IN the shadowy world of the intelligence agent, the phrase "to terminate with prejudice" means to blackball an agent administratively so that he cannot work again as an informer. When the phrase "to terminate with extreme prejudice" is used, it often becomes the cloak-and-dagger code for extermination. In June, just such an execution order reached a U.S. Special Forces outfit in a port city of South Viet Nam. Seven Green Beret officers and one enlisted man helped to carry it out. The upshot was their arrest and detention pending investigation. Last week, as the Army maintained total silence and a host of rumors swirled through offices and bars in Saigon, Washington and Green Beret headquarters at Fort Bragg, N.C., a bizarre tale of counterespionage began to unfold.
The alleged crime centers around Special Forces Unit B57 (code name: "Black Beard") located on Nha Trang airbase 190 miles northeast of Saigon. Like two other outfits (B52 and B-55) operating in Viet Nam, B57 is a Special Forces intelligence unit, commanded by Major David Crew of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, one of the eight under arrest. It was engaged in counterespionage along the borders of Laos and Cambodia, employing a network of 300 secret agents to spot enemy infiltrators, supply dumps and rest camps. One of its top agents was a Vietnamese national with the cover name of Thai Khac Chuyen.
Too Late. Early in June, B57 received intelligence photos snapped in Cambodia by another of its spies showing Agent Chuyen in conversation with a man known to be a high official in the North Vietnamese intelligence system, the CNC (Cue Nghien Cuu—Central Office for Research and Studies). Chuyen was picked up in Tay Ninh near the Cambodian border and brought to Nha Trang for "hard" interrogation. Later he was taken to Saigon, shot full of sodium pentothal and given a lie-detector test.The interrogations convinced the Green Berets that Chuyen was a double agent serving Hanoi as well as the U.S. Because the CIA has overall responsibility for secret agents in Viet Nam, it was notified at once. The CIA sent the fatal reply: "Terminate with extreme prejudice." A few days later, the CIA countermanded its "extreme" order —but by then it was too late.
Chuyen had already been given a massive dose of morphine, bundled into a boat and shot to death with a .22-cal. pistol. His body, weighted with chains, was dumped into either the deep, mud-bottomed Giang River or the South China Sea. Despite weeks of full-time dredging by three ships, Chuyen's body has not been recovered.
South Viet Nam literally swarms with spies and agents of all sorts. On the allied side alone, there are said to be at least 15 separate intelligence organizations, often antagonistic to one another. A roundup of suspected enemy spies and agents last month netted 69 prisoners, including Huynh Van Trong, a longtime friend of President Thieu's and his Special Assistant for Political Affairs. Rumors in Saigon at once linked the Green Beret case to the recent roundup.