Lucien Emile "Lou" Conein (/koˈniːn/ (co-NEEN)[2]) (November 19, 1919 – June 3, 1998)[3] was a French-American citizen, noted U.S. Army officer and OSS/CIA operative.

'He was briefly sent to French Indochina to help organize attacks against the Imperial Japanese Army and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for operations conducted during this period.

[1] After 1945 during the Cold War period, he infiltrated spies and saboteurs into the Eastern European Warsaw Pact countries of the Soviet bloc.

In 1951, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) tasked Conein to establish a base in Nuremberg, assisted by Ted Shackley.

[citation needed] In 1954, he was sent to work against the government of Ho Chi Minh in North Vietnam, at first in a propaganda campaign to persuade Southern Vietnamese not to vote for the communists and then to help with arming and training local tribesmen, called the Montagnards working under CIA station chief William Colby.

[2] He was considered by former CIA colleague E. Howard Hunt for the group that undertook the 1972 Watergate burglary of the Democratic National Committee.