https://www.historynet.com/ace-spades-vietnam-psychological-warfare.htm
Ace of Spades in Vietnam psychological warfare
Charles Brown
The July 10, 1966, edition of New York Sunday News carried a story about the Ace of Spades, calling it “a symbol of death to the Viet Cong.” During that year and the next, similar stories ran in newspapers and magazines all across the country. Since then, many organizations and individuals in the military have taken credit for initiating the use of the Ace of Spades as a psychological warfare calling card. Many did use it, but only one unit started it.
In January 1966, the 25th Infantry Division’s 3rd Brigade had established a base camp on a hill just outside the town of Pleiku, South Vietnam. The story begins there, in the rear of the orderly room of Company C, 2nd Battalion, 35th Infantry (2-35), a small space that served as a bachelor officers’ quarters for four lieutenants—Barrie E. Zais, Thomas R. Wissinger, a Lieutenant Davis and myself. Naturally, there was a card table in the center of the room.
While sitting around that table one of the platoon leaders called our attention to an article in the Stars and Stripes about remarks made by U.S. Representative Craig Hosmer of California to the House of Representatives. On February 7, 1966, the congressman mentioned the superstitions of the Viet Cong. The article stated that two of the VC’s bad-luck symbols were pictures of a woman and the Ace of Spades. Later that evening, someone in our group noticed that the Ace of Spades from a deck of Bicycle brand playing cards had a picture of a woman that was a representation of Lady Liberty on the dome of Washington’s Capitol. In her right hand she held a sheathed sword; in her left hand was an olive branch.
Before long, we had developed a plan to use the Ace of Spades as a calling card when Charlie Company went into the field, leaving it at the entrances and exits to villages we cleared of VC, posting them along trails and leaving them on VC bodies. As the plan began to take shape, our discussion turned to a way of obtaining large quantities of cards, since each deck had only the one. We obviously couldn’t afford to part with the ace from every deck we owned; we needed some complete decks for poker. Nonetheless, in the months that followed, many decks turned up with only 51 cards because someone had lifted the ace and used it in the field.
Almost jokingly, I volunteered to write a letter to The United States Playing Card Company in Cincinnati, Ohio, requesting extra aces. What was the harm in asking? The worst that they could say would be no. In the initial letter I asked for approximately 1,000 cards, not really expecting a reply, and certainly not expecting to create the commotion that it did. Little could we know that the letter landed on the desk of the president of the company, Mr. Allison F. Stanley. We had no way of knowing that Stanley had lost a son in World War II and that he would be eager to supply as many aces as we needed. The same day that Stanley read our letter, 1,000 Aces of Spades were pulled from the production line, packed and shipped to us at no cost.
Soon after our first shipment of cards arrived, we received a letter from John B. Powers with the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency in New York, asking for permission to use the story Stateside. Powers handled the public relations account for the playing card company.