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(More customer reviews)James S. Ketchum's book "Chemical Warfare Secrets Almost Forgotten" is the first and only account that exists revealing the US Army's research into Chemical Warfare that took place in one of the most tumultuous settings the United States has experienced. It is, however, a taboo topic and Ketchum states with chagrin that when he mentions to people that he is a psychiatrist who spent the 1960s studying chemical methods for "subduing" normal people, most of them react politely by changing the subject. Perhaps this reflects the times in which these experiments occurred. The Beyond Within: The LSD Story New Edition with Two Additional Chapters Ketchum boldly proclaims the goal of his book as follows: "Many books and articles have been published about the shady and nefarious activities of the CIA in relation to LSD, supposedly contemporaneously with our own officially approved medical research. The beyond within: The LSD story. I have read several of them and it is distressing how often our clinical research program has been confused with the CIA's covert use of LSD. Some authors do not refer to drugs we studied by their correct names, and attribute properties to them that are quite fanciful. A primary purpose of this book, therefore, is to provide truthful, comprehensive, accurate information about the Edgewood Arsenal medical research program, and what we actually learned from our studies." As a historical reviewer with zero psychopharmacological foreknowledge, I intuitively understood Ketchum's comment when he wrote: "Medical experts enjoy using pedantic language that underlies their erudition, and I must admit I was not immune to this affection." Some people mistakenly think the 60's were all about hippies ... well, the 60's were more than just hippies, although they did play an important role during the decade. There was also: Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech, psychedelic music, Kennedy's assassination, the Vietnam War, and the first man to walk the moon!
The decade started rather staidly in 1960 with the first presidential election debate between Senator John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon. On television, Nixon seemed nervous, but Kennedy stood tall. The debate on TV changed many people's minds about Kennedy. Accordingly, in 1961, John F Kennedy moved into the White House and gave his famous speech, i.e., "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country".The Soviets sent the first man into space and the American government needed to compete. The signal event came on May 5, 1961 when Alan Shepard was sent to space in the "Freedom 7". On May 25, 1961. JFK announced that he wanted to have a man on the moon and back before the decade was over. Not long thereafter, John Glenn became, in 1962, the first man to orbit the earth three times. It was a five-hour flight. Meanwhile, Dr. Ketchum had begun work on a novel concept in chemical warfare: the use of novel incapacitating agents. Prevailing views about chemicals may have been strongly influenced by Rachel Carson's earlier statements in "Silent Spring". A scientist and writer, she warned that our earth would die of pollution and chemicals such as DDT, It was good at killing bad insects, but also killed good insects, along with plants and animals. Five states responded by banningDDT. A military chemical that defoliated jungles was "Agent Orange." This was a US Government code name for one of its herbicides and defoliants It was used by the military from 1961 to 1971 under "Operation Ranch Hand". It consisted of a 50:50 mixture of two chemicals, manufactured for the Department of Defense primarily by Monsanto and Dow Chemical companies. Only later was it recognized as an extremely toxic dioxin compound. (Its name came from the color of the orange-striped 55 gallon barrels in which it was shipped.) The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage During the Vietnam war, the U.S. military sprayed 20,000,000 gallons of Agent Orange in Southeast Asia hoping to defoliate forested and rural areas and thus depriving the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese of cover. Waiting for an Army to Die: The Tragedy of Agent Orange.The effects on Vietnam Veterans were later found to be horrifying. Increased rates of nerve, digestive, skin and respiratory disorders, Hodgkin's lymphoma and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, prostate, lung and liver cancers, as well as soft tissue sarcoma all occurred in many of those who had been exposed. Over 150,000 U.S. Veterans were affected by Agent Orange and, according to Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 4.8 million Vietnamese people were also exposed to Agent Orange, resulting in 400,000 people being killed or maimed, and 500,000 children being born with birth defects.
It is understandable that Ketchum wrote: "And so it went at Edgewood-a constant oscillation between seriousness of purpose and absurdity." This echoed the turmoil of what was happening in the 1960s. Cultural shifts, for example, were exemplified by the new tone set by The Beatles, who were idolized and eventually featured on the "Ed Sullivan Show".In 1964 Ketchum was experimenting with "incapacitating" agents, i.e., substances that were thought to provide a way to battle enemy forces with a minimum of lethal outcomes. 1964 was also the first year that cigarette boxes had a warning printed on them declaring: "Smoking can be hazardous to your health". Still, Congress was mesmerized by Major General William Creasy's argument in 1955 that the use of LSD might result in war without casualties. On the other hand, Congress did nothing to promote warnings that smoking could lead to lung cancer and other types of respiratory deaths. Perhaps the most unfortunate congressional action during this decade was the "Tonkin Gulf Resolution", authorizing US military action in Southeast Asia. In August, 1964, North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin were alleged to have attacked, without provocation, US destroyers who were providing intelligence data to South Vietnam. Waiting for an Army to Die: The Tragedy of Agent Orange President Lyndon Johnson and his advisers decided upon immediate air attacks on North Vietnam in retaliation; Johnson also asked Congress for a mandate to carry out further military action. On August 7, Congress passed a resolution drafted by the administration, authorizing all necessary measures to repel attacks against U.S. forces and all steps necessary for the defense of U.S. allies in Southeast Asia. Why the Senate Slept: The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the Beginning of America's Vietnam War The Vietnam War was on! In 1965 the war continued to escalate, with Johnson ordering bombing raids on North Vietnam while Americans began protesting the war. Meanwhile, at home, the Houston Astrodome, America's first roofed stadium was constructed. On the street fashions changed radically, with women preferring short mini-skirts. "Pop Art" also became popular, an artistic technique that used contrasting colors with black and white to make a sort of optical illusion. In 1966, "psychedelic" clothing became a hit. The colors were brighter and bolder. Men begin to dress "fancy". Walt Disney, the creator of Mickey Mouse and a pioneer of animated films, tragically ended his long career in 1967 while the first successful heart transplant was being performed by Dr. Christiaan Barnard in Cape Town, South Africa.
In the same year, the "Summer of Love" arrived. In San Francisco an estimated 100,000 young people converged on the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in San Francisco, creating a cultural and political rebellion. James Ketchum was there, having been granted a two-year academic assignment at Stanford by the Surgeon General. While hippies gathered from all over the world, San Francisco became the center of the hippie revolution, a melting pot of music, psychoactive drugs, sexual freedom, creative expression, and politics. Cited as a defining moment of the 1960s, the hippie counterculture movement came with lifestyle themes that included communal living, the widespread use of psychedelic (and other) drugs and free and communal sharing of resources, including free love and and uninhibted sex. Why the Senate Slept: The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the Beginning of America's Vietnam War The summer of 1967 also saw some of the worst city violence in US history. Race riots occurred in places such as Detroit and Newark. Body bags kept coming home from Vietnam, and no end to the war was in sight. Distrust of the government ran high, contributing to the unpopularity of Edgewood's operations and perhaps even hastening the ultimate death knell of the Arsenal's testing of chemical agents. Summer of Love: Haight-Ashbury at its Highest. Regarding the increasingly negative views of Edgewood's secret drug program, Ketchum wrote: "The problem, of course, was that Edgewood kept reporters in the dark by classifying most of our work, thus keeping it out of the public's purview." On the fighting front, the 1960s were about to get ugly. In the early hours of January 31st, 1968, 70,000 North Vietnamese soldiers, together with Viet Cong fighters, launched one of the most daring military campaigns in history. The Tet Offensive was the real turning point in the Vietnam War. The Communists launched this major offensive to coincide with the traditional Vietnamese New Year celebrations (January 29 to 31) called "Tet". It led to an agreed upon cease-fire.
News media all over America reported immense damage in the South, involving 80 different cities, towns and military bases - all attacked more or less simultaneously...Read more›
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Chemical warfare watchers, from scientists to policy advocates, often wonder what went on at the Army Chemical Center during the 1960's. It was a decade in which thousands of Army enlisted men served as volunteers for the secrets testing of chemical agents. The actual historical record, however, has until now remained disturbingly incomplete. What Chemicals was the Arm studying? Why was the program never fully documented in books available to the public? Who planned and carried out the tests, and what was their purpose? How and by whom, were the volunteers recruited? How adequately were they instructed before giving their informed consent? What long range effects, if any, have been found in follow-up studies? Written by the physician who played a pivotal role in psychoactive drug testing of hundreds of volunteers, the story breaks an official silence that has lasted almost fifty years. Dr. James Ketchum may be the only scientist still equal to the task. His book goes a long way toward revealing the contents of once classified documents that still reside in restricted archives. The author spent most of the decade testing over a dozen potential incapacitating agents including LSD, BZ and marijuana derivatives. His 380-page narrative, loaded with both old and recent photographs, derives from the technical reports, memoranda, films, notes and memories. Written primarily for the general reader but supplemented by a voluminous appendix of graphs and tables for the technically inclined, Dr. Ketchum's book combines a subjective diary with an objective report of the external events that shaped and eventually terminated the program. Informal and autobiographical in style, it includes numerous amusing anecdotes and personality portraits that make it simultaneously intriguing and informative.
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