Editing Lucien Conein (section)

==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.