Lucien Conein

Lucien Emile “Lou” Conein (November 29, 1919 – June 3, 1998) was a French-American U.S. Army officer and intelligence operative whose career with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) spanned five decades. Known for his swashbuckling persona and pivotal role in covert operations, Conein is best remembered for his involvement in the 1963 South Vietnamese coup against President Ngô Đình Diệm, which led to Diệm’s assassination.

Personal Life

Conein was born in Paris, France, to Lucien Xavier Conein and Estelle Elin at the end of World War I. At age five, after his father’s death, his widowed mother sent him to Kansas City, Missouri, to live with his aunt, a French war bride married to a U.S. soldier. He attended Wyandotte High School but dropped out after his junior year. In 1939, at the onset of World War II, the 20-year-old joined the French Army, claiming later—likely with his noted flair for exaggeration—that it was the French Foreign Legion. Following France’s fall to Nazi Germany in 1940, he switched to the U.S. Army. As a native French speaker, he volunteered for the OSS, the wartime precursor to the CIA.

Conein married three times, with his third wife, Elyette B. Conein, in 1957, bearing three children: Cecil, Serge, and Bernard. He had additional children from earlier marriages, leaving six sons, one daughter, 11 grandchildren, and one great-grandchild at his death.

Known for his colorful storytelling, often shared over wine and pear brandy, Conein’s tales blended fact and exaggeration, leading Karnow to abandon a planned biography. He died of a heart attack at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, on June 3, 1998, at age 78. His funeral at Arlington National Cemetery on July 14, 1998, marked the end of an era for OSS and CIA operatives, with attendees recounting his exploits, including his popularity in St. Tropez during its liberation.

Military Career

In 1944, Conein parachuted into Nazi-occupied France as part of the Jedburghs, a multinational OSS and British Special Operations Executive unit, to aid the French Resistance during the Normandy landings. He worked closely with the Corsican Brotherhood, a mafia group allied with the Resistance, later describing their global reach and patient approach to revenge. In 1945, he was sent to French Indochina, leading a commando team of American, French, and Chinese personnel to gather intelligence and attack Japanese garrisons in Lang-Son and Bong-Xom. His reconnaissance and leadership in these operations earned him the Bronze Star Medal and the Legion of Honor for negotiating the release of French internees in Hanoi. After World War II, Conein joined the CIA upon its formation in 1947.

CIA

During the early Cold War, he infiltrated spies and saboteurs into Soviet bloc countries in Eastern Europe. In 1951, he established a CIA base in Nuremberg, assisted by Ted Shackley, and later worked with William King Harvey in Berlin. In 1954, he was sent to North Vietnam to counter Ho Chi Minh’s government, initially through a propaganda campaign to discourage communist support in the South, followed by arming and training Montagnard tribesmen under CIA station chief William Colby. In 1956, he briefly returned to military duty with the 77th Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg, serving as a project officer for the Basic Free Fall Parachuting Course and commanding detachments, fulfilling Army requirements for promotion to lieutenant colonel.

Vietnam

Conein returned to Vietnam in 1961 as a CIA operative under the ZRJEWEL program, using the cryptonym SCHWICKRATH. As a paramilitary staff officer in Saigon, he advised on counterinsurgency and maintained contacts with senior Vietnamese officials. His most notable role came during the November 1963 coup against Ngô Đình Diệm. Serving as Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.’s liaison, Conein delivered $42,000 in cash to coup plotters, including General Duong Van Minh, and provided intelligence to the U.S. government. While the Kennedy administration, via Cable 243, instructed non-intervention, Conein’s actions facilitated the coup, which resulted in Diệm’s assassination. He later testified to the Church Committee in 1975 that he was asked to procure an aircraft for Diệm’s evacuation but was told none was available within 24 hours. Conein received the CIA’s Intelligence Star for his role.

By 1965, disillusioned with the escalating Vietnam War, Conein’s heavy drinking led to his reassignment to Phu Bon province, which he called “Phu Elba.” He left the CIA in 1968 to become a businessman in South Vietnam, where his ventures fizzled. In 1970, E. Howard Hunt introduced him to President Richard Nixon, who appointed him chief of covert operations for the DEA in 1972. Conein directed an intelligence and operations unit, with some sources alleging assassination plots against drug lords, though evidence is limited. He was considered for the Watergate burglary team but declined, later boasting to historian Stanley Karnow, “If I’d been involved, we’d have done it right.” His DEA tenure was controversial due to his public claim of honorary membership in the Corsican Brotherhood, a group linked to drug smuggling. He retired in 1984.

Sources:

Wikipedia (Lucien Conein), The New York Times (June 7, 1998), Spartacus Educational, CIA Studies in Intelligence (Vol. 63, No. 4, 2019), National Security Archive, Arlington National Cemetery, TracesOfWar.comweb:0,1,2,5,8,10,12,13,14,15,17,19