The Invention of Ecocide

Agent Orange, Vietnam, and the Scientists Who Changed the Way We Think About the Environment

David Zierler

• Publisher: University of Georgia Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780820338279, 9780820338262
• eBook ISBN: 9780820339788
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

As the public increasingly questioned the war in Vietnam, a group of American scientists deeply concerned about the use of Agent Orange and other herbicides started a movement to ban what they called "ecocide."

David Zierler traces this movement, starting in the 1940s, when weed killer was developed in agricultural circles and theories of counterinsurgency were studied by the military. These two trajectories converged in 1961 with Operation Ranch Hand, the joint U.S.-South Vietnamese mission to use herbicidal warfare as a means to defoliate large areas of enemy territory.

Driven by the idea that humans were altering the world's ecology for the worse, a group of scientists relentlessly challenged Pentagon assurances of safety, citing possible long-term environmental and health effects. It wasn't until 1970 that the scientists gained access to sprayed zones confirming that a major ecological disaster had occurred. Their findings convinced the U.S. government to renounce first use of herbicides in future wars and, Zierler argues, fundamentally reoriented thinking about warfare and environmental security in the next forty years.

Incorporating in-depth interviews, unique archival collections, and recently declassified national security documents, Zierler examines the movement to ban ecocide as it played out amid the rise of a global environmental consciousness and growing disillusionment with the containment policies of the cold war era.

THE INVENTION OF ECOCIDE

AGENT ORANGE, VIETNAM, AND THE SCIENTISTS WHO CHANGED THE WAY WE THINK ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT

DAVID ZIERLER

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

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.

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

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...

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