John W. Powell 5555347 224770505 2008-07-10T10:06:06Z Lightbot 7178666 Units/dates/other {{Refimprove|date=May 2008}} :''For the [[geologist]] and explorer, see [[John Wesley Powell]]. '''John Wesley<nowiki></nowiki> "Powell''' (b. July 3, 1919, [[Shanghai]], [[China]]) is a former [[journalist]] and small business proprietor most well known for being tried for [[sedition]] after publishing a 1952 article which reported on allegations made by Chinese officials that the [[United States]] and [[Japan]] were conducting [[germ warfare]] in [[Korea]] and China. The news was reported in Shanghai in an [[English (language)|English language]] [[journal]], the ''[[China Monthly Review]]'', published by Powell. In 1956, the [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] administration pressed sedition charges against John W. Powell, his wife Sylvia, and Julian Schuman, after [[grand jury]] [[indictment]]s, sought by federal prosecutors, were handed down against the three North Americans who had published the germ warfare allegations. However, prosecutors failed to get any convictions. Rather than producing the self-incriminating evidence that turned up years later due to [[Freedom of Information Act (United States)|Freedom of Information Act]] requests, the US military refused to provide any archives or witnesses to the court. All three defendants were acquitted of all charges over the next six years, after a judge dismissed the core of the case in 1959, due to insufficient evidence. ==Early life== Powell was born in Shanghai, where his mother was rushed to a hospital in a [[rickshaw]] for his delivery. A year later, Powell's parents decided Shanghai was unsafe for an infant, so they sent him to be reared by his mother's family in [[Hannibal, Missouri]]. In 1917, Powell's father, John B. Powell, had co-founded the ''China Weekly Review'', modeled after the influential American political journal ''[[The New Republic]]'' and featured original reporting, reports on China-related subjects, and opinion. In the middle of his journalism education at the [[University of Missouri–Columbia|University of Missouri]], Powell rejoined his father at the ''China Weekly Review''. After the bombing of [[Pearl Harbor]], Powell joined the [[Office of War Information]], the military's journalism arm, as a news editor. In 1943, he was sent to [[Chungking]], in far southwestern China. For eight years after [[World War II]], from 1945 until June, 1953, Powell published the journal, first as the ''China Weekly Review'' and later, when revenues declined, as the China Monthly Review''. Powell met his wife Sylvia in 1947 while he was in Shanghai opening up a news bureau for the Office of War Information, and they married soon afterwards. ==Life in San Francisco== After returning from China, the Powells bought an old house on [[Potrero Hill]] in [[San Francisco, California]], fixed it up, and sold it for a profit. They settled into a pattern of buying, rehabilitating, and reselling fourteen houses and several apartment buildings. "It was kind of rough," John Powell has said, "Obviously, I couldn't get a job on a newspaper. I tried various things, working as a salesman, selling teaching aids to schools." Eventually, the couple bought a home on Church Street, in San Francisco's [[Mission District]], and lived there for thirty years; the house had a storefront where they also ran an antique business for about fifteen years. ==Sedition trial== In the [[Red-baiting]] 1950s, the federal government initially accused Powell and his wife of [[treason]]. On April 26, 1956, the couple, along with an associate at the ''China Monthly Review'', learned that a federal grand jury had charged each of them with sedition. Each count was punishable by up to twenty years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The most damaging charge was that the defendants had falsely reported that the United States had engaged in germ warfare during the [[Korean War]], and that [[North Korea]]ns had forced American [[prisoners of war]] to read published reports of these charges as part of [[indoctrination]] processes and [[brainwash]]ing. In their coverage of the breaking news, the ''[[San Francisco Chronicle]]'', among other news publications, used two-inch-high bold type on its front page, exclaiming "S.F. JURY INDICTS WRITER – SEDITION". The grand jury had charged Powell with a dozen counts of sedition and a count of conspiring to commit sedition. His wife and Julian Schuman, who had been Powell's associate editor, were also charged with a single count of conspiracy. The Powells responded to the charges by asserting they had properly reported on what was said by Chinese officials and troops coming from the front lines of the [[Korean War]]. Powell's trial, which ended in a mistrial, took place in 1959 at the federal courthouse in San Francisco, the same venue where [[Marie Equi]] had been tried and convicted of sedition in 1918. The treason charges against Powell were formally dismissed in July, 1959, and two years later, in 1961, US Attorney General [[Robert Kennedy]] finally dropped the sedition charges. ==Vindication== In an effort to set the record straight about US involvement in biological warfare in [[Asia]], Powell published an article entitled "Japan's Germ Warfare: The U.S. Cover-up of a War Crime" in the October/December, 1980, issue of the ''[[Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars]]''. An editor from [[UPI]] told Powell his story was "old news, and it was not picked up by the mainstream media. However, with the documents he had obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, Powell was able to further vindicate himself after publishing another article showing his earlier reports in the ''China Monthly Review'' to be accurate. The second article, "Japan's Biological Weapons, 1930-1945", was published in the October, 1981 edition of ''[[The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists]]''. It wasn't until 1989 that a detailed account of the Japanese biological warfare, when British journalists Peter Williams and David Wallace published their book, 'Unit 731: Japan's Secret Biological Warfare in World War II'' (London: Hodder and Stoughton). Even today, 50 years after the Japanese death camps, United States intelligence still refuses to make public certain information, However, documentation has established that in October, 1951, in the aftermath of General [[Douglas MacArthur]]'s "Home by Christmas" campaign, the US [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]] had delivered a secret order to start germ warfare in Korea on a limited, 'experimental' scale. Another Joint Chiefs of Staff directive (JCS #1837/29), issued on February 25, 1952, authorized "larger scale" field tests.[http://www.kimsoft.com/2000/mbc.htm] Despite such documentation, incontrovertible proof that the US actually engaged in [[bioterrorism]] in Korea has not yet surfaced. Powell's articles in ''The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists'' eventually led to the broadcast of segments on the [[CBS]] investigative news show ''[[60 Minutes]]'' and [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]]'s ''[[20/20]]''. Powell's reporting had brought widespread public attention to the use of germ warfare, which helped pressure the [[United States Congress]] to hold hearings from [[Prisoner of war|prisoners of war]] in 1982 and 1986. ==Further reading== * ''A Plague Upon Humanity: The Secret [[Genocide]] of Axis Japan's Germ Warfare Operation'', Daniel Barenblatt, 1989, ISBN 0-06-018625-9 * ''The United States and Biological Warfare'', Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagerman, 1998 * ''Unit 731: Japan's Secret Biological Warfare in World War II'', Peter Williams and David Wallace, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2004 ==External links== * [http://www.newsreview.com/chico/Content?oid=oid%3A36711 NewsReview.com] - 'Dirty secrets: The government tried to put journalist John W. Powell in prison half a century ago for reporting that the U.S. Army had used germ warfare in Korea. He's still convinced it's true.' Robert Speer, ''[[San Francisco Bay Guardian]]'' (July, 2006) * [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/07/13/BAGHF7KHC41.DTL SFGate.com] - 'Sylvia Powell -- writer accused, then cleared, of treason in 1950s' (obituary for Powell's wife), Michael Taylor, ''San Francisco Chronicle'' (July 13, 2004) [[Category:1919 births|Powell, John W.]] [[Category:American journalists|Powell, John W.]] [[Category:Biological warfare]] [[Category:Living people|Powell, John W.]] [[Category:University of Missouri–Columbia alumni|Powell, John W.]] [[zh:约翰·W·鲍威尔]]