In this international detective story. bodies have been uncovered. but until now the exact weapon has remained a mystery. Until now. aiso. most governments of the world. including our own. have given surprisingly little attention to this extraordinary aspect of mans inhumanity to man. Having heard rumors in the refugee community of the possible employment of chemical weapons in Laos. I visited Nong Khai. a refugee camp in northern Thailand. in January 1979. After personally interviewing Hmong tribespeople who witnessed chemical weapons attacks. I became convinced of the validity of refugee claims and requested that the State Department launch a thorough investigation of the problem and raise the chemical weapons issue as a high priority item in appropriate international bodies. Unfortunately. the Carter administration displayed surprising reluctance to investigate systematically the refugee reports and to apply appropriate historical perspective to the issue itself. It refused publicly to confirm that chemical weapons were indeed being used by the Vietnamese and Laotian Communist forces. despite the overwhelming refugee evidence and the corroboratory intelligence information available at the time. While collection of evidence proceeded. though frequently on a happenstantial basis. the State Department took the position that the U.S. Government had no responsibility under international law to determine the validity of the allegations concerning chemical weapons usage.