CIA SHIFTS ROLE IN VIETNAM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP70B00338R000200200002-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 25, 2003
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: October 24, 1968
• Content Type: NSPR

WM'.b DT ''7400(09
App Foi ease 2d /1
CIA its in
Emphasis
To Be Put
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William Tuohy
Los Angeles Times
SALON-The U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency is shift-
ing toward a more traditional
role in Vietnam-spying Orj
more formally, Intelligence
gathering and analysis, and
clandestine operations.
For years, the CIA has been
involved in a variety of --so--
called "open" activities .not
generdily associated with the
classic secret missions of the
agency.
It was not because it wanted
more power and authority that
the CIA got involved in Well
things as training Vietnamese
Revolutionary Development
teams; it got involved because
no other U.S. agency was
e uipped to handle them. Also
It had more money and better
'Men.
"They were given these as-
signments because there was
simply no one else, and they
had the money," one observer
here said.
Another official familiar
with the, workings of the U.S.
Mission added:
"Thggy perform better than
any other civilian agency in
From 1'1 =
V1 hey y have bettiz
latively flexible proce-
iso they can zero in;on
work."
As a consequence, the
"spo Mks as CIA types are
genei11y called, were asked
to perform a growing number
of overt tasks as the United
States became more deeply in-
volved in fighting the Commu-
nist-directed "war ,of national
liberation" in Vietnam.
The CIA did not get in-
volved voluntarily This was
partly because sorrier
with cover jobs as "' rginers
and would have to wine out
into the open. And partly be-
cause the agency does.ndt like
to get mixed up in 16n-term=
open-ended programs such as
;the Revolutionary Deve'top
ment setup. And, when it did
get the job, the military bri-
dled at what It obviously felt
was intervention in it4 special
field. k
The CIA men tend t be
special breed. In to field,
they run to tall, legi, sun-
tanned types who chaaad'teris-
tically respond to n tl rdue-
tions with a, tighlipped:
"John Smith, embassy.,
In Saigon, they ten to live
together in apartmen blocks
or compounds, keeppir to
themselves profession; and
socially, aloof from outs
"There's no particu1 mys-~
tique about them," one insider .
said. "They have the same
problems everyone else., dpes;
they worry about their tai-
gage on the house, ;gig
their kids through school. The
divorce rate is high. One x0i
s
on, his second tour wl o
11
the work and would eten
possible was told by lids wife
that he better get home after
this, tour is up if he stile wants
a wife."
"In Saigon, the agQi#cy has
its Own warehouse fille4 with
interesting weapons and gadg-
ets. .It has its own Ql- -uc
staffed with a doctor and
three nurses.. It has its own
airline, Air America, which
also servers as a contract car-
rier for the U.S. Ageri
International Development
(AID).
"Man for man," a top U.S.
official said, "the agency hass
the best people In Vietnam.
They are the most n1iotivated,?
the most interested, and, dol?
lar for dollar, the U.S. gets the
most value out of them."
Another person familiar
with the agency added:
-RDP74B0033
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"The spooks are less naive
and more cynical than the for-
eign service officers. They
tend to assume that nothing is
permanent, people shift sides,
few idealists hang on to their
ideals when the going gets
rough. The trouble is too
many of them-like the rest of
the American establishment
here - are Europe-oriented,
and they tend to impose West.
ern solutions on an Eastern
society."
Howere, in addition to
classic functions, the CIA has
at various times im Vietnam
supplied funds and manpower
to train montagnard tribal
troops, Provided political re-
porting from the provinces;
trained the police special
branch, the counterintel-
ligence arm; set up the Revo.
lutionary Development cen
ters and trained the 59-man
teams; helped establish Opera.
tion Phoenix, the locntelli-
gence apparatus dest ed to
attack the Vietcong infrastruc-'
ture; trained so-called provin-
cial reconnaissance units, the
counterterror teams who as-
sassinate enemy lead; ad-
vised at the national Irterro-
gation center where enemy
prisoners are questioned, and
supplied the, basic intelligence
on the activities of the Na-
tional Liberation Front.
Also, the CIA has lentso
150 or so of its officers to
work for CORDS, the U.B. pac-
ification advisory effort. Thus
a CIA man might be a re-
gional director or senior prov-
ince' adviser; doing the same
job 'as; a foreign service offi-
cer, an army lieutenant colo-
nel,' or an Aid man :.all of
whom serve .as provincial ad-
visers In the pacification pro-
gram.
e agency formerly had
the responsibility for inserting
Vietnamese spy teams in
North Vietnam, but the Job is
now run by the U.S. miliary.
The CIA's Involvement in
Vietnam affairs began in 1954-
55 when Edward G. Lansdale,
Approved For Release 2003/10/15 : CIA-RDP70B00338R000200200002-2
 a CIA man, first argued that
President Ngo Dinh Diem
ebuld establish a stab ov-
;rnment in that cha PIc9
rioaL
His arguments won out over
opposing views from the State
Department and military. So
the U.S. began assisting South
Vietnam.
In the late 1950s, the CIA
funded the Michigan State
University program to train
the Vietnamese police force.
The police have always been
low on the priority list here,
despite- the fact that many
ounterinsurgency experts be-
lieve that a first-rate police
good army. -
The agency also trained the
police special branch.
As one observer put it: "You
can't expect a retired Chicago
Police captain working for
AID to know much about set-
ng up intelligence networks.
o the spooks got the job."
The CIA's reputation
reached s low point In Viet-
naw an 1963 when Diem's se-
c ~ret police helped repress the
B udd'hists, and the CIA station
chief, as the director in each
cc)untry is called, drew public
criticism though President
Kennedy later commended
hi In.
There was some grumbling
at ; the time that the station
cr iief was trying to establish
hi s own foreign policy.
But that period passed, and,
Si) nee then, the four subse-
quent station chiefs have all I might decide that our person. ~ was: "If the teams are so good
worked 11
we
'* t$ S
U
i
w a
. . am-
Cn bfie ReLease02003/ 0/
took over the burden of train-
ing and arming the montag.
nards, the tribal people who
live along highland border
infiltration routes and who
were traditionally antipath.
etic to Vietnamese leadership.
Later, the montagnard train-
ing mission was turned over
to the army's special forces.
The agency's role in the
Revolutionary Development
program grew out of an expe.
riment by two energetic Amer-
icans who worked for the U.S.
Information Agency.
Working with the youth
branch of a local political
party in Quangngai province,
they gave intensive, motiva-
tional training to 30-man
groups known as PAT, or pol-
itical action teams.
W. POWREWIDOMMR4
The CIA did not want to get
involved in the Revolutionary
Development program either.
But then Dep. Ambassador
U. Alexis Johnson decided to
hand the CIA the responsibil-
ity.
"Johnson knew that if you
wanted to get a job done, you
got the agency to do it," said
an embassy man.
After that, the CIA's "par-
as"-paramilitary types-be-
gan arriving in Vietnam to
work in the program.
"I began running into guys I
hadn't seen since China,
Burma, and the Chinese off-
shore islands," one old East
Asian hand remarked.
At first the program ran
afoul of the military and Gen.
William C. Westmoreland,
then U.S. military commander
in Vietnam and now army
chief of staff.
? . "Westy refused to give them
so much as a poncho," one of-
ficial commented.
But the CIA has its own re-
sources, and the station chief
ordered mortars flown in from
Okinawa to protect the teams.
Westmoreland was nettled
by this. Losing his usual cool
at a U.S. Mission council meet-
ing, the general reportedly
asked the station chief: "What
are you bucking for, corps
commander?"
Westmoreland's view', ac-
00200200002-2
In the spring of 1966, it was
suggested that the CIA get out
of the Revolutionary Develop.
ment business and turn it over
to '5open" operators like AID
or the military.
But, by then, the station
chief had decided that not
only was the program success.
ful, but it could provide an in-
valuable tool for countering
insurgencies elsewhere.
He viewed the expertise
gained as a training machine
which could be readily shifted
to places like Thailand or the
Congo.
As one source said: "The
RD program was forced down
the agency's throat but they
didn't want to cough it up
again."
As of now, however, the De-
fense Department has taken
over funding of the RD pro-
gram, and CIA personnel at
the training centers at Vung-
tau near Saigon and Plelku in
the Central Highlands will be
replaced by military men or
AID contract employers.
"I think this is a good thing
for the agency's sake," one
U.S. official said. "If the
agency is going to survive, it
The teams were designed to
counter Vietcong activity in
the hamlets and win the peo-
ple over to the government.
They were remarkbly success.
ful in Quangngai.
Pacification experts then de-
cided to mass-produce such
teams for all of Vietnam's dif-
fering provinces.' But the job
was too delicate for the U.S.
Information Agency.
"It really wasn't our line,"
explains one USIA official.
"What if Indira Gandhi, say,
learned that the USIA was
arming Vietnamese easants
to fight other Vietnamese. She
cording to reliable source4 thing."
Whatever its successes in
the view of many observers
here, the role' of the CIA in
Vietnam emphasizes the need
within the American govern-
ment for an organization that
can effectively combat so-
called wars of national libera-
tion.
The CORDS operation is or-
ganized somewhat along such
lines. But it is a temporary ex-
pedient for Vietnam, and paci-
fication chief Robert Komer
has no referrent agency in
Washington, except the Presi-
dent.
Experienced officials here
if
Approved For Release 2003/10/15: CIA-RDP70B0033>
has to be limited to clandes-
tine operations-small, high-
caliber, short-term, high-con-
centration efforts with a mini-
mum of visbility. The RD pro-
gram was not this kind of