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Apr 4, 2008 5:57 pm US/Pacific
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Veterans Of Top Secret Project Still Await Care
SANTA ROSA (CBS 5) ―
It sounds like a bad dream. You suspect that your job made you sick, but if you tell anyone—even your doctor—the government will send you to prison.
That's the real-life dilemma faced by thousands of military men, who worked on a hazardous, Top Secret experiment called "Project SHAD, "which stands for "Shipboard Hazard And Defense." It was part of America's race against the Russians in the 1960s to develop biological and chemical weapons.
Now, many of the men who worked on Project SHAD are sick and are asking why the U.S. government won't take care of them.
In 1965, Lieutenant Jack Anderson commanded one of the smallest fleets in the Navy—just five light tugboats. But his mission was so important; it was authorized directly by President Lyndon Johnson.
"We were told that we could never speak about it because what we did was secret," Alderson said.
The project involved secret testing of chemical and biological weapons, using monkeys held in cages on the open decks. Military planes would fly over the boats, spraying them with VX nerve gas, sarin gas, E.coli and other deadly microbes.
"It was a witches' brew as far as we were concerned," Alderson said.
Sailors were not supposed to be exposed, but they were—both in the tests and the cleanup afterwards.
"We were told that if we followed all the safety precautions, and we lived within the rules, we were gonna be safe and we were gonna be okay," Alderson recalled. "We are finding out now, that was not true."
Tugboat engineer Bob Rinehart said that some 30 years after the tests, he developed swelling of the esophagus and other respiratory problems, which he attributes to Project SHAD.
"I got so I could hardly swallow," Rinehart said, and he knows of many other crew members with similar problems, and still more with rare cancers. When they went to the Veterans Administration for medical care, they found themselves in a Catch-22.
"It was Top Secret," Rinehart said. "If you told anybody, they said they'd get you for treason."
And because it was Top Secret, there was nothing in their service records about Project SHAD.
Alderson recalled, "I and other SHAD veterans would go to the Veterans Administration and others. They'd basically said, 'Oh, our government would never do anything like that. There's no proof of this.'"
With no proof, the men could not claim service-connected benefits. So Jack Alderson decided to gather that proof, even at the risk of going to prison. He took his case to Northern California Congressman Mike Thompson.
When Thompson began asking the Department of Defense about Project SHAD, he said, "There was a cover-up. To a seated member of Congress, they denied there was ever a Project SHAD."
Thompson couldn't get straight answers, even though he has a Top Secret clearance.
"When they finally did admit that there was a Project SHAD, [they] lied to me again by saying that there were no dangerous chemicals used," Thompson said.
So in 2001, Thompson wrote legislation forcing the military to begin declassifying Project SHAD. That was supposed to clear the way for more than 5,000 veterans to get their benefits.
Seven years later, the veterans are still waiting.
"I feel we were betrayed," said a teary-eyed Jack Alderson, who said he's trying to look out for the men in his command.
"These are men who put on the U.S. military uniform," Congressman Thompson said. "Put their life on the line for their country. Were lied to. Exposed to dangerous chemicals that in many cases made them ill. In some cases probably led to their early death. And they were lied to by the military. And it's unacceptable."
So why has the Department of Defense still turning these veterans down for benefits? Because the Department claims the link between Project SHAD and their health problems has not been proven.
But Congressman Thompson says they need help now, and this month he plans to introduce legislation—yet again—to make that happen.
(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)