American Crime Case #5: The U.S. Military Conducted Race-Based Experiments with Chemical Weapons on U.S. Military Personnel During World War 2

David Bessho, whose father was a participant in the chemical gas experiments, said, “They were interested in seeing if chemical weapons would have the same effect on Japanese as they did on white people.” Bessho says his father told him, “I guess they were contemplating having to use them on the Japanese.”⁷

In the NPR investigation, June Dickenson reported that “All of the World War II experiments with mustard gas were done in secret and weren’t recorded on the subjects’ official military records. Most do not have proof of what they went through. They received no follow-up health care or monitoring of any kind. And they were sworn to secrecy about the tests under threat of dishonorable discharge and military prison time, leaving some unable to receive adequate medical treatment for their injuries, because they couldn’t tell doctors what happened to them.”⁸

THE CRIMINALS

President Franklin D. Roosevelt: Roosevelt supported the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) that was established in 1918. Roosevelt stated: “I am doing everything in my power to discourage the use of gases and other chemicals in any war between nations. While, unfortunately, the defensive necessities of the United States call for study of the use of chemicals in warfare…”⁹ [emphasis added] In 1941, Roosevelt established the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD). A branch of OSRD, the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC), provided “federal funds for thousands of chemical warfare research projects.”¹⁰

United States Congress: “Congress made the Chemical Warfare Service a permanent part of the Army in 1920, with duties to continue ‘the investigation, development, manufacture or procurement and supply of all smoke and incendiary materials, all toxic gases, and all gas defense appliances…’”¹¹ “By 1942, the U.S, government had allocated $1 billion to the CWS.”¹²

U.S. Army: Key military leaders supported the use of chemical weapons and the experiments. One of them was CWS chief Major General William N. Porter. Porter “pushed superiors to approve the use of poison gas against Japan. ‘The initiative in gas warfare is of the greatest importance. We have an overwhelming advantage [over the Japanese] in the use of gas. Properly used gas could shorten the war in the Pacific and prevent loss of many American lives,’ Porter said.”¹³ 

Mass media: The New York Daily News proclaimed in 1943, “We Should Gas Japan,” and the Washington Times Herald wrote in 1944, “We Should Have Used Gas at Tarawa” because “You Can Cook ‘Em Better with Gas.”¹⁴

Scientists who took part in the mustard gas experiments on soldiers: The key scientists who experimented on the soldiers were Max Bergmann, Cornelius Rhoades, Homer Smith, and Marion Sulzberger. Bergmann, who worked for the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, experimented on soldiers from CWS and on sailors from the naval prison on Hart Island.¹⁵ Rhoades participated in the experiments done on Puerto Ricans. In a letter he wrote about his experiments, Rhoades stated that “extermination” was a solution to local health problems.¹⁶ Smith “believed that mustard gas should be used in the Pacific against Japan, and he hoped that field studies … would demonstrate its effectiveness.”¹⁷ Sulzberger was one of the strongest proponents of race-based studies, and his studies erroneously concluded that there were differences in how races reacted to mustard gas, in particular that Black soldiers were more resistant to mustard gas than white soldiers. His bad science contributed to the notion that Black soldiers should precede white soldiers into a chemical warfare battle.¹⁸

THE ALIBI

During World War 2, the Army Chemical Corps was established, focusing on research and development of chemical agents for use in war. The U.S. claimed that it was stockpiling chemical weapons, including mustard gas and various nerve agents, as a deterrent against use by enemies of the U.S.¹⁹

President Roosevelt claimed that the U.S. would only use chemical weapons as a defensive measure. In June 1943, he stated the U.S. policy toward gas in warfare: “This country has not used them, and I hope we never will be compelled to use them. I state categorically that we shall under no circumstances resort to the use of such weapons unless they are first used by our enemies.”²⁰