Shadow Warrior (85 page)

20
. Colby,
Lost Victory
, 88; Thomas L. Ahern Jr.,
CIA and Rural Pacification in South Vietnam
, Center for the Study of Intelligence, August 2001, available at National Security Archive,
www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB284/index.htm
, 39–40.

21
. Colby,
Lost Victory
, 85.

22
. Quoted in John A. Nagl,
Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam: Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife
(Westport, CT: 2002), 15, 22.

23
. Quoted in ibid., 26.

24
. Gregoire Potiron de Boisfleury, “The Origins of Marshal Lyautey's Pacification Doctrine in Morocco from 1912 to 1925,” master's thesis, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 2010, 9–12, online at
www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA524341
; Colby,
Lost Victory
, 91; Interview: William Colby, former director, Central Intelligence Agency,
Special Forces Magazine
, April 1994, 41.

25
. Colby and Forbath,
Honorable Men
, 175–176; Zalin Grant,
Facing the Phoenix: The CIA and the Political Defeat of the United States in Vietnam
(New York: 1991), 166.

26
. Author interview with Gilbert Layton Family, Oct. 13, 2006, Washington, DC.

27
. Ken Conboy and James Morrison, “Early Covert Action on the Ho Chi Minh Trail,”
http://ngothelinh.150m.com/Early Covert Actions.html
; Gilbert Layton to Frank Mallard, Nov. 1, 1961, Layton Family Papers.

28
. Quoted in Tourison,
Secret Army, Secret War
, 24–25, 34; Ahern,
CIA and Rural Pacification
, 44.

29
. Hugh Wilford,
The Mighty Wurlitze
r:
How the CIA Played America
(Cambridge, MA: 2009), 168–169; David A. Nuttle, “They Have Stone Ears, Don't They?” unpublished memoir, May 6, 1966; Nuttle to author, Sept. 21, 2006, 42–44.

30
. Author interview with David Nuttle, Sept. 6, 2006.

31
. Nuttle, “Stone Ears,” 43.

32
. Ibid., 5.

33
. Quoted in Ahern,
CIA and Rural Pacification
, 45; Colby,
Lost Victory
, 89.

34
. Colby and Forbath,
Honorable Men
, 165–166.

35
. See Evan Thomas,
The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared. The Early Years of the CIA
(New York: 1995), 205–216, 237–272.

36
. Quoted in Randall Bennett Woods,
Quest for Identity: America Since 1945
(New York: 2005), 213; quoted in Colby and Forbath,
Honorable Men
, 184; Tim Weiner,
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
(New York: 2007), 179; Richard Helms, with William Hood,
A Look over My Shoulder: A Life in the Central Intelligence Agency
(New York: 2003), 181.

37
. Nuttle, “Stone Ears,” 47. The conversation that follows is quoted from Nuttle's memoir.

38
. Nuttle, “Stone Ears,” 9.

39
. Quoted in Prados,
Lost Crusader
, 73; Colby and Forbath,
Honorable Men
, 166.

40
. Nuttle, “Stone Ears,” 53.

41
. Quoted in Ahern,
CIA and Rural Pacification
, 46–47.

42
. Quoted in ibid., 46. Special Forces A-Teams consisted of twelve military personnel who had the collective mission of training local self-defense forces and conducting civil
affairs programs to improve hygiene, health care, education, and agriculture. Adams,
US Special Operations Forces
, 84–85.

43
. Ahern,
CIA and Rural Pacification
, 52.

44
. Dora Layton to Marsh and Family, December 1962, Layton Family Papers; Ahern,
CIA and Rural Pacification
, 54.

45
. Ahern,
CIA and Rural Pacification
, 25.

46
. Al Friendly to Gil Layton, Feb. 6, 1996, Layton Family Papers.

47
. Ahern,
CIA and Rural Pacification
, 58; Nuttle, “Stone Ears,” 57.

48
. Quoted in Tourison,
Secret Army, Secret War
, 55.

49
. Colby,
Lost Victory
, 91; author interview with Dora and Todd Layton, Oct. 23, 2006; Ahern,
CIA and Rural Pacification
, 76–77.

50
. Tourison,
Secret Army, Secret War
, 24; author interview with Dora and Todd Layton, Oct. 23, 2006; Dora Layton to friend, Jan. 1963, Layton Family Papers.

51
. Author interview with Carl Colby, Jan. 9, 2007.

52
. Author interview with John Colby, Jan. 12, 2007.

53
. “CIA Information Report,” Nov. 28, 1961,
Foreign Relations of the United States
(FRUS hereafter),
1961–1963, Vietnam
, vol. 1, 689–691.

54
. Quoted in Ahern,
CIA and Rural Pacification
, 78–79.

55
. Colby,
Lost Victory
, 99.

56
. Ahern,
CIA and Rural Pacification
, 80.

57
. Ibid., 84; Colby,
Lost Victory
, 102.

58
. Ahern,
CIA and Rural Pacification
, 80–82; Seth Jacobs,
Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America's War in Vietnam, 1950–1963
(Lanham, MD: 2006), 127; A. J. Langguth,
Our Vietnam: The War, 1954–1975
(New York: 2000), 168–169.

59
. Colby,
Lost Victory
, 93. This passage displays an amazingly cavalier attitude on the part of a CIA station chief whose job it was, in tandem with the chief of SEPES, the South Vietnamese security apparatus, to ferret out communist agents who had penetrated the South Vietnamese government and military.

1
. Stanley Karnow,
Vietnam: A History
(New York: 1983), 263.

2
. William Colby,
Lost Victory: A Firsthand Account of America's Sixteen-Year Involvement in Vietnam
(Chicago: 1989), 117; author interview with Carl Colby, Jan. 9, 2007.

3
. Quoted in Thomas L. Ahern Jr.,
CIA and Rural Pacification in South Vietnam
, Center for the Study of Intelligence, August 2001, available at National Security Archive,
www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB284/index.htm
, 60; David A. Nuttle, “They Have Stone Ears, Don't They?” unpublished memoir, May 6, 1966; David A. Nuttle to author, Sept. 21, 2006, 16.

4
. Ahern,
CIA and Rural Pacification
, 61; Nuttle, “Stone Ears,” 16–17; John Prados,
Lost Crusader: The Secret Wars of CIA Director William Colby
(New York: 2003), 87–88; two Montagnard representatives to Colonel Gilbert Layton, n.d., Layton Family Papers.

5
. William Colby,
Lost Victory: A Firsthand Account of America's Sixteen-Year Involvement in Vietnam
(Chicago: 1989), 98; Richard H. Shultz Jr.,
The Secret War Against Hanoi: Kennedy's and Johnson's Use of Spies, Saboteurs, and Covert Warriors in North Vietnam
(New York: 1999), 7; quoted in Ahern,
CIA and Rural Pacification
, 97.

6
. Author interview with Barbara Colby, Jan. 5, 2007.

7
. William Colby and Peter Forbath,
Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA
(New York: 1978), 178.

8
. Ibid., 180, 183.

9
. Lucien Vandenbroucke,
Perilous Options: Special Operations as an Instrument of US Foreign Policy
(New York: 1993), 30; Ted Shackley and Rickard A. Finney,
Spymaster: My Life in the CIA
(Dulles, VA: 1992), 57; quoted in Tim Weiner,
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
(New York: 2007), 185.

10
. Weiner,
Legacy of Ashes
, 188.

11
. Ibid., 182; Colby and Forbath,
Honorable Men
, 187.

12
. Colby and Forbath,
Honorable Men
, 188.

13
. Quoted in Ahern,
CIA and Rural Pacification
, 86.

14
. Ibid., 86–87, 101, 114; unknown correspondent to Bonnie Layton, n.d., and Gil Layton to Colonel Barry Peterson, March 2, 1991, Layton Family Papers.

15
. Ahern,
CIA and Rural Pacification
, 110; “Commentary on National Security Intelligence Estimate 53-2-64,” Oct. 19, 1964, Box 2, F Colby-VN, Papers of James Srodes, Marshall Library, Virginia Military Institute; quoted in R. W. Komer,
Bureaucracy at War: U.S. Performance in the Vietnam Conflict
(Boulder, CO: 1986), 11; William E. Colby to Major Hardy Bogue, Jan. 31, 1992, Box 6, F20, Colby Papers, Vietnam Archives, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas.

16
. Shultz,
Secret War Against Hanoi
, 47–48.

17
. Colby,
Lost Victory
, 122; quoted in Shultz,
Secret War Against Hanoi
, 39–40; author interview with Robert Myers, April 11, 2007.

18
. See “Current Intelligence Memorandum, CIA,” Jan. 11, 1963,
FRUS, 1961–1963, Vietnam
, vol. 3, 19–22.

19
. “CIA Information Report,” June 28, 1963,
FRUS, 1961–1963, Vietnam
, vol. 3, 423–425; quoted in Thomas L. Ahern Jr.,
CIA and the House of Ngo: Covert Action in South Vietnam, 1954–1963
, Center for the Study of Intelligence, June 2000, available at National Security Archive,
www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB284/index.htm
, 167.

20
. Ahern,
CIA and the House of Ngo
, 169–171; Ellen J. Hammer,
A Death in November: America in Vietnam, 1963
(New York: 1987), 167–168; David Halberstam and Daniel J. Singal,
The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam During the Kennedy Era
(Lanham, MD: 2006), 143–145; Howard Jones,
Death of a Generation: How the Assassinations of Diem and JFK Prolonged the Vietnam War
(New York: 2003), 297–298.

21
. Quoted in Ahern,
CIA and the House of Ngo
, 172, 173.

22
. Quoted in ibid., 173; Colby,
Lost Victory
, 137.

23
. Colby,
Lost Victory
, 133.

24
. Quoted in Ahern,
CIA and the House of Ngo
, 174–175; Colby,
Lost Victory
, 119.

25
. Quoted in Ahern,
CIA and the House of Ngo
, 183.

26
. Quoted in Anne E. Blair,
Lodge in Vietnam: A Patriot Abroad
(New Haven, CT: 1995), 1.

27
. Quoted in Zalin Grant,
Facing the Phoenix: The CIA and the Political Defeat of the United States in Vietnam
(New York: 1991), 196–197.

28
. Blair,
Lodge in Vietnam
, 18; Grant,
Facing the Phoenix
, 186; William E. Colby Oral History, June 2, 1981, LBJ Library.

29
. William E. Colby Oral History, June 2, 1981, 50–51; Ahern,
CIA and the House of Ngo
, 185.

30
. William E. Colby to Director, “Possible Rapprochement Between North and South Vietnam,” Sept. 19, 1963, Box 2, F Colby-VN, Srodes Papers, Marshall Library, Virginia Military Institute; Ahern,
CIA and the House of Ngo
, 187.

31
. Ahern,
CIA and the House of Ngo
, 195 n. 3, 195.

32
. Colby,
Lost Victory
, 137, 168. He would later compare the Buddhists to the followers of the Iranian Shiite leader Ayatollah Khomeini and their “fundamentalist obscurantism.” Colby,
Lost Victory
, 145; William E. Colby Oral History, June 2, 1981. Of course, nothing could have been further from the truth. Buddhism is the most inclusive of religions.

33
. Blair,
Lodge in Vietnam
, 28–29; see also Seth Jacobs,
Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of the American War in Vietnam, 1950–1963
(New York: 2006).

34
. Colby,
Lost Victory
, 140.

35
. Colby,
Lost Victory
, 144–145; Ahern,
CIA and the House of Ngo
, 191.

36
. Author interview with Robert Myers, June 11, 2007, and Layton Family, Oct. 13, 2006; Ahern,
CIA and the House of Ngo
, 193.

37
. Quoted in Ahern,
CIA and the House of Ngo
, 195, 200.

38
. Ibid., 203; Jones,
Death of a Generation
, 393; Colby,
Lost Victory
, 149.

39
. “Memorandum of a Conference with the President,” White House, Oct. 29, 1963,
FRUS, 1961–1963, Vietnam
, vol. 4, 468–471; quoted in Ahern,
CIA and the House of Ngo
, 206; quoted in Colby,
Lost Victory
, 152.

40
. Karnow,
Vietnam
, 307–322; Jones,
Death of a Generation
, 398–399; Patrick Lloyd Hatcher,
The Suicide of an Elite: American Internationalists and Vietnam
(Palo Alto, CA: 1990), 149.

41
. “Telegram from the Embassy in Vietnam to the DOS,” Nov. 1, 1963,
FRUS, 1961–1963, Vietnam
, vol. 4, 516–517; Ahern,
CIA and the House of Ngo
, 207.