Spycraft - Melton [161]
DCI Allen Dulles directed the CIA’s “front” airline in Southeast Asia, Civil Air Transport (CAT), to fly resupply missions during the siege using unarmed C-119 “Flying Boxcars” cargo aircraft while the U.S. military sent fifty B-26s for air support operations to aid the beleaguered garrison.3 Despite this U.S. assistance, which did little to turn the tide, President Eisenhower thought the French government’s decision to “make a stand” at Dien Bien Phu ill advised and its efforts to keep Vietnam under colonial rule an invitation for the communists to gain an advantage.4
Eisenhower’s assessment had been correct. The commander of the French garrison, sensing defeat was at hand, committed suicide with a hand grenade.5 The siege, which lasted from March until early May, effectively ended French colonial rule in Indochina, but brought no lasting peace. An international conference, convened in Geneva during July of 1954, offered a plan to create a unified Vietnamese government following democratic elections in 1956. However, the Geneva agreement was not endorsed by the United States and resulted in a negotiated standoff that included a temporary division between north and south along a Demilitarized Zone at the 17th parallel.6
Two countries emerged from the agreement, the communist-ruled Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the north and the Republic of Vietnam in the south. Almost immediately, Ho Chi Minh’s regime embarked on a protracted campaign of guerilla warfare to unify Vietnam under communist rule. The United States, practicing a policy of Cold War “containment,” was determined not to let that happen.7
When Jameson encountered the American tourist in Saigon, U.S. paramilitary support to the South Vietnamese consisted of advisors from both CIA and U.S. Army Special Forces. The Eisenhower administration committed American assistance to South Vietnam, but limited efforts to advising and assisting the South Vietnamese government in unconventional warfare, paramilitary operations, and political-psychological warfare.8 This role expanded during the Kennedy administration to include CIA paramilitary support with substantial assistance from Special Forces to interdict material flowing from the north to the Vietcong in the south.
With limited news coverage and the relatively small commitment of U.S. forces, few Americans recognized Vietnam as a war zone. The fighting did not resemble the battlefields of Europe during World War II or those of the more recent Korean conflict. The Vietcong guerillas, with no means to mount large-scale military attacks, concentrated on building espionage networks within the South Vietnamese government and carrying out terrorist-like attacks on selected targets.
Jameson had been sent to Vietnam by TSD to support the Agency’s covert action program.9 His role, as an “authentication” officer, carried on a tradition that reached back two decades to similar work done by OSS. Just as the OSS had reproduced German and French documents for agents sent into occupied Europe, TSD was now outfitting South Vietnamese agents with documents and clothing for infiltration missions into the north to conduct intelligence gathering, sabotage, and harassment operations.
However, the situation Jameson found in Vietnam suggested that TSD could do more than just provide documentation. Another small TSD unit had experience in training and equipping paramilitary forces through its involvement with the ill-fated 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. Now, a year later, TSD’s paramilitary and “authentication” units were combined to form