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Stephen Lyon Endicott

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The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets from the Early Cold War and Korea Hardcover – Download: Adobe Reader, November 22, 1998

by Stephen Endicott (Author), Edward Hagerman (Author)

11

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[The United States and Biological Warfare] is a major contribution to our understanding of the past involvement by the US and Japanese governments with BW, with important, crucial implications for the future. . . . Pieces of this story, including the Korean War allegations, have been told before, but never so authoritatively, and with such a convincing foundation in historical research. . . . This is a brave and significant scholarly contribution on a matter of great importance to the future of humanity.
―Richard Falk, Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice, Princeton University

The United States and Biological Warfare argues persuasively that the United States experimented with and deployed biological weapons during the Korean War. Endicott and Hagerman explore the political and moral dimensions of this issue, asking what restraints were applied or forgotten in those years of ideological and political passion and military crisis.

For the first time, there is hard evidence that the United States lied both to Congress and the American public in saying that the American biological warfare program was purely defensive and for retaliation only. The truth is that a large and sophisticated biological weapons system was developed as an offensive weapon of opportunity in the post-World War II years. From newly declassified American, Canadian, and British documents, and with the cooperation of the Chinese Central Archives in giving the authors the first access by foreigners to relevant classified documents, Endicott and Hagerman have been able to tell the previously hidden story of the extension of the limits of modern war to include the use of medical science, the most morally laden of sciences with respect to the sanctity of human life. They show how the germ warfare program developed collaboratively by Great Britain, Canada, and the United States during the Second World War, together with information gathered from the Japanese at the end of World War II about their biological warfare technology, was incorporated into an ongoing development program in the United States. Startling evidence from both Chinese and American sources is presented to make the case.

An important book for anyone interested in the history and morality of modern warfare.

Print length

304 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Indiana University Press
Publication date

November 22, 1998
Dimensions

6.3 x 1 x 9.4 inches
ISBN-10

0253334721
ISBN-13

978-0253334725
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

An airplane flies over enemy territory, dropping a shiny cylindrical object near a town. When the townspeople go to investigate, they find flies, spiders, and feathers scattered among bomb fragments in the snow. Biological testing reveals that all the items are contaminated with the anthrax bacillus. The Iran-Iraq war? International terrorism? Or the United States in northeastern China, 1952?

The term "biological warfare" brings to mind images of ruthless dictators, delusional terrorists, and cartoonish movie villains. The assertions made by Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagerman, that the United States engaged in germ warfare against China and North Korea in the 1950s, are therefore both shocking and disturbing. The United States and Biological Warfare is an important yet flawed history of the American program, from its origin in 1941 as the Bacteriological Warfare Committee (quickly and obfuscatingly renamed the WBC) to its abrupt closure in the 1960s. The main focus of the book, however, is the United States' activities in Korea and China during the Korean War--where, Endicott and Hagerman claim, the U.S. launched a number of biological attacks to spread anthrax, cholera, and smallpox viruses, as well as other disease-causing agents.

This book is bound to draw criticism from many sides; despite their thorough research, the authors have yet to find a proper "smoking gun." Some of the science is muddled, as well--though it is at times difficult to tell if the confusion began in the military documents or with the authors. The circumstantial evidence and overall argument, however, are quite compelling. What is even more disturbing than these activities (including the fact that scientists who were active in Japan's biological warfare program in World War II were granted immunity for their war crimes in return for sharing their knowledge) is the wartime mentality that causes countries to contemplate and even commit atrocities in the name of national security. A chilling read.

From Publishers Weekly

If nothing else, Canadian historian Endicott and American historian Hagerman will make thoughtful readers see the irony in the U.S. government's ongoing showdown with Iraq over biological weapons. This history of the U.S. biological weapons program alleges that the U.S. actually deployed biological weapons during the Korean War. The authors marshal an impressive array of evidence that the military and executive branch lied to Congress and the public about the development of biological weapons. At the end of WWII, the American military enlisted the aid of top Japanese biological warfare officers; when the Korean War broke out, the U.S. embarked on an ambitious program to produce offensive biological weapons, despite Pentagon protestations that the research was geared toward defensive weaponry. During the war, Chinese officials learned of mysterious outbreaks of disease after some U.S. raids and began to suspect that biological weapons were being used. The authors were the first foreigners allowed to inspect Chinese archival documents dealing with the possible American use of biological weapons. They rely heavily on these sources, as well as on Canadian, British and American documents. The research is bolstered by endnotes and an array of photographs (not seen by PW).
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

An expos of a little-known and shameful episode in American military history. Much has been made of the fact that the Japanese military during WWII resorted to the use of biological and chemical weapons, in violation of international law. Asian history specialist Endicott and military historian Hagerman, both professors at York University (Canada), together reveal that immediately after WWII, the US army picked up where the Japanese military left off, using testing facilities in Yokohama and Kyoto to find ways of turning plague, cholera, anthrax, undulant fever, encephalitis, salmonella, meningitis, typhus, and tularemia against the newfound Communist enemy. Lt. General Yujiro Wakamatsu, commander of the notorious Unit 100, which tested biological weapons on Chinese prisoners during WWII, found work as a research scientist in the principal American laboratory; so did many other Japanese scientists granted immunity for their wartime crimes. In 1952, the Chinese premier Zhou Enlai accused the US of conducting biological warfare in Koreaof dropping bombs, for instance, ``containing live insects of various descriptions and rotten fish, decaying pork, frogs, and rodents.'' Drawing on recently declassified documents, the authors lend credence to Zhou's charge, which the US denied at the time. (Among other things cited here is an approving letter of 1953 from President Harry S. Truman suggesting ``that had the war in the Pacific not ended by mid-August 1945, [Truman] would have used biological as well as chemical weapons.'') A number of villains turn up in Endicott and Hagerman's fast-paced narrative, among them key figures in American defense, pharmaceutical, medical, and intelligence circles; sadly, there are no heroes to match them. A convincing and shockingly relevant, case study of official and technological immorality. (62 b&w photos, 7 maps) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review

...the most impressive, expertly researched and, as far as the official files allow, the best-documented case for the prosecution yet made. Still lacking a smoking biological bomblet, the authors nevertheless conclude from the circumstantial evidence that the United States is guilty--not of waging a prolonged biological attack on North Korea and China but more likely of conduction a limited covert action, a kind of experimental foray with biological weapons to test the kind of war Washington would have waged had the Korean conflict led to World War III. -- The Nation, Peter Pringle

About the Author

Stephen Endicott was born in Shanghai of missionary parents and grew up in China before the Communist revolution. His family lived in Sichuan province for three generations where he returned to teach in the 1980s. Dr. Endicott, who is a graduate of the University of Toronto, has received the Killam Senior Fellowship and other academic awards while teaching East Asian history at York University. His books include Diplomacy and Enterprise: British China Policy 1933-1937, James G. Endicott: Rebel Out of China, and Red Earth: Revolution in a Sichuan Village.
Edward Hagerman is a member of the history faculty of York University in Toronto. He has published many articles on the origins of modern war and modern total war, and has contributed to textbooks for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the U.S. Army Command and General Staff college, the U.S. Air Force Academy, and the Air War College of the U.S. Air Force. He has authored The American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Indiana University Press (November 22, 1998)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0253334721
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0253334725
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.39 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.3 x 1 x 9.4 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,056,083 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #120 in Biological & Chemical Warfare History (Books)
- #8,935 in American Military History
- #19,914 in Engineering (Books)

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Jeffrey S. Kaye

A very important book, meticulously written and researched

Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2018

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Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagerman have produced an extremely well-documented and convincing book about a controversy that may have occurred 65 years ago, but whose ramifications continue to affect world affairs to this very day. The authors, who are professional historians, were granted unique access to Chinese state archives. They also took advantage of a temporary loosening of the bands of secrecy that still keep many Korean War documents classified, even after all these many decades. The result is as close as we are likely to come to a definitive answer about whether the U.S. conducted biological warfare during the Korea War. The authors make a surprisingly strong case that this did in fact occur.

Few books in the last 20 years have been attacked as vociferously as this one. The critics, or most of them, would rather readers not think for themselves and examine all the evidence, but simply accept what they, the authorities, pronounce. The book has been boosted by the recent online posting of the 1952 International Scientific Commission report on the U.S. bacteriological warfare, a report produced by an international team of scientists led by the famous British biologist and Sinologist, Joseph Needham. (That report can be accessed in full and for free online via search.)

Some Cold War scholars purport that documents found in the former Soviet Union, and a supposed memoir by a Chinese medical scientist, constitute proof that the use of U.S. germ warfare never happened in the Korean War, and that the North Korean and Chinese charges were based on a hoax and falsified evidence. These new documents cannot be verified in any scholarly way, but that doesn't keep these scholars from maintaining that the controversy is a dead letter. While the authors have tried, post-publication, to answer these arguments, a full analysis of these documents remains to be done. I am working on that myself, and interested readers can search online for my name and an appropriate keyword(s) (like "biological warfare Korea") and see what I've written about all this.

The bottom line is that this is a very important book. The chapter on the "CIA in the Korean War" is alone worth the price of purchase. Much of our history has been suppressed, and this only accelerated after 9/11. Readers owe it to themselves to get this book. It is jam-packed with information, and you will find yourself referring back to it, and rereading it more than once. This book is an outstanding contribution to the history of the Korean War, and the history of the United States more generally.

9 people found this helpful

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Mark H. Gaffney

a must read for every American...

Reviewed in the United States on September 12, 2021

Verified Purchase

This is an extremely well researched study by two able scholars. After reviewing all of the evidence, they concluded that the US probably used bio-weapons against the North Koreans and Chinese during the Korean War.

Their conclusion is shocking and deserves to be a wake up call for every American.

The negative reviews posted here at Amazon illustrate the problem: We Americans have been brought up to believe our country does not do this sort of thing. Wrong.

Unfortunately, there is a strong case that we have been deceived. At the end of WW II, the US military recruited Japanese war criminals for the purpose of developing the next generation of bio-weapons. A few years later, the US then turned these same weapons against North Korea and China.

Bottom line: the US military's use of bio-weapons in the Korean War (and no doubt there were other cases) has placed all of us in the gravest danger. The Chinese surely know what happened! They are not stupid. They have undoubtedly taken steps to return the favor.

As they say, what goes around comes around.

In a future war with China, Covid-19 will be the least of our worries. Avian Flu has a fatality rate of ~60%. Try to imagine what would happen if such a virus were to be unleashed. The United States would probably cease to exist.

Please read this important book, then, pass it on to others.

3 people found this helpful

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C. Hwang

A poor proof of a false accusation

Reviewed in the United States on May 3, 2014

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I totally agree with the very first reviewer ("Unacceptable scholarship by any standard.", Ed. Regis(?)). This book is a repetition of Chinese and North Korean propaganda and accusation, spiced with twisted circumstantial "evidence". It is a poor attempt to raise the attentions on a forgotten false accusation.

I am actually more interesting on Mr. Regis' review on NY Times ("Wartime Lies?" [...], published Jun 27, 1999), because one of his key points was right on the money.

"Carl Sagan used to say that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The evidence Endicott and Hagerman present for their extraordinarily dubious claim is notable only for its weakness. The Chinese and North Koreans themselves had the means, motive and opportunity to fabricate evidence, and were known to rewrite history for propaganda purposes. Any plausible defense of the claim that the Americans were guilty of biological warfare in the Korean conflict must address the question of fabricated evidence. "

In late 2013, Yan Huang Historical Review (炎黄春秋）published a posthumous manuscript by Wu, Zhili, the former Surgeon General of Chinese People's Volunteers' Army. The title of the article was "The "germ war" of 1952 was a false alarm." He wrote that the front line troops had reported some suspicious insects in the snows. It was duly reported all the way back to Beijing. However, while he and his medical team was still struggling to figure out if these insects really carried any harmful germs, People's Daily had started the allegation of "germ war by Americans" in February 22, 1952. Days after this allegation, even with the helps of the special medical team sent by Beijing, they still could not isolated the alleged germs. Actually, he admitted they did not find any during the whole year of 1952. However, it did not matter any more. The Party could not back down. Under the tremendous political pressure, he could have done nothing but followed the orders and fabricated the cases, testimonies, and evidences, after being harshly reproached by Peng, DeHuai, CinC of CPVA.

Case closed.

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