The nature and fact of the deaths was confirmed by doctors of the International Red Cross who conducted autopsies and examined four survivors who were in the affected area.*

Vietnam.-Chemical warfare in Vietnam includes the use of tear gas, presumably on the part of both the free world military assistance forces and the Vietcong-North Vietnamese military army forces. This consists of nonlethal-nonpersistant agents similar to those used to control civil disturbances. In order to reduce the risk of Vietcong ambush the United States began experimenting with defoliants in January 1962. Now at least five different types of defoliating agents are in use. Some of the agents (2,4-D and 2,4,5-T) are of the weed-killing variety and have been in use for this purpose in the United States since 1945. Others are arsenicals like cacodylic acid, the long term effects of which are not known, and Picloram which is among the most potent, persistent, and toxic plant poisons known. In Vietnam, Picloram is combined with 2,4-D to make a formulation called "White" by the U.S. Army. Indications are that employment is directed at the dense forests of Vietnam. Some American scientists feel that since most of the other plants and animals in a tropical forest are connected ecologically to the canopy in some vital way, several months of defoliation in the forests of Vietnam is certain to cause the extinction of many animal populations. Calculation of the amount of all herbicides dropped on the Vietnamese countryside indicate that some 2,240,000 acres were involved. Some areas were treated more than once. The United States has been able to use these types of chemicals in Vietnam thus far without escalation to other classes of weapons on either side.

Among charges of chemical warfare in Vietnam against the United States which have been denied are a series of chemical attacks throughout 1962 which killed crops, livestock, and people. Also, at the U.N. on July 28, 1964, the Cambodian Foreign Minister claimed that United States-Vietnamese planes dumped toxic chemicals (a powder) on six Cambodian villages, killing a total of 76 persons."

The United States does recognize the spirit of international legal restraint as well as popular opposition with respect to the introduction of lethal chemical weapons into warfare. Although enemy chemical retaliation capability in Vietnam is probably small and although the use of persistent lethal chemicals might offer tactical advantage to the United States in guerrilla and jungle warfare, legal, popular, and even military restraints seem to be as effective in Vietnam as they were in Korea and World War II.

Viney, D. E., "Constraining Chemical-Biological Warfare," Disarmament, No. 15, September 196 (pp. 1-4). "CBW: What's Being Done in Vietnam?" Scientific Research, Nov. 11, 1968 (p. 26).

Harvey, George R. and Jay D. Mann, "Picloram in Vietnam," Scientist and Citizen, September 1968 (pp. 165-171). Tschirley, Fred H., "An Assessment of Ecological Consequences of the Defoliation Programi Vietnam." (Based on a report prepared for the Department of State and released by the U.S. Embassy in Saigon in September 1968.)

Review of recent activities in the area of CBW, by Cedric W. Carr, Jr., Foreign Affairs Division, Library of Congress, Feb. 3, 1965.

Lethal: drooling, sweating, nausea, vomiting, cramps, involuntary defecation or urination, twitching, jerking, staggering, headache, confusion, drowsiness, coma, convulsions, asphyxia.

Harassing: burning feeling in mucous membranes, severe eye irritation and lachrymation, headache.

Harassing: burning feeling on moist
skin, copious lachrymation.
Harassing headache, sneezing,
coughing, chest pains, nausea,
vomiting.

Harassing: stinging and burning
feeling on skin, coughing, tears,
chest tightness, nausea.
Slowing of physical and mental
activity, giddiness, disorientation,
hallucinations, occasional mani-
acal behavior.

Source: Reproduced from "The Silent Weapons" by Robin Clarke, published by David McKay Co. Used by permission of the author and publisher.

II. NATURE AND HISTORY OF BIOLOGICAL WARFARE (BW)

Biological warfare is the deliberate introduction of disease producing organisms into populations of people, animals or plants. The organisms are the same as those found in nature, but can be selected and cultured to be more virulent and resistant than those in nature. Some organisms, and especially bacteria, can be grown so as to be resistant to drugs and antibiotics. It might also be possible to develop a kind of "super germ" or new strains of germs for which the body has not evolved antibodies and for which vaccines have not been developed. The Hongkong flu is an example of a virus (evolved by nature) to which we had no sereological resistance and for which a vaccine could not be developed until the disease was discovered and the organism isolated. There are diseases like influenza which are basically incapacitating and there are others which cripple or kill. Hundreds of pathogenic organisms are available in nature from which the scientists and military strategists can select those which will serve the planned effect. Among the most effective and most feared BW diseases are the following:9

Anthrax.-Bacterial disease usually found in animals. Symptoms include high fever, hard breathing, and physical collapse. Can cause death within 24 hours if it affects the lungs.

Brucellosis.-Bacterial disease usually found in cattle, goats, and pigs. Also known as undulant fever. Not usually fatal to humans although can cause high fever and chills which may last for months.

Plague.-Bacterial disease sometimes carried by rodents. Usually fatal within a week. Pneumonic plague affects the lungs, may be transmitted by coughing. Bubonic plague (responsible for "Black Death" in 14th-century Europe) is harder to transmit and therefore not considered useful in BW.

Q-fever. Highly infectious disease usually carried by ticks. Rarely fatal, can cause fever lasting 3 months.

Tularemia.-Bacterial disease also known as rabbit fever. Marked by high fever, chills, pains, and weakness. Rarely fatal. The advantages of a biological weapon system are:

1. Its theoretical potential as a device for mass destruction. This is especially true if the combination of virulent agent and susceptible population, along with other conditions, are suitable to epidemic results. For example, the black plague killed one fourth of the known population of Europe at the time (1348). There is presently no other class of weapon with such potential for destruction except the hydrogen bomb.

2. It is a self-replicating weapon-it proliferates itself, not only in the affected individual but also in the entire population.

From Senior Scholastic, Feb. 7, 1969. (See app. B for further details.)