# Agent Orange use in Vietnam **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 11, 2016, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agent-orange-use-in-vietnam/754532 "2016-05-11T11:05:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Clusterbuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d9b06d/32.png) [@Clusterbuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clusterbuck)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agent-orange-use-in-vietnam/754532/1 "2016-05-11T11:05:40Z")
Americans sprayed crops in Vietnam with Agent Orange (2,4,5 T), allegedly in order to wipe out rural support for the Vietcong. However, the main staple crop in Vietnam is rice and rice, like most monocots, is naturally resistant to 2,4,5 T. Question: am I missing something? Apologies for not formulating the question in a more straightforward manner. English is not my first language. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agent-orange-use-in-vietnam/754532/2 "2016-05-11T11:16:07Z")
The goal was to destroy all the trees and bushes to deprive the other side of cover so they could be seen and killed. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agent-orange-use-in-vietnam/754532/3 "2016-05-11T16:19:46Z")
Technically Agent Orange is an equal mixture of 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D. More importantly, [it wasn’t the only thing the U.S. used in Vietnam.](http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/agent-orange) Agent Blue (civilian name: Phytar) for example, killed monocots. Also, the people doing the spraying weren’t that scrupulous about keeping the application rates at approved levels. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agent-orange-use-in-vietnam/754532/4 "2016-05-11T16:29:26Z")
> [@Clusterbuck](#): > > Americans sprayed crops in Vietnam with Agent Orange (2,4,5 T), allegedly in order to wipe out rural support for the Vietcong. I’m curious as to who alleges that. As **Der Trihs** said, the idea was to deny the enemy cover. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agent-orange-use-in-vietnam/754532/5 "2016-05-11T17:58:49Z")
The idea was to defoliate the jungle, as **Der Trihs** says. That is to strip the leaves off the plants and trees in order to not only deprive the enemy of cover but to also reveal the pathways, trails, bunkers and other fortifications that were well hidden in the jungle. The killing of food crops would have been a secondary consideration, if at all, because we were technically supportive of the general population, winning hearts and minds, and all that. 2,4-D is still widely used in the US. the product that I use goes by the brand name Crossbow and it is excellent at killing blackberry vines while leaving the underlying grasses alone. I do not know if 2,4,5-T killed everything, but 2,4-D leaves the grasses alone. So I doubt if the intended role of Agent Orange was to deprive the enemy of food. You really could not do that without also depriving the friendlies of the same food. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agent-orange-use-in-vietnam/754532/6 "2016-05-12T22:54:34Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > I’m curious as to who alleges that. As **Der Trihs** said, the idea was to deny the enemy cover. I would have said the same thing before I clicked on **kunilou** ’s link; the first sentence (bolding mine) is > [@](#): > > Agent Orange was a powerful mixture of chemical defoliants used by U.S. military forces during the Vietnam War to eliminate forest cover for North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops, **as well as crops that might be used to feed them**. I figured the Hitler Channel gets their facts wrong often enough, but checking wiki crop destruction was indeed also what it was deliberately [used for](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ranch_Hand#Operations): > [@](#): > > The issue of whether or not to allow crop destruction was under great debate due to its potential of violating the Geneva Protocol.[22] However, American officials pointed out that the British had previously used 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D (virtually identical to America’s use in Vietnam) on a large scale throughout the Malayan Emergency in the 1950s in order to destroy bushes, crops, and trees in effort to deny communist insurgents the cover they needed to ambush passing convoys.[23] Indeed, Secretary of State Dean Rusk told President John F. Kennedy on November 24, 1961, that “[t]he use of defoliant does not violate any rule of international law concerning the conduct of chemical warfare and is an accepted tactic of war. Precedent has been established by the British during the emergency in Malaya in their use of aircraft for destroying crops by chemical spraying.”[24] The president of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem began to push the U.S. Military Advisory Group in Vietnam and the White House to begin crop destruction in September 1961, but it was not until October 1962 when the White House gave approval for limited testing of Agent Blue against crops in an area believed to be controlled by the Viet Cong.[25] Soon after, crop destruction became an integral part of the Ranch Hand program. ETA: There’s also a [map](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GVN_Herbicide.png) showing defoliation vs anti-crop use. ---
**Author:** ![Clusterbuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d9b06d/32.png) [@Clusterbuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clusterbuck)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agent-orange-use-in-vietnam/754532/7 "2016-06-02T12:12:22Z")
Thanks for all replies. Sorry for not quoting the original sources, but I’ve read this many times (including in the Wikipedia entry for “Vietnam War”): > [@](#): > > The Strategic Hamlet Program was initiated in late 1961. This joint U.S.-South Vietnamese program attempted to resettle the rural population into fortified camps. It was implemented in early 1962 and involved some forced relocation, village internment, and segregation of rural South Vietnamese into new communities where the peasantry would be isolated from Communist insurgents. So destroying their crops is not thaaat much of a stretch really. And considering that more than 1M rural Vietnamese resettled to urban areas during the war, it all adds up. But anyway my question was genuinely about crop physiology and not politics. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agent-orange-use-in-vietnam/754532/8 "2016-06-02T14:07:06Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > The goal was to destroy all the trees and bushes to deprive the other side of cover so they could be seen and killed. That was the story, anyway. As has been cited, crop destruction was an intended purpose of defoliant use. It wasn’t a much publicized one, of course. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agent-orange-use-in-vietnam/754532/9 "2016-06-02T16:50:57Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > So I doubt if the intended role of Agent Orange was to deprive the enemy of food. You really could not do that without also depriving the friendlies of the same food. My Vet friends tell me there were no friendlies, although there were people who found it prudent to say they were.