#: 499671 S7/JFK Debate  [POLITICS]
    07-Mar-96  14:58:09
Sb: Prouty Critique #12
Fm: D.T. FUHRMANN 71301,527
To: ALL

At this stage, Mr. Prouty declares:

"The start of a new phase of the OSS/CIA activity in Indochina, this step
marked the beginning of the CIA's intervention into the affairs of the
government of Indochina, which at that time was French. It was not long
before the reins of government were wrested from the French by the Viet
Minh, after their victory at Dien Bien Phu under the leadership of our
friend of OSS days, Ho Chi Minh." (p 39)

Again, an interesting juxtaposition.  This paragraph starts out asserting
that this meeting marked the start of a new phase of OSS/CIA interference
in the government of Indochina, which was French, and then goes on to note
that within a few months the Viet Minh would wrest control of the "reins
of government" from the French....thereby linking the Viet Minh, the
French defeat, and the CIA.  And in case the reader still didn't get it,
Mr. Prouty refers to Ho Chi Minh as "our friend" of OSS days....although
he has yet to offer any discussion or evidence of Ho's alleged close links
to the USG. Indeed, Mr. Prouty spells it out for us: 

"This is the way the CIA's undercover armies work, as they have operated
in countless countries since the end of WWII. They move in unobtrusively
with a small team, plenty of money, and a boundless supply of quipment as
backup. They make contact with the indigenous group they intend to
support, regardless of who runs the government.  Then they increase the
level of activity until a conflict ensues." (p 40)

Noting that the Center for Defense Information (a fairly credible,
somewhat left of center defense department think tank and public interest
group) has listed 130 wars of varying intensity since the end of WWII,
Prouty states" 

"Of course, these were not true, all-out wars.  They were the deadly
skirmishes of the undercover armies of the Cold War. This enormous,
smoldering cauldron is still boiing (as we have seen with "Desert Storm"
in Iraq) and will not stop as long as warfare remains synonymous with
nationhood.  The elimination of war, in our structured society that is so
much dependent upon superstition, implies the inevitable elimination of
national soveriegnty and the traditional nation-state." 

And once again we are referred to "Report from Iron Mountain."  And in the
final sentence of the chapter, which asserts "as we have seen in these
examples from Spain and the Philippines, it is sometimes no more than a
conflict of the "make war" scenario, with the CIA [footnote in source
text], or the KGB, creating and supporting both sides. The prevalence of
world wide terrorism shows this to be so." (P 41)

There's another leap of logic that's a bit hard to hang on to.  How does
the prevalence of terrorism in a world beset by numerous conflicts, and
particularly conflicts involving vastly mismatched adversaries,
demonstrate that the CIA and KGB are faking wars?  So far what Mr. Prouty
has done in this chapter is to embellish (by his own admission) a rather
unimpressive news story related to a 1985 military exercise, turning that
story into evidence of something that was clearly not there in the
original report; and to provide a somewhat incomplete, and (IMO) skewed,
description of events in the Philippines in the early 1950s, toss in a
couple of very superficial mentions of Eisenhower NSC meetings held very
early in the 1954 crisis over Vietnam (the real debates and decisions
would not be made until April, May, and afterward), and then declare his
stated thesis proven. It is, however, little more than a house of cards
built around Mr. Prouty's extreme dislike for Edward Lansdale, his
obsessive distrust of the CIA, and his willful ignoring of all actors,
circumstances, and variables beyond other than those he finds relevant. 
It's imaginative story telling, but hardly good history. 

About that last footnote in this chapter.  It reads in its entirety as
follows:

"The CIA's Saigon Military Mission was introduced into Indochina in June
1954. For the United States this marked the actual beginning of what we
call the Vietnam War. The CIA had operational control over all forces of
that war from 1954 to 1965, when the US Marines, under U.S. Military
command, hit the beaches of Vietnam.  The CIA's role was dominant during
those years in the phase of WWIII, which cost $220 Billion, millions of
noncombatant lives, and the lives of 58,000 American servicemen." 

In actuality, the US role had begun in earnest in late 1949/early 1950
when the Truman administration decided to begin giving direct US military
assistance to the Bao Dai regime and the French. This program was run by
the US military from the start.  By 1954, the US was bankrolling a large
portion of the cost of the war, and the major part of that effort was
flowing through military, not CIA channels. The statement that the CIA had
operational control OVER ALL FORCES OF THAT WAR FROM 1954 TO 1965 is
simply wrong. The CIA had operational control over some US Special Forces
units working in the Central Highlands with the Montagnards during the
early 1960s, and they had some controll over certain ARVN Special Forces
and Ranger units (to the extent that the US controlled ANY of Diem and
Nhu's military units). But MAAG, and the military assistance program, was
completely under Pentagon direction, as was the Farmgate programs through
which US Air Force pilots flew South Vietnamese aircraft on combat
missions....starting in 1962. Moreover, the thousands of advisers who
arrived in country under Kennedy were almost entirely under the
operational command of General Harkins, head of MACV from Feb 1962 to June
1964. And in Operation Switchback, Kennedy ordered all CIA paramilitary
operations transferred over to MACV (formerly MAAG). Among other things
this included the cross border raids being conducted into Laos and North
Vietnam by local, indigenous forces under US control. 

Operation Switchback (which was a direct result of the Taylor report in
the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs fiasco) was authorized by Kennedy in
1962, and by mid-1963, MACV had operational control over virtually all
American military operations in South Vietnam. During the summer of 1963
the military, not the CIA, was tasked by Kennedy with developing a plan to
bomb North Vietnam in an effort to force them into backing down. And it
was the military that argued for the massive deployment of US combat
forces, as well as for an aggressive "search and destroy" strategy of
engagement. Finally, to saddle the CIA with responsibility for the
totality of our losses in Indochina between 1954 and 1975 seems just a bit
disingenuous, since it ignores the substantial involvement (all well
documented) of the Pentagon, the military services, and the rest of the
government. Richard Nixon's continuation of the war for another four years
after his election was the cause of many more American deaths than
anything the CIA ever did in Indochina. Moreover, this claim simply
ignores the reality that throughout the war, the CIA was consistently
pessimistic about the ability of the GVN and ARVN, and repeatedly warned
that military measures would not succeed in Vietnam. Rather than being an
instigator and cheerleader for deeper involvement, the CIA remained
skeptical and pessimistic about the chances for a successful outcome. 

dtf/7 March 199