"BAC" wrote in message
...


I thought that good old fashioned paranoia drove that particular debate.
While the original idea was to destroy the samples, various states felt
they
couldn't trust other states to destroy their samples. The fear was that
the
only state with smallpox samples had both a proven germ warfare agent,
AND
the means of making the vaccine for their own population. Neither USA nor
the USSR were going to let that happen


That is correct. However, IIRC, there was also concern expressed about
whether it was morally justifiable to bring about the extinction of the
organism. Probably just 'spin' :-)


give a politician a chance of striking a final moral pose or actually
telling the truth and guess which they pick ;-))

Jim Webster