A BAD DEAL THAT MAY NOT WORK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01601R001000170001-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 71
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 29, 2000
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 30, 1972
• Content Type: NSPR

NEW YORE: REVIEW OF BOORS
Approved. For Release 200149a/R6v: 9,-R7D-F14TARIO1
r A Bad. Deal thatLr 77,7
kl?0 .
L F. Stone
?Washington
The pending cease-fire agreement, as so
far disclosed by Hanoi and Washington,
is like a delicate watch, intricately
fabricated to make sure it won't work.
No agreement ever had so many in-
genious provisions calculated to keep it
from succeeding. If by chance one
'spring doesn't break down, there is
another in reserve that almost surely
will, and if by some unforeseen mishap
that one also Should work, there is still
another which will certainly go blooey
?
sooner or later..
The fragility of the agreement to
.end the second Indochinese war is put
.in better focus if one compares_it with
the dease-fire which .ended the first, at
Geneva in .1954. The only signed
document that. emerged from the
Geneva conference was a cease-fire
agreement between the military com-
mands on both sides. It was accom-
panied by a final declaration which
nobody signed f and to which the
nUnited States and the separate state
the. French. had created in the south
objected; then as now the puppet was
more obdurate than the master. -
The first ? Indochinese war ended, as
the second seems to be doing, with a
cease-fire but no political settlement.
The prime defect, the "conceptual"
flaw, ,to borrow a favorite word of
Kissinger's, lay in the effort to end a
profoundly political struggle without a
political settlement. A cease-fire then,
.as now, left ,the political problem
unresolved and thus led inevitably to a
resumption of the conflict. It will be a
miracle if the new cease-fire does not
breed ? another, a third, Indochines.e
war. . ?
A political . solution was left to
mafiana 'and "free elections." But the
-Geneva cease-fire agreement, . dis-
appointing as its results proved to be,
was far more precise in its promise of
free elections than is the new cease-
fire. It set a firm date?July, 1956?for
the balloting; specified that the purpose
of the elections was "to bring about
the unification of Vietnam"; provided
for the release within thirty days not
only of POWs but of "civilian in-
... all persons who, having in any
way contributed to the pOlitical
and armed struggle between the
two parties, have been arrested for
that reason and have been kept in
detention by either party during
the period of hostilities.' _
Nobody 'knows how many thousands
of political prisoners are in Thicu's
jails. The most famous is.Truong Dinh
Dzu, the peace candidate who came in
The
new
cease-fire agreement gives him
far more power than he would have
had under the proposals he and Nixon
made jointly in January. Under Point 3
of those proposals, there was to have
been "a free and deniocratic presi-
dential [my italics] election" in South
Vietnam within six months. One
month before the election, Thieu and
his vice president were to resign. The
president of the senate was to head a
caretaker government which would "as-
sume administrative responsibilities ex-
second in the 1967 presidential elec-.cept for those pertaining to the elec-
tion, the first and only contested one.
Thicu's most notorious instrument for
these round-ups was 'Operation Phoe-
nix, which the CIA ran for him. A
Saigon Ministry of Information pam-
phlet, Vietnam 1967-71: Toward Peace
and Prosperity, boasts that Operation
Phoenix killed 40,994 militants and
activists during those years.2 These are
the opposition's civilian troops, the
Cadres without which organizational
effort in any free election would be?
crippled. Arrests have been intensified
in preparation for a cease-fire.
The fate of the pcilitical prisoners
figured prominently in the peace nego-
tiations. The seven-point program put.
forward by the other side in July of
last year called for the dismantling of
Thieu's concentration. camps and the
release of all political prisoners. The
eight-point proposal put forward by
Washington and 'Saigon last -January
left their fate in doubt. It called for
the simultaneous release of all POWs
and "innocent civilians captured
throughout Indochina." The ambiguous
phrasing seemed designed to .exclude
politicals since these were neither -"cap-
tured" nor, in 'the eyes of the Thieu
regime, "innocent."
The new cease-fire terms do not
bother with such ambiguity. Dr. Kissin-
ger in his press conference of October
26 seemed to take satisfaction in
the fact that the return of US
POWs "is not conditional on the
'disposition of Vietnamese prisoners in
Vietnamese jails." Their future, he
explained, Will be determined "through
negotiations among. the South Viet-
namese parties," i.e., between Thieu
and the PRG. So the politicals will
stay in jail until Thieu agrees to let
them out. This may easily coincide
tions" (my italics).
Administrative responsibility for the
election, according to those Nixon-
hieu terms, was to be taken out of
the hands of the Saigon regime and
put in those of a -specially created
electoral commission "organized. and
run by .an independent body repro-
senting all political forces in South.
Vietnam which will assume its re-
sponsibilities on the date of the agree-
ment."3
_ Finally the joint proposals of last
January indicated that the electoral
commission would be free from the
inhibitions of the Thieu constitution,
.under which communist and neutralist
candidates can be declared ineligible.
According to those proposals, "All
political forces in South Vietnam can
participate in the election and present
candidates."
How much weaker is the setup
under the new cease-fire agreement.
There is no provision for Thieu's
resignation .before. the election. The
existing government is no longer ex-
cluded_ from responsibility in holding
the elections; no clear line is drawn
between what the Thieu government
can do and what an electoral commis-
sion will do: what happens if the latter.
is reduced to observing the irregu-
larities of the former? Thieu will
continue to be in control of the army
and the police, and there is no way to
keep him from using them to harass
the Opposition and herd the voters.
Instead of an electoral commission,
the new .agreement would set up a
tripartite Council of National Recon-
ciliation and Concord for much the
ternees"; ApprOvedrFitie Releets61CliniffpWit A-R R01.601R001000170001,5
Political prisoners 1;y defining civilian us is on y one b- tie man 0P?9- 002".!..
internees as vetoes by which Thieu can block free
plortinnq and a nnlitiral cottlerne.nl_
Approved
Li Li:11U) IATI
29 NOV 1972 STATIN
For Release 2001103/04 : CIA-RDP80-01601
Washington against ttie Democratic
'Republic of Vietnam in the early 1960's, as
documented in the Pentagon Papers, but.
which provided few details. ?The present
program, apparently undergoing a partial
"Vietnamization," is an outgrowth of the
!. original escalation of CIA-Special Forces.
missions in Indochina ordered by the
Kennedy administration.
Although the Post Dispatch does not
mention the CIA, it is clear that Studies and
Observations Group is a CIA operation. The
informant most knowledgeable about SOG,
a Special Forces officer, was described by
correspondent Meyer as fearful of being
jailed or fined, saying: "If I talked to you and
got caught, I could get 10 years in prison and
a $10,000 fine." ?
The Special Forces officer said that the
connections beiween Command and Control
and the `MAC-V SOG' organization in
Saigon were so highly classified that we
would not risk commenting on them," wrote
Meyer. .
Despite his reluctance to talk the officer
explained that the Command and Control
operations were "formally" under the
direction of the Fifth Special Forces Group
until January 1971, when the Fifth Special
Forces officially Was described as having
been withdrawn from Vietnam. Actually,
according to Meyer, "numerous Fifth
Special Forces were left behind at Command
and Control bases. throughout South
Vietnam" and various efforts were employed
to conceal their continued presence. They
were forbidden to wear.the green beret and
Special Forces insignia while they remained
in Indochina. ..
Symbolic of the Command and Control
operations, was a gestapo-like insignia, used
by one of the units, a green-bereted .skull
with blood dripping from its teeth. This Was
the emblem of Command and Control
Central. There were at least two other main
units, Command and Control North and
Command and Control South. The North,
Central and South referred to the base areas
of the commando teams.
Apparently most of the operations under
the Command and Control program, at least
in recent years, took place in southern Laos.
However, after the U.S.-Saigon invasion of
Cambodia and subsequent Congressional
prohibition against use of ? U.S. ground
troops in Cambodia, it is safe to assume that
the secret U.S. missions were increased in
the latter country.
?
Airborne bandits
Typically, Command and Control missions
comprised several U.S. officers or NCO's
commanding a mercenary team ,which
would land in Laos or Cambodia, and
"aimed at taking prisoners, gathering in-
formation and disrupting communist ac-
tivities." The commandos would be tran-
sported in four helicopters, while four
helicopter gunships would. provide air cover,
ogitifiticra ft
atala 1
4W&
the forward air controller, were also in-
volved in missions.
By Richard E. Ward
Secorutof a series
Clandestine sabotage,' combat and
espionage missions have been conducted in
Laos and Cambodia by U.S. military per?
sonnel, despite White House denials and
contrary to congressional prohibition.
, Such missions are top-secret actions
directed by the Studies and, Observations
Group of the U.S. Army Military Assistance
Command, Vietnam, located in Saigon and
'generally known by its initials, MAC-V
SOG. The most comprehensive picture of
these activities available, based on testimony
of former participants in these missions,
known as Command and Control operations,
is contained in a series of three articles by
Gerald Meyer, published in the Nov. 5, 10
and 12 issues of the St. Louis Post Dispatch.
Unless otherwise indicated all material in
this article is based on the articles by Meyer,
a regular staff member of the Post Dispatch,
who interviewed former Special Forces
members, helicopter pilots and others who.
took part in the Command and Control
operations during the 1960s and into 1972.
The Post Dispatch's informants, whose
names were not revealed to protect them
from possible prosecution, stated that the
clandestine commando raids were still in
progress as of August. One informant said
. that in August when he left Bien Hoa, one of
? the Command and Control bases, more than
100 Army Special Forces were stationed
there and reinforcements were being sent
from Okinawa.
? The commando raid? in recent years,
utilizing Army personnel who generally
command teams composed of mercenaries
from Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam,
were also sent into North Vietnam and
liberated areas of South Vietnam. There is
evidence that the Air Force has operational
? jurisdiction over a similar program based at
Nakon Phanon, Thailancl,]ust Across the
Laotian boApproved For Release
Commando raids were ordered by
pec1F korces tranr who par-
ticipated in Command and Control raids
from Danang, said he had taken part in
missions in North Vietnam, Laos and
Cambodia. "He said they were for the
purpose of gathering intelligence, rescuing
ether American missions threatened by
North Vietnamese forces, destroying
supplies and disrupting enemy com-
munications facilities."
Command and Control Central, operating
ut of Dakto and Kontum, near the tri-
border area of South Vietnam and Laos and
Cambodia, was used for raids deep within
the two latter countries.
"A Special Forces soldier formerly
assigned to Command and Control Central
said that the group's missions were handled
by about 150 Americans and from 300 to .100
Montagnard tribesmen. Men participating in
missions first were transported to Dakto and
then sent by helicopter across the borders,
he said.
"The missions were rotated among the
men and casualties were severe, the man
said.... Such teams usually included two or
three American leaders and about half a
dozen Montagnards.
"Dakto was the starting point also for
large 'hatchet forces,' with larger nurnbers of
Americans and Montagnards. . . .
"Less frequently?apparently only about
once every six months?very large groups of
Americans were sent across the borders on
so-called Slam (Search, locate and an-
nihilate) missions. More than 100 men
sometimes participated in such missions....
"Some penetrations into Laos apparently
were quite deep. Both the Special Forces '
(two of Meyer's informants) said the U.S:
operated a radio relay station on a mountain
top about 30 miles inside Laos.
'This station, called the 'Eagle's Nest,' was
used to transmit messages between South
Vietnam and Command and Control teams
operating beyond the mountain top in the
Laotian countryside."
The radio station, whose _exact location
was not specified, could have been located
near the Bolovens plateau, in Southern Laos,
where the Pathet Lao told this correspon-
dent in 19'70 there was a secret U.S. base.
The Pathet Lao liberation forces captured
STATI NTL
R001000170001-5
U. OF CALIF.
Approved For Release 2001/p6M4 Palk-RD1480-01601R
27 Nov 1972
STATINTL
.,-,..monsteation Threat
The threat of a demonstration
has forced the Central Intelligence
Agency to cancel a recruiting ses-
sion here, a spokesman for the
Union for Radical . Political
Economics (URPE) said yesterday.
The recruiting sessiOn was ori?
ginally scheduled for today in the
economics department, but was
'officially cancelled last Tuesday
when a sign appeared in the depart-
ment saying the recruiter would
not be meeting with students, the
spokesman said.
He. said the CIA had not re-
cruited directly' in the .economics
department for the past few 'years.
Angered by this year's scheduled
C
recruitment in the department it-
self, "some graduate students felt
they had to express their disagree-
ment with -the CIA," the spokes-
man said.
Leaflets were distributed by
URPF, calling for a demonstration
today outside the office in which
the recruiter was' scheduled to meet
with students. Because of the
cancellation notice, the URPE
demonstration was also cancelled.
According. to the URPE spokes-
man, an unnamed source in the
economics department revealed to
the radical group that the CIA can-
celled ? the recruiting session be-
cause of the planned demon-
ff
C7) Sig IT 6, 14
stration.
"Those of us in URPE wish. to
register our disgust at the eco-,
nomics department's complicity
with an agency that engages in
activities such as political assassina-
tion, hero in trafficking, and the
overthrow of progressive govern-
mentstaround the world,"Iie said.
G.F. Break, chairman of the eco-
nomics department, called the stu-
dent pressure "entirely unjustified."
Robert Decker, assistant to the
chairman in the economics depart-
ment, said the recruiter will meet
with department administrators, to
discuss placement for economics
studentsin the CIA.
Approved For Release 2001/03/04: CIA-RDP80-01601R001000170001-5
LIALLUNALt GUARDIAN
1 5 NOV 1972
Approved For Release 2001/03/04 : CIA-RDP80-01
Made in U.S.A.
By Michael T. Ware
Under the terms of the.. peace settlement announced by the on the Saigon government. .
Democratic Reptkblic of Vietnam and Presidential advisor Henry Since I 962,110,A eNer, the U.S. has financed a sixfold increase in
Kissinger on Oct. 2'0. all U.S. military personnel are to be withdrawn NP strength?to 114,000 men on Jan. 1. 1972: 11.S, support of the Ni'
. from South Vietnam within 60 days of the signing of the agreement. under the MD program amounted to 585 million between 1901 tint! ?
? Although many pros isions of the treaty require clarification, the 1971 and additional millions of dollars were provided by the
impression one gets from reading the published text is that the Department of Defense under Vietmun war zipproprizttions. The
entire U.S. warmaking machinery will be remmed from Indochina. cost or the phoenix program, estimated at $732 million. is totally .
- It is for this reason that documents recently acquired by the borne by the CIA.
. 'Guardian on the U.S. "Public Sztfety" program are cntuse for special ? It is clear, front the dOcuments made a' UI to the GutirditAn,
concern. ' that U.S. aid to the Saigon police apparatus may well increase in
These documents, the Agency for International Development's - future years. if the battle shifts to a political struggle .between Thieu
(AID'S) "Program and Project Presentation to the Congress" for and his Markt opponents. In the preface to the Fiscal Year (FY)
(--, fiscal 1972 and 1973. indicate that 'Washington would like to 1972 AID presentation, it was stated that:
t maintain an elaborate poliee-support apparatus in Vietnam for "As one aspect of Victnamization, the Vietnamese National
some time to come. . .
Police are called upon to carry a progressively greater burt.in. 11,e'.,
? This apparatus, supervised by AID's Office of Public Safety in the must share with the Vietnamese armed forces the burden of
. State Departhrent. is administered as part of the foreign aid Countering insurgency and provide for daily peace and order?not
program and thus is not identified as a military program. Ne i' only in the cities, but throughout the countryside. It is planned to -
theless. the Public Safety program is directly tied to the war effort. increase police strength from about 100,000 at present to 124,000
and is considered a major part of Operation Phoenix?the CIA's during Fiscal 1972. to allow assumption of a greater burden in the
effort to destroy the political structure of the National Liberation future. The U.S. plans to make commensurate assistance av tillable."
Front (in Pentagon parlance. the "Viet Cong Infrastructure." or
VCD. . Safety Specifically, AID listed these "activity targets" for the Public
program in FY 1972:
? According to the AID documents, which the Vietnamese are no"Provision of commodityand ad
advisory support for a' police force
doubt ,aware of. the purpose of the program is to assist "the Viet- of 122,000 men?by the end of FY 1972, increasing the capability of
namese National Police (NP) to maintain law and order and local
the police to neutralize the Viet C01112, infrastructure in coordination
security in pacified .areas. combat smaller VC elements and deny with ; ,
other Government of Vietnam security agencies (under
resources to the enemy." An added function is to help Saigon Operation .Phoenix): assisting the National Identity Registration
dictator Nguyen Van Thiel' consolidate his control of urban areas
Program (NIRP) to register more than 12.000,000 persons 15 years
by suppressing dissent and crushing all opposition to the Saigon
of age and titer by the end of 1971; continuing to provide basic and
regime. specialized training for approximately 20,000 police annually:
"The -development of an effective National Police and the in.
pros iding technical assistance to t he police detention system.
stitutionalization of jaw enforcement," AID reports. "are important including ,e p , ;
Itttannmg and supervision of the construction of 34 jail.
elements in pacification and long-term national development." facilities during 1971; and helping to achic?e a major increase in the
Launched in 1955 ? number of police presently working at the l illage let el."
The Public Safety program in South Vietnam was launched in The Fiscal 1973 program sets the same merall objectiv es: but
1955, when 33 American police instructors arrived in Saigon under calls for a vast increase in the number of NP officers assigned to the
the cover of the Michigan State University Group (MSUG) to train village police posts?front 11,000 in 1972 to 31,000 by the end of
Ngo Dinh Diem's palace guard and secret police in modern 1973, . . .
counterinsurgency techniques, . To finance this masske effort during the FY 1971-1973 period,
In 1902, the program ?? as expanded under President Kennedy's AID asked Congress for an appropriation of 517.9 million, of v,hich
orders, and administrative responsibility shifted to the U.S. $13.0 -million'would pay the salaries of the nearly 200 Public Safety
Operations Mission. In 1967, as the pace of the U.S. war effort was Advisors. 53.3 million would go ?for commodities OD ss stems.
accelerated, Public Safety operations were placed under Pentagon radios, patrol cars, tear gas, etc.), and $013,000 IA ould be used for
jurisdiction through the Ci il ' Operations .and Res ohitionary training several hundred Saigon police Officers in the ll .S. and other
Development Support program (CORDS). "third countries."
,
The resident U.S. police staff was enlarged with each of these
administrativi: changes: begUining with a staff of six men in 1959
the Public saappritaeal touReleasei2001103/04d LCIA-RDP80-01601R001000170001 -5
190 in 1972. cont. 1. rme,d
STATI NTL
Thesi"Public Safety Advisors," recruited primarily from the FBI,
the CIA and military police units, work closely with the National
Police Directorate and Internal Security Bureau in Saigon, the
National Police "Special Branch" (political police). and sk ith
Operation Phoenix personnel assigned to the hundreds of provincial
and district "interrogation centers" where political suspects are
routinely be and tortured before being shipped to Con. Son
prison island.
. These advisory activities are accompanied by lavish subsidies and
-grants of police materiel, a Inch have turned the South Vietnamese
police apparatus into one of the largest and most heavily-armed
paramilitary forces in the v.odd. Under Diem, the National Police
force numbered only 19.000 men?a number which at dint time W. as
considered sufficient to justify pinning the label of a "police state"
mat .LVL Jali..7
5 NOV 1972 STATINTL
? ?-Approvecrr7orRetease-2001/03/. 04 :C-IA.-R-13P-80-01-6.01
tore ofVietcong Surviving,
ar
? :.settlement and turn the mill-
By FOX BUTTERFIELD tary struggle into a political
seam to The New York Times
; SAIGON, South Vietnam, Nov.
4--Despite years of fighting
struggle.
The analysts say that Hanoi
this year carefully preserved
that have largely shattered- the its cadre of secret agents in
Vietcong guerrillas, the Corn-' Government-controlled areas by
munists in South Vietnam have ;not trying to stir popular un-
managed to preserve the core risings to accompany the of-
of their political apparatus fensive. During the Communist
with what many well-informed
Tet offensive of 1968, thou-
Vietnamese and American Of
; sands of cadremen were killed
ficialS believe to be a dedicated when they came out in the
cadre of 40,000 to 60,000. I open to lead what they thought
Those knowledgeable sourees, would be mass revolts.
feel that the Vietcong political: As one Intelligence officer
?
organization will pose a formid-
able threat to the Saigon Gov-
ernment under a cease-fire. The
organization is spread through-
-nut the country and includes
iocal village operatives, secret
agents in Government-control-
led areas- and political officers
explained Hanoi's 1972 policy:
"The war was a stalemate that
neither side could win. They
figured that if they could get
the United States out, they
stood a better chance ? of - win--
fling the peace."
Some high-ranking American
among the guerrillas, who form military .
and intelligence of-
the-Vietcong's military arm. ficers, however, do not agree
The continued existence of
the Vietcong's political appara-
tus appears to be a major rea-
son why President Nguyen-Van been transmitted authoritatively
Thieu and many other Viet-!to Washington, is that the
namese are nervous about the communists are badly weak-
peace settlement worked out by encd militarily and politically
Hanoi and Washington. and are practically suing for
that the Vietcong have main-I
tamed political strength: This
view, which is known to have
-"The Vietcong have lost peace'
many _of their best cadre and Whatever the case, there is
no doubt that the Vietcong, or
they aren't 10 feet tall any National Liberation Front?the
more," said an American with Communists never refer to
a decade of experience in_anea. themselves as Vietcong? are
nam. "But their organization!, weaker in some ways than they
the American went on, "is built were in 1965, when they came
close to taking over the coun-
on the hard bedrock of dis- try without large-scale North
cipline . and shared sacrifices: Vietnamese help, The North
The survivors are tough." Vietnamese invasion this spring
A '72 Tactic: Restraint ? indicates that.
Militarily, intelligence sources
One of the clearest indica- report,
tions of the continued strength to rely on North Vietnamese
of the Communist political ap. troops to keep the traditional
paratus is that despite the in- Vs tireetnc o tnhgguerrilla units up to
In
tensive fighting this year, the me famous bat-
taliongs with Vietcong names,
number of defections from the only the guides and a few of
Communist ranks is half that the officers are native south-
of last year. There have been erners, the intelligence sources
8,237 defectors so far this year, say.
against nearly 16,000 at this sa.__M,preover American analysts
tune in '1971.. . say ,Moreover
independence
the southern Vietcong once had
" To intelligence analysts, this has been lost over the years
suggests a high level of disci- as Hanoi has taken control.
pith:0 among the Vietcong, and Political Links Strong
confidence that they are win-
ning. Some American analysts
now say, in fact, that Hanoi's
strategy this year wasglesigned
:to ? take advantage of the
;Communist political strength.
With its vast offensive, employ-
Jug North Vietnamese, troops, ly Inched out as the Central
!Hanoi hopedApptiovellaRcrik
(e I eas $102001403i0
The Vietcong cadremen are
almost all members of the Peo-
ple's Revolutionary party, the
southern branch of Lao Dong,
the North Vietnamese Commu-
nist party, and reportedly get
their orders through the agency
known as COSVN. This, usual-
would be better translated as
the Central Committee's Office
for South Vietnam, American
intelligence sources say.
The office is believed to
be located in Kratie Province
in northeastern Cambodia, a
sparsely populated and heavily
forested region long -tinder
Communist control. The top
officials, most of whom are
thought to be North Vietna-
mese, are the leaders of the
People's Revolutionary party
and also members of .Hanoi's
elite Politburo or of the larger
Central Committee, according
to American analysts.
For example, Phan Hung,
who is believed to be the head
of the office, is also the ruling
secretary of the party and a
member of the Hanoi Politburo.
Ile is a North Vietnamese. His
second-in-command, who uses
the psuedonym of Muoi Cue,
Is also a northerner and a mem-
ber of the Central Committee.
American officials pay that
the Vietcong's titular leaders
such as Nguyen 'Hun Tho,
chairman of the front, or
Huynh Tan Phat, the Secre-
tary General of the front, have
become. progressively less pow-
erful.
Most experts agree that one
reason for the Vietcong's mili-
tary decline is the enormous'
? shift of South Vietnam's pop-
ulation away from the country-
:side and into safe urban areas
to escape the war. At least a
third of South Vietnam's vil-
lagers are estimated to have
:left their homes, often depriv-
dng Vietcong units of bases for
recruitment, supplies or taxa-
tion.
Some allied oficials are con-
cerned that this trend may be
reversed under a cease-fire and
that thousands of villagers may
come home ? providing- the
Vietcong with a renewed source
of power.'
But no matter how badly the
Vietcong have been hurt mili-
terily, several recent American
studies have shown that their
political organization remains
intact.
The organization withstood
the vaunted Phoenix program,
established by the Central In-
telligence Agency in 1967 spe-
cifically to eliminate the Viet-.
cong cadre. Though more than
20,000 were killed under the
Phoenix program and another
40,000 jailed or persuaded to
defect, officials connected with
it admit frankly that it has
been a failure.
A recent study for the Rand
Corporation found that in
Dinhtuong Province, in the.
e ong
la; t e ietcong ave pre-i
served a core of about five
cadremen per village. "Despite:
the decline in military cepa- i
bilities," the study said, in I
part, "the N.L.F. in Dinhtuong,
has managed to keep the nu-,
delis of its movement intact."
The study also found a large
measure of "latent support"'
for the Vietcong among vil-
lagers. This continuing sym-
pathy for the Communists, the
study reported, was not in evi-
dence where the Saigon Gov-
ernment forces were strong,
Mt it could easily reappear,
should Saigon weaken.
:I For example, the study noted
that before the 1968 Tet offen-
sive, many Vietnamese and
American officials thought that
the t g in Dinhtuong
1;were on their way to defeat.
:13ut, once the Communists gave
!their sudden order to attack,
ralmost the entire rural pop-
luilation in the province was
'mobilized and coordinated in
support of the attack," the
study concluded.
The highest cadre concentra-
tion, according to Vietnamese
and United States intelligence
estimates, is 25.000 in the Me-
kong delta, Milite in/ Region JV.
These sources report that the
second largest 1-0.?luoer of Viet-
cong, about 1500, are in the
Central Highlands and central
coast, known as Military Re-
gion II, and most of them are
concentrated in Di uhd inh, Prov-
ince.
, The situation in the north-
iernmost region of South Viet-
nam. Military Region 1, has
,been complicated this year by
Ithe invasion across the demili-
tarized zone and by the North
Vietnamese reportedly taking
'large numbers of people north
for indoctrination.
The area around Saigon,
Military Region III, has always
had the lowest number of Viet-
cong cadre, analysts say, be-
cause of the numbers and alert-
ness of, the Government police
in the capital. But while there
are fewer than 10,000 Commu-
nist party members and cadre-
men in the Saigon area, they
are said to be the best in tho
country. ?
Over the last few year's, the.
Vietcong organization in the
city of Saigon has appeared' to,.
e steadily-losing power. De-
spite orders in captured Com-
munist documents calling for
terrorist acts in Saigon this
fall,' in the past month there
were only three very minor in-
cidents. The Saigon city ap-
paratus is also reported to have.
been criticized for failing to
produce its quota of taxes and.
supplies.
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NATIQNAL GUARDIAN
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117717
By Richard E. Ward
A congressional subcommittee has
charged the Pentagon with failure to
investigate charges of war crimes
carried'out under the U.S.-sponsored
Phoenix program in South Vietnam.
The criticism of the Pentagon was
made in a report by the House of
Representatives Foreign Operations
and Government Information sub-
committee, which noted that many of
the so-called "Vietcong" killed under
the Phoenix "pacification" program
were innocent civilians, The report
also expressed reservations about
U.S. support for a program that
"allegedly included torture, murder
and inhumane treatment of South
.Vietnamese civilians."
. The report, not approved for public
release by the parent Government
Operations. Committee, ? was sum-
marized in an Oct. 3 UPI dispatch.
According to the news agency, the
Department of Defense refused to
investigate the charges when they
were brought to the attention of high
officials.
Public release of the cautiously
worded subcommittee report has
apparently been delayed because
members of the full committee are
less than enthusiastic about con-
fronting the issue of U.S. war crimes.
In July 1971 at the time of hearings
that constituted the basis for the
report, two subcommittee members,
Rep. Ogden R. Reid (D-N.Y.) and Rep.
Paul McCloskey (R-Calii.) charged
? outright that the Phoenix program
had been responsible for "in-
discriminate killings" and the illegal
imprisonment of thousands in South
-Vietnam. ,
In September of this year, during a
hearing before the Senate Refugee
rf
Lhi Friffk n r, AriTlare
?
JUA
L.Y.1
subcommittee, a top Defense
Department official described the: ?
Phoenix. program as an intelligence
operation. He was challenged by Sen.
Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) in a
surprisingly sharp interchange..
Kennedy asked how the more than
20,000 "Vietcong" were killed and the
witness insisted that the deaths oc-
curred during "military" operations.
'Intelligence operation'? _
During the 1971 -hearings the in August 1971 by K. Barton Cisborn,
House subcommittee heard testimony / who served as an intelligence agent
? from William E. Colby who headed the V assigned to provide information to the
"pacification" effort from mid-1968 to Marines and who also worked for the
mid-1971. Colby stated that under the CIA Phoenix program. Based in
Phoenix program 20,587 members of Danang, Osborn supervised agent
the "Vietcong" infrastructure" were . networks for 15 months beginning in
killed from 1968 through May 1971. 1967. .
Colby, who had been a top CIA of- Osborn contradicted Colby's
ficial before serving in Saigon on disclaimers of direct U.S. respon-
assignment from the White House, sibility for the Phoenix program and
insisted that the Phoenix program was made it clear that U.S. personnel
"entirely a South Vietnamese participated in murders and tortures.
operation," although he conceded it He said U.S. "advisors" were really
had been originated by the CIA. directing the program.
Colby tried to portray the U.S. role Osborn also desCribed atrocities he
as primarily an "advisory" one, but he witnessed, including seeing Viet-
also admitted that U.S. personnel namese pushed from helicopters, a
participated in the naming of suspects practice known as "airborne in-
and the capture of prisoners. Ad- ' terrogations." He also described how
mitting "occasional" abuses?the Marine intelligence offi:ers held a
assassination of civilians?had oc- Vietnamese woman prisoner in a small
curred, Colby stated that "we put a cage at their headquarters and
stop to this nonsense" in collaboration starved her to death, refusing to give
with the Saigon authorities, her either food or water.
With a facade of candor, Colby's ' These and other examples given by
testimony actually was riddled with Osborn provide only a small glimpse of
lies about the Phoenix program, which the war crimes committed by the U.S.
was initiated under President in South Vietnam. The atrocities were
Johnson and expanded by the Nixon an intrinsic part of the Phoenix
administration. Essentially,' the program directed by the highest U.S.
Phoenix program attempted to authorities on White House orders.
identify and then assassinate cadres Obviously the Defense Department is
of the National Liberation Front, the not going to investigate these war
political leaders on a local level of the crimes.
j.
49
.1 I Tiin 1 77
anti-U.S. resistance in South Vietnam.
The program had access to secretOs
-CIA ,funds as well as large ap-
propriations from the U.S. military and
economic assistance programs.
Assassination teams of mercenaries
and U.S. agents who compiled lists of
persons to be assassinated were
secretly, funded.
These aspects of the Phoenix
program were revealed in testimony ?
before the same House subcommittee
STATI NTL
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S 17482
Approved For Release 2001/03/04: CIA-WB&--64601R
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD ? SENATE
cc :id(try,
presumably Including napalm-
-
type weapons which the U.S. has defined as
being outside the 1925 Geneva Protocol. Then
there is $7.3-mill1011 for "l"tiscellaneous De-
fensive Equipment," a category that received
only $900,000 in 1070. Obviously, these vague
categories can conceal a multitude of mate-
rials.
(Anyone who doubts the military capa-
city for blatant evasion of Presidential di-
rectives might refer to an official government
history, Science aNd the Air Force, published
In 1960. At. one time, the book points out, the
Bureau of the Budget decreed that the Air
Force could no longer ape-net money on basic
research, Research spending was continued
nonetheless?by charging the costs off to de-
velopment of a new bomber. "For all the
Budget Bureau knew," the book gloats, "the
S4 7-million it approved was for research eon-
sist Mg that its own inspectors, or perhaps an
International group, have the right to con-
duct on-the-spot checks of compliance. Yet
back home, the Pei'. government seems un-
concerned about verifying whether its army
is In foot abiding by Presidential directives
to engage only in "defensive" research. The
Executive's desregarcl for Congress in nnli-
tary and foreign affairs has been to thor-
oughly demonstrated as to eliminate any
realistic prospect for defective Congressional
scrutiny, When Congress has questioned the
military use of weather, modification in
Southeast Asia, for example, Defense's long-
standing reply has been, in effect, that it is
none of your business.
If there is ever an inspection agreement
with the Soviets on Cl3W, it will have an ?
ironic benefit: The American public will have
reason to believe government accounts of
riveted with the developinent of this aircraft, what is going on in U.S. military laboratories.
clearly Within the realm of applied research--
)
.11...311311 W ir?
But, in reality, this money was handed over
?
to Ona (Office of Scientific Research) to use, , AID TO THIRD'
*is prijinally planned, for basic research.")
- 'While Mr. Nixon /Div.,' well be credited Mr. GRAVEL. Mr. President, there has
with cautious good intentions concerning- been a great deal of controversy over
C13W, the military apparently is having whether or not the United States should
trouble kicking the habit, It is puzzling that continue its programs of military and
the administration itself chooses to inter- economic aid to the South Vietnamese
pret the 1923 Geneva Protocol as exempting Government of President Nguyen Van
tear gases and herbicides; in this regard Thicu. It is a question of centr-iil impor-
McGeorge Bundy, in the course of hle is conthat -
tance to the peace negotiations in Paris,
tinning, descent from the hawkish ro ,
he occupied as President Johnson's national and the answer finally given will be cru-
security adviser, told the Senate Foreign cial to the .direction U.S. foreign policy
Relations Committee in March 1971: following in the future.
"useful as herbicides and tear gas have In spite of the great importance the
been in particular situations in Southeast resolution of this issue one way or the
Asia, I know of no senior military commander other will have, very few Americans are
who would claim that in the wide perspective
actually aware of the extent of this aid
of the course' of the war as a v.thole their
value has been at all critical. In General or the purposes it serves. Recognizing
Westmoreland's authoritative book-length this lack of information, Le Anh Tu and
report on his military operations between Marilyn McNabb of National ACtiOn/Re-
January 1904 and June 1900, there is only the search on the Military-Industrial Com-
briefest reference to herbicides and riot con- plex have prepared a special report en-
trbi. agents. Scott in perspective, they are titled "Aid to Th icy", which traces the
clearly marginal instruments." history of U.S. aid to South Vietnam as
- As far its herbicide.; are concerned, Bundy's
Well as the ongoing day-to-day programs
point is supported by a still-unreleased study
of herbicide usage in Vietnam, conducted by in that country which U.S. dollar's li-
the Army Corps of Engineers. The three- fiance. I think members of the Senate
volume Work, One vOhnrie of which is classi- and their constituents will find this re-
lied secret while the others are in the "oilicial port of interest, and I ask unanhnous
use only" category, indicates that coin- consent that it be printed in the ItECORD
Manders in Vietnam place little military at this point.
value on the use of herbicides. Although the There being no objection, the report
battlefield use of tear gas may Ileum in War
College scenarios, experience ns Vietnain has IVC1S ordered to be printed in the REcoRD,
demonstrated that the enemy can easily as follows:
equip his troops with, or train them to AID TO TITIEU
improvise, breathing apparatus that renders DEADLoCK ON AID
the gas ineffective. Why, then, does the mill- The Paris peace talks often ridiculed as
tary persist in retaining the option for "propaganda forums," have actually re-
herbicides and tear gas, continue to ,rein- vealcd many areas of agreement. The United
force its capability for chemical warfare, States, the Saigon government, the Provi-
and though the matter is uncertain, to sional Revolutionary Government of South
dabble further with biological agents? Vietnam , (called the "Vietcong" in the
The answer is twofold: As Soviet-American American press) and the Democratic Repub-
arms agreements tend toward effective re- lie of Vietnam ("Hanoi") all ogee in prin-
strictions on the development, of ultimate eiple to the withdrawal of U.S. forces, the
Weapons, the military value of other weapons release of war prisoners, internationally
systems rises commensurately, just as the supervised free elections, and.even to Is coali-
banning of firearms would elevate the mili- tion government.
'Lary value of bows and arrows. And, as is .
clear from public indifference to the savage Yet the talks are deadlocked. One question
remains unresolved : should the U.S. coin blue
rtlr ?ften''" that has replaced American its aid to Thieu? The FRG insists that this
ground operations in Vietnam, time problem aid must be stopped. The U.S. is equally
is not to avoid war; rather, it is to avoid
stubborn. Both parties feel that their vital
shedding any great amount of American
i
blood. Bence, in the age of the nuclear stand- ttoitteiereastisnianroeriiissue.
ivOlved on what might appear
lethal, non-nuclear, low-manpower systems To clarify the dispute over aid to Thiel',
_
off, the Pentagon is looking hard for highly
that satisfy both military necessity and pub- this paper will review U.S. assistance pro-
he opinion. And CBW. Presidential protesta- grams in South Vietnam. Special attention
lions notwithstanding, fits in nicely with will be paid .to projects that are considered
that quest,
to be of high priority by the U.S. We will
attempt to describe the effects of these pro-
Negotiations for arms-control agreements
with the Soviets have freque ntly foundered.
October 11,19
grams on the Vietnamese pc
they are designed, and to determine how
much the U.S. has epent on these projects.
The U.S.-sponsored programs are well
known to Vietnamese hut not so familiar to
American Citizens pay (o thorn.
Our main source of infirrmation is the
hearings held each year in Congress to ex-
amine how American taxpayers' dollars are
spent in Vietnam. Supplementary sources
include U.S. government publications and
news reports from. Saigon and Western newa-STATINTL
papers.
2. TIIE DDDING RouND-tirs
Most news reports on the spring 1972 of-
fensive told of dramatic military clashes.
Less mention was made of certain actions
taken by the Thien ciorernMent which were
made possible only by U.S. aid.
While U.S: bombers were pounding the
contested and "enemy"-controlled areas of
Vietnam, Thieu's pe-lice, accompanied, by
American advisers, = were rounding -up thou-
sands of suspected "Communist sympa-
thizers" in the so-called "secure" areas. The
spring offensive increased the regime's fear
of trouble from internal dissenters. On May
26, 1972 the Buddhist Student Association
In Saigon announced the arrest and im-
prisonment of the entire leadership of ninny
student organizations and civil rights groups
in South Vietnam.* Relatives of known polit-
ical activists have also been taken into cus-
tody, and held as hostages.'
A former New York Times Saigon corre-
spondent and veteran observer of the war,
Tom Fox, describes the far-reaching effects
of this crackdown:
"Nearly everyone known to have been an
outspoken critic of the Thieu government?
and not protected by international recog-
nition?has suffered at the hands of the
powerful National Police in recent weeks.
"In Hue alone, more than 1500 have been
arrested and most have been taken to Con
Son prison Wand, an island which for dec-
ades has confine.d critics of French and
American supported governments. Women
and children have been rounded up among,
the 'political suspicious'?and taken by
police to Con Son.
"We've arrested the entire student body
of Hue," Hoang Duo Nita, President Thieu's
press secretary recently stated flatly...
"In many eases people have been arrested
solely because they have relatives in the
NLF or in North Vietnam ...
"A lower house Deputy from. a Delta prov-
ince said the police have conic into villages
and picked up men in their eighties who
have not left their home for years, forcing
them into small prison cells. 'Even village
and hamlet chiefs and officers In the Saigon
army are being arrested and interrogated,'
he added."'
Time ground for these arrests, having "Com-
munist sympathies," are broadly interpreted.
They extend to all political opponents of the
Thieu regime, especially those haying credi-
bility and influence with the general pop-
'Mace. Those arrested include student or-
ganizers, religious leaders, and newspaper
editors.
"In Longxuyen Province, an area dominated
by the Hoa Hao religious sect, several hun-
dred university students held a rally to pro-
test a decree under which most of them
would he drafted. Although anti-American
banners were displayed--"The students and
people will not die for the interests of the
imperialists"--the police did not intervene.
Later, however, leaders of the rally were
reportedly arrested.
"Other arrests of student leaders appear
to have had little to do with public demon-
strations.
"A Roman Catholic priest in Saigon said
he conservatively estimated that nine local
leaders of the Catholic Labor Youth Move-
on the Issue of inspection, with the U.S. in- Footnotes at end of article. ? ment had been arrested and that half a
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ole
? 4
ks.
SIAIINI
Approved For Release 200 03/94Q1CM5,4
2 9 AUG 1972
ie.,`
`' ../(4
71-17p 7,4 _TN
P ran
eThi
By Myra MacPherson
She had all these handi-
caps.
First, she was independ-
ently wealthy and her back-
ground was super WASP.
Her mother was famous,
- glamorous and influential.
. Her father was a top CIA
spook, one of the most pow-
erful and least publicized of
high government officials.
.? And so, when Frances
" Frankie" FitzGerald
daughter of Marietta Tree,
. the first American woman
to serve as an ambassador
at the United Nations, and
CIA deputy director Des-
mond FitzGerald:---went to
? Vietnam to free-lance about-
- the War in 1966 at the age of
.25, some of the male jour-
?_ .nalists there wondered at
, her seriousness and were,
, to put it mildly, skeptical.
"I expected her to be
, everything I. wouldn't like
hut she turned out to be
great?--.and ended up with
insights I'd wished I had,"
said One reporter who .was
there that year.
Today, her book that took
Vfour Years to write, "Fire in
- the Lake," is beingjouted
by numerous reviewers as
one of the most penetrating
analyses of our involvement
In 'Vietnam. It is a book that
seeks to document with fact
after fact how we destroyed
? a country to "save" it from
Communism. It is a book she
got by ignoring the battles
and talking to the survivors
of them,.as well as research-
? Ina an ancient culture to
show, why Westerners have
misunderstood Vietnamese
? motives and actions.
The woman behind the
book is 31, blonde, 5 feet 9
and gives an appearance of
lip their leisure time with
? Tree. Home was au intenet-
activities?Girl. Scouts' or
tual salon; there were her
parents' f r i e n d s such as ballet. The girls never took
lessons in anything, with the
Winston Churchill and AdIal
result that the poor things
Stevenson. It was a life of . have few, of what are called
fashionable boarding 'schools
'a.ccomplishments."f h e y
and Rolls Royces. don't play the piano or card
Although receptive and In- . games or golf.")
terested in what others have
to say, she volunteers little Today Frankie ? says she
about .herself or that life. swims, 'plays tennis and skis
One friend said, "I like her "badly" to . unwind after
eight-hour writing stretches.
tremendously, but I've never
seen Frankie really relax." When she went to Viet-
She is uncomfortable and nalll in 1966, it was to write
,guarded whch -discussing for magazines and there was
herself?"It's not that inter- not a book in mind. She was?
esting a subject." The an- liked by reporters for un-
swers are perfunctory. . complainingly doing what
Was her mother a model the other journalists did?
for her life? "No, not con- such as traveling into . de-
sciously, although it never serted regions?and for her
ability to laugh at life there.
occurred to me not to have
a career." What of her She remembers, with a
father, who died in 1967 and smile, about being detained
to whom the book is dedi- for hours by .the American
cated along with French so- military?"their charge was,
clologist and Vietnam csa. finally, that our press cards
pert Paul Mus. "(Her father) weren't laminated."
was terrifically witty. As a Articles _ grew into the
child I saw him on holidays, - book and when she went
once a year or so, then more back this year before
as I grew up." What does her
mother think of her. book? completing it, she was thor-
"She ii k e s it?funnily oughly disilluSioned an d.
enotigh." High school was more convinced that Ameri-
Foxeroft?"very c o n v e n- ea must get out and that in.
tional girls from Grosse
Pointe and Long Island and ternal revolution is the only
answer there.- "Nobody's'
so on," .
She was graduated from ever .tried letting them run
Radcliffe in 1960, went to themselves."
Europe, wrote a little fic- ?One of the most devastat-
tion, "I always thought ing things that happened to
being a novelist was the
greatest thing on earth?but -Abe country, she feels, is our
I thought of being the novelist
rather than doing the
writing. Journalism: seemed
rather secondary, one down
not as good, somehow." But
now she feels more comfort-
able with non-fiction.
"With non - fiction, some-
thing's out there, one only
has to describe it. The idea
4)0
water mixed with soda into
him until he gagged, I saw
him right after?with .t he
water coming out of his
eyes, nose and mouth. Well,
when I got back to the
,A merican advisors and told
them, they said, 'I bet lie
really fed you a line, you
know they lie like anything.'
It was unbelievable."
She feels that Son; George
McGovern's plan to end the
war in 90 days if elected
would secure the release of
our prisoners. ",It would, ab-
solutely. It's very simple.
They (the Viet Cong) are
willing to make it very sim-
ple." President Nixon
doesn't see this, she feels,
"because he wants to win
that's all.," a ludicrous posi-
tion, she feels.
She Worked briefly for
McGovern, running a con-
gressional district during .
the New York primary. "It
was a strain on me, doing
that work, I don't like or-
ganizing that much."
While reviewerg drag out
the superlatives about her
book, printed in part in the
New Yorker, Miss Fitzgerald
is more modest.
"It's not a scholar's book.
I make a whole lot of large
generalities that no proper
scholar would do. Some
Chinese scholars would
probably huff and puff
/ about certain things. My
pacification policy. One pro-
gram, the Phoenix program, if idea was to sort of overem-
phasize the contrast (be-
was aimed at "capturing the
tween their culture and
political agents" of the NIX;
Westerners) if necessary."
? hut she w,rites, "the United
States succeeded in fashion-
' ing much the same instru-
ment of civilian terror that
the Diem laws for the sup-
pression of communism had
created in 1957-58. The only
? difference was that given...
the participation of statis-
tics-hungry intelligence
services, the terror was a
great deal more widespread
than it had been before."
The other day Miss Fitz-
? gerald .described .with the
same sort of cool empathy
that marks her book, a pris-
She is vague about future
goals?"after five years, I've
suddenly got to change sub-
jects"?and is, writing some
magazine articles on poli-
tics. She does not think of
trying television although it
diffidence bordering on in- of inventing something, as in might be "fun." "Oh, I just
intelligenee. There is more Still, her favorite reading don't think I'd be very
good." Besides there is that
security, as well as extreme fiction, is mind-boggling."
than a trace of the well-' is fiction?"What I read end- Puritan code that anything
bred, Inbred schoolgirl; she lessly is Victorian novels, which is work is painful. "I
Is very impressed at ? first,
(In an interview, her working except writing--
don't consider anything
uses ."one" not "you" ("Cne mostly Dickens."
about covering a war") and
? in 0 t lie r once said that maybe because I hate it so
answers, "Am I shy? Oh ?
"Frankle reads 'everything.
yes!" much." .. .
' She's high-brow and has per- She adds, "Up to now, my -
She grew up 1-n that rarest
feet t t " Of Frankie and
as e. ? oner 'of the Phoenix pro-
of New York worlds run by her half-sister, model Pene- gram she talked to this year. goal has been to have some-.
her "tegically MU; "They were so proud of thing in hardcover." She
tainq like that left that I
? . multimillionaire_ R o n a 1 d husband and I did not fill
-water torture. They forced . have to get over."
ered" m pprikVie ,otecla ,
Rling
t .i-CliteRzp,. 't think there
er's second husband, English ested in reading because my aa , o
F1101#0:140141 adOsthObst
'noun-
to this old man, a victim of
_ NEWSWEEK STATINTL
Approved For Release 2061/0V6419.7t1A-RDP80-01601R0
to. Communist strongholds in the An Lao
Valley for political indoctrination. The
stories were reminiscent of atrocities
committed by both sides during the long
war, including the CoMmunists' slaugh-
ter of 2,700 civilians in Hue during the
1968 Tct offensive. But. after interviews
with numerous refugees, NEwswtEx's
Ron Moreau reported last week that the
extent and the significance of the Binh
Dinh killings may have been inflated.
Allegations: There was little, doubt
that the Communists had, in the merci-
less tradition of this war, consolidated
their control of part of Binh Dinh by ex-
ecuting some civilians. But the evidence,
so far, did not support the almost gleeful
talk among American officials of a "blood
bath" in Binh Dinh. "In my interviews,"
Moreau reported, "I could not substanti-
ate these allegations of mass murders. In
every case in which people actually saw
A Family Affair
In the .dark of night, the people of
IIoai ?Xuan village were ordered to as-
' semble for trial. The Communists had
just seized control of Binh Dinh province
on the centrid Coast of South Vietnam,
and the hour had come for punishing the
.people's enemies." As some 300 villagers
' gathered, a local government official in
charge of military affairs, Phung Sao,
was brought before them. What, the
Communist guerrilla leaders asked, were
Phung Sao's crimes? Hesitantly, a few
villagers stood up. He took bribes, one
offered. He raped women, said another.
He murdered Communist revolutionary
cadres, added a third. The proceedings
ran on for nearly an hour before a Com-
munist official intoned: "The people have
decided that Sao should be executed fox
. his crimes against the people. Immedi-
ately, Sao was shot to death.
When U.S. officials in South Vietnam
began to seek out the press two weeks
ago with stories of such executions, they
seemed to lend support to President Nix-
on's contention. that if the Communists
triumphed in Indochina, they would
"massacre the civilians there by the mil-
lions." Although far from that figure,
the statistics cited by American officials
were chilling enough. The calculated
murder of some 250 government officials
and policemen in Binh Dinh had been
confirmed by eyewitnesses, they main-
tained. What's more, the number of ex-
ecutions might be as high as 500, and an
addition al kify.,,wilppirter?, pfotingU? e
gon goventi `liNcFlIeVn?InkW6
1000170001-5
villagers probably welcomed their
deaths." Among those slain 'in the prov-
ince were members of the Phoenix pro- 7
gram', the CIA-supported campaign to/
eliminate local Communist cadres by ar-
resting. them or killing them. Over the
years, Phoenix has caused widespread
resentment among some of South Viet-
nam's people, who charge that innocent
civilians were sometimes killed. Nguyen
Thi Thap, the 'widow of an executed
Phoenix operative, told Moreau: "The
people said my husband should die. Af-
ter he was dead, the people seemed
pleased."
Feuds: Other executions were aimed
at settling ancient feuds among the coun-
try's anti-government factions. At a refu-
gee camp, a young girl named Nguyen
Thi Nong described how her father, a
secretary of the Dai Viet political party,
met his fate. The Communists and the
Barbara Gluck Treaster
Binh Dinh refugees: An ailing woman is carried from home
the executions, only one or two govern-
ment officials were killed. As the plight
of the refugees worsens and as people
rehash these stories, the killings become
embellished. But in checking on many of
the cases mentioned to me by U.S. offi-
cials, I found that the stories differed as
to the number of people .killed?and
many, deaths appeared to have been
counted more than once." Some U.S. mil-
itary officers in Binh Dinh supported this
view. "Certainly," said one, "the Commu-
nists did *execute local officials, but prob-
ably 25 people were killed and reported
ten times over." ?
The victims were carefully chosen.
Most of them seem to have been govern-
ment officials; none were soldiers. And in
some cases the villagers were not at all
distressed by the executions. "It is true
that many government officials were very
corrupt and were disliked by many peo-
ple," said one Hoai Due village official
who fled before the Communists captured
Dai Viet have been at each other's
throats since the 1930s, and when the
Viet Cong marched into Binh Dinh last
spring, Miss Nong's father told them: "I
have fought you for years and can't live
under your regime." Without a trial, a
local guerrilla gunned him down.
Because they had such a parochial
flavor, the killings in Binh Dinh province
did not seem to offer conclusive evidence,
one way or the other, about the pros-
pects for a general blood bath in South
Vietnam if the Communists ultimately win
a military Victory. In fact, there was
reason to believe that the province was
something of an anomaly. 'Binh Dinh,"
cabled Moreau, "has a special problem:
that of civil strife, old grudges and blood
feuds. 'Atrocity stories' are not to be
found in areas currently occupied by
North Vietnamese regulars, who have no
particular grudge against local peopl<
All of the Binh Dinh killings were carried'
Out by local Communist cadres, and all
ittakisabig e oiftgais
small town is
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BOSTON, MASS.
GLOBE
? 237,967
S ? 566,377
AUG 9 197?
Slang-liter of the peasants
Vietnamese commanders, North
? and Soittli;1 have a peculiar way of
,? winning the heart g and minds of the
peasants.in their divided and devas-
tated nation.
One would- like to believe that
there are killings enough in the ebb
and flow of this terrible war to
satisfy even the most lustful. But we
see now in the reports of' the
slaughter of 1000 to 2000 fleeing
South Vietnamese peasants by North
Vietnamese artillery on a highway.
leading out of .the rubble that used
to be Quang Tri that this is not quite
so.
It may be argued by Hanoi that
the slaughter was one of the accidents
of war, just as . Washington also
argues that the bombing of the dikes
and the killing of civilians in North
Vietnam are accidental incidents in
the bombing of military targets. It
may be true that the 130 artillery
shells . fired ov1er the heads of the
peasants fleeing in a column four
miles long, were actually fired at
South. Vietnamese emplacements. But
U p to 2000 innocent men, women and
children were left sprawled in death
all the same.
? And although the argument may
have to be accepted that wholesale
slaughter in this instance was unin-
tended, there is no such excuse for
the earlier Slaughter of civilians by
Communist troops in doubly tragic
Binh Dinh Province far to the south,
as was reported last week.
We advisedly say doubly tragic,
for the peasants in this area have
been slaughtered indiscriminately
by the South Vietnamese executing
Communist sympathizers and the
-
STATI NTL
Communists executing Saigon sym-
pathizers. The difference is only in
numbers, not in atrociousnes. The
Communists cannot now be excused
for the cold-blooded and on-the-
spot execution of 250 to 500 Saigon
officials and others in the latest Red
foray into the province merely be-
cause South. Vietnamese counter-
terror teams executed almost 10,000
civilian Communists in the same
province over the last 14 months in
the infamous "Phoeitx" program
financed by the .American CIA. The
dead are dead no 'matter who kills
them. Nor do their deaths deprive
them of the innocence in which they
went to it.
? President Nixon has expressed
the fear that an American pull-out
on North Vietnamese terms? would
precipitate a bloodbath in South
Vietnam as. the Communists wreak
vengeance on the Saigon regime and
its sympathizers. ,It is ? perhaps trite
though terribly true to suggest that
such a bloodbath, were it to come to
pass, could scarcely be worse than
the plague of death from American
bombs and American shells dropped
and fired from the most terrifying
air and sea, armada ever assembled
to destroy a peasant civilization. But
one would think that the way to
avoid it, if it can be avoided, would
be for Washington to accommodate
itself to Hanoi's demand for a po-
litical settlement of differences now
rather than later.
Clearly, so long as the war goes ,
on, atrocities will continue on all
sides. And there can be no excuse
for them no matter who commits
lien\
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Approved For Release 2001/03/04 :?CIA-RDP80-01601 Rgsr+V.Q(0.170001-5
MILWAUKEE, WISC.
JOURNAL.
AUG 8 1872,
? 359,036
S ? 537 875
Vietnam Horror Still Worsens
. Horror is the word for the Viet-
nam War. The latest outrage has
? been committed by the Commu-
nists. Intelligence officers and in-
terviews with witnesses in Binh-
.
.dinh Province r eport that as
many as 500 South Vietnamese
officials were slain in cold blood
Iy Communist invaders. That is a
repetition of the wholesale execu-
tions carried out in Hue during
jhe, 1908 Tet offensive. The bru-
tality was inost- severe in .Binh-
. dinh in .retaliation for the exe-
cutions ? of, Communists there in
the Phoenix operation, which was.
carried out by teams organized by
the, CIA-. -A. FIouse subcommittee
was told some time ago that 9,800
Cormminists a n d sympathizers
were killed in that operation..
All this comes on top of the ter-
rible bloodletting and disruption
suffered throughout Indochina by
both sides day after day. There is
abundant blame for both .North
and South. It ? augurs a general
bloodbath if either side ,shmild
win, if winning is any longer pos-
sible. The way to peace and an end
of the killing and the terror must
be found through political settle-
ment at the peace table. When in
the name of humanity will both:
sides see that? ,
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? WASHINGTON POST ?
iRA
Approved For Release 20Ri9. -RDP80-01601R01/
_..i..L.,?../ , ? L . 1.1 -.....,".,
_ll'' Pr 1.1 5 (- i .f 'j); ?
t"
1 ro i.
11
e
Tr If . To be sure, ail the North.
?Seph Arat ,s; Much of the. American
- . Vietnamese. suggestions for
"DON
'?----------7--- bambino of 'South Vietnam
limiting reprisals imply first
".17 you think we . ? -. ''''
. fits into the p
same attern,
"ge
linow that eVery family in The purpose is not to elimi-
a chan of regime in South
the South lips worked with nate ene.my. ' 'soldiers or
Vietnam. It is impossible for
? Washington and. Saigon to
the . -Saigon government! strong points; It is to deny meet these sugge.stiolteepp.....,
Don't you think We kriOW the enemy access to the ?
the terms posed by the ? j
that almost all the young local population. It is a n.other side.
men fight in the Saigon ar- means or using terror to
BUt it jS not enough for
mica? Don't you think we keep people from living in .\Vashington and Saigon sire-
see the dangers- of a blood:. areas where the enemy ply to boat their breasts.
' :bath?" ; would' be bound 'to pene- about Communist atrocities.
Since one stroke of violence
.. That '?comment was made trate,
. Washing
, -
;?to me by a Nor m m
th Vietna- Against the cobin leads to the ne:0:
ation ton ancl Saigon have an obl i-
?
".ese official in Hanoi a couple of Pacification and bombing, i gation to 'act in a wav that
of weeks ago, and I was re- the Communists have used i limits, rather than promotes,
minded Of it by the recent classic tactics. They have violence, They have an obli-
31C c'
W.S that the Communists mved gation to come forward with In the fashion of. the.
? had. -murdered several
resistance forces that fought .propnsals that minimize the
.
hundred Couth .Vietnamese the Nazis in occupied litt- dang,er of reprisals.
. . . officials in Binlidinh Prov- "Pe. ? . This obligation is partieu-
?nee,. . . They have struck out hy'- . Indy heavy on the United.
.,
For the fact is that a grue-
terror-----ineluding judicial. .States, - Inc one matter in
some round of bloody repris-
? -
murdor, sometimes??against w?hic!h we are all agreed is
els is liecoming practically
those cooperating, or collab- that, except for American
.
inevitable as the Vietnam orating, as they like to call ? intervention, the war would
war winds to its close. It can it, with the central govern- have been over long ago,'
. .
be averted only by dcliber- "'mt. 'illat explains the
murders 11()W uncovered in
iated arrangement, But white
; Hahoi ::RyS it wants to make ihninlinh prevince,
, v .
such arrangements, the alit- THE UPSHOT is a c.?cle-
:, tude of Saigon and Washing- f' violence.. pi
o ',.,le more paejfi-
! ton Is in doubt. ? . .. cation spreads and the more
! The reason reprisals are bombing is conducted, the
so likely is that the war in more the Commonists are '
i. Vietnam is not a che'ssie prone to use terror tactics
i. fight between two countries, against. South Vietnamese
as President Nixon would officials. There has (level:
like us to 'believe. In such a ope.d a built-in mechanism
I Nvar, the end would see each for reprisal. ,
' .country go back to its own . Measuring respective guilt
territory. ? in menu g out portions ? of
. THE FIGHTING hi yid. blame within this cycle .of
action and reaction would
? nam, however, is much more'
?
like a civil war. Families are defy the wisdom of Solo-
: divided, and villages, prov- mon. Perhaps all that can lin.
;
bees, and cities. As a result, said, in these circumstances,
specially furious passions is that to talk about moral- ?
--the kind of passions ity is, on either side, a .
formed in the United Sates shameful hoax. .,
by the civil war or in India But something can be
? by partition?have been gem. done about the f ut ore. ?
crated. ? ' . Something can he done to
The object of the fighting, Ii nit the reprisals that have .
?
moreover, Is not to win ter-
not yet taken place.
ritory. It is to gain the sup- The Communists have
port; of the local population, shown a consistent interest ;
!. In pursuit of such sup- in such' damage-control
port, South Vietnam and the measures, Virtually all their
United States have launched peace packages contain
the famous pacification pro- some provision for prevent-
gram pushing out adminis- i,irig rFrisals..When I was in
i trative control from Saigon - llilun', Foreign -Minhster
t: to the remote countryside, N,,guyen?Duy Trill)) indicated
One feature of pacification 'lie . North Vietnamese
. is the so-called phee?b, pi3O. wanted to arrange. aset:tie-
4
A e i nent in slov6., stages put into
sono.:Lie 001s1F1#) IlsW4ii ootiffleicato?.rgApP80-01601R001000170001-5
? that passions co. ?
lion?suspected C o m in u- o,v.,,.
- nists.
STATI NTL
Approved For Release 2001/15tiafras-FiligeNR6
6 AUG 1972
Bloodbath in Binhdinh
The public execution of an estimated 250 to 500 Saigon
officials and others by Communist forces during their
occupation of Binhdinh Province adds another sordid
chapter to the bloody history of the Vietnam war.
The executions, reported by allied intelligence officers
and corroborated in on-the-spot interviews by a Times
correspondent, expose once more the ruthless brutality
which the Communists exhibited at Hue during their 1968
Tet offensive. Such barbaric tactics serve to undermine
the prospects for a political accommodation in South
Vietnam? the kind of accommodation the Communists
say they are seeking in Paris.
Binhclinh has also been a principal target of the in-
famous "Phoenix" program, under which South Viet-
namese counterterror teams?recruited, organized, sup-
plied and paid by the C.I.A.?have sought to "neutralize"
Communist cadres throughout the country. According to
testimony before a House subcommittee last year, 9,820
civilian Communists were executed under this program
In a fourteen-month period.
Both sides have committed calculated atrocities in
South Vietnam, over and beyond the indiscriminate
slaughter that inevitably results from the massive Amer-
ican bombing and Communist shelling that have dom-
inated the latest round of fighting there. Bloody reprisals,
like those that followed the unsuccessful Communist
coup in Indonesia seven years ago, are indeed a gruesome
possibility for postwar Vietnam, no matter which side
"Wins." But they can hardly be more terrible than the
bloodbath the Vietnamese are suffering each day that
this brutal war continues. The sooner both sides move
toward a negotiated settlement, the better the chances
will be for a relatively bloodless reconciliation.
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STATINTL
Approved For Release 2001/03/04: CIA-RD
?AR.E YOU READY
? OR
TO BE A SOLDIER?.
MATCH THE HEROES WITH THEIR ATR(CITIES:
1. Adolf Eichman
2. Nelson Rockefeller
3. William Westmoreland /
4. Yahyah .Khan-
5..George Custer
6. The
THE ATTACHED WAS ON THE BULLETIN BOARD OF
THE DINING HALL AT SARTBMORE COLLEGE ON
9JUNE.
Bangla Desh bloodbath
massacre at Wounded Knee
C. Project Phoenix
?D. Attica
E. Auschwitz
F. my Lai murders, etc.
defoliation of Vietnam
the electronic battlefield
Conson tiger cages
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"1) THE GUARDIAN
Approved For Release 2001/03/0214:tkAISP86:54IiiNTRIO
Exclusive
4in torview
LI
By Wilfred Burchett
' Guardian Stop Correspondent
Paris
President Nixon's advisor Henry Kissinger has visited
Moscow, Peking and Paris in. search of?as Nixon always
puts it7--a peaceful settlement to the war in South Vietnam
and bearing "generous" offers of peace.
? He has had 13 private, sessions with the Democratic
Republic of Vietnam's delegation in Paris, but he has
never deigned to talk with those primarily:concerned with
the struggle in the South?represented in Paris by Nguyen
Th Binh, Foreign Minister of the Provisional
Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam and head of
its delegation in Paris.
There ar,e undoubtedly elements of Male chauvinism in
this, but it is primarily the arrogance of the super-power
psychology at the White house. An arrangement between
"equals" with the other super-power, the Soviet Union
could be tolerated. Next best would be a deal with People's
'China?at least a major power. But it was too humiliating
to talk even with, the pRv.
Each of Nixon's negotiators in Paris, from Henry Cabot
Lodge to William Porter, have exhausted the language of
contempt to make this clear. As for the PRO, it was seen
as far beneath the contempt of the U.S.
It was with this in mind and due to the deliberate
? distortions of the PRO's views by Nixon and Kissinger that
I put some questions to Nguyen Thi Binh:
Are you prepared to meet with Kissinger or ?ome other
competent U.S. negotiator and within the framework of
the PRG's 7-point peace plan discuss the following con-
crete points:
(1) The question of the safe withdrawal of the remaining
60,000 U.S. troops in South Vietnam?
(2) The question of the release of U.S. POWs in South
Vietnam as well as the captured pilots held in the DRV?
(3) Questions relating to President Nixon's concern
about the "imposition of a Communist regime in Saigon?"
(4) Assure that there will not be a "Iblig night of terror"
in South Vietnam as Nixon expressed it on May 8 or a
"bloodbath" as he expressed it in his April 28 speech?
-V Nguyen Thi Binh answered with the following:
"In order to deceive American and World public
opinion, Nbion persists in repeating his lies and slanders,
trying to justify his new extremely grave acts of war. We
have many times declared and we repeat once again that
as evidence of ciur good will and our sincere desire to
arrive at a peaceful solution to the problem of South
Vietnam, we are ready to engage in private conversation
with U.S. representatives so they may still better un-
derstand our peace proposals. We are ready to discuss all,
matters concerning a. solution.
continued. "However, I would like to clarify for American
public opinion some of the points you have raised:
"Regarding the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops in
complete security. On Sept. 17, 1.970, in our 8-point peace
plan, as on July1,1971 in our 7-point peace plan, we clearly
tated that after the U.S.Tixes a definite date for the total
vithdrawal of all U.S. military forces from-South Vietnam,
he parties concerned could agree" on necessary measures
.o guarantee the security of U.S. troops during their with-
drawal.
"Thus, if the, list of soldiers and pilots captured, killed
ind wounded' gets continually longer this is precisely
because Nixon has refused to fix a concrete date for total
withdrawal, refuses to negotiate responsibility on the basis
Of our reasonable proposal and continues to utilize U.S..
troops and pilots in Sets of War against our pebple.
"Regarding the freeing of U.S. POWs. This problem has
also been dealt with exhaustively in our peace initiative. If
uwil this day captured U.S. military personnel have not
been able to return to their homes and their number in-
creases all the time,.this is also because Nixon refuses to
fix a definite date for the total withdrawal of U.S. troops,
refuses to discontinue his support for dictator Nguyen Van
Thieu's clique and continues to wage . war against our
people. These captured military personnel are in fact
prisoners of the policy of 'Vietnamization.' They are
prisoners of Nixon and Thieu. If the U.S. had replied
,seriously to our 7-point peace plan, the POWs would long
ago have returned to their families.
.. "Regarding the political regime of South Vietnam.
There. never has been a question. for us of imposing on
South Vietnam any sort of regime whatsoever other than
one chosen by the South Vietnamese people. Still less do
we wish to impose a communist regime as the. Nixon
administration continues to maintain.. On the contrary, it is
the U.S. that stubbornly continues toimpose on the South'
Vietnamese people the pro-American, anti-communist,
belligerant, dictatorial and fascist regime of Thieu.
Elections?with Thieu machinery
Nixon's proposals about 'new presidential elections' in
South Vietnam, while Thieu's machinery of dictatorship
remains means nothing ?other than a repetition of the one-
man electoral farce of October last year. The National
Liberation Front and the PRO have consistently ad-
vocated the formation of a truly representative govern-
ment in South Vietnam, which would be mandated to
organize really free general elections in South Vietnam to
commit a free choice of representatives of a political
regime. In the light of the present realities in South
Vietnam, such a government cannot be any other than one
of national concord, comprising three elements as we have
is Leorse_atatives of the PRG; of the
.The PRaipproveti For Release 2001/03/04 I:. 50?4.1130PAQQ01 Z00044r at
"It seems to me that the American government is r"
presently well informed regarding our peace plan," she '. ?continued
Et
ft
STATINTL
May ii,Appipved ,F85?8.01/9914/
slonable and the less-gifted even more
so. It is therefore imperative that this
particular group have teachers with great
expertise, patience, and warm, reassuring
personalities. Mrs. Degason exemplifies
these qualities to the finest degree.
Her city, State, and the children she
has helped all owe her a great debt of
gratitude.
FEDERAL HEALTH PROGRAMS
SPEECH OF ?
HON. CARL ALBERT
OF OKLAHOMA
. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Wednesday, May 10, 1972
Mr. ALBERT. Mr. Speaker, the people
of the United States surely rank their
personal health of utmost importance
among their many needs.
This is true in every corner of the
country, from our smallest rural commu-
nities to our largest industrial cities. It
is true of rich Americans as well as poor
Americans. It is true among all ages of
our people. It is even true of Democrats
and Republicans alike.
Together, we need to achieve the goal
of better hoalth throughout the lives of
all the people of this Nation.
Is there .a national health crisis? There
is indeed.
What do we need to do about it?
? We need to work toward preventive
health care for all Americans. We need
to train young men and women in the
many health professions?and we need
to train them now, before the already
serious shortages in health personnel be-
come critical. We need to advance the
knowledge of medicine through research
that is simultaneously broad and specific.
We need to make more health services
available to more people. We need to re-
duce the high costs of curing illness. We
need 'to give extra support to those
health-care institutions and training fa-
cilities that are in financial distress.
On the part of the Federal Govern-
ment, these needs can be met only
through the authorized programs of the
Department of. Health, Education, and
Welfare. Yet with its proposed budget for
fiscal year 1973, the Nixon administra-
tion would let all too many of these needs
go unmet:
President Nixon may have acknowl-
edged a national health crisis in his pub-
lic speeches, but he has not taken it into
full account in his budget recommenda-
tions. There is too little evidence in this
budget that the President ranks concern
for health as highly as the general public
does.
In the proposed 1973 budget, health
manpower programs are severely cur-
tailed. Grants for building or moderniz-
ing hospitals, community clinics, and
health schools are all but eliminated.
Worthy programs to combat mental ill-
ness and alcoholism are not allowed to
grow. Important health services, de-
signed to deliver adequate care to all
Americans, are held in place or actually
reduced, considering increased operat-
ing costs and Federal pay raises. Most of
the research institutes are given in-
creases that amount to only half the an-
nual inflation rate for health r sea ?ch.
R
angaznauaivxmiiiiA laWINDItS
If the goal of better health for all
Americans is to be achieved in our day,
or in our children's day; then the Con-
gress will have to show more concern for
Federal health programs in the coining
fiscal year than the Nixon administration
has shown. It is a duty that cannot be
ignored by the Members of the House. It
is our responsibility .to the health and
well-being of our people.
PLEA .POR NATIONAL REPENTANCE
HON. BELLA S. ABZUG
OF NEW YORK
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Thursday, May 11, 1972
Mrs. ABZUG. Mr. Speaker, this morn-
ing, I was privileged to receive a most elo-
quent "Plea for National Repentance"
over the inhuman terror we have wrought
in Southeast Asia, This statement is
being circulated in petition form and
will be presented' to Congress at a later
date. I include the item in the RECORD at
the conclusion of these remarks.
I am also including "War is Peace," a
paper on the President's latest escalation
by Fred Branfman. Mr. Branfman, who
is director of Project Air War, is one of
the foremost experts on our air tactics
and weaponry in Indochina, and I com-
mend his paper to you. -
The articles follow:
A PLEA FOR NATIONAL' REPENTANCE AND A
PETITION TO THE CONGRESS or THE 'UNITED
STATES
Whereas, millions of Vietnamese, Cam-
bodians-and Laotians have been maimed and
uprooted from their homes and more than
one-half million killed;
Whereas, more than 50,000 Americans have
been killed in Indo-China and 300,000 have
suffered casualties;
Whereas, the lands and cities of Vietnam,
Cambodia, and Laos have been devastated by
napalm, defoliants, bombs and all the vast
arsenal of the automated air war;
Whereas, the lives of United States prison-
ers held by the North Vietnamese are now
threatened by the further escalation of the
War;
Whereas, the war waged by the United
States in Indo-China wastes our human and
material resources and weakens our security
rather than insuring it;
Whereas, the United States armed forces
continue to impose upon the people of Viet-
nam the Thieu government dictatorship,
thus depriving the Vietnamese people the in-
alienable right of freedom;
Whereas, the peace of the whole world is
threatened by the recent escalation of the war
by the United States, including the mining of
Vietnam harbors, thus risking the beginning
of World War III;
We, the undersigned citizens of the United
States repent of our own complicity in this
sin against the Providence of God and this
crime against humanity; and we call for a
national time of mourning and repentance.
We petition the Congress of the United
States to take Its proper responsibility for
ending participation by the United States in
the war in Indo-China by cutting off funds
used for the prosecution of the war, that
sanity and justice may be restored in the
foreign relations of the United States gov-
ernment.
(BY
ViAli PEACE
Fred Branfina.n)
(Nors.?Mr. I3ranfman spent 4 years in
ren y directO of Project Air War, a research -
group in Washington, D.C. He is editor of
Voices From The Plain of Jars, to be pub-
lished this -month by Harper and Row.)
"All entrances to the North Vietnamese
ports will be mined . . . United States
forces have been directed to take appropriate
measures within the internal and claimed
territorial waters of North Vietnam to in-
terdict the delivery of any supplies. Rail and
all other communications will be cut off to
the maximum extent poSsible. Air and naval
strikes against military targets in North
Vietnam will continue . . . You want peace.
I want peace . . . and that is why, my fel-
low Americans, tonight I ask you for your
support of this decision?a decision which
hes only one purpose?not to expand the
war, not to escalate the war, but to end this
war and to win the kind of peace that will
last. With God's help, with your support, we
will adcomplish that great goal."?Richard
Nixon, May 8, 1972.
George Orwell predicted that the leaders
of major powers would come to wage war
by machine and call it peace; that they would -
annihilate distant and unseen societies from
the air even as they constantly reiterated
their earnest desires for peace at home.
On May 8, 1972, Richard Nixon announced
the most serious and dramatic set of esca-
lations in the Indochina war, removing the
last remaining restraints on automated war
observed by his predecessor; at the same
time, he used the terms "peace" or "ending
the war" on 19 separate occasions in a 17-
minute talk.
He didn't quite Claim that "war is peace."
But then he did not have to.
His speech was one of the most striking
attempts to rewrite history in recent mem-.
(pry. Virtually every sentence in it contra-
dicted the written record, ranging from the
writings of Lacouture and Fall, to the Pen-
tagon and Kissinger papers, to today's news-
parlpls. tons of bombs were exploding every
60 seconds as he solemnly declared "I, too,
want to end .this war;" mines were being
laid in and around Soviet vessels as he called
upon. the Soviet Union not to "slide back into
the dark shadows of. a previous- age."
It is as much in wonderment as dismay
that one turns to an analysis of some of the
more striking . distortions and out righ t false-
hoods of this remarkable speech: -
1. INVASION?"FIVE WEEKS AGO? ON EASTER
WEEKEND, THE COMMUNIST ARMIES OF NORTH
VIETNAM LAUNCHED A MASSIVE INVASION OF
SOUTH VIETNAM"
The very basis of the 1954 Geneva Settle?
ment on Vietnam is that Viet Nam is one
country. There is no reference to a "Sonth
Vietnam." The 17th parallel, far from being
an "international border" as the President
claimed in his April 26 speech, was merely a
temporary military demarcation line. Point
6 of the Joint Declaration by the 9 powers
guaranteeing the settlement specifically
states that: "the military demarcation line
is provisional and should not in any way be
Interpreted as constituting a political or
territorial boundary." This line was only in
force for 300 days following July 21, 1951,
and was meant merely to mark time until
a 1956 election which would unite Viet Nam.
When the Diem regime did not allow this
election, the 17th parallel lost any legal,
political, or moral meaning. The cancellation
of the elections threw the issue of who would
rule in Viet Nam back to the Vietnamese
themselves. ?
2. ORIGINS?"WE AMERICANS DID NOT CHOOSE
TO RESORT TO WAR?IT HAS BEEN FORCED UPON
US"
In fact, the United States did indeed uni-
laterally choose this war two decades ago,
when the -Truman Administration decided
to pay 3/.'t of the costs of the war for the
French between 1950 and 1954. And the
Geneva Accords were barely signed when In
Laos from 1967 throdh 1971. IS is cur- /hist 1954, while Mr, Nixon was vice-
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?
. . DISSENT
Spring 1_972
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E=Llow We Sank ovV-.? cethairn
Jos.e'ph..BLittinger
0 no of the most puzzling questions future
historians will have to deal with is why the
United States ever got involved in the con-
temporary struggle for Indochina that has
been going on since 1945. Did the consid-
? crations that determined the course of
American foreign policy after World War II
make this involvement inevitable or could
.
have been avoided in spite of the tensions
'that arose after 1945 between the West and
,the so-called Communist bloc? On this point,
opinions will probably always remain di-
vided, but those who believe that no other
. course could .have been chosen 'without dam-
age to the West. or the United States would
.do well to consider the following;
? (1) no Indochina war would have taken
:place if France had not insisted on reestab-
lishing its control over Vietnam, Cambodia',
land Laos after these countries had gained in-
? dependence following the Japanese surrender
in 1945;
(2) it is questionable that the United
? States would ever have reached the point of
even considering intervention in Vietnamese
?affairs. if it had 'refused from the beginning
to support the reestablishment of French rule
in Indochina. -
It is indeed one of the important conclu-
sions' of the Pentagon Papers "that the Tru-
man Administration's decision to give mili-
tary aid to France in her colonial war against
the Communist-led Vietminh 'directly in-
'volved' the United States in Vietnam and
'set' the course of American policy." 1
Yet this decision was made only in 1950,
after the victory of Communism in China
and the recognition of Ho Chi Minh's regime
by the Soviet Union and Communist China.
It would never have come about had it not
. been preceded by the decision made by the
victorious Allies at the Potsdam Conference
of July 17 to August 2, 1945, which gave
0 the French not pnly a free hand but also
Allied support. for the reconquest of 'Indo-
china. This Potsdam decision, supported only
by the British under both Churchill and At-
Roosevelt had still been alive. It was op-
posed by Nationalist China under Chiang
Kai-shek and certainly not favored by Stalin.
Vigorous American opposition to it would
probably have led to the acceptance of
Roosevelt's concept of a United Nations
Trusteeship for French Indochina as a first
step toward full independence.
Surprisingly on this crucial point the con-
clusion of the Pentagon Papers is that Roose-
velt "never made up his mind whether to
support the French desire to reclaim their
Indochinese colonies from the Japanese at
the cud of the war." 2 In view of the forceful
statements Roosevelt made against the re-
turn of the French to InClochina to his Secre-
tary of State Cordell Hull and to his 'son
Elliot, as reported in their rnemoirs,8 this
conclusion must be iegarded as erroneous.
There has been much speculation about
the question whether American massive mili-
tary intervention in Vietnam might not have
been avoided if President Kennedy had been
alive. It is .unlikely that this question will
ever be *answered with any degree of cer-
tainty. But it is probable that Vietnam after
1945 would have experienced a period of
peaceful evolution toward. independence, un-
der a regime not unlike that of Tito's Yugo-
slavia, if Roosevelt had lived and succeeded
in imposing his anticolonial solution for In-
dochina. Nor is it far-fetched to assume that
Roosevelt would not have disregarded the
appeals of Ho Chi Minh, in at least eight
letters to Washington in 1945-46 for United
States and United Nations intervention
against French colonialism.4 "There is no
record . . . that any of these appeals were
answered." 5 Not until publication of the
Pentagon Papers did the American public
hear of the existence of these letters.
Yet the Truman administration's policy
toward Vietnam remained ambivalent for at
least the first three years of the Indochina
war. On the one hand, the?U.S. "fully rec-
ognized France's sovereign position," as Sec-
retary of State George Marshall said in a still
secret State Department cablegram sent to
flee, might c{1 0001 7QOO1c5
-PT
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.Duplicity on Vietnam
STATI NTL
The comments on "Nixon's Peace Spec-.
itacular" in the March Progressive were ex-
' cellent. It is -a bit misleading, though, to
:emphasize that "virtually every item in his
plan had previously been proposed by the
United States, and all had previously been
rejected by the other side." The important
point is not that the proposals have all
been rejected in recent years: the impor-
tant point is that nearly every item was
aerepird--11 lin Chi Minh, in vti. 1.
is our steadfast teftral In ole:eivc 11,o
agreelliellt that makes it diffietdt foi ii
Vietnamese to believe ns now.
We now offer in repent some of rt.-
promises which we" has e 1,1 1?!!,./,1.,??
but repeat them in greltly 5';,t. 'i'
'under circumstances %%11;0;
?.worthless.
Vietnamese ate wilt,*
even- thong!' we iiio7 torgri ? tbat
?inietnational .1w-cements involvjog
.United Stairs are made inr:tnitt0,.:1 by th.,,
ktivities of the (;IA, which .oprrltel in
?complcte disregattl of intrtnational law,
specific it emirs, declarations of primipfr,
or, 'tradition. lit 17-)1, it yinktted the
Geneva accords :Is soon as they were
signed, by smuggling iii ions -of ptohibiftd
military supplies, sabotaging North Viet.
nattiest: raihvays and 1ms lines, and 'mitring
down those %dm had bren inntnittem iii
the snuggle for Vietnamese independence.
At present, the CIA is placing major
emphasis on "Operation Phoenix"2-- a po- ?
gram for subsidizing the assassination of
individuals suspected of being part of "the
Vietcong infrastructure." On July 19, 1971,
colby, who had directed the
program for the CIA, testified that it had
killed 20,507 suspects sit-ire 19141, and that
the program was being stepped up. Pre-
sumably, therefore., wc have managed to
murder at least 30,000 Vietnamese by now.
Since Vietnam is less than one-tenth the
" size of the United States, this is equivalent
to slaughtering more than 300,000 Amer-
icans, as far as political impact is con-
cerned. Would Nixon really insist that the
1972 election was a lair one if the Dem-
ocrats were allowed to assa.zsinate the
300,000 most prominent Republicans be-
fore November?
William Palmer Taylor
Hamilton, Ohio .
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CIA.Acent
Ra
. Of his role in the 'CIA,
ttisdell said. "mg func-
tion was with the Viet-
namese. I had very little to ?
Blated for do with the Americans."
He said that informatiOd.
gathered by the South
?
My: La l?r Error Vietnamese was aLtimes
relayed to U.S. troops, but
added that he doubted
those reports could have
. WASI]
become the basis for the
Author Seymour M. Hersh misl coding information
said an agent for the ..Con- fed to planners of the My..
tral intelligence Ageney Lai assault.
misled the planners of the.' Viet Cting. Sought
1968 attack on My. Lai by In the ,Aly Lal courts-.
telling: them they would, martial of Lt. William
Calle), Jr. and o e r
find a Viet. Cong battalion.
there. The agent denied it. there was testimony that.the attack was made in the
The assault units met belief the village was the.
only old men, women and home of the 48th Viet
children in the South Viet- Cong.Battalion,-which pre-
namese villag e. Many viously had inflicted Ilea-
were killed by the Amen-
vy tiamage to American
can troops. - The source of that belief.
Hersh, who won a Pul- was alluded to only as "in-
itiei?Prize? for breaking telligence reports."
?
the My Lai story, ident Hersh said: "The link
i7.-
between Ramsdell and the
fied the agent in, a new poor intelligence for the
book. as Robert B. Rams7. March 16 operation was
dell, now a private .inyes-: never explored by the
tigator in _Orlando.; Peers panel (the exhaus-
"Ramsdell refused to,
t.ive Army investigation
-
headed by Lt. Gen. Wil-
speak specifically about ham fl. Peers). For one
the inforination he provid- thing, none of the high-
ed Task Force Barker he- ranking officers on it had
fore the My Lai 4 opera- any reason to suspect that
Ramsdell was poorly in-
formed about Vietnaro."
that his intelligence un- Ranisclell was sent into
doubtedly was a factor in Quang Igai 'Province, ow
the planning for the mis-, Feb. 440 days bafore 1%,
s i o n," Hersh wro e in Lai?to run 'the. ,clandes-
I
tine
"C over- Up," published Operation Phoenix,
wrote,
Sunday by Random
House.
. Denies Charges
In a telephone interview,
Ramsdell denied Hersh's
allegations and said that
although he was working.
for the CIA in thc My Lai
area at the time of the kill-
ings, he had nothing to do
with intelligence reports
to the Americans. ? ?
STATI NTL
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STATINTL
- The Washington itlerry-Go-Ronnd
By. Jack Anderson
_
? Rep. Ogden Reid MeN-Y-),
whose forebears helped found
the Republican Party 1G0
1 years ago, has made a slashing
attack on President Nixon
that raises the possibility Reid
Will leave the party.
Reid, a grandson of a
GOP vice presieential candi-
date, accuses LA?. Nixon in a
forthcoming article in Red-
book of "utterly and com-
pletely untrue statements" day care to appease "his
that "distorted" the facts on right-wing supporters." Reid
Reid's controversial day-care wrote passionately:
bill. "Presumably he finds such
Unlike mavericks like Rep. federal expenditures as $5 bil-
Pete McCloskey (R-Calif.),
l lion annually on highways,
.Reid's Republican credentials $3.5 billion on farm subsidies,
are formidable. He was Presi. $3.5 billion on space explera-
i
dent Eisenhower's Ambassa- ton and $1.5 billion on civil
dor to Israel, publisher-editor works produce greater bene-
of the Republican New York
fits for the country than help-
Herald-Tribune', and a member tag our children grow into
of Gov. Nelson Rockefeller's productive adults."
cabinet
Foote: Reid gave some clue
uit GO tioas Veto
kind of Communist plot to
snatch children from their
parents, destroy the family
and infiltrate the country with
four-year-old revolutionaries."
The President indulged in
"fear tactics," said Reid. "It is
utterly and completely untrue
that, as the President charges,
day care under our bill would
diminish parental authority."
The congressman, generally
as cool and sleek as a seal,
said President Nixon killed
Yet the vehemence of his at-
tack on Mr. Nixon has inti-
mates whispering that he may
kick over a century of GOP
blood lines ruid join the Demo-
crats. ?
Reid's $2.1 billion bill to pro
1
The Central Intelligence/ miittee bill that loosens federal
Agency reported that the talks pollution controls.
"were outwardly friendly, but The environmentalists, le&
a tough position was taken by Reps. John Dingell (D-
on substantive issues and no
significant agreements were
made.
"A heated exchange took
place after the Brandt-Pompi-
dou dinner," states the secret
report, "when (German) Eco-
nomics and Finance State Sec-
retary Johann Baptist Schoell-
horn told Pompidou that
France was profiting from and
encouraging the inflation af-
flicting other European come
ries.
"Schoellhorn went on to tell
Pompidou that the FRG (Fed-
eral Republic of Germany)
was not in accord with this
policy and was not about to as-
sist France in its pursuit.
"According to members of
Brandt's party, Brandt stood
by and visibly enjoyed Ponmi-
dou's discomfiture. Schoell-
to his disaffection when he re- horn supported his accuse-
cently charged the Nixon ad- tions with details which Pom-
ministration., with allowing 347 pidou was unable to refute.
price increases while it was "T h e Brandt-Pompidou
granting only 57 wage hikes. meeting got off to a bad start
He also criticized the adminis- en Pompidou opened the
ration over its "Phoenix" plan 1roceedings by launching a
vide day-care centers for work. in Vietnam for assassinating strong attack on FRG Econom-
ing mothers was sabotaged by alleged Vietcong leaders. lies and Finance Minister Kart
the White House, then vetoed.re Schiller's economic policy,
r
by the President after it ompidou-Brandt Feud which Pompidou said benefit-
passed the House. , An awkward confrontation ted only the U.S."
between France's President
Public . Ts. Polluters
A bipartisan band of house
conservationists has rallied to
pass a clean water package in-
stead of the public works corn-
"In his veto message,"
writes Reid, President Nixon Georges Pompidou and West
"so distorted the facts about Germany's Chancellor Willy
the program as to leave the
American public with a vague
feeling that day care is some
Brandt, according to secret in-
telligence reports, took place
not long ago.in Paris.
Mich.), Henry Reuss (D-Wise
and John Saylor (R-Pa.), would
set 1981 as a "zero discharge
goal" for water polluters.
They want tougher federal
controls and favor citizen
court suits to block big pollu-
ters.
The showdown between the
clean water men and the sup-
porters of the public works
bill is expected shortly, with a
bitter floor fight almost cer-
tain.
Cuban Rebuff
Red China's invitation to
the United States to play
ping-pong began . what 'both
countries hope will be an era
of better feelings.
But when a private film
group In New York invited
Cuban film directors to attend
a festival for Cuban films, the
,State Department huffily re-
fused to let the Cubans enter
the United States.
Nazi Hunter
Dr. Zoltan Deak, of New
York City, died recently in the
midst of helping us seek out
ex-Nazi supporters in the
couneils.of the GOP. The Hun-
garian-American lapsed into a
final coma moments after tell-
ing his wife to urge us to keep
up our work on the World
War II right-wingers.
01972, United Feature Syndicate
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STATINT
4c1-----7-111arch nRIVP2tied Fr ReIggatec2X41=04.:ICIMARDP8Or04714011R001
ported. Repair, .the durability of which is
uncertain, cost an average of $110?$20 more
than the average trade-in value of a 1965
Model
Last Nov 16, after the safety agency made
an initial finding of a safety defect. GM
said it would send a voluntary safety-defect
notification?but refused to bear the cost
of correction.
Starting Dec. 5 GM mailed out 756,000
? "notifications. As of two weeks ago, Douglas
Toms told a Senate Commerce Committee
hearing, only 32,000 Corvairs had been taken
to Chevrolet dealers for correction and re-
pair. Some 68,000 letters were returned as
? undeliverable, 84,000 recipients said they
were not Corvair owners, and 23,000 owners
said they will not take their Corvairs in.
? Toms said be is favorably inclined to the
Nelson-Mondale bill. The Commerce Depart-
ment opposes it.
1
INTELLIGENCE: OUT OF CONTROL
Mr. SYMING;FON. Mr. President, an
Interesting, thought-provoking article
entitled "GI Spying: Out of Control?"
written by one of the better informed
.. newspapermen on the subject of military
matters, George C. Wilson, appeared in
the Washington Post last Sunday.
The article could well have been en-
titled "Intelligence: Out of Control."
In a box adjacent to the article, Chair-
man ELLENDER, of the Senate Appropria-
? ? tions Committee, is quoted as stating, "it
Is criminal" to spend so many billions of
- dollars to gather too much information
for anybody to read and I was- glad to
note that this .box also states that Rep-
resentative NEDZI, of the House Armed
Services Committee, is planning "a re-
view of government intelligence opera-
? tions this year for the House Armed Serv-
ices Committee." Such a review is long
overdue.
I ask unanimous consent that the arti-
cle and two letters written to me by
? former members of the military who were
Involved in intelligence matters and who
were interviewed by Mr. Wilson in con-
nection with the article be printed in the
RECORD. ? ?
' There being no objection, the items
were ordered to be printed in the RECORD,
as follows:
From the Washington Post, Feb. 27, 19721
GI SPYING: Our OF CONTROL?
? i(By George C. Wilson)
One night late in August, 1967, an Ameri-
can submarine surfaced off the North Korean
coast to launch a South Korean spy in a
_rubber boat. His mission was to -establish
'himself as a permanent resident in North
Korea and send back coded observations to
the South.
Someone on the submarine watched the
agent paddle toward the North Korean shore:
Then the sub submerged out of sight again_
The agent was heard from for only a brief
period after landing in North Korea, presum-
ably because he was captured. If he was in-
deed captured, it was likely the North Ko-
reans tortured him.
Was that agent's trip necessary? Did Con-
gress at the time knOw that the United
States was supporting hundreds of South
Koreans spying missions against North
Korea? And was this American involvement
part of the reason North Korea snatched the
USS Pueblo off Wonsan in 1968?
Eight former Army intelligence agents who
have been pondering these and related ques-
tions since leaving the' service decided to
Speak their mind in hopes of forcing re-
forms?or at least some public dialogue.
They argued In Interviews with The Wash-
ington Post that right now there Is not
enough public accountability for Army mili-
tary intelligence operations oversees. The ?
consequences. they said, range from wanton
waste of life to gross inefficiency.
While such specific charges cannot be prov-
en by hearing only their side of the story, the
former agents did show in their interviews
that Army intelligence operations overseas
go far beyond the battlefield. Similar disclo-
sures of the extent of domestic surveillance
by the Army aroused wide public criticism in
1970-71.
"Some of the programs of Army intelli-
gence are morally outrageous," said Robert
J. Donis., 26, a former high school teacher
who served as a sergeant in the Army's mili-
tary intelligence branch from 1969 to Janu-
ary, 1972. He now attends the University of
Michigan graduate school.
"The scope of military intelligence opera-
tions should be a matter of public record."
(When queried by Tho Post, the Army re-
fused to tell how much it is spending now
or has spent in the past on its military in-
telligence activities.)
Donia?limiting himself to completed oper-
ations In hopes of staying within the bounds
of security?said that "in the mid- to late
1960s" there were 50 to 200 American-sup-
ported Infiltration attempts from South to
North Korea every year, with the submarine
mission one of the most dramatic. Most of
them were across the demilitarized zone sepa-
rating North and South Korea.
Donia said ? the sources for those figures
were the records he studied while attached
to the 502d Military Intelligence Group in
Seoul. The same records, he said, showed very
few South Korean agents came back.
"One operational plan that I saw," said
Donia in contending that the high-risk mis-
sions seemed to have little military value,
"called for the agent to Infiltrate through the
DMZ. Once he got over the DMZ, which took
him three or four days, he was to move to a
headquarters element of a North Korean bat-
talion; enter a BOQ (bachelor officers quar-
ters) clandestinely; steal a North Korean ma-
jor's uniform, and return back across the
DMZ."
Such missions. Donia said, were coordinated
through the U.S.-Republic of Korea Com-
bined Operations Group. He added that Smith
Korean agents often were told to undertake
such dangerous missions to clear themselves
of suspicion of disloyalty or criminal charges.
North Korea complained vociferously about
such spying missions, both at Panmunjom
and in radio broadcasts. In what the former
Army agents believed was a response to these
complaints, Gen. John H. Michaelis, com-
mander of the U.S. Eighth Army headquar-
tered in Seoul, suspended American support
of such activities In August, 1970. According
to an Army agent who just returned from
Korea, that order has been lifted. But he said
getting missions approved is more difficult
than in the Korean spying heyday of the mid-
1960s.
PREAKING A PROTEST
James S. Sensenig, 23, of Lancaster, Pa.,
said he was dismayed to see the U.S. Army
showing the same avid interest in ?the sur-
veillance of civilians in South Korea as it had
displayed under its own domestic surveillance
program in the United States. Sensenig had
served as a sergeant in the latter program be-
fore working for the Eighth Army Intelligence
Group in Korea in 1971. The difference, he
said, was that the South Korean Army and
CIA collected the information and turned
much of It over to the U.S. Army.
"I was shocked to see the U.S. Army rou-
tinely collecting information on South Ko-
rean students even though they posed no
imminent danger to the U.S. Army," he said.
"When the very first student voiced his
anti-Korean government feelings?or anti-
S 2999
American for
telligence) was right there getting orma-
tion from the ROK police," Sensenig said.
. The Eighth Army's Military Intelligence
Group also collected biographical data on
South Korean politicians and kept track of
their comings and goings, according to the
former Army agents. .
Similarly, U.S. Army intelligence-gather-
ing in South Vietnam encompassed such
domestic activities as anti-war groups. Keith
W. Taylor, 25, also a graduate student at the
University of Michigan, said he learned this
to his horror while running a net of intelli-
gence agents from his cover office (the door
was labeled Economic Research Team) in
Giadinh, Vietnam. Taylor's outfit was the
525th Military Group, 5th Battalion. His Idea- -
tification there was GS-9 civilian working
for the Army.
Taylor, a sergeant fluent in Vietnamese,
learned through his net in February, 1970,
that a pacifist group headed by a woman
Buddhist lawyer, Ngo Ba Thanh, was going
to hold a meeting in Giadinh 10 days hence. -
He wrote up the report for his American com-
mander, only to learn the information got
Into the hands of Saigon government riot
police, who brutally smashed the meeting.
Taylor saw no military threat to the U.S.
Army nor anybody else to justify the suppres-
sion. Instead, he saw the meeting as "a cry
of anguish from the hearts of all these peo-
ple whose . lives had just been totally de-
stroyed by this war just going on and on."
Taylor said -he wrote no further reports on
such protest groups. "I sympathized with
these people completely," he said.
"I really believed ixside me that everything
we were doing in Vietnam was wrong," said
Taylor of his service there from December,
1970, to July, 1971. "And if you can speak
of morality anymore, it was immoral,"
He told of buying South Vietnamese spies
who needed the money to live because the
war had driven them from their farms and
into the cities where they drifted as street
people; of agents he knew who infiltrated the
Vietcong Nit were found out and killed long
after they had unsuccessfully asked to be
rescued; of "Catch 22" type missions which
both the American dispatcher and the South
Vietnamese agent knew to be just that.
On that. last point,' Taylor cited an agent
sent to plant and activate a disguised radio
beacon when Vietcong were sighted moving
rockets through the countryside. American
bombers, alerted by the radio beacon, would
raid the spot. "The agent knew as well as we
did that the bombers would drop their bombs
before he could get away. The job never came
off." .
South Vietnamese spies working in the
countryside outside Saigon were paid be-
tween 300 and 400 piasters by the Americans
for every item the Army military intelligence
office deemed important enough to type up
as a report. "I decided," said Taylor, "since
nobody read the reports we did get from the
countryside, that I would publish all of them
so the farmers working for us would get their
money. That was my humanitarian contri-
bution."
If Taylor was against the war, found his
Intelligence work immoral and so empa-
thized with the Vietnamese people that he
wants to spend the rest of his life teaching
their history?why didn't he quit his Army
job on the spot?
"I did my job in MI out of loyalty to my
friends in the Army," Taylor answered. "That
7 as the one thing that bound me in."
Now that he is out of the Army, Taylor
'wants to make amends somehow. In that
sense, he and the other seven agents who be-
spoke their fears are Vietnam war casualties
of a special kind, looking for relief through
expression.
THE PHOENIX PROGRAM
Of the eight former Army agents, four let
their names be used, including one of the
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EARTH
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Text by Morton Kondracke
Photography by Dennis Brack & Fred Ward
0444' ? - ? - '
?
?
'Approved For Release 2001/03/04: CIA-RDP80-01601R0010001MaGlAd.
LQ.fs
Approved For Release 2001/0i/q4Fir
ei?STAaPlafE
: v
Viet Prisoner-Rescue
Unit to Be Disbanded
Fate of Secret Squad Parallels That of
Other Clandestine Operations in S.E. Asia
.BY GEORGE MeARTNCR
S p e cial prisoner - resc
commando of a relative
handful of men is there-
fore small in the face of
the overall troop with-
drawal demands?the U.S.
force level is now 127,000
men and the current goal
is 69,000 by May 1.
? The withdrawal,
- however, underscores the
Times Stall Writer unpublicized decline in all
cuing a single American'
prisoner held by the Viet'
Cong, though it has helped
5.1.1a teh a- srn;111 numher of.
South Vietnamese cap-
tives from jungle camps.
The unit had a parallel
mission of saving downed
pilots in cases where
ground commandos might
be required in addition to
the crews of Air Force,
rescue helicopters known'
as Jolly Green Giants. If
any such operation was
ever mounted it has not
been revealed. Some offi-
cers hint, however, that
some operations of this
type took place.
Not Many Captives
SAIGOIsT?A secret com-
mand of American sol-
diers specially trained for
prisoner rescue raids in
hostile ,territory is sched-
uled to be disbanded some
time this month.
According to an officer
long involved in clandes-
tine operations, the move
will take from the U.S.
command in South Viet-
nam its last cloak-and-dag-
ger outfit specifically
honed to fight its way in
and ?tit of prisoner camps.
(The secret unit being
disbanded was trained for
use in the jungles of South
Vietnam, Laos and Cam-
bodia and not for such
spectaculars as the unsuc-
cessful raid on Son Tay in
North Vietnam in Novem-
ber, 1970.) "
Scattered Around
Though there are plenty'
of toughly skilled Ameri-
cans in South Vietnam to
mount such. raids if the
chance arises, they are
Scattered among many
Units. There are also small
outfits ? like Navy seal
.teams?available for such
things, but they are not
specifically trained and
kept in readiness for pris-
oner rescue grabs.
Consequently the stand-
down of the secret prison-
-er rescue group has stirred
heated words within the
headquarters of U.S. Gen.
Creighton W. Abrams.
Abrams, who has an ill-
concealed suspicion Of the
value of elite units super-
imposed on the Army's reg-
ular structure, has repor-
tedly resisted arguments
to go lightly on the with-
drawal of such outfits.
Since the prisoner
rescue uni
ter the bi
One reason the unit has
few successes ,to its credit
is that it was used sparing-
ly and under the strictest
limitations. To avoid en-
dangering the lives of any
captives with "fishing ex-
peditions," special raids
were ordered only when
intelligence turned up
hard and immediate 'infor-
mation on the location of
Viet Cong POW camps.
Thus, while the unit had
few successes _ it could
equally boast few failures
in the sense of botched or
sloppy efforts. ?
The number of Ameri-
can captives in Viet Cong
camps is also very smill.
Casualty figures list. 463
Americans missing in
South Vietnam. The Unit-
ed States claims 78 of
these were known from
various sources to have
been alive at the time of
their capture and were
consequently listed as
to analyzing documents They included everything
war prisoners. Of these,
a n d interrogating t p- from helicopters for drop-
however, only 20, have ?
max prisoners, ping penetration agents to
been aknowledged by
Less Visible r a dio -.packed executive
t43sng ;pro ain 3. ---.4..i o 4
ican -troops in 1963-66 it The justification for the today than they. were a
wy r a o v en a su
sidiary unit known as th
B-57 Detachment precipi
tated what became know
as the Green Beret case
That case ? which in
volved the execution of
suspected double agent
blew the cover on how ex
tensive clandestine opera-
tions had grown in South
Vietnam. It also caused a
number of .heads to roll
eland estme operations within the U.S. establish.
which has paralleled the ment and resulted in a
pullout of regular troops. general hunkering down
,CIA Cutback of cloak-and-dagger types.
Military spokesmen say
This actually bega n/
that a number of SOG per-
about 1969 when the Cen-
sonnel have been drib-
began
Intelligence Agency
bling out for several
began to sharply trim
its involvement in
many programs. Part of
this was caused by
Abrams, who disliked hav-
ing Army types under CIA
command as was the case
in several areas. At any
rate, the CIA began to
withdraw provincial
agents from the Phoenix
program?aimed at root-
ing out and killing Viet
Cong 'Phantom govern-
ment? officials?and quit
funding (and controlling)
such programs as the
training school at Vung
Tau which turned out
government Revolutiona-
ry Development cadre.
Though the CIA's tenta-
cles still reach all the sen-
sitive areas of control in
South Vietnam, the em-
phasis now is less on
"operational" areas and
more on pure intelligence
gathering.
Paralleling the CIA's .ap-
,preciably lower silhouette,
the Green Beret troopers
.wontns. its tuture will
probably be sharply di-
minished within the next
several months When the
troop withdrawal program
enters its final phase.
Paralleling these de-
clines in the "secret war'
is the increased use-of sen-
sors and computers re-
quiring fewer men in the
field and more brainpower
at headquarters.
Long-range patrols into
Cambodia, Laos and even
North" Vietnam have been
virtually eliminated by
the seeding of the Ho Chi
Minh Trail with electronic
sensors. Much of the cern-
.puterized analysis on the
readouts from these sen-
sors is now done from a se-
cret Air Force establish-
ment in Thailand and not
in South Vietnam (though
the results are still chan-
of the 5th Special Forces neled into 7th Air Force
Group were pulled out a headquarters at Tan Son
year ago?their clanaes- :Chet where the air. war
tine operations being ab- --eartinues to be run).
sorbed by an outfit. known While clandestine oper-
as SOG?the Studies and ations on the ground have
Observations Group. SOG lessened, the Air Force
is a cloak,- and - dagger has also cut the number of
grabbag at Abrams' head- planes that were part of
quarters, incorporating a the "secret war." These
dozen or so outfits which planes were in conglomer-
do everything from super-. ate outfits .known as spe-
secret long-range patrols cial operations squadrons.
jets equipped to pick up
?
! 0,
ver . e - TAM ill* R0010001700014m
e s ? agents aeep in enemy
land. The squadrons also
has not succeeded in res-
ea.._
Approved For Release 20011MMIXIAIREMPOPIS
MINNESOTA DAILY
Chomsky:
Viet war
source of
cheap
labor
market
for U.S.
By BILL MORLOCK
The war in Vietnam is being
waged to provide the American
corporate structure and its junior
partner, Japan, with a cheap
imperialistic labor market, Noam
Chomsky, professor of linguistics
at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, said at the Honeywell
Project's corporate war crimes
investigation Monday.
"Corporations have found it
lucrative to build factories over-
seas where the labor is cheap and
pollution control is not necessary,"
Chomsky told the audience of
about 400 at Newman Center.
"Overseas overhead is low
because of cheap labor and this
results in high profit return to this
country," he added.
Chomsky said the top fKi
American corporations had such a?
large international investment that
they derived nearly 50 percent of
their total profit from overseas.
"Workers in South Korea work
six days a week for American
corporations," Chomsky said.
"Women are paid 11 cents an hour
and men 17 cents.",
' Corporations use:the cheap
foreign labor to build components
which are exported and the
finished product is assembled in
the United States, he said.
"Harvard ,economist Arthur
Smithies reported to the Institute
of Defense Analysis that in 10 years
the war w omit* Ai
will be 1h ?
development," Chomsky - said.-
9 Feb 1972
"Smithies' report says that the war
has contributed to the necessary
Infrastructure with the harbors,
airfields and urbanization created
by the military," he added.
Other features of Smithies'
report were: the denial of foreign
investment other than American
for Vietnamese redevelopment;
the principal investment by the
Americans will be the most im-
portant factor in the speed of
Vietnamese development; and
social welfare in Vietnam must be
avoided because it will cause an
Increase in wages, Chomsky said.
"Lacking the genius of Japan,"
he said, quoting Smithies,
"Vietnam must look outside her
own sources for development."
Japan also views Southeast Asia
as a potential labor market that
can be shared with the United
States, Chomsky said.
"The Japanese press says the
conflict in Vietnam has yielded to
positive influences," Chomsky
said. "The press said that the war
had created a talented labor
market of construction workers in
many fields?bridge construction,
building construction and the like.
Their talents have been acquired
by working on construction
projects for the U.S. military."
Both the U.S. and Japanese labor
markets are becoming expensive,
Chomsky said. Corporations find
more profit in making their
products or component parts in a
cheap labor market and importing
them than building them here in an
expensive one at home, he added.
"This creates a surplus of labor
population in the U.S.," he said.
"What do you do with the surplus?
Put it on welfare, though that isn't
a good alternative."
Imperialistic exploitation not
only creates a problem with sur-
plus "in home labor forces." it
requires? a military force which
will control the dominated nations,
he said.
"This is an odd war for an im-
perialistic nation because it uses
conscripts from its own
population," Chomsky said. "Most
countries, like the French before
us, relied heavily on mercenary
forces. France, for instance,
maintained control of Indochina
with only 50,000 troops," he added.
To change Vietnam so it will suit
U.S. sor_porat_e__ needs_ _will
leasgs4Uli01943tircIA-RD
Vietnamese political structure,
Chomsky said.
"Operation Phoenix, a Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) project
has already neutralized 42 percent
of the South Vietnamese opposition
by assasination," he said.
"Phoenix also maintains a policy
of torture and police repression to
control the political structure of
the nation," he added.
The military has succeeded in
destroying the fabric of Viet-
namese society by relocating the
rural population so that now 80
percent of the nation is urbanized,
Chomsky said.
"The Asian Development Bank
report projects that by 1973 the
Viet Cong opposition will have been
reduced to a police problem," he
said. "And by 1975 only 25,000
troops will be needed for control
and they will remain there in-
definitely," he said.
American troops are being with-
drawn and replacing them is a new
automated air war which will
serve to control Indochina and
promote the welfare of supporting
corporations, Arthur Kanegis,
siloke:man for the National Action
Itesearch on the Military
Industrial Complex, said.
"Far from winding down, the
war is only being made less
visible," Kanegis said. "Instead of
a ground war with American
troops and casualties, it is an
automated air war with American
Planes and bombs."
?
General William Westmoreland
told a military-industrialist
gathering in October 1969 there
were three reasons for the
"change-over" to automatic
warfare, Kanegis said.
"In the words of Westmoreland,
the American people are
questioninr. the role of the Army
more thaw ,ver before," he said.
"Secondly, 'the trust and con-
fidence that have traditionally
motivated ? the soldier are being
questioned.' Thirdly, according to
Westmoreland, 'the U.S. faces an
elusive and cunning enemy that
has made the U.S. Army almost a
giant without eyes.' "
Westmoreland said that the only
alternative was to replace the man
with a machine wherever possible,
Kanegis said.
STATI NTL
el"
FUO'ACIAM901 ? 1-5
he said. "First, electronic sensors,
?
ccestrnas A1 AUTOMLT/ON
Approved For Release 201041323?09,P CIA-RDP80-01601R001
THE CIA: A VISIBLE GOVERNMENT IN INDOCHINA
STATINTL ?
Fred Bran fman and Steve Cohn
New York, N.Y. ?
"The CIA may or may not be an invisible government here at home . . . but to those
close to the war it is one of the most visible ? and important ? governments in
Indo-China today."
As American soldiers are withdrawn from Indochina,
the role of the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.)
IS increasing. The C.I.A. may or may not be an in-
visible government here at home. 'BUT to those close
to the war, it is one of the most visible -- and im-
portant -- governments in Indochina today.
CIA Secret Army
. As we shall explain further in weeks to come, the
C.I.A.'s budget in Laos and Cambodia exceeds those of
the Laotian and Cambodian Governments by 20 or 30 to
1; the C.I.A. recruits, supplies, and directs a poly-
glot "Secret Army" of 100,000 men that does most of
the front-line fighting in these two nations; C.I.A.
photo interpreters and intelligence operatives con-
trol targetting, the most important part of the air
war; C.I.A. political, operatives are the main day-
to-day intermediaries between the U.S. Government
and local Lao and Cambodian politicians and generals.
And, of course, normal espionage, sabotage, as-
sassination, and extortion the C.I.A.'s standard
fare' anywhere -- continue as usual (see Pentagon Pa-
pers memos No. 15 and No. 22 for Colonel Lansdale's
descriptions of such activities as long as 10 and 20
years ago.)
In South Viet'Nam, the C.I.A. role is also ris-
ing. The "pacification" program has taken on
greater 'importance under Richard Nixon, and this of
course is under the direct control of the C.I.A.
through the deputy ambassador for pacification, al-
ways a C.I.A. man, .
Phoenix Project
The key aspect of pacification is the Phoenix
Project; an-admitted program of murder and torture
of civilians suspected to be working fortheNational
Liberation Front. Since Phoenix's inception, it
openly admitted that the C.I.A. has killed and ab-
ducted more civilians than even the U.S. Government
claims have been similarly mistreated by "Viet Cong
terrorists" (see accompanying chart).
In discussing the role of the C.I.A. in
today, let us note at the outset that this
aberration: the C.I.A. devotes most of its
Indochina
is not an
budget
,(Reprinted from the American Report: Review of ,
Religion and American Power, Vol. 2, No. 11, Dec.
10, 1971, published by Clergy and Laymen Concerned,
e non-profit national committee, 637 West 125 St.,
New York, N.Y. 10027)
and personnel to waging political and military war-
fare in all corners of the globe, with only a small
percentage going into strict intelligence-gathering.
Carefully Cultivated Myth
This is not generally known, of course, for one
of the most carefully cultivated myths in America
today is that the C.I.A.'s main job is to prepare
intelligence estimates for the President -- the only
job it is legally mandated to perform.
Whether in a recent Newsweek oover story on
C.I.A. chief Richard Helms, or in a speech by
Helms himself to an association of newspaper edi-
tors earlier this year, the theme is constantly re-
peated that the C.I.A.'s major role is merely to
provide estimates of things such as Russian missile
strength or morale in NorthiViet Nam.
In fact, nothing could be farther from the
truth.
Highly informed sources reveal that of 18,000
people employed directly by the C.I.A. today, no
more than 2,poo are actually iniolved in intelligence
gathering and analysis. The vast majority are en-
gaged in C.I.A. covert operations stretching from
Bolivia to the Congo to Iran to Viet Nam.
Four Major Divisions
The C.I.A. is divided into four major divisions:
(I) The DIRECTORATE OF PLANS (cover name for the
division of covert operations or clandestine
services) -- 6,000 people;
(2) The DIRECTORATE OF SUPPORT (the division pro-
viding logistics support to the Directorate ?
of Plans) -- 6,000 people;
(3) The DIRECTORATE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY --
4.000 people;
(4) The DIRECTORATE OF INTELLIGENCE -- 2,000
people.
Thus fully two thirds of the C.I.A.'s direct-
hire employees ?'and a far higher percentage of its
estimated two- to six-billion dollar budget -- go
to waging political and/or military warfare.
Approved For Release 2001/03/04 : CIA-RDP80:01601R001000170001-5
.Voriff nu 6!
4-3
. WISIMICTON rOST
Approved For Release 2001/04/Cf4,j,014811DP80-01601R
STATINT
The Washington Merry-Go-Round
S.h iv,Doublet 1k On
It "has reduced the power of 300 people. This has appar- the Vietnamese but which
the VCI (Vietcong Infrastruc- ently been adequate to keep does not get the priority atten-
tion in action at any level that
it gets on paper."
Similar admissions of fail-
ure came from Lt. Col. Gerald
Bartlett in Hau Nghia prov-
ince.
Yet Colby suppressed these
unfavorable reports and gave
Congress a fabricated, favora-
ble account of the Phoenix
rogram. He was supported by
the Pentagon's G. Warren Nut-
ter. who wrote a similarly
known delicately as Operation first five months of 1971. This In a confidential report glowing letter about Opera.
Phoenix, named after a mythi- included 3,630 killed, he from Binh Duong province, Lt. tion Phoenix to House Foreign
By Jack Anderson
The secret cables from Sai-
gon show that U.S. officials
have been talking out of both
sides of their mouths about
their campaign to wipe out the
Vietcong infrastructure.
The idea was to kill, capture
or convert the key people who
operate the Vietcong ? under. in some, areas ''to skeleton sta-
ground inside South Vietnam. tus." As statistical evidence, scratched the surface of the
he reported that 9,331 VCI Urban VCI network of the
This grim missionary effOrt is were "neutralized during the Shadow Supply System."
ture),. he said, and "is an es-
sential part of the Govern-
ment of Vietnam's defense."
American support, he de-
clared, "is fullyg.varranted."
The VCI, he said, "operates
under considerable limita-
tions" and has been reduced
the VCI viable and enable
them to make their presence
felt."
A few weeks before Colby
bragged to Congress about the
success of the Phoenix pro-
gram, his top aide in Gia Dinh
province, David McKillop, re-
ported grimly: "We have not
cal bird which rises from its said. Col. Gerald Chikalla informed Affairs Chairman Thomas
own ashes.
But the Phoenix program, Secret Reports
according to the classifier' Bunker's secret Aug. 30
gable traffic, hasn't gotten off cable, however, tells a dismay-
the ground. Ellsworth Bunker, ingly different story. Although
the American Ambassador in the Phoenix program "rou-
? Colby that Operation Phoenix
-vas killing off the little fish
but missing the sharks.
"There has developed the
tendency to place more im-
portance on volume rather
Saigon, has reported to Secre- tinely exceeds its goals of neu- than on quality neutralize-
tary of State Bill Rogers that tralizations (deaths and ar- tions," reported Chikalla.
the operation "has not ap- rests)," confided Bunker, it "Much of this can be attrib-
peered to . have significantly "has not appeared to have sig- uted to U.S. guidance and in-
weakened" the Vietcong in- nificantly weakened the VCI." fluence and Quotas."
frastructure. ' Giving the classified statis- Another reason for Phoe-
Bunker's cable is dated Aug. tics on VCI strength, he re- nix's failure was the unwilling-
30, 1971. The date is signifi-I ported: "June strength '(of) ness of the Vietnamese to turn
Icant. For a few days earlier, 61,994 was down 341 from ' in their sons and fathers to
Ambassador William Colby I May. The drop in strength for the Saigon government. As Lt.
and Assistant Defense secre-Ithe first half of 1971 is about Col. Jack Cantrell put it in a
tary G. Warren Nutter made; 10 per cent. Even if this figure classified report from Binh
public statements saying ex-! is reliable, it is not a signifi- Tuy province:
actly the opposite. cant decrease in
view of the "The major reasons for lack
Colby, who headed the pad- urgent GVN (Government. of of success include: (a) The in-
fication program in Vietnam, Vietnam) efforts directed herent distaste of the people
testified on July 19 before the against the VCI in 1971. to indict (inform on) relatives,
House Foreign Operations "Sixty thousand members of friends or personnel with po-
subcommittee. Suave and sol- an underground organization litical implications. . . (Phoe-
emn as an undertaker, he in a population of 18 million nix) is a U.S: innovation that
praised the Phoenix program, represents one VCI for each I has been bought officially by
Morgan (D-Pa.) on Aug. 2f.
Once again, we have caught
government officials in a fla-
grant deception. They twisted
the facts, apparently, in order
to win congressional support.
Gift from Agnew
Vice President Agnew is a
man often accused of a lack of
sympathy for ? the black and
the poor. But you'd have a
hard time convincing Ray
May, the rugged outside line-
backer of the Baltimore Colts.
May has adopted three
teen-aged black youths and
plans to convert his Kansas
ranch into a home for disad-
vantaged city boys. ?
Not long ago, May received
a handwritten note from the
Vice President. "Ray, congrat-
ulations," it said. "Perhaps
this will help a little." En-
closed was a crisp $100 bill.
Bell-McClure Syndicate
Approved For Release 2001/03104: CIA-RDP80-01601R001000170001-5
WASH; NGTON EQ31
STAT
Approved For Release 20091/aaRCIA-RDP80-016u1NILKuu1
Q. Is there any agency of the U.S. Government which
ihas been authorized to include political assassination
fin its practices??M. Wilson, Austin, Tex.
A. The one U.S. agency which uses political assassi-
nation as a weapon is the Central Intelligence
Agency. Many of its men in Vietnam have assassi-
nated civilian Communists in an effort to destroy the
Vietcong infrastructure. Operation Phoenix run by
:the CIA established a new high for U.S. political '
assassinations in Vietnam, largely in response to
enemy terrorist tactics which also include assassina-
tion, kidnapping, terrorism of all sorts.
??
1.
Approved For Release 2001/03/04: CIA-RDP80-01601R001000170001-5
Approved For Release 2a61/03iO4RMIA-RDP8041
_S 0 t). 1971
The CHI-1's Kew Cover
The Rope Dancer
by Victor Marchetti.
Grosset & Dunlap, 361 pp., $6.95
Richard .I. Barnet
I.
In late November the Central Intel-
ligence Agency conducted a series of
"senior seminars" so that some of its
important bureaucrats could consider
its public image. I was invited to
attend one session and to give my
views on the proper role of the
Agency. I suggested that its legitimate
activities were limited to studying
newspapers and published statistics,
?listening to the radio, thinking about
the world, interpreting data of recon-
naissance satellites, and occasionally
' publishing the names of foreign spies. I
had been led by conversations with a
number of CIA officials to believe that
they Were thinking along the same
lines. One CIA man after another
eagerly joined the discussion to assure
me that the days of the flamboyant
covert operations -"were over. The
upper-class amateurs of the OSS who
stayed to mastermind operations in
\.,/ Guatemala, Iran, the Congo, and else-
where?Allen Dulles, Kermit Roosevelt,
Richard Bissell, Tracy Barnes, Robert
Amory, Desmond Fitzgerald?had died
or departed.
In their place, I was assured, was a
small army of professionals devoted to
preparing intelligence "estimates" for
the President and collecting informa-
tion the clean, modern way, mostly
with .sensors,. computers, and sophis-
ticated reconnaissance devices. Even
Gary Powers, the U-2 pilot, would now
be as much a museum piece as Mata
'Hari. (There are about 18,000 em-
ployees in the CIA and 200,000 in the
entire "intelligence community" itself.
The cost of maintaining them is some-
where between $5 billion and S6
billion annually. The employment
figures do not include foreign agents or
mercenaries, such as the CIA's 100,000-
*man hired army in Laos.)
A week after my visit to the "senior
se
tu
'nar" Newsweek ran a long story
,s/
An "the new espionage" with a picture
of CIA Director Richard Helms on the
cover. The reporters clearly had spoken
to some of the same people I had. As
Newsweek said,
?
adventurer has passed in the American t
spy business; the bureaucratic age of
Richard C. Helms and his gray spe- k
cialists has settled in." I began to have r
an uneasy feeling that Newsweek's in
article was a cover story in more than vo
one sense. A
It has always 'been difficult to fa
c.e
analyze organizations that engage in
false advertising about themselves. Part of
of the responsibility of the CIA is to la
spread confusion about its own work. th
The world of Richard Helms and h.is be
"specialists" does indeed differ .from lz
that of Allen Dulles. Intelligence organ-
izations, in spite of their predilection
for what English judges used to call
"frolics of their own," are servants of
policy. When policy changes, they
must eventually change too, although
because of the atmosphere of secrecy
and deception in which they operate, ov
such changes are exceptionally hard to vic
control. To understand the "new Ag
espionage" one must see it as ipart of lm
the Nixon Doctrine which, in.essenee,
is a global strategy for maintaining US 1
power and influence without overtly reo
involving the nation in another ground He
war. nes
But we cannot comprehend recent lige
developments in the "intelligence corn- ne?
munity" without understanding what fur
Mr. Helms and his employees actually PrE
do. In a speech before the National fly
Press Club, the director discouraged/
journalists from making the attempt. d,
"You've just got to trust us. We are
honorable men." The same speech is
made each year to the small but
growing number of senators who want
a closer check on the CIA. In asking,
on November 10, for a "Select Com-
mittee on the Coordination of United
States Activities Abroad to oversee
activities of the Central Intelligence
Agency," Senator Stuart Symington
noted that "the .subcommittee having
oversight of the Central Intelligence
Agency has not met once this year."
Symington, a former Secretary of
the Air Force and veteran member of
the Armed Services Committee, has
also said that "there is no federal
agency in our government whose activ-
ities receive less scrutiny and control
than the CIA." Moreover, soon after
Symington spoke, Senator Allen J.
He
ov
Jig
Ag
Bu
th
cc
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. NATIONAL GUARDIAN
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ASIA
VI ETNANI-CAMBODIA
President Nixon was busy stepping up the wa:,
last week, sending Asian client troops into battle'
on three fronts. Irtside Cambodia about 20,000
Phnom Penh troops were thoroughly defeated;
on the Cambodia-Vietnam border some 25,000
Saigon soldiers couldn't find the "enemy" alleged
to be operating there; and in South Vietnam
some 15,000 Saigon troops were sent into the
Central Highlands on Nov. 27. Reports of the
drive were not published until several days after
it occurred and a week afterward there was still
no word on its results. (Under new press (tiles put
into effect Nov. 30 in Saigon, no news of the. war
may be published unless it is released by high
U.S.-Saigon officials or their spokesmen.)...
American 'pilots reported last week that for the
first time since 1955, North Vietnamese MJG
fighter planes fired air-to-air missiles at U.S. 6-52
bombers. The pilots' report?not confirmed by
GI TOLL: 359,437 -
The following casualty figures for Indo-
china are based on .U.S. gm:ternment statis-
tics.. They are lower than U.S. casualties
reported by the liberation forces. Figures
are from Jan. 1, 1961 to Nov. 27, 1971.
Figures in parentheses are for the week Nov.
20 to Nov. 27. Killed: 45,613 (9); "'Non-
combat" deaths: .9554 (7); Wounded:
302,223 (72); Missing, captured: 1617.
of the coineaanclo teams in the. field have become
afraid their activities might bring down on them
the kind of prosecution that convicted Lt.
William ?Calley in the massacre of civilians at
Mylei." The "Seals' " work included support of
' the CIA's infamous "Phoenix" program. A sign 1
posted by the "Seals" at one of their 13.71.WS on the ;
Mekong Delta said: "People who kill for money
? are professionals. People who kill for fun are
sadists. People who kill for money and fun are
Seals."....At a meeting of the China-Cambodia
? Friendship Association in Peking Nov. 9, 18th
anniversary of the independence of the Kingdom
of Cambodia, a report on the excellent battle
situation and high morale of the liberation forces
? was made by le2g Sery, special envoy of the
'.? Cambodian government in exile. He said, "Under
the leadership of the National United Front of
Cambodia...our people are determined to unite
? on a wide scale, wage resolute struggle, overcome
all difficurdes and hardships, win more. and
greater victories, make no compromise or retreat,
wipe out the enemy, smash the enemy's espion-
age activities and psychological warfare and-
. defend the liberated areas. Imbued with firm
revolutionary optimism, the Cambodian people
and the people's armed forces of national libera-
tion are confident of the inevitable defeat of U.S.
imperialisrn and its running clogs, the Lou No!-
Sink Matak-Son Ngoe Thanh traitorous clique."
the U.S. commend--said North Vietnamese Rus-
sian- and-Chinese-built MIGs had made about 101.
passes in the last two weeks at U.S. hornhers
flying over Laos. Said a senior pilot in Saigon in
an interview with the New York Times, "I'd -say
the Ml Cs represent a serious new threat, not a
potential threat but a real one."....With
chines? doing all the. fighting, U.S. troop with.i
drat:riots ere continuing. By Nov. 30 there were
1827400 GIs in Southeast' Asia. The' last of the
Navy's "Seals" are also leaving Vietnam. The
- Operations of this special unit were stopped,
according to the Times, "because some members
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By Peter OsnosBut considering the im-
. .
Washington I'ost F These reports, along with Province and police officials
-
?reign service .portance. attached to phoo. the cloak and dagger aura of'
misuse their authority to
., ?
SAIGON, Dec. 13 ? The nix as recently as a year ago CIA involvement and spe-,
Phoenix program, devised :and the fact that only a few cially trained and paid Viet- settle grievances and inno-
/ four years ago by the CIA hundred Americans were in- namese agents known as e nt people are jailed or;
as the way to wipe out the volved even at the peak,' the PRU (provincial reconnaiss; vorse.
Vietcong's political infra- - pullout at this stage is seen ance . units), gave the pro-. In Angiang, the country's
structure, remains today one by many observers as an ad- gram a sinister reputation .most pacified province, a
of the most notable failures mission that there is simplyman was recently trun-
that overshadowed -its con-
of the war. . very little more that can be tinning inability to accom- cheoned to death before it
. This is the view expressed 'done. plish the job it had been as- was discovered that he had
by many senior members of "The military didn't know signed. been picked up by mistake.
?the U.S. establishment here, how to advise the program'The most important The killer was an enlisted
'
sometimes in the boldest and the Vietnamese didn't thing about Phoenix," one 'man in the militia assigned
possible terms. "It's a lousy . want to learn," said an Amer- official commented early in to the local intelligence.
.failure," one top-echelon ican .. civilian who has 1970, "is that it is not work-. unit. ..
-American said loudly at a watched Phoenix closely. ing." , - .. - - The case . was reported in
reception the other night. Official - Vietnami7ation 1,- ? -' ' Trouble .. the Vietnamese press and
. ? Despite the recognized im- figures Show that about -? informed U.S. sources said a .
One reason frequently of- sergeant had .acted on his
portance to the Saigon gay- 20,000 agents are "neutral-
fered for Phoenix's troubles own without authority and.
. .ernment's future of elimi- ized" (killed, captured or is that it involves an ex- would ,be tried later.
- nating the Vietcong's clan- rallied to the government traordinarily complex mesh- HoW many of these inci-
destine Poltical apparatus, it side) each year. But, Ameri- ing of information and per. dents go undiscovered is
is apparently no longer con- cans acknowledge that prac- sonnet from any number Of anybody's guess. "This is an
sidered an achievable goal, tically all of thi probably Vietnamese military, para- undisciplined country at
. - The Vietcong infrastruc- inflated figure were low- military and civilian groups. war," said a high-ranking
Lure consists . of enemy level village and hamlet op- Leadership is nominally U.S. pacification official,
agents responsible for re- eratives and t