Lucien Conein; Liaison in Assassination of Diem
WASHINGTON — Lucien E. Conein, the intelligence agent who was a key liaison between U.S. officials and South Vietnamese generals in the assassination of President Ngo Dinh Diem, died Wednesday. He was 79.
His intelligence career included getting weapons to French resistance forces in World War II, coordinating the infiltration of spies into Eastern Europe after the war and training paramilitary forces in Iran.
In 1954, after the partition of Vietnam, Conein organized anti-communist guerrillas in North Vietnam. He went on to act as a vital liaison between the U.S. Embassy in Saigon and South Vietnamese generals who plotted the overthrow and assassination of Diem in 1963.
Conein served in the French army and then later the U.S. Army, reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel. Because of his fluency in French, he was assigned to the Office of Strategic Services, a precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency. Conein was assigned to the CIA after its formation in 1947. He left the CIA in 1968, returning to South Vietnam as a businessman.
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