Aum Shinrikyo's Efforts to Produce Biological Weapons: A Case Study in the Serial Propagation of Misinformation

Terrorism and Political Violence

Volumn 11, Issue 4, 1999, Pages 149-158

  Leitenberg, Milton ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0033264932     PISSN: 09546553     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09546559908427537     Document Type: Article

References (33)

1. It has become customary for people to substitute the name of the disease, 'Anthrax', for the biological disease-producing agent, Bacillus anthracis, and so people almost universally refer to 'Anthrax'.
2. John Sopko and Alan Edelman, 'Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Case Study on the Aum Shinrikyo', Staff Statement, in Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction; in Hearings, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigation, Committee on Governmental Affairs, United States Senate, Part I, 1996, pp.47-102.
3. David Kaplan and Andrew Marshall, The Cult At the End of the World (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc. 1996), pp.94-97. As this paper went to press, a new book dealing with biological weapons was published: Plague Wars: A True Story of Biological Warfare, by Tom Mangold and Jeff Goldberg (New York: St Martin's Press 1999). It contains a chapter dealing with the Aum Shinrikyo group ('Apocalypse Delayed', pp.335-51), and relies on Kaplan and Marshall, Sopko, etc., among its sources. It thus repeats all the errors concerning anthrax, botulinum toxin, and ebola that appeared in those originally, to which it adds several of its own. The book also quotes interviews with unidentified former US Department of Defense and CIA officials to further embellish the Q fever story, and as best as one can discern, on the basis of no information whatsoever beyond that contained in the brief section on Q fever contained in this paper. The authors also gratuitously introduce Tularemia, for which there is no known reference, and their mention of 'genetic engineering' is apparently based on the Aum's purchase of a PCR device.
4. David Kaplan and Andrew Marshall, The Cult At the End of the World (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc. 1996), pp.94-97. As this paper went to press, a new book dealing with biological weapons was published: Plague Wars: A True Story of Biological Warfare, by Tom Mangold and Jeff Goldberg (New York: St Martin's Press 1999). It contains a chapter dealing with the Aum Shinrikyo group ('Apocalypse Delayed', pp.335-51), and relies on Kaplan and Marshall, Sopko, etc., among its sources. It thus repeats all the errors concerning anthrax, botulinum toxin, and ebola that appeared in those originally, to which it adds several of its own. The book also quotes interviews with unidentified former US Department of Defense and CIA officials to further embellish the Q fever story, and as best as one can discern, on the basis of no information whatsoever beyond that contained in the brief section on Q fever contained in this paper. The authors also gratuitously introduce Tularemia, for which there is no known reference, and their mention of 'genetic engineering' is apparently based on the Aum's purchase of a PCR device.
5. Sopko and Edelman, p.94; and the autobiography of Ikuo Hayashi (one of the Aum members, see note 7). I would like to thank two Japanese scholars, Drs Maasaki Sugishima and Keiichi Tsuneishi for their generous assistance in supplying me with Japanese language sources, as well as information derived from their access to the prosecutorial records in Tokyo as these were reported in the Japanese press.
6. Personal Communication, February 1998.
7. Asahi Shimbun, 19 March 1997.
8. It is useful to indicate the technical training of some of the major figures involved in the Aum's efforts to produce biological and chemical weapons: • Seiichi Endo, 'Minister of Health'; studied genetic engineering, genetics, and medicine, at the Graduate School of Kyoto University. • Ikuo Hayashi, 'Treatment Minister', head of the Aum Hospital; graduate, Keio University of Medicine. • Hideo Murai, 'Minister of Science and Technology', degree in space physics. • Masami Tsuchiya, head of the Chemical Division (or Chemical Arms Unit) in the Ministry of Science and Technology, Ph.D. candidate in Organic Chemistry, Tsukuba University. The Aum's laboratory for working with biological agents reportedly also included some 300 volumes on bacteriological research (and an electron microscope) in addition to more standard equipment. Yomuri Shimbun, 27 May 1995.
9. Kaplan and Marshall, note 3, pp.94-97.
10. 'Cultists Admit They Released Anthrax in Tokyo's Streets', The Japan Times, 26 July 1995; 'Asahara Ordered Anthrax Attack; Joyu Also Implicated', The Japan Times, 27 July 1995; 'Police: Cultists Admit to Spraying Anthrax', Mainichi Daily News, 27 July 1995; 'Asahara Fingered in Anthrax Attack', Asahi Evening News, 27 July 1995. All of these press items appeared in English-language daily papers in Tokyo. All were attributed to 'police sources'. All the press items stem from a common police release. (The press items were kindly supplied by David Kaplan.)
11. 'Cultists Admit They Released Anthrax in Tokyo's Streets', The Japan Times, 26 July 1995; 'Asahara Ordered Anthrax Attack; Joyu Also Implicated', The Japan Times, 27 July 1995; 'Police: Cultists Admit to Spraying Anthrax', Mainichi Daily News, 27 July 1995; 'Asahara Fingered in Anthrax Attack', Asahi Evening News, 27 July 1995. All of these press items appeared in English-language daily papers in Tokyo. All were attributed to 'police sources'. All the press items stem from a common police release. (The press items were kindly supplied by David Kaplan.)
12. 'Cultists Admit They Released Anthrax in Tokyo's Streets', The Japan Times, 26 July 1995; 'Asahara Ordered Anthrax Attack; Joyu Also Implicated', The Japan Times, 27 July 1995; 'Police: Cultists Admit to Spraying Anthrax', Mainichi Daily News, 27 July 1995; 'Asahara Fingered in Anthrax Attack', Asahi Evening News, 27 July 1995. All of these press items appeared in English-language daily papers in Tokyo. All were attributed to 'police sources'. All the press items stem from a common police release. (The press items were kindly supplied by David Kaplan.)
13. 'Cultists Admit They Released Anthrax in Tokyo's Streets', The Japan Times, 26 July 1995; 'Asahara Ordered Anthrax Attack; Joyu Also Implicated', The Japan Times, 27 July 1995; 'Police: Cultists Admit to Spraying Anthrax', Mainichi Daily News, 27 July 1995; 'Asahara Fingered in Anthrax Attack', Asahi Evening News, 27 July 1995. All of these press items appeared in English-language daily papers in Tokyo. All were attributed to 'police sources'. All the press items stem from a common police release. (The press items were kindly supplied by David Kaplan.)
14. One point noted in the 1995 police report referred to (note 9), suggests a possible procedural error in preparation.
15. Personal communications, 1996, 1997.
16. William Broad, Sheryl Wudunn, Judith Miller, 'How Japan Germ Terror Alerted World,' New York Times, 26 May 1998; Masaaki Sugishima, 'Biocrimes in Japan', manuscript; Tim Beardsley, 'Facing An III Wind: The US Gears Up to Deal with Biological Terrorism', Scientific American (April 1999) pp.19-20.
17. William Broad, Sheryl Wudunn, Judith Miller, 'How Japan Germ Terror Alerted World,' New York Times, 26 May 1998; Masaaki Sugishima, 'Biocrimes in Japan', manuscript; Tim Beardsley, 'Facing An III Wind: The US Gears Up to Deal with Biological Terrorism', Scientific American (April 1999) pp.19-20.
18. William Broad, Sheryl Wudunn, Judith Miller, 'How Japan Germ Terror Alerted World,' New York Times, 26 May 1998; Masaaki Sugishima, 'Biocrimes in Japan', manuscript; Tim Beardsley, 'Facing An III Wind: The US Gears Up to Deal with Biological Terrorism', Scientific American (April 1999) pp.19-20.
19. Broad, William, Miller, 'How Japan', 26 May 1998.
20. Maasaki Sugishima, personal communication, April 1999.
21. Eliot Marshall, 'Bracing for a Biological Nightmare,' Science 275:5301 (22 October 1997) p.745.
22. Personal communication, April 1999. The reporting on the Aum in Science appears to be of an extraordinarily poor quality.
23. Amal Kumar Naj, 'Before Gas Attack, Japanese Cult Tested U.S. Chemistry Software', Wall Street Journal, 3 April 1995.
24. Barbara Starr, 'DARPA Begins Research to Counteract Biological Pathogens', Janes Defense Weekly, 15 October 1997, p.8.
25. British Medical Association, Biotechnology, Weapons and Humanity (Australia etc: Harwood Academic Publishers 1999), p.50. The BMA quote included nearly all of the sentences quoted above from the Janes Defense Weekly. No one at the British Medical Association, under whose authority the book was released, or the book's author had made any attempt to contact the two DARPA officials quoted, the JDW reporter, or any Japanese authority.
26. For example in the Reuters dispatch, 21 January 1999.
27. Personal communications with the author, March 1999. On being contacted in April 1999, the author of the JDW report suggested that perhaps there had been a copy-editing error, that she did not recall the original quote being phrased that way, and that she did not have access to her interview notes.
28. Japanese press accounts, 28 March 1995; Mainichi Shimbun, 31 May 1995.
29. According to the Japanese prosecutor's statement, the initiation rite was called 'Initiation of Love', and those cult followers who donated more than one million yen to the group were given liquids to drink containing Asahara's 'DNA'.
30. There have also been somewhat inflated estimates of the numbers of people the Aum assigned to producing biological agents. In a letter in the New York Times, David Rapoport refers to the Aum having '300 scientists' from which to draw on in producing both chemical and biological agents. ('Germ Warfare Isn't Easy', New York Times, 29 January 1999.) It appears that about ten to twelve people within the Aum group worked at attempting to produce the two biological agents.
31. There have also been somewhat inflated estimates of the numbers of people the Aum assigned to producing biological agents. In a letter in the New York Times, David Rapoport refers to the Aum having '300 scientists' from which to draw on in producing both chemical and biological agents. ('Germ Warfare Isn't Easy', New York Times, 29 January 1999.) It appears that about ten to twelve people within the Aum group worked at attempting to produce the two biological agents.
32. Tadashi Shiraku, 'Bungei Shun-Jyu', June 1995, p.110 (in a description of Hayakawa's memorandum), and Fumiya Ichihashi, 'Shincho 45', p.160.
33. Tadashi Shiraku, 'Bungei Shun-Jyu', June 1995, p.110 (in a description of Hayakawa's memorandum), and Fumiya Ichihashi, 'Shincho 45', p.160.