[ index | 1970 | VIETNAM ]

Vietnam / opération Plan 34A


«Le Conseil national de sécurité avait autorisé en janvier 1964 le soutien aux opérations clandestines sud-vietnamiennes contre le Nord-Vietnam – nom de code: Plan 34A. Le Plan 34A comprenait deux types d'opérations. L'une consistait à infiltrer au Nord-Vietnam, par bateau ou par avion, des agents sud-vietnamiens équipés de matériel radio, qui feraient des sabotages et collecteraient des renseignements. L'autre serait exécutée par des vedettes rapides, dont l'équipage serait sud-vietnamien ou composé de mercenaires étrangers: elles frapperaient soudainement les côtes et les installations insulaires des Nord-Vietnamiens et disparaîtraient aussitôt. La CIA soutenait les opérations 34A sud-vietnamiennes, et le MACV [Military Assistance Command, Vietnam] gardait un contact étroit avec elles, ainsi que le général Krulak du Conseil interarmes des chefs d'état-major à Washington.» (MN 133)

«Les patrouilles DESOTO se distinguaient très nettement, par leur objectif et leurs procédures, des opérations 34A. Elles faisaient partie d'un système planétaire de reconnaissance électronique assuré par des navires de guerre américains spécialement équipés. Opérant dans les eaux internationales, ces bâtiments collectaient des signaux radio et radar émanant de stations littorales à la périphérie de pays communistes tels que l'Union soviétique, la Chine, la Corée du Nord et – plus important ici – le Nord-Vietnam.» (MN 133)


«They were entirely U.S. operations, codenamed 34A ops. The anti-infiltration operations by South Vietnamese junks that McNamara described in some detail to Congress were entirely separate and different, as he knew. For the raids against North Vietnam, of which Hanoi had publicly complained, the U.S. owned the fast patrol boats known as Nastys (which CIA had purchased from Norway), hired the crews, and controlled every aspect of the operations. The CIA ran the training, with help from the U.S. Navy, and recruited the crews; some of them were recruited, as individuals, from the Vietnamese Navy but others were CIA "assets" from Taiwan and elsewhere in Asia, along with mercenaries from around the world. The operations had been run originally by CIA, but now were jointly controlled by CIA and Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV), in coordination with the Navy.

Despite the use of foreign personnel, to provide "plausible deniability" if captured, the 34A operations were exactly as much American operations as the U.S. Navy DeSoto patrols of the destroyers. Moreover, the North Vietnamese were not mistaken to believe that the two types of American operations were coordinated at various levels. For one thing, the DeSoto missions in that particular area were timed to take advantage, in their plotting of coastal radars and interception of communications, of the heightened activity that was triggered in North Vietnamese coastal defenses by the 34A raids. » (Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets,)

voir également:
- Maddox



-- [AK] André Kaspi: Les Américains, Paris, 1986.

-- [NC] Noam Chomsky: Intervention in Vietnam & Central America (dans: De la guerre comme politique étrangère des États-Unis, Marseille, 2001).

-- [HK] Henry Kissinger: Diplomacy, New York, 1994. (Diplomatie, Paris, Fayard, 1996)

-- [MN] Robert McNamara: In Retrospect. The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, 1995. (Seuil, 1996)

[ index | 1969 | VIETNAM ]