D) in the spring of 1944, while working for the German Army on the pharmacology of Tabun and Sarin. The documents detailing the discovery were buried in a mineshaft 10 miles east of Berlin, where they were discovered by the Soviets and removed. The Soviets produced and stockpiled Soman during the Cold War.Back to Top *nerve_history.html* VX *../agents/vx.html*Several chemical companies and other scientists working independently discovered the potency of a class of organophosphate esters of substituted 2-aminoethanethiols in 1952 and 1953. Almost simultaneously in 1954:ICI brought Amiton (O,O-diethyl-S-[2-(diethylamino)ethyl] phosphorothiolate) to market; R. Ghosh and J. F. Newman of ICI submitted a manuscript containing the details of this class of compounds (A New Group of Organophosphate Pesticides, Chemistry and Industry, 1955, 118); Schrader, now at Farbenfabriken Bayer AG, prepared S-[2-(diethylamino)ethyl]-O-isopropyl methylphosphonothioate; Tammelin at the Swedish government's chemical warfare defense laboratory prepared S-[2-(diethylamino)ethyl]-O-ethyl methylphosphonothiolate and S-[2-(dimethylamino)ethyl]-O-isopropyl methylphosphonothiolate; and Ghosh at ICI prepared S-[2-(diethylamino)ethyl]-O-ethyl ethylphosphonothiolate. A Soviet team form the I. M. Sechenov Institute in Leningrad had already predicted the anticholinesterase activity of S-2-dialkylaminoethyl phosphono- and phosphorothiolates. The British CW laboratory at Porton began investigating this class of compounds, and notified the US CW laboratory at Edgewood, which began a systematic investigation of the entire class. In 1958, the US selected VX *../agents/vx.html* (S-[2-[bis(1-methylethyl)amino]ethyl]-O-ethyl methylphosphonothiolate) for manufacture. Construction of the production plant began in 1959; production ran from 1961 through 1968.An interesting (and perhaps apocryphal) footnote concerns the chemical structure of VX *../agents/vx.html*, which the US govern...
