Category: CIA: Spies and Intelligence during Vietnam War. See latest Vietnam War news here.
Vietnam-era memo: CIA spying on Americans upi :: 2007-06-23
Declassified documents show the CIA spied on and monitored the phone calls and movements of journalists and peace activists during the Vietnam War era. The revelations carry with them a whiff of the current debate over the wiretapping of phone lines by the National Security Agency without court permission and the Pentagon's monitoring of anti-war groups. The 1975 memorandum by Associate Attorney General James Wilderrotter was obtained by the National Security Archive and raises the curtain on 700 pages of documents known as the "family jewels," which detail the CIA's questionable activities from that era. [ CIA: Spies and Intelligence during Vietnam War ]
General Vang Pao: former CIA-backed covert war warlord nationmultimedia :: 2007-06-08
A member of the Hmong, General Pao ran an irregular army in the 1960s and 1970s, commanding fighters in the US-funded covert war against Vietnamese and Lao communist forces. When the Washington-backed Lao royal government fell in 1975, General Pao was airlifted to Thailand and resettled in the US. From exile, the fervent anti-communist remained a leader of the Hmong community. Pao was arrested in California along with 8 others, charged with plotting to overthrow the Lao government using explosives, AK-47 assault rifles and Stinger surface-to-air missiles. [ Hmong Guerilla Resistance - Vietnam War ]
CIA contract pilots in Vietnam War have pension hopes hnn.us :: 2007-05-17
In 1961, Sam Jordan had just finished a 6-year stint flying helicopters in the Marine Corps when he saw a want ad for an airline called Air America. "They said they wanted pilots. They didn't say anything about where the flying would be." Within months, he was flying helicopters in Laos, carrying supplies in remote mountain villages. Later he flew airplanes along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, scanning for radio signals and dropping provisions. In 14 years working for Air America, he never was told who was footing the bill for his often-harrowing flights. But he and the other pilots knew. [ Helicopters and military pilots of Vietnam War ]
Perfect Spy: The Incredible Double Life of Pham Xuan hnn :: 2007-04-22
During the Vietnam War, Pham Xuan An was a respected Time reporter who turned out to be a spy for the North Vietnamese. He was a trusted source for the era's best known reporters; his circle extended beyond journalism to include the CIA's Lou Conein, Edward Lansdale and William Colby. He was friends with the notable South Vietnamese politicians and generals. Working for Time provided the perfect listening post and information access point for a spy. The Communist Party recruited An as espionage agent X6, a lone cell member of the H63 intelligence network in Cu Chi. [ CIA: Spies and Intelligence during Vietnam War ]
Closing the Book on the Secret War - CIA-backed secret army huntingtonnews :: 2006-12-28
A sad little coda to the Vietnam War is taking place in Southeast Asia. Small ragged bands of Hmong, the descendants of a CIA-backed secret army, are trickling out of the jungles of Laos to surrender to the Communist government. The CIA formed the Hmong Secret Army in 1960 and it raided North Vietnamese supply lines and fought Communist guerrillas until 1975 when we abandoned them with the fall of South Vietnam and their country fell to the Communist Pathet Lao. The US, in its rush to forget that the Vietnam War had ever happened, did not treat the Hmong as generously as they deserved. [ Hmong Guerilla Resistance - Vietnam War ]
Pham Xuan An, 79; Journalist Who Was Spy for Viet Cong washingtonpost :: 2006-09-27
Pham Xuan An, who worked as a correspondent for Time during the Vietnam War while holding the rank of colonel in the Viet Cong guerrilla army, has died. His dual role was discovered years after the war ended in 1975. He insisted he had been an analyst, not an operative, for the Viet Cong and that the intelligence he provided the Viet Cong had not cost the life of a single American. For example he gave the Viet Cong an assessment of South Vietnam's forces around Saigon prior to the Communists' 1968 Tet offensive. He could obtain such information because he had access to U.S. and South Vietnamese military briefings. [ CIA: Spies and Intelligence during Vietnam War ]
Special Agent, Vietnam: A Naval Intelligence Memoir chicoer :: 2006-07-17
Douglass H. Hubbard Jr. joined the Naval Investigative Service Office and became an agent. With dreams of catching spies, he volunteered for service in Vietnam. His story, and that of many of the two dozen Naval Intelligence civilian special agents who also served in Vietnam, is told in "Special Agent, Vietnam: A Naval Intelligence Memoir". The book includes helpful maps, photographs of the agents and a glossary of military acronyms. The result is a study of the role of NIS agents in South Vietnam until the fall of Saigon in 1975. [ CIA: Spies and Intelligence during Vietnam War ]