Special Agent, Vietnam: A Naval Intelligence Memoir

In SPECIAL AGENT, VIETNAM, Douglass H. Hubbard, Jr., relates the story of a highly dedicated and professional group of men who served voluntarily as officers, enlisted men, and civilian special agents of the Office of Naval Intelligence in Vietnam. Through Hubbard’s eyes—he served three consecutive tours as one of about two dozen civilian agents—the reader enters the clandestine and often dangerous world of counterespionage and crime, all amid the sights, sounds, and smells of the Vietnam War. Civilian special agents, despite their rather uncertain combat status as civilians, left secure stateside jobs and families behind, donned military uniforms, and carried weapons. They lived and worked in the field with sailors and Marines. They shared the same dangers and discomforts as military personnel, and, sometimes cooperating with their Vietnamese counterparts, supplied the naval services with counterintelligence and criminal investigative support. From communist infiltrators and fragging incidents to the murder of a visiting singer, Hubbard skillfully portrays the underlying chaos of a tour in Vietnam. SPECIAL AGENT, VIETNAM is the only book that addresses this aspect of the Vietnam War. It will appeal not only to those with an interest in the U.S. presence in wartime Vietnam, but also to those interested generally in military history, intelligence, counterintelligence, and criminal investigation.