INTENSIFIED COLLECTION AGAINST LOGISTICS NETWORKS SUPPORTING COMMUNIST ACTIVITY IN SOUTH VIETNAM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80R01720R001300120013-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 4, 2004
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: July 18, 1968
• Content Type: REPORT

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Top Secret
Intensified Collection Against Logistics Networks
Supporting Communist Activity in South Vietnam
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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
WASHINGTON, D. C. 2O5O5
MEMORANDUM FOR: Dr. Henry A. Kissinger
Assistant to the President for
National Security Affairs
SUBJECT Intensified Collection Program Tar-
geted Against the Logistics Network
Used by North Vietnam to Support Com-
munist Activity in South Vietnam.
1. The Problem. On 16 June 1969, you were given
a joint CIA-DIA briefing on the Washington intelligence
community's knowledge and analysis of the logistics net-
work used by North Vietnam to support Communist activity
in South Vietnam. At the close of that 16 June brief-
ing, you asked me to inventory the U.S. Government's
present collection efforts in this sphere and submit
a paper outlining steps that would improve the quan-
tity and/or quality of intelligence collected on this
topic. In particular, you requested a list of courses
of action that could:
a. Improve our detailed knowledge of the na-
ture and quantities of supplies moving into II
Corps and III Corps via the southward extension
of the Laotian route complex--the "Ho Chi Minh
Trail"--particularly from Route 922 (the cutoff
to A Shau) through Base Area 701 and southward
along the Cambodian border.
b. Improve our detailed knowledge of the na-
ture and quantities of supplies sent to support
the North Vietnamese Army/Viet Gong (NVA/VC) ef-
fort (particularly in IV Corps, III Corps, and
lower II Corps) via Cambodia--i.e., supplies that
did not transit Laos but, instead, came into Cam-
bodia by water transport (either through the port
of Sihanoukville or over the beaches in the Gulf
of Siam) and moved northeastward to their Commu-
nist end-users in South Vietnam via roads and
trails located in Cambodian territory.
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C, Help clarify and quantify--both in tonnage
and percentage terms--the respective or relative
contribution made to the NVA/VC logistic support
structure by "the Laotian route system" and "the
Cambodian route system."
2. It was my understanding that the initial re-
sponse to your request should include a list of tech-
nically feasible new collection activities, or inten-
sifications of current collection activities, framed
without inhibiting reference (in this initial cut) to
cost factors, current political strictures on certain
forms of activity and/or activities in certain areas,
or questions of priority allocation of scarce, long-
lead time assets (e.g., COMINT collection platforms).
3. The Response. To comply with your request,
I have convened an ad hoc interagency task force whose
membership includes representatives of the Defense In-
telligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the
Defense Communications Planning Group, the Special As-
sistant to the Chairman, JCS for Counterinsurgency and
Special Activities (SACSA), the Director for Reconnais-
sance (JCS/J-3), the Director of Operations for the
United States Air Force's Deputy Chief of Staff/Plans
and Operations, the Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelli-
gence, United States Air Force, and both the analysis
and collection components of this Agency. After we
had carefully reviewed in joint discussion all aspects
of the problem you posed, I asked each of my associates
to submit in writing an analysis of new collection pro-
cedures or improvements in existing procedures that
could be effected in those areas that fell within his
office's primary jurisdiction or field of special
technical competence.
4. This memorandum and its two annexes embodies
a melding of all of these inputs, circulated in draft
to all members of the task force and reviewed by us
all in joint session. One of the two annexes to this
memorandum inventories our current collection assets
and procedures; the other outlines.in some detail a
series of action recommendations summarized in para-
graph 6 below. The tripartite package of this memo-
randum and its annexes reflects the coordinated and
agreed views of the entire task force.
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5. General Considerations. Certain general con-
siderations and certain aspects of the over-all prob-
lem you posed have directly or indirectly affected all
of our action recommendations and constitute, collec-
tively, the context within which these recommendations
were framed:
a. Proving Negatives. Part of the complexity
of the problem of analyzing the current utiliza-
tion of the Vietnamese Communists' total logis-
tic structure--and a good deal of the debate over
the current relative roles of the Cambodian and
the Laotian route systems--derives from a lack
of adequate data on whether supplies are moving
in any appreciable quantity, or moving at all,
over certain portions of the Laos trail system
below Route 922 or over certain portions of the
Cambodian system opposite northern III Corps and
southern II Corps. In Cambodia, for example, we
have low-level agent reports of supply movements
over road and trail segments that photography in-
dicates are impassable or not utilized by any
traffic at all. In Laos, evidence we do have on
the operations and utilization of some segments
of the Laotian route network suggests the pre-
sumptive inference that supplies are moving over
other segments of the Laotian route. We have
little or no evidence of actual movement over
these other segments, but this absence of evi-
dence is hard to evaluate since the segments over
which there is little to no evidence of actual
movement are ones receiving.a degree of collec-
tion effort appreciably less than that devoted
to the segments over which we do have evidence
of movement. One of the principal tasks of an
integrated, expanded collection effort will be
to clarify and enhance our knowledge of which
segments of both route systems are not now being
used. Negatives, however, are hard and tricky
things to prove, particularly in short time spans.
b. Seasonal Factors: The evidence we do have
in hand an the ev entiary record developed
over the past years demonstrates conclusively
that the Communists' use pattern of their log-
istic system in Laos generally shows a cyclic
pattern keyed to the seasonal rhythms of Indo-
china's monsoonal climate. The Cambodian
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pattern is less clear. Throughout both systems,
the dry season is the period of maximum use, i.e.,
during the dry season the enemy attempts a logis-
tics through-put to support the dry season opera-
tions in SVN, while at the same time building
large logistics stockpiles in southern Laos for
eventual movement to SVN during the wet season
(the Southwest Monsoon). The rains have come in
both Cambodia and Laos. Our increased collection
efforts will hence be initiated at a time of di-
minished enemy activity, a fact that is certain
to affect adversely the conclusiveness of the
early returns from some collection programs aug-
mented in the near future.
c. Technical vs Human Collection. Two general
types of collection assets can be brought to bear
on the problem here considered: technical (e.g.,
sensors, communications intercept platforms, and
photography) and human (e.g., singleton agents,
informant nets, roadwatch teams and raiding par-
ties). Although the action program outlined, be-,
low recommends an intensification of effort in
both the human and the technical fields, we be-
lieve the weight of our immediate effort should
be placed in the technical area.
(1) The portions of south Laos and northeast-
ern Cambodia against which much of our augmented
effort will be initially targeted constitute an ex-
tremely hostile environment in which enemy pres-
ence is pervasive and in which the enemy reacts
sharply and forcefully to any intrusion. In these
sparsely populated regions, there is little in-
digenous population we can use for cover or through
which we can work. Friendly personnel, teams, or
units inserted into these areas find movement dif-
ficult, must perforce devote much of their time
and effort to simply staying alive, and can devote
only a fraction of their attention to collecting
meaninful intelligence. Because of these circum-
stances, the recruitment, training, insertion, sup-
port, and exfiltration of such teams or units be-
comes a very elaborate, complex process. In short,
the intelligence return on human collection in
these areas is small in terms of the effort in-
vestment required.
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(2) At the present time, there is a human
effort being mounted in portions of south Laos
through CIA-controlled roadwatch teams (see An-
nex I for details). MACV/SOG also operates
in Cambodia. These teams constitute military as-
sets which collect some intelligence but have au-
thorized (and valid) missions other than the col-
lection of information on the enemy's movement
of supplies. reams also harass and
attack identified enemy targets (e.g., moving
trucks or convoys) which might otherwise miss be-
ing taken under fire.
(3) Technical collection procedures have
their own complexities and problems, but the in-
telligence return on effort invested is consid-
erably greater than is the case with human assets
operating in a hostile environment. Sensors, for
example, are one of the best methods of establish-
ing whether or not there is movement over partic-
ular route or trail segments and of pinpointing
specific target areas for further investigation
by human assets.
(4) The optimum technical/human assets mix
does not exclude human collection activity but
does attempt to concentrate it in areas where the
probable return makes the necessary investment
effort worthwhile. In certain areas--e.g., where
terrain, foliage, or weather diminishes the util-
ity of photography and lack of radio communica-
tions hampers the acquisition of intercept data--
the human collection contribution becomes an es-
sential link in the obtaining of complete informa-
tion. Sensors can tell us whether there is move-
ment, can frequently indicate direction and pro-
vide a rough order of magnitude of quantitative
truck flow; but cannot furnish cargo descriptions
as human collectors can. Thus, while we believe
the mix should be weighted in favor of techni-
cal collection, we nonetheless recommend some
augmentation of roadwatch surveillance in cer-
tain areas (e.g., south of Route 922) despite
the serious operational problems involved.
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d. Collation and Analysis Requirements.
Though we have concentrated on inventorying col-
lection assets and devising an integrated au-
mented collection effort, it should be noted
that the additional yield of raw information
provided by the new or intensified collection
programs will have to be supported with addi-
tional collation and comprehensive analysis if
the full benefits of the augmented effort are
to be obtained. Raw data requires processing
before it becomes finished intelligence, mean-
ingful and usable at the national policy level.
The task force did not attempt to develop de-
tailed recommendations in this field, but was
in unamimous agreement that at least so long
as there were major unresolved or disputed
questions (e.g., "Laos vs Cambodia"), the col-
lation and analysis should be carried out as a
cooperative community effort.
e.. Lead Times and Anticipated Results. The
rate at which the augmented collection program,
outlined below, will begin to produce meaningful
results -(in terms of added intelligence) will
vary among the program's several components.
The speed with which we begin to receive mean-
ingful data will also be influenced by whether the
early returns on debated segments of the enemy's
route system are positive or negative and, also,
by what the Communists themselves opt to do in
the logistic support field during the current
rainy season. Sensors implanted along suspect
route segments, for example, should begin pro-
ducing meaningful data almost immediately if
these route segments are, in fact, being used
for significant supply movements. On the other
hand, if the route segments are not in use, it
will take considerably longer for us to be con-
fident that this "negative" has been proved.
Some components of the augmented program--those
which involve re-orienting or re-targeting ac-
tivities already in operation--can be put' into
operation almost at once and should begin yield-
ing significant returns in the very near future..
.Re-orientation of SIGINT_platforms has been
initiated ih the,hoge that-some information
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leading to answers to your questions can soon
begin to flow in.. Other components of our re-
commended augmented effort will take more time
to get under way. It will require from 60 to
90 days from the time the policy decision to
proceed is made for some segments of our recom-
mended program to get into full operation and
longer for others. Even under the best of cir-
cumstances, our augmented program will not de-
finitively answer all our outstanding questions,
but it should help to clarify most of them over
the next few months.
f. Intelligence Collection vs Reaction and
Interdiction. The primary o ject o the
augmente col ection program outlined below, is
to generate more and better intelligence on the
Vietnamese Communists' logistic support system
through which Hanoi aids and abets the Communist-
directed struggle in South Vietnam. If success-
ful, this collection program will not only pro-
duce strategic information on the totality of
this logistic support system and the respective
importance of the system's several components,
it will also develop or identify lucrative tac-
tical targets for allied interdiction and reac-
tion strikes. Although the task force has de-
voted its efforts to developing a collection
program not an interdiction program, we believe
the program adopted should consciously maximize
interdiction possibilities and, further, that in
certain contexts, controlled interdiction can be
used as one effective means of producing addi-
tional intelligence. For example, in determin-
ing the mix of human and technical assets tar-
geted against a given geographic area, it should
be constantly borne in mind that the insertion
of ground teams into that area either precludes
the possibility of interdiction strikes or, at
best, raises thorny, complex problems of coor-
dination, clearance, and control.
At the other
end of the scale, if, say, a presumptively serving a particular route segment
is identified, a strike on the landlines may
force our adversaries to resort to interceptable
radio communications.
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6. Recommended Augmented Collection Program. We
have framed two sets of recommendations for augmented
collection efforts. One is keyed to improving our
knowledge of what does, or does not, move over the
"Laos system" south of Route 922. The other is keyed
to improving our knowledge of what does, or does not,
move over the "Cambodian system." Each of the two
sets of recommendations is further broken down into
the two spheres of technical and human collection.
Our recommendations are summarized below and outlined
in further detail in this memorandum's Annex II.
as South Laos - Northeastern Cambodia
(1) Technical Collection
(a) COMINT/ARDF: Support should be given
to increased emphasis on,collection from the
area south of Route 922, including a southward
deployment of collection platforms over southern
Laos.
(b) Sensors: More extensive sensor cov-
erage of routes south of Route 922 is required
if sensor detections are to yield accurate re-
flections of truck movements on these roads and
in northeast Cambodia.
(c) Aerial Reconnaissance: There should
be an increase in-the frequency of aerial high
and low altitude reconnaissance sufficient to
yield enough interpretable photography to make
judgments on probable levels of enemy activity.
(d) Current plans
for tapping
II may yield useful information on ogis i-
cal activity there. Failing this, all possible
landlines should be located and destroyed, thereby
forcing the use of radio communications.
(2) Human Collection
(a) Roadwatch and Agent Operations: In
Laos, we visualize the launching of more road-
watch teams to high priority target areas when
their chances of survivability are good. Addi-
tionally, we would attempt the expansion of our
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agent efforts in critical areas, and increase
the use of reconnaissance/action teams. In
northeast Cambodia, an expansion of our on-going
operation to recruit additional unilateral agents
should be attempted.
(b) MACSOG: For an initial test period
of 90 days, approximately 50 percent of the
operations should be assigned the
primary mission of collecting information on
enemy movement of logistical materials and at-
tempt to provide continuous reporting from the
area of operations. During this
period, these teams should exercise their tar-
get acquisition/exploitation capabilities only
when a particularly lucrative target is acquired
or when the team is already compromised or com-
promise is imminent.
(c) Visual Reconnaissance: An increase
in night sorties, with appropriate night vision
devices, flown south of Route 922 area of Laos is
recommended.
(d) Document Collection: It is recommended
that a ground attack be mounted against one or
several of the military way stations (Binh Tram)
in Laos in order to disrupt the system, at least
temporarily, and to collect intelligence infor-
mation in the form of documents.
a. Cambodia
(1) Technical Collection
(a) COMINT: An expanded COMINT collec-
tion program to include monitoring of suspected
Chinese arms ships to Sihanoukville is recom-
mended.
(b) Sensors: Sensor strings should be
placed in Cambodia contiguous to the South Viet-
namese border to measure the activity level on
routes off the main Cambodian supply roads leading
toward South Vietnam or toward known base camps.
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(c) Aerial Photography: Existing aerial
reconnaissance programs--E
~-should be expanded to insure enoug in-
terpretable photography of these target areas
to permit meaningful judgments regarding the
use and probable levels of activity of the
logistical systems.
ment of logistical materials through the
(2) Human Collection
('a) Agent Operations: There should be an
expansion of the current agent Operations against
Cambodian involvement in the enemy logistical
system, to include information on official Cam-
bodian complicity, the quantifications and iden-
tifications of arms deliveries to and through
Sihanoukville, and information~regarding Commu-
nist supply channels through Stung Treng and
Ratanikiri provinces.
(b) MACSOG: For an initial test period
of 90 days, approximately 50 percent of the 0
I lassets should be assigned a primary
mission o collecting information on enemy move-
area of operations while, at the same time,
continuing to respond to the requirements of our
ground commanders in South Vietnam for ground
reconnaissance information. The present require-
ment to avoid engagement with the enemy except
when it is deemed desirable to attempt to cap-
ture enemy personnel from small, isolated groups
should be continued.
7. Suggested Follow-Up Action. The recommenda-
tions outlined above constitute, in effect, a cata-
logue of technically feasible actions that should
be taken to improve our intelligence on the Vietnam-
ese Communists' logistic support system. With the
exception of NSA's COMINT portion, they do not con-
stitute an actual action program since, per our in-
structions, they were framed without reference to
current policy restrictions on activities in certain
areas (e.g, Cambodia) and without attempting to re-
solve problems of conflicting priorities competing
for scarce, long-lead time-collection assets. Once
the necessary policy decisions on ground rules and
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 priorities are made, the list of approved actions will
have to be translated into a specific series of opera-
tional plans, a process that will require further work
(although the Air Staff, DCPG, and the CIA's Clandes-
tine Service have already done a considerable amount
of thorough, detailed planning). This process will
also require consultation with our military and ci-
vilian colleagues in the field who will have to handle
the actual execution of any plans or programs approved
in Washington. If you so desire, our ad hoc task force
can carry on the work reflected in this memorandum
and pinpoint the policy decisions that will have to
be made on rules of engagement, costs, and asset
allocation in light of overall collection priorities.
Once the necessary policy guidance is obtained, we can
then develop an implementing paper for field consid-
eration and Washington approval.
George A. Carver, Jr.
Special Assistant for Vietnamese Affairs
Annex I - Current Collection Operations
Annex II - Recommended Augmented Collection Program
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