Posted on 07/05/2008 3:52:37 AM PDT by Baron OBeef Dip
Top secret US military plans to test deadly nerve gas by dropping it on soldiers in a remote Queensland rainforest during the Cold War have been uncovered in Australian Government archives.
Newly declassified Australian Defence Department and Prime Minister’s office files show that the United States was strongly pushing the Government for tests on Australian soil of two of the most deadly chemical weapons ever developed, VX and GB — better known as Sarin — nerve gas.
The plan, which is disclosed for the first time on tomorrow’s SUNDAY program on Nine, called for 200 mainly Australian combat troops to be aerially bombed and sprayed with the chemical weapons — with all but a handful of the soldiers to be kept in the dark about the "full details" of the tests.
A former senior official with then Prime Minister Harold Holt, Mr Peter Bailey, tells the program that as far as he knows the tests never went ahead but the planning was very advanced.
He admitted the whole operation was to be kept secret because use of such weapons was almost certainly illegal under international law at the time.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.ninemsn.com.au ...
That a pretty niggardly thing for the US to be attempting.
Mc Namara is still alive; so is Bill Moyers. Maybe they can Nuremberg them two instead of the oil company execs, since the leftists are hankering for a show trial. But I can’t believe even they were dumb enough to want to try this.
What sort of a sorry excuse for a human wanted to try this?! We need to send them up on the shuttle and space them.
The article is awfully short on any context, particularly details about the Soviet Union and its nerve agent testing.
A similar one-sided story was regaled in a college class I once attended. When I pointed out the US activities during the Cold War didn’t occur in a vacuum, this was not well received by the faculty. So one has to ask what the point is in such, if only to make the US out to be the “bad guys”.
In early 1963 a survey team of Australian and US scientists reviewed sites in Australia for chemical warfare tests, suggesting the remote Iron Range rainforest near Lockhart River in far north Queensland as one such location.
In other words, this was a proposal for joint US-Australian testing - so why does the headline only refer to the US? Well, because that makes for a better anti-American story.
I'll have to watch the story tomorrow - but I'm betting what will actually emerge is that the planned tests were actually tests designed to see how well plans to protect soldiers from nerve gas would work - yes, if such tests went wrong, it could have very serious consequences, but there's a lot of difference between testing safety equipment designed to protect against weapons under real conditions, and testing the weapons themselves. And given where the tests were planned for - tropical rainforests - I'm guessing they wanted to see how well protection would work in something like a South East Asian jungle.
Finding isolated tropical rainforest on territory you controlled for testing purposes isn't going to be easy - while as an Australian, I don't like the idea of any weapon being tested here emotionally speaking, with cold hard logic, there are factors that make Australia an ideal test bed in some cases - miles and miles of uninhabited territory, great distances from major population centres. It's an asset - and sharing assets you have which others don't, is something an ally needs to be prepared to do.
“Well, because that makes for a better anti-American story.”
Hhmmmmmmm......1962, 1963, 1964 and no mention of Kennedy or Johnson. Gee, wonder why that is?
excellent point, thanks for making it.
Boy, if this true, this is a very sore black eye for the US government, even though it was many years ago.
All proved lies.
Then of course Jon Kerry and his ‘Winter Soldier’ dog and pony show.
Lies.
Then the Israel one about how they massacred a village.
Lies
The leftards just love to make up lies
By the way, protection from nerve gas in the early ‘60s would of required full rubber suits. Gee, as if the troops couldn't figure it out. Eh Mate ‘tis over a hundred, hundred percent humidity, all this kit. Whats the corporal got in mind, eh?
If true, it’s another Johnson administration fiasco. This is an example of what happens when a man who wants nothing but power becomes president. He never served the nation; he only served himself and his own ego. May God save us from any more of these enemies.
Well let’s just subpoena ol’ Robert Strange McNamara and his bootlicking sycophant Bill Moyers and have them testify about this, shall we?
The sumb!tch should have been buried in an Edsel.
Somehow it is his fault.
One must plan for everything.
1962 would be the Kennedy and 1963 would be Johnson.
But then again, it was a JOINT operation that was planned.
The other thing is that typically nerve agent tests involving humans are usually protective gear tests not “how-much-can-we-make-em-twitch” tests.
This story is probably just some liberal journalist trying to make something out of nothing.
People that propose this sort of thing should be at ground zero. Alone.
Now we know why they are the way they are.
BS - in spades.
thank you...
Moyers will probably have a special on PBS where he claims it’s “Bush’s fault.”
Australia did conduct tests along these lines, especially the notorious Mustard Gas test, in which masked soldiers exercised in a room with blister agent, and were severely injured.
Australia provided the US with a film of the event, then requested its return once it became embarrassing, which the US did not, claiming it was lost. It wasn’t.
At the same time, the US and many other nations were making a multitude of tests, including hallucinogens, radioactive materials and radiation, biological weapons, and more positive things, like anti-radiation medicines.
In the case of this nerve gas test, it was probably an ‘acid test’ to make sure that their protective equipment worked, which all too often, it doesn’t.
Non news here. Sounds like a extension of Project SHAD.
If you believe that the US was going to test nerve gas on allied soldiers, I’ve got some beach front property around Barstow you might be interested in. Oh, and bridge in Brooklyn too.
Most of '63 would have been Kennedy, and all of '63 would have been Kennedy's people. JFK was shot and killed in Dallas on November 22, 1963. I remember the day quite well. I was in 7th grade. Rumors circulated at lunch. English teacher, Mrs. Abel, came back to the classroom in tears, and looking like death warmed over, to confirm the rumors.
Can we test it on wiggers, instead?
Such a test would be conducted with a substitute chemical, possibly capsicum or other highly irritating chemical, not with real nerve gas.
Pure malarkey.
I would suggest waiting for complete info on this before jumping conclusions.
Remember there are alot of Aussies and Kiwis who are extreme liberals and will do anything to harm US relations.
Not necessarily.
Nerve agent comes in two types, persistent and non-persistent. The persistent is about the color and consistency of vegetable oil. Its mode of introduction is mostly through skin contamination. Non-persistent nerve agent is more like water in its behavior, evaporating at about the same rate.
At the time, the behavior of neither agent in jungle terrain was known.
Chemical protective overgarments were pretty much limited to butyl rubber, which is difficult to use at best in optimal temperature and humidity conditions. It would have been almost impossible in a hot jungle.
To have a live unit in a jungle area experience a chemical attack would have provided a vast amount of critical information for the rapidly expanding Vietnam War. Otherwise, with the judicious provision of chemical weapons by either the Russians or Chinese, or even manufactured by the North Vietnamese, entire US divisions could have been almost wiped out.
Conversely, there was always the Korea possibility in the Vietnam War, that China could send a vast number of soldiers South to overwhelm and destroy US forces.
Only a hemorrhagic plague on their side prevented a Chinese victory in Korea. And under the condition of MAD, nuclear weapons may not have been viable against such an attack. But chemical weapons would have.
Which again comes back to “How to chemical weapons behave in a jungle environment, and how do they effect military units?”
This was a very different world at the time. Before his death, Stalin had ordered a mechanized brigade to form a line and march and drive through a recent nuclear blast site, just so that the Russians could get an accurate military appraisal of combat operations in a nuclear environment, in the various radiation and contamination zones.
They learned a great deal, though the vast majority of that brigade died in the process. Perhaps 7000 men and their vehicles and equipment sacrificed.
A very different world, indeed.
As the story continues, it basically points out that the tests at Iron Range were part of Australia's role in helping to plan how to fight a modern war with nuclear and chemical weapons. Once again - Australia's role. Not an act of the United States experimenting on Australians, but of Australia, an ally of the United States and the United Kingdom doing its part of the research that would be necessary in our joint defence in the event of a Third World War, sharing information with our allies and receiving information in return. A very different situation from that suggested by the idea that America was going to test weapons on Australian soldiers.
Footage of 'Operation Blowdown' - the conventional explosive test mentioned above. The test was intended to work out whether nuclear weapons could be used to clear rainforest in war situations.
Robert MacNamara wrote to Australia suggesting the testing of VX and Sarin in Australia.
Footage showing bodies resulting from Saddam's VX attacks - more spin.
Survey was done in 1963 on the area of proposed testing, and the survey team reported there were no rare species in the area, and that the forest would recover from any testing - so they even decided to do environmental impact studies back then, and cleared the area. This, to me, suggests a great deal of care being taken with the whole process.
Modern naturalist now talking, disputing that environmental statement. OK, maybe he's right and they were wrong - but I need more than him saying so to convince me.
Tests would involve Australian troops passing through the area - wearing chemical protection suits and after the dispersal of the agents - to work out if chemical protection worked properly, and whether the agents could be taken by these troops out of the area on their clothing and vehicles.
Footage of the British nuclear tests at Maralinga in the 1950s, with reference to the fact that some Australian and UK troops suffered health damage from those tests.
The tests were to be secret.
Another academic saying that maybe we're still not being told the whole truth.
Decision was taken in 1966 by the Prime Minister of Australia, Harold Holt - note, the final decision was in the hands of Australia, not the US - by which time, the intention was to test tear gas, not nerve gas. Holt decided not to go ahead with the tests.
Thanks for the review. Sounds like a (insert scary music) typical lefty grab bag of snips of statements, mixed with different events, sold as a chain of clear evidence.
“If you believe that the US was going to test nerve gas on allied soldiers, I’ve got some beach front property around Barstow you might be interested in. Oh, and bridge in Brooklyn too.”
Our government had no qualms about experimenting on our own troops, so why would they hesitate to experiment on another countries troops?
“US admits guilt over mustard gas tests”
“Fifty years after the US military exposed its own soldiers to poison gas in secret experiments, the government is trying to trace the soldiers and offer them compensation.”
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13718561.000-us-admits-guilt-over-mustard-gas-tests-.html
And I always find this video of US troops walking toward an area that had just been nuked amazing. Granted we did`nt know the full effects of radiation from fallout back in the 1950`s, but the troops were in effect, guinea pigs.
“Nuclear Bomb tested with US soldiers on ground”
http://www.videosift.com/video/Nuclear-Bomb-tested-with-US-soldiers-on-ground
http://www.yuccamountain.org/julie.htm
The likely substitute chemical for testing would be methyl salicylate. It is commonly used for as a surrogate for liquid warfare agents.
There was even a story about it’s use back in the late 90s. A lot of liberal friends got all upset claiming this was a war crime. I took great please in pointing out that methyl salicylate is a substitute for nerve agent, not nerve agent. I took even greater pleasure in pointing out that methyl salicylate is commonly available in your typical grocery store. The common name for this ‘deadly’ product is oil of wintergreen. Juicy Fruit anyone?
He was there for both tests, and they let the sailors swim in the lagoon after the tests. In fact, he still has sea shells he collected after the tests. They are probably hot and I would love to test them.
INDEED.
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