Читать книгу The Craft We Chose: My Life in the CIA - Richard L. Holm - Страница 6

My JOT training marked the first of two stints at the Farm. Before they sent us back to headquarters they also gave us a glimpse of covert and paramilitary operations and how those activities fit into the range of options the agency could provide the president.

The field intrigued me, especially the paramilitary aspects. Young and single, I thought it would be exciting. So when we received the opportunity to take an intensive, four-month course, including parachute training, I volunteered, as did eight others in my class.

The agency also offered us the chance, following our training, to volunteer for a six-month temporary duty—called a TDY—serving as paramilitary advisers in Laos. Four of us—André Le Gallo, Mike Deuel, Ralph McLean and I—accepted.

After a week’s leave over Christmas to visit my family, and several weeks at headquarters beginning to familiarize myself with our Laos efforts, I reported back to the Farm to begin paramilitary instruction in early February 1962.

The group included two of my MacArthur Boulevard housemates, and in preparation the three of us had been running each morning before work. It wasn’t much fun, but part of the incentive was the opportunity to visit a group of young women in a neighboring house. We had struck up a friendly relationship with them, something destined to go nowhere because of our impending departure. But no matter; for young men interest in a member of the opposite sex dies hard.

Each morning the women would invite us in for coffee after our run. We liked them, particularly the two who were really attractive, and they were a welcome sight, even at “oh dark hundred” on those January mornings.

The exchanges over coffee also served a purpose. They gave us an opportunity to live our cover assignments as Department of the Army civilians. It wasn’t easy, and we could tell they weren’t really buying our story.

The daily runs paid off in another way. They gave us a leg up in the PT we would be taking for the duration of the paramilitary course. Our instructor, Burt Courage, also lectured on other subjects.

A big, strong guy, Burt impressed us with his one-arm pull-ups and push-ups. We may have been in good shape, but he outclassed us. We liked and respected his quiet and unassuming manner. It helped get us through the strenuous calisthenics that always ended with a several-mile run.

Like Burt, all of our instructors were highly skilled. Each man had accumulated several years of military experience, and many had served the agency in the field. Each taught a specialty, the collective goal of which was to familiarize us with a wide range of military abilities we could use later in our careers.

Military officers controlled governments in many parts of the world. Or, they were deeply involved in politics. So learning military terms and concepts could be vital in helping to recruit these men as intelligence assets.

The training also helped prepare us for the paramilitary programs the agency was running in several countries, such as Laos, where qualified officers were needed. But the sessions were blunter than tradecraft; paramilitary operations are not an art.

Another important training component covered the use of weapons. Over the course of four months we used a wide range of firearms manufactured in the United States. We tried out rifles, pistols, machine guns, rocket launchers and mortars. We also examined and fired weapons made in Russia, China and Czechoslovakia.

I had won a Marksman medal in the Army with my Ml rifle. Even so, I didn’t feel particularly comfortable with this block of instruction, because I never liked guns. But I tolerated it, because learning how to hold a weapon and fire it in training surely beats having to learn about it in the midst of a life-or-death situation—something I would discover later in Laos and the Congo.

We spent a lot of time studying small-unit tactics. Our instructors presented theory and described the actions of guerrilla fighters and revolutionaries such as Che Guevara and Mao Tse-tung—as it was spelled using the Wade-Giles method at the time, instead of Mao Zedong, under the pinyin system followed today. We used standard U.S. tactics as our guide and spent many days in the woods and swamps on the base practicing what we had learned.

One simple but standard exercise involved following compass courses. The trainers would give us a list of moves—150 yards northwest, 60 yards south-southwest, 200 yards west, and so on—with the objective of reaching a designated target. To this day I question the value of what we derived, not from the efforts but from the idea of wading waist-deep through cold, muddy water in February and March.

When we inevitably complained the instructors’ standard response was, “It builds character.”

Maybe it did help us to get tougher, and the program encouraged leadership. They rotated us as platoon leaders in the practical exercises. Everyone did well, because we helped one another plan and execute the assignments—and we knew that each of us would be taking a turn.

Even with the best of intentions, though, things can go wrong.

One day we conducted a simulated raid on an enemy camp. We had held two planning sessions to work out the timing, deployment, weapons and personnel for the operation.

We thought we had prepared for everything. We would hit the camp at noon while the enemy fighters were eating lunch. At 11 a.m., the instructors dropped us off about a half-mile from the target site. From there we approached, carefully. We had studied the coordinates and terrain on our maps that morning. Up and down a couple of ridgelines and we would be there.

We moved up and down a couple of ridgelines. Then up and down a couple more. Then we retraced our steps. Then we sent out small patrols.

We never did find that damned camp.

We couldn’t have missed it by much, but we missed it. In retrospect we had allowed the terrain to fool us. Everything looked the same, so in taking our bearings it was easy for us to veer off course little by little over each ridgeline. Whatever the reason we felt embarrassed as hell and the instructors wouldn’t let us forget it for the rest of the course.

We spent our next block in parachute training. The lecture period was short, because there isn’t much to say about throwing yourself out the door of an airplane at 2,500 feet.

Again the instructors were excellent. All had logged hundreds of jumps. They intensified our physical training, including more running along with sessions teaching us the PLF, the parachute-landing fall. We spent hours jumping into a sawdust pit from a 6-foot platform.

Next we jumped from a 60-foot tower, a standard exercise intended to instill confidence and condition us to obey the jumpmaster’s commands. It was no fun and few of us liked it, but we knew it was necessary.

We descended a cable attached to the tower just inside the jump door. Each man strapped on a parachute harness and latched it to the cable. Once out the door the jumper slid down to a soft landing about 50 yards from the tower.

It sounded simple, but it wasn’t.

The first tower jump was the worst. We jumped in sticks—the military term for parachuters in a line—just as we would from a plane. Four men to a stick, I was second, and I remember thinking that I’d rather have been first and gotten it over with. I climbed the tower unenthusiastically, resigned to the idea that it had to be done. At the top we waited in a small room with corrugated sheet-metal walls.

The jumpmaster stood there waiting for us, understanding our reluctance. He also knew the exercise previewed what we’d be doing on the plane, so he used the same commands. We strapped on the parachute harnesses and stood in line.

“Hook up,” the instructor called out.

We complied, hitching our chute-release lines onto the cable leading out the door.

“Get in the doorway,” he ordered, and the first man shifted to the opening, putting a hand on each side of the doorframe. Knees bent in ready position, the jumper waited for the next command. It always seemed as though minutes passed.

“Go!”

Out the door he went. I watched as he took the initial shock of the cable then slid down to the landing point without a problem. In a real jump the four-man stick would go in quick succession, but in the tower we went out one at a time.

Next it was my turn. Almost robot-like, I shifted to the doorway and grabbed each side of the frame. Then I did start thinking, because I could plainly see the ground 60 feet below and realized I did not want to do this. I tried looking at the horizon, as I had been instructed, but my gaze kept returning to the ground.

Stop it!

My self-coaching didn’t help. As if waiting for the pilot’s signal that we were over the drop zone, the jumpmaster hesitated for eight or 10 seconds, which seemed like forever. I crouched, frozen, in the doorway.

“Go!” he yelled in my ear, pretending to shout over the noise of airplane engines.

I guess I was startled, because I hesitated for a split second before I jumped. Then I went. The harness tightened as the cable caught my weight, and I slid down.

I landed without incident. That one and the two other tower jumps were no question the least-enjoyable experiences of my paramilitary training.

Soon, with the PLF technique mastered and the tower behind us, the day for our first real jump arrived, sunny and warm with few clouds in the sky. This prospect had weighed on us for months. We rode a truck to the airfield, where a two-engine, World War II-era, C-47 transport waited.

We strapped on our parachutes, military T-10 models. We assembled next to the plane, chatting nervously among ourselves. After a briefing we boarded. The cable to which we would fasten our static lines looked ominous along the ceiling. My stick was second this time. We sat on benches stretched along each side of the aisle. The main parachute and reserve chute felt bulky and uncomfortable, but no one complained. Each man held the hook attached to his static line in his right hand. Everyone tried to act casual, but the tension was readily apparent.

We took off and the pilot flew a large spiral around the field, gaining altitude with each pass. Then he leveled off and straightened out.

“We’re on final,” the copilot shouted back.

We all waited for the next command, the one we had practiced on the ground, first in the tower and then inside a mock-up plane. Everyone knew exactly what to do.

“Stand up!” the jumpmaster shouted, followed soon by, “Hook up!”

On command, the four men in the first stick shuffled forward. Mike Deuel, the lead jumper, swung into position at the door, his hands gripping each side of the frame. I could see he was gripping it hard as I sat waiting in anticipation. I wasn’t afraid, just intrigued by the prospect of leaping out of an airplane.

I could hear the assistant instructor speaking to the men in the first stick: “Your first jump will be the best one ever—enjoy it!”

The jumpmaster leaned out the door looking for the drop zone. When he stood up straight, and the jump light flashed on, we knew it was close.

“Go!” he shouted at Mike, swatting him on the butt.

Mike jumped. The rest of the stick quickly shuffled forward, swung into position, and at the jumpmaster’s command headed out the door, each receiving the standard butt swat. All four men jumped within about eight seconds.

The rest of us sat transfixed. With the first stick gone, all we saw was sky. The jumpmaster hauled in the four static lines.

The pilot circled for another run over the drop zone. When he straightened out we heard the cries again.

“We’re on final!”

“Stand up!”

Now my stick stood, hooks in hand, with me third in line. We wore serious, intent expressions—because we were serious and intent.

“First jump will be great,” the assistant repeated.

I barely heard him, as I strained to hear the next command.

“Hook up!”

We snapped onto the cable. I gave my hook a hard jerk to confirm it. We also checked one another. I stared at the door.

Soon I’m going to jump. Imagine that!

“Move to the door!”

We shuffled forward. The first jumper swung into position. I wasn’t even thinking at that point, just reacting.

“Go!”

The first man leaped out, receiving the swat as he left. The rest of us followed, just like in the tower and the mock-up. I moved forward quickly, planted my left foot, pivoted on it, and swung my right foot to the edge of the door. Just as I grabbed the doorframe, I got the command and the swat—and I jumped. No thinking, just discipline and practice. That part was over in an instant.

The slipstream caught me immediately and swung me sideways. I felt no sensation of falling. I saw the tail of the plane go by and disappear. The chute deployed behind me and I fell gently under it like a pendulum.

It was quiet. I looked around, realizing that everything had gone properly. I felt good, watching the base spread out below me and the river off to the side. I also saw the drop zone and happily concluded I was headed right for it.

Great!

As I drifted slowly downward it seemed clear that the jumpmaster and pilot had done their jobs well. We all would be landing in the middle of the large field that was our target.

I relaxed. It was a splendid day, no wind at all. Then I heard the instructors yelling from below.

“Loosen up, bend your knees, relax!”

Apparently my legs were locked stiff as a board, but I didn’t realize it. As my stick neared the ground, the instructors became more insistent. Nothing penetrated. I was staring straight ahead waiting for my toes to touch the ground so I could smoothly roll into my perfect PLF.

But it wasn’t perfect. In fact it was terrible, exactly wrong. I landed backward because I hadn’t used the shrouds to control my direction.

So my heels hit first—wrong!

Butt next—wrong!

Then with a thud the back of my head banged onto the ground. Thank goodness for the helmet, which no doubt prevented a concussion given the force of the impact.

I was down, albeit with a ringing in my head, but I had made it; nothing broken.

I stood up, gingerly.

One of the instructors immediately got in my face.

“Dammit, Holm, don’t you listen?”

“To what?”

“To me, when I give you instructions!”

“Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

“Well, next time listen up, goddam it!”

The instructors had been talking to me all the way down via loudspeakers. So intent was I on making a good PLF that I didn’t hear them at all—I didn’t connect that I was the “number three man in the stick,” as they had kept repeating.

I started thinking about how my first operational landing might go.

About half of our group made similar mistakes, though mine was probably the worst, and nobody did it perfectly. On the other hand, nobody got hurt on landing.

The only injury was to Bob Manning, a well-liked guy with great potential as an operations officer. Despite the checks and double-checks, Bob’s static line had gotten under his arm as he hooked up. When he jumped the line immediately deployed his chute, jerking his arm upward. Fortunately the line did no serious damage; it just gave him a nasty bruise. But that didn’t stop Bob from making the rest of his jumps and completing the program.

We did four more jumps, including one at dusk. Again no one got seriously hurt, our techniques got progressively better, and our confidence grew with each jump. I listened to the instructors and actually made some passable PLFs.

After parachute training they flew us to a secluded base near the Atlantic coast for explosives and small-boat operations.

As usual the sessions included PT but with several new twists. In response to questions, our instructor explained that he had developed the exercises based on his training as a frogman. He said he had designed them to strengthen our upper-arm and chest muscles, which we’d need to place magnetic limpet mines on the hull of a ship.

That explanation brought no more questions.

Each day after breakfast, which followed PT, we moved out to a practice range, where our instructors demonstrated the use of explosives. One of them, John Ward, was also quite entertaining. He could have worked as a stand-up comic. He delivered his stories and jokes with ease and good timing that captivated our group. He continued his routines in the officers’ club in the evenings, but he also knew when to get serious. In the field and dealing with explosives, he was always dead serious.

In both classroom sessions and field demonstrations our instructors emphasized how powerful and efficient relatively small amounts of plastic explosives could be. I wasn’t sure whether I would ever want to mess with the stuff, but I resolved to keep an open mind.

The secret of using explosives properly, they told us, was to shape the charges. That is, mold the plastic and place the charges where they could best attack the structure of the target. A small amount could drop a large tree right across a road or trail, or bring down a bridge.

Safety was the highest priority, and the instructors gave precise briefings on what to do—and what not to do. They started with primer cord, an explosive itself, which is used to detonate the plastic. During our drills it was mandatory after we lit the primer cord to yell, “Fire in the hole!” to alert everyone else to move to safe areas or bunkers.

It took a lot of practice to gauge just how much time we had before the charge would detonate after we lit the cord. It wasn’t too difficult with small lengths that would explode in seconds, but figuring out how much time was needed to move away safely from, say, a bridge before it blew up proved much more of a challenge.

After several days we all grew fairly skilled at getting charges to explode just about when they should. From countdowns of ten to boom, we could get within just a few seconds of boom.

When in doubt we gave ourselves more time.

We practiced on various targets, such as trees, pieces of steel, buildings and vehicles. The instructors also taught us the basics of structural engineering, which would help us place the charges more effectively.

We also learned how to operate and maneuver small boats, in this case small, black rubber rafts propelled by powerful but silenced outboard motors. Even carrying three men plus equipment the little boats could really move.

The SEALs, the Navy’s sea, air and land commandos, used the same craft to infiltrate target areas at night. After we learned the basics about the boats and their motors we also spent a lot of time training at night.

We quickly found that in darkness it’s easy to lose your sense of direction on the water, and our drills concentrated on techniques to gain our bearings and stay on course. Sometimes they towed us out to a certain point and dropped us off. Other times we moved along the coast on our own. After a while we got the idea.

Our final exercise involved a night raid to destroy a simulated enemy command post that was supposedly unguarded.

We planned the operation as a group. We would bring three small boats to a designated cove. Each boat would carry explosives and three armed men, their faces blackened. After rendezvousing at a dock, six of us would move to the target, while the others would guard the boats. At the target two men would set up watch posts, and four would infiltrate and set the charges, with everything observed by our instructors.

After the team lit the primer cords everyone would move back to the boats and beat a hasty retreat. I drew the detail to guard the boats.

It seemed to take much longer than it should for the attack team to get their job done and return. It always does. Finally we heard an explosion and saw fire in the direction of the target.

Done! They should be back in a couple of minutes.

“Let’s get the engines started,” I whispered to the other two guards.

“What if someone hears them?” one responded.

“There’s no one here,” the third retorted.

“At least we will be ready and can get the hell out of here,” I said, pulling the start cord. The engine sprang to life and purred softly.

The returning team needed only spot the dock and slip onto the boats, and we would pull away into the darkness. I heard a second engine start and idle quietly.

“Shit, mine won’t start,” was the next sound that penetrated the night.

Christ! That can’t help anything.

“Keep trying,” I said.

“I am, I am,” he shot back, just as the attack team appeared out of the tree line and moved quickly toward us. Two jumped into each boat—and waited.

“Let’s move,” one of them said.

“Engine won’t start.”

I don’t know if the instructors had built this into the exercise or not, but clearly we had to react to it.

“We can’t stay here. We’ll tow you. Pass us a line,” I said quietly to the men in the disabled boat.

They did, and we pulled slowly but steadily away from the dock and out into the blackness of the estuary. We followed the lone boat, and everyone tried to keep a low profile. No other problems developed, and our field improvisation had worked. The instructors made no complaints. They may or may not have realized that one of the boats had been towed; so much the better.

The exercise was realistic enough to show how difficult and dangerous such a raid could be. We imagined being on an enemy coast and having to limp out with failed equipment, possibly under hostile gunfire.

Small-boat and explosives training turned out to be useful. We didn’t gain expertise in either area, but we learned and practiced enough to become effective later in our careers, where certain situations would demand paramilitary skills.