Date: Wed, 22 May 1996 17:22:21 GMTThe following are excerpts from an Op-Ed that ran in the Washington Post on 5/1/81. It is being posted now in light of efforts to eulogize Colby. More importantly the details Colby gave represent programs for action that the CIA follows, to one degree or another, in most of its political operations: empowering a foreign personality who sells himself to the CIA and creats a government subservient to the CIA. Such leaders are traitors to their own people. These Traitors use terror to maintain their rule. The details given below also demonstrate how the CIA writes politicized intelligence to support its operations.
Former CIA director William Colby's article "El Salvador: Which Vietnam"? [op-ed, 4/20] 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 1949, 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, both the CIA's intelligence and a State Department white paper 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. Even President Eisenhower questioned Diem's viability and admitted that Ho Chi Minh and his government commanded the loyalty of 80 percent of all Vietnamese.
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...."
Colby's article does not question the legitimacy of the current El Salvadoran government or remark on the cause of opposition to that government..."
Colby, on the basis of his incomparable experience and research, goes on to recommend a program for action in El Salvador offering the "Vietnam" of 1968 to 1972 as a positive model." In other words, bring back the CIA assassination teams, bomb, napalm, search and destroy." One can but wonder at his suggestion.
