Adele Ferguson-Nerve gas threat in Syria recalls NW crisis in 1969

“I SEE WHERE the president of Syria is threatening to use sarin nerve gas to quell the revolution aimed at getting him out of office and we are concerned it might wind up in the hands of terrorists,” said a caller. “Didn’t we have a problem with nerve gas once?”

Indeed we did, right here in Washington state. We were never told it was sarin, an amount of which on the point of a pin can kill you, just that nerve gas was coming. And that was thanks to an amendment to the military procurement bill in 1969 requiring that governors be notified when shipments of such chemicals would be crossing their...