July 2022 – Fix Bayonets!

America’s OSS — Part 2

(Continued from Last Week)

IN EUROPE

With the training and assistance of the British Intelligence Service, OSS proved especially useful in providing a global perspective of the German war effort, its strengths, and its weaknesses. In direct (covert) operations, OSS agents supported major Allied operations, such as Operation Torch, the invasion of French North Africa in 1942. Success in Operation Torch included identifying pro-Allied supporters, locating, and mapping amphibious landing sites, and coopting high-ranking Vichy French military officers.

Clandestine operations in Europe also involved the neutral countries: Sweden, Spain, and Switzerland, where information about German technologies was obtained and forwarded to Washington and London. A network headquartered in Madrid established and maintained control over Free French auxiliaries, which aided the Allied invasion of France in June 1944.

Allen Dulles’ operations from Switzerland provided extensive information about German military strength, air defenses, submarine production, the V-1 and V-2 rocket systems, and Biological/Chemical/Atomic research and development. Dulles also supported resistance efforts in France, Austria, and Italy.

In addition to intelligence collection activities, OSS operations included infiltration and sabotage operations, propaganda campaigns, and specialized training for nationalist guerrilla groups. In 1943, the OSS employed as many as 24,000 people, many of whom were serving Army, Navy, and Marine Corps officers. They were men like Edward Lansdale (Army Air Corps), Jack Taylor (U. S. Navy), Peter Ortiz[1] and Sterling Hayden[2] (U. S. Marine Corps), and thousands more whose names we no longer remember.

IN THE FAR EAST

In late 1943, representatives from OSS descended upon the 442nd Infantry Regiment looking to recruit volunteers for “extremely hazardous assignments.” There were numerous volunteers, of course, but the OSS only selected Nisei (the children of Japanese immigrants). OSS assigned these volunteers to Detachments 101 and 202 within the China-Burma-India Theater. Their duties were to interrogate Japanese prisoners of war, translate documents, monitor radio communications, and participate in covert operations. All of these covert operations were successful.

Franklin Roosevelt was well-known for his anti-colonial views, particularly concerning French Indochina — a massive territory involving present-day Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Roosevelt made these views crystal clear at the Tehran Conference in 1943. Both Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin adopted a position against returning Indochina to the French in the post-world war period, but with extensive colonial interests of their own, British, and Dutch diplomats expressed their full intention to re-constitute their colonial empires. Roosevelt stated, for publication, “Our goal must be to help them [brown people] achieve their independence because 1.1 billion enemies are dangerous.”

In late 1943, Roosevelt instructed Donovan to support national liberation movements in Asia as a means of resisting Japanese occupation. In France, the OSS worked alongside the Free French to resist Nazi occupation. In Asia, the OSS worked against the (Vichy) French by setting up guerrilla bases to support anti-Japanese/anti-French colonial covert operations throughout Southeast Asia. To accomplish this, the OSS advised, supplied, and helped organize nationalist (nee communist) movements, specifically in Burma, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.[3]

THE PEOPLE

Colonel Donovan may have had the assistance and guidance of British intelligence in putting together the OSS, but it was entirely up to him to find the right men and women to undertake dangerous missions. Most of the people he recruited were members of the Armed Forces, but he also sought those from civilian and foreign backgrounds.

What kind of person was Donovan looking for? In his own words, “I’d rather have a young lieutenant with enough guts to disobey a direct order than a colonel too regimented to think for himself.” In essence, Donovan was looking for men with PhDs who could win a bar fight. Within a few months, OSS rivaled MI-6 and the SOE, a feat only possible by carefully screening candidates and training them in the same manner as British commandos. The primary training facility, then known as Site S, was located where Dulles International Airport now stands. All successful candidates shared similar characteristics: courageous, determined, independent thinkers, highly intelligent, and fluent in two or more European languages.

SPIES AND SABOTEURS

The most significant accomplishment of the OSS in World War II was its ability to penetrate the Third Reich. The men and women assigned to this task were either German-Americans fluent in the German language or were German or Austrian exiles (many of whom were communists, former labor activists, Jewish refugees, or escaped prisoners of war). The OSS also successfully recruited German officials as spies, such as the German diplomat Fritz Kolb. Through such activities, the United States and Great Britain obtained the plans and technical specifications for Germany’s V-2 rocket, the Tiger Tank, and such advanced aircraft as the Messerschmitt BF-109 and Messerschmitt ME-163. Through the OSS team serving under Heinrich Maier, the Allied Powers learned about Germany’s “Final Solution” to their Jewish problem — the death camps.

Along with OSS accomplishments were a few failures. American and British secret operatives were good at what they did, but so were the Germans. The Gestapo systematically uncovered Maier’s team because one of the team members was a double agent. Gestapo agents arrested and later executed most of the Maier group.

The major cities of neutral countries became beehives of intelligence-gathering activities and spying operations for both the Allied Powers and Germany — Madrid, Stockholm, and Istanbul among them. The OSS initiated operations in Istanbul in 1943. The railroads connecting Central Asia with Europe and Turkey’s proximity to the Balkan states made Istanbul an excellent site for intelligence operations. OSS operations in Istanbul, code-named Net-1, involved infiltrating and carrying out subversive operations in the Old Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires.

At the head of Net-1 operations was a former Chicago banker named Lanning MacFarland. “Packy” MacFarland’s cover story was that he was a United States Lend-Lease Program banker. MacFarland hired a fellow named Alfred Schwartz, a Czechoslovakian engineer, and businessman. Schwartz’s code name was Dogwood. Schwartz, employed by the Istanbul Electric Company, hired an assistant named Walter Arndt. Through their efforts, the OSS was able to infiltrate anti-fascist groups in Austria, Hungary, and Germany. Additionally, Schwartz persuaded diplomatic couriers from Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Germany to smuggle U.S. propaganda information into their home territories and help establish contact with German-Italian antagonists. Most of this information was conveyed either through memorization or microfilm.

British Intelligence began to suspect the Dogwood operation because it produced far more information than they expected. Working with the OSS, British and American agents discovered that Dogwood was unreliable and dangerous to the entire MI-6/SOE/OSS effort. German agents had effectively placed phony information into the OSS system through Dogwood, which at the time was America’s largest intelligence gathering operation in the occupied territory. Accordingly, Dogwood was promptly shut down.

But the OSS was no “one-trick” pony. In 1944, OSS agents purchased technical information on the Soviet cipher from disaffected Finnish Army officers. Donovan, aware that such activities violated Roosevelt’s agreement with Stalin, purchased the materials anyway and, through this “violation of a direct order,” discovered a large-scale Soviet espionage ring in North America. What Donovan did with this information is unknown, but he channeled it somewhere (possibly to the FBI) because otherwise, we wouldn’t know about it today.

Most of us have watched Hollywood films about OSS airborne teams infiltrating the cold mountainous areas of Norway. These were undoubtedly highly fictionalized re-creations of actual (or similar) events. In late March 1945, an OSS team code-named Rype dropped into Norway to carry out sabotage operations behind German lines. From a base in the Gjefsjøen Mountains, this group successfully disrupted railroad operations, the purpose of which was to prevent the withdrawal of German forces back to Germany. Contrary to the several Hollywood films depicting such feats, Rype was the only American operation conducted on German-occupied Norwegian soil during World War II. The infiltration group was mainly composed of Norwegian-Americans recruited as volunteers from the U. S. Army’s 99th Infantry Battalion. The leader of this group was famed OSS/CIA man William Colby.

Another crack OSS leader was Navy Lieutenant Jack H. Taylor (1909-1950). Donovan recruited Taylor shortly after he joined the U. S. Navy in 1942 — one of the first to join the clandestine organization. Donovan assigned Taylor to the maritime unit (a precursor to the U. S. Navy Seals). Working with famed inventor Christian J. Lambertsen, Taylor helped develop the Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit. The LARU allowed OSS agents to undertake diving missions deemed critical to the OSS and Allied armed forces. Taylor worked with a highly decorated OSS Marine special operator by the name of Sterling Hayden (who later became a Hollywood actor), dodging German navy vessels in the Aegean Sea.

Also, in March 1945, the OSS initiated Operation Varsity. It consisted of four OSS teams of two men under Captain Stephen Vinciguerra (code name Algonquin). Their mission was also to infiltrate German lines, but none of these were successful.

ENTER HARRY TRUMAN

When President Roosevelt died in office on 12 April 1945, Vice President Harry S. Truman assumed the mantle of the American presidency. It was a significant turning point in Washington’s foreign policy simply because Truman didn’t share Roosevelt’s (and Donovan’s) New Deal optimism. Roosevelt and Donovan saw Western colonialism as an example of imperial tyranny, whereas Truman wanted to put the world back together again the way it was before World War II. Beyond this, post-war Soviet Union expansionism changed Truman’s concept of the United States’ role in a new global environment. At the San Francisco Conference in late spring 1945, the Truman administration gave French diplomats his assurances that France could reassert their pre-war sovereignty over French Indochina. Such warranties placed Donovan’s OSS “out of step” with Washington’s new policymakers — particularly about colonialism and communism.

Besides, Harry Truman was “an Army man” and saw no reason for the existence of the Office of Strategic Services as a separate entity working outside the scope of the Navy and War Departments — even though, at least ostensibly, OSS worked for the Chairman, JCS. Truman had little patience with anyone questioning his policies or decisions; anyone who did became “an enemy,” which Donovan surely did become, and Truman was determined to dispense with both Donovan and the OSS.

At the time of Truman’s ascension to power, however, Donovan’s OSS agents were heavily involved in collecting intelligence information about the Third Reich and the Soviet Union and laying the groundwork for nationalist movements in Southeast Asia. Truman didn’t like all that meddling, and neither did many of the Army’s senior field commanders — who believed that counter-intelligence operations if they were going to exist at all, should only exist as a prerogative of senior field commanders.

The problem was that senior army commanders stationed in Europe in the immediate post-war period were utterly oblivious to the machinations of the Soviet Union and its demon-seed, East Germany. But Intelligence insiders did realize that the information provided to the U.S. government by OSS was too valuable to allow that organization to collapse without replacing it with a structure to continue that practical work.

SERVANT OR MASTER?

On 20 September 1945, President Truman terminated the OSS by Executive Order 9621. Its dismembered carcass ended up in the State Department (Research and Analysis) and the War Department (Strategic Services Unit). The War Department assigned Brigadier General John Magruder (formerly Bill Donovan’s deputy) as the Director, SSU. Magruder supervised the disestablishment of OSS and managed the institutional preservation of its clandestine intelligence capability.

Four months later, President Truman directed the establishment of the Central Intelligence Group (CIG). Magruder’s SSU was transferred to the CIG in mid-1946, which became the Office of Special Operations (OSO). The National Security Act of 1947 formally established the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as an independent agency, which assumed the same functions as OSS. As to all those spies and saboteurs, the CIA continues to maintain a paramilitary component known as its Special Activities Division.

The CIA did not, unfortunately, get off to a very good start. Since the heady old days of the Truman administration, the question of whether the CIA would become the servant or master of U.S. intelligence policy has been an ongoing struggle. Numerous incidents would appear to reflect both institutional overreach and changing attitudes among political executives about what the CIA is doing and how they are doing it.

SOME EXAMPLES

Domestic spying (including the data mining and compromise of smart-TVs, search engines, and personal automobiles)
Torture by proxy (extraordinary rendition)
Internal foreign spies
Funding terrorist cells/rightwing dictatorships
Illegal influence of elections and media
Involvement in drug trafficking/support of drug traffickers
Misleading Congress and the American public
Covert programs illegally removed from Congressional oversight
Infiltration of World Health Organization for clandestine purposes
Spying on members of Congress
Orchestrating coup d’état (Iran, Guatemala, Indonesia, Cuba)
Patriot Act expansion of third party record searches, secret searches, significant exceptions to Fourth Amendment protections.

The questions not answered by anyone, at least to the general dissatisfaction of many Americans, are:

What is the U.S. government entitled to know about its citizens?
Under what circumstances are intelligence agencies allowed to know it?
What is the U.S. government allowed to do with the information collected on its citizens?

The United States Special Operations Command, established in 1987, adopted the OSS spearhead design as its military branch insignia.

Sources:

Aldrich, R. J. Intelligence and the War Against Japan: Britain, America, and the Politics of Secret Service. Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Bartholomew-Feis, D. R. The OSS and Ho Chi Minh: Unexpected Allies in the War against Japan. University of Kansas Press, 2006.
Brown, A. C. The Last American Hero: Wild Bill Donovan. New York Times Press, 1982.
Chalou, G. C. The Secrets War: The Office of Strategic Services in World War II. National Archives and Records Administration, 1991.
Dulles, A. The Secret Surrender. Harper & Row, 1966.
Dunlop, R. Donovan: America’s Master Spy. Rand-McNally, 1982.
Smith, B. F. The Shadow Warriors: OSS and the Origins of the CIA. Basic Press, 1983.
Yu, M. OSS in China: Prelude to Cold War. Yale University Press, 1996

Endnotes:

[1] See also: Behind the Lines. Colonel Ortiz was anything but entirely covert in his OSS activities; his flamboyant and rascally traits brought him (and his team members) to the attention of the German army and Gestapo officials. Despite being awarded two Navy Cross medals while assigned to the OSS, Ortiz was never invited to join the CIA after 1947 — which one may understand if they have an inkling about what “secret agent” means. Apparently, Ortiz did not have that understanding.

[2] See also: In Every Climb and Place. Before his Marine Corps service, Hayden served on a sailing schooner, earning his master’s license in 1940. It was this skill set that brought him to the attention of William J. Donovan.

[3] One can make the argument that Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the United States the Vietnam War.

America’s OSS — Part 1

INTRODUCTION

The fascinating story of the United States Office of Strategic Services would not have been possible without the one man who was capable of creating it. Given all of its accomplishments within three years, we should not only remember William Joseph Donovan as the force behind the OSS but also as one of our country’s most interesting servants. This is a thumbnail summary of the Office of Strategic Services and the man who created and led it during a period of global calamity.

DONOVAN THE MAN

Bill Donovan was a second-generation Irish-American, born and raised in Buffalo, New York. Raised a Catholic, he attended St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute and later graduated from Niagara University, where he majored in pre-law studies. Bill transferred to Columbia University, where he participated in football, competitive rowing, and oratory in addition to rigorous studies. He attended law school with Franklin D. Roosevelt. After graduating, he returned to Buffalo to practice law.

In 1912, Donovan helped form a cavalry troop within the New York National Guard. He married Ruth Rumsey in 1914, the daughter of a prominent Buffalo businessman. In 1916, the Rockefeller Foundation hired Donovan’s law firm to help persuade the Imperial German government to allow shipments of food and clothing into Belgium, Serbia, and Poland. In this role, he was an unofficial ambassador of the foundation. Later that year, the State Department requested that he return to the United States — apparently believing that his “meddling” was working against the interests of the United States.

Upon his return to the United States, his New York cavalry troop activated for service along the US-Mexico border. While serving under Brigadier General Pershing, the National Guard promoted Donovan to major. When he returned to New York, he transferred to the New York 69th Infantry Regiment (later redesignated as the U.S. 165th Infantry Regiment), which was training for service in World War I. The regiment became part of the U.S. 42nd Infantry Division (Rainbow Division) after transfer to France. Colonel Douglas MacArthur served as the division’s chief of staff at that time.

During World War I, Major Bill Donovan served as Commanding Officer, 1st Battalion, 165th. Early in the war, Donovan received a shrapnel wound to his leg, and at another time, he was nearly blinded by a German gas attack. Donovan continually exhibited valorous behavior on the field of battle. After taking part in rescuing fellow soldiers while under fire, military commanders sought to recognize his efforts by awarding him the Croix de Guerre. When Donovan learned that another soldier who participated in the rescue, a Jewish-American, was refused such recognition, Donovan declined to accept the award. He eventually accepted the award only after the French government similarly recognized the Jewish soldier.

In late May 1918, during the Aisne-Marne offensive, Major Donovan led his battalion in an assault in which hundreds of the regiment were killed, including Donovan’s adjutant, the poet Joyce Kilmer. In recognition of his leadership during this engagement, the Army awarded him the Distinguished Service Cross.[1] Donovan’s reputation for courage under fire rivaled his extraordinary physical and mental endurance. During this period in his life, people affectionately nicknamed him “Wild Bill” Donovan.

Later assigned to command the regiment, Donovan led the 165th in the Landres-et-Saint-Georges Campaign in October 1918. During this fight, Donovan ignored the custom of covering up his rank insignia to motivate his men. He not only wore his rank insignia, thus becoming a target for German snipers, but he also wore all his medals so that there could be no mistaking the fact that he was a regimental officer. In this fight, Donovan was wounded by a bullet in the knee, but he refused evacuation until all his men had been safely withdrawn. The Army later awarded Donovan his second DSC.

Lieutenant Colonel Donovan remained in Europe after the war as part of the occupation forces, returning home in April 1919. After returning home, he resumed his law practice. Recalling Donovan’s previous efforts on behalf of the Rockefeller Foundation, several American corporations hired Donovan as their advisor on matters pertaining to post-war European powers. In this connection, Donovan and his wife traveled to Japan, China, and Korea. He afterward traveled alone to Russia during its revolution, gathering information about the international communist movement.

Between 1922-24, Donovan served as U.S. attorney for the Western District of New York. He quickly earned a reputation as a crime fighter, particularly in prohibition-related matters. He received several assassination threats and warnings about his family’s safety, but he never relented in his pursuit of law-breakers. Donovan may have become a prohibition zealot, but if not that, he certainly did lose a lot of “society” friends when he decided to raid his own country club for violating prohibition laws — and he ended up losing his law partner, as well.

In 1924, Donovan received a presidential appointment to serve as Assistant Attorney General of the United States under his old law school professor, Harlan Stone. Throughout his government service, Donovan continued to direct his Buffalo law firm. Today, we credit Donovan as the first Assistant Attorney General to prioritize the hiring of women. In this capacity, however, Donovan was highly critical of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Donovan’s friction with Hoover lasted throughout his life. In 1925, when Stone took a seat on the Supreme Court, Donovan became the de facto Attorney General of the United States.[2]

In 1929, Donovan resigned from the Justice Department and moved his family to New York City, where he started a new law firm, which despite the stock market crash, became a successful business handling mergers, acquisitions, and bankruptcies. Donovan ran an unsuccessful campaign for governor to succeed Franklin Roosevelt in 1932.

Between 1920-1940, Donovan was part of an informal network of businessmen and lawyers who carefully collected and analyzed “foreign intelligence.” It was an activity that prompted Donovan to take frequent trips to Europe and Asia. His business success and political connections enabled him to meet with foreign leaders of both Italy and Germany. His analysis of events in Europe and Asia made him no friend of fascists or communist dictators, but his meetings with them did help him to better advise his clients, notably Jewish clients with business interests in Germany. He was convinced that another war was inevitable.

As previously noted, Donovan had known Franklin Roosevelt since law school — but while he respected Roosevelt for his political savvy and manipulative ability, he shared none of Roosevelt’s ideas about social policy. Roosevelt, in return, respected Donovan for his experience, war record, and realism. What helped to make Donovan politically popular in 1940 was actor George Brent’s portrayal of him in the Cagney film, The Fighting 69th. It occurred to Roosevelt that Donovan might be useful to him as an ally and policy advisor — particularly after Germany and Russia invaded Poland in 1939.

Donovan predicted the evolution of warring nations in Europe and was able to explain why. On this basis, Roosevelt began giving Donovan various assignments. In 1940, Donovan traveled as an informal emissary to Britain, during which time Donovan offered his assessment of Britain’s ability to withstand German aggression. He met with Winston Churchill, the directors of the British Intelligence Services, and lunched with King George VI. Churchill liked Donovan personally and granted him unfettered access to classified information. For his part, Donovan was impressed by the way the British organized their intelligence agencies. Donovan was so well-liked by the British that the foreign minister requested that the State Department consider him a replacement for U.S. Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy.

Donovan also evaluated U.S. Naval bases and installations in the Pacific (none of which impressed him) and served as an unofficial envoy of both Roosevelt and Churchill in the Mediterranean and Middle East. He frequently met with British MI-6 operative William Stephenson, code name “Intrepid,” with whom he shared his analyses. Stephenson would later become vital to Donovan as he began to organize the OSS.

U.S. INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES

Before the 1880s, intelligence activities were devoted almost exclusively to the support of military operations, either to support deployed forces or to obtain information on enemy-nation intentions. In March 1882, however, the U.S. Navy established the nation’s first permanent intelligence organization — the Office of Naval Intelligence — whose mission was to collect intelligence on foreign navies in peacetime and war. Three years later, a similar organization — the Military Intelligence Division, U.S. Army — began collecting foreign and domestic information for the War Department.

Military intelligence operations were somewhat monotonous until Theodore Roosevelt became president. Under Roosevelt, military and naval intelligence operatives incited a revolution in Panama and then used that excitement as an excuse to annex the Panama Canal. Military intelligence also monitored Japan’s military and naval buildup, inspiring Roosevelt’s launch of the “Great White Fleet.”

In the early part of the twentieth century, U.S. Intelligence was notable for its expansion of domestic spying. In 1908, the Justice Department created its Bureau of Investigation (the forerunner of the FBI) out of concern that members of the Secret Service were engaged in spying on members of Congress. Within ten years, the BOI grew from 34 to 300 agents, expanding their interests from banking to internal security, Mexican border smuggling, and unrest in Central America. After the start of the First World War, the BOI turned its attention to the activities of German and British nationals within U.S. borders.

Still, when the U.S. entered the world war, there was no coordinated intelligence effort. Woodrow Wilson detested the use of spies; he tended not to believe “intelligence information” until he developed a close association with the British Intelligence Chief in Washington.

Did President Wilson become a willing dupe to British foreign policy? In fact, British intelligence played a significant role in bringing the United States into World War I. The American people had little interest in the European war until after British Intelligence (and Wilson) made public Germany’s attempt to disrupt U.S. industry and the financial sector. Moreover, British Intelligence revealed Germany’s efforts to entice the Mexican government into joining the war against the United States. When the American people learned of these efforts, there were fewer objections to Wilson’s declaration of war.

America’s first “signals intelligence” agency was formed within the Military Intelligence Division, the eighth directorate (MI-8). This agency was responsible for decoding military communication and managing codes for use by the U.S. military. At the end of the war, the War Department transferred MI-8 to the Department of State, where it was known as the “black chamber.” The black chamber focused more on diplomatic rather than military traffic. In 1921, the black chamber decrypted Japanese diplomatic traffic revealing their positions at the Washington Conference on Naval Disarmament. It was an “intelligence coup” — but one in which American President Coolidge failed to act. During the Hoover administration, the state department transferred signals intelligence back to the War Department and assigned it to the Army Signal Corps.

Other intelligence entities remained in existence after the end of the world war, but their parent agencies cut funds and diminished their capabilities. One exception was the Justice Department’s Bureau of Investigation, which expanded its intelligence gathering activities. In 1924, BOI was renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), with J. Edgar Hoover appointed its first director. In the years leading up to World War II, the FBI investigated espionage, counter-espionage, sabotage, and violations of neutrality laws.

It was also during the 1920s that efforts were made to coordinate the activities of various intelligence agencies. An Interdepartmental Intelligence Coordinating Committee took on this task, with its chair rotating among the multiple agencies. Without a permanent chairperson and a mandate to share information, U.S. intelligence efforts were inefficient and, worse, criminally malfeasant. The Department of State, Treasury, War, and Navy had their intelligence operations. There was no coordination or central direction, and the U.S. Navy and U.S. Army maintained their own code-breaking centers. The State Department, under Henry Stimpson, shut down the State Department’s intelligence gathering apparatus because … “gentlemen shouldn’t read other people’s mail.”

CRISIS LOOMS

Roosevelt, pleased with Bill Donovan’s contribution to his understanding of global intelligence concerns, appointed him as the Coordinator of Information in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). In 1942, no one had any idea what the OSS was, and no one was quite certain what a Coordinator of Information did for a living. It was the perfect cover for Roosevelt’s spy network.

Typical of Roosevelt, however — at least initially, he handed Bill Donovan the responsibility for a massive undertaking without giving him any authority over it. Donovan was constantly traveling back and forth between his office and the White House to obtain Roosevelt’s permission to proceed with the next step. Eventually, this problem worked itself out — no doubt at Donovan’s insistence.

Meanwhile, as the heads of the various U. S. intelligence agencies became more aware of Donovan’s activities, they began to resent his “interference” in their internal intelligence operations. They not only resisted cooperating with Donovan, but they also tried to turn Roosevelt against him. Nothing amused Roosevelt more than watching his subordinates flay each other.

Lacking any cooperation from the intelligence agencies, Donovan organized the OSS with the principal assistance of experienced British intelligence officers. Most of the early information “collected” by Donovan originated with and was provided by MI-6.[3]

Initially, British intelligence experts trained OSS operatives in Canada — until Donovan could establish sufficient training facilities in the United States. The British also introduced Americans to their short-wave broadcasting system (with capabilities in Europe, Africa, and the Far East).

On 13 June 1942, President Roosevelt officially created the OSS by executive order. The mission assigned to OSS was to collect and analyze the information required by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and, when needed, conduct special (intelligence) operations not assigned to other agencies. As an agency subordinate to the OJCS, OSS never had the overall authority of U. S. intelligence collection activities or functions, but they did provide policymakers with facts and estimates associated with enemy capabilities. The FBI retained its control over domestic intelligence-gathering operations and those in Latin America, and the Army and Navy continued to develop and rely on their sources of intelligence unique to their missions.

(Continued next week)

Sources:

Aldrich, R. J. Intelligence and the War Against Japan: Britain, America, and the Politics of Secret Service. Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Bartholomew-Feis, D. R. The OSS and Ho Chi Minh: Unexpected Allies in the War against Japan. University of Kansas Press, 2006.
Brown, A. C. The Last American Hero: Wild Bill Donovan. New York Times Press, 1982.
Chalou, G. C. The Secrets War: The Office of Strategic Services in World War II. National Archives and Records Administration, 1991.
Dulles, A. The Secret Surrender. Harper & Row, 1966.
Dunlop, R. Donovan: America’s Master Spy. Rand-McNally, 1982.
Smith, B. F. The Shadow Warriors: OSS and the Origins of the CIA. Basic Press, 1983.
Yu, M. OSS in China: Prelude to Cold War. Yale University Press, 1996

Endnotes:

[1] Actor George Brent portrayed Donovan in a 1940 James Cagney film titled The Fighting 69th.

[2] Donovan experienced anti-Irish Catholic treatment at several junctions in his career, but most notably when Hoover promised Donovan the post of Attorney General and later recanted when Hoover’s southern backers balked at this nomination. Instead, Hoover offered him the governorship of the Philippines. Donovan turned down the appointment.

[3] One of Donovan’s political enemies was Douglas MacArthur, a former Army Chief of Staff who at one time was Donovan’s peer. Some say that MacArthur “craved” the Medal of Honor, so MacArthur may have resented Donovan who was the recipient of all three of the Army’s top medals for bravery: Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross, and Distinguished Service Medal. Donovan was subsequently awarded a second DSM, a Silver Star Medal, and three Purple Heart medals.

The Very Next Day

(Continued from last week)

Introduction

The Tet Offensive of 1968 was a general uprising and major escalation of the Vietnam War. It was one of the largest campaigns launched by the Viet Cong (VC) and North Vietnamese Army (NVA) targeting the Republic of Vietnam Army (ARVN) and the United States military forces.

Communist forces launched the Tet Offensive prematurely in the early morning hours of 31 January. It was a well-coordinated, country-wide assault involving more than 80,000 communist troops. They attacked more than 100 towns and cities, 36 of 44 provincial capitals, five of six autonomous cities, 72 of 245 district headquarters, and the capital in Saigon.

Communist leaders in the North Vietnam capital of Hanoi decided to launch the offensive in the belief that it would trigger a popular uprising leading to the collapse of the South Vietnamese government. Although the initial attacks stunned the allies, causing them a temporary loss of control over several cities, American and South Vietnamese forces quickly regrouped beat back the attacks, and inflicted heavy casualties on NVA/VC forces. A popular uprising never occurred — but there were plenty of pissed-off people in Saigon, and they weren’t all Americans.

Background

Vietnamese culture is one of the oldest in the world. Some argue, the oldest. Beyond keeping academics out of local bars, it may not matter. China and Vietnam have clashed for thousands of years — and in some matters, do so now. China hosts 26 dialects of the Chinese language; there are more than 100 languages spoken in Vietnam, involving five linguistic families. It is an interesting history — if one has an interest in anthropology. Most Americans who went to Vietnam had no interest at all in Vietnamese history however one labels it.

As bad as this sounds, most Americans returned to their homes thinking that if you’ve seen one Vietnamese, you’ve seen them all. To the American soldier or Marine, they all looked alike. To the American ear, they all spoke the same incomprehensible gibberish and lordy — their music!

There was also an issue involving trust. The Vietnamese people wouldn’t look an American full in the face. They always looked off to the side; it made the Americans think they were up to something. As God knows, some of them were up to something — and sometimes, it didn’t work out well for either the Americans or the Vietnamese.

Equally, the average Vietnamese wanted nothing at all to do with the disrespectful and lecherous barbarians from across the sea. Not the white boys, or those others — they were all rude and insensitive to Vietnamese traditions. The Vietnamese people would just as soon all the foreigners went home … and take their loud music and life-ending weapons with them. In time, the Americans would return to their homes; the Vietnamese were already home — and most had no interest in being saved.

Enemies

Nguyễn Văn Lém had two names. One was his real name, according to the social registry of South Vietnam; his other name was Bảy Lốp. He was a captain in the Viet Cong working covertly inside the capital city of Saigon, Republic of Vietnam. Sometime during the early morning hours of 31 January 1968, the start of the Tet Offensive of 1968, Captain Lém and his assassination team entered the home of Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Van Tuan of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and murdered him, his wife, his 80-year old mother, and six of his seven children. While shot twice, nine-year-old Nguyen Tu Huan survived the attack.

The circumstances of Captain Lém’s capture, and his arrest, is unknown to me. What is known is that Lém was delivered under guard with his hands bound behind him, to South Vietnamese brigadier general Nguyen Ngoc Loan.

Loan was born in 1930 to a middle-class family in the old Imperial City of Huế — one of eleven children. He studied to become a pharmacist before joining the Vietnamese National Army in 1951. He became a friend and confidante of a classmate named Nguyễn Cao Kỳ.[1] After pilot training, Loan transferred to the Vietnamese National Air Force (VNAF), serving as an attack pilot until 1965. At that time, then Prime Minister Kỳ appointed Loan to direct the Military Security Service and the Central Intelligence Organization — and, as an additional duty, Commanding General of the Republic of Vietnam National Police. General Loan was particularly useful to Vice President Kỳ in that capacity.

Loan (pictured right) was a staunch patriot and a South Vietnamese nationalist. He refused to grant American servicemen extraterritorial privileges, denied the U.S. high command the right to arrest Vietnamese civilians, and insisted that American civilians (journalists, contractors, etc.) were subject to South Vietnamese jurisprudence. It was this uncompromising position that caused U.S. President Lyndon Johnson to opine that Loan should be gotten rid of — which is not how Vice President Ky saw it. Loan also publicly criticized the CIA’s Phoenix Program. History now shows that General Loan was right, and the American CIA was wrong.

General Loan’s operatives arrested two Viet Cong operatives in August 1967. The two men had been engaged in sending peace initiatives to the U.S. government behind the back of the South Vietnam government. Loan, having discovered and publicized these double-dealings angered American diplomats but in the eyes of the South Vietnamese government, Nguyen Ngoc Loan was a hero. When Loan was promoted to Brigadier General, American officials complained, publicly — prompting Loan to submit his resignation to the South Vietnamese President. President Thieu refused to accept Loan’s resignation.[2]

It was 1 February 1968 and General Loan was not having a good day. Teams of Viet Cong assassins and sappers roamed the streets of Saigon. No one inside this sprawling city was safe. Worse, Loan’s policemen seemed unenthusiastic about doing their duty. Forty-five days before, Saigon, the capital city, had been placed under the exclusive control of the South Vietnamese Army. There was much confusion between civil and military authority and competing interests made the entire city a shamble. The ARVN reaction to the Tet Offensive was at best haphazard and if the truth were known, not even ARVN commanders knew whether they could trust their troops. It was a very confusing day for everyone, even the Viet Cong. And, as I indicated a moment ago, General Loan was not in a very good mood. So, when Captain Lém was delivered to General Loan, General Loan unholstered his .38 revolver and shot Lém in the head.

This event ended the scurrilous life of Lém the assassin, but it might have been better had General Loan realized that Lém’s execution was being recorded on film by American news photographer Eddie Adams. Adams was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Spot News in 1969 — and General Loan’s reputation was sullied for the balance of his life. The American press, you see, had only reported the most sensational part of the story — Lém’s execution. No one paid any attention to the fact that Lém had murdered an entire family in cold blood. The American press has never cared about “getting it right.” Rolling the presses is the only important thing.

The rest of the story

Captain Lém tried to murder Colonel Tuan’s entire family, but he left one member of the family alive. Wounded twice by gunshot, but still alive. The 9-year-old boy was Nguyen Tu Huan, who although seriously wounded, stayed by his mother’s side to comfort her as she bled to death. After dark, Huan escaped the house and was taken in and raised by his uncle, a colonel in the Vietnamese Air Force.

In 1975, Huan was 16 years of age and the Republic of Vietnam collapsed under the weight of its own ineptitude and the incompetence of the United States government. His aunt and uncle sought refuge in the United States (along with thousands of others) to escape communism. Transported through Guam, Navy and Marine Corps personnel took care of Nguyen and his adopted family — and it was this devotion of American sailors and Marines that inspired Huan to join the U.S. Navy.

In 1981, Nguyen Tu Huan graduated from Oklahoma State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering; in 1993, he received a commission in the Navy as a Reserve Engineering Duty Officer. He also holds advanced degrees in electrical engineering from Southern Methodist University, Engineering from Perdue University, and Information Technology from Carnegie Mellon University.

Huan’s naval service has included a wide range of assignments from testing officer and Officer-in-Charge, Navy Ship Repair Facility Detachment 113 at Yokosuka, Japan, Executive Officer, and Chief Engineer for Radio Controlled Improvised Explosive Device Warfare, Composite Squadron One, Director, Military Programs, Naval Sea Systems Command, Enlisted Personnel Engineering Duty Manager.

In 2019, the young boy who watched his mother die because of a murdering assassin in Saigon, in 1968, became the highest-ranking Vietnamese-American officer in the American Armed Forces. He is now Rear Admiral Huan T. Nguyen, United States Navy — but of course, you didn’t hear about this by the American press corps. You only heard about how General Loan violated the civil rights of a murdering scumbag. In reality, General Loan was a hero, and so too is Admiral Nguyen.

Endnotes:

[1] Vice President of South Vietnam, 1967-1971.

[2] Loan was later promoted to major general. At the fall of South Vietnam, Loan made his way to the United States and settled in the Washington suburb of Burke, Virginia. When Democratic Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman demanded that Loan be deported from the United States as a war criminal, President Jimmy Carter intervened, and Loan was allowed to remain in the United States. General Loan passed away from cancer in 1998.

Battleground Saigon — 1968

Background

Communist leaders in the North Vietnamese capital of Hanoi decided to launch the offensive in the belief that it would trigger a popular uprising leading to the collapse of the South Vietnamese government. Although the initial attacks stunned the allies, causing them a temporary loss of control over several cities, American and South Vietnamese forces quickly regrouped beat back the attacks, and inflicted heavy casualties on NVA/VC forces. A popular uprising never occurred.

Earlier, on 15 December 1967, U.S. forces communicated their confidence in the South Vietnamese military forces by turning over to them the authority and responsibility for defending the capital city. From that day forward, U.S. forces present in Saigon would only be responsible for defending themselves and their facilities within the confines of the capital city.

On the night of 30 January 1968, four South Vietnamese police (Cảnh Sát) posts provided an outer line of defense for the United States Embassy. Two military policemen from the 716^th Military Police Battalion, 18^th Military Police Brigade, guarded the vehicle entrance on Mac Dinh Chi Street. Two U.S. Marines of the Embassy’s Marine Security Guard stood post inside the Chancery Building: Sergeant Ronald W. Harper and Corporal George B. Zachuranic. Another Marine stood post on the roof of the Chancery Building; his name was Sergeant Rudy A. Soto.

The Fight

Shortly after midnight on 31 January, Viet Cong (VC) sappers from the C-10 Sapper Battalion gathered at a VC safehouse in the rear of a car repair facility at 59 Phan Thanh Gian Street to receive their weapons and receive their final briefing before their planned assault. Two of these men were employed by the U.S. Department of State. Their orders were to seize the embassy grounds, break into the chancery building, and seize hostages. The sappers were told that hundreds of anti-war and anti-government university students would converge on the embassy and stage a sit-down strike — thereby aiding the sappers in maintaining control of the Embassy.

Sappers approached the embassy in a truck with its lights off. Cảnh Sát sighted the vehicle, but rather than acting they took cover. As the vehicle off Mac Dinh Chi onto Thong Nhut the occupants opened fire on the military policemen guarding the vehicle gate. U.S. Army Specialist-4 Charles L. Daniel and Private First Class William E. Sebast returned fire, closed, and locked the steel gate, and radioed that they were under attack. Hearing the gunfire, Sergeant Ron Harper, who was at the rear of the Embassy, ran back through the rear door of the Chancery, across the lobby, past Corporal Zahuranic (who was in the process of calling for reinforcements), pulled a Vietnamese night watchman into the Embassy, and then closed and bolted the heavy teak doors to the Chancery.

The VC blew a hole in the perimeter wall at 0247 and gained access to the embassy compound. Daniel and Sebast killed the first two VC through the breach. Daniel radioed to his command that the VC were breaching the perimeter. While on the radio, a VC armed with an automatic rifle emerged from the rear parking lot and killed Daniel and Sebast. A second man carrying a rifle came around the building and the two men later determined to be the two employees of the State Department, joined the other VC on the front lawn.

On the Chancery roof, Sergeant Soto observed the VC coming through the wall and attempted to fire on them with his 12-gauge shotgun. The weapon jammed. He then emptied his .38 caliber revolver, but the fire was inaccurate from that distance. Inside the Embassy grounds, the VC opened fire on the Chancery Building with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). Several RPGs penetrated the walls of the Chancery, wounding George Zahuranic and destroying two radios in the guard post. Soto tried unsuccessfully to contact the lobby guard post and assumed that the Marines were dead or otherwise incapacitated.[1]

The Commanding Officer of the 716^th MP Battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Gordon D. Rowe, received the distress call from the Embassy and dispatched several jeep patrols to investigate what was happening. The first two vehicles took routes that passed through to the south of the rear vehicle gate, arriving at the base of an unfinished high-rise building — where the attacking VC had decided to shelter during the assault. The VC destroyed these vehicles, killing two MPs and wounding three. A third jeep reached the Embassy’s pedestrian gate without incident but was unaware of the situation. VC gunners cut down Army Sergeant Johnnie B. Thomas and Specialist Owen E. Mebust as they exited their vehicle to investigate.

In addition to the three Marine Security Guards, there were two Vietnamese and six American civilians inside the Chancery building at the time of the assault. The Americans armed themselves with .38 revolvers, Beretta pistols, and available M-12 shotguns — and then waited for the VC to enter the building.

Outside, the VC were unsure of their next move because MPs Daniel and Sebast had shot and killed the leaders of both sapper teams. Together, the sapper teams had more than forty pounds of C-4 explosives and could have blown their way into the Chancery, had they thought of it. Instead, they took up positions in or near the circular planters on the Embassy grounds and returned fire at the growing numbers of Americans shooting at them.

Five blocks away from the U.S. Embassy, at “Marine House,” Captain Robert J. O’Brien received word of the attack from Corporal Dennis L. Ryan at around 0250.[2] O’Brien mustered off-duty security guards, Sergeant Richard G. Frattarelli, Sergeant Patullo, Sergeant Raymond E. Reed, and Corporal Timothy P. Inemer, and headed for the Embassy. Arriving at the Embassy, Captain O’Brien and his men immediately engaged the VC inside the compound but were driven to seek cover by the superior firepower of the enemy. At around 0300, two civilian security officers (Mr. Crampsey and Mr. Furey) reinforced the Marine reaction force. Attempts to shoot off the locks of the gates were unsuccessful in the darkness.

Meanwhile, according to Captain O’Brien’s after-action report, his reaction force and the two civilian security officers began receiving fire from the Cảnh Sát station 200 yards further distant from the Embassy.[3] Cảnh Sát targeting U.S. Marines put the OIC out of communication with Marine House for about three and one-half hours until around 0630.

About 0300, Army MPs stopped O’Brien and Staff Sergeant Banks and their small team at the corner of Hai Ba Trung Street and Thong Nhut Boulevard near the Norodom Compound Gate. O’Brien and Banks decided to split their force leaving one group at Norodom. O’Brien led one group along the Embassy wall toward the main front entrance. Enemy automatic weapons and RPGs drove them back toward Norodom Compound. Remaining outside the compound, SSgt Banks integrated the Marines into existing firing positions. He placed some of his men on the Consular section roof from where they could bring fire to bear on the Viet Cong inside the Embassy grounds.

About 0350, a group of about six or seven MPs arrived at Norodom and joined in the firefight with the Marine Security Guard. At about this time, some of the Marine Security Guard had worked their way behind the Consular Buildings and found the rear gate by the maintenance shacks open. Both Marine Security Guards and MPs tried to get into the Embassy Compound through this gate but were prevented from doing so by enemy automatic weapons and RPG fire from inside the Embassy compound.

The Norodom gate is where Sgt Jimerson was hit by enemy fire while trying to get through the gate. The Viet Cong had this entrance covered from positions behind parked cars in the Embassy parking lot. Sgt Jimerson was quickly evacuated to the 17^th Field Hospital. While this action was taking place other Marine Security Guards and MPs were exchanging fire with Viet Cong from the Norodom roof.

At around 0400, the VC fired several rockets at the Norodom roof, which injured Corporal Ryan, who was also evacuated to the hospital. Corporal James C. Marshall, Corporal Wilson, and two Army MPs remained on the roof and continued to fire at the VC. Marshall was hit with shrapnel from an RPG explosion but remained in place and continued to engage the enemy until killed by automatic weapons fire.

Sergeant Scheupfer, who remained at ground level, received a shrapnel wound to his hand. O’Brien and Crampsey climbed onto the rooftops of buildings along the rear wall of the Embassy Compound facing the Mission Coordinator’s House. From that position, O’Brien and Crampsey brought two or three VC under fire. Meanwhile, an aide to Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker contacted the head of the Saigon Police and demanded reinforcements. The officer commanding the first precinct (nearest the Embassy) blatantly refused to move his men in the darkness of the early morning.[4]

SSgt Banks notified GySgt Allen Morrison at the Marine House of the difficulty he was having in trying to gain entrance to the embassy. Morrison advised Banks to hold in place until daylight when reinforcements and resupplies could be moved up. This was a sound tactical decision. By this time, Banks had learned from Harper that no Viet Cong had gotten inside the building, but Corporal Zahuranic was wounded. Additional MPs began to arrive at the time and began taking up positions in the vacant lot across the street from the Embassy.

At 0420, General William Westmoreland, Commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (COMUSMACV), ordered the 716^th MP Battalion to clear the embassy as their first priority. Colonel Rowe, lacking armored vehicles or helicopters, moved reinforcements by truck and jeep to cordon off the Embassy. The tactical situation was confused and hampered by darkness and lack of communications between allied forces (Marines inside and outside of the Embassy, Marines with supporting Army MPs, Americans with Vietnamese police). In any event, it was easier to locate a herd of unicorns than it was any presence of Cảnh Sát around or near the U.S. Embassy over the next 18 hours.

At 0500, a helicopter carrying troops from the 101^st Airborne Division attempted a landing on the roof of the Embassy, but enemy fire drove it off. An hour later, another helicopter landed on the roof of the Embassy, picked up Corporal Zahuranic, and dropped off three cases of M-16 ammunition. Since the Marines didn’t have M-16s, the resupply was a wasted effort.

At dawn, MPs were able to shoot the locks off the Embassy gate on Thong Nhut Boulevard and ram open the gates with a motor vehicle. Once the gate was open, Army MPs and Marine Security Guard reinforcements charged into the Embassy compound. The second team of MPs stormed the rear parking area. Within a few moments, all remaining VC were either killed or dying from gunshot wounds. At about this time, a helicopter carrying troops from the 101^st Airborne landed on the roof and began the task of clearing the building.

After the U.S. Embassy buildings and grounds were declared secure, General Westmoreland and his security detail arrived by car to inspect the grounds. Ambassador Bunker directed that the Embassy reopen for business at mid-day.

(Continued next week)

Endnotes:

[1] Marine Security Guards were armed with either .38 caliber revolvers, 9mm pistols, or M-12 semi-automatic shotguns. Handguns (or side arms) are not accurate beyond 20 yards and shotguns are “close-in” weapons. While the Marines did return VC fire, their weapons were not suitable for a sustained firefight with men armed with AK-47 automatic rifles.

[2] Lieutenant Colonel Robert Joseph O’Brien (1931 – 2020) served in both the Korean and Vietnam wars. He passed away on 23 January 2020, 52 years after the battle of the U.S. Embassy. He was survived by his wife Joanne and three grown children.

[3] O’Brien’s report may have been edited to avoid any allegation that Vietnamese police were in acting in accordance with Viet Cong sappers — but if two Embassy employees were involved with the sappers, it is not inconceivable that the police were also aiding the enemy.

[4] Out of a contingent of 300 National Policemen in Saigon, only 25 reported for duty during the Tet Offensive.

No Peace to Keep — Part II

Somalia, 1992-95

The Ongoing Threat

Somalia remained a dangerous place because of the randomness of armed assaults. Marines and soldiers on patrol could never be sure when they might walk into a factional firefight or run into a gang of thugs. On 12 January 1993, a security patrol was making a routine sweep along the southwest corner of the Mogadishu airfield. At 2140, the patrol walked into an ambush and engaged in a firefight with several Somalis.

PFC Domingo Arroyo, a member of the security patrol, was mortally wounded. Arroyo’s military occupational specialty was “field wireman,” primarily assigned to Headquarters Battery, 3rd Battalion, 11th Marines (artillery). His participation in the security patrol was in keeping with this Marine Corps tradition: Every Marine is a Rifleman. PFC Arroyo was the first Marine killed in Somalia.

General Wilhelm realized that to carry out his security mission, Mogadishu would have to be stabilized. He wanted an aggressive plan to develop intelligence sources to enable Marines to become better prepared for their dangerous duties. The result was a four-phase plan within which each phase would turn simultaneously, like the wheels in a timepiece.

The phases were (a) collect information about the human population (clans, where they lived, location of gang leaders, etc.), (b) Increased foot patrols and checkpoints, increase the visibility of the troops, (c) direct action as required, and (d) evaluation, assessment, and formulating an updated plan for ongoing actions.

The units involved in this new process, organized within the MARFOR Mogadishu Task Force under Colonel Jack W. Klimp, were 3rd Battalion, 11th Marines, 3rd Amphibious Assault Battalion, 3rd Light Armored Infantry Battalion, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, and Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 9th Marines.

The task force numbered 2,000 Marines with its CP at the sports stadium in the northern section of the city — where most of the factional conflicts took place. Its main activity was patrolling, which enabled Marines to gather intelligence and demonstrate their constant presence. Patrolling reduced violence and reassured citizens of the Marine’s benign intent. Patrols also raided arms merchants within the outdoor markets and confiscated firearms whenever encountered.[1]

Shift in Mission

In January 1993, Bill Clinton assumed the presidency. What Mr. Clinton understood about military operations would fit entirely on a post-it note. Worse, all Clinton had available to advise him was Defense Secretary Les Aspin, Chairman of the JCS, General John Shalikashvili, and Commander, Central Command, General Joseph P. Hoar.

In early March 1993, UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali submitted to the UN Security Council his plan for returning Somali operations to the United Nations. He acknowledged that the US-led peacekeeping/humanitarian missions were successful. However, there was still no national government, police, or national army, and tribal factions continued to threaten the stability of the Horn of Africa. To that end, the Secretary-General authorized UNOSOM II to establish a more secure environment throughout Somalia to achieve national reconciliation and a democratic state.

At a National Reconciliation Conference in Somalia, all fifteen Somali factions agreed to restore peace and democracy. However, within a month, General Aideed’s faction had another think and decided not to cooperate with UNOSOM. Aideed began broadcasting anti-UN propaganda over Radio Mogadishu, which prompted the Commander, UNOSOM II, Lieutenant General Cervik Bir, to shut down the radio station.

Meanwhile, UNOSOM’s principal staffers were all Somalis with no direct benefit in the success of the UN mission. This explains how the UNOSOM organization became saturated with factional spies. Aideed, for example, knew what UNOSOM was planning almost before General Bir. After Aideed’s forces assaulted a Pakistani peacekeeping force, killing 24 and wounding 57 (also wounding 1 Italian and 3 American soldiers), the UN ordered the arrest and prosecution of General Aideed.

The search for Aideed began in earnest on 12 June. Despite a house-to-house search for Aideed, he was never located. On 12 July (Bloody Monday), US forces assaulted a house believed to contain Aideed. Killed in the attack were several tribal leaders who, post mortem, were said to have been discussing peace arrangements with other factions — but that isn’t the information US forces had before the attack. They believed Aideed was present at that “meeting of elders.” Whatever the truth, the International Red Cross stated that 54 Somalis died in the attack, with an additional 161 wounded. Aideed was not among the casualties.[2]

On 8 August, Aideed’s forces detonated a remote-controlled bomb against a US military vehicle, killing all four of its occupants. Two weeks later, another bomb killed or injured seven more soldiers. President Bill Clinton responded by ordering a Special Forces Task Force, including 400 Army Rangers, to deal with Aideed. The Special Forces unit arrived in Somalia on 22 August 1993. A month later, forces under Aideed shot down a Black Hawk Helicopter in the New Port area of Mogadishu. All three crewmen died in the explosion/crash.

The Battle of Mogadishu

Also referred to as Operation Gothic Serpent, the battle began as a military quest by the U.S.-led peacekeeping and humanitarian coalition to capture Mohamed Farrah Aideed.[3] General Aideed’s assault against coalition forces was part of a larger scheme by Saudi Arabia-funded Al-Qaeda to discredit the American armed forces and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East/Africa.

As part of the operation, led by the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), coalition troops were deployed to arrest two of Aideed’s lieutenants. It quickly evolved into the Battle of Mogadishu (22 August-13 October 1993) and resulted in an unmitigated disaster for coalition troops and a strategic victory for Al Qaeda and the Somali National Alliance. It was one of the most devastating battle losses in U.S. history. By using the phrase “battle losses,” I do not refer simply to the 19 American, 25 Pakistani, or 1 Malaysian soldier killed; I refer to the fact that President Bill Clinton’s weak leadership, his lack of resolve, and the imposition of overly-restrictive rules of engagement allowed barely armed Somalis to hand the U.S. military a resounding defeat.

On 3 October, the joint-task force commander dispatched 160 combat troops, twelve vehicles, and 19 aircraft to make the arrest. Aideed’s lieutenants were soon taken into custody and, along with an injured soldier, loaded into vehicles for transportation back to the mission command post. However, armed militiamen surrounded by women and children converged on the target area from throughout the city. Gunfire erupted, resulting in one Somali and one coalition death. The radio report “stunned” the operational commander because “they expected no casualties.”[4]

In the violence that followed, Somali insurgents shot down two Black Hawk Helicopters, killing crew members and rescuers. Somalis also quickly surrounded the reaction force dispatched to the scene. A bloody battle ensued as coalition troops became overwhelmed by civilian men, women, and teenagers closing to within a few feet to give a fight. In addition to the twenty coalition troops killed in action, 82 others received combat wounds/injuries. Of the Somalis, coalition troops killed an estimated 1,000 and wounded 3,000. These “estimates” remain questionable, however.

The Aftermath

Under the auspices of a UNO Peacekeeping/Humanitarian effort, the United States entered Somalia in December 1992 to stop the imminent starvation of millions of people. For a time, these substantial efforts succeeded in feeding the hungry, but neither the UNO nor its surrogate, the United States, managed to broker peace among warring factions.

It was a poorly organized, ineffectually managed nation-building operation. American officials, demonstrating either their incompetence or naivete, expected gratitude for their humanitarian efforts. That did not happen because U.S. officials were blind to the reality of Saudi Arabia’s behind-the-scenes Wahhabist activities. Nation-building did not work in South Vietnam; it did not work (again) in Somalia — and yet, the United States still had not learned any valuable lessons from this by the time of the Iraqi War in 2003.

In the long-term, UNO and United States diplomatic and military efforts failed to achieve its mission: peace and security in Somalia and starvation relief for its 10 million people. It wasn’t even a good try. It was a case of diplomatic and military ineptitude combined with numerous Somali factions trying to out-jockey one another for supreme control. The Somali people proved themselves their own worst enemy. Still, America gave up 42 of its young men. Despite its superiority in armaments and technology, it allowed stone-age people to divert them from a worthwhile mission and force them to capitulate.

American military power allowed the United States access to conditions that might have led to conditions for peace amid famine and bloodshed, but the various factions were not yet exhausted from fighting, and they were themselves unwilling to stop the carnage. Ignoring the befuddled actions of UNO/American operational managers (who acted more like senior civilian officials and lieutenants than they did senior civilian officials and general officers), the troops did their best under the worst possible conditions. Simply stated, there was no peace in Somalia to keep. We must learn that the best soldiers in the world can only deliver up a foundation for peace — they cannot create peace itself.

Sources:

Allard, K. Somalia Operations: Lessons Learned. National Defense University Press, 1995.
Bowden, M. Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern Warfare. Atlantic Monthly Press,1999.
Mroczkowski, D. P. Restoring Hope: In Somalia with the Unified Task Force, 1992-1993. HQMC History Division, 2005.
Sangvic, R. N. The Battle of Mogadishu: Anatomy of Failure. Army Command and General Staff School, 1998.
Wright, L. The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. Knopf Publishing, 2006

Endnotes:

[1] The arms merchants weren’t “gun dealers.” Arms merchants sold RPGs, assault rifles, machine guns, mortars, missiles, tank rounds, and weapons from nearly every manufacturer in the world. In the first raid, Marines confiscated 1,500 assorted weapons. Of course, the market raids merely drove the markets underground, but the word was out, and it made the city a safer place for everyone.

[2] Four western journalists (Dan Eldon, Hos Maina, Hansi Kraus, and Anthony Macharia) rushed to cover the story. An angry Somali mob turned on these journalists and killed them — so the day wasn’t a total loss.

[3] “General” Mohamed Farrah Aideed was killed by another Somali faction on 5 August 1996. His son, Hussein Mohamed Farrah (Aideed) is a naturalized US citizen and a former U. S. Marine (1987-1995). Corporal Farrah subsequently served as Deputy Prime Minister of Somalia. He now lives in Eritrea.

[4] It is inconceivable to me that any military commander would send 160 troops, 19 aircraft, and 12 vehicles on a mission and not anticipate the possibility of casualties … particularly in light of the incident on 8 September when a large Somali force attacked coalition troops at a roadblock location. Two additional assaults occurred on 16 and 21 September. Crumbs.