U.S. Biological Warfare Against Cuba
Cuban President Fidel Castro recently
made serious charges about a new biological warfare program against Cuba. On July
26, 1981, the 28th anniversary of the attack on the Moncada Garrison, the beginning of the Cuban revolution, Castro stated that the government shares “the people’s conviction and harbors the profound suspicion that the epidemics which
have hit our country, especially the hemorrhagic dengue, may have been introduced
into Cuba by the CIA.” He pointed out that
over the last seven weeks, 113 people had
died of dengue fever, and nearly 300,000
were infected. In addition, Castro raised
questions about other plagues that had hit
Cuba during the last two years: African
swine fever, sugar cane rust, and blue
mold on tobacco. Castro queried about a
U.S. government role in introducing these
pests which debilitated two key Cuban export commodities, tobacco and sugar as well as one of Cuba’s vital staples, pork.
The State Department and the U.S. media
were quick to ridicule and discount
Castro’s charges. The Washington Post, for
one, claimed that the charge of dengue fever being introduced into Cuba by the CIA
“makes no medical sense.” While it is
true that there are natural causes for a
dengue fever epidemic, the possibility of
CIA dirty work cannot be dismissed out of
hand.
The U.S. has a long history of using biological weapons. A top-secret 1956 U.S.
Army document, for example, urges that
“military operational policies, plans and
directives dealing with the offensive deployment of BW biological weapons
against specific targets” as well as “the
fact that specific living agents or their
toxic derivatives, identified by specif ic
name and/or description, had been standardized for offensive military emplo
ment” has to be kept “top secret.” In his
book, Chemical and Biological Warfare –
America’s Hidden Arsenal, Seymour Hersh
also quotes a report stating that an inventory at Fort Detrick, Maryland included “mosquitoes infected with yellow fever, malaria and dengue emphasis added;
fleas infected with plague; ticks with
tularemia, relapsing fever, and Colorado
fever; houseflies with Cholera, anthrax,
and dysentery.” In addition, Fort Detrick
facilities, which have been used by both
the CIA and the Army, included “laboratories for mass breeding of pathogenic microorganisms and greenhouses for investi1-
gating crop pathogens and various chemicals that harm or destroy plants.”
In 1977 it was further revealed that the
CIA, during the early 1960s maintained a
clandestine “anti-crop warfare” research
program “targeted at a number of
countries.” (Washington Post, 9/16/77) In
spite of the 1969 order by President
Richard Nixon to halt research on and
planning and stockpiling of offensive biological and chemical weapons, the CIA and
the Army have continued research on and
use of such weapons.
Newsday reported on January 9, 1977 that
“with at least the tacit backing of U.S.
Central Intelligence Agency officials, operatives linked to anti-Castro terrorists
introduced African swine fever virus into
Cuba in 1971.” The operation was successful. Six weeks later an outbreak of swine
fever forced the slaughter of 500,000
pigs to prevent a nationwide epidemic.
Newsday described how the biological warfare operation was carried out: One intelligence operative was given a sealed container with the swine fever virus in Fort
Gulick in the Panama Canal zone. At Fort
Gulick, according to Newsday, the CIA also
“operates a paramilitary training center
for career personnel and mercenaries.” At
the time, Fort Gulick was also used as “a
staging area for covert operations in the
Caribbean and Latin America.”
From Fort Gulick, the container with the
virus was transferred to members of a
counter-revolutionary Cuban group, who
took it by trawler to Navassa Island, a
deserted U.S.-owned island between Haiti
and Jamaica. After a stopover in Navassa,
the container was taken to Cuba and given
to operatives near the U.S. military base,
Guantanamo.
The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization stated that the swine fever
outbreak in Cuba was the “most alarming
event” of 1971 in the Western Hemisphere,
and Fidel Castro said in his 1971 speech celebrating the anniversary of the attack
on the Moncada barracks: “The origin of
the epidemic has not yet been ascer- tained. It could be accidental or it could
have been the result of enemy activity. On various occasions the counter-revolutionary wormpit Cuban terrorist groups in the U.S.] has talked of plagues and epidem- ics….
A proposal for a CIA food study (reprinted in CounterSpy, vol.4 no.1) serves
as one more indication that the CIA is
targeting Cuban food production in its
continuing war against Cuba. The study requested by the CIA was to “evaluate national nutrition and health problems and
strengths… as they affect food availability and consumption requirements of
key less developed countries…” One of
the “key countries” listed in this proposed 1978 one-year study was Cuba. The study was supposed to answer ‘questions including: “What are the nutrition and disease factors related to food availability
and utilízationi; what is the impact of
the biological/ecological/cultural environment on nutrition, health and discase?”; and finally, “what is the impact
of national food needs and demands which
result in parallel incidence of debilitation and crippling diseases in the labor force?”
Biological warfare research by the Army
and the CIA is not a thing of the past.
For example, last year U.S. “government
laboratories” were studying the rift valley fever virus for use “as a biological
warfare agent.” Like dengue fever, rift
valley fever is transmitted by mosquitoes;
it causes blindness, severe bleeding and
liver damage, and can cause inflammation
of the brain and death. Col. Gerald А.
Eddy, the chief virologist at the U.S.
Army Medical Research Institute in Frederick, Maryland commented on the danger
of rift valley fever. “We think the
world is relatively unprepared for this potentially devastating virus.” According
to Col. Eddy, only the U.S. Army has certified vaccine, and it is only enough to
irmunize some 100,000 people. (Facts on File, 4/25/80)
That the CIA wants to “keep the option open” to use biological warfare was con
firmed in a “joke” by then-CIA Deputy Director Frank Carlucci. (He is now Deputy.
Secretary of Defense.) Carlucci stated in
a speech given to the American Bar Association in June 1980 that he is opposed
to any prohibition of biological warfare:
“We’ve gone through successive iterations of intelligence legislation,
there are some concepts that have
arisen that I personally consider a
bit curious or difficult. One is that
we can reduce every detail of the intelligence business to statute. The
original intelligence charter… had
an array of prohibitions… There was
one that said CIA agents should be
prohibited from overtly taking an action likely to lead to flood, pesti
lence, plague or mass destruction of
property. In the CIA there was a
tongue-in-cheek comment that we ought
to oppose this just to keep.our options open.”
In spite of the devastating effects of
successive plagues, Cuba has proven in
the past that the country is able to defeat attempts by counter-revolutionary
Cubans and the CIA – including biological
warfare- to defeat the revolution. Far
from destroying it, attacks on Cuba have
strengthened the determination of the Cuban people. Says Fidel Castro: “This
country may be wiped off the face of the
earth, but it will never be intimidated
or forced to surrender.”