THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 21, 1994 TAG: 9409200357
SECTION: MILITARY NEWS PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: NEWSWEEK
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
As commander of America's naval forces in Vietnam during the war, Adm. Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr. ordered the intensive use of Agent Orange defoliant to remove the Viet Cong's jungle cover. His son, a river patrol-boat officer at the time, was heavily exposed to the dioxin. He died of cancer in 1988.
Zumwalt now campaigns for research into the carcinogenic effects of Agent Orange and for more compensation to American servicemen with related diseases.
On his way home from his first trip to Vietnam since the war, Zumwalt spoke with Newsweek magazine. Excerpts:
Why did you make this trip?
I wanted to pave the way for a private American medical team, supported by the National Academy of Sciences, that is coming out to Vietnam this fall to do original research on Agent Orange.
I think I was very successful. I got total support from Vietnam's president, from General (Vo Nguyen) Giap and my old adversary in the (Mekong) delta, General (Tran Van) Tra.
I also visited one of the two prosthetic-device facilities for Vietnamese veterans (that) I'd helped to establish with U.S. government funds. So far we have fitted 11,000 devices, and we estimate another 60,000 have to be provided.
What prompted your interest?
It began when my son was fighting his five-year battle (against cancer). Both he and I began to feel that there must be some relationship between Agent Orange and disease.
But at that time scientists were saying that a connection hadn't been established. I later discovered that the Reagan administration had a written policy that studies must not conclude that there is a correlation between disease and Agent Orange.
But isn't there a strong connection?
Yes. Now the government recognizes that nine diseases show a correlation with Agent Orange.
Were the scars of Agent Orange visible on some Vietnamese you met?
One of the reasons we need this research is that the Vietnamese tend to lump any health problem into the ``caused by Agent Orange'' category. At two different hospitals we were shown children with serious birth defects.
Tragic cases, but you'd see the same kind of cases at major hospitals in the United States. We simply don't have enough data to know which defects are caused by Agent Orange.
What was your general impression of peacetime Vietnam?
I come back with the tragic conclusion that the North's victory in the war was the worst possible thing that could have happened to the Vietnamese population.
As a result, our ability to assist them was delayed by about 20 years, and the people had imposed upon them an economic system that was a catastrophic failure.
In hindsight, was it a mistake for the United States to have used Agent Orange?
In my judgment we'd have to do it again in identical circumstances. When I was commander in 1968 in the delta, we were taking casualties at the rate of 6 percent a month, which meant that the average young naval person had a 70 percent probability of getting killed or wounded in a year's tour.
The Viet Cong came right down to the riverbank and fired at us from 10 to 15 feet. Agent Orange defoliation moved them back 1,000 yards and casualties dropped to less than 1 percent a month. So there are thousands alive today who would not otherwise have made it. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Adm. Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr.
KEYWORDS: AGENT ORANGE VIETNAM WAR by CNB