Table Of ContentBLACK PROPAGANDA
SOG OPS-33
What is black propaganda? The term black propaganda is reserved for those materials
"planted by the United States but in such a way that it seems to be the product or even
an internal document of the target group." In other words, "black propaganda" is
nothing less than a form of intellectual and political subversion. Its purpose is to
attribute actions to a source, other than the true one.
SOG was the most secret elite U.S. military unit to serve in the war in Vietnam, so
secret it was "black", meaning its very existence was carefully concealed. Innocuously
named the "Studies and Observation Group", SOG was made up of volunteers from
such elite units as the Army Green Berets, US Air Force Air Commandos and Navy
SEALs.
SOG's Psychological Studies Branch responsible for developing "black propaganda"
was known as OPS-33. Patterned after the old OSS Morale Operations Division, OPS-
33 operated behind such heavy security that few Americans in Asia knew of its
existence, which was essential as any trace of SOG's involvement would destroy a
deception's effectiveness.
By no means a small operation, SOG's covert propaganda operations had a 1967
budget of $3.7 million and a staff of 150, about half of them Vietnamese civilians, the
other half U.S. military, plus a dozen CIA officers.
The key to successful black operations is to develop a general theme upon which to
hang all sorts of individual operations. As in any kind of deception, the SOG
propagandist found, it was faster, easier, and more effective to reinforce what the
enemy already believed or suspected, rather than try to convince them of something
entirely new. For instance, since the North Vietnamese feared and hated the Chinese,
black propaganda could target and further aggravate these tensions.
Black propaganda efforts initiated by SOG included stories that: Chinese troops in
North Vietnam were romancing the girlfriends and wives of faraway NVA soldiers;
the Chinese were suppling poor quality ammunition; Peking was bleeding its
Vietnamese comrades merely to send a political message to America. Of course there
was a grain of truth to all these stories which helped make them all that more credible
to the NVA.
Project Humidor
"Project Humidor" was another brainchild of OPS-33. A false fishing village was
created on a small island off South Vietnam in which North Vietnam fisherman were
kidnapped, blindfolded and taken to by high speed boats. Not familiar with the high
speed of the boats that transported them, the captive fisherman thought they were still
in North Vietnam waters. These captured fisherman were then treated to a feast of
food and told how the village belonged to a anti-Communist resistance group known
as "The Sacred Sword of the Patriot League". The captured villagers were returned to
North Vietnamese waters after being given false clues concerning conspiracies, secret
agents and saboteurs, to be passed on to enemy counterintelligence officers who were
certain to debrief them. SOG experts interlocked these clues with other evidence
ranging from phony radio transmissions sent to nonexistant agents, to secret
instructions hidden in a fisherman's gift bundle which would be found by
counterintelligence officers. On top of this SOG agents planted Patriotic League
leaflets along North Vietnamese roads and trails while C-123s aircraft airdropped
resupply bundles to phantom resistance units. The harder the enemy pursued the
Patriot League, the more confused they became, for awhile even suspecting that it was
the Soviets who were the Patriot Leagues secret sponsor.
Poison Pen Letters
Another successful black propaganda effort was SOG's so-called Poison Pen Letters
program which attempted to implicate North Vietnamese officials by inventing
apparent evidence of espionage and disloyalty.
Drawn up in Saigon, the Poison Pen Letters were then mailed to North Vietnam from
Hong Kong, and places as far away as Africa and New Caledonia. In 1964 SOG was
mailing two hundred such letters a month. By 1966 the amount grew to five hundred
letters a month.
Most candidates were targeted solely because analysts found some means to
incriminate them thanks to SOG's extensive and sophisticated database that contained
profiles on many important North Vietnamese.
The scheme might involve sending the target a birthday card from Paris, perhaps with
a microdot message hidden under the stamp, but it's not his birthday. North
Vietnamese officials were very suspicious to the point of paranoia thanks to the
Patriotic League ruse. Chances are the untimely card would be suspicious enough that
the card would be checked. Upon finding the microdot the investigators would
discover very vague pseudo instructions which would only serve to make the recipients
ordinary activities seem even more suspicious.
Another example would be sending a Poison Pen Letter with a Paris return address
but a Hong Kong postmark - just odd enough to catch the censors attention. The letter
would be examined and after brushing it with chemicals a secret message would
materialize warning the recipient that an agent had been arrested and that he was now
expected to assume the lost agents mission. To add credence to the message, the letter
might be sent after a real agent had been discovered. To further incriminate the
recipient, perhaps a few hundred dollars would be deposited in a Hong Kong bank in
his name, or a bundle of gold coins given to a known double agent for him. Or keeping
with the mysterious Patriot League theme, a fisherman kidnapped by the Patriot
League would be told that if he ever needs help he should place an "X" on a telephone
that just happens to be across the street from the targeted official's apartment
building.
Mere suspicions were enough to lock up almost anyone. To the targeted official's
relatives and friends, each unjust arrest verified the regimes brutal character thus
furthering their own dissidence and unrest with their government.
Black Radio
Other covert psychological operations included SOG's "Black Radio" which was
aimed at North Vietnamese civilians and soldiers.
Black Radio was limited by what the U.S. government would sanction. It was
specifically forbidden to suggest the overthrow or destruction of the Hanoi
government.
In Project Jenny, a U.S. Navy EC-121 aircraft broadcasted SOG radio programs while
flying off the North Vietnam coast (a technique used to confuse enemy radio direction
finders, and because the radio broadcast was not that far away tended to overwhelm
local radio stations). One program involved a supposed clandestine radio. Listeners
were told broadcasts originated in North Vietnam and the radio station had to
constantly be moved to evade the North's secuity services. On occasions in mid
program there would be an excited shout that Communist forces were approaching
and the station would have to close down. A few days later (with another flight) the
program would be on the air with the announcer explaining how close a call it had
been.
SOG's primary radio technique was called "surfing" which means transmitting
alongside a real stations frequency to capture listeners who mistakenly think they've
tuned to the real station. Another technique was "hitchhiking" or coming up on the
same frequency of a radio stationed just after it had signed off and using its call sign.
Of course the limitation in the effectiveness of psyop broadcasted radio is that the
target audience must have radios to receive the message. The solution was simple
enough. Build radios that no matter how carefully you tuned the frequency dial, you
would get static except for one frequency, that of the SOG's "Radio Hanoi"
broadcasts. These radios were inserted using ruses like: lost rucksacks; or packages
left behind on buses in Viet Cong areas; Navy patrol boats floated hundreds ashore in
North Vietnam; U.S. recon teams planted Peanut radios in enemy base camps or left
them aong trails; and C-130 Blackbirds airdropped them into North Vietnam
inserting eight thousand in 1967.
Though the exact effects remain unmeasurable, there can be little doubt SOG's black
propaganda yielded results. The closest SOG ever came to learning its impact was in
Paris in May of 1968, when as a precondition to the peace talks, Hanoi's negotiators
insisted that the U.S. put an end to its black PSYOPS programs, especially that
"despicable Sacred Sword of the Patriot League."
If you would like to learn more about the Military Assistance Command Vietnam
(MACV) Studies and Observation Group (SOG) I recommend that you read John L.
Plaster's "SOG - The Secret Wars of American Commandos in Vietnam" (Simon &
Schuster, 1997).
Playing Theme from "The Terminator"
