Superviolence is defined as the illegitimate use of nuclear, chemical, or biological mass destruction devices by domestic agents for attack or threat against U.S. civil society. Political extremism, sever mental imbalance, and criminal gain are examined as possible motivations. Since the nuclear industry constitutes the primary source of fissionable material for fabricating an illicit weapon, its policies, practices, and diversion safequards program are investigated. The threat process is analyzed in five phases: idea conception, group formation, weapon fabrication, application (attack or threat), and consequences. The steps of each phase are described for various weapons, with emphasis on the human factors, skills and resources involved. Potential failure modes are identified, and assessed as more severe in the nuclear than in the chemical or biological case. The important distinctions between direct attack, coercive threat, and sham are analyzed in detail. Actual nuclear superviolence is held to be an extremely unlikely phenomenon due to its dependence on the coalescence of specialized motives, high commitment, inhibition of restraints, technical skills, and significant resources in a risky, failure-prone process of inapparent utility. Chemical or biological superviolence is deemed more practicable, with the latter having an anit-personnel potential greater than the nuclear case. Provisions for controlling and responding to superviolent incidents are examined.

Document Archive

Superviolence: The Civil Threat of Mass Destruction Weapons, 1972 [448 Pages, 18.5MB]

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The post Superviolence: The Civil Threat of Mass Destruction Weapons, 1972 first appeared on The Black Vault.

According to the introduction of the audit:

“We performed the audit in response to allegations made to the Defense Hotline including the allegation that Sandia National Laboratory officials assigned to the Office of the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense (Nuclear and Chemical and Biological Defense Programs) directed the Defense Special Weapons Agency to procure work from Department of Energy national laboratories. This is the second of two reports. The first report discusses two allegations related to Defense Special Weapons Agency procurements through the Department of Energy.”

Document Archive

Report 98-036, Intergovernmental Personnel Act Employees in the Office of the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense (Nuclear and Chemical and Biological Defense Programs), December 11, 1997 [55 Pages, 13MB]

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The post Report 98-036, Intergovernmental Personnel Act Employees in the Office of the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense (Nuclear and Chemical and Biological Defense Programs), December 11, 1997 first appeared on The Black Vault.

Originally, this document was fully denied under FOIA Exemption (b)(1), in June of 2016.

I appealed, based on the reality that the record was nearly 50 years old (at the time of requesting) and it seemed pretty unbelievable that not a single page was releasable.

My appeal was partially granted, and 14 out of the 241 pages were released.

According to the document:

“The purpose of the work undertaken was to provide an improved means of disseminating dry biological agents from high-performance aircraft. “

Declassified Document

 Improved Dry Biological Disseminator, June 1967 [15 Pages, 1.1MB]

https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/usaf/AFATL-TR-67-61.pdf

The post Improved Dry Biological Disseminator, June 1967 first appeared on The Black Vault.

Naval Concepts of Chemical and Biological Warfare – A Department of Defense Motion Picture Film (1952).

This declassified Naval training video talks about the US Navy’s chemical & biological warfare experiments conducted in the early 1950s.

Video Archive

Special thanks to GovernmentAttic.org for getting this declassified.

The post Naval Concepts of Chemical and Biological Warfare – A Department of Defense Motion Picture Film (1952) first appeared on The Black Vault.

Mr. Andrew Ghazee of the AFMC Restoration Office, requested that AFRLIHEST conduct an archival search, review, and analysis of existing records for the 1948 through 1970 time frame to determine the potential for the residual presence of BW/CW agents, munitions, and training devices at AFMC bases and related sites. This action was in response to a tasking received from AF/ILEVR in September 1997. In order to accomplish this research, AFRLIHEST contracted with STI under AF contract F41624-97 -D-6002 to examine any plans, records, and reports that may indicate the presence of BW/CW materiel on AFMC bases and related  sites during this time period.

Archival records and unit histories of the identified installations were reviewed at the base historian’s offices. Environmental reclamation officers and individuals at the Treaty Offices at each base were contacted for any information they may have on previous reclamations and studies.

The Defense Technical Information Center’s on-line technical reports data base was searched for relevant data.

Links to the Army Chemical Corps BW/CW program were identified and investigated. If necessary, the Edgewood Arsenal and Fort Detrick historians were contacted. Transfer of BW/CW materiel by the Army Technical Escort Unit was tracked as records permit. An assessment was made for the discovery potential of BW/CW materiel on the base as a result of the BW/CW program. A report was written for each installation; this final report consists of a compilation of all individual base reports.

Declassified Document

 Report of Investigation: The Presence of Biological and Chemical Warfare Materiel at AFMC Bases within the United States, June 2000 [235 Pages, 12.7MB]

https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/dtic/2016-03986-F.pdf

The post Report of Investigation: The Presence of Biological and Chemical Warfare Materiel at AFMC Bases within the United States, June 2000 first appeared on The Black Vault.

Operation Dew took place from 1951-1952 off the southeast coast of the United States, including near Georgia, and North and South Carolina. Operation Dew consisted of two sets of trials, Dew I and Dew II.

The tests involved the release of 250 pounds (110 kg) of fluorescent particles from a minesweeper off the coast. Operation Dew I was described in a U.S. Army report known as “Dugway Special Report 162”, dated August 1, 1952.

The purpose of Operation Dew was to study the behavior of aerosol-released biological agents.

More FOIA requests are open to give more background on this project. I will update this page when they come in.

Declassified Documents

 RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TIMES OF ARRIVAL OF CLOUD, PEAK RECOVERY AND CESSATION FOR OPERATION DEW II  [25 Pages, 2.7MB]

The post Operation Dew – Aerosol Released Biological Agent Tests, 1950s first appeared on The Black Vault.

According to a declassified report, released to The Black Vault in July of 2015:

The following information is being entered by Investigator ___________.  ______ wrote to the Director, FBI on January 2, 1998 and Sen. Phil Gramm, Texas on Feb 2, 1998. Claims an unnamed subsource is aware of an incident in 1966 where the CIA and U.S. military forces committed a friendly fire mass murder of U.S. soldiers to conceal evidence of war crimes in which VietCong prisoners were used for biological experiments and then murdered.

After requesting the official CIA Inspector General’s report, the entire investigation was denied to me, and it was said to be classified in it’s entirety. I filed an FOIA appeal, which fought for the release of some portion of the document. After months of waiting, I was surprised that they reconsidered their decision, and released a couple pages to me.

Although this is not the final report, or evidence from the investigation, it did state they concluded that the claims were unwarranted and unfounded, and there was no evidence to support anything happened like the ‘source’ had claimed.

My question is, if the information was false and there was nothing the story — why was the entire batch of documents found (it is unknown how much) including the CIA/IGs final report – classified?

Download the Declassified Records (After FOIA Appeal)

 Investigation Case Record, Declassified July 2015 [5 Pages, 0.6 MB]

https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/biological/F-2014-00280.pdf

The post Allegations of Biological Experiments in Viet Nam, 1966 first appeared on The Black Vault.

Entomological warfare (EW) is a type of biological warfare that uses insects to attack the enemy. The concept has existed for centuries and research and development have continued into the modern era.

EW has been used in battle by Japan and several other nations have developed and been accused of using an entomological warfare program.

Below are documents pertaining to this research.

Document Archive

Entomological Field Test Technology,Bellwether II, BIO 531, December 1961 [92 Pages, 3.2MB]

Operation Big Itch

Operation Big Itch was a U.S. entomological warfare field test using uninfected fleas to determine their coverage and survivability as a vector for biological agents. The tests were conducted at Dugway Proving Ground in 1954.

Operation Big Itch, November 1954 [40 Pages, 5.42MB]

The post Entomological Warfare first appeared on The Black Vault.

Back in the 1960s, Pfizer (then Chas. Pfizer & Co.) were contracted to conduct research into Chemical Incapacitating Agents for the Army.  Below, you will find the reports released so far to The Black Vault.

 Research on New Chemical Incapacitating Agents by Chas. Pfizer and Co., Inc. – Quarterly Report Number 3 from January 1 to March 31 1964 [33 Pages, 0.7MB]

https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/biological/pfizer/pfizerquartrep3.pdf

The post Pfizer and Chemical Weapons first appeared on The Black Vault.

Throughout history, the world Governments were involved with testing biological and chemical agents on unwilling (and sometimes willing) human subjects — along with innocent animals.

The following are some documents that have been released.

Document Archive

The Effects of Fluphenazine in Psychologically Normal Volunteers: Some Temporal, Performance, and Biochemical Relationships [34 Pages, 1.53mb]

Description of an Experimental Psychosis Induced by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD) [66 Pages, 493KB] Source: Russ Kick, The Memory Hole. Document verified 12/18/2011

Human Experimentation – An Overview of Cold War Era Programs, GAO Report, September 28, 1994 [16 Pages, 1.11MB]

Is Military Research Hazardous to Veterans’ Health? Lessons Spanning Half a Century, 08 December 1994 [58 Pages, 3.48mb] – During the last 50 years, hundreds of thousands of military personnel have been involved in human experimentation and other intentional exposures conducted by the Department of Defense (DOD), often without a servicemember’s knowledge or consent. In some cases, soldiers who consented to serve as human subjects found themselves participating in experiments quite different from those described at the time they volunteered. For example, thousands of World War II veterans who originally volunteered to ‘test summer clothing’ in exchange for extra leave time, found themselves in gas chambers testing the effects of mustard gas and lewisite. Additionally, soldiers were sometimes ordered by commanding officers to “volunteer” to participate in research or face dire consequences. For example, several Persian Gulf War veterans interviewed by Committee staff reported that they were ordered to take experimental vaccines during Operation Desert Shield or face prison. The goals of many of the military experiments and exposures were very appropriate. For example, some experiments were intended to provide important information about how to protect U.S. troops from nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons or other dangerous substances during wartime. In the Persian Gulf War, U.S. troops were intentionally exposed to an investigational vaccine that was intended to protect them against biological warfare, and they were given pyridostigmine bromide pills in an experimental protocol intended to protect them against chemical warfare.

Long Term Followup of Medical Volunteers [24 Pages, 2.76mb]

 Military Chemical Warfare Agent Human Subjects Testing: Part 1 — History Of Six-decades Of Military Experiments With Chemical Warfare Agents, 01 October 2009 [8 Pages, 0.7MB] – Military chemical warfare agent testing from World War I to 1975 produced thousands of veterans with concerns of possible long-term health consequences. Clinical and research evaluation of potential long-term health effects has been difficult because the exposures occurred decades ago, the identity of troops exposed and exposure magnitudes are uncertain, and acute effects during experiments poorly documented. In contrast, a companion article describes the large amount of information available about the specific agents tested and their long-term health effects. This short history describes U.S. military chemical-agent experiments with human subjects and identifies tested agents. Finally, the demonstrated need to anticipate future health concerns from military personnel involved in such military testing suggests current and future military researchers should be required, by law and regulation, to fully record the identity of those exposed, relevant exposure magnitude, and complete medical information for all subjects. New study protocols and institutional review board approvals for research involving military personnel should reflect this need.

Project Chatter – U.S. Navy Human Drug Test Program [14 Pages]

Project Chatter – CIA Documents [3 Pages]

Psychotoxic Substances [52 Pages, 24.73mb] – Following is a translation of Section 28 of the book Pharmakologie und Klinik Syntnetischer Gifte (Pharmacology of and Clinical Experience with Synthetic Poisons) by Kurt Stade, M.D., published by the German military

Publishing House, Berlin (East), 1964; translated pages 394- 442.

Project SHAD

Project SHAD, an acronym for Shipboard Hazard and Defense, was part of a larger effort called Project 112, which was conducted during the 1960s. Project SHAD encompassed tests designed to identify U.S. warships’ vulnerabilities to attacks with chemical agents or biological warfare agents and to develop procedures to respond to such attacks while maintaining a war-fighting capability.

Servicemembers participated in conducting the tests. The purpose was to determine the potential risks to U.S. warships and American forces from chemical and biological warfare agents.

 PROJECT SHAD — AUTUMN GOLD, May 1964 [ 57 Pages, 1.0MB ]

 PROJECT SHAD — BIG JACK [ 475 Pages, 8.51MB ]

 PROJECT SHAD — NIGHT TRAIN, December 1964 [ 253 Pages, 3.67MB ]

BZ Tests on Volunteers 

Fourteen medical volunteers were given the biological agent BZ to study the effects.  Below, you will find the report released about the study in 1964.

Physiological Action of BZ on Men Subjected to High Temperatures and Exercise [45 Pages, 5mb]

The post Human & Animal Biological Testing first appeared on The Black Vault.