A small boat left Nha Trang harbor in June 1969 headed out into the bay and deeper water. Light breezes out of the South China Sea gave passengers respite from the boiling heat and humidity, but
this was not a pleasure cruise. In the bottom of the boat, heavily sedated with morphine, wrapped in
chain, lay a Vietnamese agent, Thai Khac Chuyen, who members of B-57, also known as Project GAMMA, had identified as a double agent. He was taking his last ride.
Gamma, a Military Intelligence unit attached to the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) headquartered in Nha Trang, had for the past year been responsible for running ground intelligence-gathering
teams into Cambodia. Using primarily indigenous Cambodian assets it provided a significant amount of the human intelligence from that theater. The B-57 team worked closely with CIA and received much of their guidance from the Station Chief in Saigon and the local CIA office in Nha Trang. On the military
side, the unit chain of command extended to the commander 5th Special Forces. Due in large part to compartmentalization of information and activities and the convoluted threads of responsibility and
authority that characterized the war in Southeast Asia, it was common for a commander to be kept in the dark over actions of a unit he – on paper – commanded and was responsible for.
