THE INVISIBLE FOE: NEW INTELLIGENCE PUSH ATTEMPTS TO WIPE OUT VIETCONG UNDERGROUND

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP70B00338R000200200008-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 25, 2003
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: September 5, 1968
• Content Type: NSPR

QIMIAM Q4U. 51 T =V "AL SW 61
The I visible j
New Intelligence Push
Attempts to- Wipe Out
Vietcong Underground
Elite Forces Work to Break
The Enemy `Infrastructure'
By Eliminating Leaders
By PETER R. KANN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
SAIGON-An American official boasts that
hp duped a rural Vietcong group into assassi-
rating one of its own key agents by elaborately
sowing rumors in VC circles that the man was
double agent working for the allies.
In a province near the Cambodian border,
allied intelligence discloses the planned time
and location of a VC district finance committee
meeting. Sweeping into the gathering, a special
combat police unit captures six VC tax offi-
Oials.
In a Mekong Delta province, U.S. officials
(earn that funeral rites are planned for a
senior VC official. An allied "counter-terror"
team raids the funeral and kills many of the
VC agents Present.
Cadf the visible and legal government of
South Vietnam root out the "invisible" govern-
ment, the clandestine, 80,000-member Vietcong
"infrastructure"? A new effort is under way to
do so. There is general agreement here that
the outcome of the struggle will be crucial to
the future of the nation.
Working Quietly
Officially described by U.S. authorities as
the "political and administrative organization
through which the Vietcong control or seek
control over the South Vietnamese people," the
infrastructure, or VCI, is an efficient, largely
covert organization with decades of experience
in moving among the people. Taking advantage
of family relationships and the weak grip of the
established government in remote areas, it
conducts espionage, wields terror, infiltrates
allied organizations, collects taxes, dissemi-
nates propaganda and recruits natives for its
cause.
For years allied agencies and programs
have sought to root out the VCI, with er
ernment are mounting another high-
program to coordinate their agencies
complish that task. Called Phung Hoa
Seeing Bird) in Vietnamese, the program is
known to Americans as Phoenix.
812GOO8-6
interest among some Vietnamese officials, po-
lit4 hting and skepticism among U.S.
formed source, "but we should have started it
six years ago." One observer compares the
program to "trying to root the Republican par-
ty out of Kansas."
ie Phoen t nn gram seems to have gfir,raA
The effort is imperative, however. If the
Paris peace talks produce a cease-fire, it is un-
likely that VCI activities could be turned off
with the same ease as conventional military
action. The VCI might continue as a covert po-
litical apparatus, even if the Vietcong won a
role in a new government.
Getting Together
U.S. intelligence officials define Phoenix as
"a systematic effort at intelligence coordina-
tion and exploitation." Before Phoenix, they
found that in one district 11 networks of allied
intelligence agents were operating indepen-
dently. Some observers suggested that the dis-
trict contained more paid informers and Agents
for the allied side than there were VC regulars
to spy on.
The Vietnamese government's. three major
intelligence agencies-Police Special Branch,
Military Security. Service and Army Intelli-
gence-all were at work in the district, and not
productively. Competing agencies regularly ar-
rested one another's agents, accidentally or be-
cause of political rivalries.
Phoenix works to pool the resources and in-
formation of the various agencies, with joint in-
telligence committees at the province level and
also down at the district level. American advis-
ers, including Central Intelligence Agency
men, participate in the effort to sift Informa-
tion from agents, informers, prisoners and oth-
er sources. "Exploitation" is accomplished by
military or paramilitary units that make se-
cret, small-unit missions into contested or Viet-
cong-controlled areas, usually at night.
These units prefer to capture an identified
VCI agent, since he may yield further informa-
tion, but if that is impractical, the target is as-
sassinated, sometimes brutally as an object
lesson to others. "It's a systematic, sophisticat-
ed application of force," says one American
adviser in the field. In big cities and other gov-
ernment. controlled areas, however, the pro-
gram may involve a simple arrest rather than
a kidnapping or assassination.
What happened to previous "counter-infra-
structure" programs? Combined with various
"pacification" efforts, they were pushed into
the background as the overt military conflict
escalated and the -"other war" effort lan-
guished. Moreover, pacification is a catchall
program; the complex task of tracking down
VCI cadre didn't mesh well with agricultural
aid and school-building.
A U.S. field official (who belatedly discov-
ered that his cook was a VC agent) points out a
perennial problem. "Face it," he says, "we
really can't tell who is VCI and who"isn't. The
GVN (Government of Vietnam) has fo do this
job." Some U.S. officials believe that Vietna-
mese leaders still don't realize the importance
of coming to grips with the VCI-or that they
despair of destroying it.
The Yanks Are for It
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Continued From Page One
being reported. In one province near Saigon,
pooling of intelligence In the past two months
has produced the capture or assassination of
six members of the VC province committee,
three VC district chiefs, nine other VC district
officials and 31 village or hamlet cadre.
Trained cadre, particularly senior ones at the
province level, are difficult for the VC to re-
place.
In a province north of Saigon, Phoenix irs
credited with 145 VCI captives and casualties
in June. Earlier this year, when the program
hadn't gained momentum, the usual toll was
about 20 a month.
In one province near the Demilitarized
Zone, Phoenix is reported to have been so suc-
cessful that the enemy has had to replace local
VCI cadre with North Vietnamese; the agents
from the North necessarily would have less
rapport with the natives than their native-born
predecessors. In another northern province of
South Vietnam, the VC are. said to have formed
a special committee to try to rebuild their shat-
tered apparatus.
Nationally, some 6,000 VCI cadre have been
captured or killed since the Tet holiday in Feb-
ruary, according to allied sources. Still, says
one informed source, "We're kidding ourselves
if we think we've hurt them much yet."
Indeed, in,many provinces Phoenix remains
largely a paper project. In one central high-
lands province, there are two provincial intel-
ligence committees, neither one of them func-
tioning. The program is paralyzed by competi-
~,tion between the province chief and the prow-
lnce police chief.
At the district level in the same province,
,,the situation is no better. "We have three
* DIOCs (District Intelligence and Operations
.Centers) in the province," says one source.
"One shows signs of promise. One is headed by
an incompetent. The third is headed by a sus-
pected VC."
Mutual distrust among intelligence agencies
remains a problem. "Partly. it's endemic
- among intelligence agencies in any country,"
says one American source. "Intelligence agen-
cies are by nature exclusive. They don't want
'to reveal their sources. We. have the problem,
`too." In Vietnam, the problem is compounded
' by personal political rivalries and the conspira-
torfal nature of Vietnamese.
Keeping It From the Enemy
Also, the Vietcong have been skillful at per-
meating many of the government's Intelligence
. agencies. Thus, while American agencies seek
to have the government share its secrets, it is
' questionable if the Americans share their own
best information.
Another difficulty: Vietnamese intelligence
agencies traditionally have been instruments 9f
internal military and political intrigue, particu-
larly in the days when the late President
Diem's brother-in-law, Ngo Dinh Nhu, headed
the police apparatus. But Gen. Nguyen Ngoc
Loan, chief of the national police until he was
wounded a few months ago, also was a master
intriguer. Political involvements don't make
for efficient intelligence work.
Because of incompetence or indifference
among many regular Vietnamese military
units in carrying out "exploitation" missions,
U.S. advisers recently have been relying on
"PRUs" (Provincial Reconnaissance Units) of
18 men each to make strikes on VCI targets.
The PRUs are more American than Viet-
namese. Chosen, trained, paid and operated by
the CIA, they are highly trained mercenaries,
often selected from Vietnam's minority groups,
such as Chinese Nungs and Cambodians, or
from Vietcong agents who have defected. Their
operations often are led by elite U.S. Navy
"Seal" commandos assigned to the CIA. " I
The PRUs have been an effective strike'
force, but the most logical exploitation force
would be native units such as Popular Force
troops-platoon-sized groups recruited and em-
ployed at the village level. These troops
know their localities and often know the
identities of VCI agents. But the PF troops long
have been the most poorly trained, equipped
and led Vietnamese units. And many district
officials, envisaging harsh VC reprisals to ex-
ploitation strikes, would just as soon have the
strikes made by outside forces like the PRUs.
Indeed, some veteran U.S.,officials fault the
American effort for naively failing to take local
complexities into account. Many U.S. advisers
are youthful Army lieutenants or captains, and
others also lack experience. One arriving colo-
nel, having received a long briefing on the
"counter-infrastructure program," is said to
have asked, "Where is this structure, any-
way?"
Some officials in the field complain of de.
mands from Saigon for numerical results
("How many VCI did you kill this month?").
They argue that the pressure for "results"
leads to strikes against low-level VCI rather
than the key; elusive officials in the enemy ap-
paratus. However, a senior official in Saigon
says, "We are interested in quality, not quanti-
ty. We want the hard-core cadre."
A 'few veteran officials complain that the
counter-infrastructure effort, isn't being pur-
sued with enough subtlety. Rather than captur-
ing or killing VCI cadre, they say, Phoenix
should focus on the ise of secret agents to infil-
trate VCI cells and turn them against one an-
other. Some success has been reported in such
enterprises.
Another source suggests that to root out the
VCI the allies will have to develop their own
clandestine "counter-infrastructure"-a per-
manent presence rivaling and eventually over-
coming that of the VC in contested and VC-con-
trolled -areas.
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