History - Vietnam

One of the first challenges facing the Kennedy Administration in January 1961 was the threat of communist guerrillas destabilizing pro-democracy governments in Southeast Asia. A dedicated intelligence operation was needed to counter the threat.

The group chosen for the mission was the US Army Security Agency, sent to South Vietnam under a cover name: the 3rd Radio Research Unit (RRU). Noel Koch, Chairman and founder of TranSecur, Inc. joined the 3rd RRU in January 1962.

The events of this period are recounted in The Most Secret War, a history of one of the most highly classified intelligence operations in US military history, finally published in 2003:

"The first unit to be deployed in South Vietnam belonged to the US Army Security Agency, as did the first to be decorated. The first casualty of the war was an ASA soldier. These milestones are reminders that from the beginning Vietnam was very much an intelligence war."

Keith Alexander
Commanding General
US Army Intelligence and Security Agency

Noel Koch first operated with US Special Forces in Vietnam. He developed US military doctrine for the collection and use of open sources for dealing with unconventional forces. In the course of a long career in and out of government, he refined approaches to the collection and analysis of open source intelligence. In this period also, he was responsible for the restoration of America's Special Operations Force (SOF) capability, held in disdain by the military's conventional thinkers, and nearly eliminated by them.

"One of the few SOF supporters was an Undersecretary of Defense, Noel Koch, who single-handedly kept elements of the community alive during the early years of the Reagan administration. Today, Koch is celebrated as one of the founding fathers of United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM)."

Tom Clancy
Special Forces
Berkeley Books, New York, 2001, p. 13.