Hidden Atrocities

Description

In the aftermath of World War II, the Allied intent to bring Axis crimes to light led to both the Nuremberg trial and its counterpart in Tokyo, the International Military Tribunal of the Far East. Yet the Tokyo trial failed to prosecute Imperial Japanese leaders for the very 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 Japan's victims justice.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...