The Deseret Test Center was a U.S. Army operated command in charge for testing chemical and biological weapons during the 1960s. The Deseret was headquartered at Fort Douglas, Utah, a former U.S. Army base.
The Deseret Test Center was a U.S. Army operated command in charge for testing chemical and biological weapons during the 1960s. The Deseret was headquartered at Fort Douglas, Utah, a former U.S. Army base.
Progress toward standardizing new biological warfare agents was limited from 1961 to 1962 by the lack of adequate extra-continental test facilities in which toxic agent munitions combinations could be fully assayed without the legal and safety limitations that were necessary in less remote test areas within the Continental United States. [1]
In May 1962 the Joint Chiefs of Staff established the Deseret Test Center at Fort Douglas, Utah, a disused army base. [2]
The U.S. Army command at Deseret was established as a result of being tasked with conducting Project 112 and Project SHAD. The Deseret project required a joint task force to undertake overseas chemical and biological testing. In response, the Joint Chiefs of Staff established the Deseret Test Center under the auspices of the U.S. Army Chemical Corps. [3] A directive from May 28, 1962 outlined Deseret Test Center's mission:
...[To] prepare and conduct extra continental tests to assess chemical and biological weapons and defense systems, both by providing support data for research and development and by establishing a basis for the operational and logistic concepts needed for the employment of these systems. [3]
No tests were actually conducted at Deseret Test Center however, the Deseret administration facility was supported by Dugway Proving Ground about 80 miles (130 km) away. [3] [2] The Deseret center occupied Building 103 and 105 at Fort Douglas, where administrative and planning decisions were made. The headquarters at Fort Douglas was staffed by 200 individuals. [2] The U.S. Army closed Deseret Test Center in 1973. [4]
Project Deseret was developed to conduct a highly classified military research, development, and testing program which was aimed at both offensive and defensive human, animal, and plant reaction to biological, chemical, toxicological, entomological and radiological warfare agents in various combinations of climate and terrain. [1] [3] [2]
The top secret research was conducted by the United States' Deseret Test Center with Britain, Canada, and Australia under the Quadripartite agreement. [5] During Project Deseret each agent needed to be tested at sea, in the arctic, desert and in tropical jungle environments. In the autumn of 1961 Project Deseret was divided into two main parts consisting of Project 112 and Project SHAD.
Project Deseret was designated to assist not only the Army but the Navy, Marine Corps and the Air Force as well. Thus, it was funded jointly by all branches of the U.S. military [3] [2] and U.S. intelligence agencies, a euphemism for the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) Office of Technical Services.
On April 17, 1963, President Kennedy signed National Security Action Memorandum 235 (NSAM 235) authorizing:
Policy guides governing the conduct of large-scale scientific or technological experiments that might have significant or protracted effects on the physical or biological environment. Experiments which by their nature could result in domestic or foreign allegations that they might have such effects will be included in this category even though the sponsoring agency feels confident that such allegations would in fact prove to be unfounded. [6]
The deployments of Project 112 agents and field testing commenced immediately after the memorandum was signed.
Between its opening in 1962 and 1973 the Deseret Test Center was at the helm of Project 112, [7] [8] a military operation aimed at evaluating chemical and biological weapons in differing environments. [8] The test began in the fall of 1962 and were considered "ambitious" by the Chemical Corps; the tests were conducted at sea, in Arctic environments and in tropical environments. [3] Tests were aimed at human, plant and animal reaction to the chemical and biological agents and were conducted in the United States, Liberia, Egypt, South Korea and Okinawa. [3] According to the Department of Defense, Deseret planned 134 chemical and biological weapons tests and of those 46 were carried out and 62 were canceled. [8]
The tests of Project 112, and the related seaborne Project SHAD, were kept secret until October 2002. [9] Many tests occurred on U.S. soil and released live biological agents, chemical agents or their simulants. [9] In total, according to the reporting of CBS News, more than 5,000 soldiers and sailors were involved in the secret tests, many of them unknowingly. [10] From 1963-1965 there were 18 tests involving biological simulants, usually Bacillus globigii (BG). [7] BG was used to simulate dangerous agents, such as anthrax; once thought harmless to humans, research in the intervening years has revealed some simulants can actually cause infection in those with weakened immune systems. [11] 14 separate tests were performed using VX, sarin, nerve agent simulants and tear gases. [7]
Yeehaw Junction is a census-designated place (CDP) in Osceola County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 240. The area was confused with Buenaventura Lakes CDP in the 2000 census, and the correct data for the area was not recorded.
Incapacitating agent is a chemical or biological agent which renders a person unable to harm themselves or others, regardless of consciousness.
Dugway Proving Ground (DPG) is a U.S. Army facility established in 1942 to test biological and chemical weapons, located about 85 mi (137 km) southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, and 13 mi (21 km) south of the 2,624 sq mi (6,800 km2) Utah Test and Training Range.
Project SHAD, an acronym for Shipboard Hazard and Defense, was part of a larger effort called Project 112, which was conducted during the 1960s. Project SHAD encompassed tests designed to identify U.S. warships' vulnerabilities to attacks with chemical agents or biological warfare agents and to develop procedures to respond to such attacks while maintaining a war-fighting capability.
The United States biological weapons program officially began in spring 1943 on orders from U.S. President Franklin 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 the following seven bio-agents :
USS George Eastman (YAG-39), a "Liberty-type" cargo ship, was laid down under Maritime Commission contract on 24 March 1943 by Permanente Metals Corp., Yard 2, Richmond, California; launched on 20 April 1943; sponsored by Mrs. Ann Troutman; and delivered under charter from War Shipping Administration to Pacific-Atlantic Steamship Co., Vancouver, Washington, on 5 May 1943.
The Dugway sheep incident, also known as the Skull Valley sheep kill, was a March 1968 sheep kill that has been connected to United States Army chemical and biological warfare programs at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. Six thousand sheep were killed on ranches near the base, and the popular explanation blamed Army testing of chemical weapons for the incident, though alternative explanations have been offered. A report, commissioned by Air Force Press Officer Jesse Stay and first made public in 1998, was called the "first documented admission" from the Army that a nerve agent killed the sheep at Skull Valley.
Project 112 was a biological and chemical weapon experimentation project conducted by the United States Department of Defense from 1962 to 1973.
The U.S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories (USBWL) were a suite of research laboratories and pilot plant centers operating at Camp Detrick, Maryland, United States beginning in 1943 under the control of the U.S. Army Chemical Corps Research and Development Command. The USBWL undertook research and development into biocontainment, decontamination, gaseous sterilization, and agent production and purification for the U.S. offensive biological warfare program. The laboratories and their projects were discontinued in 1969.
The M139 bomblet was an American sub-munition designed for use in warheads as a chemical cluster munition. Each spherical bomblet held 590 grams (1.3 lb) of sarin nerve agent.
Operation LAC was a United States Army Chemical Corps operation which dispersed microscopic zinc cadmium sulfide (ZnCdS) particles over much of the United States and Canada in order to test dispersal patterns and the geographic range of chemical or biological weapons.
The M143 bomblet was a biological cluster bomb sub-munition developed by the United States during the 1960s. The spherical bomblet was the biological version of the Sarin-filled M139 chemical bomblet.
The M138 bomblet was a sub-munition of the U.S. chemical weapon, the M43 BZ cluster bomb. The bomblet contained BZ, an incapacitating agent and was developed with the M43 in 1962. The M138s, along with all other U.S. BZ weapons were destroyed during the 1980s.
The MC-1 bomb was the first U.S. non-clustered air-dropped chemical munition. The 750-pound (340 kg) MC-1 was first produced in 1959 and carried the nerve agent sarin.
Horn Island Chemical Warfare Service Quarantine Station, also known as the Horn Island Testing Station, was a U.S. biological weapons testing site during World War II. It was located on Mississippi's Horn Island and opened in 1943. When the war ended, the facility was closed.
Operation Night Train was part of a series of chemical and biological warfare tests overseen by the Deseret Test Center as part of Project 112. The test was conducted near Fort Greely, Alaska from November 1963 to January 1964. The primary purpose of Night Train was to study the penetration of an arctic inversion by a biological aerosol cloud. The test's first purpose was to study the downwind travel and diffusion of this cloud when disseminated into different arctic meteorological regimes. All documents about Night Train were considered classified by the US military until 2002, when the Department of Defense (DOD) released medically relevant information of all the chemical and biological warfare agent tests conducted under Project 112.
The United States biological defense program—in recent years also called the National Biodefense Strategy—refers to the collective effort by all levels of government, along with private enterprise and other stakeholders, in the United States to carry out biodefense activities.
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