Krache Morris, Evelyn Frances (Author)
Georgetown University
Painter, David S.
Edition Details: Advisor: Painter, David S.
Physical Details: 303 pp.
Language: English
This study investigates the origins of Operation Ranch Hand, the United States' aerial defoliation and crop destruction program in South Vietnam. Although Agent Orange is the best-known of the formulas employed, the decision to use chemicals in South Vietnam preceded Agent Orange's 1965 debut by several years. President John F. Kennedy authorized defoliation missions in November 1961. At the behest of the United States military, the Ambassador to South Vietnam, and South Vietnamese President Ngô Dình Diê[dotbelow]m, Ranch Hand expanded in 1962 to include crop destruction. The purpose of this research is to explore why the administration chose to use an untried and possibly illegal weapon in an undeclared war. The need for certainties in an increasingly ambiguous and frustrating conflict contributed to the belief that Ranch Hand was more practical and effective than it was. Even as Ranch Hand's shortfalls became apparent, the administration adhered more and more closely to the agendas of the military and of Diê[dotbelow]m who, for different reasons, promoted Ranch Hand as reassuringly successful. The chemicals most commonly deployed in Ranch Hand, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T), were widely used domestically during the 1950s and 1960s. The persistent questions among scientists about how the chemicals worked and the continued difficulties in controlling their effects contrasted sharply with the beliefs held by the administration. The conflict between the administration's idealization of science and the uncertainties and contingencies of the scientific process itself was never resolved and is a major theme of this research. Historians have frequently portrayed the Kennedy Administration as rational and unemotional, but the fears that ran through it promoted the adoption of a weapon that ultimately proved both militarily ineffective and politically disastrous. In their efforts not to 'lose' Vietnam, the administration embarked on a course that would help ensure that Vietnam was lost. The repercussions of chemical herbicide used during the Vietnam War, an effort launched by Kennedy, still reverberate in both the United States and in Vietnam.
...MoreDescription Cited in ProQuest Diss. & Thes. (2012). ProQuest Doc. ID 1038969366.
Similar Citations
Book
Hay, Amy M.;
(2021)
The Defoliation of America: Agent Orange Chemicals, Citizens, and Protests
(/isis/citation/CBB039979128/)
Book
Alvin L. Young;
(2022)
Agent Orange: The Failure of Science, Policy and Common Sense
(/isis/citation/CBB579236627/)
Article
Tran, Thao;
Amat, Jean-Paul;
Pirot, Françoise;
(2007)
Guerre et défoliation dans le Sud Viêt-Nam, 1961--1971: Aux sources de l'histoire
(/isis/citation/CBB000931367/)
Chapter
Matthew Meselson;
(2017)
From Charles and Francis Darwin to Richard Nixon: The Origin and Termination of Anti-plant Chemical Warfare in Vietnam
(/isis/citation/CBB414594872/)
Article
Martini, Edwin A.;
(2012)
Even We Can't Prevent Forests: The Chemical War in Vietnam and the Illusion of Control
(/isis/citation/CBB001320116/)
Article
Oatsvall, Neil S.;
(2013)
Trees Versus Lives: Reckoning Military Success and the Ecological Effects of Chemical Defoliation during the Vietnam War
(/isis/citation/CBB001421399/)
Article
Fino, Steven A.;
(2013)
Breaking the Trance: The Perils of Technological Exuberance in the U.S. Air Force Entering Vietnam
(/isis/citation/CBB001213864/)
Thesis
Bui, Lan Thi Phuong;
(2003)
When the Forest Became the Enemy and the Legacy of American Herbicidal Warfare in Vietnam
(/isis/citation/CBB001562320/)
Book
Martini, Edwin A.;
(2012)
Agent Orange: History, Science, and the Politics of Uncertainty
(/isis/citation/CBB001320939/)
Book
Mahnken, Thomas G.;
(2008)
Technology and the American Way of War since 1945
(/isis/citation/CBB001230638/)
Book
Peter E. Davies;
(2021)
B/EB-66 Destroyer Units in Combat
(/isis/citation/CBB813243626/)
Article
Harvey, A. D.;
(2013)
Air Warfare in Perspective
(/isis/citation/CBB001320834/)
Book
Johnson, Jeffrey Allan;
MacLeod, Roy M.;
(2006)
Frontline and Factory: Comparative Perspectives on the Chemical Industry at War, 1914--1924
(/isis/citation/CBB000774356/)
Article
Aso, Michitake;
Guénel, Annick;
(2013)
The Itinerary of a North Vietnamese Surgeon: Medical Science and Politics during the Cold War
(/isis/citation/CBB001201763/)
Book
Jeremy Black;
(2017)
Mapping Naval Warfare: A Visual History of Conflict at Sea
(/isis/citation/CBB558563682/)
Book
Vuic, Kara Dixon;
(2010)
Officer, Nurse, Woman: The Army Nurse Corps in the Vietnam War
(/isis/citation/CBB001020413/)
Chapter
Edward M. Spiers;
(2017)
The Gas War, 1915–1918: If not a War Winner, Hardly a Failure
(/isis/citation/CBB631168173/)
Book
Neer, Robert M.;
(2013)
Napalm: An American Biography
(/isis/citation/CBB001213234/)
Article
Peter Thompson;
(2017)
The chemical subject: phenomenology and German encounters with the gas mask in the World War I
(/isis/citation/CBB726616895/)
Article
White, Luise;
(2004)
Poisoned Food, Poisoned Uniforms, and Anthrax: Or, How Guerillas Die in War
(/isis/citation/CBB000750329/)
Be the first to comment!