Download document in Acrobat format

left-click to open in browser
right-click to save to hard drive

>>> Explanation of this document, by Douglas Valentine:

On 22 November 1966, Brickham presented Robert Komer with his original think piece, titled "Attack Against VC Infrastructure."

"Attack Against VC Infrastructure" was written during the Roles and Missions reorganization in preparation for fighting the pacification war. The Roles and Missions Study and Combined Campaign Plan stressed that increased emphasis should be given to identifying and eliminating the VC Infrastructure (as defined within the document) and to small unit operations designed specifically to destroy guerrilla forces. According to Bickham, "People wanted to know what was meant by the term 'Viet Cong Infrastructure.'" Even the military had no idea, so Howard Stone arranged for Brickham to brief General William Westmoreland.

Brickham wrote "Attack" as the basis for his hour-long Westmoreland briefing. "Attack" was the first time the CIA revealed to the military that it had Province Interrogation Programs (PICs) and that it kept "political order of battle" files.

"Attack" is important because it defines the VCI in its first sentence: "The VC organizational hierarchy, the mangement structure, as opposed to guerrialls for example, VC troops, and even, in many cases, VC terrorists." It adds to this definition all communist party members, front officers, and suicide bombers (sappers). Brickham likened the "attack on the VCI" to going after the Mafia, because the Mafia attracts bad people and uses selective terror and extortion to achieve its goals.

"Attack" is also significant in that it defines the attack as a function of the Police Special Branch, with its HIP, PIC, and penetration operations. Notably, the means of attack were ambushes, counterterror teams, popular and regional forces (like our National Guard and Reserves), Special Forces elements, plus regular Army Search and Destroy, Hamlet Search, and Country Fair operations. One can include the My Lai Massacre in the attack on the VCI, as a Phoenix "concept" operation. Although the attack on the VCI was essentially a secret police operation that relied on blacklists and assassination squads, B-52s and artillery bombardments were also frequently used to neutralize members of the VCI, along with their families and everyone else in their villages and hamlets.

"Attack" mentions the Cong Tac IV program, in which US Army intelligence officers were sent to 20 districts and precincts in and around Saigon. Cong Tac IV organized the initial Phoenix database of VCI on 3-by-5 cards. The CT IV units used regular Army units as a shield to sweep into villages to try to identify VCI from Special Branch blacklists, with the help of the National Police Field Forces. (The Department of Homeland Security is likewise militarizing secret units with police departments across America.)

"Attack" also mentions the Dien Ban DIOCC (mini-PIC) pilot program in Quang Ngai Province. The DIOCCs (District Intelligence and Operations Coordination Centers) were created by the CIA and Marines in IV Corps.

"Attack" suggested incorporating the Special Branch operations already in place, with the Cong Tac IV and DIOCC programs, and combining them in a national program that coordinated the 22 some-odd intelligence agencies in each province, in the attack on the VCI.

22 November 1966

ATTACK AGAINST VC INFRASTRUCTURE

1. When we speak of the VC infrastructure, we are
speaking of the VC organizational hierarchy, the man-
agement structure, as opposed to guerrillas, for example,
VC ttoops and even, in many cases, VC terrorists. Many
if not most of these latter categories, guerrillas, troops,
and even terrorists, are young people who have been either
impressed or seduced into the VC, and cannot in any way
be considered "hard core" Communists.

2. We do include in "infrastructure" all PRP mem-
bers, and all front organization officers (as opposed
to the rank and file of these front organizations).
Thus all members of a village chapter, all District
Committee and all Province Committee cadre are included
as of course the higher echelons. Region (or Zone) and
COSVN. We would also include members of the so-called
sapper units--these people are harderned <sic> Communist troops,
organized in military formations, to carry out sabotage
and terrorism of the larger and more dramatic nature--
hotel bombings in Saigon, Long Binh ammunition dump,
General Walt's residence. These latter are not casual
acts of terrorism, but carefully planned and fully or-
ganized military operations--Commando type operations.

3. Effective attack on VC infrastructure depends
on precise identification, location, and pattern of move-
ments and activities of these Viet Cong cadre and their
organizational units.

4. To the end of developing intelligence infor-
mation on the infrastructure, we have three operational
collection programs: informant operations; interrogations
of captured (or arrested) and defected VC; and agent
penetrations of VC organizations.

5. Informant operations, as they affect the infra-
structure per se, produce information mainly on hamlet
and village cadre and guerrillas, and to a much lesser
extent on District level cadre. These latter, the Dis-
trict cadre, will be mainly tax-collectors, propagandists,
and so on, those VC elements exposed to the "general
public". Informants can quite often give information
regarding locations of District and higher headquarters,
bases, meetings and so on, without however, providing
useful identification of the persons.

[page 2]

Page Two

6. The interrogation of prisoners and defectors
is by far the most important source of infrastructure
information, in terms of identifications, job decrip-
tion, physical description, activities, base areas, hid-
ing places, and so on. Very rarely, however, can pri-
prisoners or defectors give advance information on locations
and movements, meetings, conferences, et cetera.

7. The third program, agent penetrations, can
produce substantional bodies of infrastructure infor-
mation--identifications of cadre, movements and act-
ivities, and at times advance information of meetings
and conferences. Our handicap here is that agent com-
munications are characteristically slow; so that fre-
uqently, even though an agent has learned in advance of
a cadre conference, we or a military element able to
react, receive the information too late.

8. We have, as of last complete reporting date,
30 September, 137 penetrations of District committees
throughout the country, of which 93 are Police Special
Branch penetrations, and 44 are CIO. We had under
development as of that date 153 additional District
level penetration cases, 92 PSB and 61 CIO. We had,
as of 30 September, 15 Province Committee penetrations,
with an additional 20 under development.

9. An additional source of information not regarded
as a separate operational program, is the exploitation
of captured documents.

10. It is important to realize that, due to VC
use of aliases, VC security compartmentation, and geo-
graphical dispersal of the various sections of, for
example a VC Province Committee the full and complete
true name identificntion of these cadre is very dif-
ficult. Many VC are known only alias.

11. Information from the above four sources is
assembled and collated in Province Police Special Branches.
Once a year, each Province PSB will publish a VC Pol-
itical Order of Battle, which will contain all that
the police know of the VC organization, and a fill-in,
to the extent possible, of the true names of identified
VC cadre. Vietnamese reporting channels are not very
effic1ent however. It turns out that a great deal of

[page 3]

Page Three

information on VC identifications will exist in Police
files at District level, and also in Sub-Sector files.
In order to prepare complete political OB's, for mili-
tary operations, for example, not only will Province
and Sub-Sector will be collected and added. This is a
slow laborious process.

12. Attack against the infrastructure involves a
variety of action "tools". Arrest of terrorists and
saboteurs often lead immediately to the arrest of
underground cells in GVN cities. VC cadre may be
arrested in GVN controlled areas, based on informant
tips or on reports of penetration agents. It is quite
rare, however, to catch high-level cadre in this fashion--
what we get will be city cadre and occasionnlly a Dis-
trict Committee officer. Danang, Qui Nhon, Phan Thiet,
Tuy Hoa, Han Me Thuot, Saigon, Can Tho, are all cities
where (extensive) underground networks have been rounded
up onne or more occasions in 1966.

13. In the country side <sic> several different action
"processes" are employed. First will be the precisely
targetted raid of ambush, based upon intelligence in-
formation regarding the residence or future movements
of one or more cadre. We try, by these and other means,
to capture meetings or conferences of VC Village chapters
and District Committees. These raids or ambushes may be
carried out by the Police, by PRU's by RF, or in some
areas by Special Forces elements. Such raids have been
quite successful, or partially successful - when they
result in one or more VC Village or District Cadre being
killed. Unfortunately, they are more often killed than
captured.

14. A second action method is the military search
and destroy, hamlet search or "County Fair" type op-
operation. For these operations, the Police prepare
search lists from their files; to an increasing extent
as a result of encouragement and pressure, they also
collect VC defectors and other sources to use as
"identifiers" of VC caught in these cordon and sweep
operations. A modest number of Viet Cong village and
district cadre will be caught and identified in these

[page 4]

Page Four

operations, and at times one or more Province level or
higher cadre may be caught and identified. Thus in Phuoc
Tuy Province, a recent sweep operation caught a Province
Committee security cadre. In operation Irving, a Zone 5
(VC Region level) economic cadre was captured. Those are
just the most recent such catches.

15. A final and not insignificant aspect of the
attack on infrastructure are the direct military op-
eration targetted on the VC District, Province, or
Region base areas. Whereas it is possible to reach
District Committee bases, meetings, and conferences with
small ground units, and it is possible to capture the
District Cadre, catching Province and higher cadre has
so far, largely been a matter of luck. Province and higher
level cadre very rarely are exposed to capture. However,
almosy all reasonably reliable information on District
Committee meetings, Province Committee and higher base
areas, meeting, and conferences are increasingly result-
ing in air or artillery strikes. Sometimes military
operations are directed against a VC gathering rather
than a <sic> installation. For example, a Marine Battalion
attacked a Quang Nam Province Committee conference last
spring, and more recently, 175mm artillery fire was
directed on the reported site of a combined conference of
MR-4, MR-l and COSVN representatives. We have on occasion
been fortunate enought <sic> to receive after-action information
on such strikes, and we are confident that the damage to
the infrastructure, intterms <sic> of key personnel killed, is
significant.

16. The overrunning by Australian troops in January
1966 of the Saigon/Cholon/Gia Dinh Special Zone Committee
(now VC Region 4) headquarters in the Ho Bo woods is a <sic>
example of military operational activity. While not cap-
turing "infrastructure", the operation destroyed and dis-
rupted the headquarters, and the documents loss suffered
by the VC unquestionably seriously degraded the Special
Zone Committee capability, at least temporarily.

17. A special Task force has been organized to
launch a combined intelligence/police/military assault
against the MR-4 (Saigon/Cholon/Gia Dinh Special Zone
Committee) headquarters and base area.

front page | newest additions | index + search | book guide
about | contact | donate