Once, I was telling some Vietnamese friends about the time a policeman in Washington, DC broke my leg, shattering my kneecap with his nightstick, and—as I lay curled into a ball of agony—he threatened to kill me. Everyone laughed. I laughed as well, assuming that the translator’s intonation had turned my sad tale into an amusing one. On another occasion in Ho Chi Minh City, across from the Continental Hotel, a bedraggled young man offered to shine my sneakers. He complained that he did not have any money, he was hungry, and he wanted to return home to Hanoi. When I handed him 50,000 
ng, he grew tense. “Why do you give me ng?” he demanded. “Because I wanted to,” I said. He walked away in a huff.
Dr. Nhan has lived through decades of colonialism and war. His hopes soared when Ho Chi Minh, speaking before a massive crowd in Hanoi on September 2, 1945, quoted from the United States Declaration of Independence. Surely, the Americans would support Uncle Ho’s new government. Instead, the French launched a violent campaign to recolonize Vietnam. Before France was finally forced to leave Vietnam for good, the United States was paying for eighty percent of its campaign to remain in Vietnam.23
After the Geneva Agreement in 1954, it seemed that the Vietnamese would soon choose their own president and live in peace in a united Vietnam. But the Eisenhower administration, convinced that Ho Chi Minh was a communist and fearing the loss of valuable assets in Indochina, sent General Edward Lansdale to Saigon to set up a “dirty tricks” squad—covert action teams that would seek to sabotage transportation networks in the north, counterfeit Vietminh documents, and spread rumors that there would be terrible massacres if Ho Chi Minh became president.
Lansdale helped Ngo Dinh Diem, a Catholic Mandarin, return to power in Saigon, and he set up the Saigon Military Mission to train Diem’s army. The American War had begun. It would last for twenty years.
During the American War, Dr. Nhan worked as a surgeon in Hanoi. One day, while operating on a patient, he looked out the window to see bombs falling. Children and the elderly had been evacuated from Hanoi, but hospital staff kept working while B-52S rained death upon the city.
“I can not say if it’s a short or long time for the US side or the chemical companies to admit this matter,” says Dr. Nhan, “but I think they have to admit their responsibility for what they did in Vietnam, and the consequences for the Vietnamese people.
“The Vietnamese people want to close the past. You know, even US veterans, when they come to visit Vietnam, they receive a warm welcome from Vietnamese people. And they have a good time in Vietnam.
“And you know that in the past, the Japanese committed crimes in Vietnam. During World War II, after the Japanese invasion, about two million Vietnamese were suffering from hunger. But we don’t talk about that story. Up to now, Japan is one country that has helped us a lot.”
Dr. Nhan is convinced that the $180 million out of court settlement benefited US veterans. It’s difficult to imagine that such a large sum of money would not assure that veterans, their families, and their widows would be taken care of. But when a reporter for Thanh Nien News asked attorney Gerson H. Smoger how the chemical companies could “get away with compensating Americans but not Vietnamese,” he replied:
I would not say that they “got away with compensating,” because I can assure you that the responsible chemical companies had no interest in compensating anyone. Also, unfortunately, the chemical companies have never really compensated the vast majority of American veterans either. While there was a settlement entered into in 1984, the money ran out in 1994. Of the 2.4 million Americans who served in Vietnam, only about 60,000 ever received anything from the companies…. Given how long it takes to get cancer from the chemicals, virtually none of the veterans who got cancer have received any compensation from the companies.24
When American courts dismissed the Vietnamese lawsuit, says Dr. Nhan, many people in other countries such as Australia, Korea, and New Zealand also lost. In New Zealand, Agent Orange victims asked for compensation of $3 billion. And the number of Agent Orange victims is much smaller than in Vietnam.
“When I was in the United States, I met a lot of Vietnam veterans. They were angry at their government because it did not recognize the effects of dioxin on their children and their wives. But the United States knows more about the consequences of dioxin on people. They keep it a secret.”
“A secret?” I ask him.
“Yes, that’s right. A secret.”
Our taxi driver weaves in and out of a sea of motorbikes, honking as he narrowly misses—it seems to us—knocking riders from their seats. Hanoi’s streets twist and turn, so it often feels as though we are going in circles. Sometimes, we are.
We swing by the lake in which 500-year-old tortoises reside, happy to know that they can bask in the sun without worrying about bombs. Every morning at six a.m., Radio Hanoi begins the day with a lyrical song.
CHAPTER 4
Sprayed and Betrayed
The story of Agent Orange is the story of technology run amok and turned upon its creators.
MAY 7, 1984, BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
Lawyers who represent Vietnam veterans and their families agree to a $180 million out-of-court settlement with the chemical companies that manufactured and sold Agent Orange to the military during the war. Outraged, veterans and their supporters call the settlement a “sellout,” denouncing the attorneys who made the agreement without notifying all of the plaintiffs, and they vow to keep fighting for justice for Agent Orange victims.
With this out-of-court settlement, Dow, Monsanto, et al. win a monumental battle. They have prevented the veterans from arguing—and more importantly from winning—their case in court.
The five companies that continue to manufacture phenoxy herbicides claim that their products are perfectly safe. But if herbicides like 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D do not in fact harm human beings, the US veterans ask, then why are veterans from Korea, New Zealand, and Australia, who were similarly exposed to these chemicals, suffering from serious ailments? Why are so many of their children born with serious birth defects? The Vietnamese people have been complaining for years about the effects of Agent Orange on their farm animals and on their families. One day they too will file a class action lawsuit charging the manufacturers of Agent Orange with war crimes.