posted 02-07-2003 06:23 PM            

"The Vietnam War might have represented the perfect field laboratory for men like General Rothschild to test their theories about seeding clouds with anthrax. But there was by now sufficient evidence of the way in which American and South Vietnamese troops would also be affected to rule it out. Instead the germ warfare laboratories concentrated their efforts on the development of incapacitating diseases which would bring an enemy down with sickness for days and weeks. For some years the Fort Detrick laboratories had been working on enterotoxins causing food poisoning, on the military theory, as one proponent put it, that "a guy s----ing away his stomach can't aim a rifle at you". By 1964, they believed a weapon based on the theory was feasible. But by now, another disabling disease looked a better candidate..."