1

“AMERICA’S MEMORY PROBLEMS: DIASPORA GROUPS, CIVIL

SOCIETY AND THE PERILS OF ‘CHOSEN AMNESIA’”1

David B. MACDONALD

This chapter contextualizes America’s decision to suppress knowledge of

Japanese war crimes within a larger framework of support for atrocity denial in American

history. This ranges from the government’s denial of its own medical and other atrocities

against indigenous peoples, African Americans, and others, to its tacit support for

Japanese and Turkish genocide denial. At base has traditionally been a strong adherence

to the principles of realpolitik, but also the belief that as most countries are founded on

blood, a certain amount of “chosen amnesia” is necessary in the formation of the modern

nation state. To dwell too heavily on past crimes is unproductive for all concerned,

especially when the perpetrators are allies. However, times are changing. The end of the

Cold War, the rise of identity politics, and the privileging of minorities has led to

renewed calls for America to recognize its own historic atrocities and those of its allies.

This has been the case in commemoration of both the Holocaust and the Armenian

genocide, where promotion of memory has come from Diaspora organizations within the

United States. A more vocal and confident American Chinese community then, offers the

chance for American civil society to highlight Japanese crimes, even if its government

adopts a stoic or even retrograde stance on the question of Japanese guilt.

REMEMBERING TO FORGET

In 1822, Ernest Renan famously observed that “the essential element of a nation is

that all its individuals must have many things in common but it must also have forgotten

many things”. More recently, Stanley Cohen has noted how societies deliberately forget

uncomfortable knowledge, which then becomes a series of “open secrets” known by

everyone but not discussed. This becomes “social amnesia”: “a mode of forgetting by

1 Forthcoming in in Jing-Bao Nie, Nanyan Guo, and Arthur Kleinman (eds), Japanese

Wartime Medical Atrocities: Comparative Perspectives on Science, History and Ethics (Routledge: forthcoming, 2009)

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which a whole society separates itself from its discreditable past record”. Alternatively,

one can see this as a practice of “chosen amnesia”, when societies deliberately exclude

unwanted or unsavory aspects of their national past (Buckley-Zistel 2006, 132-4). In

general, as Milliken has rightly noted, national discourses “work to define and to enable,

and also to silence and to exclude, for example, by limiting and restricting authorities and

experts to some groups, but not others, endorsing a certain common sense, but making

other modes of categorizing and judging meaningless, impractical, inadequate or

otherwise disqualified” (Milliken 2001, 139).

Jing-Bao Nie makes an impressive case for America to acknowledge and

compensate those whom it wronged by supporting Japanese medical experiments, by

suppressing this information from the public, and by refusing to prosecute known war

criminals, members of Units 731, 100 and others. Nie suggests that America was an

“accessory after the fact”, aiding and abetting Japan’s criminal activities by not bringing

the perpetrators to justice (Nie 2006, 24). Further, it is clear from a moral perspective that

“This treatment of Japanese doctors by the USA can never be justified by the standards of

moral traditions in any culture. Any government that supports and exploits such atrocities

should apologise and compensate” (Nie 2002, S5).

Yet, America treads a fine line. It will not antagonize allies like Japan if the

payoff is perceived to be minimal. The extent to which US policy will be “captured” by

issue areas will depend on the strength of the support the electorate has for these issues.

As Hansen and King argue persuasively: “ideas are more likely to be translated into

policy under three conditions: when there is a synergy between ideas and interests, when

the actors possess the requisite enthusiasm and institutional position, and when timing

contributes to a broad constellation of preferences that reinforce these ideas, rather than

detracting from them” (Hansen and King 2001, 239).

Fortunately America’s larger and more influential Diaspora groups operate at a

time when identity politics has increasing salience. While ethnic groups in the United

States may not be able to dictate US policy per se, they can mold certain issue areas

through organized and repeated pressure. Ironically, Chinese Americans may gain an

apology from America if the crimes are presented in a way that scripts them as relatively

unimportant in American history. This is perhaps not the argument other contributors to

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this volume will be making, but it is worth exploring further. America is wont to ignore

or suppress memories of the past when they are painful – when their legacies are so

damaging that they threaten to unravel the exceptionalist myths many Americans like to

tell about their forefathers. Thus there has been no official apology for the genocide of

American Indians or for African American slavery, nor any compensation.

In cases where apologies and compensation can tell a positive story about

America, at minimal financial and social cost, the situation is somewhat different. For

example, the Jewish Holocaust has now been enshrined as a key trope in American

national identity. If American elites have little interest in compensating American slaves

for their plight, they have certainly worked to secure reparations for Nazi-era slave

laborers, Jews and others alike. America as a large and relatively fragmented democratic

system also allows ethnic constituencies to promote their selective interests if they can

deliver a block of votes or influence the general public. There is some degree of

checking-and-balancing that seems to occur. If Armenian Americans are unable to get

their genocide recognized, they can secure financial support for their homeland. While

Greek Americans cannot stop America’s alliance with Turkey, they can at least prevent

America from fully recognizing the so-called Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Miami Cubans too can continue to exert their influence on continuing sanctions against

the moribund Cuba, even though the majority of Americans are in favor of engaging with

this island dictatorship.

What will become clear as this chapter proceeds is the near-roguish pursuit of

realpolitik that characterized the Cold War, versus the more nuanced approach to US

politics during the 1990s, allowing America to admit to past mistakes and atone for some

of its transgressions. During this era, it became clear that ethnic groups could achieve

tangible gains, providing that the costs to America’s reputation and pocket book were not

exorbitant. Indeed, the need to pacify domestic and foreign constituencies is the prime

mover in most apologies. I begin with a brief overview of Japanese atrocities, follow this

with details of the cover-up, then offer some useful context into America’s own crimes. I

then argue that Chinese-Americas may have a chance to gain acknowledgement of their

suffering at an official level, may gain a Congressional Bill condemning Japanese

denialism, and may gain an apology for America covering up details of Unit 731.

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However, acknowledgement of America’s role, and compensation, are unlikely to be

forthcoming. This is doubly so in the present international climate, which features more

recent ethical dilemmas like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

JAPANESE ATROCITIES

During the Pacific War, Japan engaged in some of the most brutal biological

experimentation imaginable. Much of it was centred around Unit 731, a biological

weapons program founded by Lieutenant General Ishii Shiro, a brilliant and particularly

sadistic medical practitioner. Beginning with a biological experimental unit at the Tokyo

Medical School, Ishii branched out into Japanese-controlled Manchukuo in 1932,

establishing permanent facilities in the city of Harbin. When these were deemed too

public for Ishii’s brutal experiments, facilities were moved to the town of Beiyinhe,

where a much larger complex was constructed. After a prisoner escape, an even larger

facility was established in Pingfan in 1939. Here, an airfield, a branch railway line,

laboratories, two prisons, a lecture hall, a training center, a sports ground, and housing for

2,600 staff were constructed. This sprawling facility of seventy buildings was soon

known as “the secret of secrets”. Even Japanese aircraft were forbidden from flying over

it. (Gold 2000, 29; 33; 39; Hicks 1998, 53) Prisoners were called “marutas” or logs and

were given numbers to disguise their further identity. Five main types of experiments

were carried out:

o Research was undertaken into infectious diseases and their prevention. Prisoners

were deliberately infected with a variety of diseases, from bubonic plague and

cholera to dysentery and venereal diseases – and were then subject to vivisections,

often without anaesthetic.

o Delivery systems for propagating disease were tested. These included ceramic

bombs which could be loaded with plague carrying flees, and dropped from the

air onto Chinese villages.

o Experiments were conducted on the effects of cold, particularly frostbite.

o A wide variety of poison gas experiments were conducted, including cyanide,

phosgene, carbon monoxide, and mustard gas.

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o A series of physiological and pathological experiments were performed, including

brain exposure, the effects of dehydration, starvation, air pressure tests,

vivisection of female reproductive organs, etc. (Hicks 1998, 54-5; Gold 2000, 80)

Japanese scientists were preparing for the widespread use of biological weapons.

Pingfan’s flea breeding machines were designed to produce 100 million fleas every few

days using 4,500 flea-producing machines, designed to spread bubonic plague (Williams

and Wallace 1989, 82). Tied to this was Unit 100, tasked with waging biological warfare

against animals using diseases and other means including anthrax, glanders, and sheep

and cattle plague (Williams and Wallace 1989, 72-3). Further units were established

throughout occupied China, in Beijing (Unit 1855), Nanking (Unit 1644) and elsewhere.

In total, over 20,000 biomedical professionals, many of them civilians were involved in

BW research (Barenblatt 2004, x-xiii).

The casualty rates can never be ascertained with any precision. Several thousand

people were killed by Unit 731 as part of their barbaric experiments. Some 400,000

people died of cholera alone in the Yunnan and Shandong provinces. An estimated

580,000 civilians, possibly more, were killed due to a variety of weapons tests, including

at least six aerial bombardments with plague-carrying ceramic bombs (Gold 2000, 48-53;

75; Barenblatt 2004, xii). Yet Unit 731 was the tip of the iceberg. If we accept the upper

limit of about 580,000 deaths, it still pales in comparison to the total number of Chinese

victims of Japanese aggression, which are commonly placed at about 19 million people,

but possibly many more (Shermer and Grobman 2000, 232).

COVER UP

The cover up seems to have come even before the end of the war. Fearful that the

Soviets would retaliate against the Japanese, key members of Unit 731, like Ishii’s

second in command in Tokyo, Naito Ryoichi, approached American officials with

information about the scientific achievements of the Unit. This was followed by a series

of backroom deals, approved by President Truman and Supreme Allied Commander

General MacArthur. In return for exclusive access to the experimental data, members of

the Unit, from Ishii down, were granted immunity from prosecution. In so doing,

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America expeditiously gained 20 years worth of information at minimal financial cost

(Gold: 2000, 94-109).

Ishii was given a large pension and died in 1959. Many former members went on

to achieve high office in post-War Japan. Three of the most brutal members (involved in

vivisections, frost-bite, and bacteriological research) went on the found the Green Cross,

a Japan-based blood bank. Others became professors and deans of Japanese medical

schools at Kyoto, Kinki and Osaka City. Many others remained in key positions within

the health care profession. (Gold: 2000, 140-3).

The Tokyo Trials (convened from May 1946 to November 1948) enabled further

denial by excluding many Japanese crimes. Americans largely controlled the trials and

their outcome, disproportionately punishing crimes against America (like Pearl Harbor)

while down-playing other atrocities (Awaya 1988, 222-4; Eykholt 2000, 19; Finn 1992,

150; Hicks 1998, 7-8). Asian victims of sexual assault were also marginalized as

Yoneyama recalls: “people of non-Western nations were only marginally included in the

category of ‘humanity’”. While local B and C class trials investigated the sexual assault

of Dutch women during the war, the “enslavement of Asian and Pacific Island women”

was ignored (Yoneyama 1999, 11-12; 16).

During the Trials there was a very brief mention of the “Tama Detachment” and

their testing of “poisonous serum”. However the matter was quickly dropped. General

MacArthur had sweeping powers over the International Prosecution Section, and was

able to bar prosecution of biological weapons charges, despite some grumblings within

the IPS (Williams and Wallace 1989, 166; 171-6). Further, Emperor Hirohito was neither

charged nor called as a witness. His continuation as Emperor is also seen to buttress

denialism (Nish 2000, 86). This escape would be interpreted as a “declaration of

innocence for the country”, resulting in a form of “amnesia” (Beigbeder 1999, 74). The

trials themselves have thus been seen as partial, incomplete and political in orientation,

unlike the Nuremberg trials, which were more multinational and far more wide-ranging

in scope, including (unlike Tokyo) a focus on medical experimentation and other

atrocities.

In 1949, the Soviets tried 12 Unit members in the now well-known trials in

Kharbarovsk, Siberia. Many of the facts of Unit 731 and 100’s activities came to light

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during this time. America’s General HQ in Japan, on advice from the US State

Department, denied that they had any information about Japanese medical experiments

and accused the Soviets of propaganda (Hicks: 1998, 51; Williams and Wallace 220-1).

Curiously, while these trials later revealed much of the truth of the Unit’s activities, the

Soviets made no attempt to bring charges against Unit 731 officials at the Tokyo Trials,

perhaps because the issues were becoming very sensitive and there was a behind the

scenes battle to gain as much information as possible about BW technology. (Williams

and Wallace 1989, 183-5)

DENIAL AND AMERICA’S AMBIGUOUS LEGACY IN JAPAN

At an ideological level, America turned a blind eye to denialism as Japan was

rapidly converted from enemy to ally. Indeed, if some revisionist history is to be

believed, Japan’s atomic victimization was at the root of the Cold War, so did its horrors

terrify Stalin (Alperovitz 1995). Japan was therefore on the front line of this emerging

conflict, as it was on the frontline of the Korean debacle and China’s civil war. Denialism

was promoted by the Japanese political and intellectual establishment, with support from

America. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party included many “die hard nationalists” who

traditionally viewed the Pacific war as a legitimate defence against Communism’s “Red

Peril” and western colonialism’s “White Peril” in Asia (Dower 2002, 218-19).

In approaching Japanese crimes, a tacit understanding seems to have evolved.

Since every country had committed atrocities, moral relativism set it. America would

help suppress crimes of its choosing. In turn, the firebombing of Japanese cities by

General Curtis LeMay could be overlooked to some extent (Powers 1995). Lest we

forget, over two million Japanese soldiers and sailors died in the War, alongside one

million civilians. All major cities with the exception of Kyoto were razed, some sixty-six

in total (Godemont 1997, 141). As Dower recalls: “It became commonplace to speak of

the war dead themselves – and, indeed, of virtually all ordinary Japanese – as being

‘victims’ and ‘sacrifices’” (Dower 2002, 218; 228). Orr similarly notes a “mythologizing

of war victimhood” in the post-War peace movements “manifested in a tendency to

privilege the facts of Japanese victimhood over considerations of what occasioned that

victimhood” (Orr 2001, 3).

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Japan also had a species of trump card – the legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Atomic devastation produced “victim consciousness” (higaisha ishiki) or “atomic victim

exceptionalism” (Orr 2001, 7; Dower 1996, 123). As Dower describes the instrumental

use of a bomb victim mentality: “Hiroshima and Nagasaki became icons of Japanese

suffering … blotting out recollection of the Japanese victimization of others” (Dower

1996, 123). The view that Japan was transformed by its victimization would lead to the

anti-nuclear peace movement (heiwa undo) in the 1950s (Dower 2002, 239-40; Dower

1996, 135). Certainly Japanese crimes were reasonably well known in Asia, but the

atomic bomb was known throughout the world. That coupled with the firebombing of

much of the country makes it clear that America did not have clean hands. As former

Defence Secretary Robert McNamara admitted recently, he and General LeMay would

certainly have stood trial for war crimes had America lost the war (Cohn 2006).

Both ideological considerations and America’s ambiguous role during the War in

Japan made the situation more complex than it first appears. While American leaders may

have felt little guilt about what they did to Japan, they certainly felt some unease. This

was especially so during a lengthy seven year occupation in which few American

officials knew Japanese or had any inkling as to how to get things done in a Japanese

bureaucracy. Americans “went native” during the occupation – they simply had no other

choice if they wished to direct Japanese domestic affairs. We can couple this with the

changing international climate.

AMERICAN CRIMES

Recent literature on America’s role in covering up Unit 731 crimes assumes to

some degree that America has had clean hands – that at some level America’s

unwillingness to front up to its past misdeeds is somehow an aberration. Here we are

confronted with the oft used myth of American “innocence”, the idea that America is

both a good and unblemished actor in world politics. Myths of American exceptionalism

promote the view that the early settlers were special chosen people, destined to achieve

great things (Barber 2003, 49).

It is perhaps instructive that Adolf Hitler was purportedly a “devoted reader of

Karl May’s books on the American West as a youth”, as James Poole tells us. He made

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frequent references to Russians as “Redskins”, seeing parallels between German attempts

to conquer Russia and similar attempts to colonize the American frontier (Poole, 1997:

254-255). From the founding of the Republic onwards, even before it, America’s

indigenous peoples were subject to horrific treatment. Indeed, ethnocide was a major part

of US policy, with the government also willing and able to engage in outright genocide

(Hitchcock and Twedt 1997, 380). Between 1789 to 1898, there were an estimated 1243

skirmishes between US troops and Indians, not to mention “hundreds of fights between

hands of Indians and state troopers, posses, and Texas Rangers” (Hollon 1974, 133).

The use of disease as a primitive biological weapon is evident in many historic

accounts. The “King Philip’s War” (1675-6) appears to be the first case of conflict

between indigenous peoples (the Wampanoag) and settlers over a fear that colonists had

deliberately spread disease amongst them (Stiffarm and Lane 1992, 32; Friedberg 2000,

339). By the early nineteenth century, the US Army distributed blankets infested with

smallpox to the Mandan in present-day North Dakota, causing (at least in part) a

pandemic that raged through the region from 1836-40 resulting a death toll of 100,000

(Stiffarm and Lane 1992, 32). Through a mixture of massacre, land theft, disease, forced

marches, policies of starvation, and a general declining birthrate, the total indigenous

population of America dropped from several million at the time of conquest to just under

250,000 by the 1920 (Stiffarm and Lane 1992, 37).

Further crimes were evident in America’s 14 year war in the Philippines. Of a

base population of 7 million, somewhere between 600,000 and 900,000 Filipinos were

killed as a result of the conflict. Diseases were deliberately spread, and the main ports

were closed during a major drought to deliberately starve the population. Existing rice

stores were destroyed, alongside cattle and other local food supplies. Such tactics

presaged similar strategies in Vietnam (Davis 2001, 198-200). In his edited work on

ethics and US foreign policy, Gibney argues of his country over the course of the war on

terror: “We also have been taught to believe that our actions do good in the world, and

apparently we are willing to accept a large number of dead foreigners for this good”

(Orlin 2006, 285; 287).

AMERICAN MEDICAL EXPERIMENTATION AND THE COLD WAR

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Since 1946, the principles of the Nuremberg Code have applied to medical

research, first applied by four American judges during the Doctors’ Trials at Nuremberg.

Twenty three defendants were charged with conducting experiments ranging from “high

altitude, freezing, malaria, and mustard gas experiments, among others, which resulted in

countless severe injuries and deaths” (Childress 2000, 347) The resulting 10-point code

was designed to enshrine such principles as informed consent, ensuring that the research

was socially important, using animal tests before human trials, and the right of human

participants to end their involvement in the tests at any time. However, the code was a

guide – nothing more, and was conveniently set aside as the need required. As Childress

argues: “For many years the Nuremberg Code played virtually no role in ethical

discussions, public policies, and legal decisions in the United States. It was effectively

circumscribed and even marginalized in various ways.” It was seen first as a “code for

barbarians, the Nazis, who were guilty of brutal excesses, not a code for civilized

researchers.” At another level, such a code was seen as both “unnecessary and

insufficient because research subjects are truly protected only by virtuous professionals”

(Childress 2000, 350).

During World War II and the Cold War, America engaged in forms of biological

and chemical weapons research. In 1943, a BW research center was created at Camp

Derrick (later Fort Derrick) near Frederick, Maryland. The centre was staffed with 373

enlisted personnel and 85 officers and was “[r]ivalled only by the Manhattan atom bomb

project in secrecy” (Williams and Wallace 1989, 95). After 1945, research was expanded.

Williams and Wallace argue that America continued the research of Unit 731 in post-War

Japan, forming the “Tokyo Nutrition Research Centre” (code-named J2C 406) with the

active involvement of Shiro. Animals and insects were bred en masse for medical

experiments and “At its peak, an average of 150,000 mice, 20-30,000 guinea pigs and 4-

5,000 hamsters were being bred each month and sent via the Japanese Experimental

Animal Laboratories to J2C 406” (Williams and Wallace 1989, 273-5).

In America, biological warfare experiments continued during the 1950s. During

this time a $90 million biological mass production facility was constructed at Pine Bluff,

Arkansas (Williams and Wallace 1989, 281-2) Camp Derrick was upgraded and BW

research went into high gear. Special laboratories were built to breed Aedes aegypti

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mosquitoes, a vector for yellow fever. Scientists created facilities able to breed some 130

million mosquitoes per month, such that: “by the end of the decade [1950s] its

laboratories were reported to contain mosquitoes infected with yellow and dengue fevers

and malaria, as well as plague fleas, ticks contaminated with tularaemia and flies carrying

cholera, anthrax and dysentery” (Williams and Wallace 1989, 283-4) The Federation of

American Scientists notes a variety of tests during this time, with “travelers at

Washington National Airport … subjected to a harmless bacterium … [sprayed] into the

atmosphere”; spreading organisms on the New York Subway; using the US Navy to

spray a stimulant around San Francisco Bay, where it “spread more than 30 miles to

monitoring stations” (FAS 1998).

Then we have another chapter in American history. As Welsome has documented

in The Plutonium Files, thousands of Americans were subject to radiation experiments as

America created atomic weaponry. As she argues of the Atomic Energy Commission:

“Thousands of human radiation experiments, many of them unethical and without

therapeutic benefit, were funded by the AEC over the next three decades of the Cold

War”. (Markowitz 2000, 603) In the well known case of the Vanderbilt University

prenatal clinic, between 830-850 pregnant women were fed doses of radioactive iron to

determine its rate of absorption into the body. The experiments were conducted between

1945 and 1949. A later follow up study in 1969 was designed to “determine morbidity

and mortality experiences in the children and mothers fed radioactive iron” (Rothman 28;

32). Over an eight year period from 1946, 74 students at the Fernald State School in

Massachusetts were given either trace amounts of radioactive iron or calcium in their

morning porridge, as part of an experiment conducted by MIT and backed by the AEC.

The controversy grew:

Between two to three thousand enlisted men participated in experiments during

America’s aboveground nuclear testing program in Nevada. (Soldiers were moved up

from seven miles away in 1951 to four miles in the 1952 test series to two miles from

ground zero during the 1953 series. A few were sent to within 1 mile of ground zero.)

From 1963 to 1971, over one hundred prisoners in Oregon and Washington states

“volunteered” to have their testicles exposed to as much as 600 rads of radiation.

(Markowitz 2000, 603)

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Such experimentation was deliberately covered up, primarily to prevent law suits

from victims and their families. Further, the AEC feared too much public knowledge of

nuclear radiation and its effects could dampen support for the Bomb (Markowitz 2000,

604-5). Despite guidelines and codes, the American government and medical

establishment seems to have subordinated much of their understanding of ethics in the

quest to best the Soviet Union. Brandt and Freidenfelds recall:

Both military and civilian medical researchers were intensely interested in radiation and

thus conducted human subjects research along those lines, including examinations of

the effects of plutonium injections and of total body irradiation, the use of trace

radioisotopes to study various body processes, and observations of the effects of

radiation intentionally released into the environment. The U.S. Government sponsored

several thousand such studies … some of which were conducted on hospital patients,

institutionalized children, military personnel, and prisoners (Brandt and Freidenfelds

1996, 240)

To this we can add a wide variety of DoD and CIA-sponsored projects, performed

at over 30 university campuses. A variety of experiments using hallucinogenic drugs and

other controlled substances took place at Harvard and around the country, sponsored by

the DoD and CIA. Prescott has documented the testing of potential “truth drugs” and a

variety of other drugs which be used as mind altering devices. This includes Wendt’s

Project CHATTER, based in the psychology department of the University of Rochester.

Wendt was contracted by the Navy to study “the effects of a variety of drugs, including

barbiturates, amphetamines, alcohol, and heroin.” A wide variety of other studies

followed, including the infamous project MKULTRA at the University of Minnesota and

Missouri Institute of Psychiatry (Prescott 2002, 33-4).

In 1966, Henry Beecher revealed the details of 22 ethically questionable research

projects which have been published after the Nuremberg Code. These were just some of

many studies he had examined and he used them to demonstrate how widespread

medically unethical practice had become, including such problems as “withholding

effective treatment, knowingly exposing subjects to drugs that could be expected to cause

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serious side-effects, and lack of informed consent” (Ross 2004, 520) As Moreno and

Lederer argue, there was little in the way of ethical oversight of human experimentation.

Rather the reverse seems to have been true:

[P]reviously classified transcripts of many of the Pentagon advisory bodies, such as the

Committee on Medical Sciences, show that in 1951 and 1952 most members were

definitely not in favor of devising new, rigorous protections for human research

subjects. Not only did many members assert the necessity of human experiments for

some of the work that needed to be done, some expressed grave doubts about the

wisdom of creating any formal review mechanism at all (Moreno and Lederer 1996,

231).

All of this tells us something about the climate of medical ethics in America during

the Cold War, a climate which sacrificed the rights of its own citizens in order to hold its

own against the Soviet Union. At base was the belief that the Soviets were a highly

unscrupulous enemy who would stop at nothing to achieve world domination. This belief

animated the desire to push science to its limits, to disregard individual rights in some

cases for the good of the wider community.

AMERICAN MEDICAL EXPERIMENTATION AND RACISM

America implemented extensive eugenic immigration and sterilization policies in

the early 20th

century (Hansen and King 2001, 237-9). Eugenics and racial theories were

popular amongst the American elite, who disparaged not only African Americans,

Latinos and indigenous peoples, but many classes of immigrant as well: Italians, Slavs,

Jews, and others. Women and the lower classes were also perceived to be biologically

inferior. Modern birth control and family planning initiatives were premised largely on

the higher reproduction rates among immigrants, versus the lower rates among white

Americans. “Racial suicide” was commonly feared (Leonard 2003, 690-6).

Many indigenous women were subject to forced sterilizations during the twentieth

century. While the Indian Health Service greatly improved medical care on reserves and

dramatically lowered rates of tuberculosis and other diseases, they became overly

intrusive in promoting “family planning” policies to counter the high indigenous birth

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rate (Lawrence 2000, 411). A report published in 1979 revealed that 60 percent of

hospital surveyed had “routinely sterilized women under the age of twenty-one”, in

violation of official guidelines established by the federal government (Udel 2001, 46)

Ralstin-Lewis reveals:

Estimates indicate that, from the early to mid-1960s up to 1976, between 3,400 and

70,000 Native women—out of only 100,000 to 150,000 women of childbearing age—

were coercively, forcibly, or unwittingly sterilized permanently by tubal ligation or

hysterectomy. Native women seeking treatment in Indian Health Service (IHS)

hospitals and with IHS-contracted physicians were allowed neither the basic right of

informed consent prior to sterilization nor the right to refuse the operation. IHS also

subjected mentally retarded Indian girls and women to a contraceptive known as

DepoProvera before it received approval from the Federal Drug Administration (FDA)

in 1992. From 1970 to 1980, the birthrate for Indian women fell at a rate seven times

greater than that of white women (Ralstin-Lewis 2005, 71-2).

The situation continued until Congress passed the Indian Health Care Improvement Act

in 1976, giving tribal control over medical services. The levels of abuse dropped

significantly thereafter (Lawrence 2000, 415).

Perhaps better known were the Tuskagee experiments involving African

Americans. The US Public Health Service in tandem with several other organizations

embarked on a lengthy study of the effects of untreated syphilis amongst uneducated

Black males who were neither told they had the condition, nor were informed of the

methods available to treat it. The experiments were carried out in Macon County, from

the 1930s to the 1970s. Some 400 African Americans were involved, and all notions of

informed consent, laid down in the Nuremberg Charter, were completely ignored.

Residual effects remain, and African Americans are still deeply distrustful of the medical

profession, which many deem to be structurally racist (Harter, Stephens, and Japp 2000,

21). As Lombardo and Dorr have concluded: “race-conscious ideology profoundly

influenced the intellectual and organizational origins of the study”. The faculty at the

University of Virginia, the authors note, was rife with eugenic beliefs, as was the USPHS

(Lombardo and Dorr, 293; 303).

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My point in presenting this catalogue of ethically questionable activities is to

demonstrate that far from merely condoning and then covering up Japanese medical

experiments, America continued Japan’s research, and used their own citizens as human

guinea pigs on a number of now well-known occasions. This takes Jing-Bao Nie’s

accusations a step further, effectively blurring the lines between perpetrator and

accessory.

CHANGE IN THE AIR

The end of the Cold War profoundly changed mainstream thinking about what

lengths one needed to go to defeat the Soviet threat. What Nytagodien and Neal term “the

age of apologies” (Nytagodien and Neal 2005, 465) or what Torpey calls “reparations

politics” began in many western countries. Governments, churches, and private firms

were increasingly being held to account for past actions against indigenous peoples and

other disadvantaged groups (Torpey 2001a, 334). The old “heroic, forward-looking tales

that underpinned the idea of progress for two centuries”, were now replaced by

“narratives of injustice and crime…” (Torpey 2001b). Olick’s analysis of the “memory

boom” which emerged after the Cold War is little different. Here too, national groups

became caught up with “new versions of the past rather than the future”. Olick notes the

“increase in redress claims, the rise of identity politics, a politics of victimization and

regret, and an increased willingness of governments to acknowledge wrongdoing … all

part of the decline of the memory-nation as an unchallengeable hegemonic force” (Olick

1998, 380). Marginalized groups asserted themselves, and more significantly, states were

actually willing to listen.

With a conscientious objector from the Vietnam War in the White House, a left-

leaning Labor government in Australia, and the decimation of Conservative rule in

Canada, many western societies now seemed more open to debating and discussing the

past. Bill Clinton, Jacques Chirac, Gerhardt Schroeder and Tony Blair all engaged in

forms of “self examination”, apologizing for various wronged groups for the “gross

historical crimes” committed in their own countries and to others (Olick and Coughlin

2003, 37). This led to a process of “democratizing the past” – where states now tried to

give equal recognition to those who have been previously marginalized or victimized

16

(Cairns 2003, 83). In this climate, we see the rise of memory politics and activism on

behalf of disadvantaged groups. Activism succeeds if it can tell a story about America

that is palatable to the mainstream, that allows America to admit some guilt without

putting its own self-identity in jeopardy.

Ethnic groups certainly do have the capacity to help shape foreign and domestic

policy. First, their narrow focus makes it relatively easy to channel efforts into achieving

a small number of clearly defined objectives. If the majority is uninterested, apathetic or

generally ignorant about the issue under discussion, the group may exert a great deal of

influence, especially if it can deliver blocks of votes in important constituencies or help

fundraise for sympathetic candidates (Saideman 2002, 94). It is no accident, as Shain

recalls that America’s most vocal Diasporas have proven to be the most successful.

Armenian-Americans (nearly 1 million people) and Jewish-Americans (six million

people) have been highly successful in promoting Armenian and Israeli interests in

Congress. Indeed, both countries receive the largest amount of US foreign aid per capita

(Shain 2002, 116).

Armenian-Americans were able to use their power during Armenia’s war with

Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia was able to successfully annex this part of

Azerbaijan (which contained an Armenian majority). This was perhaps less remarkable

than the Diaspora’s ability to stop America from providing aid to Azerbaijan. Section 907

of the Freedom Support Act of 1992, designed to help post-Soviet transition, specifically

prohibited American assistance to Azerbaijan. As Saideman notes, “it essentially means

that the United States would ban assistance to a country that, in many ways, was resisting

ethnically motivated aggression.” While President Clinton was opposed to the motion, he

was unable to stop its passage, and it was only waived after September 11 when

Azerbaijan gained strategic importance (Saideman 2002, 99)

Greek-Americans have long claimed that the Yugoslav republic of Macedonia

was part of historic Greece. This Diaspora was able to push America to limit its

relationship with Macedonia and indeed, to only recognize this country as the “Former

Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” (FYROM). Further, Diaspora pressure prompted

America to look the other way as Greece launched an economic blockade of FYROM,

seriously weakening its economy (Saideman 2002, 98-9). America’s Indian Diaspora is

17

also active in US politics. There are currently over 2 million Indians living in America,

constituting the wealthiest minority group per capita. There are over 4,000 Indians

teaching in American universities while the American Association of Physicians of

Indian Origin has some 35,000 members. Remittances from America rose from $2.1

billion in 1990 to over $12 billion by 2000. During the Kargil conflict, Indians in

America were able to successfully lobby Congress and President Clinton to urge

Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif to withdraw his forces (Panagariya, 2001).

As the Cuban case demonstrates, governments will often go along with a policy

even if the majority of the electorate may be against it. Polls suggest that most Americans

are against continued sanctions against Cuba, yet few will not vote for a candidate based

on this issue. At the same time, Florida Cubans will withhold votes and support a rival

candidate if anyone advocates dropping the sanctions. There is a tradeoff: “candidates for

national office can gain Cuban votes by supporting sanctions without fear of losing votes

from other groups. As a result, a small minority has managed to capture an aspect of U.S.

foreign policy” (Moore 2002, 84).

The Israeli lobby is perhaps the best known in American foreign policy. Israel has

been closely supported by the United States since 1948. It became a major donor after

1976, having contributed $140 billion since 1948, roughly $3 billion annually in direct

assistance. The America Israel Political Action Committee is the primary lobbying group

in the country (Mearsheimer and Walt 2006) Debate is rising over America’s continued

support of Israel, with prominent IR theorists like Mearsheimer and Walt calling for

America to re-evaluate its relationship. The argument here is that being uncritically pro-

Israel is costing America legitimacy in the Middle East and hampering its ability to win

the “War on Terror” (Mearsheimer and Walt 2006). It remains to be seen how effective

such arguments will be, as most Americans support Israel. However, Jewish America, as

Shain rightly argues, is hardly monolithic, and is split in its views over what Israel should

do to revolve the Palestinian debacle (Shain 2002, 125-6).

RECOGNIZING PAST ATROCITIES

18

Congress, the Presidency, and other branches of government often perform a

balancing role, acquiescing to some minority demands while refusing others when they

conflict with the needs of other minorities. Thus in the Armenian case, the Diaspora has

pressured Congress for decades to officially recognize the Armenian genocide, without

success. In the 1980s, the Turkish government was able to stall Congressional resolutions

calling for 24 April to become a national day of commemoration for the genocide.

Turkey as a key NATO ally continues to rely on its alliance with America to prevent any

official recognition of the genocide. When a non-binding resolution recognizing the

genocide went before the House of Representatives in 2000, Turkey threatened to stop all

US military flights from its Incirlik airbase, which America was using to enforce Iraq’s

no fly zone (Shain 2002; ‘Armenian genocide recognition spreads’ 2000). They also

threatened to pull out of NATO. Clinton personally intervened to challenge the resolution

(Evans 2005; Auron 2003, 111-15). Another unsuccessful attempt was made in 2003

(Chapman 2003). While the American Turkish lobby has peddled genocide denial, even

endowing a series of chairs in Turkish history (Smith, Markusen, and Lifton 1995, 274-5)

most genocide historians have upheld the facts of the genocide. The government

continues to sit on the fence, although as individuals, Presidents Reagan, Bush 41, and

Clinton all recognized the genocide (Kinzer 2002, E1). What is clear is that geopolitical

exigencies have made America unable to recognize the facts of the genocide, although

they submit to Armenian Diaspora pressure in other ways.

In the case of America’s indigenous peoples, domestic political pressure has been

insufficient to garner official recognition of America’s genocidal crimes, let alone an

apology or compensation. In 2000, the Department of Indian Affairs did accept “moral

responsibility” for waging “war on Indian people ... by threat, deceit and force”,

committing “acts so terrible that they infect, diminish and destroy the lives of Indian

people decades later, generations later…” (Kiernan 2002, 165). However, this stark

admission failed to reflect official government or administration policy, and was

consistent with the general thrust of American policies, which show a profound lack of

remorse (Corlett 2001, 239).

The only prominent genocide that has achieved official recognition is the

Holocaust. This is in part because of the efforts of American Jews to have it recognized.

19

This is perhaps because of the size and influence of America’s Jewish population, but

also because of America’s continued support for Israel, which most political leaders see

as a geopolitical necessity. But further and more important are the sort of lessons the

Holocaust can help tell about America (Novick: 1999). While largely dormant in public

discussions of the War in the 1950s, the Holocaust came into its own during the 1960s

and 70s, especially after the Vietnam War (Ball: 2000, 4).

In a speech in 1978, President Carter suggested that the Holocaust was becoming

a crucial aspect of America’s national identity. First, the Holocaust was a feel-good story.

Americans had helped liberate the camps, and could reasonably claim some credit for

ending the genocide. Further, America was a haven for the oppressed. Large numbers of

survivors were granted asylum and contributed to America. Third, the Holocaust

embodied all that a democratic, pluralist, freedom-loving America was not. But the

Holocaust also had important moral lessons to convey. As a bystander nation who did

little to prevent the Holocaust, America now had a special mission to spread democracy

and freedom, in the name of other victims of totalitarian systems (Young: 1999, 73).

Many American Jewish groups have responded in kind. For example, in 1993, the

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum opened its doors in central Washington DC.

The Museum Council made clear that, “America is the enemy of racism and its ultimate

expression, genocide. … in act and word the Nazis denied the deepest tenets of the

American people” (Young: 1999, 73). The Holocaust was thus interpreted as “the most

un-American of crimes and the very antithesis of American values” (Cole: 2004, 138).

Further, Americans adopted a special and unique role in the family of nations, becoming

the “primary keepers of the flame of remembrance” (Levy and Sznaider: 2002, 97-8;

2004, 152). Another aspect of Holocaust Americanization was the campaign to

compensate Jewish survivors and their families for slave labor they were forced to

perform during the War. Another campaign focused on retrieving Holocaust-era assets

from Swiss banks (Barkan 2001, xv; 21).

At the same time, American leaders have been careful to make a distinction

between the former Nazi Germany and their post-War ally. This has created some

potentially explosive situations, such as Reagan’s fateful visit to the Bitburg cemetery in

1988, when he argued that German soldiers (including Waffen SS) were also victims of

20

Nazism (Moeller 2005, 150; 170). This was not to say that Reagan was an anti-Semite or

a Nazi supporter but rather revealed in his mind the symbolic, ideological and

geopolitical transformation of Germany from enemy to friend. The same has been true of

Japan, mixed with the sense of unease about the use of the Bomb.

CHINESE AMERICANS

America is now home to over one third of overseas Chinese living outside of

Asia. Approximately 70 percent are foreign born; the majority immigrated to America

after 1980. California and New York contain the largest numbers of Chinese Americans,

with 40 percent residing in California alone (Fan 2003, 261-2; 269-71). Chinese

Americans now have more freedom of expression, and more coercive power than at any

time in their history. The New York Times recently identified a “cottage industry” of

remembrance, with “dozens of groups working the Internet to publicize it, as well as

recent documentaries, novels and exhibits” (Marino 1998). While long divided between

support for the Taiwan and the People’s Republic, in the 1990s, the Diaspora began to

speak with a more united voice, joining together a “multiplicity of voices” (Maier 2000,

3).

American Jews have also been helpful in promoting memory of Nanking and

other Japanese crimes. Shermer and Grobman’s analysis of Holocaust denial features a

chapter entitled “The Rape of History” devoted largely to debunking Japanese denialism.

They conclude that “such historical denial is a form of ideologically driven

pseudohistory, which adopts techniques designed to undermine historical claims that do

not fit with present ideologies and beliefs” (2000, 237). Thus there is solidarity between

Holocaust historians and Chinese scholars, partially because both are fellow victims of

past atrocities, but equally because of shared struggles to promote truth and remembering

in the face of active and pernicious denial movements. Some Holocaust historians see a

powerful antagonist in the Japanese establishment, one which they compare with the

international network of Holocaust deniers. Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the

Wiesenthal Center, has argued that “In terms of cold, calculated cruelty, the people who

operated Unit 731 would have been right at home with Josef Mengele and his associates”

(Dobbs 2000, A1).

21

This can be contrasted to the stance taken by some Holocaust historians to other

tragedies, notably the genocides of the Armenians and indigenous peoples. In both cases,

the situation has been complicated by geopolitical considerations. The Americanization

of the Holocaust has scripted America as the antithesis of Nazi Germany, making

aspersions on America’s past more difficult. For the American government, recognizing

the Holocaust allows the government to avoid discussing its own genocidal past, while

still looking sympathetic and morally upright. As Stannard posits, if Nazi Germany is

“the very idea of evil”, Jews become by extension, “the ultimate ‘worthy’ victim”.

However, the Americanization process buttresses America’s image as a model of

democracy, multiculturalism and enlightenment. Indigenous peoples are thus the “the

ultimate ‘unworthy’ victims” (Stannard 1992, 256).

The Armenian case is equally complex. Israeli historian Yair Auron has traced the

cementing of bilateral relations between Turkey and Israel to the Gulf War. While Iran

and Ethiopia were the sort of “strong, stable, pro-Western peripheral states” Israel

supported in the 1970s, the post-Cold War world necessitated new regional allies (Auron

62-5). At the same time, Turkey has seen good relations with Israel as a means of

strengthening ties to Washington while seeing the Israelis as allies against the Greek and

Armenian lobbies (Vest 2002). Israeli support for Turkish denialism has made

commemoration of the Armenian genocide increasingly difficult in the United States,

leading to friction between these two groups (Derfner 2005).

The Chinese American situation is actually far more promising, for the simple

reason that both Japanese and Chinese American activists often converge on the need for

atonement for past crimes. Similarly, both see themselves as victims of irrational

prejudice in American society. Japan as an up and coming economic power became the

bogeyman during the 1990s, as epitomized in Prestowitz’s Trading Places (1991) or

novels like Crichton’s Rising Sun (1993). China’s spectacular rise has been viewed with

equal alarm, particularly since it is also seen as a rising military power and not a

democracy (Johnston 2003). Mistrust became a serious problem in 2001 when a Chinese

fighter plane collided with an American navy spy plane. Chinese were caricatured in the

National Review. Radio DJs demanded that Chinese Americans be shipped out of the

country. A Fox News host demanded that Chinese Americans be fired from national

22

research laboratories. A 2001 Gallup poll demonstrated that over 80 percent of

respondents saw China as “dangerous”. In another poll almost half of respondents felt

that Chinese Americans “passing secrets to the Chinese government is a problem”. Close

to one third also maintained that Chinese Americans were more loyal to China than

America (Chang 2003, 395-7).

Chinese Americans have remained on the margins of society, not socially and

politically established like whites, nor a recognizable underclass like Blacks, Hispanics or

American Indians (Gungwu 2000, 95). Chinese American writers still maintain that they

still do not quite fit into American society. As Yu passionately argues, “Asians are still

exotic, still bearers of an authentic otherness that they cannot shake. Like other

nonwhites, Asian Americans remain both American and examples through their existence

of non-America. …” (Yu 2001, 203). Wu takes a somewhat different tack, and sees his

people assuming a social and economic position once occupied by Jews “in the

imagination of ethnicity” as those who work hard and strive for success in the

establishment. Chinese Americans suffer from what Wu calls “the model minority myth”

(Wu 2002, 47).

Yet there are a number of hopeful precedents. The Americanization of the

Holocaust proves that minorities can achieve formal recognition of their genocide,

provided that the perpetrators do not actively deny the atrocities. The Armenians have

floundered largely due to Turkish bullying, and European countries who recognize the

genocide are financially penalized (Morris 2001).

The Japanese situation is somewhat different, for the simple reason that there is

some debate going on within Japan about the atrocities. The ruling LDP soft-peddles

denial, but does not actively promote it in the grotesque manner favored by Turkey.

Japan’s memory or lack thereof is not monolithic. As Jeans has recently noted, a number

of “peace” oriented museums, locally or privately operated have been reviewing in quite

a stark fashion the history of Japanese aggression in Asia. These include changes to the

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, which became more balanced in 2000, giving some

context behind why Japan was bombed in the first place. The same holds true of the

Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum which has also incorporated a section on Japan’s

expansionism. Some of the more progressive museums include the Osaka International

23

Peace Center (which even includes photographs of Chinese victims), and the well-known

Kyoto Museum for World Peace. Of course, traditional “war” museums continue to

promote denial, like the Yasukuni Shrine War Museum, the Showa Hall, the Chiran

Peace Museum for Kamikaze Pilots (Jeans 2005).

Further, Japanese courts have admitted that the crimes occurred, making any

future American apology less dramatic. In 2002, 180 plaintiffs concluded a 5 year-long

civil case against the Japanese government for the crimes of Unit 731. The plaintiffs

demanded $83,500 each for the deaths of some 2,100 victims of medical

experimentation. While the Tokyo court refused to award damages (claiming they have

been settled by the Japanese government at the international level) they did admit that the

crimes occurred, and that the Japanese army conducted experiments on civilians and used

BW weaponry. The presiding judged described the crimes of Unit 731 as “inhumane”,

having cause “truly horrible and enormous” harm to their Chinese victims. Further, the

judges upheld that both the Geneva and Hague Conventions had been broken by Japan

during the war (Watts 2002, 857).

Then there is the Japanese American precedent. Reagan did apologize to the

110,000 Japanese Americans interned during World War II. In 1988 he followed a formal

apology with $20,000 for each person who was interned (Biondi 2003, 8). The process

was a lengthy one, as Maeda recalls, “a complex tale of grassroots organizing and

political maneuvering, unanimity and internal strife, setbacks and triumphs.” It began in

1970, and with pressure from four Japanese Americans in Congress, a Commission on

Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) was formed in 1980. The

Commission delivered its report in 1983 and recommended an apology and

compensation. However, three bills for redress died at the committee level at it was only

when the Democrats gained a majority in both houses of Congress in 1987 that a bill was

finally passed (Maeda 2002, 73-5).

A further positive sign is the relative unity of Asian Americans as a lobbying

force. The Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, chaired by Mike Honda, is

bipartisan and claims to represent the interests of some 11 million Asian Pacific

Americans (APA). Honda describes the APA as a “community”, which together has

certain common interests, such as the elimination of racism in American society (Honda

24

2006). Prominent Congressional leaders like Norman Mineta, Patsy Mink, Robert A.

Underwood and David Wu have also had an important role to play. As a state

congressman in California, Honda successfully passed AJR 27 through the California

State Assembly, calling on Japan to apologize and pay compensation for its wartime

atrocities. (Chu Lin 2001) He has linked apologies and reparations for both groups as a

“basic human rights issue. It took us 12 years to get our government to apologize to us.

We are supporting these [Chinese American] efforts because it is the right thing to do”

(Dobbs 2000, A1). This unity is refreshing, and indicates ironically that the

marginalization American Japanese and Chinese feel has helped erase some of their

feelings of difference in their parent’s countries of origin.2

Yet we should be clear. While Congress might pass a resolution pushing for Japan

to apologise, and might apologise for its own suppression of Japanese crimes, the road to

compensation will be an extremely long one. This is doubly so since Japanese courts

have already admitted guilt, thus in some respects absolving America as a guilty party. It

is hard to weigh the costs versus payoffs to the United States. Certainly this would result

in better relations with China, but might worsen relations with Japan at a time when

America is increasingly isolated internationally.

It’s also unclear how far any apologies will go. Certainly President Clinton did

make numerous apologies for crimes in America’s past, everything from the annexation

of Hawaii to American support of right wing Guatemalan military forces. Unfortunately

many of these apologies never told the whole story. Clinton may have apologized for US

support but did not apologize for any active involvement in Guatemala for example.

While Clinton did acknowledge the evils of slavery during his state visit to Africa in

1998, he did not formally acknowledge America’s role nor did he formally apologize.

Monetary reparations were clearly off the agenda (Howard-Hassmann 2004, 831). For

Gibney and Roxtrom, it was clear at the end of the Clinton years that most of these

apologies were largely vacuous. They note and rightly: “The biggest problem with state

apologies is that the apologizing state wants it both ways: it wants credit for recognizing

and acknowledging a wrong against others, but it also wants the world to remain exactly

2 I would appreciate any input into Chinese-Japanese relations in the United States. Is the relationship as

rosy at it appears, or is there continued friction?

25

as it had been before the apology was issued” (2001: 936). Apologies had a strong feel-

good factor but inaugurated few concrete political or monetary changes for victims.

Further, one should not expect any American apology to change the world. As

Markowitz has argued, America’s radiation experiments garnered little popular interest.

Revealed in a series of newspaper reports in the 1970s, including features in the

Washington Post, the experiments were well enough known that in the mid-1980s, that

the House Subcommittee on Energy Conservation and Power “released an extensive

report on 31 human radiation experiments involving 700 people. The report, which

showed that these experiments were conducted without informed consent and had been

covered up for decades, did receive some media coverage, but no sustained attention”

(Markowitz 2000, 605).

In conclusion, the time is ripe for a Congressional resolution calling on Japan to

apologize for the horrors of Unit 731 and their suppression. Asian American pressure

might also result in an apology for America’s shameful role in the cover-up of these

crimes and its continued involvement in BW research, using the very perpetrators of

Japan’s atrocities. This however, is less likely to happen. America is happy to champion

the cause of justice (or at least appear to do so) when its own self-image is not threatened.

However, as with American Indians, it is much less likely to do so when revelations

about its past might cast doubt on America’s claims to an exceptional heritage.

Additionally, apologies require a President amenable to public displays of mea culpa. If

Bill Clinton was a master as such posturing, the current President is not. And if he does

possess a self-critical bent, his focus is unlikely to turn towards Asia when there are

larger and more current geopolitical issues of pressing concern to most Americans.

26

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