from a US reader Twenty-two American scientists, seven of them Nobel prize winners, have asked President Johnson that the armed services stop using chemical weapons against crops and people in Vietnam. They have initiated a petition to the President, citing the dangers of chemical and biological weapons, and warns that any breach in the restraints in using them - such as is represented by the employment of anticrop sprays and tear gas in Vietnam - can only encourage the use of other and even more devastating weapons. Their petition is now being circulated to members of the Federation of Americ,gn Scientists for their signature. The initial signers issued a statement pointing out that "chemical and biological weapons could be far more dengerous as instruments of mass extermination than anything except nuclear weapons." They observe that in Werld War II the nation held to a policy of never initiating chemical or biological warfare, and state that "the large scale use of anticrop and ‘nonlethal! antipersonal chemical weapons in Vietnam ... sets a dangerous precedent." The petition asks for a White House study of national policy on such weapons and their control, and end to their use un Vietnam and a statement that this nation will not be the first to use them. The 22 scientists are Felix Bloch of Stanford University, Konrad Bloch of Harvard University, James Crow of Wisconsin, William Doering of Yale, Paul Doto of Harvard, Freeman Dyson of the Institute of Advanced Study, John Edsall of Harvard, Bernard Feld of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Irwin Gunsalus of Illinois University, Robert Livingstone of the School of Medicine, San Diego, Matthew Meselson of Harvard, Severo Ochoa of the New York University School of Mecicine, Ray Owen of the California Institute of Technology, Keith Porter of Harvard, Charles Price of the University of Pennsylvania, Eugene Rabinovitch of Illinois, E.L. Tatum of Rockefeller University, George Wald of Harvard, and Paul Dudley White, Boston cardinologist.
ane