Original subtitles

[Music]

most people who have watched the 1979

American epic Vietnam War film

Apocalypse Now produced and directed by

Francis Ford Copa think of Marlon

Brando's character Colonel CTS as

fictional but we'll be surprised to hear

that he is an actual person while the

Vietnamese majority have a common

language and culture and have developed

and maintained the dominant social

institutions of Vietnam the mtig Nord do

not share that Heritage the mon Nords

retain their tribal customs and

ancestral land

ownership and between 1963 and 1965 an

Australian Army Captain would be

proclaimed a God by the monk Nords and

was forced to flee the country to escape

a CIA assassination Squad Fram Gan

native so who was the infamous tiger man

of

Vietnam why did the CIA want him

dead and whatever happened to Captain

Barry

Peterson let's try and find

out hello I'm Mike drberg Marine Corp

veteran and filmmaker and we will try to

answer these questions on today's

episode of Forgotten history

[Music]

Arthur Barry Peterson was born on the

8th of February

1935 in the small sugarcane town of

Serena Queensland 990 km outside of

Brisbane his father Arthur owned a radio

repair business and served as a staff

sergeant in yugin in Borneo who when he

returned from the war decided to move

his family to in his

fail there Barry went to school with

Italian Greek Chinese and Aboriginal

kids giving him an interest and respect

for other

cultures in 1953 he enlisted in the

Australian Army as a part of his

national service but chose to stay on

once his ter

expired in 1954 he was promoted to

second Lieutenant as a signaler and in

1957 was transferred to the first Balian

Royal Australian

regiment 1959 to 1960 he fought in the

Malayan emergency serving alongside the

indigenous tribes to combat the

Communist terrorists learning both their

language and culture this expertise saw

him recruited by the Australian secret

intelligence service who sent him to

Vietnam on the 27th of August in 1963

where he was placed under the command of

the

CIA September of 1963 Peterson was sent

to ban methat a town 265 km away from

Saigon in the capital of the darlock

province located in the central

Highlands and bordering Cambodia in the

infamous hoochi Min Trail the secret

route through the jungles of supposedly

neutral Laos in Cambodia that was

supplying to Viet Kong it was the

strategically important site Peterson's

mission was to train the indigenous mon

Nords into an efficient counter gorilla

unit upon arrival Peterson using his CIA

funds persuaded the local police chief

to gift him a 100 of his men from the

riot tribe much to the annoyance of his

corrupt Deputy later that night Peterson

was awoken when someone tried to open

his locked door reaching for his pistol

he realized he had locked it in his

drawer and left the keys in the

doorknob unable to retrieve his keys he

instead armed himself with the only

weapon he had at hand one of his army

boots eventually his Intruders gave up

and left but not without Barry getting a

glimpse of them a pair of Vietnamese men

he was convinced they were sent by the

deputy Peterson had a hard time

convincing the monnard to join the war

against the Viet Kong due to the South

Vietnamese racism and fear towards

them fortunately he spoke their language

which wasn't too dissimilar to the

Malayan tribes people he served with

setting up his base in the half empty

town of Juan and Al outside banme

thought Peterson began training them

rigorously he was much loved by the rad

who paid him with a pet deer Gibbon ape

sunbear a tiger cub called Sunny and a

leopard club called Fatima who later

died from eating poison chicken sent

either by the Via Kong or the deputy but

his main achievement was his role in

with a local tiger that was praying on

their livestock for two days Peterson

left the goat tied up in the clearing to

deceive the feline while he constructed

a local hide on the third day he sat in

the hide waiting with his friend and

interpreter

wut when he saw that the bushes ahead

appeared to move several monards

appeared at the bottom of it jabbering

for his attention worried about scaring

off the tiger Peterson sent waja to hush

them only for the translator to inform

him that the VC were coming without

hesitation he fled although he still won

the support of the

ryed Peterson's Force proved successful

operating in eight-man squads like the

Viet Kong compared to the American 100

man patrols this subsequently forced the

VC to operate in larger units much like

their American

enemies Peterson was ordered to increase

his Force to 350 and was given another

Australian visor worn off Bon Stokes to

help command in only a few days Stokes

proved himself when his Squad launched a

raid on an enemy base and killed the VC

commander of the darlock province in

response the Via Kong placed bounties of

500,000 pters qu to $600 us on both

Stokes and Peterson and call their

monards the Tigerman due to their unit

CIA provided striped camo

uniforms Peterson like the name and

subsequently had Badges of snarling

tiger heads minted and sewn into the

men's

hats at 9:00 p.m. on the 19th of

September in 1964 things had came to a

head when the 3,000 monnard soldiers

mutinied in the darac over a wide range

of grievances from poor pay by corrupt

officials to a lack of democratic

representation at least on two bases the

MK Nars disarmed their American advisers

and executed their Vietnamese CP

parts unb noed to Peterson his Ved tiger

men were also supposed to join the

Mutiny and seize ban me thought but the

expected signal failed to appear so they

remained at bu and

a by the afternoon the South Vietnamese

Airborne regiment led by General win

huko flew in and quickly seized control

of man methat he then ordered a meeting

with Peterson his Australian Superior

his CIA contact and his American adviser

the decision was made for the four

westerners to travel to buan and Al to

arrange a meeting with the mutineers

leader knowing Peterson's rapport with

the raid would win them over the quad

set off in their jeep that night passing

several checkpoints who saluted as they

passed eventually they reached buan ano

and after a few hours of careful

negotiating were able to convince them

to voice their complaints to General Co

in

person the general promised to help

answer their demands and the Mutiny was

effectively ended

sadly enough C did not keep his word

causing a large amount of Monk Nords to

defect to either the VC or the front for

the liberation of oppressed races also

known as fulcro in French a French

sponsored neutralist movement operating

out of

Cambodia Peterson was later awarded the

military cross for his

role in March of

1965 Peterson returned to Australia on

leave where he met with many members of

the the Australian government including

prime minister Robert menes who asked

him whether Australian soldiers could

fight in

Vietnam on April 19th when he returned

to Vietnam he was informed by one of his

fellow advisers that Australia was

sending troops to Vietnam Peterson long

suspected his role was to

blame by now Peterson's vaunted Tigerman

had grown to a force of 1,200 as

hundreds of other local tribes flocked

to join to gain the protection from the

VC this this led to the force building

of a new camp that the markard publicly

named after Peterson as dam sen the

unconquerable demigod Warrior from

montagard mythology who challenged the

son to a fight and

lost it was at this time that the CIA

began to fear Peterson's influence

fearing him going native with some

agency employees contemptuously

referring to him as Lawrence of the

central Highlands Peterson loved the

name one time while on patrol his men

stumbled upon a force of VC and North

Vietnamese Army situated in 100 pits

along a road waiting coming South

Vietnamese Convoy without hesitation

they attacked and rolled up the enemy

clearing them out with automatic fire

and grenades the tiger men suffered no

casualties another incident saw an 8-man

Patrol located NBA Battalion in a

fortified Camp despite Peterson's call

to withdraw they attacked capturing a

62mm machine gun although seven of the

eight were wounded in the process for

this action Peterson received the South

Vietnamese Silver Star of gallantry with

all Aid monnard receiving similar

Awards Peterson's relationship with the

ca began to sour mid 1965 when he

refused their call to set up a special

assassination squads who would dress up

as VC to hunt down communist

collaborators in The

Villages this program would be called

The Phoenix Program in 1966

said Peterson feared that would only

result in non-combatants being

slaughtered as the mon Nord hated all

Vietnamese often struggled to

differentiate allies from the Communists

the CIA were not impressed and became

even less so when they set one of their

agents to work with

Peterson this didn't last when he found

him going behind his back to the local

provincial Chief which was a close

friend of Peterson's to set up an

assassination

Squad but when the agent loudly

proclaimed with an earshot of the chief

that he could be bought that's when

Peterson snapped calling up the CIA

headquarters in Saigon and ordering the

agent

dismissal in August 1,000 fcr members

closed the Cambodian border offering to

defect to the Tigerman due to their

movement's lack of money food arms and

other basic

necessities a meeting was called between

them Peterson the Americans and general

Vin lock the head of the South

Vietnamese military in darlock in a

Hardline National who despised both

foreigners and monard

alike things were going well until the

fcal representatives demanded monard

autonomy as one of their

concessions General lock flew into a

rage bringing negotiations to an end and

left the following day the day after his

departure Peterson was summoned by his

CIA superiors and promptly told that he

was

fired General lock had blamed him for

the M ignored Mutiny and claimed he was

destabilizing the

Province the CIA agreed to this as a

convenient way to remove this

Troublesome Australian to finally set up

their Phoenix Program in

darlac in September he was granted the

right to two weeks in darlac to join the

monnard farewell celebrations which

later extended into 3 weeks and by the

end of it he was wearing 220 bracelets

and 10 Amber bead

necklaces on the 14th of October he left

darlac he attempted to bring Sunny his

pit tiger to Australia but it was

refused and she spent the rest of her

life in the Saigon zoo

instead not long after this the tiger

men came under South Vietnamese control

and subsequently dissolved as members

defected to full

Crow later after he wrote in his 1988

Memoirs he was informed by Peter Young

an Australian serving with the CIA in

Vietnam that when he spoke to some of

the CI agents they openly stated that if

peton refused their call to leave then

don't be surprised if peton fall under a

bus between the 20th November and the

20th December

1965 Peterson was recruited by MI6 to

train the indigenous tribes of Borneo in

response to the Indonesian troops

skirmishing across the border after this

he returned to Australia training troops

for Vietnam until the 29th of April 1970

when he returned to Vietnam as a major

command of a

company during one engagement he was

wounded in the tongue by Bullet

fragments was awarded the second South

Vietnamese Silver Star of

gallantry he was also recommended

another military cross but it was

downgraded to a mention and dispatches

due to a bureaucratic error he finished

his first tour in June of

1971 and not long after that he was sent

back to Malaysia to train the local

military in counter

Insurgency in early 1975 he was rung up

by a mysterious man offering to pay him

$20,000 for military info and threaten

to kill him if he

refused the following day Peterson

informed the police to set up a sting

operation the men never showed and never

called

again in

1976 he started a successful campaign to

allow South Vietnamese former servicemen

to participate in ANZ day parades and in

1979 he left the army with the rank of

of Lieutenant Colonel tired of office

politics he bought a farm outside of

KS his quiet life didn't last long

though in 1983 he was approached by

former Army Officer Gary Scott offering

him $55,000 per month train mercenaries

to overthrow the Indonesian government

in West Guinea known in Indonesia as the

Aran

ja as this was illegal in Australia

Peterson went to the police in a 19 1987

after a long sting operation arrested

Scott and sentenced him to 12 months

imprisonment later that year he had a SE

chalous man also offering money to

overthrow the communist government in

his

country likewise Peterson went to the

police but the case fell flat when

Peterson refused to

testify in 1992 he sold his for and

moved to Bangkok where he founded a

successful company for foreign

businesses

his 17 thigh employees being his family

and he continued to advocate for the

monk nord's human rights

violations he died on the 20th of

February

2019 at the age of 84 of cancer which he

claimed was caused by agent

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