Hidden Atrocities: Japanese Germ Warfare and American Obstruction of Justice at the Tokyo Trial

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Jeanne Guillemin

Hidden Atrocities

Japanese Germ Warfare and American Obstruction of Justice at the Tokyo Trial

Jeanne Guillemin

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English

Columbia University Press
26 September 2017

Asian history; Second World War; Chemical & biological weapons

Series: A Nancy Bernkopf Tucker and Warren I. Cohen Book on American–East Asian Relations

In the aftermath of World War II, the Allied intent to bring Axis crimes to light led to both the Nuremberg trials and their counterpart in Tokyo, the International Military Tribunal of the Far East. Yet the Tokyo Trial failed to prosecute imperial Japanese leaders for the worst of war crimes: inhumane medical experimentation, including vivisection and open-air pathogen and chemical tests, which rivaled Nazi atrocities, as well as mass attacks using plague, anthrax, and cholera that killed thousands of Chinese civilians. In Hidden Atrocities, Jeanne Guillemin goes behind the scenes at the trial to reveal the American obstruction that denied justice to Japan's victims.

Responsibility for Japan's secret germ-warfare program, organized as Unit 731 in Harbin,

China, extended to top government leaders and many respected scientists, all of whom escaped indictment. Instead, motivated by early Cold War tensions, U.S. military intelligence in Tokyo insinuated itself into the Tokyo Trial by blocking prosecution access to key witnesses and then classifying incriminating documents. Washington decision makers, supported by the American occupation leader, General Douglas MacArthur, sought to acquire Japan's biological-warfare expertise to gain an advantage over the Soviet Union, suspected of developing both biological and nuclear weapons. Ultimately, U.S. national-security goals left the victims of Unit 731 without vindication. Decades later, evidence of the Unit 731 atrocities still troubles relations between China and Japan. Guillemin's vivid account of the cover-up at the Tokyo Trial shows how without guarantees of transparency, power politics can jeopardize international justice, with persistent consequences.

By: Jeanne Guillemin
Imprint: Columbia University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9780231183529
ISBN 10: 0231183526
Series: A Nancy Bernkopf Tucker and Warren I. Cohen Book on American–East Asian Relations
Pages: 488
Publication Date: 26 September 2017
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Jeanne Guillemin is senior advisor at the Security Studies Program in the MIT Center for International Studies. Her books include Anthrax: The Investigation of a Deadly Outbreak (1999); Biological Weapons: From the Invention of State-Sponsored Programs to Contemporary Bioterrorism (Columbia, 2004); and American Anthrax: Fear, Crime, and the Investigation of the Nation’s Deadliest Bioterrorist Attack (2011).

Reviews for Hidden Atrocities: Japanese Germ Warfare and American Obstruction of Justice at the Tokyo Trial

Guillemin is a recognized, well-published leading authority on the history of biological warfare in the United States. No other book delves this deeply into the behind-the-scenes machinations of US military intelligence in Japan and the inner circle of presidential advisors in Washington to keep Unit 731 and its horrendous acts from being exposed to the light of justice in the Tokyo Trials. -- Walter E. Grunden, Bowling Green State University