For decades, nations had debated the use of unconventional weapons. In World War I, many saw Germany's use of chlorine gas, a chemical weapon, as an outrageous violation of the norms of war and a corruption of science.
Jeanne Guillemin, Sociologist: Wonderful things came out of modern chemistry that improved people's lives. But, unfortunately in World War I, you find that a great science can be exploited for military purposes.
Narrator: In 1925, in Geneva, over thirty nations signed a protocol banning first use of unconventional weapons -- germs and chemicals alike.
Richard Preston, Author: A chemical weapon is a poison. And it kills usually very rapidly. A biological weapon is a microorganism. A biological weapon is alive. And like all other life forms, what it wants to do is survive and reproduce itself.
Narrator: The U.S. signed, but didn't ratify the Geneva Protocol -- an agreement which still permitted research and production of germ weapons.
By the late 1930s, as tensions rose in Europe, the door was open to the scientific creation of new weapons of mass destruction.
Jeanne Guillemin, Sociologist: This war coming in 1939, 1940, was envisioned as a war of scientists against scientists. Whoever had the best scientists was going to win this war.
Narrator: In 1944, V-1 rockets launched from Germany pounded London, raising British fears of a Nazi biological attack.
The fears would prove unfounded, but not before British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had placed an urgent order with the U.S. for half a million anthrax bomblets. "Pray let me know when they will be available," he wrote. "We should regard it as a first installment."
The British request far exceeded Detrick's capacity. To fill it, Ira Baldwin began converting an old munitions factory in Vigo, Indiana. The new plant was designed as a gigantic industrial assembly line that could produce anthrax bacteria by the ton.
Still, critics at the highest levels of American government voiced concerns about the germ program. Admiral William Leahy, President Roosevelt's chief of staff, said that using germ weapons, "would violate every Christian ethic I have ever heard of and all of the known laws of war." But in a time of national crisis, Leahy's objections were not enough to slow the momentum of the U.S. program.
In December 1944, reports came of a potential germ attack on the United States -- launched by Japan. Balloons began to fall from the western skies of North America. Amid worries that the balloons might contain a biological agent, Detrick dispatched a scientist to one of the crash sites.
The balloons contained only explosives. Still, the incident fueled the fears that kept America's biological program moving forward.