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Overview
Originally introduced by Dow and other chemical companies as a herbicide in the United States and adopted by the military as a method of deforesting the war zone of Vietnam, in order to deny the enemy cover, Agent Orange also found its way into the systems of numerous active-duty soldiers. Sills argues that manufacturers understood the dangers of this compound and did nothing to protect American soldiers.
Toxic War takes the reader behind the scenes into the halls of political power and industry, where the debates about the use of Agent Orange and its potential side effects raged. In the end, the only way these veterans could seek justice was in the court of law and public opinion. Unprecedented in its access to legal, medical, and government documentation, as well as to the personal testimonies of veterans, Toxic War endeavors to explore all sides of this epic battle.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780826519641 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Vanderbilt University Press |
| Publication date: | 02/15/2014 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 288 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Toxic War
The Story of Agent Orange
By Peter Sills
Vanderbilt University Press
Copyright © 2014 Vanderbilt University PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8265-1964-1
CHAPTER 1
Techniques and Gadgets
It takes only simple logic to figure out that if the battlefield conveys an advantage to the enemy, change the battlefield.
—Michael Gough, Director of Science and Risk Assessment at the Cato Institute, formerly an analyst at Congress's Office of Technology Assessment
Q. Did you ever become aware of who made the decision to initiate the use of defoliants in Southeast Asia?
A. You can't take down a smile, can you? No. I don't know who made the decision. I'm not sure after some 35 years in government if I ever identified anybody as an individual who made the decision. Decisions happen.
—Deposition of Fred I. Edwards, of the Army's Advanced Research Project Agency
In 1880, Charles Darwin noticed that plants always lean toward their source of light; he postulated that some unknown growth regulator must be at work. His observation didn't amount to much at first. It took another half-century before scientists figured out how to isolate and study botanical hormones. Researchers soon discovered that at high doses, these compounds can accomplish a lot more than nature intended. Apples and pears remain on trees until they're ripe; rooting is improved; tomatoes develop without seeds.
Even higher levels can kill. Different parts of the organism develop in awkward, bizarre ways. The plant seems out of control, as if it's growing itself to death. Scientists had stumbled upon the first selective, relatively cheap weed killers. The most successful were 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T, a close chemical relative. Both resemble the natural compound that first caught Darwin's attention, although each is about a hundred times more potent. 2,4-D kills broad-leaved weeds and is still used on dandelions. 2,4,5-T is more persistent and therefore more effective against brush and hardwoods. These compounds are manufactured as acids—hard, grainy, white crystals. When mixed with alcohol or other chemicals, they become liquids, called esters, which are easily stored and sprayed. In this book, all the acids and their various esters will be referred to simply as D and T.
During the Second World War, Dr. H. J. Kraus of the University of Chicago suggested using D and T to kill German potatoes and Japanese rice. In early 1944, the Army Chemical Corps hired him to turn both compounds into weapons. That same year, the Chemical Corps set up a full-time research center at Camp Detrick, Maryland, about thirty miles west of Washington, DC. Detrick housed both the Biological Division, which hunted for germs that could kill or disable enemy soldiers, and the Crops Division, which developed chemical and biological methods to destroy enemy food supplies.
It's no accident that both divisions were stationed at the same base. The military's definition of biological warfare has always included crop destruction. A 1950 top secret report, written by the Chemical Corps' chief of research and engineering, defined biological warfare as "the military employment of living organisms, their toxic products, or chemical plant growth regulators to produce death or casualties of man, animals, or plants." Fifteen years later, the American military would argue that D and T weren't biological weapons.
Kraus's scientific team investigated the most effective ways to use D and T. They also conducted a few toxicity studies on D, finding it essentially harmless. Kraus even claimed to have eaten one-half gram a day for three weeks. Most of this research assumed that people would only be exposed to short, high-intensity bursts of the compound. The possibility of chronic, long-term exposure was never seriously considered. Kraus's team never bothered looking into the risks of T. They just took it for granted that both compounds were equally harmless.
Toxic or not, using D and T in combat was a novel and alarming concept. Armies have destroyed enemy crops for as long as people have fought wars, but no one had ever tried doing the job with modern chemicals. To some, these compounds would transform this ancient strategy into something much more terrible. The sprays traveled too far and were much too indiscriminate; the innocent would necessarily suffer. No one was certain whether the Geneva Protocol of 1925, which banned the use of all chemical weapons, included the chemical destruction of crops (which wasn't specifically mentioned). Still, one of the diplomats who negotiated the treaty advised a colleague, "It [the protocol] prohibits every kind of chemical or bacterial weapon that anyone could possibly devise. And it has to. Perhaps someday a criminal lunatic might invent some devilish thing that would destroy animals and crops."
The Pentagon ordered its attorneys, the Judge Advocate General Corps, to determine the legality of spraying 2,4-D on German vegetables. JAG was assured that D was harmless: "This chemical is only mildly poisonous to the human body."
Some soldiers weren't concerned about legality; they despised the plan for moral reasons. In 1944, President Franklin Roosevelt received a proposal to use either 2,4,5-T or a biological weapon against Japanese rice. Admiral William Leahy argued against it, telling Roosevelt that it "would violate every Christian ethic I have ever heard of and all known laws of war. It would be an attack on the noncombatant population of the enemy."
Japanese rice was never sprayed. The war ended before Roosevelt made any decision. Apparently, JAG didn't answer the legality question until 1945, concluding that the use of these compounds wouldn't violate the protocol, as long as they weren't toxic. That opinion has never been validated in any world forum.
The Chemical Corps was also looking for defoliants capable of destroying the Asian jungle in order to reveal enemy hiding places and ease the construction of new bases. One officer later explained, "There was a great deal of interest at that time in destroying vegetation in the South Pacific Theater, and the principal means available was high explosives. I have forgotten how many millions of tons of high explosives were required to destroy the vegetation on some of those Pacific islands. We were asked to investigate chemicals that were available in large quantities in the United States that could be employed for defoliating this vegetation." The corps tested hundreds of defoliants, mainly in the Florida Everglades. Most of them didn't work, acted too slowly, or were too expensive. The war ended before the best prospects could be tried out in combat. According to an internal history of the Chemical Corps, the most promising candidate, ammonium thiocyanate, had to be discarded because its name bore too close a resemblance to cyanide. "If we used this chemical, we would be accused of conducting poison-gas warfare."
Actually, the military's future defoliants were right under their noses: the crop killers 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T.
After the war ended, Kraus's team released its findings to the public. The chemical industry snapped up both D and T. Herbicide use grew exponentially.
Meanwhile, Crops Division scientists kept looking for new defoliants. In March 1952, they finally recognized that D and T could destroy more than rice and potatoes. The butyl esters of these compounds were given classified code names: LNA and LNB. (LN was the military's code term for plant growth inhibitors.) A Chemical Corps memo praised the versatility and strength of LNA and LNB. They were effective against many types of vegetation at low doses. And since they weren't persistent, they didn't harm the soil's ability to grow future crops. Even more important, they were easy to obtain, because they were "commercially produced for use as agricultural herbicides. Consequently, there is a large production capacity and the cost is relatively low."
Best of all, both herbicides seemed safe. "LNA and LNB have been widely used and handled without any known harmful effects. A closely related compound (pure 2,4-D acid) has been proven to be nontoxic to humans and animals."
There was one problem. D and T took weeks to work, not nearly fast enough to expose hidden enemy bases, create targets, or detect camouflage in the heat of combat.
In 1957, the division completed two years of intensive research on the 577 most promising new defoliants, culled from about 15,000 studied since the Second World War. A few even appeared to be more effective than D and T. Then all funding for herbicide research suddenly stopped.
President Eisenhower's new defense strategy—"massive retaliation" with nuclear weapons—ensured the extermination of any enemy within minutes. The Department of Defense channeled increasing amounts of money to the Air Force and Navy, its two nuclear branches. As the Army's budget kept shrinking, the herbicide project became a low priority. The Crops Division was dormant, although still technically intact.
But the principle of "massive retaliation" was too frightening to remain the linchpin of any country's foreign policy. The superpowers needed to find more flexible (and safer) ways to engage each other. Toward the end of the 1950s, they began "assisting" Third World proxies in local wars and revolutions. The possibility of direct confrontation and the corresponding threat of nuclear annihilation became a lot less likely. New tactics would be necessary to win these "wars of liberation," usually fought by guerrilla armies in rural areas, often jungles. Herbicides seemed a logical solution.
A few months after Fidel Castro took power in 1959, the Army resurrected its herbicide research program, bringing back Dr. Charles Minarik to lead it. Minarik first came to the Crops Division in 1945. He'd only been a captain then, but was named chief by the end of the year. He returned as a civilian, and would soon be known as "the father of Agent Orange." Minarik's scientists had lost valuable time identifying a proper jungle defoliant. D and T were still the best available options when herbicides were needed in Vietnam two years later.
In late January 1961, President John F. Kennedy approved a new counterinsurgency strategy for South Vietnam. The United States would add an extra $42 million to its $220 million aid package, but only after the South Vietnamese government enacted certain military and domestic reforms.
One of America's new proxies, the RVN, headed by Ngo Dinh Diem, was losing its war against a communist insurgency. Diem's consistent abuse of power had cost him his legitimacy, while the rebel Viet Cong had gained in strength and popularity. This early in the war, "counterinsurgency" simply meant supplying an ally with a sufficient amount of money. The United States still assumed it could keep the RVN alive without getting directly involved. Kennedy hadn't had much time to assess the situation in Vietnam. He'd been president for only a week.
Diem never complied with his part of the bargain. Kennedy withheld the promised aid for a while, but eventually succumbed to pressure from his military and foreign policy bureaucracies, who insisted that reforms wouldn't be possible until the country was secure from communist insurgents. But this led to more repression, which made the regime more unpopular and even less secure.
Vietnam wasn't a high-priority issue in 1961. Most Americans didn't even know it existed. During the next few months, Kennedy would be distracted by other, more pressing Cold War matters: the failed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, the Berlin crisis, and the Soviet Union's resumption of atmospheric nuclear testing, along with its proclamation of support to "liberation wars and popular uprisings" throughout the third world.
On April 12, 1961 (while Kennedy was occupied with the Bay of Pigs fiasco), Walt Rostow, one of the presidents closest advisers, recommended that the United States begin "gearing up" its operation in Vietnam. Rostow thought this would be the perfect time to act, since Diem had recently "won" re-election and was now free to begin the promised reforms. Rostow wanted to try out America's new hightech weapons and suggested testing a few "techniques and gadgets" in Vietnam. The Department of Defense agreed and recommended "developing with the help of modern technology, new techniques for use against Viet Cong forces." The United States and Diem set up a joint research center in Saigon. Vietnam was going to be a laboratory for a new kind of war.
Kennedy had no desire to involve US soldiers directly in the fighting, but he had no faith that Diem's army could handle the job. One possible solution was to support the ARVN with the latest American weapons.
But technical prowess on its own can't sustain an unpopular government. Eventually, nine million American soldiers would be sent to Vietnam. The US military would try to insulate them from the risks of combat with still more technology. And as the danger to American troops continued to escalate, that technology became increasingly terrible.
A reliance on technology inevitably means distancing yourself from the civilian population. One military historian found that herbicides and other new weapons "reduced the government presence on the ground in contested areas and increased Saigon's reliance on remote technological means of control." The Americans had originally intended to defeat the Viet Cong by winning the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people. But this term was eventually transformed into an ironic acronym: "WHAM."
The rush for new weapons wasn't orderly or logical; decisions were made by raw, embryonic bureaucracies that didn't really know what they were doing. This was especially true for herbicides. No one could agree about how to use these compounds or why they were even needed. Different factions operated under contradictory agendas. Some saw herbicides as limited, defensive weapons, able to slow down the Viet Cong but not much more. They might prevent VC ambushes by keeping the borders of military bases and transportation routes (roads, rivers, etc.) clear of vegetation. They might even expose some of the enemy's hidden paths and highways. But that was it. One military official later testified, "I can't stress too strongly my belief then and my belief now that this wasn't a high priority project. It was just one more thing. No one really felt that this was going to win the war."
But others believed just that. By preventing the Viet Cong from moving unseen through the jungle and destroying their food supply, these chemicals would leave the enemy incapable of fighting an extended guerrilla war. They might even serve as offensive weapons. Defoliating small pieces of forest in the heat of combat could expose VC troops and effortlessly establish lines of fire, makeshift camps, and artillery placements.
There was one problem. No one had identified a compound capable of doing any of those things.
In the spring of 1961, the DoD instituted a program to develop new military herbicides. Over the next five years, scientists from the Crops Division and the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Agricultural Research Service spent more than $3 million looking for a chemical that would work in Vietnam.
Although a small country, Vietnam contains four distinct types of wild vegetation:
• Triple-canopy (tropical rain) forest, dense enough to include more than two hundred plant species per acre. This jungle was so thick that sunlight couldn't penetrate it; helicopters could even land on the top canopy. The military needed a chemical that could remove all three layers and then attack anything growing on the jungle floor;
• Seasonal forest, containing more hardwood trees, but fewer types of vegetation;
• Mangroves, a collection of different tree species growing in swamps and along shorelines; and
• Tropical scrub, vines, grasses, and other plants, including bamboo.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Toxic War by Peter Sills. Copyright © 2014 Vanderbilt University Press. Excerpted by permission of Vanderbilt University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Foreword, ix,Introduction: One Statistic, 1,
1. Techniques and Gadgets, 15,
2. Trail Dust, 25,
3. The Single Solution, 33,
4. "We Didn't Have Any Information That It Was Safe", 40,
5. The Chemical Corps and Dioxin, Part 1, 45,
6. Ranch Hand, 52,
7. Good Citizens, 58,
8. The Chemical Corps and Dioxin, Part 2, 69,
9. The Rise and Fall of Ranch Hand, 77,
10. Medicine from the Sky, 85,
11. "There Is No Immediate Cause for Alarm", 95,
12. Activist Science, 102,
13. Bionetics, 109,
14. The End of Trail Dust, 120,
15. Guinea Pigs, 129,
16. Two and a Half Million Plaintiffs, 142,
17. Politics and Epidemiology, 152,
18. The Management Committee, 162,
19. "People Lost Track of What Was True": The Agent Orange Research, Part 1, 178,
20. Validation: The Agent Orange Research, Part 2, 188,
21. The Light at the End of the Tunnel: The Agent Orange Research, Part 3, 204,
22. The Ongoing Cost of War, 219,
Epilogue: One Story, 227,
Glossary, 229,
Appendix A, 231,
Appendix B, 233,
Notes, 235,
Bibliography, 267,
Index, 269,