Shadow Warrior
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21. Quoted in Ahern, CIA and the House of Ngo, 172, 173.
22. Quoted in ibid., 173; Colby, Lost Victory, 137.
23. Colby, Lost Victory, 133.
24. Quoted in Ahern, CIA and the House of Ngo, 174–175; Colby, Lost Victory, 119.
25. Quoted in Ahern, CIA and the House of Ngo, 183.
26. Quoted in Anne E. Blair, Lodge in Vietnam: A Patriot Abroad (New Haven, CT: 1995), 1.
27. Quoted in Zalin Grant, Facing the Phoenix: The CIA and the Political Defeat of the United States in Vietnam (New York: 1991), 196–197.
28. Blair, Lodge in Vietnam, 18; Grant, Facing the Phoenix, 186; William E. Colby Oral History, June 2, 1981, LBJ Library.
29. William E. Colby Oral History, June 2, 1981, 50–51; Ahern, CIA and the House of Ngo, 185.
30. William E. Colby to Director, “Possible Rapprochement Between North and South Vietnam,” Sept. 19, 1963, Box 2, F Colby-VN, Srodes Papers, Marshall Library, Virginia Military Institute; Ahern, CIA and the House of Ngo, 187.
31. Ahern, CIA and the House of Ngo, 195 n. 3, 195.
32. Colby, Lost Victory, 137, 168. He would later compare the Buddhists to the followers of the Iranian Shiite leader Ayatollah Khomeini and their “fundamentalist obscurantism.” Colby, Lost Victory, 145; William E. Colby Oral History, June 2, 1981. Of course, nothing could have been further from the truth. Buddhism is the most inclusive of religions.
33. Blair, Lodge in Vietnam, 28–29; see also Seth Jacobs, Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of the American War in Vietnam, 1950–1963 (New York: 2006).
34. Colby, Lost Victory, 140.
35. Colby, Lost Victory, 144–145; Ahern, CIA and the House of Ngo, 191.
36. Author interview with Robert Myers, June 11, 2007, and Layton Family, Oct. 13, 2006; Ahern, CIA and the House of Ngo, 193.
37. Quoted in Ahern, CIA and the House of Ngo, 195, 200.
38. Ibid., 203; Jones, Death of a Generation, 393; Colby, Lost Victory, 149.
39. “Memorandum of a Conference with the President,” White House, Oct. 29, 1963, FRUS, 1961–1963, Vietnam, vol. 4, 468–471; quoted in Ahern, CIA and the House of Ngo, 206; quoted in Colby, Lost Victory, 152.
40. Karnow, Vietnam, 307–322; Jones, Death of a Generation, 398–399; Patrick Lloyd Hatcher, The Suicide of an Elite: American Internationalists and Vietnam (Palo Alto, CA: 1990), 149.
41. “Telegram from the Embassy in Vietnam to the DOS,” Nov. 1, 1963, FRUS, 1961–1963, Vietnam, vol. 4, 516–517; Ahern, CIA and the House of Ngo, 207.
42. Quoted in Ahern, CIA and the House of Ngo, 208; William E. Colby Oral History, June 2, 1981; quoted in Colby, Lost Victory, 153–154. Given Tung’s widespread notoriety as the Diem regime’s chief instrument of repression, Colby’s observation here seems incredible.
43. Quoted in Jones, Death of a Generation, 429, 435.
44. Author interview with Barbara Colby, Jan. 5, 2007; quoted in Colby, Lost Victory, 156.
45. Colby, Lost Victory, 157.
46. Ibid., 158.
47. Ibid., 161.
48. Thomas L. Ahern Jr., CIA and the Generals: Covert Support to Military Government in South Vietnam, Center for the Study of Intelligence, October 1998, available at National Security Archive, www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB284/index.htm, 10–11.
49. Colby, Lost Victory, 163.
50. Prados, Lost Crusader, 129.
51. Colby, Lost Victory, 169.
52. Ibid., 170.
53. Quoted in Randall Bennett Woods, Quest for Identity: America Since 1945 (New York: 2005), 226.
54. Quoted in Prados, Lost Crusader, 133.
55. Ibid., 136.
56. Peer De Silva, Sub Rosa: The CIA and the Uses of Intelligence (New York: 1978), 211.
57. Ahern, CIA and the Generals, 13, 18 n. 11.
58. Quoted in ibid., 15.
59. Ibid., 18; quoted in Colby, Lost Victory, 171.
60. Quoted in Randall B. Woods, LBJ: Architect of American Ambition (New York: 2006), 509.
61. Author interview with Layton Family, Oct. 13, 2006.
62. Quoted in Prados, Lost Crusader, 140.
63. Ibid., 143.
64. Quoted in Ahern, CIA and Rural Pacification, 154.
65. Quoted in Woods, LBJ, 510; Ahern, CIA and Rural Pacification, 159–160; “NSC Meeting,” May 16, 1964, John McCone Memoranda, Box 1, Papers of the National Security Council, LBJ Library; Richard Helms, with William Hood, A Look over My Shoulder: A Life in the Central Intelligence Agency (New York: 2003), 322.
66. Woods, LBJ, 510.
67. Colby, Lost Victory, 172–173.
68. Tran Van Don, Our Endless War (Novato, CA: 1978), 22–23, 122–123.
69. Ahern, CIA and Rural Pacification, 161.
70. Prados, Lost Crusader, 139; author interview with Frank Scotton, Oct. 10–12, 2007.
71. Ahern, CIA and Rural Pacification, 123.
72. Ahern, CIA and Rural Pacification, 140, 148, 154.
73. Quoted in ibid., 144.
74. Ibid., 161, 162–164.
75. Quoted in ibid., 166.
76. Ibid., 168–171.
77. Ibid., 175; author interview with Frank Scotton, Oct. 10–12, 2007.
78. Colby, Lost Victory, 179; quoted in ibid., 179.
79. Prados, Lost Crusader, 146; Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, 254.
CHAPTER 11
1. John Prados, Lost Crusader: The Secret Wars of CIA Director William Colby (New York: 2003), 158–159.
2. Theodore Friend, Indonesian Destinies (Cambridge, MA: 2003), 27; Roger M. Smith, ed., Southeast Asia. Documents of Political Development and Change (Ithaca, NY: 1974), 174–183.
3. Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (New York: 2007), 142–143; see also Andrew Roadnight, United States Policy Towards Indonesia in the Truman and Eisenhower Years (New York: 2002).
4. Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, 259; Prados, Lost Crusader, 147.
5. FRUS, 1964–1968, Indonesia, vol. 26, 161, 163.
6. Author interview with Hugh Tovar, July 27, 2007; Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, 259; quoted in Kai Bird, The Color of Truth: McGeorge Bundy and William Bundy: Brothers in Arms (New York: 1998), 352.
7. M. C. Ricklefs, A History of Modern Indonesia (New York: 1982), 269.
8. FRUS, 1964–1968, Indonesia, vol. 26, 310–313; Adam Vickers, A History of Modern Indonesia (Cambridge, UK: 2005), 157–158.
9. Quoted in Bird, Color of Truth, 352, 353; Prados, Lost Crusader, 151; author interview with Hugh Tovar, July 27, 2007.
10. Quoted in Bird, Color of Truth, 353.
11. Roger Warner, Backfire: The CIA’s Secret War in Laos and Its Link to the War in Vietnam (New York: 1995), 20–21.
12. Thomas L. Ahern Jr., Undercover Armies: CIA and Surrogate Warfare in Laos, 1961–1973, Center for the Study of Intelligence, 2006, available at National Security Archive, www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB284/index.htm, 34.
13. Ibid., 8. The CIA never came up with a formal doctrine to guide operations in the Third World. The working assumptions that governed activity in Laos and Vietnam were shaped first by the OSS experience supporting partisan warfare in World War II and second by the Lansdale campaign against the Huk rebellion in the Philippines in the early 1950s. The thrust of Agency efforts was often a search for a charismatic leader who could mobilize his country’s political and military resources for the struggle against the communists. Ibid., 5.
14. Ibid., 13, 22–23.
15. Ibid., 26–28.
16. Author interview with Vinton Lawrence, May 4, 2010; Zalin Grant, Facing the Phoenix: The CIA and the Political Defeat of the United States in Vietnam (New York: 1991), 142.
17. Warner, Backfire, 21; quoted in Ahern, Undercover Armies, 31.
18. Grant, Facing the Phoenix, 141.
19. Author interview with Vinton Lawrence, May 5, 2010.
20. Warner, Backfire, 40.
21. Ahern, Undercover Armies, 30–32.
22. Ibid., 34.
24. Ibid., 59. US intelligence reported that up to one-half of the soldiers in any given Pathet Lao unit were North Vietnamese. Ibid., 47.
25. Warner, Backfire, 59, 64.
26. Ahern, Undercover Armies, 73–77.
27. Ibid., 85–90.
28. Ibid., 109.
29. Prados, Lost Crusader, 98; Warner, Backfire, 83.
30. Ahern, Undercover Armies, 126.
31. William Colby, Lost Victory: A Firsthand Account of America’s Sixteen-Year Involvement in Vietnam (Chicago: 1989), 194–196; William Colby and Peter Forbath, Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA (New York: 1978), 190–194.
32. Colby and Forbath, Honorable Men, 193.
33. Author interview with Vinton Lawrence, May 4, 2010.
34. Warner, Backfire, 76–79; Prados, Lost Crusader, 103–104; author interview with Vinton Lawrence, May 4, 2010.
35. Author interview with Vinton Lawrence, May 4, 2010; Warner, Backfire, 90.
36. Warner, Backfire, 89; author interview with Vinton Lawrence, May 5, 2010.
37. Colby, Lost Victory, 195–196; Ahern, Undercover Armies, 150–154; FRUS, 1961–1963, Laos Crisis, vol. 24, 972–973.
38. “Summary Record of the 512th NSC Meeting,” April 20, 1960, FRUS, 1961–1963, Laos Crisis, vol. 24, 976–977; “NSCRA 2465,” April 20, 1963, FRUS, 1961–1963, Laos Crisis, vol. 24, 989.
39. Ahern, Undercover Armies, 162; “Memorandum for the Record,” June 19, 1963, FRUS, 1961–1963, Laos Crisis, vol. 24, 1030–1031.
40. Warner, Backfire, 74; Colby and Forbath, Honorable Men, 200; John F. Sullivan, Gatekeeper: Memoirs of a CIA Polygraph Examiner (Washington, DC: 2007), 19.
41. Ahern, Undercover Armies, 178–179.
42. Ibid., 181.
43. FRUS, 1964–1968, Laos, vol. 28, 129 n. 3.
44. “Colby Memorandum for the Record,” June 4, 1964, and June 6, 1964, FRUS, 1964–1968, Laos, vol. 28, 130, 143–144.
45. Quoted in Warner, Backfire, 127.
46. Colby and Forbath, Honorable Men, 228, 229.
47. Prados, Lost Crusader, 161.
48. Warner, Backfire, 155.
49. Ahern, Undercover Armies, 195, 199, 206.
50. Author interview with Vinton Lawrence, May 4, 2010.
51. Colby and Forbath, Honorable Men, 199; see also Ahern, Undercover Armies, 63–64; Colby, Lost Victory, 198; Warner, Backfire, 178.
52. Colby, Lost Victory, 198.
53. Quoted in Ahern, Undercover Armies, 213, 215.
54. Richard H. Shultz Jr., The Secret War Against Hanoi: Kennedy’s and Johnson’s Use of Spies, Saboteurs, and Covert Warriors in North Vietnam (New York: 1999), 213–215; Ahern, Undercover Armies, 224–225.
55. Ahern, Undercover Armies, 67, 121–122, 213.
56. Interview with James R. Lilley, May 21, 1998, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection, Library of Congress; author interview with Vinton Lawrence, May 4, 2010; Ahern, Undercover Armies, 261.
57. Ahern, Undercover Armies, 262; Warner, Backfire, 181–182.
58. Quoted in David Corn, Blond Ghost (New York: 1994), 135.
59. Interview with James R. Lilley, May 21, 1998, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection, Library of Congress; Ahern, Undercover Armies, 265.
60. Warner, Backfire, 141.
61. John L. Plaster, SOG: The Secret Wars of America’s Commandos in Vietnam (New York: 1998), 30.
62. Ibid., 37–39.
63. Ahern, Undercover Armies, 284; William E. Colby to Richard Helms, Aug. 16, 1966, FRUS, 1964–1968, Laos, vol. 28, 484–485.
64. William E. Colby to Lyndon B. Johnson, July 31, 1967, FRUS, 1964–1968, Laos, vol. 28, 608–609.
65. Ibid., 610.
66. Corn, Blond Ghost, 163; Colby, Lost Victory, 198.
CHAPTER 12
1. Richard Helms, with William Hood, A Look over My Shoulder: A Life in the Central Intelligence Agency (New York: 2003), 321; author interview with Frank Scotton, Oct.12–14, 2007.
2. Thomas L. Ahern Jr., Undercover Armies: CIA and Surrogate Warfare in Laos, 1961–1973, Center for the Study of Intelligence, 2006, available at National Security Archive, www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB284/index.htm, 185, 187.
3. Ibid., 192.
4. Ibid., 196–197.
5. Zalin Grant, Facing the Phoenix: The CIA and the Political Defeat of the United States in Vietnam (New York: 1991), 282; Tran Ngoc Chau, “Hawks, Doves and the Dragon,” unpublished memoir in the possession of author, 359.
6. Chau, “Hawks, Doves and the Dragon,” 364.
7. Thomas L. Ahern Jr., CIA and Rural Pacification in South Vietnam, Center for the Study of Intelligence, August 2001, available at National Security Archive, www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB284/index.htm, 206; William E. Colby Oral History, June 2, 1981, LBJ Library.
8. William E. Colby Oral History, June 2, 1981.
9. Quoted in Eric Bergerud, The Dynamics of Defeat: The Vietnam War in Hau Nghia Province (New York: 1993), 81–82; John Paul Vann to Keith Roberts, June 25, 1965, Box 41, F Hau Nghia Province, Papers of Neil Sheehan, Library of Congress.
10. Quoted in Ahern, CIA and Rural Pacification, 203.
11. Quoted in Randall B. Woods, LBJ: Architect of American Ambition (New York: 2006), 436.
12. Quoted in ibid., 608.
13. See Neil Sheehan, Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (New York: 1988).
14. Author interview with Frank Scotton, Oct. 10–12, 2010; “Sheehan-Halberstam Conversation,” May 23, 1975, Box 67, F4, Sheehan Papers, Library of Congress.
15. Douglas K. Ramsey, Bees to the Honey, Flies to the Carrion, Moth to the Flame, unpublished memoir in the possession of author, IIIA, 26, 55; author interview with Frank Scotton, Oct. 4, 2007.
16. “Vincent Demma Memo,” Aug. 8, 1962, Box 62, F Vincent, D., Sheehan Papers, Library of Congress.
17. Quoted in Sheehan, Bright Shining Lie, 538.
18. Quoted in “Dunn-Sheehan Conversation,” Dec. 31, 1979, Box 63, F Dunn, M., Sheehan Papers, Library of Congress.
19. Maxwell Taylor Oral History, Sept. 14, 1981, LBJ Library.
20. “Tactics,” May 1968, Diary, Box 30, Papers of William Westmoreland, LBJ Library; Walter Rostow to Lyndon B. Johnson, April 5, 1966, FRUS, 1964–1968, Vietnam, vol. 6, 333.
21. “Sheehan-Halberstam Conversation,” May 23, 1975, and July 16, 1972, F4, Sheehan Papers, Library of Congress.
22. Quoted in Woods, LBJ, 719.
23. William E. Colby to Michael Forrestal, Nov. 16, 1964, CREST, National Archives II.
24. Ibid.; “Commentary on Special National Intelligence Estimate 53-2-64,” Oct. 19, 1964, Box 2, F Colby-Vietnam, Srodes Papers, Marshall Library, Virginia Military Institute.
25. “Notes of Meeting,” Jan. 11, 1966, FRUS, 1964–1968, Vietnam, vol. 4, 43; “Memorandum of Conversation,” Aug. 2, 1966, FRUS, 1964–1968, Vietnam, vol. 4, 542.
26. Quoted in R. W. Komer, Bureaucracy at War: U.S. Performance in the Vietnam Conflict (Boulder, CO: 1986), 81, 83.
27. William Colby, Lost Victory: A Firsthand Account of America’s Sixteen-Year Involvement in Vietnam (Chicago: 1989), 205; quoted in Woods, LBJ, 683.
28. Robert Komer to Lyndon B. Johnson, May 9, 1966, NSF, Komer Files, Box 4, LBJ Library; Robert Komer to Lyndon B. Johnson, April 19, 1966, NSF, Komer Files, Box 2, LBJ Library; Robert Komer to Colonel Robert I. Channon, June 20, 1974, Box 22, Colby Papers, Texas Tech University.
29. Robert Komer to Lyndon B. Johnson, Aug. 2 and Aug. 30, 1966, NSF, Box 2, Komer Files, LBJ Library; John Paul Vann to Vince Davis, May 1, 1965, Box 26, F Davis, V., Sheehan Papers, Library of Congress. In 1966 alone, the ARVN experienced 135,000 desertions. “The South Vietnamese Army Today,” CIA memorandum, Dec. 12, 1966, CREST, National Archives II.
30. George Carver to Richard Helms, July 7, 1966, FRUS, 1964–1968, Vietnam, vol. 4, 486–487; Richard Helms to Robert Komer, July 18, 1966, FRUS, 1964–1968, Vietnam, vol. 4, 505.
; 31. Robert Komer to William Porter, July 27, 1966, NSF, Komer Files, Box 4, LBJ Library.
32. “Memo from DOD to McNamara,” Aug. 24, 1966, FRUS, 1964–1968, Vietnam, vol. 4, 591.
33. Woods, LBJ, 725–726; “Westmoreland Diaries,” Sept. 18, 1966, Box 9, F History, Sept.-Oct. '66, Westmoreland Papers, LBJ Library; Lyndon B. Johnson to Henry Cabot Lodge, Nov. 16, 1966, NSF, Komer Files, Box 2, LBJ Library; George Carver to Richard Helms, Sept. 28, 1966, FRUS, 1964–1968, Vietnam, vol. 4, 669; Lyndon B. Johnson to Henry Cabot Lodge, Nov. 16, 1966, NSF, Komer Files, Box 2, LBJ Library.
34. Colby, Lost Victory, 206; Ahern, CIA and Rural Pacification, 205.
35. Chau, “Hawks, Doves, and Dragons,” 368, 374.
36. Ahern, CIA and Rural Pacification, 216–217, 220, 230; “Pacification and Nation-Building in Vietnam: Present Status, Current Trends and Prospects,” CIA, Feb. 17, 1967, CREST.
37. Thomas L. Ahern Jr., CIA and the Generals: Covert Support to Military Government in South Vietnam, Center for the Study of Intelligence, October 1998, available at National Security Archive, www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB284/index.htm, 41, 48; “Memorandum for the Record,” July 17, 1966, FRUS, 1964–1968, Vietnam, vol. 4, 497–498.
38. Quoted in Ahern, CIA and Rural Pacification, 244.
39. Thomas W. Scoville, Reorganizing for Pacification Support (Washington, DC: 1982), Chap. 4, p. 7; Lyndon B. Johnson to Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense, May 9, 1967, NSF Memos, Rostow, May 1967, vol. 27, LBJ Library; Ahern, CIA and Rural Pacification, 250.
40. John Roche to Lyndon B. Johnson, Nov. 4, 1966, Diary Backup, Box 49, LBJ Papers, LBJ Library.
41. Ellsworth Bunker Oral History, Dec. 9, 1980, LBJ Library.
42. Colby, Lost Victory, 121.
43. John Prados, Lost Crusader: The Secret Wars of CIA Director William Colby (New York: 2003), 182.
44. Ahern, CIA and Generals, 51–56.
45. See David E. Lilienthal, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, Creativity and Conflict (New York: 1967), 379.
46. William E. Colby to Richard Helms, July 25, 1967, FRUS, 1964–1968, Vietnam, vol. 4, 633–637.
47. Author interview with Paul Colby, Jan. 8, 2007.
CHAPTER 13
1. Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (Cambridge, MA: 2009), 240–241.