Peer de Silva (June 26, 1917 – August 13, 1978) was a station chief in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). A 1941 West Point graduate, during World War II he served as an Army officer providing security for the Manhattan Engineer District; this undercover project sought to build the first atomic bomb. After the war, he joined a pre-CIA military intelligence unit. Then, having learned Russian, he worked in central Europe, frequently traveling to Moscow. Resigning from the Army, he rose within CIA ranks, becoming a chief of station (COS). He first held such rank in Vienna, 1956–1959.
He next led the CIA station at the American Embassy in Seoul, South Korea, where he played a role in two major events. First was the democratic April Revolution in 1960. Yet in 1961 a successful May coup d'état installed General Pak Chung Hee (head of state, 1961–1979). De Silva then was assigned to Hong Kong as COS.
Following the November 1963 military overthrow of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem (head of state, 1954–1963), President Johnson personally ratified de Silva as the CIA's new Chief of Station in Saigon. He quickly came to view the Vietnam War as political. He then advocated a counterinsurgency strategy, and took an active role in fostering such programs. The Viet Cong bombed the American Embassy in March 1965; the blast badly wounded de Silva. After an initial recovery, he returned to his post.
For a year de Silva served as the Director's first Vietnam expert (SAVA) at CIA headquarters in Virginia. However, he asked to be sent back to Southeast Asia, and arrived as COS in Bangkok in 1966. His last CIA assignment was to Canberra, Australia, where he served again as COS, until 1972.
Early career U.S. Army Peer de Silva was born in San Francisco, California, on June 26, 1917. He entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, graduating 321st in the class of 1941.Cullum (1950), p. 1144. Posted to Military Intelligence, in 1942 he completed the Army's advanced school for the counterintelligence corps. Then serving as an Army officer in charge of security, he provided protection for scientists and technicians in the Manhattan Project. He personally escorted the plutonium hemispheres that formed the core of the Fat Man nuclear weapon to Tinian, the island in the western Pacific from which the raid on Nagasaki was staged. On the island, only hours before Bockscar took off for Japan, the hemispheres—called the "pit", on analogy with the seed of a stonefruit—were inserted into the center of their nuclear weapon.
Following the surrender of Japan, he accompanied a team of Manhattan Project scientists who conducted the radiological survey and compiled the final damage report on the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In October, 1945 he returned to Washington, D.C., for reassignment in the War Department.de Silva (1978): San Francisco, p. 289; USMA, pp. ix, 76; Manhattan project, pp. 3, 4, 4–5.Helms (2003), p. 76 (de Silva: USMA, Manhattan project).Smith (2003), pp. 73–74, at 73 (Military Academy, Army Intelligence, Counterintelligence school, Manhattan project). For his service with the Manhattan Project, he was awarded the Legion of Merit.
Strategic Services Unit
The OSS, the major American foreign intelligence agency during World War II, interested de Silva. Although the OSS had been abolished in late 1945, core OSS functions were absorbed by a new military unit in the War Department: the SSU. It was headed by General John Magruder, formerly a deputy director of the OSS. In 1947 these core functions were folded into the newly created Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).Montague (1992), p. 21 (John Magruder as Donovan's Deputy at OSS); pp. 78, n. c; 87–88, 221, n. d (the OSS clandestine services transferred to SSU, at same E Street offices).Helms (2003): Magruder at SSU, pp. 62, 66–67, 70.Ranelagh (1986), pp. 100–101. Magruder at War heads SSU containing the "operations side" of disbanded OSS, while analysis side of OSS at State. Yet there were severe cut-backs, e.g., SSU personnel declines from 3,000 to about 800.
In the meantime, General Leslie Groves of the Manhattan Engineer District had agreed to transfer de Silva. At SSU, General Magruder assigned de Silva to "X-2" the counterintelligence section, in the new Cold War climate. Then at CIA de Silva, still in the Army, though working under Richard Helms, performed the delicate task of vetting former OSS agents, especially European refugees with "murky" backgrounds.Helms (2003), p. 76 (included were "anti-fascist" activists, some of whom were likely Soviet agents). De Silva had seen first hand the assault by Soviet espionage on the Manhattan project. An assignment to Europe was considered for de Silva, to counter Soviet attempts at malappropriation of scientific information.de Silva (1978): OSS, and SSU under John Magruder, pp. 3–4; Europe, p. 5.Powers (1979), p. 28: the SSU under Magruder contained two sections: x-2 (counterintelligence) and SI or Secret Intelligence.
Central Europe, USSR An opportunity arose, however, for Russian language instruction at Columbia University, in a 3-year Army program. In 1946 de Silva obtained a transfer to begin his study of Russian; it continued in Germany at a school taught by Russian émigrés. In mid-1948 he was sent to Allied-occupied Austria.Ranelagh (1986), p. 138: At that time Vienna was "second only to Berlin as a point of East-West conflict." There he minded an unpleasant Russian colonel permitted to travel widely in the American zone, in order to speak with displaced persons; the Soviet offered them return to the USSR, a very unpopular option. Although as an Army officer he obtained his Russian language training, de Silva made contact with various CIA agents posted to central and eastern Europe, which was very tense terrain at the start of the Cold War.de Silva (1978): language, pp. 5–7; Russian colonel, pp. 7–14; CIA agents in Europe, pp. 5, 17.
During 1949 de Silva traveled by train or plane between Helsinki and Moscow, carrying classified documents as a diplomatic courier. "Except for a couple of American newsmen the only ones [in Moscow] were assigned to the Embassy. All were under frequent surveillance... . " To practice his Russian, and spot Soviet mailboxes and clandestine dead drops, he'd take the Moscow subway to the end of a line and walk, fast in the cold, back to the Embassy, trailed by Soviet agents. He witnesses "political terror". An African American in Russia since 1933 stopped him on the street and asked him to telephone his brother in Philadelphia. With another Russian-speaking U.S. Army officer he claims to have joined the 1949 May Day parade in Red Square. They ran with a Soviet group, while required to keep their hands up in the air to prevent assassination attempts. "In this fashion, we passed Stalin and Molotov, going at a fast fox trot, hurried on by the police." After six months and eleven round trips, the Soviets refused to grant him any further visas.de Silva (1978): courier, pp. 16–17, 21–22, 30, 31, 35–36, Moscow quote at 23; walks in Moscow, pp. 24–25; state terror, pp. 25–26, 29; African American, pp. 31–32; May Day 1949, pp. 32–35, quote at 34; denied further visas, pp. 35–36.Smith (2003), de Silva: p. 73 (language schools; diplomatic courier, Moscow).
Pullach, West Germany
As "an Army officer on detail to the CIA" de Silva, from late 1949 to mid-1951, became deputy chief at the CIA base in Pullach, near Munich, in the newly independent Bundesrepublik Deutschland. The CIA then began to replace the Army intelligence in its role doing liaison work, begun during the Allied occupation of Germany with the reconstituted Gehlen organization. Also headquartered in Pullach, this West German intelligence organization was led by Reinhard Gehlen, who had during World War II commanded German military intelligence in the east.de Silva (1978), pp. 38, 53 (quote, CIA Pullach office); Gehlen was nicknamed the "Doctor" (p. 42).Murphy, Kondrashev, Bailey (1997), pp. 111, 416 (Gehlen Org. run by U. S. Army in late 1940s).
A major part of de Silva's job in Pullach was to assist with the various West German efforts to collect information from the occupied Soviet Zone of Germany. A chief target was the Russian military establishment, its intentions and capabilities. Deputy chief de Silva frequently met with Gehlen, a shy introvert, but intense and dedicated. They worked to recruit German agents (known as V-männer), sent to or already living in the Soviet Zone. Awareness of the status of these agents was tricky, as sometimes a V-mann might be turned or doubled by opposing Communist officials, corrupting any subsequent information. In 1956 Gehlen became the first chief of West German intelligence, Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND).de Silva (1978): pp. 40–41 (German agents); 37–41, 42–43 (Gehlen); 39, 40 (BND).Murphy, Kondrashev, Bailey (1997), p. 430 (Gehlen and BND); cf. p. 19 (early pro-West German agents in Soviet Zone, and doubled Communist agents).
CIA Headquarters Back at CIA headquarters, then located in Washington near the Lincoln Memorial, de Silva in 1951 briefly worked in the Foreign Intelligence Staff under the veteran Eric Timm. de Silva was appointed chief of operations in the Soviet Russia Division. At first the CIA possessed no assets (intelligence agents) in the USSR. Without much success, the CIA had been parachuting Russian-speaking volunteers into the Soviet Union, with false papers. Almost all of them, however, were being captured and forced to serve the Soviets; any further information received was doctored, or worthless. One CIA operation in Russia that did meet with success involved a joint reconnaissance mission with the Navy, sending a small team to a newly built Soviet airfield in eastern Siberia. On occasion the CIA encountered the defection of a Soviet agent, which caused excitement. It required a studied response, patient observation, and a reception based on a calibrated trust. In 1955 an increase in defections kept the SR Division busy.de Silva (1978): HQ, pp. 53–54; FI Staff, p. 54; no assets, p. 5; SR Div., pp. 54–55; volunteers, pp. 55–57; Siberia, pp. 58–61; defection, pp. 62–66, 68–70, 84–85.Powers (1979), p. 42, no assets: Soviet Russia for awhile "remained a 'denied area' which resisted penetration" by the CIA.
With the purpose of resigning as an Army officer de Silva had in 1951 been interviewed by the formidable General Walter Bedell Smith, then the DCI. Some routine orders to Army officers such as de Silva could interfere with their duties at CIA. In 1953 de Silva spoke with the new DCI Allen Dulles. He was honorably discharged by the Army. Accordingly, de Silva then became a civilian at CIA.de Silva (1978): 75–76. After discharge, de Silva signed with the Army Reserve Corps.
Chief of Station (COS) Following his service in the CIA's Soviet Russia Division, Peer de Siva was appointed Chief of Station (COS) at a number of different CIA posts: Austria, South Korea, Hong Kong, South Vietnam, Thailand, and Australia.Prados (2003, 2009) pp. 132–133 (brief summary of de Silva's career up to COS in Saigon). Prados describes "the status of chief of station" as "that rarified plateau for CIA officers" (p. 69). The office of the COS was usually located at the American Embassy.
Vienna 1956 to 1959
In early 1955 Frank Wisner, the head of CIA's Clandestine Service, assigned de Silva to Vienna as deputy COS. He had been posted to occupied Austria before, by the Army in 1948.de Silva (1978), pp. 83, 84 (dep. COS); pp. 7–14 (prior Austrian posting), see above section "Central Europe, USSR".Cf. Murphy Kondrashev, Bailey (1997): Vienna was then a hot bed of espionage; prior to de Silva's arrival, the British SIS (MI6) had dug a tunnel into the Soviet zone in order to tap their communication lines (pp. 215, 218–219).
Austria after occupation