Vietnam Declassified: The CIA and Counterinsurgency »

Thomas L. Ahern Jr. is a former CIA operations officer with service in East Asia, Indochina, Africa, Iran, and Europe. He currently serves as a CIA consultant.

Vietnam Declassified is a detailed account of the CIA's effort to help South Vietnamese authorities win the loyalty of the Vietnamese peasantry and suppress the Viet Cong. Covering the CIA engagement from 1954 to mid-1972, it provides a thorough analysis of the agency and its partners. Retired CIA operative and intelligence consultant Thomas L. Ahern Jr. is the first to comprehensively document the CIA's role in the rural pacification of South Vietnam, drawing from secret archives to which he had unrestricted access. In addition to a chronology of operations, the book explores the assumptions, political values, and cultural outlooks of not only the CIA and other U.S. government agencies, but also of the peasants, Viet Cong, and Saigon government forces competing for their loyalty. The depth of Ahern's research combined with the timely relevance of his analysis to current events in the Middle East makes this title an important addition to military literature.

List of Maps and Illustrations

Foreword Donald P. Gregg Gregg, Donald P.

Introduction To Build a Nation 1

1 "The Effort Must Be Made" 7

2 "Get Them before They Get Us" 21

3 Counterinsurgency in the Central Highlands 39

4 Sea Swallows and Strategic Hamlets 71

5 Operation Switchback 91

6 Experiments in the Lowlands 111

7 The Kien Hoa Incubator 127

8 The People's Action Team 149

9 Another Chance in the Countryside 169

10 Growing Pains 191

11 CORDS 221

12 Phoenix 255

13 The 1968 Tet Offensive and Accelerated Pacification 281

14 Disengagement 309

15 A Matter of Running City Hall 343

Conclusion: The Limits of Pragmatism 357

Notes 377

Selected Bibliography 433

Index 437