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President John F. Kennedy
Episode 2844 of the Vietnam Veteran News Podcast will feature a paper just received about why chemical weapons were used in the Vietnam War. The paper was provided to this podcast by the Merry Band of Retirees. The title of the paper is: Review and Analysis: Evaluation of the Impacts and consequences of Using Agricultural Herbicides as Military Chemical Weapons in Second Indochina.
The paper was submitted by Kenneth R. Olson, College of Agricultural, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana, USA and David R. Speidel1, USDA Resource Conservationist and Agricultural Consultant with Natural Resource, Conservation Service and Foreign Agricultural Service, Benton, Missouri, USA.
In this episode, the historical events that led to our use of herbicides in Vietnam will be reviewed. It is important to learn as much as we can about events and circumstances that resulted in the use of chemical weapons in the Vietnam War.
The objective of the treatise reviewed in this podcast episode is to outline the role of world events, the use of defoliant herbicides in Vietnam and adjacent countries, the backgrounds and diverse visions of leaders of the U.S. military, CIA, USDA, U.S. State Department, the President appointed Ambassadors to Vietnam and Laos, chemical companies and President Diệm’s RVN government and military.
During this critical stage in deciding whether to use the new chemical weapon system, herbicides to defoliate cover and destroy food production combined with bombing and/or ground attacks), a process to ensure the best outcome in policy selection was needed.
Instead, the inner circle advisor approach used by President Kennedy to develop policy can also be viewed as destabilizing the normal internal government organization structures.
Listen to episode 2844 and discover more about the historical events that led to our use of chemical weapons in Vietnam.
