Carleton B. Swift Jr. was a

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft ...

seaman,

Office of Strategic Services The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the first intelligence agency of the United States, formed during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines ...

(OSS) officer, and

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

officer between 1941 and 1974. Swift played a subordinate role to

Archimedes Patti Archimedes Leonidas Attilio Patti (July 21, 1913 – April 23, 1998) was a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army and an Office of Strategic Services officer who headed operations in Kunming and Hanoi in 1945 when he was a Major. Pa ...

as part of the OSS team that met with Ho Chi Minh in September, 1945.

Early life

Carleton Byron Swift Jr. was born on 4 July 1919 in

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: *Portland, Oregon, the most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon *Portland, Maine, the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maine *Isle of Portland, a tied island in the English Channel Portland may also r ...

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

, and studied engineering at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

where he graduated in 1941. He was the son of Carleton Byron Swift and his wife, Lila Leonard. His father was a member of the Swift meat-packing family.

Career

World War II

After serving time in the Navy he joined the OSS and was sent to China where he was based in

Kunming Kunming is the capital and largest city of the province of Yunnan in China. The political, economic, communications and cultural centre of the province, Kunming is also the seat of the provincial government. During World War II, Kunming was a Ch ...

and monitored Japanese shipping.Interview with Carleton Swift, 1981, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/vietnam-9dc948-interview-with-carleton-swift He was later assigned to monitor the situation in what would become

North Vietnam North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV; ; VNDCCH), was a country in Southeast Asia from 1945 to 1976, with sovereignty fully recognized in 1954 Geneva Conference, 1954. A member of the communist Eastern Bloc, it o ...

and after the

Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, during World War II. The aerial bombings killed between 150,000 and 246,000 people, most of whom were civili ...

he traveled with

and

Jean Sainteny Jean Sainteny or Jean Roger (29 May 1907, in Vésinet – 25 February 1978) was a French politician who was sent to Vietnam after the end of the Second World War in order to accept the surrender of the Japanese forces and to attempt to re-annex ...

to Hanoi. His and Patti's mission was to assist in the repatriation of allied prisoners of war which the U.S. government was concerned the Japanese might hurt following the

and secondly to gather intelligence. During their time in Hanoi the OSS officers and their team met with

Ho Chi Minh (born ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), colloquially known as Uncle Ho () among other aliases and sobriquets, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and politician who served as the founder and first President of Vietnam, president of the ...

and although Swift did not speak

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

as Patti did he also met with Ho Chi Minh on at least one occasion. Swift denied that the U.S. could have been significant in creating the

Viet Minh The Việt Minh (, ) is the common and abbreviated name of the League for Independence of Vietnam ( or , ; ), which was a Communist Party of Vietnam, communist-led national independence coalition formed at Pác Bó by Hồ Chí Minh on 19 May 1 ...

because the OSS had never had more than three 12-14 man commando teams operating in

Indochina Mainland Southeast Asia (historically known as Indochina and the Indochinese Peninsula) is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to th ...

. Swift and Patti both left Hanoi at the end of September, 1945 after the French alleged that the Americans had been fomenting a revolution there.

Work at the CIA

Swift served with the

in Seoul, Baghdad, Tokyo, London and The Hague before retiring in 1974.

Family

Swift was married and divorced three times and had six children.

Death

Swift died on January 24, 2012, at his home in Washington.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Swift, Carleton B Jr United States Navy officers 1919 births 2012 deaths People of the Office of Strategic Services People of the Central Intelligence Agency Military personnel from Portland, Oregon Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences alumni American military personnel of World War II