1 - The Black Vault

PRAETORIAN STARSHIP
States began working with resistance groups opposed
to the Japanese occupation of Indochina.
The OSS played the predominant role in these
early operations. Ho Chi Minh guerrillas were actively
resisting Japanese occupation, and as a result,
OSS agents were approved by President
Franklin D. Roosevelt in early 1945 to train the
Viet Minh and help lead them in their efforts
against the Japanese. The war in Europe was
reaching its climax, and France had been liberated
from Nazi occupation. The OSS had the capacity
to redirect much of its attention to the war in the
Pacific. During this early period of US involvement
in Indochina, Ho Chi Minh had not declared
himself a communist. What has come to be an
ironic twist of fate, the first American aid to SEA
was to the Viet Minh guerrillas fighting against
Japanese occupation. These guerrillas would become
America’s enemy during the Second Indochina
War. 50
The United States opposed the return of the
French to Indochina after Japan’s defeat in 1945,
but with the death of President Roosevelt in
April, there was little formal opposition. In the
view of President Harry S. Truman the United
States had more important commitments elsewhere
in the postwar world than in Indochina.
The United States also needed French support in
Europe against the Soviet Union and consequently
backed off from its opposition of the
French claiming their colonies in SEA. Thus, a
near-total withdrawal of US aid was coupled with
a concurrent French buildup in their former colony.
Ho Chi Minh did not favor the return of the
French; rather, he viewed their return as an extension
of the century-old occupation of Indochina
by foreigners. Ho Chi Minh moved to the countryside
and continued his resistance to foreign occupation
that he had begun against the Japanese.
With no Western aid available, he turned to the
Chinese communists for support. With the defeat
of the Nationalist Chinese by Communist forces
in 1949, the United States reevaluated how it
looked at the French-Viet Minh conflict. With the
onset of the cold war and the resultant containment
policy of the United States, America began
to associate the Indochina conflict as an East ve rsus
West one—communism versus the Free World.
North Korea, with the support of both Chinese
and Stalinist communists, invaded South Korea
on 24 June 1950. The United States established
the Military Assistance and Advisory Group
(MAAG ) in Saigon in August 1950. From that
time until the defeat of the French at Dien Bien
Phu in May 1954, America provided 80 percent of
the logistical costs of French activities in Indochina.
51
During the 1954–55 period, the United States
was negotiating in Paris and in Saigon to gain
permission to train the South Vietnamese Army.
On 10 May 1955 (one year after Dien Bien Phu),
the White House announced that the United
States had undertaken responsibility for the
training of Vietnamese armed forces upon the request
of the government of Vietnam and with the
agreement of the government of France. Ten days
later, French military forces evacuated Saigon,
thus ending their government’s official participa -
tion in the affairs of its former colony. 52
From the very onset of US training of Vietnamese
forces, America suffered from the so-called Korean
syndrome; that is, America concentrated on
building a conventional army to fight a conventional
enemy that would attack the South over
the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating the two
countries. A strong conventional army was viewed
as the key to stopping communist aggression.
There were some individuals in Washington, how -
ever, who did not view the Vietnamese conflict
solely in conventional terms. As a result, the most
knowledgeable unconventional warfare expert in
the US military was sent to Saigon to establish an
unconventional warfare capability—Col Edward
F. Lansdale of the US Air Force. 53
Colonel Lansdale had gained recognition for his
work in the Philippines during the Communist
Hukbalahap’s (Philippine People’s Anti-Japanese
Army) Huck rebellion of the late 1940s. With
Lansdale’s assistance, Philippine president Ramón
Magsaysay had executed an unconventional warfare
campaign that proved to be the most successful
campaign of its kind up to that time.
Some in Washington saw similarities in Vietnam
that existed during the early years of the Huck
rebellion , and they felt that experience gained
there could be applied by Colonel Lansdale to the
Vietnamese conflict.
In June 1954 Colonel Lansdale arrived in
Saigon to become the chief of the Saigon Military
Mission (SMM). His charter included the establishment
of an organization for clandestine and
covert actions against North Vietnam (NVN).
These actions were to discredit “an active and intelligent
enemy who made full use of legal rights
to screen his activities in establishing his staybehind
organization south of the 17th parallel.” 54
Two months after Lansdale’s arrival, NSC issued
Directive 5412, which defined covert operations
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