During World War II, President Roosevelt announced a no-first-use policy but had promised instant retaliation for any Axis use of chemical agents. Over 600 military casualties and an unknown number of civilian casualties resulted from the 1943 German bombing in Bari Harbor, Italy, of the John Harvey, an American ship loaded with two thousand 100-pound mus bombs.
At the end of the war stockpiles of newer agents, called "nerve gases," were discovered. These were found to be effective in much lower concentrations than those agents known up to that time. The end of World War II did not stop the development or stockpiling of chemical weapons.
The U.S., which used defoliants and riot-control agents in Vietnam and Laos, finally ratified the Geneva Protocol in 1975 but with the stated reservation that the treaty did not apply either to defoliants or to riot-control agents.
US policy renounces the first use of lethal or incapacitating chemical agents. However, it retains the right to retaliate if deterrence fails to prevent the enemy's first use of chemicals. As is the case with nuclear weapons, the President of the United States must approve the initial use of chemical weapons. This approval procedure is known as chemical release.
The United States stockpile of unitary lethal chemical warfare munitions consists of various rockets, projectiles, mines, and bulk items containing blister agents (mus H, HD, HT) and nerve agents (VX, GB). About 60% of this stockpile is in bulk storage containers; 40% is stored in munitions, many of which are now obsolete. The stockpile is stored at eight sites throughout the Continental US (Edgewood Chemical Activity, MD; Anniston Chemical Activity, AL; Blue Grass Chemical Activity, KY; Newport Chemical Depot, IN; Pine Bluff Chemical Activity, AR; Pueblo Chemical Depot, CO; Deseret Chemical Activity, UT; and Umatilla Chemical Depot, OR) and at one site outside of the Continental US on Johnston Atoll.
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