Expert: Claes-Gustaf Nordquist, M.D. - 11/7/2009

Question
Hello,
What specifics can you tell me about the chemical warfare experiments conducted on some US cities in 1953? I know Minneapolis was one of the cities.
Who actually authorized this initiative? What was the operation called?
Were state officials in the loop concerning these sprayings?
thanks

Answer
This is actually the first thing - and time - I have heard of them. However if they were done inside populated cities they were probably a kind of physical simulation where no actual chemical warfare agents (poison gases etc) were distributed but instead harmless substances that would spread in the same way as those agents and would be easy to detect and measure thereby showing how such an attack would strike these cities. So I do not know what it was called and who authorized it though it probably was the US government. I would suppose that (at least some) state and local officials were involved. A simulated operation like this one would NOT be dangerous to the public in any way and would therefore not be difficult to authorize. I have myself attended similar military exercises - though not on this scale - when I was a military physician in the Royal Swedish Army almost 30 years ago - and there was never any real risk of any harm to anyone in these exercises.
That is all I can tell you on the subject.

THANKS! Well that may be. But in 1953 the knowledge of any dangers of cadmium sulphide was probably very limited. It is not a good idea to judge the past in hindsight involving knowledge that was unavailable at that time!