Spies & Commandos: How America Lost the Secret War in North Vietnam

Spies & Commandos: How America Lost the Secret War in North Vietnam, by Kenneth Conboy and Dale Andrade
University Press of Kansas, 2000
279 pages plus 22 photos scattered throughout text, 7 maps scattered throughout text, Notes, Notes on Sources, and index

Front Matter
During the Vietnam war, the United States sought to undermine Hanoi's subversion of the Saigon regime by sending Vietnamese operatives behind enemy lines. A secret to most Americans, this covert operation was far from secret to Hanoi: all of the commandos were killed or captured, and many were turned by the Communists to report false information.

Spes and Commandos traces the rise and demise of this secret operation-started by the CIA in 1960and expanded by the Pentagon in 1964,-in the first book to examine the program from both sides of the war. Kenneth Conboy and Dale Andrade interviewed CIA and military personnel and traveled in Vietnam to locate former commandos who had been captured by Hanoi, enabling them to tell the complete story of these covert activities from high-level decision making to the actual experiences of the agents.

This book vividly describes scores of dangerous missions-including raids against North Vietnamese coastal installations and the air-dropping of dozens of agents into enemy territory-as well as psychological warfare designed to make Hanoi believe the "resistance movement" was larger than it actually was.

It offers a more complete operational account of the program than has ever been made available-particularly in its early years-and ties known events in the war to covert operations, such as details of the "34A Operations" that led to the Tonkin Gulf incidents in 1964. It also explains in no uncertain terms why the whole plan was doomed to failure from the start.

One of the remarkable features of the operation, claim the authors, is that its failures were so glaring. They argue that the CIA, and later the Pentagon, was unaware for years that Hanoi had compromised the commandos, even though some agents missed radio deadlines or filed suspicious reports. Operational errors were not attributed to conspiracy or counterintelligence, they contend, but simply to poor planning and lack of imagination.

Although it flourished for ten years under cover of the wider war, covert activity in Vietnam is now recognized as a disaster. Conboy and Andrade's account of that episode is a sobering tale that lends a new perspective on the war as it reclaims the lost lives of these unsung spies and commandos.

Table of Contents
Preface
1. Trojan Horses
2. Singletons
3. Airborne agents
4. Second Wind
5. VULCAN
6. Bang and Burn
7. Nasty Boats
8. Sacred Sword Patriot's League
9. Switchback
10. New Management
11. Sea Commandos
12. Tonkin Gulf
13. Maritime Options
14. Frustration Syndrome
15. Premonitions
16. Suspicious Minds
17. STRATA
18. RED DRAGON
19. Short-Term Targets
20. Denouement
21. Guerrillas in their Midst
22. Urgency
23. Closing the Gate
24. Backdoor
25. Exceptions to the Rule
26. The Quiet One
27. Last Missions
28. Defeat
Epilogue
Notes
A Note on Sources
Index

Maps
North Vietnam
South Vietnam
Agent Insertions, 1961
Airborne Insertions, 1962-1963
Airborne Insertions, 1964-1965
Airborne Insertions, 1966-1967
STRATA target areas

Photos
-8 unidentified agents from VNQDD in prison uniforms
-Civilian Vietnamese viewing unearthed weapons, all unidentified, April 19635
-Admiral Alfred A Burke, US Navy chief of operations and Royal Norwegian Navy Commander, Vice Admiral Erling Hostvedt, inspecting a Nasty-class patrol boat at Haakonsvrn, Norway, May 1960
-Overhead view of Camp Long Thanh
-Combat swimmer Truong Van Le, March 1964
-Nhuyen Van Nhu, leader of Team NEPTUNE, March 1964
-US Army interrogator and Vietnamese linguist David Elliott
-Unidentified members of Biet Hai team in parachute training
-South Vietnamese A-1G
-Pony Express calling card, 20th Helicopter Squadron's Pony Express detachment
-Eight unidentified members of Team SAMSON
-Sergeants Richard Meadows and Charles Kerns with 6 unidentified members of Team OHIO, on USS Intrepid, 1966
-12 unidentified members of Team STRATA, Sept 1967
-Major Alton Deviney, CH-3 commander, Sept 1967
-STATA Program: Francois, Major Austin Wilgus, Major Victor Calderon
-Captain David Kriskovitch and unidentified member of team RED DRAGON, summer 1967
-Lt Col Jonathan CArney and Major Roland Dutton, Skyhook test
-Commander Ho Van Ky Thoai and for unidentified South Vietnamese soldiers
-Prince Sihanouk, his wife Monique, and Pathet Lao leader Soupannouvang at funeral for Ho Chi Minh, Sept 1969
-Unidentified US officer with five unidentified members of EARTH ANGEL
-Two unidentified Vietnamese signers and several unidentified soldiers, June 1972