The UK Biological Weapons Program - Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons Since 1945 - page 70

“lid” of air to prevent upward diffusion of a large cloud. According to
Morton, interest had been “re-awakened” during 1955 because of three
developments. First, calculations at the CDEE “suggested that the meteo-
rological requirements need not be so stringent.” Second, work in the
laboratory had demonstrated that some agents could survive for long pe-
riods while airborne. Finally, Morton pointed out that there had been
“growing dissatisfaction with the inefficiency of on-target attack by clus-
ter bombs.” 85
Researchers from both the chemical and biological sections at Porton
put forward the case that the UK was especially vulnerable to the new
threat. In a detailed report to the Offensive Evaluation Committee they
discussed possibilities and problems concerned with maintaining an aero-
sol cloud of organisms over a long distance, keeping the organisms alive
and also their means of dissemination. The report concluded that “in gen-
eral, the feasibility of effective attack of very large areas with BW agents is
far from proven, but evidence is available which would make it danger-
ous to assume that it is not possible.” 86
This recommendation carried with it an implicit call for further re-
search. Whether or not this was deliberately implied in order to revive
the trials program, a proposal to investigate and evaluate the large area
threat would have aligned with the new defensively orientated regime in
biological warfare policy. There are, at the same time, more distant ech-
oes of wider concerns associated with the concept. In particular, hydro-
gen bomb tests had provoked a great deal of unease and public debate
about fallout over large areas and long periods. 87 Although there is no ex-
plicit link between nuclear fallout and the biological “fallout” of the LAC,
the parallels remain tantalizing.
Within a short time, scientists at Porton had embarked on a renewed
series of open-air trials underpinned by the rationale of the LAC as a
threat to UK defenses. The first series of such trials used aircraft to spray
fluorescent tracer particles of zinc cadmium sulfide to simulate a biologi-
cal agent cloud. 88 In the tests, the planes released 300 pounds of zinc cad-
mium sulfide along a 300-mile line over the Irish Sea, with samples taken
at meteorological stations in England and Wales. 89 According to a report
on the trials by the Offensive Evaluation Committee, “if the samplers
gave a true picture,” then 28 million people would have received a dose