THE "SECRET SOVIET WAR' IN VIETNAM............ PAGE 2
The second confirmation of Soviets in Vietnam first surfaced on the Internet earlier this year, when reporter James Brown of Russia Today covered the first public reunion of the 3,000 Soviets who fought in the USSR’s secret war in Vietnam. The segment that he recorded was released on the Internet.
Held in Zarya, outside of Moscow, the reunion marked the Soviet secret war they fought from 1965 to 1973, hence the celebration of their 35th anniversary of when their official involvement ended in Vietnam. They were the Soviet Union’s “forgotten soldiers,” veterans of a war their government denied involvement in for nearly 20 years.
Only now, long after the old communist regime collapsed in 1991, have officials – both Soviet and North Vietnamese – admitted that more than 3,000 Soviet troops fought against the Americans in Vietnam.
One of those Soviet veterans, identified by Russia Today as Nikolay Kolesnik, said, “We were known as a group of military experts. The commander was the senior expert. Thus, technically there were no Soviets in Vietnam. The only thing we knew we were Soviet people… Soviet soldiers…we had to do whatever it took to stop the (U.S.) air raids…”
Ironically, SOG’s Soviet counterparts had their own plausible deniability, a political subtlety not lost on SOG members who ran all missions in Indian territory without any identification for their deniability if captured or killed.
Lee Cong Niem, a Vietnamese veteran of the VietnamWar, told Russia Today that the communists in North
Vietnam “…have a lot of respect for Soviet equipment and Soviet experts.”
CONFIRMATION OF COMMIE CONNECTION
The third confirmation of Soviets in Vietnam that provided further details of Ivan’s penetration of SOG operational radio transmissions was provided exclusively to Soldier of Fortune by a member of the U.S. intelligence community, who asked to neither report his name nor the specific agency that employed him for more than 15 years. His employment with that agency was independently confirmed.
This operative said that in the early years of his intelligence employment, he worked closely with East Germans and Czechs during the last years of the Cold War in Europe – before the wall came down. hose men had worked with the Soviets who had served in Vietnam during the Soviet Union’s secret war in Southeast Asia. The officer spent lengthy periods of time during the middle and late ‘80s behind enemy lines running clandestine operations covertly in East Germany, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, where he eventually developed a rapport with several communists.
A key element of this covert operation involved working with members of the East Bloc/Warsaw Pact military forces, bartering almost anything they could get their hands on and swapping it for materials they could sell. During those years the officer used his mechanical engineering skills and experience to earn credibility and acceptance while working closely with the communists.
“The black market didn’t operate with currency at that time, as it was useless in Eastern Bloc countries,” the operative said. Instead of currency, he traded American blue jeans, racing goggles, gloves, T-shirts and brightly colored logo stickers for foreign material (FORMAT), such as radios, chemical protection gear, Geiger counters, radar bits, pilot helmets, Soviet night vision devices, and many critically sensitive items that remained classified.
A top priority for that operative was obtaining “anything that was aircraft-related, such as data recorders, black boxes, flight charts, training and evaluation manuals and anything on techniques.”
In the late ‘80s, infiltrating into Eastern Bloc countries wasn’t difficult, because the border guards were there to keep people in, the operative said. “We’d infiltrate with materials to trade for FORMAT hardware and items, take them back to our safe house near the border, and Soviet officers would smuggle all of the items into West Germany for us, for a price. From there, we’d transport the booty to stateside.”
THE “YELLOW MONKEYS”
Over time, the U.S. intelligence operative ingratiated himself with the communists and eventually began hearing about the Soviet limited-proxy secret war in Vietnam helping the Vietnamese, whom they called “Yellow Monkeys.”
“At that point in time, I didn’t really know that much about SOG,” the operative said. “Because I was an American, they wanted to impress me, so I let them fill in the blanks. In general, they wanted us Americans to know they didn’t like being there. They said a large percentage of the Soviet troops were artillerymen, mostly Ukrainians, who specialized in anti-aircraft defenses and operating radar around Hanoi. “But, there were some who traveled farther south and worked with North Vietnam’s communications specialists. They told me they had monitored SOG radio transmissions from Leghorn and Hickory.” [Leghorn was the first radio intercept/relay point opened on a mountaintop in southern Laos in early 1967. First called Eagle’s Nest, it was operated by SOG men from FOB 2 in Kontum until the end of the secret war in 1972. Hickory was a radio relay site, where recon teams from FOB 1, 3 and 4 could reach from the Prairie Fire AO on FM frequencies. The NVA overran it in June 1971. Staff Sgt. Jon Cavaiani was awarded a Medal of Honor for defending that site.]
The operative said, “The Soviets had tremendous respect for SOG operators, but they couldn’t understand why the U.S. didn’t use more sophisticated commo equipment or at least encryption communications equipment in Vietnam.”
As the operative accumulated time behind enemy lines, he met more high-ranking communist officials, including a special operations instructor of the highest level who had experience with Soviet operators that had worked in Vietnam, Angola, Cuba, Egypt and other countries. This high-level source told the operative about one Soviet officer trained in special operations who functioned as a foreign military advisor.
That Soviet special operator would listen on SOG radio frequencies and hear Spike teams call in air strikes using clear voice with basic code words, the U.S. operative said.
This Soviet operator had the capability to speak to SOG teams. Trained in Cuba before being assigned to
Laos as a communications expert, he spoke Spanish and English. (He later commanded Cuban troops in Angola, where he was killed around 1979.)
“The bottom line,” the U.S. intelligence operative told SOF, “The Soviets and the NVA knew a lot about SOG recon teams. They also knew, and I couldn’t tell how often, where the teams’ LZs were. They knew many of the SOG recon teams by code name, especially in Laos, where the teams from Kontum and Da Nang, Phu Bai and Khe Sanh ran missions across the fence.”
THE SAIGON SPY
The U.S. intelligence officer also learned one more nugget of information: “I was told that there were enemy agents in the highest command levels of SOG in Saigon. Their cover was so deep, it was never exposed during the Vietnam War.”
That fact confirms many One-Zeros’ suspicions that there was a mole, or a spy in SOG headquarters. Additionally, during a 1996 Hanoi television show, Maj. Gen. George “Speedy” Gaspard was stunned when he saw an individual he knew as “Francois” receive Hanoi’s highest military honor for his years of service as a spy in SOG. Gaspard, who had several tours of duty in Vietnam and in SOG, knew “Francois” and was “shocked” when he saw the program. Francois had access to highly sensitive information while employed by the U.S.
Author and SOG recon man John L. Plaster has a photo of Gaspard standing with “Francois” in Saigon, when Gaspard had no idea of the spy’s real role for the NVA. That photograph of Gaspard and “Francois” is on page 463 of Plaster’s book: SOG: A Photo History of the Secret Wars, by Paladin Press Books.
“There’s no question that he hurt SOG operations,” Gaspard said. “Again, how do you gauge it all? When you look at the success rate of short-term road watch.....
Big Teddy
