Introduction

From the years 1943-1969, Fort Detrick was the site of the U.S. Army's biological weapons program. A records request to the National Archives and Records Administration allowed us to make digital copies of documents related to biological weapons manufacturing at Fort Detrick, Fredrick Maryland available to online researchers.

These records detail the yearly budget and report for military contractors, research offices, and the Special Operations Division. Told with the authority of a scientist, these documents describe creating bioweapons from viruses, as well as equipment to fire them from airplanes, and the reports of military contractors who helped develop these weapons. These documents are significant to the development of biological warfare, weapons that caused mass death in Asia and Latin America. 

The scientists who created these weapons argued that these documents should maintain classified status because it would be dangerous if they got into the wrong hands and it would be “embarrassing to the United States. [1]

Studying biological warfare development puts America’s military and scientists in an ethically-fraught historical context, implicating responsibility for war crimes, famine and weaponized disease. 

The scale at which these programs took place is staggering. Independent terrorists would be hard pressed to find the billions of dollars, university scientists and specialty laboratory equipment required to develop these weapons. These documents demonstrate a record of corporate collaborations required for biological weapons research. Corporate collaborators brought industrial scale, specialized knowledge, and cutting-edge facilities required to develop America’s bioweapons program. 

In these documents, we see that the Special Operations Division contracted General Mills, one of the largest grain producers in America to research grain defoliants. Honeywell, a company integral to heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems, was contracted to make equipment for aerial deployment of weapons. Pfizer, a pharmaceutical corporation, cultivated a rice-crop killing fungus. Bioweapons work could not have been done without these corporations.

Curious readers might wonder if the Army was just as diligent about keeping contaminates out of our vents, food and pharmaceuticals.

Works Cited:

1: The Baltimore Sun. “Buried Secrets of Biowarfare.” August 1, 2004. https://web.archive.org/web/20240208175006/https://www.baltimoresun.com/2004/08/01/buried-secrets-of-biowarfare