Biography: Maj. Gen. Robert Dell Orton, of Little Rock, who managed America’s chemical and biological weapons and then supervised their destruction, died Wednesday morning at his home in Little Rock. He was 70. General Orton had moved to Little Rock with his wife after he retired on July 1, 1997. His work as the Army’s chief weapons scientist had often dealt with Arkansas because of the chemical and biological weaponry stored in the state. He directed the demilitarization of the Pine Bluff Arsenal, where a significant share of the nation’s chemical and biological munitions once were made and stored. He was one of the world’s foremost authorities on nonconventional weapons and their defense. After President George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader of the Soviet Union, signed a bilateral treaty in 1990 to end chemical weapons production and the adoption of the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1993, it became Orton’s job to manage their elimination. He also assisted the Russians and former Soviet states in complying with arms-control measures under the weapons treaty. At his retirement Orton was the Army’s program manager for chemical demilitarization based at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. A scientist by training, Orton had not planned a military career after his original stint of duty as a Reserve Officer Training Corps graduate at the University of Texas, but the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1962 caused all lieutenants to be frozen on active duty. The wall did not come down for another 27 years, but Orton had long since committed to an Army career. His assignments took him to Vietnam, Iran and the first Persian Gulf war, where he was chief of chemical operations. He received the Army Humanitarian Award for managing the evacuation of Americans from Iran after the fall of the Shah in 1979 and before the installation of an anti-American Islamic government. The German government awarded him its highest order for a non-German, the German Federal Armed Forces Gold Cross of Honor, for coordinating the German armed forces’ defense against Iraqi chemical and biological weapons during the first Gulf War. A quiet and deferential man, Orton was not a quintessential warrior. After his promotion to major general in 1992 he said, “it shows that the Army has a sense of humor.” As a young bachelor officer stationed at the Indiana Army Ammunition Plant at Charleston in 1979-80, he sponsored a community Brownie troop. His permanent Arkansas connection was his marriage in 1985 to Sylvia Spencer, a University of Arkansas graduate and former United Press International reporter at Little Rock who at the time was an administrative assistant to U. S. Rep. Beryl Anthony of El Dorado. At Little Rock after his retirement he was a board member of the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History. Orton was born Oct. 12, 1939, in Sioux City, Iowa, to Robert A. and Olga Jensen Orton. He grew up in El Paso, Texas, and towns along the Mexican border where his father was a U. S. Border Patrol agent. He received a bachelor of arts degree in English and a bachelor of science degree in Chemistry from the University of Texas at Austin, a master of science degree in chemistry from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at Troy, N.Y., and an advanced management degree from the University of Iowa at Iowa City. He entered the Army expecting to do 18 months of active duty and to finish his commitment in the Reserves, but the Berlin crisis changed his plans. During the Vietnam War he was chemical adviser to the Third Vietnamese Corps. Among his assignments were a stint with the Third Armored Division in Germany, professor of chemistry at the U. S. Military Academy at West Point, commander of the Indiana Army Depot, commander of Army chemical activity on Johnston Island in the North Pacific where chemical weapons were tested and stored and later destroyed, program manager for the production of binary chemical munitions, chief of chemical for the Army, and deputy commanding general and then commanding general at the Fort McClellan, Ala., Army Chemical School. In his final role as program manager for chemical demilitarization, he structured an acquisition program for the Defense Department to rapidly and safely destroy the world’s most lethal non-nuclear weapons. Under his direction, the Pentagon obtained health and environmental permits and contracted for the design, constructing and operating chemical-destruction facilities and he advised eastern-block nations on the implementation of new arms controls. His awards included the Distinguished Service Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, Legion of Merit with four Oak Leaf Clusters, Bronze Star Medal, Air Medal, National Defense Medal, Vietnam Service Medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters and the Republic of Vietnam Honor Medal. He was inducted into the Chemical Corps Hall of Fame. A memorial service will be held Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 10:00 a.m. at Pulaski Heights United Methodist Church to give soldier friends who are in Afghanistan a chance to attend. Burial will be at Arlington Cemetery in Arlington, VA on Thursday, August 19, 2010 at 1:00 p.m. In Lieu of flowers memorials should be made to the Walter Reed Society; P.O. Box 59611 Washington DC 20012-9611, the U.S.O.; P.O. Box 96860 Washington DC 20077-7677, the Chemical Corp Regimental Assoc.; P.O. Box 437 Fort Lindenwood MO 65473, the Methodist Children’s Home of Little Rock, or The Methodist Church. Arrangements are under the direction of Ruebel Funeral Home, www.ruebelfuneralhome.com