CIA activities in Vietnam

[1] The CIA provided suggestions for political platforms, supported candidates, used agency resources to refute electoral fraud charges, manipulated the certification of election results by the South Vietnamese National Assembly, and instituted the Phoenix Program.

The people of North Vietnam rallied around their recently returned revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh and looked to him to gain at long last, their independence.

In order to prevent the North Communist military from gaining control over the entire Vietnamese region, the CIA and Diem's Special Forces established the rural self-defense units to mark the beginning of American counterinsurgency efforts in Vietnam.

For the immediate nine years, the CIA will continue to work closely with Ngo Dinh Nhu to aid Diem in establishing national political institutions in South Vietnam.

[9] The CIA stations, though initially used solely for gathering intelligence and providing interpretations of events in Indochina, came to gain as much importance as the U.S. embassy in its scale of political relations with the South Vietnamese government due to its broad range of activities.

The broad mission for the team was to undertake paramilitary operations against the enemy and to train the ARVN in the arts of psychological warfare, just like Lansdale had done in an earlier conflict in the Philippines.

[12] By 31 January 1955, a paramilitary group had cached its supplies in Haiphong, having had them shipped by Civil Air Transport, a CIA proprietary airline belonging to the Directorate of Support.

Instead, he called upon the CIA to use its "tribal forces" in Laos and to "make every possible effort to launch guerrilla operations in North Vietnam with its Asian recruits."

In April 1961, Lansdale, who had been designated the Operations Officer for an interagency Task Force in charge of political, military, economic, psychological, and covert character, was to go to Vietnam.

These forces were intended to help combat the guerrilla tactics of the Vietcong.The CIDG grew out of a Military Operations Section (MOS) program led by Gilbert Layton.

In order to fulfill this operation, the CIA hired "18 South Vietnamese who had been trained in underwater demolition" to target the port of Quảng Khê, which "was home to several of the DRV's Swatow-class gunboats".

[35] On July 8, 1963, A CIA officer was told by Major General Tran Van Don (South Vietnam's army commander) that there were plans by the military to overthrow President Diem.

[43] The history of the CIA reveals that the Diem government and its intelligence services made numerous assurances to work together but did little to move the program forward for months or years, which contributed significantly to the slow start of penetration missions.

One such instance is when Diem, claiming to have been successful in establishing false agent networks in North Vietnam, leased a seagoing junk that the CIA had acquired and adapted for espionage operations to a Japanese fishing company.

The investigation details many instances in which various parties questioned the loyalty or dependability of commando teams while the CIA's Saigon station consistently ignored the data to insist the operation was still valuable.

A Special National Intelligence Estimate (SNIE) issued in May theorized that a short but intense air and naval campaign against the DRV would deter an invasion of the South, although not stop activities there.

In a section concerning political influences they write, "There seems to be little doubt that the intensity of the Buddhist protests reflected general discontent over the entrenched, autocratic rule of the Diems as well as specific grievances against their religious biases.

The creation of the Phoenix Program came as a result of a decade-long negligence on the part of the United States to track the activities of the Communist Party's political and administrative structure.

This change in strategy led to early successes, including the arrest of ninety-seven suspects identified under insurgent auspices, thanks in large part to information shared by police forces.

Shortly after arriving, Colby succeeded Komer as head of CORDS, which drew on a wide range of U.S. and South Vietnamese organizations, including the CIA station's Rural Development cadre.

President Thieu would never have allowed the Vice President, who was his rival at the time, to lead a purging campaign, and as if knowing their plan would fail, the "brethren" included alternative solutions to turn the tide of the war including, forcing Thieu to resign and let a war hero come into office, temporarily stop bombardment of North Vietnam and initiate talks to try and negotiate surrender, or initiate talks with the National Liberation Front to possibly form a coalition government.

[66] Katrosh wanted Theiu and Ky to get along, so that "there would finally be political cohesion in South Vietnam" and ended up using the CIA as the main proponent to help make this happen.

In a December 15 memorandum to Helms, Carver stated that Laird was anxious to remove all U.S. military personnel from the PRU program, as were MACV commanding general Creighton Abrams and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Carver explained that recent steps had been taken to tighten controls over the program, curtail the operational involvement of U.S. military personnel, and shift the emphasis to intelligence collection from ambush or "elimination."

[72] Numerous left-wing websites have William Colby assigning an Operation Phoenix body count of 20,587 Vietcong enemy combatants and have the South Vietnamese Government reporting the death toll as 40,994.

The CIA Saigon station “proposed major new programs of political mobilization, land reform, and economic improvements” but the South Vietnam government lacked the interest and resources to implement any of the measures.

[77] Embassy and CIA officials attempted to recruit opposition candidates to run against Thiệu—not to unseat Thiệu, but to give the appearance of a functioning democracy in South Vietnam.

Following the “Christmas bombing” campaign (Operation Linebacker II), the U.S. and Hanoi signed a cease-fire agreement on January 20, 1973, paving the way for a total U.S. military withdrawal.

On 22 February 1970, the Commando Raider operations began and set ablaze administrative and storage buildings in Dien Bien Phu, and sabotaged a pipeline near Mu Gia Pass.

Although the CIA had some success in anticipating the North Vietnamese offensive of 1972, the agency's last station chief in South Vietnam argued that "the illusion that the war is over and we have won is shattered.