Editing Edgewood Arsenal human experiments (section)

===Background and rationale===
After the conclusion of [[World War II]], U.S. military researchers obtained formulas for the three [[nerve gas]]es developed by the Nazis—[[Tabun (nerve agent)|tabun]], [[soman]], and [[sarin]].

In 1947, the first steps of planning began when Dr. Alsoph H. Corwin, a professor of chemistry at [[Johns Hopkins University]]<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last1=Taylor |first1=JR |last2=Johnson |first2=WN |date=1976 |title=Research Report Concerning the Use of Volunteers in Chemical Agent Research DAIG-IN 21-75 |url=https://www.governmentattic.org/22docs/ArmyIGBlueGrassVolunteerChemResearch_1975-2005.pdf |access-date=September 17, 2024 |website=GovernmentAttic.org |publisher=[[United States Department of the Army]] Office of the Inspector General and Auditor General |via=<nowiki>[[United States Government Printing Office</nowiki>}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2016-07-11 |title=Alsoph H. Corwin Chair in Chemistry - Named Deanships, Directorships, and Professorships |url=https://professorships.jhu.edu/professorship/alsoph-h-corwin-chair-in-chemistry/ |access-date=2024-09-17 |website=[[Johns Hopkins University]] |language=en-US}}</ref> wrote the [[Chemical Corps]] Technical Command positing the potential for the use of specialized [[enzyme]]s as so called "toxicological warfare agents". He went on to suggest that with intensive research, substances that depleted certain necessary nutrients could be found, which would, when administered on the battlefield, incapacitate enemy combatants.<ref name=":2" />

In 1948, the US Army [[Edgewood Chemical Biological Center]] began conducting research using the aforementioned nerve gases. These studies included a classified human subjects component at least as early as 1948, when "psychological reactions" were documented in Edgewood technicians. Initially, such studies focused solely on the lethality of the gases and its treatment and prevention.

A classified report entitled "Psychochemical Warfare: A New Concept of War" was produced in 1949 by [[Luther Wilson Greene]], Technical Director of the [[Chemical and Radiological Laboratories]] at Edgewood. Greene called for a search for novel [[psychoactive compound]]s that would create the same debilitating mental side effects as those produced by nerve gases, but without their lethal effect. In his words,<blockquote>Throughout recorded history, wars have been characterized by death, human misery, and the destruction of property; each major conflict being more catastrophic than the one preceding it&nbsp;... I am convinced that it is possible, by means of the techniques of psychochemical warfare, to conquer an enemy without the wholesale killing of his people or the mass destruction of his property.<ref>Greene, L. Wilson, "Psychochemical Warfare: A New Concept of War", U. S. Army Chemical Center, Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland; August 1949.</ref></blockquote>

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the U.S. Army worked with Harvard anesthesiologist [[Henry K. Beecher]] at its interrogation center at [[Camp King]] in Germany on the use of psychoactive compounds ([[mescaline]], [[LSD]]), including human subject experiments and the debriefing of former Nazi physicians and scientists who had worked along similar lines before the end of the war.<ref>George A. Mashour (2009), [http://csahq.org/pdf/bulletin/LSD_58_1.pdf "Altered States: LSD and the Anesthesia Laboratory of Henry Knowles Beecher"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150319072156/http://csahq.org/pdf/bulletin/LSD_58_1.pdf|date=2015-03-19}}, ''[[CSA Bulletin]]'', Winter issue, pp 68-74.</ref> In the 1950s, some officials in the [[U.S. Department of Defense]] publicly asserted that many "forms of chemical and allied warfare as more 'humane' than existing weapons. For example, certain types of 'psychochemicals' would make it possible to paralyze temporarily entire population centers without damage to homes and other structures."<ref>[https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1499&dat=19590808&id=0DgaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=WSYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7265,3404551 "US Plans Study of Gas Warfare"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200126143354/https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1499&dat=19590808&id=0DgaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=WSYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7265,3404551 |date=2020-01-26 }}  [New York Times News Service], Sunday, 9 August 1959, ''[[The Milwaukee Journal]]'', Part I, pg 2.</ref> Soviet advances in the same field were cited as a special incentive giving impetus to research efforts in this area, according to testimony by Maj. Gen. [[Marshall Stubbs]], the Army's chief chemical officer.

In June 1955, the [[United States Department of Defense]] appointed a so-called Ad Hoc Study Group on Psychochemical Agents, which seems to have acted as a central authority on the research of psychochemical at Edgewood Arsenal and other installations where such experimentation occurred.<ref name=":2" />

General [[William M. Creasy]], former chief chemical officer, U.S. Army, testified to the [[U.S. House of Representatives]] in 1959 that "provided sufficient emphasis is put behind it, I think the future lies in the psychochemicals."<ref>"Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Warfare Agents", ''Hearings'' before the Committee on Science and Astronautics, U.S. House of Representatives, June 1959 (No. 22).</ref> This was alarming enough to a Harvard psychiatrist, [[E. James Lieberman]], that he published an article entitled "Psychochemicals as Weapons" in ''[[The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists]]'' in 1962. Lieberman, while acknowledging that "most of the military data" on the research ongoing at the Army Chemical Center was "secret and unpublished", asserted that "There are moral imponderables, such as whether insanity, temporary or permanent, is a more 'humane' military threat than the usual afflictions of war."<ref>Lieberman, E. James (1962), [https://books.google.com/books?id=LwkAAAAAMBAJ&dq=%22imponderables%2C+such+as+whether+insanity%2C+temporary%22&pg=PA14 "Psychochemicals as Weapons"];  ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists'' (January issue).</ref>