Editing Agent Orange (section)

==Early use==
In [[Federation of Malaya|Malaya]], the local unit of [[Imperial Chemical Industries]] researched defoliants as [[weed killer]]s for [[rubber plantation]]s. Roadside ambushes by the [[Malayan National Liberation Army]] were a danger to the [[Commonwealth of Nations|British Commonwealth]] forces during the [[Malayan Emergency]], several trials were made to defoliate vegetation that might hide ambush sites, but hand removal was found cheaper. A detailed account of how the British experimented with the spraying of herbicides was written by two scientists, E. K. Woodford of [[Agricultural and Food Research Council|Agricultural Research Council]]'s Unit of Experimental Agronomy and H. G. H. Kearns of the [[University of Bristol]].<ref>''New Scientist'', 19 April 1985, p. 34, https://books.google.com/books?id=q7v_rDK0uOgC&pg=PA34 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211121222130/https://books.google.ca/books?id=q7v_rDK0uOgC&pg=PA34&redir_esc=y |date=November 21, 2021}}</ref>

After the Malayan Emergency ended in 1960, the U.S. considered the British precedent in deciding that the use of defoliants was a [[Law of war|legal tactic of warfare]]. [[United States Secretary of State|Secretary of State]] [[Dean Rusk]] advised [[President of the United States|President]] [[John F. Kennedy]] that the British had established a precedent for warfare with herbicides in Malaya.<ref name="Haberman">{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/12/us/agent-oranges-long-legacy-for-vietnam-and-veterans.html |title=Agent Orange's Long Legacy, for Vietnam and Veterans |last=Haberman |first=Clyde |date=2014-05-11 |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=2017-02-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170724205114/https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/12/us/agent-oranges-long-legacy-for-vietnam-and-veterans.html |archive-date=2017-07-24 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="MAY">{{cite book |title=The Global Politics of Pesticides: Forging Consensus from Conflicting Interests |page=61 |first=Peter |last=Hough |year=1998 |publisher=[[Earthscan]] |isbn=978-1-84407-987-2}}</ref>