Throughout the twentieth century the world’s leading statesmen and scientists sought to outlaw the use of biologcal warfare (BW). The League of Nations was the first to attempt to proscribe the use of chemical and biological weapons in the 1925 Geneva Protocol, an action that was endorsed by most major nations of the world.’However, in spite of having signed the Protocol, many of the principal industrial powers, includlng France, Germany, the Soviet Union, Japan, the United Kmgdom and, beginning in 1942, the United States, persisted in subsidizing secret biological warfare research.

During the 1930s, Japan embarked upon a program designed to make it the world’s pre-eminent biological warfare power. Radical militarists increasmgly dominated the nominal civilian governments during this period. They concluded that, because of its comparatively small population and limited natural resources, Japan could not achieve its expansionist objectives in East Asia unless it possessed weapons that could equalize the disparities with its rivals. The militarists looked to biologcal warfare as a source of parity and recruited Japan’s foremost scientists, physicians, dentists, veterinarians, and techcians to participate in the biologcal warfare program. Many of these highly educated men-and a few women-willingly joined the enterprise, and did their best to achieve the goals of the militarists, engagmg in both defensive and offensive biologd warfare research. What was unique about the Japanese approach, however, was that the scientists and physicians used human subjects in their investiga-