The Secret His­tory of Chem­i­cal and Bio­log­i­cal Warfare

by Robert Har­ris and Jeremy Pax­man
2002, Ran­dom House reprint edi­tion
(Orig­i­nally pub­lished 1982, Chatto & Win­dus)
ISBN 0812966538
336 pages, illustrated.

Please note: In the 2002 edi­tion this pas­sage is omit­ted:

“As long ago as 1962, forty sci­en­tists were employed at the U.S. Army bio­log­i­cal war­fare lab­o­ra­to­ries on full-time genet­ics research. ‘Many oth­ers,’ it was said, ‘appre­ci­ate the impli­ca­tions of genet­ics for their own work.’ The impli­ca­tions were made more spe­cific that genetic engi­neer­ing could solve one of the major dis­ad­van­tages of bio­log­i­cal war­fare, that it is lim­ited to dis­eases which occur nat­u­rally some­where in the world. ‘Within the next 5 to 10 years, it would prob­a­bly be pos­si­ble to make a new infec­tive micro-organism which could dif­fer in cer­tain impor­tant respects from any known disease-causing organ­isms. Most impor­tant of these is that it might be refrac­tory to the immuno­log­i­cal and ther­a­peu­tic processes upon which we depend to main­tain our rel­a­tive free­dom from infec­tious dis­ease.’ The pos­si­bil­ity that such a ‘super germ’ may have been suc­cess­fully pro­duced in a lab­o­ra­tory some­where in the world in the years since that assess­ment was made is one which should not be too read­ily cast aside. . .”

(A Higher Form of Killing; Robert Har­ris and Jeremy Pax­man; Hill and Wang [SC]; ISBN 0–8090-5471-X; p. 241.)

Review by Roger Bishop
Ger­many was a sig­na­tory to the Hague Dec­la­ra­tion of 1889, a deci­sion that helped to estab­lish the prin­ci­ple that some kinds of wartime com­bat were “unciv­i­lized.” Among those types of com­bat was the use of “dele­te­ri­ous gases.” In April 1915, Ger­many vio­lated its pledge, and chem­i­cal war­fare as we know it was born.

In A Higher Form of Killing: The Secret His­tory of Chem­i­cal and Bio­log­i­cal War­fare, authors Robert Har­ris and Jeremy Pax­man present a gen­eral his­tory of gas and germ war­fare. The book was first pub­lished in 1982, but in this updated paper­back edi­tion, the authors have added new mate­r­ial cov­er­ing recent devel­op­ments. Com­pelling, timely and impor­tant, the book is even more rel­e­vant today than when it first appeared. Despite con­certed efforts around the world to out­law chem­i­cal and bio­log­i­cal war­fare, the threat still looms large. In this well-researched, briskly writ­ten account, the authors focus on the sci­en­tific and mil­i­tary aspects of the sub­ject, as well as gov­ern­men­tal and diplo­matic issues. They also look at the effects of the breakup of the Soviet Union and the black mar­ket in weaponry that resulted. Recent ter­ror­ist attacks and attempts by Third World coun­tries to estab­lish arse­nals are also given thor­ough cov­er­age. Because the research and devel­op­ment of these weapons has been done clan­des­tinely, the authors use the term “secret his­tory” in their title. The book takes us behind the secrecy to reveal the sto­ries of vic­tims who suf­fered and died, some by design, oth­ers by acci­dent. And we learn of such fig­ures as the Japan­ese army major, Shiro Ishii, who was given gov­ern­ment per­mis­sion to build the world’s first bio­log­i­cal war­fare instal­la­tion in 1937, thus start­ing the bio­log­i­cal arms race. Of par­tic­u­lar inter­est is the reluc­tance of both sides to use bio­log­i­cal or chem­i­cal weapons dur­ing World War II. Although either side might have deployed them under cer­tain cir­cum­stances, both FDR and Hitler were opposed to their use. FDR regarded poi­son gas as “bar­baric and inhu­mane” and rejected all pro­pos­als to use it. Hitler had been wounded by mus­tard gas in World War I and, the authors say, “was known to have a marked aver­sion to using chem­i­cal weapons.” Top Nazi lead­ers repeat­edly advised Hitler to use them but to no avail. Churchill, on the other hand, strongly pro­moted the pro­duc­tion and pos­si­ble use of gas. The British were the first, in 1940, to pre­pare seri­ous plans for using it. As late as July 1944, Churchill, pro­posed in an extra­or­di­nary memo, which the authors quote in full, that his ser­vice chiefs seri­ously cal­cu­late again the pros and cons of such use. Robert Har­ris is known for best-selling fic­tion thrillers like Father­land, Enigma and Archangel. Jeremy Pax­man is a promi­nent news anchor­man in Great Britain whose dis­tin­guished career has taken him to the Mid­dle East, Africa and Cen­tral Amer­ica, among other places. As the two point out, “Pro­lif­er­a­tion of chem­i­cal and bio­log­i­cal weapons is now per­haps the most urgent prob­lem fac­ing West­ern mil­i­tary plan­ners.” Their explo­ration of this grim but impor­tant sub­ject helps us to under­stand it in a wider his­tor­i­cal per­spec­tive.
Roger Bishop is a reg­u­lar con­trib­u­tor to Book­Page.

THIS BOOK IS IN PRINT. Avail­able com­mer­cially. Learn more about Robert Har­ris and Jeremy Pax­man.