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Operation Broken Reed: Truman's Secret North Korean Spy Mission That Averted World War III ReviewFour-five years back I read a terrific book, "The Secrets of Inchon: The Untold Story of the Most Daring Covert Mission of the Korean War," by Eugene Franklin Clark. I blogged about it Sept. 15 of last year. It is the first-person account of a secret, commando-like mission at Inchon that helped turn the tide of the war in favor of the U.N. side. Clark at the time was a Navy lieutenant who at 39 was "getting a little old for the commando game." The book is the record of his two-week adventure--a hair-raising reconnaissance strikes, night raids, firefights, a blazing naval battle between Chinese sailing junks--among the islands and mudlfats of the communist-held Seoul-Inchon harbor area. Clark wrote it in the 1950s, intending it not for publication but as a keepsake for his wife and children and as a personal memorial to the Korean men and women who fought and in many cases died to help him accomplish his mission. The manuscript lay in a safe deposit box for decades and only came to light because historian and novelist Thomas Fleming happened to come across it in doing research for an article about Clark's exploits.
Now I have found another such book, "Operation Broken Reed: Truman's Secret North Korean Spy Mission That Averted World War III" (Carroll & Graf), similar to it in secretiveness and amazing events. Written (extremely well) by its central character, Lt. Col. Arthur L. Boyd (Ret.), and published in October 2007, it is the story of Boyd's participation as a 20-something Army Signal Corps lieutenant in a super-secret mission in North Korea in January 1952. Written as a compelling narrative rather than as a journal-like chronicle, there is so much about it that I like. The astonishing mission of course, but beyond that Boyd manages to give some flavor of the times and an understanding of his personal circumstances (married with a family). It has tension and a palpable sense of danger, and even touches of humor.
Operation Broken Reed had been authorized at the highest of high levels--President Harry Truman. Only he and his closest advisers, and the bare minimum of lower echelon people needed to get it prepared and in operation, knew of it. The little intelligence on the enemy that Truman had been getting was all but worthless. So a 10-man team of Army Rangers, Navy frogmen, Air Force officers and CIA operatives was landed by submarine into North Korea to collect intelligence on enemy capabilities and intentions to help Truman decide whether to escalate the war or work for a truce. They were accompanied by Nationalist Chinese from Formosa/Taiwan posing as Communist Chinese who supposedly had captured the team from a downed American airplane and were escorting them to captivity.
Boyd was selected for the mission because he was a highly qualified Morse code radio operator, was trained and experienced in cryptography, and had a top-secret security clearance. He was to transmit information the team gathered to aircraft over the Sea of Japan. Discovered and ambushed, seven of the team were killed, leaving Boyd alive with two grievously wounded men whom he believes may have died later. In a desperate flight, the wounded reached their rendezvous point and were rescued by an Air Force helicopter that had been called in by a Royal Navy warship that spotted their distress light signal.
Here's the rub: There are no records, transcripts, or other evidence of the operation. Everyone on the mission went under an assumed name (Boyd was "Sergeant Michael Lavern Baker, U.S. Air Force, B-29 radio operator"). Boyd is the only known survivor. He was sworn to secrecy until 1998. Troubled all his life by memories of the brave comrades killed, he decided to write the book to honor their memories.
That is the story Boyd tells. Some readers will consider it to be literally incredible--that is, untrue, incapable of credibility--because of the lack of any corroborating evidence. This is understandable. All I can say is that, as a person with more than a passing interest in and knowledge of the Korean War, I find it to be at the very least highly plausible. I find it to be at the very least highly plausible. Abundant circumstantial evidence held by Boyd and historical evidence enumerated within the book's afterword by Jay T. Young, a former CIA senior military analyst, give great credence to the mission's authenticity. Boyd, now 81, has made a plea for anyone having knowledge or evidence of the mission to come forward and make it publicly known.
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