Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

The author of this book is a retired Army Colonel a pyschiatrist that worked at Edgewood Arsenal during two seperate time periods  early in the 1960's and again in the late 1960's his name is James Ketchum. I first heard of the book a few months ago by seeing this webzine article in 10 Zen Monkeys that led me to have some e mail exchanges with the man.

He does not accept the fact the experiments may have caused any long term harm to the "volunteers" as the March 2003 study done by Doctor William Page of the IOM part of the National Academies of Science, the study was paid for by the DOD as part of the research into Gulf War Illness.

This study shows that by FY2000 when the men were located that 40% of them 2098 were presumed deceased, as they could not be found using IRS, VA and Social Security Records. All of the men were between the ages of 45-65 in 2000. The study also shows that 54% of the men report being disabled,  of the 4022 men located , 2200 of them are incapacitated by some form of medical problems, yet the study does not explain what caused the deaths or the disabilities.

Considering the study was titled Long Term Health  you would think they would have looked at all the body systems, yet when I called Dr Page in March 2003 after the report was released, I asked him about cardiovascular problems and pulmonary problems, he replied "we weren't looking at those areas" or something to that effect. When I asked him why, and didn't the high death and disability rates being unexplained, didn't that concern him, he hung up on me and refused to speak with me further.

In the USA Today the Doctor was explaining his rationale for writing the book now, he wants to start a dialogue on using non-lethal chemical weapons, which is now prohibited by the International Bio-Weapons Treaty that the United States is a signatory to, President Nixon first signed it in 1972.

"Ketchum's book, Chemical Warfare: Secrets Almost Forgotten, appears to be the first insider's account of experiments performed on about 2,000 soldier volunteers, says Steven Aftergood, a government-secrecy expert for the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C. Ketchum self-published the book, which he sells on his website.

In an interview, Ketchum, 75, said he wrote the book to trigger a debate about the potential uses of non-lethal chemicals to incapacitate terrorists who take hostages or use human shields. "Incapacitating agents are designed to save lives," he said. "Isn't it at least something we should be thinking about?"

Such research, says chemical weapons opponent Edward Hammond, would not only be illegal under current international law but probably never should have been performed.

"There are things that have taken place in the past that should probably stay there," says Hammond, director of the Sunshine Project, an Austin group that opposes biological warfare.

Ketchum's memoir draws from previously classified files, including filmed experiments, and notes of tests given subjects before, during and after they were fed, sprayed or injected with mind-altering chemicals.

Then there is this review found at counter punch by Fred Gardner

A chapter of Ketchum's book is devoted to what is now called "informed consent." GIs considered Edgewood Arsenal good duty and volunteered eagerly for the two-month stint. Ketchum writes, "We never needed to browbeat, threaten or hint at repercussions for someone's unwillingness to participate in a drug test. Invariably, would-be volunteers inundated us with applications, year after year. An abundance of troops were obviously more than willing to jump through all the hoops required in order to make the list of accepted candidates. In fact, the ratio of the number of applicants to the number accepted increased progressively throughout the 1960s."

When Ketchum arrived at Edgewood in 1961 the detachment of test subjects consisted of 20 men. By 1963 it was 50. "Eventually a cohort of 60-80 arrived, requiring the prior review of as many as 300-500 applicants." Some 7,000 enlisted men took part in the program, most between 1961-70. "None, to my knowledge," writes Ketchum, "returned home with a significant injury or illness attributable to chemical exposure. Nevertheless, years later, a few former volunteers did claim that the testing had caused them to suffer from some malady." Those claims came from subjects exposed to agents other than good old EA 2233. Ketchum questions their validity, noting "None of the three careful follow-up studies found statistical evidence for any particular illness, and death rates were lower than expected for every drug tested, except for non-significant higher rates in those who received atropine or scopolamine."

Then there is this review that left me with a bad taste in my mouth after reading it on Wired News this was a little more blunt

Some of the "oh my God" moments are perhaps unintended, like when Ketchum opens a chapter at his kitchen table, "eating Puffed Wheat" and reading notes about a test subject's descent into paranoia during LSD tests. Or, in another case, when he describes watching volunteers "carry on conversations with various invisible people for as long as 2-3 days." There are test subjects who "salute latrines" and attempt to "revive a gas mask" that they mistake for a woman.

Yikes, you can't make this stuff up.

Then there are the moments that military craziness surprises even Ketchum, like when a general envisions a scheme to incapacitate an entire trawler with aerosolized BZ. Ketchum thinks the notion strange, but "welcomed yet another bizarre challenge..." The work is, appropriately enough, dubbed Project DORK. Ketchum revels in this work, particularly when given the chance to make a feature film about the experiment.

What a first person narrative may lack in self-awareness it gains in details.

One of Ketchum's contentions is that the soldiers involved in the Edgewood work were not "guinea pigs," but rather patriots (enticed by a few benefits). Some, no doubt, will disagree with this point of view, and at times, Ketchum seems to undermine the premise of informed consent, like when he marvels at the uneducated volunteers:

I was fascinated by the ability of unsophisticated subjects, none having more than high school diplomas, to describe their thoughts and emotions, as well what some might refer to as "ineffable" perceptual alteration. They communicated ungrammatically but with unvarnished simplicity.

In another era, a writer might have used the phrase noble savages.

This is not a book that deeply explores the ethical dimensions of chemical warfare and experimentation. For that, you may want to read read Jonathan Moreno's excellent Mind Wars. But those who just want the gritty details of past research, it's worth checking out Ketchum's memoir, which also contains a wealth of references and data specific to the military's work.

I don't know  somehow the term Noble savages just bothers the hell out of me. What all of this fails to mention is the fact that these experiments no matter how well intended, were illegal under the Nuremberg Codes of 1947 which the US amd Europe wrote in order to prosecute the Nazi's. It was another signing statement by the Secretary of Defense Wilson in 1953 that allowed the experiments to happen. They continued to be funded by the CIA and the DOD from 1955 thru 1975. The control for the project was thru a Dr. Sidney Gottlieb of the CIA and the Special Operations Department  (SOD) at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

The article mentions a Dr Fred Siddell, but does not mention Dr Van Sim who was with the project from the start and continued to have an office at Edgewood until his death. Both Van Sim and Siddell remained as consultants to the government  under this arrangment, it is my understanding that Van Sim died years ago and Dr Siddell died in Feb 2006. The Army named the education building at Aberdeen Proving Grounds Maryland in his honor.

The Army refuses to recognize the veterans with their promises of medals, in Congressional appeals in the past few years it is the Army's contention that the 7120 men of Edgewood did noting heroic, despite the promises of the Army from 1955 thru 1975 to decorate the men for "volunteering".

Like everything else related to these experiments, it all is a lie, ask a question about the Edgewood experiments one thing you are sure of you will be lied to, lied about, or made to look crazy. No one can make this stuff up, life is stranger than fiction.