Nobody Died on the Moon
In the summer of 1969 at the height of the Vietnam War, a Utah State University student at Logan, Utah was recruited by the CIA to infiltrate a North Vietnamese forward position stronghold in Cambodia to deliver a message. The specifics of his mission at the time were unknown to him. All he knew was that he was to carry a sealed envelope containing a message to be dropped off at a hotel in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The message, as it turned out, was a deception. It was a plan by the CIA and U.S. Special Forces, who were not supposed to even be in Cambodia, detailing an offensive by the Americans and South Vietnamese Army to draw NVA (North Vietnamese Army) troop efforts in the wrong direction, into a trap.
The student was given false identifications and a passport, all under the name of “Thomas Baker” which would continue to be a coded password throughout the execution of the mission plan. The detail of the deception was spuriously clever, rivaling the famous World War II plan concocted by British intelligence to deceive the Germans regarding the invasion of Italy. It was one of the most celebrated and effective wartime deceptions in history and later famously depicted in the movie ‘The Man Who Never Was‘.
The British plan, called “Operation Mincemeat”, was to float a body off the coast of Spain, make it look like the body of a British intelligence officer killed in a plane crash, and hope that the body and the information it contained made its way to German Intelligence. The body would contain all the necessary identification papers for the British officer, and also a secret plan indicating, deceptively, that the invasion would be focused on Greece not Italy.
The deception was a success, thousands of lives were saved as the Germans fortified Grecian shore batteries while the Americans and British invaded Italy.
The Thomas Baker plan was eerily similar. Thomas Baker was a live body, however, but not expected to return.
This story was related to me by “Thomas Baker” himself, his family members, and corroborated by government officials involved who will all remain anonymous for obvious reasons. The story is as truthful as I know it to be, and I believe it to be true.
“Baker”, a USU student, was spending the summer of 1969 working as an intern at the University of Southern California. He was living in the dorms on campus, didn’t have a car, so he kept close to campus facilities. Not knowing anyone at USC and pretty much a loner anyway, Baker spent much of his time running the track and working out in the USC gym. This is where he met the CIA “operative”, who was posing as a student, and who had spotted him earlier and followed his movements.
Introductions were made, skepticism was assessed, realization was conformed when Baker was flown to San Francisco and met with another CIA operative working in a high administrative position at the University of California at Berkeley.
The plan was outlined to Baker as part of something called the “Phoenix Program”, and he was convinced that this was for real. It sounded like he would be relatively safe traveling as an exchange student with all the proper credentials. The curious thing, scary thing, was that he was not to tell anyone of his mission, no family, no close friend, no one. He was even asked to pre-write and post-date letters to his parents to be mailed from the USC campus. He was told that the mission would take less than a week, over and back, and he’d be back at USU in the fall as planned. The postdated letters were just a precaution and would probably not be needed. No one would ever know, no harm done, he would probably save the world.
Baker was given the opportunity to decline his services. He thought it over continuing to assess the risks, and asking “why me?” The only answers he was given buy the now, team, of “operatives” was that he looked the part that they had imagined for this job, he
had an honest American face that would be above suspicion traveling, and he would be back in less than a week. Guaranteed.
Not so. And not thinking at the time, that’s why they had him write the post dated letters home.
What happened to aka Thomas Baker that summer of 1969 did not go down in the annals of American history. The mission was a failure, every bit as much as the war in Vietnam was a failure. People died. But miraculously, not Baker. He made it home safe.
I told Baker that I wasn’t a very good writer, but that his story would make a great book, and even a greater movie. Before he passed away a few years ago, and after working on other CIA “projects” he told me to go ahead and give it a try. Just might do it.
What will go down in American history, far overshadowing Thomas Baker’s singular adventure lost in the murderous jungles of Cambodia and Vietnam and walking out to safety with a company of Marines, is that Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.
Baker told me that when he was awaiting air transport out of the airport at Saigon on that hot August morning, after what he described as one “hellacious” experience, a Marine he shared a foxhole with told him, “Hey, Tommy, did you hear? ...Neil Adams and Buzz Armstrong landed on the moon! ...got out and walked a piece!
Baker said he simply replied, “Yeah, but nobody died on the moon.”
John Kushma is a communication consultant and lives in Logan, Utah.
