Secret and Suppressed: Banned Ideas and Hidden History by Jim Keith Read Free Book Online Page B

Palestinians.
     
Greenham Common
     
    When DOD develops a weapon it can be said with certainty that it will be tested and, if possible, where it would be useful to meet their goals. Women peace activists have kept an ongoing vigil at the periphery of the U.S. Air Force base at Greenham in England since 1981. They are protesting build-up of nuclear weapons. The U.S. Cruise missiles, which are nuclear warheads small enough to be mounted on the back of a truck called a launcher vehicle, arrived at the base in March, 1984. Since then the women in the encampment and members of the Cuisewatch network have ensured that when the launcher vehicle and its convoy are taken out into the British countryside, the “dispersal exercises” aren’t as secret as the military intended them to be. The women of the network, non-violent activists, have been subjected to intense harassment in an effort to be rid of their presence.
     
    In the Fall of 1984, things changed dramatically; many, if not most of the women began suffering illness; and, simultaneously, the massive police and military presence at the base virtually disappeared, and new and different antenna were installed at the base. In a report prepared by Rosalie Bertell, commissioner for International Commission of Health Professionals for Human Rights, a non-governmental organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, the unusual patterns of illness ranged from “severe headaches, drowsiness, menstrual bleeding at abnormal times or post-menopausal, to bouts of temporary paralysis, faulty speech coordination and in one case apparent circulatory failure requiring hospitalization.”
     
    Other symptoms documented by peace activist Kim Bealy, who coordinates investigations into reports of illness at specific places around the base, included; vertigo, retinal bleeding, burnt face (even at night), nausea, sleep disturbances and palpitations. Psychological symptoms included lack of concentration, disorientation, loss of memory, irritability and a sense of panic in non-panic situations. The symptoms have virtually all been associated in medical literature with exposure to microwaves and most listed can be induced through low intensity or non-thermal exposures.
(Editor’s note: such devices were utilized as “psychological deterrents” during the siege of the Branch Davidian compound at Waco.)
     
    Measurements were taken around the base by members of Electronics for Peace and by others. Strong signals, up to one hundred times the normal background level were detected on a number of occasions. In fact, signals ten times stronger than those felt to be emanating from normal base transmitting systems were found.
     
    The strongest signals generally appeared in the areas where the women said that they suffered ill effects. For instance, they were found to cover the women’s encampment near the “green gate” (gates to the base are designated by color), but stopped abruptly at the edge of the road leading to the gate. The strength of the signals were also found to reflect the activity of the women: e.g., they increased rapidly when the women started a demonstration. Visitors to the encampment, both men and women, reported experiencing the same types of symptoms and the same pattern of variation as the Greenham women.
     
    In a review prepared by National Bureau of Standards, Law Enforcement Standards Laboratory, for Nuclear Defense Agency, Intelligence and Security Directorate, use of low intensity microwaves was considered for application as a “psychological deterrent.” The report stated, “…microwave radiation has frequently been cited as being responsible for non-thermal effects in integrated central nervous system activity. The behavioral consequences most frequently reported have been disability, listlessness and increased irritability.” The report fails to mention just as frequently cited low intensity microwave health effects as chromosome damage; congenital birth defects;