Memorandum #4
Date: 21 December 1995
To: Al Santoli, Dino Carluccio, Bill Bell
From: Jay Veith
re: More SIGINT information
Per your request to review the remainder of the SIGINT material in
the Library of Congress, I have now scanned three of the six rolls,
material generally from the later years or from post-war. I
originally thought that there was only five, but one roll number has
two parts. As usual, the frames contain mostly shootdown reports,
with the occasional report of movement of POWs, some of which I could
immediately correlate to Jack Butcher, an OV-10 pilot shot down in
Laos who was returned. Some mention the capture of "raiders," in
Laos, with no nationality mentioned. Frankly, whoever redacted the
traffic has made them, in many cases, almost worthless, and in some
sense may have increased the tendency for poor analysis by leaving in
so little. For instance, it is rare to see a name in the traffic,
and the ones that are not redacted are almost exclusively Vietnamese,
so one has to correlate by date, location, aircraft type, and
operational data, while always being on the watch for "Hot B" and
"emulation" (propaganda) material. However, because so little is
left in, the job becomes very difficult. Not impossible, but
difficult. Bear in mind that I am not looking for individual cases,
just highlight stuff.
However, in discussing named individuals in SIGINT, NSA sent a
memo to Senator McCain in April 1992 that discussed eleven selected
cases where names were mentioned, including that of Morrison and San
Francisco, which is another instance of support for Mooney, (although
indirect), since Jerry said the two fliers names were mentioned in
PAVN communications as being captured alive. NSA indicated that
there was both little direct mention of American names, and that,
except for three of the eleven cases, it was difficult to even
determine the AAA units involved. Because of the ridiculously heavy
redaction, it is impossible to confirm the statement on the names,
and frankly, after having looked at over 2000 frames of material, I
have some problems with the AAA unit statement. However, because
even the memo is redacted, the wording can be construed different
ways.
In another internal memo, NSA also attempted to answer for Senator
McCain some of the charges leveled by Mooney and Minarcin during
their January 1992 testimony, including whether NSA had post-Homecoming
SIGINT on Americans. Essentially, they disputed the charges made by both
men. In the interests of keeping this memo to a reasonable length, I
have not included either memo, but if you want them, I can fax them to
you. I also searched Tom Lang's files, who had worked closely with Jerry
during the Select Committee. They were completely blank of material
dealing with Jerry, with only one obscure letter involving the NSA.
It is obvious to me that he, or someone, purged his files, an odd state
of affairs.
Also odd, while the 5 SIGINT rolls in both POW/MIA sets are
grouped together consecutively, in the FRD set another roll is
included outside this cluster. This roll has separate material on
it, the messages are in a dissimilar format, the redaction style is
different, and the handwritten notations are not alike. The pages I
have included for this memo are from this roll. Further, the Select
committee's report stated that not all the AAA material is on the NSA
electronic database, a fact seemingly confirmed by handwritten
announcements on many frames stating "pulled 1991, not in database."
If in fact this material was pulled in 1991, and was used in the "NSA
Correlation Study" given to Senator Smith, why then did it take NSA
and DPMO until January 1993 to put the report on Senator Smith's
desk? I would be interested in the answer.
This roll included the above mentioned memos. One possibility for
the difference is that the messages on the 5 roll set are electronic
in nature, called product reports, while the messages on the orphaned
roll are hard copy texts. I would recommend that you get an
explanation from NSA or DPMO on the different style material, the
rational for the NSA redaction policies beyond the usual mantra of
"sources and methods," where the material on the rolls was culled
from, and also whether they abided by or completed the legal
agreement for release of material that Mooney signed with NSA. This
may seem trivial, but I think these answers could prove very
interesting, especially to see if in fact NSA has searched all their
records for POW material.
Despite these problems, I continue to find message traffic that is
interesting. One needs to remember that until this material was
released, it was essentially Jerry's word against whomever. Yet, one
doesn't walk out of NSA after 22 years of service with a briefcase
full of documents to support one's future statements. For example,
Jerry stated that AAA units had a policy of revenge executions if one
of their senior AAA officers was killed by American bombing. This
goes is the heart of the "10 Americans" message. The logical
question to ask then, "Is there additional evidence in SIGINT that
discusses revenge executions against Americans?"
The answer is yes. Looking at the page I labeled 1, one can see
[NOTE: BLANK AREAS WERE REDACTED] 1
[STRUCK] TOP SECRET CATERGORY = 8 M = 100
1062001 P1C2000Z FM T
SECTION SEVEN R91-70
SOUTHEAST ASIA
SUMMARY III. NORTH VIETNAM
[HANDWRITTEN
NON
IN
CI
DENT]
8 APRIL
THE BAN KARAI PASS WHEN AMERICAN AIRCRAFT ARE SHOT DOWN, THE
PILOTS ARE TO BE KILLED IN ORDER TO AVENGE FOR THE COMRADES WHO WERE STRUCK
ON 5 APRIL.
[STRUCK] SECRET
2. GENERAL DEVELOPMENTS 8 APRIL AN UNIDENTIFIED BATTALION IN THE BR 14 AREA WHEN AMERICANS AIRCRAFT ARE SHOT DOWN THE PILOTS ARE TO BE KILLED IN ORDER TO AVENGE FOR THOSE COMRADES WHO WERE STRUCK ON 5 APRIL.
the two copied messages clearly state this. These are from the April
1970 time frame. You can see that someone has handwritten the words,
"Non incident." However, Jerry's initial, and subjective, response
to these messages was that they might be from when we had carpet
bombed an area where we had determined the North Vietnamese had
secretly moved a SAM unit in order to shootdown one of the SIGINT U-2's.
Still, until we can see the remainder of the text, along with
the original Vietnamese, forming any definitive answers that these
events actually happened is still somewhat speculative. But what
this material does do is support Jerry's recollection of events,
which I hope will prompt deeper investigation.
Other odd information I found is the page I labeled 2. Nigel
Cawthorne on page 108/9 in The Bamboo Cage takes an intercept listed
in Vol. 7, p. 346 of the 15 volume "UnCorrelated Reports" released by
DOD in 1978, that discusses an American colonel who escaped into the
British Embassy. The text in Volume 7 says "that no location is
given." The intercept I found clearly states Saigon.
[NOTE: BLANK AREAS WERE REDACTED] 2
[struck] SECRET
1342200
P 142000Z MAY 75 FM TO
[STRUCK] TOPSECRET SECTION 1
SOUTHEAST ASIA SUMMARY
VIETNAMESE COMMUNIST ACTIVITY THROUGHOUT
6-12 MAY.
THE RECENT ATTEMPT TO
CAPTURE AN AMERICAN COLONEL NEAR THE BRITISH EMBASSY IN SAIGON.
VNC 6TH DIVISION HAD PURSUED SEVERAL U.S. AGENTS
AND THE NVA 7TH DIVISION HAD CAPTURED SUPPOSEDLY U.S. BACKED REACTIONARIES.
IN THE SITUATION WITH THE U.S. SHIP
MAYAGUEZ AND PROBLEMS AT THE CAMBODIAN-SOUTH VIETNAM BORDER CONTINUE TO
FLARE UP
2. MILITARY REGION 3 COMMUNIST FORCES IN SAIGON HAVE ATTEMPTED TO CAPTURE AN AMERICAN COLONEL WHO WAS SPOTTED NEAR THE BRITISH EMBASSY. ON 13 MAY, COMMUNIST FORCES PURSUED AN AMERICAN COLONEL AND HIS FEMALE CHINESE AIDE INTO THE BRITISH EMBASSY. THE FEMALE WAS CAPTURED BUT THE COLONEL WAS ABLE TO ELUDE HIS CAPTORS BY ENTERING THE ELEVATOR AND GOING UP. THE COMMUNIST FORCES WERE NOT FAMILIAR WITH THE OPERATION OF THE ELEVATOR AND THEREFORE WERE NOT ABLE TO PURSUE THE COLONEL. IN ANOTHER INCIDENT, INDIVIDUALS DESCRIBED AS U.S. AGENTS DISGUISED AS WOMEN HAD TAKEN A SOLDIER CAPTIVE IN THE THOI THANH 1034N 10645E X59390) AREA. ELEMENTS OF THE NVA 7TH DIVISION IN THE LONG BINH AREA HAVE PURSUED A GROUP OF --32 CHIEU HOI AND CATHOLIC REACTIONARIES WHO WERE BACKED BY THE US. THE GROUP FLED AFTER THE INITIAL CONTACT.
[STRUCK] TOP SECRET
I even found material supporting Terry Minarcin. His testimony in
January of 1992 discussed how American Advisors were captured, along
with a group of missionaries, in the fall of Ban Me Thout. Pages 3
and 4 show some of the intercepts I found. The capture of the
[NOTE: BLANK AREAS WERE REDACTED] 3
[STRUCK] SECRET
0732045
0 142035Z MAR 75 FM TO
[STRUCK] SECRET
FOLLOW-UP ONE
CAPTURED AMERICAN ADVISOR AND CATHOLIC MISSIONARIES
THREE ARMY PERSONNEL OF OTHER COUNTRIES ACTUALLY ARE THREE CATHOLIC MISSIONARIES OF OTHER COUNTRIES. ACTUAL LOC- ATION NOT SPECIFIED. COMMENTS, ACCORDING TO COLLATERAL INFORMATION (OPEN PRESS), EIGHT AMERICAN MISSIONARIES, FATE UNKNOWN, ARE TRAPPED INSIDE BAN ME THOUT (1241N 10803E), SOUTH VIETNAM.
[STRUCK] SECRET
0731722
P 141720Z MAR 75 FM TO
[STRUCK] SECRET
FOLLOW-UP ONE
546 ANTI-AIRCRAFT ARTILLERY REGIMENT
PERSONNEL AND SUPPLIES CAPTURED AT BAN ME THOUT.
546 ANTI-AIRCRAFT ARTILLERY/(AAA) REGIMENT))
SUBORDICATE BATTALIONS
ANNIHILATED THE COMMAND ELEMENT OF THE 23RD ((ARVN DIVISION)) AND THE 45TH
REGIMENT ((ARVN)) ((ALONG WITH THE)) 10TH ARMORED BATTLE GROUP.
CAPTURED THE PROVINCE COMMANDER, A LIEUTENANT-COLONEL, A MAJOR ((WITH)) THE
MILITARY REGION ((COMMAND)), ((AND)) TWO AMERICAN ADVISORS
[NOTE: BLANK AREAS WERE REDACTED] 4
[STRUCK] SECRET
[STRUCK] TOP SECRET
M = 53
P ??????0Z MAR 75
[STRUCK] TOPSECRET SECTION 2 0F 7
SOUTHEAST ASIA SUMMARY
MARCH, THREE COLONELS AND TWO AMERICAN ADVISORS WERE CAPTURED. THE RANKS OF THE TWO AMERICANS--REPORTEDLY CAPTURED AT BAN ME THOUT--WERE LIEUTENANT COLONEL AND MAJOR. THE NVA REPORTEDLY ALSO ANNIHILATED ONE BATTALION OF THE 45TH ARVN REGIMENT ALONG ROUTE 14. THIS
VIETNAM, APPARENTLY AS PART OF THE PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN ANNOUNCED ON 11 MARCH. ONE REPORT INDICATED THAT OVER 2000 ENEMY WERE CAPTURED INCLUDING THREE COLONELS AND TWO AMERICAN ADVISORS. ALSO REPORTED WAS AN ATTACK ON A
[STRUCK] TOP SECRET
missionaries is a well-known fact. The capture of American Advisors
was disputed by DOD during the Select Committee. In a fax from Terry
to me, he states that when Ban Me Thout was captured, there were at
least three different command posts for the ARVN 23rd Division.
According to Terry, the actual Vietnamese message that was
intercepted stated, "We were able to capture alive three American
Advisors, (among them) a Lt. Col. and a Major." The other advisor's
rank was not mentioned, which means he could have been an NCO or a
civilian, although that's pure speculation on my part. While one can
see the confusion in the intercepts over exactly who was captured,
the point remains that Minarcin's testimony that we intercepted
messages detailing this has now been proven correct. However, just
like with Mooney, whether it happened in reality needs further study.
One last important point concerning the "10 Americans executed"
message. When NSA issues a product report, if that report is wrong
or just has a minor error in it, Technical Instructions guide NSA to
issue a "Cancel" or a "Change" message. This message is sent to
inform the addressees of the mistake. The rolls are full of these
"Cancel" or "Change" messages, such as "Change my footnote to read
this grid instead of that one," or "Cancel my previous TACREP." If
the execution message was in error, if NSA or DOD believed that it
was wrong, a "Cancel" message would have been issued. According to
Mooney, no "Cancel" message was ever sent. There is none present on
the roll.
Once again I am reminded of the difference between knowing SIGINT
and just reading SIGINT.