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Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia
Episode 2896 of the Vietnam Veteran News Podcast will feature the story of Agent Blue and its use during the American Vietnam War. The story was told in a new paper by Authors: Kenneth R. Olson and Bryan R. Higgins. 1Kenneth R. Olson enlisted in the US Army and served as a Clerk Typist (SP5) at Fort Knox, Kentucky and as a Supply Sergeant in the US Army Reserves at Cleveland, Ohio during the Vietnam Era (1969 to 1973). Professor Emeritus of Soil Science, NRES, ACES, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois Email: krolson@illinois.edu
Bryan R. Higgins is a Distinguished Service Professor of Geography and Planning Emeritus at the State University of New York. He was drafted into the US Army and served as a Science and Engineering Aid in the Neurophysiology Section of the US Army Chemical Corps during the Vietnam era. Email: higginbr@plattsburgh.edu
Their paper titled: The Secret Toxic Legacies of Chemical Warfare: Agent Blue Use During the 2nd Indochina and Vietnam Wars in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam (1961 to 1971) tells about the use of Agent Blue in the American Vietnam War.
The paper begins in 1942, as it recount how biological warfare scientists at Camp Detrick, Maryland, began investigating the possible uses of defoliant herbicides, based on Dr. Arthur W. Galston’s scientific discoveries, while working with TIBA. The U.S. Department of Army’s Chemical Corps Biological Laboratories initiated a major program in 1952 at Camp Detrick, Maryland to develop both the herbicide formulations and aerial spray equipment for potential deployment in the Korean Conflict. The Agent Blue precursor reagent, cacodylic acid, was invented at Fort Detrick in 1957
The paper ends with these questions: The primary objective is to determine why no major news organization in the United States, including the New York Times and Washington Post, have never investigated Agent Blue use during the 2nd Indochina and Vietnam wars? Why did the use of Agent Blue story, used to destroy Laotian, Cambodian, and South Vietnamese civilian food (rice) sources and production sites, received only very limited coverage by US print media news organizations during the last 64 years?
Listen to Episode 2896 and discover more about the Agent Blue story.
