US lied about BW use in Korean War: CIA document

The United States lied about conducting an investigation into charges of its use of biological weapons (BW) during the Korean War in the early 1950s, a declassified CIA document shows.

The document, dated July 6, 1953, and declassified in March 2006, says the US government lied about its alleged push for a UN probe into charges of biological weapons use.

According to the document, which is a “Memorandum of Conversation,” the US was not serious about investigating the Soviet, Chinese and North Korean claims of Washington’s biological weapons use during the 1950-1953 war.

The document reveals that American psywar experts were having difficulty convincing academics to back their critique of the World Peace Council-backed International Scientific Commission’s (ISC) finding which supported Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean claims that the US had used biological weapons in Korea and was backed up by the confessions of a number of American POWs.

The memorandum says an “actual investigation” was never conducted because such a probe would have revealed unconventional military operations that would have inflicted “psychological as well as military damage” on the US.

In 1952, a Commission of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) released a report about chemical warfare after visiting North Korea to examine charges of war crimes.

“American planes have on various occasions used asphyxiating and other gases or chemical weapons at least since 6th May, 1951,” the IADL commission wrote.

“The commission took eye witness and expert testimony. Post-mortem examinations and autopsy results argued that some chemical had been used, with a “disagreeable smell, resembling the smell of chlorine…. In the affected area of the city it was noted that grass became yellow brown, objects containing an alloy of copper became blue green and rings of silver became black.”

US historians have preferred to either remain silent on the issue of chemical warfare entirely or dismiss the charges.