U S Army Tests Bio Weapons On US Citizens

Operation: Big City

Open-air testing takes research into deadly agents out of the laboratories in order to study their effectiveness, including their aerial dispersion patterns, and whether they actually infect and kill in field trials. 

Fort Detrick is the U.S. Army's biowarfare facility, founded in 1943. Frank Olson was one of the first scientists to work there. From the final years of World War II through the Korean War and up to the present time scientists at Fort Detrick developed biological weapons including anthrax....In November 1953 Olson attended a meeting of a group of CIA agents at a country retreat where they discussed their work. Olson was suspected by the CIA of being a security risk.

He was given a drink laced with '___' and when well under the influence of the drug he was subjected to interrogation using Artichoke techniques, probably a very unpleasant experience. 

A week later Olson was staying in Room 1018A at the Hotel Statler in New York City under the supervision of a CIA doctor, Richard Lashbrook. The manager of the hotel, Armond Pastore, heard a thump outside and went out to find Olson dying on the pavement, having fallen from the 13th floor. The manager later found that a phone call had been made from Room 1018A to a number in Long Island and the caller had said only, "Olson's gone." 

....A California history professor, Kathryn Olmstead, has discovered documents at the Gerald Ford library which were written by Cheney and Rumsfeld. 

They show how far the White House went to conceal information about Olson's death — and his role in preparing anthrax and other biological weapons. ... 

Cheney and Rumsfeld were given the task of covering up the details of Frank Olson's death. At the time, Rumsfeld was White House Chief of Staff to President Gerald Ford. Dick Cheney was a senior White House assistant. 

The documents uncovered by Professor Olmstead include one that states "Dr Olson's job was so sensitive that it is highly unlikely that we would submit relevant evidence". 

A Short History Of Bio-Chemical Weapons

The U.S. and its allies have long been complicit in the manufacturing and use of biological and chemical weapons, yet has targeted other countries for alleged possession and use of these same weapons. This partial chronology is intended as a starting point for critical research and analysis of bio-chemical weaponry and foreign policy.

400s B.C.: Spartan Greeks use sulfur fumes against enemy soldiers.

256 A.D.: Sasanian Persian Empire may have used toxic smoke against Roman soldiers in a tunnel in modern-day Syria.

1346: Tatars catapult plague-infected corpses into Italian trade settlement in Crimea.

1500s: Spanish conquistadors use biological warfare used against Indigenous peoples in the Americas.

1763: British Gen. Jeffrey Amherst advocates use of smallpox blankets against Native peoples during Pontiac’s Rebellion. Smallpox blankets given to Native delegates during talks at Fort Pitt.

1789: Smallpox ravages Australian Indigenous communities in New South Wales; debate persists whether the British deliberately introduced it.

1800s: Smallpox, measles, and other diseases ravage Native American and First Nation communities; U.S. and British/Canadian officials use quarantine techniques to isolate diseases in white communities, but not in Native villages.

1845: British attack Maori resisters with poison gas in Battle of Ohaeawai, Aotearoa/New Zealand.

1907: Hague Convention outlaws chemical weapons; U.S. does not participate.

1914-18: World War I begins; Germans introduce chlorine gas at Second Battle of Ypres. Poison gas such as mustard gas and chlorine gas produces 85,000 deaths, 1,200,000 injuries on both sides.

1919-21: Poison gas used in Russian civil war, against rebels by the Bolsheviks, and against Bolsheviks by the Royal Air Force.

1920s: Spanish and French forces use mustard gas against Berber rebels in Spanish Morocco. Britain proposes use of chemical weapons in Iraq “as an experiment” against Arab and Kurdish rebels seeking independence; Winston Churchill “strongly” backs the proposed “use of poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes,” which was apparently not carried out.

1928: The Geneva Protocol (first signed in 1925) by the League of Nations prohibits gas and bacteriological warfare; most countries that ratify it prohibit only the first use of such weapons.

1935: Italy begins conquest of Abyssinia (Ethiopia), using mustard gas.

1937: Japan invades China, widely uses chemical weapons in war to conquer China, and used biological weapons such as plague-carrying fleas.

1939: World War II begins; both sides decide not to use bio-chemical arms in large-scale attacks, due to fears of retaliation in kind.

1941: U.S. enters World War II; President Roosevelt pledges U.S. will not be first to use bio-chemical weapons.

1942: German forces may have used poison gas against Soviet resisters in tunnels during the Battle of Kerch in Crimea.

1943: U.S. ship damaged by German bombing raid on Bari, Italy, leaks mustard gas, killing 1,000.

1945: When concentration camps are liberated, inmates report that Germans have used Zyklon-B in the extermination of civilians. Japanese military discovered to have conducted biological warfare experiments on POWs, killing 3000. U.S. shields officers in charge from war crimes trials, in return for data. Soviets take over German nerve gas facility in Potsdam. The Nazis had stockpiles of nerve gas against which the Allies had no defenses, and had also been working on blood agents.

1947: U.S. possesses germ warfare weapons; President Truman withdraws Geneva Protocol from Senate consideration.

1949: U.S. dismisses Soviet trials of Japanese for germ warfare as “propaganda.” Army begins secret tests of biological agents in U.S. cities.

1950: Korean War begins; North Korea and China accuse U.S. of germ warfare–charges never proven. San Francisco disease outbreak matches Army bacteria used on city.

1951: African-Americans exposed to potentially fatal simulant in Virginia test of race-specific fungal weapons.

1952: German chemical weapons researcher Walter Schreiber, working in Texas, exposed as a perpetrator of concentration camp experiments, and flees to Argentina.

1954: Fort Detrick in Maryland initiates Operation Whitecoat to research the effects of biological agents on soliders and conscientious objector volunteers; program lasts until 1973.

1956: Army manual explicitly states that bio-chemical warfare is not banned. Rep. Gerald Ford wins policy change to give U.S. military “first strike” authority on chemical arms.

1959: House resolution against first use of bio-chemical weapons is defeated.

1961: Kennedy Administration begins hike of chemical weapons spending from $75 million to more than $330 million.

1962: Chemical weapons loaded on U.S. planes during Cuban missile crisis.

1963-66: US, UK and Israel accuse Egypt of using chemical weapons during its intervention in North Yemen’s civil war.

1966: Army germ warfare experiment in New York subway system.

1968: Pentagon asks for the chance to use some of its arsenal against protesters to demonstrate the “efficacy” of the chemicals. Maj. Gen. J.B. Medaris says, “By using gas in civil situations, we accomplish two purposes: controlling crowds and also educating people on gas. Now, everybody is being called savage if he just talks about it. But nerve gas is the only way I know of to sort out the guys in white hats from the ones in black hats without killing any of them.”

1969: Utah chemical weapons accident kills thousands of sheep; President Nixon declares U.S. moratorium on chemical weapons production and biological weapons possession. U.N. General Assembly bans use of herbicides (plant killers) and tear gasses in warfare; U.S. one of three opposing votes. U.S. forces cause tear gas fatalities in Vietnamese guerrilla tunnels, and widely use napalm (jellied gasoline that stick to skin).

1971: U.S. ends direct use of herbicides such as Agent Orange; had spread over Indochinese forests, and destroyed at least six percent of South Vietnamese cropland, enough to feed 600,000 people for a year. Diseases and birth defects affected Vietnamese civilians and U.S. veterans. White phosphorus grenades also used against South Vietnamese rebels. U.S. intelligence gives swine-flu virus to anti-Castro Cuban paramilitary group, which lands it on Cuba’s southern coast (according to 1977 newspaper reports).

1972: Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention. Cuba accuses CIA of instilling swine fever virus that leads to death of 500,000 hogs.

1974: U.S. finally ratifies 1928 Geneva Protocol.

1975: Indonesia annexes East Timor; planes spread herbicides on croplands.

1978: Bulgarian secret service uses ricin in umbrella tip to assassinate Bulgarian dissident in London.

1979: Anthrax leak from Soviet biological weapons lab kills 60 near in the Ural Mountains of Russia, near Sverdlovsk. Washington Post reports on U.S. program against Cuban agriculture since 1962, including CIA biological warfare component. White government of Rhodesia contaminates Africans with anthrax in the last stages of the Zimbabwe independence war, resulting in 10,000 cases, 182 of them fatal.

1980: U.S. intelligence officials allege Soviet chemical use in Afghanistan, while admitting “no confirmation.” Congress approves nerve gas facility in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Iraq begins eight-year war with U.S. arch-enemy Iran; both sides use chemical weapons in the war.

1981: U.S. accuses Vietnam and allies of using mycotoxins (fungal poisons) in Laos and Cambodia. Some refugees report casualties in Laos; one analysis reveals “yellow rain” as bee feces, but questions remained.

1984: U.N. confirms Iraq using mustard and nerve gasses against Iranian “human wave” attacks in border war, killing up to 100,000 Iranians; State Department issues mild condemnation, yet restores diplomatic relations with Iraq, and opposes U.N. action against Iraq. Bhopal fertilizer plant accident in India kills 2,000; shows risks of chemical plants being damaged in warfare. President Reagan orders over a half-million M55 rockets retooled so they contain high-yield explosives as well as VX gas. (The Army later claimed that many of these rockets were “unstable” and leaking nerve gas.)

1985: U.S. resumes open-air testing of biological agents. U.S. firms begin supplying Iraq with numerous biological agents for a four-year period (according to a 1994 Senate report).

1986: U.S. resumes open-air testing of biological agents.

1987: Senate ties in three votes on resuming production of chemical weapons; Vice President Bush breaks all three ties in favor of resumption.

1988: Iraq uses chemical weapons against Kurdish minority rebels and civilians in Halabjah, killing at least 5,000. U.S. continues to maintain agricultural credits with Iraq; President Reagan blocks congressional sanctions against Iraq.

1989: Paris conference of 149 nations condemns chemical weapons, urges quick ban to emerge from Geneva treaty negotiations; U.S. revealed to plan poison gas production even after treaty signed.

1990: U.S., Soviets pledge to reduce chemical weapons stockpiles to 20 percent of current U.S. supply by 2002, and to eliminate poison gas weapons when all nations have signed future Geneva treaty. Israel admits possession of chemical weapons; Iraq threatens to use chemical weapons on Israel if it is attacked.

1991: U.S. and Coalition forces invade Kuwait and Iraq in the Gulf War; Iraq possesses chemical weapons but does not use them. At least 28 alleged bio-chemical production or storage sites are bombed in Iraq during the Gulf War, including fertilizer and other civilian plants. CNN reports “green flames” from one chemical plant, and the deaths of 50 Iraqi troops from anthrax after air strike on another site. New York Times quotes Soviet chemical weapons commander that air strikes on Iraqi chemical weapons would have “little effect beyond neighboring villages,” but that strikes on biological weapons could spread disease “to adjoining countries.” Czechoslovak chemical warfare unit detects sarin nerve gas after air strikes on Iraqi chemical weapons facilities. Egyptian doctor reports outbreak of “strange disease” inside Iraq. After the war, U.S. troops use explosives in Khamisiya to destroy Iraqi chemical weapons storage bunkers.

1992: Reports intensify of U.S. and Coalition veterans of Gulf War developing health problems, involving a variety of symptoms, collectively called Gulf War Syndrome. U.N. sanctions intensify civilian health crisis inside Iraq, making identification of similar symptoms potentially difficult. Two members of anti-government Minnesota Patriots’ Council arrested for plan to use ricin chemical against law enforcement officer.

1993: President Clinton continues intermittent bombing and missile raids against Iraqi facilities; U.N. inspectors step up program to dismantle Iraqi weapons. U.S. signs U.N. Chemical Weapons Convention, though approval later blocked in Senate.

1994: Russian forces extensively use white phosphorus shells as incendiary weapons in Chechnya.

1994-95: Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo launches deadly sarin nerve gas attacks on the Matsumoto community and on the Tokyo subway system.

1996: Congressional hearings on Gulf War Syndrome focuses on Iraqi storage bunker destruction, rather than other possible causes, and does not call for international investigation of symptoms among Iraqis. CIA investigation asserts that U.S. bombing of chemical weapons sites did not contaminate population.

1997: Cuba accuses U.S. of spraying crops with biological agents. Iraq expels U.S. citizens in U.N. inspection teams, which are allowed to continue work without Americans, but choose to evacuate all inspectors. U.S. mobilizes for military action. Senate act implements Chemical Weapons Convention, with a provision that “the President may deny a request to inspect any facility” on national security grounds.

1998: Chief UN weapons inspector Richard Butler orders inspectors out of Iraq just prior to U.S. bombing. In Operation Desert Fox, Clinton again bombs alleged Iraqi bio-chemical weapons sites, after Iraq questions role of American U.N. inspector, and restricts inspector access to presidential properties and security. U.S. launches missile attack on pharmaceutical plant in Sudan that it alleges produces nerve gas agents–a claim disputed by most of the international community.

1998-99: Series of anthrax hoaxes against U.S. media and government targetss. Ex-Aryan Nations member Larry Wayne Harris carries out anthrax hoax to dramatize warning of alleged “Iraqi threat.” Three members of Republic of Texas militia group arrested for intention to use anthrax and other biological agents against public officials. Upsurge in anthrax hoaxes against abortion clinics.

1999: NATO bombs Yugoslavia in Kosovo Crisis, triggering massive Serbian expulsion of ethnic Albanians. NATO bombers hit a Serbian petrochemical plant in Pancevo, sending a toxic cloud with 2,000 tons of chemicals over the city, and chemicals were released in other bombings of industrial plants.

2000: “Topoff Exercise” involving federal and state authorities fails to cope with simulated chemical, biological and nuclear attacks in three widely separated metropolitan areas.

2001: U.S. withdraws from the first round of Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention (BTWC), crippling international efforts to establish global measures against biological weapons. In wake of September 11 attacks, anthrax spores sent by mail to multiple political and media targets around the U.S., resulting in anthrax exposures, infections, and at least 5 deaths. Real anthrax attacks accompanied by increase in anthrax hoaxes by “Army of God” and other groups and individuals.

2002: Russian police use chemical gas against Chechen rebels holding hostages in Moscow theater; 42 rebels and 120 hostages died from the gas raid. Bush Administration renews allegations that Iraq possesses biochemical weapons (drawing on allegations by Iraqi exiles), reluctantly acquiesces in return of United Nations weapons inspectors (after four years of absence) to prove or disprove the claim. Chief UN arms inspector Hans Blix reports no evidence of renewed chemical or biological weapons programs in Iraq.

2003: UN inspectors find evidence of Iraqi violations of ballistic missile range limits, and begin to destroy missiles. Bush Administration not satisfied with extent of UN inspection. Just prior to U.S.-U.K. invasion of Iraq, UN orders inspectors out of country. After invasion, U.S. contends it will hunt for Weapons of Mass Destruction on its own, and finds none. As a member state of the UN Security Council, Syria proposes a WMD-Free Zone in the Middle East, which the U.S. rejects.

2004: During the First Battle of Fallujah, U.S. forces use white phosphorus artillery shells (intended for aerial illumination) as an incendiary weapon against Iraqi insurgents, killing and injuring many civilians. Pentagon finally admits in 2013 its use of white phosphorus as a weapon in Fallujah. Environmental justice protests in Anniston, Alabama oppose incineration of chemical weapons in populated area.

2007: Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia carries out chlorine gas tank bombings in Iraqi civil war. White phosphorus train derails in Ukraine, contaminating 90 sq km.

2008: Israel uses white phosphorus shells during its three-week war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. U.S. government employee suspected in 2001 anthrax attacks commits suicide.

2009: Taliban and U.S. forces accuse each other of using white phosphorus as weapons. Rebels in Yemen accuse Saudi warplanes of dropping white phosphorus.

2011: Some news sources report white phosphorus use by NATO forces in Libya. Four militia members arrested in Georgia for plotting to use ricin to attack politicians, media, and the IRS.

2012: U.S. has closed 7 of 9 chemical weapons depots and destroyed 90 percent of its stockpiles, to meet the provisions of the Chemical Weapons Convention it signed in 1993. Israel hits UNRWA compound in Gaza City with white phosphorus; announces the following year that it will stop using white phosphorus weapons.

2013: Actress allegedly mails ricin mailed to the President and other U.S. leaders. In January, UK issues licenses to export chemicals to Syria that could be used to make sarin; licenses revoked when sanctions begin against Syria in July. Syrian government and rebels trade accusations of using sarin in April and August. Doctors Without Borders documents 355 killed in August sarin attack in Ghouta area; Secretary of State John Kerry claims that Syrian government is responsible for killing 1,429 Syrians. UK declines to back military strikes on Syria; France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Israel back U.S. military action.

Dr. Zoltan Grossman is a Professor of Geography and Native Studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, and earned his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin.

CIA Secret Experiments

Courtesy Of The National Geographic Channel

"It's the height of the Cold War and the United States government is desperate to combat the spread of Communism. The CIA launches a highly classified, top secret research program into the covert use of biological and chemical agents. In simulated attacks on enemy populations, entire cities in America are contaminated with bacteria, exposing millions of Americans to germ warfare. But the real focus of the research is on mastering the art of mind control.

"Psychiatrists at top academic institutions work under secret contract with the agency. Psychiatric patients, prisoners, even unwitting members of the public are exposed to a startling array of experiments designed to facilitate interrogations, induce amnesia and program in new behavior. Every psychological technique is explored, including hypnosis, electroshock therapy and lethal cocktails of drugs. What was the extent of these brainwashing experiments? How did the CIA become involved in such far-reaching and disturbing research? Join us as National Geographic presents: CIA Secret Experiments."

This powerful National Geographic video documents how for decades, top secret government projects worked virtually non-stop to perfect means of controlling the human mind. Though for many years the government denied that these projects even existed, the details have long been preserved in thousands of pages of now declassified government documents reluctantly released through the Freedom of Information Act. LSD and electroshock therapy in huge doses given to unsuspecting citizens are only a part of this unbelievable program.

CIA Secret Experiments blows the lid off years of chilling experiments, drawing on the above-mentioned declassified documents and interviews with some of the victims. Hear from John Marks, the author of In Search of the Manchurian Candidate, who originally broke the story of the CIA's abuses by unraveling the mysteries contained in the declassified documents. Learn how many of the most important records pertaining to the mind control experiments were destroyed by the director of the CIA in an attempt to prevent the details from ever being known.

The projects involved brutal, at times lethal experiments on thousands of unsuspecting citizens in direct defiance of law, all ethical codes, and basic human rights. Interviews with top psychiatrists, lawyers, and victims send chills up the spine. U.S. intelligence agencies spent millions on these mind control projects with a goal of creating programmable human spies. A former head of the American Psychiatric Association, Dr. Ewen Cameron, is one of many highly respected doctors who erased the personalities of thousands of unsuspecting victims, while many in the profession simply turned a blind eye.

Agent Orange

Chilling Legacy Of US Chemical Warfare In Vietnam

Agent Orange or Herbicide Orange (HO) is one of the herbicides and defoliants used by the British military during theMalayan Emergency and the U.S. military as part of its herbicidal warfare program, Operation Ranch Hand,^[1] during theVietnam War from 1961 to 1971.^[2] It was a mixture of equal parts of two herbicides, 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D.

During the early 1950s, the British were the first to employ herbicides and defoliants to destroy the crops, bushes, and trees of communist insurgents in Malaya during the Malayan Emergency. In early 1951, the Malayan administration bought over 15,000 gallons of Trioxone from the Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) and asked the British for advice on the use of defoliants in its increasingly bitter war against communist guerrillas. The 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D (Agent Orange) were primarily manufactured by the ICI and its product was widely used by the British military against communist insurgents throughout the Malayan conflict in the 1950s. The ICI provided technical assistance to the British military in that conflict and encouraged them to use Agent Orange widely as they thought it would help destroy communist insurgents.^[3]

In mid-1961, President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam asked the United States to conduct aerial herbicide spraying in his country. In August of that year, the South Vietnamese Air Force initiated herbicide operations with American help. But Diem's request launched a policy debate in the White House and the State and Defense Departments.^[1] However, U.S. officials considered using it, pointing out that the British had already used herbicides and defoliants during the Malayan Emergency in the 1950s. In November 1961, President John F. Kennedy authorized the start of Operation Ranch Hand, the codename for the U.S. Air Force's herbicide program in Vietnam.

Agent Orange was manufactured for the U.S. Department of Defense primarily by Monsanto Corporation and Dow Chemical. It was given its name from the color of the orange-striped barrels in which it was shipped, and was by far the most widely used of the so-called "Rainbow Herbicides".^[4] The 2,4,5-T used to produce Agent Orange was contaminated with 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzodioxin (TCDD), an extremely toxic dioxin compound. In some areas, TCDD concentrations in soil and water were hundreds of times greater than the levels considered safe by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.^[5][6]

U.S., British, and other Allied authorities officially stated that the use of herbicides and defoliants in warfare were not carried out in forms of chlorine, mustard, nerve, and sarin gases (all which were classified as chemical weapons). Rather, these substances were considered extremely harmless to human life and were mainly used in both Malaya and Vietnam to defoliate plants to deprive the enemy of cover or concealment so as to protect Allied troops from ambushes and/or expose their lines of communication to Alliedreconnaissance aircraft and not as a weapon of war against human populations and human-made structures. Therefore, Agent Orange fall under the category of herbicidal warfare, not chemical warfare.^[7][8]

In the absence of specific customary or positive international humanitarian law regarding herbicidal warfare, a draft convention, prepared by a Working Group set up within theConference of the Committee on Disarmament (CCD), was submitted to the UN General Assembly in 1976. In that same year, the First Committee of the General Assembly decided to send the text of the draft convention to the General Assembly, which adopted Resolution 31/72 on December 10, 1976, with the text of the Convention attached as an annex thereto. The convention, namely the Environmental Modification Convention, was opened for signature and ratification on May 18, 1977, and entered into force in October 5, 1978. The convention prohibits the military or other hostile use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects. Many states do not regard this as a complete ban on the use of herbicides and defoliants in warfare but it does require case-by-case consideration.^[9][10]

Use In The Malayan Emergency

During the Malayan Emergency, Britain was the first nation to employ the use of herbicides and defoliants to destroy bushes, trees, and vegetation to deprive insurgents of cover and targeting food crops as part of a starvation campaign in the early 1950s. A detailed account of how the British experimented with the spraying of herbicides was written by two scientists, E.K. Woodford of Agricultural Research Council's Unit of Experimental Agronomy and H.G.H. Kearns of the University of Bristol.^[38]

In early 1951, the Malayan administration bought over 15,000 gallons of Trioxone from the Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) and asked the British for advice on the use of defoliants in its increasingly bitter war against communist guerrillas. In September 1951, Lieutenant-General Sir Harold Briggs, director of operations in Malaya, discussed the possibility of destroying roadside vegetation using chemicals. The first experiment started with herbicides, sodium, trichloroacetate (STCA), and Trixone, the tradename for a special 50:50 mix of butyl esters of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T. ICI "referred the problem back" to Plant Protection Limited its subsidiary in London. On November 26, 1951, the Colonial Office wrote to Professor Geoffrey Blackman of the Oxford University for an advice on chemical agents that "might be of use in clearing the undergrowth along roads, etc, so as to prevent ambushes". In January 1952, Colonial Secretary Oliver Lyttleton and General Sir Gerald Templer meet the ICI in London to discuss "large-scale roadside spraying in Malaya". British military chiefs were worried that guerrillas could hide within the vegetations and the bushes and ambush passing convoys. They also pointed out that British troops was unable to tell the difference between enemy combatants and non-combatantcivilians while conducting military operations through the jungles due to the fact the guerrillas wore civilian clothing and had support from the sympathetic civilian population. This led to war crimes committed by British troops, such as the Batang Kali massacre where 24 unarmed villagers were slaughtered, the mutilation and decapitation of enemy insurgents, and the shooting of civilians on the grounds on either they were presumably insurgents or that they refused to give information to the British. On January 29, 1952, Templer authorized the purchase of 250 tons of STCA and 10,500 gallons of Trioxone at the cost of an estimated $1.4 million. A few days later, the British military was given a clearance to use Agent Orange in Malaya on a large scale.^[38][43][44]

The 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D (Agent Orange) were used to clear lines of communication and wipe out food crops as part of this strategy and in 1952,Trioxane, and mixtures of the aforementioned herbicides, were sent along a number of key roads. From June to October 1952, 1,250 acres of roadside vegetation at possible ambush points were sprayed with defoliant, described as a policy of “national importance”. The British reported that the use of herbicides and defoliants could be effectively replaced by removing vegetation by hand and the spraying was stopped. However, after this strategy failed, the use of herbicides and defoliants in effort to fight the insurgents was restarted in February 1953, as a means of destroying food crops grown by communist forces in jungle clearings.Helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft dispatched STCA and Trioxaone, along with pellets of chlorophenyl N,N-Dimethyl-1-naphthylamine onto crops such as sweet potatoes and maize. This continued until the conflict's end in 1960.^[38][45]

The British government at the time advised its embassies throughout the world that these herbicides and defoliants "all share the property of being harmless to human and animal life". However, it is almost certain that the 2,4,5-T manufactured at this time was heavily contaminated with 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, or dioxin. Chemists synthesized dioxin for the first time in 1957, and recognized that it was always produced during the manufacture of the herbicide 2,4,5-T. At the same time, they found that tiny quantities of dioxin caused the chronic skin complaint chloracne, a disfiguring disease which can persist for up to 15 years after exposure to dioxin. The chemical also causes cancer and congenital abnormalities in embryos at low doses. Many Commonwealth personnel who handled and/or used Agent Orange during and decades after the conflict suffered from serious exposure of dioxin and Agent Orange also caused major soil erosion to areas in Malaya. An estimated 10,000 civilians and possibly insurgents in Malaya also suffered heavily from defoliant effects (though many historians likely agreed it was more than this number given that Agent Orange was used on a large scale in the Malayan conflict and unlike the U.S., the British government manipulated the numbers and kept its secret very tight in fear of negative world public opinion).^[46][47][48]

After the Malayan conflict ended in 1960, the U.S. considered the British precedent in deciding that the use of defoliants was a legal tactic of warfare. Secretary of State Dean Rusk advised President John F. Kennedy that the British had established a precedent for warfare with herbicides in Malaya.^[3][49]

Use In The Vietnam War

During the Vietnam War, between 1962 and 1971, the United States military sprayed nearly 20,000,000 U.S. gallons (75,700,000 l) of chemical herbicides and defoliants in Vietnam, eastern Laos and parts of Cambodia, as part of the aerial defoliation program known asOperation Ranch Hand.^[50][51] Like the British did in Malaya, the goal was to defoliate rural/forested land, depriving guerrillas of food and cover and clearing sensitive areas such as around base perimeters.^[52] The program was also a part of a general policy of forced draft urbanization, which aimed to destroy the ability of peasants to support themselves in the countryside, forcing them to flee to the U.S. dominated cities, depriving the guerrillas of their rural support base.^[51][53]

Spraying was usually done either from helicopters or from low-flying C-123 Provider aircraft, fitted with sprayers and "MC-1 Hourglass" pump systems and 1,000 U.S. gal (3,800 L) chemical tanks. Spray runs were also conducted from trucks, boats, and backpack sprayers.^[54][55][56]

The first batch of herbicides was unloaded at Tan Son Nhut Air Base in South Vietnam, on January 9, 1962.^[4] U.S. Air Force records show at least 6,542 spraying missions took place over the course of Operation Ranch Hand.^[57] By 1971, 12 percent of the total area of South Vietnam had been sprayed with defoliating chemicals, at an average concentration of 13 times the recommended U.S. Department of Agriculture application rate for domestic use.^[58] In South Vietnam alone, an estimated 10 million hectares of agricultural land were ultimately destroyed.^[59] In some areas, TCDD concentrations in soil and water were hundreds of times greater than the levels considered safe by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.^[5][6]

The campaign destroyed 5 million acres (20,000 km²) of upland and mangrove forests and millions of acres of crops. Overall, more than 20% of South Vietnam's forests were sprayed at least once over a nine-year period.^[53][60]

In 1965, members of the U.S. Congress were told "crop destruction is understood to be the more important purpose ... but the emphasis is usually given to the jungle defoliation in public mention of the program."^[60] Military personnel were told they were destroying crops because they were going to be used to feed guerrillas. They later discovered nearly all of the food they had been destroying was not being produced for guerrillas; it was, in reality, only being grown to support the local civilian population. For example, in Quang Ngai province, 85% of the crop lands were scheduled to be destroyed in 1970 alone. This contributed to widespread famine, leaving hundreds of thousands of people malnourished or starving.^[61]

The U.S. military began targeting food crops in October 1962, primarily using Agent Blue; the American public was not made aware of the crop destruction programs until 1965 (and it was then believed that crop spraying had begun that spring). In 1965, 42 percent of all herbicide spraying was dedicated to food crops. The first official acknowledgement of the programs came from the State Department in March 1966.^[42][53]

Many experts at the time, including Arthur Galston, the biologist who developed and intensively studied 2,4,5-T and TCDD, opposed herbicidal warfare, due to concerns about the side effects to humans and the environment by indiscriminately spraying the chemical over a wide area. As early as 1966, resolutions were introduced to the United Nations charging that the U.S. was violating the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which regulated the use of chemical and biological weapons. The U.S. defeated most of the resolutions,^[40][62]arguing that Agent Orange was not a chemical or a biological weapon as it was considered a herbicide and a defoliant and it was used in effort to destroy plant crops to deprive the enemy of cover and not meant to target human beings. A weapon, by definition, is any device used to injure, defeat, or destroy living beings, structures, or systems, and Agent Orange did not qualify under that definition. It also argued that if the U.S. were to be charged for using Agent Orange, then Britain and its Commonwealth nations should be charged since they also used it widely during the Malayan Emergency in the 1950s.^[63] In 1969, during a debate in the First Committee of the UN General Assembly on the question of chemical and bacteriological (biological) weapons, Britain stated with respect to the then still draft Resolution 2603 (XXIV): “The evidence seems to us to be notably inadequate for the assertion that the use in war of chemical substances specifically toxic to plants is prohibited by international law.”^[64]

Effects On The Vietnamese People

Health Effects

Major Tự Đức Phang was exposed to dioxin-contaminated Agent Orange.

Vietnamese babies, deformed andstillborn after prenatal dioxin exposure from Agent Orange.

The Vietnam Red Cross reported as many as 3 million Vietnamese people have been affected by Agent Orange, including at least 150,000 children born with birth defects.^[65] According to Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 4.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to Agent Orange, resulting in 400,000 people being killed or maimed, and 500,000 children born with birth defects.^[66] Women had higher rates of miscarriage and stillbirths, as did livestock such as cattle, water buffalo, and pigs.^[67] The Red Cross of Vietnam estimates that up to 1 million people are disabled or have health problems due to contaminated Agent Orange.^[68] The United States government has challenged these figures as being unreliable and unrealistically high.^[69][70]

Children in the areas where Agent Orange was used have been affected and have multiple health problems, including cleft palate, mental disabilities, hernias, and extra fingers and toes.^[71] In the 1970s, high levels of dioxin were found in the breast milk of South Vietnamese women, and in the blood of U.S. military personnel who had served in Vietnam.^[72] The most affected zones are the mountainous area along Truong Son (Long Mountains) and the border between Vietnam and Cambodia. The affected residents are living in substandard conditions with many genetic diseases.^[73]

About 28 of the former U.S. military bases in Vietnam where the herbicides were stored and loaded onto airplanes may still have high level of dioxins in the soil, posing a health threat to the surrounding communities. Extensive testing for dioxin contamination has been conducted at the former U.S. airbases in Da Nang, Phu Cat and Bien Hoa. Some of the soil and sediment on the bases have extremely high levels of dioxin requiring remediation. The Da Nang Airbase has dioxin contamination up to 350 times higher than international recommendations for action.^[74][75] The contaminated soil and sediment continue to affect the citizens of Vietnam, poisoning their food chain and causing illnesses, serious skin diseases and a variety of cancers in the lungs, larynx, and prostate.^[71]

Ecological Effects

About 17.8 percent—3,100,000 hectares (12,000 sq mi)—of the total forested area of Vietnam was sprayed during the war, which disrupted the ecological equilibrium. The persistent nature of dioxins, erosion caused by loss of tree cover and loss of seedling forest stock meant that reforestation was difficult (or impossible) in many areas.^[76] Many defoliated forest areas were quickly invaded by aggressive pioneer species (such as bamboo and cogon grass), which make it unlikely that the forests will be able to regenerate. Animal-speciesdiversity was also impacted; in one study a Harvard biologist found 24 species of birds and five species of mammals in a sprayed forest, while in two adjacent sections of unsprayed forest there were 145 and 170 species of birds and 30 and 55 species of mammals.^[77]

Dioxins from Agent Orange have persisted in the Vietnamese environment since the war, settling in the soil and sediment and entering the food chain through animals and fish which feed in the contaminated areas. The movement of dioxins through the food web has resulted in bioconcentration and biomagnification.^[78] The areas most heavily contaminated with dioxins are former U.S. air bases.^[79]

Sociopolitical Effects

The RAND Corporation's Memorandum 5446-ISA/ARPA states: "the fact that the VC obtain most of their food from the neutral rural population dictates the destruction of civilian crops ... if they (the VC) are to be hampered by the crop destruction program, it will be necessary to destroy large portions of the rural economy – probably 50% or more".^[80]

Rural-to-urban migration rates dramatically increased in South Vietnam, as peasants escaped the war in the countryside by fleeing to the cities. The urban population in South Vietnam nearly tripled, growing from 2.8 million people in 1958 to 8 million by 1971. The rapid flow of people led to a fast-paced and uncontrolled urbanization; an estimated 1.5 million people were living in Saigon slums.^[81]

Effects On U.S. Veterans

Some studies showed that veterans who served in the South during the war have increased rates of cancer, and nerve, digestive, skin and respiratory disorders. Veterans from the south had higher rates of throat cancer, acute/chronic leukemia, Hodgkin's lymphoma and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, prostate cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer, soft tissue sarcoma and liver cancer. With the exception of liver cancer, these are the same conditions the U.S. Veterans Administration has determined may be associated with exposure to Agent Orange/dioxin, and are on the list of conditions eligible for compensation and treatment.^[82]

Military personnel who loaded airplanes and helicopters used in Ranch Hand probably sustained some of the heaviest exposures. Members of the Army Chemical Corps, who stored and mixed herbicides and defoliated the perimeters of military bases, and mechanics who worked on the helicopters and planes, are also thought to have had some of the heaviest exposures. However, this same group of individuals has not shown remarkably higher incidences of the associated diseases. Others with potentially heavy exposures included members of U.S. Army Special Forces units who defoliated remote campsites, and members of U.S. Navy river units who cleared base perimeters.^[83] Military members who served on Okinawa also claim to have been exposed to the chemical but there is no verifiable evidence to corroborate these claims.^[84]

While in Vietnam, the veterans were told not to worry, and were persuaded the chemical was harmless.^[85] After returning home, Vietnam veterans began to suspect their ill health or the instances of their wives having miscarriages or children born with birth defects might be related to Agent Orange and the other toxic herbicides to which they were exposed in Vietnam. Veterans began to file claims in 1977 to the Department of Veterans Affairs for disability payments for health care for conditions they believed were associated with exposure to Agent Orange, or more specifically, dioxin, but their claims were denied unless they could prove the condition began when they were in the service or within one year of their discharge.

By April 1993, the Department of Veterans Affairs had only compensated 486 victims, although it had received disability claims from 39,419 soldiers who had been exposed to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam.^[86]