Secret unit served with C.I.A. in Vietnam

Press, 27 April 1984, Page 6

Secret unit served with C.I.A. in Vietnam

NZPA-AAP Canberra Some Australians became engaged in Central Intelligence Agency activities in South Vietnam, an Army officer says in a book he has written. At a launching in Canberra yesterday the book, entitled, “The Team,” was described by the author, Major lan McNeills, as a history of the Australian Army Training Team in Vietnam. Major McNeills served with the team — a littleknown but highly decorated unit — in 1965-66 and wrote the book while he was research officer with the Defence Department’s Army Office. The team began with 30 experts in jungle warfare in July 1962, and expanded to 100 in 1965. It had more than 200 members before withdrawing in December, 1972, Major McNeills said. The servicemen had been sent to train South Vietnamese soldiers but often had found themselves having to motivate the soldiers and encourage them not to join the forces of the North,

he said. During the 10 years it existed nearly 1000 Australians and 10 New Zealanders took part in the training unit known as “The Team,” some of them working with American C.I.A. agents to destroy North Vietnam’s infrastructure. “The fight against the infrastructure was regarded in Australian and American Army doctrine as a necessary facet of combating a Communist-style of revolutionary,” he said. Although he believed that it was important to destroy the economic infrastructure of the enemy, Major McNeills said that he did not know about any C.I.A. activity while he served with the team. He was aware that some assassination programmes must have existed but he said that he had learned not to ask the one or two C.I.A. agents he met. “They were marked men and did not want to let on,” he said. His book uncovers the deep divisions within South Vietnam which, he believes, with the allied withdrawal,

led to its collapse. The South Vietnamese were fighting against Communism but already had an unpopular Government. There were deep political and religious divisions in the region, Major McNeills said. But the problems the Vietnamese faced now proved that Australia had been fighting the Communists and not encroaching on a civil war. There was a bigger tragedy now than during the war, he said. Thousands of people were still held in detention camps and Vietnamese people risked great dangers to escape their country by boats. Four members of the team were awarded the Victoria Cross, 15 the Military Cross, six the Distinguished Service Order, and 23 the Distinguished Conduct Medal. Many more received awards, including more than 300 South Vietnamese decorations, Major McNeills said. Over 10 years 29 officers were killed and many more wounded.