The Skorzeny Papers by Ralph Ganis

Author:Ralph Ganis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2018-06-17T16:00:00+00:00

COLONEL EDWARD LANSDALE AND LUCIEN CONEIN

A little over a year earlier, on March 15, 1954, President Eisenhower signed National Security Council Order 5412 (NSC 5412), the National Security Directive of Covert Operations. This extremely important directive established the CIA as the lead for wide-ranging covert actions abroad. A partial list of responsibilities included propaganda, political action, economic warfare, preventative direct action (including sabotage), escape, evasion and evacuation, subversion, assistance to underground resistance, and support to guerrilla movements. Omitted were military deception operations, espionage, and counter-espionage. The NSC 5412 framework matches the scope of operations that would be levied upon Otto Skorzeny for his involvement in Cuba, the Congo, Algeria, and other places, not discussed in this book.

A highly secret group of senior government officials was tasked to coordinate covert actions implemented under the directive. This body was called the Special Group (or Special Team). In June 1954, a USAF officer named Edward Lansdale was sent under Top Secret orders to Vietnam to head up the Saigon Military Mission, a cover for CIA psychological operations. Lansdale was a former OSS officer, who had a great deal of experience in guerrilla warfare, gained during fighting the Japanese in the Philippines. Lansdale was noted for psychological operations to influence the enemy and gain support of indigenous forces. He arrived in Vietnam as a field grade officer but eventually rose to the rank of Major General. During the anti-Castro operations conducted between 1959 and 1962, he was deeply involved with the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations. Lansdale resigned from the service on November 1, 1963, twenty-one days before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He would later return to Vietnam in 1965 as a U.S. diplomatic officer, staying at that post until 1968.

Lt. Colonel Lansdale’s cover in Saigon was as a U.S. Embassy air attaché. At that time, there was a second CIA mission, overseen by Emmett McCarthy. The two did not get along, which caused some problems in their working relationships. In July, another former OSS veteran, Major Lucien Conein, was dispatched to work with Lansdale. This was “Black Luigi,” whose history with Skorzeny reached back to the Document Disposal Unit that had handled matters for the covert projects run out of Camp King in 1948. Conein had also worked with William K. Harvey in Germany between 1949 and 1953. Thus, Conein was very likely privy to the French Intelligence use of Skorzeny in France.

After his European assignment had ended, Conein was dispatched to Vietnam to assist Colonel Lansdale. His work primarily entailed mounting covert operations against the government of Ho Chi Minh in North Vietnam, a duty carried out in coordination with the U.S. MAAG. In 1955, two new officers joined the U.S. MAAG team in Vietnam: Brigadier General Earl C. Bergquist, the former deputy of MAAG-Spain, and Lt. Colonel Charles Askins. Both men had worked with Skorzeny in Madrid. General Bergquist’s new assignment was as the deputy commanding officer for the Saigon Military Mission, who oversaw military training for South Vietnam.

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