spartans_in_darkness

"FOP SE6REliV60MI'Hl/lt1
receive help under its previous quid pro quo
agreement. The South Vietnamese, though,
would have their program expanded from the
then current, simple technical exchange - a sort
of cryptologic "barter" system in which the U.S.
gave South Vietnam equipment and funds, and,
in return, the South Vietnamese turned over raw
intercept - to a full-blown training and advisory
mission."
(~//~I) The United States Intelligence Board
reviewed all of the submitted plans and settled for
a two-pronged approach. The Army Security
Agency was made the operational agent for the
communications intelligence plans in Southeast
Asia. The ASA was handed two missions. The
first, OPLAN 7-61, dated 10 April 1961, and
named Whitebirch, was to increase the U.S.
COMINT and DIF capability against communications
of communist forces in South Vietnam,
North Vietnam, and Laos, but with emphasis
against the insurgent forces in South Vietnam. A
second mission, OPLAN 8-61, dated 20 April
1961, and called Sabertooth, was to help train the
ARVN COMINT personnel in communications
intercept, direction finding, and processing of
intercepted plaintext voice communications.
However, there were limitations attached to the
Whitebirch plan. These centered on long-standing
concerns about ARVN security which led the
USIB to limit technical exchanges to COMINT
information not derived by analytic techniques,
otherwise known as Category IIX, or noncodeword
SECRET inforrnation.f" This latter decision,
though, was an improvement over the original
plan, which limited the intelligence exchange
to the lower CONFIDENTIALlevel.
(U) The Arrival ofthe 3rd RRU in
Saigon, 196.1
(S//SI) With the plans in place, things began
to move quickly in South Vietnam. On April 29,
1961, President Kennedy approved the ASA
OPLAN and committed the first seventy-eight
(soon to be almost one hundred) soldiers and
$1.2 million in equipment. ASAPacific HQ organized
the first ASAcontingent, known as the 400th
ASA Special Operations Unit (provisional) at
Clark Air Base, Philippines. On 13 May 1961, the
first ninety-three men entered South Vietnam,
arriving at Tan Son Nhut Air Base under the cover
name of the 3rd Radio Research Unit (3d RRU).
There they set up operations in a cluster of
unused South Vietnamese Air Force hangars at
the air base.
(S//SI) The buildings, which had not been
used for some time by the Vietnamese, literally
had to be scraped and washed clean Essential
furniture, such as chairs and desks, had to be
scared up for the officers, while most of the enlisted
analysts used long folding tables or empty c-
rations crates. Office supplies were bought off the
local economy; unique analytic tools, like the venerable
"guhor stick" (a ruler for drawing net diagrams,
with inset circles and a square.]
II
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EO 1.4. (c)
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