Agent Orange and How War Never Really Ends

Exploring the lingering effects of an “evil” toxin, with George Black

You’ve likely heard of the spraying of an herbicide called Agent Orange during the Vietnam War—less discussed is how people are still grappling with the chemical’s toxic effects today. In The Long Reckoning, and in conversation, George Black sheds light on the senselessness of the spraying campaign and how cleanup efforts have only recently begun.

George is an award-winning writer and journalist. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and dozens of other publications. The Long Reckoning, published earlier this year, is his eighth book. 

A condensed transcript edited for clarity is below. Paying subscribers can also listen to the audio, which includes explorations of the other “agents” sprayed in Vietnam, the conspiracy theories that soured US/Vietnamese relations after the war, and George setting the record straight on Le Duan, the oft-overlooked leader of North Vietnamese forces:

Recalling an ancient Greek philosopher’s demise

Ben: George, thank you so much for being here.

GB: Well, thanks for having me, Ben.

Ben: Today I'd like to trace the legacy of Agent Orange and its lingering effects. To begin, can you talk about the specific area you focus on in Vietnam?

GB: When you see the standard images and news footage of the Vietnam War, they tend to be of American soldiers trudging through fields and flooded rice paddies, geography characteristic of southern Vietnam.

My book is set in a very different area, immediately to the south of the old demilitarized zone that divided the country. The worst of the physical destruction occurred there, in a tiny area about the size of Connecticut, called the A Shau Valley. Vietnam is a long, thin country, and A Shau is located in the thinnest part of it, what people call the waist of Vietnam. 

The area was a strategic stronghold for North Vietnamese forces, which is why there was such intensive bombing there and also some of the worst, most saturated spraying of chemicals.

Ben: According to one pilot, bombing the A Shau Valley “was like putting socks on an octopus.” Can you elaborate on why it was so difficult (and ineffective)?

GB: In my understanding of it, the key to the war was the Ho Chi Minh Trail. 

The Ho Chi Minh Trail passed through the valley and over the Lao border—an area that topographically speaking was incredibly complex, largely impenetrable, and covered by dense forest. The forest concealed the trail and a massive network of truck roads, which supplied North Vietnamese forces’ incursions into South Vietnam, and which were impossible to spot from the air. Americans tried to bomb the trail, but they couldn't always see it, so in 1965 they began spraying herbicides to destroy the forest cover. The herbicide campaign was one of the biggest secrets of the war.

And yet neither the bombing nor the spraying were very effective. On one hand, fighter bombers were basically targeting invisible trucks. The North Vietnamese had all sorts of brilliant techniques for hiding vehicles like traveling only at night, with trucks lit by bicycle lamps under the front fender. Drivers could see just a couple of feet in front of them. 

On the other hand, the herbicides needed several days to take effect and often then only defoliated the top layer of very dense forestry. One general compared spraying herbicides to sending North Vietnamese fighters postcards saying if you stay in the sprayed area, after several days we’ll be able to see you. So of course they just evacuated and ultimately, the statistics on how many trucks were destroyed are kind of pathetic. We’re talking hundreds of raids for every truck destroyed, which the Soviet Union would simply replace. 

Ben: Ineffectiveness aside, the herbicides kept on coming. Later studies revealed that more than 20 million gallons of them were sprayed from 1961 to 1971, covering an area almost the size of Massachusetts. Agent Orange accounted for more than 60% of that amount.

GB: Right. Agent Orange was a composition of two chemicals in a 50-50 mix. One of them had a trace element of dioxin, which people often say is the most toxic synthetic chemical ever produced.

Ben: You cite a molecular geneticist at Harvard, named Matthew Meselson, who said, “An evil genius could not devise a toxin with more evil properties.”