LETTER TO THE HONORABLE OTIS G. PIKE FROM W. E. COLBY DIRECTOR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80R01720R000400050021-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 25
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 10, 2004
• Sequence Number: 21
• Publication Date: November 21, 1975
• Content Type: LETTER

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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20505
The Honorable Otis G. Pike
Chairman, Select Committee on Intelligence
The House of Representatives
Washington, D. C. 20515
Dear Mr. Chairman:
In testimony before the House Select Committee,
Samuel A. Adams, a former CIA employee, made some
serious charges about the performance of the Intelligence
Community, including the Central Intelligence Agency, during
the Vietnam war. The Central Intelligence Agency is proud
of its record in Vietnam and believes that the charges made
by IVir. Adams cannot be substantiated on the basis of an
objective review of its record.
I am enclosing a statement on the CIA's position in
this matter and request that it be made a part of the Douse
Select Committee's public record of its hearings. In this
way both the Committee and the American public can have
a better appreciation of the performance of the CIA during
the Vietnam war, and the charges made by Mr. Adams can
be put into proper perspective. On the assumption that the
Committee has had access to similar statements or testimony
from witnesses in other parts of the Intelligence Community,
the focus of this statement is solely on the performance of
the Central Intelligence Agency.
The statement addresses the two major charges made
by Mr. Adams--CIA participation in the production of allegedly
false estimates of Vietnamese Communist strength, and the
Agency's performance in predicting the Tet Offensive in 1968.
Other lesser allegations made by Mr. Adams are also addressed.
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In addition to his charges about the substance of intel-
ligence produced by the Intelligence Community during the
Vietnam war, Mr. Adams also makes a number of allegations
impugning the integrity and motives of specific individuals.
The CIA believes that these attacks on individuals in CIA. are
without foundation. The CIA views these charges as gratuitous
slurs on the integrity and honesty of a large number of analysts
and officials whose work on the Vietnam war was conducted with
objectivity and distinction, and solely with the purpose of seeking
the truth about all aspects of the Communists in Vietnam., in-
cluding the size and nature of their forces. I believe Mr. Adams'
charges against various people in CIA are a reflection of his
personal attitudes toward these individuals rather than an
objective evaluation of their motives and conduct. Therefore,
this statement does not address these personal allegations. To
attempt to refute Mr. Adams' personal attacks in detail would
detract from the discussion of the important substantive issues
which can be supported by documentary ev-Ldence.
Sincerely,
.ueputy Director or Intelligence
W. E. Colby
Director
21 NOV 1975
Date _~.
ADDI/PVWalsh/tb (21 Nov 75)
Distribution:
Original Addressee
1 -- 1)DCI 1 - DDI File
1 - ER 1 - DDI Chrono
1 -- Special Counsel to the DCI
J D/DCI/NIO (Mr. Carver)
-,NIO/SE Asia
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Statement on Samuel A. Adams
In testimony before the House Select Committee and
elsewhere, former CIA employee Samuel A. Adams has charged
that.
The CIA conspired in some unspecified way with
the Department of Defense to produce false and
misleading, but politically acceptable, estimates
of Vietnamese Communist strength.
The Viet Cong Tet Offensive in 1968 caught the
American Intelligence Community largely by
' C\
surprise..-LI c ^4m S,
. . the Tet surprise
stemmed in large measure from corruption in
the intelligence process.
The CIA denies'these charges and believes that an examination
of its performance during the Vietnam war will not substantiate
them. The record shows clearly that Mr. Adams' views on the
size and nature of the various organized Communist groups in
South Vietnam were in fact supported by CIA. The record also
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shows that his comments on the extent to which the Intelligence
Community was caught by surprise by the Tet Offensive in
January 1968, and the conclusions he draws therefrom, are
considerably overdrawn.
In considering the question of Agency support for Mr.
Adams' views, several points should be kept in mind. The
Agency's general endorsement of the Adams case was not Un
qualified. Few, if any, in the Agency believed that Mr. Adams'
estimates could be accorded such a high degree of precision as to
preclude honest differences regarding their accuracy and the
methodologies used to derive them. Even to this date, there is
considerable uncertainty about the exact numerical strength of
the various Communist groups during any of the war years.
The endorsement of the Adams case also did not mean that
the Agency shared fully his interpretation of the significance of
the numbers. In his testimony before the House Select Committee
and in other public statements on the subject, Mr. Adams frequently
refers simplistically to an enemy army of 600, 000. This formulation
masks the substantial qualitative differences between full-time,
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well-armed and well-trained combat forces on the one hand
and poorly armed and poorly trained irregular forces and
unarmed political cadre on the other. Lumping all of these
disparate types together and failing to differentiate between a
"combat threat" and the broader "insurgency threat" represented
by all organized political, military, and quasi-military groups
was as unacceptable to most observers in the CIA as it was to
those in military intelligence.
Under the first charge Mr. Adams asserts that the CIA
did not give him adequate support in defending his independent
estimates of the size of the enemy forces in South Vietnam. Even
though the primary responsibility for research and analysis of the
Vietnamese Communist order of battle belonged to the Department
of Defense and its field commands, The record shows clearly that
Mr. Adams was given an unprecedented degree of Agency support
for his position.
By his own recounting, Mr. Adams had unparalleled
opportunities to present his views. They were given full considera-
tion by the senior line officers in the Agency responsible for
intelligence on the Vietnam war. He participated as a member
of the CIA delegation to three conferences on the Vietnamese
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Communist order of battle. IVIr. Adams also had a major role
in the drafting of CIA position papers for these conferences
and in the drafting during 1967 of a Special National Intelligence
Estimate on the military capabilities of the Vietnamese Communists.
The record also demonstrates clearly that the n. .ost senior
officials of the U. S. Government were alerted by CIA to the
nature of the differences in estimates of Communist manpower.
On several occasions the Agency provided to these officials its
own independent estimates which reflected much of Mr. Adams'
research and were significantly higher than those of the intel-
ligence components of the Department of Defense..
As Mr. Adams has testified, his initial questioning of
the correctness of official estimates of the size of enemy forces
was made in August 1966. This was done in a draft report,
"The Strength of the Viet Cong Irregulars, " dated 22 August 1966.
On 26 August the CIA, in a special assessment prepared for the
Secretary of Defense and also disseminated to the President,
the Secretary of State, and other senior officials, advised:
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"Recently acquired documentary evidence now
being studied in detail suggests that our holdings
on the numerical strength of these irregulars (now
being carried at around 110, 000) may require drastic
upward revision. "
In January 1967 CIA's Board of National Estimates prepared
a special memorandum on the Vietnam war which was disseminated
to the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, and other
senior officials. This memorandum states:
"For some years it has been estimated that
there were about 100, 000-120, 000 irregulars, but
there is now documentary evidence which strongly
suggests that at the beginning of 1965 irregular
strength was about 200, 000 and that the goal for
the end of 1965 wras 250, 000-300, 000. More recent
documentary evidence suggests that this goal was
probably reached, at least during 1966.'
"
Clearly, these and other assessments show that the CIA,
did not shrink from pushing the case for higher figures and made
no attempt to produce "politically acceptable" estimates. From
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August 1966, until the agreement reached at the Order of Battle
Conference in Saigon in September 1967, papers produced by
the Agency giving its independent assessment consistently carried
the higher strength figures.
was used in the initial CIA draft of a- Special National Intelligence
estimates downward to a total of 500, 000. This figure of 500, 000
or more than twice that of the official military estimates. After
a study trip to Vietnam in May of 1967, Mr. Adams revised his
recounting, he estimated the size of enemy forces at 600, 000
The Order of Battle Issue
The debates within the Intelligence Community about the
strength of Communist forces centered on two questions--the
quantification of the various organized groups of Communist
manpower, and the determination of which of these groups should
be included in the official order of battle.
The complexity of the issue is reflected in Mr. Adams' own
estimates throughout the period. In December 1966, by his own
the figures were revised slightly and by August of 1967 the draft
During the process of coordinating this draft estimate,
Estimate prepared in the spring and summer of 1967.
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estimate showed a total figure for enemy manpower of 431, 000 to
491, 000. Mr. Adams played a major role in the refinement of
these figures which were used by the Washington delegation to the
order of battle conference held in Saigon in September 1967.
Mr. Adams was a member of that delegation and argued for the
figures in the discussions with MACV. As shown in the attached
table, the Washington figure of 431, 000 to 491, 000 compared
with a MACV figure of 298, 000.
It will be seen from the table that the two most contentious
categories were Administrative Services (support) troops and the
category of the Irregular Forces. In each instance, neither party
to the conference was able to convince the other of the validity of
its case.
Regarding the Administrative Services category, it
was agreed that the quantification--35, 000 to 40, 000--required
textual qualification in the estimate. The final draft of the SNIE
acknowledged explicitly that we lacked confidence in the total size
of this category at any given time, but that it was "at least 35, 000
to 40 000". In addition the SNIE pointed out that almost anyone
under VC control could be impressed into service to perform. the
administrative service functions.
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The conference was unable to reach agreement on the
size of the Irregular Forces. MACV argued that these forces
should not be included in a military order of battle and that
in any event there was not sufficient knowledge to quantify them.
The Washington delegation agreed that the Irregular Forces
were so poorly armed and sketchily trained that they did not
constitute an integral part of the conventional combat threat.
The Washington team nevertheless insisted that Irregular Forces
should be included in any national intelligence assessments of
overall enemy capabilities, both political and military.
The conference agreement not to quantify the Irregular
Forces also reflected the general acknowledgment that our
information on these forces was such that we could not estimate
their size with sufficient confidence. Mr. Adams did not agree
with this. The SNIE made it clear, however, that these Irregular
Forces were a substantial factor in Vietnam. The SNIE stated
that in early 1966 the size of the Irregulars could have been on
the order of 150, 000 persons. Although allowing for some attrition,
the language of the estimate made it clear that they still constituted
a substantial element in the Communist effort.
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In regard to the other categories, particularly those
making up the VC/NVA military force, it should be noted that
the final figures agreed at the conference and those used in the
final draft of the SNIE were well within the range of the figures
used to establish the position of the Washington community on
this question. Moreover, the agreed figures for these categories
also show an acceptance by MACV of a range significantly higher
than the estimate it had submitted at the conference.
Thus, the agreements reached at Saigon were far from.
the cover-up or sell-out claimed by Mr. Adams. The results of
the conference did not endorse the initial position of any party.
They reflected the lack of definitive data, different methodologies,
and differing concepts as to the types of organized groups and how
they should be presented in the SNIE. In any event the different
views were fully aired and were made widely known to all concerned
with developments in Indochina.
The Saigon conference did demonstrate the need for better
data and for more persuasive analysis by the various components
of the Intelligence Community if differences between Washington and
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MACV were to be narrowed. An added impetus to the need for
more research on Vietnamese Communist manpower was the
growing interest in Washington in measuring the impact on enemy
capabilities of extremely high rates of attrition. The debate
about numbers and their accuracy was being overshadowed by a
much more critical national intelligence question. Did the
Vietnamese Communists have adequate manpower resources to
replace their combat losses and to maintain a viable military
force?
In August 1967 CIA established a new branch to concentrate
more resources on this problem. In addition to mounting a more
intensive research program on broader manpower questions such
as recruitment, infiltration, deserters and defectors, the CIA
now became directly involved in independent order of battle
research and analysis. Before this time, order of battle analysis
was the primary responsibility of military intelligence. Among
the analysts assigned to the task was Mr. Adams who, with his
colleagues, produced within a few months a new series of estimates
as the basis for another order of battle conference called at CIA
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initiative and held in Washington in April 1968. This conference
also failed to achieve agreement between Washington and Saigon
for many of the same reasons which prevented agreement during
the conference held in September 1967. The conference did,
however, narrow the differences between the CIA and the military
numbers.
Even though CIA was unable to obtain military acceptance
of its estimates of organized Communist forces in South. Vietnam,.
CIA did not attempt to mask the fact that there were differences or.
to keep from the policymakers an understanding of the magnitude
and nature of the differences. The CIA continued to make its case
for higher figures. A CIA assessment prepared for Secretary of
Defense McNamara in December 1967,. for example, used the
numbers agreed at the order of battle conference held in Saigon,
but also expressed our concern that the numbers were too low
and did not include other sizeable components in the Communist
force structure. Moreover, in February 1968 a joint CIA/Joint
Staff/DIA memorandum used the independent CIA estimates for
the size of the Communist manpower base in South Vietnam. This
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estimate---500, 000--was compatible with the views of Mr. Adams.
The memorandum was transmitted to the Secretary of Defense by
the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The Tet Surprise
In: making his charges regarding the surprise of the
Washington community at the time of the Tet Offensive, Mr.
Adams states that this surprise stemmed from corruption in the
intelligence process. He also stated that both his belief and the
evidence would show ". that American intelligence had so
denigrated the Viet Cong's capabilities that we simply could not
have predicted the size of the Tet attack".
The question of the performance of the Intelligence
Community in providing warning of the Tet Offensive in South
Vietnam in January