April 1952, very early and virtually in the midst of the major BW allegations, but it is an extremely detailed account of their evolution. Its major conclusion as to motive was that "The timing and content of the poison gas and BW campaigns suggest that they were initiated in response to specific situations and carried out with attention to objectives of a tactical rather than a strategic nature."47 Halpern judged these tactical objectives to be primarily leverage in the Korean War truce talks. A report of the US State Department's Office of Intelligence and Research was also published quite early, on 16 June 1952, but saw somewhat larger motives for the allegations:

The threefold nature of the bacteriological warfare charges atrocities, international law and disarmament—and their sponsorship on a world scale by the World Peace Council, reflect their value to Moscow as a new propaganda theme. Each year, the self-styled "peace" movement has made some issue the basis for a world-wide campaign: in 1950 it

was the Stockholm Appeal, in 1951 the Five Power Peace Pact.48

In 1957, Maarten Schneider, in the Netherlands, also came to the conclusion that the allegations were purely propaganda; in other words, a fabrication.49

Aside from the two commissions, both organized by international Communist support organizations, there were two principal Western supporters of the BW allegations. Both men had long associations with China, where they had spent much of their lives, including the World War II years, and were very sympathetic to China. Dr. James Endicott, a Canadian minister, was born in China, the son of a missionary, and had himself been a missionary in that country from 1925 until the late 1940s. He was the Chairman of the Canadian Peace Commission and went to China in 1952 at the invitation of the Chinese government to attest to the allegations in the same manner as the two commissions had. He was the only person to claim that the US had carried out BW aerosol spraying, allegedly for a period of three weeks, on the basis of information provided to him by Chinese officials. His son, Stephen Endicott, a historian, has continued his father's defense of the allegations.50

The second individual, John W. Powell, was also born in China. His father had founded The China Weekly Review (CWR) in the 1920s. Powell spent the World War II years in China, and in 1945, at age 25, became the editor and publisher of the CWR. The paper's position during the Korean War was that South Korea had invaded North Korea. Powell remained in China until June 1953, when he returned to the United States.51

In 1971, the first major academic study of the allegations was published in the set of Stockholm International Peace Research Institute volumes on chemical and biological warfare. In that context, the purpose of the analysis was "not. . . to try to reach a

conclusion one way or another, but to recount the history. .. and to illustrate the very difficult problems of verifying allegations of use" of BW.52 It therefore focused entirely on an examination of the two commission reports, their mode of operation and their descriptions of "evidence." The result was to state that one could draw no conclusions at all from the materials presented in either report-and therefore certainly not the one both commissions had chosen because neither group had any independent knowledge of the provenance of what was shown or told to them. They had simply accepted everything on faithor more accurately speaking, according to their political preferences. Cookson and Nottingham, in a briefer examination, had used a somewhat similar method of analysis and wrote, "as to whether BW was or was not used, it is impossible to say definitively. The present writer's opinion is that it was not," and "[t]he whole thing has been written off almost unanimously as Communist propaganda."53

But it was simply too difficult for many people to accept exactly what that meant. When a Dutch Marxist wrote a paper in 1977 essentially summarizing and reiterating all the material in the two commission reports and accepting their conclusions entirely, he too noted that "[t]he mainstream of Western public opinion has up to now considered the Sino-Korean claims as mere propaganda," but then added: "However, few commentators have gone through the pains of formulating what this means." He did then outline in a few brief lines what that would mean, operationally, but could not accept the implications.54 Halliday and Cumings in their 1988 book on the Korean War found themselves in the same dilemma:

If one is to believe the Western case, it is also necessary to take it through to its logical conclusion, which is that the North Koreans and the Chinese mounted a spectacular piece of fraudulent theatre, involving the mobilization of thousands (probably tens of thousands) of people in China and Korea; getting scores of Chinese doctors and scientists and myriad lesser personnel, as well as Zhou Enlai and other senior Chinese figures, to fake evidence, lie and invent at least one extremely recherché medical fraud. Needham himself acknowledged at the time that “a patriotic conspiracy"—that is, a gigantic fraud-was a possibility.55

However, in later private communications in 1979 and 1986, Needham maintained his initial position that the United States had used BW in Korea; in 1986 he wrote that “everything that has been published in the last few years has shaken the very 3 percent of doubt which I had before and has instead abolished it. So now I am 100 percent sure."56 Halliday and Cumings concluded that "[a]s the evidence stands, the issue is open." In a much longer chapter on the Korean War BW allegations in their 1989 book on Unit 731, Williams and Wallace also

accepted the validity of the allegations.57

Three additional serious analyses appeared, in 1984, 1989, and 1992. The first was published by a US military historian, Charles Cowdrey. Cowdrey did not believe that the US had used BW, but he interpreted the purpose of the allegations in a different way. He mentioned the international and negotiating utilities of the allegations, but he emphasized the public-health requirements of the war in the rear areas adjacent to the battlefront, both in North Korea and in China, with:

thousands of soldiers marched out to collect insects. For days, police shepherded civilians on similar hunts. Germ warfare charges apparently proved themselves in practice as a way of getting things done. . . . Internally... the germ warfare appeals served a practical purpose in a mass campaign of preventive medicine aimed at forestalling any recurrence of the conditions of 1951.58

Cowdrey felt that the primary purpose of the allegations had been domestic, to mobilize the Chinese population in a large-scale anti-epidemic public health campaign. It was an argument that senior US government officials had made in 1952 in denying the BW allegations.

In 1989, Mark Ryan included a section on the BW and CW allegations in a book on China's anticipation of nuclear weapon use by the United States during the Korean War. Ryan's main concern was to consider whether the Chinese charges were an indirect way of deterring the US from using nuclear weapons in that conflict. This argument had been summarily proposed in 1957 and in 1962 by Henry Kissinger and Alice L. Hsieh. In 1957, Kissinger wrote:

The Communist skill in psychological matters is also demonstrated by the Chinese Communist charge during the Korean War that we were engaging in bacteriological warfare. This was probably a device to keep us from using atomic weapons or from bombing Chinese territory.59

In 1962, Hsieh again argued essentially the same motive, acknowledging the hypothesis to A.M. Halpern:

In 1952, Chinese Communist references to the atom bomb were incidental to the propaganda campaign against bacteriological warfare, thus suggesting that this campaign was designed to inhibit even further any possible American plan for use of the atom bomb, to allay domestic anxiety with respect to the bomb, and to maintain the spirit of resistance.60

Ryan was convinced that Chinese military officials took the BW charges "seriously," although he notes regarding the CW allegations that "at no point did this alleged chemical weapons use become the subject of a high visibility, coordinated media campaign, as in the case of biological weapons." Ryan too was perplexed by the

operational implications of the allegations being false:

...if the BW charges were concocted by the Chinese from start to finish, it would seem at first appearance to represent a conspiratorial project of enormous proportions, involving the coordinated preparation and submission of knowingly false physical evidence and testimony from hundreds of Chinese scientists and technicians. Particularly problematical is how the teams of scores of prominent Chinese experts in pathology, entomology, zoology, epidemiology, etc. (most of whom had received their education and training in leading European and American universities) sent to Korea and north China to document and battle BW could have been led or induced to fabricate the many and detailed reports and statements they produced. Even if this had been done, why have not any of the individuals involved ever subsequently disclosed, either purposefully or inadvertently, aspects of such a fabricated campaign? Also, if the charges were falsely concocted, it seems to imply an additional conscious deception (mainly in the form of planting evidence, securing depositions, etc.) of thousands of more ordinary soldiers, farmers, and townspeople, and then continued efforts to deceive hundreds of foreign travelers, delegations, and correspondents who visited the affected areas and viewed the collected evidence and depositions.61

Ryan then put forth the following conclusion:

It seems that the Chinese BW campaign, regardless of whether it was totally or partially fabricated or whether it sprang from a reaction to real or imaginary phenomena, must be considered a success, or even a masterstroke, in the realm of international politics and psychology. Given the nature of the weapons, the problem of the proof or disproof of allegations, and the not unreasonable grounds for suspicion of actual or imminent US use of BW, the campaign was both a direct and practical means to help forestall or terminate any experimental use of BW, and a way to reinforce international condemnation of these and other weapons of mass destruction.62

The most recent analysis was written by a historian, John Ellis van Courtland Moon. Like Ryan, he made extensive use of declassified US documents dealing with the state of preparedness and executive-level decisionmaking on the utilization of chemical or biological weapons by the United States after 1945, but came to markedly different conclusions. Moon was absolutely convinced that the United States had not used BW in the Korean War. Moon emphasized the denials by senior US officials, the US requests for an investigation of the charges by the ICRC or WHO, and the fact that NSC 62, the policy statement that the United States would not use chemical, biological or radiological weapons except in retaliation, was in effect from 17 February 1950 until 15 March 1956 when it was superseded by NSC 1562/1.

Moon also noted, however, that:

[1]ike all allegations, they have never been completely exorcised; doubts persist to today... What this case reveals... is that allegations live on. . . . Once an allegation is made, it is impossible to disprove it completely, since the nature of the weapon makes it almost invisible. If it is difficult to prove that it has been used, it is impossible to prove that it has not been used. Doubt is never totally exorcised. 63

The Soviet Documents

Twelve Soviet-era documents (or excerpts from them) on the BW controversy have become available. The first, dated 21 February 1952, appears to be no more than a fragment. All the rest date from 13 April 1953 to 2 June 1953, in the months following Stalin's death. Obviously all the rest decisions and communications relating to the BW allegations between 21 February 1952 (or earlier) and April 1953-is still missing. It is also evident that other relevant documents dating from late April are missing from the available material.

The first document (21 February 1952), a message from Mao to Stalin, states that the US has used BW, delivered by aircraft and artillery.

The second document (13 April 1953) is a memo to Lavrenti Beria from Glukhov of the MVD, formerly a Soviet advisor to the DPRK Ministry of Public Security. It states that the Chinese government informed the North Korean government in February 1952 that the US was using BW in Korea and in China, and that China would publicize this. The North Koreans insisted on being the first to make a statement, and "the North Koreans, with the assistance of our advisors, created false areas of exposure." In advance of the ISC's arrival, "[t]wo false areas of exposure were prepared." Cholera bacteria were obtained from corpses in China. So that the ISC delegation would not remain on site overly long, "an unworkable situation was created for them in order to frighten them and force them to leave:" This was achieved by Soviet advisors with the KPA setting off explosions near the location of the ISC.

The third document (14 April 1953) is a memo to Beria from Lt. Selivanov, an advisor to the MilitaryMedical Department of the Korean People's Army until April 1952. He informs Beria that he had been the one to help North Korean medical personnel to compose the statement in 1951 alleging that the US had spread smallpox. He says that the North Koreans felt that the BW allegations were necessary to compromise the Americans, and that they had asked three Soviet advisors, Smirnov, Malov, and himself, to help in "creating sites of infection," which they feared they had not succeeded in doing before the arrival of the lawyer's commission. (No mention is made of the Chinese "Commission" which should be present in North Korea at this time.) Selivanov also reports that he responded in March 1952 to a query from Gen. Shtemenko, Chief of Staff of the Soviet Armed

Forces, and from the Soviet General Staff, that he reported that there have been no outbreaks of plague and cholera in China, no examples of bacteriological weapons, and that if any were found, they would be sent to Moscow immediately.

The fourth document (18 April 1953) is a memo to Beria from Lt. Gen. Razuvaev, the Soviet ambassador to the DPRK and Chief Soviet Military Advisor to the KPA. Razuvaev claims that when the North Korean government consulted him about the BW allegation information they had received from China, Soviet advisors had been unable to confirm the information and that he informed Kim IlSung of this, but nevertheless the North Koreans and Chinese went ahead with their public statements. He says that General Shtemenko did not inform the Soviet Foreign Ministry of the information that he received. Despite Razuvaev's skepticism about the Chinese material, the North Koreans pressed him for advice, and with the cooperation of Soviet advisers a plan was worked out for action by the Ministry of Health. False plague regions were created, burials of bodies of those who died and their disclosure were organized, measures were taken to receive the plague and cholera bacillus. The adviser of the DPRK MVD [Ministry of Internal Affairs] proposed to infect with the cholera and plague bacilli persons sentenced to execution.

Further details are provided as to what was done in advance of the arrival of the commission of jurists and the ISC. Razuvaev also adds that a Soviet investigation of Chinese allegations that the US was using poison gas disproved the charges.

The fifth document (21 April 1953) is a memo from Beria to Malenkov and to the CPSU CC Presidium. It states that Smirnov and Glukhov had reported in March 1952 to USSR Minister of State Security S.D. Ignatiev "that with the help of General ... Razuvaev two false regions of infection were simulated for the purpose of accusing the Americans of using bacteriological weapons in Korea and China," and that "Ignatiev did not report this memorandum, which had special political importance, to anyone. As a result, the Soviet Union suffered real political damage in the international arena. I discovered this document in the archive of the MGB USSR...at the beginning of April 1953."

The sixth document (21 April 1953) is from V. Molotov to the CPSU CC Presidium and is identifiably incomplete. It begins with the opening line: "[On] 22 February 1952, the DPRK received an intentionally false statement from the Chinese about the use of bacteriological weapons by the Americans." It further suggests that the Soviet embassy in North Korea may have informed Vyshinsky that the BW allegations were not true. Molotov proposes that the Central Committee direct Vyshinsky, now in late April 1953, that “it is inadvisable to show interest in discussing this question or even more in 'fanning the flames' of this question" at the ongoing session of the UN General Assembly. (This is, however,

after the USSR had already offered to withdraw their BW allegations in the UN Political Committee on 7 April 1953, a date that preceeds any of the documents in this latter group.)

The seventh document (2 May 1953) is the message to Mao Zedong, brusquely informing the Chinese leader that the USSR and CPSU had been "misled" (implicitly by the Chinese themselves) about the "false" and “fictitious" charges of BW use that had been lodged against the Americans, and recommending that the international antiAmerican campaign on the subject be immediately dropped.

The eighth document (undated, but subsequent to reports by Glukhov and Smirnov indicated as having been given on April 24) is a protocol of the CPSU CC Presidium, recommending that "for unauthorized actions of a provocatory character which caused significant damage to the interests of the state," Gen. Razuvaev be relieved of his ambassadorship, stripped of rank, and prosecuted; Ignatiev to be dropped from the CPSU CC and investigated; the USSR to draft its subsequent position on the allegations of BW use by the US, and to prepare a report on the subject to be sent to Mao Zedong and Kim Il Sung.

The ninth document is a telegram to Molotov reporting on the conversation of the Soviet ambassador in Beijing with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai on 12 May 1953. Mao blames the allegations on reports from Chinese front line commanders in Korea, whose authenticity it would now be difficult to verify, and says that "[i]f falsification is discovered, then these reports from below should not be believed." (The suggestion that the elaborate preparations and falsification-a BW "Potemkin village"-the extraordinary media campaign, the international commissions, etc. could have been organized "from below" in either the China or the USSR governed by Mao and by Stalin is highly implausible.)

The tenth document (17 May 1953) concerns the CPSU's internal investigations of Ignatiev. Ignatiev claims that he showed the message from Glukhov and Smirnov to Stalin in July or August 1952, and that since he believed "the published material," he did not believe the information contained in their message and “did not attach any significance" to it.

The eleventh document (1 June 1953) is the telegram to Molotov from the Soviet ambassador in North Korea on the discussions with the Secretary of the DPRK Central Committee, Pak Chang-ok, who "expressed great surprise at the actions and positions of V.N. Razuvaev. . . . We were convinced that everything was known in Moscow. We thought that setting off this campaign would give great assistance to the cause of the struggle against American imperialism. In his turn, Pak Chang-ok did not exclude the possibility that the bombs and containers were thrown from Chinese planes, and [that] there were no infections." The twelfth document (2 June 1953) indicts Ignatiev, the former Minister of State Security of the USSR.

What Remains to be Disclosed?

A great deal still remains to be revealed, including: 1. All of the Chinese documentation, which would demonstrate just how the entire affair was decided upon, organized, and carried out.

2. The Soviet documentation between 21 February 1952 and 13 April 1953, and even before the February 21 cable from Mao to Stalin. These documents would establish exactly whose idea the false allegations werethe USSR's or China's-and provide a more detailed understanding of the nature and degree of the technical assistance that Soviet advisers contributed to the entire process.

The available documents imply a Chinese and then North Korean initiative, with Soviet personnel as collaborators. This should remain an open question until it is possible to understand the operations of the USSR Ministry of State Security at the time, its collaboration with analogous Chinese government organs, their elaboration of "active measures" and so forth. It is clear that there is a chain in the allegations that even preceded the onset of the Korean War, although the decision to charge the U.S. with using BW could only have been made in the context of the war. The all-important question is the degree of consultation and cooperation in the area of propaganda between the USSR and China in the period not covered by the documents-between February 1952 and April 1953, and while Stalin was alive.

Milton Leitenberg, a senior research fellow at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, is a scientist and expert on biological warfare.

'Yasuro Naito, "The Use of Bacteriological Weapons by US Forces During the Korean War Was Fabrication by China and Korea: Uncovered by Classified Documents of the Former Soviet Union" [in Japanese], Sankei Shimbun, 8 January 1998; translation in FBIS-EAS-98-011 (11 January 1998). The Japanese newspaper printed additional excerpts from seven documents which FBIS did not translate.

2These charges and the events related to them were summarized in two separate sections of the six volume study, The Problem of Chemical and Biological Warfare, published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute [SIPRI] (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell and New York: Humanities Press) in 1971:

-Milton Leitenberg, "Allegations of the Biological Warfare in China and Korea: 1951-1952," pp. 238-258, appendix 4, vol. 5, The Prevention of CBW; and

-Jozef Goldblat, "Allegations of the Use of Bacteriological and Chemical Weapons in Korea and China,” pp. 196-223, vol. 4, CB Disarmament Negotiations, 1920-1970.

3"Letter From the Permanent Representative of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, President of the Security Council, Dated 30 June 1952; Annexes I, II and III, International

Association of Democratic Lawyers," United Nations Security Council, S/2684/Add. 1, 30 June 1952.

*The reports of the two commissions are analyzed in detail in Leitenberg, "Allegations of the Biological Warfare in China and Korea: 1951-1952."

'G.P. Thompson, Letter to the Editor, "Germ Warfare," New Statesman and Nation, 5 December 1953. In a 1984 interview with a Japanese academic, Needham said: “Of course, it is entirely true that the members of the Commission never actually saw any incident. What we did see were specimens of the containers that had been used and of the vectors as well as victims of the attacks. I must say that I did not gain the impression that the methods being used were very successful. . . . My judgement was never based on anything which the downed airmen had said, but rather entirely on the circumstantial evidence." Quoted in Peter Williams and David Wallace, Unit 731: The Japanese Army's Secret of Secrets (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1989), p. 255. Despite Needham's statement, the confessions of the US pilots comprise 117 pages of the 667 page ISC report, 18 percent of the total.

"Sheldon H. Harris, Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare, 1932-45, and the American Cover-Up (London: Routledge, 1994). See also Williams and Wallace, Unit 731: The Japanese Army's Secret of Secrets.

'In addition to Harris's book, see two shorter accounts that stress in particular Washington's postwar role in covering up Japan's BW program in China and obtaining its research results: -John W. Powell, "A Hidden Chapter in History," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 37:8 (October 1981), pp. 44-52, and

-John W. Powell, “Japan's Germ Warfare: The US Cover-Up of a War Crime," Bulletin of the Concerned Asian Scholars 12:4 (October-December 1980), pp. 2-17.

The decision by US intelligence agencies was also one that made very little sense-or none whatsoever. The information derived from the Japanese program, particularly on human pathology, which was the only aspect otherwise unavailable, was of no use to the US BW program. The joint US-UK-Canadian World War II BW R&D program had already taken a different path, and it was that path on which the postwar US BW program continued. Powell was a fervent and persistent believer in the Chinese and North Korean BW allegations, and the logic of his position required him to assume great benefit to the US BW R&D effort for having protected Ishii and his collaborators. That was not the case, but it was something that Powell's argumentation could never comprehend.

8"Russians Accuse US of Readying Germ War," Associated Press dispatch, Moscow, 29 December 1949.

'Materials on the Trial of Former Servicemen of the Japanese Army Charged with Manufacturing and Employing Bacteriological Weapons (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1950).

10The best summary of the Chinese charges in the spring of 1951, as well as of the simultaneous campaign that charged the United States with using chemical weapons in the Korean War, appears in A.M. Halpern, "Bacteriological Warfare Accusations in Two Asian Communist Propaganda Campaigns," RAND RM796, 25 April 1952.

"The dates of the statements charging the US with chemical warfare were March 5, 6, 7, 8, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, April 7, and May 13. See Halpern, "Bacteriological Warfare Accusations," Pp. 1-7.

12Quoted in Halpern, "Bacteriological Warfare Accusations,"

PP. 6-7.

13 A report prepared by the U.S. Department of State in June 1952 stated, "[i]n the beginning of May,... the Soviet representatives in Korea reprimanded in severe terms the north Koreans and Chinese Communists for failing to produce a better propaganda case on bacteriological warfare. This occurred after the north Koreans and Chinese communists were unable to produce enough 'evidence' for the international jurists commission 'investigating' the charges. Reportedly, all the north Koreans and Chinese did was to conduct the standard tours of bombed areas in Pyongang and give the jurists the standard propaganda photos of women and children killed in air raids. As as a consequence of the Soviet reprimand, a conference was called of the interested parties in Sop'o. At that time the Russians instructed the north Koreans and Chinese Communists to provide propaganda material for meetings of the national 'peace councils' scheduled during the summer of this year." Communist Bacteriological Warfare Propaganda, OIR/CPI Special Paper no. 4, 16 June 1952, Unclassified.

14"Statement by Secretary Dean Acheson, March 4, 1952," Department of State Bulletin (DoSB), 26:664 (1952), pp. 427428.

"Gen. Matthew B. Ridgeway, "Report of the U.N. Command Operations in Korea: Forty-first Report, For the Period March 115, 1952," DoSB 26:679 (1952), p. 1040.

16Gen. Matthew B. Ridgeway, "A Report on the Far East," DoSB 26:676 (1952), p. 926.

17In noting official U.S. denials of the charges, the historian should address the issue of relevant American covert operations during the Korean War. There were unquestionably covert, "black," operations during the Korean War as there have been in every other war, and it is important to attempt to establish that none of these might have involved BW. In the early 1980s, an American reporter was told by former US military service personnel that a "Joint Technical Advisory Group" had been stationed at Atsugi Air Force Base until some time in 1951 or 1952, and that Gen. Ishii had been affiliated with it in some way. After the signing of the US-Japanese Peace Treaty, the group had allegedly been moved to Okinawa and renamed the "US Army Composite Services Group," and in some way operated together with the US Central Intelligence Agency. These informants stated that the work of this unit was in some way related to BW, and possibly in relation to plant diseases. (Communications to another by William Triplett, 1989.) A series of Freedom of Information Act declassification requests failed to yield any information whatsoever about the above. Two small items marginally relevant to the Korean War BW story, however, can be explained. US covert operations were mounted behind Chinese and North Korean lines to obtain prisoners in order to ascertain what diseases they were suffering from. The motive for these operations was reportedly to be able to mount preventive measures against the respective diseases for US and other UN forces. These operations were known to the Chinese and used as part of the "proof" of the allegations: Beijing claimed that the US had mounted the operations to determine the efficacy of their BW efforts. There was also large-scale aerial pesticide spraying over the positions of UN combat forces to suppress disease vectors. Although herbicides ready for use were not approved for use by the President during the Korean War, there was apparently experimental defoliation of small tracts in Korea in 1951-1952. See William M. Leary, chap. 8, "The Korean War," and chap. 9, “Covert Operations,” Perilous Missions: Civil Air Transport and CIA Covert Operations in Asia (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1984), pp. 113-153; Ed Evanhoe,