Agent Orange: Collateral Damage in Vietnam - Hardcover

Philip Jones Griffiths

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1904563058 ISBN 13: 9781904563051

Publisher: Trolley Books, 2004

Synopsis

Philip Jones Griffiths, for a record five years the President of Magnum Photos, created in Vietnam, Inc. a record of the war there of almost Biblical proportions. No one who has seen it will forget its haunting images. In Agent Orange he has added a postscript that is equally memorable. In 1960 the United States war machine concluded that an efficient deterrent to the enemy troops and civilians would be the devastation of the crops and forestry that afforded them both succour and cover for their operations. Initial descriptions of the scheme included "Food Denial Program", later adapted to "depriving cover for enemy troops". They gave the idea the name "Operation Hades", but were advised that "Operation Ranch Hand" was a more suitable cognomen for PR purposes. The US had developed herbicides for the task. The most infamous became known as Agent Orange after the coloured stripe on the canisters used to distribute it. The planes that carried the canisters had 'only we can prevent forests!' as a logo on their fuselages. They were right. It was very effective. Unfortunately the herbicide also contained Dioxin, probably the world's deadliest poison. In Agent Orange Philip Jones Griffiths has photographed the children and grandchildren of the farmers whose faces were lifted to the gentle rain of the poison cloud. Some maintain that the connection between the maimed subjects of Griffiths' photographs and the exposure to Agent Orange is not scientifically established. However, the compensation payments made by the herbicide manufactures to those Americans sprayed in Viet Nam refute this assertion. Historians will find it sufficient to say that there will always be collateral damage, that useful PR phrase, in war and that Philip Jones Griffiths should understand the consequences of martial endeavours. He most certainly does. He has catalogued here a pitiless series of photographs, and there can be no doubt that they should and will be recognized.

About this title

About the Author:

Born in the Welsh town of Rhuddlan in 1936, Philip Jones Griffiths studied pharmacy in Liverpool and practiced in London, while photographing part-time for the Manchester Guardian. In 1961, he became a full-time freelancer for the London Observer. Griffiths covered the Algerian War in 1962, and then was based in Central Africa before moving to Asia. He photographed the Viet Nam War beginning in 1966, publishing Vietnam, Inc. in 1971. Time Magazine called Vietnam, Inc. 'the best work of photo-reportage of war ever published' and The New Statesman added, 'Of all the hundreds of books about [the War,] this is the truest, the most important, the most upsetting'.

About this edition

• Publisher: Trolley Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1904563058
• ISBN 13: 9781904563051
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 178