spartans_in_darkness

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1.4. (e)
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ommendations institutionalized American leadership's
belief that the key to success in Vietnam
lay with more military aid and organizational
reforms. Washington held to the tenet that Diem
could be convinced to institute political, social,
and economic reforms in South Vietnam even
though he saw these changes as a threat to his
own narrow interests." Washington's notion that
it could leverage Diem into systemic reforms
failed to account for Diem's strong and historical
nationalist mindset and his brand of personal
rule.
(S//SI) The SIGINT Plan for
Southeast Asia, 1961
(TS//SI) In January 1961, while the joint civilian
and military country team in Saigon had submitted
to the president a counterinsurgency plan
for South Vietnam, the cryptologic community
was busy on a parallel regional plan of its OW11.
The director, NSA, Admiral Laurence Frost, had
directed a review of the COMINT situation in
Vietnam. The completed report was forwarded to
the COMINT Committee subordinate to the
United States Intelligence Board (USIB) on 31
Janua 1961.
.'--__- - ..... It also called for limited
D/F steerage support for locating enemy
radio stations using known or derived technical
information, such as radio frequency usage, operating
characteristics, etc."
(TS//SI) This approach of limited support to
the fledgling South Vietnamese COMINT organization
would change quickly as the MAAG in
Saigon pressured Washington for a surer and
stronger communications intelligence capability
that could support combat operations. In Saigon,
the then current commander USMAAG,
Lieutenant General L.C. McGarr, hadnrged upon
both the U.S. ambassador. and the Special
Security Office (SSO) staff in Saigon the critical
need for immediate and effective direction finding
support. The South Vietnamese CQMINT
organization simply could not provide such support
to the ARVN. 16 It was thissituationthat
drove a new set of DIRNSA's recommendations
which were adopted by the CQMINT committee.
For, in mid-February, it recommended that,
besides providin D F steera e information to
the Vietnamese,
'-----------_.......__........... the USIB
queried the State Department to determine
whether it was politically feasible for O.S. military
mobile D/F teams to operate in Southivietnam."
In essence, then, it was the direction finding support
issue that led to the initial U.S. cryptologic
presence in Vietnam.
(S//SI) In March 1961, NSA forwarded its
own version of a "Plan to Improve SIGINT in
Southeast Asia" to the COMINT Committee. The
NSA version emphasizedI .
'--
...1COMINT agreement with
South Vietnam in 1960. NSA also wanted to put a
small U.S. mobile unit in South Vietnam that
would include fifty-four men working two high
frequency (3-30 MHz (HF)) manual morse and
two radiotelephone intercept positions collecting
North Vietnamesd
Imilitary
communications, as well. as two D/F positions."
(S//Sf) At the end of March, the USIB's
COMINT Committee met again at the request of
the Army, which wanted a review of assistance
and training in tactical communications intelligence
operations to the noncommunist countries
of Southeast Asia. The committee determined
that a sort of minimalist approach would be
taken: that Laos and Cambodia were not eligible
for any helpl
Iwould continue to
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