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CBW Events -- recent/notable additions/updates include: (these links will each open in a new window)
Each month, entries for a small number of selected anniversaries of notable CBW-related events are posted. All will appear in the relevant final versions of the chronologies.
40 years ago:16 August 1985 A German newspaper reports that there are differences of opinion between the governments of the United States of America and the Federal Republic of Germany on what assurances had been given about the future of US chemical stockpiles in Europe. The article notes that Alfred Dregger, head of the CDU parliamentary group, believed he had returned from a visit to Washington DC with an assurance that the US merely wanted to withdraw ‘old and obsolete’ chemical weapons and not deploy new weapons, such as binary munitions, to Europe. However, US Secretary of Defense said later that no such assurance had been given and that he had only talked about possible considerations. Dregger is reported as noting that the peacetime storage of chemical weapons in West Germany is neither militarily nor politically meaningful.[1]
45 years ago:4 August 1980 In Geneva, the Ad Hoc Working Group on Chemical Weapons reports to the Committee on Disarmament.
50 years ago:14 August 1975 In Geneva, Japan submits to the CCD a paper entitled ‘Working Paper Concerning the Scope of Chemical Agents that have Justification for Peaceful Purposes and an Example of a National Verification System’.[1]
The control system established under the Japanese domestic ‘Law Concerning the Screening of Chemical Substances and Regulation of their Manufacture, etc.’, may offer an example of the functions of the national organ as suggested in CCD/420 [see 30 April 1974] and CCD/430 [see 12 July 1974], for ensuring compliance with the obligations of a CW convention. The law is intended to screen chemical substances which require control prior to their production or importation, and to place the necessary controls on the substances thus screened in order to prevent pollution.
[1] Japan, ‘Working Paper Concerning the Scope of Chemical Agents that have Justification for Peaceful Purposes and an Example of a National Verification System’, CCD document CCD/466, 14 August 1975.
55 years ago:5 August 1970 US plans for sea-dumping of chemical weapons prompts the following entry in the Central Intelligence Bulletin, produced each day by the CIA: ‘UK-Bahamas: London is in a quandary over US plans to dump obsolete nerve gas close to the Bahamas. Foreign Office officials, obviously concerned with Acting Prime Minister Hanna’s criticism, have proposed sending a technical group to Washington—with observers from the Bahamas and Bermuda—for ecological briefings. While wishing to accept and ratify Washington’s conclusions, the British officials suggested that the US action might be delayed pending completion of the experts’ report. They left open the possibility of an unfavorable finding.’[1]
18 August 1970 In Geneva, the UK introduces a second revision of its draft Biological Weapons Convention, which now includes toxins[1] [see 10 July 1969 for the original text and 26 August 1969 for the first revision]. A general change therefore is that wherever ‘microbial or other biological agents’ had been referred to the text now reads ‘microbial or other biological agents or toxins’.
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