AGENT EXPOSES SECRET MISSION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
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• Original Classification: K
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• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 21, 2011
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• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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1.
agent exposes Secret Mission
It was in March that CAIB first heard from Scott
Barnes-a former police informer, undercover cop. drug
enforcement agent, and military policeman. Barnes, only
28, had spent the last nine years in such marginal work,
from the time he was still in high school in Redondo Beach,
California, near Los Angeles. Now he had a shocking,
almost unbelievable, tale to tell. He had given his story, he
said, to ABC-TV and to Jack Anderson but neither had
used it. After waiting weeks, on the advice of "a friend at
the Pentagon" he contacted CovertAcrion.
Barnes said that in October and November 1981 he was
one of a team of six Americans who were sent into Laos
from Thailand by the CIA. Their mission, they thought,
was to locate and if possible rescue American prisoners of
war held since the final days of the Vietnam War. This
mission, Barnes said, had the cooperation of a Member of
Congress, was coordinated by a former war hero now
working undercover for the CIA, and was directed by the
CIA Chief of Station in Bangkok and his predecessor, now
living in Vienna, Virginia.
As Barnes described it, the team did locate two "Cauca-
sians," apparently Americans captured in Laos. But they
appeared "recently" captured. Moreover, after the team
reported their find, noting that rescue seemed difficult,
they were ordered to try to kill the two captives. The team
refused, disbanded the mission, and returned to the U.S.
They never intended to discuss what had really happened.
But the only explanation for the incredible orders, Barnes
thought, was that the Americans were involved in planting
false evidence of the use of yellow rain. The government
was afraid the Laotions would exploit this, perhaps in a
show trial.
Barnes would not have spoken out at all, he says. but for
the fact that the coordinator of the mission, James "Bo"
Gritz, a former Green Beret Colonel, started giving news-
paper interviews in December and January, telling a very
different story from what Barnes says was the truth. Barnes
then decided to approach ABC-some six weeks before he
called CA/B.
CA/B interviewed Barnes several times, at length. A
transcript of a recording of one interview was prepared
and, with a press release from CA/B. circulated to the
media in April. We found it very puzzling, to say the least,
that the media had not carried Barnes's story. Even if they
could not prove it, even if they did not believe it. the
allegations alone would be news. We later learned that the
media insisted they needed more "confirmation." which
did not stop them from running with the Libyan "hit
squad" fabrication, nor prevent them from playing up Bo
Gritz's side of the story.
CA/B's widely distributed press release moved a number
of journalists to contact the key figures in Barnes's tale, as
well as Pentagon and CIA sources. Most denied a lot that
Barnes had to say; almost all denied the key assertions---
that the mission was official, that Americans did go into
Laos, and most importantly that there were assassination
orders from the CIA in Virginia. But the denials were not
consistent. One person, for example, denied that the mis-
sion had used phony cards identifying the team as Congres-
sional aides; another said there was such a mission but it
did not go into Laos; another said the mission did go into
Laos, but it was a privately sponsored, not a CIA, opera-
tion. Bo Gritz at first denied knowing Barnes, denied giving
him any support, denied meeting with him and exiled Lao
General Vang Pao at a Congressman's office, all denials lie
later retracted. Daniel Arnold, the former CIA Chief in
Bangkok-now president of Tashkent Associates in
Vienna-denied any role in such a mission. As he told a
Daily World reporter, "Because I was a former CIA officer
people seem to think we are an unscrupulous bunch of
rogues who would undertake such a monstrous plot ..."
But Arnold did not deny his former high Agency position,
nor 'did he deny that he forwarded messages from Lao
rebels in Thailand to Vang Pao, now living in Montana,
messages brought to him by Barnes.
Arnold's name was in the news in May when stories
surfaced that career diplomat Morton Abramowitz had
been blocked from accepting the offer of Assistant Secre-
tary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. One of
those "widely reported to be involved," according to the
Washington Post, was Arnold, "who was CIA station chief
in Bangkok for about a year during Abramowitz's tenure
as ambassador." Arnold denied any friction while the two
were both posted to Bangkok, but said they "quarreled in
late 1980 over his return to Bangkok as a private consultant
after retiring from the CIA." Arnold, in fact, is now a
registered, paid agent for the Thai government.
Kevin Cody, editor of the Eas.t? Rider in Hermosa Beach,
California, took the CA/B press release seriously. His
paper covers the district represented by conservative Re-
publican Robert Dornan-the Congressman named by
Barnes. Cody interviewed most of the key people and
published a lengthy article, which he has given CAIB per-
mission to reprint. As he notes, no one, despite all the
denials, has been able to show that Scott Barnes is lying.
Week by week more of Barnes's narrative is confirmed.
Early on we received a telephone call from "John." who
confirmed all of Barnes's story, but who said he was afraid
to go public. John-possibly John Akins. who Barnes says
was one of the six on his mission-has never called back.
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Short I,,, before going to press we received a Mailgram from
Vienna, Virginia, from a name not listed by the telephone
company at that address, advising us that we would never
understand completely what "TF157-Bohica" was all
about. "Operation Bohica" was the codename Barnes said
was given to the mission. But the reference to Task Force
157, the secret Navy-CIA cover operation for which fugi-
tive Edwin Wilson worked, was a new piece in the puzzle.
And most surprising of all has been the mysterious death
of Jerry Daniels in Bangkok, described below. Daniels,
who worked with Lao exiles and rebels, expressed his
disbelief to journalists of the yellow rain evidence touted so
much by the State Department. His mysterious death-
not. apparently, the first such strange demise at the U.S.
Embassy in Bangkok-adds credence to the can of worms
which Barnes seems to have opened. Moreover, as we
began to hear about the Daniels case at CA/B we received a
telephone threat, to "stay away from the Daniels
investigation."
We are convinced that only the tip of the iceberg has
been exposed at this time, We hope that these articles will
generate further investigations and that more people with
first hand information will come forward. What follows
are: Excerpts from CA/B's interview with Scott Barnes;
Kevin Cody's East- Rider article; and Ellen Ray's article on
the Jerry Daniels case.
Excerpts from CAIB-
Scott Barnes Interview
March 28, 1982
I was over in Hawaii to visit a friend who was sick. An
ex-SOG [Secret Operating Group] operator got in touch
with me about this proposal, which we all thought was a
rescue proposal. Bo Gritz got in touch with me through the
SOG guys who had told him that I knew Vang Pao. Bo
Gritz was under cover, pretending to work for Hughes. He
said that he was involved in Operation Velvet Hammer and
that the government came in and asked him to publicly step
down so they could secretly go in there [Laos] and try to
verify via SR-71 photos and some reconnaissance groups,
and so he did that in June of eighty-one, and then General
Aaron out of the Pentagon has asked him to prepare for an
"invasion into Laos."
An invasion bi? whom?
An invasion by American special forces. And he said it
would be a three-team crossing, and he had ordered some
very sophisticated weapons, contacts, and he asked for a
meeting with General Vang Pao, so I arranged that, and he
asked for a meeting with Congressman Bob Dornan [Rep.-
Calif.] and I arranged that.
Bo wanted these meetings. because the Agency figured
it'd be a good coyer to use Congressman Dornan. We had
some phony business cards made up with our names, that
we were staff aides to Congressman Dornan. That way,
ROBERT K. DORNAN
UNITED STATES CONGRESSMAN
SCOTT T. BARN ES
STAFF ASSISTANT
6151 WEST CENTURY BLVD.
SUITE 1018
LAS ANGELES. CA 90045
12131 642 5111
Number 17 (Summer 1982)
while down there, we could claim political asylum if we got
caught at any of the cross-border checks.
Did Dornan know all about this?
Yeah. Oh. yeah.
And he cooperated with it
Oh. absolutely. He set up a meeting with General David
Jones. and was conferring with General Jones and Presi-
dent Reagan on the matter.
Do you know if other .%fembers of Congress knew about
it?
No others. Nobody else knew. Nobody. We dubbed it
Operation Bohica. And then in October he arranged for
some Agency aides to come out and some Green Berets,
and we met in Westchester [California].
How many people were there when you met?
There were six, six Americans, and there were four
others that were shadowing us to make sure we weren't
followed or we didn't back out, and I never met them. I
don't know who they were.
The six, were they all former Green Berets?
All but one. One was out of Ft. Meade, Maryland. He
was an intelligence analyst. So then Bo said that we got the
approya] from the Agency to go ahead, and he said about
two days' planning. He'd gotten some phony business cards
made, and we were to use a Telex in the Department of
Energy communications center in Washington, DC, to
send overseas Telexes via a code. That way, foreign agents
intercepting information would not suspect that we used a
DOE Telex. We met with the station chief for the CIA at
the United States Embassy in Bangkok. Prior to that I had
been down at the Embassy and had met with an Agency
pilot, helicopter pilot. I was at the Embassy in June to
prepare the future operation of October, November. And I
met with DIA people. and then I touched bases with some
foreign types of agents that were helping us out through
General Vane Pao.
Di1/ fond Pao eler leave iforiiana for any of these
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things, or were people just in touch by phone.'
No, I brought him down to California and brought him
into Congressman Dornan's office, and had some meetings
where he actually signed in on Congressman Dornan's
personal ledger, along with Bo Gritz, myself, and another
foreign intelligence agent. Then later on the Congressman's
aide called me, and said, "Gosh, I made a mistake. I didn't
wany any of you guys to sign in in my office." So he sent me
the ledger in the mail, so I would see that it was the original,
so I would destroy it. However, the way politics works. I
didn't destroy it, I kept it.
You said there was a foreign intelligence person with
You.
Yes. We were cooperating with another country's agent.
I think he was out of China. We were trying to work
something out with the Chinese people.
Taiwan or Peoples Republic?
People's Republic. They were going to "slap the hand of
Vietnam" while a lot of guerrilla activity was going on. in
Mahaxai, Gnommerat, the Mugia Pass, and Nape in Laos.
Well, when we were down there the second time, we
equipped a team of indigenous to take a team across the,
river [the Mekong] and verified that there were some
Caucasians, known or unknown that they were Americans,
but it was obvious that they were probably Americans.
This was across the river from where to +where?
We went across at Ban Pheng, Thailand. straight across
47 km. roughly to Mahaxai, just a little bit to the west of
Mahaxai.
This is in Laos?
Barnes with a Lao guerrilla at camp in Ban Phang,
Thailand.
Right. We verified that there were Caucasians and sent a
Telex.
How many were there?
Two Caucasians.
And when You say verified. You mean somebody actually
got to see them?
Yes. We had some 30-odd indigenous forces with us.
And then Daniel Arnold, the former station chief for the
CIA in Bangkok sent some communications and we got the
message that Bo Gritz was cut off, no longer to send
messages to him and no longer to trust him.
He was not with You on the mission?
No, no. He stayed in the United States. So then the Chief
of Station from the U.S. Embassy brought up a coded
message through some of his agents from Nakhon Phanom
and we put that together with a Telex message we got back
from Langley, Virginia. telling us in essence if these are in
fact Americans. assassinate them. And we got in an argu-
ment, and split, and went our ways.
Did You all go hack to the base in Thailand where You
started out from?
Yes. We all went back to Bangkok, and one of the guys,
intelligence guys, decided to go and be debriefed prior to
returning to the United States. Two of the Green Berets
decided that they were going to go to Hawaii and lay low
for about a week before returning to the mainland, and
then they were going to disappear. And the other guy
decided that in the meantime he was going to go to Japan
and then filter on back to the United States via Canada.
Was evervbodY traveling under their own individual
covers at that point:'
Yes. We all decided to disband quickly.
So far as you know, everybody got hack their own
separate ways.?
Yeah, as far as I know. I only talked to one of them some
time ago, and he said, "Forget we ever went, forget we ever
talked to anybody."
Did you ever learn or suspect what it was that the Ameri-
cans who were captured in Laos might have known or what
it was they didn't want the Laotians to find out?
Two things. One is that possibly the United States was
involved in getting chemical warfare, biological stuff over
there.
You mean they might have been planting Yellow rain
stuff'
Right. That was one of the suspicions that was discussed
over there. The other one was that these "guys" might have
been involved in a secret operation as late as '79 or '80 and
got captured. And could tell some pretty horrendous sto-
ries about what was really going on if they were forced to.
And it was best that they not ever come back.
But did they have any sway or reason to believe that
whatever it was that they knew they would not already have
revealed?
Not that I know of. They had a previous operation that
had been scouting the area and setting up booby traps and
stuff and there's no way of really telling except for nothing
ever came out through international channels.
The area where the Americans were being held, do you
know i/'that was unYwhere near the region x?here evidence
of i?ellow rain was supposedly being found:'
Oh yes, It was right in that area. About which Haig
himself made the accusation last year.
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But rou never .found out any more to confirm that that is
what it was?
No, I never did, I just decided it was best to leave as soon
as possible.
Did .rou ever hear from anyone else front the mission?
The only person I heard from was John. ["John" also
spoke by phone with CAIB and confirmed all of Barnes's
story, but refused to say where he was. John said he wanted
Barnes's story to come out, because he was frightened, and
had heard that two of the members of the mission had met
untimely deaths, one in Libya and one in Guatemala.]
How did he know how to reach rou?
Well. I left a number for him that I would be at for a
week, and we contacted each other and decided that for
better or worse it was best we never say anything happened,
and we'll keep a close eye on the local newspapers. And
next thing we know, Bo Gritz is going all over the country
talking.
Do you know whY Bo started talking; do you have any
idea?
Yes. We think it is because he was supposed to come
back as a full bird colonel and was supposed to work out of
DIA Section 7B as a full bird, and was turned down. I think
as an insurance policy he decided to start talking. Because
he got pressure from the Secret Service about the Middle
East connection.
You mean he came under pressure. for things unrelated
to Laos?
Right.
What kind of stuff was that?
About some Special Forces guys going to Chad and
Sudan, and a couple of guys he had sent down to El
Salvador to start doing some training, and allegedly the
United States wasn't doing any of this stuff. He was trying
to get teams together for the Company to send to obscure
places in El Salvador. recruiting some of the old people. I
think one of the guys from our mission is there.
But this is stuff he was doing as a government entplo.yee?
Right.
This was not free lance stuff?
Right.
Who was he w?orking.for, was that CIA?
This was under the direction of the Agency. Matter of
fact, I'll give you their extension number back at Langley. if
you want it.
How did you have these numbers far him, and that
inlormailon?
Well, he knew that I was really tight with General Vang
Pao, and so he said that if anything ever happens. call area
code 202, 351-1100. and ask for extension 6145. That's
supposedly called CDO, which is apparently where John
Stein was in charge of covert defense operations.
Did t?ou ever call /tint there?
I did once.
After this mission?
Yes. The day I got back to the United States I called.
asked for the extension, and that time gave the code name
Bohica, and next thing the guy says okay, give me your
number and let me secure a line. And he called hack. He
said, "Forget this thing ever existed."
But did .rou ask him about the bottom line, we didn't
know we were gnirig to he told to kill anyhodr:'
Right. I asked him that and said, "You know we were all
surprised about the very sophisticated weapons that were
provided," and he just said, "You don't know anything,
you didn't hear anything, nobody knows anything, this
number doesn't exist. Just take the money and go have a
good time." And Daniel Arnold, he was a major figure in
this operation. He allegedly is retired from the Agency. and
he's running a private company, International Research
Associates, area code 703, 938-1868, in Vienna. [The other
company on the business card is Tashkent Associates.] I
also have the business card that Dan sent me thanking me
for a letter. a secret letter 1 picked up down there to be
delivered to the authorities back here in the United States.
A letter you picked up where?
From Laos.
So there were other things besides looking for the
A ntericans?
I was supposed to pick up a letter and contact some
foreign indigenous agents that had been working with the
Hmong previously, on chemical warfare operations.
Do rou know what those things were?
They kept that real hush hush.
You never knew whether they were planting evidence?
No. it was pretty much speculated though, and we sat
down one day with one of them and I brought back one of
the letters and decided to make a copy of it, and keep it,
which I did.
How did the journalists get in touch with you?
I got a call from a couple of guys out of the Pentagon that
knew all about this that I had been dealing with, and they
said. "Look, we know we were duped, this whole thing was
wrong. and we're going to give you some names of people,
numbers to contact and don't tell them you heard from us
in the Pentagon," and I'm not going to tell anybody who
they were, so they can feel safe.
Were they making the point that they thought this was a
rescue mission?
They themselves all thought and Deputy Inman of the
CIA, he himself thought, it was a rescue mission too, he
said. He said, if this was true, that we were going to assassi-
nate people, it had to be renegades. He said it might be
people like Wilson and Terpil or Agee or Marchetti or
agents like that who are no good any more. He said maybe
they tried to take it on their own and just end the problem,
but he would never admit it.
How could the sat that? You got a telegram iron?
Langley.
Oh. we got all kinds of Telexes.
But then couldn't very well have heen from anybody like
Marchetti or Agee?
Oh I know. But he was using their names as former
agents being renegades, who could have used Agency
communications or Agency funding to do their own secret
operation.
Did you actually .speak with hint personally:'
No. Ted Koppel did, and related that back.
But how does he justify or e.vplain the fact that the
117s/ructions' came from Langley.'
He says, "Prove it." And we said, "Okay, let's go to the
Department of Energy, communications center. and see all
the Telexes from this date to this date under Subject Bohi-
ca." And then he flipped his head and said, "How did you
guys know' about Subject Bohica?" And he says that due to
national security, nothing can be discussed.
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You mean Koppel mentioned the name of the operation
to innta/i?
Yeah, then he just flipped out. He said there's a law
coming to pass. if you guys start revealing agents' names
you're going to be tried and prosecuted, criminally.
Basically, ever .rhodr who seems to have A noun anything
about it is taking the position ilia, they ail thought it was an
operation to rescue someone, not to kill someone:'
Right.
And yet the coded messages came both from Langley
and front the Chief ofStation.
Right. At the U.S. Embassy.
Has anrhoclr said to you that they've been in touch with
him:'
One of the guys said that he didn't know. All he was
doing was taking part of the secret message and delivering
it to the appropriate people. He said, "1 don't know what
was in it. It came over in," I think he told me, "an ERKS 53
computer."
So he was passing a message but he didn't kiiow what it
Was?
Right. He said the message came from Langley to Bang-
kok and then he just forwarded it on from Bangkok. No, he
didn't say Langley, he said Virginia.
How did you receive communications when.you i ere in
the ficld in Laos, hr radio.'
No. We took in an awful lot of radios and other equip-
ment that Uncle Sam provided, but we didn't communicate
across the river. We came across and went down to Nakhon
Phanom and sent messages via Telex to the Rajah Motel in
Bangkok to the Department of Energy, Com. center. Wash-
ington. DC, Attn: Subject Bohica. The following purchase
items are necessary, C7, Al I. and so on.
And then the Messages would come hack the same lyay9
Right.
They'd go from DOE, Washington directly to the Rajah
.'Motel
Right.
And then you had soniebodi who would pick their, up
there?
Right. And then filter them up to the guys at Nakhon
Phanom.
And then go hack across the river?
Right.
So when .rou were all together and got the message that
was telling rou that these people couldn't he rescued, to
hump them on , rou were hack inside the Thailand.side of
the border then?
Right. We were back in Nakhon Phanom. Because when
they told us that the Huey pilot, all of a sudden the gov-
ernment pulled him out of Thailand and sent back on
orders to the United States, we starting getting rather
suspicious. You know we had all things set up and every-
thing was squared away. and then all of a sudden ...
U hen.you sar all set up, you mean all set up fora rescue
rttempt.)
Right.
Thcti Is hat sort of a plan was supposed to he involved if
rou were killing the people instead of rescuing them.' You
.Mill needed a helicopter. didn't _rou!
No, because they were going to go in via indigenous and
if sse couldn't accomplish it. then we had large sums of
money and wcre able to purchase medicine and stuff in
Thailand to give to certain indigenous. One of them would
carry out any orders, no matter what they were. If we
couldn't accomplish it, we had to abort. then the stuff was
supposed to be up to him and he would accomplish it. As
far as I know, he may have accomplished it.
You never got ally details from there once you left?
No. Once we left, I cut communications. I talked to
General Vang Pao about three or four weeks ago. and he
just said, "The thing for us to do right now is just, we never
knew each other."
Have rou offered to go testi/r before the Intelligence
Conitniitee?
Yes. I told them, I said. "Hey put me on another gov-
ernment polygraph exam. You guys hired the world's best
one, you sent me to a shrink, I got photos. I'll bring you
documentation." And he said, "But you don't understand.
Scott. You don't understand what you're saying." I said,
"Yeah. I know." He said. "There are a lot of problems in the
Middle East. in international conflicts: we went across a
sovereign nation's border. In other words we engaged in an
act of war." And I said. "I know that. and it was wrong.
because I wouldn't have said anything if we were going to
rescue, but when I found out what the truth was. I think it's
wrong." And he said. "So do l." I said. "Let's have a Senate
hearing." and he said. "We're haying hearings but they're
secret. We don't want the public to know." I said. "I think
that's wrong. fi's'hy don't you ;guys want the truth out''" 0
Number 17 (Summer 1982)
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