“Pre-Brief” is the name given to the everyday, worldwide news summary that is prepared by the CIA and presented to the President early each morning. It is given to a highly select, small group of Pentagon officials just prior to the White House session.
During this period the Diem regime invented the term Vietcong, intending it to mean “Vietnamese Communist.” The National Liberation Front condemned the term as meaningless. Diem and his administration applied the term loosely within South Vietnam to mean “the enemy,” most of whom had no idea what communism was, and most of whom had been Cochin Chinese, or southern, natives. Thus, the intelligence “count” of Vietcong enemy included many natives who certainly were not Communist.
In what was broadly known as the “domino theory,” it was held that if one country fell to communism, neighboring nations would follow. Countries were likened to a row of dominos set on end; the row would fall if the first domino was knocked down.
U.S. News and World Report, June 26, 1967.
This is an intelligence term for a secret operation supported by a unit that has a fictitious designation.
The director of the Joint Staffs was the senior, permanently assigned officer in the then 400-man office which supported the Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Wheeler went on to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a position he held for some six years.
The study was done by the Okanagan Helicopter Service of Canada, one of the largest commercial helicopter operators in the world.
It must be kept in mind that despite reference to U. S. military personnel, the CIA had operational control of all U.S. activities in Indochina until the U. S. Marines landed in Vietnam on March 8, 1965. Therefore, these helicopter tactics and tactical operations were developed by the CIA.