This is an updated version of the original post. The update is necessary, in my opinion, because claims as to the availability of the materials described in the bulk of the post must be amended. While the “lost” statement of Zhou Enlai has in fact been nearly unobtainable in the U.S. for decades, in January 2024, a pamphlet containing Zhou’s statement, and other important material, was posted for viewing and download at The Internet Archive. A description of this, and links to the material are included in the updated post below.
— Jeff Kaye
Introduction
Photo from booklet, “Exhibition on Bacteriological War Crimes Committed by the Government of the United States of America,” (Chinese People’s Committee for World Peace, 1952) in author’s private collection
In February 2018 I published online the full 669-page Report of International Scientific Commission for the Investigation of the Facts Concerning Bacterial Warfare in Korea and China (ISC Report), which corroborated the Chinese and North Korean claims that the U.S. had used biological weapons in an experimental fashion on civilian populations. I described it as a “lost document” from the Cold War.
As I discovered later, the difficulty in tracking down a copy of the ISC Report was due to the fact that the U.S. government, utilizing a bogus interpretation of the 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) had likely destroyed almost every copy entering the U.S. via shipment from abroad. The FARA law initially was passed on the eve of World War II, and was initially meant to stop the importation of Nazi propaganda. But with the onset of the Cold War, and with the beginning of the Korean War, the U.S. Attorney General interpreted FARA to claim that any foreign entity sending materials from “Iron Curtain” countries–books, pamphlets, magazines, recordings, etc.–were in effect acting as “foreign agents.”
Accordingly, the U.S. Postal Service and Customs agency, as well as the FBI, were authorized to seize all third class mail from Communist countries and destroy it. Literally hundreds of thousands of pieces of mails were duly confiscated and destroyed monthly for years!
In my article on the subject, I noted that this is why we did not have many materials from that period in our libraries or archives, including the ISC report, or printed materials that included, for instance, statements from North Korean and Chinese leaders about the biological warfare (BW) attacks then taking place. Later historians often cited these BW statements, but they were rarely quoted verbatim, possibly because the historians in question were working off secondary accounts and not the actual statements.
Hence, along with the article on FARA censorship (which was ended by Supreme Court decision in 1965), I posted online for the first time ever, in English, a copy of then-Foreign Minister of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Bak Hon Yong’s, statement accusing the United States of using germ warfare attacks, while “openly collaborating with the Japanese bacteriological war criminals” of Unit 731.
Bak’s statement, originally issued on February 22, 1952, was published in a 1952 pamphlet published by The Chinese People’s Committee for World Peace, which I privately obtained. Luckily, this copy of the document, “Exhibition on Bacteriological War Crimes Committed by the Government of the United States of America,” was somehow spared the wholesale destruction of such documents that occurred in the 1950s and 1960s. If I had not found this document, then Bak’s statement would still be unobtainable, so far as I can tell. Perhaps it exists in UN archives somewhere. (Sadly, the format of the Exhibition on Bacteriological War Crimes document is too large for easy reproduction, but researcher Alice Atlas has written to tell me she succeeded in doing so.)
A week after Bak’s statement, Zhou En-Lai (publishing as Chou En-Lai in the translation style then used for Chinese) issued his own statement on the U.S. warfare attacks. He was quite precise about the number of attacks and the kinds of pathogens dropped by the United States. Interestingly, his statement never mentions Unit 731 collaboration, although later Chinese statements and propaganda would.
[Update: researcher Alice Atlas has informed me that a pamphlet of speeches, including Zhou’s March 8 statement, has been posted at Internet Archive. In an earlier February 24 statement of support for North Korean protests around U.S. germ warfare attacks, Zhou did specifically single out Unit 731’s “Shiro Ishii, Jiro Wakamatsu, Masajo Kitano and other Japanese bacteriological war criminals,” who have “carr[ied] out on the Korean battlefield experiments and manufacture of various types of lethal bacteria” (pg. 6).]Zhou’s document, like Bak’s, is not obtainable, so far as I can tell, in any online resource that I know of. [Except see paragraph above!—JK] Nor am I sure where one would find it in a library. As a service to the public, to historians more specifically, and for the readers of Hidden Histories, I’ve transcribed Zhou’s statement and am posting it here for what I believe is the first time online. So, hopefully, here is yet another “lost” document rescued from the U.S. censorship and book-burning campaign that lasted fifteen years of the early Cold War, as well as from the ongoing censorship that continues to suppress recognition of the U.S. war crimes described therein.
Statement by Chou En-Lai [Zhou Enlai], Minister for Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, March 8, 1952
Chou En-Lai [Zhou Enlai] during the period of the Korean War, picture via Wikipedia, which linked to source at news.cctv.com (Public Domain)
(1) On February 29, American aircraft, in 14 formations, flew a total of 148 sorties over Antung, Fushun, Fengcheng and other areas and scattered insects over Fushun. An investigation on the spot showed that insects of a black colour were found within an area of 15-20 kilometers in Fushun County covering Takow, Lijen, and Fangsiao Villages and Lientaowan.
(2) On March 1, American aircraft, in 14 formations, flew a total of 86 sorties to intrude over Fushun, Changtienhokow, Kuantien and Chian and scatter insects of a black colour resembling fleas over Makinchwang and other places in Fushun County.
(3) On March 2, American aircraft, in 12 formations, flew a total of 72 sorties over Funshun, Antung, Tatungkow, Changtienhokow, Kiuliencheng, Chian, Kuantien and Changpai. They dropped large quantities of flies, mosquitoes, fleas and other types of insects over Takow and other parts of Fushun County and areas between Fushun and Shenyang.
(4) On March 3, five formations of American aircraft, flying a total of 23 sorties, intruded and scattered insects over Antung, Langtou and Chian.
(5) On March 4, thirteen formations of American aircraft flew a total of 72 sorties, to intrude and scatter insects over Antung, Langtou, Tatunkow, Kiuliencheng, Changtienhokow, Hsinmin, Chian, Hunkiangkow and Kuantien. At 11 a.m. of the same morning, six American aircraft were observed above Langtou. They dropped from a height of 5,000 meters two cloth receptacles which burst open some 2,000 meters from the ground; and then a swarm of flies was found near the highway. At 2 p.m., an American aircraft was observed over Paikipao and Jaoyangho in Hsinmin County. It dropped a load of flies. On the same day, American aircraft were active over Kuantien, and afterwards flies, mosquitoes, crickets and fleas dropped by American aircraft were immediately found east of Kuantien City and at Hunshihlatze and other places.
(6) On March 5, ten formations of American aircraft flew a total of 38 sorties to intrude over Antung, Anpingho, Changtienhokow, Hunkiangkow, Tunghua and Linkiang. Of these, one group of 8 planes at about 8 a.m. indiscriminately bombed and strafed Linkiang, wounding 2 people and destroying 5 houses.
In view of the fact that the United States government has dared repeatedly and openly to make air intrusions over China’s territory, spread germ-bearing insects and indiscriminately bomb, strafe and kill Chinese people at the same time as it is delaying the Korean armistice negotiations and obstructing a peaceful settlement of the Korean question in an attempt to prolong and extend the Korean war, I am authorised by the Central People’s Government of the People’s Government of China to protest solemnly against these most savage and brutal acts of aggression and provocation by the United States government.
The open and direct acts of aggression of the United States government against the People’s Republic of China date from June 27, 1950 when U.S. President Truman announced the despatch of its navy to invade and occupy China’s territory of Taiwan. On August 27, 1950 the American aggressor troops in Korea began to send their military aircraft to intrude into the territorial air of Northeast China. From then on, the military aircraft of the United States government have many times intruded over Northeast China and carried out reconnaissance, strafing and bombing. Now, on the heels of its large-scale bacteriological warfare in Korea, the United States government is adding to its open violation of international law and all laws of humanity by scattering large quantities of bacteria-laden insects over Northeast China. This is an attempt by the criminal and vicious device of mass slaughter of peaceful people to further its aims of invading China and threatening the security of the Chinese people.
These brutal crimes of the United States government will never be tolerated by the Chinese people. The opposition of the Chinese people in their wrath will assure the ignominious failure of these crimes.
It is the view of the Central People’s Government of the People’s Republic of China that the United States government, pursuing its objectives of extending the Korean war and undermining peace in the Far East and other parts of the world, has employed bacteriological weapons, strictly prohibited by humanity and international conventions, against the peaceful population and armed forces of the Korean and Chinese peoples in Korea, and is even extending such crimes against the peaceful population in Northeast China by employing these unlawful bacteriological weapons in a brutal provocation.
In its statement on February 24 [see pg. 5 at link], the Central People’s Government of the People’s Republic of China pointed out: “If the people of the world do not resolutely curb this crime, then the calamities befalling the peaceful people of Korea today will befall the peaceful people of the world tomorrow.” Now is the time for the peace-loving people of the world to rise and put an end to the maniacal crimes of the United States government. We are confident that human justice and peace will triumph.
The Central People’s Government of the People’s Republic of China hereby makes it known that members of the American air force who invade China’s territorial air and use bacteriological weapons will be dealt with as war criminals upon capture.
The Central People’s Government of the People’s Republic of China at the same time declares that the United States government must bear the full responsibility for all the consequences arising from air intrusions over China’s territory, the use of bacteriological weapons and the murder of the Chinese people by indiscriminate bombing and strafing.