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Article: U.S. Commander in Vietnam War Targets an Old Ally: Agent Orange
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- September 13, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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The two sisters, 8 and 10 years old but barely three feet tall,
smiled shyly on their contorted legs, bent out of shape since birth.
"It's tragic," retired U.S. Adm. Elmo Zumwalt Jr. said softly
after meeting them. The girls, according to the director of a clinic
here, are the children of a North Vietnamese soldier who was exposed
to Agent Orange inSouth Vietnamese jungles.
It was Zumwalt, now 73, who as commander of U.S. naval forces
in Southeast Asia from 1968 to 1970 ordered the chemical defoliant
sprayed over the South Vietnamese countryside to deprive communist
troops of cover.
Zumwalt, the highest-ranking U.S. veteran to return to Vietnam
since the war, is on a week-long trip ...