>From Peace Magazine Jun/Jul 1987, p.9.
Zapping The Movement
By David Kattenburg
Women who once broke into the cruise missile base and danced on this silo,
now often feel ill at their camp. Why?
The U.S (and reportedly the Russian) military want to use microwaves as
weapons. "This is becoming a hot topic," says Dr. Lewis Slessin, editor of
the New York publication, Microwave News. Superpower. scientists could zap
each other with radio frequency (RF) signals and microwave "chip guns."
Armored tanks, communication installations, aircraft, satellites, missiles,
or any other sensitive electronics could be fried.
The most sensitive electronic device -- the human brain -- may also be a
prime target. Indeed, cruise missile protesters camped around the U.S. Air
Force base at Greenham Common in Southern England already appear to be
suffering from low-level microwaves emanating from the base. They complain
of head and ear aches, lethargy, contusion and menstrual irregularity.
Perhaps the women are being inadvertently zapped. The base uses a wide
variety of communication systems which emit RF radiation that expose
everyone, including soldiers. However, a U.S. Army report issued in 1980
unveiled a "concept" to "create the perception of noise in the heads of
personnel by exposing them to low power, pulsed microwaves," useful for
"camouflage, decoy and deception operations." Could it be used for crowd
control and the discouragement of dissidents? U.S. Congressman James Scheur
believes so. "We are developing devices and products capable of controlling
violent individuals, and entire mobs without injury," he says. "We can
tranquilize, impede, immobilize, harass, shock, upset, chill, temporarily
blind, deafen, or just plain scare the wits out of anyone the police have a
proper need to control and restrain."
Civilized society bathes itself in RF and microwave radiation every day. Our
ablutions are conducted in silence, which a radio can reveal to be illusory.
Standard radio and TV transmissions begin at about 500 kilohertz-500
thousand hertz, or cycles per second. AM radio extends from there up to 1600
kilohertz, which is equivalent to 1.6 million, or megahertz. Higher still,
at about 88 megahertz, the FM band begins. Sophisticated radiophiles can
listen to international shortwave broadcasts between the AM and FM regions.
Above FM, police, marine, weather and citizens band signals abound.
Satellite transmissions occur in the "ultrahigh frequency" range. CF-18
fighter pilots communicate at UHF too. "Microwave" is a generic term for
everything between 300 megahertz and 300 billion, or gigahertz. Radar
signals in the high megas and low gigas pack a lot of punch. Consequently,
they can be used to transmit over great distances, under secure conditions,
without fear of being jammed.
Microwaves can be very powerful, but they do not break up the electronic
structure of individual atoms or molecules. In other words, they are
"non-ionizing." For that reason, they have widely been presumed not to
injure human beings. The same was said of radar during the Second World War,
in spite of the fact that it could heat tissue. Technicians became flushed
or experienced headaches. Similar symptoms had been observed with patients
undergoing diathermy treatment. Studies on rabbits, however, showed radar's
dangers: They developed eye cataracts.
Warnings about RF effects were often ignored. Radar, which had been
essential to the war effort, was considered a miracle, not a biohazard. By
the early 1950s, however, the power of radar had increased enormously and
the risks of overexposure began to be documented. Internal bleeding,
cataract formation, leukemia, jaundice, and brain tumors were reported among
workers. Warning bells went off. The U.S. government conducted secret
bioeffects research in late 1950s and early l960s, much of which focused on
the tissue heating effects of powerful RF radiation.
Officially, the military claimed that low-level exposure posed no danger. A
Pentagon program examined the effects of microwave radiation between 1956
and 1960. Low-level effects were so disregarded that the program's
contractors used microwave radiation above 100 milliwatts / square
centimeter -- just enough to cook meat.
U.S. military views of low-level bioeffects changed radically, however, when
the U.S. embassy in Moscow was found to be under weak microwave exposure.
Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, classified research was carried out on
the potential genetic threat posed to embassy personnel. To keep these
activities secret, Pentagon scientists dubbed this the "Moscow Viral Study."
"Project Pandora" meanwhile examined the behavioral effects of weak
microwaves on chimpanzees. Results from the Viral and Pandora studies remain
largely classified. Information published by Paul Brodeur in The Zapping of
America and by Nicholas Steneck in The Microwave Debate suggests that these
studies were managed in a confused fashion, in frequent disregard for the
norms of academic research. The U.S government was accused of covering up
findings, or pursuing weapons applications. Some researchers had indeed
discovered potentially significant health effects among embassy personnel
and chimps, but the military apparently lost interest when dramatic weapons
applications failed to materialize. Throughout the 1970s, positive, albeit
controversial, evidence accumulated on the damaging effects of weak
microwave radiation on the central nervous system, eyes, and reproductive
organs. Canada cooperated with the U.S. in research on RF biohazards. In
military cooperation with the US., U.K., and Australia, the Canadian
Department of National Defence set up a lab at the National Research
Council, coordinated by George Grant, a specialist in the biomedical effects
of nuclear weapons. Assisted by a lab at Brooks Air Force Base in Texas, a
human exposure chamber was constructed, supervised by Dr. Douglas Hill.
Defence Departments have a lot of high power short-wave radio equipment,
Hill explains, "so the question was, what's the safe exposure limit in that
frequency range?" His researchers studied the absorption by human volunteers
of from 3.5 to 42 megahertz radiation. These are short-wave, as opposed to
microwave signals. "We found that the body absorbs more when the length of
the body is aligned parallel to the electric field-which means that the body
is acting like a receiving antenna," says Hill.
Hill found that humans absorb from 0.054 to 0.102 watts of shortwave energy
for each milliwatt-square centimeter to which they are exposed, for every
kilogram of body weight. From this, safety limits were set. "Most soldiers
are exposed to less than the safe limit," Hill says. "If you keep exposures
within the Canadian safe limits, we don't think there are any effects on
people."
George Grant claims there is no immediate way of confirming Hill's
assertion. On the basis of some "peculiar absorption" patterns found in
Hill's study, Grant says, "we changed our position slightly" on safety
standards.
Other Canadian studies supported the view that RF bio-hazards were minimal.
Among the most controversial of these was one on the blood-brain barrier of
rats. Ed Preston, a member of Grant's group, was unable to replicate U.S.
findings showing weak microwaves opening the natural protective barrier
between blood and the inside of brain cells. Any such barrier effect would
have suggested a mechanism for altered behavior. According to Alan Frey, an
outspoken researcher, Preston's analysis was incorrect. So too, he alleged,
were the statistics of an Air Force researcher with whom the Canadians had
collaborated and whose work had been used by the U.S. military to downplay
concerns over microwave barrier effects. "When you do the statistical
analysis on [Preston's] data," Frey says, "it turns out that he does show an
effect. He didn't know how to do the appropriate statistical analysis on his
day"
This is a very common accusation among competing scientists. The microwave
debate has been filled with such invective. "It's a field that's very
confusing," says George Grant, "and you've got a lot of guys who just want
to push and push and push, and they've got nothing to push with." Lewis
Slesin disagrees. "Anybody with their head screwed on right would agree that
low-level radiation can have these effects," he says, "but still, there are
people out there who scream that you don't know what you're talking about if
you allege such things."
In any case, says Alan Frey, the Air Force medical labs with whom the
Canadians collaborated are well known for their negative health findings.
"The laboratory of `no effects.' That's what everybody calls it. They're
kind of comical." According to Frey, the U.S. Air Force suffers from a
"clear-cut conflict of interest. The same people who are responsible for
defending the Air Force and telling the public there's no problem for the
Air Force to put radar in your backyard -- these same people are the ones
charged with the responsibility and have most of the funds to support
research. And you know what they support!"
Perhaps Frey is overblowing his case. Taken in isolation, studies by Preston
at the National Research Council, by George Grant's group, and by their
counterparts in the much larger U.S. military-academic establishment appear
to have been motivated by a concern for occupational health and safety
standards. In Canada, low-level microwave effects on the eyes have been
dramatically demonstrated by researchers such as John Trevithick at the
University of Western Ontario. Trevithick has apparently not lost the
support of his U.S. Army Medical sponsors. Recently, he received a
three-year, $194,000 grant from the U.S. Army to continue his studies on the
formation of cataracts.
Scientists in the pay of the Pentagon, however, may have a hidden agenda
where university academics do not. Kenneth Oscar for instance, co-author of
one of the earliest studies in which blood-brain barrier effects were
reported, revised his position in 1980. On the basis of this and reports
like Preston's, low-level microwave effects on the brain came to be
discredited by the military. At the same time, however, military minds like
Oscar's had lost none of their faith in weapons applications. "When people
are illuminated with properly modulated, low-powered microwaves," Oscar
wrote in a 1980 report for the Army, "the sensation is reported as a
buzzing, clicking, or hissing which seems to originate... within or just
behind the head... Before this technique may be extended and used for
military applications, an understanding of the basic principles must be
developed."
Regardless of its public position on RF and microwave health effects, the
U.S. military has never lost its private exuberance for the zap gun idea. In
1965, "biological entrainment of the human brain by low frequency radiation"
was brought to the attention of the Pandora project's coordinator. In 1972,
the U.S. Army examined the use of microwaves as "barrier" weapons to
immobilize personnel. This last winter, 600 researchers gathered at New
Mexico's Kirtland Air Force Base to discuss "high power microwave technology
for defence applications." This was the third such conference. Over 70
papers by the U.S. military were presented-a show-and-tell for scientists.
Harold Gerslaanoff, publisher of the Journal of Electronic Defence, says
that labs are examining what radiation can do to the electronics in tanks.
According to Microwave News, General Dynamics, Physics International, and
the TRW Corporation already have high-powered microwave test facilities. So
does the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, specializing in directed energy
weapons for Star Wars.
The Pentagon may wish to develop the means for zapping enemy satellites as
well as tanks. The Kirtland Air Force Base meeting was attended by
biological specialists from the Pentagon too. The U.S. military has much to
learn about the anti-personnel use of these devices. "The military -- Lord
knows how far back -- has always been interested in radiation weapons," says
Alan Frey. "You know: ray guns. Someone from the military comes floating by
saying, `What about using it as a ray gun thing?"'
Weapons that impair the nervous system, wrote Chuck de Caro in the Atlantic
Monthly, "may have uses in commando operations, anti-terrorist actions, and
what the Pentagon calls low-level conflicts." U.S. government sources,
Microwave News reports, admit that crowd-control zap weapons could be
available soon. Have such weapons already been used on the Greenham Common
women? Government sources believe not, the same magazine says.
The Pentagon may very well wish to turn these pestiferous women into so many
notches on its gun. Since 1982, the Greenham Common Women have laid siege to
the base there, and are now reportedly suffering from intermittent microwave
exposure. British and Canadian medical representatives have testified that
low-level microwaves can be detected at specific sites around the base's
perimeter. Radiation levels rise in specific areas where the women camp.
"Strong signals recorded on one occasion near the green gate were found to
cover the women's encampment but stop abruptly at the edge of the road
leading up to the gate," wrote officials of Britain's "Electronics for
Peace". "Signals at scarcely more than normal background level have been
found to increase rapidly when the women start a demonstration."
The U.S. Air Force has not revealed whether it is zapping these women, who
suffer from maladies corresponding to symptoms previously linked to
low-level microwave exposure. If the Air Force is exposing them
intentionally -- which is uncertain, since the base contains equipment which
naturally emits radiation -- it is not a new idea. The British Defence
Equipment Catalogue once carried references to the "Valkyrie System" and
"frequency weapons." These were eliminated from the catalogue by request of
the British Ministry of Defence in 1983.
Clearly the United States is working on developing weaponry of this kind,
and not just the Reagan Administration is behind it. Not many of the
presidential candidates who are competing to succeed Reagan are in a hurry
to disarm. Les Aspin, for example, accuses Caspar Weinberger of laxity, and
wants develop a vast arsenal of more "conventional" weapons, in which
category zap guns may conceivably fall. The disarmament movement may soon
have more to worry about than nuclear weapons.
Search for other articles from the Peace Magazine archive www.ctrl.org DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at:
http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
