Answer: The exact question “who created agent orange” is best understood as asking who developed Agent Orange. Agent Orange itself was not a single inventor; it was a herbicide blend developed and produced under U.S. military direction during the Vietnam War era. In practical terms, multiple U.S. government and contracted industrial firms collaborated to formulate and manufacture the material for the Defense Department, with the specific blend commonly linked to the Monsanto Company (which later split and reorganized into what is now a separate entity) and other chemical contractors of the period. The development process involved government specifications and contractor production rather than a single named inventor. Key points to understand:

• Agent Orange originated as part of a U.S. military herbicide program in the 1960s intended for jungle/brush control in Southeast Asia.
• The formulation combined 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T, and the process inadvertently produced dioxin contaminants at trace levels, which are associated with serious health and environmental impacts.
• Multiple chemical companies served as wartime contractors to manufacture Agent Orange under government contracts; the name most frequently cited in historical summaries is Monsanto, which supplied formulations during the program, along with other firms. The U.S. government set the usage and specifications, and wartime contractors produced the product under those directives.
• Subsequent legal, ethical, and health discussions have focused on accountability, the political decision-making that led to its deployment, and the long-term consequences rather than the invention of a single individual.

If you’d like, I can pull up concise, sourced summaries from reputable histories to pinpoint the roles of specific contractors and the timeline of development and deployment, and I can tailor the depth to your needs (brief overview vs. detailed historical account).