Covert Warrior: Fighting the CIA's Secret War in Southeast Asia and China, 1965-1967 [Hardcover]

Warner Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1996

CIA/Naval Intelligence veteran Warner Smith tells the remarkable, true account of a secret soldier's twenty-month combat odyssey through Southeast Asia.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Shortly after his graduation from an unnamed Ivy League college in the early 1960s, Smith, who had joined the Naval ROTC, was called to duty. Ten months later, he arrived in Vietnam, as a member of FRAM-16, an elite, CIA-trained unit of 16 men. Lacking uniforms and insignia, the unit was assigned not to fight but to infiltrate enemy areas and gather information. After 20 months, 14 of the 16 had died, while another had been severely wounded by a Claymore mine. This account of Smith's Vietnam days is rich in suspense and adventure, replete with stories of secret intelligence missions that went unrecorded by reporters. Acknowledging that most of his missions were boring and resulted in little action, Smith concentrates on the most important and action-packed forays. On one mission in Cambodia to locate a suspected Vietcong supply line, he and his team instead stumbled across a POW camp; in a scene worthy of Stallone, they rescued the captive Americans. Against nearly unbelievable odds, Smith parachuted alone into southern China to spy on supply routes to North Vietnam in an effort to learn which country was sending SAM missiles to Hanoi. Other chapters chronicle the team's training, early missions and Smith's final mission, to destroy a Vietcong radio tower, which resulted in a back injury to him and the death of his partner. An emotional visit in 1990 to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C.-which, Smith says, doesn't include any of his comrades' names-convinced the author to write his spine-tingling story and thus to heal the wounds of his 20 months of hell.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The shadowy influence of the Central Intelligence Agency on the Vietnam War has not been fully understood; first it assisted civilians in organizing counterinsurgency; later, the agency aided the military by collecting intelligence and producing havoc for the North Vietnamese. In all these operations, the CIA's conduit was the Vietnamese themselves, from espionage and sabotage to psychological warfare. In this memoir of his Navy hitch in Vietnam under the CIA, it is curious that Smith's only mention of Vietnamese is when he has to kill one of them on a mission. Apparently, he carried out covert operations, but his exploits seem too amazing to be true; for example, he claims that one particular mission, built around the supposition that in the mid-Sixties Soviet and Chinese cooperation aided North Vietnam, could have produced another U-2 incident. Although one can infer from details here that the author has had military experience, too much of this excitable account seems fanciful or perhaps blurred by the passage of 30 years. Entertaining but not recommended.?Mel D. Lane, Sacramento, Cal.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Presidio Press; First Edition edition (June 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0891415971
• ISBN-13: 978-0891415978
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,034,102 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Ridiculous, May 1, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Covert Warrior: Fighting the CIA's Secret War in Southeast Asia and China, 1965-1967 (Hardcover)

I am no military expert nor a buff by any means I am totally new to most true life military books having just become interested in these type of books, but even I could tell this was totally bogus. First of all he was the only survivor of this elite team? My how conveinent no one to back up his story. Second it just does not ring true he come off like a guy who watched to many Vietnam movies about tortured vets who went through hell and back. It is just is to cheesy to be real.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The book is fiction written by a liar., July 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Covert Warrior: Fighting the CIA's Secret War in Southeast Asia and China, 1965-1967 (Hardcover)

Do not waste your money buying this book. From the beginning, there are aspects of the book which do not pass the "smell test". I stopped reading the book less than half through it. I had purchased it from the Military History Book Club and I called them and demanded my money back on the basis of being defrauded by the author. Being a Vietnam vet myself, it was not difficult to quickly ascertain that Smith had never been there, or if he had, it certainly was not in the role which he claims in this book. Do not buy this book, and just as important, tell others not to buy it.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This book is a fake, May 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Covert Warrior: Fighting the CIA's Secret War in Southeast Asia and China, 1965-1967 (Hardcover)

Shame on you Pocket Books and Presidio Press for not checking on the facts, and defrauding the public.

I bought the book, read it, smelled the BS.

Found out in Soldier of Fortune June 1997 and FAKE SEALS website that this book is a fake.

Shame on You