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BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS Chapter 3 Conclusion This

This paper seeks to arrive at some working

hypotheses, given the current state of knowledge and availability of sources, concerning more or less likely scenarios with respect to the possibility that the United States waged biological or germ warfare against its Communist adversaries during the Korean War.

First, no definitive conclusion is possible, due to the continued complete closure of Chinese and North Korean classified archives and the very limited opening of American and Russian wartime files. Second, some recent fragmentary disclosures after the end of the Cold War gleaned from Soviet files suggest that the Communists either completely fabricated or most certainly exaggerated the extent of any American use of biological weapons in North Korea and China. Third, if the Americans did use such weapons there, they did so on a limited scale, primarily for testing purposes, and caused few actual casualties. Fourth, after more than 50 years, none of the powers involved have any legitimate excuse for refusing to open their files to responsible scholars and their failure to do so damages the credibility of both sides.

1. Crane claimed to have seen many American military files which have not been opened to scholars generally and concluded therefrom that the United States could not have used biological warfare during the Korean War. The difficulty with his assertions is that they are not independently verifiable. Endicott & Hagerman have combed the open American archives and arrived at opposite conclusions. The trouble with their analysis is that it is tendentious in the extreme and filled with unwarranted assumptions and leaps of logic. Ryan examined meticulously many of the same documents and raised serious questions, but in the end he concluded that "these documents tend to refute charges that the United States employed BW in Korea or China" (89).

2. Two recent reports, based on access to Kremlin files, cast doubt on th...

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BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS Chapter 3 Conclusion This. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 22:18, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1705625.html