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positions in support of monitoring the effects of
the B-52 Arc Light raids in South Vietnam and
the strikes against targets along the Ho Chi Minh
Trail. Apparently, the NRV had the authority to
do this, but the disruption to Phu Bai's operations
was so great that Headquarters ASA Pacific
requested the CGUSASA to settle the problem
with DIRNSA. ASA believed that the NSA
Representative, Vietnam, could preempt only
those positions under his collection mandate,
whereas the NRV had been taking control of any
position at the field site regardless of its tasking
authority or priority mission. Eventually, a compromise
was reached in that the NRV had to provide
sufficient advance notice of the time and area
of the Arc Light missions so that Phu Bai could
reconfigure collection so as to avoid losing valuable
intercept from previously assigned, priority
.. 8
missions.
(S/;'SI) A new intercept site or, to be more
precise, an old site, at Pleiku in the Central Highlands,
was reopened under ASAauspices. Earlier,
Pleiku had been the location of the initial marine
COMINT site in Vietnam for a year before it redeployed
to Phu Bai. In the meantime, an outstation
of the Whitebirch D/F network had been located
there. By 1966, the ASA had fully reestablished
the site with a potential for thirty intercept positions
to cover manual morse, voice, and teleprinter
communications. The 330th Radio Research
Company (RRC), subordinate to the 313th ASA
Battalion, was assigned to Pleiku (USM-604).
Pleiku's responsibility was COMINT support to
allied forces in the II Corps operating area, which
encompassed the Central Highlands of South
Vietnam from Kontum Province south to Binh
Tuy Province. Pleiku was also the collection management
authority (CMA) for all American DSUs
assigned to the region.
(8//8I) The third member of the ASA field
station constellation was the venerable site in
Saigon. By 1963, this outfit, then the 82nd Special
Operations Unit, had gone a long way from the
primitive days when analysts used empty crates
(V) nqffic analysis in the earlv days qt Pleiku
for chairs and operated out of old run-down
hangars at Tan Son Nhut. Soon, it moved into the
Whitebirch operations area and was renamed the
3rd RRU. There it shared its mission with the D/F
project. The 3rd RRU often was assigned the lead
in new endeavors by ASA in Vietnam.I
IThis involved some of
'----------_.....
its personnel redeploying to monitoring sites in
the northern part of South Vietnam and in aircraft."
(s//sn By 1966, the 3rd RRU was/targeting
primarily Viet Cong communications in the
southern regions of South Vietnam.'It assumed
oversight of intercept performed /by the aerial
platforms of the ASA's 156th Aviation Company
(USM-624D) assigned to Can Tho. The 3rd also
absorbed the resources of the./335th RRC, the
DSU belonging to the U.S. 9th/Infantry Division,
which operated in the Mekong Delta.
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