Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 THE VIETNAM CAULDRON Defense Intelligence in the War for Southeast Asia Michael B Petersen DIA Historical Research Division DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY The ideas and opinions expressed in this publication are solely the author’s and do not reflect those of the Defense Intelligence Agency the Department of Defense or the United States Government Defense Intelligence Agency Historical Research Division Washington DC 2012 About the Author Michael B Petersen is a Historian with the DIA Historical Research Division He previously served on the staff of the National Security Council and with the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group IWG at the National Archives and Records Administration He holds a Ph D in History from the University of Maryland College Park and is the author of Missiles for the Fatherland Peenemünde National Socialism and the V-2 Missile Cambridge University Press 2009 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 THE VIETNAM CAULDRON Defense Intelligence in the War for Southeast Asia Michael B Petersen DIA Historical Research Support Branch The DIA Historical Research Division The Defense Intelligence Agency Historical Research Division develops and preserves the institutional memory of DIA conducts historical research and analysis in support of the DIA mission and promotes historical awareness among the DIA workforce For the Patriots Major Robert P Perry USA Celeste M Brown Vivienne A Clark Dorothy M Curtiss Joan K Pray Doris J Watkins Colonel Charles R Ray USA Chief Warrant Officer Robert W Prescott USA Chief Warrant Officer Kenneth D Welch USA Petty Officer First Class Michael R Wagner USN Captain William E Nordeen USN Judith I Goldenberg Staff Sergeant Kenneth R Hobson II USA Master Sergeant William W Bultemeier USA Ret Shelley A Marshall Karl W Teepe Patricia E Mickley Robert J Hymel Rosa M Chapa Sandra N Foster Charles E Sabin Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives is designed to provide an understanding of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s DIA’s participation in military and intelligence developments of the last half century While history does not repeat itself it does provide context guideposts and a framework for understanding the present In some ways the challenges confronting today’s Intelligence Community personnel are similar to those faced by their cohorts from earlier generations While they differ in their specifics the basic questions surrounding the practice of foreign intelligence and the management of large intelligence agencies have not changed Management challenges such as the definition of missions and roles and analytic pathologies such as groupthink mirror-imaging and status-quo thinking were all problems confronted by analysts in the Cold War and in the 1990s much as they are in today’s global contingency and counterterrorism operations Examining the ways in which personnel from an earlier period recognized addressed and resolved these sorts of problems—or failed at all three—can inform and hopefully improve current intelligence practices The goal of Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives is to inculcate in DIA and the broader Intelligence Community DIA’s historical role during the last 50 years and to educate current and future analysts about the hard-won lessons learned by those who occupied their seats before them To neglect this story ignore the lessons of the past is to invite failure i Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 Introduction The Defense Intelligence Agency DIA was the first new agency established by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara after he assumed office in 1961 The ambitious McNamara intended to reformulate U S strategic nuclear policy and reduce inefficiencies that had developed in the Department of Defense DoD in the 1950s DIA was the lynchpin to both efforts In the early and middle 1960s McNamara and his subordinates Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric and new DIA Director Lieutenant General Joseph Carroll USAF worked hard to establish the Agency but their efforts were delayed or stymied by intransigent and parochial military leadership who objected to the creation of DIA because they feared a loss of both battlefield effectiveness and political influence in Washington D C 1 The work of building the DIA was made all the more urgent by the deteriorating situation in Southeast Asia By the early 1960s millions of dollars and hundreds of advisory personnel sent by the U S were having a negligible impact on the anti-communist campaign there As the U S continued to commit more resources to the ill-fated government in Saigon the country found itself drawn deeper and deeper into the maelstrom For DIA the looming war in Southeast Asia would expose major problems in its organization and performance Especially in the period from 1961 to 1969 DIA either because of structural weaknesses or leadership failures often failed to energetically seize opportunities to assert itself in the major intelligence questions involving the conflict there This tendency was exacerbated by national military leadership’s predilection for ignoring or undercutting the Agency’s authority In turn this opened up DIA to severe criticism by Congress and other national policymakers some of whom even considered abolishing the Agency During the war McNamara’s great hope for reforming military intelligence would be swept up in quarrels between powerful domestic adversaries and DIA’s performance left the Secretary of Defense deeply embittered toward his creation It was only at the end of the war that DIA assumed a more influential role in Southeast Asia Until then however the Agency was consigned to the wilderness when it came to questions about the Vietnam conflict iii Detense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 Expanding the New DIA Between 1961 and 1965 DIA personnel faced the double burden of establishing themselves as a functioning intelligence agency and producing useful intelligence for military planners and policymakers This would have a direct impact on DIA’s ability to support decisionmaking regarding Southeast Asia During the Agency’s first 14 months Director Carroll focused most of his energy on organizing the phased transfer of intelligence resources from the individual Services to DIA By the end of 1962 many of DIA’s bureaucratic management mechanisms were in place and the Agency was capable of producing current intelligence in response to the needs of the Joint Chiefs of Staff JCS and the Secretary of Defense 2 DIA Historical Collection Beyond current intelligence Carroll’s Agency still had not established the ability to produce basic intelligence such as order of battle and analyses of enemy military capabilities and strategic intelligence focused on supporting policy and planning This would come in 1963 with the establishment of the Production Center the single largest organizational element within DIA Planning for the Production Center began almost immediately after McNamara approved DIA’s Activation Plan in September 1961 Carroll Lt Gen Joseph Carroll DIA’s first submitted his plan to consolidate the Service production elements Director into one function within DIA in April 1962 and Gilpatric approved them the following June The original Activation Plan projected that the Production Center would be operational by July but arguments over resources and personnel delayed its opening until 1963 The Production Center’s first Director was then-U S Army Colonel Herron Maples who arrived at DIA in May 1963 Even then over a year-and-a-half after the Agency’s establishment raw feelings about DIA remained in the Services When Maples arrived in Washington to assume his post he was surprised to receive a cold welcome from his old friend and colleague Brigadier General Alva Fitch the Army’s Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence Maples visited Fitch in his Pentagon office and was told in no uncertain terms that “the Army was not at all pleased with the way this thing was developing with DIA and we would probably be on opposite sides of the fence from this time on so I should be prepared to have a good fight ” By 1963 the Air Force appeared to drop most of its objections to DIA but the Navy according to Maples “didn’t want any part of it ”3 The Production Center’s home was on the grounds of a private women’s school turned intelligence facility known as Arlington Hall Station Arlington Hall Junior College for Women opened in 1927 but the school suffered badly during the Great Depression and almost went into bankruptcy In 1942 under the War Powers Act the Army took over the grounds of the school and hastily erected two large gray temporary two-story buildings known imaginatively as “Building A” and “Building B” which would house its Signal Intelligence Service for the remainder of the war In 1945 it became the headquarters of the new Army Security Agency and later Building B housed the Air Force Intelligence Center The Pentagon 1  DIA Historical Collection Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 The DIA Production Center Leadership COL Herron Maples the Center’s Director sits at the head of the table did not have enough space to accommodate the large influx of analysts who would staff DIA’s Production Center so Carroll agreed that DIA would take over Building B from the Air Force At the same time he ordered the set-up of an Automated Data Processing Center in Building A 4 Carroll and his staff would have been hard-pressed to find a worse facility in which to put their intelligence analysts In 1942 neither building was meant to serve as a permanent structure and by 1962 both were badly showing their age Faulty wiring and shoddy construction made them fire traps Rats and other pests had long since taken residence in the building As a security precaution many outside windows were painted over with black paint giving the interior of the building the aura of a funeral home Perhaps most worrisome the weight of dozens of safes moved into Building B by DIA bowed the building’s frame into a concave shape The Production Center’s leadership would take steps to upgrade and refurbish the buildings but even as they were moving in Carroll and his deputies began lobbying Congress for funding for a new home The stand-up of the Production Center also almost tripled the number of people working for DIA At the end of 1962 the Agency had 979 civilian and military employees Manpower authorization for the Production Center added almost 1 700 billets to the organization Most of the additional personnel were civilians and for the first time the number of civilians in the Agency 1 624 outstripped the number of military personnel 1 047 Later in the year the creation of a scientific and technical production organization the completion of the Automated Data Processing Center which utilized an early database system using punch cards and IBM computers and a directorate for Mapping Charting and Geodesy further boosted the Agency’s population Authorized manpower at the end of fiscal year 1963 2 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 for example was 3 089 personnel and actual manpower was 2 686 5 DIA Historical Collection 1964 was a pivotal year for the Agency At the end of March DIA opened the Dissemination Center which coordinated the distribution of intelligence products A month later the Science and Technology Directorate was finally established In August Carroll merged the Office of Estimates with the Current Intelligence and Indications Center CIIC to create the Intelligence Support and Indications The entrance to Building B Arlington Hall Station The temporary Center ISIC under U S Air Force Colonel buildings at Arlington Hall Station were showing their age even before DIA moved in Charles Gillis This organization funneled current intelligence to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the National Military Command Center NMCC in the Pentagon The ISIC would be the conduit by which national-level military authorities received military intelligence from around the world Separately McNamara also ordered the establishment of a combined Department of Defense Special Missile and Astronautics Center DoD SMAC which would become known by the acronym DEFSMAC in 1976 in April 1964 Previously the Central Intelligence Agency CIA the National Security Agency NSA and the Services separately collected and disseminated intelligence on foreign space and missile events The system was overly redundant and left its recipients with fragmentary and sometimes contradictory intelligence reports on the same event DEFSMAC combined these functions under the joint management of DIA and NSA Initially 81 people from NSA and 23 from DIA staffed the new organization Their task was to provide 24-hour surveillance of foreign missile and space systems provide tip-offs of pending missile tests to DoD collection elements and analyze the immediate results of these collection missions DEFSMAC would be the backbone of ballistic missile collection and analysis efforts for the next five decades 6 By the end of August 1964 Carroll could report to Gilpatric and McNamara that “all of the major organization transfers contemplated in the initial and subsequent organizational directives have been effected ” His Agency could by then produce intelligence on 127 nations compared with only 62 countries at the end of 1961 7 Its collection apparatus could task assets to answer national-level requirements and validate collection requests emerging from the Unified and Specified Commands Through the Intelligence Support and Indications Center in the Pentagon it could provide worldwide current intelligence to the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of Defense and through its Production Center it had begun supplying other military intelligence to U S forces around the globe The Agency had also enlarged its physical presence in Washington and its suburbs Starting from borrowed office space in the Pentagon in 1961 it had expanded to occupy space at 3 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 DIRECTOR Lt Gen Joseph Carroll USAF SPECIAL PLANNING GROUP DEPUTY DIRECTOR LTG Alva Fich USA CHIEF OF STAFF RADM Allen Reed USN SECRETARY ASSISTANT CHIEF OF STAFF ADMINISTRATION ASSISTANT CHIEF OF STAFF PLANS AND PROGRAMS CIVILIAN PERSONNEL DIVISION SERVICES DIVISION OPERATIONAL PLANS AND POLICY DIVISION PROGRAMS DIVISION ARCHITECT ENGINEER GROUP MILITARY PERSONNEL DIVISION WAR PLANS DIVISION SIGINT GROUP RECORDS MANAGEMENT GROUP TRAINING GROUP ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR ACQUISITION COLLECTION REQUIREMENTS OFFICE ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR PROCESSING COLLECTION MANAGEMENT OFFICE DISSEMINATION CENTER EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT OFFICE MILITARY ESTIMATES GROUP PRODUCTION CENTER INTELLIGENCE SUPPORT AND INDICATIONS CENTER NMCS SUPPORT OFFICE COUNTERINTELLIGENCE 44 SPECIAL SECURITY OFFICE SPECIAL ACTIVITIES OFFICE Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 Defense Intelligence Agency INSPECTOR GENERAL December 1964 DIA LIAISON GROUP ASSISTANT CHIEF OF STAFF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT REQUIREMENTS AND PROJECTS GROUP RESEARCH GROUP COMPTROLLER FINANCIAL SERVICES DIVISION MANAGEMENT ANALYSIS DIVISION TECHNICAL APPLICATIONS DIVISION MANPOWER AND ORGANIZATION GROUP ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR MAPPING CHARTING AND GEODESY ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL INTELLIGENCE PRODUCT REQUIREMENTS OFFICE PLANS AND PROGRAMS OFFICE MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS OFFICE WEAPONS AND SYSTEMS OFFICE SURVEYS AND BASIC DATA OFFICE CARTOGRAPHY OFFICE MISSILES AND SPACE OFFICE SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE ADVANCED SYSTEMS OFFICE AUTOMATIC DATA PROCESSING SYSTEMS CENTER ASSESSMENTS AND REPORTING OFFICE DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE SCHOOL 5 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 Arlington Hall Station Pomponio Plaza home of the Science and Technology directorate and the Cafritz Building which it shared with a brewery and in which it conducted reconnaissance photo processing all in Northern Virginia the Anacostia Naval Annex the Defense Intelligence School in Southeast Washington and Fort Meade Maryland DEFSMAC DIA personnel were also detailed to various positions at Fort Richie and Andrews Air Force Base—both in Maryland—and in Norfolk Virginia At the end of 1964 some 3 600 employees were scattered across the greater Washington metropolitan area 8 But McNamara was not yet done ordering the consolidation of Pentagon assets under DIA The U S military attaché system suffered from the same problems that military intelligence did in earlier decades Duplication parochialism and waste had characterized it since the end of World War II In December 1964 McNamara wrote to Carroll the Service Secretaries and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Earl “Bus” Wheeler to notify them that “the time is now appropriate to establish a single Defense Attaché System DAS as an organizational function of DIA in order to improve the management of the total attaché effort ” He ordered Carroll to formulate a plan to integrate the various service attachés into the DAS which would be managed by DIA Brigadier General Richard Whitney DIA’s Assistant Chief of Staff for Plans and Programs completed the plan in March 1965 McNamara approved it with minor changes that same month and Gilpatric gave final approval in April 9 On July 1 the DAS officially came under Carroll’s authority The Services unsurprisingly resisted giving up control of the attachés arguing that they fulfilled a military protocol function more than they did an intelligence function and in any case whatever information they did collect would be more relevant to the individual Services’ needs McNamara once again brushed these arguments aside in favor of his consolidated system DIA became responsible for the selection and assignment of attachés and for maintaining their operations around the world 10 The repercussions of this would be enormous Defense attachés would play key roles in some of the Agency’s most dramatic moments over the next 50 years including during the Vietnam War But all of this growth had a price While it expanded the Agency’s foreign intelligence responsibilities the bureaucratic aspects of agency building strained the DIA personnel’s ability to keep up with intelligence requirements particularly in analysis While more personnel could be assigned to a wider variety of analytical tasks Agency supervisors also had the responsibility of carrying out analytic duties building the organizations they ran and managing DIA’s responsibility of supervising external intelligence functions performed by other organizations in DoD “DIA personnel have been planners and builders one day intelligence analysts and managers the next ” noted one official reviewer of the Agency’s development “It was a difficult at times to find the proper personnel to take care of the daily responsibilities of the directorate ” complained another reviewer Thus in the early ‘60s a process began in which management responsibilities impinged on analytical duties and hindered DIA’s ability to process raw intelligence into finished intelligence 11 By the middle of 1964 Carroll’s Agency had assumed virtually all of the functions outlined in its Activation Plan of 1961 along with other responsibilities that were not incorporated in the original plan The drawn-out process of establishing the Agency meant that DIA would be 6 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 bureaucratically hamstrung by its slow development and thus ill-equipped to participate in meaningful intelligence assessments on Southeast Asia especially in the fateful years between 1961 and 1965 On those occasions when DIA could provide valuable analysis military leadership would ultimately ignore or disparage this relative newcomer’s opinions in favor of analysis done by intelligence specialists already in the region In any case as DIA became fully operational the incipient U S conflict in Vietnam was reaching a critical state The Vietnam Conundrum While Carroll was struggling to bring DIA into being the Kennedy Administration was grappling with an even larger problem Since the 1954 departure of French forces from Vietnam the United States had been providing the government of South Vietnam with considerable economic and military assistance to aid its fight against a stubborn insurgency conducted by the National Liberation Front NLF a coalition of various political groups opposing the Saigon government Pejoratively called “Viet Cong” literally meaning “Vietnamese Communists” by South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem the NLF was supported by North Vietnam DRV—the Democratic Republic of Vietnam the Soviet Union and China The political case for the NLF was made easier by the corrupt capricious and inept government of South Vietnam RVN—the Republic of Vietnam led by Diem Diem prized loyalty over effectiveness and surrounded himself with family members who were more crooked than they were competent He also presided over a fearsome campaign against the NLF and its suspected sympathizers but he could not defeat the dogged insurgency Diem’s hard-line approach drove an even larger wedge between the government and the population and by 1961 the year Carroll began assembling DIA his government facing an expanding insurgency was beginning to totter 12 Still in its infancy DIA’s ability to render meaningful strategic intelligence judgments regarding Southeast Asia was limited Kennedy Administration policymakers chose to rely instead on various fact-finding missions taken by its senior members such as an October 1961 mission by military advisor General Maxwell Taylor and Walt Rostow the president’s Deputy National Security Advisor as well as input from more established intelligence agencies such as CIA and NSA 13 DIA’s work in late 1961 and early 1962 was thus limited to producing current intelligence on infiltration corridors and communications networks and providing weekly updates to McNamara and the Joint Chiefs on South Vietnamese military activity In Vietnam the United States Military Assistance Command Vietnam MACV which was established on February 8 1962 to advise train and offer other support to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam ARVN was the primary body overseeing military assistance to that nation General Paul Harkins MACV’s commanding officer and Frederick Nolting the U S Ambassador to South Vietnam shared responsibility for leading MACV which would come to dominate policy discussions about the ongoing insurgency 14 MACV’s intelligence chief G-2 was Air Force Colonel James Winterbottom a specialist in strategic reconnaissance and a man with little understanding of insurgencies 15 7 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 In February 1962 Harkins on Taylor’s recommendation set up a Joint Evaluation Center JEC under Winterbottom in an effort to craft more authoritative intelligence assessments of the situation The JEC was conceptually an early forerunner of today’s intelligence fusion centers Originally it was to be staffed by embassy personnel and CIA and military representatives and the JCS directed Carroll to support it Carroll in turn sent DIA’s most qualified Southeast Asia analyst George Allen as the Agency’s sole representative to the JEC Allen was an analyst in the CIIC and had extensive experience in the region going back to his days as an Army intelligence specialist immediately after World War II Prior to coming to DIA he was the senior Indochina intelligence expert in the U S Army Pacific In 1961 he coordinated the Army’s current intelligence program before DIA absorbed that function into the CIIC bringing Allen with it He had a vaguely defined portfolio at DIA serving as a “consultant” to Colonel Gillis the head of the CIIC which allowed him a degree of professional flexibility and made him an ideal representative to the JEC 16 Allen left for Saigon that month When he arrived he received a rude welcome from his new boss Upon reporting to Winterbottom in Saigon Allen was told by MACV’s G-2 “in no uncertain terms that though I might have been a ‘hotshot ’ big-time powerful blankety-blank GS-15 back in Washington in Saigon I was no better then the lowest-ranked private that I would enjoy no special privileges that I should remember for whom I was working that I was not DIA’s employee but his and that if I tried to communicate with my home office without clearing the message with him he would fix my wagon to put it politely ”17 Perhaps already aware of how Winterbottom planned to run the JEC no embassy personnel or CIA staff joined the organization The JEC’s task was to evaluate and combine all-source intelligence reporting to provide finished intelligence products for MACV leadership and policymakers in Washington 18 Within it Allen was responsible for coordinating the efforts of the different teams working on the order of battle OB and ensuring that they were following a common methodology After two months of painstaking work Allen’s group in the JEC concluded that there were approximately 20 000 North Vietnamese regulars in South Vietnam and “probably at least 100 000 of the guerillamilitia elements ” Winterbottom rejected this latter figure out of hand and forced a revision of the estimate to just over 16 300 total enemy fighters In May the figure was then presented by MACV to a satisfied McNamara who took it to mean that the U S effort was bearing fruit 19 The disagreement over OB in early 1962 and MACV’s assertion of leadership on the issue demonstrated the limits of DIA’s capabilities at this very early stage of its development The Agency lacked the administrative capacity it could only support the JEC with one analyst and bureaucratic willpower to energetically challenge MACV’s conclusions There is little evidence that Carroll consumed as he was with getting the Agency on its feet was willing to involve DIA in an analytical knife fight with MACV over enemy order of battle As a general rule the DIA Director preferred not to challenge the Services directly while he was trying to establish DIA’s tasking and managerial authority over DoD intelligence assets He was a conciliator by nature and while the approach won him many friends and admirers it tended to undercut any leverage his position as DIA Director afforded him It is unclear whether Carroll informed McNamara that the JEC effort did little to resolve the differences of intelligence opinion in the 8 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 OB estimates The Secretary of Defense appeared to believe that the situation in Vietnam was improving 20 With regard to the conflict in Vietnam it would be the first in a string of missed opportunities for DIA to assert the leadership role which McNamara originally intended for it Even so between 1963 and 1965 Carroll’s Agency began reporting more and more grim news to McNamara But in many cases DIA analysis was undercut elsewhere in the Pentagon For example an August 1964 DIA intelligence bulletin described a surge of NLF attacks on government targets in South Vietnam and warned that oppressive government measures such as a crackdown against Buddhist war protesters would only encourage support for the communists But 10 days later Marine Major General Victor “Brute” Krulak the Pentagon’s Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Special Activities SACSA wrote to McNamara discounting the importance of insurgent activity He pointed out that the level of violence was still below what it was in 1962 and that NLF activity was “neither particularly salient nor of long duration” and therefore did not deserve concern 21  The Vietnam Center and Archive Texas Tech University That same month Diem imposed martial law and ordered attacks on Buddhist pagodas which had become centers of non-violent resistance to government abuses At DIA Carroll sent a memorandum to McNamara warning that these steps “are likely to further alienate the public from the Diem government and will have serious repercussions throughout the country ” Furthermore according to Carroll a coup against the Diem government was a very real possibility 22 The report cast more doubt on the situation in Vietnam and in yet another effort to get what he hoped would be an unvarnished appraisal Kennedy first sent Krulak and Joseph Mendenhall the former political counselor in the U S Embassy in Saigon to South Vietnam Three weeks later he sent McNamara and Taylor to assess the situation yet again but the results of these fact-finding missions did not clarify matters for the president Buddhist monks protest in Saigon 1963 DIA analysts argued correctly that any crack-down on the protests would weaken South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem 9 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 Carroll’s August memorandum to McNamara was prophetic After the violent raids on the pagodas key ARVN officers became convinced that Diem had to be removed and made a series of quiet contacts with U S officials who indicated their tacit support for Diem’s removal The officers and their men attacked the presidential palace in Saigon and without U S approval murdered Diem and his brother on November 1 ushering in an era of “revolvingdoor juntas” until Nguyen Van Thieu came to power in 1965 After the coup Kennedy ordered a reevaluation of U S Vietnam policy but three weeks later he was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald Lyndon Johnson assumed the presidency leaving Kennedy’s team in place The policy review was not completed 23 As Johnson was settling into the Oval Office the first small seeds of doubt about Vietnam began to appear in McNamara’s mind This was in part because as U S involvement deepened DIA’s reporting to the Secretary of Defense became increasingly pessimistic On December 13 Carroll wrote to McNamara that the insurgency was strengthening and its combat effectiveness was improving His memo directly contradicted the sanguine intelligence reports emerging from Winterbottom’s office in MACV noting that “The Communist capability to extend or escalate the insurgency has not been significantly negated ” Six days later McNamara visited Vietnam with Carroll’s report fresh in his mind The Secretary’s own impressions from the trip were just as foreboding “Viet Cong progress has been great during the period since the coup … The situation is very disturbing ” He concluded that further infusion of U S troops would not stem the tide but did argue for continuation of U S involvement at essentially the same level 24 Over the Precipice Like Kennedy before him Johnson’s Vietnam policy sought a middle ground between full commitment and full withdrawal and like Kennedy before him that middle ground would ultimately result in greater escalation In early 1964 Johnson approved a plan for covert action against North Vietnam known as OPLAN 34-A A key component of OPLAN 34-A was the so-called DeSoto patrols These patrols by specially equipped U S Navy vessels would gather electronic intelligence on targets in North Vietnam assist South Vietnamese commando raids and perform other covert activities 25 On the night of August 4 in heavy seas under a moonless sky two destroyers on a DeSoto patrol in the Gulf of Tonkin the USS Maddox and the USS Turner Joy urgently reported that they were under attack by North Vietnamese patrol boats 26 The Maddox had been attacked two days earlier but the August 4 attack turned out to be a phantom—the result according to after-action reporting of freak weather effects and over-eager sonarmen—but the consequences were enormous On August 7 Congress passed what subsequently came to be known as the Tonkin Gulf Resolution which gave the president far-reaching authority to take action to protect U S interests in Southeast Asia That same day Carroll forwarded an assessment to McNamara predicting that the North Vietnamese would ramp up their efforts in South Vietnam in response Both sides were crossing the Rubicon 27 Armed with his new authority from Congress Johnson began a review of U S Vietnam policy forming the National Security Council NSC Working Group on South Vietnam and East 10 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 Asia DIA representatives sat on the Intelligence Panel of the Working Group After evaluating the available evidence the panel concluded that prospects for the Saigon government were “extremely grim ” that increased military action against North Vietnam would have a negligible effect because “the basic elements of Communist strength in South Vietnam remain indigenous ” and that Hanoi could support the insurgency even if it were severely damaged by a protracted military campaign Sustained attacks the panel also concluded were not likely to break Hanoi’s will 28 But Johnson never heard this argument The Joint Staff’s representative to the Working Group Vice Admiral Lloyd Mustin made sure of it Mustin was a career combat officer with little experience in Southeast Asia but he rejected out of hand the Intelligence Panel’s conclusions Victory was a matter of military force the United States should simply crush North Vietnam Doing so would force Hanoi to withdraw support for the NLF and the insurgency would whither away Mustin’s arguments fell on sympathetic ears and the NSC ultimately recommended few changes to Johnson’s Vietnam policy 29 Johnson waited until after the elections of 1964 and his inauguration in January 1965 to commit to sustained military action but in March 1965 Operation ROLLING THUNDER the sustained bombing of North Vietnam began 30 Air War over Vietnam Vietnam Center and Archive Texas Tech University ROLLING THUNDER was DIA’s first serious test during the Vietnam War After a series of limited and ineffective air raids in February code-named FLAMING DART JCS Chairman Wheeler complained that “we do not have sufficient or timely information about the results of the strikes ” that planning was poor and the choice of weapons used was “open to question ” He ordered Carroll to come up with a standardized and streamlined system of after-action reporting that would improve targeting and ordnance selection In the succeeding months DIA personnel in the Targets Division and Estimates Office in Herron Maples’ Production Center compiled intelligence from U S Pacific Air Forces and the U S Pacific Fleet both components under the Commander of U S Forces Pacific—CINCPAC MACV itself a subordinate command of CINCPAC and NSA and collated the information into finished reports on the raids Agency personnel then distributed weekly evaluations to McNamara the Joint U S soldiers view B-52 strikes at Con Thien near the demilitarized zone separating Chiefs of Staff and senior North and South Vietnam during Operation ROLLING THUNDER DoD officials for action 31 11 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 ROLLING THUNDER quickly progressed into a regular strategic bombing campaign against targets in both the North and the South with the military goal of interdicting the flow of men and supplies into South Vietnam DIA’s analysts were skeptical that this would arrest enemy combat operations Together with CIA and the State Department analysts in the Southeast Asia Branch in the Estimates Office argued in March that NLF forces “had the capability and almost the intention sic of exerting considerable military pressure even without new or augmented support from the North ” But the JCS and civilian policymakers in McNamara’s office took this to mean that more force was necessary A month later the JCS argued that the ROLLING THUNDER target list was too restrictive to be effective and they successfully lobbied McNamara for an expansion of the program including a more extensive target list and the use of B-52s in so-called ARC LIGHT missions Carroll began submitting even longer target lists to the Joint Chiefs and ARC LIGHT missions began in June 32 DIA’s initial evaluations were a cause for cautious optimism among policymakers An appraisal produced at the end of June for example noted that “sustained air strikes against North Vietnam have eroded national capacities ammunition storage supply depots POL petroleum oil and lubricants power plants and military facilities as well as causing near paralysis of many facets of the national economy ” McNamara published an unclassified version of this assessment to the press and McGeorge Bundy the president’s National Security Advisor forwarded the report to Johnson noting that “it suggests that there are real pressures in our bombing program ”33 As a result military and senior civilian leadership argued for a further expansion of the ROLLING THUNDER target list to include more political logistic and economic targets in the North 34 The Joint Chiefs argued in favor of removing many bombing restrictions and attacking all of North Vietnam’s industrial capabilities petroleum reserves and its infrastructure Most of the Intelligence Community IC seemed to agree publishing a September Special National Intelligence Estimate which backed the notion that an extended U S air campaign “might persuade Hanoi that the guerilla war could not be prosecuted to final victory ” Only the State Department dissented 35 But by the end of 1965 DIA analysts were having second thoughts about ROLLING THUNDER During a bombing pause in December and January a December intelligence assessment they produced for the JCS questioned whether a sustained campaign could have a long-term effect because of the dispersed nature of the targets in North Vietnam When it became clear that the bombing pause had failed to produce the anticipated diplomatic talks their doubts about the potential success of sustained bombing became more acute In January 1966 they briefed JCS Chairman Wheeler and the rest of the Joint Chiefs that “the Communists certainly believe that their motivation is superior that lack of clear cut victory combined with domestic and foreign pressures will erode U S determination and that they can outlast the US in the contest—even in the face of extremely heavy troop losses ” 36 Such assessments were in direct contradiction to what the Joint Chiefs of Staff believed would occur with the application of increased force and were met with skepticism among military leadership 12 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 As a stepped-up bombing campaign against North Vietnamese POL sites continued into the middle of 1966 DIA reporting channeled through the JCS kept McNamara abreast of its progress By August 1 targeting analysts estimated that 70 percent of North Vietnam’s industrial capacity was destroyed but the huge risks and expense coupled with the near impossibility of destroying the remaining dispersed sites forced McNamara to begin rethinking his support for the campaign Another joint CIA DIA analysis completed a month later concluded that the continued attacks were unsuccessful mainly because the flow of men south continued unabated and North Vietnam was no closer to agreeing to negotiations 37 With the failure of ROLLING THUNDER becoming obvious McNamara’s disillusionment deepened The Secretary of Defense joined a small group of policy officials who favored a halt to the air campaign The middle of 1966 also marked an important turning point in his relationship with DIA When Hanoi failed to back down after intensified attacks in July and August 1966 McNamara concluded that the Defense Intelligence Agency his solution for eliminating Service intelligence bias and offering civilian Pentagon leadership unvarnished intelligence reporting had not established its independence from its parent Services and merely parroted Service thinking about the increased use of force He requested that CIA set up a unit that could monitor the campaign on its own and report its findings to him directly Years later McNamara recalled that I didn’t believe the DIA was trying to deceive me on the results of the bombing … But I did believe that parties of interest frequently looking sic at their operations through rose what I call ‘rose colored glasses’ … And particularly with respect to the bombing operations I believed that we needed an independent evaluation 38 But McNamara’s criticism was disingenuous To be sure in 1965 DIA analysis tacitly backed the notion that a more aggressive air campaign might force Hanoi to sue for peace But as early as January 1966 Agency analysts had repeatedly voiced skepticism over the efficacy of expanded attacks and it was impossible to paper over the failures of ROLLING THUNDER which Carroll did not do in any case DIA had already been coordinating with CIA for a year by the time the Secretary of Defense requested a more “independent” evaluation McNamara never one to rely on intelligence when his own judgment seemed best was merely searching for a scapegoat and he found one in an already unpopular Agency which had been the object of derision since its inception DIA continued to coordinate with CIA throughout 1967 and 1968 to provide monthly evaluations of the campaign’s progress 39 But the violent logic of ROLLING THUNDER’s advocates continued to win out In February 1967 Johnson again ordered an expansion of the operation’s target list The joint DIA CIA appraisals of the attacks on the new targets provided policymakers with a blow-by-blow account of the failure of this most intense stage of ROLLING THUNDER A report published in June noted that “the massive North Vietnamese construction and repair efforts continue to offset much of the effects of air strikes The North Vietnamese still retain the capability to support activities in South Vietnam and Laos at present or increased combat levels and force structures ” Interdiction raids on the Ho Chi Minh trail a supply network stretching from North to South Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia had little effect beyond short- 13 Vietnam Center and Archive Texas Tech University Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 The Dep Cau Bridge northeast of Hanoi lies in the Cau River after being attacked by U S Air Force F-105 fighter-bombers Photographs like this one were key to DIA’s assessments of North Vietnam’s ability to resupply their forces from China and therefore sustain the war effort in the South term dislocations “The North Vietnamese still retain the capability to support activities in South Vietnam and Laos at present or increased combat levels and force structures ” the same report read 40 Very little progress was apparent even later that year A CIA DIA report issued in October noted once again that “because the requirements are modest the North Vietnamese still retain the capability to logistically support activities in South Vietnam and Laos at present or increased combat levels and force structure ” North Vietnamese morale continued to hold as well As 1967 turned to 1968 it was clear to most civilian policymakers if not the president and his military advisors that ROLLING THUNDER was a failure The ground war for Vietnam was not faring much better 41 14 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 Intelligence Estimates and the Ground War in Vietnam The first U S ground combat troops arrived in Vietnam on March 3 1965 when the Third Marine regiment came ashore in Da Nang Throughout 1965 the number of U S troops in Vietnam continued to escalate reaching 185 000 by the end of the year 42 General William Westmoreland who had taken over command of MACV in June 1964 developed a strategy which centered on inflicting insupportable losses on the communists that would force them to quit the fight—all while keeping U S casualties at an acceptable level To know whether or not Westmoreland’s attrition strategy was successful it was also necessary to have a clear idea of the size of NLF and North Vietnamese regular forces Thus order of battle estimates continued to play a critical intelligence role in the formulation of U S strategy and policy in Vietnam 43 In 1966 after a year of heavy fighting a CIA analyst named Samuel Adams completed his own investigation into the strength of the NLF irregular forces He concluded that enemy strength in Vietnam totaled some 600 000 twice that of MACV’s OB estimate which held that anywhere from 277 000 to 300 000 enemy fighters both regular and irregular were arrayed against U S forces Adams’ assessment eventually reached the White House and in early 1967 National Security Advisor Walt Rostow suggested to JCS Chairman Wheeler that the interested parties meet to resolve the difference Wheeler in turn ordered Carroll to convene a conference in Hawaii that February 44 DIA Historical Collection Carroll considered the conference important enough that he ordered Brigadier General Burton Brown the Agency’s Deputy Assistant Director for Intelligence Production to lead DIA’s delegation Brown’s analysts were already sympathetic to Adams’ basic point that MACV’s OB needed to be revised Brown himself favored significant additions to the OB but none of them were willing to agree that Adams’ numbers were accurate MACV’s Colonel Gains Hawkins who was in charge of enemy strength estimates conceded that the enemy troop total including NLF irregulars could be around 500 000 a substantial increase to be sure but still 100 000 short of Adams’ figure Unresolved differences still remained over the nature composition and size of irregular forces especially local militias and so-called “assault youth” brigades militia forces composed essentially of teenagers and MACV’s operations personnel exerted enormous pressure to keep the number low Questions about OB estimates lingered well into 1967 45  BG Burton Brown DIA’s Deputy Assistant  Director for Intelligence Production 1967 Within DIA order of battle analysis was done by the Southeast Asia Branch of the new Eastern Area Office located in the Production Center Analysts here began doubting MACV’s estimates in early 1967 after Operation JUNCTION CITY a huge U S sweep through the Iron Triangle north of Saigon During the offensive American soldiers captured thousands of enemy documents which gave them much more insight into communist forces The intelligence windfall provided more evidence to the OB analysts 15 Vietnam Center and Archive Texas Tech University Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 who argued for an upward revision of the figures Major John “Barrie” Williams one of the Agency’s most experienced Vietnam analysts recalled that “when we started translating these documents and everything it suddenly appeared to some of the best analysts in the business that hey gang there ain’t 44 000 guerillas There could be as many as 112 000 guerillas ” MACV’s response according to Williams was to redefine the term “enemy combatant ” “So what happened at this time is recategorized sic the enemy if you will ” he recalled “It was suddenly decided that political infrastructure was not to be part of the threat … I can tell you that infrastructure got zapped no doubt about it ” Williams estimated the true number of enemy fighters to be around 450 000 to 500 000 46 Differences over the numbers grew into a major disagreement between the intelligence agencies in Washington and MACV During the preparation of U S troops examine equipment found in an NLF hospital during Operation JUNCTION CITY which also led to the a Special National Intelligence Estimate SNIE on capture of thousands of enemy documents communist capabilities in Vietnam CIA wanted to use Adams’ figure of 600 000 but Westmoreland had different ideas He wanted to eliminate the NLF’s so-called self-defense and secret self-defense forces from all assessments of enemy OB These were the very forces that pushed Adams’ estimate up to 600 000 MACV representatives argued that it was impossible to accurately discern self-defense from secret self-defense forces Any effort to count them they argued would be pure speculation and wholly inaccurate Moreover as MACV deputy commander General Creighton Abrams put it these groups “contain a sizable number of women and old people … They are rarely armed have no real discipline and almost no military capability They are no more effective in the military sense than the dozens of other nonmilitary organizations which serve the VC cause in various roles ” 47 A marked upward revision in communist forces would also undermine both MACV’s public credibility and the White House’s belief in Westmoreland’s ability to prosecute the war Complicating Westmoreland’s position was that MACV intelligence and operations elements had officially claimed that same month that the effort in Vietnam had reached its “crossover point ” that is enemy losses were exceeding replacements This argument was spearheaded by Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Graham the chief of MACV’s Current Intelligence Indications and Estimates Division who would go on to become DIA Director in 1974 and one of the most important figures in the Agency’s history Westmoreland had made the “crossover” claim previously but it was Graham’s work that provided the claim with more intellectual weight and therefore greater legitimacy Based on an “input-output” model instituted by Graham that 16 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 compared the number of replacements to the number of losses in the North Vietnamese Army and NLF MACV’s OB estimates seemed to show that Westmoreland’s goal of grinding down the enemy was working According to those around him Graham’s order of battle claims were based on this interpretation of the figures and his understanding of the definition of an enemy combatant which did not include the self-defense forces 48 “We honestly believed ” recalled one of Graham’s colleagues “that we had reached a crossover point ” 49 DIA’s efforts to mediate the dispute between MACV and CIA were futile By the end of June 1967 Carroll himself had serious doubts about MACV’s estimate According to Williams the DIA Director believed that the estimate should be revised upward but ever the conciliator and perhaps unwilling to challenge the Army estimators in MACV Carroll made it clear that he wanted to avoid “a knock-down drag-out fight over the strength figures ” 50 Later that summer DIA representatives met in Washington with CINCPAC and MACV officials including Graham DIA’s analysts favored an increase in the estimate to approximately 500 000 but the MACV delegation was only prepared to accept an estimate no higher than 300 000 Williams later recalled that Graham insisted DIA should go along with MACV because the latter organization was “the soldier in the field ” He claimed in 1983 as did others who were present that Graham arbitrarily changed the figures to keep the OB estimate under 300 000 51 Williams’ accusation may have credence but Graham’s position also may not have been as contrived as his critics believed On one hand Williams remembers Graham simply crossing out figures and replacing them with lower ones a clear abuse of intelligence analysis 52 On the other hand MACV’s institutional definition of an enemy combatant was entirely different than CIA’s Abrams’ prior assertion that the self-defense forces were hardly military formations is an indication that the opposing sides could not agree on a single definition of enemy combatant and their numbers were skewed because of it The definitional shift made by MACV after Operation JUNCTION CITY worsened the problem considerably DIA’s official position was that while the self-defense forces could be but were not necessarily enemy combatants MACV’s number was still too low because it did not include other groups such as the Communist political cadres nor take into account the unique circumstances under which individual local militia groups operated The question of OB therefore may have also centered on an honest difference of analytical opinion between different intelligence organizations 53 In any case the episode did not cast Carroll’s Agency in a good light By not budging on any figure over 300 000 MACV supported by the Joint Chiefs demonstrated DIA’s inability to resolve intelligence disputes and arrive at a universally agreed-upon estimate devoid of Service bias Carroll repeatedly asked Williams and other subordinates to try to resolve the results which they were unable to do George Fowler another Southeast Asia analyst in DIA who would go on to become DIA’s Chief of Estimates for the region was also unhappy with the conclusions but no one in the Agency could dissuade MACV DIA was subsequently buffeted by howls of protest from CIA—who misinterpreted DIA’s inability to revise the official OB as evidence that they actually sided with MACV—and continually rebuffed by MACV when it tried to revise the 300 000 figure 54 Months of wrangling between representatives from CIA DIA and MACV continued DIA representatives went to Saigon at the end of June to continue 17 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 their discussions with MACV but got nowhere In October Carroll sent another team to Saigon but still MACV would not budge DIA Historical Collection Worse according to John Williams U S Air Force Major General Grover Cleveland Brown who was DIA’s Assistant Director for Intelligence Production does not appear to have supported his analysts’ efforts to convince MACV to revise its estimate Brown had been the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence in U S Pacific Command from 1964 to 1967 55 In this position he had backed MACV’s position in the OB disputes He was assigned to DIA in April 1967 Williams recalls that during a meeting at CIA Headquarters in Virginia between MACV CIA and DIA analysts led by U S Army Colonel John Lanterman the chief of DIA’s Eastern Area Office Lanterman’s analysts had struck an agreement on the figures with CIA that would have forced MACV’s estimate upward Brown initially backed the agreement but according to Williams   U S Air Force Major General Grover “Danny Graham would get on the phone and call Grover Cleveland   Cleveland Brown DIA’s Assistant Director Brown give him a change of position ‘You’re not backing MACV   for Intelligence Production We need you ’ Lanterman would get back from meeting with Brown and his positions were changed again ” 56 Brown probably sided with MACV and Graham out of loyalty to an intelligence position for which he was partially responsible when he was at CINCPAC It appears that even while at DIA he fell prey to a persistent and long-held bias in favor of analysis done in the field and against analysis done at a further remove in Washington This apparent internal discord did nothing to resolve the OB question and helped undermine DIA’s position within the Intelligence Community and Department of Defense The following November the SNIE that originally ignited the disagreement was published and cited an even lower number of enemy combatants after redefining many statistical categories It set the total enemy OB between 190 000 and 220 000 57 On the same day the Director of Central Intelligence DCI released the SNIE McNamara announced that he planned to resign his position as Secretary of Defense DIA’s erstwhile champion “drained in body and spirit ” had asked Johnson to call a halt to ROLLING THUNDER and find a diplomatic settlement in May 1967 This was too much for Johnson who orchestrated McNamara’s placement as President of the World Bank during the summer 58 McNamara would leave office in February 1968 but his departure and replacement by Clark Clifford ultimately had little effect on DIA’s internal or external relationships Official military estimates on enemy strength especially as they pertained to communist infiltration into South Vietnam continued to decline in late 1967 DIA was almost entirely reliant on MACV for intelligence bearing on enemy order of battle and the Agency had no influence on the OB numbers Agency personnel sent to MACV the essential elements of information they required but MACV personnel processed and screened the raw intelligence before sending it to DIA 59 It was a procedure that opened opportunities for MACV personnel to manipulate intelligence data in ways that bolstered their position and it effectively 18 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 subordinated DIA to MACV According to DIA’s John Williams the Agency was almost entirely reliant on MACV’s reporting “We took what MACV gave us on infiltration ” he later recalled “and published it to the Washington community ” 60 DIA had failed to exert its independent managerial responsibilities over this most critical intelligence issue This failure had many fathers MACV’s early authority over Vietnam-related military intelligence issues coupled with the lingering Service resentment of DIA meant that military leadership in Southeast Asia and Washington were predisposed to ignoring DIA’s analysis in favor of MACV’s This problem was exacerbated by senior leadership within DIA itself DIA Director Carroll regarded by his peers as an extraordinarily honorable man nevertheless failed to forcefully assert leadership on one of the central questions of the war and was intent on avoiding conflict over the issue of order of battle Brown a key senior subordinate only aggravated DIA’s problems by failing to support the independent position worked out by the Agency’s analysts It was in the end another lost opportunity for DIA to exercise exactly the kind of authority over intelligence analysis that McNamara envisioned when he ordered DIA’s establishment The failure to seize on this opportunity eroded DIA’s position within the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community did nothing to restore McNamara’s crumbling faith in the Agency and would badly damage DIA’s public image Even so had DIA asserted itself more forcefully in the debate it is still not clear that it would have convinced recalcitrant MACV leadership or its backers on the Joint Chiefs of Staff Thus despite CIA’s protests leadership in the Department of Defense and the White House operated under the mistaken impression that the while the United States was making progress in the ground war even more force was required to achieve victory But they would be in for a shock within months Between November 1967 and January 1968 MACV began getting hints of a major enemy strike Large numbers of NLF soldiers began infiltrating and gathering in major cities and 20 000 North Vietnamese troops also massed around the U S Marine Corps outpost at Khe Sanh near the demilitarized zone and the border with Laos On January 30 1968 NLF and North Vietnamese troops launched the Tet Offensive against virtually every important political and military target in South Vietnam Several weeks of heavy fighting followed but American and allied forces were able to defeat the attackers throughout South Vietnam inflicting serious losses Hostilities associated with the Tet Offensive ebbed and flowed for months afterward but the outcome was a military defeat for the communist forces who lost by some estimates almost 40 000 men The Americans had won a tactical victory but given intelligence assessments and public assurances by policy officials the Tet Offensive came as a shock in the United States 61 After the Tet Offensive Carroll again sent a team to Saigon this time headed by his Chief of Staff Major General Robert Glass in an effort to readjust the OB estimate MACV officials still refused to acknowledge any error According to John Williams who accompanied Glass along with Lanterman even MACV’s personnel knew the numbers did not add up “We had our respective positions that we had to support for our agencies and you know usually these positions are dictated by your commanders ” he recalled “But when you privately sit down over a beer you know that a lot of the things you are supporting are total and utter horseshit 19 National Archives and Records Administration Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 Saigon was the scene of heavy fighting during the 1968 Tet Offensive just total and utter ” The entire experience was he related “Probably the most frustrating thing you have ever been into You were sent out there by General Carroll to do this and you go back with your hat in hand and say ‘Sir I can’t get them to come off a dime ’” 62 Meanwhile CIA and DIA still could not agree on a specific estimate of enemy strength but the two agencies were able to come to a wary but working consensus on related issues In March they jointly published an attrition study which argued that despite the losses incurred during Tet the communists would be able to continue their campaign against South Vietnam unabated “Hanoi retains the capability of meeting all of its manpower requirements ” it stated “We conclude that manpower is not a factor limiting Hanoi’s ability to continue with the war ” 63 The next day Johnson ordered an end to ROLLING THUNDER indicated that the United States would take steps to deescalate the conflict and announced that he would not seek reelection Despite Johnson’s announcement and the onset of peace talks in May fighting in Vietnam continued in the spring and summer of 1968 64 Carroll sent yet another delegation to Saigon in June to negotiate an adjustment in the military OB but MACV still made no attempt to revise its figures James Meacham the head of MACV’s order of battle division wrote to his wife The types from DIA were here and badgered me endlessly trying to pry the truth from my sealed lips They smell a rat but don’t really know where to look for it They know we are falsifying the figures but can’t figure out which ones and how 65 20 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 Once again the DIA delegation returned home empty-handed For the rest of 1968 DIA analysts continued to work with CIA and MACV to come to a mutually agreeable estimate Despite some compromises by each side over the course of the next year few in the White House had complete faith in the OB estimates emerging from Vietnam An Intelligence Disaster The USS Pueblo Incident  Naval Historical Center In 1968 DIA’s credibility suffered a series of blows As the Agency struggled to bring order to the chaotic intelligence picture in Vietnam 2 300 miles northeast of Saigon North Korea was embarking on an aggressive campaign to destabilize the South Korean government a campaign that included attacks against American targets 66 The United States had been conducting intelligence gathering missions against North Korea in international waters and airspace since the 1950s but tensions had increased noticeably in 1966 when the North Koreans renewed their efforts to “liberate” the South Important components of the U S intelligence effort were signals intelligence SIGINT missions in international waters off the coast of North Korea In 1968 one of these missions was to be conducted by The USS Pueblo lies off California in October 1967 three months the USS Pueblo a World War II-era freighter before its fateful mission recently refitted as a SIGINT collection ship The request for the Pueblo’s mission came from Rear Admiral Frank Johnson the Commander of U S Naval Forces Japan COMNAVFORJAPAN COMNAVFORJAPAN assessed the operational risk to the Pueblo as minimal and forwarded the request to the headquarters of the U S Pacific Fleet CINCPACFLT in Hawaii On December 17 1967 CINCPACFLT likewise assessed the risk to the mission as low and sent the request to DIA via the Joint Staff’s Joint Reconnaissance Center for its own risk assessment and validation 67 DIA’s own evaluation of the Pueblo mission took place 10 days later as part of the monthly meetings to assess the risk of dozens of reconnaissance missions conducted each month The analysts who conducted the risk assessment were from the Special Reconnaissance Branch in the Directorate for Intelligence Production and from the Directorate for Collection 68 Like their counterparts at COMNAVFORJAPAN Agency analysts assessed the mission’s risk as low but they made a fatal error In their deliberations they focused on airborne interceptions of U S flights by North Korean fighters and assumed that North Korean boats would only intercept South Korean vessels The former was occurring with regular but declining frequency and the latter incidents had increased dramatically in the last two years Since North Korean air and naval assets had not previously intercepted U S naval 21 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 missions nowhere in DIA’s risk assessment of the Pueblo mission did this possibility come up Moreover since similar missions against the Soviet Union and China took place with minimal incidents DIA’s evaluators assumed the same would be true in a mission against North Korea They forwarded the CINCPAC request and their own risk assessment to the Joint Reconnaissance Center and the Joint Chiefs of Staff approved the operation on December 29 69 Moreover DIA’s risk assessment process was not built to account for “brushfire” crises like the one that occurred three weeks later On January 21 North Korean commandos stormed the “Blue House” in Seoul attempting to assassinate President Park Chung-hee This incident raised tensions to their highest point since the Korean War DIA began reporting on the incident the next day but there is no evidence that anything was done in the Agency to reassess the risk of intelligence missions off the coast of North Korea Indeed a whole series of indications of increased North Korean belligerence in January was generally ignored insofar as strategic intelligence missions around North Korea were concerned both at CINCPAC and DIA 70 Around noon on January 23 a North Korean sub chaser arrived near the Pueblo and ordered the vessel to heave to The slow lightly-armed U S ship attempted to escape but was run down by the sub chaser and three torpedo boats which began firing on the Pueblo One sailor was killed and four others wounded The Pueblo’s Commander Lloyd “Pete” Bucher gave the order to destroy the sensitive SIGINT equipment on board too late and it fell into North Korean hands when the ship was forced to make port at Wonsan North Korea 71 The crew was imprisoned and tortured for a year before the North Koreans released them and sensitive SIGINT equipment fell into North Korean hands After the Pueblo was captured DIA was once again lashed by criticism for its performance A subsequent congressional investigation accused DIA of rubber-stamping its risk assessments Carroll’s performance before the special subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee investigating the Pueblo incident did nothing to help matters General Carroll was queried at length concerning the specific and detailed criteria used in risk evaluation which include five specific anticipated reaction criteria and five anticipated sensitivity criteria General Carroll stated categorically that each of these criteria were considered in the risk evaluation process by his Agency However he conceded that he could produce no written evidence or supporting document indicating that these criteria had been reviewed in the case of the Pueblo mission When Carroll was asked why DIA took no action on a late December message from the National Security Agency warning that the minimal risk assessment might be too low the obviously exhausted Director replied “I think one would have to take into consideration when it occurred As to why—the fact that it transpired at night over a holiday is about all I can think of ” The final verdict of the subcommittee on this issue was unsparing “The handling of the NSA warning message by … the Office of the Defense Intelligence Agency ” it concluded “is hardly reassuring At best it suggests an unfortunate coincidence of omission at worst it suggests the highest order of incompetence ” 72 22 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 It does not appear that DIA analysts rubber-stamped their risk assessment but neither was their analysis particularly well-done They conducted the assessment with as much diligence as could be expected given the extremely limited time they had to do so The problem was that DIA’s analysts based their assessment on past behavior and did not take into account the possibility of anomalous or different Korean reactions The notion that North Korea would use its own military vessels to stop and board a U S Navy ship— something that had never been done before—was never raised as a possibility 73 North Korea had also targeted American soldiers across the Demilitarized Zone in 1967 but DIA analysts did not link the targeting of Americans on the ground with the potential danger to American sailors offshore Given the historical pattern it may be asking too much of DIA’s analysts to know what was in store but the failure to raise this as a possibility was an error in judgment that had fatal results Moreover there is no evidence that DIA personnel connected the dangerous Blue House raid with the prospect of increased risk to the Pueblo which was at that point already in the Sea of Japan The result of this confluence of events was one of the worst counterintelligence disasters of the Cold War A “Kiss of Death” In the late 1960s and early 1970s DIA was confronted with huge production demands that it was unable to meet Intelligence requirements levied on the Agency combined with staffing shortages and a cumbersome inefficient bureaucracy overwhelmed the Southeast Asia analysts In 1968 517 linear feet of drawer space “with all types of intelligence data concerning Southeast Asia” went unprocessed A survey conducted by IBM found that this backlog resulted from an inefficient internal system for disseminating raw intelligence to analysts and poor coordination and exchange of information between analysts Some 60 percent of the analysts Agency-wide had a production backlog of at least one week 74 Major General Grover Brown DIA’s Assistant Director for Intelligence Production argued before Congress that the raw intelligence on Vietnam was “low grade ore ” meaning that it was of little immediate value to the Agency’s analysts 75 Still it was impossible to avoid the conclusion that there were serious problems in DIA Much of the blame for these problems can be assigned to DIA’s inefficient internal structure In November 1966 the Directorate for Processing was reorganized along geographic instead of functional lines and renamed the Directorate for Intelligence Production Within the new “Eastern Area Office ” a Southeast Asia analysis branch was set up covering Laos Cambodia and North and South Vietnam This was an important first step toward resolving delays that occurred under the functionally organized system which dispersed the Agency’s geographical expertise but despite some operational improvements it took another three years to work out the various planning and administrative deficiencies that still nagged the Directorate for Intelligence Production It was only in 1968 five years after its original establishment that the Directorate came up with an operating plan that allocated resources against its requirements and that plan was found to be so deficient that it was rewritten and republished in 1969 76 DIA’s facilities scattered as they were around the greater Washington area did nothing to help matters Current Intelligence was located in several different Pentagon offices while 23 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 basic and strategic analysis was done at Arlington Hall Many of their supporting offices were located elsewhere around the Capitol region making it extraordinarily difficult to organize and manage the intelligence process George Allen who had since moved on to CIA noted that “in DIA the functions were scattered about in various facilities in Northern Virginia precluding effective integration and coordination ” 77 One problem aggravated another and left the Agency open to harsh criticism by Congress the Intelligence Community and the Department of Defense Criticism of the Agency came from powerful sources In 1968 the House Defense Appropriations Committee excoriated DIA for failing to eliminate duplication and overstaffing poor management of its assets and “a failure to properly analyze current intelligence information ” 78 “One could only conclude that the management of your intelligence assets is in a state of disarray ” complained Representative Jamie Whitten to Carroll 79 During his presidential campaign in 1968 it was reported that Richard Nixon apparently even considered eliminating the Agency 80 By the beginning of his administration in January 1969 DIA had lost the trust of the Joint Chiefs and the favor of the Secretary of Defense It was viewed warily by CIA and accused of incompetence by Congress Adding insult to injury a flash flood inundated Arlington Hall Station on July 22 1969 ruining parts of the first floor in both buildings a data processing computer and uncounted classified documents The database was off-line for nine days the Agency printing plant for a week 81 DIA Historical Collection In July the same month that Arlington Hall flooded Joseph Carroll stepped down as DIA Director Carroll had been in the position for almost eight years by that point and for all of his work setting up the Agency he had also overseen its failures in Vietnam and during the Pueblo fiasco In Europe his Agency—indeed the entire IC—had failed to provide adequate warning of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and DIA’s organizational difficulties were legend in Congress With McNamara and his successor Clifford gone Carroll had few patrons in the Department of Defense by 1969 His days as DIA Director may have been numbered ever since Nixon named Melvin Laird Secretary of Defense the previous January When Laird was a Congressman he served on the Defense Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee which DIA had run afoul of in 1968 He removed Carroll who was apparently experiencing health problems anyway after the two clashed over issues related to Soviet anti-ballistic missile developments 82 LTG Donald Bennett became DIA Director in September 1969 Laird did not name Carroll’s successor until September when he made U S Army Lieutenant General Donald Bennett the commanding officer of VII Corps in West Germany DIA’s new Director Before reporting for his assignment Bennett’s superiors in Germany warned him about the position The Deputy Commander in Chief of U S Army Europe USAREUR went so far as to tell Bennett that “it is the kiss of death to go to DIA ” VII Corps’ commander who had no experience running 24 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 an intelligence agency was baffled by his selection and could not have been happy with the state of Agency leadership when he arrived According to Bennett Deputy Director Vice Admiral Vernon Lowrance had been out of the office for months because of health-related problems The Agency’s Chief of Staff Major General Robert Glass retired but was not replaced because of Carroll’s and Lowrance’s absence Rear Admiral Donald Showers DIA’s Assistant Chief of Staff for Plans and Programs was forced to become de facto Acting Director while simultaneously running Plans and Programs an enormously difficult task made even more complicated by the demands of the war in Vietnam “As far as I was concerned ” Bennett commented later “this showed that very few people really cared whether DIA functioned or not ” 83 Like Carroll Bennett had little practical experience as an intelligence officer Unlike Carroll however Bennett was a fighting man a man of action with a long and distinguished record of martial achievement and he was a long-time consumer of military intelligence This background would serve him well as DIA Director Born in Lakeside Ohio in 1915 Bennett graduated from the U S Military Academy and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in June 1940 During World War II Bennett fought in North Africa landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day one of 20 survivors in his landing craft of 65 men and saw action in all of the major operations in the European Theater until the end of the war 84 During the Korean War he served with the Headquarters Far East Command After Korea he occupied various positions in U S Army Europe but returned to Korea in 1962 where he commanded an artillery corps In 1968 he became Commanding General of VII Corps USAREUR where he was charged with preparing for war against Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces and where he remained until Laird summoned him to Washington to serve as DIA Director 85 But Bennett found his Agency marginalized in key strategic decisions regarding the war in Southeast Asia In March 1969 Nixon approved plans to use B-52s to secretly attack NLF and North Vietnamese targets in eastern Cambodia an operation code-named MENU Creighton Abrams’ staff in MACV nominated the MENU targets to the JCS who submitted them to Laird National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and Nixon All of their message traffic on MENU passed through back channels and many of the bomb damage assessments were done in theater While DIA provided some targeting and photo interpretation support during the campaign its input was limited 86 In the first half of 1970 South Vietnamese and U S forces launched a series of incursions into Cambodia in an effort to destroy the political and military headquarters of the Communist effort in South Vietnam COSVN—Central Office for South Vietnam believed to be located in Cambodia at the time According to Bennett DIA was not consulted when military planners formulated the plans to expand the war Indeed Agency personnel did not even know the initial incursions were taking place until after they began Virtually all of the direct intelligence support to the nearly 30 000 South Vietnamese troops and 20 000 American soldiers involved came from MACV The operations caused a massive domestic uproar and failed to locate COSVN but netted more than 9 000 tons of military equipment and 7 000 tons of food 87 25 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 The thrust into Cambodia did have a substantial impact on intelligence debates over Southeast Asia Within a month U S and South Vietnamese troops captured more than 1 million pages of documents and 32 cases of cryptographic equipment The documents provided enough evidence for DIA and CIA to settle any lingering questions about OB questions and to resolve the dispute with MACV in their favor According to General Bruce Palmer who reviewed the IC’s overall performance in Vietnam in the years after the war the captured records indicated that “the generally higher numbers held by CIA were more nearly correct than MACV’s strength estimates ” 88 This pyrrhic victory however had come too late to salvage DIA’s reputation which absorbed yet another blow when it was revealed despite its claims to the contrary that most of the North Vietnamese supplies moving south were coming through the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville not down the Ho Chi Minh Trail DIA and much of the IC were lambasted for “a major intelligence failure which resulted from deficiencies in both intelligence collection and analysis ” as the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board PFIAB put it It was another setback for an Agency already overwhelmed by the war’s demands 89 Raid on Son Tay A Successful Failure For several years prior to 1970 Bennett’s Agency was responsible for locating American prisoners of war and missing in action POWs MIA Especially after 1966 when it became clear to the Johnson Administration that Hanoi was not about to provide any information about the number and condition of American POWs the intelligence effort to fill the gap became increasingly urgent In August 1967 DIA set up an Interagency Prisoner of War Intelligence Committee IPWIC bringing together representatives from the Services CIA the State Department the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other organizations Its chairman was John Berbrich who would spend most of his career with the Agency and ultimately become the Deputy Director for Intelligence Production Through the IPWIC DIA gradually took responsibility for nearly all aspects of POW MIA issues in Southeast Asia CIA and NSA gave the issue a high collection priority and passed any information they collected to DIA The entire program was code-named BRIGHT LIGHT 90 DIA first learned of Son Tay’s existence in September 1967 and spent the next few years keeping track of the prison camp as part of its BRIGHT LIGHT duties When Nixon assumed office he began pressuring Hanoi to begin releasing American POWs but met with virtually no success The president then began actively considering more direct action and Son Tay appeared to be a good candidate Aerial photography taken June 6 1970 revealed that the camp was active and DIA analysts estimated that as many as 61 Americans were held there in fact it never held more than 55 That June the JCS proposed a rescue operation to the president who enthusiastically agreed Immediately a planning group code-named POLAR CIRCLE convened by Brigadier General Donald Blackburn the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Special Activities SACSA began preparing operational requirements The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Thomas Moorer ultimately had authority over the mission and he Blackburn and Bennett were at the center of every major decision made about the raid 91 26 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 DIA Historical Collection Over the next five months Bennett and his Deputy Director for Intelligence Air Force Major General Richard Stewart who took over when Grover Brown retired in 1970 coordinated an interservice interagency intelligence effort Tasked through DIA SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft low-altitude “Buffalo Hunter” reconnaissance drones and U S Air Force RF-4C aircraft appeared with increasing frequency in the skies over Son Tay Stewart’s analysts poured over hundreds of reconnaissance photographs human intelligence HUMINT reports SIGINT intercepts and other data forwarding finished intelligence to Blackburn’s POLAR CIRCLE planning group In this stage of the operation code-named IVORY COAST the DIA analysts mapped air defense sites on the infiltration Maj Gen Richard Stewart managed the and exfiltration routes developed information on the number analytical effort during the planning for of ground troops around Son Tay and determined the the Son Tay raid exact layout of the camp and locations of prisoner barracks and guard towers This massive intelligence effort allowed Blackburn’s group and the raid’s overall commander U S Air Force Brigadier General Leroy Manor to develop a plan designed to distract North Vietnamese forces assault the compound locate the prisoners and exfiltrate as quickly as possible Special Forces operators who would conduct the raid also trained using the intelligence provided by DIA personnel 92 The original raid was scheduled for October but Kissinger ordered it moved to November 21 so that the president would have enough time to review and approve the plan But in the early evening of November 18 three days before the raid was to take place Bennett dropped a bombshell on Moorer and Blackburn Son Tay was probably empty Richard Stewart’s analysts had noticed that since July activity at the camp seemed to be declining but they believed that the prisoners might still be there Photography taken through early November did not reveal any significant changes But earlier that day they had received a tip from a HUMINT source in Hanoi that the prisoners had been moved to a different camp Even so communications intelligence and reconnaissance photos seemed to indicate that someone was still in the camp 93 Stewart’s analysts sifted the available intelligence but could not prove either case conclusively Bennett also hastily ordered several unscheduled reconnaissance flights but poor weather and mechanical problems prevented them from developing new information According to historian Benjamin Schemmer the DIA Director in a meeting with Moorer and Blackburn held up an equal stack of intelligence documents in each hand and told the generals “I’ve got this much that says they’ve been moved and this much that says they’re still there ” Bennett the veteran combat commander the man of action then recommended they commence with the mission Blackburn and Moorer agreed and counseled Secretary of Defense Laird to go forward After hearing from Laird Nixon who was eager for a public 27 DIA Historical Collection Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 This photo of Son Tay prison camp was taken by a “Buffalo Hunter” drone prior to the mission relations victory and determined to send a statement to Hanoi needed no more urging and ordered the operation 94 Just before 11 p m on November 20 1970 56 members of the U S Army Special Forces climbed aboard their HH-3 “Jolly Green Giant” and HH-53B “Super Jolly Green Giant” helicopters at Udorn Royal Thailand Air Base in northern Thailand and began the final phase of the mission now code-named Operation KINGPIN The helicopters descended on Son Tay early in the morning on November 21 under the cover of diversionary attacks by Air Force and Navy fighters over Hanoi and Haiphong Immediately upon landing they engaged in a sharp firefight with prison guards as they swept through the compound searching for the POWs who were in fact no longer there The Special Forces operators lifted off from Son Tay less than 30 minutes later without recovering a single prisoner but they had also suffered no casualties and achieved overwhelming surprise The raid at Son Tay had failed to net any American POWs Four months earlier on July 14 1970 the North Vietnamese transferred the last of the American POWs to Dan Hoi 10 miles east The 28 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 apparent activity in the camp after the prisoners’ transfer was later ascribed to the presence of local farmers The failure to notice that the raid’s primary objectives were not there was due to a combination of poor weather technological failure and bad luck Heavy cloud cover in monsoon season helped prevent effective reconnaissance by SR-71 flights and satellite missions Of the eight low-level drone missions flown between August and October six either crashed or were shot down and two failed to effectively photograph the camp Bennett’s emergency missions fared no better 95 Nevertheless there was a procedural success in this operational failure Bennett’s Agency conducted a coordinated disciplined intelligence collection and analysis program in support of a joint military operation of enormous complexity and secrecy Planning for the raid occurred during a time in which DIA’s resources were stretched to the breaking point but the Agency was nevertheless able to pull together national- and theater-level resources and then provide Special Forces planners with intelligence that allowed them to achieve complete tactical surprise The Agency was also able to assist the POLAR CIRCLE planners in a complex operation involving more than 100 combat and transport aircraft from three different Services “I can unequivocally state ” Manor wrote in his report on the raid “that other than the absence of prisoners at the objective there were no major surprises in the operation Service and national intelligence agencies’ assessments of enemy capabilities and reaction were the basis for the concept of operations and considering the lack of precedent for this type of operation were highly accurate ”96 The Son Tay raid had shown a glimpse of what DIA was capable of but in 1970 the Agency still bore the burden of its past mistakes An American in Paris Meanwhile a series of secret peace talks between Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative Le Duc Tho had been taking place in Paris since 1969 The talks were facilitated by the work of the U S defense attaché to France Major General Vernon Walters Walters who had previously conducted distinguished tours as the defense attaché to Italy and Brazil was a masterful diplomat and linguist Prior to his appointment in Paris he spent a month in Vietnam and was a fierce supporter of the U S effort there When Kissinger ordered Walters to assist him with his secret meetings Walters was reluctant “There were few people who felt as strongly against the North Vietnamese as I did and yet I had been chosen to deal with them ” he recalled in his memoirs “As a soldier I took my orders and prepared for this task which I had not sought ” 97 The task was so secret that neither Bennett nor Laird knew about it Walters arranged to secretly bring Kissinger into France at least 15 times The National Security Advisor normally arrived aboard Air Force One and Walters arranged for him to enter the country without going through customs and attracting attention Occasionally Kissinger would fly into Germany and Walters would have him flown into France from there at one point when no other aircraft were available Walters even convinced French President Georges Pompidou to lend his presidential plane to the effort Kissinger and his two assistants stayed in Walters’ personal apartment in Neuilly the attaché giving up his bedroom so that the 29 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 DIA Historical Collection National Security Advisor could sleep comfortably Walters who spoke seven languages also served as Kissinger’s interpreter during the negotiations which were conducted in French   MG Vernon Walters as defense attaché in   Paris “These were truly tedious and frustrating talks ” Walters later recalled in his memoirs For two years the two sides remained stalemated When Kissinger was not in Paris Walters was busy preparing for his next visit or carrying messages to the North Vietnamese When Kissinger was in Paris Walters chauffeured the National Security Advisor around the city translated and slept on the couch in the sitting room At the same time Walters was also performing his defense attaché duties and serving as a conduit between Kissinger and the Chinese delegation to France an effort that would ultimately lead to Nixon’s famous opening to China It was difficult stressful work “Sometimes I felt like a juggler with three balls in the air the attaché to France ball the Chinese ball and the North Vietnamese ball ” Walters wrote 98 Kissinger who could be abrasive with Walters on these trips also knew the demanding nature of the attaché’s assignment and could not resist tweaking Walters’ very Roman nose about it In October 1970 he wrote to Walters to thank him for his efforts I want sincerely to reaffirm our deep appreciation for what you are doing for the country in your many efforts And we know that your special position does entail sudden and extensive inroads into your personal and professional life If I said that you carried out your various roles without complaint you would consider me either hypocritical or deaf However I know that you really don’t mean it and beneath the gruff exterior beats a heart that is gruff 99 Meanwhile the war rumbled on and pressure on both sides to come to an agreement ebbed and flowed Nixon had been slowly but steadily withdrawing U S forces since 1969 For much of the period since then Hanoi focused its effort on rebuilding its supply corridor in Laos and reestablishing secret bases in Cambodia This relative lull in combat allowed the South Vietnamese government to improve its military position with limited local offensives and make progress in pacifying the countryside 100 In the Pomponio Plaza building in the Washington suburb of Rosslyn Virginia DIA’s estimators concurred with an April 1971 National Intelligence Estimate that characterized South Vietnam’s prospects for the rest of the year as “reasonably good ” 101 For most of 1971 the Agency’s analysts stuck to this position and Nixon could continue drawing down U S troops By March 1972 95 000 U S Service personnel only 6 000 of whom were actual combat troops remained in South Vietnam down from a high of 536 000 at the beginning of 1969 102 But at the same time Bennett’s analysts were warning that North Vietnam had grown into an even more dangerous adversary As U S forces drew down Bennett informed the Joint 30 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 Staff that “the Communists are developing the capability to conduct major attacks that could exceed any activity since the general offensives in 1968 ”103 Those attacks were not long in coming At the end of March under a dense fog and drizzling rain Hanoi launched what came to be known in the West as the Easter Offensive against South Vietnam ARVN troops fell back in a panicked retreat and South Vietnam’s collapse seemed imminent The U S had too few troops on the ground to stop the communist offensive so planners instead turned to tactical and strategic air power initiating Operation LINEBACKER the first sustained bombing of Vietnam since ROLLING THUNDER ended in 1968 Once again tactical bombers and B-52s filled the skies over North and South Vietnam 104 DIA’s analysts in the Pentagon and Arlington Hall helped draft target lists for the B-52 strikes in North Vietnam and Richard Stewart forwarded them to the Joint Chiefs of Staff for specific target selection Agency personnel also carried out bomb damage assessments and reported on the overall effects of the campaign Overall they reported that the bomber offensive was inflicting huge damage on North Vietnam and that the logistics system into the South was under major strain In December Operation LINEBACKER II began as talks between Kissinger and Le Duc Tho languished LINEBACKER II was the heaviest air offensive of the war and by that point both countries were under enormous strain to cease hostilities In early January 1973 Hanoi indicated a willingness to restart negotiations On January 15 the White House halted all military operations against North Vietnam and on January 27 1973 signed peace accords in Paris 105 But Walters was not in Paris to see his work with Kissinger and the North Vietnamese come to fruition In May 1972 Nixon awarded him for his efforts promoting the attaché to Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and he learned of the Paris Peace Accords from behind his desk in Langley Virginia 106 His career would last nearly two more decades and he would bear witness to many of the pivotal events at the end of the Cold War but his job as an attaché had come to an end A New Role The U S war in Southeast Asia was over but U S involvement there was not A new Defense Attaché Office DAO in Saigon replaced MACV as the chief U S military body in South Vietnam The previous November the Secretary of Defense had ordered its establishment in order to take over the residual military functions left by MACV Limited by the peace accords to 50 military personnel the DAO supplemented this small number with 1 200 civilian employees most of whom were contractors U S Army Major General John Murray headed the office It made its home in the sprawling former MACV headquarters nicknamed “Pentagon East ” at Tan Son Nhut Air Base outside Saigon and it had small field offices scattered throughout South Vietnam Murray retired in August 1974 and Major General Homer Smith took his place as defense attaché that month 107 The defense attaché’s primary concern in Saigon was ensuring the smooth delivery of military aid and administering the military assistance program to the South Vietnamese Both Murray 31 DIA Historical Collection Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 The U S Defense Attaché Office compound at Tan Son Nhut Air Base was the largest U S military installation in South Vietnam after the cease fire and Smith were career logisticians and focused much of their effort on this task To ease the attaché’s representational duties DIA sent a small team under the command of a U S Army colonel to the U S Embassy Their task was to perform the attaché’s daily representational functions But the DAO was also responsible for all American military intelligence activities in South Vietnam Its Intelligence Branch led by U S Army Colonel William LeGro was the primary U S military intelligence element for the collection evaluation and dissemination of information on North Vietnamese activities in South Vietnam LeGro’s branch was responsible for overt intelligence collection and analysis on North and South Vietnamese order of battle as well as enemy intentions and capabilities The Intelligence Branch also coordinated all of the reconnaissance and surveillance activities in South Vietnam and the intelligence sharing arrangements with elements of the South Vietnamese Joint General Staff 108 Legro reported directly to the defense attaché and the U S Ambassador 109 For most of 1973 10 military and 97 civilian employees made up the DAO’s Intelligence Branch That number was reduced in 1974 to three military and 87 DoD civilians Most of the 32 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 civilians in the Intelligence Branch were drawn from the ranks of DIA analysts who relocated to South Vietnam in 1973 These analysts worked mostly at Tan Son Nhut Air Base but at least two were posted to each of the U S Consul-General compounds in Da Nang Nha Trang Bien Hoa and Can Tho They gathered friendly and enemy order of battle provided early warning of cease-fire violations and attempted to resolve cases of American soldiers missing in action A DIA analyst who was hand-picked by LeGro to set up the DAO’s Current Intelligence Office presented the daily morning “walk-through” intelligence briefings to Murray and Smith and recruited other analysts from within DIA to Saigon Analysts also sometimes took dangerous trips into Vietnam’s hinterlands to gain first-hand assessments of North Vietnamese ceasefire violations and the state of Saigon’s own military forces 110 Years of battling with MACV over issues such as enemy order of battle had tempered DIA’s analysts and it showed Legro recalled years later that “they were trained and experienced analysts and knew an awful lot about Vietnam A few of them had a great really strong handle on enemy order of battle So I inherited from DIA a group of people that I think were among the very best in the entire federal service as far as analysts on Vietnam ” 111 Life in the DAO reflected the changed nature of U S involvement in a war that was no longer its own but in which it still played a major role Stuart Herrington who served under both MACV and the DAO recalled The familiar display of the flags of the nations that had assisted South Vietnam during the war remained in the foyer but the starched military policeman who manned the reception desk was missing In his place was an attractive Vietnamese woman in an emerald green ao dai In the building’s labyrinth complex of corridors the khaki-clad legions of staff officers had been replaced by hundreds of American and Vietnamese civilians Hosts of graceful Vietnamese secretaries glided from office to office as they moved the paperwork generated by all large headquarters The DAO looked like a bachelor’s paradise 112 Operationally the DAO coordinated with DIA and CINCPAC and DIA assumed responsibility for the management and administrative duties required to maintain the intelligence staff in Saigon The Agency could also levy collection requirements on the Intelligence Branch a right that it shared alongside CINCPAC and the U S Embassy Members of the DAO Intelligence Branch briefed Murray and Smith every day but another key recipient of its work was the U S Support Activities Group 7th Air Force USSAG located at Nakhon Panhom in Thailand 113 In Washington most of DIA’s estimates in this period were based on the assessments made in LeGro’s Intelligence Branch in Saigon 114 These assessments had enormous importance beyond the battlefield The main factor supporting Saigon’s ability to defeat the North Vietnamese was military aid provided by the United States In 1973 the U S sent $3 2 billion of military aid to the Government of South Vietnam but Congressional support for the program was weak In 1974 that number plummeted to $1 1 billion That same year Congress cut funding for fiscal year 1975 to $700 million The intelligence estimates of North Vietnamese capabilities and intentions framed an increasingly rancorous political debate over the level of aid that Washington would provide As the pressure on South Vietnam increased so too did importance of the intelligence estimates 33 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 from a policy perspective More alarmist estimates tended to bolster the Ford Administration’s case to provide increased aid while sanguine estimates undercut it Decisionmakers on either side of the debate could point to either estimate to make their respective cases 115 In 1973 and 1974 fighting between the North and South continued Both sides spent this period in what was essentially a strategic clinch While the Intelligence Community generally agreed that this relative stalemate would last through 1974 DIA and the DAO were somewhat more pessimistic The May 1974 National Intelligence Estimate illustrated the split between agencies by noting that a full-scale invasion of South Vietnam during the first six months of 1975 was unlikely DIA analysts dissented however characterizing the conclusions on prospects for 1975 as “unduly optimistic” and warning that the South was in danger “of a major North Vietnamese offensive ” The point became more salient throughout 1974 as intelligence analysts in the DAO sent back a steady stream of reporting on Hanoi’s successful efforts to strengthen its military forces while whittling down Saigon’s 116 By November DIA reporting echoed its personnel in Saigon worrying that even a limited North Vietnamese offensive would degrade the South’s capabilities to the point that it could no longer fight effectively 117 In December DIA analysts warned the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff that Hanoi had tipped the military balance in its favor and that “increased NVA North Vietnamese Army combat activity” was imminent 118 The U S Embassy the Defense Attaché Office and the CIA Station Chief in Saigon agreed Ford continued to lobby a skeptical Congress for millions of dollars in military aid and DIA’s analysis enmeshed the Agency in the middle of the aid debate An appraisal published on January 10 by Charles Desaulniers DIA’s most senior Southeast Asia analyst noted that while an all-out offensive was unlikely in the next six months “The South’s armed forces will finish fiscal year 1975 in a greatly weakened condition at the $700 million US military aid level Under current funding and at existing consumption rates the government’s stockpiles of ammunition and other critical combat supplies will be depleted to a near 30-day intensive combat reserve no later than July 1975 ” 119 At the end of the month Ford ordered then-DIA Director Lieutenant General Daniel Graham to Capitol Hill to describe the dire military situation facing South Vietnam “Looking downstream ” Graham told the assembled representatives “we think that the South Vietnamese are in for some very serious difficulties This is due partly to logistics drawdown and partly to the impact of current events on their will to resist ” 120 None of this had any impact however In early February Congress rejected Ford’s request for $1 3 billion The final North Vietnamese offensive against the South began in March 1975 and Hanoi’s troops quickly overran South Vietnamese forces in the Central Highlands and near the demilitarized zone The rate of the South Vietnamese collapse was stunning even to the North Vietnamese who had to continually revamp their plans to keep up with the South Vietnamese armed forces’ dissolution With no American troops on the ground its military stocks vanishing its government rife with corruption and parts of its army paralyzed by desertion South Vietnam imploded By the end of March nearly 40 percent of the country was in Hanoi’s hands “At this rate ” Desaulniers and his colleagues in DIA noted “the military situation has worsened faster than even the most pessimistic observer predicted a week ago ” 121 In Saigon 34 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 defense attaché General Smith predicted that enemy forces would make for the city as early as possible They arrived on the outskirts of Saigon a month later Operation BABYLIFT and the Tragedy of Flight 68-218 As South Vietnam crumbled in March and April 1975 and North Vietnamese forces closed in on Saigon the plight of that city’s war orphans surged to the forefront of American consciousness For years private foundations in the U S had coordinated the adoption of Vietnamese orphans by American families but the imminent collapse of the South Vietnamese government prompted prospective U S parents and private agencies to press for a more expeditious evacuation of orphans from the country After South Vietnam formally requested that the U S immediately move 2 000 orphans from Saigon to the United States or friendly countries President Ford ordered their evacuation 122 At Tan Son Nhut Homer Smith moved extraordinarily fast and what would be dubbed Operation BABYLIFT began April 4 The plane used in the first mission was a C-5A GALAXY transport number 68-218 that was scheduled to deliver 17 105mm howitzers to the South Vietnamese army that same day Ground crews off-loaded the weapons and loaded some 250 orphans authoritative estimates differ—an accurate accounting of orphans and Americans is difficult because some people who were on the flight were not on the passenger manifest while others who were not on the flight were on the manifest To supervise them and to evacuate non-essential U S citizens under the cover of the operation Smith ordered his division chiefs to identify staff in the DAO who could tend to the children during the flight 123 Among these evacuees were five female employees of DIA At 4 15 p m Saigon time the last of the approximately 300 passengers were loaded on-board and the transport took off 124 Twelve minutes later tragedy struck At 23 000 feet and 10 miles off the Vietnamese coast the locks on the rear cargo door of the C-5 failed and the aircraft suffered a rapid decompression Debris filled the cabin The aft pressure door part of the loading ramp and the cargo door all blew off and severed the pitch trim elevator and rudder cables rendering the aircraft unflyable Despite the pilots’ heroic efforts to make an emergency landing at Tan Son Nhut the C-5 flying at 269 knots 310 mph crashed in a marsh two miles short of the runway It skidded for 1 000 feet became airborne again flying for 2 700 feet then landed and broke up The impact crushed the cargo deck where almost all of the orphans were kept 125 Smoke from the crash was visible from the air base As word filtered into the DAO compound rescue parties were hastily organized One person manned the Intelligence Branch while everyone else moved to the air terminal on base or the crash site to assist the rescue effort The plane was impossible to reach by car so helicopters ferried out rescue personnel and brought back bodies Robert Edison an analyst in the Intelligence Branch recalled I worked at the airport taking the bodies off the choppers and carrying them over to ambulances to take to the morgue or the hospital or whatever Some of the babies were alive What got to me was the smell The vomit the feces and perhaps above all the smell of fear and death in those so young A baby can only cry but these infants were so terrorized that they couldn’t even cry It was horrible and gruesome 126 35 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 Recovering the remains took several days 127 In total 138 people died in the crash including 78 children and 35 DAO personnel Five DIA employees Celeste Brown Vivienne Clark Dorothy Curtiss Joan Pray and Doris Watkins were killed in the crash It was as Homer Smith recalled years later “a shattering shattering experience ” and would stand as the single largest loss of life in the Agency’s history until the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 128 Exodus The next day the atmosphere in the DAO was suffused with grief but the war made no allowances for mourning A last attempt by President Ford to secure military support from Congress for the government of South Vietnam failed and North Vietnamese troops advanced steadily on Saigon throughout April By the end of the month artillery shells and rockets were falling inside the city and at Tan Son Nhut  Vietnam Center and Archive Texas Tech University U S evacuation planning had languished because U S Ambassador Graham Martin did not want to give the South Vietnamese the impression that the U S commitment was anything but full and therefore refused to countenance evacuation Smith however could see the writing on the wall In March against Martin’s wishes he had begun laying plans to evacuate U S personnel and their dependents By April the North Vietnamese forces pouring into the South and advancing on Saigon accelerated his planning He set up a Vietnamese evacuee processing center on April 1 and ordered non-essential U S personnel to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines But as the month progressed and conditions worsened the DAO staff working with planners from U S Navy Task Force 76 in the South China Sea developed even more elaborate contingency plans to evacuate the remaining U S citizens and their Vietnamese families South Vietnamese personnel who worked with the Americans and other “high risk” Vietnamese such as the families of Vietnamese military and government officials 129 “I’m not suggesting that the fall of South Vietnam may happen ” Smith diplomatically told the Saigon press corps “but hell anybody who’s got any smarts at all can look at the situation and figure out what kind of risk there is involved ” 130 COL William Legro center chief of the DAO Intelligence Branch shreds classified documents with two members of the 500th Military Intelligence Group on April 29 one day before the final evacuation of the DAO 36 This early work proved to be extraordinarily important later in the month On April 20 a full-scale U S evacuation began after North Vietnamese troops  DIA Historical Collection Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 A U S Marine stands watch as two Navy helicopters land in the USDAO compound April 30 1975 arrived outside Saigon A near panic engulfed the city as tens of thousands of Vietnamese attempted to leave the country swarming the gates at Tan Son Nhut and the U S Embassy With Smith’s support the DAO staff cajoled bribed begged and hoodwinked to evacuate as many civilians via airlift as they could The DAO Intelligence Branch also shut down on the 20th and its staff managed to ship their intelligence files to USSAG in Thailand Intelligence Branch personnel either evacuated or stayed behind to assist evacuation operations 131 North Vietnamese troops broke into the city between April 26 and 28 and began putting Tan Son Nhut and the DAO by then code-named ALAMO under rocket fire on the 29th That day the final evacuation of all U S personnel and their Vietnamese dependents code-named Operation FREQUENT WIND began Rocket damage to the runways made fixed-wing evacuations impossible U S Navy helicopters began streaming in and out of the DAO compound and the U S Embassy beginning at approximately 10 a m airlifting the last remaining Americans and several thousand Vietnamese out of the city to waiting Navy ships in the South China Sea In the entire month of April Smith and his DAO staff managed to evacuate some 130 000 Americans Vietnamese and third-country nationals a feat for which the general was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal First Oak Leaf Cluster and the deep affection of generations of Vietnamese Americans On April 30 the Government of South Vietnam formally surrendered ending some three decades of nearly continuous war 132 Epilogue The Mayaguez Crisis One last fight remained however In Cambodia the Khmer Rouge had seized power from the government of Lon Nol on April 17 Within weeks the tiny Khmer coastal defense forces began engaging in petty piracy attacking Thai fishing vessels and harassing larger merchant ships in the Gulf of Thailand On May 12 the U S cargo vessel SS Mayaguez steamed into the gulf on a regular shipping assignment Just after 2 p m 3 a m in Washington a U S -made Khmer Rouge swift boat captured after the fall of Lon Nol sped from the island of Poulo Wai and intercepted the Mayaguez Khmer soldiers boarded the freighter and forced it to make for Poulo Wai but the American crew managed to transmit an SOS which was picked up by the U S Embassy in Jakarta From there news of their capture reached DIA’s National Indications Center in the Pentagon and the White House later that day 133 37 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 CHINA BURMA LAOS Tonle Sap THAILAND THAILAND Andaman Sea CAMBODIA Phnom Penh Gulf of Tonkin HAINAN VIETNAM CAMBODIA Gulf of Thailand South China Sea VIETNAM Gulf of Thailand Kompong Som Sihanoukville KOH TANG POULO WAI DAO PHU QUOC VIETNAM South China Sea The Mayaguez Incident May 1975 Shortly after the information reached the Indications Center John Hughes DIA’s Deputy Director for Collection and Surveillance laid on a collection blitz to locate the Mayaguez Hughes contacted the JCS Joint Reconnaissance Center urgently requesting photo coverage of Poulo Wai and asked CINCPAC for continuous P-3 ORION aircraft operations as well as RF-4C reconnaissance flights over Phnom Penh Sihanoukville and Poulo Wai Hughes requested U-2 photographic coverage of Poulo Wai as well The next day a P-3 flight discovered the Mayaguez anchored off that island 134 Over the next several days Hughes’ directorate continued to coordinate the collection operation between U S Pacific Command NSA Strategic Air Command and the Joint Chiefs of Staff On May 13 after it was located the Khmer Rouge forced the Mayaguez’s crew to steam for the island of Koh Tang nearly 40 miles to the northeast 60 from the Cambodian coast When it arrived there its crew was offloaded onto two fishing trawlers The Khmer Rouge refused to release the ship and its crew and President Ford eager to avoid an incident similar to the capture of the USS Pueblo in 1968 authorized the use of force to return the ship and crew All indications were that the Mayaguez’s crew was being 38 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 DIA Historical Collection held on Koh Tang As plans for a combined Air Force and Marine assault on the island came together DIA published an estimate of Khmer Rouge military forces on the island The estimate held that between 150 and 200 men backed by a variety of heavy weapons occupied the island That estimate however never made it into the hands of the Marines who would conduct the assault For reasons unknown it arrived at the USSAG base in U Tapao but was never briefed to the combat forces preparing to assault Koh Tang who expected meager resistance from 18 to 20 Cambodian irregulars with small-arms 135 The Mayaguez off Poulo Wai Khmer Rouge swift boats can be seen When the Marines assaulted Koh Tang at first alongside the vessel light on May 15 they met fierce resistance from a dug-in force nearly 10 times larger and with far more skill and firepower than they expected Helicopters delivering the assault forces were shot to pieces and the attack stalled But the crew of the Mayaguez was no longer on Koh Tang On the evening of the 13th they boarded a fishing trawler and were sent to Kompong Som formerly Sihanoukville harbor on the mainland U S reconnaissance aircraft spotted the trawler and its escort boats on the way to Kompong Som—they sank the two swift boats escorting the trawler—but assault planners in U Tapao believed the crew was still on Koh Tang and the attack went forward At 9 35 a m in the middle of the assault on Koh Tang the Khmer Rouge released the crew but combat operations on Koh Tang would continue for almost 11 more hours Fifteen Airmen and Marines were killed in action Three who were accidentally left behind became missing in action and 50 were wounded 136 The Mayaguez incident brought to a close one of the most challenging periods in the history of the Defense Intelligence Agency Those years saw the Agency grow in both size and capability but it also quickly ran up against severe limitations as a result of Service parochialism internal management difficulties and serious foreign intelligence challenges In the early 1960s Agency personnel had to juggle the difficulties of establishing DIA with managing analyzing and distributing finished intelligence to civilian and military consumers around the world With regard to the effort in Vietnam the Agency’s slow development put it several steps behind the more robust yet flawed intelligence effort set up by MACV During the war itself DIA sat at the nexus of disagreements between CIA and military intelligence organizations and between officials in the field and in Washington This position placed the Agency squarely in the cross-fire when disagreements over critical issues such as bomb damage assessments and enemy order of battle emerged Unfortunately DIA leadership did not move 39 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 with alacrity or energy to mediate disagreements and in the case of the order of battle dispute its senior leadership may have even exacerbated the problem by reflexively siding with MACV The Agency’s other missteps such as its performance in the Pueblo fiasco and the accumulation of an intelligence backlog that caused an uproar in Congress only made matters worse By 1968 influential critics openly doubted the efficacy of a DIA In 1969 and 1970 DIA’s performance in Southeast Asia began showing small signs of improvement This very gradual improvement reflected the Agency’s evolution over the course of the war Its analysts had by then the benefit of grappling for years with the conflict’s key questions and late in the decade DIA received an infusion of new leadership that reenergized analytical and managerial efforts by taking advantage of intelligence opportunities as they presented themselves But limited victories such as its successful support of combat operations in the Son Tay raid and later the Koh Tang assault were obscured by larger failures in those operations that were not entirely of the Agency’s making When the war between the U S and North Vietnam formally concluded in 1973 DIA personnel assumed a critical new role by systematically providing intelligence assessments from within South Vietnam itself While from the DIA point of view their work was path breaking it did not convince a skeptical Congress of the need for continued support to the government in Saigon Despite these incremental improvements in the early 1970s neither military leadership nor policymakers were yet convinced of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s necessity The next decade would determine DIA’s ultimate fate 40 Endnotes 1 This history is more fully recounted in Michael B Petersen “Legacy of Ashes Trial by Fire The Origins of the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Cuban Missile Crisis Crucible ” Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives 1 October 2011 2 See Petersen “Legacy of Ashes Trial by Fire ” 3 LTG Herron N Maples Oral History Interview 22 June 1981 Texas A M University Oral History Collection 204-205 Fitch became DIA’s Deputy Director in 1964 4 On the Trail of Military Intelligence History A Guide to the Washington DC Area Washington DC U S Army Intelligence and Security Command undated 16-17 Does this need a date 5 Defense Intelligence Agency Manpower Trends 19 February 1982 HRSB file “Manpower ” The gap between authorized and actual manpower was about 13 percent somewhat higher than what would become the agency’s standard eight to 10 percent and can be blamed in large part over unresolved issues with the Services 6 “DEFSMAC A Community Asset ” undated www nsarchive chadwyck com accessed 11 July 2011 Richard L Bernard “The Defense Special Missile and Astronautics Center ” undated www nsa gov accessed 11 July 2011 7 See collection of weekly strength reports in folder “Manpower ” HRSB Collection Deane Allen Working Paper “The Defense Intelligence Agency ” 71 DoD Directive C-5105 32 “Defense Attaché System ” 12 December 1964 in Allen and Shellum ed At the Creation 8 Defense Intelligence Agency Manpower Trends 19 February 1982 HRSB file “Manpower ” 9 McNamara to Carroll “The Defense Attaché System DAS ” 20 March 1965 in Allen and Shellum eds At the Creation 411-412 “The Defense Attachés ” www dia mil accessed 11 July 2011 10 “The Defense Attachés ” www dia mil accessed 11 July 2011 11 Working Paper “Historical Review of the Growth of the Defense Intelligence Agency ” Vol I Part I-3 “A Backward Look ” p 2 and Part IV-2-b “History of the Directorate for Acquisition p 11-12 Overtime for DIA employees was ten percent higher than the federal government average 12 James S Olson and Randy Roberts Where the Domino Fell America and Vietnam 1945-1995 2nd Ed New York St Martin’s Press 1996 64-65 On the surface Diem appeared to be an ideal U S ally in South Vietnam He was a dedicated anticommunist Catholic and highly educated Even so he was no democratic politician Nepotism and cronyism were rampant in the Diem government Diem’s brother Ngo Dinh Nhu an opium addict and admirer of Adolf Hitler was the political boss of South Vietnam and privately despised the United States Nhu’s father-in-law collaborated with the Japanese occupation forces during World War II and eventually became South Vietnam’s ambassador to the United States Between one and two million Vietnamese died under Japanese rule mainly because the Japanese expropriated the annual rice harvest and sent it to Japan See Nicholas Tarling A Sudden Rampage The Japanese Occupation of Southeast Asia 1941-1945 Honolulu University of Hawaii Press 2001 251 On the selection of Diem to rule 41 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 South Vietnam see Thomas L Ahern CIA and the House of Ngo Covert Action in South Vietnam 1964-1953 Washington D C Center for the Study of Intelligence 2000 13 George W Allen None So Blind A Personal Account of the Intelligence Failure in Vietnam Chicago Ivan R Dee 2001 131 On intelligence input to policymaking decisions see Ahern CIA and the House of Ngo and Robert Hanyok Spartans in Darkness American SIGINT and the Indochina War 1945-1975 Ft Meade MD Center for Cryptologic History 2002 14 Graham A Cosmas MACV The Joint Command in the Years of Escalation 1962-1967 Washington D C Center of Military History 2006 36-41 Kaplan et al History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vol V 274-275 Command over U S forces in Vietnam ultimately lay with Pacific Command which delegated its authority to three subordinate organizations MACV Pacific Air Forces and Pacific Fleet MACV eventually acquired air and naval component commands and commanded all U S forces in South Vietnam See Ronald Cole et al The History of the Unified Command Plan 1946-1999 Washington D C Joint History Office 2003 33-34 15 Allen None so Blind 133 John Newman JFK and Vietnam Deception Intrigue and the Struggle for Power New York Warner 1992 192-193 Winterbottom also uncritically accepted South Vietnamese reports about progress being made against the insurgency and included them in his own assessments 16 Allen None So Blind 129-131 17 Ibid 133 18 The JEC was eventually folded into MACV HQ in May 1962 Allen complained that “lip service” was paid to the JEC for some two months but that “The concept of a Joint Evaluation Center reporting directly to the ambassador was never seriously tested in Vietnam ” See Allen None So Blind 134 19 Allen None So Blind 133-136 Newman JFK and Vietnam 255 Neil Sheehan A Bright Shining Lie John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam New York Random House 1988 289-290 20 One observer has argued that Carroll an Air Force officer with no combat command experience did not understand or care about ground OB See T L Cubbage II “Westmoreland vs CBS Was Intelligence Corrupted by Policy Demands ” in Michael I Handel ed Leaders and Intelligence London Frank Cass 1989 George Allen believed that Carroll had caved to the wishes of his superior officers and did not want to challenge prevailing opinion on the JCS See Allen None So Blind 133-165 21 Pentagon Papers Vol IV-B-4 17 www nara gov accessed 5 July 2011 22 Carroll to McNamara 21 August 1963 in Foreign Relations of the United States 1961-1963 Vol III Vietnam Washington D C GPO 1991 264-265 23 Turley The Second Indochina War 51-53 101 Olson and Roberts Where the Domino Fell 103-104 24 Carroll to McNamara “The Viet Cong Improved Combat Effectiveness and Insurgency Posture ” 13 December 1963 and McNamara to Johnson 21 December 1962 both in FRUS 1961-1963 IV 707-710 732-735 Robert McNamara In Retrospect The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam New York Random House 1995 104 25 Kaplan et al History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vol V 501 26 “Bay of Tonkin Attack 4-5 August 1964 ” 25 August 1964 and “Chronology of Tonkin Gulf Incident ” September 1964 Digital National Security Archive http nsarchive chadwick com accessed 3 January 2008 Kaplan et al History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vol V 521 See also Robert J Hanyok “Skunks Bogies Silent Hounds and the Flying Fish The Gulf of Tonkin Mystery 2-4 August 1964 ” Cryptologic Quarterly www nsa gov accessed 3 January 3 27 Gravel Pentagon Papers Vol III 192 207 Taylor became ambassador on June 23 1964 28 Kaplan et al History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vol V 525-526 Gravel Pentagon Papers Vol III 212-213 42 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 29 Gravel Pentagon Papers Vil III 213-215 Kaplan et at History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vol V 527 30 Kaplan et at History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vol V 527 James Clay Thompson ROLLING THUNDER Understanding Policy and Program Failure Chapel Hill University of North Carolina Press 1980 28 The U S began conducting limited airborne “armed reconnaissance” in Laos in December under the code-name Barrel Roll The raids were designed to interdict the flow of supplies south but were of limited success 31 Gravel Pentagon Papers Vol III 333-336 32 Ibid 384 33 Bundy to Johnson 29 June 1965 Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library I am indebted to a fellow DIA employee for making this document available to me 34 Gravel Pentagon Papers Vol III 384 Raborn to Johnson 8 May 1965 National Security Archive http nsarchive chadwyck com accessed 1 3 2008 35 SNIE 10-11-65 “Probable Communist Reactions to a US Course of Action ” Estimative Products on Vietnam 1948-1975 Washington D C National Intelligence Council 2005 297 36 Gravel Pentagon Papers Vol IV 68 DIA Special Intelligence Supplement “The Big Picture in Southeast Asia ” 13 January 1966 Vietnam National Security Files 1963-1969 Frederick MD University Publications of America roll 4 frame 71 37 Gravel Pentagon Papers Vol IV 6 11 111 354 Thompson ROLLING THUNDER 52-53 38 McNamara Deposition Vietnam A Documentary Collection Westmoreland vs CBS New York Clearwater 1985 fiche 331 87-88 39 When Clark Clifford succeeded McNamara as Secretary of Defense the joint CIA DIA reports became known as “Clifford Reports ” 40 “An Appraisal of the Bombing of North Vietnam Through 19 June 1967 ” June 1967 Declassified Documents Reference Service DDRS 41 “An Appraisal of the Bombing of North Vietnam Through 16 October 1967 ” October 1967 “An Appraisal of the Bombing of North Vietnam Through 18 December 1967 ” December 1967 DDRS There is even evidence that the bombing actually helped the Communist Party of Vietnam promote and install some of its social programs See Turley The Second Indochina War 93-94 42 NSAM 328 “Presidential Decisions with Respect to Vietnam ” 6 April 1965 www lbjlib utexas edu johnson archives hom nsams nsam328 asp accessed 26 February 2008 Findings cited in Raborn to Johnson 8 May 1965 DDRS A June 1965 DIA report noted that the Viet Cong began an extended campaign in May See also DIA Report “Casualties High in South Vietnam as Viet Cong Activities Increase ” 8 June 1965 LBJ Library National Security Files Frederick MD University Press of America 1985 roll 17 frame 41 Olson and Roberts Where the Domino Fell 302 43 Turley The Second Indochina War 64-65 Joseph McChristian The Role of Military Intelligence 1965-1967 Washington D C Department of the Army 1975 3-4 44 James J Wirtz “Intelligence to Please The Order of Battle Controversy during the Vietnam War ” Political Science Quarterly Vol 106 No 2 Summer 1991 248 Wheeler to Carroll “Statistics on Order of Battle and Infiltration ” 19 January 1967 in Paul Kesaris ed Vietnam and Southeast Asia 1946-1976 Frederick MD University Publications of America 1982 roll 4 frame 54 45 CIA Memo Special Assistant for Vietnamese Affairs to Deputy Director for Intelligence “Revising the Viet Cong Order of Battle ” 11 January 1967 in Kesaris Vietnam and Southeast Asia Supplement roll 4 no 54 The OB process took in four types of enemy units regular PAVN forces Viet Cong main force units Viet Cong local 43 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 units and Viet Cong irregular forces including guerillas “self-defense” forces and “secret self-defense” forces The latter two were essentially militia forces that planted mines and booby traps stored supplies and sometimes sniped at U S and ARVN troops They were the forces that drove up the Adams OB estimate 46 John Williams Deposition Westmoreland vs CBS fiche 438 19-20 47 Abrams to Wheeler 20 August 1967 Joint Exhibit 252B 1-2 and Westmoreland Interview Transcript 17 May 1981 Joint Exhibit 349 Westmoreland vs CBS 48 Daniel Graham Confessions of a Cold Warrior An Autobiography Fairfax VA Preview Press 1995 54-55 49 Wirtz “Intelligence to Please ” 245-246 Douglas Kinnard The War Managers Hanover NH University Press of New England 1977 69-70 50 Williams Deposition Westmoreland vs CBS fiche 438 30 51 CIA Memorandum for the Record 5 July 1967 Kesaris Vietnam and Southeast Asia Supplement roll 4 no 844 Williams Deposition Westmoreland vs CBS fiche 438 30 52 Williams Deposition Westmoreland vs CBS fiche 438 30 Ford CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers 94 100-101 T L Cubbage II “Westmoreland vs CBS Was Intelligence Corrupted by Policy Demands ” in Michael I Handel ed Leaders and Intelligence London Cass 1989 157 53 George Hamscher Deposition Westmoreland vs CBS fiche 263 38-39 Abrams position arguably betrayed a misunderstanding of North Vietnam’s supreme military commander Vo Nguyen Giap’s doctrine which held that regular troops guerillas and local militias all constituted essential core elements that had key roles to play in the communist military effort 54 Williams Deposition Westmoreland vs CBS fiche 438 60 Ford CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers 91 55 Major General Grover Cleveland Brown Biography www af mil information bios accessed 12 Nov 2011 56 Williams Deposition Westmoreland vs CBS fiche 438 38-39 57 SNIE 14-3-67 “Capabilities of the Vietnamese Communists for Fighting in South Vietnam ” Estimative Products on Vietnam 429 DCI Richard Helms elected to accept MACVs numbers in the interest of avoiding a split estimate Less than a week after the SNIE was issued Westmoreland publicly announced that enemy strength was approximately 248 000 CIA was incredulous See Ford CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers 102-103 58 Edward J Drea Secretary of Defense Historical Series Volume VI McNamara Clifford and the Burden of Vietnam 1965-1969 Washington D C Office of the Secretary of Defense 2011 1 Olson and Roberts Where the Domino Fell 170 See also Robert S McNamara In Retrospect The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam New York Vintage Books 1996 59 MG Grover Cleveland Brown Testimony House Defense Appropriations Sub-committee 90th Congress 2nd Session 10 April 1968 457 60 Williams Deposition Westmoreland vs CBS fiche 438 45-52 61 Turley The Second Indochina War 97-106 Buzzanco Masters of War Military Dissent and Politics in the Vietnam Era New York Cambridge University Press 1996 314-315 See also James H Willbanks The Tet Offensive A Concise History New York Columbia University Press 2006 62 Williams Deposition Westmoreland vs CBS fiche 438 p 37 35-36 63 Joint DIA CIA Study “The Attrition of Vietnamese Communist Forces 1968-1969 ” 30 March 1968 DDRS 64 See Ronald Spector After Tet The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam New York The Free Press 1993 44 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 65 James Meacham Correspondence 24 June 1968 Joint Exhibit 214K Westmoreland vs CBS 66 In 1967 North Korean infiltrators destroyed two U S Army barracks killing or wounding twenty-one soldiers That year more than 100 South Koreans and Americans were killed by North Koreans See Richard Mobley Mobley Flash Point North Korea The Pueblo and the EC-121 Crises Annapolis MD Naval Institute Press 2003 14-15 67 Thomas Johnson American Cryptology during the Cold War 1945-1989 Book II Centralization Wins 1960-1972 Ft Meade MD Center for Cryptologic History 1995 440 www gwu edu nsarchiv index html accessed 2 Sep 2010 68 DIAXX to DIAP-2 “Information for DIA DR on Pueblo ” undated and Commentary Answers on Pueblo Incident undated both likely Feb 1969 Folder “Miscellaneous Pueblo Material ” DIA HRSB Collection Though the Director of DIA’s Special Activities Office which coordinated intelligence collection with the larger Intelligence Community claimed to have consulted DIA’s North Korea specialists for their risk assessment North Korea analysts denied it 69 Draft Memorandum DIAXX-DIAPP-2 “Information for DIADR on the PUEBLO ” undated 70 Mitchell B Lerner The Pueblo Incident A Spy Ship and the Failure of American Foreign Policy Lawrence KS University Press of Kansas 2002 60-61 71 Johnson American Cryptology during the Cold War Book II 443 72 Inquiry into the U S S Pueblo and EC-121 Plane Incidents Report of the Special Subcommittee on the U S S Pueblo of the Committee on Armed Services 28 July 1971 1653-1654 1656 73 A study by the historian Richard Mobley also concluded that since the Soviet Union did not harass these missions and indeed conducted their own risk assessors reasoned that the North Koreans would also act within these established norms See Mobley Flash Point North Korea The Pueblo and the EC-121 Crises Annapolis MD Naval Institute Press 2003 74 Dessert Memorandum “Information from HACIT Relative to Backlog of Intelligence Data 6 Mar 1972 HRSB “DIA Command ‘70s ” Box 1 Folder “Command Section Signed 1972 ” 75 Brown Testimony House Defense Appropriations Sub-committee 90th Congress 2nd Session 10 April 1968 457 Major General Grover Brown was a member of the USAF while Army Brigadier General Burton Brown ran the Production Center at Arlington Hall DIA employees differentiated between the two by referring to “Blue Brown” Grover and “Brown Brown” Burton 76 “Reorganization of DIAPP in November 1966 ” undated HRSB DIAC Carousel Records Cab 1B Shelf 4 Org-Reorg Misc Folder “503 Thru 549 ” 77 Allen None So Blind 131 78 Quoted in Department of Defense Appropriations for 1970 Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations House of Representatives 91 1 Washington DC GPO 1969 20 The title of the subcommittee’s report was “The Management and Conduct of Military Intelligence Activities in the Department of Defense ” published March 1968 79 “Spy Output Too Large For Chiefs ” New York Times 10 July 1968 41 80 “Defense Intelligence Calling Nixon’s Bluff ” OSD History Staff Collection File “Intelligence 1969-1970 ” Box 740 81 Richard Homan “July Flood Ruined Secret Papers ” Washington Post 9 November 1969 58 In October 1966 a three-alarm fire struck a storage area in Building B at Arlington Hall Station destroying some electrical equipment and personnel records but employees were able to return to work that same day “Fire Strikes Top Secret Defense Hall ” Washington Post 1 November 1966 C5 45 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 82 James Carroll House of War The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power Boston Houghton Mifflin 2006 334-335 Carroll’s removal is examined in Michael B Petersen “Up From the Ashes Defense Intelligence in the Era of Détente ” Defense Intelligence Perspectives Number 3 forthcoming 83 Donald V Bennett Oral History Interview OHI transcript U S Army Military History Research Collection Senior Officers Debriefing Program Tape 9 page 30 32-33 hereafter cited as Bennett OHI 84 Bennett an artillery officer came ashore on the border of Fox Green and Easy Red sectors on the eastern portion of Omaha Beach as part of the second wave of U S troops He assumed command of the leaderless Third Infantry Battalion and advanced its soldiers off the beach For his actions he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross the second highest military decoration that can be awarded to a member of the U S Army See Bennett OHI Section 1 pp 67-69 85 Donald V Bennett official biography HRSB Bennett’s appointment as DIA Director and his efforts to reorganize the Agency are discussed further in Petersen “Up From the Ashes Defense Intelligence in the Era of Détente ” forthcoming 86 Graham A Cosmas MACV The Joint Command in the Years of Withdrawal 1968-1973 Washington D C Center of Military History 2007 285-289 314-315 87 Donald V Bennett Oral History Interview U S Army Military History Research Collection Senior Officers Debriefing Program Section 10 pp 7-8 Bruce Palmer Jr “US Intelligence in Vietnam ” Studies in Intelligence Special Issue June 1984 National Security Archive http nsarchive chadwick com accessed 26 July 2008 Louis Sorley A Better War The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam New York Harcourt Brace 1999 191-216 88 Sorley A Better War 208-209 Palmer “US Intelligence in Vietnam ” 81 Sorley concludes however that the documents backed MACV’s OB estimates instead though most historians support the point that the findings proved CIA’s argument 89 Foreign Relations of the United States 1969-1976 Vol II Organization and Management of U S Foreign Policy 1969-1972 document 224 http history state gov accessed 5 October 2011 Nixon’s ire was reserved mostly for CIA “Give me a report on those changes to CIA recommended by the PFIAB ” he wrote in the margin of this memo “I want a real shakeup in CIA not just symbolism ” See also Thomas L Ahearn Jr Good Questions Wrong Answers CIA’s Estimates of Arms Traffic Through Sihanoukville Cambodia During the Vietnam War Washington D C Center for the Study of Intelligence September 2004 90 Benjamin F Schemmer The Raid New York Harper and Rowe 1976 29-30 John T Berbrich Briefing “The Role of the IPWIC ” c 1971 HRSB working file “POW MIA ” Stuart Rochester and Frederick Kiley Honor Bound The History of American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia 1961-1973 Washington D C Office of the Secretary of Defense 1998 204 91 For a complete history of the raid and its planning see Benjamin F Schemmer The Raid New York Harper and Rowe 1976 92 Commander JCS Joint Contingency Task Force Report on the Son Tay Prisoner of War Rescue Operation Part II C1-C8 www dod mil pubs foi accessed 28 October 2011 Schemmer The Raid 37-79 93 John Mitchell “The Son Tay Raid A Study in Presidential Policy ” unpag www globalsecurity org military library report 1997 Mitchell htm accessed 3 8 08 94 Mitchell ibid Schemmer The Raid 178 95 Mark Amidon “Groupthink Politics and the Decision to Attempt the Son Tay Rescue ” Parameters Autumn 2005 121 96 Commander JCS Joint Contingency Task Force Report on the Son Tay Prisoner of War Rescue Operation Part II ii www dod mil pubs foi accessed 28 October 2011 97 Vernon Walters Silent Missions Garden City NY Doubleday 1978 511 46 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 98 Walters Silent Missions 513-514 519 521 99 Kissinger to Walters 10 October 1970 Walters Gift Collection HRSB 100 Sorley A Better War 272-277 Palmer “US Intelligence in Vietnam ” 96 91-92 101 National Intelligence Estimate 53-71 “South Vietnam Problems and Prospects ” 29 April 1971 http www cia foia gov accessed 1 August 2008 102 In July 1971 DIA representatives also joined an ad hoc task force under the Operations Directorate J-3 of the Joint Staff as well as a CINCPAC task force both of which were designed to improve the Republic of Vietnam’s interdiction capabilities on the Ho Chi Minh Trail and plan future interdiction operations See Webb and Poole History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 144-145 103 DIA Intelligence Summary “Vietnam ” January 1972 HRSB Vietnam-UN-Tet-Laos 1969-1981 104 Olson and Roberts Where the Domino Fell 246-247 Webb and Poole History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 161-162 DIA report quoted on 177-178 Stephen P Randolph Powerful and Brutal Weapons Nixon Kissinger and the Easter Offensive Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 2007 181-182 Also in May the U S began mining Haiphong Harbor a provocative move that ran the risk killing Chinese or Soviet sailors on resupply missions to North Vietnam 105 It is unlikely that the bombings accomplished what ROLLING THUNDER had failed to do that is force the DRV to finally sue for peace Historians of the Vietnam War indicate that the DRV receptiveness to peace talks was tactical an effort to stop the bombing and create space to build up its armed forces for another major push into the South 106 For a full accounting of Walters’ activities in Paris see Silent Missions 506-583 107 Webb and Poole History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 324-325 Palmer “US Intelligence in Vietnam ” 101 108 William LeGro Fact Sheet “Intelligence Branch Functional Statement ” 22 June 1973 Vietnam Virtual Archive at Texas Tech University hereafter cited as VVA www vietnam ttu edu accessed 28 April 2009 USDAO Intelligence Collection Plan May 1973 VVA www vietnam ttu edu accessed 28 April 2009 109 William Legro Vietnam From Cease-Fire to Capitulation Washington D C U S Army Center of Military History 1981 19 110 William LeGro “Intelligence in Vietnam After the Cease-Fire ” INSCOM Journal March-April 1997 28-29 Legro Fact Sheet “Regional Liaison Officers and Provincial Observers ” undated probably June 1972 VVA www vietnam ttu edu accessed 28 April 2009 Author’s interview notes with James W 1 July 2010 111 Laura Calkins Oral History Interview with William Legro 21 November 2005 VVA www vietnam ttu edu p 439 accessed 25 October 2011 112 Stuart Herrington Peace with Honor An American Reports on Vietnam 1973-1975 San Francisco Novato Press 1983 14-15 113 USSAG was the organization responsible for any U S military operations in Vietnam should they be ordered by the President 114 USDAO Saigon “Annex B to DAO Saigon OPlan 001 Revised Intelligence ” 15 July 1973 USDAO Saigon “Collection Plan ” May 1973 Legro Fact Sheet “Current Intelligence Production ” 21 June 1973 All documents located in VVA www vietnam ttu edu accessed 28 April 2009 115 Olson and Roberts Where the Domino Fell 255 Marilyn B Young The Vietnam Wars 1945-1990 New York Harper Collins 1991 291 116 See the collection of DAO Military Intelligence Summary and Threat Analysis MISTA documents held by the Vietnam Virtual Archive www virtualarchive vietnam ttu edu 47 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 117 NIE 53 14 3-1-74 “The Likelihood of a Major North Vietnamese Offensive Against South Vietnam Before June 30 1975 ” in Estimative Products on Vietnam 629 Webb and Poole History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 356-357 118 DIA Special Defense Intelligence Notice DIASDIN 787-74 4 December 1974 DIA Classified Library Collection 119 DIA Intelligence Appraisal “The Vietnam Situation ” 10 January 1975 DIA Classified Library Collection DeSaulniers was the Defense Intelligence Officer for Southeast Asia Frank Snepp has noted that not even Defense Attaché General Murray was sure how much equipment the South Vietnamese had left See Snepp Decent Interval 108 Olson and Roberts Where the Domino Fell 258 120 Graham Testimony Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations House of Representatives 94th Congress 2nd Session 30 January 1975 13 Graham’s role as DIA’s Director is examined in Michael Petersen Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives No 3 “The Soviet Target Part I Sizing Up Colossus ” Washington DC Defense Intelligence Agency forthcoming 121 DIA Intelligence Appraisal “An Assessment of the Current Situation in South Vietnam ” 20 March 1975 DIA Classified Library Collection 122 In the U S President Ford had been moved to action by the pleas of New York’s Cardinal Terrence Cooke to rescue the orphans who were housed Catholic orphanages in Saigon 123 Coy F Cross II MAC and Operation BABYLIFT Air Transport in Support of Noncombatant Evacuation Operations Scott Air Force Base Illinois Military Airlift Command 1989 33-34 Ron Steinman The Soldiers’ Story Vietnam in Their Own Words New York TV Books 2000 297 124 Stuart A Herrington Peace With Honor An American Reports on Vietnam 1973-1975 Novato CA Presidio Press 1983 166 Thomas G Tobin et al ed Last Flight from Saigon Washington DC Government Printing Office 1978 29 125 Cross MAC and Operation BABYLIFT 38-39 United States Agency for International Development Operation Babylift Report Washington D C 1975 3 126 Robert Edison internet post “It Hurt Then and it Hurts Now ” url unknown 1994 My thanks to James W for making this document available to me 127 MG Homer Smith “The Final 45 Days in Vietnam ” Vietnam Virtual Archive www virtual vietnam ttu edu accessed 24 May 24 2011 Smith wrote this paper within a few days after his evacuation from Saigon 128 Steinman The Soldiers’ Story 298 129 Their tasks were further complicated by the work of a team from the Military Airlift Command sent to investigate the C-5 crash The effort involved arranging transport for search parties and hauling wreckage to Tan Son Nhut For a detailed description of the evacuation planning see Tobin et al Last Flight from Saigon 14-46 and Snepp Decent Interval 217-377 Palmer U S Intelligence in Vietnam 114 In the end DAO employees worried about the fates of their Vietnamese friends and colleagues helped evacuate thousands of Vietnamese who were neither legally eligible nor “high risk ” 130 Bert Okuley “President Ford Orders Massive Evacuations of U S Citizens from Saigon ” 17 April 1975 Vietnam Virtual Archive www virtual vietnam ttu edu accessed 16 August 2011 131 Author’s interview notes with James W 1 July 2010 132 Palmer U S Intelligence in Vietnam 114-115 DIA Intelligence Appraisal “The Fall of the Republic of Vietnam ” 10 May 1975 133 John F Guilmartin A Very Short War The Mayaguez and the Battle of Koh Tang College Station TX Texas A M University Press 1995 26-27 48 Defense Intelligence Historical Perspectives Number 2 134 Log of DIA Activities Related to Mayaguez Incident File “Mayaguez ” HRSB Ralph Wetterhahn The Last Battle The Mayaguez Incident and the End of the Vietnam War New York Carroll Graf Publishers 2001 334 135 The assault force planners believed that the total number of men women and children on Koh Tang was around 100 Comptroller General’s Report to the Subcommittee on International Political and Military Affairs Committee on International Affairs House of Representatives The Seizure of the Mayaguez—A Case Study of Crisis Management 90-91 An NSA history speculates that since only highly classified SIGINT could provide reliable information about the Khmer force on Koh Tang classification issues restricted the passage of this information to combat forces See Thomas R Johnson American Cryptology during the Cold War 1945-1989 Book III Retrenchment and Reform 1972-1980 Fort Meade MD Center for Cryptologic History 1998 18 136 For a complete review of events see Guilmartin A Very Short War 49 About the Author Michael B Petersen is a Historian with the DIA Historical Research Division He previously served on the staff of the National Security Council and with the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group IWG at the National Archives and Records Administration He holds a Ph D in History from the University of Maryland College Park and is the author of Missiles for the Fatherland Peenemünde National Socialism and the V-2 Missile Cambridge University Press 2009 The DIA Historical Research Division The Defense Intelligence Agency Historical Research Division develops and preserves the institutional memory of DIA conducts historical research and analysis in support of the DIA mission and promotes historical awareness among the DIA workforce COMMITTED TO EXCELLENCE IN DEFENSE OF THE NATION One Mission One Team One Agency