Hi I'm Wendy Zukerman and you're listening to Science Vs from Gimlet. Today's episode. We're diving into a decades long conspiracy theory involving the CIA and a deadly virus… and I first learned about it from my friend Dan Guillemette[1]
Everything is sounding good -- bah bah bah it’s workin workin workin
SOOOO. Dan is in podcasting, was working with a colleague Rebeca Ibarra[2] on this podcast called Scattered[3]
DG A lot of the show had to do with Cuban history - and over the course of doing research for the show… we kept hearing about this crazy event that kept happening to people in cuba
It goes back to Cuba in 1971 … and Dan knew the perfect person to tell me about what happened -- Virgil Suarez
VS: I don't know exactly what you need from me but Dan mentioned the story and suddenly I FELT the need to TALK
This is Virgil,[4] he's a poet and english Professor at Florida State University… he grew up in Havana, in the 1960s[5] … Virgil told me that his childhood was pretty idyllic - he has these memories of playing baseball down the street and picking mangoes off trees.
VS … Even though I had an idyllic childhood there were also all these weird things that would happen
It was an uncertain time in Cuba. Fidel Castro and his guerrilla army had toppled the latest in a line of dictators[6][7]... And Castro was trying to build a Communist nation.[8] He'd taken over private businesses[9] and started rationing food.[10] And while little Virgil didn't know exactly what was going on… he knew that the adults in his life were nervous.
VS I had memories of parents leading these very secretive lives. And so I remember late night visits from friends who would arrive light at night, and sit by candlelight And as a child i would walk into a conversation and I recognised there would be hushed or the subject matter would be briefly changed, right? So there was a lot of hushed talking, a lot of whispering going on…
And one day - he started hearing whispers about something really strange - the family pigs. And this is the reason that Dan told me I should call up Virgil in the first place -- it’s where this crazy event begins… So Virgil’s family - like a lot of others in Cuba at the time - raised animals, like pigs for food. And Virgil-- he liked having these pigs around.
VS: These were spotted pigs, white and blonde and brown. Or they would have a patch, like half of their face would be black and the other half would be white
People started to hear that the government was coming for these pigs…
VS Neighbours alerting neighbours, over the back fence, saying hey! They say they're going to come and confiscate our animals,
It wasn't long after that men from the army did show up.[11] Knocking on doors, and demanding that people hand over their pigs. They were saying there was some kind of virus had infected a bunch of them.
VS There's an epidemic you must give up your animals. We are taking them with us. And then they did go house by house, herding all these animals kind of walking down the street almost in parade form to the corner.
On the corner of the street, the army had built this huge fire … Virgil remembers seeing the soldiers club the pigs -- and then throw them into the flames ...
VS So there were just a lot of crazy sounds and smells, you can imagine, popping and crackling a lot of squealing, just a lot of horrible sounds… It was pandemonium there was just lot of people screaming, people fighting with these guys
WZ As a kid what was your understanding of this happening?
VS I initially thought it was some crazy move by the Government, but we didn't know why? It was like taking food away from these people and then just destroying it.[12]
Official documents from Cuba show that every privately owned pig in Virgil's province[13] was destroyed. And all around the country pigs were getting killed by the Government. In total more than 400,000 pigs were killed[14] - more than a quarter of all the pigs in Cuba at the time.[15] And that made people angry. Many Cubans didn't believe there was a virus at all… some thought Castro just killed the pigs to terrorize and control the people[16].
VS And from then on things changed, people became much more fearful like for example, shortly after that my parents decided we need to leave Cuba, ‘uh we need to get the heck out’
Virgil and his parents fled Cuba soon after.[17] But what Virgil's family didn't know at the time. Was that the epidemic that the soldiers were talking about? It was real[18]... Cuban scientists had detected that a virus was killing pigs … and to stop the spread -- they burned pigs in virus hot spots. And it worked. Cuba controlled the outbreak. But having to kill so many of them was devastating[19].
And soon people started asking questions. About where this mysterious virus came from -- that got into Cuba and all of a sudden started killing their pigs? Cuba was pretty isolated at the time… and this virus had never been in the country before --- in fact it had never been anywhere near the region[20][21]... So how did it get to Cuba in the first place?
An idea took hold. People started saying that the virus was intentionally released into the country[22] … by one of the most powerful Governments in the world. The United States.
So - did they do it? That’s coming up after the break
PRE ROLL
Welcome back. Today on the show - we're investigating a pig virus outbreak in Cuba in 1971. And amid the coronavirus pandemic, all this feels really familiar - a virus outbreak, a conspiracy theory about where it came from. But when I did what any hard nosed podcaster would do - and googled this Cuba thing - right away, I found a newspaper article written in 1977 - where the journalists said they had pretty solid evidence that the US was behind this. .[23] I tracked down one of the authors
DF I was in my mid 30s i was at the peak of my power then,
This is Drew Fetherston. He was working at Newsday, a newspaper out of Long Island[24].. at the time. Drew was one half of a team that did a lot of this kind of reporting. The other half was a reporter named John Cummings, who died a few years ago[25].
DF My particular genius was getting along with John, he was a difficult guy, but he was an honest and straightforward reporter,
Drew and John had just gotten a lot of attention for a scoop they had. They worked out that back in the 1950s, the US Army had released a bacteria into the air in San Francisco to see how far it would spread. They were testing how vulnerable the US was to biological warfare[26]. The army thought the bacteria was harmless[27] - but it got into a hospital, and someone died[28].
DF And the army actually confirmed it i do remember being shocked when army called me and said yes, we did that
So Drew and John decided to keep chasing the biological warfare beat. See what else the US Government was up to.
We were kind of just getting started, so we were casting around…
John Cummings starts calling around… and he gets a hot tip that something fishy had happened at this US army base called Fort Gulick[29][30]… which is around Panama.[31]
DF And right away somebody said to him, oh yeah Gulick that’s where the African Swine Fever virus came from.
African Swine Fever. The contact went on -- saying it was the CIA that had plotted to take the virus from the army base... and release it into Cuba…
DF Cummings had been on the phone for a while and he hung up and turned around and said, I think we've got something here…
Neither of them knew anything about African Swine Fever… so Drew runs over to a local library and pulls out a bunch of medical journals and starts reading about the African Swine Fever outbreak in Cuba in 1971. And he said something definitely felt weird about this.
DF Because it was so anomalous, it was in Africa there had been cases in Portugal and maybe Spain[32][33] and then all of a Sudden, BINGO it's in Cuba and they had to slaughter a half a million hogs.[34][35]
And the idea that the CIA might have done this? It wasn't shocking to Drew or John. Cuba and the US weren't exactly good mates.[36] It seemed like the US was constantly trying to mess with Cuba in these sneaky ways. Like, in the 60s, the CIA trained an army of Cuban exiles to try to overthrow Castro’s government - this is known as the Bay of Pigs[37][38]. It was a huge failure. And since then, the CIA couldn’t keep their paws out of the country. They kept trying to assassinate Fidel Castro[39][40]... . And now - John and Drew were hearing that they'd released this virus, African Swine Fever into the country.
And going after the piggies[41] would make sense because at the time Cuba was really trying to ramp up its pork production[42][43][44]. And that's the moment when the virus hit.
So African Swine Fever. That was the disease that was running rampant in Cuba. It was the reason that officials killed Virgil's pigs. So what do we know about this weird virus? And can you actually intentionally release it?
MLP I read everything I can get my hands on about African Swine Fever
This is Professor Mary Louise Penrith. Actually, her official title is Extraordinary Professor[45] - she works at the University of Pretoria in South Africa - and has studied African Swine Fever for decades[46]. And Mary Louise told me that this virus is not dangerous for people. It doesn't even make us sick.[47] But for pigs -- it's really nasty.
MLP It's very dangerous for pigs, if a pigs gets it has an extremely good chance of dying
More than 95% of pigs that get infected die.[48] And Mary Louise says that when a pig gets infected -- it can get ugly.
MLP The pigs gets very ill it can't get up bleeds from all it's orifices[49] and it dies…
WZ Did you say they bleed from their orifices?
MLP Yeah everything is bleeding their bleeding in their gut, all their organs are bleeding[50]
They can actually drown in their own fluid.[51] It's a horrid way to go.
WZ And so the Cuban authorities killed thousands of pigs to stop the outbreak - did they have to do that?
MLP Yeah It is the traditional way to deal with an outbreak is to cull all the pigs and dispose of them safely
Even today to get rid of this, farmers often have to kill a lot of pigs[52] -- because there's no treatment. And no vaccine.[53][54] And even after the pigs are dead, this virus is still a threat. Because this virus is weirdly hardy -- like a vial of infected blood can be infectious for years.[55] Which is why it made sense for Cuba to burn the pigs’ bodies… so they could kill the virus good and proper. So - if you're picking a disease to take out a bunch of pigs and mess up a pork industry - this virus - is a pretty good one to go for.[56][57]
So I asked Mary Louise how would you intentionally spread this? And she was like… since the virus can linger in say, infected meat for ages… [58] [59]… [60] if you want to start an outbreak?
MLP: Well obviously the way to go to about it is to get yourself a load of infected pork, dump it where you know pigs grazed, that's the obvious simple way to do it
Yeah - you could serve up some infected pork to some local pigs - and hope they munch it up. While pigs don't love eating pork - Mary Louise said they were reluctant cannibals - she said, if they're hungry enough. They will do it.[61][62] And once you have one infected pig… this virus can also spread through piggy coughs and sneezes[63] - which means it could move fairly easily from pig to pig to pig[64].
Now Mary Louise was just talking generally -- she’s not pointing fingers at the CIA. But back at Newsday in the 1970s - John Cummings had sources who were. So while Drew was leafing through dusty medical journals and getting his head around what this virus was -- John started calling up more of his contacts. They told him a story of a mysterious unmarked container…[65] which one person said -- had the virus in it. Here's what they said happened. In the early 1970s, this container was handed off from that US army base
DF Yeah ok it came out of Gulick
To somewhere in Panama...
DF It wound up at Bocas Del Toro
to a tiny island in the Caribbean
DF Put on a trawler and taken to Navassa Island,
And finally to Guantanamo bay…and that’s where they lose track of it. But then a few months later...
DF Some weeks after that hand-off there was an outbreak
The first sick pigs were found in early May around Havana[66].[67]
We don't know much about the people who told this story to John -- Drew says they were John's sources -- and they were super secretive. They wouldn't talk to Drew. He did know that some of them had been trained by the CIA to fight in the Bay of Pigs. So these people had worked with the CIA before. And John spoke to a guy who said he was on that trawler -- had been well paid for passing this vial along. Ultimately, the sources were convinced the CIA was involved. And so Drew and John published the story saying there was a link between the CIA and the outbreak - but they never did find a smoking gun.[68][69]
DF I don't think anybody ever said to us, OK, this CIA operative gave us a piece of paper saying here's what we're going to ask you to do. So the link between the CIA and this group that brought the virus was, I guess, implicit rather than explicit. Naturally, we called the CIA and they didn't confirm — or deny.
And now here we are - almost 50 years since Drew published that article… So I wanted to know… with all the time that's passed -- could we get to the bottom this? Could new science help us unravel what really happened?[70] Would the CIA admit it - after all these years?
I mean what kind of person was that, what kind of monster, What kind of Frankenstein
Only a terrorist who's suicidal - and doesn't care about consequences would wage a biological warfare campaign…
That’s coming up after the break.
BREAK
Welcome back. Today we're trying to get to the bottom of whether the CIA released a pig virus into Cuba in 1971. We know it’s technically possible that the CIA could have done this – and in fact it's not that difficult - and we know they had a motive: to make life difficult for the Communist regime in Cuba. The big question now…is did they do it?
I emailed the CIA and put in a FOIA request -- asking for any information the CIA had on African Swine Fever and Cuba. Experts who do this kind of thing had told me - good luck. It could take ages before you hear anything… So I started asking around, to ex-CIA agents who would talk. And pretty quickly, I found a big reason to doubt that the CIA would do this... because this plan? It could have backfired.
RF I mean it's the argument against bio warfare — most sophisticated governments don’t think that’s a good idea because you can't control it.
This is Carol Flynn, she goes by Rollie -- and worked at the CIA for three decades[71] - Rollie had never heard of this plot to release a pig virus into Cuba, and didn't believe it. She said it would have been stupid and dangerous to do this.
RF And the minute you deploy it - it's out and can infect you. Maybe not in the first wave but eventually. It’s just not smart. Only a terrorist who's suicidal and doesn't care about consequences would wage a biological warfare campaign.
There’s only about 100 miles between Cuba and Florida.[72] Would the CIA really have released a virus - that could have made its way back onto US shores? And threatened US pigs? Rollie was like - no way… But as I dug into this - it looked like in the 60s and early 70s - around the time of the outbreak… the CIA was kind of in its Wild Wild West days… total unleashed mode. There was very little Government oversight.[73][74][75] US politicians didn't even know what they were up to -- and so I wondered if maybe… back then the CIA was kind of up for anything… and so I got in touch with a guy who knows a lot about just how far the CIA was willing to go back then.
<Ring ring>
LJ Hi this is Loch - are you Wendy?
WZ Yeah I'm Wendy! How are you doing?
LJ You have military punctuality
This is Loch Johnson[76] - and I called him up, right on time - because back in 1975 - just four years after the pig virus outbreak… Loch worked on this huge investigation into all the dodgy stuff the CIA was up to. People in Congress at the time were suspicious of the CIA … after they had been outed for their role in Watergate[77], among some other creepy stuff. [78] And so they created this committee, headed up by Senator Frank Church,[79] to find out what else had been going on in the bowels of intelligence agencies like the CIA. And Loch, he worked closely with Frank Church.[80]
WZ: What was your first day like?
LJ Well it was bedlam I can tell you, holding hearings, deposing witnesses, writing speeches for Frank Church, holding his hand when things got rough
So they get down to work. And immediately, they start discovering a bunch of shady things. Like they uncover all these plots to assassinate world leaders[81]. Not just Fidel Castro -- but heads of other countries[82], like in the Congo. And maybe for us today, it sounds like just another day at CIA HQ. But back in the ‘70s, this was a revelation to people like Loch.
LJ So I mean it was like scales falling away from my eyes when we saw these things[83][84]. I must tell you Wendy, when I was in grad school, I had a roommate who smoked quite a bit of pot, and he said, you know the CIA kills people overseas - and I said to him - what's wrong with you? You oughta lay off that pot for a while I mean you're becoming delusional - and it turned out he was exactly right. That's exactly what the government was doing.
Loch and the committee also started looking into this creepy lab that the CIA worked with[85] - where there was a bunch of research into biological warfare going on. According to an employee-recruitment brochure, it had one of the world's "largest animal farms"[86] and best facilities for studying dangerous organisms[87]. Loch's team realised that this lab had housed all kinds of sketchy stuff.[88]
LJ And we discovered that the CIA had stored out there, and so had the military, some bizarre things, cobra venom, shellfish toxins[89], I mean about every kind of poison you can think of
WZ What?!
LJ Oh yeah, enough to have killed a small town of 50,000 people[90] that's how many chemicals they had out there -- that was outrageous. These agencies are out of control
And one virus the CIA had sitting around in another lab? African Swine Fever. The US Government had actually been studying the virus for decades.[91][92][93][94][95]
Now, Loch says the Church Committee didn't find any plots to release this pig virus into Cuba. But he did uncover something that felt very similar.
It's early on in his work with the Commission. He’s sent to this Lyndon B Johnson Library[96] in Austin Texas. It's a hulking, windowless building. And Loch starts digging into their classified documents …
LJ So I'm leafing through these papers, and most of them are pretty boring, then I come across this one document which talks about Bunga. Who the hell knew what Bunga was? I certainly didn't know.
Bunga - Loch soon found out - is a parasite that infects Sugar cane.[97][98] The document he found was from 1964[99] - so that's seven years before the pig virus outbreak. The Department of Defence had sent this proposal to the CIA. And they said if you want to mess up Cuba? Spray the Bunga Parasite onto their sugar cane. It'll cut production way down - and even help "the expansion of US influence over the world sugar market" … And the proposal didn't stop there… they said to make things even worse for Cuba --- you should release hoof and mouth disease to go after their cows[100]. This suggested that they were up for an all-out assault on Cuba’s food supply.
LJ I was stunned, I was stunned that someone in the Department of Defence thought that this was a good idea, I mean what kind of person was that, what kind of monster, What kind of Frankenstein was over there in the bowels of DoD concocting this proposal?
WZ: Did you see anything in those documents that would suggest they did end up going through with any of this?
LJ No, I didn't. And after poring through those LBJ files for a week I found nothing that would indicate that any of these operations were carried out. My hunch is that the US does not do this kind of thing - but , I could be wrong Wendy. Keep in mind back in grad school I would’ve told you the US doesn't target foreign leaders for murder either.
We don't think they did this bunga and hoof and mouth disease thing either -- mainly because we couldn’t find evidence of an outbreak of either disease[101][102][103][104] in Cuba around this time. And Rollie, the ex CIA, told me not to read too much into these kinds of proposals. She said that in her experience - there were often wild suggestions at the CIA that didn’t go anywhere. Rollie was like, you know, in this way being a CIA agent is a lot like being a podcaster.
RF well, It's very similar to, I’m sure the kind of things you do when you have a story conference and people come up with wacky ideas - and everyone laughs and they're like no way. Yknow … You can't completely censor people for their hare brained ideas, people have them and then you shut them down But, but poisoning, poisoning pigs or doing something that should infect innocents, innocent bystanders in a population, that's unconscionable, that wouldn't happen
But of course, Rollie worked for these guys for decades - she might have drunk the CIA Kool-aid. So I called up a bunch of academics who research US-Cuba relations at this time. And none of them were quite so certain that the CIA was off the hook for this. In fact one Cuban academic - who didn’t want to go on the record - told me that the idea that poisoning pigs - was some line the US wouldn’t cross - was kind of preposterous. She said - the US and Cuba were basically at war -- they were enemies.[105] [106] The CIA had trained an army 10 years earlier to overthrow the Cuban Government!! And that ended up killed thousands of Cubans[107]. If they were prepared to kill people -- why not pigs?
Next week -- we find out just how far the US was willing to go…
Ring ring
Hello
Hello- umm I just got this big manilla folder from the CIA
Whhhhat
What, what what! it just came to you in the mail?
It just came to me in the mail! This is the sound
Ahhh -- shit
Ok it says, dear ms zukerman we enclosed 25 documents totalling 79 pages
That seems like a lot!
It totally shows that they had eyes on this…
They definitely had eyes on this…
That's coming up. Next Thursday - on Science Vs.
CREDITS
A huge thanks to Dan Guillemette, Rebecca Ibarra and the team at WNYC's Scattered. This episode was produced by Wendy Zukerman, with help from Nick DelRose, Mathilde Urfalino, Hannah Harris Green, Rose Rimler and Michelle Dang. It was edited by Blythe Terrell and Caitlin Kenney, with help from PJ Vogt. Fact checking by Diane Kelly. Mix and sound design by Peter Leonard. Music written by Peter Leonard, Emma Munger, Bobby Lord and Marcus Bagala. Interpreting by Carmen Graterol and Julia Kaplan. Translation by Silvina Baldermann. Thanks to everyone we got in touch with for this episode including Peter Kornbluh, Professor Piero Gleijeses, Professor Armanda Bastos, Dr. Alexis Albion, Dr David Williams, Professor Hugh Wilford, Professor Jose Sánchez-Vizcaíno, Dr James Lockhart, Professor Louis A. Pérez, Dr Megan Niederwerder,Steven Aftergood, and Vicki J. Huddleston. And thank you to the Cuban exiles and those who fought in the bay of pigs for speaking to us. A special thanks to the Zukerman family, and Joseph Lavelle Wilson.
[1] https://www.wnyc.org/people/daniel-guillemette/
[2] Rebeca Ibarra: https://www.wnyc.org/people/rebeca-ibarra/
[3] https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/scattered/about
[4] VIRGIL SUAREZ, Professor, MFA, Louisiana State University (1987)
[5] Virgil Suárez was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1962, and moved to the United States in 1974. He received his MFA in Creative Writing in 1987 from Louisiana State University.
[6] https://www.britannica.com/event/Cuban-Revolution#ref339520
[7] From some points of view, the experience of Cuba in 1958 might be regarded as one more archetypical failure of American foreign policy—…a commitment had been made to an unpopular tyrant, Fulgencio Batista, who was becoming increasingly unpopular in his own country, and what is more, apparently losing a guerrilla war to insurgents led by Fidel Castro.
[8] Castro (Profiles in Power Series) by Sebastian Balfour, 1995 (book):
pg36—[Batista] promised to carry out a number of social reforms and eventually to hold elections….the promises could not have been more cynical, for he began his new rule by suspending constitutional guarantees such as the right to strike, and abolishing both Congress and political parties.
pg59—Batista’s regime fell above all because it was barbarous…. it also fell, just as it had risen to power in 1934 and 1952, because it did not represent any social class…..Batista had lost his populist base, but he had not endeared himself either to the indigenous elites that controlled much of Cuba’s wealth.
pg71—The Bay of Pigs incident not only helped to define the official ideology of the Revolution but also speeded up its institutionalization. Three months later, Castro announced the fusion of the 26th July Movement, the DR, and the Community into the Organizaciones Integradas Revolucionarias as a first step towards the creation of a new Communist Party.
[9] ...once established as Cuba’s leader he began to pursue more radical policies: Cuba’s private commerce and industry were nationalized; sweeping land reforms were instituted; and American businesses and agricultural estates were expropriated.
[10] No exact figures on food consumption have ever been given by the regime, and a general idea can be gained only by considering the rationing system begun in 1962. In principle, at least, rationing assures equality of consumption. The system, it must be added, sets limits to the amount anyone can purchase of a given product but does not guarantee the availability of supplies. In 1958, for example, 10.2 lb. of rice per capita were available each month; this had declined to 6 lb. in 1962 and to 3 lb. in 1969. The 2.2 lb. of meat available weekly in 1958 fell to 0.75 lb. by 1962 and remained at that level; similarly the 2.4 lb. of grains monthly fell to 1.5 Ib.; the 2.9 lb. of fats to 2 Ib.; the 2.1 lb. of beans to 1.5 lb.
[11] Unclassified CIA document C00027559
[12] "The populace would blame the epidemic for the unavailability of pork..." - Intelligence Information Report; 15th July 1972 and earlier. C0027551
[13] Unclassified CIA document C00027553
[14] Unclassified CIA document C00027553 - Page 20 Tabla No 1
[15] Cuba had 1.5 million pigs in 1971, and culled 463,332 animals over the course of that year..
[16] Unclassified CIA document C00027549
[17] Virgil Suárez ... moved to the United States in 1974.
[18] Unclassified CIA document C00027557
[19] “Output of pork declined sharply in 1971-1972 due to a grave epidemic of African Fever (or Pig Cholera), which in mid-1971 rapidly spread throughout Havana province. As a result, 410,000 hogs had to be killed, leaving only 36,000 in the province.”
[20] In Europe, ASF was first introduced into Portugal from West Africa in 1957. After eradication of this incursion, an ASFV of genotype I reappeared in the country in 1960, and then spread across Europe (Italy, 1967; Spain, 1969). It also hit the Caribbean (Cuba, 1971)
[21] "The disease was never been diagnosed in Central America until 1971 when the virus was introduced to Cuba and then spread within the country through privately-own pigs, private vehicles and transport, or by swill-feeding" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7296109/
[22] Unclassified CIA document C00027547
[23] Drew Fetherston and John Cummings article in Newsday: Jan 9, 1977
[24] https://www.newsday.com
[25]https://www.newsday.com/long-island/obituaries/john-cummings-who-covered-the-jfk-assassination-dies-at-84-1.11330679
[26] Newsday: Dec 22 1976: “The Army admitted last week that Its list of targets in the so-called "vulnerability tests" might be incomplete. The Army released minimal information about the tests following a story published in Newsday last month that detailed the 1950 test in San Francisco and the subsequent outbreak in Stanford University Hospital of Serratia infections, which killed one man.”
[27] “Since many strains of S. marcescens have red pigment, and the organism was assumed to be nonpathogenic, it was used as a tracer organism in medical experiments and as a biological warfare test agent. In a now-famous exposé, the U.S. government released S. marcescens over both civilian population centers and military training areas from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s in the hopes of gathering data on the potential spread of bioterrorism agents used against the United States.”
[28] The medical report of one person dying
[29] http://aulav.wrlc.org/items/show/7363
[30] Fort Gulick was home of the U .S. Army School of the Americas.
[31] https://www.britannica.com/place/Canal-Zone
[32] “The first spread of ASF outside Africa was to Portugal in 1957 as a result of waste from airline flights being fed to pigs near Lisbon airport. Although this incursion of disease was eradicated, a further outbreak occurred in 1960 in Lisbon and ASF then remained endemic in the Iberian peninsula until the mid 1990s.”
[33] “...first reported outside Africa in 1957 in Lisbon (Portugal), from where it had spread from West Africa. After two years silence, in 1960 the disease appeared again in Lisbon and soon spread to the Iberian Peninsula and other countries in Europe such as France (1964), Italy (1967, 1969, 1983)...”
[34] Cuba, in 1971, was the first country in the Caribbean region to report infection with ASF
[35] On May 6th, ASF was first diagnosed in Cuba - in the province of Havana - a site that held 11,425 pigs. Soon, the virus was detected in 3 other areas involving 9000 pigs. Then it was detected in 33 areas - more than 30,000 pigs were involved. 12,000 were killed by the virus - the rest were destroyed. Soon the entire swine population of two provinces - more than 460,000 pigs were "eliminated".
[36] Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders
Pg 4— “United States Government personnel plotted to kill Castro from 1960 to 1965.”
Pg 71—“We have found concrete evidence of at least eight plots involving the CIA to assassinate Fidel Castro from 1960 to 1965.1
[37] The April 17, 1961, Bay of Pigs invasion by 1,500 U.S.-backed anti-Castro Cuban exiles was a fiasco that looms large in recent American history. Within days, every invader was either killed or captured.
[38] The counterrevolutionary invasion that occurred at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba on 17 April 1961 shocked the world. The most powerful nation in the world, the United States of America, in league with an exile group of freedom-loving Cubans, attempted to overthrow the Communist dictator, Fidel Castro.
[39] Record Series: Assassination Related Materials— a summary of facts pertaining to CIA participation in assassination plans to assassinate Premier Fidel Castro.
[40] Senate Intelligence Committee Investigation: Nov 18 1975
[41]An overview by researcher Rosa Elena Simeon-Negrín and others (2002) described Cuba’s pig business in 1971 as “a new, well-structured industry with an important concentration of pork production in Havana Province and the western region of the country.”
[42]The Rise and Fall off Dairy Cows in Socialist Cuba p350- :“The need to increase local food production to reduce dependence on imports and improve the diet….received great support….the transformation of extensive ranching to a more intensive model of stock raising farming was seen as an unavoidable necessity. Julien Coléou, professor at the Agronomy Institute of Paris, gave recommendations to Cuba: “proposed 1970 targets to increase pork to 35.6 pounds per capita (230 per cent).
[43] After 1961...for sound economic reasons, Cubans argued, no less than psychological ones, it was necessary to reduce the importance of sugar. This was to be achieved through two means: industrialization and agricultural diversification….greater emphasis was given to nonsugar exports to reduce the percentage of total sugar exports. Cuban planners also hoped to achieve self-sufficiency in food production.
[44] NYT (published 1970) In 1969: ”The shortage of food and consumer goods was greater than in 1968. As a result the ever-present lines in front of Government stores and service establishments were longer than before…Despite efforts to diversify the rigidly controlled economy, sugar continued to account for 85 per cent of all Cuban exports, which also declined last year”
[46] First publication of ML Penrith on African Swine Fever in 1998: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_q=African+swine+fever&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_occt=any&as_sauthors=ML+penrith&as_publication=&as_ylo=&as_yhi=&hl=en&as_sdt=1%2C22&as_vis=1
[48] Acute forms are predominant at the beginning of outbreaks in disease-free areas resulting in high mortality rates of up to 95–100 %
[49] Veterinary manual— pigs with African Swine Fever bleed from nose and anus….In acutely fatal cases, gross lesions are most prominent in the lymphoid and vascular systems. Hemorrhages occur predominantly in lymph nodes, which may resemble blood clots, and in the kidneys (usually as petechiae) and heart. The spleen is often large and friable, and there may be straw-colored or blood-stained fluid in pleural, pericardial, and peritoneal cavities and congestion of the lungs.
[50] Center for Food Security & Public Health— Disease Images: African Swine Fever - images show bloody nasal discharge, hemorrhagic lesions on skin, hemorrhaging of organs including the kidney, heart, lung, stomach, lymph nodes, and colon.
[51] “[In] The acute form of the disease...Functional failures of internal organs, above all of the digestive system, vomiting and haemorrhagic diarrhoea may occur. Internal lesions are mainly characterized by hyperaemic splenomegaly and haemorrhages in organs, particularly in the visceral lymph nodes, with an excess of natural fluids in body cavities and spaces”
[52] “The only known effective method of eradicating the disease within a region is to quarantine infected and exposed pigs, and then slaughter them after ASF has been confirmed”
[53] 2019 Paper on current ASF vaccine status: “The unavailability of an applicable ASF vaccine is partly due to the complex nature of the virus, which encodes various proteins associated with immune evasion.”
[54] 2020 publication on work towards affective ASF vaccine: “Immunization with one of these pools, comprising eight viral-vectored ASFV genes, protected 100% of pigs from fatal disease after challenge with a normally lethal dose of virulent ASFV. This data provide the basis for the further development of a subunit vaccine against this devastating disease.”
[55]The ASF virus can be demonstrated in blood, all excretions and secretions, tissue fluids and internal organs of infected pigs. It is exceptionally stable; reports indicate that it can survive in blood stored in a cold, dark room for as long as 6 yr.
[56] 1963: “Some of the animal diseases that could be artificially spread are : hoof-and-mouth disease, hog cholera, African swine fever, rinderpest, lumpy skin disease of cattle and fowl plague.”
[57] 1967: “A major debatable point is whether the gravest danger of BW lies in the direct effects on the population or in the undermining of the economy by the destruction of crops and livestock. An enemy might use a spectrum of plant viruses or any of the animal viruses which give rise to diseases such as African swine fever...“
[58]The virus survives in excretions, carcasses, fresh meat, and certain meat products for varying periods of time. It may remain infective for at least 11 days in faeces, for 15 weeks in chilled meat (and probably longer in frozen meat), and for months in bone marrow or cured hams and sausages unless they have been cooked or smoked at high temperature
[59] The virus is shed in saliva, tears, nasal secretions, urine, faeces, and secretions from the genital tract. Blood, in particular, contains large amounts of virus.
[60] The virus lives in meat for 140-150 days. (In frozen meat, the virus “…lives forever.”)
[61] This 2004 study fed raw pork to pigs: To ensure thorough consumption of raw meat samples, pigs were deprived of food but not water for about 36 h prior to feeding. ...Meat samples were generally readily consumed after abundant chewing.
[62] wild boar seemed to be particularly interested in the soil next to and underneath the carcasses. About one third of the visits of wild boar led to direct contact with dead conspecifics. The contacts consisted mostly in sniffing and poking on the carcass. Under the given ecological and climatic conditions, there was no evidence for intra-species scavenging. However, piglets were observed several times chewing bare bones once skeletonization of the carcasses was complete. It must be assumed that all these types of contact may represent a risk of transmission.
[63] "The primary route of infection is the upper respiratory tract, where the virus replicates in the tonsils and lymph nodes draining the head and neck...Virus is excreted mainly from the upper respiratory tract and is present in all secretions and excretions containing blood."
[64] “Pigs can therefore become infected by contact with many different infected sources, mainly infected pigs, pork, and other pig-derived products (e.g. swill), and fomites (e.g. bedding).”
[65] Newsday Jan 9 1977: https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP90-01208R000100220019-9.pdf
[66] On May 6, 1971, the first focal point of this illness was detected in a feeding center that hosted 11,425 pigs. Until that day, the illness has never been reported in the country. The first case was confirmed in the city of Havana, through clinical studies, epizootiology and laboratory. (Unclassified CIA Document C00027553)
[67] Simeon-Negrin et al 2002 calls it a finishing site in Havana. So, a farm (or part of a farm) that grows the pigs up to their slaughtering weight
[68] Drew and John’s Newsday story was reprinted widely: SF Chronicle 1977; Baltimore Sun 1977 ; Florida Times, 1977; Cartoon, 1977; Chicago Sunday Times, 1977 ; Ohio, 1977; Intercontinental Press; New York Times;
[69] Newsday Jan 9 1977: https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP90-01208R000100220019-9.pdf
[70] Aside from the CIA story: In 1998 an academic analysed the evidence… and said there was another very reasonable hypothesis. "It is known that ASF was spreading throughout the world in the 1960s and 1970s, with aircraft and ships being the main vectors for the virus. Many countries became infested with ASF during this time by having the virus brought within their borders by these vectors.
[72]Between Havana and Key West, the air travel distance is equal to 105 miles.
[73] A series of troubling revelations started to appear in the press concerning intelligence activities. The dam broke on 22 December 1974, when The New York Times published a lengthy article by Seymour Hersh detailing operations engaged in by the CIA over the years...Covert action programs involving assassination attempts against foreign leaders and covert attempts to subvert foreign governments were reported for the first time. In addition, the article discussed efforts by intelligence agencies to collect information on the political activities of US citizens….These revelations convinced many Senators and Representatives that the Congress itself had been too lax, trusting, and naive in carrying out its oversight responsibilities.
[74] Because of the sensitive nature of its activities, the CIA enjoyed access to unvouchered funds; this made it all the more attractive as an organization to carry out clandestine operations beyond the prying eyes of Washington’s media corps and questioning from Capitol Hill.5 ….In 1974, as the CIA was in the throes of controversy over domestic spying, the government finally addressed the subject of covert action specifically in a statute.
[75] The “Family Jewels” consists of almost 700 pages of responses from CIA employees to a 1973 directive from Director of Central Intelligence James Schlesinger asking them to report activities they thought might be inconsistent with the Agency's charter.
[78] In 1973 the Senate Watergate Committee investigation revealed that the executive branch had directed national intelligence agencies to carry out constitutionally questionable domestic security operations. In 1974 Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Seymour Hersh published a front-page New York Times article claiming that the CIA had been spying on anti-war activists for more than a decade, violating the agency’s charter. Former CIA officials and some lawmakers, including Senators William Proxmire and Stuart Symington, called for a congressional inquiry."
[79] Mansfield selected Democrat Frank Church of Idaho to serve as chairman
[80] Professor Johnson served as special assistant to the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (1975-76)
[82]e.g. CIA Scientist Schneider and Congolese leader Lumumba https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94465.pdf
[83] https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94465.pdf (Outlined in page 30-49)
[84] Pg 41 (Mulroney, 9/1.1/75, p. 7-A; 6/9/75, p. 16) Mulroney said he assumed it was a "lethal agent," although the Station Officer was not explicit: I knew it wasn't for somebody to get his polio shot up to date. (Muironey, 6/9/75, pp. 16, 37) https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94465.pdf
[85] Document linking the CIA to Fort Detrick https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP82B00871R000100070006-9.pdf
[86] Described in Science 13 Jan 1967: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/155/3759/174
[87] "facilities for conducting research with pathogenic organisms are among the most advanced in the world."
[88] --Pg 41: When [CIA Officer] Mulroney arrived in the Congo, he met with the Station Officer, who informed him that there was "a virus in the safe."
--Pg 38: Scheider [CIA Scientist] told Mulroney "that there were four or five * * * lethal means of disposing of Lumumba * * *. One of the methods was a virus and the others included poison."
--Pg73: A notation in the records of the Operations Division, CIA's Office of Medical Services, indicates that on August 16, 1960, an official was given a box of Castro's favorite cigars with instructions to treat them with lethal-poison. -(I. G. Report, p. 21) The-cigars were contaminated with a botulinum toxin so potent that a person would die after putting one in his mouth.
[90] Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control By Sephen Kinzer (Chapter 12, pg 308)— About saxitoxin at Fort Detrick: “Two canisters containing nearly eleven grams of this poison—enough to kill 55,000 people—were in one of Gottlieb’s freezers.”
[91] All experiments with African swine fever virus and its antiserums were conducted at the Plum Island Animal Disease Laboratory, Greenport, New York" See table 1: Two infected pigs.
[92]A USDA government research lab at Plum Island (now run by the Department of Homeland Security) had researchers studying African Swine Fever in the 60s and 70s. The lab studies exotic diseases that could affect livestock in the US; it also conducted bioweaponry research until it was outlawed in 1969.
[93] The US had been studying ASF virus for decades at that point: see Table 11.1 here -- lists 7 strains of ASFV housed at Fort Terry in 1954 before the Army facility was deactivated and transferred to the USDA. [https://books.google.com/books?id=Usskez9NfEYC&pg=PA226&dq ]
[94] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1319686/?page=2
[95] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF01250313
[96] http://www.lbjlibrary.org
[97] “Insect Pests and Cane Diseases” (pg 471- plant parasites): Aeginetia indica known in the provinces of Laguna and Batangas, where it is most frequently met with as “Bunga,” is a root parasite. It consists of white or pink branches enacting from the roots of the cane stool; it has neither roots nor coloring matter of its own, hence it must get all its food from its host.
[98]Invasive Species Compendium—Aeginetia indica (forest ghost flower): Aeginetia indica is reported as being a parasite in rice (Oryza sativa), sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum) and other crops. “The species causes damage to sugarcane plantations by lowering the sucrose content of healthy sugarcane from 13% to 5%”
[99] Page 179: Basically, the proposal envisions a 3 to 6 year program, beginning with a 30% reduction of anticipated 1966 Cuban sugar production by introducing aerially from offshore, a sugar cane plant parasite, Bunga
[100] Page 179 Subsequently, the economic and political disturbances caused by this attack could be exacerbated and exploited by such measures as spreading hoof-and-mouth disease among draft animals, controlling rainfall by cloud seeding, mining canefields, burning cane and directing other acts of conventional sabotage against the cane milling and transportation systems"
[101] Invasive Species Compendium—Aeginetia indica (forest ghost flower): Although reported as affecting various crops there are no details of the effects and economical losses caused by the species.
[102] Modern range of Aeginetia indica is restricted to India, China, and Southeast Asia
[103] The world distribution of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in 1997 (Fig. 1) is little changed from 1967; no reported outbreaks in Cuba.
[104] Foot-and-Mouth Disease (Hoof-and-Mouth Disease)—See distribution table. Cuba: Absent, No presence record(s)
[105]“.Mr. FitzGerald mentioned four successful sabotage operations against a power plant, oil storage facilities, a sawmill…”
[106] https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1964/05/14/106967428.html?pageNumber=1
[107]The number of those killed in action during the battle was later revised up to 140, and finally to 161. However, these figures are for Cuban Army losses only, and do not include militiamen or armed civilian loyalists. The most widely accepted estimates put the total number of militiamen killed, wounded and missing while fighting for the Republic at around 2,000 (some believe as many as 5,000).