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Lucien Conein
Lucien Emile "Lou" Conein (/koˈniːn/ (co-NEEN)) (November 19, 1919 – June 3, 1998) was a French-American citizen, noted U.S. Army officer and OSS/CIA operative. Conein is best known for his instrumental role in the November 1963 coup against Ngô Đình Diệm and Diệm's assassination by serving as Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.'s liaison with the coup plotters.
Lucien Conein was born to Lucien Xavier Conein and Estelle Elin in Paris, France at the end of World War I. When he was five years old, his widowed mother sent him to Kansas City to live with his aunt, who had married a US soldier. Conein attended Wyandotte High School in Kansas City, Kansas, dropping out after his junior year.
In 1939, the beginning of World War II, the 20-year-old joined the French Army but switched to the U.S. Army within a year because of the German invasion establishing Vichy France. As a native speaker of French he was asked to volunteer for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). According to biographer William J. Rust, Conein was reported to have had a "flair for exaggeration" and his service in the French Army "was sometimes portrayed as a more romantic-sounding assignment in the French Foreign Legion".
In 1944 he was ordered to help the French Resistance during the Allied landings in Normandy. He worked with the Jedburghs, a group directed by the OSS and the British Special Operations Executive.
It was then that Conein began working and living with the Corsican mafia, then called Corsican Brotherhood, an ally of the Resistance. They called him "Luigi," a nickname that stuck. He was quoted:
When the Sicilians put out a contract, it's usually limited to the continental United States, or maybe Canada or Mexico. But with the Corsicans, it's international. They'll go anywhere. There's an old Corsican proverb: 'If you want revenge and you act within 20 years, you're acting in haste.'[citation needed]
Conein was sent to OSS Detachment 202 in southern China in the spring of 1945. From there he led commando raids into French Indochina to attack the Imperial Japanese Army. He was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for operations conducted during this period. In August 1945 he met Ho Chi Minh, who he described as a “fascinating man,” and Vo Nguyen Giap, who he called a “brilliant sonofabitch.” His main complaint of the Vietnamese Communists was they served him tea rather than beer.
After 1945 during the Cold War period, he infiltrated spies and saboteurs into the Eastern European Warsaw Pact countries of the Soviet bloc. In 1951, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) tasked Conein to establish a base in Nuremberg, assisted by Ted Shackley. Later Conein worked with William King Harvey in Berlin.[citation needed]
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Lucien Conein
Lucien Emile "Lou" Conein (/koˈniːn/ (co-NEEN)) (November 19, 1919 – June 3, 1998) was a French-American citizen, noted U.S. Army officer and OSS/CIA operative. Conein is best known for his instrumental role in the November 1963 coup against Ngô Đình Diệm and Diệm's assassination by serving as Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.'s liaison with the coup plotters.
Lucien Conein was born to Lucien Xavier Conein and Estelle Elin in Paris, France at the end of World War I. When he was five years old, his widowed mother sent him to Kansas City to live with his aunt, who had married a US soldier. Conein attended Wyandotte High School in Kansas City, Kansas, dropping out after his junior year.
In 1939, the beginning of World War II, the 20-year-old joined the French Army but switched to the U.S. Army within a year because of the German invasion establishing Vichy France. As a native speaker of French he was asked to volunteer for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). According to biographer William J. Rust, Conein was reported to have had a "flair for exaggeration" and his service in the French Army "was sometimes portrayed as a more romantic-sounding assignment in the French Foreign Legion".
In 1944 he was ordered to help the French Resistance during the Allied landings in Normandy. He worked with the Jedburghs, a group directed by the OSS and the British Special Operations Executive.
It was then that Conein began working and living with the Corsican mafia, then called Corsican Brotherhood, an ally of the Resistance. They called him "Luigi," a nickname that stuck. He was quoted:
When the Sicilians put out a contract, it's usually limited to the continental United States, or maybe Canada or Mexico. But with the Corsicans, it's international. They'll go anywhere. There's an old Corsican proverb: 'If you want revenge and you act within 20 years, you're acting in haste.'[citation needed]
Conein was sent to OSS Detachment 202 in southern China in the spring of 1945. From there he led commando raids into French Indochina to attack the Imperial Japanese Army. He was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for operations conducted during this period. In August 1945 he met Ho Chi Minh, who he described as a “fascinating man,” and Vo Nguyen Giap, who he called a “brilliant sonofabitch.” His main complaint of the Vietnamese Communists was they served him tea rather than beer.
After 1945 during the Cold War period, he infiltrated spies and saboteurs into the Eastern European Warsaw Pact countries of the Soviet bloc. In 1951, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) tasked Conein to establish a base in Nuremberg, assisted by Ted Shackley. Later Conein worked with William King Harvey in Berlin.[citation needed]
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