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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
On August 19th, 2011, Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement in response to recent media coverage about the US military's use and storage of defoliants (including Agent Orange) on Okinawa during the Vietnam War. MOFA announced that, although it had requested the US Department of Defense to investigate these allegations, Washington had replied that it was unable to find any evidence from the period in question. As a result, Tokyo asked the US government to re-check its records in more detail. This was the first time that the Japanese government had asked the US about military defoliants since 2007 - and its refusal to accept the Pentagon's stock denial was rare. The current announcement arose after two weeks of unprecedented press reports which alleged that these chemicals had been widely used on Okinawa during the 1960s and ‘70s.
Japanese translation is available: http://www.projectdisagree.org/2011/12/japan-focus-id-3601.html
My thanks to Joe Sipala, Scott Parton, Masami M. Kawamura, G.H., Caethe Goetz, Jeff Davis, Rob Avery, Kinue Oshiro-Avery and Izumi Nakajima for their invaluable comments and assistance with this article.
1 The full Japanese text of the announcement is available here.
2 “OKINAWA: Forgotten Island,” Time, November 28, 1949.
3 Available, for example, here.
4 Steve Rabson, “‘Secret’ 1965 Memo Reveals Plans to Keep U.S. bases and Nuclear Weapons Options in Okinawa After Reversion,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, February 1, 2010.
5 William A. Buckingham, “Operation Ranch Hand - The air force and herbicides in Southeast Asia, 1961-1971”, Office of Air Force History, Washington D.C., 1982.
6 Jeanne Stellman et al. “The extent and patterns of usage of Agent Orange and other herbicides in Vietnam,” Nature. Vol 422, 681.
7 Philip Jones Griffiths, “Agent Orange - ‘Collateral Damage in Viet Nam”, Trolley Ltd., London, 2003, 169.
8 Fred A. Wilcox, “Waiting For An Army To Die,” Seven Locks Press, Santa Ana, 1989, 26.
9 For a concise summary of these cover-ups, see Griffiths pp. 164 ~ 169.
10 “Employment of Riot Control Agents, Flame, Smoke, Antiplant Agents, and Personnel Detectors in Counterguerilla Operations,” Department of the Army Training Circular, April 1969.
11 Stellman et al., 684.
12 For this - and further information on the impact on the health of people in Vietnam, see this link.
13 The primary manufacturers of these defoliants are still keen to emphasize that the 1984 settlement was not an admission of fault. Dow Chemical Company maintains that “Today, the scientific consensus is that when the collective human evidence is reviewed, it doesn't show that Agent Orange caused veteran's illnesses.” Link.
In 2004, Corpwatch quoted a spokesperson for Monsanto: “reliable scientific evidence indicates that Agent Orange is not the cause of serious long-term health effects.” Link.
In 2005, Griffiths dismissed these scientists as “the whores of the chemical companies - and of Washington - who will write stuff saying that Agent Orange is perfectly harmless.” (from “Conversations with Harold Hudson Channer,” Manhattan Neighborhood Network, aired 5th September, 2005)
14 The list of locations is available here.
15 “Agent Orange was likely used in Okinawa: U.S. vet board”, Kyodo News Service, July 8, 2007.
16 The complete text of ruling #9800877 is available here.
17 Quoted in the Kyodo article of July 8, 2007.
18 VA ruling #1030176 can be accessed here.
19 The ruling - #0941781 - can be read here.
20 Operation Red Hat was spurred by a leak of nerve gas that hospitalized over 20 GI's in 1969. “Operation Red Hat: Men and a Mission” - a cheerily patriotic 1971 Department of Defense documentary detailing the removal of these munitions - can be watched here.
21 Buckingham, 188.
22 “Evidence for Agent Orange on Okinawa”, The Japan Times, April 12, 2011 (available here).
23 At the time of writing, over 20 veterans with firsthand experiences of spraying, storing or shipping military defoliants have come forward - with many more claiming to have seen these chemicals on the island. Of these former service members, approximately 75% have asked that their accounts remain anonymous while the VA processes their claims for compensation. All described the government department as “vindictive” and “spiteful” - with one veteran alleging that he was told if he went public with his experiences, the impact on benefits he was already receiving for injuries unrelated to dioxin-exposure would be “catastrophic.”
24 In their denials of veterans' claims, the VA sometimes tries to suggest that the defoliants sprayed by US service members on Okinawa were “commercially-available herbicides.” This appears to be a deliberate attempt to obscure the truth. Veterans state that spray-tanks were filled directly from the same orange-striped barrels that were sent to Vietnam. The VA suggested to one veteran that the herbicides she inhaled in 1975 was Monsanto's Roundup - a product that was not on the market until one year later. Moreover, the use of military defoliants in precisely the same manner Okinawa's veterans describe is well-documented throughout Vietnam at this time - posing the question, why would the infamously parsimonious military pay extra for herbicides if they had thousands of gallons of powerful (and supposedly non-toxic) defoliants already at hand?
25 The allegation that military defoliants were sprayed around Yomitan Dog School is noteworthy due to a 1990 report regarding US military working dogs. The study compared the rates of testicular cancer in dogs that had died in the United States, Vietnam and Okinawa. The report found that dogs that died in Vietnam were 1.8 times more likely to develop testicular cancer than those in the U.S. - whereas the rate in Okinawa was even higher at 2.2 times the American control group. Howard M. Hayes et al., “Excess of Seminomas Observed in Vietnam Service U.S. Military Working Dogs”, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Vol 82, Issue 12.
26 Stellman et al., 685.
27 Griffiths, 166.
28 “Agent Orange Buried on Okinawa, Vet Says”, The Japan Times, August 13, 2011 (available here).
29 Buckingham, 169.
30 Japanese text available here.
31 The difference in the number of installations cited is due to the Ryukyu Shimpo article basing its calculations on VA denial records whereas the previous day's Okinawa Times piece was based upon my own research. The Shimpo article is here.
32 基地内の調査必要, Ryukyu Shimpo, August 7, 2011.
33 親子２代疾患に悩む, Ryukyu Shimpo, August 7, 2011.
34 Available here.
35 The TV report is accessible here.
36 The exchange was reported by the Okinawa Times on August 10th.
37 “Agent Orange Buried on Okinawa, Vet Says”, The Japan Times, August 13, 2011.
38 See, for example, this TV report.
39 “Okinawan mayor urges probe into Agent Orange allegations”, Stars and Stripes, August 19, 2011 (available online here)
40 “Agent Orange on Okinawa” - link.
41 For an overview of the identification and clean-up of potential dioxin hotspots in South Vietnam, see this link.
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