HEAVY Things Are Happening......finally.....

[J.B. Stone]

INTERESTING NEW DETAILS OF A LONG KEPT SECRET....

Area 51 'Uncensored': Was It UFOs Or The USSR?



May 17, 2011

Seventy-five miles north of Las Vegas sits a land parcel in the middle of the desert. Called Area 51, the parcel is just outside of the abandoned Nevada Test and Training Range, where more than 100 atmospheric bomb tests were conducted in the 1950s. Officially, the U.S. government has never acknowledged the existence of Area 51. Unofficially, it has become a place associated with conspiracy theories, alien landings and tiny spaceships.

Journalist Annie Jacobsen tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that the site has remained classified for many years — not because of aliens or spaceships, but because the government once used the site for top-secret nuclear testing and weapons development.

In Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base, Jacobsen details how several agencies — including the Atomic Energy Commission, the Department of Defense and the CIA — once used the site to conduct controversial and secretive research on aircraft and pilot-related projects, including planes that traveled three times faster than the speed of sound and nuclear-propelled, space-based missile launch systems.


Operation Plumbbob

In the summer and fall of 1957, a series of atmospheric nuclear tests — called Operation Plumbbob — were conducted above ground at the Nevada testing and training range, located just outside of Area 51. Twenty-nine explosions were set off while tests were conducted on troop readiness, accidental detonations and the effects of flying debris on living targets, according to documents declassified by the Department of Energy that Jacobsen details in her book.

During the explosions, security officer Richard Mingus stood guard outside many of the weapons-testing sites, including one with the largest atmospheric bomb that has ever exploded in the United States.

"The bomb goes off. Richard Mingus is at ground zero, safe away in a bunker somewhere, and suddenly someone realizes, 'My God, Area 51 is unsecured,' " Jacobsen says. "And so they send Richard Mingus through ground zero, 45 minutes to an hour after this nuclear bomb has exploded, so that he can get to Area 51 to guard the gate."

Mingus survived, as did many other atomic veterans who stood close to ground zero during other Plumbbob tests.

"You can absolutely drive through an atmospheric bomb test and not be affected," Jacobsen says. "Richard Mingus also stood guard at a test at a subparcel of Area 51 ... [during] a dirty bomb test."

During the dirty bomb test, the Department of Defense and the Atomic Energy Commission simulated a plane crash where plutonium was dispersed on the ground, to see what would happen if an aircraft carrying a nuclear weapon were to crash on American soil. The resulting fallout and structural damage made much of the land uninhabitable.

"The area out at Area 51 that was part of the Operation Plumbbob test continues to be contaminated," she says. "It was not cleaned up until the '80s. And at that point, they sent in men in hazmat suits to scrape the land."


Rockets Into Space With Nuclear Powered Explosions

The nuclear tests at Area 51 gave the Department of Defense ideas about how the technology could be used to help the United States' newly minted space program. And during the space race with the Soviet Union in the 1950s, the Department of Defense proposed using space itself as a weapon, according to declassified documents that Jacobsen found. One of its ideas was to develop a nuclear-powered space-based missile launch system that would sit outside Earth's atmosphere and have the capability to launch missiles — from outer space — into the Soviet Union.

"This didn't end up happening, but it almost did," Jacobsen says. "They were testing the rocket to see whether it would actually work. And to do that meant spewing vast quantities of radiation into the air. It's very controversial [and] it was kept very top-secret."

After the U.S. ratified the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited nuclear testing in the atmosphere, the tests continued to take place.

"It comes right up to the edge of violating the treaty when an accident occurs," she says. "In one example, a 148-pound chunk of radioactive debris shoots up into the sky and lands, rending [a subparcel of Area 51] a place that no one could go, not even in a hazmat suit, for six weeks."

The Oxcart

In addition to testing nuclear weapons, Area 51 was often used as a training ground for overhead surveillance planes, says Jacobsen. One plane, called the Oxcart, was designed by the CIA to travel three times the speed of sound at 90,000 feet to spy on the Soviet Union and Cuba.

The Oxcart, in use from 1963 to 1968, worked beautifully, though it was never used over the Soviet Union or Cuba. Never once shot down, it was used in missions over North Vietnam and during the Pueblo Crisis with North Korea.

"It absolutely kept us safer and kept us out of nuclear war," Jacobsen says. "The idea that Area 51 was this test facility working to move science and technology faster and further than any other nation is true and is one of the great hallmarks of Area 51. There are other areas of the base that are controversial — but they both exist simultaneously — out there in the desert."

The secrecy surrounding Area 51 has made it fertile ground for conspiracy theories, including one about a UFO cover-up and another about the moon landing having never happened. Jacobsen addresses these conspiracy theories in the book and speculates about what led to them. She says her book is based on interviews with 74 individuals with rare firsthand knowledge of the secret base. Thirty-two of the people she interviewed lived and worked at Area 51.

On flying discs and conspiracy theories

"The UFO craze began in the summer of 1947. Several months later, the G2 intelligence, which was the Army intelligence corps at the time, spent an enormous amount of time and treasure seeking out two former Third Reich aerospace designers named Walter and Reimar Horten who had allegedly created [a] flying disc. ... American intelligence agents fanned out across Europe seeking the Horton brothers to find out if, in fact, they had made this flying disc.

"The idea behind it remains, why? Why were they looking for a flying disc? And conspiracy theorists have had their hands on this declassified file for over a decade now, and they say it proves that this flying disc came from outer space. If you read the documents, the takeaway that I found fascinating was that at the end of it, the Army admits finding the Horten brothers, and that the Horten brothers admitted their contact with the Russians and that's where the file ends. Everything after that is classified."

On why Area 51 is actually classified, according to a source

"The Horten brothers were involved in the flying disc crash in New Mexico. And that is from a single source. ... There was an unusual moment where that source became very upset and told me things that were stunning that's almost impossible to believe at first read. And that is that a flying disc really did crash in New Mexico and it was transported to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and then in 1951 it was transferred to Area 51, which is why the base is called Area 51. And the stunning part of the reveal is that my source, who I absolutely believe and worked with for 18 months on this, was one of the engineers who received the equipment and he also received the people who were in the craft.

"The people were, according to the source, were child-sized pilots, and there's a lot of debate about how old they were. He believes they were 13, although other people believe they may have been older. But this is a firsthand witness to this, and I made a decision to write about this in the very end of the book, after I take the traditional journalist form of telling you everything in the third person, I switch and I kind of lean into the reader and I say, 'Look, this is not why Area 51 is classified to the point where no one in the government will admit it exists. The reason is because what one man told me.' And then using the first person, I tell you what I was told. And there's no doubt that people are going to be upset, alarmed and skeptical of this information, but I absolutely believe the veracity of my source, and I believe it was important that I put this information out there because it is the tip of a very big iceberg."

On the Soviet human experiments her source told her about

"The child-sized aviators in this craft [that crashed in New Mexico] were the result of a Soviet human experimentation program, and they had been made to look like aliens a la Orson Welles' War of the Worlds, and it was a warning shot over President Truman's bow, so to speak. In 1947, when this would have originally happened, the Soviets did not yet have the nuclear bomb, and Stalin and Truman were locked in horns with one another, and Stalin couldn't compete in nuclear weaponry yet, but he certainly could compete in the world of black propaganda — and that was his aim, according to my source. ...

"What is firsthand information is that he worked with these bodies [of the pilots] and he was an eyewitness to the horror of seeing them and working with them. Where they actually came from is obviously the subject of debate. But if you look at the timeline with Josef Mengele, he left Auschwitz in January of 1945 and disappeared for a while, and the suggestion by the source is that Mengele had already cut his losses with the Third Reich at that point and was working with Stalin."

On why the Soviets would have undertaken such a hoax

"The plan, according to my source, was to create panic in the United States with this belief that a UFO had landed with aliens inside of it. And one of the most interesting documents is the second CIA director, Walter Bedell Smith, memos back and forth to the National Security Council talking about how the fear is that the Soviets could make a hoax against America involving a UFO and overload our early air-defense warning system, making America vulnerable to an attack."
Excerpt: 'Area 51'

Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base
By Annie Jacobsen
Hardcover, 544 pages
Little, Brown and Co.
List price: $27.99

Prologue: The Secret City

This book is a work of nonfiction. The stories I tell in this narrative are real. None of the people are invented. Of the seventy-four individuals interviewed for this book with rare firsthand knowledge of the secret base, thirty-two of them lived and worked at Area 51.

Area 51 is the nation's most secret domestic military facility. It is located in the high desert of southern Nevada, seventy-five Miles north of Las Vegas. Its facilities have been constructed over the past sixty years around a flat, dry lake bed called Groom Lake. The U.S. government has never admitted it exists.

Key to understanding Area 51 is knowing that it sits inside the largest government-controlled land parcel in the United States, the Nevada Test and Training Range. Encompassing 4,687 square miles, this area is just a little smaller than the state of Connecticut — three times the size of Rhode Island, and more than twice as big as Delaware. Set inside this enormous expanse is a smaller parcel of land, 1,350 square miles, called the Nevada Test Site, the only facility like it in the continental United States. Beginning in 1951, on the orders of President Harry Truman, 105 nuclear weapons were exploded aboveground at the site and another 828 were exploded underground in tunnel chambers and deep, vertical shafts. The last nuclear weapons test on American soil occurred at the Nevada Test Site on September 23, 1992. The facility contains the largest amount of weapons-grade plutonium and uranium in the United States not secured inside a nuclear laboratory.

Area 51 sits just outside the Nevada Test Site, approximately five miles to the northeast of the northernmost corner, which places it inside the Nevada Test and Training Range. Because everything that goes on at Area 51, and most of what goes on at the Nevada Test and Training Range, is classified when it is happening, this is a book about secrets. Two early projects at Groom Lake have been declassified by the Central Intelligence Agency: the U‑2 spy plane, declassified in 1998, and the A‑12 Oxcart spy plane, declassified in 2007. And yet in thousands of pages of declassified memos and reports, the name Area 51 is always redacted, or blacked out. There are only two known exceptions, most likely mistakes.

This is a book about government projects and operations that have been hidden for decades, some for good reasons, others for arguably terrible ones, and one that should never have happened at all. These operations took place in the name of national security and they all involved cutting-edge science. The last published words of Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb, were "Science is not everything. But science is very beautiful." After reading this book, readers can decide what they think about what Oppenheimer said.

This is a book about black operations, government projects that are secret from Congress and secret from the people who make up the United States. To understand how black projects began, and how they continue to function today, one must start with the creation of the atomic bomb. The men who ran the Manhattan Project wrote the rules about black operations. The atomic bomb was the mother of all black projects and it is the parent from which all black operations have sprung.

Building the bomb was the single most expensive engineering project in the history of the United States. It began in 1942, and by the time the bomb was tested, inside the White Sands Proving Ground in the New Mexico high desert on July 16, 1945, the bomb's price tag, adjusted for inflation, was $28,000,000,000. The degree of secrecy maintained while building the bomb is almost inconceivable. When the world learned that America had dropped an atomic weapon on Hiroshima, no one was more surprised than the U.S. Congress, none of whose members had had any idea it was being developed. Vice President Harry Truman had been equally stunned to learn about the bomb when he became president of the United States, on April 12, 1945. Truman had been the chairman of the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program when he was vice president, meaning he was in charge of watching how money was spent during the war, yet he'd had no idea about the atomic bomb until he became president and the information was relayed to him by two men: Vannevar Bush, the president's science adviser, and Henry L. Stimson, the nation's secretary of war. Bush was in charge of the Manhattan Project, and Stimson was in charge of the war.

The Manhattan Project employed two hundred thousand people. It had eighty offices and dozens of production plants spread out all over the country, including a sixty-thousand-acre facility in rural Tennessee that pulled more power off the nation's electrical grid than New York City did on any given night. And no one knew the Manhattan Project was there. That is how powerful a black operation can be.

After the war ended, Congress — the legislators who had been so easily kept in the dark for two and a half years — was given stewardship of the bomb. It was now up to Congress to decide who would control its "unimaginable destructive power." With the passing of the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, a terrifying and unprecedented new system of secret-keeping emerged. The presidential system was governed by presidential executive orders regarding national security information. But the newly created Atomic Energy Commission, formerly known as the Manhattan Project, was now in charge of regulating the classification of all nuclear weapons information in a system that was totally separate from the president's system. In other words, for the first time in American history, a federal agency run by civilians, the Atomic Energy Commission, would maintain a body of secrets classified based on factors other than presidential executive orders. It is from the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 that the concept "born classified" came to be, and it was the Atomic Energy Commission that would oversee the building of seventy thousand nuclear bombs in sixty-five different sizes and styles. Atomic Energy was the first entity to control Area 51 — a fact previously undisclosed — and it did so with terrifying and unprecedented power. One simply cannot consider Area 51's uncensored history without addressing this cold, hard, and ultimately devastating truth.

The Atomic Energy Commission's Restricted Data classification was an even more terrifying anomaly, something that could originate outside the government through the "thinking and research of private parties." In other words, the Atomic Energy Commission could hire a private company to conduct research for the commission knowing that the company's thinking and research would be born classified and that even the president of the United States would not necessarily have a need‑to‑know about it. In 1994, for instance, when President Clinton created by executive order the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments to look into secrets kept by the Atomic Energy Commission, certain records involving certain programs inside and around Area 51 were kept from the president on the grounds that he did not have a need‑to‑know. Two of these programs, still classified, are revealed publicly for the first time in this book. One of the Atomic Energy Commission's former classifications officers, Donald Woodbridge, characterized the term born classified as something that "give[s] the professional classificationist unanswerable authority." Area 51 lives on as an example. Of the Atomic Energy Commission's many facilities across the nation — it is now called the Department of Energy — the single largest facility is, and always has been, the Nevada Test Site. Other parts of the Nevada Test and Training Range would be controlled by the Department of Defense. But there were gray areas, like Area 51 — craggy mountain ranges and flat, dry lake beds sitting just outside the official borders of the Nevada Test Site and not controlled by the Department of Defense. These areas are where the most secret projects were set up. No one had a need‑to‑know about them. And for decades, until this book was published, no one would.

Excerpted from Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base by Annie Jacobsen. Copyright 2011 by Annie Jacobsen. Excerpted by permission of Little, Brown and Co.

[J.B. Stone]

Your allies are not ALWAYS your best friends......

Unethical Human Experimentation in the U.S. and Canada

Most of the information contained in this section comes from Wikipedia.

The U.S. government, and its subsidiary country, Canada, have been host to unethical human experimentation before, during and after WWII. While much of this illegal and immoral activity was sponsored by the CIA, a sizable amount was sponsored by the various individual and combined resources of the U.S. Military/Industrial complex. It is an absolute fact that connections between these types of activity and the Canadian Intelligence community existed and that much of this type of research in Canada was done with the help and acceptance of this intelligence community. It is probable, though, that some of this work was done in a clandestine manner, a signature procedure of the CIA.

Project PAPERCLIP was initiated in order to bring German (Nazi) scientists to North America before they could be taken to the Soviet Union or the U.K., as the U.S. did not want anybody else to have access to top-secret research, investigations and results. While many of the scientists who were brought to the States from Germany were central to rocketry, ballistics and nuclear research, some were involved in medical experimentation on unwitting subjects, such as PoWs, children and babies, the mentally challenged and others politically identified as expendable. While members of the Nazi Party were forbidden to enter the U.S., special arrangements were made to alter the records of these criminals, allowing them entry. These scientists and researchers were then placed in various locations and programs throughout the entire U.S. scientific and military research community, continuing their secret and highly-classified work of the war. Some of these medical experimenters were reputed to have worked on Canadian subjects.

Many types of experiments were performed including the deliberate infection of people with deadly or debilitating diseases, exposure of people to biological and chemical weapons, human radiation experiments, injection of people with toxic and radioactive chemicals, surgical experiments, interrogation/torture experiments, tests involving mind-altering substances, and a wide variety of others. Many of these tests were performed on children and mentally disabled individuals. In many of the studies, a large portion of the subjects were poor racial minorities or prisoners. Often, subjects were sick or disabled people, whose doctors told them that they were receiving “medical treatment”, but instead were used as the subjects of harmful and deadly experiments.

One such series of experiments was conducted in Winnipeg in 1953, when several sprayings over the city was done by the U.S. Army. One of the chemicals used in part of the spraying program was Zinc cadmium sulfide, a compound currently implicated as causative in certain medical conditions.

This type of program was a continuation of Operation Dew (I and II) of 1952, and remained classified until 1997. This program evolved into Operation LAC (Large Area Coverage) of 1957/58, and was overseen by the Chemical Corps.

In 1962, Project SHAD, (Shipboard Hazard and Defense), a part of the larger Project 112, was started. From 1963 to 1969 as part of the U.S. Army performed tests, several U.S. ships were sprayed with various biological and chemical warfare agents, while thousands of U.S. military personnel were aboard the ships. The personnel were not notified of the tests, and were not given any protective clothing. Chemicals tested on the U.S. military personnel included the nerve gases VX and Sarin, toxic chemicals such as zinc cadmium sulfide and sulfur dioxide, and a variety of biological agents.

Project 112 ran from 1962 until 1973 and concerned itself with biological and chemical weapons experimentation. Every branch of the U.S. Military contributed to this research. The existence of this project was officially denied until 2000.

Among the projects involved in interrogation and mind-control techniques are the following:

Project MKULTRA’s intentionally oblique CIA cryptonym is made up of the digraph MK, meaning that the project was sponsored by the agency’s Technical Services Division, followed by the word ULTRA (which had previously been used to designate the most secret classification of WWII intelligence). Other related cryptonyms include MKNAOMI and MKDELTA.

A precursor of the MKULTRA program began in 1945 when the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency was established and given direct responsibility for Operation PAPERCLIP, which was designed as a program to recruit former Nazi scientists. Some of these scientists studied torture and brainwashing, and several had just been identified and prosecuted as war criminals during the Nuremberg Trials.

Several other secret U.S. government projects grew out of Operation PAPERCLIP. These projects included Project CHATTER (established 1947), and Project BLUEBIRD (established 1950), which was renamed Project ARTICHOKE in 1951. Their purpose was to study mind-control, interrogation, behavior modification and related topics.

From 1947 until 1953, Project CHATTER was run by the U.S. Navy with the intention of developing interrogation techniques involving truth serums.

In 1950, the CIA initiated Project BLUEBIRD, whose stated purpose was to develop “the means to control individuals through special interrogation techniques”, “way[s] to prevent the extraction of information from CIA agents”, and “offensive uses of unconventional techniques, such as hypnosis and drugs”. The purpose of the project was outlined in a memo dated January 1952 that stated, “Can we get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against fundamental laws of nature, such as self preservation?” The project studied the use of hypnosis, forced morphine addiction and subsequent forced withdrawal, and the use of other chemicals, among other methods, to produce amnesia and other vulnerable states in subjects. In order to “perfect techniques for the abstraction of information from individuals, whether willing or not”, Project BLUEBIRD researchers experimented with a wide variety of psychoactive substances, including LSD, heroin, marijuana, cocaine, PCP, mescaline, and ether. Project BLUEBIRD researchers dosed over 7,000 U.S. military personnel with LSD, without their knowledge or consent. More than 1,000 of these soldiers suffered from several psychiatric illnesses, including depression, as a result of the tests. Many of them tried to commit suicide.

Operation Midnight Climax was an operation initially established by Sidney Gottlieb and placed under the direction of Narcotics Bureau officer George Hunter White under the alias of Morgan Hall for the CIA as a sub-project of Project MKULTRA.

The project consisted of a web of CIA-run safe houses in San Francisco, Marin, and New York. It was established in order to study the effects of LSD on unconsenting individuals. Prostitutes on the CIA payroll were instructed to lure clients back to the safe houses, where they were surreptitiously plied with a wide range of substances, including LSD, and monitored behind one-way glass. Several significant operational techniques were developed in this theater, including extensive research into sexual blackmail, surveillance technology, and the possible use of mind-altering drugs in field operations.

In 1964, MKULTRA was renamed MKSEARCH. The project attempted to produce a perfect truth drug for use in interrogating suspected Soviet spies during the Cold War, and generally to explore any other possibilities of mind control.

Another MKULTRA effort, Subproject 54, was the Navy’s top secret “Perfect Concussion” program, which was supposed to use sub-aural frequency blasts to erase memory, however the program was never carried out.

Because most MKULTRA records were deliberately destroyed in 1972 by MKULTRA chief Sidney Gottlieb and in 1973 by order of then CIA Director Richard Helms, it has been difficult, if not impossible, for investigators to gain a complete understanding of the more than 150 individually funded research sub-projects sponsored by MKULTRA and related CIA programs, thus making a full investigation of claims impossible.

However, many records did survive the purge. News of the story began to leak following a landmark story by New York Times reporter Seymour Hersh on illegal CIA domestic surveillance. This report triggered Senate Subcommittee hearings which investigated MKULTRA, and brought Operation Midnight Climax to light.

In 1957, with funding from a CIA front organization, Dr Ewan Cameron of the Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal, Canada began MKULTRA Subproject 68. His experiments were designed to first “depattern” individuals, erasing their minds and memories—reducing them to the mental level of an infant—and then to “rebuild” their personality in a manner of his choosing. To achieve this, Cameron placed patients under his “care” into drug-induced comas for up to 88 days, and applied numerous high voltage electric shocks to them over the course of weeks or months, often administering up to 360 shocks per person. He would then perform what he called “psychic driving” experiments on the subjects, where he would repetitively play recorded statements, such as “You are a good wife and mother and people enjoy your company”, through speakers he had implanted into blacked-out football helmets that he bound to the heads of the test subjects (for sensory deprivation purposes). The patients could do nothing but listen to these messages, played for 16–20 hours a day, for weeks at a time. In one case, Cameron forced a person to listen to a message non-stop for 101 days. Using CIA funding, Cameron converted the horse stables behind Allen Memorial into an elaborate isolation and sensory deprivation chamber which he kept patients locked in for weeks at a time. Cameron also induced insulin comas in his subjects by giving them large injections of insulin, twice a day for up to two months at a time.

His work was inspired and paralleled by the British psychiatrist William Sargant at St Thomas’ Hospital, London, and Belmont Hospital, Surrey. Sargant was also involved in the Intelligence Services and experimented extensively on his patients without their consent.

It was during this era that Cameron became known worldwide as the first chairman of the World Psychiatric Organization as well as president of the American and Canadian psychiatric associations. Cameron had also been a member of the Nuremberg Medical tribunal in 1946–47.

Several of the children who Cameron experimented on were sexually abused, in at least one case by several men. One of the children was filmed numerous times performing sexual acts with high-ranking federal government officials, in a scheme set up by Cameron and other MKULTRA researchers, to blackmail the officials to ensure further funding for the experiments.

Cameron regularly traveled around the U.S. teaching military personnel about his techniques (hooding of prisoners for sensory deprivation, prolonged isolation, humiliation, etc.), and how they could be used in interrogations.

In Canada, in 1984, it was learned that not only had the CIA funded Dr Cameron’s efforts, but perhaps even more shockingly, the Canadian government was fully aware of this, and had later provided another $500,000 in funding to continue the experiments. This revelation largely derailed efforts by the victims to sue the CIA as their U.S. counterparts had, and the Canadian government eventually settled out of court for $100,000 to each of the 127 victims. None of Dr. Cameron’s personal records of his involvement with MKULTRA survive, since his family destroyed them after his death from a heart attack while mountain climbing in 1967.

In 1963, the CIA had synthesized many of the findings from its psychological research into what became known as the KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation handbook, which cited the MKULTRA studies, and other secret research programs as the scientific basis for their interrogation methods. This first manual, dated July 1963, is the source of much of the material in the second manual (there are seven manuals in total). KUBARK was a CIA cryptonym for the CIA itself. The cryptonym KUBARK appears in the title of a 1963 CIA document KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation which describes interrogation techniques, including, among other things, “coercive counterintelligence interrogation of resistant sources”. This is the oldest and most abusive manual, such as two references to the use of electric shock.

A private study, the Milgram Experiment, which focused on obedience to authority figures, was a series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale university psychologist Stanley Milgram. These tests measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience. Milgram first described his research in 1963 in an article published in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology.

Eugenics, (the study and practice of “improving” the genetic features of human populations through selective breeding and sterilization) has played a significant role in the history and culture of the U.S.

Eugenics was practiced in the United States many years before eugenics programs in Nazi Germany (and in fact, U.S. programs provided much of the inspiration for the latter). After the eugenics movement was well established in the United States, it spread to Germany. California eugenicists began producing literature promoting eugenics and sterilization and sending it overseas to German scientists and medical professionals. By 1933, California had subjected more people to forceful sterilization than all other U.S. states combined. The forced sterilization program engineered by the Nazis was partly inspired by California’s

The Rockefeller Foundation helped develop and fund various German eugenics programs, including the one that Josef Mengele worked in before he went to Auschwitz.

Upon returning from Germany in 1934, where more than 5,000 people per month were being forcibly sterilized, the California eugenics leader C. M. Goethe bragged to a colleague: “You will be interested to know that your work has played a powerful part in shaping the opinions of the group of intellectuals who are behind Hitler in this epoch-making program. Everywhere I sensed that their opinions have been tremendously stimulated by American thought . . . I want you, my dear friend, to carry this thought with you for the rest of your life, that you have really jolted into action a great government of 60 million people.”

Eugenics researcher Harry H. Laughlin often bragged that his Model Eugenic Sterilization laws had been implemented in the 1933 Nuremberg racial hygiene laws. In 1936, Laughlin was invited to an award ceremony at Heidelberg University in Germany (scheduled on the anniversary of Hitler’s 1934 purge of Jews from the Heidelberg faculty), to receive an honorary doctorate for his work on the “science of racial cleansing”. Due to financial limitations, Laughlin was unable to attend the ceremony, and had to pick it up from the Rockefeller Institute. Afterwards, he proudly shared the award with his colleagues, remarking that he felt that it symbolized the “common understanding of German and American scientists of the nature of eugenics.”

http://www.abusedenials.com/?page_id=862

[J.B. Stone]

PROJECT SHAD NEWS ITEM:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVG1l2ENvK8

[J.B. Stone]

WELL.....WADDAYA KNOW.....


Family caregive program launches for veterans in Montana

Posted: Aug 15, 2011 3:50 PM by Evan Weborg (Helena)
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has sent the first stipend payments to the family caregivers of Montana veterans.

Twelve Montana caregivers have applied for the program to date; two have been approved so far.

Family caregivers will receive an average $1,600 in monthly stipend payments. The initial payments average $2,500 because the first stipend checks are retroactive to the date of application.

The amount of the stipend is based on the condition of the veteran and the amount of care they require, as well as the geographic location where the veteran resides.

Alex Bailey, program support coordinator for the VA Montana healthcare system, said, "Family caregivers in Montana provide crucial support in caring for our nation's veterans. This support allows the veterans to stay in their homes and communities they defended, surrounded by loved ones they fought for."

Veterans may review the criteria for eligibility and download the family caregiver program application at www.caregiver.va.gov. The application enables the veteran to designate a primary family caregiver and secondary family caregivers if needed.

Montana veterans can also contact the VA's Fort Harrison campus at 406-202-3062.

[J.B. Stone]

IT JUST NEVER ENDS....

Al Qaeda operatives in Yemen 'planning deadly ricin attack' on US, Obama warned

By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 3:39 PM on 14th August 2011

Intelligence officials have warned Barack Obama that a dangerous regional arm of Al Qaeda is trying to produce the deadly poison ricin to use in attacks against the United States.

Al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen is believed to have been trying to acquire large quantities of castor beans, which contain the toxic rich protein.

It is thought the poison would be packed around small explosives which could disperse the white powdery substance on detonation.

It is so deadly that even a speck of it can kill someone if inhaled or taken into the blood stream.

The poison was used in the 1978 assassination in London of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov and, in 2002, police raided a facility said to be plotting its manufacture in the UK capital.

Al Qaeda intend on detonating the explosives in enclosed areas like shopping centres and airports.

But there are limits on ricin because it loses its potency in dry, sunny conditions, like those in Yemen, and is not easily absorbed through the skin like other nerve agents.

America has been bracing itself for a backlash from terrorists after Osama Bin Laden was killed earlier this year.

Mr Obama was briefed by top security aides about the latest threat last year but was told by that an attack is not imminent.

Senior administration officials said ricin was among the threats being tracked by a secret government task force created after printer cartridges packed with powerful explosives were found in cargo bound for Chicago in October 2010, according to the New York Times.

It said the task force was working with Saudi officials and with the remnants of Yemen's intelligence agencies to counter the threat.

It said regional Al Qaeda affiliates, especially in the Arabian Peninsula, were seen as a menace to the United States and U.S. interests abroad.

The virtual collapse of Yemen's government has enabled Al Qaeda to widen its control in the country and strengthen its operational ties with al Shabab, the Islamic militancy in Somalia.

The US government is working with what is left of Yemen's intelligence agencies and those of neighbouring Saudi Arabia to try to root our terror plots early.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1VEgGCm8f

[J.B. Stone]

TONS of Agent Orange links and information:

http://agentorangelegacy.blogspot.com/2 ... rd_18.html

[J.B. Stone]

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE TO BREATHE AGAIN......

What’s Choking U.S. Troops? Feds Have No Idea

By Katie Drummond Email Author
October 31, 2011 |


In a 2010 study of 80 soldiers who struggled to run two miles, half of them were huffing and puffing because of undiagnosed bronchiolitis.

And the feds have no idea why.

The military’s widespread use of open-air burn pits — massive heaps of Styrofoam, human waste and plastic water bottles, in flames around the clock — seemed to be the most obvious answer.

But results of a study published today by the Institute of Medicine, and commissioned by the Department of Veterans Affairs, are frustratingly inconclusive — largely because the military didn’t collect adequate data for researchers to do their jobs.

The team set out to determine whether the burn pits used to incinerate waste at military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan were culpable for the increased prevalence of respiratory, cardiovascular and neurological ailments afflicting recent veterans. But what they know after all that research is essentially what they knew at the study’s outset. First, that more and more troops are complaining of chronic health problems. And second, that the air quality in both combat zones was pretty awful to begin with.

Since 2001, cardiovascular problems among military personnel have soared from 65,520 to 91,013 in 2010. Neurological conditions have more than tripled, going from 9,688 to 32,667.

Some troops are so sure that burn pits caused their illnesses, they’ve already sued the contractors responsible for them: Close to 1,000 are currently in litigation against megaliths KBR and Halliburton, which were charged with overseeing some pits.

But burn pits aren’t the only suspect: With dust storms a common occurrence, soldiers spent plenty of time choking on cloudy air in Iraq and Afghanistan, which the report notes might be enough to cause “long-term health effects.” Not to mention that much of the dust was laden with neurotoxic elements, including chromium and iron.

Researchers studied air samples collected by military officials at Joint Base Balad between 2007 and 2009. They detected 51 chemicals and a plethora of particulate matter (caused by, for example, dust and exhaust fumes). The toxins and particulates found in the samples have been linked to, among others, the following health problems: Cardiovascular disease, asthma, adrenal, liver and kidney failure, birth defects, cancer, anemia and decreased function of the central nervous system.

“The air in the areas tested contained more pollutants — sometimes much more — than U.S. air standards,” Dr. David Tollerud, lead researcher on the study, told reporters. “What they inhaled was comparable to that of very polluted urban environments around the world.”

In other words, troops were living in an environment akin to the heart of Mexico City — if Mexico City was also burning heaps of synthetic goods and human waste adjacent to residential areas and workplaces. So troops should worry about illness. But is the risk reserved for those who worked close to a burn pit? That question’s a little tougher to answer.

“We can’t dismiss the potential of the burn pits themselves as being the cause of health effects,” Dr. Tollerud, who was also a key researcher in establishing Agent Orange’s health threats, said. “But exhaust from automobiles, jet emissions, and other pollution, not to mention dust storms, could also be involved.”

That said, the air samples did contain dioxins, the same chemicals found in Agent Orange, the herbicide now blamed for widespread illness among Vietnam veterans.

And much like Agent Orange — which the VA only this past year acknowledged as the culprit for veteran’s health problems — it seems the confusion surrounding this generation’s long-term health conditions will take decades to resolve — if it ever is.

The report notes that researchers were hampered by “a lack of data” collected by the Department of Defense. Nobody kept track of what was burned, when, how much, or in what proximity to soldiers. And now that the military has shut down all of the open-air pits in Iraq, getting relevant air samples is impossible.

Despite this dearth of data, the military somehow managed to release two of their own reports on air quality earlier in the decade, and both concluded that any health risks from burn pits fell within an “acceptable” range.

The IOM committee isn’t so sure: They’ve suggested another, long-term study that follows troops — especially those who’d been deployed at Balad — and tracks incidence of respiratory problems, neurological impairment and cancer, which often develops later in life. In other words, soldiers will just have to wait until they get sick to help scientists figure out why.

[J.B. Stone]

This just plain uncalled-for.....

Report: Air Force dumped remains of 274 troops in landfill

The Air Force confirmed Thursday that unclaimed remains of 274 U.S. service members were disposed of in a Virginia landfill between 2003 and 2008. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reports.
By msnbc.com staff

The incinerated partial remains of at least 274 American troops were dumped in a Virginia landfill, according to government records, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.

Air Force officials said that the dumping was hidden from families who had given authorization for the remains to be disposed of in a respectful and dignified manner, according to the newspaper.

There were no plans to inform families, officials told the newspaper.

New information revealed that the practice, exposed by The Washington Post in November, had become very widespread until it was halted in 2008, the newspaper reported.

Last month, Pentagon and Air Force officials said that figuring out how many remains were sent to the King George County, Va., landfill would take combing through the records of more than 6,300 troops.

Full story in the Washington Post: Air Force dumped more ashes than acknowledged

"It would require a massive effort and time to recall records and research individually," Jo Ann Rooney, the Pentagon's acting undersecretary for personnel, said in a Nov. 22 letter to Rep. Rush Holt (Dem.-N.J.), who has pressured the Pentagon for information on the issue on behalf of one of his constituents, according to the newspaper.

Holt reacted angrily to the news, the newspaper reported.

"What the hell?" he told the Post. "We spent millions, tens of millions, to find any trace of soldiers killed, and they're concerned about a 'massive' effort to go back and pull out the files and find out how many soldiers were disrespected this way?"

"They just don't want to ask questions or look very hard," he added, according to the newspaper.

Video: Panetta orders review of Dover morgue

According to records the military gave The Post, between 2003 and 2008, 976 fragments from 274 personnel were cremated, incinerated and dumped in the landfill. An additional 1,762 remains, which could not be DNA tested because of damage from explosions, were gathered from the battlefield and dumped in a similar manner, the Air Force told the newspaper.

The widow of an Army sergeant killed in Iraq told the newspaper she was furious when she was told how some of her husband's remains were dumped in the landfill.
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"They have known that they were doing something disgusting, and they were doing everything they could to keep it from us," Gari-Lynn Smith told the newspaper. She had been pressing the military for information on the subject for four years — ever since she got a report on her husband's autopsy and learned that some of the remains had not been put in the casket for his funeral, according to The Post.

Changes in disposal policies came about after an in-depth review at Dover was ordered in 2008 by then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

[J.B. Stone]

..............WILL THEY NEVER LEARN...........???

Lab-Created Bird Flu Virus Poses Massive Threat

Written By Dr. Manny Alvarez

Published December 20, 2011

A new report out Tuesday claims Dutch scientists have created a highly contagious, airborne form of the bird flu, which could potentially be capable of killing millions.

Unlike the normal H5N1 strain of avian influenza - which was only contagious through close personal contact with an infected person - this form can be spread by merely coughing or sneezing.

The lab-created bird flu strain was engineered by a team of scientists led by Ron Fouchier of Rotterdam's Erasmus Medical Centre. The researchers said the mutation only required a few variations to the original strain.

Naturally, the U.S. government has expressed concerns and is asking the researchers not to publish all the details of their discovery, though the researchers have already expressed a desire to publish the report. I'm inclined to agree with the government - this study is quite troubling.

Science is responsible for life-saving vaccinations and cures we have today, but in some cases, science for the mere sake of experimentation could lead to dangerous outcomes.

To experiment on the H5N1 virus just to show the world that it is possible, in my opinion is quite irresponsible of these Dutch researchers since there is no way to stop this virus if it gets out of the lab.

A couple years ago, when the H5N1 virus first became public, there was a lot of global concern it would turn out to be a massive pandemic that could affect millions of people.

Luckily, nothing of great proportion happened, but now we have these scientists hoping to publish the details of how they developed a deadly strain of the flu.

Not only could this bring more fear to patients around the world, but also give terrible ideas or vital information to rogue scientists who may help to create a bio-terrorism agent.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/12/2 ... z1h7l0vDo0

[J.B. Stone]

Some useful contacts for important programs

December 18, 2011

Veterans Beat

by Ron Seman

The need to be informed about a myriad of veterans programs, from the local, state and national levels, keeps all of us in the dissemination of information business constantly on the watch for new, expanded or discontinued programs.

Individuals who work on the levels noted do their best to keep us up-to-date, but, at times we have to take the initiative to obtain the answers we want by contacting the seemingly endless number of agencies that work on our behalf.

With that in mind, here is a list of the information you can obtain by calling the following phone numbers for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

* VA Benefits: 800-827-1000. This number will assist you in getting information on Burial; Civilian Health Medical Programs of the VA (CHAMPVA); Death Pension; Dependency Indemnity Compensation; Direct Deposit; Directions to VA Benefits Regional Offices; Disability compensation; Disability Pensions, Education; Home Loan Guaranty; Life Insurance; Medical Care; and Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment.

* Beneficiaries in receipt of Pension Benefits: 877-294-6380.

* Education (GI Bill): 888-442-4551.

* Health Care Benefits: 877-222-8387.

* Income Verification and Means Testing: 800-929-8387.

* Life Insurance: 800-669-8477.

* Mammography Hotline: 888-492-7844.

* Special Issues -- Gulf War/Agent Orange/Project Shad/Mustard Agents and Lewisite/Ionizing Radiation: 800-749-8387.

* Status of Headstones and Markers: 1-800-697-6947.

* Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TCD): 800-829-4833.

For health care services, in the Greater Cleveland area, contact the Louis Stokes VA Medical Center, 10701 East Blvd., Cleveland. Phone: 216-791-3800.

In addition, you can enlist the services of a Veterans Service Officer (VSO) who work at the job of assisting veterans everyday of the year. They are paid by their respective veterans organizations and are located in the A.J. Celebrezze Federal Building downtown at East 9th Street and Lakeside Avenue.

There is no charge for enlisting the assistance of the service officer. And you need not be a member of the organization that provides the help.

So, if you have a question about any veterans program, feel free to call one of these dedicated individuals, who by the way, are all veterans. The VSO can help you fill out VA forms, tell you about VA benefits, and provide a wide range of help for veterans and their dependents.

Don't be bashful about accepting the benefits and entitlements you earned as part of your service to this nation. You need not feel as though you are receiving "handouts."

Many state, county and local governments also have trained personnel in their veterans departments who can help. Check the government section of the telephone directory for these agencies in your area.

You may want to keep this column handy for future reference.

* American Legion: 216-522-3504.

* AMVETS: 216-522-3500.

* Disabled American Veterans: 216-522-3507.

* Jewish War Veterans: 216-522-2446.

* Military Order of the Purple Heart: 216-522-7237.

* Vietnam Veterans of America: 216-522-3119.

* VFW: 216-522-3510

* * *

Items for this column can be mailed to Ron Seman, 5811 Renwood Drive, Parma 44129, or email: SemanRJ@aol.com.

Remember our men and women serving America in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and at other posts around the globe. Keep them in your daily prayers.

I know many of our readers are engaged in the rush to finish their Christmas shopping and plan for the New Year celebration. So, let me, at this time, wish you and your families a Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, and Happy Kwanzaa!

Thanks for your generous support of the Veterans Beat column, and my mission to keep veterans and their families up-to-date on news that affects their lives. God bless.

http://www.tallmadgeexpress.com/news/article/5136455

[J.B. Stone]

HERE'S SOME INTERESTING TIDBITS......WHO'D A THUNKIT...........???

America's Illegal Chemical Weapons Stockpile
December 5th, 2011

http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voi ... pons-stock



by Stephen Lendman

On November 28, the Conference of the States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) opened its 16th session in The Hague, Netherlands.

Information on it can be found on the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) web site.

OPCW is mandated to implement their elimination, and "to provide a forum for consultation and cooperation among States Parties." Its work includes:

(1) Demilitarization: destruction of all chemical weapons and precursors.

(2) Non-Proliferation: ensuring against proliferation of toxic chemicals and their precursors.

(3) Assistance and Protection: Member States able to protect their populations pledge to help others that can't.

(4) International Cooperation: ensuring chemicals are used for peaceful, not destructive purposes.

(5) Universality: promoting adherence to Chemical Weapons Convention provisions.

(6) National Implementation: establishing National Authorities to assure State Parties meet their CWC obligations.

CWC prohibits the development, production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. It mandates their destruction. Earlier it called on all member states to do so by April 29, 2007. Russia and America requested a delay until April 2012.

Washington now wants it extended through 2020. It's one of the few countries obstructing CWC provisions. It has no intention of destroying illegal weapons. America maintains huge chemical, biological, nuclear stockpiles. New more dangerous weapons replace older ones.

CWC mandates non-complying nations be referred to the Security Council for action against them. America's veto power precludes efforts to deter its lawlessness.

Drafted in September 1992, CWC was signed on January 13 1993, and became effective on April 29, 1997. Currently, 188 State Parties are signatories, including Russia and China. Israel signed on in 1993, but hasn't ratified it. OPCW functions as its implementing organization.

For nearly 20 years, Conference on Disarmament negotiations failed to assure all chemical weapons are destroyed. Most nations comply. America doesn't. Its 16th session will address the issue.

Chemical weapons include all toxic ones and their precursors able to cause death, injury, temporary incapacitation or sensory irritation. Munitions and other delivery devices are included.

Toxic substances are categorized as choking, blister, blood or nerve agents. Best known ones include choking chlorine and phosgene, mustard and lewisite blister agents (or vesicants), hydrogen cyanide blood agents, and sarin, soman and VX nerve agents.

Toxic chemicals used industrially are legal, despite their harmful effects. However, when used as weapons, they violate CWC provisions.

CWC's purpose is to ensure toxic chemicals are produced only for purposes unrelated to weaponry in any form.

History of Chemical and Biological Weapons

As long as chemicals have been used militarily, international disarmament efforts tried to eliminate them. The first agreement dates from 1675 when France and Germany agreed to prohibit poison bullets.

In 1874, the Brussels Convention on the Law and Customs of War prohibited poison or weaponized poison in munitions, their projectiles, or material able to cause unnecessary suffering.

In 1899, a Hague international peace conference prohibited poison gas projectiles. The 1907 Hague Convention banned chemical weapons. Nonetheless, poison gas used in WW I caused 100,000 deaths and 900,000 injuries.

In the 1920s, Britain used poison gas against Iraqis. In 1919, as Secretary of State for War, Winston Churchill advocated them in a secret memo, stating: "I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes."

In 1928, the Geneva Protocol prohibited gas and bacteriological warfare.

In 1931, Dr. Cornelius Rhoads infected human subjects with cancer cells - under the auspices of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Investigations. Rhoads later conducted radiation exposure experiments on American soldiers and civilian hospital patients.

In 1932, the Tuskegee Syphilis Study began on 200 black men. They weren't told of their illness and were denied treatment to be used as human guinea pigs to follow their disease symptoms and progression. They all subsequently died.

Beginning in 1935, Pellagra affected millions for over two decades. The US Public Health Service finally stemmed the disease.

In 1935 and 1936, Italy used mustard gas against Ethiopians.

In 1936, Japan used chemical weapons against China. In the same year, a German chemical lab produced the first nerve agent, Tabun.

in 1940, 400 Chicago prisoners are infected with malaria to study the effects of new and experimental drugs.

Since at least the 1940s, America had an active biological weapons program. In 1941, it implemented one secretly to develop bioweapons, using controversial testing methods.

From 1942 to 1945, America's Chemical Warfare Services began mustard gas experiments on about 4,000 servicemen.

In 1943, biological weapons research at Fort Detrick, MD began.

In 1944, the US Navy used human subjects in locked chambers to test gas masks and clothing.

During WW II, Germany used lethal Zyklon-B gas in death camp exterminations. Japan's Unit 731 conducted biowarfare experiments on civilians.

In 1945, German offenders got immunity under Project Paperclip. So did Japanese ones in exchange for their data, and (for Germans at least) to work on top secret US projects.

In 1945, the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) implemented "Program F." It's the most extensive study fluoride's health effects. It's used in atomic bomb production, as well as tooth paste.

It's one of the most toxic chemicals known. It causes marked adverse central nervous system effects. Low concentration fluoride is also found naturally in drinking water and foods. Few people know the dangers.

In 1946, VA hospital patients become guinea pigs for medical experiments.

In 1947, America produced germ warfare weapons. Truman withdrew the 1928 Geneva Protocol from Senate consideration. It wasn't ratified until 1974. Effectively it remains unenforced.

In 1947, the AEC's Colonel EE Kirkpatrick issued secret document #07075001. It said the agency will begin administering intravenous doses of radioactive substances to human subjects.

In July 1947, the CIA was established. It began LSD experiments on civilian and military subjects with and without their knowledge. Its purpose was to learn its effectiveness as an intelligence weapon.

In 1949, the US Army released biological agents in US cities to learn the effects of a real germ warfare attack. Tests continued secretly for years, and may now be ongoing illegally.

During the Korean War, Washington used chemical and biological weapons.

In 1950, the Department of Defense (DOD) began open-air nuclear weapons detonations in desert areas. Downwind residents were then monitored for medical problems and mortality rates.

In 1951, African-Americans were exposed to potentially fatal stimulants as part of a race-specific fungal weapons test in Virginia.

In 1953, the US military released zinc cadium sulfide gas over Winnipeg, Canada, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Fort Wayne, the Monocacy River Valley in Maryland, and Leesburg, VA to determine how effectively chemical agents can be dispersed.

In 1953, joint Army-Navy-CIA experiments were conducted in New York and San Francisco. Tens of thousands of people were exposed to Serratia marcescens and Bacillus glogigii.

In 1953, the CIA began Project MKULTRA. It was an 11 year research program (continuing under new names) to produce and test drugs and biological agents to be used for mind control and behavior modification. Unwitting subjects were used.

In 1955, the CIA released bacteria from the Army's Tampa, FL biological warfare arsenal to test its ability to infect human populations.

From 1955 to 1958, the Army Chemical Corps conducted LSD research on over 1,000 subjects to study its effect as an incapacitating agent.

In 1956, the US military released mosquitoes infected with Yellow Fever over Savannah, GA and Avon Park, FL to test the health effects on victims.

In 1956, Army Field Manual 27-10 and The Law of Land Warfare said biochemical warfare wasn't banned.

In 1960, the Army Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence authorized LSD field tested in Europe and Asia.

In 1961, the Kennedy administration authorized Project 112. It ran secretly from 1962 - 1973 to test biological and chemical weapons effects on thousands of unwitting US servicemen. Project SHAD was a related project in which subjects were exposed to VX, tabun, sarin and soman nerve gases plus other toxic agents.

In 1966, New York subway passengers were subjected to secret germ warfare experiments.

In 1969, nerve gas agents killed thousands of sheep in Utah.

In November 1969, Nixon's National Security Memorandum ended production and offensive use of lethal and other type biological and chemical weapons. It confined "bacteriological/biological programs....to research for defensive purposes," with other built-in loopholes.

A February 1970 Memorandum ordered existing stockpiles destroyed. It restricted "toxins....research and development (to) defensive purposes only." It declared only small quantities would be maintained to develop vaccines, drugs and diagnostics. It became another exploitable loophole.

In 1969, the General Assembly banned herbicide plant killers and tear gases in warfare. Nonetheless, open-air testing intermittently continued unabated. The Pentagon, in fact, "field test(s CBW) systems."

For decades since the 1960s, Washington used biological agents against Cuba. It's unclear whether they still continue.

In 1970, US Southeast Asian forces conducted Operation Tailwind. Lethal sarin nerve gas was used in Laos. In 1998, Admiral Thomas Moorer, former Joint Chiefs Chairman, confirmed it on CNN. Under Pentagon pressure, CNN retracted the report and fired award-winning journalist Peter Arnett and co-producers April Oliver and Jack Smith for not disavowing it.

During the Vietnam War, US forces used Agent Orange through at least 1971.

In 1975, the Senate Church Committee confirmed that bioweapons are stockpiled at Fort Detrick, MD, including anthrax, encephalitis, tuberculosis, shellfish toxin, and food poisons.

During the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, Washington supplied Iraq with toxic biological and chemical agents. Ronald Reagan signed a secret order to do whatever was necessary and "legal" to prevent Iraq from losing. In 1994, Congress learned that dozens of biological agents were sent, including various anthrax strains and nerve gas precursors.

In 1985 and 1986, Washington resumed open-air biological agents testing. It likely never stopped.

In 1987, Congress authorized resumption of chemical weapons production.

In 1989, 149 nations at the Paris Chemical Weapons Conference condemned these weapons. After America signed the treaty, poison gas production was authorized.

Nonetheless, GHW Bush reaffirmed America's commitment to eliminate chemical weapons in 10 years. In 1990, Washington enacted the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 "to implement....the Prohibition of the Development, Production, and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and Their Destruction....."

Use of depleted uranium and other toxic substances (including experimental vaccines) during Gulf War caused serious health problems to thousands of US forces. The term Gulf War Syndrome described them without explanation.

In 1997, America ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), banning development, production, stockpiling, and use of these substances for munitions or precursors.

In 2001, the Bush administration rejected the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). Claiming a need to counter chemical and biological weapons threats, it spent multi-billions illegally to develop, test and stockpile "first-strike" chemical and biological weapons.

A BWC loophole lets appropriate types and amounts of biological agents be used for "prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes." It also permits research, not development. BWC predated genetic engineering that causes harm to human health.

Post-9/11, America paid lip service alone to disarmament. Its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs continue. The 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was abandoned to develop and test new weapons.

So was the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) because it expressly forbids the development, testing and deployment of missile defenses like America's Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and other programs.

The proposed Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) to prohibit further weapons-grade uranium and plutonium production and prevent new nuclear weapons added to present stockpiles was also rejected. In fact, new more sophisticated ones replace those outdated.

America's Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) "reserves the right" to use nuclear weapons "that may be warranted by the evolution and proliferation of the biological weapons threat and US capacities to counter that threat." In other words, it's more about war than prevention.

So-called missile defense is for offense. Washington's New Start Treaty with Russia excluded real nuclear disarmament. New improved weapons replace old ones. Dangerous testing continues.

Preemptive first-strike capability is prioritized, including from space. America's treaties aren't worth the paper they're written on. It begs the question why Russia or other nations bother negotiating.

The 16th Session of the Conference of the State Parties will conclude on December 2. Its most important goal won't be met.

America won't abolish its chemical weapons like most other states. Doing so would harm its agenda. Despite being a CWC signatory and OPCW State Party, it's got them to use, not eliminate.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

[J.B. Stone]

From the Vietnam Veterans of America monthly magazine....

Project 112/SHAD REPORT
Larry Pilkinton, 1938-2007

BY JACK ALDERSON, CHAIR

Larry Pilkinton served with the Project SHAD Technical Staff. I first met him when the light tugs were reorganized, and I and other new crew members reported in October 1964. The following is an excerpt from his obituary: “In 1964 he was selected for Project 112/SHAD, which was a top-secret project of chemical and biological warfare tests. He had various duties for SHAD, and in addition to his laboratory research work, he was assistant safety officer and exposed to many agents. He was injured in the line of duty but could not receive a medical discharge due to the top-secret nature of his duties. So after serving almost 13 years, he received an honorable discharge from the Navy.”
Now for the rest of the story: Larry was not on board the light tugs (LTs) but was assigned as part of the laboratory and support staff. After returning from the test called Shady Grove, Larry was sent to Hawaii’s Big Island as part of a land test. He told me that he was loading bomblets with nerve and biological agents. The next thing he knew was when he woke up back in Oahu at Tripler Army Hospital.
When we heard that he had been injured, a couple of the crew went to see him. However, they were denied entry by a Marine stationed outside his room. The next time we were in port we were informed he had died and that his family had shipped back to the mainland. Everyone on the staff thought of him dead, including those who worked closely with him.
It came as a great shock then when I received an e-mail from him in March 2006. He had read one of these columns in The VVA Veteran. In talking with him and his wife, Doreen, he told me that he had been shipped to Oaknoll Naval Hospital and placed in the psychiatric ward. He was told that he had a prior mental illness and his security clearance was revoked. His medical records had no indication he was part of the SHAD staff. Rather than going back to being a regular hospital orderly, he preferred to leave the Navy and restart his life as a civilian.
The Project SHAD Technical Staff members were carefully selected and all had final secret security clearances and, periodically, interim top secret. This means that background investigations had been performed. Why had this not come up with evidence of his prior mental illnesses? Why were his medical records devoid of PSTS information?
Agent Orange Committee chair Buzz Sawyer noted, “Larry died on February 13. Many of us feel his demise was related to the latent effects of his exposure to chemical and biological weapons on the Big Island in 1966. Because of the classified nature of his work, he died without establishing service connection to his illness or survivor benefits for his widow. The VA would only consider his prior mental illness.”
Sawyer added, “It is truly a shame that agencies of our government hide behind the veil of “national security” to cover up and block requests for information that may aid veterans in their quest for their rights. They check out our backgrounds thoroughly. But they obfuscate and they lie, and it is the veteran who gave honest and upright service who is hurt.”
It just ain’t right.

THE LIVING WEAPON
On February 5, PBS’s American Experience broadcast an hour-long documentary on 112. “The Living Weapon” was, we were informed, supposed to reveal new information. We were misinformed. It was mostly just a rehash. Toward the end, there was a short scene that showed three of the LTs. They said the targets were barges with monkeys on board but said nothing about the sailors involved.
One other new piece of information: Add St. Louis and Minneapolis to the list of cities that were targeted in biological simulant tests.

Chair: Jack Alderson. Members: Jack Barry, Tom Berger, Norm LaChapelle, Rich Levesque, Bob Maras, John Olsen, and Buzz Sawyer. Staff Coordinator: Bernie Edelman.

[J.B. Stone]

ONCE A TEST RAT, ALWAYS A TEST RAT...........

Subject: First meeting of IOM (Institute of Medicine) SHAD II Committee January 19 in Washington, DC

***We invite you to share this announcement with other interested individuals or organizations***


In response to the Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act of 2010 and an ensuing request from the Department of Veterans Affairs, the IOM has assembled a committee of experts to conduct an epidemiological study comparing the health status of the SHAD veterans with a comparison population. This study will build on knowledge gained from a prior study conducted by IOM between 2003 and 2007.



As part of the data collection process, the committee will plan and conduct meetings to receive suggestions and input from SHAD veterans about their experiences so that the study can be informed by the insights of these veterans.



The first meeting of the Committee on Shipboard Hazard and Defense will take place on January 19-20, 2012, at the Keck Center of the National Academies, 500 Fifth St. NW, Washington, DC. An agenda for the open session of the meeting on January 19th is available at http://www8.nationalacademies.org/cp/pr ... -BSP-10-08 and at an IOM study site: http://www.iom.edu/Activities/Veterans/SHADII.aspx A second committee meeting will be held February 23-24, 2012, in Sacramento, California.



If you would be interested in providing brief comments at the meeting on January 19 in Washington, DC or on February 23 at the meeting in Sacramento, CA, please contact Jon Sanders at jsanders@nas.edu. On January 19, public comments will be heard during the late afternoon. Time constraints may limit the number of speakers who can be accommodated, but all written submissions will be welcome.



Written materials can be submitted to the committee through the IOM staff at the e-mail or postal addresses shown below. Please note that any comments or materials submitted to the committee in paper or electronic form will normally become part of the study’s public record.



Committee on Shipboard Hazard and Defense II

Institute of Medicine, Keck 775

500 Fifth Street, NW

Washington, DC 20001

SHADStudyII@nas.edu



Background

From 1962 to 1973, more than 5,800 military personnel, mostly Navy personnel and Marines, participated in Project SHAD (Shipboard Hazard and Defense) -- a series of tests of U.S. warship vulnerability to biological and chemical warfare agents. Only some of the involved military personnel were aware of these tests at the time. Many of these tests used simulants, which are substances with the physical properties of chemical or biological warfare agents, that were thought at the time to be harmless. The existence of these tests came to light many decades later.



In 2007, the Institute of Medicine’s Medical Follow-up Agency (MFUA) published a report on the long term health effects of participation in Project SHAD, based on the results of a health survey (the report is available at http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11900). In the new study, an expert committee will work in conjunction with IOM's MFUA and build on knowledge gained from the previous IOM study. The SHAD II study will use the established list of SHAD participants and the comparison population determined from the prior study.

The results of the study will be provided in a brief IOM report by the study committee and an analytic paper for publication.

Questions about the study or providing materials for the committee’s consideration should be directed to study director Lois Joellenbeck (ljoellen@nas.edu) or program associate Jon Sanders (jsanders@nas.edu).







Lois Joellenbeck, Dr.P.H.

Study Director

Institute of Medicine

The National Academies

500 Fifth St. N.W.

Washington, DC 20001

202-334-1715

ljoellen@nas.edu

[J.B. Stone]

AN INTERESTING EXPERIMENT...........

Veterans Court under way

Judge Mark Johnson is overseeing the newly started Veteran's Court in Riverside County, Ca. Jan.06, 2012. The specialty court will determine if the veteran's trouble with the law is directly related to his or her military service. If the veteran qualifies, he or she must plead guilty or resume probation to be part of the intense program of counseling and rehabilitation.

BY RICHARD K. De ATLEY

STAFF WRITER

rdeatley@pe.com

Published: 11 January 2012 10:40 PM


Men and women who serve their country and get on the wrong side of the law may have special needs, but the judge who oversees Riverside County’s newly established Veterans Court said they won’t get a special deal.

“I wouldn’t say it’s lenient,” Judge Mark E. Johnson said during an interview. Most of those who are accepted for the intensive program of rehabilitation, treatment and counseling are entitled through the Veterans Administration for the care, he said.

Veterans Courts materialized after the California Legislature in 2006 authorized judges to hear a defendant who served or is currently in the U.S. military and claims they committed their offense because of post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, sexual trauma, substance abuse or mental health problems linked to their service.

If a judge agrees with that claim, the defendant can be diverted from a jail or prison sentence to a Veterans Court program.

“It’s the right thing to do,” said Johnson, 53, a bronze-star decorated Iraq War veteran and a colonel in the Army Reserves. “We send a lot of these kids to be the trigger-pullers. You’d be surprised how young some are: 19, 20, 21. We send them to do some pretty dangerous stuff, and see horrible stuff…they do have a special need. It’s on a moral basis.”

Riverside County’s Veterans Court is the tenth such court in California’s 58 counties, including Orange, Los Angeles and San Diego. A San Bernardino County Veterans Court started in March 2009.

There are 35 slots open for Riverside County’s Veterans Court, chiefly based on the VA’s availability to place people for counseling and treatment. Participants must live in the county.

Service Connection (subhead)

“For the Riverside County court, they are looking for a clear connection between the crime and the veteran’s service, such as substance abuse concerns they did not have before entering the service, or substance abuse as a means to cope with PTSD,” said Melissa Conrad, a supervisory social worker in the behavioral medicine section of VA Loma Linda.

Cases involving violence may be accepted, Johnson said, although “Those kinds of cases are going to get a little more scrutiny.”

The intensive program includes initial three-times-a-week urinalysis, plus other drug testing; attendance at four recovery/support meetings a week; reporting weekly to a VA or department of mental health specialist and a probation officer; and attendance at weekly court appearances.

Discipline for failing to meet the program ranges from admonitions from the judge to periods of incarceration while remaining in the program to removal and sentencing to jail or prison.

Agencies participating in the program are staffing it with existing resources, so there are no real costs to the court and perhaps only limited cost to the county, said court executive officer Sherri Carter.

The county’s exposure would come if a veteran does not qualify for VA services and may have to be treated and counseled by the county Department of Mental Health, she said.

First Session (subhead)

Dressed in jail orange, with a beard and shoulder-length reddish-brown hair, the man seated before Johnson in Dept. 31 in the downtown Riverside Hall of Justice seemed a world away from the Marine he claimed to be when he served with the 1st Tank Battalion in Iraq.

But there were flashes of that life.

Derek J. Hartman, 31, one of the first candidates to be considered for Veterans Court, asked permission to speak before posing an inmate transportation question to Johnson.

The latest arrest for Hartman, a Coachella Valley resident, was in April in Palm Springs. He faces a felony possession of controlled substance charge. He also has a prior felony conviction that could turn into a time-increasing strike for sentencing.

During the hearing on Jan. 5, Johnson was told that Hartman served with the 1st Battalion from January to March of 2003, about one month before its tanks entered Baghdad and pulled down a statue of Sadaam Hussein. Hartman described his work as re-supply and refueling.

“This is definitely a case where Veterans Court is a possibility,” Johnson said as he continued Hartman’s case for a week to complete his evaluation and hold a hearing on whether to neutralize the prison strike that could complicate sentencing.

“I know what I need to do,” Hartman told the judge. “This is the longest in my life I have been sober.”

Hartman’s eligibility for the Veterans Court program will include inspection of his military record, along with a review of family and community ties and prior criminal history, done by VA justice outreach specialists, along with members of the county Probation Department and Mental Health Department.

Recommendations to Johnson, who makes the final decision, will be made by those departments, along with the district attorney and public defender’s office.

If Hartman is approved, that does not mean he will get off the hook. He must enter a guilty plea if he is accepted into the program. And even if he successfully completes the intense 18-month counseling and treatment program, it does not guarantee his case will be dismissed.

Statistics show 19 percent of the nation’s 23.5 million veterans suffer from post traumatic stress disorder or major depression. In 2006, 1.8 million veterans suffered from some sort of substance abuse, Johnson noted.

While there are no statistics narrowed to Riverside or San Bernardino counties, participants in Veterans Court said there is plenty of anecdotal evidence, especially in Mental Health Court cases, that Riverside County needed a Veterans Court.

“For the defense side, it’s a positive experience, particularly for the clients who get the attention and treatment that will help them clear out of the system and back on their feet,” said Deputy Public Defender Brian Cosgrove, who volunteered to work Veterans Court.

He served in the Marines from August 1991 through January 2008 and reached the rank of lieutenant colonel. His service in the judge advocate’s office included defending Marines accused of murder and kidnap in Haditha and Hamandiya in Iraq.

Prosecutors in Veterans Court are advocates for the people, but there are many cases where the parties will agree on the course of treatment, said deputy district attorneys Rebecca Madrid and Alberto Recalde, who were at the Jan. 5 hearing.

Johnson credited Riverside County Superior Court Presiding Judge Sherrill A. Ellsworth for getting the court program under way, saying its success will save money for taxpayers by ending cycles of crime, arrest, court and punishment.

A 2002 survey* of the nation’s jails, the most recent statistics available, reveals:

-9.3 percent of people incarcerated in jail were veterans

-For 70 percent of that group, the chief offense was a non-violent crime

-On average, those veterans had five prior arrests and 45 percent had served to or more state prison sentences

-Three out of five of those veterans had substance dependency problems; almost one in three had serious mental illness, one in five was homeless and 60 percent had a serious medical problem.

Contact numbers: VA Loma Linda, 800 741 8387; National Call Center for Homeless Vets, 877 424 3838.

[J.B. Stone]

At last...........SOMEbody is thinking...........

Historic Fort Harrison buildings may be saved


By SANJAY TALWANI Independent Record | Posted: Saturday, January 14, 2012 7:15 am

A Georgia-based organization has a plan to lease and preserve 11 historic structures on the grounds of the VA Hospital at Fort Harrison and provide low-income housing for veterans. Without such a taker, the buildings -- which are older than the VA itself -- could be slated for destruction.

HELENA — A group of 11 historic buildings at the Fort Harrison VA Medical Center in danger of demolition could avoid that fate, thanks to a Georgia-based veterans' services organization with a plan to lease and rehabilitate the structures and provide 34 units of low-income housing for veterans and their families.

Last summer, the VA announced it was seeking parties to enter into a long-term lease for the structures, as well as for a 2-acre parcel of land. Some historic preservationists and veterans advocates were skeptical that the VA could find anyone to take on that task, especially given the high costs the VA said would be needed to bring the buildings up to modern codes. And, the VA itself had indicated the buildings were not suitable for its needs, and had its eye on possible demolition.

But the group, Communities for Veterans, has signed a lease -- subject to various conditions -- and aims to bring the buildings up to modern codes and maintain them for some 46 years, with possible extensions after that.

"I'm very optimistic about it and pleasantly surprised that there's someone interested in the reuse of the buildings," said Peter Brown, historic architecture specialist with the Montana Historic Preservation Office. "A lot has to happen before the project does actually happen. But in preservation, we're not used to anything happening without some heavy lifting done."

Craig Taylor, project manager with Communities for Veterans, said his organization has managed several such projects to serve veterans, mostly in the South and Midwest, and most without a historical preservation component.

Taylor, a Vietnam-era Air Force veteran himself, said there are between 300 and 600 homeless veterans in Montana, many with families. VA Administrator Eric Shinseki has said it's his goal to eliminate homelessness among veterans by 2015.

"If it weren't for veterans, we would never do it" said Taylor. "But it's part of an overall mission. We want to be part of the solution. I think it is a national tragedy that we have veterans who are homeless."

He said the group is working hard to complete its application to receive funds through the sale of low-income housing tax credits, which provide federal funds administered through the Montana Board of Housing.

Without those funds, the project would experience major delays at minimum. The group is also seeking funding from the sale of historic preservation tax incentives, which are administered by the National Park Service along with state historic preservation offices.

"We're dead set committed to preserving these units," Taylor said.

Interim Lewis and Clark County Historic Preservation Officer Pam Attardo is also optimistic.

"It's a really positive step that he contacted us," she said of Taylor. "He indicated that he's willing to comply with the guidelines that are out there for historic preservation."

If everything works out, the buildings would include single-family structures as well as structures with up to four units.

Several of the buildings were in use into the 1990s. One is still a residence.

"These buildings have been kept in very good shape," Taylor said.

Still, some will have to be brought up to codes that did not exist when they were built, particularly the codes for protection against seismic activity.

Communities for Veterans will be working with an engineering consultant as well as a historic preservation consultant, said Taylor.

The buildings are part of early Fort Harrison and include the 17,500-square-foot original hospital for the military post, which later served as a dormitory; the 9,000-square-foot original base commander's residence; and nine other buildings.

They are recognized by the government as eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, meaning they cannot be destroyed before the government takes certain steps, explores its options and consults with state preservation offices.

VA officials have said they want the buildings to stay, but also that they would not be suitable for the VA's future needs. In a letter last January to the Montana Historic Preservation Office, Robin Korogi, director of the VA Montana Health Care System, wrote that the VA is "proposing to mothball the historic buildings ... with eventual demolition of the same."

But before it can do that to historic buildings, it has to explore various other options, including "enhanced-use leases" of up to 75 years to outside groups that will preserve the structures while fulfilling a VA mission - in this case, the housing for veterans.

The 2-acre parcel that was also available for a possible long-term lease is not part of the current plan.

Taylor said that under a best-case scenario, work could begin on the structures in about a year.

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