beginning with BW, and especially with denial of the right of reprisal, is for others to evaluate; but it is difficult to imagine at this time that any proposal for the partial control of biological weapons would profoundly disturb the balance of power among the major nations. That balance still hangs on nuclear weapons; and anyone laboring to reduce the threat and danger of CB warfare should keep in proportion in his thinking this currently overriding factor.

8. Should the above proposal on biological agents meet with immediate resistance, there still remain useful areas of agreement, albeit fuzzy and circumscribed:

(a) Inhibitory.-Not forced by treaty to reduce existing capability and options for retaliation, but make the very best of all other possible restraints.

(b) Nonproliferation. Agree not to supply CB weapons or to aid in their development by other nations. Many States are not now nor will they soon be prepared to develop on a useful scale CB weapons of their own. A measure perhaps worth pursuing would be a four to six major nation decision a tacit reciprocal agreement not to supply or trade in weapons of the CB class. Such weapons in the hands of nontechnical nations would be as hazardous to their own. people as to their enemies.

(c) Free-zones.-Define and declare certain politicogeographic areas as "free-zones"-areas or regions of the world where by international fiat CB weapons would not be permitted to exist in any form.

9. By means of appropriate legislation it may be possible to dispose of the concept of food crop-destroying agents and hopefully see this crucial step emulated around the world. The surplus food reserves of the United States might suggest that this would be a low risk initiative. As Harold Brode states:

The vulnerability of the United States to anticrop warfare is substantially reduced by current excess food production capacity and by the diversity of our agriculture.54 This advantage will not pertain as our food surpluses shrink and our population swells, but for some years to come the idea of cropdestruction deserves downgrading on at least four counts.

One. The repercussions of food shortage strike first at civilian populations. Experience with war famines shows that the military and government populations are the last to be "starved into submission."

Two. With a major portion of the global population now in various states of starvation, deliberate food crop destruction aimed even at an implacable enemy would be considered a deliberate extension of an already disgraceful human situation.55 The Communist bloc countries which happen to have adequate food are not our only potential enemies and the similarly

Brode, Harold L., "Offensive Weapons and Their Effectiveness," 1965 (prepared as a chapter for a book on civil defense, edited by E. P. Wigner, civil defense research group at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory). The situation in Biafra is an example of food shortage by means of political blockade, but the same shortage in the absence of food surplus can result from crop destruction.

endowed Western Powers are not the only potential enemies of the Communist Nations.

Three.-Crop plants are inherently more vulnerable to disease and pests than other plants and are conveniently concentrated in "breadbasket" target areas. These targets are no more precise nor confined than other targets involving agents designed for use on human beings. On this point Gregory states:

"Wind dispersal is unselective, and what happens to rust fungi no doubt happens also to countless other organisms whose spores travel on a global scale.5

Four. Cleverly and consistently applied, the ravages of artificially induced crop diseases could not be escaped. "Plant diseases are shifty enemies" and farmers and agricultural experts are already in an unequal battle with them. There are thousands of plant diseases, most of which man has never learned how to control and some of which he merely suppresses long enough for the crop to grow. "There are probably no more than six diseases that have been totally suppressed, much less eradicated.57

10. Finally, expressions of concern might be placed with the Department of Defense and with the Department of State over the level and degree of official secrecy controls, in chemical and biological research. Scientists at the 1959 Pugwash Conference concluded that the "renunciation" of such controls should include research in microbiology, toxicology, pharmacology, and biochemistry. While security judgments must be exercised by scientists and military officials alike, there are some who feel that the open publication of more research results in these fields would in itself serve as a valuable safeguard. (See app. I.) Perhaps a more pertinent argument for reducing the information gap in chemical and biological research sponsored by the defense agencies is that relating to the treatment of casualties by physicians, should CB agents ever be used. A paragraph from an editorial in the British Medical Journal makes the point forcefully:

The public discussion during the last fortnight about work carried on in Great Britain in connexion with chemical and biological warfare points sharply to an ethical dilemma confronting the medical profession. Several countries are known or reasonably presumed to have developed techniques and actual weapons for waging war by these means. If casualties are inflicted by them medical men must know what remedies may be applied, and this entails some prior knowledge of the methods by which such weapons do their deadly work. In this way the profession is drawn into the study of the chemical and biological and also genetic harm that one nation can do another. Thus in order to identify such weapons and to devise measures against them doctors must associate-perhaps only remotely, but nevertheless comprehendingly-with scientists who are inventing them.

Gregory, P. H., "The Microbiology of the Atmosphere," Interscience Publishers, Inc., New York and London, 1961 (p. 187).

7 McNew, George L., "Progress in the Battle Against Plant Disease" in Scientific Aspects of Pest Control, Publication 1402, NAS-NRC, 1966 (p. 75).

And it is conceivable that they may have the further anguish of seeing an effectual chemical remedy made the basis of a fiendish weapon. Clearly all this poses problems to the medical profession very different from those entailed by the development of "conventional" weapons from the knobkerrie to the high-explosive bomb. A doctor did not have to understand the structure of a shell or the composition of an explosive to treat the wounded successfully.58

Any genuine step in the direction of one or more of the above approaches on the part of Congress and the United States might constitute a promising beginning from which more effective solutions could emerge. Experience has shown that new restraints, legal or otherwise, tend to reinforce existing restraints and that they all tend to reinforce each other.59

"Ethics and Biological Warfare" (editorial), British Medical Journal, June 8, 1968 (pp. 571-572). Op. cit., Brown (summary and conclusions).

SUMMARY OF APPROACHES

In summary, the suggested approaches to solution of the threatand danger of CBW are as follows:

Hearings might be conducted to coincide with the July 1969 release of the United Nations' report on the effects of chemical and biological warfare.

A group of Senators and Representatives might call upon President Nixon to look into the status of CB weapon systems of the United States and to reconsider U.S. plans and policies with respect to their further development and use.

Legislation could be introduced similar to an amendment proposed by Senator Clark in 1968 requiring the Secretary of Defense to prepare semiannual reports on CBW money expenditures and submit such reports to appropriate committees of the House and Senate.

A Senate resolution might be introduced at once, endorsing recent CBW resolutions in the United Nations for which the United States delegation has voted. This includes the December 5, 1966 resolution cosponsored by the United States calling for strict observance of the principles and objectives of the Geneva Protocol, as well as the November 1968 resolution calling for the Secretary General to prepare a report on the effects of CB weapons.

Authorization and appropriation committees, by means of money control, might move the Army and Navy in the direction of emphasis on the development and procurement of early CB warning systems. It has been suggested that rapid and reliable detection might justify later consideration of a CB test ban treaty.

The United States Arms Control and Disarmement Agency could. be encouraged, by means of increased appropriation for the purpose, to study more intensively the feasibility of detection of CB weapons production and field trials.

Through appropriate channels, the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations might be requested to examine and consider some proposals put forth by D. E. Viney in his 1968 paper on "International Law on Chemical Warfare: The Scope for Reform." One of Mr. Viney's proposals is that consideration be given to an unqualified nonuse law for biological weapons (not chemical weapons) to include an agreed abrogation of retaliatory rights. The removal of the right of reciprocity might offer a "hopeful road for discouragement of the proliferation of BW capabilities and procurement decisions."

Should resistance develop to the separate treatment of biological warfare (above) as against chemical-biological warfare as a whole, other areas which might be amenable to agreement are: the continued emphasis on all existing restraints; a tacit reciprocal agreement among major powers not to supply or trade in weapons of the CB class; and the definition and declaration of "free-zones" wherein CB. weapons would not be allowed to exist in any form..