Project 112
The project started under John F. Kennedy's administration, and was authorized by his Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, as part of a total review of the US military.
Prepare a plan for the development of an adequate biological and chemical deterrent capability, to include cost estimates, and appraisal of domestic and international political consequences."
[3][4] On April 17, 1963, President Kennedy signed National Security Action Memorandum 235 (NSAM 235) which approved: Policy guides governing the conduct of large-scale scientific or technological experiments that might have significant or protracted effects on the physical or biological environment.
[5]Project 112 was a highly classified military testing program which was aimed at both offensive and defensive human, animal, and plant reaction to biological and chemical warfare in various combinations of climate and terrain.
[3] The U.S. Army Chemical Corps sponsored the United States portion of an agreement between the US, Britain, Canada, and Australia to negotiate, host, conduct, or participate in mutual interest research and development activity and field testing.
[7] Project 112 tests used the following agents and simulants: Francisella tularensis, Serratia marcescens, Escherichia coli, Bacillus globii, staphylococcal enterotoxin Type B, Puccinia graminis var.
SOD also conducted a series of tests in the New York City Subway system between 7 and 10 June 1966 by dropping light bulbs filled with Bacillus subtilis var.
The sea-based tests, called Project SHAD were primarily launched from other ships such as the USS Granville S. Hall (YAG-40) and USS George Eastman (YAG-39), Army tugboats, submarines, or fighter aircraft and was designed to identify U.S. warships' vulnerabilities to attacks with chemical or biological warfare agents and to develop decontamination and other methods to counter such attacks while maintaining a war-fighting capability.
Because most of the participants that were involved with Project 112 and SHAD were unaware of any tests being done, no effort was made to ensure the informed consent of the military personnel.
Because the DoD refused to acknowledge the program, surviving test subjects have been unable to obtain disability payments for health issues related to the project.
DoD has committed to providing the VA with the relevant information it needs to settle benefits claims as quickly and efficiently as possible and to evaluate and treat veterans who were involved in those tests.
Harris and other scholars found that U.S. intelligence authorities had seized the Japanese researchers' archive after the technical information was provided by Japan.
[12] German scientists in Europe also skipped war crimes charges and went to work as U.S. employed intelligence agents and technical experts in an arrangement known as Operation Paperclip.
"The U.S. denial was absolutely misleading but technically correct as the Japanese records on biological warfare were then in the custody of U.S intelligence agencies rather than in possession of the military".
"[14] Armed with Nazi and Imperial Japanese biowarfare know-how, the United States government and its intelligence agencies began conducting widespread field testing of potential CBW capabilities on American cities, crops, and livestock.
[3] It is known that Japanese scientists were working at the direction of the Japan's military and intelligence agencies on advanced research projects of the United States including America's covert biomedical and biowarfare programs from the end of World War II through at least the 1960s.
[15][3][16][17][18][19] The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) in September 1994 found that between 1940 and 1974, DOD and other national security agencies studied "hundreds, perhaps thousands" of weapons tests and experiments involving large area coverage of hazardous substances.
[20] The report states: ...Dugway Proving Ground is a military testing facility located approximately 80 miles (130 km) from Salt Lake City.
[22][23] On December 2, 2002, President George W. Bush signed Public Law 107–314, the Bob Stump National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2003 which included Section 709 entitled Disclosure of Information on Project 112 to Department of Veterans Affairs.
Section 709 required disclosure of information concerning Project 112 to United States Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) and the General Accounting Office (GAO).
While this statement during congressional testimony during the Department of Defense's inquiry into Project 112 was referring a completely different and separate testing program, there are common concerns about potential adverse health impacts and the timely release of information.
Corroborating suspicions of Project 112 activities on Okinawa include "An Organizational History of the 267th Chemical company", which was made available by the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center to Yellow Medicine County, Minnesota, Veteran's Service Officer Michelle Gatz in 2012.
During this deployment, "Unit personnel were actively engaged in preparing RED HAT area, site 2 for the receipt and storage of first increment items, [shipment] "YBA", DOD Project 112."
The company received further shipments, code named YBB and YBF, which according to declassified documents also included sarin, VX, and mustard gas.
[28] The late author Sheldon H. Harris in his book "Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare, 1932–1945, and the American cover up" wrote about Project 112: The test program, which began in fall 1962 and which was funded at least through fiscal year 1963, was considered by the Chemical Corps to be "an ambitious one."
BW experts in Okinawa and "at several sites in the Midwest and south:" conducted in 1961 "field tests" for wheat rust and rice blast disease.
