This book was written with the support of the United States Institute of Peace (grant SG-36-98). In previous books I have considered biological agents generally (Biological Warfare in the 21st Century, 1994) and incapacitating chemical agents (A New Form of Warfare, 1996). Here, I have tried to deal more fully with new (midspectrum) agents that fall between living biological agents and classical chemical agents on the spectrum of chemical and biological threats.
In writing the book I have received much help. I would like to thank both Alistair Hay of the University of Leeds and my colleague Simon Whitby for the use of some of their original source material. I am once again particularly grateful to Julian Perry-Robinson for access to the Harvard-Sussex archive of material on chemical and biological arms and arms control. I have also to thank the Bradford University Life Science librarian Ann Costigan and Mary Pat Wilhelm from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School who replaced her during their academic exchange visits. Both were always willing to assist with my requests for diverse computer database searches and were interested in what I was trying to discover.
My thanks to Mandy Oliver for coming to the rescue in typing drafts during the end game, and most of all to my wife, Janet, for typing most of the manuscript, proofreading, and endless efforts to clarify my meaning. I am of course responsible for any errors that remain.
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