- 17 hours ago
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:08There are many names for the wars in Vietnam.
00:11The French called theirs the war without front lines.
00:14Ho Chi Minh and his faction of the Vietnamese Communist Party called it the People's War.
00:19For the Americans, it was simply the unconventional war.
00:25The United States fought an elusive enemy with helicopters and superior firepower under stifling political and military rules of engagement.
00:35The North Vietnamese suffered grievous casualties but outlasted the U.S. force with intelligence, evasiveness, patience, and terror.
00:45The fact that the U.S. military's superior firepower might have defeated other armies was lost in the failure to
00:51understand the political and military situation it faced in Vietnam.
00:58Southeast Asia would become an important battlefield for a new kind of army of unconventional soldiers.
01:05Led by the U.S. Army Special Forces and Navy SEAL Special Operations, with codenames like Phoenix, 34 Alpha, Delta
01:14Force, and studies and observation groups are distant reminders of the secret and savage struggle for the hearts and minds
01:22of the people.
01:25I think there's no doubt at all that the Pentagon was very arrogant during the Vietnam War.
01:30They felt that they had the technology, they had the God-given right to win the war, they had political,
01:39technological, and almost philosophical arrogance, and that was a real problem.
01:46Indeed, the expression, hearts and minds of the people, would affect how the U.S. military would remold itself after
01:53Vietnam, and it continues to be of primary focus for U.S. military operations.
02:03The strategy, or objective, if you will, of the North Vietnamese in the whole war was stated very early.
02:09They said that their objective was to establish communism throughout Vietnam, as well as in Cambodia and in Laos.
02:15To do this, they didn't invent a new strategy or new tactics in which to engage the war.
02:21They recognized that their enemies were going to be strong.
02:24They anticipated they had fought the French.
02:26They anticipated fighting the United States.
02:29Their strategy and tactics were based upon the same that Mao had used in communist, or to establish communism in
02:37China.
02:38In 1961, President John F. Kennedy took office.
02:44He directed that additional counterinsurgency special forces units, known as Green Berets, be sent to Vietnam.
02:51Their mission was to counter the Viet Cong propaganda efforts in the southern countryside.
02:58That mission was primarily counterinsurgency.
03:01President Kennedy, who was fascinated by the whole concept of special forces, concluded that a unit that is trained to
03:09fight guerrilla warfare would be the logical ones to conduct counterinsurgency, counterguerilla operation.
03:17The North Vietnamese had been preparing for unconventional warfare inside South Vietnam since 1957.
03:27Developing the Viet Cong agents and networks that became increasingly successful in isolating segments of the population from the existing
03:36South Vietnamese government.
03:40And I think that a lot of the V.C.'s credibility in the South was the fact that this was
03:48a nationalist fight, or it was portrayed as such.
03:51And I think that was very important.
03:53There's no doubt that terror and diversion was used.
03:56That's used in any guerrilla campaign, in any civil war.
03:59But it isn't the case, as a lot of American historians would like to say, that the people in the
04:05South were totally terrorized into supporting the V.C.
04:08There were very strong nationalistic reasons why they didn't like American involvement, and they didn't like the corrupt government that
04:16the Americans appeared to be supporting.
04:19Linked to the Green Beret presence in Vietnam was the American Central Intelligence Agency, the C.I.A. initially was
04:26in charge of all classified paramilitary operations in Vietnam.
04:32Those guys needed army assets to do some of the tough stuff, some of the commando operations.
04:39So they organized an army headquarters called the Special Operations Group.
04:45Then it dawned on them that people could figure out maybe what the Special Operations Group did, and so they
04:52retitled it the Studies and Observation Group.
04:56And our cover story was that we were analyzing the lessons learned in joint conflict, and recording these for future
05:07generations, and to learn as much as we could so that we could perfect the way in which we were
05:12fighting the war.
05:13And we were supposed to be staff officers and historians.
05:18The Studies and Observation Group, known as SOG, remains one of the most secret operations of the Vietnam War.
05:25One of its first major counterintelligence operations would become its biggest failure.
05:31The 34 Alpha program was a program that started when C.I.A. was conducting all of the covert and
05:39clandestine operations in Southeast Asia.
05:42They had organized the South Vietnamese intelligence service in such a way that they would recruit people.
05:49The South Vietnamese would train them, and then the U.S. would help provide equipment, radios and so forth for
05:59their dispatch,
06:00and in some cases provide them with airlift into the North or a surface transportation by sea into the North
06:11Vietnam.
06:13With no resident agents in place in North Vietnam to shield the infiltrators,
06:19most saboteurs were either killed or captured, usually within hours of landing.
06:25In all, 500 agents were lost.
06:28Of the nearly 400 who were captured, some would spend as much as 27 years in prison.
06:36It was 100% unsuccessful for several reasons.
06:41One, you've got a very authoritarian regime up there that monitors the villages.
06:46There's a little mini-commissar at the lowest level.
06:50And a stranger who comes in, it's not like in the South where there was considerable mobility.
06:55A stranger comes in and he's immediately interrogated.
06:58And for one thing, the agents that were infiltrated up there didn't have good credentials.
07:04The forgeries were very inept, apparently.
07:08And for that reason, they were scarfed up.
07:11Kennedy's written direction to expand present operations in the field of intelligence,
07:16on conventional warfare, and political psychological activities
07:20was designed to keep American soldiers out of any direct combat role.
07:27The 34 Alpha teams that went up into the North were purely Vietnamese.
07:33There were no Americans on those teams.
07:35There may be Americans in the aircraft that dropped them,
07:37but there were no Americans on the ground.
07:40The CIA finally realized what was happening to its agents on the ground
07:44and the extent of their failure.
07:46But the damage had been done.
07:48When these agents were captured, so were their radios.
07:54These agents were controlled and essentially turned back on Saigon,
07:59so it became quite a source of disinformation.
08:02Furthermore, they went so far as to say,
08:04we're doing fine up here in the jungle, send us some more equipment.
08:08You know, like, send us your latest radio.
08:10And by the way, what's the code?
08:12Haven't we changed the code?
08:13Things like that.
08:14So it was absolutely a total failure.
08:19Other 34 Alpha missions were conducted using South Vietnamese mercenaries.
08:23These raids involved high-speed boat attacks
08:26on North Vietnam shore installations in the Gulf of Tonkin.
08:29The raids provoked the North Vietnamese to send their own torpedo boats into the Gulf,
08:34allegedly attacking American Navy destroyers in international waters.
08:38This incident was the rationale for President Lyndon Johnson
08:42to push the Gulf of Tonkin resolution through the U.S. Congress in August of 1964.
08:48This resolution would become the legal basis for U.S. intervention in the Vietnam War.
08:56Sworn to Secrecy will return in a moment.
09:12We'll see you next time.
09:30Chrysler, engineered to be great cars.
09:33Last year, Americans spent over $2.5 billion on products for their backs.
09:39Here's a nice item.
09:43Why is this market so large?
09:45It could be that some people aren't sleeping on the right mattress.
09:50We'd recommend a Sealy Posturepedic Sleep System.
09:54It's patented coil...
10:17Why Donald Duck may go down in history as the savior of Kuwait.
10:21From the History Channel, the official network of every millennium, this is Time Lab 2000.
10:28In 1964, a freighter carrying 6,000 sheep sinks in Kuwait's harbor, threatening to poison the country's water supply.
10:38The ship has to be raised, but half.
10:42Then, Danish engineer Carl Kroyer remembers a comic book he read as a boy, where Donald Duck had a similar
10:49problem with his Uncle Scrooge's yacht.
10:52Donald solved the problem by filling the yacht with ping-pong balls, which floated the boat to the surface.
10:58So, Kroyer decides to copy the idea.
11:01He pumps millions of hollow pellets into the ship's hull, and it works.
11:06But few knew the genius that came up with the solution was a duck.
11:12For the History Channel, I'm Sam Waterston.
11:17We now return to Vietnam Special Operations.
11:24In 1964, with confirmed evidence of the North Vietnamese Army presence inside South Vietnam,
11:31the operational control of the Special Forces was transferred from the CIA back to the U.S. Army,
11:37under a program called Operation Switchback.
11:42This change brought the Special Forces' intelligence-gathering mission to the forefront.
11:48They realized the best way to get accurate intelligence on their enemies was to find it themselves.
11:57By 1968, Special Forces had created a myriad of classified units to satisfy military intelligence needs.
12:09Inside the studies and observation group, the most successful Special Operation was C&C, or Command and Control.
12:19In the early conduct of the war, it was the American government decided that we were not going to go
12:26into Laos,
12:28not going to go into Cambodia.
12:30Yet, that was the primary source of troops who were arresting and reconditioning.
12:38It was their main supply route.
12:40So, it was important that we get people in there, on the ground,
12:45who could see what was taking place under the canopy.
12:50Sog's sole mission was to make secret reconnaissance patrols across the fence,
12:55slang for operating over the border in the NVA sanctuaries in Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam.
13:02Nickel Steel was the codename for North Vietnam.
13:07If you're thinking that that enemy-controlled territory was little guerrillas hiding under the trees,
13:13no, no.
13:15We're talking about roads with traffic that went both ways.
13:18We're talking about enormous bunker complexes and enormous installations.
13:24The entire Cambodian area along the border was lock, stock, and barrel owned by the North Vietnamese.
13:32There are a thousand truths about the American-Indo-China war.
13:36It was, in fact, a thousand small wars fought across dissimilar terrains.
13:42Sog reconnaissance was the most dangerous mission for the Special Forces in Vietnam.
13:46It was so deeply classified that no South Vietnamese intelligence agency ever knew it existed.
13:55I ran 24 operations across the fence.
13:59In that 24 operations, almost every one of them came out under fire.
14:04In fact, everyone that I can think of came out under fire, some more intense than others.
14:10It just was almost literally impossible to stay in there.
14:16Behind the casualties, the bravery, and the successes were the failures, the problems, and the fear.
14:23There was an uneasy relationship between many Special Forces camps and other American units as well.
14:30American commanders resented Special Operations activity going on inside their jurisdiction without their knowledge.
14:39They didn't like the idea that we had these combined U.S. Vietnamese forces that were going out of their
14:49perimeter, running the risk of being captured, and revealing their location.
14:56There were two parts to these secret units.
14:59They had small reconnaissance teams and larger companies called hatchet forces.
15:04There were never more than 150 Americans working Sog reconnaissance at any one time.
15:10Sog recon patrols operated in small, mixed groups and were for reconnaissance only.
15:17Cross-border raids were taken care of by the hatchet force, which was a company to battalion-sized operations, and
15:25that also operated out of command and control north, and they were also made up of mercenaries.
15:31They went in on the big, heavier strikes.
15:34The jungle could be a quiet place where any sound would alert an enemy.
15:40Survival depended on perfect discipline.
15:43Everything was geared towards remaining invisible.
15:46The snapping of a twig or a man coughing at the wrong time meant the difference between living and dying.
15:55And our team would be all scrunched together into a little small, I mean, you could have probably put a
16:00dinner plate over the top of us and covered every one of us.
16:04Because we were that tight together.
16:05And then north Vietnamese would be talking and busting brush ten feet away.
16:09And I would be worried about my heart being hurt because it would just be pounding.
16:17Sog teams were a major concern to the north Vietnamese army, which devoted entire battalions to hunting down one small
16:24team.
16:25Sog missions were so dangerous they rarely lasted more than five days.
16:32On a lot of occasions, we would just run into each other.
16:35They would find us.
16:37They had been known to get shoulder to shoulder online, just sweep through an area, try to flush us out
16:43like partridge.
16:45And they would find you, and inevitably the firefight would break out, and we would have to call in the
16:52cavalry, so to speak, to get us out, which meant the 7th Air Force.
16:56Sog reconnaissance patrols were so perilous, they averaged over a 115% casualty rate.
17:02Over the course of a year, the men were either killed or suffered multiple disabling wounds.
17:08For every man lost, Sog forces claimed 100 enemy lives.
17:13You got five missions, and then you got six missions, and then you get hit.
17:18That changes everything.
17:20There's nothing worse than laying there and bleeding all over yourself, and the helicopters aren't coming, and it's getting, so
17:28time goes on.
17:30You get 10 missions, 12 missions.
17:32How many more can you do?
17:33You know you're going to die, but what happens is your loyalty to your little people, to your troops.
17:39You can't leave them.
17:40I didn't want to turn my team over to another American who they couldn't trust, so I stayed, and it
17:46stayed, until it got to the point where I realized I wasn't as good as I had to be.
17:54To keep these guys alive, I quit.
18:00Most of the damage inflicted on the NVA sanctuaries by Sog came from airstrikes, hauled in by the teams on
18:06the ground.
18:08Like everything about Sog, it was usually a close call.
18:13We were running towards the helicopter, and I was telling the F-4 Phantom pilot to work over the area
18:20as soon as we got off the ground, because the NVA were everywhere.
18:23I jumped on the helicopter, and the helicopter takes off, and I watched the jet go in, and it doesn't
18:32do anything.
18:33I'm screaming into the phone, you know, kill these people, kill these people, and they didn't do anything, and I
18:39was livid, and I said, what was going on?
18:40And later on, I phoned out.
18:41He says, well, as you jumped on the helicopter, he says, there were three people reaching out behind you, just
18:49a foot or two behind you.
18:50And he says, they were so close, I thought they were your team members.
18:55As it turned out, they were NVA trying to snatch me.
18:57But that's how close it could get.
19:02Sworn to Secrecy will return in a moment.
19:09The biggest websites from Amazon.com to Yahoo.
19:29Brando played him in Apocalypse Now, but this is the real and deeply disturbing Colonel Kurtz.
19:36Had to be a little bit tough.
19:38On History Undercover.
19:39Tonight at 10 Eastern, 11 Pacific, on the History Channel, where the past comes alive.
19:58A world that harbors the unknown, the bizarre, the dangerous.
20:04The History Channel explores its secrets, explains its beauty, and examines how we choose to destroy.
20:12It's the same planet, a different world.
20:16Dive with modern marvels.
20:19Begins Monday, May 24th, on the History Channel.
20:22The Internet is revolutionary.
20:31Several CIA-led counterinsurgency operations in Southeast Asia had been costly failures.
20:38Many field agents proved to be unreliable.
20:40Their intelligence network had become largely ineffective, frequently riddled with double agents and conmen.
20:48CIA operating credibility with the Special Forces was stretched to the breaking point.
20:54The CIA, in many cases, would come in, and they'd come in wearing pearl-handled, chrome-plated pistols and, you
21:02know, cowboy hats,
21:03and act like they were bad, and try to convince us that this wasn't their first operation.
21:09And by the time we quit chuckling and laughing at them, in many cases, they would tuck their tail between
21:15their leg and leave.
21:16And so there were some CIA guys that were very qualified, and there were some that were pure idiots.
21:25On a strategic level, it was much worse.
21:28The Hanoi Politburo could simply buy American newspapers to learn the latest political developments in Washington, D.C.,
21:36or read dispatches from the battlefield.
21:38But U.S. intelligence agencies had little more than strident propaganda speeches to figure out what was happening inside North
21:45Vietnam.
21:47The communists survived from secrecy.
21:50They told many different stories, both to the media at the time and since.
21:55It's difficult to determine who was in charge and what their objectives were.
21:59Anyone that tells you that they know exactly what the North Vietnamese chain of command was at any one time
22:05is probably wrong.
22:09A never-before-revealed document provides a fascinating and rare insight into the leadership situation in wartime Hanoi.
22:17These are the minutes of a meeting detailing a political denunciation made sometime before 1968 by a Politburo member named
22:25Le Duan
22:26against the celebrated North Vietnamese Army commander, General Nguyen Van Jop.
22:35This is a memoir I received written by Tran Quyn, the former secretary for Le Duan and later on vice
22:41prime minister.
22:42This report was circulated in Hanoi at the time and served to discredit General Jop.
22:49It contained some things which happened back then.
22:52For example, there was a decision to remove Jop from the party's central committee.
22:56But Le Duan saved Jop for fear that removing Jop would lead to the Soviet Union's cutting off support for
23:03the war effort.
23:04But at the same time, Le Duan wanted to send Jop the message that
23:08you deserve to be removed from the party's central committee, but I saved you.
23:13From that point on, Jop always treated Le Duan with fear and total respect.
23:24Portrayed as a lackey and accused of spying for the Soviet Union, Jop was severely chastised.
23:30It was only the Politburo's larger concern about losing Russian military support
23:35that saved him from public humiliation and a possible prison sentence.
23:45As for General Jop's opinion at that time, he lost his influence in the Politburo
23:50because there was a ferocious fight within the party between Le Duan and Bo Nguyen Jop.
23:57Le Duan and his colleague Le Duc Thau suspected and accused Jop of being an agent for the Soviet Union.
24:04And because of all that, all of Jop's subordinates were apprehended.
24:11Like Dong King Zhang, Nguyen Di, Le Lin, and many, many others.
24:18They were dismissed. They were demoted. Or they were put in prison.
24:31Undoubtedly, Jop was seriously weakened politically.
24:36Jop's troubles with his rivals in the Politburo may have prevented him
24:40from changing the disastrous military strategy pursued by Hanoi
24:44after the first phase of the Tet Offensive in 1968.
24:55Back then, as General Jop saw it, the first phase of Tet was enough.
25:00We needed to stop then, and we needed to preserve our strength for a prolonged fight.
25:05But others saw the success for their own glory.
25:09And they pushed for the second and third phases of the offense.
25:13It was later that these two phases of the offense caused us tremendous losses.
25:20Many of our infrastructures were wiped out.
25:28The inability to glean even the smallest bit of information
25:31blocked American intelligence agencies from understanding and exploiting
25:36these communist political rivalries.
25:39Unable to discern North Vietnamese political factions and intentions,
25:44American policymakers had to react to Hanoi's moves rather than anticipate them.
25:50The Special Forces and later the Navy SEALs realized
25:53no victory in South Vietnam was possible
25:56without protecting the South Vietnamese civilian population.
26:00The primary mission of the Green Berets
26:02was to organize armed militias
26:04among the 31 Montagnard tribes in South Vietnam.
26:08They were tasked to protect
26:10the Laotian and Cambodian border areas
26:12from NVA and filthration.
26:15Vietnam is not a homogeneous ethnic group.
26:18There are people there
26:19who've been living on that land
26:21before the Vietnamese arrived from the North.
26:24Montagnards who lived in the mountain areas,
26:26they hated the Vietnamese
26:27more than anything else.
26:29The CIA and Army Intelligence
26:31were able to train and arm these people
26:33and use this hatred for the Vietnamese
26:36for their own advantage.
26:39Numbering between three and 12 men,
26:42small groups of Green Berets, called A-teens,
26:45were responsible for leading, feeding, and equipping
26:48hundreds of mercenary soldiers.
26:53Special Forces were more like anthropologists
26:56with guns and medicine bags
26:58in relation to the Mountain Yard tribal people.
27:03We found them to be extremely loyal.
27:05We trusted them and became blood brothers
27:09in their ceremonies
27:10and drank their ceremonial wines
27:13and found them to be very concerned fighters.
27:20These indigenous forces were called
27:22civilian irregular defense groups.
27:25At their peak strength,
27:27the American 5th Special Forces Group
27:29controlled 84 camps
27:30with more than 42,000 members.
27:36When I first went in there,
27:38we probably had maybe 300 Americans
27:39working in the Central Highlands.
27:42We had 25,000 troops.
27:43Your basic Mountain Yard private
27:45was drawing 21 bucks a month, roughly.
27:49So you got a lot of bang for your buck.
27:53The job of the Green Berets
27:54required more than basic combat training.
27:58Our job was divided into different categories.
28:03The medics trying to teach medicine
28:05to their counterparts
28:07and the weapons people
28:09trying to take platoons of indigenous soldiers,
28:13many of them Mountain Yard tribal people
28:15who had worn loincloths
28:17and had crossbows and poison arrows
28:19and give them World War II carbines
28:22and submachine guns
28:24and teach them to use the more modern weapons
28:26against the Viet Cong.
28:30Corruption among the indigenous forces
28:32was an accepted way of life.
28:35Stealing, bribery, lying, killing their rivals
28:38was a common practice around the camps.
28:41Many times it was as dangerous
28:43inside the 18 camps as outside.
28:47In one case, Kuang,
28:50one of my point men on the team,
28:54has a run-in with some guy
28:57who he thought was with his girlfriend,
28:59goes into the mess hall
29:01and the guy sitting there is eating
29:04and Kuang hits him in the head
29:05with a claw part of a hammer and kills.
29:08These people are thugs, basically.
29:10These people, you know,
29:12that's how they deal with things.
29:13The Green Berets
29:14who led the indigenous units
29:15suspected that up to 15% of their troops
29:18were Viet Cong infiltrators.
29:21Everyone else,
29:22from the Montagnard tribesmen
29:23to the Cambodian and Thai mercenaries
29:26to the Chinese Nungs,
29:28fought for money.
29:30Some American advisors feared
29:32that their troops
29:33would prove unreliable in a firefight
29:35and made plans for their own survival.
29:39On my team,
29:40between myself
29:42and the American assistant team leader,
29:44we had a code word.
29:46That if I said the code word,
29:49thunderclap,
29:50that we would count in our heads
29:52to six
29:53and then kill all of the
29:55in-ditch on the team.
29:57I never had to do that, thank God,
29:59but we had that plan in place
30:01because you could never
30:02trust them completely
30:03and you didn't know.
30:05They might turn on you
30:06out there for whatever reason
30:08and you would have to kill them.
30:12The Special Forces
30:13had no career incentives
30:14to operate this way,
30:16but given the circumstances,
30:18they often had no other option.
30:21Knowing the truth
30:22did not set them free,
30:24but it helped keep them alive.
30:28Sworn to Secrecy
30:30will return in a moment.
31:14The most effective and the most controversial Allied special operation of the war, CIA's Phoenix Pope, begun in 1968.
31:23It was a combined American-Vietnamese intelligence effort designed to disrupt the civil infrastructure of the Viet Cong.
31:31Tax collectors and high-ranking political officials were the intended targets.
31:36A North Vietnamese soldier coming down the Ho Chi Minh Trail is as much a stranger in a strange land
31:40in South Vietnam as the Americans are.
31:43Without the Viet Cong infrastructure in the Viet Cong, they had a hard time operating.
31:49Phoenix was known in Vietnamese as Hoang Hoang.
31:53His goal was to force Viet Cong members to either surrender or risk being killed.
31:59The immediate effects on the V.C. were dramatic and successful.
32:05They would try to influence the wife of a guerrilla by giving her money or by sentimental inducement.
32:11And then one of them would marry her and divide husband and wife, and through her they might discover our
32:16secret locations and set out to destroy us.
32:19That's why I said the Phong Hoang campaign was very dangerous and dreadful.
32:24It awoke the full concern of our superiors as to how to deal with the problem.
32:30They ordered a counter-campaign.
32:32The instructions were to first reorganize our contacts, and then we had to identify who their agents were and educate
32:39them.
32:42The Viet Cong feared being infiltrated more than being attacked by American helicopters.
32:50As the Phoenix program began to uproot their organizations,
32:54infiltration of their ranks and defections created tremendous difficulties for the V.C. leadership.
33:00For the first time, Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army units faced a problem they could not handle.
33:10I would say there were many cases of traitors.
33:13The Saigon regime used money to entice our men.
33:17If we knew any of our men had been bought, we would apply a variety of measures to deal with
33:23them.
33:24First of all, if we could not contact them personally, we would use leaflets to give them strong warnings.
33:31Or we would suddenly break into the village to capture and bring them out to suppress them.
33:36Or to educate and advise them not to follow the road of a traitor.
33:40We would try and try again to do that for three or four times, before we were forced to eliminate
33:45them.
33:51The Viet Cong had used terror routinely to punish suspected enemies and to send a message to all who might
33:57resist their demands.
33:59The Special Forces had witnessed these atrocities since their arrival in Vietnam in 1958.
34:11As for accusations that our soldiers exercise brutality against our own people, there is a need for distinction.
34:21In wartime, brutality is sometimes unavoidable.
34:27Our army is the people's army.
34:30They love people and serve their cause.
34:32But because they are also trained for social class struggle ideology,
34:38therefore murdering South Vietnam officers and people in villages and cities takes place.
34:58Many North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers had grown tired of the war.
35:03Less than 9,000 D.C. and N.V.A. soldiers called Chu Hoi's had surrendered to the Allied side
35:09in 1967.
35:11That figure climbed to over 20,000 in 1968 with the initiation of the Phoenix Program.
35:17Well, as the war went on and on, casualty had some effects on the soldiers and they just couldn't face
35:29with it anymore.
35:31Now, one of the soldiers in my unit, for example, he was very brave, brilliant soldiers.
35:38He was really very good.
35:40But after one battle and he saw human meat and intestine hanging around and he just couldn't cope with it.
35:49He just couldn't eat.
35:51He just couldn't sleep.
35:54And in the end, you know, he gave up.
35:56It was too much for him.
36:00The CIA had created a new armed force called the Provincial Reconnaissance Units, or PRU.
36:07It was designed to be the action arm of Phoenix.
36:12The PRU was equipped and paid for by the CIA.
36:16Organized, trained, and led by Green Berets and Navy SEALs designated as civilian advisors,
36:22PRU mercenary troops were recruited from the local areas.
36:27Now, in my group, and they're calling Provincial Reconnaissance Units, I'm telling you what they were.
36:33They were killers for money.
36:35Ha!
36:36Okay?
36:37Forget Politically Correct.
36:38Change it to any name you want.
36:40These guys fought for money.
36:42When these guys worked for Phoenix, they'd be given a list of purported Viet Cong infrastructure.
36:49And during the month, they would try and go around the province and kill all these people.
36:53My belief is that the PRU program and the Phoenix program was an attempt to duplicate the way the Viet
37:00Cong operated.
37:02The Viet Cong response to this attrition among their troops was to increase their use of terror to intimidate members
37:09of the PRU and to prevent their own troops from surrendering.
37:18Now, if this is necessary for us to be cruel, as demanded from the higher level of command, in order
37:24to eliminate people affiliated with the enemy,
37:27I would say it is something we do in order to win the war, I would never let my soldiers
37:35do bad things or make people suffer.
37:39I would investigate, pay people for the damage, and discipline my soldiers where appropriate.
37:47But if cruelty happens as a result of eliminating those who are against us, we just carry out the necessary
37:54things to win.
38:01I had one Vietnamese lieutenant that I worked with, and he was probably the best Vietnamese junior officer that I
38:11ever knew.
38:11He was a really good kid, and I never advised him to do anything that he hadn't already done it.
38:18And they warned him a couple of times, and when he didn't slow down, they just went into his home
38:23village,
38:23which was 300 miles from where we were operating, and killed his mother.
38:28The Viet Cong infrastructure was defined as all non-military members of the communist movement.
38:35Local Vietnamese sources were used to identify V.C. agents within the towns and villages of South Vietnam.
38:42American-controlled PRU units were then ordered to capture or kill them.
38:49If they brought back a body, they got paid for it.
38:52If they brought back a gun, they got paid for it.
38:54If they brought back a prisoner, they got paid for it.
38:57If they didn't bring back the whole prisoner, they used to get paid for bringing back identifiable parts.
39:02Okay? I didn't set these rules up.
39:05These are the rules that they played by.
39:07When you try to change those rules, you meet resistance.
39:12I didn't want people bringing me back ears and me having to pay them for it.
39:17I don't want that. I want live people.
39:19Dead people don't talk.
39:21There is no doubt that Phoenix was effective in reducing V.C. influence.
39:25But, as with every special operation in South Vietnam, there was always a fear of V.C. penetration of South
39:32Vietnamese intelligence agencies.
39:35In some instances, corrupt officials used Phoenix to eliminate business and personal rivals.
39:44The PRU got out of hand real quick.
39:47They were not checking. They were going out and killing a lot of people.
39:49In many cases, they were killing the wrong people.
39:51The Viet Cong infiltrate this and tell them to go out and kill the people who are actually friendly to
39:55the government.
39:55So there's nobody really checking on them.
39:58In the end, the Phoenix program was stunningly effective in eliminating the established Viet Cong support system.
40:05But it came too late in the war to influence the outcome.
40:09There was another secret special operations unit, however, that was successfully developing its own intelligence and using it to great
40:17advantage.
40:19U.S. Navy SEALs were redefining the role of the unconventional soldier.
40:26Sworn to Secrecy will return in a moment.
41:05I'll see you next time.
41:12There was a secret American unit in Vietnam that was fighting in the Viet Cong's backyard
41:17along the canals of the Mekong River. Operating at night, often dressed like the V.C., squads
41:24of two to seven men turned the tables on their enemy. Waiting through canals or inserted
41:30by boat to get to their target, this unconventional unit used kidnapping and bribery to accomplish
41:36what killing could not. The Viet Cong called them men with green faces.
41:43The SEALs were looking for a place to work, and the Army had the Rungsat Special Zone.
41:50Nobody could operate in it. The V.C. ruled it. And they said, well, you guys can work in the
41:54water.
41:54Put you in there. And so they had three platoons over there operating against the V.C.
42:01and pretty well cleared the place out.
42:05Throughout the Mekong Delta region, Navy SEAL platoons were creating serious disruptions
42:10in the Viet Cong political infrastructure, which heretofore had operated freely on the rivers and canals.
42:17There was some pride in doing the operation elegantly.
42:20And one of the most elegant ways was to creep right into their encampment or their hooch
42:28and lift up that mosquito net, and the first thing he knows is the guy with the green face
42:33and the silenced pistol is there saying, come along with me.
42:44Day or night, especially when they knew our trails, it would be dreadful.
42:50After a while, we learned from these experiences, and we would spread out our patrol formation.
42:58We would try to anticipate where they were waiting in ambush or where they landed, and then fight them there.
43:11Operations had to be done quietly and skillfully to avoid detection.
43:19The standard operating procedure back then was for the point man and the patrol leader to enter the hooch.
43:25There weren't any doors.
43:27From then, things got sticky if the guy had bodyguards, and especially if they were awake.
43:31If they were asleep or if he didn't have any bodyguards, things normally went pretty smoothly.
43:37And then it was a matter of ducking the guy, search, silence, and securing him,
43:42and getting out there as quickly as possible.
43:45The U.S. Navy SEALs in Vietnam fought for their country and their teammates.
43:50Their intentions were not just to observe the enemy.
43:53They planned to capture or kill him.
43:55You'd be exposed to pain and punishment for one reason and one reason only.
44:01To make you the type of person we need to get the job done.
44:06We, the Navy SEALs, weren't there to win the hearts and minds of anybody.
44:09We were there to kick the ass out of the enemy.
44:11We were there to destroy him.
44:13We were there to shoot the bastard.
44:14We were there to destroy his camps.
44:16We weren't there to worry about what the next-door neighbor thought about us.
44:20We were there to do a job.
44:27Tax collectors and high-ranking VC and NDA officials were the preferred target.
44:33SEALs and their special boat units were giving new meaning to the term up close and personal.
44:55Sometimes, three to six commandos would ambush us on our travel road with mines.
45:03Usually, they used claymore mines.
45:09The rules for special operations were the same,
45:13both on the borders of Vietnam and in the dark waters of the Mekong.
45:18Special ops forces were called on to do whatever was necessary to accomplish their missions.
45:26To my knowledge, we never, ever killed an innocent person.
45:30If we were fighting on a village, everybody's the enemy.
45:33Hard to understand, but when somebody's shooting out of a door, they don't put a sign on them
45:38saying, I'm the bad guy, okay?
45:41And I'm sitting there with five people, and I got 40, 50 guns shooting down my neck.
45:46We would shoot and shoot and shoot until we got our way out of there.
45:50Suspicion was the rule.
45:52Every bar girl was a VC.
45:55Every barber was an NVA colonel.
45:57The enemy might be a child with a grenade, or a teenage girl with an AK-47.
46:03The most difficult challenge was knowing when and where to draw the line.
46:08We learned we had to get like that in order to operate among the Vietnamese people over there.
46:13Because you never really knew who you were going to encounter.
46:15You might walk up on an old farmer, or you might walk up on some guy carrying an AK-47
46:19with a selected switch in full automatic.
46:22So we had to take every edge.
46:26Seals turned VC guerrillas against their old comrades with a simple promise of protection.
46:32A lot of these guys were coerced into being in the Viet Cong ranks.
46:37And it didn't take much persuasion at all to say, look, we'll get you out of this.
46:42We'll essentially put you in the witness protection program,
46:45get you down the south end of the island or over on the mainland or something,
46:48and get your family out of here.
46:49And they say, thanks, great.
46:50And all you've got to do is just take us back in and leave us with a clown that recruited
46:54you.
46:55No problem.
46:57Special operators frequently found the situation on the ground
47:00did not relate to concepts planned for them in Saigon and Washington.
47:06Unconventional warfare wasn't always about an overwhelming force.
47:11Guerrilla war demanded an ability to adapt to this situation.
47:17John Paul Vann once said,
47:19the best way to kill a gorilla is with a knife and the worst way is with an airplane.
47:22And when you're doing things surgically like that,
47:25you've got seven men.
47:28It's up close.
47:29You know you're not killing civilians.
47:31You know you're killing a guy with a rifle and an important guy with a rifle.
47:35Ruthless, determined, and secret,
47:38this unconventional war became one of American guerrilla versus Vietnamese guerrilla.
47:43The irony is that American unconventional soldiers
47:46adopted many of the tactics of their VC and NVA enemy.
47:49No other combat force in Vietnam achieved a greater success than did the various units of special operations.
47:56Decades later, some realities are emerging.
48:00Ho Chi Minh's objective of subjugating Southeast Asia failed.
48:04Communism has faltered around the world,
48:06giving way to market-driven economies,
48:09which have emerged throughout Indochina and increasingly in Vietnam.
48:14But only time will tell whether the country of Vietnam
48:16fully embraces the same democratic principles
48:19the American special operations forces fought for decades ago.
48:29We'll see you again next week.
Comments