The American Invasion of Vietnam/McGehee on US Mythology Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Nov 1, 1997 source:Ralph McGehee lde421@aol.com writes: > did it ever strike you as odd that both sides in the Paris Agreement of 1973 > agreed not to extend their influence or area of control nor to reinforce > their military forces and yet according to your own intelligence, the VC and > NVA had grotesquely violated that part of the Paris Agreement? Did that > alarm you or did you believe the Paris Agreement or any other treaty would > never be acknowledged or obeyed by the VC/NVA? To Anonymous lde421@aol.com: After the 1954 Geneva Accords, President Eisenhower wrote: "I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held as of the time of the fighting, possible 80 per cent of the population would have voted for the communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader..." Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change. THE AMERICAN INVASION OF VIETNAM It would appear to me that you have not examined the history of the war as appears in the various versions of the Pentagon Papers, or a number of academic publications and books. Instead you seem to rely of the history of the war as taught by the CIA. The failure of CIA to acquire an accurate perspective of the war cannot be described in this short piece. I strongly recommend reading the 1995 book by respected academics who stated that neither the French nor the United States truly comprehended the nature of war in Vietnam. This despite the fact that Vo Nguyen Giap, the military theoretician, repeatedly explained in print, for over three decades the theory and practice of "People's War." Gettleman, Franklin, Young & Franklin, (1995), Vietnam and America. (McNamara might want to read this book rather than take trips to Vietnam to try to find out what happened). Those interested in my view from inside the CIA might check my book, Deadly Deceits. Stockwell's book, "In Search of Enemies," portrays the decisions of the CIA's Saigon Station as it tried to prevent an early evacuation of Vietnam in 1975. You say the VC/NVA grotesquely violated that part of the Paris Agreement and [other treaties]. What treaties did the United States honor in Vietnam? It was Noam Chomsky, I believe, who described the Vietnam War as "the American invasion of Vietnam." The Invasion, of course, was accompanied by a Bodyguard of Lies. The CIA's propaganda mechanism, Wisner's Wurlitzer aka the Mighty Wurlitzer, directed massive efforts both internationally and domestically (this was illegal) to portray this invasion as a counter to North Vietnam's attack on South Vietnam. Below is a brief look at the war as contained in my op-ed that ran in the Washington Post on 5/1/81. COLBY'S VIETNAM: HISTORY MISREPRESENTED Former CIA director William Colby's article "El Salvador: Which Vietnam"? [op-ed, 4/20/81] describes the various stages of U.S. involvement in Vietnam and offers the period 1968 to 1972--the era of the CIA "Phoenix" assassination teams--as a model for use in El Salvador. In addition to this heinous recommendation, his article ignores the massive evidence of the Pentagon Papers and grossly distorts the facts. According to Colby, a prime architect of U.S. policy in Vietnam, America's role in that country began in 1960. This "first" stage lasted until 1963. This era "marked the start of Hanoi's effort to overthrow the South." Colby's statement contains two major misrepresentations. U.S. involvement started in 1945, not 1960, when we sponsored French attempts to reimpose their colonial rule over Indochina. The second major misstatement relates to Hanoi's role in 1960. All objective Vietnamese experts attest to the great reluctance of the North Vietnamese to challenge U.S. power in South Vietnam. However, the CIA's intelligence claimed the opposite was true. From that point forward until April 1975, the war, in U.S. intelligence reports, was portrayed as a North Vietnamese attack on South Vietnam. Colby forgets to mention that the CIA created the Diem regime. After the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in early 1954, the CIA plucked Ngo Dinh Diem out of obscurity in the United States and established him as the ruler of South Vietnam. He arrived in Saigon in mid-1954, controlling nothing except the complete dedication of CIA's covert action warriors. Using the 1954-1955 Geneva-Conference-imposed cease-fire, the CIA ran propaganda and covert operations in North Vietnam--including the implied threat of nuclear destruction--to scare and lure the minority Catholic population to migrate south. Once in South Vietnam, the CIA and the U.S. military formed them into an army, police force and government for Diem. Catholic Vietnamese never represented more than 10 percent of South Vietnam's total population but under Diem, a co-religionist, that small group enjoyed all status and privileges. Through a series of operations the CIA managed to capture control of Saigon for Diem, and the Agency issued a Special National Intelligence Estimate (SNIE) that omitted any reference to it role in Diem's success. The SNIE proclaimed that Diem alone was responsible for his victory. Concurrent with the release of that false information, the CIA conducted a worldwide disinformation campaign portraying Diem as the miracle worker who saved South Vietnam. From 1955 to 1960 Diem, pushed by his U.S. advisers, attempted to assert his authority over rural South Vietnam. His minions killed, tortured and imprisoned tens of thousands who resisted his unfair rule. It was this vicious repression that eventually forced the North Vietnamese to join with their compatriots in the South to fight against Diem and his U.S. backers. Colby's second "Vietnam" from 1964 to 1968 is the common perception of Vietnam. "Instructed to find, fix and fight the enemy [American servicemen] reacted with frustration and frequently fury before an enemy that only occasionally could be found." One cannot disagree with that alliterative statement. The third "Vietnam" appears between 1968 and 1972. Colby, giving himself all credit, reserves his praise for this era--a time when he served as director of the multi-agency Civil Operations and Rural Development Support (CORDS) mission. He states the rural countryside was "rebuilt and pacified by a reliance upon village participation in defense and development....The combat was turned on the secret political enemy..." Here he is referring to the CIA's Phoenix program that sought out and killed or captured political opponents of Thieu's U.S.-backed dictatorship. Colby forgets to mention other realities of that era, the free-fire zones, the napalming, the bombing, the search-and destroy missions, and all the other attendant horrors of the U.S. fighting politicized civilians. The fourth "Vietnam" appears from 1973 until 1975, "when South Vietnamese tactical errors...led this time to the total collapse before the oncoming North Vietnamese armor, artillery and regular forces...." Ralph McGehee CIABASE ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytas-11.01.97-15:02:00-724