Chemical Warfare Secrets Almost Forgotten

385 Pages·2006·16.37 MB·English

by  James S. Ketchum

CHEMICAL WARFARE
SECRETS ALMOST
FORGOTTEN
A Personal Story of
Medical Testing of Army Volunteers
with Incapacitating Chemical Agents
During the Cold War
(1955-1975)
by
James S. Ketchum, MD
Witha forewordby
AlexanderShulgin,PhD
Copyright ©2006byJamesS.Ketchum
Allrightsreserved.
PublishedbyChemBooksInc.
2304FairbanksDrive
SantaRosa,California 95403
ISBN#978-1-4243-0080-8
RegistrationNumberTXu -1 -333–097
EffectiveDateofRegistration11Dec 2006
CoverdesignbyJimO’Neil
Dedicated to
My loving wife Judy Ann (Schaller) Ketchum
who helped and encouraged me
to undertake and complete
this book

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword– AlexanderShulgin,PhD
Prologue:HotNightinHalifa
1 ColdWar–ChemicalCalltoArms 1
2 IncapacitatingTheEnemyStrangeFruitandStraySmoke 9
3 Hello,EdgewoodArsenal 17
4 TheVolunteers:HumanGuineaPigs– Not! 29
5 AnInterestingDrugtoStartWith 35
6 BZ:TinyBaseballGamesandDC-3’sonaPaddedFloor 43
7 LSD:TheOtherAcidTest 53
8 WorkingOuttheKinks 69
9 BusyasaBeeonaDoseofBZ 81
10 MoreBreedsthanataDogShow 97
11 TamingtheFractiousBelladonnoids 109
12 AlteredStatesInFishTanksandFieldTests 117
13 NameYourPoison:SafetyFirstandAlways 127
14 ProjectDork:SoldieringonBZintheUtahDesert 141
15 RummagingThroughtheCloset 153
16 Post-DocwithPribram 171
17 EdgewoodAgain:HopingforDéjàVu 181
18 GoodandBadVibrationsWithinandWithout 193
19 RearrangingtheDeckChairs 201
20 FinalDaysatEdgewood 207
21 CIAConnections:NowYouSeeThem,NowYouDon’t 217
22 OnIntothe70sand80s 227
23 TotheEndoftheCenturyandBeyond 235
24 BelatedAlarms:WhatHaveWeDone? 243
25 ChemicalWarfareThenandNow: ARealityCheck 257
Appendix 269

FOREWORD
My first two interactions with the world of US Government
chemical warfare were in the 1950s or maybe the 1960s when I was
still a senior research chemist at the Dow Chemical Company in the
San Francisco Bay Area. They were totally opposite in the images of
secrecy and research process that they presented. I kept no notes, so
all is from ancient memory.
The first meeting was with two or three chemists in dark suits
and ties who were introduced to me and a half dozen other research
chemists as being government researchers in the area of potentially
interestingsynthetic organic chemicals. We were not told from which
laboratory they came and the only clues to their areas of interest were
two synthetic reaction sequences which had been drawn on the
conference room blackboard. The man with the chalk told us that
these two pictures had been worked out successfully, and their
question was: could any of us propose a last step which might link
them together. The bottom compounds in the two schemes were
followed by arrows which pointed to an empty area at the bottom of
the blackboard. I asked them why not draw in the structure of the
desiredproduct andtheysaidthat theywerenot at libertytodoso.
"Oh, nonsense," I said and got up and went to the blackboard
and drew the structure of the target. I drew the isomeric homologue
of tetrahydrocannabinol with the terpene double bond down in the
terpene 3,4-position and a 1,2-dimethylheptyl chain at the aromatic 3-
position. "This is the obvious product you want," I added as I
returned to my seat, "So why don't we discuss how this coupling
could beachieved."
There was an unmistakable discomfort shared by the
gentlemen from Washington. After a bit of discussion I volunteered
the statement, "Of course, with three chiral centers, there will be eight
distinct optical isomers possible, all of different pharmacology, and
some may not resemble marijuana at all in action." The meeting
broke up shortly thereafter. A lot of things just couldn't be talked
about.
The second meeting occurred at an informal conference with
some thirty people present, located at a retreat north of Los Angeles.
This was organized by my good friend (and secret trumpet player)
Daniel H. Efron, MD, PhD (1913-1972). This get-together was
sponsored by the Washington operation he ran, the Pharmacology
program at the National Institute of Mental Health. He told me to sit
over there, pointing to an interesting looking man who was a total
stranger. We introduced ourselves. I said my name was Sasha
Shulgin, and he said his name was Van Sim. "Oh," I asked him,
"What is your first name?" "Van is my first name -- I am Van M.
Sim."
We quickly discovered that we were both fascinated by
psychedelics (they were called psychotomimetic drugs at that time)
and that we were both personally experimenting with them. My art
was the synthesis of new ones to compare the difference in activity
due to structural changes (this at my laboratory at Dow and in my
basement lab at home) and his curiosity was met by varying not the
compound so much as the setting and the immediate environment
around him (this at his laboratory at Edgewood Arsenal). Oh! A
government scientist with whom there was nothing in the world that
couldn't be talkedabout.
Thus, this foreword is intended to prepare the reader for a
story that has never before been told, the telling of the history, the
origins and the development of the physical structure and the variety
of people who worked at both the Edgewood Arsenal and its
precursor, the Army Chemical Center. This it indeed does, with a
flood of photographs and names and candid viewings of the people
who worked there during the 11 or so years that Jim Ketchum was a
major research person in the medical section. There is a mass of
small detail, ranging from unexpected visits and unusual interviewsto
the conversations taking place during some of the drug experiments
with volunteer subjects. This is an intimate portrayal of the structure
of the research group, and the slow but inevitable changes in attitudes
andresearch goals that occurredovertime.
But to me, this book is much more than an introduction to the
EdgewoodArsenal. It is anautobiographyoftheauthorhimself,from
a young man with a developing medical career to an older, articulate
analyst of today's world of chemical weapons in general, but
particularlythe instruments ofpsychochemical warfare.
It is apleasuretobeable tocontributetothis story.
AlexanderT.Shulgin,PhD