An expose of a little-known and shameful episode in American
military history. Much has been made of the fact that the Japanese
military during WWII resorted to the use of biological and chemical
weapons, in violation of international law. Asian history
specialist Endicott and military historian Hagerman, both
professors at York University (Canada), together reveal that
immediately after WWII, the US army picked up where the Japanese
military left off, using testing facilities in Yokohama and Kyoto
to find ways of turning plague, cholera, anthrax, undulant fever,
encephalitis, salmonella, meningitis, typhus, and tularemia against
the newfound Communist enemy. Lt. General Yujiro Wakamatsu,
commander of the notorious Unit 100, which tested biological
weapons on Chinese prisoners during WWII, found work as a research
scientist in the principal American laboratory; so did many other
Japanese scientists granted immunity for their wartime crimes. In
1952, the Chinese premier Zhou Enlai accused the US of conducting
biological warfare in Korea - of dropping bombs, for instance,
"containing live insects of various descriptions and rotten fish,
decaying pork, frogs, and rodents." Drawing on recently
declassified documents, the authors lend credence to Zhou's charge,
which the US denied at the time. (Among other things cited here is
an approving letter of 1953 from President Harry S. Truman
suggesting "that had the war in the Pacific not ended by mid-August
1945, [Truman] would have used biological as well as chemical
weapons.") A number of villains turn up in Endicott and Hagerman's
fast-paced narrative, among them key figures in American defense,
pharmaceutical, medical, and intelligence circles; sadly, there are
no heroes to match them. A convincing and shockingly relevant, case
study of official and technological immorality. (Kirkus Reviews)
The United States and Biological Warfare] is a major
contribution to our understanding of the past involvement by the US
and Japanese governments with BW, with important, crucial
implications for the future.... Pieces of this story, including the
Korean War allegations, have been told before, but never so
authoritatively, and with such a convincing foundation in
historical research.... This is a brave and significant scholarly
contribution on a matter of great importance to the future of
humanity.
Richard Falk, Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and
Practice, Princeton University
The United States and Biological Warfare argues persuasively
that the United States experimented with and deployed biological
weapons during the Korean War. Endicott and Hagerman explore the
political and moral dimensions of this issue, asking what
restraints were applied or forgotten in those years of ideological
and political passion and military crisis.
For the first time, there is hard evidence that the United
States lied both to Congress and the American public in saying that
the American biological warfare program was purely defensive and
for retaliation only. The truth is that a large and sophisticated
biological weapons system was developed as an offensive weapon of
opportunity in the post-World War II years. From newly declassified
American, Canadian, and British documents, and with the cooperation
of the Chinese Central Archives in giving the authors the first
access by foreigners to relevant classified documents, Endicott and
Hagerman have been able to tell the previously hidden story of the
extension of the limits of modern war to include the use of medical
science, the most morally laden of sciences with respect to the
sanctity of human life. They show how the germ warfare program
developed collaboratively by Great Britain, Canada, and the United
States during the Second World War, together with information
gathered from the Japanese at the end of World War II about their
biological warfare technology, was incorporated into an ongoing
development program in the United States. Startling evidence from
both Chinese and American sources is presented to make the
case.
An important book for anyone interested in the history and
morality of modern warfare."
General
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