An Armed and Agile Nation

In the years following the First World War, there emerged within the United States the tension which has in different forms continued as an element of American chemical warfare policy to present times. In the early 1920s, the public, inspired in part by the horrors of the war and in part by the excesses of a campaign by the chemical industry to win support for chemical weapons production, strongly favoured a ban on chemical weapons. The US War Department, suspicious of chemical warfare, doubtful about its value, and with other expenditure priorities, sought to disband the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) and to limit CW activities to those strictly necessary for defence and retaliation. Congress, however, backed the CWS in its attempt to maintain and improve a CW combat capability that was not necessarily restricted to retaliation.  

Failure at the Washington and Geneva conferences in 1922 and 1925 to reach a ban on the possession rather than the use of chemical weapons (see chapter 8) strengthened the hand of the pro-CWS lobby. By 1934 the Joint Board (forerunners of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) had declared, The United States will make all necessary preparations for the use of chemical weapons from the outbreak of war. The use of chemical warfare, including toxic agents, from the inception of hostilities is authorized. ..  

In practice this policy was only slowly implemented because of a reluctance to allocate limited Army Department funds to CW at the expense of other priorities. Between 1928 and 1940, spending on the CWS ranged between 1.2 million and 2.8 million. Only in 1941 did it rise to just over 60 million, with a sharp increase in 1942 to over 1000 million. By the end of the war, the US had manufactured around 135 000 tons of CW agent.  

CW production had been cut back after the war but in 1951 the Defense Secretary issued a directive that CW readiness should be upgraded. This resulted in part at least from concerns arising out of the Korean War where, it was feared. Communist forces might initiate CBW. In 1954 nerve gas production began, apparently at a relatively low level. 

Also in 1954, the Pentagon set in hand another review, lasting two years, of the US s retaliation only policy. Finally, following statements by senior Soviet figures which clearly stated the tenet that CW and BW weapons would be used for mass destruction in future wars a revised CW policy was drawn up to the effect that the US would be prepared to use BW or CW in a general war to enhance military effectiveness . Under this policy, the use of CB weapons would have required presidential approval. The change in policy away from 

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An Armed and Agile Nation November 1969 the Presidential Statement... 

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