U.S. Pursued Secret Assassination Weapon
Sister Maureen Fiedler, host of the public radio program "Interfaith Voices," on "CBS This Morning."
In one of the longest-held secrets of the Cold War, the U.S. Army explored the potential for using radioactive poisons to assassinate "important individuals" such as military or civilian leaders, according to newly declassified documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Approved at the highest levels of the Army in 1948, the effort was a well-hidden part of the military's pursuit of a "new concept of warfare" using radioactive materials from atomic bombmaking to contaminate swaths of enemy land or to target military bases, factories or troop formations.
Military historians who have researched the broader radiological warfare program said in interviews that they had never before seen evidence that it included pursuit of an assassination weapon. Targeting public figures in such attacks is not unheard of; just last year an unknown assailant used a tiny amount of radioactive polonium-210 to kill Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London.
No targeted individuals are mentioned in references to the assassination weapon in the government documents declassified in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the AP in 1995.
The decades-old records were released recently to the AP, heavily censored by the government to remove specifics about radiological warfare agents and other details. The censorship reflects concern that the potential for using radioactive poisons as a weapon is more than a historic footnote; it is believed to be sought by present-day terrorists bent on attacking U.S. targets.
The documents give no indication whether a radiological weapon for targeting high-ranking individuals was ever used or even developed by the United States. They leave unclear how far the Army project went. One memo from December 1948 outlined the project and another memo that month indicated it was under way. The main sections of several subsequent progress reports in 1949 were removed by censors before release to the AP.
The broader effort on offensive uses of radiological warfare apparently died by about 1954, at least in part because of the Defense Department's conviction that nuclear weapons were a better bet.
Whether the work migrated to another agency such as the CIA is unclear. The project was given final approval in November 1948 and began the following month, just one year after the CIA's creation in 1947.
It was a turbulent time on the international scene. In August 1949, the Soviet Union successfully tested its first atomic bomb, and two months later Mao Zedong's communists triumphed in China's civil war.
As U.S. scientists developed the atomic bomb during World War II, it was recognized that radioactive agents used or created in the manufacturing process had lethal potential. The government's first public report on the bomb project, published in 1945, noted that radioactive fission products from a uranium-fueled reactor could be extracted and used "like a particularly vicious form of poison gas."
Among the documents released to the AP - an Army memo dated Dec. 16, 1948, and labeled secret - described a crash program to develop a variety of military uses for radioactive materials. Work on a "subversive weapon for attack of individuals or small groups" was listed as a secondary priority, to be confined to feasibility studies and experiments.
The top priorities listed were:
Weapons to contaminate "populated or otherwise critical areas for long periods of time."
Munitions combining high explosives with radioactive material "to accomplish physical damage and radioactive contamination simultaneously."
Air and-or surface weapons that would spread contamination across an area to be evacuated, thereby rendering it unusable by enemy forces.
The stated goal was to produce a prototype for the No. 1 and No. 2 priority weapons by Dec. 31, 1950.
The 4th ranked priority was "munitions for attack on individuals" using radioactive agents for which there is "no means of therapy."
"This class of munitions is proposed for use by secret agents or subversive units for lethal attacks against small groups of important individuals, e.g., during meetings of civilian or military leaders," it said.
© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Approved at the highest levels of the Army in 1948, the effort was a well-hidden part of the military's pursuit of a "new concept of warfare" using radioactive materials from atomic bombmaking to contaminate swaths of enemy land or to target military bases, factories or troop formations.
Military historians who have researched the broader radiological warfare program said in interviews that they had never before seen evidence that it included pursuit of an assassination weapon. Targeting public figures in such attacks is not unheard of; just last year an unknown assailant used a tiny amount of radioactive polonium-210 to kill Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London.
No targeted individuals are mentioned in references to the assassination weapon in the government documents declassified in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the AP in 1995.
The decades-old records were released recently to the AP, heavily censored by the government to remove specifics about radiological warfare agents and other details. The censorship reflects concern that the potential for using radioactive poisons as a weapon is more than a historic footnote; it is believed to be sought by present-day terrorists bent on attacking U.S. targets.
The documents give no indication whether a radiological weapon for targeting high-ranking individuals was ever used or even developed by the United States. They leave unclear how far the Army project went. One memo from December 1948 outlined the project and another memo that month indicated it was under way. The main sections of several subsequent progress reports in 1949 were removed by censors before release to the AP.
The broader effort on offensive uses of radiological warfare apparently died by about 1954, at least in part because of the Defense Department's conviction that nuclear weapons were a better bet.
Whether the work migrated to another agency such as the CIA is unclear. The project was given final approval in November 1948 and began the following month, just one year after the CIA's creation in 1947.
It was a turbulent time on the international scene. In August 1949, the Soviet Union successfully tested its first atomic bomb, and two months later Mao Zedong's communists triumphed in China's civil war.
As U.S. scientists developed the atomic bomb during World War II, it was recognized that radioactive agents used or created in the manufacturing process had lethal potential. The government's first public report on the bomb project, published in 1945, noted that radioactive fission products from a uranium-fueled reactor could be extracted and used "like a particularly vicious form of poison gas."
Among the documents released to the AP - an Army memo dated Dec. 16, 1948, and labeled secret - described a crash program to develop a variety of military uses for radioactive materials. Work on a "subversive weapon for attack of individuals or small groups" was listed as a secondary priority, to be confined to feasibility studies and experiments.
The top priorities listed were:
The stated goal was to produce a prototype for the No. 1 and No. 2 priority weapons by Dec. 31, 1950.
The 4th ranked priority was "munitions for attack on individuals" using radioactive agents for which there is "no means of therapy."
"This class of munitions is proposed for use by secret agents or subversive units for lethal attacks against small groups of important individuals, e.g., during meetings of civilian or military leaders," it said.
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The name is spelled Truman, moron.
Guess that puts the lie to your neocon spew about how Dems are all cowards and *******, no?
Like I''d just LOVE to shove a rusty bayonet up your a$$.
So stuff a sock in it, neoconscum!
That was a supprise.
Just finished reading Assassin''s Gate. Great book. Occasionally it buys into the invective you clowns so freely dispense. But it stays on message about concern for the Iraqis before and after the invasion. It is about reality. Try reading it and come back when you are sane enough for a reasoned conversation. Until then, your paranoid messages of hate--for Bush, for Jews, for anyone that disagrees with you, ultimately for America--pretty much mark you as part of the problem, not part of the solution.
It''s FUNNTY THAT you refer to "having to face realities like OBL"! GW Bush, the putative "leader of the free world" says he doesn''t even THINK about OBL! How''s THAT for hiding your head in the sand!
Bush doesn''t think about OBL because he''s too busy playing "war president" by destroying a country that had ABSOLUTELY NO CONNECTION TO OBL before we attacked them.
What kind of sick, twisted, little fantasy world do you repugnant neocon conmen lovers live in, anyway?
OUR OWN GOVERNMENT says that the war in Iraq has made us LESS SAFE, not safer! That''s not just us "liberals" talking!
Even PRESIDENT BUSH said that there was NO CONNECTION between Saddam and OBL. But he''s said a lot of things that turn out to be lies, so I can understand why you don''t believe him!
I really hope you repugs start to wake up soon, or it will be too late for all of us. Since I don''t believe that will happen, let me just say this: "*** you all to h3ll for eternity." That''s your fate, regardless of what I say, anyway.
Well said, MyIDonCBS.
The only thing I would add is that US foreign policy has been hijacked so often by the pro-Israel crowd, the military crowd and the nutty Christo-fascists that I''ve come the realization that it would be better for the US to just stay at home, and not intervene anywhere. It''ll be safer for the rest of the world and will save us trillions in wasted resources, long-term.
Bush knows this. That''s why he keeps you pumped up with fear. The Boogeyman''s coming! The sky is falling! Musroom Clouds! Al Qaeda. NONE of it has anything even remotely related to reality. But you fall for it, again and again.
Wake up, you fools! You are becoming animals right before our very eyes. Bush is the master of this fear. He uses it to control you, to make you give him power he has not earned, and to channel money to his friends in the oil and war industries.
Wake up soon, before his hubris leads him to start throwing around nukes. If that happens, we will NOT have a world worth occupying anymore.