Memorandum #3
Date: 7 December 1995
To: Al Santoli, Dino Carluccio, Bill Bell
From: Jay Veith
re: Mooney interview concerning "10 American Executed" message
In this memo, I will discuss the results of a lengthy interview I
had with Jerry Mooney concerning the execution message. Frankly, if
one thinks about this message, it flies in the face of what we have
come to understand as North Vietnamese policy towards American POWs.
DPMO can be expected to ask some hard but honest questions,
questions I also had over the contents of the message. Even with
Jerry's extraordinary recall of the events, we should not abandon our
responsibility to think critically about this before we can
charitably ask JTF-FA to politely ask the Vietnamese whether one of
their units committed a war crime. I have had some preliminary
discussions with Bill Bell about this. His analysis should also be
sought, since he possesses an entirely different set of experiences
and perspective.
I strongly suspect that DPMO has already conducted an analysis of
this message; they should be encouraged to share it. To me, one of
three plausible scenarios exists for this message; it's a fake, it's
real but didn't happen; it's real and did happen. I believe the
following discussion will shed some light on what NSA thought about
this message. I apologize for the length of this memo, but this is
complex issue that prevents simplicity. While at times this may read
like some spy novel, I believe it's necessary to completely examine
this before you can determine the appropriate course of action.
Dummy and Control Traffic
What steps does NSA take to tell the difference between solid
intelligence and fake intelligence? If you look at page 1 of my fax,
you will see what purports to be another execution message.
[NOTE: BLANK AREAS WERE REDACTED/ $ WERE IN THE ORIGINAL TEXT] 1
M = 509
1891554
071502Z FM TO ZEM
XXMM
SHOOTDOWN OF AN F-4
AIRCRAFT AND EXECUTION OF TWO PILOTS
ON 5 JULY, 370 (UNIDENTIFIED/UNLOCATED UNIT)
ON 4 JULY, COMPANY 3 (UNIDENTIFIED/UNLOCATED UNITS) WAS SUCCESSFUL
IN STRIKING THE ENEMY AND WERE VICTORIOUS OVER THEM. $
$THEY SHOT DOWN ON THE SPOT, ONE F-4 AIRCRAFT AND AFTERWARDS ANNIHILATED THE
TWO PILOTS WITH ONE BULLET (EACH). $ COMMENTS, AVAILABLE OPERATIONAL
DATA REVEALS THAT NO F-4 AIRCRAFT WERE LOST TO ENEMY ACTION ON 4 JULY.
NNNN
However, by comparing it against page 2, the "10 Americans"
message, we note some contrasts. First, while NSA monitored this
message, they had problems identifying the units involved, a clear
indication to NSA, since they had PAVN AAA Order of Battle
down cold, that this message was probably a propaganda message
designed to impress the troops and/or shake us up a bit. (Jerry thinks
that the 370 may be a unit in the Hanoi area.)
[NOTE: BLANK AREAS WERE REDACTED/ $ WERE IN ORIGINAL TEXT] 2
1891548
Z 071545Z JUL 72 FM TO
NVN 377TH AIR DEFENSE DIVISION PLANS TO EXECUTE 10 AMERICANS
ON 6 JULY, THE NVN 377TH AIR DEFENSE DIVISION (UNLOCATED, LOWER QUANG BINH
PROVINCE) THE 284TH AAA REGIMENT AND DIRECTED THE EXECUTION OF 10
AMERICANS. $ON 8 JULY.
CADRES
SHALL BE LEFT BEHIND TO KILL THE 10 AMERICANS.
COMPLETE THE TASK AND RETURN
THE 284TH AAA REGIMENT DEPARTED QUANG TRI CITY ON 5 JULY AND IS
PRESENTLY LOCATING IN THE AREAS OF CAM LO (16-49N 107-00E), DONG LON (16-47N
107-05E) AND TAN VINH (16-46N 107-06E)
Second, note the Comments section. The Operational reports
revealed that no F-4's were shot down on 4 July. Therefore, to the
analysts at NSA, this incident probably didn't happen. (However, I
remain deeply concerned over this message, not so much for its
content, because the Date/Time Group is so close to the 10 Americans
one. There was F-4's shot down on the 1st and the 3rd of July, but
everyone but one guy returned.) There are additional messages that
discuss the execution of American pilots. (Please see page 3.) In
[NOTE: BLANK AREAS WERE REDACTED/ $ WERE IN THE ORIGINAL TEXT] 3
M = 553
2011445
191448Z JUL 72 FM TO ZEM
XXMM
NVN
290 RECONNAISSANCE REGIMENTS ORDERS UNITS TO ANNIHILATE DOWNED PILOTS
ON 18 JULY, THE HEADQUARTERS OF THE 290TH RECONNAISSANCE REGIMENT
ORDERED SUBORDINATE UNITS TO ANNIHILATE DOWNED PILOTS. $THE
CREW OF ANY B-52 SHORT DOWN WILL BE ANNIHILATED ALONG WITH THE
((CREWS)) OF ANY A6 AIRCRAFT ((THAT ARE SHOT DOWN)). COMMENTS, THE
HEADQUARTERS OF THE 290TH RECONNAISSANCE REGIMENT IS AT BA DON (17-50N
106-24E).
NNN
this case, the 290th Recon regiment is a Radar unit. It had no guns,
except a few for self-defense. They were ordered never to fire at
the Americans for fear of retaliation. Since the Radar units were
the backbone of the PAVN Air Defense grid, it was essential that they
not invite attack. Again, this makes it doubtful that the 290th
committed these acts.
What then separates these dummy execution messages from the "10
Americans" message. NSA Quality Control, and the combined 110 years
SIGINT experience of the men who signed off on the message before it
was transmitted from NSA to DOD. Most importantly, the priority that
this message was assigned by the NSA. Look carefully at the upper
left corner of the message, in the area just before the date/time
group. The letter "Z" appears. This letter signifies "Flash"
priority, which is the highest priority NSA can assign to a message.
The title for these types of messages is called "Critic." Critic
messages have to be sent out within 1 minute to the consumers, mainly
State, DOD, and the White House. The following summarizes Jerry's
account of what occurred at NSA.
The execution message was picked up by both a U-2 and a C-130
code-named "Comfy Gator," and was immediately transmitted to NSA.
This is known as double copy, or getting the same message from two
different sources at the same time. The 377th code was being used,
a code unique to that unit, and the message was signed by the Combat
Watch Officer of the 377th. At the bottom of each Vietnamese
encrypted message is a signature block. Once NSA decodes the
message, the name of the officer listed is entered into the database,
called COINS. Immediately, any Collateral and all COMINT this enemy
officer has done is retrieved and shown on the computer to the
analyst. This is the first step in Quality Control. (The original
Vietnamese From/To version would be from the Combat Watch officer at
the 377th, to its subordinate unit, the 284th AAA Regiment.)
When Mooney received the intelligence giving the exact time and
location for the execution, he created a message from the intercept.
He is known as the drafter, and as such he is not allowed by
regulation (during this time frame) to send out that same message he
drafted. This prevents any potential bias of the people who work at
NSA from influencing message traffic. When Jerry received this
message, he created a cover sheet, which has signature blocks that
must be filled in to enable the message to be released. He then
takes it to a releaser, in this case his immediate supervisor, who
signed off on the message and assigned it an importance, i.e. low or
high. (This is different than message priority.) A total of 5
different people signed off on the message, including the original
linguist, Jerry's boss, two levels of management above his
supervisor, and finally, the most senior Vietnamese linguist at NSA.
(The Division Chief, citing the sensitivity of the message, told
Mooney to have the top Vietnamese linguist in NSA, a guy known as the
Group Senior Linguist, look at the message. This is the man who was
out to lunch.)
According to Jerry, it took about 5 minutes to coordinate this
release until they ran into the problem of the man being out to
lunch. When this Senior Linguist returned, he checked the
translation, didn't change a word, assigned it the highest priority,
Flash, and signed off. The SIGINT experience of the people who
signed off on the message totals a combined 110 years of training and
direct field experience.
Mooney took the message to the Comm. Center and sent it directly
to DOD and the field via a regular CAMS distribution. (It was not
initially sent to the White House. See my first memo for what CAMS
is.) Mooney went and sat by the secure phone. Within several
minutes, the DIA's AAA analyst for Southeast Asia was calling. The
first question he asked, "Was the message valid?" Yes, because of
the information mentioned earlier. The second question was, "Who the
hell are they, were did they get ten men?" Mooney answered they
didn't know. The DIA analyst replied, "You have twenty minutes to
find an us answer." Mooney came back in ten minutes with several
possibilities, some of which are listed in The Bamboo Cage.
Unfortunately, by the time it got to the field, it was too late.
According to Jerry, DIA called back several days later with a
problem. DIA believed that it was only 7 Americans and 3 ARVNs.
Because of the uncertainty, Jerry and the DIA man decided to leave
the message in its original configuration.
In Jerry's mind, this intelligence was solid, that if the PAVN had
attempted to send a dummy message, their experience would have
enabled them to detect it. They never monitored any other reports in
Vietnamese tactical communications, which is what this stuff is,
about Americans being killed for any other reason, such as from
bombings. What is critical to Jerry is the Quality Control exercised
at NSA both in general and over this message. In his 22 years of
work, he never saw another message at the "Flash" precedence level
held up like this. Afterwards, procedures were changed to allow the
drafter to send out messages under his own authority, with the caveat
that it's your butt if it's wrong.
Here are some of the additional questions I asked Jerry. Was
there any Collateral on this? Yes, but it apparently it was fairly
weak. Did NSA intercept any acknowledgement of a done deed, or an
authorization message? No, nor did they expect to. The channels for
that may have been different, plus they might have missed it.
Furthermore, they believed this style of revenge killings was an SOP
for the Air Defense Divisions, so they really didn't expect to see
any follow-up. Why was there no outrage, why didn't heads roll over
this? Apparently there was, but not enough to get anyone fired. Why
would a AAA unit be holding 10 Americans in the South, when all the
rest of the Americans in M.R.T.T.H. had been moved North in the 1970,
1971 time frame? This gets into Mooney's theories of men being held
back because they had seen classified Vietnamese installations, and
the need for slave labor to assist the 282th AAA Reg. of the 377th
Division movement from Laos into South Vietnam during the Easter
Offensive. Is it possible that people then didn't believe it? No,
otherwise it wouldn't have been assigned the priority it had, nor
would the people involved signed off on it. Was there any Soviet
connection? No, they didn't go that far South.
Returning to my three scenarios, based on the above account I
believe we can assign a low priority to the message being a fake.
That leaves us with it's real and never happened, or it's real and
did happen. I fear that we may be facing another "1205 document"
here, where everyone agrees that it's an authentic Russian document,
but what it purports is incorrect. What also comes to mind is the
McConnell theory, where the mysterious PAVN officer tells Ted that
they tortured and killed many Americans.
Unfortunately, one of the problems we have faced since Jerry
decided to go public has been our inability to synthesize the world
of SIGINT with the more traditional forms of intelligence, i.e.
rallier reports, captured documents, what Jerry would refer to as
Collateral. I think the major stumbling block has been that Jerry
has talked about the PAVN Air Defense network, while we are more
familiar with the world of PLAF and PAVN main infantry units. These
worlds are vastly different. The PAVN AAA units never came South.
Consequently, we probably have few ralliers and almost no captured
documents that would provide us insight into AAA unit activities.
These units were the cream of the crop, among the Vietnamese most
professional units, dedicated to defending the homeland.
Consequently, only once did these units venture south of the DMZ
during the war.
Lastly, Jerry asked me if I believed this. I think the man
deserves an answer. I believe Jerry's account of what happened at
NSA, and his depiction of the QC at NSA. If you had heard him relate
these details with the precision and clarity he displayed, you would
be convinced also, although it would be helpful to have one of the
other people involved step forward and buttress his account. As to
whether 10 Americans were actually executed, I feel we need to
reserve judgement until NSA releases the full text and we have done
more research. However, I strongly believe that we need to
thoroughly investigate this. The evidence, especially the experts at
NSA, provide convincing proof that something happened. DPMO can
reasonably be expected to provide their analysis, a copy of Jerry's
DIA Blue Book article discussing the execution incident. This should
include a search of the SAFE system for rallier/refugee reports on
this incident, a determination on the retrieval of the Weapons
Control logs for the 377th, and should conduct an Oral History with
the Combat Watch Officer and Political Officer from those units. NSA
should release the full text, along with the cover sheet showing the
signatures, and the various Collateral and SIGINT from the Combat
Watch Officer.
Jerry has given me the names of the men he thinks are the best
candidates. This will be the most dangerous ground, when we get into
the "Who are the Candidates" game. I will pass those to you
verbally.