The US Biological Weapons Program - Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons Since 1945 - page 13

graph 12 was to encourage research and development in these weapons
fields. Mr. Anderson [Dillon Anderson, special assistant to President Ei-
senhower for national security affairs] added that previously our policy
respecting the use of these weapons called for their use only in retalia-
tion. Accordingly Dr. Flemming's surmise was correct, and the present
paragraph 12 constituted a change in our policy. 17
Final authority rested in the hands of the president. Successive presi-
dents could continue the “no first use” commitment, but they were not
bound to do so. The Roosevelt declaratory policy of “no first use” regard-
ing chemical weapons (CW) had been publicly announced. This new
agreed policy was not.
Despite the change, President Eisenhower was personally committed
to “no first use.” At the 412th meeting of the NSC, he stated that “what
this government had always done with respect to these weapons was first
of all to make sure that we had sufficient chemical and biological weap-
ons to retaliate if the enemy used it on us.” 18
Although the new doctrine had given him additional authority, Eisen-
hower was reluctant to initiate any offensive CBW operations. But the
NSC discussed qualifying adherence to “no first use” so as to give US field
forces flexibility in the use of CBW agents. As revealed in the minutes of
the 435th meeting of the NSC, chaired by Eisenhower, a distinction was
drawn between the use of lethal and nonlethal CBW agents.
At this meeting, Gordon Gray, special assistant to the president for na-
tional security affairs, referred to the budget director's judgment “that we
were spending too much money on chemical and biological weapons if
we did not intend to use them and too little money if we did intend to use
them.” Dr. Herbert F. York of the Department of Defense (DOD) ex-
pounded on the value of incapacitating agents, and General Lyman Lem-
nitzer explained the operational use of CBW, especially incapacitants.
This discussion led the president to caution that the use of incapacitants
would allow the enemy to charge the US with waging germ warfare. 19 Bi-
ological nonlethal weapons were not yet available, although it was ex-
pected that they would soon be developed. 20
However, the argument that the use of nonlethal agents in war was le-
gitimate was not persuasive either domestically or internationally. De-
spite a public relations offensive by the US Army Chemical Corps (CmlC)