Misplaced Pages

Allegations that the United States military used biological weapons in the Korean War (June 1950 – July 1953) were raised by the governments of the People's Republic of China, the Soviet Union, and North Korea. The claims were first raised in 1951. The story was covered by the worldwide press and led to a highly publicized international investigation in 1952. Secretary of State Dean Acheson and other American and allied government officials denounced the allegations as a hoax. Subsequent scholars are split about the truth of the claims.

Background

Until the end of World War II, Japan operated a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit called Unit 731 in Harbin (now China). The unit's activities, including human experimentation, were documented by the Khabarovsk War Crime Trials conducted by the Soviet Union in December 1949. Although the US government at the time described the Khabarovsk trials as "vicious and unfounded propaganda", it was later revealed that the accusations made against the Japanese military were correct. The US government had taken over the research at the end of the war and had then covered up the program. Leaders of Unit 731 were exempted from war crimes prosecution by the United States and then placed on the payroll of the US.

On 30 June 1950, soon after the outbreak of the Korean War, the US Defense Secretary George Marshall received the Report of the Committee on Chemical, Biological and Radiological Warfare and Recommendations, which advocated urgent development of a biological weapons program. The biological weapons research facility at Fort Detrick, Maryland was expanded, and a new one in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, was developed. In December 1951, as the war turned against the United States, the Defense Secretary ordered early readiness for using biological weapons offensively.

Allegations

The Chinese and North Koreans made allegations, both publicly and at the United Nations, of U.S use of biological warfare. In a May 8, 1951 cablegram from the Foreign Minister of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Pak Hon-yong, to the President of the UN Security Council. Pak cited documents captured from South Korean forces that described plans "for the use of bacteria in diversionary work on the territory of North Korea." One plan, allegedly drawn up by "Section 3 of the Intelligence Bureau of the Staff of the South Korean Army," described spreading infectious material in "Army kitchens," "police mess-rooms," "city reservoirs," and "houses of army, government and party leaders," and other areas. These plans also called for spreading bacteria in eleven different towns, as well as against "units of the People's Army." In addition, Pak charged that "several areas" had been "infected with small-pox sickness 7 to 8 days after their liberation from American occupation." Pak said there were smallpox cases in Pyongyang and five outlying DPRK provinces, amounting to at least 3,500 smallpox cases, allegedly due to deliberate spread of variola virus. Ultimately, these charges were not pursued, but when in 1952 the Communists took up the germ war charges again, they did refer back to the 1951 smallpox cases. General Matthew Ridgway, United Nations Commander in Korea, denounced the initial charges as early as May 1951. He accused the communists of spreading "deliberate lies". A few days later, Vice Admiral Charles Turner Joy repeated the denials.

On 28 January 1952, the Chinese People's Volunteer Army headquarters received a report of a smallpox outbreak southeast of Incheon. From February to March 1952, more bulletins reported disease outbreaks in the area of Chorwon, Pyongyang, Kimhwa and even Manchuria. The Chinese soon became concerned when 13 Korean and 16 Chinese soldiers contracted cholera and the plague, while another 44 recently deceased were tested positive for meningitis. Although the Chinese and the North Koreans did not know exactly how the soldiers contracted the diseases, the suspicions soon fell on the Americans.

On 22 February 1952, Pak Hon-yong made a formal allegation that American planes had been dropping infected insects onto North Korea. He added that the Americans were "openly collaborating with the Japanese bacteriological war criminals, the former jackals of the Japanese militarists whose crimes are attested to by irrefutable evidence. Among the Japanese war criminals sent to Korea were Shirō Ishii, Masaji Kitano, and Jirō Wakamatsu." Pak's accusations were immediately denied by the US government. The accusation was supported by eye-witness accounts by Australian reporter Wilfred Burchett and others.

In June 1952, the United States proposed to the United Nations Security Council that the Council request the International Red Cross investigate the allegations. The Soviet Union vetoed the American resolution due to extensive US influence inside the Red Cross, and, along with its allies, continued to insist on the veracity of the biological warfare accusations.

In February 1953, China and North Korea produced two captured U.S. Marine Corps pilots to support the allegations. Colonel Frank Schwable was reported to have stated that: "The basic objective was at that time to get under field conditions various elements of bacteriological warfare and possibly expand field tests at a later date into an element of regular combat operations." Schwable's statement said that B-29s flew biological warfare missions to Korea from airfields in American-occupied Okinawa starting in November 1951. Schwable's statement was obtained following months of torture and abuse at the hands of his captors, according to the US military. Other captured Americans such as Colonel Walker "Bud" Mahurin made similar statements.

Despite the allegations of torture, a United Press report in February 1954 described how U.S. flyers had been instructed by their superior officers that if they were captured on missions they could, according to Marine Major Walter R. Harris, "tell anything you want to." Similarly, Marine Colonel -- and Medal of Honor recipient -- R. E. Galer, who, like Schwable, had been shot down over Korea, said, according to an Associated Press report, that "the Strategic Air Command and other Air Force units briefed their men to tell more than their names, rank and serial numbers.”

At the Winter 1954 Marine Corps Board of Inquiry hearing on Colonel Frank Schwable's alleged collaboration with his Chinese captors, the Commandant of the Marine Corps admitted "the conflicting nature of existing instructions relative to the conduct of members of the armed forces while held as prisoners of war." Meanwhile, several paragraphs on what exact instructions had been given to the flyers were redacted in the publication of the Inquiry's findings as published in The New York Times.

Upon release the prisoners of war repudiated their confessions, which they said had been extracted by torture. However, the retractions happened in front of military cameras after the United States government threatened to charge the POWs with treason for cooperating with their captors. Kenneth Enoch, one of the former POWs who retracted his confession, was tracked down in 2010 by Al Jazeera reporters. He denied being ill-treated or indoctrinated by the North Korean or Chinese guards or playing any personal role in biological weapons attacks, but said "they send it with you."

International Scientific Commission

When the International Red Cross and the World Health Organization ruled out biological warfare, the Chinese government denounced them as being biased by the influence of the US, and arranged an investigation by the Soviet-affiliated World Peace Council. The World Peace Council set up the "International Scientific Commission for the Facts Concerning Bacterial Warfare in China and Korea" (ISC). This commission had several distinguished scientists and doctors from France, Italy, Sweden, Brazil and Soviet Union, including renowned British biochemist and sinologist Joseph Needham. The commission's findings included dozens of eyewitnesses, testimonies from doctors, medical samples from the deceased, bomb casings as well as four American Korean War prisoners who confirmed the US use of biological warfare. On 15 September 1952, the final report was signed, stating that the US was experimenting with biological weapons in Korea.

The report suggested a link to the World War II Japanese germ warfare Unit 731. Former Unit 731 members Shirō Ishii, Masaji Kitano, and Ryōichi Naitō, as well as other Japanese biological warfare experts, were often named in the allegations. Former members of Unit 731 were linked initially, by a Communist news agency, to a freighter that allegedly carried them and all equipment necessary to mount a biological warfare campaign to Korea in 1951. The commission placed credence on allegations that Ishii made two visits to South Korea in early 1952, and another one in March 1953. The official consensus in China was that biological weapons created from an American-Japanese collaboration were used in the Korean episode. Citing the claims Ishii had visited South Korea, the report stated: "Whether occupation authorities in Japan had fostered his activities, and whether the American Far Eastern Command was engaged in making use of methods essentially Japanese, were questions which could hardly have been absent from the minds of members of the Commission."

The International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) publicized these claims in its 1952 "Report on U.S. Crimes in Korea", as did US journalist John W. Powell.

The Sams mission

The Communists also alleged that US Brigadier General Crawford Sams had carried out a secret mission behind their lines at Wonsan in March 1951, testing biological weapons. The US government said that he had actually been investigating a reported outbreak of bubonic plague in North Korea, but had determined it was hemorrhagic smallpox. Sams' mission had been launched from the US Navy's LCI(L)-1091, which had been converted to a laboratory ship in 1951. During its time in Korea, the ship was assigned as an epidemiological control ship for Fleet Epidemic Disease Control Unit No. 1, a part of the US effort to combat malaria in Korea. After covert missions in North Korea, from October to September 1951, LSIL-1091 was at Koje-do testing residents and refugees for malaria.

Some authors have emphasized Sams' relationship with biological warfare actors, which both China and North Korea found suspicious. According to Japanese historian, Takemae Eiji, Sams had a relationship with the former members of Imperial Japan's biological warfare department, Unit 731. Appointed by General MacArthur as the head of the post-war Occupation government's Public Health & Welfare Section, Sams was instrumental in founding Japan's National Institute of Health, whose first deputy director, Kojima Saburō, was an Ishii associate. Saburō then recruited other former Unit 731 personnel for the new Institute. According to Eiji, "Sams and others in PH&W not only knew of these men's sordid pasts but actively solicited their cooperation to further PH&W goals.... Sams and his staff became, in effect, co-conspirators after the fact in those wartime crimes".

Counterclaims

The US and its allies responded by describing the allegations as a hoax. The US government declared the IADL to be a Communist front organization since 1950, and charged Powell with sedition. In a highly publicized 1959 trial, Powell was indicted on 13 counts of sedition for reporting on the allegations, while two of his editors were indicted on one count of sedition each. All charges were dropped after the trial ended in mistrial after five years. However, Powell was then blacklisted and thereafter unable to secure work as a journalist for the rest of his life.

According to news reports during the trial, the U.S. Attorney in the case, James B. Schnake, submitted an affidavit in which he stated the U.S. government was prepared to stipulate "that during the period Jan. 1, 1949, through July 27, 1953, the United States Army had a capability to wage both chemical and biological warfare offensively and defensively.... Responsible officials in the Department of Defense have determined the revelations of detailed records on this subject would be highly detrimental to the national security."

American authorities long denied the charges of postwar Japanese-United States cooperation in biological warfare developments, despite later incontrovertible proof that the US pardoned Unit 731 in exchange for their research, according to Sheldon H. Harris. But in December 1998, in a letter from Department of Justice official Eli Rosenbaum to Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a U.S. government official admitted that the U.S. had made an amnesty agreement with Shiro Ishii and personnel from Unit 731, despite known crimes committed by Ishii and associates concerning illegal human experimentation. The letter wasn't made public until published by Jeffrey Kaye in May 2017.

Australian journalist, Denis Warner, suggested that the story was concocted by Wilfred Burchett as part of his alleged role as a KGB agent of influence. Warner pointed out the similarity of the allegations to a science fiction story by Jack London, a favorite author of Burchett's. However, the notion that Burchett originated the "hoax" has been decisively refuted by one of his most trenchant critics, Tibor Méray. Méray worked as a correspondent for the Hungarian People's Republic during the war but fled the country after the abortive Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Now a staunch anti-Communist, he has confirmed that he saw clusters of flies crawling on ice. Méray has argued the evidence was the result of an elaborate conspiracy: "Now somehow or other these flies must have been brought there ... the work must have been carried out by a large network covering the whole of North Korea."

Disease prevention measures

Recent research has indicated that, regardless of the accuracy of the allegations, the Chinese acted as if they were true. After learning of the outbreaks, Mao Zedong immediately requested Soviet assistance on disease preventions, while the Chinese People's Liberation Army General Logistics Department was mobilized for anti-bacteriological warfare. On the Korean battlefield, four anti-bacteriological warfare research centers were soon set up, while about 5.8 million doses of vaccine and 200,000 gas masks were delivered to the front. Within China, 66 quarantine stations were also set up along the Chinese borders, while about 5 million Chinese in Manchuria were inoculated. The Chinese government also initiated the "Patriotic Health and Epidemic Prevention Campaign" and directed every citizen to kill flies, mosquitoes and fleas. These disease prevention measures soon resulted in an improvement of health for Communist soldiers on the Korean battlefield. Tibor Méray provided eyewitness account of North Korea conducting an "unprecedented campaign of public health" during the allegation.

Subsequent evaluation

Some historians have offered other explanations to the disease outbreaks during the spring of 1952. For example, it has been noted that spring time is usually a period of epidemics within China and North Korea, and years of warfare had also caused a breakdown in the Korean health care system. US military historians have argued that under these circumstances, diseases could easily spread throughout the entire military and civilian populations within Korea.

In 1986, Australian historian Gavan McCormack argued that the claim of US biological warfare use was "far from inherently implausible", pointing out that one of the POWs who confessed, Walker Mahurin, was in fact associated with Fort Detrick. He also pointed out that, as the deployment of nuclear and chemical weapons was considered, there is no reason to believe that ethical principles would have overruled the resort to biological warfare. He also suggested that the outbreak in 1951 of viral haemorrhagic fever, which had previously been unknown in Korea, was linked to biological warfare. However, by 2004, McCormack had changed his mind. In a book about North Korea, he wrote that the alleged Soviet archival documents published by Kathryn Weathersby and Milton Leitenberg in 1998 (see discussion in section on "Endicott and Hagerman" below) had “provided a fragmentary, but persuasive, explanation of what had actually happened” in relation to the germ warfare charges. According to McCormack, “Analysis of these documents makes it seem almost certain that there was a vigorous, complex, contrived, and fraudulent international campaign on the part of the North Koreans, the Chinese, and the Russians — a gigantic fraud….”

In a 1988 book Korea: The Unknown War, historians Jon Halliday and Bruce Cumings also suggested the claims might be true. They questioned whether the North Koreans and the Chinese could have "mounted a spectacular piece of fraudulent theater, involving the mobilization of thousands", getting scores of Chinese doctors, scientists, and senior officials "to fake evidence, lie and invent medical fraud", allocating much of their already stretched logistical resource to defend against biological warfare, all for a propaganda campaign against US.

In 1989, a British study of Unit 731 strongly supported the theory of United States–Japanese biological warfare culpability in Korea.

In 1995, using available Chinese documents, historian Shu Guang Zhang of the University of Maryland stated that there is little, if any information that currently exists on the Chinese side which explains how the Chinese scientists came up with the conclusion of US biological warfare during the disease outbreak in the spring of 1952. Zhang further theorized that the allegation was caused by unfounded rumors and scientific investigations on the allegation was purposely ignored on the Chinese side for the sake of domestic and international propaganda.

Published in Japan in 2001, the book Rikugun Noborito Kenkyujo no shinjitsu or The Truth About the Army Noborito Institute stated that members of Japan's Unit 731 also worked for the "chemical section" of a US clandestine unit hidden within Yokosuka Naval Base during the Korean War as well as on projects inside the United States from 1955 to 1959.

According to Jeffrey Kaye's interpretation of a "Memorandum of Conversation" from the Psychological Strategy Board (PSB) dated 6 July 1953 (and declassified and released by the CIA in 2006), the US protestations at the United Nations did not mean the US was serious about conducting any investigation into biological warfare charges, despite what the government said publicly. The reason the US didn't want any investigation was because an "actual investigation" would reveal military operations, "which, if revealed, could do us psychological as well as military damage". The memorandum, which had been sent to CIA director Allen Dulles, specifically stated as an example of what could be revealed "Eighth Army preparations or operations (e.g. chemical warfare)."

Investigative journalist Simon Winchester concluded in 2008 that Soviet intelligence was sceptical of the allegation, but that North Korean leader Kim Il Sung believed it. Winchester said the question "has still not been satisfactorily answered".

Entomologist Jeffrey A. Lockwood wrote in 2009 that the biological warfare program at Ft. Detrick began to research the use of insects as disease vectors going back to World War II and also employed German and Japanese scientists after the war who had experimented on human subjects among POWs and concentration camp inmates. Scientists used or attempted to use a wide variety of insects in their biowar plans, including fleas, ticks, ants, lice and mosquitoes – especially mosquitoes that carried the yellow fever virus. They also tested these in the United States. Lockwood thinks that it is very likely that the US did use insects dropped from aircraft during the Korean War to spread diseases, and that the Chinese and North Koreans were not simply engaged in a propaganda campaign when they made these allegations, since the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of Defense had approved their use in the fall of 1950 at the "earliest practicable time". At that time, it had five biowarfare agents ready for use, three of which were spread by insect vectors.

In March 2010, the allegations were investigated by the Al Jazeera English news program People & Power. In this program, Professor Mori Masataka investigated historical artifacts in the form of bomb casings from US biological weapons, contemporary documentary evidence and eyewitness testimonies. The program also uncovered a crucial document in the US National Archives which showed that in September 1951, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff issued orders to start "large scale field tests ... to determine the effectiveness of specific BW agents under operational conditions". Masataka concluded that: "Use of germ weapons in war is in breach of the Geneva Convention. I think that's why the Americans are refusing to admit the allegations. But I have no doubt. I'm absolutely sure that this happened.” The program concluded by noting that no conclusive evidence of the US's innocence or culpability has ever been presented.

Yanhuang Chunqiu, a liberal monthly journal in China, published an account in 2013 allegedly from Wu Zhili, the former surgeon general of Chinese People's Voluntary Army Logistic Department, which said that the bio warfare allegation was a false alarm, and that he had been forced to fabricate evidence. This account was published after the author's death in 2008. Its authenticity subsequently has been called into question by the Chinese Memorial of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea as unverifiable, because every single figure involved in the alleged private conversations and insider events from the account who could testify otherwise, had died before the date of publication. The museum also refuted the account's claim that "not one casualty resulted from events associated with biological warfare" as there are many clear records of such casualties, and claimed that it's implausible for a meager medical officer back then to have the technical knowledge to fool dozens of international medical experts signing the ISC report.

In 2019, the Pyongyang Times repeated the allegation, and said that the US government was continuing to develop biological warfare capabilities to use against North Korea.

Endicott and Hagerman

In 1998, Canadian researchers and historians Stephen L. Endicott and Edward Hagerman of York University made the case that the accusations were true in their book, The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets from the Early Cold War and Korea. Shanghai-born Endicott, a Communist sympathizer, was the son of clergyman James Gareth Endicott, a prominent member of the Soviet-affiliated World Peace Council.

A US Military Academy professor called the book an example of "bad history" and with another review in The New York Times calling the book's lack of direct evidence "appalling". Other reviews praised the book, with the director of East Asian studies at University of Pennsylvania saying "Endicott and Hagerman is far and away the most authoritative work on the subject", a review in Korean Quarterly calling it "a fascinating work of serious scholarship...presenting a compelling argument that the United States did, in fact, secretly experiment with biological weapons during the Korean War", and a review in The Nation calling it "the most impressive, expertly researched and, as far as the official files allow, the best-documented case for the prosecution yet made". A staff writer at state-owned China Daily noted that their book was the only one to have combined research across United States, Japan, Canada, Europe and China, as they were "the first foreigners to be given access to classified documents in the Chinese Central Archives".

In response, Kathryn Weathersby and Milton Leitenberg of the Cold War International History Project at the Woodrow Wilson Center released a cache of Soviet and Chinese documents in 1998 that they said revealed the allegations to have been an elaborate disinformation campaign. The handcopied documents are from Russian Presidential Archive, provided to Japanese reporter Yasuo Naito by a Russian researcher, and were published in Japanese in the Sankei Shimbun. Weathersby admitted that due to the way the documents are collected, there is no way to confirm their authenticity as seals, stamps or signature are missing, but due to their complexity and interwoven content, they are "extremely difficult to forge" and thus credible sources. They said that North Korea's health minister traveled in 1952 to the remote Manchurian city of Mukden where he procured a culture of plague bacilli which was used to infect condemned criminals as part of an elaborate disinformation scheme. Tissue samples were then used to fool the international investigators. The papers included telegrams and reports of meetings among Soviet and Chinese leaders, including Mao Zedong. A report to Lavrenti Beria, head of Soviet intelligence, for example, stated: "False plague regions were created, burials ... were organized, measures were taken to receive the plague and cholera bacillus. The advisor of the MVD DPRK proposed to infect with the cholera and plague bacilli persons sentenced to execution..." These documents revealed that only after Stalin's death the following year did the Soviet Union halt the disinformation campaign. Weathersby and Leitenberg consider their evidence to be conclusive—that the allegations were disinformation and no biological warfare use occurred. In 2001, writer Herbert Romerstein supported Weathersby and Leitenberg's position while criticizing Endicott's research on the basis that it is based on accounts provided by the Chinese government.

Endicott and Hagerman responded to Weathersby and Leitenberg, noting that the documents are in fact handwritten copies and "the original source is not disclosed, the name of the collection is not identified, nor is there a volume number which would allow other scholars to locate and check the documents". They claimed that even if genuine the documents do not prove the United States did not use biological weapons, and they pointed out what they asserted to be various errors and inconsistencies in Weathersby and Leitenberg's analysis. According to Australian author and judge, Michael Pembroke, the documents associated with Beria (published by Weathersby and Leitenberg) were mostly created during the time of the power struggle after Stalin's death and are therefore questionable. In 2018, he concluded that: "It seems likely that the full story of the United States' involvement in biological warfare in Korea has not yet been told."

See also

• 2001 anthrax attacks - a rogue agent at Fort Detrick was the suspected perpetuator, according to FBI investigations
• Khabarovsk War Crime Trials
• Misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic
• Operation Big Buzz
• Operation Big Itch
• Operation Drop Kick
• Operation Sea-Spray - declassified US navy secret experiment in 1950 where supposedly harmless pathogens were sprayed over San Francisco in open-air tests of germ warfare.
• Project 112
• SARS conspiracy theory
• Unethical human experimentation in the United States
• United States biological weapons program
• Yellow rain

References

1. Lone, Stewart; McCormack, Gavan (1993). Korea Since 1850. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire. p. 116.
2. Lone, Stewart; McCormack, Gavan (1993). Korea Since 1850. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire. pp. 116–117.
3. "The Crimes of Unit 731". The New York Times. 18 March 1995. Retrieved 21 May 2019.
4. Pembroke, Michael (2018). Korea: Where the American Century Began. Hardie Grant Books. pp. 174, 292.
5. Pembroke, Michael (2018). Korea: Where the American Century Began. Hardie Grant Books. p. 174.
6. Bruwer, André (1 October 2001). "The United States and biological warfare: Secrets from the early cold war and Korea*". Medicine, Conflict and Survival. doi:10.1080/13623690108409596.
7. Endicott, Stephen; Hagerman, Edward The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets from the Early Cold War and Korea; Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press; 1998; pp. 97-98
8. Winchester, Simon; The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom; New York: Harper Collins; 2008; pp. 199–200
9. McCormack, Gavan; "Korea: Wilfred Burchett's Thirty Year's War"; in Kiernan, Ben (ed.); Burchett: Reporting the Other Side of the World, 1939-1983; London: Quartet Books; 1986; pp. 202–203.
10. ^ Harris, Sheldon H.; Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare, 1932–45, and the American Cover-up; Taylor & Francis; 2002 ISBN 978-0-203-43536-6
11. ^ Zhang, Shu Guang (1995). Mao's Military Romanticism: China and the Korean War, 1950-1953. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. p. 181. ISBN 0-7006-0723-4.
12. Zhang 1995, p. 182.
13. Chrystal, Paul (2023). Bioterrorism and Biological Warfare: Disease as a Weapon of War. Yorkshire: Pen and Sword. p. 198. ISBN 978-1-39909-080-3.
14. ^ Knightley, Phillip; The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero and Myth-maker from the Crimea to Kosovo, revised ed.; London: Prion; 2000; p. 388.
15. 李, 玮 (4 April 2010). 抗美援朝－反细菌战. NXNews.cn (in Chinese). 宁夏网. Archived from the original on 25 April 2013. Retrieved 3 September 2014.
16. Schwable, Colonel Frank H.; Thomas, Kenn (6 December 1952). "Of Bugs and Bombs". UMSL.edu. University of Missouri–St. Louis. Retrieved 5 April 2013.
17. ^ "Marine Ex-P.O.W. Backs Schwable" (PDF). The New York Times. 3 March 1954. Retrieved 13 March 2020.
18. Lech, Raymond B. (2000). Broken Soldiers. Chicago: University of Illinois. pp. 162–163. ISBN 0-252-02541-5.
19. "Dirty little secrets". Al Jazeera English. Al Jazeera Media Network. 4 April 2010. Archived from the original on 11 November 2020. Retrieved 21 May 2019.
20. "Dirty little secrets". Al Jazeera English. Al Jazeera Media Network. 4 April 2010. Archived from the original on 11 November 2020. Retrieved 21 May 2019.
21. ^ Guillemin, Jeanne; Biological Weapons: From the Invention of State-sponsored Programs to Contemporary Bioterrorism (M1, via Google Books), Columbia University Press; 2005; pp. 99–105; ISBN 0-231-12942-4.
22. Dotson, John (15 July 2022). "Beijing's Propaganda Support for Russian Biological Warfare Disinformation, Part 2: Historical Context and Contemporary Motivations". Jamestown Foundation. Retrieved 24 July 2022.
23. ^ International Scientific Commission (20 February 2018) . "Report of International Scientific Commission for the Investigation of the Facts Concerning Bacterial Warfare in Korea and China". Retrieved 22 May 2019 – via DocumentCloud.org.
24. Kaye, Jeffrey (20 February 2018). "Revealed: The long-suppressed official report on US biowarfare in North Korea". Medium. Archived from the original on 1 January 2019. Retrieved 6 March 2020.
25. Winchester, Simon; The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom; New York: Harper Collins; 2008; pp. 203–208.
26. Lone, Stewart; McCormack, Gavan (1993). Korea Since 1850. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire. p. 116.
27. "China's False Allegations of the Use of Biological Weapons by the United States during the Korean War". WilsonCenter.org. Wilson Center. 8 March 2016. Retrieved 30 May 2019.
29. "Report on U.S. Crimes in Korea" (PDF). International Association of Democratic Lawyers. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 October 2013. Retrieved 26 May 2013.
30. ^ "John W. Powell Dies at 89; Journalist was Tried on Sedition Charges in 1950s". Los Angeles Times. 23 December 2008. Archived from the original on 22 June 2018. Retrieved 31 July 2013.
31. Benson, Sonia G.; Korean War: Almanac and Primary Sources; New York: Gale; 2003; p. 182.
32. "FEDCU One Fight an Unseen Enemy", Navy.mil, United States Navy
33. "History of Navy Entomology". United States Navy Medical Entomology. United States Navy. 3 May 2006. Retrieved 11 December 2007.
34. Marshall, Irvine H. (1955). "Malaria in Korea". In Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (ed.). Recent advances in medicine and surgery (19–30 April 1954) based on professional medical experiences in Japan and Korea, 1950–1953. Washington DC: Walter Reed Army Medical Center. p. 282. OCLC 4011756. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 11 December 2007. (See footnote 5.)
35. Marshall, p. 272.
36. Eiji, Takemae (2002). Inside GHQ: The Allied Occupation of Japan and Its Legacy. New York: Continuum. pp. 425–426, 646–647. ISBN 0-8264-6247-2.
37. "Report on the National Lawyers Guild, legal bulwark of the Communist Party". United States Congress House Committee on Un-American Activities. 17 September 1950. The current international Communist front for attorneys is known as the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. This organization is sometimes referred to as the International Association of Democratic Jurists.
38. Central Intelligence Bulletin (PDF) (Report). United States Central Intelligence Agency. 4 October 1958. p. 5. CIA-RDP79T00975A004000200001. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 July 2013. Retrieved 31 July 2013. pro-communist International Association of Democratic Lawyers
39. Unsigned (7 January 1959). ""U.S. Admits Germ Warfare Weapons"". The San Francisco Examiner. p. 16. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
40. Kaye, Jeffrey (14 May 2017). ""Department of Justice Official Releases Letter Admitting U.S. Amnesty of Japan's Unit 731 War Criminals"". Medium.com. Archived from the original on 5 November 2020. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
41. Warner, Denis, Not Always on Horseback: An Australian Correspondent at War and Peace in Asia, 1961–1993; St Leonards: Allen and Unwin; 1997; pp. 196–197.
42. Méray, Tibor; On Burchett; Kallista, Victoria, Australia: Callistemon Publications; 2008; pp. 73–76.
43. Méray, Tibor; On Burchett, Callistemon Publications, Kallista, Victoria, Australia; 2008; p. 51.
44. Méray, Tibor; On Burchett, Callistemon Publications, Kallista, Victoria, Australia; 2008; p. 252.
45. ^ Zhang 1995, p. 184.
46. ^ Zhang 1995, p. 185.
47. Méray, Tibor; On Burchett, Callistemon Publications, Kallista, Victoria, Australia; 2008; pp. 261–262.
48. Eitzen, Edward M.; Takafuji, Ernest T. (1997). Medical Aspects of Chemical and Biological Warfare (PDF). United States Government Printing Office. p. 419. ISBN 9997320913. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 December 2001.
49. Lech 2000, p. 162.
50. McCormack, Gavan; "Korea: Wilfred Burchett's Thirty Year's War"; in Kiernan, Ben (ed.); Burchett: Reporting the Other Side of the World, 1939-1983; London: Quartet Books; 1986; pp. 204.
51. Lone, Stewart; McCormack, Gavan (1993). Korea Since 1850. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire. pp. 115–116.
52. Lone, Stewart; McCormack, Gavan (1993). Korea Since 1850. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire. p. 118.
53. McCormack, Gavan (2004). Target North Korea: Pushing North Korea to the Brink of Nuclear Catastrophe. New York, NY, USA: Nation Books. pp. Kindle location 362–364. ISBN 1-56025-557-9.
54. Auster, Bruce B.; "Unmasking an Old Lie" Archived 24 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine; U.S. News & World Report; 16 November 1998; retrieved 7 January 2009.
55. ^ Halliday, Jon; Cumings, Bruce (1988). Korea: The Unknown War. Viking Books. ISBN 0394553667.
56. "Mao's Military Romanticism". University Press of Kansas. Retrieved 6 March 2020.
57. Zhang 1995, p. 186.
58. Central Intelligence Agency review of "Rikugun Noborito Kenkyujo no shinjitsu (The Truth About the Army Noborito Research Institute)" By Shigeo Ban. Tokyo: Fuyo Shobo Shuppan, 2001
59. Exploitation of Communist BW Charges (PDF) (Report). United States Central Intelligence Agency. 7 July 1953. CIA-RDP80R01731R003300190004-6. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
60. Kaye, Jeff (10 December 2013). "CIA Document Suggests U.S. Lied About Biological, Chemical Weapon Use in the Korean War". The Dissenter. Archived from the original on 7 January 2015. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
61. Winchester, Simon; The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom; New York: Harper Collins; 2008; pp. 212–214.
62. Winchester 2008, p. 199.
63. Jeffrey Alan Lockwood, Six Legged Soldiers: Using Insects as Weapons of War. Oxford, 2009.
64. ^ Jeffreys, Diarmuid (17 March 2010). "Focus: People and Power: Dirty Little Secrets". Al Jazeera English. Archived from the original on 23 March 2010. Retrieved 6 March 2020.
65. Tong, Bao (10 June 2020). "Failing to Own Up to Mistakes Is Typical CCP Behavior". Radio Free Asia. Retrieved 17 June 2020.
66. Wu, Zhili (吴之理) (1 January 2014). "Why Zhou Enlai Stopped the Biological Warfare Allegation Campaign: Because the Chinese People's Voluntary Army Headquarters Admitted Manipulating Facts (周恩来为何不让再批美军细菌战：志司承认做了手脚)". News.Ifeng.com (in Chinese). Hong Kong: Phoenix Television. Retrieved 31 January 2014.
67. Wu, Zhili (吴之理) (1 October 2013). "The Germ War of 1952 Was a False Alarm (52年的细菌战是一场虚惊)". Yan Huang Historical Review (炎黄春秋) (in Chinese) (11).
68. ^ "坚持唯物史观 历史不容篡改". Kmycjng.com (in Chinese). 抗美援朝纪念馆. 4 April 2020. Archived from the original on 4 February 2020. Retrieved 3 February 2020.
69. "US troops' biochemical warfare plan exposed". Pyongyang Times. 28 March 2019.
70. Choe, Yong Nam (28 April 2019). "US troops' biochemical warfare plan exposed". Pyongyang Times. Archived from the original on 29 August 2021.
71. Endicott, Stephen L.; Hagerman, Edward; The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets from the Early Cold War and Korea (Google Books, relevant excerpt); Bloomington: Indiana University Press; 1998; pp. 75-77; ISBN 0-253-33472-1; retrieved 7 January 2009.
72. "PROFILE: To the church, James Endicott was a China missionary, to the RCMP he was a security threat. At 91, he's still a vociferous fighter for peace - and he says capitalism won't produce it - A Marxist revolutionary marches on" by Coleman Romalis, Globe and Mail, July 16, 1990
73. ^ "Reviews of The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets of the Early Cold War and Korea". YorkU.ca. York University. Archived from the original on 29 March 2019. Retrieved 6 March 2020.
74. Regis, Ed; "Wartime Lies?"; The New York Times; 27 June 1999; retrieved 7 January 2009.
75. ^ Weathersby, Kathryn; Leitenberg, Milton; "New Evidence on the Korean War" Archived 2 November 2013 at the Wayback Machine; Cold War International History Project; Wilson Center; 1998; retrieved 4 March 2011.
76. Auster, Bruce B. "Unmasking an Old Lie" Archived 24 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine; U.S. News & World Report; 16 November 1998; retrieved 29 October 2013.
77. Leitenberg, Milton (1998), The Korean War Biological Warfare Allegations Resolved. Occasional Paper 36. Stockholm: Center for Pacific Asia Studies at Stockholm University (May issue).
78. Leitenberg, Milton (1998), "New Russian Evidence on the Korean Biological Warfare Allegations: Background and Analysis"; Woodrow Wilson Center Cold War International History Project, Bulletin 11 (Winter issue), pp. 185-199.
79. Weathersby, Kathryn (1998), "Deceiving the Deceivers: Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang, and the Allegations of Biological Weapons Use in Korea", Woodrow Wilson Center Cold War International History Project, Bulletin 11 (Winter issue), pp. 176–185.
80. Romerstein, Herbert (2001). "Disinformation as a KGB Weapon in the Cold War". The Journal of Intelligence History. 1. International Intelligence History Association: 59. doi:10.1080/16161262.2001.10555046. S2CID 157194049.
81. Endicott, Stephen L.; Hagerman, Edward (1998). "Twelve Newly Released Soviet-era 'Documents' and allegations of U. S. germ warfare during the Korean War". York University. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
82. Pembroke, Michael (2018). Korea: Where the American Century Began. Hardie Grant Books. p. 177.
83. Pembroke, Michael (2018). Korea: Where the American Century Began. Hardie Grant Books. p. 182.

Further reading

• Resources in your library
• Resources in other libraries

• Nicholson Baker, Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act (Penguin Press, 2020) ISBN 978-0735215757.
• Shiwei Chen, "History of Three Mobilizations: A Reexamination of the Chinese Biological Warfare Allegations against the United States in the Korean War," Journal of American-East Asian Relations 16.3 (2009): 213–247.
• John Clews, The Communists. New Weapon: Germ Warfare (London, 1952)
• Stephen L. Endicott, "Germ Warfare and "Plausible Denial": The Korean War, 1952–1953", Modern China 5.1 (January 1979): 79–104.
• Report of the International Scientific Commission for the Investigation of the Facts Concerning Bacterial Warfare in Korea and China (Peking and Prague, 1952);
• Stanley I. Kutler, The American Inquisition: Justice and Injustice in the Cold War (New York, 1982)
• Albert E. Cowdrey, "Germ Warfare and Public Health in the Korean Conflict", Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 39 (1984)
• John Ellis van Courtland Moon, "Biological Warfare Allegations: The Korean War Case", Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 666 (1992)
• Tom Buchanan, "The Courage of Galileo: Joseph Needham and the Germ Warfare Allegations in the Korean War", History 86 (October 2001)
• Julian Ryall, "Did the US wage germ warfare in Korea?", Telegraph, (June 10, 2010).
• Ruth Rogaski, "Nature, Annihilation, and Modernity: China's Korean War Germ-Warfare Experience Reconsidered", Journal of Asian Studies 61 (May 2002)
• Nianqun Yang, "Disease Prevention, Social Mobilization and Spatial Politics: The Anti Germ-Warfare Incident of 1952 and the Patriotic Health Campaign", Chinese Historical Review 11 (Fall 2004).
• Jeff Kaye, "'False' Confessions Cover-up: U.S. Told Airmen Who Admitted Germ War in Korea They Could Reveal Information If Captured," Substack/Hidden Histories, June 25, 2024

v t e Korean War
25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953
Background	Korea divided (1945–1949) Prelude to war (1950)
Belligerents	United Nations Republic of Korea Australia Belgium and Luxembourg Canada Colombia Ethiopia France Greece Netherlands New Zealand Philippines Thailand Turkey South Africa United Kingdom United States Arkansas Army National Guard 65th Infantry Regiment (Puerto Rico) Eastern Bloc Democratic People's Republic of Korea China Soviet Union
Medical (non-combat) participants	Medical support in the Korean War Czechoslovakia Denmark India Italy Norway Sweden Hungary West Germany
Political leaders	rok Syngman Rhee Shin Song-mo usa Harry S. Truman Dwight D. Eisenhower uk Clement Attlee Winston Churchill ca Louis St. Laurent dprk Kim Il Sung Pak Hon-yong Kim Chaek prc Mao Zedong Zhou Enlai ussr Joseph Stalin Georgy Malenkov Lavrentiy Beria Vyacheslav Molotov
Military commanders	rok Kim Hong-il Kim Jong-oh Chung Il-kwon Paik Sun-yup usa Douglas MacArthur Matthew Ridgway Mark Wayne Clark dprk Choi Yong-kun prc Peng Dehuai Chen Geng Deng Hua
Order of battle	Korean People's Army Republic of Korea Armed Forces Australia China United Nations contingents United States Eighth Army United States Seventh Fleet Korean People's Air Force
Military operations	North Korean offensive (25 June – 15 September 1950) Pokpoong Chuncheon 1st Seoul Gorangpo Kaesong–Munsan Korea Strait Ongjin Uijeongbu Suwon Airfield Air Campaign Andong Chumonchin Chan Osan Pyongtaek Chonan Chochiwon Kum River Taejon Sangju Yongdong Hwanggan Hadong Notch Pusan Perimeter Masan P'ohang-dong Taegu 1st Naktong Bulge Bowling Alley Battle Mountain Kyongju Haman Nam River Ka-san Tabu-dong Yongsan 2nd Naktong Bulge United Nations Command Counteroffensive (15 September – 30 October 1950) Haeju Inchon 2nd Seoul Hill 282 Sariwon Pyongyang Yongyu Kujin Chongju Chinese Intervention (25 October 1950 – January 1951) Onjong Unsan Pakchon Ch'ongch'on River Wawon Chosin Reservoir Task Force Faith 3rd Seoul Uijeongbu Chaegunghyon 1st and 2nd Wonju Combat around the 38th parallel (January – June 1951) Thunderbolt Roundup Twin Tunnels Hoengsong Chipyong-ni 3rd Wonju Chuam-ni Wonsan Killer Ripper (4th Seoul) Maehwa-san Courageous Tomahawk Rugged Dauntless Spring offensive Imjin River Yultong Kapyong Soyang River UN May–June 1951 counteroffensive Air operations (1950–1953) MiG Alley Sunchon Strangle Sui-ho Dam Bombing of North Korea 1950–1953 Naval operations (1950–1953) Korea Strait Chumonchin Chan Haeju Inchon Blockade of Wonsan Han River Stalemate (July 1951 – 27 July 1953) Bloody Ridge Minden Punchbowl Heartbreak Ridge Han River Commando 1st Maryang-san Haktang-ni Polecharge 2nd Maryang-san Sunchon Hill Eerie Sui-ho Dam Old Baldy Blaze White Horse Hill Triangle Hill 1st Hook 2nd Hook Chatkol Outpost Vegas Pork Chop Hill 3rd Hook Outpost Harry Kumsong Samichon River Korean Armistice Agreement
Aftermath	Memorial Day Casualties War crimes Prisoners of war Armistice DMZ Korean DMZ Conflict Northern Limit Line Panmunjom Declaration
Popular culture	Documentary films Films Books Reenactment M*A*S*H Television series
Other	North Korea–South Korea relations Korean conflict Allegations of biological warfare American and British defectors Flying aces Impact on the economy of the United States MiG Alley Operation Blacklist Forty Operation Glory United Nations Memorial Cemetery Weapons
See also: Korean War images Cold War Portals: North Korea South Korea 1950s

• Korean War crimes
• Biological warfare
• China–United States relations
• North Korea–United States relations
• Allegations
• United States biological weapons program
• Propaganda in the United States