General Mills and Biological Weapons

This is a Declassified briefing of a document from the Defense Documentation Center for Scientific and Technical Information, released on March 31, 2020, through The Black Vault. The document, titled "Report No. 2127," is a research report from the U.S. Army, dated October 31, 1961. The report covers the development of biological weapons, specifically the dissemination of solid and liquid biological agents from high-speed, low-flying aircraft. The report was declassified in full on May 17, 2013, by the Chief, Records and Declassification Division, Washington Headquarters Services, under Executive Order 13526. This report covers the major areas of activity during the first three months of a program researching the dissemination of solid and liquid biological agents. The objective of the research is the development of weapon systems for the dissemination of these agents as a line source from high-speed, low-flying aircraft. The problems of feeding and handling fine-divided solid agents were developed along with applications of feeding devices, including rotary feeders, piston feeders, and pneumatic feeders. Progress was made in preparing for wind tunnel experiments on dissemination and deagglomeration of the agents, including the design of a special test action for these experiments. A kinetic sampling probe was designed to measure the characteristics of finely divided materials. A study of the characteristics of finely divided materials is presented, including literature search, theoretical investigation, and experiments. Work on the design of a source for liquid agent dissemination was also conducted, including flow rate optimization, review of operational analysis, and agitation of liquid agents. The report includes a summary and conclusion, as well as a list of illustrations, including sketches of cylindrical storage volumes, storage sections, and the effect of agent payload, bulk density, and aspect ratio on storage diameter. This report provides a detailed look into the development of biological weapons by the U.S. Army in the early 1960s. The document is available in its entirety on The Black Vault's website, https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/general-mills-and-biological-weapons/, and can be accessed through the following link: https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/biological/generalmills/AD0324746.pdf. This is what the public record looks like at its most ordinary. storyflo.com