The UK Biological Weapons Program - Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons Since 1945 - page 71

of 100 particles. 90 Volunteer trials in the US had indicated that such a dose
would have been effective for causing tularemia and Q fever.
Insignificance and Negligible Risk
The trials progressed but within an increasingly unfavorable policy cli-
mate. A DRPC Staff (DRPS) ad hoc working party was established in 1957
to carry out the review that had been requested by the committee a year
earlier. Their report quickly became an official DRPC report, which was
later quoted by the Chiefs of Staff. The report had been written soon after
the UK had successfully exploded its first test hydrogen bomb, so it is not
too surprising to read the verdict that, in comparison, BW possessed a
“negligible additional deterrent effect.” BW was further deemed to have
the disadvantages of delayed effects, susceptibility to weather conditions,
and lack of precise control, and was potentially subject to premature
discovery. The DRPS concluded that “because of these disadvantages,
BW is unsuitable for the initiation of war, counter attack or tactical use,
although it could be very useful to increase dislocation in the follow-
up stages if effort were available.” Finally, the committee conceded that
some military interest in defensive BW research was still justified in order
to keep abreast of new technical developments. 91
The Chiefs of Staff Planning Committee considered the DRPC paper on
chemical and biological warfare together with a report on intelligence
and dismissed both the threat from, and potential for, biological warfare:
it attributed “the insignificance of BW as a deterrent to global war...not
only to the existence of nuclear weapons, but in particular to the practical
difficulties of delivery and the uncertainty and delay in its effects as well
as to the legal aspects of its use.” Given these considerations, the deter-
rent effect of BW could “not be regarded as credible.” Strategic uses of
CBW against the UK were likewise dismissed. Soviet CBW offensives
against nuclear retaliatory bases would, the report judged, serve “no stra-
tegic advantage.” Against civilian targets, effects would depend on the
“conditions of post-nuclear devastation.” The high concentration of UK
targets in a relatively small area meant that it was “not likely that BW and
CW follow-up to nuclear attack would be considered profitable,” pre-
sumably because of the marginal additional effect compared with the