Shadow Warrior

by Randall B. Woods

  Like most Americans at the time, Colby did not know what to make of Lyndon B. Johnson. He knew that he was a political operator par excellence and had been a Diem supporter. But Colby and many others believed the new president to be inexperienced and uninformed on foreign policy matters. Colby applauded Johnson’s dismissal of Roger Hilsman (for his role in the ouster of the Ngo brothers), but he questioned the wisdom of keeping on the rest of JFK’s foreign policy team, fearing that Johnson would become the victim rather than the master of events.52

  Johnson was in fact in basic agreement with the foreign policies of the Kennedy administration: military preparedness and realistic diplomacy, he believed, would contain communism within its existing bounds. To keep up morale among America’s allies and satisfy hardline anticommunists at home, the United States must continue to hold fast in Berlin, oppose the admission of Communist China to the United Nations, and continue to confront and blockade Cuba. He was aware of the growing split between the Soviet Union and China, and of the possibilities inherent in it for dividing the communist world. He also took a flexible, even hopeful, view of the Soviet Union and its leader, Nikita Khrushchev. It was just possible, he believed, that Russia was becoming a status quo power, and as such would be a force for stability rather than chaos in the world. The United States must continue its “flexible response” of military aid, economic assistance, and technical and political advice in response to the threat of communist expansion in the developing world. However, there was nothing wrong with negotiation with the Soviets, in the meantime, in an effort to reduce tensions. Insofar as Latin America was concerned, Johnson was an enthusiastic supporter of the Alliance for Progress. As a progressive Democrat, he was drawn to historian Arthur Schlesinger’s stratagem of appealing to the vital center at home and abroad while pursuing openings to the left, as Bill Colby had done in Italy. At the outset of his administration, it appeared that the new president did not buy into the myth of a monolithic communist threat. To all appearances, then, Johnson was a cold warrior, but a flexible, pragmatic one.

  Nevertheless, LBJ was no more ready than his predecessor had been to unilaterally withdraw from South Vietnam; nor was he interested in seeking a negotiated settlement that would lead to neutralization of the area south of the 17th parallel. On November 24, 1963, he instructed Ambassador Lodge to tell the generals who had overthrown Ngo Dinh Diem that they had the full support of the US government. Two days later, the National Security Council incorporated his pledge into policy, affirming that it was “the central objective of the United States” to assist the “people and Government of South Vietnam to win their contest against the externally directed and supported communist conspiracy.”53

  Frustrated, and angry with Lodge because of his refusal to allow the Agency to do its job in South Vietnam, McCone and Colby were determined to rein in the ambassador. Shortly after Johnson became president, McCone paid a visit to the Oval Office. There could never be a working relationship between the embassy and the Agency in South Vietnam as long as the New Englander was ambassador, he told Johnson. “Lodge would destroy [the new station chief] if he opposed his assignment or did not like him,” McCone declared. “Lodge was absolutely unconscionable in matters of this kind and he had resorted to trickery time and time again during the Eisenhower administration. . . . He never failed to use the newspapers in order to expose an individual or block an action.”54 Johnson assured McCone that he understood how poor a manager Lodge was. He had seen that for himself. But it was impossible to recall the man at that point. The junta would take it as a repudiation of the coup and an invitation to the Diemists to return to power. Moreover, replacing Lodge would remove the political cover that the administration had enjoyed over Vietnam. Lodge needed to come home; one could only hope that he would decide to throw his hat in the ring for the 1964 GOP presidential nomination. Nevertheless, McCone and Colby could have their own man as CIA station chief, the president declared, and he would make it work.

  Colby already had that man in mind—Hong Kong station chief Peer de Silva. De Silva was a fellow graduate of Columbia and one of the most experienced field operators the Agency possessed. Colby vetted him with McCone and the president, and both men gave their approval. The Far East Division chief and his boss decided to beard Henry Cabot Lodge in his den.55

  In mid-December, McCone, Colby, de Silva, and their aides boarded a C-135 bound for Saigon. There, McCone was to link up with McNamara, who was leading yet another fact-finding mission. The day following their arrival, Lodge hosted a luncheon at the embassy for the CIA men. The issue of who was to be station chief soon came up. Lodge made it clear that he was perfectly happy with David Smith. Mr. Smith was a fine young officer, McCone declared, but the sensitive post required someone with more experience, namely, de Silva. He added, with a tight smile, that the appointment would proceed unless Lodge had some specific objection. It was clear that whoever became chief of station, it would not be Smith. De Silva later recalled that he, Smith, and Colby spent a lot of time staring at the ceiling until, mercifully, the luncheon came to an end.56

  Shortly thereafter, the ambassador received a cable from the White House. “It is of the first importance,” LBJ declared, “that there be the most complete understanding and cooperation between you and him [de Silva]. . . . I am concerned not only to sustain effective cooperation, but to avoid any mutterings in the press. . . . I cannot overemphasize the importance which I personally attach to correcting the situation which has existed in Saigon in the past, and which I saw myself when I was out there.” Lodge was vastly annoyed, but after de Silva agreed to give up the oversized black limousine that John Richardson had used, the two men began to get on rather well. Indeed, during one of the first meetings between the revamped CIA team and the ambassador, David Smith let it be known that he had anticipated the naming of a more experienced man as chief of station all along. “Do you think I give a damn about you?” Lodge sneered. For the time being, however, the ambassador continued to block the station from having direct contact with the Military Revolutionary Council.57

  Upon his return from Saigon, McCone reported to the president that because of ongoing tensions and rivalries within the military junta, the disconnect between the central government and the provinces, and stepped-up Viet Cong activity in the countryside, the prognosis was not good. “It is abundantly clear,” he wrote, “that [Vietnamese] statistics received over the past year or more . . . on which we gauged the trend of the war were grossly in error.”50

  With the MRC fiddling and South Vietnam burning, a new generation of coup plotters stepped forward. First among these was General Nguyen Khanh, Colby’s favorite to replace Diem. A professional soldier, Khanh had fought with the Viet Minh and then rallied to Diem after he came to power. As deputy chief of staff of the Vietnamese Army, he had parlayed with the rebellious paratroopers during the 1960 coup long enough for loyalist units to move up from the south. He had subsequently joined the circle of generals who overthrew the House of Ngo. In December 1963, to his vast annoyance, however, the MRC had assigned him to be commander of IV Corps, the military region furthest from Saigon. In conversations with CIA personnel in January 1964, Khanh complained that members of the MRC were plotting with various Frenchmen to bring about the neutralization of South Vietnam. This he could not permit.

  Early on the morning of January 30, Khanh and his fellow conspirator, General Tran Thien Khiem, overthrew the junta that had ousted Diem. South Vietnam’s new leader elevated Big Minh to the figurehead position of chief of staff and sent five leading members of the MRC, including Tran Van Don and Le Van Kim, off to Dalat, where they were placed under house arrest. Colby believed that Khanh, in addition to satisfying his own ambition, was avenging the deaths of Diem and Nhu. In his memoir, Colby cited a statement attributed to Diem before his assassination: “Tell Nguyen Khanh that I have great affection for him, and he should avenge me.” And in fact, the only casualty of the second coup was Captain Nguyen Van Nhung, the
officer who had gunned down the Ngo brothers. Khanh had him shot.59

  The new regime faced truly staggering problems. Military operations and the Strategic Hamlet Program had come to a complete standstill. The government’s authority was nonexistent throughout much of the countryside, and the nation’s cities were sliding into anarchy. Increasingly, the Buddhists viewed the Khanh regime as a reincarnation of the House of Ngo. At the same time, Khanh’s foreign minister was confiding to the American embassy that his chief had “possible Communist or neutralist connections.”60 A new wave of protests swept the capital, accompanied by armed clashes between Buddhist and Catholic street gangs. General William Westmoreland, whom Johnson had named to replace Harkins as head of the US military mission in the spring of 1964, wrote that Saigon looked like a city under siege. Concertina wire and military checkpoints were omnipresent.

  Colby made another one of his frequent trips to Vietnam in May 1964 to survey the situation. There was one bit of painful business to take care of. Though both were CIA operatives, Lou Conein and Gil Layton were bitter rivals. Like Colby, Layton, who had survived the MRC’s attempts to remove him, was a Diem loyalist, whereas the francophile Conein had worked to bring about the downfall of the House of Ngo. In the wake of the coup, Conein had decided that Vietnam was not big enough for the two of them—and Conein had the ear of both Lodge and Khanh. Before the 1963 coup and his death, Colonel Tung, Layton’s counterpart in Vietnamese intelligence and security, had confided to his friend that if the limousine that came to pick up Layton every morning contained individuals other than the driver, he should not get in it. The extra person meant that he had been targeted for elimination. During the spring of 1964, Gil and his wife, Dora, began noticing that they were gradually being frozen out of parties and receptions. Then one morning the limousine showed up with an unidentified man in the backseat. Layton stayed home. The person in charge of training Khanh’s security force—in effect, Tung’s replacement—was Lou Conein. After Colby landed in Saigon, Layton confronted him. Tell Conein and his Vietnamese friends to back off or there would be blood. Colby said he would take care of it, but there was nothing he could do to keep Layton on the team. He offered his old comrade a post in Thailand, but Layton refused.61

  From Saigon, Colby moved on to Honolulu for yet another summit meeting on Vietnam, where McNamara continued to extol the virtues of OPLAN 34A. He reveled in listing trucks destroyed, ammunition dumps blown up, and North Vietnamese paranoia stimulated. McCone and Colby were not impressed. “If we go into North Vietnam,” McCone declared, “we should go in hard and not limit ourselves to pinpricks.”62

  On the way from Saigon to Honolulu, Colby had prepared a report and recommendations for the White House. The Khanh regime was making progress, he declared, but not fast enough. The government was particularly ineffective at the grassroots level. He recommended making province chiefs the key officials in the pacification effort, with their American counterparts as the sole commanders of every US activity within their province. The South Vietnamese Army should concentrate on clearing and holding, in line with the “oil-spot theory,” and cease and desist from random sweeps and artillery bombardments.63

  On June 6, after the US contingent had returned from Honolulu, Mc-George Bundy took John McCone aside and asked if the CIA was ready to reenter Vietnam in an active role: that is, to reverse Operation Switchback. “If the president so desires and the Pentagon and Embassy were supportive,” the DCI said. He did and they were, primarily because McNamara and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were increasingly preoccupied with planning a major escalation of the war.64

  The spring and summer of 1964 found Lyndon Johnson an intensely frustrated man. Military intelligence provided evidence of the first main force units of the North Vietnamese Army coming down the Ho Chi Minh Trail and entering South Vietnam. The prospect of a broad-based, responsive government in South Vietnam seemed as remote as ever. General Harkins declared that victory over the communists was just months away, but Lodge warned that South Vietnam was teetering on the verge of collapse. Johnson had repeatedly told his foreign policy advisers that it was up to the Vietnamese themselves to get their political and military house in order. Meanwhile, Khanh and the government of South Vietnam initiated a public campaign in support of “marching North.” Hot on the campaign trail, GOP presidential hopeful Barry Goldwater suggested the use of “low-yield atomic weapons” against the communists in Vietnam. Hardliners within the Joint Chiefs of Staff, notably Air Force chief of staff Curtis LeMay and Marine Corps commandant Wallace Greene, insisted that “operations in Vietnam should be extended and expanded immediately.” But it wasn’t just politicians like Goldwater and hawkish generals like “Bombs Away” LeMay who were sounding the alarm. In Washington, the CIA’s George Allen, and in Saigon, Peer de Silva, advised McCone that without the commitment of US troops, South Vietnam would fall to the communists in a matter of months, if not weeks. McCone relayed that information to the president and the NSC. McCone did not dispute his subordinates’ dire warnings, but he expressed doubt that the effort was worth it. “I think we are . . . starting on a track which involves ground force operations [that will mean] an ever-increasing commitment of U.S. personnel without materially improving the chances of victory,” he told the president. “In effect, we will find ourselves mired in combat in the jungle in a military effort that we cannot win, and from which we will have extreme difficulty in extracting ourselves.”65

  The angst coming from the West Wing was palpable. “Let’s get some more of something, my friend,” the president told McNamara in late May, “because I’m going to have a heart attack if you don’t get me something. . . . Let’s get somebody that wants to do something besides drop a bomb, that can go in and go after these damn fellows and run them back where they belong.” Later, in conversation with Senator Richard Russell, LBJ said, “I don’t think the people of the country know much about Vietnam and I think they care a hell of a lot less.” But if he were to lose Vietnam to the communists, he admitted, there was not a doubt in his mind that Congress would impeach him.66

  Mercifully, Henry Cabot Lodge resigned his post in June, returning to the United States to challenge Goldwater for the Republican presidential nomination. To replace him, Johnson chose General Maxwell Taylor, perhaps the military’s best-known intellectual and a Kennedy family intimate. Still, he was a career officer and tended to see things in military terms. Taylor was distinctly unimpressed with Nguyen Khanh—and with the entire upper echelon of the ARVN officer corps, for that matter. Quite simply, he believed, South Vietnam’s new leaders did not know what they were doing. At the end of May, he arranged for the “Dalat” generals—Don, Dinh, Xuan, and Kim—to be released from house arrest. When rumors of a coup began to circulate, Taylor summoned the suspected plotters and dressed them down. If the senior officer corps could not behave with a degree of maturity and responsibility, the United States would have to rethink its economic and military aid program, the ambassador declared.67

  With a massive expansion of the Ho Chi Minh Trail underway and North Vietnamese Army regulars trickling into South Vietnam, pressure began to mount within the Johnson foreign policy establishment for air strikes against North Vietnam. As contingency planning for a possible bombardment, blockade, or invasion got underway in Washington, military intelligence began gathering information on a network of antiaircraft missiles and radar stations that had been installed by the Soviets on the bays and islands of the Tonkin Gulf. MACV enlisted South Vietnamese commandos to harass the enemy radar transmitters, thereby activating them, so that American electronic intelligence vessels cruising in the gulf could chart their locations and frequencies. These operations were, of course, in addition to the infiltration and harassment excursions already being carried out under Switchback. On August 2, North Vietnamese patrol boats attacked the USS Maddox, and the Gulf of Tonkin incident was underway. There followed a congressional resolution authorizing the president to take military action in Viet
nam to protect US and allied forces. It was somewhat ironic that OPLAN 34A triggered the decision to escalate.

  Meanwhile, the political situation in South Vietnam continued to deteriorate. Widespread fear among ARVN officers that the Gulf of Tonkin air strikes would provoke retaliation, even invasion, by North Vietnam provided Khanh with the excuse to decree a state of emergency, which gave him and his associates on the MRC all but absolute power. The government severely curtailed civil liberties, imposed strict censorship on the media, and moved against pro–Dai Viet generals who had been plotting against him. The Dai Viet Party (or Brotherhood) had been formed in the late 1920s by Nguyen Thai Hoc. It took its name from the Vietnamese kingdom that had broken away from China in A.D. 939. Politically conservative, and heavily dominated by nationalist mandarins, the Dai Viet had staged an unsuccessful uprising against the French in Tonkin in the 1930s. Afterward, a number of Dai Viet had sought refuge and military training with Chiang Kai-shek’s army in Nationalist China. The Dai Viet were pro-Japanese during World War II. Following the partition of Vietnam in 1954, the society was banned in the communist north but continued to play an active role in the south. Those who fled from the north following partition tended to be pro-American, and the indigenous southern branch was more pro-French.68

  Instead of enabling Khanh to tighten his grip on South Vietnam, his state of emergency decree and the attempted purge of the Dai Viet weakened it. On August 24, 1964, the Buddhists and their student allies took to the streets, staging massive demonstrations. Caught between the Buddhists and the pro–Dai Viet generals, Khanh sought to appease the former. He promised Buddhist leader Tri Quang constitutional reform, early elections, and freedom of both religion and speech. Catholic youth then rioted, and the dissident generals moved in for the kill. In February 1965, Nguyen Khanh resigned and accepted a post as roving ambassador.