Peer de Silva (June 26, 1917 – August 13, 1978) was a station chief in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). A 1941 West Point graduate, during World War II he served as an Army officer providing security for the Manhattan Engineer District; this undercover project sought to build the first atomic bomb. After the war, he joined a pre-CIA military intelligence unit. Then, having learned Russian, he worked in central Europe, frequently traveling to Moscow. Resigning from the Army, he rose within CIA ranks, becoming a chief of station (COS). He first held such rank in Vienna, 1956–1959.
He next led the CIA station at the American Embassy in Seoul, South Korea, where he played a role in two major events. First was the democratic April Revolution in 1960. Yet in 1961 a successful May coup d'état installed General Pak Chung Hee (head of state, 1961–1979). De Silva then was assigned to Hong Kong as COS.
Following the November 1963 military overthrow of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem (head of state, 1954–1963), President Johnson personally ratified de Silva as the CIA's new Chief of Station in Saigon. He quickly came to view the Vietnam War as political. He then advocated a counterinsurgency strategy, and took an active role in fostering such programs. The Viet Cong bombed the American Embassy in March 1965; the blast badly wounded de Silva. After an initial recovery, he returned to his post.
For a year de Silva served as the Director's first Vietnam expert (SAVA) at CIA headquarters in Virginia. However, he asked to be sent back to Southeast Asia, and arrived as COS in Bangkok in 1966. His last CIA assignment was to Canberra, Australia, where he served again as COS, until 1972.
Early career
U.S. Army
Peer de Silva was born in San Francisco, California, on June 26, 1917. He entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, graduating 321st in the class of 1941. Posted to Military Intelligence, in 1942 he completed the Army's advanced school for the counterintelligence corps. Then serving as an Army officer in charge of security, he provided protection for scientists and technicians in the Manhattan Project. He personally escorted the plutonium hemispheres that formed the core of the Fat Man nuclear weapon to Tinian, the island in the western Pacific from which the raid on Nagasaki was staged. On the island, only hours before Bockscar took off for Japan, the hemispheres—called the "pit", on analogy with the seed of a stonefruit—were inserted into the center of their nuclear weapon.
Following the surrender of Japan, he accompanied a team of Manhattan Project scientists who conducted the radiological survey and compiled the final damage report on the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In October, 1945 he returned to Washington, D.C., for reassignment in the War Department. For his service with the Manhattan Project, he was awarded the Legion of Merit.
Strategic Services Unit
The OSS, the major American foreign intelligence agency during World War II, interested de Silva. Although the OSS had been abolished in late 1945, core OSS functions were absorbed by a new military unit in the War Department: the SSU. It was headed by General John Magruder, formerly a deputy director of the OSS. In 1947 these core functions were folded into the newly created Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
In the meantime, General Leslie Groves of the Manhattan Engineer District had agreed to transfer de Silva. At SSU, General Magruder assigned de Silva to "X-2" the counterintelligence section, in the new Cold War climate. Then at CIA de Silva, still in the Army, though working under Richard Helms, performed the delicate task of vetting former OSS agents, especially European refugees with "murky" backgrounds. De Silva had seen first hand the assault by Soviet espionage on the Manhattan project. An assignment to Europe was considered for de Silva, to counter Soviet attempts at malappropriation of scientific information.