PRELUDE
1967: The United States begins a top secret rainmaking operation in Southeast Asia to hamper the movement of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops and supplies. It runs until July 1972. During the Vietnam war, the U.S. also carries out massive herbicide spraying operations (Agent Orange, etc.) and mechanical vegetation removal with ÒRome PlowÓ tractors.
March 1971: Citing a leaked US government memorandum, a US news report reveals indications of a super secret US rainmaking operation over Laos.
June 1972: Meeting in Stockholm, the UN Conference on the Human Environment adopts Recommendation 218, asking governments to carefully evaluate the likelihood and magnitude of climatic change.
July 1972: Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird testifies to the US Congress that the US has never engaged in environmental modification activity over North Vietnam.
1972-74: US Congress "doves", led by Senator Claiborne Pell, press the Defense Department for release of information about alleged secret US weather modification programs in Southeast Asia.
11 July 1973: The US Senate adopts a resolution (S.71) urging an international agreement prohibiting environmental warfare. S.71 includes a draft treaty with the commitment "to prohibit and prevent, at any place, any environmental or geophysical modification activity as a weapon of war".
28 January 1974: Acknowledging that his 1972 testimony was false, Laird (by then counsel to President Nixon) privately admits that the US used weather modification in North Vietnam in 1967-68. Contents of the letter are leaked.
20 March 1974: In a top secret Senate hearing, the US military admits to "Operation Popeye", a cloud seeding program in Cambodia, Laos, North and South Vietnam. The Pentagon says Popeye ran from 1966 through 1972. At least 2,600 flights spent over 47,000 units of cloud-seeding materials.
19 May 1974: Pell forces declassification of the transcript of the "Operation Popeye" hearing.
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