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From Thomas Powell’s Biological Warfare in the Korean War: Allegations and Cover-up:In 1976, a Japanese TV station ran an investigative documentary about Japan’s Biological Warfare, BW, program located near Harbin, Manchuria from 1937–1945 [6] This BW prison camp was designated as a water purification plant and had the innocuous name of Unit 731, commanded by Surgeon General Shiro Ishii.Unit 731 ran lethal human experimentation by inoculating prisoners with bubonic plague, hemorrhagic fever, and many other diseases to scientifically record the progress of infection and death. Japanese camp surgeons performed live vivisections on infected victims to autopsy diseased organs. They conducted frostbite experiments, forced pregnancy on women prisoners, dissected infected fetuses, removed brain tissue and limbs of live prisoners, dosed Caucasian and Asiatic prisoners with fatal pathogens to determine possible racial differences in natural immunity, and numerous other gruesome acts of torture.Conservative estimates claim 3000 prisoners were murdered at Unit 731. Another estimated 400,000 civilians were killedby infectious diseases like cholera and anthrax when ceramic bombshells containing these pathogens were dropped on Chinese cities and villages.The Japanese film crew discovered former Unit 731 personnel pursuing professional careers or living quietly in retirementeven though they had been responsible for some of the worst war crimes carried out by Japan during World War II.The story didn’t get much traction outside of Japan. With the impetus of the Japanese documentary and the recently enacted Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), my father, Bill Powell again took up the Korean War BW allegations. A portion of his research was summarized in his article, “Japan’s Biological Weapons, 1930–1945,” in the October 1981 Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.8The topic for its day “went viral” and Powell appeared on segments of 60 Minutes, 20/20, People Magazine and similar news outlets in Japan and South Korea. Media coverage also ignited renewed academic interest in the topic, and several books and articles on the history and atrocities of biological warfare have subsequently been published.Through FOIA, Powell was able to trace the history of Unit 731, including its extensive medical and autopsy reports.9 Dr. Ishii’s career as camp commandant was illuminated, and Powell discovered that following Japan’s unconditional surrender in August 1945, Ishii and much of his top staff had escaped from Harbin down the Korean Peninsula where they commandeered passage to Japan.10 If he had been captured by any of the armies in the neighborhood, People's Liberation Army, Kuomintang, Soviets or Korean communist, he would have been tortured, deprogrammed, tried and likely hanged. But Ishii had prepared his escape back to Tokyo with his core scientific team and a cache of research documents including 8000 microscope slides which he then parlayed to the American victors in exchange for immunity from war crimes prosecution. The US Army quickly dispatched Camp Detrick microbiologist, Lt. Col. Murray Sanders to investigate Army Intelligence reports of the Harbin BW factory and to interview the Japanese scientists. Although Sanders proved ineffectual as an interrogator, he recognized the military value of disease pathology on live human subjects and, despite its criminality and repugnance, recommended that a deal be cut.Gen. MacArthur promptly signed off on the deal.11 Ishii and his research team were secretly granted immunity from war crimes prosecution in exchange for their research. The Japanese BW scientists were extensively deprogrammed by American intelligence personnel while the BW research was discreetly shipped to the Army’s biological research facility at Fort Detrick, Maryland, where it quietly entered the US weapons arsenal.12One of the neglected stories of World War II is Japan's use of Germ Warfare against China and the Soviet Union. For years the Japanese and American governments have succeeded in suppressing this chapter in history. Japan's reason for wanting to hide its attempt to practice "public health in reverse" - a criminally irresponsible undertaking which was potentially capable of setting off wide-ranging epidemics endangering the lives of millions of people is understandable.The American government's participation in illegally concealing evidence of these war crimes, it is now revealed, stemmed chiefly from Washington's desire to secure exclusive possession of what it considered to be "extremely valuable" military information.In few other instances was Washington's double standard revealed so clearly. An "insidious" weapon in enemy hands, biological warfare (BW) was transformed into an acceptable and valuable military tool when added to the American arsenal. Some of our military leaders became almost lyrical when describing its possibilities. It became " humane" because it offered a shortcut to victory which, it was claimed, would save lives--particularly American lives. It was also described as a money-saver in comparison with conventional weapons and had the further advantage of not destroying property.In retrospect it is perhaps not surprising that it has taken so long for the story to come out. Over the years fragments occasionally surfaced, but each time were met with official denials, usually accompanied by seemingly authoritative refutations. During the Korean War when the Chinese accused the United States of employing up-dated versions of Japan's earlier biological warfare tactics, not only were the charges denied but it was also claimed that there was no proof of the earlier Japanese actions.Characteristic of the response was an article in the November 1952 issue of Air Force Magazine by Col. John J. Driscoll, which dismissed the allegation thusly: “The pattern had begun to take shape as far back as December 1949, when a Soviet military tribunal, sitting at Khabarovsk, Siberia, placed on trial twelve former members of the Japanese armed forces. The charges-"preparing and employing the bacteriological weapon" in World War II. As long ago as August, 1946 the Japanese biological warfare experimental program had been categorized as a "dead issue" by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. a body on which the Soviets were represented. Nevertheless, within six months of the Communist invasion of South Korea, the Reds revived the abandoned case.”The true story is quite different. It wasn't a "dead issue," it was a "buried issue." By the late 1930s Japan's BW program was sufficiently advanced for testing. It was employed with moderate success against Chinese troops and civilians and with unknown results against the Russians. By 1945 Japan had a huge arsenal of stockpiled germs, vectors and delivery equipment unmatched by any other nation.Japan had gained this undisputed lead primarily because its scientists made deadly germ tests on people as well as on laboratory animals. These human guinea pigs were mostly Chinese prisoners, some Russians and, as one Japanese participant put it, some miscellaneous "half-breeds." It is estimated that at least three thousand people were killed in these experiments, either by succumbing to disease or by execution when they had become physical wrecks and were no longer fit for further experiments. This much of the story has been available≠ although denied by Tokyo and Washington-for several years.What has not been known until now is that among the human guinea pigs were an unknown number of American soldiers,captured during the early part of the war and confined in prisoner-of-war camps in Manchuria not far from the experimental laboratories. Until recently we also lacked proof that the U.S. Government had long known of these war crimes but that it had suppressed the evidence because it desired to secure exclusive possession of Japanese technology. Retribution for the torture and murder of captured American soldiers was foresworn in the interests of " national security."Long "top secret" U.S. documents which I have obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal the details and call into question the basic morality of numerous highly placed American officials of the time. Even members of the U.S. medical profession were involved in the cover up of inhumanities which made a mockery of the physician's oath.The story begins in 1931 shortly after the Manchurian Incident when Japan occupied China's Northeast provinces and when a Japanese Army surgeon named Ishii Shiro persuaded his superiors of the feasibility of BW as an inexpensive weapon potentially capable of producing enormous casualties. Ishii, who finally rose to the rank of Lieutenant-General, eventually built a large, self-contained installation with sophisticated germ and insect breeding facilities, a prison for the human experimentees, testing grounds, an arsenal for making germ bombs, an airfield, its own special planes and a crematorium for the final disposal of its human victims.It is possible that some of Gen. Ishii's BW attacks went undetected , either because they were failures or because the resulting outbreaks of disease were attributed to natural causes by the victims. However, some were recognized by the Chinese. Official archives of the People's Republic give the number of cities subjected to Japanese BW attacks as eleven, while the number of victims of artificially disseminated plague alone is placed at approximately 700 between 1940 and 1944. The Soviet Union has given no details, only stating that it was the victim of BW attacks.Two particular incidents were noted by the press at the time:The Chinese Nationalists claimed that on Oct. 27, 1940, the Japanese dropped plague on Ningbo, a city in east China near Shanghai. The incident was not proved in an acceptable scientific manner, but the observed facts were highly suspicious. Something was seen to come out of a Japanese plane circling the city. Later, there was a heavy infestation of fleas and 99 people came down with plague, with all but one dying. The rats in the city did not have plague, although traditionally outbreaks of plague in the human population always follow an epidemic in the rat population.On the morning of November 4, 1941, a Japanese plane circled low over Changde, a city in Hunan Province. Instead of bombs, the plane dropped grains of wheat and rice, pieces of paper and cotton wadding, which fell mainly in two streets in the city's East Gate District. During the next three weeks six people living on the two streets died, all with symptoms similar to those of plague. Dr. Chen Wen-kwei. one of China's leading physicians who had previously served with the League of Nations in India as a plague expert, arrived at the head of a team of public health doctors just as the last victim died. He performed the autopsy, found symptoms of plague which were confirmed by culture and animal tests. Again, there was no plague outbreak in the rat population.When Soviet tanks crossed the Siberian-Manchurian border at midnight on August 8, 1945, Japan was less than a week away from unconditional surrender. However, in those few days of grace, the Japanese destroyed their BW installations in China, killed the remaining human guinea pigs ("It took 30 hours to lay them in ashes" ), and shipped out most of their personnel and some of the more valuable equipment 10 South Korea. It has been reported that some of the equipment taken by the fleeing BW experts was later smuggled into Japan.At the December 1949 Soviet trial at Khabarovsk, actions of gross depravity were revealed and evidence was produced confirming the Nationalist Chinese BW charges.Military orders, railroad waybills for shipment of SW supplies and numerous other incriminating Japanese documents were introduced in evidence. Describing the operation of Ishii's main BW factory, code named Unit 731, the transcript summary states:Experts have calculated . . . that (it) was capable of breeding, in the course of one production cycle, lasting only a few days, no less than 30,000,000 billion microbes ....That explains why ... bacteria quantities (are given) in kilograms, thus referring to the weight of the thick, creamy bacteria mass skimmed directly from the surface of the culture medium.Total bacteria production capacity at this one installation was eight tons per month.Euphemistically called a " water purification unit," Gen. Ishii's organization also worked on non-BW medical projects. (He did develop effective water purification equipment.) In the Asian countries it overran, the Japanese Army conscripted local young women to "entertain" the troops. The medical difficulties resulting from this practice, in which entire platoons were lined up as each man waited his turn at the " comfort stations," became acute. In an effort to solve this problem, Chinese women confined in the detachment's prison "were infected with syphilis with the object of investigating preventive means against this disease."Another experiment revealed at the Khabarovsk trial was the "freezing project." Prisoners were led outdoors "at rimes of great frost, with temperatures below -20 degrees F (about 4 degrees C below zero). Their arms were bared and made to freeze with the help of an artificial current of air. This was done until their frozen arms, when struck with a short stick, emitted a sound resembling that which a board gives out when it is struck. Once back inside, various procedures for thawing were tried. One account of 731's prison, adjacent to the laboratories, described men and women with rotting hands from which the bones protruded- victims of the freezing tests. Documentary films were made of some of the more interesting of these experiments.Up to this point the evidence is from Nationalist Chinese, People's Republic of China and Soviet sources, the last including testimony by Japanese prisoners of war who might have spoken under some pressure. However, some of the participants who escaped to Japan subsequently broke their vows of silence which were taken at the time the unit was disbanded. Among the hundreds of war-time recollections published by Japanese ex≠servicemen are a few by former members of Unit 73l. Hiroshi Akiyama told his story in two magazine articles; Bumpei Kimura , a former captain has published his memoirs,while Sakaki Ryohei, a former major, has described how plague was spread by air-dropping rats and voles (mice-like rodents) and has given details of the flea " nurseries" developed by Ishii for rapid production of millions of fleas.But the most dramatic confirmation of the role of Ishii's unit was an hour-long Japanese television documentary produced by Yoshinaga Haruko and shown by the Tokyo Broadcasting Company. A Washington Post dispatch on November 19, 1976, reported:“In the little-publicized television documentary of the germ warfare unit, Yoshinaga laid bare secrets closely held in Japan during and since the war. (She) traveled throughout Japan to track down 20 former members of the wartime unit....Four of the men finally agreed to help, and the reporter found their testimony dovetailed with reports of war crime trials held in the Soviet Union....“Some of those interviewed by Yoshinaga claimed that they had told their stories to Gen. MacArthur's headquarters. Eguchi stated that he "was the second to be ordered to G.H.Q. '' and " they took a record" of his testimony. Takahashi, an ex-surgeon and Anny major stated: " I went to the G.H.Q. twice in 1947. Investigators made me write reports on the condition that they will protect me from th eSoviets." Kumamoto, an ex-flight engineer, stated that after the war Gen. Ishii went to America and "took his research data and begged for remission for us all."The Post tried to check these allegations and reported: "Press officers at the U.S. Defense and Justice Department said that they had no information on the charges but would investigate."Two years later I wrote to both departments, asking if their investigations had been completed. The Justice Department replied that the matter did not fall within its jurisdiction and consequently knew nothing about it. The Defense Department initially replied that it could not find the Post article. After more correspondence my inquiry was referred to the department's "audio-visual" section which said that it had no such film in its library. Once the fact had been established that Ishii had used Chinese and others as laboratory test subjects, it seemed a fair assumption that he also might have used American prisoners, possibly British, and perhaps even Japanese. In some instances there are probably due to a people's history of exposure to certain diseases, and other unknown factors variations in different populations' reactions to the same pathogen.Until recently the only hints were two brief references buried in the 1949 Soviet trial summary, one of which noted: "As early as 1943. Minata, a researcher belonging to Detachment 73l , was sent to prisoner-of-war camps to test the properties of the blood and immunity to contagious diseases of American soldiers."For some inexplicable reason the Soviet prosecutors let this and a few other fascinating leads slip by. However. the performance of American prosecutors at the Tokyo War Crimes Trials also frequently left something to be desired. Not only did they appear loath to pursue similar reports about the fate of these American prisoners but they showed a distinct lack of interest in the entire BW issue.When the Jiang Jieshi [Chiang Kai-shek] government returned to its capital at Nanjing at the end of the war, it found evidence of still another Japanese BW installation, the TAMA Detachment. Established in Nanjing as a sub-unit of 73l in 1939, it grew into a large independent organization with 12 branches and 1500 personnel and had equipment for growing and harvesting bacteria , raising vectors, etc. It , too, performed medical experiments on prisoners. The Chinese procurator at Nanjing sent a report on the TAMA Detachment's activities to the International Military Tribunal in Tokyo, asking that it be included in the war crimes charges against the Japanese. At the insistence of China, the issue was finally brought up. The official transcript for August 29, I946 , records an exchange between the Court and David N. Sutton. one of the American prosecuting attorneys:Mr Sutton: The enemy's TAMA Detachment carried off their civilian captives to the medical laboratory, where the reactions to poisonous serum were rested. This detachment was one of the most secret organizations. The number of persons slaughtered by this detachment cannot be ascertained.The President: Are you going to give us any further evidence of these alleged laboratory tests for reactions to poisonous serums? This is something entirely new, we haven't heard before. Are you going to leave it at that? Mr. Sutton: We do not at this time anticipate introducing additional evidence on that subject.One of the defense attorneys objected that Sutton had not introduced sufficient evidence for his charge and suggested that the whole thing might have been a vaccination program carried out by the Japanese for the benefit of the Chinese populace.The court agreed and ruled the Nanjing BW evidence inadmissible. It was later claimed that the Chinese Nationalists had not carried out a proper investigation. However, it does seem strange that the prosecution did not pursue this rather sensational lead and undertake its own investigation . Even the judge was startled, calling it "something entirely new" and asking Sutton if he was just "going to leave it at that?" Sutton had a stick of dynamite in his hand and, even though the judge seemed to be trying to push him along, he apparently could not- or perhaps would not- recognize it.If some branches of the American Government exhibited an inability and/or reluctance to investigate the many available BW leads, other agencies quietly pursued them and learned quite a bit about the Japanese program, even before the end of World War II. Now declassified is a January 28, 1944 memorandum for the Joint Intelligence Staff from the Chief of Naval Operations: It was reported on 21 December 1943 by a reliable source that the Japanese Army maintained a bacteriological warfare laboratory in Kyoto. . . ." The memo also mentioned some of the earlier Chinese reports and noted that another unsubstantiated document stated " that early in 1941 fishing operations near Otaru in the Island of Hokkaido were suspended (because) cultures of bubonic plague bacteria had been inadvertently dumped into the sea as a result of flood damage to the laboratories at the University of Otaru."Among recently released documents from U.S. intelligence files is a report from U.S. Army G-2 in China in which a Japanese captive slated that when Japanese troops overran an area in which a BW attack had been made during the Chekiang campaign in 1942, [Japanese] casualties upward from 10,000 resulted within a very brief . . . time. Diseases were particularly cholera, but also dysentery and [plague]. Victims were [rushed] to hospitals in rear ... BW cholera victims, usually being treated too late, mostly died. Statistics which POW saw at Water Supply and Purification Dept. Hq . at Nanking /TAMA Detachment headquarters/ showed more than 1700 dead . . . . POW believes that actual deaths were considerably higher, "it being a common practice to pare down unpleasant figures." The report concludes by describing the captured informant, who worked in the Nanjing and Jiujiang [Kiukiang] BW installations as "very intelligent and sincere. . . . It is felt that his information can be accepted as reliable.”Writing nearly ten years after the end of the war, Maj. Gen. William Creasy, chief chemical officer of the U.S. Army, revealed that the Army had long been concerned about Japan's BW activities. Saying that he had initially feared that the Japanese paper balloon bombs which fell on the United States during the war might have been germ carriers. he added: "It was known that the Japanese had, since 1932 , been actively interested in its [BW's] possibilities. By 1937 they were operating research and testing facilities..Documents at the Truman Library reveal that the United States began investigating Japan's BW activities in the immediate postwar period. Shortly after the surrender President Truman sent a scientific survey party to Japan headed by Dr. Karl Compton, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. On Oct. 3, less than two months after the surrender. Compton was back in Washington to give Truman a personal briefing on the survey's initial findings. On the following day he sent Truman a six-page summary. The entire document is quite informative, but the analysis of the Japanese BW effort is of particular interest:In only one field, bacteriology, had our mission uncovered any Japanese scientific work which added anything to our own state of knowledge or art. . . . Our medical and bacteriological members in close cooperation with the Chief Surgeon's Office are intensively continuing their study of these developments. It appears that Japan has made some vigorous preparations against biological warfare. Thus far they have denied any intention of inaugurating or preparing for offensive bacteriological warfare, but we doubt this denial and are pursuing the subject further.From the available information it appears that the investigation dragged on for several months. Some of the top BW people were eventually located. Gen. Ishii maintained that all work had been defensive, that his was basically a water purification effort because the Chinese, especially the Chinese Communists, were inveterate well-poisoners and because he had reason to believe that the Soviets were planning to attack Japanese forces with germs. In these early conversations Ishii revealed himself as an astute observer of his American interrogators. He played upon their fears by ascribing to Communists, both Chinese and Russian, a ruthlessness and disregard for human life which was an exact portrait of himself. He also appeared to be laying the ground for self-justification in the event that his activities were finally exposed. Later, when the secret did come out, Ishii maintained that his work was in reaction to known earlier Communist efforts in the field. "They" were doing it so Japan had to get to work to prevent being put at a military disadvantage. But in the initial interviews, all dissembled.Gen. Kitano Masaji, who headed Unit 731 during a lengthy absence by Ishii, also would not give any worthwhile information. It was the same with Gen. Wakamatsu Yujiro, who had been in charge of another major BW installation, Unit 100, that dealt mainly with animal diseases. (It, however, also used people, seeing what livestock diseases would infect humans.) All records had been destroyed, they claimed, and the personnel scattered.It is one of the ironies of history that the United States investigation might have been inconclusive had it not been for the Soviets and the Chinese Nationalists. These strange bedfellows tried to force a showdown with the United States.Both revealed the incriminating evidence they had gathered. The Soviets produced copies of their interrogations of two of the most knowledgeable BW personnel they had captured. The transcripts described laboratory work, breeding of vectors; the prisoners admitted to human experiments and described Ishii's solution of the problem of delivery via special bombs. At this point there is some uncertainty as to how this information was transmitted. U.S. documents seem to indicate that the information went to MacArthur's headquarters and that only later did the International Prosecution Section (IPS) get wind of it. However, the Soviets give a different version. According to them, after the War Crimes Tribunal refused to admit the Chinese evidence against the TAMA Detachment, the Soviet prosecution team "handed Joseph B. Keenan, the Chief American prosecutor, the written evidence of Kawashima and Karasawa. . . ."If the Soviet version is correct, it is difficult to understand why Keenan and his prosecution staff did not immediately launch their own full-scale investigation of Japanese BW activities. In any event, it is clear that this information quickly got into intelligence and high level channels where the decision was made to conceal all BW information.Armed with this Soviet-supplied material, MacArthur's staff re-interviewed Ishii and all other known BW personnel and their denials started coming apart. There then began an exchange of urgent secret messages between Tokyo and Washington. On February 10, 1947, CINCFE (Commanderin Chief, Far East) advised the War Department that the Soviets were pushing for permission to interview Ishii and all others. He stated that he didn't believe they could learn anything from such interviews that the United States didn't already know but he thought that some new leads might be picked up by analyzing the Russian line of questioning.Washington replied that the Soviet Union had no legal basis for such a request since the Japanese had allegedly used BW against China and it was thus none of Russia's business. However, it might be granted as an "amiable gesture," provided certain precautions were taken. First, the Japanese were once again to be re-interviewed by the most competent U.S. personnel available. If such interviews brought out any new or significant information, the Japanese were to be instructed not to reveal that information to the Soviet questioners. And last, the Japanese were to be told to make no mention to the Soviet authorities that they had ever been interviewed by the U.S. investigators.Three months later, after an American BW expert had been sent from Washington to direct the re-interviewing-the investigation was hitting pay din. On May 6, 1947, Tokyo cabled Washington:Statements obtained from Japanese here confirm statements of USSR prisoners. . . . Experiments on humans were known to and described by three Japanese and confirmed tacitly by Ishii; field trials against Chinese workplace. . . .scope of program indicated by report ... that 400 kilograms [880 pounds] of dried anthrax organisms destroyed [at 731] in August 1945. . . . Reluctant statements by Ishii indicate he had superiors (possibly general staff) who knew and authorized the program. Ishii states that if guaranteed immunity from "war crimes" in documentary form/or himself. superiors and subordinates, he can describe the program in detail . Ishii claims to have extensive theoretical high-level knowledge including strategic and tactical use of BW on defense and offense, backed by some research on best BW agents to employ by geographical areas of the Far East, and the use of BW in cold climates at this point the jockeying had become three-cornered and intense.The Soviets were demanding either that BW be made an issue at the war crimes trial and that Ishii et al. be put in the dock or that they be turned over to the Soviets for trial in the Soviet Union. MacArthur' s staff, while temporizing with the USSR representatives, demanded that Ishii tell all, and Ishii stalled, asking for immunity against prosecution for his crimes against China, all the while doling out a few tidbits, shrewdly hinting that he knew how to use germs in "cold climates" (Siberia?). From then on, there was barely a mention of the Chinese Nationalists and their desire for retribution against Ishii and his colleagues. If Washington thought that it was none of the Soviet Union's business, it apparently also thought that ii was none of China's business. It had become entirely America's business.Washington reply to MacArthur's foregoing revelation in a top secret priority cable asking if Ishii or any other Japanese BW personnel had already been named or were marked for naming as war criminals. Tokyo's response was by Col. Alva C. Carpenter of SCAP's (Supreme Commander Allied Powers) Legal Section who, "coordinated” his reply with the IPS, which was working on the war criminal prosecutions. In view of the flurry of activity and the knowledge MacArthur and Washington already had of Japan's BW activities, Col. Carpenter's cable of June 7, 1947, makes interesting reading:The reports and files of the Legal Section in [sic] Ishii and his coworkers are based on anonymous letters, hearsay affidavits and rumors. The Legal Section interrogations, lot of the numerous persons concerned with the BW project in China, do not reveal sufficient evidence to support war crime charges. The alleged victims are of unknown identity. Unconfirmed allegations are to the effect that criminals, farmers , women and children were used for BW experimental purposes. The Japanese Communist party alleges that "Ishi BWA" (Bacterial War Army) conducted experiments on captured Americans in Mukden* and that simultaneously, research on similar lines was conducted in Tokyo and Kyoto. None of Ishii' s subordinates are charged or held as war crimes suspects, nor is there sufficient evidence on file against them.Three weeks later, on June 27, Col. Carpenter again cabled Washington, stating that there is now "strong circumstantial evidence" of Japanese use of BW. After setting forth the allegations, he added, "IPS of the opinion that foregoing information warrants conclusion that Japanese PW [sic] group headed by Ishii did violate rules of land warfare, but this expression of opinion is not a recommendation that group be charged and tried for such. Col. Carpenter then explained that more evidence was needed, plus collaboration and "testing for trustworthiness by a thorough investigation." He concluded with an involved lawyer-like statement of the difficulties of making a case, the problems of the rules of evidence set down by the tribunal and so on.Carpenter apparently gave Washington what it wanted because sections of his prose– "anonymous," " hearsay," " rumors," " unconfirmed ," " not . . . sufficient evidence, “not a recommendation that group be charged"– appear later official position papers recommending immunity for Ishii's group.**Space does not permit a review of numerous other documents and cables which reveal even more. There are indications that Japan's BW program may have been much larger than even U.S. investigators at the time suspected. U.S. medical intelligence officers in the Pacific noted with interest the fact that Japanese military units frequently had quite sophisticated "water purification" units whose equipment included ingenious portable laboratories. U.S. military doctors could not understand the purpose of some of the equipment, such as germ-proof suits. Reports of unusual outbreaks of disease along the Central China front in the 1940s appear more suggestive today than at the time. However, a memo prepared by Dr. Edward Wettert and Mr. H.I. Stubblefield on July 1, 1947, for restricted circulation to a handful of military and State Department officials is unusual in its frankness.They reported that Ishii and his colleagues were cooperating fully, had prepared and were preparing voluminous reports and had agreed to supply photographs of 'selected examples of 8,000 slides of tissues from autopsies of humans and animal subjected to BW experiments." Human experiments, they pointed out, were better than animal experiments. They also stated that the USSR was believed to be in possession of "only a small portion of this technical information” and that since 'any war crimes' trial would completely reveal such data to all nations, it is felt that such publicity must be avoided in the interests of defense and national security of the U.S." They emphasized that the knowledge gained by the Japanese from their experiments "will -be of great value to the U.S . BW research program," adding, "The value to U.S . of Japanese BW data is of such importance to national security as to far outweigh the value accruing from war crimes prosecution."A July 15 response to the Wetter-Stubble field memo by Mr. Cecil F. Hubbert, a member of SWNCC (State, War, Navy Coordinating Committee) agreed, but warned that there may be some problems ahead because "experiments on human beings similar to those conducted by the Ishii group have been condemned as war crimes by the International Military Tribunal in Germany.” Hubbert added that the United States "is at present prosecuting leading German scientists and medical doctors at Nuremberg for offenses which included experiments on human beings which resulted in the suffering and death of most of those experimented upon.” Hubbert warned that the whole thing might leak out if the Soviets were to bring it up in cross examining major Japanese war criminals and warned of a potential bomb shell:It should be kept in mind that there is a remote possibility that independent investigation conducted by the Soviets in the Mukden area may have disclosed evidence that American prisoners of war were used for experimental purposes of a BW nature and that they lost their lives as a result of these experiments . . . Despite these risks, Hubbert agreed with Werner and Stubblefield and recommended that the matter be kept secret and that the Japanese BW personnel be given immunity from prosecution as war criminals. His memo included a number of recommended changes for the final position paper, including the following casuistry: “The data on hand . . . does not appear sufficient at this time to constitute a basis for sustaining a war crimes charge again to Ishii and/or his associates.''A number of medical doctors were put to work evaluating the Japanese material. One of the first of Washington's BW experts to conduct an on-the-spot investigation was Dr. Norbert H. Fell, who went to Japan in early April 1947. By the end of June Dr. Fell was back in Washington. One message from Tokyo says its "pertinent" cables should be shown to Dr. Fell as "he is an expert investigator with latest local information."A report by Dr. Edwin V. Hill. M.D. Chief, Basic Sciences, Camp Detrick , Maryland, reveals a portion of the technical data secured from Ishii and his colleagues during a trip to Japan by Hill and Dr. Joseph Victor. Acknowledging the "whole hearted cooperation of Brig. Gen. Charles A. Willoughby," MacArthur's intelligence chief, Dr. Hill wrote that the objectives were to obtain additional material clarifying reports already submitted by the Japanese, "to examine human pathological material which had been transferred to Japan from B.W. installations, and to obtain protocols necessary for understanding the significance of the pathological material."Dr. Hill and Victor interviewed 19 Japanese BW experts and checked out the results of individual experiments with a score of human and animal diseases, plus their work with plant diseases. They also investigated Ishii's decontamination procedures and his system for spreading disease via bacteria-laden aerosol sprayed from planes. Dr. Ota Kiyoshi described his anthrax experiments, including the number of people infected and the number who died. Ishii told the doctors about his experiments with botulism and brucellosis. Mrs. Hayakawa Kiyoshi and Yamanouchi Yujiro also provided Hill and Victor with results of other brucellosis experiments, including the number of the human experimentees who died.Dr. Hill concluded his report by pointing out that the material was a financial bargain, was obtainable nowhere else, and ended with a plea on behalf of Ishii and his colleagues: Evidence gathered in this investigation has greatly supplemented and amplified previous aspects of this field. It represents data which have been obtained by Japanese scientists at the expenditure of many millions of dollars and years of work. Information has accrued with respect to human susceptibility to those diseases as indicated by specific infectious doses of bacteria. “Such information could not be obtained in our own laboratories because of scruples attached to human experimentation. These data were secured with a total outlay of $250,000 to date, a mere pittance by comparison with the actual cost of the studies. Furthermore, the pathological material which has been collected constitutes the only material evidence of the nature of these experiments. It showed that individuals who voluntarily contributed this information will be spared embarrassment because of it and that every effort will be taken to prevent this information from falling into other hands.”The Japanese BW experts whom Dr. Hill hoped would ''be spared embarrassment" not only infected their human guinea pigs with diseases to see how many would die but, on occasion, in their pursuit of exact scientific information-made certain that they did not survive. A group would be brought down with a disease and as the infection developed, individuals would be selected out of the group and killed and autopsied so that the ravages of the disease could be ascertained at various time intervals. Gen. Kitano Masaji and Dr. Kasahara Shiro revealed this practice when discussing their work on Songo (hemorrhagic) fever: "Subsequent cases were produced either by blood or blood-free extracts of liver, spleen or kidney derived from individuals sacrificed at various times during the course of the disease. Morphine was employed for this purpose.” Kitano and Kasahara also described the "sacrificing" of a human experimentee when he apparently was recovering from an attack of tick encephalitis: “Mouse brain suspension . . . was injected . . . and produced symptoms after an incubation period of 7 days. Highest temperature was 39.8C [104F]. This subject was sacrificed when fever was subsiding, about the 12th day."Obviously our BW doctors at Detrick learned a great deal from their Japanese counterparts. While we do not yet know just how much this information advanced the American program, we have the doctors' own testimony that it was “invaluable.” In a few instances it is known that later U.S. BW weapons were at least similar to ones developed earlier by the Japanese. Infecting feathers with spore diseases was one of Ishii's ideas and feather bombs later became a standard weapon in America's BW arsenal.The late Dr. Theodor Rosebury noted the uncertainties of projecting human disease patterns from work on laboratory animals and said, "if we are to learn anything of the potency of BW agents for man, we must get our information from man directly.'' He further pointed out that accidental infections of laboratory workers were very important to BW work. Certainly Ishii's thousands of controlled experiments on human guinea pigs constituted a treasure trove of scientific information unmatched in the history of medicine.Available documents do not reveal whether anyone knows even the names of the Chinese, Russians, "half-breeds" and Americans whose lives were prematurely ended by massive doses of plague, typhus, dysentery, gas gangrene, hemorrhagic fever, typhoid, cholera, anthrax, tularemia, smallpox, tsutsugamushi and glanders, or by such grotesqueries as being pumped full of horse blood or having their livers destroyed by prolonged exposure to X-rays, or those subjected to vivisection. We do know, however, that because of the "national security" interests of the United States, Gen. Ishii and many of the top members of unit 731 lived out their full lives, suffering only the natural diseases and afflictions of old age. A few, such as Gen. Kitano, enjoyed exceptional good health and at the time of writing were living in quiet retirement.Part IIOn Nov. 25, 1969, President Richard Nixon renounced the use of BW, declaring, “Biological weapons have massive unpredictable and potentially uncontrollable consequences. They may produce global epidemics and impair the health of future generations. I have therefore decided that the U.S. shall renounce the use of lethal biological agents and weapons, and all other methods of biological warfare.”Within hours, Washington officials began qualifying the President's statement. On the same day, Defense Secretary Melvin Laird told Sen. Charles Mathias, Jr. (R-Md.) that "there will be no major impact on . . . basic research in defense systems. . . ." Nearly a year later Seymour Hersh reported in the Washington Post that the programs the Army wanted to continue "under defensive research included a significant effort to develop and produce virulent strains of new biological agents, then develop defenses against them. “This sounds very much like what we were doing before,' one official noted caustically. . . ."In the ensuing years there have been numerous indications of a continuing strong Pentagon interest in BW. In an article in Science, Samuel Goldhaber noted that the U.S. planned to maintain a sizeable "defensive" BW research effort and that although the White House had stated that this work would be completely unclassified, the Army later declared that it would remain secret. This was to be accomplished by transferring 240 civilian and 190 military personnel from the Fort Detrick BW center, which was slated for closing, to the Army's Dugway (Utah) Proving Grounds where the defensive BW effort would be centered and remain classified.A number of observers viewed the decision to keep BW work classified with apprehension. Two American Nobel Laureates expressed concern over the dangers inherent in secret BW research . Matthew W. Meselson, a Harvard Professor of Biology, said that secret research might permit the biological warfare establishment to linger quietly until public opinion lets it flourish once again. James D. Watson, director of the Cold Spring Harbor laboratories and also a Harvard biologist, stated, "I can't really imagine anything they would have to do that would have to be classified. I think that the whole apparatus should be dismantled except for people continuously studying plague on an open basis.”Initially the Army announced that Fort Detrick would either be declared surplus and closed or converted to ordinary medical research. Despite a number of suggested uses, such as turning it into a center for cancer studies, the Army apparently could not find a tenant willing to assume the financial burden of operating the installation. The problem was eventually solved when the Army changed its mind and decided to maintain a small "biodefense" research program at Detrick and lease some of its facilities to other government agencies, including the Department of Agriculture, which agreed to establish a unit there for the study of plant diseases. At the time, some critics charged that the Agriculture Department was not establishing a "new" unit, but was simply taking over the Army's already functioning plant pathogen program.In early August, 1972, the Soviet Minister of Health, Boris V. Petrovsky, was taken on a tour of Detrick and allowed to inspect the areas formerly devoted to top secret BW work. Reporters accompanying him had their attention called to the fact that the "guard post at the entrance now stands empty." On 10 November, 1977, I myself visited Fort Detrick and found the guard post manned. At the end of two days spent looking at some of the declassified files relating to the early history of Detrick, I was asked to drop in on the civilian chief of the section who questioned me closely about the nature of my interest in BW. It was very much a "permitted" visit and the areas open to me and two accompanying researchers were clearly limited. A directory posted on the wall of one office listed the installation's "tenants", most of whom were military medical research units, with some identified as belonging to the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) which became the official custodian of Fort Detrick following the BW ban. At that time USAMRIID's commanding officer was Col. Dan Crozier .1978 USAMRIID became involved in a controversy over its insistence upon maintaining a seed culture of smallpox virus. In anticipation of an official declaration of the eradication of the disease, the UN's World Health Organization (WHO) asked that all laboratories keeping smallpox cultures either destroy them or turn them over to one of four UN-designated repositories: the U.S. Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, the Laboratory for Smallpox Prophylaxis in Moscow, St. Mary's Hospital Medical College in London and the National Institute for Health in Tokyo.Military medical sources told Nicholas Wade that USAMRIID's desire to keep its smallpox culture was well founded. It was argued that because of the effectiveness of vaccination, smallpox was not now a chosen BW weapon. However, if it were to be eradicated, vaccination would be discontinued, thus leaving future populations lacking an immunity. At that point, smallpox would become an excellent BW weapon and terrorists or a foreign power might use it to attack the United States. The Army, it was argued, would then need its culture for diagnostic purposes. The military informants stated that USAMRIID was reluctant to rely on the Center For Disease Control's (CDC) official sample of the virus because with the passage of time CDC might inadvertently destroy its stock. USAMRIID's concern seems excessive since a known sample of smallpox virus itself is not essential for serologic testing, nor is it needed for production of vaccine.There was a second holdout which did not wish to accede to the WHO request that it give up its smallpox virus sample.' This was the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) in Rockville, Maryland. ATCC said that it wished to maintain its culture for archival purposes and as a hedge against the possibility that CDC might somehow lose its sample. It does seem strange that USAMRIID and ATCC both felt that the United States required three smallpox cultures when most nations voluntarily gave up their samples. And, as we shall see, it is possible that there is still another smallpox culture being maintained in the United States - this time secretly.It has now been revealed that for years the CIA maintained a supply of toxins and bacterial and viral agents, most in small quantities, but kept in ready-to-use form. Those which deteriorated were constantly replenished, and it also developed its own arsenal of sophisticated delivery weapons. The stockpiled biologicals were anthrax, tularemia, encephalitis, valley fever, two forms of brucellosis, tuberculosis, two forms of salmonella, (one of which was chlorine resistant and thus suitable for overcoming public water purification systems) and, finally, the ubiquitous smallpox.In early 1970 , following President Nixon's order for the destruction of biological agents, the CIA inventoried its stocks held "in support of operational plans." An August 23, 1975, memo by Thomas N. Karamessines, deputy director for Plans, reveals that the stockpile still existed, nearly six years after the destruction order. Karamessines is worried about the future of the agency's biologicals and states that even though the CIA's stocks are for research and development and are "unlisted," it is possible that the Defense Department might order their destruction. It was apparently felt that the stockpile was vulnerable, even though officially unlisted, because it was maintained by the agency's Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick.Karamessines' memo for the CIA director, William E. Colby, suggests a way to save the agency's toxin and germ supply. He states that if the director desires to maintain the "special (BW) capability," the stockpile could be disposed of by transferring it to the "Huntingdon Research Center, Becton-Dickinson Company, Baltimore, Maryland." He adds that he has already made contingency arrangements for such a move and that Becton-Dickinson has agreed to "store and maintain" the agency's biologicals and toxins for $75,000 per year.There is obviously something strange about this smallpox story. Army medical informants told Nicholas Wade that it was not a chosen weapon now but might be in the future. They argued, erroneously, that a smallpox. culture would be needed if the United States were subjected to a future attack. Meanwhile, smallpox appears to have been one of the CIA's chosen BW weapons and apparently was considered of such value that it illegally kept its culture for nearly six years after all biologicals were banned. Further, in 1975 it was making contingency plans to continue to hide and preserve its sample. It is worth noting that the CIA's smallpox and other offensive biologicals were being stored and kept in readiness at Ft. Detrick as late as 1975, some years after Detrick's offensive role was officially brought to an end. All of this might make more sense if the Army and the CIA knew something about smallpox that the rest of us, including the civilian medical profession, doesn't know. Is it possible that our BW experts have discovered or developed a variant or mutant form of smallpox which they believe has potential as a BW weapon despite the widespread immunization against the disease?When the Army began transferring people from Detrick because the facility was seemingly slated for mothballing, many of the civilian scientists began moving to new jobs. Newsday reporter Drew Fetherston tracked down some of these former BW personnel in their new civilian or federal positions and asked them what they were doing. Some became upset when he telephoned and refused to talk. One became angry and declared that he was not going to tell him even the color of the pencil on his desk or if, in fact, there was a pencil on his desk. From others the reporter got the impression that they were still working on BW.Even when fully functional, Detrick regularly farmed out research projects to various public institutions and private firms. The Senate Human Resources Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research revealed in March 1977 that 277 outside contractors had been used on 740 research projects between 1950 and 1970. The list included numerous universities and major private firms. There may be grounds for suspecting that the move to cut down work at Detrick was accompanied by initiating ties to lesser known–or even specially created–research companies.Certainly this has long been a CIA device for hiding its unconventional warfare projects. In the case of the CIA the linkage can sometimes be traced through personnel. While such ties by themselves do not necessarily provide proof of a connection, it is nevertheless worth following, as did Fetherston, the new careers of some of the key personnel who left Detrick when it was ostensibly slated for closing.A number of the laboratories mentioned so far as having ties with Detrick or of being involved in biological research are located in Maryland, not far from the former BW center. ATCC, which did not wish to give up its smallpox sample, is in Rockville , Maryland. The Huntingdon Research Center, which expressed willingness to maintain the CIA's illegal stockpile of smallpox and other biological agents, is in Baltimore, while USAMRIID, of course, is using the old BW labs at Detrick. Science reported that Riley Housewright, former scientific director at Detrick and former president of the American Society for Microbiology (which served as one of Detrick 's outside scientific advisory bodies), had become 'vice-president and scientific director of Microbiological Associates, Inc., a private firm in Bethesda, Maryland.Attempts to trace BW activities through the expenditure of funds can be both frustrating and rewarding. Like the CIA, which has traditionally hidden some of its expenses in the budgets of other government agencies, Fort Detrick's financial arrangements were always murky. At times statements by some of the principals have given a clearer picture than have official figures. In 1959 Navy Capt. Cecil Coggins, described as America's first biological warfare officer and as a man who had " for many years been engaged in the field of mass casualty producing weapons," estimated that "33,000 scientists' years and nearly one-half billion dollars (had) been spent on biological warfare research problems."On one occasion Army spokesmen were unable to even tell Congress how much was being spent. It was explained that expenditures were higher than the official appropriation because Detrick was engaged in contract work for other government agencies which paid for such projects out of their own budgets. If any of the Agriculture Department's plant disease work at its Detrick laboratory turns out to have a BW connection, the cost will show up only as part of Agriculture's yearly research expenses .On January 26, 1955, an unidentified CIA representative "signed out" a sample of whooping cough bacteria (Haemophilus pertussis) from Detrick. Internal CIA vouchers show that an unidentified doctor was subsequently reimbursed a few dollars for the specimen, while other expenses were listed for contaminated clothing, vehicles and lumber, plus charges for dead animals, long distance phone calls and railroad tickets. The CIA is reported to have conducted other BW experiments, such as the successful introduction of swine disease into Cuba. As we have seen it also kept toxins and biologicals at its Detrick depository long after President Nixon's order for their destruction. Shellfish toxin and cobra venom were still maintained in 1975, six years after the ban, according to testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Such CIA expenses, as well as the SW-connected expenditures of other government agencies, properly belong in the total biological warfare budget.In the first half of fiscal 1975 the government officially spent approximately six and a half million dollars on BW, all of it is said to be on defensive efforts. If, as some critics believe, the program to develop new biological weapons has not been abandoned but has been concealed through the farming out technique, then the real expenses must be in excess of the official budget.Such suspicions are strengthened by reports that some of the work has been moved abroad and has continued in the years since the 1969 ban. In 1974 London’s New Scientist reported that the U.S. Defense Department bad been paying two British doctors for research into genetically-related susceptibilities and intolerances of peoples in Africa and Asia.Discussing the work of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), which was described as "an elite group of civilian scientists conducting high rank research and development of a revolutionary nature in areas where defense technology in the U.S. appears to be falling behind , or in areas where [it] cannot afford the risk of falling behind," the New Scientist claimed that "within ARPA is Project Agile, a counterinsurgency research program responsible for 'opening up' limited warfare technologies. With this in mind, and knowing that American herbicide weapons began as ARPA-financed 'food technology' research, we might look again at Pentagon interest in blood groups." As we have seen, it was Gen. Ishii's concern over possible blood and genetic differences between Chinese and Americans which led to the fatal experiments on American prisoners during World War II.In 1975 a public controversy broke out in India when it was discovered that a study involving mosquitoes, malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever and migratory birds being conducted by the United Nations World Health Organization, WHO, was secretly funded by the United States Government. The Bombay magazine Science Today stated that there was "serious concern" in Indian scientific quarters because of the fear that the project endangered public health and was, "in fact, a camouflage for conducting research on biological warfare.''Indian scientists were also alarmed over some of the technical aspects of the research, such as the chemical sterilization of mosquitoes which, they claimed, was not a totally effective method and might result in dangerous mutations. They were further worried that the experiments might upset the disease balance in India, leading to possibly disastrous changes. Tempers and suspicions were heightened when WHO could not produce for Indian scientists inspection its repon on the project because it "had been sent to the U.S. Army's MAPS (Migratory Animals Pathological Survey) office in Bangkok."Some years earlier a piece of the story bad come out when fonner Pennsylvania Sen. Joseph S . Clark charged that a Smithsonian Institution study of Pacific island migratory bird habits was connected with an Army biological warfare experiment. It was said that the Smithsonian was helping the Army find a suitable island in the Pacific for a bird-germ test. Eight years later, a special study of Smithsonian operations criticized its director, S. Dillion Ripley, a biologist, for creating a one million dollar special fund which he used for pet projects and unexpected expenses, one of which was a migratory bird research project in India. On September 27, 1977, the board of regents relieved Ripley of day-to-day management responsibilities and appointed an assistant director for internal administration. The Smithsonian refused to release the minutes of this meeting but assured me that it was a routine affair, just filling the post of under-secretary which had been vacant for the previous two years.However, it was a little late for Smithsonian officials to lock the barn door. Sen. Edward Kennedy's Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research had already named the Smithsonian as one of the outside contractors providing cover for genn warfare experiments. Even more stanling was the subcommittee's revelation that the National Academy of Sciences, America's most prestigious scientific association, also led a Jekyll and Hyde existence. It, too, was a secret contractor, aiding Ft. Detrick's biological warfare work. Such disclosures raise questions about the personal morality of some of our leading scientists.While most members of the Smithsonian, the Agriculture Department, the U.S. Public Health Service (which provided the original shellfish toxin sample which Fon Detrick used to develop a new poison for the CIA) and the National Academy of Sciences were doubtless unaware of their organizations’ secret ties with the BW effort , those in positions of leadership knew. Some, renowned scientists who had devoted their public lives to disease control, were clandestinely working on "public health in reverse," using their considerable talents to devise ways and means to sicken and kill their fellow man.One of the difficulties, or advantages–depending upon how one looks at it–is that biological warfare preparations are so easily camouflaged as legitimate medical research. Gen. Ishii successfully hid his anti-science under the cloak of "water purification" and "vaccine production." Even BW attacks sometimes can be, and no doubt have been, passed off as "natural" outbreaks of disease. Denials and disclaimers concealed Japan's BW atrocities for nearly 50 years. For more than 30 years the United States has played the same game, covering up Japan's activities and dissembling about its own. How much longer will it be before we know the full story of American development- and use- of biological warfare?Tom Powell has written three definitive articles about biowar in Korea, systematically dismantling the preposterous fairy tales by shameless propaganda operatives:Biological Warfare in the Korean War: Allegations and Cover-upKorean War Biological Warfare UpdateThe Dirty Secret of the Korean WarPostscript: The Report of the International Scientific Commission for the Investigation of Facts Concerning Bacteriological Warfare in Korea and China, better known as the Needham Report for its lead investigator, Professor Joseph Needham, a British biochemist. Needham was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1941, and a fellow of the British Academy in 1971. In 1992, Queen Elizabeth II conferred on him the Companionship of Honour, and the Royal Society noted he was the only living person to hold these three titles.Needham’s report, published at the height of the Korean War, validated North Korean and Chinese claims that the US had launched bacteriological warfare, BW attacks against both troops and civilian targets in both countries in 1952.This 667 page report is the most vilified written document of the 20th Century. Its release in September 1952 brought a massive international attack by American and British politicians of the highest rank, four star generals, celebrated ‘experts’, was misquoted by notable scientists, and scorned by Western media.They made allegations–without evidence–about the quality and truthfulness of its science, its political agenda, and the ethics of interviewing captured US POW pilots. The authors were accused of being communist dupes. The US Government deemed it unpatriotic to read and it went unread and deliberately forgotten over the years (like most Korean War history). Volumes placed in American university library collections were quietly and permanently removed from circulation and, when a rare copy came up for auction, it was discretely purchased and disappeared from public view. Today, only two libraries are known to hold copies. Here is an excerpt from Needham’s report:My name is Paul R Kniss and I am a member of the United States Air Force Reserve. My rank is Lieutenant and my serial number is A01909070. I was born April 29, 1922 in Monmouth Illinois. My wife’s address is 1103 Southwest Military Drive, San Antonio, Texas. My parents address is 339 So. 7th Street, Monmouth Illinois.In December 1946 I enlisted in the Air Force as a Corporal. Later, after graduating as a pilot, I served as a flight instructor at Craig Air Force Base. I remained at Craig until January 30, 1952, when I was ordered to Korea. I arrived at Camp Stoneman, California on the 21st of February, 1952 for further assignment overseas, together with 5 other instructors from Craig who were also going overseas. Their names were F/Lt John Carleton, F/Lt Randall, F/Lt John Jansen, F/Lt James Camp, F/Lt Robert Manning. From Camp Stoneman we were sent to Korea. We arrived in a K-46 (f-51 base about 5 miles north of Wong Ju) on the 20th of March, 1952. I was assigned to the 12th Fighter Bomber Squadron, 18th Fighter Bomber Group flying F-51s.In June 1951 while I was still at Craig, I attended a lecture in flight room of our squadron. All the pilots of the 3616th Pilot Training Squadron were there. Our lecturer was a Captain Laurie, our Wing Information and Education officer. He talked for about 1 hour on atomic defense. He went to great detail to explain our defense against atom bombs on the ground. He stated that an atom bomb did not more damage than a normal bomb only that it destroyed a larger area. Our means of protection was to get down on the ground or under a table or against a wall to protect ourselves from the blast. He stated that the blast would kill a person ¾ of a mile away if he were not behind something. The radiation was safe if you were half a mile or further from the bomb. He stated that the heat would kill everyone ¼ mile from the blast.He then said the real danger was the germ warfare being planned by other nations. He said they would bomb germs and also be smuggled in by agents, fired by artillery shells from submarines. He stated that he expected to see in 1952 all military personnel having to attend special courses in germ warfare, being issued protective masks and would be given special inoculations against germs. Pilots of our squadron asked him where he had gotten this information, but he would not say where, only that we would be told more later on. [end p.2].The day after we reached Camp Stoneman, that is on February 23 the six of us new arrivals with others who were going to different groups in Korea, were given a 15 minute briefing by Captain Holleman with Charles Krober, a classmate of mine at Barksdale Air Force Base Lauriston (?) also attended this because he was going to fly B-26’s in Korea. Altogether there were 50 pilots in that lecture.Captain Holleman is about 35 years old, wore glasses and is about 6 feet tall, dark haired, and getting bald on top. He stated that there were stories circulating to the effect that America was using germ warfare in Korea. Those stories were untrue, he said, and you are to deny those stories. America has, he says, germ bombs and they can also spray germs from airplanes but we would not be doing it and we want you men to deny every story you hear about germ warfare. We have now in America at VT (?) germ bomb (with variable fuze) and we also a parachute bomb for germ warfare. This latter bomb is loaded with deceased animals and insects which will, when released [end p.3] from the bomb, spread their diseases around. We can also spray germs direct from airplanes. We can also have them carried into enemy territory by our agents could put the germs in the water supply of all the towns and cities. Captain Holleman gave us all this information in our processing room at Camp Stoneman. After this lecture was over myself and the other pilots in my group discussed it among ourselves. I was of the opinion, as were the other men, that we were not using germ warfare in Korea, that it was propaganda being circulated by the North Koreans. We thought our government naturally wanted to stop all stories circulating to this effect.Again the very day after our arrival at K-46 in Korea, we six pilots, Lts. Carleton, Jansen, Camp, Manning, Randall and myself were give a 1 hour lecture on March 21 by Captain McLaughlin. He is about 30 years old and about six feet tall. He is our Group Intelligence Officer and the briefing was held in our briefing room with the door locked. The 18th. Bmr Group has been waging germ warfare since January 1st., 1952, Captain McLaughlin stated. We are using two types of bombs at present, a V.T. germ bomb and a [sic] animal parachute bomb. We are going to start spraying germs from our aircraft in June. We will send four aircraft from our Group the 30th of April, 1952. [end p.4] to Tachikawa (Japan) to be fixed up for spraying. They will put a tank behind the pilot to hold the germs and they will spray out behind the aircraft. The aircraft will be ready the 15th. June and then we will brief all the pilots of the group on how to spray germs. This method has been used in Korea and was successful.In our V.T. bombs, Captain McLaughlin stated, we will use diseases like typhoid, bubonic plague and so forth. I think he mentioned Malaria but I can’t recall for sure. These bombs will come from Sonju in a special truck and will be loaded 15 minutes before your takeoff time. (Ordinarily our aircraft are loaded two hours before takeoff time). You will know what they are when you see the truck which is a closed one. The aircraft will be loaded by a special crew from the ordnance department and the men loading will wear white uniforms, masks and gloves. Do not be afraid of these bombs. You will not use any special equipment but the germs cannot escape. The aircraft will be sterilized when you return from these missions.We do not use any special aircraft for germ warfare missions, he continued, but use whatever is available. When you return from such a mission you will take a shower immediately after debriefing and the following day you will be given a blood test to see if you are alright. If for any reason you cannot complete your mission you will not drop your bombs but return to K-46 and land with them. You men will not talk about germ [end p.5] at any time and will always report after a germ mission as I shall instruct you. You will sign a statement after this stating that you will not discuss amongst yourselves, or with anyone else, the content of this meeting. The materials of this lecture will be considered ‘Top Secret’. Our Government will deny the facts of germ warfare as long as possible. Do not feel bad about using germ warfare as all other pilots in the group are doing it now and it will increase later on.Here is our V.T. germ bomb as Captain McLaughlin drew it on the blackboard.This bomb will always be dropped by four aircraft at a time, the captain went on. You will dive from 10,000 feet to 6,000 feet as a flight and release your bombs at the target. The bomb will explode about 100 feet above the ground and spread the germs for around 100 yards. If the bomb does not explode in the air but, explodes on the ground the germs would be killed by the blast. If the bomb explodes in the air the germs are just spread out by the force of the explosion. [end p.6]This bomb will be dropped close to a city but not in it because the North Korean people have used disinfectant widely in their cities and it would kill the germs. We drop our bombs close to a large city and let the animals and humans carry the germs to the city, where they will spread, but those germs must get on animals or humans within 3 hours or they will die. These germs, Captain McLaughlin stated, are parasitic, meaning that they cannot exist by themselves but must live on something living, they can exist for about 3 hours by themselves. When you return from a mission if it was successful you will report “Mission accomplished. Results unobserved,” that is so we can say it was a “Flack Suppression” mission in our releases to the newspapers. The bomb Captain McLaughlin said looks like a regular 500 pound V.T. bomb and has no special markings on it.This is our parachute bomb as drawn by Captain McLaughlin:The bomb, Captain McLaughlin said, will only be carried by one the old pilots in the Group. HE will be the only one of the Group carrying the bomb on a Group formation. He will dive with his [end p.7] flight from 10,000 feet to 1000 feet and release them. The door will open in the rear of the bomb and the parachute will lower the bomb gently to the ground. When the bomb strikes the ground it will break into two parts, at the position where the hinges are located. The bomb was originally cut into two parts then joined together by hinges. When the bomb breaks into two parts the animals and insects will escape. We are using rats, lice, mice and fleas in these bombs. It will also be dropped near a large city but not in it where the people could kill the animals and insects as they escape. This bomb will be reported as a dud when the pilot returns from his mission. You can recognize this bomb b the door in the rear, the hinges in the middle where the bomb has been cut in two.With both types of bombs you must not fly over 12,000 feet or else the animals, insects and germs will be killed due to lack of oxygen and the extreme cold. “Again,” Captain McLaughlin said, “I want to tell you not to discuss this information out of this room as you will be court-martialed”. With these words he concluded our briefing. Our briefing lasted from 08:00 to 09:00.There were the following named men present. Myself, F/Lt John Carleton, F/Lt John Jansen, F/Lt Robert Manning, F/Lt James Camp and F/Lt Randall. We had all been instructors at Craig and had joined the Group at the same time. [end p.8].Captain McLaughlin brought the statements that we signed to the lecture and at the conclusion of the lecture gave each one of us one to sign. We then returned the statement to him. The statement was about ten inches long and two inches wide. As best I remember it, it was words like this: I UNDERSTAND I WILL NOT DISCUSS ANY OF THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION DISCUSSED AT THIS MEETING 21 MARCH 1952 AND IF I DO I MAY BE PUNISHED UNDER THE ARTICLES OF WAR. PAUL R KNISS(SIGNATURE)________________(I forget the exact number of the Articles of War it mentioned.) The Group Intelligence Officer will keep this statement in his office. If any of the pilots are overheard discussing germ bombs they would be court-martialed and this statement would be used as evidence against them.I was very disgusted with myself at the prospect of having to wage germ warfare but I also realized I had no choice in the matter and must do as I was ordered. I also remembered the words of Captan Holleman whom I had believed and at this time I was starting to wonder who was right and who was wrong in this war.The 27th of March, 1952, at 05:30 myself, Captain Thomas (our Flight leader), Captain Brutin and F/Lt Fluke, all of whom were in the 127th. Bomber Squadron were briefed for a germ mission. We were briefed by Captain McLaughlin in our Group briefing room with the door locked. Captain McLaughlin showed us a photograph of some [end p.9] hills with bare spots on them south of Sarwan, 10 miles. These pictures were about 12 inches long and 8 inches wide and had been taken by the 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Group. The bare spots on these hills, he said, are gun positions. I looked at the pictures with a magnifying glass but could see no guns or gun positions. “Your mission is a flak suppression mission,” Captain McLaughlin said. You will take off an 07:00 and be over your target at 08:00. You will climb to 10,000 feet on course to the target. When you are over the target, dive as a flight to 6,000 feet and release your bombs. When you return report to me and say, ‘Mission accomplished, results unobserved’”Our briefing lasted for 15 minutes. After briefing I went to my squadron Operations room and put on my flying equipment. At 06:45 I went out to my airplane. Two men dressed in white fatigues, wearing a mask over their nose and mouth, and gloves were loading the bombs on my airplane. They removed the bombs from the truck and placed them on the bomb shackles by hand. The bombs looked like regular 500 lb V7 bombs and had no strange markings on them. When they had finished and gone away I looked at my bombs to see if they were securely on the bomb hooks. My plane, like the other 3 planes had two 500 pounds V7 germ bombs on it.We took off at 07:00 and climbed on course to 10,000 feet. We arrived over our target, which was 10 miles south of Sarwon about 100 feet to the side of the railroad track, at 08:00. We dove as a flight to 6000 feet and released our bombs. Two exploded [end p.10] on the ground and only six of them exploded in the air. The bombs that exploded on the ground threw debris and a cloud of smoke up to a height of 100 feet. The bombs that exploded in the air formed a gassy cloud which disappeared in about 45 seconds. Our flight then climbed back to 10,000 feet and returned to K-46.We landed at 09:00 and told Captain McLaughlin in the intelligence office, “Mission accomplished, results unobserved”. We then took a shower. While we were taking the shower I said to Captain Thomas, “This may clean my body but my mind will never be clean after committing such an act”. At 08:00 on March 28th we were given a blood test by our doctor.Other germ bomb missions which I personally know about are as follows: On the 29th of April F/Lt Daleo told me that he and F/Lt Curry, F/Lt John Jansen, and Fl/Lt Randall had dropped 8 VT germ bombs five miles south of Sinagar (?) on the 5th of April (all these pilots are in the 12th Fts Bmr Squadron). He also said that Lt. Col Crane, our squadron commander (12th squadron) had dropped two parachute bombs the 15th of April at 09:00. I heard that Lt. Col. Crow, squadron Commander of the 67th Squadron, tell Captain McLaughlin that he had dropped two ‘duds’ near Pyongyang. These were the parachute germ bombs. The 21st of May, Captain Thomas told me that F/Lt Ed Williams, 67th 7th Bmr Squadron, had led a flight [end p.11] of aircraft to a position 5 miles east of Sunaas(?) on a “Flack suppression” mission. We knew then that they had dropped V.T. germ bombs.I want it known by whoever reads this statement that it is my own sense of Justice, my own ability to tell right from wrong has forced me to let everyone know the facts. My Conscience as always bothered me since I’ve committed this act as I believe it would any man that knew justice from injustice. This inhuman Warfare must be stopped. I offer these facts to the world that an inhuman ware is being waged in Korea by the United States Forces. It is not only being used against the North Korean and Chinese Volunteer soldiers but also against the people of North Korea. The civilians of North Korea have suffered terribly from the war already and now they are being subjected to the most inhuman type of warfare.It is now the job of all the people in the world to take these facts that I have presented and demand an immediate stop to germ warfare in North Korea. The people of the United States should insist that no nation should ever use this type of warfare again. Only by every person in the world doing their part towards stopping war and inhuman acts will we have world peace. All men of the world are brothers and until we all learn to live together and help each other we cannot have the peace we desire so much.Paul R. Kniss20 July 1952An electronic edition of the Needham report, with new and expanded material, background and other vital information, including story of the plot to suppress it, will be published in October of this year, 2019. Those interested in obtaining a copy should so indicate.