Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces

experience. On the students' side were usually emotional distress stemming from hurt pride and an inadequate database.'

Eventually, Fall's contempt for American policy in Vietnam brought his appearances at Fort Bragg to the attention of 'those guys there in the Pentagon.' This brought Yarborough a telephone call from Washington: 'The Frenchman Bernard Fall is no longer welcome at the Special Warfare School,' he was told. But when Yarborough demanded that this order be put in writing, the demand was withdrawn, and Fall's catalytic presence continued to shake up the young Green Berets at the school.

Another controversial source of insight on irregular warfare was a larger-than-life Air Force colonel named Edward Lansdale — a real-world character who had seemingly leapt out of a spy novel. His story, in fact, inspired more than one novelist; he was the model for Graham Greene's The Quiet American and Lederer and Burdick's The Ugly American (their character also contains elements of Roger Hilsman). Though controversial — his conduct in Vietnam was questionable — his accomplishments were real. During the '50s, Lansdale was loaned to the CIA and assigned to the Philippines, where he gave the Agency its greatest victory against Communist insurgents there, called the Huks.

He did this in several ways. First, he promoted an undeniably great man, Ramon Magsaysay, as an alternative to the Communists. Magsaysay, arguably the Washington and Lincoln of the Philippines, became president of that country, but was killed in an air crash after too short a time in office. Second, Lansdale had a kind of mad genius for the art of what later became known as 'black' psychological operations — lies that damage an enemy. For example, he had the rumor spread in rural villages that men with evil in their hearts would be food for the local vampire. He then had his people drain the blood out of a dead Huk, punch holes in his neck, and leave him in the middle of a well-traveled road. Word got around very quickly that the Huks were vampire bait. But third, and most important for Bill Yarborough's delvings into the heart of irregular and political warfare, 'Ed Lansdale made me understand,' he writes, 'the relationship between what we clumsily call Civic Action and the ability of a regular army to function among the people. This insight was responsible to a great degree for the effectiveness of the counterinsurgency operation in the Philippines. It made the people feel that the military were not oppressors. Rather, the man in uniform represented the government; and, if they were eager to assist and help the people, then the government must be of the same frame of mind.' The good acts of the men in uniform argued to the benevolence, right intentions, and honor of the government.

'Later on in my research, he continues, 'I discovered that Ed Lansdale was not the author of this concept… but Mao Tse-tung. Mao was the greatest modern proponent of this philosophy.

'In studying Mao's campaigns leading to the expulsion of Chiang Kai-shek from mainland China, I found that, in the beginning, the Nationalist armies were very much greater numerically than the Communist forces. But as Mao withdrew along the route of his long march, his soldiers treated people very generously and kindly, and with great respect. And so instead of fleeing to get out of the way of the Communists, in the normal way of civilians and armies, the people welcomed them.

'This behavior goes back to Mao's Nine Rules of Conduct, which his Red Army troops were made to memorize (they were even set to music and sung daily). These rules were strictly enforced. A man who violated them was severely punished, perhaps executed.'

Here's a sample:

• There shall be no confiscations whatever from the poor peasantry.

• If you borrow anything, return it.

• Replace all articles you damage.

• Pay for everything that you purchase.

• Be honest in all transactions with the peasants.

• Be courteous and polite to the people and help them when you can.

This meant practically, Yarborough continues, 'that the ordinary rules soldiers were used to in the field did not apply. Civilians were not kicked out if they got in the way. A soldier was encouraged to share his last crust of bread with a peasant. If a door was taken off a house for a soldier to sleep on, the custom in China, it would be replaced before the troops left. The best place for a gun position might be in the center of a tomb. Even so, the Red Army would respect the people and place the gun somewhere else.

'In consequence, the Red Army swelled, while Chiang Kai-shek's forces lost the confidence of ever greater numbers of people.'

Careful study of Mao, as well as other Communist authorities such as Che Guevara and the Vietnamese Vo Nguven Ciap and Truong Chinh, rounded out further the picture of multidimensional warfare. (It should be noted that such study was not exactly encouraged by 'those guys at the Pentagon.') Their brand of irregular warfare, Yarborough's studies revealed, featured the following ingredients:

Patience to withstand protracted conflict. 'Time works for us. Time will be our best strategist.

— Truong Chinh.

• Political awareness on the part of all ranks.

• Intensive wooing of all the 'little people' to the side of the insurgent.

• The weakening of the enemy's morale by constant propaganda and terrorist harassment.

• Constant offensive action against enemy personnel and sensitive points, but only when tactical advantage is on the side of the irregulars.

• The avoidance of pitched battles with equal or superior forces.

• Defense only when it is essential to survival or to aid another element to withdraw.

• The consideration of the enemy's supply system as your own — making him haul the materiel to dumps, then seizing it from him.

• Constant striving to grow undercover forces into regular forces, ones capable of meeting the enemy on his own ground when the time and circumstances make victory certain.

With these studies as a guide, the new direction of Special Forces became clear.

If their job was to teach armed forces of a threatened nation how to combat a local insurgency, then their first task there was to demonstrate carefully thought out and executed military and nonmilitary actions that would allow those forces to win and maintain the support of the people. All of this would require the highest level of discipline on the part of not only the Green Berets but also the local forces. Such discipline would ensure a high level of conduct and moral behavior among the people in politically sensitive areas.

Though conventional soldiers don't normally concern themselves with the civilians who find themselves caught up in the tides of war, when it became obvious that the political and psychological fallout from this lack of concern could negate a brilliant battlefield victory, military leaders had to seriously adjust their thinking. In the U.S. Army, the Special Forces were the first to be taught this lesson officially and put it into practice as a principle of war.

Before long, Green Berets, using an American version of Mao's 'Rules for Conduct,' began to have a powerful impact on the lives of 'little people' in Third World nations living in remote, often jungle, areas. Previously, such people did not much figure in the overall scheme of military maneuver. And for their part, the 'little people tended to be suspicious of foreign soldiers in their midst. However, a combination of personal qualities and soldier skills soon began to increase cooperation and mutual trust, and these came to grow into admiration and friendship.

The Green Berets paid attention to all kinds of little things that other soldiers rarely cared about. For example, they helped a villager increase his water supplies by showing him a simple well-digging technique. They worked side by side with him to build a log bridge that would save a half-mile trudge around a swamp to reach his primitive patch of farmland. They showed him how to dig an irrigation ditch. They gave him seeds that grew into better vegetables than he had ever imagined possible. But strangest — and most heartwarming — of all, they paid attention to the villager as an individual. They could speak to him in his own dialect — maybe not fluently, but enough. And they shared the lives of the village people. They ate their food and drank their drink; they sat around their fires in the evening and chatted with them; they slept in huts like theirs.

Once friendship had been established, the military task of defending the village began. Green Berets traced village fortification outlines, and villagers placed row on row of sharpened stakes in the ground, angled toward