Bigeye bomb The Bigeye bomb was a proposed U . S . binary chemical weapon . The Bigeye was a glide bomb designed under the auspices of the U . S . Navy . Initially approved by the Carter administration , the program persisted into the early 1990s . Background . As the stockpile of unitary chemical weapons began to leak in the 1970s the Department of Defense was acutely aware of the public backlash this created . With this in mind the Pentagon insisted it needed a binary chemical weapons program to counter and deter a Soviet or third - world chemical attack . The U . S . Army ' s Chemical Corps was reactivated in 1976 and with it came the increased desire for the Army to acquire a retaliatory chemical capability in the form of that binary chemical weapons program . Initially , the United States was in arms control talks with the Soviet Union and then - President Jimmy Carter rejected Army requests for authorization of the binary chemical weapons program . The talks deteriorated and Carter eventually granted the request . However , at the last minute Carter pulled the provision from the budget , this action left the decision on a retaliatory binary chemical weapons program to Ronald Reagan . History . Bigeye was the codename for the BLU - 80 , a concept conceived during 1959 . During the 1970s at Pine Bluff Arsenal around 200 test articles were produced . Initial contracts for the Bigeye were awarded in June 1988 , to the Marquardt Company , the project ' s primary contractor . The original timeline for the U . S . binary chemical weapons program called for the Bigeye to be deployed by September 1988 . Reagan authorized the spending of more than $ 59 million in 1986 ( $ in present - day terms ) to revive the chemical weapons program , under the original timeline , the Bigeye was to be the first of these weapons produced . After a General Accounting Office ( GAO ) report pointed out numerous flaws in the program the U . S . Senate moved to effectively kill the binary chemical weapons program , including the Bigeye bomb . In 1989 President George H . W . Bush announced that the U . S . would retain the option to produce such binary weapons even after the Chemical Weapons Convention took effect . At the time of his announcement , 1992 was the earliest date Bigeyes were expected to be produced . Specifications . The Bigeye was a roughly bomb delivered by plane . It consisted of two separate canisters of chemical weapons which were combined just before flight . It was the separation that was meant to make handling the weapons simpler by increasing their shelf life and decreasing the amount of maintenance they required . The bomb was a U . S . Navy weapon designed to spray VX nerve agent over a target area by gliding through the air over it . Inside the weapon two compounds , non - toxic by themselves , sulfur and QL , were combined to create VX . The Bigeye bomb would have weighed ; would have been chemical agent , VX in this case . It was to have a length of and a diameter of . The glide bomb had a wingspan of . The Bigeye was not planned to have any guidance , propulsion or autopilot systems . Problems and issues . The 14 year plus , on again off again , Bigeye bomb program was plagued with problems and controversy from its outset . The Chemical Corps was accused of interest in binary chemical weapon s only to enhance its recent reactivation ; critics also charged the Army was opposed to arms control talks . Also criticized was the entire idea of a modern American chemical weapons program . Such a program , the argument went , would actually encourage others to develop chemical weapons , as opposed to acting as a deterrent . The testing , which had dismal results , presented its own set of problems . In 1987 the Navy conducted 58 tests , results were " very inconsistent " . Problems the Navy encountered with the Bigeye included excessive pressure build - up , questions about the lethality of the chemical mixture , unpredictable agent burning , and overall performance concerns . Scientists debated the efficacy of the binary weapons program , especially since the Bigeye had only been tested using simulants . This led to speculation that the binary weapons might be inferior to those unitary weapons they were replacing . The GAO repeatedly backed these assertions , maintaining that the Bigeye was not adequately tested and that it had encountered major technical issues .