Soldier of Fortune Magazine The Journal of Professional Adventurers
by Susan Katz Keating
It remains one of the strangest and most unsettling unsolved mysteries of the Vietnam War.
The stories were too strange to be true; and at first, no one believed them. American patrols in Vietnam returned from the jungles near the DMZ and along the Laotian border swearing they’d seen two Westerners fighting for the enemy. Commanders dismissed it as confusion, jungle fever, or fear. But the sightings kept coming, again and again, starting in 1967. Each one echoed the same impossible detail: A two-man team, one white, one black, was moving with deadly precision under the banner of the North Vietnamese Army. What began as rumor hardened into an awful truth. Somewhere out there, two Americans had switched sides.
The turncoats came to be known as Salt and Pepper. They moved with a skill that made them almost untouchable. They left a trail of confusion, theft, and violence that remains unsolved, and refuses to fade from the annals of the Vietnam War.
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At first, the sightings were whispered about but rarely written down. Some took place around Tet 1968. Aircrews and ground troops near Duc Pho reported spotting two non-Vietnamese men, both with dark skin, working with the communist North Vietnamese. Helicopter teams caught glimpses of them on at least two occasions. On one mission, a crew chief had the chance to shoot one but held off, believing the man might be a lost American cut off from his unit.
“We were hesitant to report this,” one veteran later said. “It seemed crazy.”
Salt and Pepper were highly skilled at stealing American supplies and transportation equipment, and they spread anti-American propaganda. But Marine First Force Recon patrols reported shocking information: they had spotted the duo deep inside enemy territory, fighting alongside NVA units, wearing enemy uniforms and carrying AK-47 rifles.
After 1969, operatives from MACV and the Phoenix Program logged repeated encounters with a black and white team that were embedded with enemy units. Some reports placed them near American and ARVN prisoners who were being used as rice mules.
The mystery took a surreal turn on October 16, 1970. A man presumed to be Pepper walked directly into LZ Snoopy, wearing tiger stripes and name tags stitched in Vietnamese: “People’s Party” and “Blackest Cong.” He carried a gas mask bag filled with grenades. He tried to convince soldiers to “frag” their superiors. When the men didn’t comply, Pepper went into the mess hall and made a speech calling for the U.S. government to be overthrown. He was quickly arrested. The MP’s brought him to Chu Lai. Some say he was later sent to Fort Leavenworth.
But the saga continued.
Intelligence units in November 1970 logged an incident code-named “Gingerbread,” in which enemy forces blasted recordings of real artillery fire, in order to confuse or jam U.S. communications. The operation was credited to Salt.’ A month later, two MACV advisors were flagged down by a black American in Korean fatigues who wanted a ride to Quang Ngai. He then aimed his rifle at them, refused help, and disappeared into the back of an ARVN truck, fueling speculation of a “Pepper II.”
The descriptions of Salt and Pepper were so consistent that a military artist composed a wanted poster that was distributed throughout Vietnam. The Pentagon wanted them badly enough that it broke its own policy, and had the sketch broadcast in the United States by ABC News. Nothing came of the publicity.
By early 1971, Salt was suspected when an expired radio call sign was used in an attempt to probe U.S. operations around several LZ’s.
Sightings persisted as late as 1974. Salt reportedly was seen near the Song Ve River ferry crossing, and Pepper in a truck near Quang Ngai Province.
Even hardened veterans called the story “real as a heart attack.” One pilot recalled seeing a black GI emerge from a bunker as VC forces retreated under heavy fire – an impossible sight, since no Americans were stationed in that compound. Another told of a man in U.S. fatigues being caught between enemy lines. American round troops refused to rescue him after confirming all their men were accounted for.
Commanders, engineers, and artillerymen all logged encounters. One battalion commander claimed to have spotted Salt through a scope. In August, 1974, Salt and Pepper were spotted leading an attack on ARVN troops near Quang Ngai City.
Yet despite the documentation, arrests, and endless speculation, the truth remained buried under layers of secrecy.
More than a half-century later, the legend of Salt and Pepper endures. It remains one of the strangest and most unsettling unsolved mysteries of the Vietnam War.
Susan Katz Keating is the publisher and editor in chief at Soldier of Fortune.
