Rusk: U.S. Not Conducting “Gas Warfare” in Vietnam Despite Using Gas

Mar. 24, 1965 - Secretary of State Dean Rusk insisted today that the use of “police-type” gases in South Vietnam did not constitute “gas warfare.”

Rusk made it clear that the U.S. and South Vietnam would feel free to continue use of the tear and nausea-inducing gases against the Communist Viet Cong.

But he indicated such action would be limited because the gases had proved to have little effectiveness in the three recent instances of their use.

Speaking at a hastily arranged news conference, Rusk sought to calm the international furor over the use of nonlethal gas. The Johnson Administration was disturbed and somewhat surprised by this adverse reaction, both at home and abroad.

Yesterday, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara called reporters to the Pentagon to explain that the gases were similar to the riot-control agents used by police and military forces around the world.

Today, Rusk acknowledged that there might have been a “failure” on the part of the Administration in providing a “full explanation” from the outset on the nature and uses of the gases, with the result that unwarranted fears were aroused throughout the world that the U.S. was raising the “specter of gas warfare.”

“We are not embarking on gas warfare in Vietnam,” he declared. “There has been no policy decision to engage in gas warfare in Vietnam.”

The chemical agents used, he continued, are not those associated with gas warfare or gases that were prohibited by the 1925 Geneva protocol, which bans the use of “asphyxiating, poisonous, or other gases.” 

Rather, he said “we are talking about a gas which has been commonly adopted by the police forces of the world as riot-control agents.”

“But we are reminded,” Rusk said, “when something of this sort comes up, of the nature of the war in South Vietnam. It isn’t comfortable and easy war. It isn’t a war that is going to be decided by troops on parade with blank cartridges.

“It is a mean, dirty struggle carried out without regard to ordinary norms of conduct by the Viet Cong.

“Those who are concerned about tear gas, I would hope, would be concerned about the fact that during 1964 over 400 civilian officials were killed and over a thousand were kidnapped in South Vietnam. Among other civilians, 1,300 were killed, over 8,000 were kidnapped.”

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