thence to a small cottage in back. The defectors put the twelve boxes on a big wooden table in the cottage’s main room, then left. Yanking the string of the ceiling fan, Co Yung said: “Commençons.”
We commenced. She emptied the first box on the table, and skimmed through the papers. They were in Vietnamese, of course, which she translated into French. I wrote what she said onto a legal-size pad of yellow paper, translating as much as I understood into English. Soon she began to ask what such-and-such a word was in English. I’dtell her, and henceforth—to my amazement—she used English. Sometimes I’d ask her what something was in Vietnamese. She’d tell me, and I’d write it down in a notebook.
The first box took almost an hour to get through. Like the other boxes, as I was to find, it concerned one person. For all the time we spent on him, he didn’t amount to much: a part-time VC courier, apparently a civilian. However, the other boxes were about soldiers. Co Yung and I sorted out the military terms as we went along. For example:
YUNG : This one belongs to the auto-defense.
ADAMS : That’s self-defense in English. What’s the Vietnamese?
YUNG : Tu ve. (And she wrote it down for me with the proper accent marks.)
A second example:
YUNG : This one’s a guerrilla.
ADAMS : Same word in English.
YUNG : Du kich in Vietnamese.
The examples were typical. Most of the first twelve defectors were either “guerrillas” or “self-defense” militiamen, belonging to a sort of VC home guard, whose job, it seems, was to defend VC territory. After much passing back and forth of notes—in French, Vietnamese, and increasingly in English—we finished the twelfth box at 6:00 P.M. , quitting time. Lieutenant Chat’s defectors fetched the boxes back to the Chieu Hoi center. “La même chose demain,” I said to Co Yung. “It shall be my pleasure,” she replied in English. We parted, me going to the rowhouse for an early supper and bed.
As I lay in the dark, listening to the nightly skirmish start up a mile or two out of town, I thought with satisfaction that at long last I was finding out who the defectors were. Okay, my data base was only twelve, but that was twelve more than anyone else’s. I went to sleep not knowing that I had taken the first step on a path that eventually led to the most far-reaching intelligence discovery of the Vietnam War.
Publisher’s note: After the CBS-Westmoreland trial Adams intended to rewrite his book to include some of the new information which had emerged during the three-year legal struggle. The following passage, a kind of author’s aside, was intended as part of this effort, but it remains unique—no others had been completed when Adams died.
[Until this point, what I have written has been entirely autobiographical, describing what I heard or saw at the time. The following five paragraphs deal with events that took place simultaneously out of my hearing and sight. I found out about them after resigning from the CIA.]
Oblivious to the doings in Tan An, the main overseers of the war were gathering at United States’ Pacific headquarters at Camp Smith, Hawaii. It was President Lyndon Johnson’s first meeting with General William Westmoreland in the general’s role as America’s commander in the field.
“I have a lot riding on you,” the president told the general. Westmoreland thought Johnson looked worried and intense, uncertain exactly what course to take in Vietnam. That was why they were there: to make basic decisions on the war. Among those present were Robert McNamara of Defense; Dean Rusk of State; Earl Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Walt Rostow, soon to head the National Security Council; and President Thieu and Prime Minister Ky of South Vietnam. 5
There was a series of formal briefings, one by Westmoreland’s chief of intelligence, the J-2, Brigadier General Joseph McChristian. Yes, McChristian said, things are better than they were a
We commenced. She emptied the first box on the table, and skimmed through the papers. They were in Vietnamese, of course, which she translated into French. I wrote what she said onto a legal-size pad of yellow paper, translating as much as I understood into English. Soon she began to ask what such-and-such a word was in English. I’dtell her, and henceforth—to my amazement—she used English. Sometimes I’d ask her what something was in Vietnamese. She’d tell me, and I’d write it down in a notebook.
The first box took almost an hour to get through. Like the other boxes, as I was to find, it concerned one person. For all the time we spent on him, he didn’t amount to much: a part-time VC courier, apparently a civilian. However, the other boxes were about soldiers. Co Yung and I sorted out the military terms as we went along. For example:
YUNG : This one belongs to the auto-defense.
ADAMS : That’s self-defense in English. What’s the Vietnamese?
YUNG : Tu ve. (And she wrote it down for me with the proper accent marks.)
A second example:
YUNG : This one’s a guerrilla.
ADAMS : Same word in English.
YUNG : Du kich in Vietnamese.
The examples were typical. Most of the first twelve defectors were either “guerrillas” or “self-defense” militiamen, belonging to a sort of VC home guard, whose job, it seems, was to defend VC territory. After much passing back and forth of notes—in French, Vietnamese, and increasingly in English—we finished the twelfth box at 6:00 P.M. , quitting time. Lieutenant Chat’s defectors fetched the boxes back to the Chieu Hoi center. “La même chose demain,” I said to Co Yung. “It shall be my pleasure,” she replied in English. We parted, me going to the rowhouse for an early supper and bed.
As I lay in the dark, listening to the nightly skirmish start up a mile or two out of town, I thought with satisfaction that at long last I was finding out who the defectors were. Okay, my data base was only twelve, but that was twelve more than anyone else’s. I went to sleep not knowing that I had taken the first step on a path that eventually led to the most far-reaching intelligence discovery of the Vietnam War.
Publisher’s note: After the CBS-Westmoreland trial Adams intended to rewrite his book to include some of the new information which had emerged during the three-year legal struggle. The following passage, a kind of author’s aside, was intended as part of this effort, but it remains unique—no others had been completed when Adams died.
[Until this point, what I have written has been entirely autobiographical, describing what I heard or saw at the time. The following five paragraphs deal with events that took place simultaneously out of my hearing and sight. I found out about them after resigning from the CIA.]
Oblivious to the doings in Tan An, the main overseers of the war were gathering at United States’ Pacific headquarters at Camp Smith, Hawaii. It was President Lyndon Johnson’s first meeting with General William Westmoreland in the general’s role as America’s commander in the field.
“I have a lot riding on you,” the president told the general. Westmoreland thought Johnson looked worried and intense, uncertain exactly what course to take in Vietnam. That was why they were there: to make basic decisions on the war. Among those present were Robert McNamara of Defense; Dean Rusk of State; Earl Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Walt Rostow, soon to head the National Security Council; and President Thieu and Prime Minister Ky of South Vietnam. 5
There was a series of formal briefings, one by Westmoreland’s chief of intelligence, the J-2, Brigadier General Joseph McChristian. Yes, McChristian said, things are better than they were a
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