Book Description

        This comprehensive and thoroughly documented investigation of chemical and biological warfare (CBW) and America's prominence in the field is one of those rare books that will make news as well as report it. For the author has lifted the lid of secrecy from this controversy-charged, closely guarded subject to allow public scrutiny for the first time.

        In the midst of the Cold War, of the armament race and disarmament conferences, of nuclear proliferation and proposed non-proliferation treaties, the U.S. and many other countries throughout the world have been quietly engaged in CBW programs which, finally, underline both the seemingly insurmountable difficulties of and the urgency for a new understanding between nations.

        While statesmen have argued about a balance of nuclear capacity, or more recently of delivery and defense systems, it is rarely mentioned that scientists have developed a biological agent so powerful that only eight ounces properly dispersed is considered enough to wipe out the entire population of the world-and against which there is no practical defense.

        After sketching the history of CBW (the first recorded use was in India in 2000 B.C.) and the formulation of American policy, Mr. Hersh describes the chemical and biological agents and their devastating effects; he writes about the military bases, commercial corporations and universities where where classified research is taking place and where production and tactical utilization are being explored; about the work being done by other countries, and about the use of CBW today.

Reviews      

        "This book hits where it may very well hurt, close to home. For anyone with any sense of moral or social concern." --The Virginia Kirkus Service

        "Solidly researched and informative. A very important book." --Publishers' Weekly

About the Author

        Seymour M. Hersh is a journalist who began his career in the classical manner, as a police reporter for the City News Bureau in Chicago. For a brief period he published his own weekly newspaper in the Chicago suburbs, then worked for United Press International, and afterward covered the Pentagon for the Associated Press. Mr. Hersh has been Press Secretary for Senator Eugene J. McCarthy during his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. He has published articles in such publications as the New Republic, the New York Review of Books and the War/Peace Report.

 

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