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A little-remembered aspect of Korean War history is the allegation by North Korea, China, and the Soviet Union that the US had used biological weapons on an enormous scale over both China and North Korea during the war. Despite the public disclosure in 1998 of Soviet Central Committee documents declaring the allegations to have been fraudulent, China -- and North Korea much more noisily -- still maintains the charges. Those charges have now been refuted in a striking posthumous publication written by Wu Zhili, who was Director of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army Health Division during the Korean War. Wu Zhili's testimonial overturns everything previously published in a Chinese source. In addition, the full text of the cable from Mao Zedong to Josef Stalin on February 21, 1952, recently published by Russia's State Archive of Social and Political History, sheds more light on China's responsibility for the allegations.

This article provides an overview of the perils of U.S. and Soviet nuclear war planning during the Cold War. In particular, the article discusses instances of false alarms, when one side or the other picked up indications of an imminent attack by the other side and had to take measures to determine whether the indicators were accurate. None of these incidents posed a large danger of an accidental nuclear war, but they illustrate the inherent risks of the war preparations that both the United States and the Soviet Union took for their immense nuclear arsenals.

This is the first attempt to understand the broad scope of the USSR's offensive biological weapons research from its inception in the 1920s. Gorbachev tried to end the program, but the US and UK never obtained clear evidence he succeeded, raising the question whether the means for waging biological warfare could be revived in Russia in the future.

Reviews a book issued by the Swedish government in 2005, Beyond the \"Never Agains,\" which represents a culmination of four international conferences held 2000-2004 on the Holocaust, genocide, & reconciliation. The book offers brief summaries of each conference, interviews with diplomatic officials, & extensive photographs. Focus is on the final conference, held Jan 2004, which marked the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, & offered the potential to evaluate the current situation in Darfur, western Sudan. The failure of UN peacekeeping forces in the region is described & the UN Security Council's unwillingness to implement policy regarding automatic thresholds for international intervention is critiqued; until such measures are taken, it is argued that vows of \"Never Again\" will ring empty & hollow. K. Hyatt Stewart

International audience

Leitenberg discusses the charges of biological weapons use made by the People's Republic of China, North Korea, & the USSR against the US during the Korean War. He outlines the history of the allegations & concludes that they are contrived & fraudulent. The author uses excerpts from 12 internal documents (1998) obtained from the archives of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) to make his case. More documentation of communication between Moscow & Beijing are presumed to exist for the period between Feb 1952 & Apr 1952, the span of time that includes the peak period of the charges. Leitenberg proposes that the allegations are false also because the biological munition that the Chinese & North Koreans accused the US of dispersing was not produced until the end of 1954, long after the Korean War was over. He also includes quotes from the memoir of Tibor Meray, a Hungarian journalist, who wrote a great deal about the accusation & concluded that it was the USSR, under Stalin, which originated the biological warfare allegations, not the Chinese nor the North Koreans, although they collaborated. Leitenberg concludes that it would be a significant victory for arms control if all the circumstances surrounding this historical case could be completely disclosed. G. Gifford

Since their establishment in 1954, the Self Defense Forces (SDF) of Japan have been a contentious issue in Japanese domestic politics. The legitimacy of their existence was opposed by the Japanese Socialist Party, which warned, in addition, of the dangers inherent in their existence or expansion. Nevertheless, as early as 1958 and again in 1961, there were requests from UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold to the Japanese government that Japan commit members of the SDF for service with United Nations peacekeeping missions. Such proposals were supported by the Japanese ambassador to the United Nations, by U.S. diplomats, and by a series of Japanese commissions established to examine the nation's national security issues. These suggestions were rejected for decades by successive Japanese governments of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Under the pressure of the 1990-1991 Gulf War, however, authorizing legislation was finally passed in June 1992. Additionally, a rapid and large increase in UN peacekeeping operations after the end of the cold war, and the complete reversal of the positions of the Japanese Socialist Party when Tomiichi Murayama became prime minister in June 1994 in a coalition government, have totally altered Japan's stance on international peacekeeping. Members of Japan's SDF have now been successfully deployed with UN peacekeeping missions in Cambodia, Mozambique, Zaire, and most recently in the Golan Heights. Asian counties that had expressed qualms and reservations about Japan's participation beforehand now evidently accept it. All of these deployments have so far been under the provisions of Chapter 6 of the UN Charter, which excludes participation in combat. The 1992 legislation, however, permits eventual expansion of Japan's participation, if the Japanese parliament approves the extension. This article reviews the history of these developments, and particularly the events that have taken place since 1990. It then assesses the desirability and potential benefíts that may result from the participation of Japanese military forces in UN peacekeeping operations, as well as the fears that have been expressed to the effect that such expansion of the roles of the SDF could ultimately lead to a resurgence of Japanese \"militarism.\" Finally, the article discusses in some detail the major source of reservation regarding the future conduct of Japanese governments once the threshold of SDF service beyond Japan's shores has been crossed.

This is the first attempt to understand the full scope of the USSR’s offensive biological weapons research, from inception in the 1920s. Gorbachev tried to end the program, but the U.S. and U.K. never obtained clear evidence that he succeeded, raising the question whether the means for waging biological warfare could be present in Russia today.