KOREAN WAR.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Report of the International Scientific Commission for the Investigation of the Facts Concerning Bacterial Warfare in Korea and China. First edition in English, first printing, scarce in commerce, of the so-called "Needham Report", an explosive exposé of American biological warfare in Korea compiled by the International Scientific Commission, a team of scientists including the British biochemist and Cambridge don Joseph Needham.In March 1952, Needham and his colleagues were invited by the Soviet-backed World Peace Council to undertake an impartial investigation into Washington's conduct in the Korean theatre. The final publication, released on 31 August 1952, was immediately divisive - lauded by the Communist bloc and dismissed by the United States for its "pseudo-scientific paraphernalia... skilfully designed to impress" (Defence Research Board, quoted in Avery, unpaginated). Needham was blacklisted in Western academia, although the report's findings came to seem increasingly credible. Bertrand Russell, originally a sceptic, later wrote in his 1969 autobiography that, given developments in Vietnam, "I owe Professor Needham and others my sincere apologies for thinking these charges too extreme".In addition to the report, Needham (1900-1995) is most well known for his monumental Science and Civilisation in China, a defining contribution to the study of the history of science.

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