Death in the backyard: Part 2

I almost never dispute with Diogenes, because I never win. But in this case, with him jumping from topic to topic with no apparent connection, I had to try to get him focused. So I said, “You’re not making sense, you know. What do all these questions lead to, and what is it that’s got you riled?”

“It’s actually a personal matter that lies in the past. I was hoping to avoid making it public, but Kim Jong-nam’s death brought it up front and center in my mind.”

He took a deep breath. “All right. Here’s the context. In November, 1941—just a few weeks before Pearl Harbor, which I find interesting—the army identified a site just south of Newport, Indiana, as suitable for an ammunition plant. E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company was hired as the contractor, and tasked with making the high explosive RDX.

“The plant was an economic boon for the area. And after we became engaged in World War Two, jobs there were especially prized. Those who had been declared unfit for combat were especially pleased, as they were able to make a direct contribution to the war effort.

“There was nothing hush-hush about the plant. It was a huge complex set down on acres of flat farmland, approachable from all directions. It wasn’t secret like Oak Ridge or the Manhattan Project. Nor was there any secret about RDX, or any race to make it. It was used extensively by both sides in the war.

“The plant soon became part of the local background. Despite its military guard and formal name, ‘Wabash River Ordnance Works,’ it was simply called ‘the plant,’ or colloquially and ungrammatically, ‘Dupont’s.’

“In 1942-43 a heavy water production facility was added to the Newport plant to provide deuterium for the nation’s nuclear weapons and research program, including the Manhattan Project. It was shut down in 1945 but reopened in the 1950s to support the Savannah River Site. It finally closed for good in 1957.

“In 1959 the army hired a new contractor to retool the plant as a production site for the nerve agent VX—one of the most toxic substances on the planet. Throughout the 1960s the plant, renamed the Newport Army Chemical Plant, turned out the army’s entire stockpile of that nightmarish weapon.

“Munitions—bombs, rockets, mines—were loaded with VX there and shipped by rail all over the country, as well as to bases abroad. The amount of product made in Newport was measured in the thousands of tons and hundreds of thousands of gallons—and one small drop can kill a person.

“After Nixon ordered production to be stopped in 1969 the military’s entire stockpile was stored there, even though the facility was never designed for storage, and finally it was all finally destroyed between 2005 and 2008.

“At any time during that nearly fifty-year span hundreds of thousands of people could have been killed and thousands of square miles of farmland could have been contaminated by something as simple as a loose valve or a corroded gasket.

“You ask why this has been troubling me; I have family and friends in the area, and visited there many times during the VX period. At no time did anyone I knew there express misgivings about the plant.

“In 1959 the army hired Food Machinery Corporation to run the VX program. I remember my uncle had a thermometer with their advertising on it. And despite the change in contractor and mission, most people I knew continued to refer to the plant as a du Pont operation.

“Consider the army’s actions: they switched the plant’s mission from a factory for making a very stable explosive to making harmless heavy water, then quietly switched to manufacturing an incredibly lethal compound made by the innocuous-sounding Food Machinery Corporation. Today that contractor is FMC, a military megacontractor. This was a process very similar to a classic bait-and-switch, it strikes me that the army put a lot of people at high risk without informing them of the danger.

“Now do you understand why it bothers me? It’s another example of the military-industrial complex caring only for weapons effectiveness and bottom lines, with no concern for civilian safety.”

“All right, I get it. But I still don’t understand where Kim Jong-nam comes in.”

Dio sighed. “Next time.” 

--Richard Brown