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Agent Orange used in S. Korea Pentagon reveals spraying in 1960s
A Pentagon spokesman said yesterday that the military used Agent Orange and two other toxic defoliants in South Korea during the late 1960s, but he didn't know how many U.S. and Korean troops were exposed to the chemicals.
Rear Adm. Craig Quigley said that in 1968 and 1969, with full approval of their government, South Korean soldiers sprayed about 21,000 gallons of herbicides along the southern edge of the demilitarized zone.
The area sprayed was about 100 yards wide and 155 miles long, Quigley said by telephone from Washington, D.C.
American officers and enlisted personnel supervised the spraying, which was done in heavy concentrations from the ground, according to a declassified 1969 U.S. Army report obtained by the Union-Tribune. The U.S. military also conducted test spraying in 1967, before South Korea became involved, the report said.
Eventually, thousands of South Korean soldiers participated in the spraying. During one 44-day period, 3,345 South Korean troops applied defoliants over 1,658 acres, the report said.
Quigley said the South Korean media recently reported the Agent Orange spraying. He said he was not aware of South or North Koreans seeking reparations.
Agent Orange contained dioxin, now known to cause some cancers. It was used extensively during the Vietnam War to thin out the jungles to reduce the risk of ambush.
Agent Orange had a similar use in Korea, during a tense period when North Koreans were moving in and out of the demilitarized zone, Quigley said.
The 1969 report recommended additional herbicide spraying in Korea, using U.S. troops to help the South Koreans. That same year, South Vietnamese newspapers reported increased birth defects from areas sprayed with Agent Orange and a study in the United States found that dioxin caused birth defects in mice and rats. In 1970, the U.S. military stopped spraying Agent Orange.
"In the knowledge of 1999, we know that it's toxic," Quigley said. "But at the time, this is not something that we knew."
The U.S. Air Force still insists Agent Orange didn't cause health problems for the 1,200 airmen who were involved in spraying 18 million gallons of defoliants over 3.6 million acres of South Vietnam. That conclusion is based on a study by Air Force scientists that began in 1978 and will end in 2006.
Last year, a Union-Tribune investigation found the $200 million study to be flawed by government interference, altered reports and the withholding of critical information about cancer and birth defects.
Using the Air Force study as its yardstick for Agent Orange damage, the government denied all but a handful of compensation claims until 1991, when U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Rep. Lane Evans, D-Ill., co-authored legislation that provided compensation for two cancers and authorized the National Academy of Sciences to study the health effects of dioxin.
Now the Department of Veterans Affairs compensates Vietnam veterans for 10 conditions the National Academy of Sciences has connected to Agent Orange exposure so far, including one birth defect, spina bifida.
While most of the Agent Orange used in Vietnam was sprayed from airplanes, defoliants in South Korea were distributed by hand "to preclude the possibility of unfavorable propaganda and to ensure that defoliants would be properly employed with a margin of safety," the report said.
However, spraying equipment was limited or ineffective, and "the expedient methods of Orange application" was "literally pouring" it onto foliage, the report said.
In areas where spraying was done, "units were advised to spray Orange in a fine mist and to direct the spray high into the air allowing the mist to settle on foliage. Although this procedure increased the risk of undesired spray drift, the effectiveness of Orange was increased."
Because of the drift, the herbicide affected trees 200 meters downwind of the application area, the report said.
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