Herbicides

The military use of herbicides in Vietnam 1963-1971, including the history, development and implementation of the military herbicide program, diverse assessments of military utility and the pilot study of the ecological and possible health effects of herbicides which Dr. Meselson directed during six weeks in Vietnam in 1970 on behalf of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the events and deliberations leading to President Nixon's decision to terminate the military use of herbicides later that year.
 

Rice fields along the Song Re River in Qing Nai province sprayed with Agent Blue, August 1970 Photo by Matthew Meselson and John Constable	Contrast between sprayed and not sprayed heavily bombed forest, August 1970 Photo by Matthew Meselson and John Constable

Matthew Meselson collection of aerial photographs, maps, and related material for the study of the effects of herbicides in Vietnam, approximately, 1960-1975
Available through Harvard Library Map Collection, offsite storage.

Addditional writings:

“From Charles and Francis Darwin to Richard Nixon: The Origin and Termination of Anti-plant Chemical Warfare in Vietnam,” in One Hundred Years of Chemical Warfare: Research, Deployment, Consequences eds. B Friedrich, D Hoffmann, J Renn, F Schmaltz, M Wolf Springer: 2017.

Letter to Ambasssador Ellsworth Bunker and General Creighton Abrams November 12, 1970

"The Ecological Impact of Large Scale Defoliation in Vietnam", with John Constable, Sierra Club Bulletin, April 1971, Vol. 56, pp 4-9.

"Defoliants in Vietnam", with John Constable, letter to The Times (London), 16 June 1971.

"Herbicides, Irritant Gas and the Geneva Protocol", The University of Chicago Magazine, July 1971, Vol. 64, pp 30-31.

"Crop Destruction in Vietnam and Elsewhere", with John Constable, letter to The New York Times, 4 August 1971, p 30.

"Gas Warfare and the Geneva Protocol of 1925", Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, February 1972, pp 35-37.

"An Improved Analysis for Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxins", with Robert Baughman, Advances in Chemistry Series, 1973, Number 120, pp 92- 104.

"An Analytical Method for Detecting TCDD (Dioxin): Levels of TCDD in Samples from Vietnam", with Robert Baughman, Environmental Health Perspectives, September 1973, Vol. 5, pp 27-35. [DHEW Publication No. (NIH) 74-218]

Preliminary Report- Herbicide Assessment Commission of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Matthew Meselson, A. H. Westing, J. D. Constable, and Robert E. Cook, 6 March 1970, private circulation, 8 pp. Reprinted in Congressional Record, U.S. Senate, Vol. 118-part 6, 3 March 1972, pp 6806-6807.

“Background Material Relevant to Presentations at the 1970 Annual Meeting of the AAAS”, Herbicide Assessment Commission of the AAAS, with A.H. Westing and J.D. Constable, December 1970, private circulation, 48 pp. Reprinted in the Congressional Record, U.S. Senate, Vol. 118-part 6, 3 March 1972, pp 6807-6813.