‘Chemical is Not Impossible’: the development of the Chemical Agent Monitor and the resulting paradigm shift in chemical warfare agent detection

Since their first use in 1915, the threat of chemical weapons has driven a need for defensive capabilities for detection and warning systems. Meeting this need, a series of paradigm shifts in detection technology occurred between World War I and the 1980s and ending with the Chemical Agent Monitor (CAM) as it was deployed in 1985. This thesis evaluates CAM as a case study within the larger history of chemical warfare agent detection, examining how its success was brought about by the confluence of individual, government, private, and national relationships.

The research makes use of a new collection of oral history interviews with former government and private industry scientists and engineers who worked on the development of CAM and related technologies between 1970 and 1990. This original source material is used alongside archival documents, government and private papers, photos, and archival videos to present the first historical study of chemical warfare agent detection. It builds the narrative of the larger world of detection, then focuses on CAM as a case study through the different lenses of oral and archival sources to build a picture of the culture, relationships, institutions, and science which enabled CAM’s success.

This study shows the importance of vapour detection in chemical warfare and the motivations which drove its development. It provides the first narrative of chemical warfare agent detection and proposes a five-step process of detection development for detection technologies from this overview. It demonstrates the critical role of individual, institutional, and US-UK relationships to the successful paradigm shift in detector technology which CAM represented, detailing the approval process for CAM and its operational and tactical value to UK and Allied chemical warfare capabilities.