Covert Support to Military Government in South Vietnam - CIA FOIA

C01268717
pointed request for the departure of Col. Gilbert Layton, the Station
officer whose counterpart had been Col, Le Quang Tung, the Special
Forces commander shot after his arrest by the coup committee. DDP
Richard Helms asked if Lou Conein, the Station's principal liaison to the
coup committee, should perhaps not go on leave while the dust settled,
but Acting COS David Smith replied that Conein's rapport with the generals
was indispensable and should be fully exploited. Apparently inferring
that Helms doubted Conein's discretion, Smith argued that any leaks
would probably come from other agencies. He prevailed, and Conein
stayed,GO
FE Division Chief William Colby arrived in Saigon on TDY on 5
November. He made a series of calls on the generals, but Lou Conein
remained the Station's principal contact with the new regime. Conein's
effectiveness rested on friendships with the Vietnamese that in several
cases dated back to his service as an ass officer in Vietnam in 1945. He
was less strong on political substance, and this limited his role essentially
to that of intermediary. But under the restrictions imposed by
Lodge, the personal confidence he enjoyed sufficed to meet the Station's
needs for liaison with the generals. Colby described the Embassy atmosphere
in a cable that predicted a Lodge effort to arrange the recall of
Gen. Paul Harkins, chief of the Military Assistance CommandlVietnam
(MACY). The Ambassador's recent expulsion of cbs John Richardson
was "only the overture to the opera," Colby wrote, adding that Lodge was
"running very much a vest-pocket operation" which tolerated only those
subordinates who could "operate on a tactical level rather than as coworkers
in the strategic vineyard." The US Mission's Country Team
would have to "learn to adjust to' his style or be replaced."7D
The New Regime: Divided Against ItselfD
Two weeks after the coup, Colby's round of calls took him to see
Gen. Nguyen Khanh at Da Lat. Allhough Khanh had been the first to
advise CIA of serious planning for a coup, he had soon found himself
replaced as go-between with CIA by Tran Van Don. At the end of January,
Khanh would depose the ineffectual "Big Minh." Now, however,
Colby found him growing a beard that Khanh vowed to keep until he was
convinced that the new regime was on the "right path." Colby listened to
a downbeat assessment of the problems facing the generals, and later
'SAKi 234.';, 8 November 1963'
all
SAIG 2357, 9 November 1963;
L-. ---J and SAIG 2499,16 November 1963.1 _