spartans_in_darkness

1. 4. (c)
1. 4. (d)
allowed to work in any fashion in either field.
French needs in both activities were sufficiently
staffed by personnel drawn from the various
French cryptologic and cryptographic bureaus
headquartered in Metropolitan France. French
colonial codes and ciphers were handled by
Frenchmen; a small intercept mission in
Indochina was staffed by French military personnel
and supported the colonial administrations
under the Third Republic and the collaborationist
regime in Vichy between 1940 and 1945. 4
(V) Even as manpower shortages developed
in the French colonial cryptographic (and cryptologic)
ranks due to Indochina's isolation from
France, plans by Vichy and the colonial regime in
Hanoi to develop a fully staffed and centralized
colonial cryptographic service carried no provision
for the participation in the program by any
indigenous peoples, including Vietnamese."
(V) In contrast to this lack of any real national
Vietnamese COMINT effort, even something
nested within the French cryptologic organizations,
there stands the Viet Minh experience. In
1941, after defeats in Cochin China and Tonkin,
the Viet Minh were forced to retreat into China
where they became politically allied with the
Nationalist Chinese and the Americans who were
battling the Japanese. During 1944 and 1945,
possibly as part of the Allied training program of
Chinese COMINT personnel, selected Viet Minh
were trained by the personnel from the V.S.
Navy's cryptologic organization, OP-20-G, to be
intercept operators and analysts."
(V) Within a few years of the war against the
French, in 1948 the Viet Minh had created a small
cryptologic bureau, utilizing captured American
equipment to monitor French communications."
A year later, it was reported to French intelligence
that the Viet Minh had an intercept center at La
Bang in Thai Nguyen province with ten positions
along with a cryptanalytic capability.f
(D) Most of this effort probably had occurred
with minimal help from the neighboring Chinese
Communists. By 1950, the influx of aid from
Moscow and Beijing could only increase the Viet
Minh's capability. In fact, by late 1951, the French
credited the Viet Minh with a sophisticated radio
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