Page 87 - Unit 731 Testimony

Its reply to SCAP and the War Department back in Washington, was
couched along these lines.

Some copies of these reports were labeled as being destined for the
"Commander in Chief," so there can be little doubt that the U.S. president
was informed of events in Tokyo, including the biological warfare
intelligence coming into America's hands. In other words—to borrow the
expression that that president himself made famous—on the decision not to
prosecute the former members of Unit 731, the buck stopped right at Harry

Shippe Truman's desk.
America's decision not to prosecute Ishii and his men was not the final
word on the matter, however. In July 1948, the Soviet army newspaper Red

Star carried an article by a Col. Galkin, special correspondent on the
newspaper for Japanese biological warfare. According to the article, the
Japanese were preparing to use biological warfare on a large scale, and they
had a huge bacteriological center in Manchuria. Galkin's piece did not state
that Japanese biological warfare was intended for use against his country,
and instead specifically pointed out that it was for use against China, the
United States, and Britain. The Red Star article also did not mention Soviet

citizens as victims of human experimentation. Still more surprising, the
Soviet article did not mention the imperial order which had allegedly led to
the establishment of the labs. There was only mention of Prince Mikasa
acting as the emperor's representative.

Some time later, however, a different version of events emerged from
behind the Iron Curtain. In December 1949, in the city of Khabarovsk, on
the railway line north of Vladivostok, twelve former members of Ishii's
organization were placed on trial for war crimes. Soviet press reports told
the U.S. State Department of the first installment of the trial results, and
included "confessions" by several Japanese that the Japanese General Staff
and War Ministry had set up secret labs in Manchuria in 1935-1936, for

preparation and execution of bacteriological warfare. During court
testimony, these were said to have been established on direct order from
Emperor Hirohito. The Soviet account goes on to state that the Soviet
Union was one of the intended targets of Japan's biological warfare efforts,
that Soviet citizens were among the victims of experimental research, that

bacteria were mass-produced for use in war, and that outposts along the
Soviet border were established for the purpose of conducting biological
warfare against the U.S.S.R.