DCI BRIEFING OF CIA SUBCOMMITTEE OF SENATE ARMED FORCES, 11 JUNE 1965, 3 P. M.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP82R00025R000500180001-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 4, 2005
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: June 11, 1965
• Content Type: MFR

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11 June 1965
MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD
SUBJECT: DCI Briefing of CIA Subcommittee of Senate Armed Services,
11 June 1965, 3 p. m.
1. The Director, accompanied by Mr. Houston, met with
Senator Stennis, Acting Chairman of the CIA Subcommittee of Senate
Armed Services. Also present were Senator Saltonstall, Senator
Young of the CIA Subcommittee of Senate Appropriations, and Mr.
William Darden, Professional Staff Member.
2. The Director opened the briefing with information on
Russian assistance to North Vietnam, noting the three SAM sites
around Hanoi and the possibility of two more to the east, but also
noting that weather was so bad there had been no good U-2 photog-
raphy of the area for a month. He said we hoped to do better when
the OXCART was ready for operations on 1 October.
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4. Senator Young wanted to know what portion of the South
Vietnamese were sympathetic to the Viet Cong, and the Director
pointed out you must distinguish between willing support and support
under the threat of death or torture. He said he had seen figures
that the willing support was as little as 10 or 15 per cent. He noted
that on the whole in the present circumstances he tended to be
pessimistic about the South Vietnamese situation.
5. Senator Saltonstall asked if the Viet Cong casualty reports
were accurate. The Director said they are conservative in that they
were reports of head counts of Viet Cong killed or captured and since
they took their wounded out with them these were not included. He
also pointed out that due to this head count confirmation the news
of South Vietnam casualties came out first and therefore had more
impact. In answer to the Senator's query, he described the recent
6. Senator Saltonstall asked the number of CIA employees
involved in South Vietnam and also the number of natives CIA was
using, and the Director said he would provide this information. He
said the Director seemed more pessimistic than General Taylor had
been in the morning. The Director said he was trying to give the
estimate of the situation as it appeared now but that he felt General
Westmoreland's recommendations were going in the right direction
and would change the picture. When asked what the planned role of
the U. S. troops was now, the Director likened it to fire brigades
to assist in situations which got out of hand but not to take over from
the South Vietnamese.
7. Senator Stennis pointed out that in all their districts the
draft call was up under the draft law which they had participated in.
He wanted to know if the Americans would fight under our command.
The Director said our troops were under U. S. command. Senator
Stennis asked if we controlled strategy. The Director said we did
so only through advisors and the advice was not always taken, but
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it was his understanding there was considerable harmony and that
the South Vietnamese were pretty competent. Senator Young asked
about South Vietnamese desertions, and the Director said they were
presently somewhat on the increase but this situation varies and it is
not now alarmingly high. He pointed out also that we get deserters
from the Viet Cong and that on the whole he felt we could weather the
situation with the forces that General Westmoreland was asking for.
8. Senator Stennis said he noted columnists said 150, 000
American troops were going to be placed in South Vietnam, and
the Director said so far as he knew not now. The Director pointed
out that we were going through a series of estimates on all sorts of
different postulates so as to try to suggest the outcome of various
courses of action and that CIA would coordinate these estimates
throughout the intelligence community. He said one result of this
estimating was that we felt that North Vietnam could be devastated
and yet it would continue its efforts if it still thought it was winning
in South Vietnam.
9. Mr. Darden asked if Shrike missiles were effective against
the North Vietnamese radar. The Director said they would be but we
do not want to commit some of the highly sophisticated weapons but
would depend on the more conventional weapons at present. Mr.
Darden asked why the Viet Cong had not sabotaged the water supply
and electricity in Saigon, and the Director said this was not as easy
as it seemed and the South Vietnamese were on guard against this.
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11. Senator Stennis asked about other soft spots, and the
Director briefed on Bolivia, Colombia, and Venezuela. Senator
Stennis asked if Venezuela were not the softest situation in Latin
America, and the Director pointed out that there were others that
could blow up overnight, such as Guatemala. Even in Chile
President Frei, pro-
United States, is having problems and found his Ministe terior
planning a Cuban solidarity meeting on 14 June and Frei had to quash
it. The Director also discussed the situations in Brazil and Uruguay.
Senator Saltonstall remarked that Castro seemed to have done well
for himself, and the Director pointed out that these were not all
Castroite maneuvers and that the three types of communists were
to some extent in competition.
1Z. The Director then turned to the Middle East and in
talking about Yemen Senator Saltonstall asked if any British troops
were present, and the Director said they had a considerable force
in Aden but that they were having their own problems by nationalist
infiltrations from Yemen and were, therefore, busy with their own
problems. Senator Stennis noted that apparently the communists
had not had much success in Turkey and Iran, and the Director
said this was true and the Moslems, as such, tended to be anti-
communist. Senator Stennis said he noted that Catholics were also
anticommunist and yet many Catholic countries were in trouble.
The Director said he had recently had a long conversation with a
Catholic priest on this subject, who was much troubled by this, and
noted in. passing that no Episcopal country had gone communist.
LAWRENCE R. HOUSTON
General Counsel
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