Campaigner for the ugly truth

American journalist, John W. Powell, died in San Francisco at 89, on Dec 15. The cause was complications from pneumonia, according to his son John S. Powell.

Powell uncovered the dirty secret that the United States once conducted inhumane germ bombing campaign during the Korean War and was nearly imprisoned for the revelation.

Powell was born in Shanghai on July 3, 1919. His father, John B. Powell, was one of the cofounders of the China Weekly Review. After the report on US army germ warfare in Korea, in this newspaper, Powell was charged with 12 counts of sedition and one count of conspiring to commit sedition. The essence of the charges was that Powell falsely accused the US of aggression in Korea, of using germ warfare, of stalling truce negotiations, and of underestimating American casualties.