The State - News from July 17, 1985

Even before the United States entered World War II, American scientists were considering plans to poison Germans and Japanese with radioactive materials, according to a report based on declassified government papers. Stanford University history professor Barton J. Bernstein said a panel of scientists chaired by Nobel physicist Arthur Holly Compton were talking about such proposals as lacing milk with radioactive strontium and dusting crops with nuclear waste seven months before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Bernstein said the papers indicated U.S. officials feared that Germany planned to attack the United States with bombs spreading radioactive material.