, the legislative branch is not without options for initiatives which would extend and continue examination of the problem. Assuming such initiatives would be desirable, the following approaches suggest themselves on the basis of the foregoing analysis in this report. No advocacy of any particular course of action is intended.

44

1. Steps could be taken to follow up on Senator Symington's suggestion before the Subcommittee on Disarmament to hold Senate hearings on chemical and biological warfare. The timing might be made to coincide with the release of the U.N. report on the effects of chemical and biological weapons (July 1969), and reactions thereto around the world. Witnesses from the Department of Defense, State Department and the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency could be pressed to disclose as many important facts about U.S. programs and policies on chemical and biological weapons as national security will permit.

2. Since chemical and biological weapons cannot be employed by the Armed Forces of the United States without the approval of the President, a group of Senators aud Representatives might call upon President Nixon to look into the status of CB weapon systems of the United States and to reconsider plans and policies. regarding their further development and use. The President could be reminded, if this is appropriate, that the United States has not used chemicals with lethal intent since World War I and has never used biological weapons. Further, those U.S. commanders who sought permission to use chemicals during the Korean war were refused and proposals to reach into the CB lethal arsenal in the present war have also been resisted. The President might be asked to make a statement which would express his personal and official views with respect to continued

43 Except for rather nonspecific activities in the United Nations and a British proposal for a convention on the "Prohibition of Microbiological Methods of Warfare," arms control and disarmament in CBW seems to be a relatively neglected subject. In otherwise favorable reviews of Robin Clarke's book on "The Silent Weapons" and Seymour Hersh's book on "Chemical and Biological Warfare," Victor Sidel of the Harvard Medical School noted that "One wishes however, that both volumes had spent more time discussing possible methods for control and disarmament." (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 1969, pp. 33-34.)

"Op. cit. U.S. Armament and Disarmament Problems (p. 64).