Conspiracy

80

“it was a CIA program. The Marines were involved because they were in the area,” Hernes Jackson told Rubens. “I have to say that there wasn’t much online from the CIA. I found nearly everything I needed from the Department of Defense.

I’ve made appointments to look at the paper records as well.

Possibly that will reveal more.”

Jackson explained that the CIA had sent “support” payments to loyal village elders during the war. The payments were essentially bribes, and there were few checks and balances in the program. The CIA worked with local military units to arrange and protect couriers; depending on the sec-tor, Army Special Forces, Marines, and even SEALs had been involved. In the area of Phu Loc 2, the CIA worked with Marines attached to the strategic hamlet program.

In the case cited by Phuc Dinh, one set of payments totaling $250,000 had gone missing during the last year of the war. This had happened after the man who had been coordinating the payments — Greenfeld, as Dean had said — was killed in a rocket attack on a Marine camp he’d been visiting. Three payments were missed in the interim, making the amount carried by the new courier extra large and probably extra tempting.

A South Vietnamese officer acted as the courier, with two Marines assigned as his escort to Phu Loc 2. There was an ambush. The Marines and the South Vietnamese officer were separated. Neither the money nor the South Vietnamese officer was ever seen again.

“The Marines just let him run off?” said Rubens.

“No,” said Jackson. “There was an ambush. They came under heavy attack. According to the Marines, he was oblit-erated by a mortar. They ended up calling for an air evac.” The guards were Marine Sergeant Bob Malinowski and Marine Sergeant Robert Tolong.

“Malinowski was wounded in the ambush and died back in the field hospital, or en route,” said Jackson. “One of the reports says that Tolong was wounded as well, but if so the wounds were minor, because he rejoined his unit immediately afterward. The CIA wanted to talk to Sergeant Tolong, apparently because he was the last American to see the cash.

I am reading a bit between the lines.”

“Perfectly logical assumption,” said Rubens. “Go on.” Before the CIA could debrief him, Tolong volunteered to go on a patrol, checking on a hamlet team that had missed its call-in the day before. The unit was attacked in the afternoon of their first day out, a few miles west of Tam Ky. Tolong and another man named Reginald Gordon were separated from the main group. The firefight continued well into the night.

In the morning, the fighting resumed when some he li cop ters approached, and it wasn’t until late afternoon that they were extricated. Gordon and Tolong were among the missing.

“About ten days later, Sergeant Gordon showed up at the base camp of a unit about thirty miles to the west,” continued Jackson. “Tolong, he said, had been seriously wounded and died a few days after the ambush. He’d buried him, but wasn’t sure where. The Marines sent two different patrols into the area, but never found him.”

“Did the CIA find the money?” asked Rubens.

“Doesn’t appear so. As I said, I’ll have to look through their paper records to be sure,” said Jackson. “The men were assigned to the courier job by a Captain McSweeney. His name was on some of the reports, including two about the ambush.”

“Senator McSweeney.”

“Apparently. One other thing I found interesting,” added Jackson. “Reading between the lines, it seems that the CIA later concluded that the courier had been set up by one of the village leaders, who was working with the Vietcong. The leader was Phuc Dinh.”

“Why would he have the courier ambushed before he got the money?” asked Rubens.

“It would make sense if the South Vietnamese officer didn’t really die, but escaped during the attack,” said Jackson. “In any event, the CIA apparently tried to get a little revenge by assassinating him. According to one of the Marine Corps reports, they succeeded.”

“So I surmised from the transcript of Mr. Dean’s interview with Mr. Dinh.”

“Did the interview note that the assassin was a Marine scout sniper named Charles Dean?”