WHO MISJUDGED IN VIETNAM?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01601R000300360024-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 17, 2000
• Sequence Number: 24
• Publication Date: May 15, 1972
• Content Type: NSPR

ALBANY, GA. STATINTL
HERAI ro gd ~TaRelease 2001/03/04: CIA-RDP80-0160
tv~
E -- 30,407
S - 31,092
VIETNAM?
For months in advance of the
savagely successful Cornrnunist offen-
sive in South Vietnatil, American
military and diplomatic and intelli-
gence sources had been predicted
that an enemy blow would fall. For
months these sources noted a buildup
of hen and supplies in this staging
area and that --- of North Vietnam,
of Laos, of Cambodia, and even in
the demilitarized zone. Our planes
were assigned the task of interdic-
tion, and they bombed away, toil aft-
er ton after ton of high explosives.
How, then, did the enemy gain
the advantage that, lies with major
tactical surprises on the battlefield?
How did he advance for virtually the
first five days unimpeded and seize
the entire province of nuang Tc i, in-
cludi.ng the provisional capital of the
same name?
No one is saying at this juncture
of course. Too many faces are too
red at this point -- and in Washing-
ton no less than at the American
military headquarters in Saigon.
The question that no official is
discussing openly is thhis: Were we
caught with our intelligence down?
Generally speaking, there are two
schools of thought on this score.
. The first is to the effect that, on
the contrary, intelligence reported all
too accurately what the enemy was
.doing ?- where he was massing, with
what armament,. etcetera, This data,
in turn, was relayed to the higher
commands, and from the higher corn-
elands to the area of the policy
makers in Washington. What the
policy-makers made of this intelli-
gence - or what they failed to do
with it was not the
Loc in a'-single, day ]elite obviously
astonished not. only military int.elli-
gence but the Abrams headquarters
in Vietnam. And all this despite the
presence in the American technologi-
cal arsenal of such devices as acous-
tical "Sensors," sky-spy aerial tech-
niques, infrared photogaphy and
who knows what other surer-snooper
devices and systems. So sophisti-
cated have the North Vietnamese be-
come in warfare that they actually
en.ipioyed counter-ineasil.res which
the Americans, to say nothing of the
South Vietnamese, (lid not know they
possessed.
As a consequence, whether Anl.er-
ican intelligence was at fault, or
whether Dr. henry A. I issingTer's
National Security Council Intelligence
Committee failed to anticipate the
enemy's movements and his strength
despite good intelligence, the result
on the battlefields of South Vietnam
has been the same: Once again, we
have grossly underestimated our fo'
For that error, we. are payin'
price. It is high indeed.
iilA r'i yeAt t iiftipase 2 9 031014or'1OWRDP80-01601 R000300360024-7
This theory, if it in fact fits the
reality, validates the general philos-
ophy of iiitellii;ence gathering as ex-
plained to the members of the Amer-.
ican. Society of Newspapers Editors
in April 1971 in Washington by Cen-
tral Intelligence Agency Director
Richard Ileliims. It. is not the task of
the intelligence community to male
policy and, indeed, it eschews this
role altogether, i`.lr. Helms stressed.
The CIA, and its military and other.
counterparts throughout the Federal
Government, must operate like a well-
drilled newspaper city room. It un-
earths facts, it reports them -- but
as a reporter does not make policy
for a newspaper, neither does an in-
telligence agent do so for the Gov-
erinnent of the United States.
The second school of thought
about, our Vietnam intelligence is a
.contra view. It argues that our in-
telligence failed utterly, because while
it may have known of the enemy con-
centrations, it misjudged the direction
which the Communist thrusts finally
.took. That may have been because
the North Vietnamese divisions, com-
mitted to fighting set-piece battles
with tanks and infantry and co-ordi-
nated artillery for the first time since
the American intervention, dropped
all pretense at. "infiltration" and
struck boldly down main transporta-
tion arteries.. In this case it was
coastal Highway 1.
Nor, says the second school of
thought, did intelligence estimate cor"
rectly the vast' stores of huge and
complex weapons and their firing sys-
tems which the enemy succeeded in
emplacing and deploying.. The fact
that the North Vietnamese were able
to lob 9 nnn artiller
chalk into the
y