Toxic: A History of Nerve Agents, from Nazi Germany to Putin's Russia

401 Pages·2020·2.315 MB·English

by  Dan Kaszeta

TOXIC

Toxic
A History of Nerve Agents,
From Nazi Germany to Putin’s Russia
DAN KASZETA
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© Dan Kaszeta 2021
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CONTENTS
Foreword by Eliot Higgins vii
Preface and Acknowledgements xi
Prologue xv
 1.  Axis of Weevils: Germany, 1920s to 1939 1
 2.  Otto’s Fortunes: Germany, 1939–45 23
 3.  The End: Germany, 1944–45 45
 4.  Dustbins and Paperclips 63
 5.  Mites: VX, a British Nerve Agent 85
 6.  Rocks and Shoals—Building a Stockpile that was Never
Used: Alabama, Colorado, and Indiana, 1950–70 95
 7.  Cribbing From the Wrong Notebook: The Soviets 115
 8.  Coming Off the Rails: The USA: 1968–70 129
 9.  Binary Decisions: The USA, 1970s to the 1990s 141
10. T he Newcomers: Russia, 1970s to the 1990s 157
11. W ars in Iraq and Iran 167
12. T he Tokyo Attack 185
13. T he Psychological Effects of Nerve Agents 201
14. T he Syrian War 211
15. A ssassinations 231
Conclusion 255
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CONTENTS
Appendix 1: Technical Vignettes 261
Appendix 2: The Rest of the World 293
Notes 315
Select Bibliography 331
Index 349
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FOREWORD
August 21 2013 was a significant day in the history of nerve
agent use. Through videos shared on social media the world saw
first-hand the effects of a Sarin attack on civilians in rebel-con-
trolled Damascus, the largest use of such weapons since the
Halabja chemical attack of 1988. Over 200 videos showed the
victims, among them children, suffering from the effects of
Sarin, while the munitions used—locally made “Volcano” rockets
and M14 140mm artillery favoured by Syrian government
forces—were documented by activists and the UN team that
investigated the attack.
 Despite this evidence, those who would prefer to deny the
Syrian government’s culpability in such attacks, from the
Russian government to online conspiracy theorists, did all they
could to cast doubt on the evidence and who was responsible for
the atrocity.
 This pattern was repeated in the hundreds of chemical weap-
ons attacks in Syria that ensued, which occurred despite Syria
having signed the Chemical Weapons Convention. The August
2013 attacks were followed by helicopter drops of chlorine cylin-
ders, the aftermath of which was widely documented yet pro-
voked little response from the international community. This
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FOREWORD
prompted the escalating use of chlorine as a chemical weapon,
and eventually a series of Sarin attacks in March and April 2017
against the towns of Al-Lataminah and Khan Sheikhoun, com-
pelling the world to take notice.
 Again the denialists and truthers challenged the evidence and
those investigating the attacks, hoping to change the perception
of what occurred, creating a false version of history in which the
Syrian government’s use of nerve agents was spun as a series of
false flag chemical strikes meant to draw external powers into the
Syrian civil war.
 It is not only conflict zones where nerve agents continue to be
used. In 2018 in the cathedral city of Salisbury, Wiltshire, for-
mer Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were
exposed to the nerve agent Novichok, placed on his front door
by operatives of the Russian military intelligence service, the
GRU. As with the use of nerve agents in Syria, the Russian gov-

ernment and online conspiracy theorists quickly spread false
claims about the incident, peaking with the bizarre RT (formally
Russia Today) interview in which the two suspects identified by
British authorities claimed they were nothing more than simple
sports nutrition salesmen who had travelled to Britain in order
to see Salisbury cathedral and its “famous” 123m spire. Shortly
afterwards, their real identities became known: Anatoliy
Vladimirovich Chepiga and Alexander Yevgenyevich Mishkin,
GRU officers and recipients of the Russian Federation’s highest
honorary title, Hero of the Russian Federation, bestowed person-
ally by President Vladimir Putin.
 The Salisbury attack was not an isolated incident. Further
investigation of the Skripal attack revealed a third suspect, Denis
Vyacheslavovich Sergeev, a GRU officer who had found himself
in Bulgaria in 2015 at the same time Emilian Gebrev, a Bulgarian
businessman, was poisoned by an as yet unidentified nerve agent.
Local authorities had dismissed the poisoning, with the prosecu-
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FOREWORD
tor general suggesting that Gebrev had fallen sick after eating a
tainted rocket salad. With the revelations around the Skripal case
and the third Skripal suspect’s travels to Bulgaria, the investiga-
tion was reopened four years later, with more GRU officers iden-
tified as having been in Bulgaria at the time of the poisoning,
staying close to Gebrev’s place of work.
 There is a growing interest in the history of nerve agents, not
only how they are made and deployed, but how their use is
denied by those pursuing their own political agendas. From Sarin
to Novichok, the twenty-first century demonstrates that the use
of nerve agents, far from being an unacceptable and unethical
practice, is an increasing threat to civilian populations across the
world, be it part of conventional wars or state sponsored assas-
sinations. How we reached this moment should not be forgotten,
and nor should that history be twisted by conspiracists pursuing
their own agendas.
Eliot Higgins London, January 2020
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