Undercover Armies - CIA FOIA - Central Intelligence Agency

C05 303949
Chapter Twelve
Freed prisoners tlf 7f:l/ 1/1 (loll/nIl/IIIIi/IltJ flo,H,
~ JtUIUIIr''Y J% /
out some ambiguities, but had
no alternative to accepting the
new rules of engagement for
SHINING BRASS operations.
In any case, the new
rules were only modestly
more permissive than the old
and looked more like a
bureaucratic compromise
between State and Defense
than like a serious strategy to
interdict the Trail. D 42
However slow the start, the
trend away from guerrilla
warfare would not be reversed
while hostilities continued in
South Vietnam. Conventional
operatio ns would deploy light
infantry trained in multibaltalion parachute and heliborne operations, and these
would require new professional skills in the case officers training and commanding
them. Not many CIA officers had the requisite credentials, and the
Agency turned to army and marine veterans of combat in Vietnam whom it
hired under contract in the so-calledI ] program. The Agenc sent
them 'all through the standard paramilitary training program a
an
exercise that, in the recollection of one of them, was poorly adapted to operating
conditions in Laos.v0
I
l one of the few contractors without Vietnam experience,
entered the program with no military experience beyond a tour of duty in the
Coast Guard . He left it feeling that he had been "trained for World War II."
The curriculum lacked anything about the communication systems used in
Laos, or about the capabilities and limitations of the various helicopters and
fixed-win
r
aircraft whose use he would be supervising. The introductory
briefing resented at least an up-to-date tactical picture, but offered
nothing about ~ ros pe c t i v e duties at Long Tieng. He asked Landry
what he'd be doing there, and Pat grunted, "Figure it out yourself when you
get there." Landry knew that ' would get the guidance he needed from
the exceptionally capable andl !eventually
came to see considerable merit in the station's informal regime of on-the ­
job training. 44~
..L,
4} Jim O"Ie-=-ru"'m,,";r-- ...r--intervicw by (he author, Mclean, VA. 17 March 1999 (hereafter cited
as ntervicw)
SEJlETIIMR
/ 270