A Vietnamese History of Biological Weapons
The Việt Minh viewed education and propaganda as one key to countering biological warfare. Accordingly, they published several pamphlets [and no doubt engaged in word-of-mouth campaigns - look in archives.]
Below is the cover of an undated educational pamphlet about biological warfare in Korea and China published by the military medical corps of the Việt Minh (a copy is held at the Vietnam National Library). The pamphlet shows the effects of the patriotic hygiene movement and the imagined geography of imperialist and non-imperialist nations and their relationship to invasion. This pamphlet drew on information obtained at the end of 1952 and the beginning of 1953 in China and reflected similar themes to those on Chinese propaganda posters. It was also one of the ways that medical doctors and cadre, including Tôn Thất Tùng, sought to popularize knowledge about environmental warfare. You can scroll over the title page for a translation.
Even though the Việt Minh quietly shelved their charges of germ warfare against the French, this pamphlet offers insights into the fears of biological warfare circulating among intellectuals and elites and to a lesser degree the broader populace. As Shellen Wu notes in her discussion of Xing An in the early twentieth century, the “educated elite from around the world increasingly spoke a common language of science and the social sciences.”
