There are several occasions from my time in Vietnam that can still keep me up at night, even now, some fifty years later. Some fateful decisions cannot be undone…or atoned for.
Today’s Classified Intelligence Brief Spy Tale installment revisits the toughest decision I have ever made. It occurred on 15 March 1971, exactly one month before I fulfilled my assignment and got the hell out of country.
An earlier entry in this series had described my counterintelligence (CI) work for my first public sector employer – The Department of State (DOS), Bureau of Intelligence and Research – during the war (“A Giving of Accounts…from Massachusetts to Vietnam,” Classified Intelligence Brief, #61, February 17, 2021).
As I noted in that earlier Spy Tale:
I was recruited into the Office of Intelligence Coordination (OIC) at INR. INR has traditionally developed intel for the Secretary of State, ambassadors, and related matters reviewed by the National Security Council (NSC).
However, on this occasion, for the only time in its history, INR was designated a “tasked organization,” that is, responsible for receiving presidential directives and charged with executing covert (sponsor of action hidden) or clandestine (action itself hidden) operations.
I had ops and tactical training in DC, a stint at Camp Perry (the CIA training facility outside Williamsburg, VA, better known as “The Farm”), followed by the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) in Suitland, MD, a Vietnamese language course at Monterey in California (I usually was MIA for this, preferring to sleep on the beach; learned the language on the fly by hiring a tutor in country), and a brief stay at a forward analytical base (FAB) outside Tokyo.
DOS had recruited sixteen people for twelve slots. They went nationwide for specific individuals already identified. Early in the DC training, we picked assignments at random. I arrived in country as one of twelve team members on 24 October 1970. My operation had a seven-month time limit (weather and other factors). All team members were to be moved into theater together, evacuated individually to FAB as assignments ended, and returned state side as a unit. My evac to Tokyo was 20 April 1971. Departed for Honolulu shortly thereafter—alone.
I was the only one who made it back.
I returned state side (San Francisco) on 26 April 1971 and to the east coast a few days later. My contract obligation provided for periodic call back at their discretion for five years and then by mutual agreement. I agreed to revise it a few years later.
Back in 1971 and thereafter, I received no GI or government benefits of any kind, no counseling, and no help. I just found myself dumped back in a classroom as a graduate student. And because the assignment was finished early, some of my pay was docked for not actually serving the complete tour!
Five of the other eleven team members had their names finally put on the wall after years of lobbying. Two are buried at Arlington because of the importance of their fathers, one is buried back home in Nebraska, the other eight are either buried in Vietnam or their bodies were never recovered.
My entire focus was one man—Quan Van Duc. Born on September 13, 1927 (21 years, 4 days older than I was at the time), he had dark hair, green eyes, was 5’ 10,” with a scar on his right cheek and two bullet wounds in his left shoulder. A Ph.D. in Marxist economics, Quan lectured at Lumumba University in Moscow and the Hanoi Central Command College. On those infrequent occasions when he would use his military designation, he would be referred to as a major general (two star). Quan was married to the daughter of an important member of the Vietnamese Communist Party Central Committee, had two daughters (both at the time being educated abroad), two mistresses (both local), and grew orchids. Spoke good French, excellent Russian and passable English.
Dr. Quan Van Duc was also CI director for what would become the Saigon-Gia Dinh Special Zone of operations assigned at the time to PLAF – Peoples Liberation Army of South Vietnam, the organized Viet Cong (VC) under direct command from Hanoi – Military Region 9 in extreme southern Vietnam, based in and around Kien Giang province. He was strongly suspected of running the principal CI operations in III Corps and with infiltrating both ARVN and US operational offices.
Quan was codenamed KK (KayKay), a transliteration of con kên kên (Vietnamese for “vulture”). My assignment was to capture him alive by any means necessary.
My military cover (this was a theater of operations after all) was ONI, but they could care less. I was attached for operational purposes to SEALORDS (South East Asia Lake, Ocean, River and Delta Service), designated Naval Task Force 194 in the order of battle, under the command of COMNAVFORV (Commander of Naval Forces Vietnam). The task force was established by Vice Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, Jr in October 1968 and dissolved in 1972.
These were the “river rats” of the Brown Water Navy whose swift boats would show the flag in the Mekong Delta and interdict as much VC traffic as possible.
My authority superseded military chain of command for the scope of my operations. However, with only limited exceptions, I determined the scope of those operations. I had two PBR MK2 crafts: each a five-man crew patrol boat; wide draft pump jet propulsion, highly maneuverable riverine combat vessel (i.e., a swift boat). It had a fiberglass reinforced plastic hull, excellent for high-speed movement in shallow water.
An PBR MK2, Mekong Delta, 1971
One I had the crew “adjust.” It was listed at 24 knots but after we modified it the craft could approach 50 knots with capability to leave the water, skim the land, and return at high speed (among other uses, it would scare the hell out of natives). Ordinance included one 60mm mortar, one 40 mm grenade launcher, and three 50 caliber machine guns (one twin, one single) designed for a maximum field coverage of 245 degrees.
My second swift boat, used in a support capacity, had been skippered by one Lt. John Kerry nineteen months earlier.
I also had access to whatever additional ordinance required. That would include armed airboats, and on two occasions a UH-1D second generation Huey, the army’s main attack helicopter throughout the war.
UH-1D Huey attack helicopter
We simply borrowed what we needed and filled out bogus paperwork when we had to, occasionally changing registration numbers for some of the equipment in the process. Think of MASH, a jeep, and Radar O’Reilly.
During my operation, forty-nine personnel were at one time or another under my direct command. Thirty-four were killed including two of my original five crew members. One had three days remaining on his tour. I also deployed several hundred US and ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam, i.e., South Vietnamese) troops on various missions related to my primary objective. Casualty rate was about 40 percent for these personnel, higher for ARVN than Americans. On the final day of the operation, two of the three forward contingents I sent out, approximately forty-two personnel in all, were wiped out. I was in Cambodia on several occasions but only limited excursions up country. That was what probably saved my life, along with misreading a map.
Beginning on Monday, 15 March 1971 my final operational push began with one of the worst events I have ever experienced. Two elements make this tough. First, what happened was my decision. Second, I still am not allowed to talk about it.
I captured the target on a tributary of the Mekong River in the area of Ving Long province on Thursday, 15 April 1971. Two days upriver, two days debriefing, extracted to Ton Son Nut for immediate evac to Tokyo. Speed was essential at this point. Until out of zone, I would have a target on my back.
OK, with that brief intro out of the way, I am taking you to the early morning of 15 March 1971 and that op I had not been allowed to talk about earlier. Frankly “Mother,” who has been vetting these Spy Tales for the Agency, had never cared about what I did for INR. After all, it was not under agency control anyway. However, it did overlap with some of the more outrageous CIA actions during the period. In the specific events to be recounted in a moment, indifference and apathy on their part would put me in a no-win situation and prompt significant collateral damage. And that was what some figures had intended to bury.
I now have much wider leverage in what can be said. Still, what happened remained my decision and my responsibility. But it would not have played out the way it did if CIA officers on the ground had had any genuine interest in doing their jobs. Much later, when I was one of those officers, providing essential intel to other affected operational parties was always a primary consideration. However, back in Nam, those who controlled vital information were often more interested in body counts and promotions.
To the background.
The Hàm Luông River meanders northwest from the East Vietnam Sea to merge further west with the mighty Mekong. It is one of the primary tributaries in the Mekong Delta. As you approach the sea, the land on either shore of the river is usually too saturated to serve much of a population base.
These days, the area is suffering from some significant erosion, with the Vietnamese government wrestling with a problem that is worsening inland on the delta rivers. Each year, more of the territory is taken over by salt water and rendered unusable for agriculture. That is a problem because the expansive Mekong Delta and river systems had been the country’s primary source of grown food.
Located a few miles from the sea, Bȇn Phà Ấp An Thuận is today basically the location of a ferry crossing (that is what the name translates as: “An Thuận Ferry Hamlet”) between two sparsely populated rural provinces. There has been an “An Thuận village” in the area for centuries.
Bȇn Phà Ấp An Thuận ferry crossing, 2017 photo: Huy Nguyễn Văn Hồng
When I was there in early 1971, some fishermen and traders called it home, along with bicycles and a few motor scooters. Today, scooters are just about all you do see in the area as the roads are usually impassible for cars.
Bȇn Phà small local transit ferry photo: Huy Nguyễn Văn Hồng
In 1971, this provincial area was a contested one. While the Mekong River mouth was a main focus of allied military interest, the Hàm Luông just south was up for grabs. An intense contest was underway to control what could well become an avenue for flanking actions once the Saigon area became the focus.
It was in this region that my target KK (Quan Van Duc) had a network of support bases for his activities. It had been a game of deadly checkers, as US/ARVN and PLAF teams sought to placate and turn settlements. VC required a spiderweb of villages for supply and support. We needed them for the CI extension out of a very dark period in US intelligence history, why INR had been provided tasked status to begin with.
The Phoenix Program(PP)/Phượng Hoàng started in July 1968, with the US involvement essentially over by the end of 1971, but overlapping with other operations. PP was primarily directed against the VCI (Viet Cong Infrastructure)—political and support underground in South Vietnam.
Some operations were redirected by Washington from the PRU (Provincial Reconnaissance Units). These were recruited by CIA and became the action arm of the operation. Specific CI operations were transferred from PP to an ad hoc operational unit within OIC. That was the 12 of us plus our support personnel.
Belief was strong that the Viet Cong had thoroughly infiltrated the PRU and was using PP as a means further to destabilize the situation. Of course, ARVN was also settling old scores. By the end of 1972, 81,740 “neutralizations” (i.e., deaths) and 26,369 incarcerations were confirmed. A bloody disaster.
It was this Agency screwup that obliged we take other routes to accomplish the specific assignments (like mine against KK) tasked to our OIC unit.
The tragedy I am about to relate is a result of CIA failure to provide me with the tactical intel they possessed and my ill-fated decision to push the situation. There is plenty of blame to go around.
I had last visited the “An Thuận village” a few weeks earlier. It was plausibly one of those locations friendly to Americans during the day but occasionally resorting to a VC support location at night. When there, kids would follow me as I walked along the only path by the water.
Since both the PLAF and the ARVN had been heavily recruiting military age males (and in the case of the VC females) for the fighting, all of the 112 village residents on the morning of 15 March 1971 were aged, mothers, or children.
What I did not know (because the CIA field folks decided not to pass it on) was their decision to deemphasize the village as an object of interest but to convey a continued commitment to the location through their network of agents. They knew that would guarantee word making it back to KK.
Yes, there was some organizational jealousy as PP components were passed from the CIA to INR. As a result, some of the officers (including one who would later rise very high in the CIA) decided to string out the young OIC latecomer (me).
I was under considerable pressure to accomplish my op before the monsoon rains came again. That would delay any move against KK for months and significantly compromise the larger CI initiative.
Intel was received and confirmed that a VC attack was mobilizing against the village as a lesson to any considering American connections. KK was also somewhere in the vicinity. I needed him to expose his position.
I could have called in military support to protect the village. I certainly had the field authority to do so. However, that would simply tip off KK that I was close and he would simply melt back into the bush. Then there was the reality of the situation. As soon as the US forces were withdrawn, the VC would simply come back and do what they wanted to the village.
I decided to do nothing and look for any signal of my quarry coming out to evaluate the situation. Laser focused on the assignment, I never thought through what was about to happen.
On 15 March, I watched from a secure location on the other side of the river as the VC systematically wiped the village from the map. Less than 24 hours on, KK surfaced to assess what could be salvaged from the location.
We had his tail from that point on. One month later I misread a map and captured him. Came back from Vietnam with a (largely undeserved) hard a** reputation, a fistful of medals, and as the object of a widely used “case study” on battlefield success (all recounted in “A Giving of Accounts”).
I was certainly a bastard in one respect (what the DOS had nailed when they recruited me). My mission was more important than anything else.
Even if 112 innocents had to die to get there.
Dr. Kent Moors
This is an installment of Classified Intelligence Brief, your guide to what’s really happening behind the headlines… and how to profit from it. Dr. Kent Moors served the United States for 30 years as one of the most highly decorated intelligence operatives alive today (including THREE Presidential commendations).
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Date: 09/22/2021
