[CPEO-MEF] Chemical and biological weapons testing in Alaska in the '60s

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Military tested deadly nerve agents in Alaska in the '60s

Diana Campbell 
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
December 8, 2004

In 1961, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara oversaw the development
of secret biological and chemical testing programs, numbered one through
150. 

In one of those projects, No. 112, the Defense Department between 1962
and 1973 conducted biological and chemical warfare tests on land off the
Alaska Highway near the Gerstle River, just southeast of Delta Junction.
The military wanted to know how deadly nerve gases such as Sarin and VX
would linger in the arctic environment. 

Soldiers in protective suits in military vehicles were also taken
through sprayed areas to see how long the nerve gases stayed in the
field after spraying and to test decontamination practices.

Project 112 itself called for more than 100 tests, according to
Washington, D.C., attorney Doug Rosinski, who is representing more than
50 veterans in a lawsuit against the federal government over their
claims that they were exposed to toxic agents during those tests. About
half of the 100 tests in Project 112 were performed in Alaska, Hawaii,
Maryland and Florida, Rosinski said.
?

For the entire article, see
http://www.news-miner.com/Stories/0,1413,113%257E7244%257E2583876,00.html

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org
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