Undercover Armies - CIA FOIA - Central Intelligence Agency

C05303949
Chapter Sixteen
tion remained, even when these raids succeeded, whether they justified the
risks and the costs. And many did not succeed; a second raid along Route
IS-just a year after the first-was intercepted by the enemy, and half the
team was lost. The station worried, moreover, about the political and human
costs if an aircraft should go down; even if the Porter were replaced by the
Twin Otter-safer because of its two engines-accident or ground fire could
result in the death or capture of pilots and case officers on North Vietnamese
soil. 13 D
There remained also the requirement for lengthy overland infiltration
imposed by the noise of the helicopters used' to insert them. I
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Ito modify a Bell helicopter for silent
flight, but the BeIl aircraft chosen for this was too smaIl to accommodate
teams of the size that planted the charges on the pipeline. The rules prevented
using American pilots in Hanoi's airspace, and even should more conventional
aircraft be suitable, the shortage of Laotian or Chinese pilots qualified
to fly on instruments meant that the opportunity might weIllie faIlow.J4D
Common sense dictated 'more skepticism. But to teIl the White House it
could not have what it wanted went very much against the cultural grain in the
Clandestine Service. It was not until May 1971 that a desk officer in the paramilitary
element at Headquarters looked at the record and concluded that the
game was not worth the candle. Most of the teams lacked the requisite intense
motivation as well as the Vietnamese language capability that might aIlow
them to satisfy at least a casual challenge. And the need for overland infiltration
made discovery nearly inevitable. FuIly nine months later, the FE branch
chief said he agreed. Only 12 of 22 operations had succeeded even to the modest
extent of delivering ordnance toward a target. These "meager results," with
"little reason to expect [anything better) in the future," had come at a cost of
over $3 million and 29 Commando Raiders lost in action. Unless the president
judged that hiSjObiltives for the program were being met, the program should
be abolished. IS
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