VN: Explain the function of the CORDS program.

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Bolté: At the top of the command structure was the ambassador to South Vietnam, who at that time was Ellsworth Bunker. General William Westmoreland worked for him. Now Westmoreland headed MACV, and he had two deputies: a military one and another for CORDS. So the structure was integrated from the top. In I Corps, where Quang Tin province was located, there was the III MAF commander. When I arrived there it was Marine Lt. Gen. Robert Cushman. His civilian deputy at the time, who just happened to be a former ambassador, was my immediate superior.

VN: You fell under a Marine command. Sounds a bit strange.

Bolté: Well, Cushman, in addition to being in charge of all the Marines in Vietnam, was also responsible for all the advisers in the III MAF area, which coincided with the Vietnamese I Corps—the northern five provinces. In fact, he was the adviser to his Vietnamese counterpart, Lt. Gen. Hoang Xuan Lam, the I Corps commander.

VN: Did each corps in Vietnam have the same type of structure as you just described?

Bolté: Yes, with the exception of IV Corps, because we did not have that many American troops stationed down there. It came under II Field Force, which also was responsible for III Corps.

VN: So CORDS successfully integrated the command structure.

Bolté: Pretty much, with the exception of the CIA. I don’t think they ever got them under their wing. Ambassador Komer had told me I was in charge of everything that was not Americal Division in Quang Tin province. Well…I started pushing the CIA around, and the next thing I knew the CIA representative from III MAF and my immediate superior came down to meet with me. The CIA representative accused me of trying to run the CIA. I said yes, because Komer told me I was to run everything. With the obvious acquiescence of my boss, he told me in no uncertain terms, “You’re not to run the CIA.” It was then I realized that I had been playing baseball using football rules. We were never able to solve the CIA problem; although the Tam Ky team was generally easy to get along with.

VN: Because of the many clandestine activities the CIA became involved in, the agency just ignored your chain of command?

Bolté: That’s right. For example, I wanted to pool our helicopters and airplanes, but they were against it. But I got back at them…I broke their motorcycle.

VN: That must have been frustrating. Say, for example, you were conducting an operation or program, and you didn’t realize they were operating in the same area.

Bolté: It was really more of an administrative problem than anything else. I simply tried to streamline things, as with the helicopters. They, of course, had Air America, and my military helicopter support came from Da Nang. They wanted to remain separate.

VN: Robert Komer had a unique nickname, “The Blowtorch.” I take it he had an aggressive personality. What kind of person was he?

Bolté: He did have an aggressive personality, no doubt about that. He was a hard charger. My only criticism of him was that he tended to sometimes wish away problems. For example, if he couldn’t get the people in Saigon, say the Vietnamese Joint Chiefs of Staff, to issue some order to the province chief, he would try to get it done through the advisory chain. Well, there wasn’t anything that province chief was going to do, no matter what I told him, if he didn’t get the word from Saigon. He just would not do it. This notwithstanding, Komer had a difficult task to perform, and he did it well.

VN: There were 44 provinces in South Vietnam. That had to be quite an arduous job?

Bolté: The overall job was certainly tough. How difficult it was in any one province depended upon how pacified the province was. In some, there would be a civilian running it with a military deputy. In I Corps, however, to the best of my memory, there was only one civilian province senior adviser.

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