The Germ-warfare factory

THE War Office is advertising a job for a biophysicist at the Microbiological Research Establishment at Porton, where Mr. G. Bacon worked on and died from pneumonic plague. The job, it is announced, will entail research into the factors influencing the survival of airborne germs.

Naturally, the War Office has not disclosed exactly what kind of work the new man will have to do. However, the defensive uses of such an investigation are difficult to imagine. Common sense tells us that it would be impracticable to cover Britain with some sort of germ-killing fog-and, even if it were, to stop it being blown away by the wind!

Once germ arfare had broken out, the pri rity 1 res umably would be to identify the germ or germs involved and to prepare and use the appropriate vaccines as quickly as possible before the entire population was wiped out. It might be possible to save a few people in this way, but it would still be impossible to kill all the germs in the atmosphere around us—the germ-killing fog is still impracticable.

One possibility left is that the War Office envisages a war in which most of us will be left to die while the elite retires to underground rooms. These rooms would have to be fitted with filters to prevent the germs (and radioactive dust) from getting in. But such filters have already been developed -they are used in some of the more modern operating theatres in hospitals—and further work on these, from the War Office point of view, would be superfluous.

On the other hand, if the War Office is developing germs for use as an offensive weapon, then work on the survival of these germs would be all too necessary. Already US scientists have developed new techniques for the dispersal of air-borne germs. To drop a germ-filled canister from an airplane is very effective, but it is also crude and obvious.

A more subtle method is to spray the germs from an innocentlooking tramp steamer or fishing boat just outside 'enemy' territorial waters. Provided that the weather conditions are right, the germs can be scattered over hundred • of square miles. And, since the l oat would be miles away when the inevitable epidemic broke out, the aggression would be nearly impossible to prove.

However, these dispersal techniques require the development of newer and deadlier germs which will also survive in the air for several days at least. It now seems possible that such work is being carried out at Porton.

Of course, thanks to the veil of secrecy which hangs over Porton, the British working people still do not know exactly what is going on there. We can still only make intelligent guesses It is high time that we did know, and put a stop to it.

'Karoly Kiss, who was Hungary's vice-president up to October 1961, was expelled from the political bureau for not having recognised his responsibilities in decisions taken by various organs of the party before 1956.

' 17 others who, like him, carry the responsibility for political trials held against active members of the workers' movement and who belonged to the Judiciary or State Security departments, were the object of a similar measure, as well as six others who had entered Rakosi's or Gero's fraction.' On August 21, Humanité carried an erratum to the effect that the report should have read as follows after 'before 1956'.

" The former leaders of the Party, Rakosi and Gero, who had followed a dogmatic and sectarian policy, were expelled from the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party.

• 17 others who, like them... were also the object of a measure of expulsion f rom the P irty?

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