Educational Media Reviews Online

This documentary presents a very balanced view of the enduring environmental consequences of dioxin contamination resulting from the spraying of the herbicide “Agent Orange” during the Vietnam War. Although dioxins were found to be created at less than 1 part-per-million during the manufacture of Monsanto’s version of the 2,4,5-T compound that was mixed into Agent Orange, the spraying of millions of gallons of the herbicide produced by Monsanto, Dow, and other chemical companies during Ranch Hand, and other American operations in the 1960’s, resulted in residual environmental levels of dioxins in Vietnam at levels approaching those measured during the war, and several hundred times the acceptable levels for dioxins. Though the 2,4,5-T dioxin was recognized by one or more of the chemical companies as a human carcinogen, that information was not made known to the U.S. agencies that performed the defoliation spraying. Victims include Vietnamese and American citizens exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam and Laos who are victim to several types of cancers and nervous disorders. The high incidence of miscarriages and abnormal births can be correlated with exposure to Agent Orange by one or both parents. Since the dioxins remain in the water supply and tend to concentrate in animal fats, increased rates of cancers and abnormal births can be expected unless the toxic chemicals are removed from the Vietnamese environment.

The video is a presentation of the Center for Asian American Media and funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). It is excellent in every respect. Ruth Schell did a marvelous job editing stock and other video footage with on-location interviews with victims in Vietnam and the United States. Scenes documenting the deformed and brain damaged children, as well as the adult victims of Agent Orange exposure, are striking, stunning and in some cases heartbreaking. The victims range from those exposed to fumes from a chemical explosion and fire in Nitro, West Virginia in the 1950’s, those who worked in 2,4,5-T manufacture (their building was torn down, buried and blacktopped in the 1970’s) to children of parents exposed to Agent Orange in the war, and since. Though the chemical companies and the U.S. and Vietnamese governments declined to comment on lawsuits supporting aid to Vietnamese victims (class action suit dismissed in U.S. Court of Appeals, Brooklyn in 1995, currently under appeal), the producers did an excellent job in showing the support of American veterans for Vietnamese victims and in interviewing lawyers for the victims and the chemical companies. Who should be held accountable? The chemical companies? The government? Is a U.S. good faith offer of $400,000 toward cleanup of the contaminated Vietnamese sites enough?

As a broad and balanced view of the Agent Orange issue, The Last Ghost of War is highly recommended in support of curricula in environmental studies and Asian studies. The film presents a number of issues bearing on international relations and the law of war, particularly in the area of culpability resulting from the use of chemicals agents in war, agents not classified as chemical weapons at the time of their use. Also, once victims of exposure to those agents are identified, when should victims accept compensation, how does the legal system actually compensate the victims, and who is responsible for restoration of the environment?