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Herbicide service station somewhere in Indo-China
Episode 2497 of the Vietnam Veteran News Podcast will feature portions of a scientific paper about methods utilized by the U.S. to stem the flow of men and material on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The featured paper was submitted to the Scientific Research Publishing service by Professor Kenneth R. Olson of the College of Agricultural, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana, USA and David R. Speidel of the Natural Resource Conservation Service and Foreign Agricultural Service, Benton, Missouri, USA.
The paper is titled, United States Secret War in Laos: Long-Term Environmental and Human Health Impacts of the Use of Chemical Weapons. In this episode the portions of the paper dealing with methods utilized by the U.S. to stem the flow of men and material on the Ho Chi Minh Trail will be featured [3.1. Hồ Chi Minh Trail Interdiction and Expansion (1965-1968)].
The intricacies of Laotian affairs, and U.S. and North Vietnamese interference in them, led to a mutual policy of ignoring the other, at least in the public eye. This did not prevent the North Vietnamese from violating Lao neutrality by protecting and expanding their supply conduit with the support of their Pathet Lao allies in their war against the central Lao government. U.S. intervention came in increments in the form of a CIA-backed clandestine army in its fight with the communists and constant spraying of herbicide weapons and bombing. The CIA also provided support for the Lao government.
The primary objective of this study was to: 1) determine locations of potential dioxin TCDD and arsenic hotspots as a result the secret chemical spraying missions on the Hồ Chi Minh Trail in Laos and 2) determine environmental and human health effects from the spraying of tactical herbicides containing dioxin (TCDD) and/or arsenic.
Listen to episode 2497 and discover more about methods utilized by the U.S. to stem the flow of men and material on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
