ABSTRACT
The story of the lawsuit, and of developments within other arenas where confrontations took place, shows that as the Agent Orange controversy peaked and waned it was championed by a changing array of interested persons and groups. The battle over Agent Orange allows us to see the politics of how facts are created and substantiated in an especially clear light. Several trends within the legal system boosted the significance of the Agent Orange suit. Mrs. Richard Lutz earlier had written President Carter himself to tell of her concerns about the exposure of her son to Agent Orange in Vietnam. In 1978, the Veterans Administration (VA) appeals board heard sixty-three cases from cancer patients. One was Paul Cooper, a participant in the Smokey Shot atomic test in Nevada during 1958. Vietnam Veterans of America's (VVA) position was that the VA should extend a presumption of service connection to Agent Orange claimants as it had to the atomic veterans.
