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Herbicidal warfare research conducted by the U.S. military began during the Second World War with additional research during the Korean War. Interest among military strategists waned before a budgetary increase allowed further research during the early Vietnam War. The U.S. research culminated in the U.S. military defoliation program during the Vietnam war known as Operation Ranch Hand.
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The use of a chemical or biological agents to destroy Japan's rice was contemplated by the Allies during World War II. In 1945 Japan's rice crop was terribly affected by rice blast disease. The outbreak as well as another in Germany's potato crop coincided with covert Allied research in these areas. The timing of these outbreaks generated persistent speculation of some connection between the events however the rumors were never proven and the outbreaks could have been naturally occurring. [1]
A U.S. War Departments report notes that "in addition to the results of human experimentation much data is available from the Japanese experiments on animals and food crops". [2]
In the mid-1950s, the Chemical Corps continued the search for anti-crop agents in order destroy the food and economic crops of enemy nations in wartime as part of the secret programs started during World War II. Several chemical and biological anti-crop agents were standardized. [4] Former Professor Emeritus of Forage Crops Ecology at University of Tennessee's Department of Plant Sciences, Dr. Henry Fribourg, was an Army scientist in the mid-1950s who helped develop the most efficient dispersal techniques for anti-crop fungus spores and herbicides in labs at Ft. Detrick and in field tests in South Dakota, Texas, and Florida. Dr. Fribourg said, "The idea in those days was that the enemy's crops could be killed and this would be a much more humane way of winning a war than using atomic bombs." [5]
However, in 1957 the Army found it had no funds to carry on the anti-crops research and the program nearly halted. Even though the anti-crop program had been phased out, the Chemical Corps continued to produce the new agent under an Industrial Preparedness Measure that permitted laboratory production of the agent to increase to limited production capability, testing the adequacy of the agent against varieties on rice found in the Orient and to determine the effectiveness of the agent by means of large scale field tests. [4]
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It was also found certain phenoxyacetic acids were effective at reducing the yield of crops. Olin Mathieson Chemical Corporation produced esters of these compounds for Fort Detrick's test program. [4] By 1958 the Army adopted the chemical Butyl 2-Chloro-4-Fluorophenoxyacetate or Agent LNF, (also 4-Fluorophenoxyacetic acid or simply "KF") as a standard chemical agent effective against rice crops. [4] [6] [7] Both Agent LNA (Agent GREEN) or 2,4-D and Agent LNB (Agent PINK) or 2,4,5-T or had also been standardized by the Army as anti-crop agents. [7] In 1963[ verification needed ] the two agents LNA and LNB were combined to make a new anti-crop Agent called LNX that was also known as Herbicide ORANGE.
During the Second World War limited test use of aerial spray delivery systems was employed only on several Japanese-controlled tropical islands to demarcate points for navigation and to kill dense island foliage. Despite the availability of the spray equipment, herbicide application with aerial chemical delivery systems were not systematically implemented in the Pacific theater during the war. [8]
In addition to work done in the anti-crop theater, the screening program for chemical defoliants was greatly accelerated in the 1960s. [9] By FY 1962 contracts for synthesis and testing of a thousand chemical defoliants were in the process of negotiation. [9] Approximately 1600 compounds had been examined since July 1961 with the results entered in a Remington-Rand computer system. Of these 1600 compounds, 100 showed defoliant activity and 300 exhibited herbicidal effects in the primary defoliation process. [10]
Sufficient work had been done on Pyricularia oryzae to also warrant the organism in the BW arsenal. In March 1958 P. oryzae was classified as a standard anti-crop BW agent. [4] It then known as anti-crop Agent LX. During this time period, Rice Blast spores were produced under contract to Charles Pfizer and Company and shipped to Fort Detrick for classification, drying and storage. [11] [12]
Agricultural BW doctrine was re-developed by the Air Force and Army during the early 1960s. At the outset of FY 1962 an important increase in emphasis in this field for technical advice on the conduct of the defoliation and anti-crop activities in Southeast Asia. [9]
Both field tests and process research were maintained for the agent of rice blast disease. [9] P. oryzae is a parasitic, spindle-shaped fungus of rice causing the destructive plant disease known as rice blast. "Rice blast disease causes lesions to form on the plant, threatening the crop, and the fungus is estimated to destroy enough rice to feed 60 million people a year." [13] A number of strains were known to research scientists and the U.S. Army planned to use a mixture of races as the new agent. [4]
During 1960 research on anti-crop agents proceeded at the pace dictated by the limited resources available. Field tests for stem rust of wheat and rice blast disease were begun at several states in the Midwest and South U.S. and in Okinawa with partial success and the accumulation of useful data. [9] The research gained on rice blast fungus from the field and laboratory experiments conducted in Okinawa and Florida by Fort Detrick's Crops division, Directorate of Biological Research and Biomathematics division and Directorate of Technical Services increased the knowledge required to use this crop disease a strategic weapon of war and limit an enemy's food supply. The focus of this research was sources of inoculum and the minimum amount required to cause the disease, spore dispersal, meteorological and other conditions required for establishment of infection and disease buildup, spread, yield reduction, control measures, and the present ability to predict disease outbreak, buildup, and yield losses. [14]
Between 1961 and 1962 U.S. documents reveal the testing of militarized rice blast agent on Okinawa was conducted over a dozen times. Rice blast fungus was disseminated on rice paddies to determine how the agent affected rice crop production. [13] The Okinawa project test sites included Nago and Shuri and directly was associated with similar research at the Avon Park Air Force Range near Sebring, Florida, and in Texas and Louisiana. [14] [15] During the biological field testing for rice blast documents reveal the U.S. Army "used a midget duster to release inoculum alongside fields in Okinawa and Taiwan", and took measurements regarding the effectiveness of the agent against the rice crop. [13]
In 1962 international research on the pathogenic races of rice blast disease was taken up as a three-year project beginning in 1963, when cooperation in scientific research was conducted in concert by the governments of the U.S. and Japan. [16]
A new investigation to find the pathogen suitable for use against the opium poppy began in the third quarter of financial year 1962. [9]
Stripe rust of wheat was also under investigation, and the usual screening program for chemical anticrop agents was continued. A gradual increase in the scope of the rest of the anti-crop program accompanied this development. Large scale greenhouse experiments on stripe rust of wheat yielded considerable information on the degree of crop injury in relation to the time and number of inoculations. Rocky Mountain Arsenal, from January 1962 to October 1969, "grew, purified and militarized" the plant pathogen wheat stem rust (Puccinia graminis, var. tritici) known as Agent TX for the Air Force biological anti-crop program. Agent TX-treated grain was grown at Edgewood Arsenal and from 1962–1968 in Sections 23-26 at Rocky Mountain Arsenal [17] The unprocessed agent was transported to Beale AFB in refrigerated trucks for purification and storage and was kept refrigerated until loaded into specialized bombs adapted from the Leaflet bombs used to deliver propaganda. [17] The M115 anti-crop bomb, also known as the feather bomb or the E73 bomb, was a U.S. biological cluster bomb designed to deliver wheat stem rust. [3] The deployment of the M115 represented the United States' first, though limited, anti-crop biological warfare (BW) capability. [18]
By the mid-1970s the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) acknowledged that it had developed and field tested methods for conducting covert attacks that could cause severe crop damage. [19]
Operation Pop Eye / Motorpool / Intermediary-Compatriot was a highly classified weather modification program in Southeast Asia during 1967–1972 that was developed from research conducted on Okinawa and other locations. A report titled Rainmaking in SEASIA outlines use of lead iodide and silver iodide deployed by aircraft in a program that was developed in California at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake and tested in Okinawa, Guam, Philippines, Texas, and Florida in a hurricane study program called Project Stormfury. [20] [21] The chemical weather modification program conducted from Thailand over Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam was allegedly sponsored by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and CIA without the authorization of Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird who had categorically denied to Congress that a program for modification of the weather for use as a tactical weapon even existed. [22] The program was used to induce rain and extend the East Asian Monsoon season in support of U.S. government efforts related to the War in Southeast Asia.
The use of a military weather control program was related to the destruction of enemy food crops. [23] Whether the weather modification program was related to any of the CBW programs is not documented. However, it is certain that some of the military herbicides used in Vietnam required rainfall to be absorbed. In theory, any CBW program using mosquitoes or fungus would have also benefited from prolonged periods of rain. Rice blast sporulation on diseased leaves occurs when relative humidity approaches 100%. Laboratory measurements indicate sporulation increases with the length of time 100% relative humidity prevails. [14]
Agent Orange is a chemical herbicide and defoliant, one of the tactical use Rainbow Herbicides.
Biological warfare, also known as germ warfare, is the use of biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, insects, and fungi with the intent to kill, harm or incapacitate humans, animals or plants as an act of war. Biological weapons are living organisms or replicating entities. Entomological (insect) warfare is a subtype of biological warfare.
Incapacitating agent is a chemical or biological agent which renders a person unable to harm themselves or others, regardless of consciousness.
The United States is known to have possessed three types of weapons of mass destruction: nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, and biological weapons. The U.S. is the only country to have used nuclear weapons on another country, when it detonated two atomic bombs over two Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. It had secretly developed the earliest form of the atomic weapon during the 1940s under the title "Manhattan Project". The United States pioneered the development of both the nuclear fission and hydrogen bombs. It was the world's first and only nuclear power for four years, from 1945 until 1949, when the Soviet Union produced its own nuclear weapon. The United States has the second-largest number of nuclear weapons in the world, after the Russian Federation.
A defoliant is any herbicidal chemical sprayed or dusted on plants to cause their leaves to fall off. Defoliants are widely used for the selective removal of weeds in managing croplands and lawns. Worldwide use of defoliants, along with the development of other herbicides and pesticides, allowed for the Green Revolution, an increase in agricultural production in mid-20th century. Defoliants have also been used in warfare as a means to deprive an enemy of food crops and/or hiding cover, most notably by the United Kingdom during the Malayan Emergency and the United States in the Vietnam War. Defoliants were also used by Indonesian forces in various internal security operations.
Magnaporthe grisea, also known as rice blast fungus, rice rotten neck, rice seedling blight, blast of rice, oval leaf spot of graminea, pitting disease, ryegrass blast, Johnson spot, neck blast, wheat blast and Imochi (稲熱), is a plant-pathogenic fungus and model organism that causes a serious disease affecting rice. It is now known that M. grisea consists of a cryptic species complex containing at least two biological species that have clear genetic differences and do not interbreed. Complex members isolated from Digitaria have been more narrowly defined as M. grisea. The remaining members of the complex isolated from rice and a variety of other hosts have been renamed Magnaporthe oryzae, within the same M. grisea complex. Confusion on which of these two names to use for the rice blast pathogen remains, as both are now used by different authors.
Herbicidal warfare is the use of substances primarily designed to destroy the plant-based ecosystem of an area. Although herbicidal warfare use chemical substances, its main purpose is to disrupt agricultural food production and/or to destroy plants which provide cover or concealment to the enemy, not to asphyxiate or poison humans and/or destroy human-made structures. Herbicidal warfare has been forbidden by the Environmental Modification Convention since 1978, which bans "any technique for changing the composition or structure of the Earth's biota".
Beginning in the mid-1930s, Japan conducted numerous attempts to acquire and develop weapons of mass destruction. The 1943 Battle of Changde saw Japanese use of both bioweapons and chemical weapons, and the Japanese conducted a serious, though futile, nuclear weapon program.
The Chemical Corps is the branch of the United States Army tasked with defending against and using chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons. The Chemical Warfare Service was established on 28 June 1918, combining activities that until then had been dispersed among five separate agencies of the United States federal government. It was made a permanent branch of the Regular Army by the National Defense Act of 1920. In 1945, it was redesignated the Chemical Corps.
The Rainbow Herbicides are a group of tactical-use chemicals used by the United States military in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. Success with Project AGILE field tests in 1961 with herbicides in South Vietnam was inspired by the British use of herbicides and defoliants during the Malayan Emergency in the 1950s, which led to the formal herbicidal program Trail Dust. Herbicidal warfare is the use of substances primarily designed to destroy the plant-based ecosystem of an agricultural food production and/or to destroy dense foliage which provides the enemy with natural tactical cover.
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 :
Project 112 was a biological and chemical weapon experimentation project conducted by the United States Department of Defense from 1962 to 1973.
Project Agile was an Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) project in the 1960s that investigated means for engaging in remote, limited asymmetric warfare. The research was intended for use in providing U.S. support to countries engaged in fighting Communist insurgents, particularly in South Vietnam and Thailand.
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 People's Commissariat for Agriculture, abbreviated as Narkomzem was established in the USSR in 1929. Its headquarters building was located at Orlikov Pereulok, 1, Moscow, designed by Aleksey Shchusev in 1928. Narkomzem was reformed as the Soviet Ministry of Agriculture and Food (Minsel'khoz) in 1946.
The "Statement on Chemical and Biological Defense Policies and Programs" was a speech delivered on November 25, 1969, by U.S. President Richard Nixon. In the speech, Nixon announced the end of the U.S. offensive biological weapons program and reaffirmed a no-first-use policy for chemical weapons. The statement excluded toxins, herbicides and riot-control agents as they were not chemical and biological weapons, though herbicides and toxins were both later banned. The decision to ban biological weapons was influenced by a number of domestic and international issues.
Entomological warfare (EW) is a type of biological warfare that uses insects to interrupt supply lines by damaging crops, or to directly harm enemy combatants and civilian populations. There have been several programs which have attempted to institute this methodology; however, there has been limited application of entomological warfare against military or civilian targets, Japan being the only state known to have verifiably implemented the method against another state, namely the Chinese during World War II. However, EW was used more widely in antiquity, in order to repel sieges or cause economic harm to states. Research into EW was conducted during both World War II and the Cold War by numerous states such as the Soviet Union, United States, Germany and Canada. There have also been suggestions that it could be implemented by non-state actors in a form of bioterrorism. Under the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention of 1972, use of insects to administer agents or toxins for hostile purposes is deemed to be against international law.
Before the 20th century, the use of biological agents took three major forms:
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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