Dew of Death: The Story of Lewisite, America's World War I Weapon of Mass Destruction

Joel Vilensky's bookis a detailed and immensely useful account of the development and history of one ofthe major chemical weapons.... We will always know how to make lewisite, the 'Dew ofDeath, ' but that does not mean that we should, or be compelled to accept suchweapons in our lives. — from the Foreword by Richard Butler, former head ofUN Special Commission to Disarm Iraq

In 1919, when the Great Warwas over, the New York Times reported on a new chemical weapon with thefragrance of geranium blossoms, a poison gas that was the climax of thiscountry's achievements in the lethal arts. The name of this substance waslewisite and this is its story — the story of an American weapon of massdestruction.

Discovered by accident by a graduate student andpriest in a chemistry laboratory at the Catholic University of America inWashington, D.C., lewisite was developed into a weapon by Winford Lewis, who becameits namesake, working with a team led by James Conant, later president of Harvardand head of government oversight for the U.S.'s atomic bomb program, the ManhattanProject. After a powerful German counterattack in the spring of 1918, the governmentbegan frantic production of lewisite in hopes of delivering 3,000 tons of the stuffto be ready for use in Europe the following year. The end of war came just as thefirst shipment was being prepared. It was dumped into the sea, but not forgotten.

Joel A. Vilensky tells the intriguing story of the discovery anddevelopment of lewisite and its curious history. During World War II, the UnitedStates produced more than 20,000 tons of lewisite, testing it on soldiers andsecretly dropping it from airplanes. In the end, the substance was abandoned as aweapon because it was too unstable under most combat conditions. But a weapon oncediscovered never disappears. It was used by Japan in Manchuria and by Iraq in itswar with Iran. The Soviet Union was once a major manufacturer. Strangely enough, although it was developed for lethal purposes, lewisite led to an effectivetreatment for a rare neurological disease.