Abstract
The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets from the Early Cold War and Korea By Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagerman Indiana University Press, 1998, 274 pages; $29.95
During the Korean War, communist-bloc nations claimed that U.S. forces were using biological weapons–including vectors carrying cholera, the plague, smallpox, anthrax, and other deadly diseases–on Chinese and North Korean civilian populations. The allegations were dismissed by the United States and later, by several Korean War historians–including Walter Hermes, Richard Whelan, David Rees, and T R. Fehrenbach. In The United States and Biological Warfare, Stephen Endicott, a professor of East Asian history at York University in Toronto and the author of several books on China, and Edward Hagerman, a historian of modern warfare at York University who has contributed to numerous textbooks for the U.S. military, resurrect the charges. They conclude that “the United States took the final step and secretly experimented with biological weapons in the Korean War.”
According to Endicott and Hagerman, the United States used the knowledge it acquired from Japanese bioweapons scientists after World War II to develop a lethal arsenal of biological weapons, and Korea and China became the testing ground for these weapons. Despite this conclusion, the authors say that “clear and identifiable … evidence that the United States experimented with biological weapons in the Korean War is not available in the U.S. National Archives as they presently exist.”
There is, however, considerable evidence in the archives that the United States did not use such weapons during the war. The authors base their conclusion on eight central arguments, each of which can be refuted by archival evidence and reasonable counterarguments:
▪ The authors argue that U.S. policy at the time allowed the use of any weapon in war, subject only to presidential decision. It did not preclude the first use of biological weapons. Why would a nation that had used the atomic bomb in World War II hesitate to use biological weapons?
Policy documents from the time contradict this argument. The chemical and biological warfare policy of the United States during the Korean War was articulated by the National Security Council in nsc 62. It stated that chemical and biological weapons would be used “in retaliation only.” Nsc 62 was the result of a review of U.S. chemical and biological warfare policy and preparedness requested by the Defense Department. The review, issued on June 20, 1950, recommended that the United States abandon its “no-first-use” policy in order to stimulate the bioweapons program. Despite the outbreak of the Korean War, the nsc, on the recommendation of the Joint Chiefs, decided to maintain the “retaliation only” policy until a thorough review of the weapons' effectiveness had been undertaken. That review was not completed during the war. The authors do not mention NSC 62.
Further, the policy of the U.S. government was to limit the reach of the war, not to heighten tensions with the Soviet Union–which the use of bioweapons in Korea would have done–at a time when U.S. allies in Europe were highly vulnerable to Soviet attack. The United States also attempted to restrict–not expand–military operations against China. The authors fail to cite the NSC documents that reflect these governing concerns.
▪ According to the authors, the United States was prepared to use biological weapons in the field. It had the agents, the delivery systems, and the funds to do so.
Although the United States had developed limited biowar capabilities by the time of the Korean War, it was not prepared to use them. The United States had no standardized or mass-produced anti-personnel bioweapons, and only limited delivery capabilities. Further, the logistical system required for the deployment of these sensitive and vulnerable munitions was not in place.
Military planners are naturally conservative when it comes to using an untried weapon. Documents from the NSC and the Joint Chiefs available in the National Archives reveal that at the time of the war, military planners were concerned about the preparedness of the bioweapons program. Given their concern, it is unlikely they would have advised the president to authorize the use of biological weapons.
The United States also believed that the Soviet bioweapons program was more advanced, and that the allegations in Korea could be used to justify a biological attack on U.S. forces. When the Soviet Union repeated the Chinese and North Korean accusations, President Harry Truman emphatically denied them: “The Kremlin cries that we have used germ warfare. There isn't a word of truth in that. We have never broken the Geneva Convention in our operations in Korea. And they know that. They know it well.” Endicott and Hagerman cite the Soviet allegations, but not Truman's denial.
The authors state that the United States spent “almost” $350 million on the biowar effort in 1951-53. While that figure sounds impressive, it is small when compared to the overall Defense Department budget for that three-year period–more than $100 billion (in unadjusted dollars). In any case, funding does not immediately lead to an operational program.
▪ The authors argue that the United States was convinced that the use of bioweapons in Korea would not be detected.
U.S. military planners did in fact know it was difficult to differentiate between the use of biological weapons and the natural outbreak of disease. That the military knew this, however, proves little. The military has a responsibility to investigate every aspect of all potential weapons systems.
▪ According to the authors, an extensive network of government agencies was involved in the biowar program, including the Joint Chiefs, the CIA, the army's Chemical Corps, and the air force.
If so many agencies were involved in the biowar effort, it is remarkable that in the 46 years since the war not a single individual has come forth to confirm the allegations.
▪ The authors point to the testimony of 19 captured U.S. airmen that corroborated the Chinese and North Korean allegations.
The testimony, which the airmen later repudiated, is worthless. It was obtained under pressure.
▪ The authors contend that the Chinese and North Korean claims are credible and that the World Peace Congress's International Scientific Commission, which was composed of established scientists from mostly Western nations, verified the findings of capable Chinese scientists.
In a controlled society, it is not difficult to plant evidence. Respectable scientists could be presented with disease samples that later would be identified as biological agents. The International Scientific Commission's report, issued on February 22, 1953, concluded that U.S. air force planes had dropped insect vectors and feathers infected with deadly germs during attacks over North Korea and northern China. Commission members subsequently admitted that they had simply taken their Chinese hosts at their word and trusted the veracity of the confessions extracted from the captured U.S. airmen. The commission did not conduct its own investigation.
▪ The authors claim that the United States systematically covered up its biowar campaign in Korea just as it covered up evidence that the Japanese military had carried out biological warfare experiments and operations against the Chinese during World War II.
A totalitarian nation is far more capable of concealing its activities than is a democratic nation. The authors are correct in charging that the United States protected Japanese who practiced biological warfare–men who should have been charged as war criminals–and that it acquired information from them regarding the Japanese program. Despite the cover-up of this unconscionable act, the truth eventually emerged. The same would have occurred if the United States had used biological weapons in Korea.
▪ The authors argue that the use of biological weapons during the Korean War “was too large and too complex an operation, and was possessed of too much inner logic, to have been concocted by the communist side for propaganda purposes.”
Milton Leitenberg, a senior research fellow at the University of Maryland's Center for International Security Studies, published in his 1998 book (The Korean War: Biological Warfare Resolved) a number of Soviet archival documents from the Stalinist era demonstrating that the Soviet leadership was aware that the Chinese and North Korean charges were a hoax. This knowledge, however, did not keep the Soviets from using the charges to pressure the United States.
The authors also cite some allegations to the exclusion of others. Some charges, like the accusation that U.N. forces were attempting to spread leprosy, were so absurd that they were quickly dropped. The authors' failure to present all the evidence undercuts the validity of their case and, more important, results in a one-sided picture of events.
Aside from the omissions and mistaken conjectures, the book has several errors. For example, the authors suggest that the United States would have used biological weapons in World War II if the war had not come to an end in August 1945. There is no evidence to support this argument. For one thing, the Vigo plant, a chemical plant located in Terre Haute, Indiana that was being converted to mass produce anthrax (the agent of choice), was not yet completed at the time of the Japanese surrender.
Even if anthrax bombs had been produced during the war, it is unlikely that they would have been used. Anthrax is highly persistent. Its use would have rendered large areas of Japan uninhabitable for decades, which would have complicated U.S. post-war occupation plans.
Despite its numerous flaws, the book does draw attention to several unresolved questions. For example, the CIA's role in biological warfare planning should be dispassionately examined. Did the agency make plans for the offensive use of biological weapons–and when? Did it plan first use, as the Church Committee speculated in 1976? What covert operations did the CIA carry out during the Korean War? It is time to release the still-classified documents whose secret status is repeatedly cited by Endicott and Hagerman to bolster their case.
If the United States had used bioweapons in the Korean War, it would have constituted an international crime of the first magnitude. Such charges are appalling, and they need to be sustained by hard evidence, not by supposition and coincidental argument.
Although the book fails to make its case, it does highlight the need to release records of the U.S. program during the early 1950s. Until this is done, the questions and accusations will not go away.