Unpeople: Britain's Secret Human Rights Abuses

by Mark Curtis

  However, this recommendation might be possible to implement if the personnel are detached and given temporary civilian status, or are attached to the American Special Forces in such a manner that their British military identity is lost in the US Unit. However the Americans are crying out for expert assistance in this field and are extremely enthusiastic that [one inch censored] should join them. He really is an expert, full of enthusiasm, drive and initiative in dealing with these primitive peoples and I hope that he will be given full support and assistance in this task.

  'These primitive peoples' is a reference to the Montagnards in the highlands of the central provinces of Vietnam. Lee continues:

  It is . . . clear that there is enormous scope for assistance of a practical nature on the lines of that already being undertaken by the Americans. Thus it is strongly recommended that such British contribution [sic] as may be feasible be grafted on to the American effort in the field, particularly in view of their shortage of certain types of personnel. The ideal solution might be to contribute a number of teams to operate in a particular area fully integrated into the overall American and Vietnamese plan. The civil side could be composed of carefully selected Europeans and Malayans with suitable experience, and the military element could be drawn from the SAS regiment which operated for many years amongst the Aborigines in Malaya. Suitable steps could doubtless be taken to give them temporary civilian status. Although we should have to rely on the Americans to a great degree for logistic support, it might still be possible to provide a positive contribution in this field such as specialised equipment. A less satisfactory solution might be to integrate certain specialists into existing or projected American Special Forces Teams, although the main disadvantage here, particularly on the Aborigine side would lie in the fact that many of the experienced Malayan personnel would not speak English and would have to rely on the British element as interpreters when dealing with the Americans.49

  This team was sent, and was known as the 'Noone mission' under Richard Noone (the figure whose name is censored in these files) and which acted under the cover of BRIAM. The covert operation began in summer 1962 but there are only a few further references to it in the available files. One shows that it was still in operation in late 1963; by which time Noone was still providing reports back to the Foreign Office.50

  Other covert aid provided by Britain included secret flights from Hong Kong to deliver arms, especially napalm and 500-pound bombs. Aid on the intelligence front took various forms, including forwarding reports to the Americans from MI6 station heads in Hanoi. The British monitoring station at Little Sai Wan in Hong Kong provided the US with intelligence until 1975. The US National Security Agency coordinated all signals intelligence in South-east Asia, and Little Sai Wan was linked to this operation. Its intercepts of North Vietnamese military traffic were used by the US military command to target bombing strikes over North Vietnam.51

  The end of this first period of the war is marked by the overthrow of the Diem regime in November 1963. The run-up to his removal was marked by the emergence of a 'determined popular movement' led by the Buddhists which directly challenged Diem's authority and which was put down with brute, bloody force.

  The British mildly protested to Diem about these repressive measures, largely since they feared that Britain, and the US, would be 'tarred with his brush', as the Foreign Office put it, and that such repression would endanger the stability of the regime and the prosecution of the war. By September 1963, however, the ambassador was explicitly telling the Foreign Office that the war could not be won with Diem in power and that he should be overthrown.52

  The military coup of 1 November was actively backed by the US and strongly welcomed by Britain, and General van Minh emerged as the new leader. The main British priority was to ensure that 'the war effort and the conduct of public business should be as little upset as possible'. Ambassador Etherington- Smith noted that the new regime stood a chance of success in the war 'provided they are prepared to wage the war in the countryside with sufficient firmness and resolution'.53

  Dissident in the Foreign Office

  As well as the change of regime, there had been another important development towards the end of this period, at least in the internal British planning record. This was a memo from Kenneth Blackwell, Britain's Consul-General in Hanoi (i.e., its top diplomat in North Vietnam) to the Foreign Office in May 1963. In this memo, Blackwell, who had just completed a year in Hanoi, blows apart all of Whitehall's public positions and reveals its fake analysis. It is worth considering at length.

  Blackwell began by noting that the conflict is 'basically a political and not a military problem – a struggle for the hearts and minds of the people of South Vietnam'. 'To occupy the country indefinitely as the Americans seem prepared to do is, I am sure, no answer'. The 'only alternative is a political settlement' which is possible only if the South Vietnamese government can satisfy the needs of its 13 million people. What is needed, he said, was 'modern social welfare – in particular free education and free medical treatment for all', 'land reform, i.e., the abolition of landlordism', 'democracy' through free elections and 'independence and neutrality – the withdrawal of all foreign armies and military bases from its territority [sic]'.

  Also needed, Blackwell wrote, were 'a greater equality – a narrowing of the excessively wide gap between the upper and lower classes, the ruling classes and the mass of the people'. Also, 'a certain degree of socialism in the form of the nationalisation of the bigger monopolies, especially when held by foreigners'. Then the crucial admission: 'Communist propaganda . . . claims that most of these requirements are part of their program [sic] and they do in fact carry out some of the more spectacular and popular ones.'

  Blackwell does say that his programme differs from that of the 'communists' in that it provides for genuine democratic government and it gives peasants individual control of their land. He adds that 'there is certainly a case for getting rid of the excessively wealthy, largely parasitic and superficially Europeanised landlord class which is the curse of most Asian countries'. And he adds that 'one of the major faults of American policy (at least in the past) seems to me to have placed too great a reliance on this class . . . because they are (naturally) violently anti-Communist.'

  On North Vietnam, Blackwell says:

  I think we are making a mistake if we assume that North Vietnamese interference (which in any case when compared with American aid to the South Vietnamese government is chicken feed) is the cause of the trouble and that without it all South Vietnamese (or even a majority) would flock to the support of Diem. I am convinced that the political question which I have described above, would still exist even if the opposition was suppressed to a greater degree than is at present possible.

  Then Blackwell says that North Vietnam:

  has expressed its support for a program [sic] almost identical with the one I have described. They have said in fact that they would accept a neutral and independent government in the South (although of course they hope that the two governments will eventually agree to the peaceful unification of the country) . . . Whereas in Germany and Korea and virtually everywhere else in the world we favour the determination of the future of nations (especially the joining together of the two halves of one artificially divided nation) by the free choice of the people – namely by free elections, in South Vietnam we have allowed ourselves to be jockeyed into the position of refusing to allow elections which should under the Geneva Agreement have been carried out in 1956, and thereby laying ourselves open to the accusation of being opposed to the principle of national self-determination.

  He concludes by saying that:

  I fully recognise the difficulties of taking any action on the above lines and that on balance HMG would probably prefer the devil they know (the Diem government and American military support for South Vietnam) to the devil they do not know (the holding of an international conference and the neutralisation of South Vietnam).54

  T
here is no evidence that British policy changed whatsoever after these pronouncements by our man in Hanoi, which effectively undermined the entire British (and US) framing of the war. Much of Blackwell's analysis here is accurate, and confirms the immorality of the British position throughout the US war of aggression.

  Military escalation, British backing

  After the overthrow of Diem, Vietnam was ruled by a succession of military-controlled governments, under the dominant figures of General Nguyen van Thieu and Nguyen Cao Ky. These governments continued the basic repression of the Diem regime and in doing so received the backing of the US and also Britain.

  In its annual review for 1964, the British embassy in Saigon noted the continuing rise of 'popular pressures' in South Vietnam led by the Buddhists and other groups 'with their emphasis on freedom from any sort of regimentation or discipline'. Just as problematic, from the embassy's point of view, was the 'neutralist trend' championed by these groups and that they were calling for 'the possibility of ending the war by negotiation'. The British ambassador noted that 'any hope of political stability from now on will depend on whether the popular forces . . . can somehow be contained'.55

  The favoured method of establishing control over the South Vietnamese countryside shifted away from 'strategic hamlets' to 'pacification'. This was 'the most important aspect of the anticommunist struggle', according to Ambassador Etherington-Smith, who gave 'pacification' strong support and was keen to offer the US 'expert advice' in this field.56

  'Pacification' meant that a substantial proportion of the peasantry was forced off the land against their will. The most conservative estimate is that at least half of the rural population was pushed into refugee camps or urban settings, many repeatedly. South Vietnamese government figures for refugees or war victims during 1965-1972 are around 7 million, about one-third of the population and half the peasantry.57

  The period 1963-1966 was marked by massive escalation in US aggression. By 1966 US troops in Vietnam had risen to 370,000 and 'American air raids on North Vietnam were carried out nearly every day throughout the year', the British embassy's annual review for 1966 noted.58

  Fundamental British support for the US continued. Prime Minister Douglas-Home stated in March 1964 that in recent talks with President Johnson, 'I reaffirmed my support for United States policy which . . . is intended to help the Republic of South Vietnam to protect its people and to preserve its independence'.59

  A May 1965 Foreign Office brief outlines British interests. It stated that Britain's 'direct involvement in Vietnam is insignificant' but 'that our interests as a non-communist power would be impaired if the United States government were defeated in the field, or defaulted on its commitments'. US prestige was therefore in danger and defeat 'would damage America's standing all over the world'. Similarly, 'American abandonment of South Vietnam would cause both friend and foe throughout the world to wonder whether the US might in future be induced to abandon other allies when the going got tough'. Consequently:

  It is in Britain's interests to give support for our major ally. Whenever we declare our determination to seek a peaceful settlement we should accompany this with an expression of general support for the Americans, while avoiding passing judgment on their specific actions. Behind this general public support, we would then have a better opportunity of conveying in private any criticisms we may feel justified.60

  Another British interest was in securing US backing for its policy in Malaya. A Foreign Office brief of December 1964 noted that 'not least because we need American support over Malaysia, we probably have no option but to give diplomatic support, as long as we can, to whatever policy the US government choose to adopt [in Vietnam]'.61 The key was to ensure the US continued to support Britain's defiance of Sukarno's Indonesia in the latter's military confrontation with Malaysia, then still a British colony. The reference to British support for 'whatever policy the US government choose to adopt' – a chilling phrase – proved correct.

  In the first half of the 1960s, British officials generally believed the US war was winnable and therefore continued to support Washington knowing that it would continue to inflict massive casualties. In December 1963, for example, Robert Thompson noted that 'the fighting will be bitter and the casualties heavy (over 100,000 government and Vietcong)'. He thought that peace would not be restored until the end of the decade.62

  But by 1965 the situation on the ground had changed, and it had become clear to British officials that the US could not in fact win the war. This did not stop them continuing to support the US, however. In March 1965 Wilson's personal adviser, Joe Wright, noted that 'the Americans are in a hopeless position in South Vietnam' and 'cannot win and cannot yet see any way of getting off the hook which will not damage their prestige internationally and the President's position domestically'.63

  After Wilson became Prime Minister in October 1964, basic public professions of British support for the US continued. But the declassified files show that Wilson gave President Lyndon Johnson a greater degree of backing in secret, at every stage of escalation. This support was proffered behind the scenes since British public opposition to the war was widespread. It is a good example – as with Iraq more recently – of how elites see the need to contain the public by private understandings on both sides of the Atlantic.

  It is interesting to consider the various military escalations of the war, and the British reaction, one by one.

  In February 1965, the US took the war into a devastating new phase by beginning the bombing of North Vietnam in its 'Rolling Thunder' campaign. The files show that the British had already promised support for this bombing in discussions in Washington the previous December. Britain had agreed to give 'unequivocable [sic] support to any action which the US government might take which was measured and related strictly to North Vietnamese and Viet Cong activity'. Two days after the attacks began, Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart informed the embassy in Washington of the 'military necessity of the action' and told the Prime Minister that 'I was particularly anxious not to say anything in public that might appear critical of the US government'.1'4

  Since Britain was one of the few powers that failed to condemn the US bombing, the Prime Minister's personal adviser noted that 'for presentational reasons, therefore, it was highly desirable that the Prime Minister should be seen to be consulting the Americans'. Wilson wanted to fly to Washington (he was refused by Johnson), about which Wright wrote:

  He [Wilson] was perfectly prepared to back the Americans in what they had to do in South Vietnam. But it would be easier for him to do this if he were seen to be in discussion with the President of the United States.65

  The British knew that US strikes on North Vietnam were illegal. Indeed, British officials had warned the US, in May 1964, that such strikes would create 'difficulties' for Britain. In discussions with the US then, the British Foreign Secretary had said that:

  Article 51 [of the UN charter, under which nations could act in self-defence] could only be invoked in the case of actual armed attack not merely against infiltration or subversion. He did not see how the UN charter could be invoked to justify an attack on North Vietnam.65

  It appears from the record that Wilson did try to restrain Johnson from all-out attacks on North Vietnam at this time – i.e., strikes that would go beyond the 'measured' attacks against strictly military targets. But he told him personally that 'whatever measured response you take . . . we shall be backing that too' since 'we have been extremely loyal allies on this matter'.67

  On 17 February 1965 the US ambassador in London, David Bruce, told Wilson that the US was planning not simply 'tit-fortat' attacks on North Vietnam but 'continuing air and naval action against North Vietnam whenever and wherever necessary'. The record of this conversation shows that Wilson raised some concerns about this policy going beyond the previous agreement on only 'measured' attacks. He complained that the US was not at the same time putting forward any proposals for a political solution. However, Wils
on concluded by saying that Britain 'would, of course, have to support the United States without seeing any light at the end of the tunnel'. By mid-March Michael Stewart was noting that Britain was backing the US in its wider bombing campaign in the North 'however much we dislike it'.68

  British support was clearly outlined in a Foreign Office brief in March:

  Although from time to time we have expressed cau- tionary views in response to notifications of US plans for attacks against the North, we have at no stage opposed them. Our comments have been mostly on the timing or public presentation of the attacks . . . HMG . . . have at no stage opposed the policy being followed by the US but rather by suggesting minor changes in timing or presentation from time to time, have acquiesced in it.59