Targets

Abstract

In the post-war period, US BW workers conducted theoretical vulnerability assessments of its Cold War adversaries. Two such investigations concerned the former Soviet Union and its European satellites; and Communist China. Data in the following section pertaining to the Soviet Union and its European satellites has been compiled from only partially declassified primary source documentation.¹ Released under the US Freedom of Information Act in 1963 this 1958 document was cut by about 50 per cent during declassification. In particular, material on delivery systems, which might be used for Puccinia graminis tritici (for use against wheat), was cut from the original 74-page study. Whereas in the case of China, the technical study² upon which the following information is derived was declassified in full. The latter study provides a primary insight into thinking about how best to attack plant crops in China, and therefore also into the particular characteristics that such an attack might have.