Project 112
Project 112 was a biological and chemical weapon experimentation project conducted by the United States Department of Defense from 1962 to 1973.
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. The name "Project 112" refers to this project's number in the 150 project review process authorized by McNamara. Funding and staff were contributed by every branch of the U.S. armed services and intelligence agencies—a euphemism for the Office of Technical Services of the Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Science & Technology. Canada and the United Kingdom also participated in some Project 112 activities.
Project 112 primarily concerned the use of aerosols to disseminate biological and chemical agents that could produce "controlled temporary incapacitation". The test program would be conducted on a large scale at "extracontinental test sites" in the Central and South Pacific and Alaska in conjunction with Britain, Canada and Australia.
At least 50 trials were conducted; of these at least 18 tests involved simulants of biological agents, and at least 14 involved chemical agents including sarin and VX, but also tear gas and other simulants. Test sites included Porton Down, Ralston and at least 13 US warships; the shipborne trials were collectively known as Shipboard Hazard and Defense—SHAD. The project was coordinated from Deseret Test Center, Utah.
, publicly available information on Project 112 remains incomplete.
Top-level directives
In January 1961, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara sent a directive about chemical and biological weapons to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, urging them to: "consider all possible applications, including use as an alternative to nuclear weapons. 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." The Joint Chiefs established a Joint Task Force that recommended a five-year plan to be conducted in three phases.On April 17, 1963, President Kennedy signed National Security Action Memorandum 235 which approved:
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. 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.
Command
The command structure for the Deseret Test Center, which was organized to oversee Project 112, somewhat bypassed standard Defense Department channels and reported directly to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and US Cabinet consisting of Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, and to a much smaller extent, the Secretary of Agriculture. Experiments were planned and conducted by the Deseret Test Center and Deseret Chemical Depot at Fort Douglas, Utah. The tests were designed to test the effects of biological weapons and chemical weapons on personnel, plants, animals, insects, toxins, vehicles, ships and equipment. Project 112 and Project SHAD experiments involved unknowing test subjects who did not give informed consent, and took place on land and at sea in various climates and terrains. Experiments involved humans, plants, animals, insects, aircraft, ships, submarines and amphibious vehicles.Biological weapons tests
There was a large variety of goals for the proposed tests, for example: "selected protective devices in preventing penetration of a naval ship by a biological aerosol," the impact of "meteorological conditions on weapon system performance over the open sea," the penetrability of jungle vegetation by biological agents, "the penetration of an arctic inversion by a biological aerosol cloud," "the feasibility of an offshore release of Aedes aegypti mosquito as a vector for infectious diseases," "the feasibility of a biological attack against an island complex," and the study of the decay rates of biowarfare agents under various conditions.Project 112 tests used the following agents and simulants: Francisella tularensis, Serratia marcescens, Escherichia coli, Bacillus globii, staphylococcal enterotoxin Type B, Puccinia graminis var. tritici. Agents and simulants were usually dispensed as aerosols using spraying devices or bomblets.
In May 1965, vulnerability tests in the U.S. using the anthrax simulant Bacillus globigii were performed in the Washington, D.C. area by SOD covert agents. One test was conducted at the Greyhound bus terminal and the other at the north terminal of the National Airport. In these tests the bacteria were released from spray generators hidden in specially built briefcases. 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. niger. In the latter tests, results indicated that a city-level epidemic would have occurred. Local police and transit authorities were not informed of these tests.
SHAD – Shipboard Hazard and Defense
Project SHAD, an acronym for Shipboard Hazard and Defense, was part of the larger program called Project 112, which was conducted during the 1960s. Project SHAD encompassed tests to identify U.S. warships' vulnerabilities to attack with chemical or biological warfare agents and develop procedures to respond to such attacks while maintaining a war-fighting capability. The Department of Defense states that Project 112 was initiated out of concern for the United States' ability to protect and defend against potential CB threats. Project 112 consisted of land-based and sea-based tests. The sea-based tests called Project SHAD were primarily launched from other ships such as the USS Granville S. Hall and USS George Eastman, Army tugboats, submarines, or fighter aircraft and were 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. The classified information related to SHAD was not completely cataloged or located in one facility. Furthermore, the Deseret Test Center was closed in the 1970s and the search for 40-year-old documents and records kept by different military services in different locations was a challenge to researchers. A fact sheet was developed for each test conducted, and when a test cancellation was not documented, a cancellation analysis was developed outlining the logic used to presume that the test had been cancelled.Declassification
The existence of Project 112 was categorically denied by the military until May 2000, when a CBS Evening News investigative report produced dramatic revelations about the tests. This report caused the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs to launch an extensive investigation of the experiments, and reveal to the affected personnel their exposure to toxins.Revelations concerning Project SHAD were first exposed by independent producer and investigative journalist Eric Longabardi. Longabardi's six-year investigation into the still-secret program began in early 1994. It ultimately resulted in a series of his investigative reports, which were broadcast on the CBS Evening News in May 2000. After the broadcast of these exclusive reports, the Pentagon and Veteran's Administration opened their own ongoing investigations into the long classified program. In 2002, Congressional hearings on Project SHAD, in both the Senate and House, further shed media attention on the program. In 2002, the US sailors exposed in the testing filed a federal class action lawsuit. Additional actions, including a multi-year medical study, were conducted by National Academy of Sciences/Institute of Medicine to assess the potential medical harm caused to the thousands of unwitting US Navy sailors, civilians, and others exposed in the secret testing. The results of that study were released in May 2007.
Because most participants involved with Project 112 and SHAD were unaware of any tests, no effort was made to ensure the informed consent of the military personnel. The US Department of Defense conducted testing of agents in other countries that was considered too unethical to perform in the United States. Until 1998, the Department of Defense stated officially that Project SHAD did not exist. Because the DoD refused to acknowledge the program, surviving test subjects were unable to obtain disability payments for health issues related to the project. US Representative Mike Thompson said of the program and the DoD's effort to conceal it, "They told me – they said, but don't worry about it, we only used simulants. And my first thought was, well, you've lied to these guys for 40 years, you've lied to me for a couple of years. It would be a real leap of faith for me to believe that now you're telling me the truth."
The Department of Veterans Affairs commenced a three-year study comparing known SHAD-affected veterans to veterans of similar ages not involved in any way with SHAD or Project 112. The study cost approximately US$3 million, and results are being compiled for future release. DoD has committed to providing the VA with information it needs to settle benefits claims as quickly and efficiently as possible and to evaluate and treat veterans involved in those tests. This required analyzing historical documents recording the planning and execution of Project 112/SHAD tests.
The released historical information about Project 112 from DoD consists of summary fact sheets rather than original documents or maintained federal information. As of 2003, 28 fact sheets were released, focusing on the Deseret Test Center in Dugway, Utah, which was built entirely for Project 112/SHAD and was closed after the project was finished in 1973.
Original records are missing or incomplete. For example, a 91-meter aerosol test tower was sprayed by an F-4E with "aerosols" on Ursula Island in the Philippines and appears in released original Project SHAD documentation but without a fact sheet or further explanation or disclosure as to the nature of the test that was conducted or even what the test was called.