Talk:Allegations of biological warfare in the Korean War

Article title

Should this article be moved to something like Alleged germ warfare in the Korean War given that the claims have never been proven? Nick-D (talk) 10:59, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Possibly. I wasn't sure about the title when I created the article. I suppose, to be precise, it should be "Alleged germ [or biological] warfare by the goverment of the United States of America in the Korean War"... But that might be too long-winded!

On the other hand we can have an article about dragons without calling it "Alleged dragons".--Jack Upland (talk) 08:57, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I just noticed this article and I too have pondered the title. Your point about dragons is well taken, although the main difference is probably that the the occurrence of dragons is probably less controversial with fewer diverging opinions than the topic of U.S. biological warfare during the Korean War. Really, I'm not sure how to handle it, I'm all for titles being accurate and all but the text here makes it pretty clear that these accusations have remained just that, accusations, through the years. I do suspect, however, that it's going to end up changed eventually regardless of what happens at the moment. IvoShandor (talk) 08:26, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I think this article should be renamed...even Chinese and North Koreans didn't know how the disease were spread through out Korea and Manchuria, it is more of an "Allegations of germ warfare in the Korean War" Jim101 (talk) 05:49, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I renamed the article due to the fact that it is the allegations that received most scholar attentions, but not germ warfare itself. Jim101 (talk) 00:17, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good to me.IvoShandor (talk) 05:59, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

OK. I think it's an allegation, not allegations, but the plural sounds better.--Jack Upland (talk) 00:50, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

PS I don't understand what is meant by the assertion that the allegations received more attention than the germ warfare itself!--Jack Upland (talk) 09:06, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think this article's name should be changed to "Biological warfare hoax in the Korean War". This rams one interpretation down the reader's throat.--Jack Upland (talk) 20:18, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Zhang

The researches in Chinese archives conducted by historian Shu Guang Zhang have noted that there is little, if any information on how the Chinese scientists actually investigated the biological warfare allegations. Zhang argued that the Communist side was more interested in using the biological warfare allegation to drive a wedge between US and its allies.

This really needs to be tightened up if it is to remain. It ignores the existence of the international commission, which is surely abundant evidence that investigation took place. Moreover, a simple lack of information in archives is hardly noteworthy. Records might not have been kept, or have been kept elsewhere, e.g., by the scientists themselves. Secondly, the suggestion the allegation was used for propaganda purposes is undeniable (though the specific aims could be debated). It doesn't, however, do much to evaluate the veracity of the allegation. After all, the US and its allies denied the allegation for propaganda reasons too. (And we know some of their counterclaims were false).--Jack Upland (talk) 08:00, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Trim it if you want, but Zhang's work is currently the definitive research into Chinese conducts during the Korean War, so I believe his remarks should have some weight on the issue. Jim101 (talk) 15:50, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't doubt the value of Zhang's work. (I've seen references to it but haven't read it.) My point is that the conclusions above are inconsequential. Either (a) Zhang's actual conclusions are more substantial and should be included, or (b) they aren't, so we can use his research but not bother with conclusions that don't really matter.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:29, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay, as you wish. Jim101 (talk) 15:09, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

From U.S. Bio Weapons program article

The following text has been in the article on the United States biological weapons program for quite some time. If anyone would like to integrate it here that would be good I think, in addtion, perhaps a sourced summary of the complete article here could replace that section of the above linked bio-weapons program article. I wrote and researched most of it but the last paragraph is a recent addition that I am not so sure about, perhaps consensus can be reached here.

North Korean and Chinese officials leveled accusations that during the Korean War the United States engaged in biological warfare in North Korea. The claim is dated to the period of the war, and has been thoroughly denied by the U.S. In 1998, Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagermann claimed that the accusations were true in their book, The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets from the Early Cold War and Korea The book received mixed reviews, some called it "bad history" and "appalling", while other praised the case the authors made.

In 1952 the Chinese and North Koreans insinuated that mysterious outbreaks of disease in North Korea and China were due to U.S. biological attacks. Despite assertions that this did not occur from the International Red Cross and World Health Organization, whom the Chinese denounced as Western-biased, the Chinese government pursued an investigation by the World Peace Council. A committee led by Joseph Needham gathered evidence for a report that included eyewitness testimony, and testimony from doctors as well as four American Korean War prisoners who confirmed the U.S. use of BW. The U.S. government denied the accusations and their denial was generally supported by top scientists in the West. In Eastern Europe, and China, North Korea it was widely believed that the accusations were true.

The same year Endicotts' book was published Kathryn Weathersby and Milton Leitenberg of the Cold War International History Project at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington released a cache of Soviet and Chinese documents which revealed the North Korean claim was an elaborate disinformation campaign. In addition, a Japanese journalist claims to have seen similar evidence of a Soviet disinformation campaign and that the evidence supporting its occurrence was faked.

Others have revived these claims more recently. In March 2010, the allegations were investigated by the Al Jazeera English news programme People & Power. In this program, Professor Mori Masataka investigated historical artifacts in the form of bomb casings from US biological weapons, contemporary documentary evidence and eye witness testimonies. From the evidence he collected, Professor Mori concluded that the United States did in fact test biological weapons on North Korea during the Korean War.

References

IvoShandor (talk) 09:58, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Further Reading???

What's the purpose of the Further Reading section? It contains a range of material which hasn't been used in the course of the article. If it's so important, why not cite it?--Jack Upland (talk) 10:00, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Further reading is one of the commonly used appendices on WP. If one wanted to use some of the information found in those works and cite them that would be a good thing, but one would have to have access to them first. See WP:FURTHER, WP:FOOTERS and the apparently proposed policy at Wikipedia:Further reading. IvoShandor (talk) 04:13, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

OK. Official policy, but still strange.--Jack Upland (talk) 02:21, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

added

• Julian Ryall, "Did the US wage germ warfare in Korea?", Telegraph, (June 10, 2010).

Okip 02:27, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

So should we add this to the references section?P0PP4B34R732 (talk) 02:48, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I did, don't know if someone removed. Okip 16:48, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Weathersby and Leitenberg

There seems to be an effort to tilt this article towards endorsing the conclusions of Weathersby and Leitenberg. However, a leading source of their "cache" of evidence is Beria's NKVD, which is well known for producing false accusations against all and sundry. The claim that "their conclusions have been generally accepted" is not supported by the evidence within the article itself, which shows continuing support for the BW allegation. In fact, citations to back this claim are articles by Weathersby and Leitenberg themselves! The article should be reworded more neutrally.--Jack Upland (talk) 04:06, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

  Yes more neutrality please. And this sentence: "The book received mixed reviews; out of 20 reviews cited, 2 reviews were negative"? So 18/20 is mixed?! 

Pips 00:54, 16 August 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jojonouvo (talk • contribs)

Brand New Source

CIA Document Suggests U.S. Lied About Biological, Chemical Weapon Use In The Korean War, By Jeffrey Kaye, The Public Record, Dec 16th, 2013 It is somewhat about Chemical War and goes into Japan's experts. I do not think chemical war in Korea is worthy of its own entry and I would like to integrate this some how. Thank you. For whats its worth, I know from another entry I'm working on that Chemical agents were on Okinawa by 1950ish.

I don't see this in use either United States Biological Warfare during the Korean War: rhetoric and reality, by Stephen Endicott & Edward Hagerman, York UniversityJohnvr4 (talk) 22:22, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Crawford Sams

Is there better information about Sams' undercover mission behind enemy lines? The same story, based on Sams' own account, is given in Jager, Brothers at War, pp 242-244. But it seems strange to risk a Brigadier General to investigate a disease outbreak in enemy-held territory.--Jack Upland (talk) 10:22, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

I have now consolidated the details of this dubious story in one section.--Jack Upland (talk) 10:55, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

New document added

I added an item from Chinese sources published in late 2013. A Chinese historical magazine published a posthumous article by Wu, Zhi-Li, then Surgeon General of CPVA (Chinese People's Volunteer Army) during Korean War. Wu admitted that the "germ war" was caused by a false alarm. His team and even the best Chinese scientists sent from Beijing could not find any harmful germs. He and the experts had no way but fabricating the evidences.

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Move

I reverted the move. If anyone think it should be moved this way, then you should explain here - why and get consensus from others. My very best wishes (talk) 03:03, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

New information available

There could be some new information and more bybliography sources in this article: "REVEALED: The long-suppressed official report on US biowarfare in North Korea" By Jeffrey S. Kaye 77.105.22.160 (talk) 17:53, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Shu Guang Zhang's statements on propaganda

Was wondering if anyone had a link or pdf to verify its accuracy? I could only find this, which suggests a less critical picture. Donkey Hot-day (talk) 22:12, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Use of Kaye in the introduction

It makes no sense that the introduction would state that "Subsequent scholars are split about the truth of the claims" yet also dedicate an entire paragraph to the one-sided view of a single source. Not to mention that it's quite literally a blog post written by a non-expert. At the very least, it should be removed from the introduction but I think it would honestly be best to strip it from the article altogether. Swaggernagger (talk) 23:52, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

@AntidOto: Please engage with my stated criticisms instead of simply calling the unreliable source label "blatantly political". The article being footnoted and sourced does not change anything about the fact that it is a clear example of a self-published source, following WP:SPS. It is not peer-reviewed, nor does the author have the relevant expertise/previously been published by reliable publications. There are probably plenty of scholars who have engaged with the same documents, so please just use their peer-reviewed articles. Swaggernagger (talk) 23:44, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

@Swaggernagger:Thank you for your reply. The "unreliable source" label could be appropriate, given that this is a self-published article, though I believe it is well-documented. The same article, about the discovery of CIA documents citing germ war attacks based on cryptologic intercepts by the U.S. Army -- all posted on the CIA's FOIA Reading Room -- I see it is also posted on the news/opinion website Counterpunch. Perhaps that would be the more appropriate citation (Link to that article)? Does this article, then, reach the level of a "reliable source"? Is the author himself an expert in the field? These are important questions. Two guidelines arise in the WP:RS page. Is Counterpunch biased? I'd say it does carry a bias, but it also has editorial control and is not a self-publish site. Additionally, WP:RS notes, "Although a source may be biased, it may be reliable in the specific context." Also, "Scholarly sources and high-quality non-scholarly sources are generally better than news reports for academic topics." I'd argue that the article in question is a "high-quality non-scholarly source" based upon the copious and detailed sourcing/links in the article, and the provision of documentary evidence to back the author's assertions. The latter is exactly what major news sources do when they publish controversial new material based on recent documentary discoveries. As for Kaye, he does not appear to be a conspiracy author. He is a Ph.D., and has published on the issue of torture in mainstream periodicals, such as The Guardian, Al Jazeera America, and Muckrock News. He has co-written articles with established journalists, especially Jason Leopold (now at Buzzfeed) (see example). I see that he has two academic publications to his credit, one at American Psychologist, and one at Guild Practitioner, both peer reviewed journals. Kaye's work has been mentioned by various academic and established press/book sources, including his provision of the most recent version of the CIA's KUBARK manual, cited by National Security Archive. Kaye's work on the Korean War BW topic was cited in Nicholson Baker's new book, Baseless (see pages 219, 412, 417). Baker called Kaye "an independent researcher and blogger." Kaye also has a verified listing at the journalist website Muck Rack. Rather than the random source who slapped some unreliable article together online, Kaye's credentials appear to identify him as at least a reasonably reliable source, and his work in a more general sense has been vetted by reliable and respectable academic and journalist outlets. Perhaps this is a discussion we can continue to engage in, given that this particular topic has a very long and contentious history of controversy. --AntidOto (talk) 19:43, 11 October 2021 (UTC)AntidOto

Please note that per WP:RSP, CounterPunch has been formally deprecated on the English Wikipedia, as the 2021 RfC found that it publishes "misleading, fringe, or downright false statements ... and publishes such viewpoints preferentially, not indiscriminately."TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 05:18, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

I am replying to myself here, to add something re Kaye's acceptance as a reliable source. I suggest Kaye's critics follow the example of U.S. Army historian Conrad C. Crane. In a March 2022 article published by the U.S. Army War College, "Korean War Biological Warfare Allegations against the United States: A Playbook for the Current Crisis in Ukraine," Crane mentions Kaye (pgs. 9-10). While he disagrees with Kaye's analysis, he finds it worth mentioning. He describes Kaye as "a scholar who has delved into recently declassified CIA reports."

If a Department of Defense author can find Kaye's POV worth noting, then it is surprising to me that there are still people here that want to censor his work. AntidOto (talk) 20:49, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Usage of Kaye's blog self published blog posts as citations

I've went ahead and tagged all of these as unreliable sources. If reliable citations aren't added for the claims relatively soon I will remove. TiddiesTiddiesTiddies (talk) 14:29, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Netflix's Wormwood relevant/ appropriate source?

Would Netflix's miniseries "Wormwood" be appropriate as a source?

Seymour Hersh provided some of the investigating done on the show as well as a website created by the son of Frank Olson contains documents relevant to this page. https://frankolsonproject.org/

https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wormwood_(miniseries)

https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Frank_Olson

--2601:14A:C200:CF00:11F:BCCD:AF28:CD87 (talk) 07:38, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Kaye's Section (scrapped from page and the rationale)

-CIA documents recording Chinese/North Korea/ect claims and actions in response adds nothing new to this debate. We already know and accept that the claims/actions in response actually happened from a variety of other sources.

-Leitenberg/Weathersby purport to show Soviets stopped believing the allegations in early 1953. Open source intel not CIA documents have already shown Chinese/North Korean allegations continued after 1953. The Soviet ambassador to North Korea is presumed to be exaggerating when he says their allegations stopped in early 1953, but a massive decline in BW reports did occur starting in early 1953.

-CIA documents showing Chinese sought to find individuals who could corroborate for the ISC does not contradict Leitenberg/Weathersby nor does CIA’s failure to release evidence of falsification of BW sites for BW that they claim all along is without merit.

-no other evidence is provided disconfirming the purported archive documents of Leitenberg/Weathersby

-report by “British sergeant from Middlesex” can be considered hearsay at best without supporting documentation, the British sergeant is not named and the book (which was about Unit 731 not Korea) was released in 1989 over a decade before Leitenberg/Weathersby, so this is not a new claim. Very likely to be sensationalism as the consensus before Leitenberg/Weathersby was that biological warfare happened. 221.124.40.227 (talk) 08:29, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

/r/AskHistorians critique of this article

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/z04dw1/apparently_wikipedia_says_that_the_usa_used_germ/

©Geni (talk) 20:43, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Renaming from "Allegations" to "Conspiracy"

Given the fact that every allegation made in favor are from military opponents of the United States, like Mao's China and North Korea, or by Communists, who would of course side with the communist states, the stance of wikipedia should be that these claims are false? Tildin (talk) 10:19, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

This isn't USApedia. Zero^talk 10:44, 30 December 2023 (UTC)