Army sought radiation to kill Cold War leaders

[unhappycamper]

Army sought radiation to kill Cold War leaders
By Robert Burns - The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Oct 9, 2007 9:09:55 EDT

In one of the longest-held secrets of the Cold War, the Army explored the potential for using radioactive poisons to assassinate “important individuals” such as military or civilian leaders, according to newly declassified documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Approved at the highest levels of the Army in 1948, the effort was a well-hidden part of the military’s pursuit of a “new concept of warfare” using radioactive materials from atomic bomb-making to contaminate swaths of enemy land or to target military bases, factories or troop formations.

Military historians who have researched the broader radiological warfare program said in interviews that they had never before seen evidence that it included pursuit of an assassination weapon. Targeting public figures in such attacks is not unheard of. Last year, an unknown assailant used a tiny amount of radioactive polonium-210 to kill Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London.

No targeted individuals are mentioned in references to the assassination weapon in the government documents declassified in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the AP in 1995.

The decades-old records were released recently to the AP, heavily censored by the government to remove specifics about radiological warfare agents and other details. The censorship reflects concern that the potential for using radioactive poisons as a weapon is more than a historic footnote; it is believed to be sought by present-day terrorists bent on attacking U.S. targets.

The documents give no indication whether a radiological weapon for targeting high-ranking individuals was ever used or even developed by the U.S. They leave unclear how far the Army project went. One memo from December 1948 outlined the project, and another memo that month indicated it was underway. The main sections of several subsequent progress reports in 1949 were removed by censors before release to the AP.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/10/ap_coldwarweapon_071009/



uhc comment: The title should be 'Army uses radiation to kill'. Depleted uranium is the Agent Orange (on steroids) of the 21^st century.

According to google, there are 1,720,000 articles on depleted uranium --> http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=depleted+uranium&btnG=Google+Search

[Enoch1981]

1. I'm not surprised

I guess there had to be a point to all those inhumane experiments that were done on human test subjects. There are a lot of radionuclides that can kill really quickly if ingested, breathed in or injected. I read a book on poisons ('Uncle Fester', Silent Death), that detailed methods on actually giving people cancer. It doesn't it take much radiation to induce hematologic syndrome.

You know the Army looked into such things, as did the CIA. If an assasin used radionuclides to kill someone it would be difficult to detect in time, particulary in the long term. I've always wondered why no one in the US has ever used them in criminal poisoning. It's good that criminals aren't very smart, lol.

[NYVet]

2. The army has plans in filing cabinets for millions of things it will never use...

Hell, I bet we still have plans for the invasion of Canada somewhere.