Bioterror

This is a compilation of a half-dozen articles originally published in CovertAction, a left-wing activist magazine that in an earlier version established its credentials by publishing the identities of CIA officers operating under diplomatic cover. The editors, cofounders of the magazine, seek here to make a case for government hypocrisy by compiling evidence that America too has pursued research into chemical and biological warfare. That is no particular secret: numerous websites exist on various projects, justified on the grounds that the research is defensive. Rather than sponsoring detailed investigations of such projects and their justifications, the editors present eight essays-none less than ten years old-compiling factoids, inference and innuendo. The first article, for example, repeats charges that the U.S. employed germ warfare in Korea, including introducing toilet paper contaminated with “deadly microbes.” Another presents evidence of possible government complicity with chemical companies in stonewalling Agent Orange victims, but gives no clue as to what developed after the 1993 story date. The Viral Cancer Program, according to one piece, “may well have” served as a cover for biological warfare research, while another article denounces the use of depleted-uranium rounds as a potential cause of Gulf War Syndrome and describes the use of two particular nerve gas vaccines as a possible war crime against “disposable soldiers.” Another works to support Cuba’s charge that its 1981 dengue fever epidemic was the result of a U.S. biological attack. The real problem with this book is that its poorly substantiated scandalmongering invites dismissal and works against appropriate oversight, rather than encouraging it.