Series S00922 - Series 4: United States biological warfare

Series consists of Endicott's research files pertaining to his Series 4: United States Biological Warfare. Records include textual material including photocopies of previously classified documents, correspondence, and photographs relating to United States biological warfare activities during the Korean war period 1950-1953. These materials collected over a twenty-five year period, beginning in 1976, are the product of research in the national archives and several military archives of the United States, Canada, the Peoples’ Republic of China, and interviews in the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea, Japan and Britain. Based upon this research Endicott and his colleague Edward Hagerman, also of York University, collaborated to produce the book The United States Biological Warfare: Secrets from the Early Cold War and Korea (Indiana University Press, 1998) in which they conclude that the United States secretly engaged in large-scale field tests of biological weapons in Korea and China, committing an international war crime. The book has been translated into Korean in South Korea. At the time these records were donated, Endicott maintained that American authorities continue to deny biological warfare activities during the Korean War, and he believed the topic to be the most closely guarded Cold War secret of the United States government.