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money theory and the importance of monetary policy in capitalist society
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Forgotten Crimes Continue to be Revealed at Various Locations in Korea: Germ 
Warfare in South Korea?


Personal report as member of six-person Veterans Delegation to South Korea

August 2-9, 2001


Introduction: Continuation of the Phenomenon of "Haan" in Korea

On this, my seventh trip to Korea, I again listened to numerous testimonies of 
people from 12 different sites in 9 communities who witnessed massacres that 
occurred more than 50 years ago. For five decades they have held deeply within 
their psyches incredible memories of extraordinary personal traumas. Their 
associated feelings of intense grief and rage, repressed for so long, now were 
displayed openly through voluminous tears interspersed with loud moaning, 
constant bobbing of heads back and forth, pounding of hands on tables, and many 
pauses in between segments of painful oral testimony. In Korea this phenomenon 
is called "Haan." It reminded me of my own painful expressions that had been 
repressed for only 15 years following my Vietnam traumas.

My Vietnam experiences shook me out of my innocence and ignorance as a young 
U.S. American over 30 years ago. I was in shock when I learned through 
firsthand experience in 1969 the lies regularly uttered by officials 
representing my government in conducting that criminal war, a pattern that was 
confirmed beyond doubt once the Pentagon Papers became public. I found it 
abhorrent that the U.S. was not interested in seriously distinguishing between 
civilians and genuine combatants. But I suppressed my memories of the war until 
the 1980s, when flashbacks erupted and I relived the experience of witnessing 
hundreds of villagers being bombed out of existence or maimed for life.

For decades U.S. policy has been concealed by the concept of "plausible 
deniability" which our officials felt necessary because the covert policies 
were so demonic that if the public knew of them they would be vigorously 
opposed to them being carried out or even conceived. Our conduct during World 
War II disclosed a dramatic drift toward total war with indiscriminate 
saturation bombings in Germany and Japan, an enhanced belief in scorched earth 
policies, use of massive incendiary weapons, and the dropping of two atomic 
bombs on Japan. The history of arrogance and racism manifesting in use of 
military violence in furthering "development" of the U.S. "civilization" is 
depressingly overwhelming. I have regrettably concluded that the U.S. . i.e., 
my so-called noble government and the people it represents, touted so highly by 
so many to distinguish it from all other civilizations . has known, and still 
knows, no limits to what it has been willing to conceive of and implement in 
the name of preserving the American Way Of Life (AWOL).

As I sat quietly listening to the grief of these humble Korean people, tears 
falling down my cheeks, I wondered how many other human beings in how many 
other countries had similar stories to recount as victims of the Cold War that 
followed World War II. In my mind I envisioned a world map on which I could see 
dozens of countries where I know my own government has intervened at one time 
or another. I am aware of over 200 overt interventions, and as many as 10,000 
covert operations, designed to contain or eliminate independent people.s 
movements that were perceived as a threat to (touted deceptively as a 
"Communist" assault on) the Western (Capitalist) Way Of Life. Millions of 
people.s lives have been tragically devastated or cruelly snuffed out simply 
because they were poor and expressed some interest in relief from their misery 
through collective organizing.

The grief I felt as I listened to the Koreans. testimony of suffering 
manifested in low-level stomach pains. This physical discomfort was my reaction 
to the heavy burden of knowing the carnage my country has caused all over the 
world. Even more sickening, this historic reality remains covered up by sheer 
fantasy about the nobility of the "American" experiment as espoused ad nauseum 
by the sophisticated PR mechanisms of our government, the media, and most of 
our educational and religious institutions.

I have now visited 17 of the dozens and dozens of Korean massacre sites 
scattered across the provinces that have been identified since the shocking 
revelation on September, 29, 1999 about the No Gun Ri railroad viaduct massacre 
committed by U.S. military forces 100 miles south of Seoul. I have heard 
testimonies in 2000 and 2001 from spokespeople representing hundreds of 
surviving witnesses at these different sites. The final number of atrocity 
sites . explicit locations where murders of countless numbers of civilians were 
committed by U.S. ground as well as air forces, or by Koreans working under 
their command . will undoubtedly be in the hundreds when all is said and done. 
In some cases the Koreans were murdered elsewhere and then taken in trucks to 
be deposited in out-of-the-way burial sites such as forced-dug mass graves and 
abandoned Japanese mines.


Example of Germ Warfare in South Cholla Province in September-October 1951?

One of the sites examined on this recent trip was quite distinct in character 
from the others I visited. It was located on the rugged 3,900-foot Mudung 
Mountain, the tallest point in South Cholla Province, only a few miles east of 
Kwangju City, visible from the Kwangju Cemetery and associated May 18 (1980 
massacre) Memorial. Local people accompanied us to the forested, rocky mountain 
site, providing 4-wheel drive vehicles for those of us unable to make the climb 
on foot. Survivors explained that on several occasions in September and October 
1951 they witnessed aerial spraying of a white cloud or mist from light planes. 
They claimed that this spray seemed to lead directly to the development of 
quick sickness, then a period of brief recovery before dark skin discoloration 
was alarmingly noted. Most of the people present at that time . local 
villagers, temporary refugees, and guerrillas in hiding . ultimately died. 
Though I was aware of documented evidence of germ warfare employed by the 
United States in North Korea and China in early 1952, this was the first time I 
had heard of any accusations of its use in the South.

Knowing what I now know about the history of U.S. intervention policies, and 
our government.s lack of veracity in revealing the nature and extent of those 
policies, I could not take these allegations lightly. Yes, at first I was 
tempted to think that they were possibly the product of hysterical sentiments 
that erupted during the hardships of a cruel war. Many times I have felt 
overwhelmed when initially hearing of war crimes allegations from various 
people in different locations around the world. However, when I ponder the 
weight of the accumulated evidence from the documented historical pattern of 
aggressive U.S. policies, often originally shielded from the U.S. public by 
being deemed secret, covert activities, I am compelled to pursue all new 
allegations of past crimes when brought to my attention.


The Historical Evidence of U.S. Use of Germ Warfare

Let us examine the evidence. Historically, we know that the United States 
intentionally used germs in military campaigns. For example, in the nineteenth 
century the U.S. Army deliberately used smallpox-contaminated blankets to 
eliminate thousands of Indigenous Americans, especially in the central Plains 
region. British General Jeffrey Amherst had earlier used this same tactic 
against Chief Pontiac and his Indigenous forces in the summer of 1763 in what 
is now western Pennsylvania, at the conclusion of what is known as the French 
and Indian War, when the British acquired Canada from the French. Chief Pontiac 
had sided with the French and in so doing stirred the ire of Amherst, who 
responded with orders to "extirpate" the Indigenous with smallpox-infected 
blankets and handkerchiefs. The town of Amherst, Massachusetts was proudly 
named after General Lord Jeffery Amherst.

In 1925, the Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of A 
sphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of 
Warfare was signed, but it was not ratified by the U.S. until 1975, fifty years 
later. Japan did not even sign the protocol. In 1937, Japan initiated its 
offensive biological weapons program, Unit 731 in Harbin, Manchuria, under the 
guidance of Japanese physician and army officer, Lt. General Shiro Ishii. Over 
a period of eight years at least 10,000 prisoners were killed in experiments, 
including as many as 300 U.S. POWs. Unit 731 studied botulism, brucellosis, gas 
gangrene, glanders, influenza, meningococcus, plague, smallpox, tetanus, 
tularemia, songo (hemorrhagic fever), bubonic plague, anthrax, tick 
encephalitis, typhus, dysentary, typhoid, undulunt fever, cholera, fugu toxin, 
mucin, salmonella, toutsugamushi (scrub typhus), tuberculosis, and various 
plant diseases. The Japanese research included inducing hemorrhagic fever.

The U.S. formalized its own germ warfare program with the creation in 1943 of 
the Biological Warfare Laboratories at U.S. Army Camp Detrick in Frederick, 
Maryland. Following defeat of the Japanese in 1945, the U.S. War Department.s 
(later called the Department of Defense) Chemical Warfare Service (later the 
Chemical Corps) formulated a general plan for continuing the bacteriological 
warfare program. The Far East Command Medical Section created its Unit 406 
Medical General Laboratory for such purposes in 1946 near Atsugi air base in 
Yokohama, Japan. Later it added branches in Tokyo and Kyoto.

In 1946, the U.S. chose to grant immunity from war crimes prosecution to 
General Ishii and his top Japanese scientists in return for their cooperation 
in sharing their advanced knowledge of biological warfare with the U.S., and 
explicitly not with the Soviet Union. In addition to involvement of the top 
U.S. chemical and biological warfare scientists, the Far East Command, the 
Adjutant General, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the War, State, and Justice 
Departments, and the U.S. chief war crimes prosecutor lent their weight to 
assure the immunity deal, hiding the terrible crimes against humanity committed 
by the Japanese scientists. U.S. scientists examined nearly three dozen 
Japanese reports, 8,000 medical slides detailing more than 800 different tests, 
hundreds of pages of autopsy reports, and conducted numerous interviews with 
the Japanese scientists. The briefings included ways of inducing, as well as 
learning the effects of, hemorrhagic fever. The U.S. scientists were greatly 
impressed and found that the work of the Japanese in this field "greatly 
supplemented and amplified" our knowledge. The U.S. produced more than twenty 
reports using the Japanese material.

It should be noted here that the U.S. also made immunity agreements with 
thousands of Germans, many of them former Nazis, freeing them from prosecution 
for war crimes, in return for working for the United States in 
counter-espionage and paramilitary activities against the Soviet Union and its 
so-called satellites, and to provide scientific assistance in the space, 
military and nuclear programs during the Cold War. This was called Operation 
Paperclip.

By the time the Korean "hot" war started, the U.S. already had an operational 
biological weapons system. In June 1950, prior to the June 25 date used for the 
start of the war, the Ad Hoc Committee on Chemical, Biological, and 
Radiological Warfare recommended construction of a new biological warfare 
production facility, implementation of field tests of biological warfare agents 
and munitions, and expansion of biological warfare research. By the fall of 
1950 advanced testing had begun at Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah and a 
production facility was constructed at Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas. By July 
1951, the U.S. was testing anti-animal biological agents at Eglin Air Force 
base in Florida.

Also, at the time the Korean War broke out, the Far East Command.s Medical Unit 
406 included departments of epidemiology, bacteriology, entomology, and viral 
and rickettsial diseases. Their work required large quantities of small animals 
. 20,000 monthly . for the testing and manufacture of biological agents. 
Experiments extended beyond Japan to Okinawa and Korea. The Unit 406 was always 
rumored to be the cover for the integration of Ishii.s germ warfare program 
into the U.S. program after the immunity agreement. Unit 406 scientists were 
already working on hemorrhagic fever in 1951 before Korea.s first fatal case of 
the unusual disease was reported in April 1951. There had been no history of 
hemorrhagic fever in Korea but it had been confirmed in Manchuria in China, the 
areas controlled by Japan in the1930s and up to her surrender in August 1945. 
By the spring of 1952 there was an outbreak of the often fatal fever among U.S. 
troops. The monthly technical report of Unit 406 for August 1951 stated: "New 
activities relate to studies of a disease heretofore considered Leptospirosis, 
but resembling that described by Japanese as Epidemic Hemorrhagic Fever." That 
part of the report was preceded by noting that "Work of a classified nature, 
for security reasons, is reported elsewhere." The classified work referred to 
has never been identified. This report was issued just prior to the 
September-October 1951 dates of the spraying of the "white powder" in South 
Cholla Province as described to our delegation in August 2001.

In October 1951, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) hand-delivered a secret 
order to General Mathew B. Ridgeway, then commander of all U.N. forces, to 
start germ warfare on a limited experimental scale in Korea. In December 1951, 
U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert A. Lovett ordered that "actual readiness be 
achieved in the earliest practicable time" for offensive use of biological 
weapons. The First Marine Air Wing operating under the direction of the Fifth 
Air Force carried out the secret missions. The U.S. had a number of CIA 
operatives in North Korea and China collecting data on the effectiveness of the 
germ warfare program. If uncovered, the U.S. was to fall back on the fact that 
it had not ratified the 1925 Geneva Protocol on biological warfare, and had not 
participated in the 1907 Hague Convention that outlawed chemical weapons.

It is also worth noting that Unit 406, in 1952, added to its resources the 8003 
Far East Medical Research Laboratory, timed, coincidentally, with the U.S. Air 
Force crash program to develop and unleash biological weapons. The Air Force 
had already been planning a covert biological warfare capability with its Far 
Eastern air wing.

An early study examined the allegations of the use by the United States of 
bacteriological and chemical weapons in Korea. The Commission of International 
Association of Democratic Lawyers. Report on U.S. Crimes in Korea, March 31, 
1952, concluded that the U.S. used both germ ("deliberate dispersion of flies 
and other insects artificially infected with bacteria, with the intention of 
spreading death and disease") and chemical ("use of poison gas bombs and other 
chemical substances") warfare against both civilians and combatants in North 
Korea. Established at the September 1951 Berlin Congress of the Association, 
the Commission consisted of eight lawyers, one each from Austria, Italy, Great 
Britain, France, China, Belgium, Brazil, and Poland. The Association had been 
prompted by a Report of the Committee of the Women.s International Democratic 
Federation in Korea, May 16-27, 1951, an international commission of 22 women 
from18 countries (including Canada and 7 Western European nations) that found 
systematic war crimes by a number of means were being committed by U.S. forces 
and South Korean forces under the command of the U.S., though it did not 
specifically discuss use of bacteriological or chemical weapons.

China convened its own international study, Report of the International 
Scientific Commission for the Investigation of the Facts Concerning 
Bacteriological Warfare in Korea and China, issued in Peking in 1952, finding 
significant use by the U.S. of germ warf are.

Of course, the U.S. denied the various allegations and accusations of its use 
of biological and chemical warfare, and does so to this day. However, thanks to 
two York University professors in Toronto, Canada, Stephen Endicott and Edward 
Hagerman, we now have the benefit of their 20-year exhaustive study, The United 
States and Biological Warfare: Secrets from the Early Cold War and Korea 
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998). Carefully researched, their 
report concludes that the United States experimented with and deployed 
biological weapons during the Korean War, and that the U.S. government lied 
both to Congress and the U.S. public in saying that its biological warfare 
program was purely defensive (for retaliation only). A large and sophisticated 
offensive biological weapons system had been developed in the post-World War II 
years, and was used in North Korea. However, their study does not identify any 
use of germ warfare in South Korea.


The Mudung Mountain Site: "A White Cloud or Mist"

Let us return for a moment to the Mudung Mountain site where villagers claimed 
that a "white powder" or "mist" was sprayed from light planes, believed to be 
of U.S. origin, on several occasions in September and October 1951. People were 
reported to have developed fevers shortly thereafter, collapsing, while their 
skin discolored toward black. Of the 300 to 400 residents in the area at the 
time, most died. Survivors claim that when the ROK Army came through the area 
in October and/or November anyone found still alive was burned, then shot, 
apparently for good measure. What might have been the ingredients in the 
whitish spray emitted from the light planes? Were any epidemiological studies 
conducted on any of the victims in South Cholla Province in 1951?

At the time of the Korean War the U.S. also had three types of gases in its 
inventory of chemical weapons . Phosgene, Mustard and Sarin. But the symptoms 
described seem to rule out gas. However, the symptoms do suggest the 
possibility that the people contracted a kind of hemorrhagic fever. And we know 
that the U.S. was experimenting with inducing hemorrhagic fever, among other 
biological warfare tactics. And spraying from airplanes was one of the methods 
for dispensing the agents. The program was shrouded in secrecy then, as now.


Other Global Locations of Similar Reports

In 1971, reports of the use of chemical or biological weapons began to emerge 
from Laos. H.Mong tribesman reported seeing yellow mist, or a yellow-green 
powder, being sprayed on their villages, with resultant discoloration of their 
skin, swelling, numbness, and severe hemorrhaging. Vomiting and involuntary 
defecation were also reported. Several years later, similar reports came from 
Kampuchea (Cambodia), and in 1979 from Afghanistan. According to the people in 
these targeted regions, evidence was found on captured Soviet and U.S. aircraft 
that they claimed had been employed to disseminate toxic chemical or biological 
agents by sprays, rockets, and bombs. Similar reports came from Yemen in the 
late 1960s as well as from Ethiopia. Though some have concluded that the 
"yellow rain" was nothing more than bee feces, there seems to be a debate about 
different types of yellow spray/mist, some of which is natural and relatively 
harmless, and some apparently much more toxic.


A Leading Suspect: Mycotoxin T-2

Because all of the areas where this spraying reportedly occurred are remote, 
confirmation of the exact nature of the attacks and recovery of the alleged 
chemical or biological agent have remained difficult to the present day. 
However, reviewing materials prepared by the Chemical Warfare academic program 
at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in California suggests a likely suspect . a species 
of Fusarium fungi, such as Mycotoxin T-2, a very hemorrhagic toxin.

Though tricothecene mycotoxins (produced by fungi) are members of a large group 
of 40 or so naturally occurring toxins produced by a species of Fusarium fungi, 
one of the trichothecenes implicated as a warfare agent include the T-2 toxin, 
first recorded as possessing a poisoning effect in Russia in 1891. The initial 
effects include burning sensation in the mouth, tongue, throat, esophagus and 
stomach, and inflammation of gastric and intestinal mucous. Vomiting, diarrhea, 
and abdominal pain often accompany this burning and inflammation stage. The 
white blood cell count begins to drop, though during this second stage the 
patient often feels well and is capable of normal activity for a week to 
several weeks. However, a transition to a third stage occurs rather suddenly 
when hemorrhages manifest on the skin of the trunk, arms, thighs, face, head, 
in the mucous membranes in the mouth, palate, tongue and tonsil areas, and in 
the nose, stomach and intestines. Skin discoloration becomes obvious. Death of 
cells begin to be experienced on the lips, fingers, nose, jaws, eyes, and in 
the mouth. The vast majority that reach this stage will die. Without treatment, 
the mortality rate approaches 100 percent. These toxic tricothecenes have been 
shown to affect both DNA and protein synthesis.

Much time has elapsed, i.e., 50 years, since the date of the spraying in the 
Mudung Mountain area of South Korea. It would be helpful if there was a team of 
epidemiologists, biochemists, and others with appropriate technical skills who 
would commit to investigating whether in fact the U.S. experimented with or 
employed biological (or chemical) warfare in remote regions of South Korea 
during the Korean War. The Korean people deserve no less in order to bring some 
righteous justice to their lives after having been so cruelly divided, 
assaulted, maimed, and killed due to the unilateral decisions of the U.S. 
government beginning in 1945.


Continued Use of Germ and Chemical Warfare By the U.S. after Korea

It is important to note that the U.S. pattern of using chemical and biological 
warfare has continued beyond Korea. In Vietnam, under President.s Kennedy, 
Johnson, and Nixon, the U.S. used globally unprecedented amounts of chemical 
warfare when it sprayed from the air 20 million gallons of various herbicides 
in concentrations far beyond that even recommended by their seven major 
manufacturers. Agent Orange pesticide alone destroyed 14 percent of South 
Vietnam.s forests. An area the size of the states of Massachusetts and Rhode 
Island combined (6 million acres/9400 square miles/24,400 square kilometers/2.4 
million hectares) was decimated with chemicals that today remain in the 
Vietnamese food chain, causing a continuing tragedy of elevated cancers and 
birth defects. And subsequent documents reveal that the chemical companies knew 
no later than 1965, and that the U.S. government knew as early as 1967, and 
perhaps earlier, of the long-term health risks and sought to keep that 
information from the public, and from its own troops.

When President Nixon was in office (1969-1974) the U.S. waged bacteriological 
warfare against Cuba. First Nixon directed that clouds be seeded over 
non-agricultural areas to induce torrential downpours causing flooding, while 
attempting to prevent rains over cane and other agricultural areas to induce 
drought. Then the CIA introduced African Swine Fever which decimated Cuban pig 
herds, a major source of protein in Cuba. The Cubans were forced to slaughter 
500,000 pigs. This was the first outbreak of this disease in the Western 
hemisphere in the Twentieth Century. Under President Reagan and Vice President 
Bush, there were new outbreaks of African Swine Fever, and two outbreaks of 
hemorrhagic dengue. It was the first eruption of hemorrhagic dengue in 
generations in Latin America.

Thus the notion of disease as a weapon, an example of biological and/or 
chemical warfare, is historically rooted in the policies of the U.S. government 
through its military and CIA.

Furthermore, the U.S. has thwarted the international community in its recent 
efforts to adopt a new Geneva Protocol that would set up a strin gent 
enforcement regime for carrying out on-site inspections at military and 
bio-tech locations to assure compliance with the 1972 Biological and Toxin 
Weapons Convention (BWC) banning germ and toxin weapons. The U.S. signed the 
BWC, but took three years to ratify it. In 1975, the U.S. Senate finally 
ratified both the 1925 Geneva Protocol (for the Prohibition of the Use in War 
of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of 
Warfare) and the BWC. However, most believe the 1972 Convention (BWC) lacks 
teeth. The U.S. rejection of the new protocol is based on fear that its 
commercial and military secrets will be exposed, especially its likely 
exploitation of dual-use technology and development of offensive biological 
warfare, each of which violate the stringent terms of the BWC. According to 
Francis A. Boyle, Professor of law, University of Illinois, who has carefully 
reviewed the Biological Defense Research Program (BDRP), the U.S. government.s 
biological warfare research program includes continued studies of tricothecene 
mycotoxins at the very University of Illinois where he teaches. The U.S. 
possesses nearly half of all the bio-industry and bio-defense facilities in the 
world. The U.S. continues to want its cake and eat it too, espousing a double 
standard about who can possess weapons of mass destruction, and who cannot, 
whose weapons can be inspected, and whose cannot!


Conclusion

The claims of use of bacteriological (or possibly chemical) warfare by the 
survivors that were present in the village(s) on and around Mudung Mountain 
near Kwangju City in South Cholla Province in the fall of 1951 should be the 
object of a formal, professional inquiry. From the limited information 
available at this time, it appears that some kind of biological, rather than 
chemical, agent was used. One possibility is the hemorrhagic toxin, Mycotoxin 
T-2.

The U.S. government at the time possessed an active, offensive biological 
warfare program incorporating the Japanese biological warfare experiments 
conducted in Manchuria in the 1930s and 1940s, including the inducing of lethal 
hemorrhagic fevers, among many poisoning agents. Though shrouded in top secrecy 
then as now, it is known that the U.S. used biological warfare in North Korea 
and portions of China in early 1952, possibly in late 1951. Thus, the evidence 
suggests that it is totally possible there were similar "experiments" with 
these disabling biological poisons in remote regions in South Korea around the 
same time.

It is time to explore all the crimes committed during (and before) the Korean 
War on the Korean Peninsula. This pursuit of truth will contribute to a long 
overdue healing for the Korean people and their culture. It will also begin 
serious confrontation of the historical impunity enjoyed by the United States 
during its decades-long journey, in the name of preserving the American Way Of 
Life (AWOL), of eliminating through a variety of grotesque criminal and 
inhumane policies the emergence and existence (and threat to hegemonic 
capitalism) of local independence movements around the world.

Then, too, the United States might become healed from its addiction to 
insatiable materialism and the violence so necessary to maintain that 
addiction!

* * * * * * * * * *

NOTE: Of special importance for understanding the history of biological warfare 
in Korea, SEE The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets From the Early 
Cold War and Korea by Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagerman (Bloomington, 
Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1998). Also SEE Textbook of Military 
Medicine: Medical Aspects of Chemical and Biological Warfare (Washington, D.C.: 
Office of the Surgeon General, U.S. Department of the Army, 1989) 

http://www.brianwillson.com/forgotten-crimes-continue-to-be-revealed-at-various-locations-in-korea-germ-warfare-in-south-korea/



TV film on death of Frank Olson

German documentary charges US used biological weapons in Korean War

By Peter Schwarz

13 November 2002

The claim by the Bush administration that Baghdad is threatening the world with 
weapons of mass destruction is the main pretext for its war preparations against 
Iraq. However, a documentary recently broadcast by the German state television 
channel, ARD, suggests that the US government is itself hiding biological 
warfare programs from the rest of the world, and actually employed such weapons 
in 1952 during the Korean War.

The documentary, entitled Codename Artichoke -the Secret Human Experiments of 
the CIA, was aired by ARD last August. A book with the same title was published 
shortly afterwards. The authors of both the film and the book, TV journalists 
Edmond R. Koch and Michael Wech, focus on the case of biochemist Dr. Frank 
Olson, who died on November 28, 1953 after a mysterious fall from the 13th floor 
of the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City.

At the time of his death, Olson had been given the highest clearance for access 
to classified information. He was one of the leading scientists doing research 
in the field of biological weapons, and had been working for ten years in the 
biological warfare facilities at Maryland.s Camp Detrick (today, Fort Detrick) 
near Washington DC.

He also occupied a leading position in "Operation Artichoke," a CIA program that 
coordinated all projects of the Army, Navy and CIA involving psychedelic drugs, 
fatal poisons and similar substances. Those involved in this project included 
German doctors who had experimented with human beings in the Nazi concentration 
camps.

Artichoke involved the use of torture and drugs to interrogate people. The 
effects of substances such as LSD, heroin and marijuana were studied, using 
unsuspecting individuals as human guinea pigs. The CIA was eager to identify 
military uses for substances that altered the psyche. The agency was at that 
time obsessed with the idea that the Soviets or the Chinese might employ methods 
of brainwashing to recruit double agents or manipulate the population of entire 
nations.

Artichoke also included the development of poisons that take effect immediately. 
These substances were later used in attempts on the lives of a number of foreign 
leaders, e.g., Abdul Karim Kassem (Iraq), Patrice Lumumba (Congo), and Fidel 
Castro (Cuba).

Before Frank Olson plunged to his death from a window of the Hotel Pennsylvania 
in 1953, he exhibited symptoms of behavioural disturbance. Friends, family 
members and colleagues shown in the film and quoted in the book assume that he 
had seen things that he felt went too far, and intended to quit his work with 
the CIA. Prior to his death he had seen a psychiatrist on several occasions, 
always in the company of a CIA watchdog. He died one day before he was scheduled 
to be committed to a psychiatric hospital.

Olson.s death was officially described as suicide due to depression. Only in the 
mid-1970s, when the CIA.s secret activities were scrutinised in the wake of the 
Watergate scandal, did the government admit to a certain degree of 
responsibility: Ten days before his death, the CIA had administered LSD to Olson 
without his knowledge. President Gerald Ford subsequently apologised to the 
family, and the CIA paid compensation to his widow.

According to the documentary, this was a further cover-up operation. The film 
presents evidence suggesting that the death of the biochemical expert was not 
suicide, but murder.

" Olson.s son, Eric, is convinced that his father was assassinated. He has 
been trying for decades to clear up the circumstances of his father.s death, and 
has gathered numerous pieces of evidence supporting the thesis of murder, which 
he made available to the authors of Codename Artichoke.

In 1994 Eric Olson had his father.s body exhumed and examined by a renowned 
forensic scientist, who concluded that in all probability someone had knocked 
" Olson unconscious in the hotel room and thrown him out of the window, in 
contrast to the official version, which claimed Olson had jumped.

After the report on the post-mortem had been published, the public prosecutor.s 
office in Manhattan initiated proceedings against an unknown person. However, 
the prosecutor lost interest as soon as the CIA intervened into the questioning 
of the main witness, the CIA agent Robert Lashbrook, who had accompanied Olson 
continuously prior to his death and had been in the hotel room when Olson fell 
out of the window.

A memorandum dated July 11, 1975 and printed in the book strongly indicates that 
the CIA has something to hide. Addressed to the White House chief of staff, the 
memo urgently recommended an official apology by the president so as to 
forestall any trial or official hearing on the Olson case. Otherwise, the memo 
said, "it might be necessary to disclose highly classified national security 
information." Ten days later President Ford met with the Olson family in the 
White House.

The addressee and the author of this memo are still active and hold prominent 
positions in government. The former is Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, who 
was then White House chief of staff, and the latter is Vice President Dick 
Cheney, who was then Rumsfeld.s deputy.

The following year, after delays in the payment of the promised compensation to 
the family, another well-known political figure intervened: then-CIA Director 
George Bush, who himself went on to become US president and whose son is George 
W. Bush. Why the cover-up?

In the mid-1970s, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush senior collaborated to prevent a 
thorough investigation into Olson.s death, because they feared that it might 
"disclose highly classified national security information." What information?

The authors of the documentary have traced numerous clues, but given the mass of 
multifaceted evidence presented, it is often difficult to distinguish fact from 
fiction. Olson undoubtedly knew about many things that would have discredited 
the US administration, and it is entirely plausible that the government sought 
to silence him.

The authors describe how German physicians who had worked in Nazi concentration 
camps were rapidly rehabilitated after the war through the US denazification 
program and put to work on US research projects on biological and chemical 
warfare. The book also notes that Olson and his colleagues carried out 
large-scale field experiments with biological weapons. In one case they spread a 
certain bacillus - which they regarded as harmless - across San Francisco Bay, as a 
dress rehearsal for a major biological attack on a large city.

Both genuine and alleged enemy agents were subjected to horrifying 
interrogations, some of which Olson must have witnessed personally, the authors 
conclude. In some cases these interrogations led to the death of the accused. 
The most convincing proof of this is a telegram from 1954, in which the CIA 
director inquires about "bodies available for terminal experiments."

In addition, thousands of people were used, without their knowledge or consent, 
for experiments with LSD, mescaline, morphine, seconal, atropine and other 
drugs. The CIA even ran its own brothels in order to lure its victims. As the 
inspector general of the US Army later stated in a report to a Senate committee: 
"[I]n universities, hospitals and research institutions" an "unknown number of 
chemical tests and experiments ... were carried out with healthy adults, with 
mentally ill and with prison inmates."

Most of these activities were exposed in the 1970s, when two commissions 
appointed by Congress - the Rockefeller and the Church commissions - investigated 
the secret activities of the CIA. A further investigation was published by John 
Marks, a former employee of the State Department. After legal proceedings based 
on the Freedom of Information Act, Marks gained access to several thousand pages 
of classified CIA material. This material is utilised extensively in the 
documentary.

In 1969 the US officially cancelled all research programs on biological weapons. 
Fort Detrick was closed down. Today the site is used by the US Army Medical 
Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), which, according to the 
official line, strictly limits itself to the analysis of biological weapons for 
defence purposes. In 1974, the US signed onto the international convention 
against biological warfare. Were biological weapons used in Korea?

There must be reasons for the continuing secrecy surrounding Olson.s death that 
go beyond the facts which surfaced in the 1970s. One possible reason is linked 
to Korea - and to last year.s anthrax attacks against leading politicians of the 
Democratic Party and others that cost the lives of five people.

During the Korean War, both Pyongyang and Beijing repeatedly accused the US of 
employing bacteriological weapons. These accusations were supported by 
eyewitness reports, photos, laboratory analyses and the remains of biological 
bombs.

In 1952, two international commissions which examined the war area with Soviet 
and Chinese help concluded that the US army had indeed used such weapons. This 
was confirmed in written statements by US pilots who were held prisoner by 
Korea. Some of them appeared before the international press and repeated their 
confessions.

The US categorically denied these accusations, describing the evidence presented 
as forged, characterising the international commissions as instruments of 
communist propaganda, and claiming that the soldiers. confessions were the 
result of "brainwashing." Allen W. Dulles, the CIA director, even gave a speech 
devoted to brainwashing, in which he accused North Korea of "having turned 
around a whole number of our boys."

When the prisoners of war who had made these confessions returned from Korea in 
the summer of 1953, they were interrogated by the Artichoke team, which had 
announced its eagerness to do so weeks in advance. In a memorandum to the top 
leadership of the CIA, the team said it wanted to use those "who have been 
exposed to and accepted in varying degrees Communist indoctrination ... as 
unique research material in the Artichoke work." Among other things, hypnosis, 
anaesthetics and LSD were to be used on the former POWs. In this way, Artichoke 
hoped to gain insight into the enemy.s interrogation methods and to make sure 
that the returned soldiers did not work for the other side.

Koch and Wech, however, believe that Artichoke.s main concern was the 
confessions of the Air Force pilots. The authors suspect that they contained at 
least some true revelations.

The authors ask: "Was their will to be broken with LSD? Were they to be 
subjected to artificial amnesia to make them forget what they saw and did? 
Biological warfare? Experiments with anthrax and other deadly epidemics?"

" Olson probably witnessed some interrogations of soldiers returning from 
Korea. This is the conclusion drawn by the authors from a careful reconstruction 
of his travels. As the leading expert on the release of biological weapons, he 
must have known about the use of such devices if and when they were actually 
employed. Was this first-hand knowledge the ultimate reason for his demise? Did 
the CIA silence him when it became clear he was seeking to distance himself from 
the agency?

This suspicion is given credence by a reliable witness, Norman Cournoyer. In the 
early years of Camp Detrick, Cournoyer had worked closely with " Olson, and 
remained his best friend until the end. He knew about Olson.s intention to leave 
the CIA.

In April 2001, Cournoyer, who had read an article about the case in the New York 
Times Magazine, contacted Eric Olson and said he would tell him the truth about 
his father.s death. "Korea is the key," he is quoted as saying.

The authors continue: "And then Norman Cournoyer confirmed that the American Air 
Force had indeed tested biological weapons during the Korean War." " Olson 
had learned about this and began to despair about what he was doing. In 
conclusion, Cournoyer said: "Was this the reason for the CIA to kill your 
father? Probably."

According to Eric Olson, this statement is in line with remarks of his mother, 
who used to say: "Your father was always worried about Korea."

According to Koch and Wech, there is a direct connection between the cover-up of 
the Olson case and the sluggish investigations into the anthrax attacks of 
October 2001. Last year.s attempts on the lives of two high-ranking 
representatives of the American state have not been cleared up to this day. 
Despite the fact that all evidence points to Fort Detrick and one possible 
perpetrator is known by name, the investigation has plodded along without any 
suspects being identified by the government.

A serious probe into either Olson.s death or the recent anthrax attacks, the 
authors believe, could bring to light things that would severely damage the 
credibility of the United States. They suspect that the anthrax attacker.s 
knowledge of certain facts makes it impossible for the FBI to lay hands on him.

The authors suggest that this knowledge relates to secret biological warfare 
programs. They ask, "Is it conceivable that the US army carried out further 
research on biological weapons in spite of binding international treaties, even 
after the official termination of offensive projects involving biological 
weaponry in 1969?" They then charge that there are "very concrete indications 
that the Pentagon does not give a damn about international agreements on 
biological warfare."

They cite several such indications: the production of a genetically 
improved version of the anthrax bacterium, 
which was reported by the New York Times on September 11, 2001; 
the plans by military institutes to develop new microbes 
that are able to dissolve certain materials; and the consistent 
refusal of the Bush administration to sign a supplementary protocol 
to the international convention on biological weapons that 
would give teams of United Nations experts access to American military laboratories. 

In the course of the negotiations in Geneva, according to the authors, 
it became known that Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld 
wanted at all costs to prevent any such inspections.


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André Shepherd

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Place of birth 	Cleveland, Ohio Allegiance 	United States of America 
Service/branch 	United States Army (now deserted) Years of service 	2004 - 
2007 Rank 	Specialist Unit 	601st Aviation Support Battalion 
Battles/wars 	Iraq War

André Shepherd is a U.S. Army Specialist and deserter who applied for asylum in 
Germany on November 26, 2008. He is the first Iraq War veteran to pursue refugee 
status in Europe and only the second U.S. soldier to ever apply for refugee 
status in Germany.


Background

After attending college Shepherd enlisted in the military early in 2004. He 
claims he was enticed by promises of financial security and international 
adventure.



Service in Iraq

U.S Army 412 Aviation Support Battalion Specialist (E-4) Deployment: September 
2004-February 2005

Shepherd became an Apache helicopter airframe mechanic, hoping to someday 
qualify up to the role of helicopter pilot. His first unit was deployed to Iraq 
when he completed his training. Shepherd spent six months on a forward operating 
base near Tikrit, working 12-hour days to keep the heavily armed Apaches (and 
their signature Hellfire missiles) in the air.



Asylum Seeker in Germany

Shepherd decided that he could no longer support the war in Iraq. He felt he 
could not apply for conscientious objection because U.S. military regulations 
state a conscientious objector must have an objection to all war in all form. 
Shepherd's objection was not in opposition to all wars under any circumstances.

On April 11, 2007 Shepherd went Absent Without Leave (AWOL) from his Katterbach 
base in Germany.

Shepherd's application for asylum cites a European Union regulation providing 
refugee status to a soldier who is in danger of being prosecuted if military 
service "would include crimes or acts" which violate international law. The 
application refers to the Nuremberg Trials (also see Nuremberg Principles), 
stating "It is established that a person cannot defend his or her actions by 
explaining that they had simply been following orders."

Shepherd stated on the grounds of his decision: "We should not be forced to 
fight an illegal war, nor should we be persecuted for refusing to do so" and 
"During the past five years we have waged a preemptive, internationally 
condemned war that was shown to be founded on a series of lies. After learning 
the truth about the nature of my military.s endeavors, I refuse to continue to 
be a part of this." 

Shepherd's asylum application in effect asks Germany to define the war in Iraq 
as a violation of international law, which has led to opposition from some 
German politicians to the application, over worry that it could harm US-German 
relations.

Has been working with the Iraq Veterans Against the War for the past few months 
and has been a part of Winter Soldier: Europe that took place in Germany on 
March 14, 2009. Videos of the event where posted to youtube by the IVAW.

Shepherd has managed to do very well out of his decision to desert, saying in an 
interview with the Wall Street Journal, 'I'm having the time of my life!' He has 
been given his own bed and room at the refugee detention center, and has 
received numerous other perks such as a cell phone, free language lessons from 
an asylum support group and a bank account periodically filled by his 
supporters.

The German printed Greenpeace magazine reported in its February 2009 edition 
about this asylum case.



Honors

On February 7, 2009 André Shepherd was awarded with the Peace Prize "Peace 
through Conviction"  of the Munich American Peace Committee. The award was 
presented in the context of protest activities against the Munich Conference for 
Security Policy.