The following is a report by Prof. Geissler on his new book which takes a look at the BTW arms race and the influence of the 'secret services' on all sides. We hope to have a book review by the next ASA issue in June 2003.

Anthrax and the Inadequacy of the Secret Services
Professor Erhard Geissler
Max-Delbrück-Centrum für Molekulare Medizin, Berlin

          My central thesis is: The biological arms race was inadvertently started by the German military intelligence in WWI. In my new book I describe how the biological and toxin weapons (BTW) arms race in the Twentieth Century was mainly irrational and strongly determined by the inadequacy of the secret services in many countries. Germany's military intelligence was the first to use anthrax and glanders bacteria as weapons in World War I (WW I). These biosabotage actions were not very successful. However, they had severe and completely different, sustaining consequences. The Germans, on one hand and as a result of unsuccessful early use, had lost further interest in biological warfare until they discovered a French BW facility in 1940. Germany's former enemies, on the other hand, suspected that Germany 'then the leading country in bacteriology and chemical-pharmaceutical industry' had continued BTW activities in secrecy. One after the other, France (1922), the Soviet Union (1926), Italy (1934), Great Britain (1936), Hungary (1936) and Canada (1938) started their own BTW programs/activities.
          They started their BTW activities, not only because of the unfounded governmental assessments, but, because of completely erroneous intelligence reports and totally false allegations by emigrants, which supported the fear of a German BTW armament. (Only Japan is an exception to this row. Japanese BTW activities started in 1932 not only triggered by Germany's WWI biosabotage activities but also by incorrect assessments of the military value of such weapons.)
          Germany started its BTW activities on a very small scale, after the discovery of that French BTW facility in 1940. At the same time, German intelligence activities were hoping to become more sophisticated in the BW field. But the Abwehr was as inadequate in this area as the foreign secret services. An erroneous report provided by the "Abwehr" triggered Hitler to prohibit BW preparations.
          However, the foreign secret services did not realize Hitler's decision. Therefore, the western allies prepared for retaliation in kind in response to possible German BTW attacks. Likewise, incorrect reports by the homeland security NKVD caused Stalin to interfere twice, 1930-32 and 1936-38, with the Soviet BW program. He paralyzed the Soviet BTW activities because he was misled by his secret service with respect to ostensible biosabotage preparations of leading Soviet BTW experts. Thus, because of decisions by the two dictators, based on erroneous intelligence, BTW were not used in Europe during WW II.
          But biological warfare was conducted by the Japanese, unknown to the German allies and mainly unknown also to Japan's enemies. After WW II, Japan's advanced BTW experience was used by the Soviet Union, as well as by the USA to restart intense BTW activities. The extent of these activities was more or less unknown to the other side.
          After WW II numerous additional failures by the secret services took place:

• false accusations of a West German whistleblower in 1968 accusing the Federal Republic of preparing BW
• the CIA's lack of hard facts to prove the real source of the Sverdlovsk anthrax outbreak before the breakdown of the USSR
• the NKVD falsely blaming USAMRIID for the creation of the AIDS agent HIV to hide their own BW activities behind a smoke screen
• ignorance of the Iraq BW program before the 2nd Gulf War (1991)
• problems of identifying the source of the anthrax letters
• difficulties in proving or disproving secret Iraq BW activities after 1998.

          Until the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US had no hard facts to prove that the 1979 Sverdlovsk anthrax outbreak was caused by a leakage in a BTW facility. They felt unable, therefore, to lodge a complaint at the UN Security Council on the USSR's noncompliance with the BTW Convention. Likewise, Iraq's BTW program was widely unknown before the end of the Second Gulf War (1991).
          It is doubtful whether today's reports of the secret services and allegations forwarded by defectors are any more reasonable. I discuss in several chapters of the book, why the secret services fabricated false reports and why defectors made unfounded allegations. At least in some cases answers to this psychological biological warfare could be found. The German emigrants in the mid-1930s, e.g., attempted to warn about Hitler. And a West-German defector in 1968 accused the Federal Republic of Germany of performing BTW activities because he had lost his position in a research facility funded by the army.
          Moreover, not only because of the dual-threat nature of BTW agents and because of the dual-use nature of BTW activities, including B-protection activities, we doubt all of the recent claims of BTW activities allegedly performed in a number of countries and whether the fear of future bioterrorist attacks are justified.
          The anthrax letters, which caused five cases of death, presumably had been distributed to create panic or to trigger some political or economic activities and not to cause mass murder. Similarly, the present fear of bioterrorist attacks with the smallpox virus might be a consequence of psychological bioterrorism. We remember that psychological biological warfare was already practiced in WW II.
          It is hard to believe military action can prevent either real or virtual bioterrorism. Protection against the use of biological agents and toxins in war or by terrorists can only be provided by complete transparency in that field and by establishing an international alliance against biological threats of all kinds.

(Erhard Geißler, Anthrax und das Versagen der Geheimdienste. Kai Homilius; Verlag Berlin, 2003, ISBN 3-89706-889-3, 416 pg., 50 figures, price: cloth, 22 Euro)