Word: meselson
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...lethal CB weapons would serve as an "opening wedge," Meselson fears, to a gradual movement along the spectrum in the direction of kill. This is not just a legal point -- although there are problems of which types of weapons are outlawed by which treaties -- but a practical one as well. The techniques of manufacture, the methods of distribution, and the logistics of employing the devices would be about the same for lethal and non-lethal CB weapons. Meselson says...
...like teaching a boy all there is to know about shooting rubber-tipped arrows from his bow, and expecting him never to try a steel-tipped shaft. Meselson would say that the rubber-tipped arrows are nice, but the steel-tipped ones are more horrible than anything now known. Can you expect a boy to refrain from experimenting, just once...
...There are individuals in every military," Meselson says, "who want to run the whole gamut of weapons." Having non-lethal weapons would not make war less lethal, he asserts. "It is a ridiculous assumption that giving field commanders weapons that don't need to kill means the commanders will not kill. What will happen is that non-lethal weapons will be used in conjunction with killers...
This distinction between the lethal and the non-lethal also leads to some touchy problems in international relations. If a country has a policy of using only non-lethal CB arms, Meselson says, only that country knows for sure it is a non-lethal policy. And there is, at this time, no biological equivalent for seismographic detection of nuclear testing, so suspicious nations could not find out what is actually being done in the enemy camp...
...warfare becomes conventional, Meselson believes it will be due primarily to the United States. Conversely, control of this style of war must also be America's responsibility. It is the U.S. which is now using chemical weapons in Vietnam, and it is the U.S. which refused to ratify the 1925 Geneva Protocol which deplores the use or even development of such weapons. The Protocol was written by the U.S., signed by the U.S., but not ratified by the Senate. America has nonetheless always had a "cautious respect" for the treaty, according to Meselson...