US Studied Radioactive Weapons

Posted by Christopher Eger Oct 9, 2007

When former Soviet KGB agent and bagman for the anti-Putin critics abroad, Alexander Litvinenko, was given the dirt nap by ingesting radioactive polonium-210 in London last year the Western press was shocked. It was said at the time how vicious and devious the means of assassination was and how it surely must have been the work of the SVR, the new post-Soviet buttercups and daises version of the KGB. It was said that ingesting radioactive materials as a form of assassination had not even been contemplated in military history.

Well, it looks like they spoke too soon. Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and in the hands of the AP state that the US Army, as far back as 1948 (the same year as the Berlin airlift), had studied the use of radioactive materials for anti-personnel purposes. In fact research continued until at least 1954 until it was decided that just plain old nuclear weapons gave a bigger bang for the buck.

Whoops.