Agent Orange: Discussion and Lawsuit Website
Historians' Help? Agent Orange in Saigon Papers in the 60's??
From dnfox@u.washington.edu Thu Apr 15 11:00:12 2004
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 13:48:21 -0800 (PST)
From: dnfox@u.washington.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Historians' help? Agent Orange in Saigon papers in the 60's??
Hi--
I've read several places that in the late 60's, Saigon newspapers (no more specific than that) carried stories about children with birth defects thought to be linked to Agent Orange. Does anyone have suggestions of how to find such stories? One journalist told me it would be impossible.
And...perhaps some of you saw the story of a woman being reunited with one of the American navy men who rescued her boat some 20 years or so ago. She spoke of her father being given special permission to go to the US from the refugee camp, because his lungs were affected by Agent Orange. Does this make sense to anyone?
thanks for any help you can give,
Diane
From jhannah@u.washington.edu Thu Apr 15 11:00:21 2004
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 20:26:08 -0800 (PST)
From: Joe Hannah <jhannah@u.washington.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Historians' help? Agent Orange in Saigon papers in the 60's??
Hi Diane,
On the refugee case, no it does not make sense to me as told. I worked in a camp and was closely involved with boat people in the early-to-mid 1980's, and spoke to lots of US and other counties' resettlement folks. The agent orange issue was rarely mentioned, and never as a criteirion for resettlement in the US. No other disabilities, in and of themselves were adequate, either (as I recall). Even information on the most pressing issue (for the Americans), MIA/POWs, was not enough, in-and-of-itself, to guarantee resettlement.
However, if the father had been affilliated with the US or with ARVN when exposed, then there would be a case for resettlement based on that affiliation.
As the skepticism found betwen the lines in your query suggests, Agent Orange would/could not be officially recognized by the US government (or by its desginated gatekeepers, the "Joint Voluntary Agencies" --JVA -- the "NGO" that did the interviewing/screening).
I suspect that even if the JVA interviewer had sympathy for the father's plight, he/she had to find another reason for resettlement to satisfy official policy.
Good luck finding those newspapers!
Joe
(still in HCMC)
From sdenney@uclink4.berkeley.edu Mon Mar 15 10:49:54 2004
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 20:47:47 -0800
From: Stephen Denney <sdenney@uclink4.berkeley.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Historians' help? Agent Orange in Saigon papers in the 60's??
The Indochina Center of U.C. Berkeley has three file cabinets of news clippings from the South Vietnam press, although to my recollection it is not subdivided into categories such as health. There are also about three or four file cabinets of news clippings donated by the antiwar Indochina Resource Center, which includes materials on the U.S. air war and therefore would probably contain some materials on the effects of Agent Orange, perhaps including items from the South Vietnam press since some people working for the IRC at that time were based in South Vietnam.
- Steve Denney
From mchale@gwu.edu Thu Apr 15 11:00:27 2004
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 12:49:31 -0500
From: mchale <mchale@gwu.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Agent Orange: reflections
List:
This discussion of Agent Orange has piqued my interest. Without any proof to the contrary, I doubt that there was much concern in the 1960s with the harmful effects of Agent Orange. I base that belief on personal experience. When I was a kid living in the rural Philippines (Negros, in the heart of "Sugarlandia") I really enjoyed going with my father to see the Stearman biplane crop-duster spray DDT on the sugar cane. It was a lovely sight: the Stearman skimming the cane just a few hundred yards away, the spray coming out of multiple nozzles, a gust of wind sometimes blowing some spray over over. . . Of course, we now know that DDT is a dangerous chemical, but in those years, when "better living through chemicals" did not refer to dropping acid, chemicals were not as suspect as today -- particularly in the agricultural third world.
Cheers,
Shawn McHale
Associate Professor of History and International Affairs
Associate Director, Sigur Center for Asian Studies
Elliott School of International Affairs
The George Washington University
e-mail address: mchale@gwu.edu
From emiller@fas.harvard.edu Thu Apr 15 11:00:34 2004
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 13:59:35 -0500
From: Ed Miller <emiller@fas.harvard.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: Agent Orange: reflections
Dear Shawn and List:
While I haven't investigated this subject in any depth at all, I'd say that the claim that there wasn't much concern with the effects of Agent Orange in South Vietnam during the 1960s needs to be qualified. While it is true that the effects of chemicals such as Agent Orange and DDT were still poorly understood at that time, there was definitely concern in some quarters from an early date about the ways in which the US and its South Vietnamese allies were using defoliants and herbicides. To provide just a couple of examples: Shortly after the US began aerial spraying of chemicals in South Vietnam in 1961 (both to deny cover to NLF guerrillas and to destroy crops in NLF-controlled areas), the DRV government in Hanoi accused Washington of conducting "chemical warfare". At least at first, these charges had very limited currency outside of Communist countries; nonetheless, there was some attention paid to them. A US State Department report in the spring of 1963 noted that NLF agents had organized peasants in Kien Hoa to protest against (among other things) "the use of chemicals to destroy their food." Around the same time, the philosopher Bertrand Russell accused the US of conducting chemical warfare in Vietnam in a letter published in the New York Times. After 1963, dissent on this issue within the US became louder. In October 1964, the US Federation of American Scientists decried what it described as the "field testing" of "weapons of indiscriminate effect" in South Vietnam. This criticism intensified in the US during the mid-and late-1960s as the American involvement in the war deepened.
Of course, this does not speak directly to the issue of how much concern was expressed about these matters within South Vietnam, and specifically within the RVN media. But without having studied this at all, I'd be surprised if there *weren't* expressions of concern about defoliants and herbicides in the South Vietnamese media after 1964. While the media was never completely free in the South, there was a fair amount of dissent expressed in various forms at different times, and this issue would have been of interest to anti-war journalists and activists in the South. Perhaps Prof. Ngo Vinh Long has more information on this?
Whatever the validity of my hypothesis, it could definitely be tested: contrary to what Diane's journalist informant told her, it is highly likely that any newspaper reports linking Agent Orange to birth defects (if they were in fact published) have been preserved and could be found--though it might take some spadework to find them! The libraries at Cornell and elsewhere are pretty comprehensive with regards to their holdings of the Saigon papers, especially for the late 1960s. The most comprehensive collection of all is the General Sciences Library in HCMC.
Cheers,
Ed
From dnfox@u.washington.edu Thu Apr 15 11:00:39 2004
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 11:42:35 -0800 (PST)
From: dnfox@u.washington.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: Agent Orange: reflections
Thanks, all. One person who replied to me personally mentioned finding references to articles on the topic published in a 'popular Catholic newspaper' of the time. She is searching a more exact reference.
And before the DRV, Ed, before the initial spraying, in the late 50's or in 1960, there were debates among US officials on whether to use the chemicals--concern that they would have adverse political effects on the South Vietnamese, and would open the US to charges of chemical warfare. Those debates were (at least) in the Air Force, I believe, but am not certain--I wish someone would do a full, credible history on the decision-making on this. By 1967 there was a RAND report that concluded the program was probably counterproductive.
Diane
From MGilbert@ngcsu.edu Thu Apr 15 11:00:44 2004
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 15:05:25 -0500
From: Gilbert <MGilbert@ngcsu.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: Early Agent Orange Resources
Executive Summary, The Herbicidal Warfare in Vietnam 1961-1971 is available at http://members.cox.net/linarison/orange.html It cites osme early RAND reports.
It might be interesting to compared this source with Vietnamese Studies # 29 Chemical Warfare (Hanoi) (pre 1983--I can't remember the exact date.).
See John Lewallen, Ecology of Devastation: Indochina. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1971. John, a guy I know well, was with IVS in the Central Highlands to 1968. An early source. It is a 1.95 on Amazon.com.
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), The Problem of Chemical and Biological Warfare, 2 vols. (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1971)
Thomas, A. No. 1: Effects of Chemical Warfare: A selective review and bibliography of British state papers (Taylor & Francis: London, 1985)
This looks like a useful resource if not early! AN EVALUATION OF THE CHEMICAL POLLUTION IN VIETNAM Quang M. Nguyen at: www.mekonginfo.org/mrc_en/doclib.nsf/0/1D952C500BE72DC587256B74000703C8/$FILE/FULLTEXT.pdf (just google the title).
Professor Marc Jason Gilbert
Department of History
North Georgia College and State University
Dahlonega, Georgia 30597
Phone: (706) 864-1911
Fax: (706) 864-1873
E-mail: mgilbert@ngcsu.edu
From vern.weitzel@undp.org Thu Apr 15 11:01:05 2004
Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 07:48:11 ?
From: Vern Weitzel <vern.weitzel@undp.org>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Agent Orange: reflections
Thanks to you Diane for bringing this up.
As I remember, most of us were focusing on the ecological effects of defoliants, which propted visits from several academics, including a group from the University of Washington.
Defoliants with more or less the same chemical composition were being used regularly in the US, Europe and Australia. So initially this was not seen to be the concern. This is one reason there is so much emphaisis now on applying the precautionary principle to the deployment of any chemical in the environment. Humans are good at poisoning themselves.
That the defoliants used in Viet Nam had unusually high levels of Dioxins I think emerged from the landmark study by Arthur Westig which pointed out incomopetencies in the military and chemical companies which manufactured these agents.
So, if we are seeing unusually high instances of birth defencts reported in newspapers of the 1960's it may not have been seen to be in connection with Agent Orange.
Still very important information. Thanks much! Vern
From dduffy@email.unc.edu Thu Apr 15 11:01:11 2004
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 20:06:00 -0500
From: Dan Duffy <dduffy@email.unc.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: "Red choppers"?
I went looking for Agent Orange references in the Saigon news articles excerpted in my collection of readers for language students.
I didn't find any, but I did notice an unusual article, "Twelve Red Choppers Shot Down Over DMZ/Muoi hai may bay truc hang cua cong-san bi ha o vung phi quan su." It is the article used in Bai 41, pages 142 and 144 of Phien-Dich Bao-Chi Anh-My, in an undated facsimile reproduction by Xuan Thu in Los Alamitos from the Nam Son edition in Saigon of 1966.
It struck me because I have never heard or read of a helicopter used by the PAVN in the war in the South, or in the North for that matter. I've not seen or heard it in accounts from people who watched the trail, who served on the DMZ, or who flew over the North, or from people who spent war years in the North. It's practically a racial difference, like "Charlie don't surf". The enemy didn't have helicopters, and at least one Green Beret wrote an entire novel about one of the two times they showed up in tanks in the 1960s.
The article is attributed to the news service "(SP)" and dated "Saigon, June 19." It is presented in English to be translated into Vietnamese, but the English seems awkwardly translated to me with inappropriate choice of words while the Vietnamese seems original, with small points of information from more precise use of vocabulary. (Take that for what it's worth.) The Vietnamese is dated "Saigon, 9-19."
Internally, the article discusses the helicopters being shot down in two separate incidents on Saturday, "3 at Cu*a Tu'ng [Cu*a Tu'ng in VN version] a few miles south of the demarcation line," and "Sunday night another flight of 24 Communist helicopters flew across the Ben-hai [so^ng Be^'n-Ha?i in VN version] river, and 9 of them were shot down."
They were picked up on radar and also spotted by Marines at the DMZ. The article says it doesn't know if they were shot down from the ground or the air. The article says that helicopters had been seen in the North, but "It was the first time helicopters had been used by the Communists in combat. They were apparently using the choppers to ferry ammunition and troops in the DMZ."
As I think about it, of course the North would have helicopters, with all the Russian and Chinese aid. One of the points people at the Combined Documents Exploitation Center made to illustrate the divergence in Ha Noi and Saigon vocabulary is the different words for helicopter.
But this is the first I've heard of an actual helicopter. Here is a sighting of a flight of 24. Does anyone know the full story on PAVN helicopters and what they did? If they had that many why did leaders like Tran Van Tra and Bui Diem hike up and down the length of the trail over and again? Because they would get shot down? Under what circumstances were they used?
Dan Duffy
From dtsang@lib.uci.edu Wed Dec 1 19:48:34 2004
Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 19:47:34 -0800 (PST)
From: Dan Tsang <dtsang@lib.uci.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Agent orange lawsuit website launched in Vietnam
http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/2004-11/26/Columns/Domestic%20Press%20Highlights.htm#Domestic%20Press%20Highlights
Agent Orange Victim website launched
The Society of Vietnamese Agent Orange victims launched its website on
Thursday thanks to support from Vinacom and Vietnam Data Communications
Company (VDC).
The website: www.vava.org.vn provides information about its operation and the current lawsuit against the US manufacturers who made and supplied the chemical during the American war. Donation and support information will also be kept up to date.
Sai Gon Giai Phong (Liberated Sai Gon)
Daniel C. Tsang
From vern.weitzel@undp.org Wed Dec 1 20:05:36 2004
Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 11:03:59 펽
From: Vern Weitzel <vern.weitzel@undp.org>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Agent orange lawsuit website launched in Vietnam
Hi Dan
A friend at the Disabilty Forum also has a website on AO which is at: http://chatdocdacam.info
We also have organised an Agent Orange Working Group as part of the NGO Resource Centre and of course we also have an elist on AO and unexploded ordnance.
Vern
From andrew@ffrd.org Thu Dec 2 00: 06:11 2004
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 15:00:40
From: Andrew Wells-Dang <andrew@ffrd.org>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Agent orange lawsuit website
The website has an interesting online opinion poll feature that says (more or less inexact translation), "How long do you think it will take for justice to be served for Agent Orange victims?" Choices include less than 6 months, about a year, more than 2 years, or never. I picked more than 2 years, but I wasn't in the majority, at least that was the case a few days ago when I accessed the site. This might be a sign that some Vietnamese have high/unrealistic expectations about the lawsuit currently underway in the US?
--Andrew
Andrew Wells-Dang
Regional Representative
Fund for Reconciliation & Development
25 Truong Han Sieu, #302
Hanoi, Vietnam
tel. (4) 943-8061
mobile (90) 424-5461