LETTER TO ELLIOTT ABRAMS FROM WILLIAM J. CASEY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP89B00423R000400430012-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 21, 2011
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: June 14, 1984
• Content Type: LETTER

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TRANSMITTAL SLIP
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 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/07/21 : CIA-RDP89B00423R000400430012-2
Central Intelligence Agency
The Honorable Elliott Abrams
The Assistant Secretary for Human Rights
and Humanitarian Affairs
Department of State
Washington, D.C. 20520
DDI- _ N
I appreciated your letter of 4 June and fully understand
that Ginetta Sagan is a respected and reputable authority on
human rights. I am impressed to hear of her interests and
efforts in interviewing refugees and support her desire to
publish on the ills of Vietnamese reeducation camps since this is
a subject of interest and concern to our Government.
You might be interested in knowing that over the past
several years our analytical effort on Vietnam has focused on two
issues: the stability of the Communist regime in Hanoi, and
Hanoi's ability to solidify control over all of Indochina. To
help us analyze these questions, we have examined Vietnam's
domestic problems--resistance in the south toward
collectivization, economic stagnation, and the continuing
activities of resistance groups, for example--and we are
beginning to study likely replacements for Hanoi's aging
leadership.
In doing these studies, we have peripherally touched on
several of the areas of interest to Ms. Sagan. A paper we
published in June 1983, for example, noted that Hanoi has used
reeducation camps as one method of neutralizing resistance to
government attempts to integrate the south. And in December
1983, we examined Hanoi's repression of antiregime leaders among
Vietnam's ethnic and religious groups. Unfortunately, because of
their classification, these studies are not releasable to
Ms. Sagan.
The use of reeducation camps is only one of a number of
Vietnamese policies aimed at strengthening control over the
country, and we are unable to devote significant resources to
 studying this single issue. As a result, we have not collated or
analyzed information on such issues as camp locations and
conditions or the health and attitudes of prisoners.
Our Directorate of Operations has a program for debriefing
Vietnamese refugees, primarily in Southeast Asia, as one facet of
keeping up with the internal political situation in Vietnam.
Information on reeducation camps, while not a specific
requirement for debriefing, has been a byproduct of this program
since 1975. Many of the reports containing information on the
reeducation camps have been disseminated to your office as well
as DIA. As you might suspect, DIA is interested in receiving the
results of refugee debriefings primarily in the context of 25X1
POW/MIA issue.
officers from the Directorate of Operations will call you soon to
discuss our disseminations on the reeducation camps. Perhaps
some of the reports which are not too highly classified can be
made available to Ms. Sagan. These suggested exchanges with
Ms. Sagan should accrue to our mutual benefit.
Yours,
7s1 William J. Casey
William J. Casey
Director of Central Intelligence
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SECRET
 )tl.ttt I
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/07/21 : CIA-RDP89B00423R000400430012-2
Reeducation Camps
Orig -
Addressee
1 -
DCI
1 -
DDCI
1 -
ExDir
1 -
Ex Reg
1 -
DDI
1 -
ADDI
1 -
DDI Reg
1 -
OD/OEA
1 -
C/OEA/SA
1 -
C/OEA/SA/ITM
SUBJECT: Letter to Elliott Abrams re Vietnamese
OD/0EA
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/07/21 : CIA-RDP89B00423R000400430012-2
ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE `.=t-.i .`?'.~(t~
WASHINGTON
CONFIDENTIAL
Mr. William J. Casey
Director
Central Intelligence Agency
Langley, Virginia
Dear Bill:
An incident last Thursday surrounding Ginetta Sagan,
a founder of Amnesty International and a well known figure
in human rights circles, prompts me to write you with two
concerns: one procedural, the other with much deeper policy
implications.
Unlike many of her colleagues, Ginetta is balanced. She
fully accepts that the worst human rights atrocities and abuses
occur in closed, Communist societies. Aware that documenting
these crimes is infinitely more difficult than documenting
human rights abuses in authoritarian states, Ginetta believes
it is incumbent upon human rights groups to devote as much
time as possible to chronicling the human rights practices
of Communist states. She uses the best means available to
her to perform this task - she systematically and thoroughly
interviews, in painstaking manner, emigres and refugees from
totalitarian regimes. Her steadfast insistence on the
premises and methods of her work has given her no small amount
of trouble within Amnesty International.
Ginetta has for several years been interviewing Indochinese
refugees, in particular documenting conditions in Vietnamese
reeducation camps from 1975 to present. She is preparing a
major article on the subject for publication next Spring whose
upshot will be to make the Thieu regime's renowned "tiger cages"
look like bridal suites at the Ritz compared to what followed.
Her findings can only benefit this Administration's foreign
policy, its public diplomacy efforts, and the great.struggle
to which you and I are dedicated.
Ginetta called me to see whether I couldn't arrange a
meeting with USG analysts to have her findings corroborated.
It seems to me we might also learn a good deal from her. To
my dismay, INR, after a flurry of inter-bureau phone calls,
finally came up with one analyst who last paid attention to
the issue several years ago. They now have a summer intern
plowing through past cable traffic to try to get a sketch of
the situation. According to INR at least, debriefings of
Indochinese refugees have been random, incomplete, and episodic.
DCI
 Our approach to CIA analysts (referred by INR) met with
flat rejection. Despite a thorough explanation of who
Ginetta Sagan was (she should have been known through her
previous writings on Vietnam) and the ramifications of her
work, my office was told that not only did no Vietnam analyst
have any time for such a meeting, but that the CIA had almost
no information on the subject!
Can this possibly be true? Is it possible that no one
has done systematic debriefings of Vietnamese refugees? Have
no other sources disclosed which reeducation camps remain
open, which are closed, descriptions of general camp conditions,
the kind of prisoners still interned, and the health, occupations,
and attitudes of those prisoners released? I wouldn't necessarily
expect the Agency to search out such information, but I would
expect such information to have been gathered and collated
through routine collection operations.
If I assume the best, my concern is mundane and procedural.
The information is available, but comparing notes with
Ginetta Sagan meant more work so the Division Chief just rudely
brushed us off. Such obstacles are overcome, as they often
are in bureaucracies, by being bucked up and generating letters
like this one, irritating both of us. But if I assume the
worst, i.e. what INR and CIA claim about the extent of our
information on reeducation camps is in fact true, then my
concerns are deeper. It means that one woman, working alone
on a shoestring budget has more complete, accurate, and up-to-
date information about the internal political situation in
Vietnam than the combined intelligence resources of the United
States Government.
Assistant Secretary for Human Rights
and Humanitarian Affairs
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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/07/21 : CIA-RDP89B00423R000400430012-2
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 Office of East Asian Analysis
DIRECTORATE OF-INTELLIGENCE
Here is the revised version of the
letter from the DCI to Elliott Abrams.
All we have done is rewrite the last
I hope this will do the/trick.
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SECRET
MEMORANDUM FOR: Deputy Director for Intelligence
FROM:
Acting Director of East Asian Analysis
SUBJECT: Elliott Abrams Letter of 4 June Re
Vietnamese Reeducation Camps
1. We have looked into the matter of Vietnamese reeducation
camps raised by Elliott Abrams in his 4 June 1984 letter
addressed to the Director. We believe we have been able to
assimilate enough information to enable the OCT to reassure
Elliott Abrams that the Intelligence Community is collecting
intelligence from refugees on the internal political situation in
Vietnam. We have collected some information on the reeducation
camps, but we are not concentrating on them as specific
intelligence targets and have not treated them as analysis issues
in OEA.
2. Over the past several years, OEA's analytical effort on
Vietnam has focused on two issues: the stability of the
Communist regime in Hanoi, and Hanoi's ability to solidify
control over all of Indochina. To help us analyze these
questions, we have examined Vietnam's domestic problems--
resistance in the south toward collectivization, economic
stagnation, and the continuing activities of resistance groups,
for example--and we are beginning to study likely replacements
for Hanoi's aging leadership.
3. In doing these studies, we have only peripherally
touched on several of the areas of interest to Ms. Sagan. A
paper we published in June 1983, for example, noted that Hanoi
has used reeducation camps as one method of neutralizing
resistance to government attempts to integrate the south. And in
December 1983, we examined Hanoi's regression of antiregime
leaders among Vietnam's ethnic and religious groups. This
material cannot be made available to Ms. Sagan, however, because
of its classification.
4. The use of reeducation camps is only one of a number of
Vietnamese policies aimed at strengthening control over the
country, and we are unable to devote significant resources to
studying this single issue. As a result, we have not collated or
SECRET
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/07/21 : CIA-RDP89B00423R000400430012-2
 analyzed information on such issues as camp locations and
.conditions or the health and attitudes of prisoners.
5. We also discussed this c~~ninrt with
a intelligence on reeducation camps in Vietnam is not a -major 25X1
collection requirement for the DDO. However, it is acquired from
time to time as a byproduct of several refugee debriefing
programs conducted in the field. Some 30-40 reports on the
subject havie been disseminated since 1975. The major customers
for this information are DIA and the Human Rights people at
State--presumably Elliott Abrams' own office. According to 25X1
or the refugee camps as such; DIA, for example, is interested
primarily in the context of POW/MIA matters. There is little
intelligence interest in refugees who have escaped from these
camps since' they have in a sense been in isolation, and thus have
not had access to the t e of 'ntelligence on Vietnam the DUO is
attempting to acquire. suggests we might consider 25X1
releasing the intelligence reports on the refugee camps to
Ginetta Saaan sins most of them are classified at the
moan's requirements.
7. The suggested draft of a letter from the DCI respondin
g
to Elliott Abrams' letter is attached.
8. Also attached is the exchange of correspondence on
Leo Cherne's memo on human rights violations in Vietnam. You
will note Ginetta Sagan's name appears prominently in this
Attachments:,
as stated.
-2-
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/07/21 : CIA-RDP89B00423R000400430012-2
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/07/21 : CIA-RDP89B00423R000400430012-2
.2 2 JUN 1984
The Honorable Elliott Abrams
The Assistant Secretary for Human Rights
and Humanitarian Affairs
Department of State
Washington, D.C. 20520
I appreciated your letter of 4 June and fully understand
that Ginetta Sagan is a respected and reputable authority on
human rights. I am impressed to hear of her interests and
efforts in interviewing refugees and support her desire to
publish on the ills of Vietnamese reeducation camps since this is
a subject of interest and concern to our Government.
You might be interested in knowing that over the past
several years our analytical effort on Vietnam has focused on two
issues: the stability of the Communist regime in Hanoi, and
Hanoi's ability to solidify control over all of Indochina. To
help us analyze these questions, we have examined Vietnam's
domestic problems--resistance in the south toward
collectivization, economic stagnation, and the continuing
activities of resistance groups, for example--and we are
beginning to study likely replacements for Hanoi's aging
leadership.
In doing these studies, we have peripherally touched on
several of the areas of interest to Ms. Sagan. A paper we
published in June 1983, for example, noted that Hanoi has used
reeducation camps as one method of neutralizing resistance to
government attempts to integrate the south. And in December
1983, we examined Hanoi's repression of antiregime leaders among
Vietnam's ethnic and religious groups. Unfortunately, because of
their classification, these studies are not releasable to
Ms. Sagan.
The use of reeducation camps is only one of a number of
Vietnamese policies aimed at strengthening control over the
country, and we are unable to devote significant resources to
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/07/21 : CIA-RDP89B00423R000400430012-2
studying this single issue. As a result, we have not collated or
analyzed information on such issues as camp locations and
conditions or the health and attitudes of prisoners.
Our Directorate of Operations has a program for debriefing
Vietnamese refugees, primarily in Southeast Asia, as one facet of
keeping up with the internal political situation in Vietnam.
Information on reeducation camps, while not a specific
requirement for debriefing, has been a byproduct of this program
since 1975. Many of the reports containing information on the
reeducation camps have been disseminated to your office as well
as DIA. As you might suspect, DIA is interested in receiving the
results of refugee debriefings primarily in the context of
POW/MIA issue. 25X1
Secon y, one o my
officers from the Directorate of Operations will call you soon to
discuss our disseminations on the reeducation camps. Perhaps
some of the-reports which are not too highly classified can be
made available to Ms. Sagan. These suggested exchanges with
Ms. Sagan should accrue to our mutual benefit.
7s1 Wiilimm J. Casey
William J. Casey
Director of Central Intelligence
-2-
SECRET