The meeting today is timely. It is one week before president obama travels to take part in the summit of leaders of the association of Southeast Asian nation. He is, the third sitting president to visit that country, as you may have heard. The country has been subjected to a secret war during the age of the vietnam war. What has been the legacy of this war, and what might president obama the able to accomplish in terms of improving relations for the future with the laos Peoples Democratic republic . Here to share their perspectives on this issue are 2 of the most seasoned observers and advocates. The resolution of the unfortunate legacy of the wars in laos and vietnam and the enduring impact on the population of those countries. To my far left, the founder and executive director of the war legacies project. She began her work on peace and reconciliation in laos, vietnam, and cambodia in the head 1980s. Through on the ground collaboration has become one of the most informed specialists on agent orange data collection. With her is jacqueline, who we are pleased to welcome back to the elliott school, from which she graduated. From 1968 to 1970 she worked in saigon, which is now ho chi minh city. At the time, she met with families with severely deformed babies and witness the defoliation caused by agent orange. That is the name given to the chemicals sprayed over the forest at areas of Southern Vietnam and laos to expose the supply routes taken by north vietnam. She has lived and worked in laos since 1978 to uncover the lingering postwar trauma caused by heavy bombing and chemical spraying. She and her deceased husband started the work on the Laos Agent Orange survey in 1999. After susan and jackie talk i know that they will be answering questions and taking comments. Join meome me in jackie. Ming susan and thank you very much. Very happy to be here and that you came out on this beautiful late august day. 1995, since the middle 90s i have been working on this issue. Let me say a few more words about my organization, the war legacies project. We are a small notforprofit organization and vermont. We work to provide comprehensive support to families in Southeast Asia who have been impacted by that war. We work to raise awareness in the u. S. About the war in Southeast Asia. Many people know more about the war in vietnam, very few about the war in laos. We also work with veterans and their families who are trying to understand more about the impacts of agent orange. Why laos now . I skipped one. I have been lucky to work with jackie, who is not only an expert on laos, but an expert in driving through fields and streams in southern laos not streams, roaring rivers to get to the villages where we were. I am going ahead of myself. I want to bring you back to one of the first press conferences that president kennedy gave after he took office on march 23 of 1961. [begin video clip] the president s press conference, march 23, 1961. I want to make a brief statement about laos. It is important for all americans to understand this difficult and potentially dangerous problem. My conversation with general eisenhower before the inauguration on january 19, we spent more time on this hard matter than any other thing. Since then, it is before the administration as the most immediate of the problems that we found upon taking office. That was probably i was not around in 1961, but maybe the last of the public heard about laos for the most part. He went on to state i want to make it clear to the American People and the rest of the world all we want in laos is peace not war. A truly neutral government, not a cold war pond. A resolution at the conference table, not on the battlefield. Unfortunately, we would not be here today if that turned out to be true. Shortly after that press conference, the president handed over the war effort in laos to the cia, and over the next 10years they conducted a multibilliondollar war effort throughout laos that we heard very little about in this country, if anything. 40 years later, much of the information about the secret war in laos is still unknown. It is still classified information. Bits and pieces have been released, but we do not have the full picture of what happened during the war in laos. President obama, when he goes to laos, it will be addressing one of the war that we do know about. About 2000 u. S. State Department Release the bombing records in vietnam and laos. Began, the u. S. Began to increase efforts on addressing the impact of unexploded ordinance throughout the country. There are still casualties today, but they have been dropping over the years. The president , obama, is planning on announcing an increase to 20 million for the effort to clean up unexploded ordinance in laos and provide assistance to those who have been affected, like this young boy. To date, the u. S. Has not addressed any aspects of the use of agent orange and other chemicals throughout southern throughout laos. This is not even on their radar screen. That is why we are here to we are trying to put it on their screen. We do know that the u. S. Air force, the ranch hand Spray Program, sprayed in parts of southern laos along the ho chi minh trail region of the country. This is basically from the province to the south to the cambodian border, bordering the dmz of vietnam down to con tune in vietnam. About 200, we know from the records released i do not know why that is popping up. The c123 ranch hand program, gallons of agent orange and ofover 291,00 gallons orange as well as agent blue and agent white were sprayed throughout laos for defoliation and to target crops. This is only a partial record. You can see in parts of southern laos today, and this is a few kilometers from the vietnam border, you cannot tell clearly in this slide, but the top of the ridge line of the mountain is what appears to be from defoliation. We know this actual area was sprayed. The area to the far right is more likely rice production. The top ridge line, which is where a lot of the herbicides were targeted. What we do not know, really, is how much spraying was done by the cia. We have, i have spoken to some air america, we know the cia had its own private airline, air america made up of many military members who took a little bit of a leave from the efforts in vietnam or came over specifically and were flying as civilians in unmarked planes as part of the cia effort here in one of the air america pilots told me that they did fit a plane to spray herbicide in 1969 outside of long tien along the ridge line at the northern part of the photo. There are also records the cias secret war in laos talks about how ambassador sullivan ordered spring to be done in 1969 with planes out of thailand. They also sprayed around the base in northern singquang to do perimeter spraying around the base to clear the foliage. There are bits and pieces that come out and people there who say we did spray elsewhere, but none of that information is officially public. It is all ancedotal at this point. We are trying to uncover this 40 years later. We suspect that some of those bases, this is in vietnam not laos, but we suspect some landing zones, there are 450 landing zones throughout laos, some large, some used for weeks or months, some throughout the war effort, but we suspect that there were barrels like these stored on the basis, even if they were only used for perimeter spraying. The concern is, and we suspect the long tien base was one where barrels were stored. You the problem is, a long of th a lot of the basis that were cleared became population settlements. They were already populated, but after the war effort, people would go to the base that was cleared and settle. That is the concern. If there were barrels stored on the bases, chances are dioxin has leached out of the barrels into the ground and could be causing a Public Health risk. We do not know, because we do not know from the cia were effort where or if they were using these chemicals. It is one of the big question marks. We do know a lot about the impact of agent orange in vietnam. Again, the u. S. Released spray records from the ranch hand spraying, an organization based in canada did an extensive amount of research to identify where out of all of those thousands of bases and landing zones, other sites in vietnam, where the u. S. Had a presence, how many would be a potential dioxin hotspot today . After looking at the various sites and talking to the vietnamese military, they narrowed it to 28 potential hotspots throughout the southern part of vietnam. Three of those, which you probably cannot see, but they are listed in red, three of those were where the ranch hands Spray Program was located. Millions of euros of the herbicides were stored on the paces. Those are significant hotspots today. Some of to 400, 500 times the limit of contamination required to begin remediation efforts. I looked at the air bases in laos to see if we can come up with a similar list. Unlike in vietnam where they did testing on the ground to see if there was dioxin, none of these sites in laos have been tested, except for number 14, an army base. Hatfield did limited testing and found elevated levels of dioxin in the soil. The other bases have not been tested at all. We narrowed down the list from 450 by deciding how long the base was used by the u. S. Military, whether there is a Population Center nearby, because then a dioxin hotspot would be a concern, and we even looked at google earth. They had the technology to look through satellites. We looked to see if there seems to be cleared regions around the bases. We came up with this list. These are only potential places where we thought because of the geography, history of use of the base, that the u. S. May have had some clearing done with herbicides. The u. S. Has been very involved over the past decade in vietnam to address the longterm environmental impacts of agent orange. We have, we have vast spray records, so we know where it was sprayed. The vietnamese have records of populations who are living in the sprayed areas. It is estimated 4. 2 million vietnamese lived in areas sprayed during wartime. How many of those are affected by the dioxin in the herbicide . The vietnamese estimate 3 million have some health impact. 150,000 children are born with disabilities. That is a bit of a controversial point that we can talk about in the question and answer time, but i am not going into the scientific debate at this point. The u. S. Has been providing, of those 3 dioxin hotspot, the u. S. Has started to work with the vietnamese to clear up the da n ang hotspot. This is the start of the cleanup in da nang where they compiled the soil that was on the air base onto a gigantic oven that was several football fields wide. They turned on the electric a probes to heat the soil above will 365 celsius to break down the dioxin in the soil. Half of the soil, contaminated soil in da nang has been decontaminated in that way. They have started the second process. This is 100 million u. S. Funded project to decontaminate the soil in da nang. That soil will go back onto the air base to expand the runway. It will be at the point of 150 parts per trillion, anyone who follows the Environmental Standards that the new epa standard is for industrial sites. It will be below that. The u. S. Has invested since 2007, when the first funding came out of senator leahys office at 3 million to address the agent orange dioxin issue in vietnam. It has increased over the years. I like to take a tiny bit of credit for that. To the point now that it is over 140 million allocated by the u. S. Government to address the dioxin contamination problem in vietnam. Of that 140 million, 37 million has gone to health care. The u. S. Does not say this is funding for people that have been affected by agent orange. They address disabilities regardless of cause in vietnam. Through our efforts, and efforts of my colleagues, we have targeted the money that has gone to people in vietnam who have severe multiple disabilities. Who live in former sprayed areas of the country. We have been pushing them in the direction of getting funding to those whom the vietnamese believe our agent orangeimpacted. We know more about dioxin these days than when the war first started. The u. S. In 1991 interested entrusted the research on dioxin. And the herbicides used in vietnam, to see what Health Conditions might be related, or have association to the herbicides or dioxin. They found 20 different conditions. Some have sufficient evidence. They have different categorization whether there is sufficient evidence, suggested, or no. They have sufficient or suggested evidence to an association with dioxin. Many are the same conditions that the vietnamese say are related to exposure to dioxin. The va provides benefits to veterans who have one of 15 different conditions, or in the case of their offspring, spinal bifida. That is the only birth defect that they acknowledge might be that they acknowledge might be related to the fathers exposure to agent orange in vietnam. If you are a female veteran, of which there are only 8000 of the war in vietnam, the va will provide compensation to your child if you have one of many different types of birth defects. Cleft palate, cleft lip, hip dysplasia, all kinds of different conditions. Basically, any condition that does not have a known cause or family history. We are very limited members of children receiving the benefits. There were only 8000, and these are rare conditions. They make it clear this is not due to agent orange, but service in vietnam. There is a clarification. If you are a female who served in vietnam, if you were a laos woman or vietnam woman, you were and it now for 10 years and exposed to whatever environmental condition was that caused birth defects. Him him him him i see many of these conditions in my work in laos and vietnam. Him they say that the vietnamese believe that about 150,000 children and now grandchildren of those who were exposed from the north down to the south, or living in the sprayed areas, have a birth defect caused by their parents or grandparents exposure to agent orange. We are still learning. In animal studies, dioxin causes birth abnormalities, miscarriages, congenital deformities. That is proven in animal studies, but you cannot do that kind of study in a human or you have to look at studies to compare populations that are exposed and not exposed, and it is difficult to get the smoking gun proof that dioxin is causing these disabilities. In part because a condition like this is rare. You would need a Large Population to cvs elevated levels to see these elevated levels. More studies are being conducted, which even in the limited studies done so far, they are showing that environmental toxics can cause problems in future generations. Stress can cause problems in future generations. There has been research after world war ii in holland that the famine during world war ii caused problems within the grandchildren of people in holland that were famished. You cannot make a straight line, but there is enough, for me, evidence that i think there is something here. When it comes to actually working with children that we have come across in our work in laos and vietnam it does not matter the cause. What we need to do is to help this child with a severe club foot. I will turn it over to you. I do not know what this is. There you go. She is far more technologically capable than i am. I am too old. But, i am a good driver. In laos, we obtained for the first time the bombing records and spray records in 1999. It was because of a conversation over a swimming full with Swimming Pool with the American Ambassador when she said to my husband and i we need a goodwill gesture to present to the lao to get better cooperation on mia pows. Can you suggest anything . We said get the bombing records and the chemical herbicide records. We did not realize she would come up with the herbicide records. She did. In 1999, it is the first time that we have concrete u. S. Air force records that indicate that there was spraying of herbicides in laos from major aircraft. That you see in the green portions, maybe you can point it out. You saw a better picture of it earlier, the more intense picture. And, it does not look like a lot, but when you look at the data it is repeated spraying over nine years, constantly. Him my brotherinlaw used to fly on some of those planes. He was a mechanic in the cia. He was in civilian clothing. He told me that the spring that the spraying missions happened sometimes as much as two times a month. He is a farmer. He said the chemicals were much stronger than anything we used here. Up to 50 times stronger. He died a year and a half ago of alzheimers disease related to his agent orange exposure. His father died a year a year and half ago related to his exposure as well. A lot of americans are talks to seem to know someone who died of those kinds of problems that susan was talking about. Some children with those problems. Him him this was a secret in our family. We could not talk about it. He was not able to talk about it publicly. We went out to the barn to talk about it, because he did not want his wife to know. This was after he retired. So, the secret has to come out. We half to expose it. Now. Have to expose it it is affecting the children of children of children. When we looked at the spray records and the poverty records in laos, we see that the bright red here matches the orange. Him here is where i want to explain to you our findings in the field. These are remote villages until five years ago. We could barely get to some of these districts without walking for two or three days in the jungle. There are some people here who have done that. It is not an easy place to service. Him medically, it is difficult for people to get to hospitals. These areas, what did they look like before . They had families out there with between 10, 20, 50, 100 head of cattle and buffalo. That is rich by most asian standards. They had plenty of fish, crops, they grew upland rice before the war. After the war, things changed. During the war these people had to evacuate the villages because the trail ran right through them. They went into the mountainarea and were still sprayed. They talk about taking huge holes to secure their families. They would have to move those holes every three days to four days because the bombing might come again. These people are the people that we are looking at today. The grandparents tell us very clearly that they feel poor today. That they were not poor before the war. That the war drove them into deep poverty. It is a food issue today, in the sense that the nutrition seems to be much lower than the rest of laos. We do not have statistics clear enough on all of this, because laos has very few scientists, as