1st Edition

Behind the Fog How the U.S. Cold War Radiological Weapons Program Exposed Innocent Americans

By Lisa Martino-Taylor Copyright 2018
    226 Pages
    by Routledge

    226 Pages
    by Routledge

    Behind the Fog is the first in-depth, comprehensive examination of the United States’ Cold War radiological weapons program. The book examines controversial military-sponsored studies and field trials using radioactive "simulants" that exposed American civilians to radiation and other hazardous substances without their knowledge or consent during the Cold War. Although Western biological and chemical weapons programs have been analyzed by a number of scholars, Behind the Fog is a strong departure from the rest in that the United States radiological weapons program has been generally unknown to the public. Martino-Taylor documents the coordinated efforts of a small group of military scientists who advanced a four-pronged secret program of human-subject radiation studies that targeted unsuspecting Americans for Cold War military purposes. Officials enabled such projects to advance through the layering of secrecy, by embedding classified studies in other studies, and through outright deception. Agency and academic partnerships advanced, supported, and concealed the studies from the public at large who ultimately served as unwitting test subjects.

    Martino-Taylor’s comprehensive research illuminates a dark chapter of government secrecy, the military-industrial-academic complex, and large-scale organizational deviance in American history. In its critical approach, Behind the Fog effectively examines the mechanisms that allow large-scale elite deviance to take place in modern society.

    INTRODUCTION

    I: ATOMIC WORLD

    A Culture of Secrecy

    Manhattan Project Phase Two- Radiological Weapons Experimentation

    II: THE RADIUM LEGACY

    III: BLINDED BY SCIENCE

    Radioactive Warfare

    IV: THE MILITARIZED ACADEMY

    Militarization of the Academy

    Stanford University/Stanford Research Institute

    V: STRUCTURE OF DECEIT

    PHS, NIH and Embedded Studies

    No Turning Back

    Military Crosshairs

    Final Weapons Targets

    Fernald School

    VI: MILITARY ANALOGS

    Hidden in Plain View

    Target One: Minneapolis

    St. Louis Army Chemical Corps Experiments

    Winnipeg, Canada

    Leighton Effects

    A Parallel Study

    A Dubious Narrative

    The National Research Council Reviews Army Data

    An Unlikely Champion

    Parsons and the Army: A Lucrative Partnership

    VII: THE ARMY CHEMICAL CORPS AND OPEN-AIR FIELD STUDIES

    The St. Louis Open-Air Dispersion Study- Part Two

    The Pruitt-Igoe Public Housing Complex

    St. Louis Part II

    SRI and the Atomic Veterans

    Post-Study Claims by Officials

    VIII: IN THIS HOUSE: EMBEDDEDNESS AND THE MILITARY RADIATION STUDIES

    AEC Isotopes Project

    Dual-Use Technology

    Gabriel and Sunshine

    The Vanderbilt Radiation Studies

    IX: FALLOUT "SIMULANT" TESTING

    Fallout Simulants

    Canadian and U.K. Studies

    U.S. Open Air Radiation Experiments

    X: DEVIANCE, SECRECY, AND CLOSED WORLDS

    Secrecy and Group Conformity

    Closed World Dynamics

    Control of Discourse

    Dehumanization

    CONCLUSION

    After the Dust has Settled

    A Tangle of Objectives

    BIBLIOGRAPHY

    METHODOLOGY AND AFTERWORD

    Components for Future Exploration

    APPENDIX A: ABBREVIATIONS LIST

    INDEX

    Biography

    Lisa Martino-Taylor is Associate Professor of Sociology at St. Louis Community College. Martino-Taylor earned her doctorate in Sociology at the University of Missouri–Columbia and researches issues related to power, elite deviance, social and environmental justice, and U.S. military development and testing of radiological weapons.