Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Service Lyndon Baines Johnson Library Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training oreign Affairs Oral History Pro$ect RUFUS PHILLIPS Interviewed by: Ted Gittinger Initial interview date: March 4, 1982 TABLE OF CONTENTS Background University of Virginia Law School Served briefly with CIA US Army, Korean ,ar, Vietnam ,ar Vietnam ,ar 1.5011.52 Saigon 3ilitary 3ission North Vietnamese Catholics Colonel Lansdale Use of rench language Joe Ban4on Soc Trang Province Hanh Diem 3agsaysay Ambassador 5eneral Lawton Collins 6retired7 Liaison Officer Ca 3au operation Operation Brotherhood ilipinos Reoccupation of 8one 5 rench Operation Atlante 5eneral 3ike O9Daniel Colonel Kim Training Relations Instruction 3ission 6TRI37 Viet 3inh evacuation rench1Diem relations Resentment of Viet 3inh 3AA5 Binh :uyen Central Intelligence Agency 6CIA7 1 Vietnamese psywar school Setting up 515 staff Kieu Cong Cung Civil Action Pro$ect AID 3ission Re1organi4ation of Vietnamese army Viet 3inh preparations for resurgence in South Pre1Ho Chi 3inh Trail Civil 5uard Colonel Lansdale Tran Trung Dung 3ontagnards Destabili4ing Viet 3inh regime Almanac incidents Bui An Tuan Vietnam ;uoc Dan Dang 6VN;DD7 Truong Chinh Political Program for Vietnam 5eneral O1Daniel Ambassador Collins/CIA relations Land Reform ,olf Lade$isky Saigon racketeering operations rench anti1US operations Saigon bombing US facilities Howie Simpson Bay Vien rench 5eneral Ely Trinh 3inh Thé Vietnamese/ rench relations Romaine De osse rench deal with Ho Chi 3inh at ontainebleau Laos 3ission 1.5211.5. Civil Action Pathet Lao 5overnment Lt. Col. Oudone Sananikone Airways Engineering: 6Private firm7 1.5.11.22 Vietnam 3ission 1.221 Dispersal of USAID missions Countryside pro$ects Counterinsurgency Bert raleigh 2 Taiwan veterans program Phil Phippen Provincial coordinating committee Self1help program Strategic hamlet program Program funding Program supplies Program organi4ation Honolulu meeting Election of hamlet chiefs ,ashington visit Diem Vietnamese army deficiencies orming team International Volunteer Service John O9Donnell Colonel Hoang Van Loc Chau Buddhist crisis Pigs arm prosperity ertili4er Vietnamese army paraly4ed 3cNamara Reporting problems Iron Triangle Operation Rising Sun Viet Cong hamlet devastation President Kennedy 5eneral Lansdale 3ilitary Assistance Command Vietnam 63ACV7 Roger Hilsman David Halberstam Anti Diem Coup d9état John Richardson Assassination list Diem/Lansdale relations Duong Van 3inh Diem assassination ather9s death in US John Paul Vann Airways EngineeringB CIA Consultant c1.2211.2C Vietnam visits Recruitment of Vietnam provincial representatives 3 ,ilfred Burchett Hubert Humphrey ,illiam Connell 5eneral Nguyen Khanh Constituent Assembly elections Pacification Civil Operations and Development Support 6CORDS7 PhoeniD program US military action Saigon ERings of SteelF Phil Habib HOP TAC 5eneral ,illiam ,estmoreland rancis 6Ted7 Serong Rocketing Saigon Tet Offensive President Nguyen Van Thieu resignation Additional comments Vietnam c1.75 Refugees El Salvador INTERVIEW I would like to add one note for the reader. In 1.C2 at the time of the interview, I still felt under some security constraints not to tell the full story about my connection with the CIA while in military service in 1.50 and 1.55. The truth is that I went into the Army under what was called the Junior Office Training 6JOT7 Program. The arrangement, as best I can recall, was that I would enlist on my own, go through basic training on my own, apply for OCS on my own, make it through OCS on my own and if I did all that with no help then I would be assigned by the Army back to the CIA, but as a military officer on military pay with an obligation to serve out a full term of two years after OCS. 3y understanding was that if I failed OCS, I would have to serve out my three years enlistment as a soldier in whatever assignment the Army gave me. In any case, I made it through Army training including OCS and jump school and was assigned on military orders temporarily back to CIA headHuarters in ,ashington, and then to Korea to a military unit which provided cover for military officers detailed to the CIA. rom there I was picked up through a search by Lansdale of available military officers in the ar East and reassigned to 3AA5 63ilitary Assistance Advisory 5roup7/Vietnam. 3y Agency file, as well as my 3OC file, showed rench language capability. ,hile I did know where Indochina was and followed events there through the Stars and Stripes during my four months in Korea, I knew little about it beyond the headlines and had no real intimation, only vague hopes, that I might be assigned there. Once I got word from the 4 CIA Station in Korea that I was being sent to Vietnam, which arrived almost simultaneously with my military orders, I did hear that Lansdale would be my boss but no one in Korea knew much about him. So I really went in blind on a military flight with other officers none of whom I knew. I was told to speak to no one about my assignment eDcept to say it was to 3AA5. The rest of the narrative is correct. Q: First o all, Mr. Phillips, would you give us some background' (hat were the circumstances o your entry into government service' PHILLIPS: In 1.52, I was in law school in the University of Virginia. I had been approached by the CIA when I was at Iale to go to work for them but I decided to go to law school. And I went to law school and got bored, because this was the middle of the Korean ,ar and I had friends who were involved in it and I didnJt feel very good, frankly, about staying in law school. So I got out and I joined the agency briefly, and I was supposed to be sent to a pro$ect in 5ermany, which was a big training program for émigrés from Kthe communistL bloc, who were then to be sent back in the bloc. If you remember that time, this was during the Korean ,ar and there was an eDpectation, or if not an eDpectation, at least some anDiety that the Russians might do something in Europe. So there were a lot of people being trained there. ,ell, this particular operation got blown, and I didnJt have anything to do in the agency, so I got out of the agency, volunteered for the U.S. Army, was inducted at ort 3eade, went up to Indiantown 5ap, took my basic training, volunteered for OCS, went to K ortL Benning, went through OCS, graduated, went to jump school, and then was assigned to Korea. In my 3OS K3ilitary Occupation SpecialtyL, I put the fact that I spoke rench, which I did to some degree. IJd taken it in college and IJd been to rance and I did have some rench language. It was in early 1.50 when I was assigned to Korea. I went through basic training and OCS in 1.53, and jump school, and at the end of 1.53 I was sent to Korea. So in 1.50, in July, I received notification that the army wanted to transfer me to Vietnam. ,hat happened was in the ar East they went around looking for people that had some rench in their background, because according to the 5eneva Accords, a limit was to go on the introduction of any foreign personnel, additional military personnel, in Indochina, on I think it was August 12. They were looking to try to introduce additional people into the military advisory mission just to get the limit up, not sure of what they were going to do or how they were going to utili4e them. So I was one of those who got tapped, and I didnJt even know where Vietnam was. I got sent down to Vietnam and arrived there, was put up in the 3a$estic Hotel with a whole bunch of other guys who were also assigned there, who didnJt really have anything to do. ,e were just kind of milling around, trying to figure out what South Vietnam was all about. Then some of us got assigned to help with the refugees coming down, because there were a lot of refugees. I got assigned to a division that was created in 3AA5 by a guy named Ed Lansdale, whom IJm sure you know all about, which was called the Saigon 3ilitary 3ission. And in effect, I was reassigned, but as a legitimate military officer, to 5 this CIA mission, which was a special CIA mission there. Ed really had kind of a joint responsibility from both the Defense Department and CIA and the State Department to try to do something to save South Vietnam. I was a green second lieutenant at this point, and I didnJt know anything about Vietnam, or about saving Vietnam. 6Laughter7 Q: I was about to ask a fairly obvious )uestion: did you know anything about Colonel Lansdale at that time' PHILLIPS: No. Never heard of him. Q: ,ou had no insight into his Philippine e-ploits' PHILLIPS: At that point, no. Q: .kay. Please e-cuse me. Go ahead. PHILLIPS: ,ell, it was a very interesting eDperience, because for a time he had these people who were assigned to him, and he didnJt know what to do with them either, because there was just a tremendous amount of confusion in Vietnam at this time. I mean, you had all these refugees coming southB I remember going over to his house one evening, trying to nail down eDactly what it was that he wanted me to do, and here were a whole bunch of eDcited Vietnamese who were jumping up and down and gesticulating.