ARMY DUPLICITY AND BIOLOGICAL WARFARE TESTING

Americans have been barraged with information about government deception in the past couple of decades. Yet it still comes as a shock to learn that 12 midwestern cities, including St. Louis, were sites of biological warfare testing during the hysterical genesis of the Cold War.

Using the cover story -- blatant lies by the U.S. military -- that the tests were to develop smoke screens to protect major cities from enemy bombers, the Army sprayed cancer-causing chemicals over two areas of St. Louis. Of course, not so much was known about what caused cancer in 1953. "Carcinogen" wasn't yet a household word. But the chemical in question, zinc cadmium sulfide, has been identified as a cause of cancer. The question now is how many unknowing Americans who were exposed have been kept in the dark about their subsequent illnesses, thanks to the Army's consistent and unending lies decades after the tests were conducted.

The Army's logic is called into question by the simple explanation of how it chose areas to be tested. In St. Louis, the Army said a slum west of downtown was a test site, because residents there would be less likely to raise prickly questions. How, then, does the Army explain its choice of the downtown area for testing?

Well, one explanation is that the Army sought to enlist the help of top city and civil defense officials. Of course, had city officials been told the truth about biological warfare, they probably would have told the Army to take a hike. Instead, the officials readily supported the tests, because Sen. Joe McCarthy had pretty much convinced the nation that Communists were everywhere. So a little testing to foil Red bombers was not only supportable, it was downright patriotic.

This is a lesson of military intelligence -- if there is such a thing: Those who fight wars and prepare to fight wars are willing to sacrifice innocent compatriots as the war machine aspires to invincibility. It is a bitter lesson for Americans, whose sense of liberty and freedom often conflict with the reality of military might and modern warfare. Yet, unquestionably, it is the military might that provides the greatest protection for the very freedoms Americans cherish.

The saga of biological-warfare testing is far from over. The military is set to issue yet another report about the medical aftermath. The question is: Can anyone expect this report to be any more credible than the official military line of the past four decades? Thousands of Vietnam and Persian Gulf veterans are still trying to get the military to come clean about the effects on American troops of Agent Orange and other chemicals. Even more tragically, thousands of Americans with cancer and other illnesses will wonder if they might have been healthier today without the excesses of the military's never-ending march toward unassailable might.