The French Biological Weapons Program - Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons Since 1945 - page 119

“suspension of bacteriological research.” CEECB members condemned
this situation and in their conclusions recalled not only the results of their
operations since 1947 but also the considerable amount of work still to be
done. They emphasized the danger of totally abandoning operations in
this field in the light of advances being made in the US and the USSR. In
its final recommendations, the CEECB urged that research not be totally
abandoned, while acknowledging that it would pose considerable “fi-
nancial issues.” The CASDN representative, who was appealed to during
the meeting for extra funding, could only decline such requests on the
grounds of “limited means.” 34 Most of the minutes of meetings of the
CEECB and the entities that superseded it between 1957 and 1972 touch
on the chronic suffering of the BW program as a result of lack of financial
support. From this point onward the program survived in a form de-
scribed by those who ran it as minimal.
On 23 January 1958 the supervisory body of the CEECB, the Com-
mandement des Armes Spéciales, which had been answerable to the
Army General Staff, became the Commandement Interarmées des Armes
Spéciales (CIAS). Directed by General Thiry, the new entity was answer-
able to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Etat-Major des Armées), which had the
power to confer on the CIAS responsibility for all examination of and
assignments regarding special weapons (nuclear, chemical, and biologi-
cal). This decision turned the CEECB into a body covering all the armed
forces, and thus it was renamed the Commission Interarmées d'Etudes et
d'Expérimentations Chimique et Bactériologique (CIEECB). In practice,
however, CIAS control over the functioning of the CIEECB was limited,
as the change of supervisory control was motivated more by consider-
ations regarding the nuclear program than CBW considerations.
At its first meeting, on 6 July 1959, the CIEECB, having again con-
demned reductions in funding and stressed the need to continue work in
progress, drew conclusions from decisions ratified in the previous few
months and proposed the adoption of a three-point “basic” program:
• Inventory of potential biological agents, studies of the bacteria and vi-
ruses that could be used by the enemy, study of the preservation of bac-
teria and viruses by lyophilization, studies of viruses that are pathogenic
for animals, study of the effect of irradiation on the susceptibility of ani-
mals to infections of microbial or viral origin