At noontime, after a bamboo-shoot, pepper and Spam lunch, I went off to nap and recover from the long trip. I had been assigned a space on a raised bamboo platform inside the main house, a long rectangular structure with bamboo curtains to provide privacy. I had just lain down when a heavy, sweet smell permeated the air—the Yao men had lit their opium pipes prior to their mid-day nap.
That evening the village headman, a gentle, intelligent man who in his mid-forties was old by hill-tribe standards, threw a banquet for us. We all sat on the floor around low, square, bamboo-pole tables. The team leader took the opportunity to explain the program to the village headman and to introduce each individual team member. Since my demand that we continue the journey the day before, the team leader and I were not speaking, and I was the last to be (barely) introduced. The headman agreed to all facets of the program and said he would send some young men to Mae Rim, the headquarters of the counterinsurgency forces, for the training. He also said that in the morning we could pick out an appropriate site for the airstrip, and construction—using the tools dropped in the morning air delivery—could begin as soon as feasible.
The meal was served Chinese-style with individual bowls of rice and community bowls of meat and vegetables in the center for all to dip out of with their chopsticks. Just as I was about to dip into one attractive-looking dish, the Thai at my side nudged me and said in a low whisper that it was a dish of worms. My chopsticks made a quick turn into a more recognizable dish of pepper and bamboo shoots.
Over the next few days we located a potential airstrip site and began to clear and level it. The team medic treated a young child and gave the mother a supply of antibiotics. The mother, assuming that if one pill helped then the entire bottle would help more, gave her child the entire contents in one dose. We sat up all night, hoping and praying that the child would not die. Fortunately, by morning, the child began to recover.
We remained in the village for four days and made all the arrangements for the airstrip and other facets of the program. We then moved on to the next village on the stop. Three weeks later we walked out of the mountains many miles away from our starting spot. Our team had the best record of any subsequent teams. We had built, or had arranged for the building of, airstrips in several villages. We had recruited the required number of potential trainees. We had made friends with the villagers and had accomplished everything required of us. I felt proud of a job well done, but was happy to get back to my more prosaic intelligence job.
I wanted to stay for another year in that beautiful area, but other Agency men were clamoring for a tour in the North. Dave Abbott, who had never forgiven me for refusing his recruitment attempt, quashed any efforts of the commander of the counterinsurgency force to have me remain.
On the day of my departure the entire counterinsurgency force turned out for a formal military review. I hated to leave. I really liked the Thai people and especially the men I had worked with. At the time I did not realize that my work in Thailand had been part of a plan by the President’s national security advisers to develop and deploy CIA paramilitary capabilities around the world. I still naively believed the CIA’s main purpose was to gather intelligence. I left the North with sadness, but with enormous pride in myself and in the CIA for having done an important job well.
That pride turned to bitterness and anger when I eventually learned of the fate of the hill-tribe villages my team had visited and tried to help. A few years later, because of growing communist influence in the Lao border area, the villages were shelled, bombed, and napalmed by the Thais. Our efforts had apparently laid the groundwork for the tragic destruction of the hill tribes.
7. HEADQUARTERS:
DUPING CONGRESS
IN mid-1964, after moving back into the house we had bought three years earlier in Herndon, Virginia, I returned to work at the Headquarters building in Langley. I was assigned to the Thai desk, where I was responsible for keeping track of the programs that I had worked on directly in Thailand. This was a paper-pushing job, and I soon longed to get back out into the field, a yearning shared by the majority of CIA case officers.
As part of my desk duties I evaluated our field intelligence reports, most of which covered the activities of the Communist Party of Thailand. Though I had been in North Thailand and reported on the party, I knew virtually nothing about it. I maintained a file of past CIA intelligence reports on the Thai Communists, and to evaluate the new reports I would review the more recent past reporting. If the new report was not too different, I would give it a good grade, adding some innocuous comment such as: “This report reinforces earlier indications on developments in the Communist Party of Thailand. We would wish for additional details on the size of the movement, particularly in the key Northeast area.”
Early on, the desk chief had warned me that if I wanted another tour in Thailand I should not be too critical of the station’s reporting. He said the chiefs of station have long memories, and they do not like to receive criticism of station operations. So the operator who wanted to get ahead gave most reports at least a good rating. He said I should consider doing the same, “unless you feel strongly otherwise.” This was said more as a threat than anything else.
Once a week the Far East division chief, William E. Colby, later to become CIA director, would sit down with all of the desk chiefs and review the reports and the various grades assigned by the desk officers to the reports. They would make a few comments, but for the most part they merely accepted the rating the individual desk officer had given a report. The comments coming from these meetings were more often platitudes than substantive criticisms. I realized I was just a junior case officer, and if this was how the game was played it certainly was okay with me. Also we lower-level officials lacked the “big picture” or “atmospherics.” If we had this special overview, as we were so often told, we would realize the correctness of this procedure. After the division chiefs’ meeting, we desk officers prepared a dispatch forwarding to the station all of the comments on all of the reports. At the station the rating sheets were assessed with gravity. Each word was considered for any hidden meaning. For the rating sheets went out as Headquarters comments—not mine or any other desk officer’s—and as such they carried the weight of knowledgeable authority.
One day, with other case officers from the Thai and Lao desks, I was called to a meeting in Colby’s office. I was extremely pleased and flattered to be called in by the division chief. The purpose of the meeting was to lay the groundwork for a briefing Colby was going to present to a congressional committee concerning our efforts and plans in Laos. Colby stressed to us that congressional briefings were of the utmost importance. I and the others were to devote the entire next three weeks to preparing for his talk.
Colby was an unprepossessing, mild-mannered man you would never notice in a crowd. He had straight brown, gray-flecked hair and heavy glasses. When he talked to you, he devoted his entire attention to you and his eyes always seemed to express his understanding. His manner and attitude evoked confidence and trust. This was obviously one of the reasons he rose in the Agency. In the years hence I have watched him when I knew he was lying, and not the least flicker of emotion ever crosses his face. He comes across as completely honest and believable—a remarkable talent.
Colby emphasized the importance of selecting just the right words and charts to convey the desired impression to Congress. He regarded word usage as an art form, and he was a master at it. He explained that the Agency had been working with the Hmong hill tribes in Laos for several years. (In fact, that was where my old paramilitary training friend Jimmy Moe had been sent.) We needed to increase the number of armed Hmong teams that we were directing in a fight against Communist Pathet Lao forces.
To sell the idea to Congress, Colby’s briefing had to convey just the right impression—that the situation in Laos was extremely serious, but with a greater effort it was salvageable. The map depicting the contending forces had to be prepared to present just the pro
per balance between the Communist forces and those of the Lao government and our Hmong units. The chart had to show an extensive threat, but one that was ultimately controllable. Factual data had little part in the briefing material. One unfortunate fellow on an early version of the map used the color red to indicate the government/Hmong forces. This was completely unacceptable. Colby ordered that red could be used only for Communist forces.
At the time in Laos the CIA had a number of armed and trained Hmong organized into a couple of dozen platoon-sized teams. But the CIA now wanted financial support for more than 100 teams. The problem was, how do you indicate to Congress that you have more than 100 teams when you actually have only one-fourth that number? The answer was simple: the couple of dozen teams were divided, on paper only, into platoons of only a few individuals each, and instantly there were the necessary number of teams. Of course the briefing did not explain the instant creation of the 100 teams nor their anemic manpower. Also overlooked was the fact that many of the Hmong were untrained teenagers. Whether it was true or not, the briefing material had to indicate an existent force that was primed and ready to go and needed only one thing: congressional authorization for the necessary funding. The thinking at Langley was that if Congress approved the program, the group could be brought quickly up to strength. So why not fudge a few details? On paper the struggling, ragtag group of Hmong fighters began to resemble a small army.
After the first meeting we subordinates held a long series of discussions to determine just the right name to call the new army. The name chosen was to have little to do with the function of the team; it was important solely for the response it would evoke from Congress. “Hunter-Killer Teams” was rejected because it portrayed the image of an aggressive force involved in assassinations. “Home Defense Teams” or “Self-Defense Units” or similar names were rejected as too passive. The name finally adopted for the briefing was “Mobile Strike Forces”—a marvelous combination of defense-offense flexibility and superb word usage. After deciding on the name and after numerous revisions of the chart, Colby briefed Congress. He won approval to go ahead with the program. The Agency then undertook efforts to make the illusion a reality.
This was my first exposure to how the Agency shapes policy. It was, of course, a perfect example of policy being decided from the top in advance and then intelligence being selected or created to support it afterwards—precisely the opposite of the way it should be done. Not only was it all backwards, but it was a complete hoax contrived to deceive Congress, which naturally swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.
At the time I was not disturbed by any of this. Not the faintest doubt crossed my mind. After all, we were in a death struggle with the communist hordes, and if we failed to beat them in Laos, the dominoes would fall possibly all the way to our shores. A little fudging of the facts here and there to reinforce the proper impression seemed a small price to pay for protecting our liberties. For years I didn’t realize the disastrous consequences of these practices.
This was only one of many examples of the CIA’s deceptions of Congress. Another is described by Frank Snepp, an Agency analyst in Vietnam, in his book, Decent Interval.1 He says a major portion of his time was devoted to briefing touring congressmen. His briefings were carefully orchestrated to convey the exact impression desired by the chief of station, one having little foundation in fact.
The Agency did worry about congressional investigating committees and took emergency measures to forestall effective action by such committees. Agency officials who did not perform well at these investigations paid dearly. In one case a rising star in the Directorate for Operations (previously called the Directorate for Plans) was called to testify before a committee concerning Agency operations in Laos. He went beyond Agency-approved boundaries for testimony and “opted” for early retirement before the week was up.
Vietnam was looming ever more important on the foreign policy scene, and I shared with my fellow workers the strong conviction that it was necessary to smash the Vietnamese Communists to halt the spread of that cancerous growth. I believed that all we had to do to win the war was to devote enough time and effort to the task, and then North Vietnam would cease its efforts to subvert South Vietnam.
In mid-1965, it was announced that President Lyndon Johnson was going to make a major speech concerning Vietnam. On July 28, 1965, a group of fellow officers and I went out to a delicatessen in McLean—a hangout for the Agency—to watch the fateful speech on television. We ate our hot pastrami sandwiches and drank our cold beer while we watched and listened. As the President spoke, I virtually prayed that he would send additional forces to fight the invading North Vietnamese. He announced that the United States military strength in Vietnam would be increased from 75,000 men to 125,000 almost immediately. However, he said, it was not necessary now to order reserve units to active duty. The purpose of his announcement was twofold: to disclose the military measures being taken, and to emphasize the desire of the United States for negotiations to end the conflict.
“We do not want an expanded struggle with consequences that no one can perceive,” Johnson drawled, “nor will we bluster or bully or flaunt our power. But we will not surrender and we will not retreat.”
Gravely, the President explained that the United States was involved in the Vietnam conflict because “we have learned at a terrible and brutal cost that retreat does not bring safety and weakness does not bring peace.” The United States learned from Hitler, he said, “that success only feeds the appetite of aggression.”
He continued: “We cannot dishonor our word or abandon our commitment or leave those who believed us and who trusted us to the terror and repression and murder that would follow.”2
There it was—we were going to fight and win. All of us at the table exchanged congratulations with each other and with others at nearby tables. We would show those commie bastards that they couldn’t play with Uncle Sam.
I just could not sit at a desk while important things were happening all around. This was especially true with regard to Thailand, for on December 3, 1964, a clandestine radio station, the Voice of the People of Thailand, had announced that the Thailand Independence Movement was beginning a revolution. The radio station and the movement were China-based organizations, and the implications of the announcement were not lost on the Thais or the Agency. The broadcast signaled the beginning of covert guerrilla activities, and in the next six months incidents between government and insurgent forces multiplied, especially in the critical Northeast area adjacent to Laos.
I asked my desk chief, who was going out to Thailand on a short trip, to plead my case with the chief of station and especially with the deputy chief, Dave Abbott. I noted my fluency in the Thai language, my ability to get along with Thai officials, my knowledge of the station programs, and my generally good record while in the North. I hoped my request would put Abbott in a difficult position, for the increased guerrilla activity meant increased Agency manpower requirements for Thailand. Dave would have a hard time refusing me when faced with a critical shortage of people.
When the desk chief returned, he said I was to be assigned to Thailand just as soon as possible. What great news! I went home to tell my family. Their excitement at my revelation seemed more than controllable.
8. IN SEARCH OF REDS
IN September 1965 I began work in Bangkok. At the time Thailand was supposedly a constitutional monarchy, but in fact was more a military dictatorship. The real power was in the hands of two military officers—Prime Minister Thanom Kittikachorn and the de facto leader of the government, Deputy Prime Minister Praphat Charusathien, who also headed the military establishment. King Bhumibol and Queen Sirikhit were powerful emotional symbols, but they seldom contradicted the military. There was an on-and-off parliament, but it acted more as a rubber stamp than an independent branch of government.
The CIA station, led by the effervescent Rod Johnson, was involved in numerous anti-communist liaison operations with various de
partments of the Thai government. [Eight words deleted.] The Agency will not permit me to say what these were, but Douglas Blaufarb’s book, The Counterinsurgency Era, says:
In Thailand, information on the identities, size, movements, armaments, and operational patterns of insurgents was collected by … BPP [the Border Patrol Police), Provincial Police, and Special Branch. (The latter is the senior police intelligence service but concentrates largely on the Bangkok area. It does have a small section working in the affected areas).…[The various organizations] produced a large amount of low-level information which was useful when professionally handled and promptly exploited. This was the task of the … centers … set up under the CSOC mechanism.… the Communist Suppression Operations Command…[had the responsibility] to plan and conduct suppression activity nationwide.… The central concept was the establishment of a framework for a coordinated effort by civilian, police, and military services linking Bangkok to regional Headquarters and then to combat areas. The system, called CPM, established suppression centers … in all the [communist] affected provinces and regions. Several regional intelligence offices (Joint Security Centers or JSCs) were also established to combine the inputs of the various intelligence services working in the affected areas.
Existing sources say nothing about the U.S. agency working to develop and improve these intelligence efforts, but the very fact suggests that the task was performed by the CIA.1
Shortly after I arrived in Thailand, I received a command to appear before the deputy chief of station, Dave Abbott. I arrived at the appointed time and then began the entire series of Dave Abbott put-downs. I had to wait in the reception area for more than a half hour. Then I stood in his office for an interminable time while he assiduously read a file before he finally deigned to recognize my presence. His babyish complexion, his owlish eyes staring behind heavy glasses, his pear-like physique all were disarming—yet I was wary. After looking at me for a long time, he said, “Well, you just couldn’t stay away!”
Deadly Deceits Page 11