The Russians and Chinese are insisting that the Syrian regime didn’t use chemical weapons against the rebels. The Londoner recalls that in the Korean War 60 years ago the boot was on the other foot. Moscow and Beijing played up allegations of “US germ warfare” in Korea for all they were worth, with the support of Western communists like Jean-Paul Sartre.
In a “Hate America Campaign” the terrified Chinese population were warned against the threat of anthrax-laden chickens and bombs full of tarantulas being dropped by the US.
In the end, even Stalin’s head of intelligence, the infamous Lavrenti Beria, was forced to tell the truth. Privately, of course. A secret government report admitted that the accusations were fictitious.
All this is recounted in lurid detail in Frank Dikötter’s new book The Tragedy of Liberation, A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945-57. Can we expect ex-KGB operative President Putin to do a Beria and come up with what Russian intelligence knows about chemical weapons in Syria — openly this time? Probably not.
