[A-List] UK imperialism: bubonic plague bomb

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

The Herald newspapers' stable's links with intelligence sources are manifold
and wondrous. Here we have yet another exclusive tip off, this time
concerning the totally illegal development and testing of bubonic plague
bombs in the 1950s. While the material is important and certainly worth
following up, more fundamental questions about the role of these newspapers
need answering, as do those relating to the political orientations of the
security services and the various elements therein.

------

Revealed: how naval intelligence tested lethal 'plague bombs' off Scotland

Investigation: By Neil Mackay, Home Affairs Editor
The Sunday Herald, 9 March 2003

IT was early in the morning on June 21, 1952, when the sound of two
percussive 'whumps', coming from a small stretch of sea some 20 miles north
of the Isle of Lewis heralded the dawn of a new age in British weaponry. The
explosions came from two small 4lb bombs packed with plague ... and they had
just been detonated in the open air at sea.

Britain had developed the most terrifying biological weapon of mass
destruction ever created -- a weaponised form of the Black Death, the
bubonic plague. Even in 1952, such tests were illegal. Germ warfare had been
expressly forbidden under the Geneva protocol which all countries, except
Japan and the USA, signed in June 1925.

The Sunday Herald has been passed more than 40 pages of documents written by
British naval intelligence officers and scientists from Porton Down,
Britain's secret weapons development laboratory in Wiltshire, which reveal
in astonishing detail the secret history of what happened during Operation
Cauldron: Britain's programme of building and testing 'plague-bombs' off the
coast of Scotland.

The documents are so sensitive that they bear a rarely seen classification.
They are marked 'Top Secret Guard'. One former intelligence officer said:
'This is a term which was used by the government and the military as a way
of saying 'this is really top secret or top, top secret'. A person would
have to have the very highest level of clearance to see these documents.'

The first plague tests took place in 1944 at Porton Down in a controlled
laboratory environment, but by 1952 the navy was using bombs and aerosols
packed with plague at sea in Scottish waters. Rhesus monkeys and guinea pigs
were put on pontoon bridges some 20 miles off Lewis and exposed to the
plague bacteria. However, plague wasn't the only biological agent
experimented with. It has long been known that anthrax was tested on
Gruinard Island [which lies just off the Scottish mainland, between Ullapool
and Gairloch] as early as 1942, but along with plague, the military was also
testing tularemia and brucellosis off Stornoway in 1952.

Unlike plague, which can kill millions of people, it is rare for anyone to
die from tularemia and brucellosis -- although both are extremely
debilitating. Tularemia, or rabbit fever, leads to ulcers on the skin,
swollen lymph glands, a pneumonia-like illness, stomach pains, vomiting and
diarrhoea.

The type of plague bacteria used in the Lewis tests was yersinia pestis,
also known as Pasteurella pestis or P pestis, which can cause both pneumonic
and bubonic plague. The trials took place between May 26 and September 8,
1952, and 34 tests were carried out. Six used aerosol sprays to spread the
bacteria in the air, the rest used bombs.

More tests were carried out off Stornoway a year later -- this time the
trials were codenamed Operation Hesperus -- during which there were 80 germ
warfare tests using both bomb and spray methods. All the Stornoway
experiments were conducted by scientists stationed onboard HMS Ben Lomond --
Britain's first floating bio-weapons laboratory.

The then prime minister, Winston Churchill, felt that Scottish coastal
waters were not the best location for biological tests and ordered a new
site to be found. Scientists and intelligence officers then settled on a
tiny area of the Bahamas which they described as 'the best place we could
find on the surface of the globe'. This Caribbean experiment was codenamed
Operation Ozone and it began in 1954.

The documents show that America and Canada were also carrying out germ
warfare trials at the same time. A biological research advisory board was
set up within the British government to fine-tune the development of
biological weapons (BW) and it met at the laboratories of the
microbiological research department at Porton Down.

During the initial meetings, one of the board members, Lord Stamp, raised
concerns about testing plague and 'questioned whether the services required
an agent which would give rise to an epidemic'. But leading scientist Sir
Paul Fildes said that 'the employment of P pestis [plague] as an agent would
be contrary to our present policy' but it should be tested as 'a potential
enemy might use it against us'.

The documents also show that the British government feared the US would use
biological weapons during the Korean war, which was in progress at the time.
'American colleagues of long- standing had become very offensively minded,'
one report notes, 'and the general attitude was that the sooner they could
terminate the Korean war the better. The services in the United States had
developed a most aggressive outlook ... the emphasis was now entirely on
anti-personnel and anti-crop weapons.'

The report also reveals that Britain already had a bio-weapons facility,
called Experimental Plant No 1, up and running and was planning to build
Experimental Plant No 2 'as being the best chance of meeting an air
operational requirement'. This second plant was completed in the late 1950s
after receiving backing from the Treasury and being deemed 'necessary for
the full development of BW research'.

The scientists in charge of the experiments reported that they were
disappointed that 'the infecting dose of brucellosis in the field was about
one third of that found in the laboratory. Clearly, there was something
wrong'.

One of the most disturbing sections in the classified documents describes
how up to 20% of the agent in a cloud of brucellosis 'was viable and
infective after 24 hours'. This means that live germs released by the
explosions of bombs containing brucellosis off Lewis could have had time to
drift towards the mainland. There were also warnings that 'some viruses were
known to last for weeks and even months in dust'.

Nevertheless, it was decided that 'such trials were exceedingly valuable and
in fact essential, and that they should be pressed on with at the earliest
possible moment as a matter of urgency'.

The board was also worried that the tests at Stornoway could end in deaths.
Part of the reason for deciding to shift bio-weapons testing to the Bahamas
was down to the fact that attempting 'any further trials in the Stornoway
area was courting disaster'.

As concerns grew, it was decided that plans to test Venezuelan equine
encephalomyelitis 'should await trials in the Bahamas' as the board was
concerned that birds could 'act as reservoirs and thus become a potential
source of danger to livestock'.

The BW trials were fully supported by naval intelligence, which ordered HMS
Ben Lomond to be specially refitted for the bio-weapons tests. The director
of naval intelligence also ordered that the Scottish Office and the Ministry
of Agriculture and Fisheries be told that the tests were being carried out
to 'investigate the best means of defence against BW' rather than revealing
that the tests had an offensive purpose in order to keep them on-side for
the experiments. Even so, the Scottish Home Department was 'most reluctant
to agree upon the use of the site'.

The government imposed a five-mile exclusion zone around the test site
during the trials to prevent all shipping from entering the area. On a
number of occasions fishing boats had to be warned to stay out of the area,
although at least one strayed into the test zone.

Despite a cover story being created that claimed the exclusion zone at sea
was being used as a missile firing range, chiefs of staff were very worried
that the true nature of the tests would leak to the press. One memo notes:
'Undesirable publicity may take two forms: the fact that we are conducting
trials with BW, which obviously has most serious political and international
implications; and the fact that we are experimenting with animals, a subject
on which the British public in general, and the Anti-vivisection Society in
particular, are specially sensitive.'

Last night, a spokeswoman for Porton Down said: 'We can add nothing as all
the information about this issue is contained in the files which are now in
the possession of the Sunday Herald. We do wish to say, however, that all
the trials were carried out at the very height of the cold war, when it was
felt that Britain was under significant threat. These experiments were
carried out in a very different environment to the one in which we are now
operating.'

Porton Down did not, however, answer any questions relating to whether or
not biological weapons testing was still ongoing, or whether or not the
Stornoway tests caused any human casualties.