Operation Red Hat - Counterinsurgency and Anti-crop Testing

Counterinsurgency and Anti-crop Testing

The late author Sheldon H. Harris in his book "Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare, 1932–1945, and the American Cover Up" wrote:

The test program, which began in fall 1962 and which was funded at least through fiscal year 1963, was considered by the Chemical Corps to be “an ambitious one.” The tests were designed to cover “not only trials at sea, but Arctic and tropical environmental tests as well.” The tests, presumably, were conducted at what research officers designated, but did not name, “satellite sites.” These sites were located both in the continental United States and in foreign countries. The tests conducted there were aimed at both human, animal, and plant reaction to Biological Warfare. It is known that tests were undertaken in Cairo, Egypt, Liberia, in South Korea, and in Japan’s satellite province of Okinawa in 1961, or earlier. (Harris, 2002)

Sheldon H. Harris continued;

The Okinawa anti-crop research project may lend some insight to the larger projects Project 112 sponsored. BW experts in Okinawa and “at several sites in the Midwest and south:”conducted in 1961 “field tests” for wheat rust and rice blast disease. These tests met with “partial success” in the gathering of data, and led, therefore, to a significant increase in research dollars in fiscal year 1962 to conduct additional research in these areas. The money was devoted largely to developing “technical advice on the conduct of defoliation and anti-crop activities in Southeast Asia.” By the end of fiscal year 1962, the Chemical Corps had let or were negotiating contracts for over one thousand chemical defoliants. The Okinawa tests evidently were fruitful. (Harris, 2002)

In May 1962, the counterinsurgency school was moved from Vietnam and opened in Okinawa. According to Army Field Manual FM 31-15,"Operations Against Irregular Forces", May 1961, "Terrain and the dispositions and tactics of guerrilla forces furnish excellent opportunity for the employment of chemical and biological agents and riot control agents. Operations against irregular forces should evaluate the feasibility of chemical and biological operations to assist in mission accomplishment."

The logbook of the USNS Schuyler Otis Bland (T-AK-277) was found by Michelle Gatz in 2012 and shows that the ship was carrying classified cargo that was offloaded under armed guard at White Beach, a U.S. Navy port on Okinawa’s east coast on April 25, 1962. The account in the ships logbook states that Schuyler Otis Bland brought classified cargo under the guise of "agriculture products" which were kept under armed guard to Vietnam, Okinawa, and Panama. The cargo is now believed by researchers to be anti-plant chemical agents for use in Project AGILE, or Project OCONUS (Outside of Continental US) and in the CIA counterinsurgency training area operating on Okinawa at the time. After departing Okinawa in spring 1962, Bland sailed to the Panama Canal Zone where, the Panamanian government asserts, the U.S. tested Chemical, Biological and anti-plant agents in the early 1960s under the Chemical Corps Tropic Test Activity until the test site was moved to the Far East in April 1963 and a CIA counterinsurgency school was established in Panama as well.