Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
ration for use of the weapon and its agent will present new problems
to the Service and may necessitate the provision of special skills and
equipment. The Air Staff considers that until problems associated with
the toxic biological weapons are better appreciated it would be unwise
to state definite requirements for weapons and other equipment. This
A.S.T. [Air Staff Target] is therefore issued to replace ASR [Air Staff Re-
quirement] No. OR/1065 which is hereby cancelled.
70
The new aims of the Air Force were then spelled out in broad and gen-
eral terms: “The Air Staff requires research to determine effective agents
and suitable weapons for waging biological warfare. They also require in-
vestigation of the associated problems connected with the storage, han-
dling, transportation, testing and preparation for use of such agents and
weapons with a view to determining what is required in the way of skills,
equipment and procedures in the Service.”
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Defense: “The Committee Wanted to Vote against BW but Didn't Know
Quite How to Do It”
Changing policy soon filtered through to the MRD's 1957 successor, the
Microbiological Research Establishment (MRE), where the move to a de-
fensive outlook had already resulted in several reversals of fortune for
Experimental Plant No. 2, the fermentation plant intended to produce
pathogenic agents in bulk. The series of sea trials with pathogens also
ground to a halt. Following Operation Negation in 1955, further sea trials
for 1957 and 1958 had been agreed in principle by the Ministry of Sup-
ply's Scientific Advisory Council, but the committee noted that the trials
might have to be deferred because of difficulties in providing a crew for
HMS
Ben Lomond.
72
In parallel with these developments, the Air Force's goal of a massive
nuclear retaliatory capability had moved closer. The decision by Chur-
chill's government to produce a British hydrogen bomb was taken in
1954,
73
and the first delivery of nuclear bombs was made to the Royal Air
Force at the end of the same year. During 1955 the first squadron of Val-
iant bombers became operational. Meanwhile, the Chiefs of Staff now re-
garded BW as suitable only for the very global war that nuclear weapons
were meant to deter. It is therefore unsurprising to find the chief scientist,
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