Tom Donahue person
also: Donahue, Donna Hugh, Donohue, Tom Donohue
Explore in graph → Export claims (CSV) ↓
Related entities (most co-mentioned)
CIAintelligence service · 7Vietnamcountry · 3USAIDorganization · 2Chicagoplace · 1Langleyplace · 1Austrian Information Serviceorganization · 1Stuart Ungerperson · 1W.C. Fieldsperson · 1Cliff Strathairnperson · 1Lê Xuân Maiperson · 1Ridge Campplace · 1Census Grievance Programoperation · 1Joe Vaccaroperson · 1Barry Zorthianperson · 1Chauperson · 1South Vietnamplace · 1U.S. State Departmentorganization · 1Ho Chi Minhperson · 1
Claims (7)
Tom Donahue headed
Census Grievance Program book_quoted
“Donna Hugh explained the census grievance program like this, quote, everybody knows the government takes a census. So you'd have a guy make a map of every house in the village, put everything into perspective. Then the edict was issued that…”
▶ Operation Gladio-Vietnam Part 6 Phoenix Program @ 37:27
Tom Donahue appointed
Lê Xuân Mai book_quoted
“to rent another chunk to expand their operation down on this island slash peninsula. He then got his counterpart, Mai, M-A-I, a promotion and arranged for him to begin training not just the Vietnamese, but all of the new CIA people coming i…”
▶ Operation Gladio-Vietnam Part 6 Phoenix Program @ 33:04
Tom Donahue founded
Ridge Camp book_quoted
“buildings for our training. This ends up being called Ridge Camp, R-I-D-G-E, and was five miles beyond the airport. So we built roads, we built barracks, mess halls, classrooms, armories, offices, the whole nine yards. So they're setting up…”
▶ Operation Gladio-Vietnam Part 6 Phoenix Program @ 34:29
Tom Donahue succeeded
Cliff Strathairn book_quoted
“like bought lock, stock and barrel Thailand. Maybe that's why there's so much pedophilia over there now. Just a thought. So anyway, when he arrived in Saigon, he replaced a guy by the name of Cliff Strathern. S-T-R-A-T-H-E-R-N.…”
▶ Operation Gladio-Vietnam Part 6 Phoenix Program @ 30:34
Tom Donahue recruited
Barry Zorthian book_quoted
“This is a quote. So I went out to try to get some co-sponsors for the record. They weren't easy to come by. So he goes to the U.S. Information Services chief, which is just another front for the CIA, by the way, Barry, and I'm going to spel…”
▶ Operation Gladio-Vietnam Part 6 Phoenix Program @ 59:19
Tom Donahue reassigned
Chau book_quoted
“He ends up getting transferred to the training camp so that they can keep him under watch because they're not sure what to think of him, whether or not he was crooked like them or not. So they're going to put him down on charge of the Vietn…”
▶ Operation Gladio-Vietnam Part 6 Phoenix Program @ 1:03:08
Jordan Gorganson succeeded
Tom Donahue book_quoted
“And he names Jordan Gorganson, who had by this point replaced the guy we talked about earlier, De Silva, said, tell them everything. I said, OK. And I spent two and a half hours briefing his full group, Lansdale's, about a week after they a…”
▶ Operation Gladio-Vietnam Part 6 Phoenix Program @ 1:02:08
Mentions (19)
▶ 28:34
CIA officer chosen to build the facilities and create a national pacification program that could maintain operations independently of the South Vietnamese Army was fostering local initiatives. And his name was Tom Donohue. D-O-N-O-H-U-E. He…
▶ 29:02
And very integrated into Cook County politics. And people say, describe him like he looked like W.C. Fields. Same mannerism, same kind of personality. So he joined the CIA when he viewed it as a way of kind of stepping up in the hierarchy o…
▶ 29:34
So he was the quintessential CIA officer, very calculating. And when the author met him in 1986, Donahue was working as a representative for a Filipino construction company. When he arrived in Saigon 22 years before that during the Vietnam …
▶ 31:07
And he basically was the chief of covert actions. So he would be over all of this stuff that we're talking about. And Strathairn and his replacement, Donahue, basically worked as if they were a part of the embassy staff in the political off…
▶ 32:35
Learning all about the Vietnamese and why the nationalistic pride that some Vietnamese had, like Ho Chi Minh, posed their biggest problem for them because they didn't want Americans in there to begin with. And Donahue immediately picked up …
▶ 33:04
to rent another chunk to expand their operation down on this island slash peninsula. He then got his counterpart, Mai, M-A-I, a promotion and arranged for him to begin training not just the Vietnamese, but all of the new CIA people coming i…
▶ 33:31
Donahue says, I decided, quote, I decided this was the route we should be following, and I began looking for a means of expanding the program. I got rid of most of the other stuff I had responsibility for, and from that point on, programmin…
▶ 33:59
During a war, they're like PCSing people in there to stay for years at a time. Donahue leased a Catholic seminary whose owners had decided that it was time to cut and run, or they made sure that they did that. It was really just a, supposed…
▶ 34:29
buildings for our training. This ends up being called Ridge Camp, R-I-D-G-E, and was five miles beyond the airport. So we built roads, we built barracks, mess halls, classrooms, armories, offices, the whole nine yards. So they're setting up…
▶ 34:59
So they don't plan on going anywhere, folks. Having put his management team and facilities in place, Donahue next had to demonstrate that the CIA could develop people into these action teams in a quantity necessary for this program to work.…
▶ 35:28
They taught how to get in, how to abduct prisoners, how to get the hell out of there, and how to interrogate. He originally had brought them there temporarily, but most of them ended up staying long term. Let's see. And he said many of them…
▶ 37:27
Donna Hugh explained the census grievance program like this, quote, everybody knows the government takes a census. So you'd have a guy make a map of every house in the village, put everything into perspective. Then the edict was issued that…
▶ 39:53
So did the cadre program. But there were areas that were so tough and inaccessible that there was just no intelligence coming out of those areas. And then it says, but we never really had what we thought was a good continuing intelligence n…
▶ 40:23
That was no easy task, even for Tom Donahue. He basically described the province chief as a military officer who was the product of a Mandarin system, a person with total discretion over how money is spent and who couldn't care less what so…
▶ 41:18
Further complicating things was the fact that corruption in the provinces was basically part of the culture. So Donahue spent a good till of his time trying to keep the local parties from using the money that they were giving to their own a…
▶ 41:49
sometimes came with their own private army, and that posed an even bigger problem for these guys. Donahue said, if you use the province chiefs in the way that they've been trained, we'll feed them, pay them, and equip them. If you decide to…
▶ 56:57
So Donahue began recruiting military people like a guy by the name of Joe Vaccaro, V-A-C-A-R-R-O. He was a special forces sergeant who was working as a, wait for it, public safety advisor. Because remember, the public safety program is what…
▶ 59:19
This is a quote. So I went out to try to get some co-sponsors for the record. They weren't easy to come by. So he goes to the U.S. Information Services chief, which is just another front for the CIA, by the way, Barry, and I'm going to spel…
▶ 1:02:39
The Vietnamese counterpart, his name's Chau, C-H-A-U, said to Donovan that he wants to be part of all of this too. But he's the guy that had basically been, he was a crony of Dem. So people kind of looked at him with kind of suspicion.…