Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War

Agent Orange is an herbicide that the US used during the Vietnam War. Forces from North Vietnam used a network of forested paths to move troops and supplies from the North to the South, so the US used Agent Orange to remove leaves from the trees to see the enemy better. The chemical was highly toxic, damaging the environment and creating health problems for the Vietnamese people.

The Cold War was a period of rivalry and geopolitical tension between the US and the Soviet Union. It lasted for more than 40 years—from the end of World War II in 1945 to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The conflict was rooted in the ideological divide between democratic capitalism, which was championed by the US, and communism, which was promoted by the Soviet Union. This period is called the “cold” war because there was no direct conflict between these two superpowers, but the two countries faced off in a number of so-called proxy wars, such as the Vietnam War, that involved the conflict between democracy and communism.

Communism is a political and economic ideology that seeks to create a classless society in which the means of production—like factories and farms—are publicly owned.