Operation RANCH HAND

January 10, 1962

Overview

In Operation RANCH HAND, the United States and South Vietnam spray herbicides over forested regions to deny the Viet Cong jungle cover and food supplies. President Ngo Dinh Diem requests the operation and President Kennedy approves it in 1961. It lasts until 1971, and over nine years aircraft spray some 18 million gallons of chemicals over South Vietnam. The program impacts 20 percent of the nation’s forests. Many people—including veterans—argue that contact with these herbicides, especially one named Agent Orange, causes a range of serious illnesses. The long term effects of herbicides remain controversial, and it is one of the longest lasting legacies of the war.1

¹William A. Buckingham, Jr., Operation Ranch Hand: The Air Force and Herbicides in Southeast Asia, 1961–1971 (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1982), iii–iv, 31–33, 177, 199–200; Spencer C. Tucker, ed., Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1998), 598–599; George C. Herring, America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975, (4th edition; New York: McGraw Hill, 2002), 181–183, 366–367; David L. Anderson, The Columbia Guide to the Vietnam War (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 78, 110; James H. Willbanks, ed. Vietnam War: The Essential Reference Guide (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2013), 281.