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THE INVENTION OF ECOCIDE
AGENT ORANGE, VIETNAM, AND THE SCIENTISTS WHO CHANGED THE WAY WE THINK ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT
DAVID ZIERLER
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CONTENTS
| | ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
| | ABBREVIATIONS |
| ONE | Introduction |
| TWO | An Etymology of Ecocide |
| THREE | Agent Orange before Vietnam |
| FOUR | Gadgets and Guerrillas |
| FIVE | Herbicidal Warfare |
| SIX | Science, Ethics, and Dissent |
| SEVEN | Surveying a Catastrophe |
| EIGHT | Against Protocol |
| NINE | Conclusion: Ecocide and International Security |
| | NOTES |
| | BIBLIOGRAPHY |
| | INDEX |
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
FOR THE PAST SEVERAL YEARS I have been surrounded by a wonderful mix of family, friends, and colleagues whose advice and support helped me to create this book. Without them, I would not have been able to bridge my ideas with a topic that has proved sometimes unwieldy and always emotionally charged.
All good things start at home. My family has lovingly sustained my scholarly endeavors in too many ways to count. The storage space and home office have been a great help, but the intellectual vitality and good humor of my wife’s family and my own gave me the confidence and energy to see this project to its conclusion. To the Zierlers: Mom and Dad, Jeremy, Samantha, Jemma, Jonathan, and Zachary; and to the Akselrads: Mom and Dad, Rebecca, Benjamin, and Gila, and to my grandmothers, aunts, uncles, and cousins — thank you so much and I love you all.
From dissertation proposal to book binding, The Invention of Ecocide took shape alongside my association with two of the great historical institutions in this country. The Department of History at Temple University provided a more fulfilling and exciting academic environment than any I could have dreamed up on my own. The Office of the Historian at the U.S. Department of State, in existence since 1861, is both an engine of annotation and declassification of the most important U.S. national security documents, and a center for policy-oriented historical analysis. I have relied heavily on the office’s output for my own work, and it is a great honor to be a part of it now. From 2004 to the present, one person has devoted superhuman levels of attention to my work. I came to Temple to study with Richard Immerman, that rare professor who is both a giant in his field and unbelievably attentive to his students. I would not be a historian without him. Richard is a gift to the historical profession, and it has been my good fortune to work with him at Temple and in his capacity as an advisor to the Office of the Historian.
I want to thank a number of people who generously shared their time and experience to help me gather and interpret my source material: Amy Crumpton of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science; George Clark of the Environmental Science and Public Policy Archives, Harvard University; Stephen Plotkin of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library; John Wilson of the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library; Samuel Rushay of the Nixon Presidential Materials Project; Joshua Cochran of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library; and Justin Hill of the Interlibrary Loan Staff, Temple University. I also want to express my deep gratitude to the individuals who graciously granted my requests for interviews. Their experiences as scientists and political actors form the core of this project’s narrative, and my time with them enriched my understanding of their motivations against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and the rise of environmental consciousness. Thank you to the late Arthur Galston, Matthew Meselson, Phung Tuu Boi, Arthur Westing, William Haseltine, John Constable, Mrs. Jean Pfeiffer (wife of the late Bert Pfeiffer), Robert Cook, and Tuan Vo. Finally, Derek Krissoff and John Joerschke of the University of Georgia Press have ensured that the massive amount of documentation I have generated from my years of research actually became a book. Their professionalism and expert advice smoothed the painstaking work of assembling this manuscript.
My wife Aviva has been the light of my life for over ten years. We have studied together from our time as undergraduates through our terminal degrees, and we have traveled the country and world — much of it in the pursuit of my historical interests. She is my muse, my best friend, and of course, my last editor. The shortcomings of this book are mine alone, but its strengths I share with Aviva. In an instance of joyously good timing, we learned we would be expecting our first child just as I was wrapping up the manuscript. Our apartment was not big enough to house my filing cabinet and a bassinet when our daughter Sadie was born. It was the greatest trade I ever made.
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ABBREVIATIONS
| AAAS | American Association for the Advancement of Science |
| ABA | American Bar Association |
| ACDA | Arms Control and Disarmament Agency |
| AFB | air force base |
| AFSC | American Friends Service Committee |
| ARPA | Advanced Research Projects Agency |
| ARVN | Army of the Republic of Vietnam |
| AWG | Arthur W. Galston |
| BPI | Bureau of Plant Industry |
| BTI | Boyce Thompson Institute |
| CBW | chemical and biological weapons |
| CCA | Contemporary Culture Archives |
| CDTC | Combat and Development Test Center |
| CIA | Central Intelligence Agency |
| CINCPAC | commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Command |
| CNI | Committee for Nuclear Information |
| DDT | dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane |
| DMZ | demilitarized zone |
| DNSA | Digital National Security Archive |
| EWP | Egbert W. Pfeiffer |
| FAS | Federation of American Scientists |
| FRUS | Foreign Relations of the United States |
| GFK | George F. Kennan |
| GPO | Government Printing Office |
| GRFL | Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library |
| GVN | government of Vietnam |
| HAC | Herbicide Assessment Commission |
| IAA | indole-3-acetic acid |
| ICC | International Control Commission |
| ICI | Imperial Chemical Industries |
| ICJ | International Court of Justice |
| IWC | international war crimes |
| JCS | Joint Chiefs of Staff |
| JFKL | John F. Kennedy Presidential Library |
| LBJL | Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library |
| MAAG | Military Assistance and Advisory Group |
| MACV | Military Assistance Command, Vietnam |
| MRI | Midwest Research Institute |
| MSM | Matthew S. Meselson |
| NARA | National Archives and Records Administration |
| NARMIC | National Association on Research of the Military-Industrial Complex |
| NAS | National Academy of Sciences |
| NCI | National Cancer Institute |
| NGO | nongovernmental organization |
| NLF | National Liberation Front |
| NSC | National Security Council |
| PPPUS | Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States |
| RG | record group |
| ROTC | Reserve Officers’ Training Corps |
| RVN | Republic of Vietnam |
| SALT | Strategic Arms Limitation Talks |
| SCFR | Senate Committee on Foreign Relations |
| SCPC | Swarthmore College Peace Research Collection |
| SDS | Students for a Democratic Society |
| SR | Senate Resolution |
| SSRS | Society for Social Responsibility in Science |
| TCDD | 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-para-dioxin |
| TIBA | 2,3,5-triiodobenzoic acid |
| UN | United Nations |
| UNEP | United Nations Environment Programme |
| USAF | United States Air Force |
| USAID | United States Agency for International Development |
| USDA | United States Department of Agriculture |
| VC | Viet Cong |
| VNAF | (Republic of) Vietnam Air Force |
| WBC | War Bureau of Consultants |
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THE INVENTION OF ECOCIDE![]()
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
FOR THE PAST FOUR YEARS, I have followed 2,4-D (2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid) and 2,4,5-T (2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid) through history. Plant physiologists classify these synthetic chemical compounds as selective auxins of the phenoxyacetic herbicide family. They were the first plant killers developed by scientists to target specific “weeds”—any plants useless or counterproductive to human needs.
The discoveries that led to modern herbicides began in Charles Darw...
