Cia Records Search Human Radiation Experiments

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ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RADIATION EXPERIMENTS JOHN PEREIRA, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF GARY M. STERN,SENIOR POLICY AND RESEARCH ANALYST CIA RECORDS SEARCH HUMAN RADIATJON EXPERlMENTS This memorandum is pursuant to your request that we restate our request for CIA records on fbreign activities relating to the work of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. In order to understand fblly the human radiation experiments -- both medical and environmental -- conducted by the government during the Cold War, the Advisory Committee must understand the extent to which the discussion, development, and conduct of such experiments relied on data and analysis supplied by the CIA.- , At the first Advisory Committee meeting in April 1994, the CIA representative stated that the agency had found no records on “what other agencies were doing in this area.” We now know that the CIA participated in meetings of the Department of Defense’s Joint Panel on the IMedical Aspects of Atomic Warfare, which was formed to coordinate common interests of the Committees on Medical Science and Atomic Energy of the Research and Development Board of the Ofice of the Secretary of Defense. The Joint Panel was the central place in which human experimentation relating to the effects of atomic weapons and nuclear powered vehicles was deveioped and pursued, including biomedical experiments as part of the atmospheric testing prograin. The Joint Pane1 was also charzed with obtaining medical intelligence; its founding directive states that the panel shall obtain “jn]ecessary infonnation concerning United States and t’oreign progress, programs, plans, and budgets in the field of medical aspects of atomic warfare.” Thus, for example, “a representative of an intelligence agency” (presumably the CIA) briefed the Joint Panel in 1951 on the collection of medical intelligence and solicited “requirements for medical intelligence in the field of interest of the Panel.” Accordingly, the Committee would like the CIA to provide it with information that it collected on the activities of the Soviet Union and other countries relating to medical intelligence or that may have-provideda threat rationale for U.S. activities such as the Green Run and the human radiation experiments conducted by other agencies. This would include, in addition to any information relating to the activities of the DOD committees and panels mentioned above, Pmed wilh soy ink on recycled paper

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information on foreign research activities (including, but not limited to actual human experiments) into the medical effects and dangers of nuclear weapons, radiation exposure, and/or any other military application of nuclear energy -- e.g., nuclear powered submarines, nuclear powered airplanes, space exploration, nuclear medicine. To the extent the CIA did collect intelligence information on such fbreign activities, we are also interested in why, and by whom, the agency was tasked to do so. Thus, we would like a sampling of records on the “tasking” process for such information, from‘thetop policy level in the government down to the operational level in the CIA -- e.g., did the interests of the Joint Panel lead to the collection of specific information. In addition, the Committee is examining the ethical policies and practices relating to human experimentation during the Cold War. .The DOD Committee on Medical Sciences, of which the CIA was a member, for example, played an active role in the debate over human experimentation guidelines, which resulted in the promulgation of the 1953 Secretary of Defense memo on human jxperimentation. The CIA representative on this Committee apparently came from the Office of Scientific Intelligence, which was involved in the CIA’S early human behavior experiments prior to MKULTRA. Accordingly, the Advisory Committee would like information the CIA has on the consideration and implementation of ethical guidelines, including the Nuremburg Code, by U. S. government agencies and operatives. Finally, we would like to encourage the CIA to provide the Committee with as much information that it can in unclassified form. Although many Committee members and some of the information as necessary, we prefer to operate openly to the &eatest extent possible. Thus, we prefer that the CIA provide us with sanitized copies of relevant classified records so that we can review their substance and then determine the extent to which hrther declassification might be staff will be receiving security clearances and will therefore be able to review classified d