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The Goderich Signal-Star, 1969-10-23, Page 14. N 2A, CgDICH 5IQNAL-STAR, THURSDAY, OCTQBtR 23, 1969 TM sue THUMB r I v; G. L op ROSS A recent charge laid against eight' officers of the Green Berets in Vietnam was revoked; the men freed from custody and returned to the U.S.Ak But at one time it 'seemed likely that they would be prosecuted "pour _ encourager les autres." Army Secretary Resor has now explained to the world that the CIA, refused to make available any of its personnel as witnesses "in the 'interest of national security." Here is a version of the events from British sources: The name of the man of • several aliases, whose death caused all the fireworks, was most recently known as' Khac. Aged 55, he had been an intelligence Agent for the French in 1951-54..In 1959 he fled to Cambodia and returned to South Vietnam only after Governor Diem had been assassinated. Khac was in Cambodia in July 1969, when President Thieu's special adviser on political matters, Trong by name, was arrested on suspicion of heading 'an extensive Viet Cong espionage network in Saigon. The Trong case was 'cracked' in Paris by the. CIA, in conjunction with the South Vietnamese intelligence. The CIA file included a photo of ghee in the company of National Liberation Front agents, and Khac was known to have been in close contact with Trong during their exile in Cambodia. More recently Khac had been doing odd intelligence jobs for successive Saigon governments. He had risen in the hierarchy, and for a year had been President Thieu's .personal adviser, with the highest security clearance , possible in South Vietnam. He had also worked closely with the CIA under the name of Nha, " but for the past year; again 'using the name of Khac, he worked for the Green - Berets. His job was to get agents employed by the Green Berets in Laos and Cambodia and to weed out the Viet Cong. When two of their agents disappeared, the Berets suspected a leak. On his return from one of his trips to Cambodia, Khaseas picked up by the Berets near the border on June 10th. Checking With the CIA in Saigon, the Berets learned of the. incriminating photograph, which showed' Khac in the company of the Viet Cong. Their conclusion was that Khac was a double agent and the question becaine: What to do with him? Nominally _the Green Berets report to the Chief of Staff of the • U.S. Army 'command' in Vietnam, General T. Mabry, but in fact they work closely with, and are virtually a branch of, the CIA. The CIA directive on what to do with a, suspect is couched in, elliptical gobbledy gook. An agent who is simply sacked is 'terminated.' If his loyalty is in doubt he is 'termtnated . with prejudice.' Where there are grave doubts about him,,.. he is 'terminated with severe prejudice,' which can mean either 'put on ice in Vietnam' or 'put on ice out of that country.' The ultimate is 'termination with extreme prejudice,' which means elimination. On June 18th the Green Berets consulted with the CIA in Saigon on action to be taken with Khac, but no record was kept of this. conference. The Green Beret version is that the CIA man said: "Officially we are telling you to do nothing at all about the case." When the Beret liaison officer pointed out that Khac knew the identity of all their agents and that Some kind of action wasnecessary, the Berets 'read' the CIA man as saying: "In that case we advise you to "terminate with extreme prejudice." The CIA, however, contend they merely told the Berets to look after the case themselves. It was at this juncture that General Abrams, the American Commander in Chief in Vietnam, heard some details of the case. He is known to look upon the. activities of the I3erets and the CIA as counter-pro- ductive, vis a vis the Vietnamese population; their government and ,the, U.S. Command.- He is also insistent on clear orders, clearly given and clearly obeyed. He categorically ordered that no suspects in this case be eliminated. -, The commander of the. Berets, Colonel Rheault, was in only the third week of his second tour in Vietnam when caught in this conflict of loyalties, which was complicated by General Abrams' knowledge that the CIA had an interest in it. Colonel Rheault consulted his senior intelligence officers and was told the course' of action was difficult because':' L Many Beret officers had worked with Khac and liked him, but, 2. They had the lives of their agents to protect. A further complication, which may or may riot have muddied the stream of command, was that the Deputy Director of the CIA. in Washington, concerned with Vietnam, had been barely a month in office and, he was none other than Marine General Cushman, who gave • forth those immortal words during his senseless defence of Khe San: "It is against Marine tradition to dig- -in?' (See --Ti'nt's Life' for 4/7/68.) At the time of Khe San, General Westmoreland was the C. in C. and he did not see eye to.,eye with Cushman's tactics. It is probable that the opinion was shared by General 'Abrams, then Westmoreland's second in command. k To contirtue - with an American version "of the further events: Three days before Khac's Vietn execution, the Berets asked the CIA to make a further check on Khac's background. Meanwhile the CIA liaison' officer at Nhe Trang learned the Berets planned to send Khac on a "one-way mission to test his loyalty." He immediately suspected Khac was to be executed and so informed the CIA in Saigon, at the same time forwarding a Beret request for a further check. When CIA„ Saigon replied: "Return agent to duty" it was too late for, as an official noted: "The Green Berets are not trained in resurrection!" Faced with this dilemma the Berets foolishly concocted . a cover story, which Colonel Rheault told to General Abrams, who in turn became furious at the lie and ordered all the Beret officers concerned arrested. The British account of this sordid cloak and dagger story suggests a further complication. Suspicion grows that the crucial photograph of Khac, which resulted in his being 'fingered' ,by. the Beret, was taken by a Viet Cong photographer on one of Khac's earlier visits to Phom Penh and was planted on the CIA in some dark corner of the espionage jungle in Paris. Whether Khac was' a double. agent may have puzzled the Viet Cong as much as it did the Green Berets • and the CIA. The photo may therefore have been used by the Viet Cong as a crafty way to check which side Khac was really on. TWO QUESTIONS :This bungle raises two 'questions, of which* the former affects every soldier in the execution of his duty. How far can a serving soldier defend himself from criminal charges on the plea that he obeyed lawful orders from his superiors? The ,American Armed Forces uniform code of justice states that "obedience to an apparently lawful order" is a complete justification for acts committed in wartime. Thus it was that the charge against the Green Beret officers smacked of a "Nuremberg" type trial, but since the - charge has been m Bungle dropped, we shall never know whether Ieneral , Abrams was motivated by the telling of a lie, or in his belief Unit Khac was an innocent man, working honestly for the Americans. At any rate it is something for double -agents to ponder; even one-way agents too. The latter question is: Who is running the war in Vietnam? The U.S. Army ,or the CIA? Accepting the reported circumstances;it would appear that' the chain of command was bifurcated; that the right hand was ignorant of what the left was doing; that the 'team' broke down, if it ever existed. The major lesson from this affair, which needs to be relearned, is that the chain of command ;must be clearly defined and that orders clearly expressed_ are needed to obtain clear obedience. Finally, in view of the constant bickering between all the Forces, armed or unarmed" in the U.S. military "complex,' it is hard to refrain from saying: "For God's sake get together boys!" As for the CIA, over the years since its formation, it has proved something. of an embarrassment, 'not' to mention a slippery customer` when its advice and/or actions actions have been publicly questioned. Its more notorious record covers such affairs as thea, Bay of Pigs; the U-2 reconnaissance plane Shot down by the Soviets, and the U.S.S. Pueblo fiasco. Whether all or only' some of these involved the CIA, certainly none redound to the credit of the operation of the intelligence services. "National Security" can become a double-edged weapon when it is not exercised with discretion, even integrity, as far as the publicized results are concerned. The too frequent license allowed to its officers to retire behind its variegated shield of implied infallibility, together with its slogan: "You -will be told only what you need to know," suffers from the defect that it, hands to -officials of lesser clay the power of dictators, for "security" can become the most For Your INSURANCE see -or call MacEwen & MacEwan 44 North St. — 524-9531 Donald G. MacEwan v. _Peter S. MacEwan REAL ESTATE LISTINGS AND ENQUIRIES INVITED Peter S. MacEwan — Realtor Donald G. MacEwan.— Salesman tfNommussimmommis< effective cloak yet devised by man; hence the dubious confidence in an organization which has such a great proclivity for "standing from under." ' REMEMBER DIEM This current event, in which suspicion is rife that a South Vietnamese was eliminated by enemy trickery, cannot but bring to • mind the fate : of Governor Diem in January 1964. The ,authority is the book by the . late Marguerite Higgins entitled "Qur Vietnam- Nightmare," (larper & Row. 1965) in which the same . forces are revealed. Diem .was the target for a_ machiavellian Bhuddist monk, Thich Tri Quang, who double-crossed the U.S. authorities, .so that they finally connived at his elimination. Here are the references: Page 193. The Vietnamese generals ask if the U.S. aid will stop if a coup removes Diem. P. 194. The State Dept. cable: "Rocking the boat is no longer a U.S. taboo." P. 203. President Kennedy, badly advised by the Asst. Secy. of State, Hilsman, appears on TV to call for "changes in policy and personnel." P. 234. R. G. K. Thompson, the British Adviser in Vietnam said: "The Diem coup will set back the war by 12 months." Clearly he was something of an optimist. . And in the present instance, whether. Khac, was a double -agent or not, the CIA trumpet "gave forth an VJ uncertain sound," with the result that a quite unnecessary gaffe was perptitrated. One which would never have happened had there not been too many poorly disciplined cooks. One has to sympathize with the C. in C. for having to put up with an imposed organization which seems to have such a flair for bringing the Services -Into worldwide disrepute. SAVE DOLLARS ON OU R SPECIALS ON ELECTRONOME HUMIDIFIERS AND EUREKA VACUUMS AT a utchinson Radio -- TV -- Appliances a ' 308 Huron Rd. 52.7831 rp usiness Directo Ronald L. McDonald CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT 39 St. David St., 524,6253 Goderich, Ontario 145 ESSEX ST.. GODERICH,. ONTARIO Available For PUBLIC OR ' PRIVATE PARTIES BINGOS * CONCERTS * DANCES * CONVENTIONS * Catering to Luncheons * COCKTAIL PARTIES * BANQUETS, ETC. 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