Early SIGINT Efforts in Vietnam (Part 1 of 7)

Within a year of the Army Security Agency (ASA) setting up its station at Tan Son Nhut in 1961, other elements of the American cryptologic community started to arrive on the scene.

These newly arriving units found themselves in much the same boat as ASA had been in during its first days. They, too, needed a lot of training on the communications environment; plus, they had to develop an operational and organizational niche, that is, they had to “fit in” the growing cryptologic mission. The first to arrive after the army were the U.S. Marine Corps cryptologists.

The Marines Corps almost made it to Southeast Asia during the Laotian crisis of late 1959. Initially, when the ASA command was caught flat-footed by the demands of manning a site in Thailand (as well as supporting the Laotian crisis task force), the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) offered a team of twenty marines from the 1st Composite Radio Company (COMRADCO), Fleet Marine Force, Pacific (FMFPAC) stationed at Kaneohe, Hawaii. The CNO felt that the Marines could make an “interim contribution” to the army’s effort, and this could enhance the COMRADCO’s capability to direct support possible operations by JTF-116 in Laos.69 However, about a week later, the offer became moot as CINCPAC put JTF-116 on alert and assigned operational control of the marines (designated USN-414A) to the commander of the Marine Expeditionary Force attached to the task force.