NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - The mystery of the shell fish toxi
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - The mystery of the shell fish toxi
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - The mystery of the shell fish toxin
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - The mystery of the shell fish toxi
Opening title "Senate Hearings on Inteligence Activities" (00:00:27) "NPACT" logo appears (National Public Affairs Center) (00:01:24) Show begins with spinning government agencies titles: CIA, NSA, IRS, FBI - followed by a red image of the capitol - then followed by a copy of the senate resolution to investigate these agencies for illegal, improper or unethical procedures (00:01:36) NPACT's spinning sphere logo appears and narrator introduces correspondents PAUL DUKE and JIM LEHRER (00:02:10) Shot opens to Jim Lehrer on the news set with a monitor behind him reading "Senate Hearings on Intelligence Activities", Paul Duke is to his left but not yet on screen - Lehrer opens by saying the mystery of the poisons remains unsolved and explains that 2 containers of shell fish toxin and cobra venom were stashed in a CIA labratory five years ago in defiance of a presidential order that they be destroyed (00:02:22) Lehrer introduces and summarizes testimony of day's witnesses: Dr. EDWARD SHANTZ an army toxin specialist, CHARLES SENSENEY an army engineer and defense department counsel ROBERT ANDREW (00:03:01) Lehrer introduces show'sl guests NICHOLAS HORAK (?) New York Times reporter and congressman OTIS PIKE chairman of the House Committee on Intelligence (00:03:28) Lehrer hands off to Paul Duke - an image of a skull and cross bones comes on to the monitor - Duke explains how extremely deadly the shell fish toxins which were found are and how a Dr. JAMES BOND of Georgetown University received a sample of them, coincidentally his zip code happened to end 007 (00:04:24)
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - The mystery of the shell fish toxi
Picture changes to testimony earlier in the day of Dr. Shantz who is being questioned by committee council SCHWARZ - Shantz is asked about his background and relationship to the CIA (00:04:57) Schwarz asks about super secret CIA document - did Shantz see it (00:06:10) Schwarz asks how much 11 grams of toxin is? - Schantz answers 1/3 of what has ever been produced - Shwartz asks how lethal it is - Schantz responds that 2/10 of mg enough to kill some one - Shwartz asks how many people could be killed by CIA's supply - Schantz answers 55,000 (00:07:00) Shwarz asks if there are benign uses for toxin - Shantz responds that it has many possible medicinal applications including developing an antidote for the toxin itself (00:08:15) CURTIS R. SMOTHERS, Minority Council, asks Shantz if he worked with toxin for public health reasons, did Schantz receive any requests for toxin from special operations division - Schantz responds yes - How much - Schantz cannot answer that accurately 10-15 grams he beleives - Smothers wants to know if special operations got toxins from other people - Shantz responds also from public health services. Senator FRANK CHURCH, Chairman Select Committee on Intelligence, confirms that special operations is located at Fort Deitrich and is part of the army biological warfare division (00:11:50) Smothers asks if Schantz supplied toxin to people outside the government - Schantz responds yes, to labratories through out the country and countries except those behind the iron curtain for physiological studies on nerve transmission (00:12:05) Church asks how shell fish toxin manufactured - Schantz breifly explains the process (00:13:01) Church confirms that it is a long and difficult process to manufacture the toxin in order to alleviate fears of the public about eating shell fish (00:14:55)
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - The mystery of the shell fish toxi
Senator WALTER HUDDLESTON of Kentucky asks Schantz if there was a formal procedure for acquiring the toxin - Schantz replies that within the army it was passed back and forth and that toxin traveling outside had to be approved by head quarters after background checks of the recipients were run (00:17:23) Huddleston asks how many shell fish are involved in making one gram of toxin and how they were secured - Schantz responds that it would take several thousand shell fish and that he and people at the University of California Medical School in San Francisco would harvest them at the appropriate time (00:19:05) Senator WALTER MONDALE of Minnesota asks if Schantz assumed the presidential order to destroy toxins applied as well to the shell fish - Schantz responds yes (00:20:55) Footage returns to tv studio with Jim Lehrer who sets up the testimony of the day's second witness Charles Senseney who also worked at Fort Deitrich Biological and Chemical Warfare Center in Maryland - Lehrer explains that Senseney is a hard ware designer and not a toxin handler. Back to the Senate hearing room where Mondale is asking Senseney if he participated in conversations about the CIA's removal of the the poison - Senseney says yes, CIA wanted back the shell fish toxin, Dr. COLLIN came to lab to get back toxin (00:23:03) Smothers asks if Senseney about a dart launcher he developed and how it was tested - Senseney gives details explaining it was designed to be tested on dogs (00:25:07) Lehrer's voice comes over testimony and tells audience that later in hearing Senseney describes other devices he designed to deliver the poison to a person (00:26:35)
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - The mystery of the shell fish toxi
Senator HOWARD BAKER asks Senseney to describe his devices - Senseney talks about an aersol delivery system for roads and railroad tracks, a fountain pen that fires darts, a light switch aerosol operation, a walking cane, an umbrella, a straight pen that was used by a Mr. POWERS on his U2 mission, buttons that hold poisons - there is some joking exchanges within these descriptions between the witness and Baker - when asked about poisoning cigars Senseney responds it would be too easy for him (00:26:45) Baker wants to know if any of these devices were made for or delivered to inteligence agencies - Senseney responds that they were merely shown the possibilites in sort of a sales show - which he adds even members of congress were present at (00:30:06) Senator GARY HART asks if Senseney is familiar with the vulnerabilitiy studies one of which was conducted at the FDA building - Senseney responds that yes he designed a drill for this study that penetrated a water pipe and put dye in the water system (00:31:00) Hart asks if Senseney is familiar with vulnerability study conducted on the New York subway - Senseney responds that yes he participated in it riding the subway and sampling the air - a colleague of his meanwhile had dropped a light bulb from a car that was filled with a mock toxin - it spread rapidly through all the tunnels and Senseney measured its intensity - Hart asks if the test was made known to the city or passengers - Senseney responds no (00:32:23)
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - The mystery of the shell fish toxi
Hart wants to know who requested the tests and if there have been others - Senseney responds that he does not know more than that there is a department which specializes in such tests at Fort Deitrich, he then lists where other tests were conducted. The picture returns to the studio where Nicholas Horac is interviewed by Lehrer and Duke about his perceptions thus far of the investigation - Horac says he wants more details on how much these toxins have been used in U.S. operations abroad (00:34:45) Lehrer introduces the day's final witness Robert Andrews (00:37:39) Back at the hearing room Church asks how inventory records at Deitrich do not account for the 11 grams of shell fish toxin - Andrews responds it was a question of dates (00:38:04) Huddleston asks about the Army accepting a false name in its release of the toxins (00:41:00) Picture returns to the studio and Jim Lehrer who tells the audince the P-600 mystery has been resolved (00:41:49) Back to an earlier day of the trial when Mondale discovers mystery upon asking who P-600 is of CIA director William Colby - P-600 is written on the cans of toxin as who should be referred to about their use (00:42:18) Now footage is shown of today's court precedings and after getting a sketchy answer out of Dr. Schantz, Robert Andrews finally comes forth with the real answer that P-600 is an account number for Fort Deitrich (00:43:34) Back again to the studio and Paul Duke who further interviews Horac about the investigation so far, all men agree the investigation is only digging so deep, they mention that congress is to formulate legislation to deal with all illegal operations everywhere but that the general popular sentiment towards these hearings is that their reforming power is limited (00:46:26)
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - The mystery of the shell fish toxi
Lehrer turns to introduce House Select Committee on Intelligence headed by guest Otis Pike - committee investigating intelligence operations around the Vietnam Tet Offensive of 1968, the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cypress, the coup to over throw the military regime in Portugal and the October war between Israel and its Arab neighbors - in these investigations the white house has refused to turn over documents (00:50:40) Shot changes to that of Duke with Pike on couch in studio - Dukes asks if Pike is prepared to go all the way to court to get the documents requested of the White House and if Pike thinks the White House is taking advantage of the refusal as a way to kill the investigation - Pike answers yes to both questions (00:52:20) Pike feels that the decisions and actions taken by intelligence agencies reveal general incompetence (00:57:20) Shot returns to Jim at the news desk who closes out the show (01:00:48) NPACT and PBS logos (01:01:55)