JFK: CIA, Vietnam & The Plot to Assassinate JFK

by L. Fletcher Prouty

  Krulak later wrote, “I winced when I thought about the kind of advice he was giving President Johnson and Secretary of State Dean Rusk.”

  And, Krulak sums up, “We [the USA] did not have the Washington-level courage to take the war directly to the North Vietnamese ports, where every weapon, every bullet, truck, and gallon of fuel that was prevented from entering the country would ultimately contribute to the success of our arms and the preservation of our lives in South Vietnam.”

  I know General Krulak to be a dedicated American and a tough, battle-hardened marine. He did not stop with this rebuff in that drawing room of Governor Harriman’s home in Georgetown. The commandant of the Marine Corps arranged for Krulak to meet with President Johnson in the White House to discuss the same strategic plan.

  About this rare event, Krulak writes: “His first question was ‘What is it going to take to win?”’

  In response, Krulak listed:

  1. Improve the quality of the South Vietnamese government . . .

  2. Accelerate the training of the SVN forces . . .

  3. We have to stop the flow of war materials to the North Vietnamese . . . before they ever cross the docks in Haiphong. . . .

  Then, with his mind on those crucial moments with Governor Harriman, he added, cautiously:

  4. “Mine the ports, destroy the Haiphong dock area. . . . ”

  At that point in the briefing, Krulak writes, “Mr. Johnson got to his feet, put his arm around my shoulder, and propelled me firmly toward the door.”

  Think carefully of this “Vietnam Scenario.” General Krulak summed up this experience by writing:

  It was plain to me that the Washington civilian leadership was taking counsel with its fears. They were willing to spend $30 billion a year on the Vietnam enterprise but they were unwilling to accept the timeless philosophy of John Paul Jones: “It seems to be a truth, inflexible and inexorable, that he who will not risk cannot win.”

  At this point General Krulak, among others, realized that the Washington strategy was, in his exact words, “a losing strategy.” I might add that when Krulak’s good friend Adm. U.S.G. Sharp wrote his own book about Vietnam in retrospect, he wrote it under the title Strategy for Defeat. This is precisely the way those top military men felt about that war.

  America had been told by such experienced men as Generals of the Army Omar Bradley and Douglas MacArthur and Gen. Matthew Ridgway that we could never win a Vietnam-style land war in Asia. They understood the problem, too.

  They recalled the old story from the days of the Japanese war in China during the 1930s. The Japanese, with their greater firepower and attack aircraft and their more mobile mechanized divisions, wrought terrible destruction on the Chinese. The headlines posted on bulletin boards throughout China gave the figures for battle after battle. It was said that one old man, reading these totals of Chinese and Japanese losses on the ratio of 10 to 1 and 20 to 1 in favor of the Japanese, turned to a friend beside him and said, “Look at those lists, from city after city; just look at those losses. Pretty soon, no more Japanese.”

  Many of the older, more experienced American generals looked at the hopeless conflicts in Korea and Vietnam and remembered that story. At the rate it was going, the American casualty rate was becoming similar to that of the Japanese—pretty soon, no more Americans.

  This is the account of the generals and the admirals. They saw the terrible losses, and they knew there were more to come. Note carefully that it was not the story of the ambassador and of the CIA’s chief of station. The CIA had set the tone and other parameters of the warfare. This was how the battles of the Cold War were planned.

  On the other hand, that was all Westmoreland had to fight for, that is, the body count. Through the decades of the war, the count mounted into the millions. They continued to count the bodies, and no one asked: “Who are these people who are being killed?” Were they really the “enemy”? Were any of those pajama-clad people really a threat to the United States?

  There is something remarkable about that word “enemy First of all, during wartime, the adversary, by tradition, is supposed to be in uniform. When the Yankee rebels at Lexington and Concord saw the redcoats coming, they had no trouble identifying the “enemy.” Things were so different in Vietnam. First of all, the Vietcong had no uniforms. Without an “enemy” in uniform, whom do you shoot?

  No one believes in killing in cold blood, but if someone is declared to be an “enemy,” then cold-blooded killing of everyone in sight becomes morally permissible, and is even encouraged by an application of the theory of Malthus: “There won’t be enough food anyway; so what’s wrong with killing them?”

  An example of this line of reasoning occurred when, in November 1985, the former director of central intelligence, William Colby, appeared on Larry King’s late-night talk show. At one point, King brought up the subject of assassinations by the CIA, while making reference to political assassinations and to the agency’s assassination manual, which had been discovered in Nicaragua. Colby came back with a most interesting, and troubling, response. He said that there had been a time when the CIA had set up certain political assassinations, but that as DCI from 1973 to 1976, he was proud of the fact that he had been responsible for ending that practice. Colby then said that he did not approve of killing anyone in cold blood. Without hesitation, he added that this view did not include the “enemy.” An enemy, he said, should be killed.

  This is the same man who, when he headed the dreaded Phoenix program in Vietnam, took credit for the fact that at least sixty thousand Vietnamese had been killed “in cold blood” by his American, Korean, Filipino, Taiwanese, and Vietnamese agents.

  This raises a fine point with reference to the Vietnam War. In that war, who was the enemy? And who decided who was the enemy? This most basic question, in warfare, causes us to consider with care the account of the “1,100,000 Tonkinese refugees.” These people had been moved as the result of a hypothetical humanitarian cause in order the create an enemy scenario.

  When these one-million-plus Tonkinese from the north were moved into the Saigon area, as has been discussed, you can imagine the impact these destitute and penniless strangers had upon the totally unprepared and disorganized people of the south? Can you imagine the impact of the sudden movement of one million strangers, we’ll say, from the Kansas City area to Los Angeles? This situation by itself created riots, unrest, and general disorder wherever these hordes of people settled. It created enemies, hundreds of thousands of them. This factor alone bred warfare, as the CIA had planned it would.

  Then the American advisers to Ngo Dinh Diem tightened the screws a few more turns. They advised Diem to issue two far-reaching national directives, to wit:

  All French local government officials had to turn over their responsibilities to Vietnamese and leave the country. Among other things, the French had been administering the village constabulary system for decades. This system maintained law and order.

  All Chinese residing in and doing business in Vietnam had to leave. For the most part the Chinese maintained the local, grass-roots economic system of the rich agricultural countryside.

  The ostensible reasons for both of these directives seemed reasonable enough. The French had agreed to leave anyway, and there was no reason why they should delay their departure just because they were involved in local government. But basic law and order, especially in the rural farming regions, had been administered by the French. With their departure this essential government service disintegrated, and it was not adequately replaced by the newly formed Diem government.

  Additionally, a rumor campaign was started to explain that the Chinese were, no doubt, spies for the Chinese Communists and the Vietminh; and that, if they were not spies, they were at least supportive of communism.

  Both of these directives were forcefully carried out, and before long, the French and Chinese had departed. Many of them were members of families that had been in Indochina for generations. The results of the
se directives marked another broadening of the definition of “enemy”; in every village, those who had been friends of the colonial French or the entrepreneurial Chinese were moved closer to the “enemy” category.

  One cannot understand too completely the strength of the village way of life for these ancient people. It began with family loyalty, which was regarded as the most respected value in Vietnamese life. The most significant religious ceremonies of these people were the rites regarding family ancestors. After a man’s family came his farm. A farm consisted of village property cultivated by that family for centuries. After the family and farm came the village, and for millions of Indochinese the village was the only political structure they knew. For centuries they had been allowed to govern themselves. The senior council of village notables selected a First Notable, called the Tien Chi (in the north) or the Huongca (in the south). Theirs was the last word required for the settlement of significant financial and juridical problems. It was here that the American advice to Diem had been most damaging.

  The loosely knit, French-monitored constabulary system provided an adequate framework for most legal matters. It easily provided for law and order. Now law and order collapsed.

  On the other hand, the Chinese had, for centuries, been the local entrepreneurs. They kept commerce alive and well in the remote, autonomous regions. Now commerce came to a standstill.

  The only outside influence from the source of higher authority was that of the tax collector and the military draft. From 1890 on, the French had introduced the land tax and a head tax. Under French control there was not much difference in the communal organization and administration of these thousands of villages, whether in Tonkin, Annam, or Cochin China.

  This fragile and ancient network of basic government broke down. Diem and his American advisers were not even aware of this fact and so did not bother replacing it. The collapse could have been expected even under normal conditions; but in South Vietnam in the late 1950s, with one million Tonkinese Catholics thrust into this once stable and docile society at the same time that law and order vanished, the results were predictable. There was widespread banditry as the Tonkinese flocked together to steal food and other necessities, including farmland. There were riots, and before long many formerly peaceful villages had become a no-man’s-land where native owners were the enemy in the eyes of the intruders and their friends in the government of Saigon. The definition of “enemy” was being broadened to include the longtime stable natives.

  While these destructive forces were taking place, Ngo Dinh Diem’s new government was being urged by its American advisers to organize and pacify the country and to drive out the Communists. Before that could be done, an “enemy” had to be somehow identified. I have heard people on the streets of Saigon say that as Diem’s forces raced across the land in American trucks and American helicopters, they decided that “anyone who ran” was the enemy. How could anyone tell? How do you identify the enemy under such conditions? Certainly not by the gratuitous exhibit of redcoats.

  In the ancient art and practice of warfare, especially at the most basic local level, there is a brutal system of interrogation and control for the purpose of identifying “friend” and “foe” that has come down through the years. It is sometimes known as the “One Hand” or “Five Fingers” system.

  The French were using this system in Algeria, and it was passed through the clandestine services from the French to the American CIA and thence to their Vietnamese “elite guard” that had been trained by the Filipinos. It works, most effectively, like this:

  An armed group rushes into a village and immediately intimidates its people by burning huts and shooting a few random people, if necessary, and then rounding up everyone else in the center of the village.

  The invaders know that the elders are the leaders, so they single out the oldest active male and order him to point out the members of his family, then have them stand by him in one group. The invaders may have brought with them some informer or agent who will select this elder for them.

  This first group becomes the “thumb,” or Group 1 on a scale of 5. Then the intruders ask the elder, “Who of the remaining villagers were close to the French or the Chinese? He points out a few families. They are thenceforth declared to be “enemy” and become Group 5.

  The elder is asked who are his own enemies or persons he does not trust. These, too, are thrust into Group 5. (There is no point in asking, “Who are the Communists?” The villagers wouldn’t know. They don’t know the word or its implication as “enemy.”)

  Then the others in the village are asked which group they are closest to, and the elder is asked to verify this. These “indefinite” groups are logically numbered 2 or 4. Group 2 identifies with the leader, his relatives, and his friends. Group 4 identifies with the “enemy,” Group 5.

  Those who belong to none of the above groups become Group 3; this is usually the largest of the five groups.

  The invaders tell the chosen elder that he will be responsible for the administration and defense of his village. Then they order the chief to “train” Groups 3 and 4 and to move them closer to his trusted circle, or they will be eliminated.

  Before they leave, the invaders either shoot the members of Group 5 or tie them up and take them away for “reorientation” and “pacification.” This places the village in the hands of the elder and leaves no “enemies” there. The Group 5 members will never be seen again.1

  In the Five Fingers system, it can be seen that if the invaders, perhaps with prior knowledge, had selected a Tonkinese “refugee” as the leader of Group 1 in the village, the natives and owners of the village property would automatically be put in Group 5 and either be killed or removed. This would be justified, since they would have been “identified” as the “enemy.”

  This process made it possible for the newcomers to take over many villages; the system was used all over Vietnam during those terrible early days when there was no true government and after the one million northerners had moved in, before anyone had ever heard the word “Vietcong” and its Communist connotation. The natives became the enemy.

  With the departure of the Chinese, an even more fundamental problem was created. The ancient economic system was destroyed and with it the basic food and necessities-of-life economy that had supported millions of otherwise moderately prosperous Cochin Chinese. When the Vietnamese farmer harvested his plentiful crop of rice, he filled baskets woven of rice straw by the women of the families. He loaded those rice-filled baskets into his sampan (flat-bottomed boat) and poled it along one of the ever-present canals to the central village, where his crop was converted by means of a most efficient economic process into a certain amount of the basic necessities of his and his family’s life—essentially salt, tools and blades, fabric, and silver.

  It had long been the custom for each farm family to go to the village and pile their baskets of rice beside the others. Each farmer, by long custom, had a supply of small black sticks (about the size of Magic Markers) with his name or symbol on each stick, and he would place one in each of his baskets of rice. (None of these comparatively wealthy farmers had a broker or other system of marketing.)

  On market day, the Chinese merchant would arrive in his large sampan. All of the rice baskets, removed from the village square, would be loaded onto his boat, at which time the village elder would collect all of the marker-sticks. The Chinese merchant then bought the rice, based upon the going price per basket multiplied by the number of sticks. In turn, the village elder bought from the merchant the salt, tools, fabrics, and other assorted needs from that account. If there was a balance to the credit of the village, the Chinese merchant paid it in silver coinage of intrinsic value. Each farmer benefitted according to the tally of his sticks.

  This age-old system created the market for the farmer’s produce and provided him with the basic necessities of life in exchange for his labor—until the impact of the Diem edicts that ousted the French and the Chinese. The f
armers from these many villages knew nothing about the edict or about the departure of the French and Chinese. Then came the first rice harvest and the first market day after the edict.

  Thus, by market day, they had cut the rice, woven the baskets, poled the sampans into town, and placed their sticks in each basket in the village square. They had no telephones. They had no broker. They had no way of knowing that the Chinese merchant was not coming. Their harvests of rice rotted where they lay in baskets in the village.

  What would you do with a crop if no marketing system existed to purchase it and there was no means to move it to a national or world market?

  One crop cycle could pass, perhaps two or three, but eventually these villagers had to have necessities. In many of the villages, the greatest necessity was potable water. Even though they were knee-deep in brackish rice-paddy water all day, they frequently had to buy their drinking water. They bought it from the same Chinese merchants. After the Chinese left, when the villagers had no water, they had no place to go. When they did not get enough rainwater to fill the huge earthen jars every family owned for their supply of drinking water, they drank brackish water. They became ill. (Throughout history, water contamination has been one of the most effective weapons of war.)

  So the stronger men of the village banded together to get water, salt, and the other necessities of life by the oldest means known to man: banditry. This was not political or criminal; it was not ideological. It was a last-resort effort to obtain simple and elementary needs. And one village attacked another in order to get water—to live.