NARA Records

From: Vsg <vsg-bounces@mailman11.u.washington.edu> On Behalf Of tran_n_a@yahoo.com

Sent: Monday, June 27, 2022 6:15 PM

To: vsg vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: [Vsg] NARA records

Dear list,

I have a few questions about the records held at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in College Park, Maryland. NARA holds Record Group 59, which is the collection of the US State Department. Does anyone know when the Central Decimal Files for 1960-1963 relating to Vietnam were declassified? Vietnam is the 751K series. I assume they were declassified in batches and most definitely by the 1980s when the Foreign Relations of the United States series began publishing some of the documents in the 751K series.

My second question is about the translations found in the same 751K series of the same time period. There are many translations of Vietnamese documents into English, and the translations can be found in the telegrams and despatches sent by the US embassy in Saigon to the Department of State back in Washington. My understanding is that many of these translations were done by the CIA (often called CAS, or "controlled American source" in the documents), often by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service division. Would that have been the CIA station in Saigon or CIA headquarters or somewhere else? Do we know anything about who the translators were? Were Vietnamese documents translated directly into English or into French and then into English?

Any help would be much appreciated!

Cheers,

Nu-Anh

On 28 Jun 2022, at 05:45, Judith A N Henchy <judithh@uw.edu> wrote:

Nu Anh, I presume that the files would have been declassified according to automatic declassification at 25 years, unless they were subject to Mandatory Declassification or FOIA request before that.

For your second question: I always presumed that FBIS translators would have been in the US (I know more about the British equivalent, Summary of World Broadcasts, which was run out of the Caversham signals operation). There were translators at CDEC at Tan Son Nhut, but I think that was established at a slightly later date. I don’t know the extent to which those materials were integrated into strategic documents that made their way to State. You raise good questions that others on the list may well be able to answer from personal knowledge.

Best

Judith

Judith Henchy, Ph.D., MLIS

Head, Southeast Asia Section

Special Assistant to the Dean of University Libraries for International Programs

Affiliate Faculty, Jackson School of International Studies

From: billhayton <bill@billhayton.com>

Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2022 12:37 AM

To: Judith A N Henchy <judithh@uw.edu>

Cc: tran_n_a@yahoo.com; VSG <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] NARA records

I love the idea of the ‘Caversham signals operation’!

My dad was the building manager at BBC Caversham during the 1990s and we lived down the road from it. It was requisitioned mansion on the outskirts of Reading with a nice cricket pitch in front (where I played a couple of times when the BBC team was short of a player). Lots of Russian emigres listening to state radio stations. They were a weird bunch who ate lunch with their headphones around their necks in case someone nicked their favourite pair while they were away from their desks…

The Brits and the Americans had divided up the world so that we got the Soviet Bloc but there were still a few FBIS people at Caversham.

All the best

Bill

On Tuesday, June 28, 2022 at 05:11:04 PM EDT, Judith A N Henchy <judithh@uw.edu> wrote:

Bill, Thanks for this recollection. I didn’t quite know what else to call it! I have a vague recollection that I may have applied for a job there, possibility at the recommendation of Paddy Honey, who was probably intimate with the place.

All the best,

Judith

Judith Henchy, MLIS, Ph.D.

Head, Southeast Asia Section, University of Washington Libraries

Special Assistant to the Dean of University Libraries for International Programs

Affiliate Faculty, Jackson School of International Studies

From: tran_n_a@yahoo.com <tran_n_a@yahoo.com>

Sent: Saturday, July 9, 2022 6:38 AM

To: billhayton <bill@billhayton.com>; Judith A N Henchy <judithh@uw.edu>

Cc: VSG <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] NARA records

Hi again everyone,

With the help of a colleague, I was put in touch with Mark Stout, who send me declassified CIA histories (well, declassified through FOIA) about the Foreign Broadcast Information Service and the Foreign Document Division. I think others on the list may find them useful, and they can be found here: https://www.muckrock.com/project/declassifying-cias-internal-histories-240/ (scroll down to Foreign Broadcast Information Service).

Based on what I could glean from these declassified histories, translators for FBIS working on Vietnamese materials were mostly Vietnamese nationals in the Saigon Bureau of the service, and translators for FDD were usually US nationals working either in the Saigon CIA station or CIA headquarters in Washington in the late 1950s and early 1960s. FBIS had a semi-autonomous existence within the CIA, and its Saigon Bureau appears to have been closer to the Saigon embassy than the CIA station.

Cheers,

Nu-Anh