Canada used scientists to cover up US’ Korean War biological weapons usage
Reproduced from The Kingston Whig-Standard, August 5, 1952, Page 4, via newspapers.com
Written by: Jeffrey S. Kaye
An examination of declassified documents shows that the Canadian government discussed at high military levels “probable” U.S. plans to launch a biological warfare (BW) campaign in 1952, presumably on the Korean peninsula. The documents also reveal that Canada’s government would soon approach and assist three Canadian scientists in writing a public statement condemning those who affirmed Communist allegations of U.S. “germ warfare” in Korea and China.
Since 1947, Canada had been part of a secret three-way, or tripartite, agreement with the United States and the United Kingdom, coordinating research and development of both offensive and defensive capabilities in the use of bacteriological and other toxic agents.
While a “probable” biological warfare campaign plan was being developed, the Korean War was the only “hot” conflict underway involving the United States, having begun in 1950. Canada had joined with the U.S. and thirteen other nations under the auspices of an ad hoc UN organization known as UN Command to fight the Korean People’s Army and their Chinese allies.
In February 1952, both the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) publicly alleged that U.S. planes were involved in hundreds of sorties, which dropped various kinds of bacteriological or “germ” munitions on military and civilian targets. In particular, they accused UN forces of using insect vectors to spread disease, utilizing in part methods and personnel from Imperial Japan’s World War II biological warfare program.
The charges of the use of such “germ” weapons were corroborated decades later by the CIA’s declassification in 2010 of highly secret U.S. communications intelligence reports documenting some of the biowarfare attacks.
Cover of 2010 publication by CIA introducing newly declassified material on the Korean War.
In March 1952, the head of the Canadian Peace Congress, the well-known Christian missionary (and former OSS agent) Dr. James G. Endicott, publicly accused the Canadian government of conducting research on biological weapons, an episode that was explored in this author’s March 2023 article for The Canada Files. Endicott’s claims were highly controversial, and there were vociferous denials by Canadian authorities.
A few months later, in May, top government biological warfare scientist, Dr. Guilford Reed, told External Affairs Minister Lester Pearson that the Communists’ charges of U.S. biological warfare were “entirely feasible.”
But, in an effort to mislead the public about the feasibility of the use of insect vectors in conducting a germ warfare attack, the Canadian government suppressed Reed’s opinion, and substituted for it a statement by three non-government academic scientists that dismissed the accounts of U.S. germ warfare as “biological absurdities.” The statement was supposedly independently offered in some kind of civic spirit, but in fact, was authored with the assistance of Canada’s External Affairs Department itself.
The true story of Canada’s involvement in the Korean War biological warfare scandal has been hidden for years behind a veil of classification, in addition to press and academic disinterest.
At the height of the Cold War, the Canadian government cooperated with the U.S. biological warfare program, and joined with the U.S. government to hide evidence that would expose the truth behind the charges of germ warfare.
“Serious consideration to the probable use” of Biological “Special Weapons”
In response to the DPRK and PRC’s charges of U.S. biological warfare attack, the United States vociferously denied the charges of use of biological weapons and engaged in a concerted effort to counter the Communists’ accusations. The U.S. maintained the charges were organized by the Soviet Union as part of an international campaign. The Canadians were asked to do their part in responding to this so-called false propaganda campaign.
Endicott’s revelations had set off a publicity firestorm. Canadian press and politicians urged prosecution of Endicott for treason. But in secret cables behind the scenes, U.S. officials were counseling caution on pursuing charges against the popular ex-missionary, who was also a leading figure in Canada’s United Christian Church and then-Chairman of the Canadian Peace Congress.
On May 24, 1952, Humphrey Hume (“H.H.”) Wrong, Canada’s Ambassador to the United States, sent a secret coded memorandum to Canada’s Secretary of State for External Affairs, Lester Pearson. The subject was “Possible prosecution of Dr. Endicott.”
Hume told Pearson that officials in the U.S. State Department were conferring with their confrères in the Pentagon on the Endicott problem. Hume said he had received “a clear impression” that U.S. officials had “grave doubts” whether they could provide “satisfactory evidence… that would prove in a Canadian court that the allegations of Dr. Endicott are false.”
Belying years of assertions by Western historians that the U.S. had ruled out offensive use of biological weaponry during the Korean War, Hume told Pearson while the U.S. had given “no consideration” to the possible use of BW by U.S. forces, the U.S. apparently had “no general policy directive or military order in existence specifically prohibiting the use of germ warfare….” [DOC 4, pg. 2 – A key to all document references is at the end of this article.]
October 1957 Press Photo: Lester Pearson wins the Nobel Peace Prize. Nobel Foundation, Associated Press, Public Domain
Knowingly or not, Hume was incorrect about there being “no consideration” of BW use. In fact, six months earlier, in a December 7, 1951, secret memo from Canada’s Joint Staff to the Chairman of the DRB, Canada’s top military officials stated:
“The USAF [United States Air Force] is giving serious consideration to the probable use of special weapons, and is, at the present time, making a study, prior to naming a cognizant USAF agent to accept the responsibility of carrying out user trials of these weapons….” [DOC 3, pg. 2]
If there were any question as to what these “special weapons” were, another secret memo later that month, on December 27, answers this. The secret memo from J.C. Clunie, the DRB Senior Staff Officer for Special Weapons, to the Chief Superintendent at the biological and chemical weapons (CW) test site in Suffield, Alberta, was even more specific.
Clunie wrote, “The USAF is giving serious consideration to the probable use of BW and CW Special Weapons.” [DOC 3, pg. 5]
By late December 1951, the U.S. and South Korean armies had entered a stalemate with DPRK and Chinese forces. The U.S. generals were looking for a way to break out of the situation, short of use of nuclear weapons. Biological weapons for use against crops had already been standardized for use, and munitions for their possible use against the Soviet Union had been forward positioned at U.S. bases in England and Libya. Clunie’s statement about “probable use” of BW seemed to be aimed at the conflict then underway in Korea. War with the Soviet Union was, U.S. officials felt, still two to five years in the future.
Clunie’s warning came months after the U.S. defense establishment in fact had already issued orders to attain “an Air Force-wide combat capability in Biological and Chemical Warfare (BW-CW) on a high-priority basis.” The order, dated July 17, 1951, came from Major General R.C. Wilson and was issued by the Department of the Air Force in Washington. It followed an even earlier directive from General Nathan Twining on October 20 the previous year.
Twining, the U.S. Air Force Vice Chief of Staff, had ordered the acceleration of “the BW-CW program to give USAF an earliest possible combat capability.” (Author Nicholson Baker wrote about Twining’s directive in his recent book, Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act [pg. 169-170]).
Canadian Scientist Cautioned Against Public Discussion of BW Charges
Amidst the pending use of biological and/or chemical weapons, U.S. officials were advising against prosecution of Endicott on the biological weapons issue. At the same time, Dr. Guilford H. Reed, Director of DRB’s Biological Laboratories, and head of the Bacteriology Department at Queen’s University, also was reportedly cautioning against “a public discussion of the scientific aspect of the charges unless it is absolutely necessary.” [DOC Z, pg. 5] It was clear that no one with knowledge of the secret BW program wanted it subjected to public scrutiny.
U.S. officials wanted to fill the prosecutorial gap with well-crafted propaganda leaked to authoritative entities. State Department officials told Hume, who passed on their advice to Pearson in his May 24 memo, “it might be worth considering having Dr. Endicott’s charges examined by Canadian doctors or scientists of repute and publishing the results.”
“This might have some effect with the public in further discrediting Dr. Endicott,” Hume suggested. [DOC 4, pg. 3]
Endicott believed the evidence that Chinese and North Korean scientists had shown him regarding U.S. use of biological weapons, including infected insects, to spread plague, cholera and anthrax behind against enemy troops and behind enemy lines. Endicott suggested that Canada was assisting this campaign, and there were many who believed him. Meanwhile, the World Peace Council had released over a hundred pages of documentation on the BW charges.
James Endicott meets with Chinese scientists to discuss laboratory findings on germ war evidence, March 1952, from Endicott’s pamphlet, “I Accuse”, published Summer 1952
Endicott was not mistaken about Canada’s role, but he certainly didn’t know the full story. As far back as December 1948, there was pressure from Canada’s Defence Research Board’s Biological Warfare Panel to set up “close liaison” with the DRB’s Entomological Research Panel.
The minutes of the entomology panel on December 18 noted, “The Chairman stated that he had been approached by the Chairman of the B.W. Panel on the subject of liaison between the two panels. Both felt that there were many questions arising in one panel on which the other might offer considerable assistance.” [DOC 1, p. 3]
Whether it was bureaucratic indifference or even resistance, almost two months later at the February 5, 1949, meeting of the DRB Entomological Research Panel, the minutes revealed the desired collaboration between the two panels was not happening quickly enough.
“Dr. Glen inquired if any action had been taken to insure close liaison with the B.W. Panel. He and Prof. Hocking considered that the matter was becoming urgent. After further discussion it was again agreed that the secretary was to discuss the proposal with the secretary of the B.W. Panel,” the minutes stated. [DOC 1, pg. 16]
It’s not clear why the liaison between the BW scientists and the insect specialists was so “urgent,” but other documents testify to tests soon to be underway on biological weapons based on insect vector infectivity, as will be documented further below. In addition, it is possible that Canadian BW scientists had been given some access via their collaboration with the U.S. BW labs at Camp Detrick to newly acquired intelligence on Japan’s own biological weapons work utilizing insect hosts.
The urgency apparently had one part of the defence bureaucracy running ahead of the other. A week before the Entomological Research (ER) Panel meeting on February 5, 1949, the DRB had issued an amended “Constitution” for the ER panel. Among other things, the group would “Act as adviser to the Defence Research Board in all entomological matters related to the defence of Canada.” [DOC 1, p. 22] “All entomological matters” indicates that weapons weren’t excluded from areas the ER panel could advise on.
The new “Constitution” explained that the ER panel could “co-opt as consultants such specialists as it considers necessary for the review of particular projects, subject to the approval of the Chairman of the Defence Research Board.” [DOC 1, p. 23]
This “Constitution” indicated that while much of the work was unclassified, some of it “may be classified as ‘secret’ by the Chairman.” As a result, it was necessary to have all panel members sign a sworn oath of secrecy:
“I… solemnly swear that I will not communicate or allow to be communicated to any person not legally entitled thereto any information relating to the affairs of the said Panel, nor will I allow any such person to inspect or have access to any books or documents belonging to or in the possession of the said Panel and relating to its business. So help me God.” [Ibid.]
1949: A “cluster bomb for certain BW agents exists”
As of 1949, documents do not indicate how far the work on insect and animal vectors had gone in developing weapons with biological pathogens. While Dr. Reed at Queen’s University was working with the idea of dropping infected baits to attract the native flies of a region, Surgeon Commander M.C. Wellman of the Royal Canadian Navy had developed a method of using “the usual laboratory animals” to propagate bubonic plague. The “virulent bacilli could be “further multiplied in culture,” and the resultant aerosol attached to a “battery of nebulizers” which could be delivered to the enemy via a “parachute controlled descent” mechanism, up-wind or directly onto the target.
Wellman’s plan was meant to take advantage of the “psychological effect” of such an attack. It was already understood that even in regular high explosive bombardments, “near misses” were unnerving to those exposed. Of course, Wellman admitted, use of plague had its “disadvantages… making bubonic plague endemic in a neighborhood,” leaving the target area open to plague infection for many years. There was also the “possibility of contamination of one’s own troops.” [DOC 1, pg. 28-29] In any case, Wellman’s BW scenarios did not entail the use of insect delivery systems.
Canada continued to conduct its own BW research in the formal, if secret, tripartite association with the United States and Great Britain. In a secret appendix to the Canadian Army’s “First Periodical Standardization Report”, meant to record the progress made in standardizing weaponry between the three allied nations, a section on Biological Warfare, dated March 31, 1949, noted that “joint field trials” on BW weapons had already been undertaken.
The authors of the report concluded, “A common type of cluster bomb for certain BW agents exists.” [DOC 1, pg. 33] These bombs were likely filled with biological agents meant to be used against enemy crops or animals, but may also have already included plague or other human pathogens.
The existence in Spring 1949 of BW cluster bombs is corroborated by the sworn affidavit of John L. Schwab, the Chief of the Special Operations Division (SOD) at Ft. Detrick during the Korean War. Schwab told a U.S. federal court in January 1959 that since the beginning of 1949 and through the end of the Korean War, “the U.S. Army had a capability to wage both chemical and biological warfare, offensively and defensively.”
In January 1951, the Chemical Corps Technical Committee approved the M33 biological cluster bomb as a standardized BW weapon with a “fill” of the pathogen brucella suis. — Picture in the Public Domain, via Wikipedia
Moreover, Schwab said, “That during the aforesaid period, the biological warfare capability was based upon resources available and retrained only within the continental limits of the United States.” Schwab didn’t mention the still secret tripartite BW development program with Canada, or that the U.S. was using the vast expanse of the Suffield Experimental Station in Alberta for field testing such weapons, including BW cluster bombs. In any case, his admission of U.S. readiness to use biological weapons a year before the Korean War even started was subsequently buried by both press and historians for decades.
Prior to 1949, in December 1947, G.H. Reed had prepared a paper for the DRB’s BW Research Panel, “The present position of Bacteriological Warfare - a Brief Review,” that detailed some of the antipersonnel BW agents the Canadians and their allied partners were working on. These included anthrax, brucellosis (or undulating fever), plague, tularemia, Coccidioides, various dysentery organisms, the toxin Botulinum, and plant disease organisms.
The Canadian scientists had done a good deal of work on Botulinum. Reed bragged that the toxin, which produces botulism, worked better than any chemical gas.
He further revealed:
“Methods have been developed, through pilot plant stage, for the productions of types A and B toxin in semi-purified form… it has a long storage life… Satisfactory air-borne clouds of [botulinum] toxin have been produced in the laboratory and fairly extensive field trials have been carried out with the toxin dispersed from small aircraft bombs.” [DOC 2, pg. 5]
Reed noted how, even at this early date, “a limited amount of experimental work” had been done using insects as vectors of disease “transfer.” Besides the idea of dropping infected insect baits, bombs were being tested that used flies that had been fed “on cultures of typhoid-dysentery type bacteria,” which would then be released “from screen cages contained in aircraft bombs.” [DOC 2, pg. 7]
Screenshot of handwritten confession by U.S. Air Force Lt. Kenneth Enoch (April 7, 1952), describing material from an August 25, 1951 lecture he attended at Iwakuni Air Base in Japan, educating airmen on the subject of bacteriological warfare (ISC report, PDF pg. 590)
A procedure almost identical to this was revealed by captured U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Kenneth Enoch in testimony to both his Chinese captors and Western investigators from the World Peace Council-sponsored International Scientific Commission [ISC] in August 1952. Enoch said he was told in a lecture a year earlier that U.S. bacteriological warfare had “a germ bomb which looks just like an ordinary bomb, but is filled with germ-laden insects, and which will open on contact with the ground to release them.” In addition, they had a method of “dropping insects in paper or cardboard containers which will break open on contact with the ground, releasing the insects with their germs.” [Link to ISC report, see PDF pg. 133.]
Enoch stated he was told that the U.S. “had no plans at that time of using bacteriological warfare but nevertheless we might at some time,” and that “the lecture was secret information and we were not to divulge its contents to anyone, or even talk about it among ourselves.” [Ibid., pg. 589]
It is very interesting that the initial reports by Chinese and DPRK Forces in February 1952 indicated drops of infected insects over the frigid snowy fields of North Korea and the Manchurian region of China, as Reed was as early as late 1947 discussing the survivability of ‘living micro-organisms’ at low temperature. He told the DRB that viruses could “remain viable for long periods at about 60ºC below zero.”
“Bacteria like typhoid bacilli are not injured by a short exposure to this order of temperature but in water ice survival is limited to two to three months,” Reed wrote. Anthrax could withstand temperatures below -60ºC “for long periods without injury.” [DOC 2, pg. 10]
Critics of DPRK and PRC’s reports of use of insects in the extreme cold of winter appear to focus on the viability of the insects themselves. But it’s clear that dead or dying insects carrying some pathogens do still carry those pathogens, such as anthrax or cholera, to the soil or water sources despite the winter exposure. As peasant witnesses to germ warfare attack interviewed by the ISC in summer 1952 testified, sometimes these insects also directly infected humans on contact.
It’s worth recalling that in the earlier, extensive biological warfare work of Japan’s Unit 731, they had also experimented with use of biological weapons and insects in frigid temperatures. After World War II General Douglas MacArthur sought to convince officialdom in Washington, D.C. to provide amnesty for war crimes to Shiro Ishii and the scientists of Unit 731 – so the US could use their expertise for the U.S. BW program. MacArthur had explained, “Ishii claims to have extensive theoretical high-level knowledge including… the use of BW in cold climates.”
Most important was an admission about the work on acclimating insects to cold made before a March 26, 1962 session of House Appropriations Committee looking at the "Chemical and Biological Warfare Program, Army.” The chief of the U.S. Army Chemical Corps, Major General Marshall Stubbs, described to committee members, including then Congressman (and later President) Gerald Ford, Ft. Detrick’s bacteriological weapons research. He mentioned modifying insects for exposure to cold.
“In other areas of the program the genetics of insects and plants are being investigated. Mutants of insects [sic] species are examined for increased resistance to insecticides and cold temperatures. Genetics of population changes, gene competition, radiation effects on survival, and propagation of insects and development of desired characteristics are studied intensively,” Stubbs said. (See ebook of the hearings, pg. 177, italics added for emphasis.)
Botulinum and Anthrax: “Large scale operations are altogether feasible….”
The U.S. collaboration with Japan’s Unit 731 scientists was not mentioned in the numerous formerly classified reports and documents released thus far on either the U.S. or Canadian biowarfare programs. Part of the agreement between the U.S. parties privy to the agreement with Ishii and his colleagues was that the information gained would be closely held “in intelligence channels” only.
As an example of how deeply buried this collaboration was, a June 27, 1950, DRB status report on BW was sent to Canada’s Chiefs of Staff Committee at the Department of National Defence. It stated incorrectly, “B.W. has not been used to a significant degree in warfare. Knowledge is limited to the results of laboratory and field study….” [DOC 2, pg. 17]
It was as if Japan’s large-scale biological warfare field trials that killed tens, if not hundreds of thousands in China had never taken place.
Even so, in the June 27 report, dated only two days after DPRK troops crossed the 38th parallel, the DRB had much to say about the progress Canada and her partners had made in readying biological weapons.
“Five agents have been sufficiently tested in the field to permit reasonably accurate estimates of their effectiveness,” the report stated, naming specifically anthrax, brucella, tularemia, Pestis (plague) and Botulinum toxin. The report continued:
”Considerable work has been done on the production of the above named agents in mass quantity, especially in the U.S. In Canada mass production has been on a relatively small scale and limited to anthrax spores and botulinum toxin. Enough, however, has been done in the three countries to justify the opinion that large scale operations are altogether feasible….’” [DOC 2, pg. 17-18]
The DRB report also mentioned field trials on biological bombs, such as trials allowing the munitions manufacturers to calculate the amount of agent per cubic meter of air needed to infect and kill animals.
Regarding insects, the report described how Reed’s project of dropping infected insect baits as a means of biological attack was developing. “Reasonably accurate estimates have been made of the rate at which house and fruit flies distribute bacteria of the enteric and dysentery group of bacteria from contaminated baits to human or animal foods.” [IBID.]
In the Summary section of the report – “Results of B.W. work in Canada during and since the war” – the DRB report’s authors discussed where Canada was on the very eve of the Korean War. Botulinum toxin had been successfully produced on a large-scale, and field tests at Suffield “demonstrated it to be an efficient weapon.”
The June 27 summary also blandly stated, “Following the U.K. finding that anthrax spores provide an efficient B.W. agent a method was developed for large scale production. A large volume was prepared.” Extensive testing of use of peat as a delivery agent was underway.
There was also a special section on “Insect Vectors.” The report announced that “New methods were developed for determining the carrying capacity of house and fruit flies for pathogenic bacteria.” Baits using salmonella appeared to be particularly promising. [DOC 2, pg. 22]
Reed was the only scientist present at a high-level meeting of the Canadian Chiefs of Staff Committee held on July 3, 1950. Also present were the chiefs of General Staff, Air Staff, Naval Staff, the Acting Chairman of the Defence Research Board (a Dr. Green), as well as other high officials, including Undersecretary of State for External Affairs, Arnold D.P. Heeney, and Cabinet Secretary Norman A. Robertson.
Meeting attendees were told that their British partners wanted to know if top Canadian military brass “were agreed on the importance of biological warfare and were anxious to continue offensive as well as defensive research in this field.”
While the British had provisionally approved a new pilot plant at their BW headquarters at Porton Down “for the experimental bulk production of agents…necessary for the continuation of their fundamental research programme,” they wanted to have the “views of the U.S. and Canadian Chiefs of Staff as to the operational value of this form of warfare and the degree of priority that it should be given.” [DOC 2, pg. 32]
It was understood the U.S. was building a new bulk plant for production of BW agent. A meeting of scientists from “special weapons” departments in the three Allied countries were slated to meet in Canada that October to further consider these matters.
When it was Reed’s turn to report, he “described the production facilities available in Canada.” During World War II there had been two plants in operation, at Kingston and Gros Île.
“Although these were still in existence, no attempt had been made since the war to develop large-scale production; nor was any such production contemplated. It was considered, however, that the Kingston plant would be suitable for moderate-scale production should the need arise.” [DOC 2, pp. 24)
1950 was an important year in Canada’s postwar BW program. According to a DRB Annual Report from 1951, in summer 1950, around the same time as the Chiefs meeting in July, BW trials were ratcheted up “on an increased scale.” The facilities at the BW trials area at Suffield Experimental Station had “been considerably improved,” and research continued “on a variety of BW problems.” [DOC 2, pg. 41]
“Grave doubts”
The full aspects of Canada’s collaboration with the U.S. and UK biowarfare programs were not known by Dr. James Endicott when the scandal over his remarks broke. But there is no doubt today that his revelations had triggered a scramble to respond at the highest levels of the Canadian government.
In Canada’s ambassador to the U.S., Humphrey Wrong’s May 24, 1952 secret memo sent by cipher to Lester Pearson at the Department of External Affairs, he explained that the Endicott scandal was discussed “in the strictest confidence” with the U.S. State Department’s Legal Adviser. Furthermore, the State Department was consulting with officials in the Department of Defense on the question of “how far it would be possible for competent United States authorities to cooperate with a prosecution (if it were decided to prosecute Dr. Endicott).” [DOC 4, pg. 2, parentheses in original]
According to Wrong, “United States officials have grave doubts that they will be able to furnish satisfactory evidence from United States sources that would prove in a Canadian court that the allegations of Dr. Endicott are false.” [IBID.]
“In addition,” Wrong wrote, “it would presumably be necessary to have United States officers of the United Nations Command available for questioning in the court to disprove specific Endicott allegations. Not having direct access to the evidence which Endicott claims to have seen in China, except in print or photography form, it would be difficult to prove that this evidence is false and was known to have been false by Endicott when he uttered these allegations.” [IBID.]
For its part, the State Department was advising against any prosecution of Endicott. Wrong explained: “They suggest… it might be worth considering having Dr. Endicott’s charges examined by Canadian doctors or scientists of repute and publishing the results. This might have some effect with the public in further discrediting Dr. Endicott.” [DOC 4, p. 3]
There was definitely a felt need to discredit Endicott, as later there would be to condemn the report of the International Scientific Commission, which had found the Communists’ BW allegations credible.
Not everyone in the West had accepted U.S. innocence. Even as late as December 8, 1953, nearly six months after the Korean War armistice, a secret memo from Seamon Morley Scott at the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo to the Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs described a discussion with an officer from India’s Department of External Affairs, Bahadur Singh.
Singh, who had been stationed in Washington, D.C., told a Canadian Colonel Dailley that he had carefully followed the BW controversy. Singh concluded that he was not convinced there had been no bacteriological warfare undertaken by United Nations Command in Korea. “He suspected that a very small amount was carried on, perhaps unknown to the highest people in Washington,” Scott wrote.
Singh was not the only one to question Washington’s denials. “I remember, a year or so ago,” Scott wrote, “talking in New York with an eminent Scandinavian jurist who said he had read everything he came across about the charges, and that he was not convinced of their untruth.” [DOC 4, p. 5]
Hence there was a lot riding on the testimony of “experts” to bolster the U.S. case.
The “Experts” Testimony
By June 1952, Canada’s External Affairs department had found their scientists: Professors A.W. Baker, W.H. Brittain and C.E. Atwood. Brittain was Vice-Principal and entomologist, Macdonald College, McGill University; Baker was Head of the Entomology and Zoology Department at Ontario Agricultural College; and Atwood was Professor of Zoology at the University of Toronto. None had experience working in defence matters, or any expertise on the subject of biological warfare.
In a June 20 memorandum to Minister of Justice Stuart Garson, an unknown official described how a tentative draft of preliminary remarks had been prepared for Garson in introducing the scientists’ statement in parliament. The draft emphasized the supposed independence of Brittain, Baker and Atwood [DOC 13. pg. 7], “three distinguished Canadian entomologists, none of whom is in the employ of the Federal Government, [and] who have been gravely concerned that these utterly unfounded charges should be laid in Canada and elsewhere, against the forces of the United States which are, in fact, in this instance, the forces of the United Nations.” [DOC 13, pg. 8]
Indeed, introducing the scientists’ statement before the House of Commons on June 27, Justice Minister Garson described Brittain, Baker and Atwood as “free men in a free society…. they have, upon their own initiative, produced this reply to Dr. Endicott’s untruths concerning bacteriological warfare and, having produced it, turned it over at once to the parliament and the government of their country.” [DOC 13, p. 10]
But the statement was not only not made on “their own initiative.” In fact, it wasn’t entirely written by them. The June 20 memo from External Affairs noted above included an admission of collaboration in the statement’s authorship: “Professors Baker and Atwood were with us yesterday engaged until about 3:30 p.m. in completing their statement.” [DOC 13, pg. 6]
The statement by Brittain, Baker and Atwood (BBA) was released to the press and published by the Canadian government on July 11, 1952. It was a withering critique of Endicott’s “evidence” and that of the “International Jurists” that had gone as investigators some months earlier to Korea and China. (The latter was a reference to the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, which had sent an investigating group to the DRPK and PRC in March 1952.)
The language used in their critique showed their bias in full display. BBA wrote that Endicott and the other non-biological science investigators “are not much more capable of appreciating evidence in the field of biology than the ‘honest old farmers’ and ‘bright-eyed children’ from whom Dr. Endicott obtained much of his information…. Statements by farmers that ‘these insects’ have not been seen in the area mean nothing….” [DOC 13, pg. 11]
The government-backed scientists looked for any evidence of contradictions or mistakes they could find. They accused Endicott of exaggerating his findings, while displaying “an almost unbelievable credulity.” As for the displays of insects published in a World Peace Organization booklet, “Documentation on Bacteriological Warfare”, these were “very vague from an entomologist’s point of view…. We cannot imagine any trained entomologist referring to them in terms given in the text.”
It is not possible to provide a full summary here of BBA’s report. The entire report can be read here. The World Peace Congress’ pamphlet, “Documentation on Biological Warfare,” can also be accessed online at the Niels Bohr Library and Archives.
Both the Canadian Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and Canada’s Department of National Defence (DND) declined to comment. The DND’s head of media relations Dan Le Bouthillier said in full, “Given these allegations are more than 70 years old, DND/CAF have no information on this matter, nor can it corroborate any of the information presented.”
The Influence of Biological Warfare Propaganda
The work of Brittain, Atwood and Baker got extended coverage in both the Canadian and international press, and was also used in international forums, including the United Nations and the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. In later years, their work was repeatedly cited in histories about the BW controversy, including the influential 1971 compendium, The Problem of Chemical and Biological Warfare, published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Vol 4, pg. 217).
The statement was featured as late as 2006 in a chapter to the book, Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons since 1945 (Harvard Univ. Press, M. Wheelis, L. Rozsa, & M. Dando, Eds.) The chapter, “The Canadian Biological Weapons Program and the Tripartite Alliance,” was written by respected Canadian historian Donald Avery. Avery wrote about the June 1952 statement “prepared by three eminent Canadian entomologists.”
Avery wrote:
“After examining available evidence, these experts dismissed the Chinese and Korean charges as nothing more than ‘biological absurdities,’ pointing out that if the US military had really wanted to use BW for strategic purposes, they would not ‘have adopted such inept, infantile and altogether stupid methods in a field in which they are supposed to be masters,” (Deadly Cultures, pg. 92).
Yet the Canadian historian should have known that there was more to the scientists’ statement than he wrote. According to his own essay quoted above (footnote 24, pg. 402), he was fully aware of the work of two other Canadian historians, Stephen Endicott (Dr. James Endicott’s son) and Edward Hagerman, who had published in 1998 their summary research work on the BW controversy, The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets form the Early Cold War and Korea (University of Indiana Press). The book concluded that U.S. had undertaken large-scale field trials of biological weapons, as the DPRK and PRC charged.
Professor Endicott and his collaborator, Ed Hagerman, returned to the issue of the scientist’s statement in their 1998 book, at least briefly. They noted that in May 1952 the Canadian government had also solicited the opinion of the Canadian government’s BW entomology expert Guilford Reed about James Endicott’s charges (pg. 190-191).
But Avery chose not to mention Reed’s statement. Instead, he chose to briefly cite a later 1954 paper co-authored by Reed, which called “the supposed method of dispersal [via insect vectors] ridiculous.” It’s worth noting that by 1954, the CIA was operating a covert, potentially deadly campaign of suppression of individuals or agencies supportive of the BW charges made by China, DPRK, and the Soviet Union.
This author wrote to ask Professor Avery, now retired, why he had not mentioned Reed’s 1952 statement in his 2006 essay. Avery did not respond.
Reed’s testimony: “No obvious impossibilities”
Reed’s “Communist Allegations of Bacteriological Warfare in Korean and China,” marked as “read” by the office of External Affairs Minister Lester Pearson, was a bit leery of the Communists’ charges, but unlike Brittain, et al., Reed found the charges “entirely feasible.”
Reed first addressed the issue of finding insects allegedly dropped in the dead of winter. “From the scientific point of view the campaign contains a number of anomalies,” Reed wrote:
“The main point made in the entire presentation is the finding of insects on the ground, in several instances at temperatures far below that which insects are known to show any activity…. These insects were alleged to be alive and it is claimed that they scattered over a wide area…. It is claimed that this indicates cold-conditioning of the insects, and while this is biologically conceivable, it would involve a long drawn-out and elaborate study…. cold-conditioning of one species of insect alone would take approximately 2-3 years of careful work… It is inconceivable that anyone undertaking such a project would go to the infinite labour of cold-conditioning of a number of insects unsuitable as carriers, such as crickets or grasshoppers.”
If the reader then doubted that such cold-conditioning of insects could have been used, Reed’s account, which stated such conditioning to be “biologically feasible,” discounted any such disbelief. It is also worth pointing out that no Chinese or DPRK document ever asserted that crickets or grasshoppers were ever found to carry any disease organism.
Reed stated what for him must have seemed obvious: “The Communist propaganda has been carefully prepared and there are no obvious impossibilities with regard to the diseases and the carriers with which they are supposed to be associated.”
The Queens University scientists and head of Canada’s Biological Weapons lab did think the charges of BW artillery shells to be unlikely:
“It is felt that the construction of artillery shells carrying insects would present insurmountable difficulties and besides, bearing in mind the short range of artillery, such insects would naturally constitute a danger to the troops firing the shells.”
The same was not true for insect bombs or other means of air dissemination. “The dropping of insects from the air is entirely feasible,” Reed wrote. He should have known, as he was closely involved with and informed about such secret munitions experiments:
“Such objects as rotten fish and bags of pork are rather unorthodox B.W. weapons but again they are not entirely impossible,” Reed continued. “The use of feathers [to artificially spread disease] has been experimented with in Canada, although anthrax, which the Communists link with them, was not used in our experiments.” [DOC Z, pg. 6]
Guilford B. Reed in front of the Kingston Laboratory, date unknown, but likely the early 1950s. Source: Museum of Healthcare At Kingston, Blog
While Reed had his caveats about Endicott and the Communists’ revelations on BW use, his conclusions were in the end diametrically the opposite of those publicized by the hand-picked Canadian scientists. Instead of “biological absurdities” and “unbelievable credulity,” Reed, who had intimate knowledge of the U.S., Canadian and UK biological warfare programs, found the charges of use of biological weapons against Korea and China to present “no obvious impossibilities.” The use of infected insects dropped from the skies was “entirely feasible.”
Reed’s admission that feathers were experimented upon as BW vectors is surprising, even as James Endicott had already publicly accused the Americans of using infected feathers in his Summer 1952 pamphlet, “I Accuse” (pg. 17). The use of feathers as a carrier of biological agents was highly classified. A top-secret December 15, 1950, joint special report by the U.S. Chemical Corps’ Crops Division and its CIA-linked Special Operations Division in Camp Detrick’s “Biological Department” is important. The report had “concluded that feathers dusted with 10 per cent by weight of cereal rust spores and released” in cluster bombs “at 1300 to 1800 feet above ground level” could “initiate a cereal rust epidemic.” [Page 6 of full report]
Picture of feathers used to carry stem rust agents in cluster bombs designed by Ft. Detrick’s Special Operations and Crops division, from December 1950 U.S. Army Chemical Corps Biological Dept. report (pg. 8)
Other agents, such as anthrax, could have been used in such “feather bombs.” The use of infected feathers was quickly operationalized by 1951 in what became known as the E-73 bomb. Author and researcher Nicholson Baker discussed this particular episode in his recent book, Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act (pg. 269, 391).
Cover-up, on top of cover-up, on top of cover-up
Canadian biological warfare researchers worked in close collaboration with their colleagues at the U.S. Camp Detrick (later Fort Detrick) and UK Porton Down BW research centers. There was a division of labor wherein Canada’s expansive Suffield Experimental Station was used for testing, along with other smaller facilities from Gross Île to Reed’s lab at Queens University in Kingston.
At least a month prior to the start of the 1952 U.S. BW bombing campaign over North Korea and northeastern China, Canada’s military was alerted to the strong “probability” of U.S. operational use of both biological and chemical weapons.
In the aftermath of revelations concerning the U.S. bombings, including testimony from Canada’s James Endicott, Canada consulted with U.S. government officials about how to respond to the BW charges. They also asked to whether U.S. officials or government documents would be available for a prosecution of Endicott for treason. They learned that obtaining such evidence was not in the cards.
The treason charges therefore were never made. Instead, it was decided that a propaganda campaign against the Communists’ charges would be undertaken utilizing top scientists, who would speak out against the feasibility of the accusations. In doing so, the Canadian government misrepresented the “independence” of these scientists, and withheld from public discussion the views of a famous scientist in their employ who was leading the BW entomology work. This scientist, Guilford Reed, found the Communists’ charges of attack by infected insect weapons to be “entirely feasible.”
Canada’s External Affairs Department worked with Canadian academics Brittain, Baker and Atwood to craft a statement debunking the BW reports, and their resulting effort was used in international forums with some success. The narrative they presented was used by subsequent historians even into the 21st century, seriously distorting the truth about the BW war, which was and still is being withheld from general public view by both mainstream press and academia.
This episode was only one of many in the massive program by the United States, Canada, the UK and other Western countries to cover-up one of the greatest war crimes of the 20th century. The continuing misinformation from these governments remains a sore sticking point in relations between the DPRK, China, and U.S. and allied governments. Now is the time to sweep away the lies of the past seventy years.
KEY TO DOCUMENT CITATIONS:
All documents below are held in the Stephen Endicott Fonds at York University Archives & Special Collections, York University, Toronto. We thank them for the assistance in helping access these previously declassified documents, which were originally obtained by Professor Stephen Endicott. DOC 1, DOC 2, etc. describe a series of documents existing in collection form. Any specific document is described in the text of the article. Neither York University or the Special Collections Archive are responsible for any views stated in this article, such responsibility resting with the author.
DOC 1 – 2018-016 / 005 (10) RG 24: Dept. of National Defense; RG 24F: Defense Research Board; RG 25: Dept. of External Affairs -Important Canadian documents on biological warfare 1948-1952 (Declassified 1997), PART 1 OF 4, Stephen Lyon Endicott fonds, F0667
DOC 2 – 2018-016 / 005 (10) RG 24: Dept. of National Defense; RG 24F: Defense Research Board; RG 25: Dept. of External Affairs -Important Canadian documents on biological warfare 1948-1952 (Declassified 1997) PART 2 OF 4, Stephen Lyon Endicott fonds, F0667
DOC 3 – 2018-016 / 005 (10) RG 24: Dept. of National Defense; RG 24F: Defense Research Board; RG 25: Dept. of External Affairs - Important Canadian documents on biological warfare 1948-1952 (Declassified 1997), PART 3 OF 4, Stephen Lyon Endicott fonds, F0667
DOC 4 – 2018-016 / 005 (10) RG 24: Dept. of National Defense; RG 24F: Defense Research Board; RG 25: Dept. of External Affairs - Important Canadian documents on biological warfare 1948-1952 (Declassified 1997), PART 4 OF 4, Stephen Lyon Endicott fonds, F0667
DOC Z – 2018-016 / 005 (14) Canadian Scientist G. B. Reed Affirms Feasibility of Chinese Germ Warfare Charges, 1952, Stephen Lyon Endicott fonds, F0667
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Marthad Shingiro Umucyaba (formerly referred to as Christian Shingiro) is a Rwandan-born naturalized Canadian expat. He is known for his participation in Communist/anti-imperialist national and international politics and is the radio show host of The Socially Radical Guitarist.
He is also a freelance web developer in Hong Kong, China, striving to provide “Socially Radical Web Design at a socially reasonable price”.
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