COMMUNIST ARMS SHIPMENTS VIA SIHANOUKVILLE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78T02095R000200090001-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 15
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 22, 2004
• Sequence Number: 1
• Content Type: REPORT

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Communist.Arms Shipments
via Sihanoukville
1.8 May 70
Blind Memo re DCI Briefing Memo on the Communist Use
of Sihanoukville
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22 May 70 Blind Memo re CIA Estimate of Communist Arms Shipments
Delivered to VC/NVA Forces via Sihanoukville
Attachment: Table, CIA Estimates of Communist
Military Deliveries to Sihanoukville,
1965-1969, dated 2 Jun 70
Table, CIA Estimates of Communist Ordnance
Shipments to Cambodia, 1963-65 and
1966-69
Table, Comparison of MACV and CIA Estimate:
of Communist Military Shipments to
Sihanoukville, October 1966-December 1969
11 Jun 70 Dendo to DD/ER memo re Unidentified Cargoes Delivered to
Sihanoukville, January 1967-April 1969
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]8 May X970
SUBJECT: DCI Briefing Memo ' on :the Co m=ist Use
of S1hanoukvj1.:e
3 ? _ wou3.d . t h e, que ; fon ; Hof north
A A"
Vietnamese
arms and unmtnitior, to `C t,
sanctuaries a o ig the bgrders
of IV; III and - at :ec a length because the
Agency's positil t, is eee~ s'm eumderstoood and because our
meshing of CIA'e field od4eetion 'eff'orts with Headquarters
work on this. - r c h a rya # 8 d exatnpl o the close and effective
analysis.
the SihanoukvIl e :M -t! o ab ly prow ,det no more than one h.+
continued as such' into.. ea>,r .y.' .9' ` But even in those two, years.,,
became an important source of .arm supply sanet me in, 1968, and
of the estimated : ist ' ppa,Y requirements for arms and
use q .the. jpqrt, o
ammunitiox} in oc therm ZZ, M; and IV Corps.
^ue, it seemed
obvious that the..Cvan=iats tree using other routes, principally
the system of tr ?a .:and roa4segmeute leading southward from
the Laos. panhatzd s aXxx~g the din border to support their
forces in' aouthe 7t $out t Viet*
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; oukvi Lle for the movement of
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TOP MG
3. As far as we know, there has never been any important
disagreement in the Intelligence Community in Washington on this
subject. The Agency, DIA, TNR, and NSA have worked closely to-
gether on all aspects of this complicated problem and our agreed
positions are to be found in several National Intelligence
Estimates, Memoranda, and Special Briefing papers dating back
to 1966.... There has, however, been disagreement between the
Intelligence Community in Washington and the field; specifically
the Intelligence Directorate of the US Command in Saigon -- the
J-2 MACV.
Ii. In discussing these differences, it is important to
understand that the fundamental issue has not been the narrow
question of the amount of arms moving through Sihanoukville.
Rather, the larger question since the fall of 1968 has been this:
Is the Sihanoukville route vital to the Communist forces in lower
II, III, and IV Corps? In other words, if the use of Sihanoukville
were denied the Communists, would they still be able to provide
essential. arms and amQnunition to their forces in southern South
5. CIA's position on this central question has never changed;
it has been that sufficient arms and atmnunition could be moved
from North Vietnam over the Ho Chi Minh trail(s) in Laos and
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southward over the extensions of these trails and road segments
along the Cambodian/South Vietnam border to meet and satisfy
Communist requirements in southern South Vietnam. We have said,
in other words, that whatever the flow from Sihanoukville and
whatever this route's attractions in terms of ease of movement,
the Communists would not permit themselves to become critically
dependent on it because it was vulnerable to Cambodian political
action -- it could be out without warning. The overland route,
on the other hand, was completely under Communist control; they
would continue to improve it and defend it and they would consi-
der retention of an overland route as basic to their strategy
in all of South Vietnam.
6. The J-2.MACV took a contrary position beginning in the
fall of 1968, arguing that insufficient supplies. were moving
through Laos (because of the 7th Air Force interdiction effort)
to support Communist forces in southern South Vietnam, that there
was, in any event, little or no evidence of supplies moving
southward. from the tri-border area, and that intelligence avail-
able in Saigon showed a flow of arms and ammunition through
Sihanoukville far in excess of Cambodian needs and more than
sufficient to supply Communist requirements in southern South
Vietnam. 'MACV concluded that the Sihanoukville route had been
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the primary source for Communist arms in southern South
Vietnam since October 1966.
7. MACV's conclusions obviously generated great interest
in Washington and I dispatched a joint CIA, DIA, INR team to
Saigon under the leadership of senior and highly experienced
intelligence officers to review the evidence with MACV. This
group first of all determined that all the evidence being used
in Saigon was also available in Washington so that any differences
which might exist rested on the evaluation of raw data and the
analysis of that data.
8. The Team's report, dated 31 December 1968, agreed with
MACV to the extent of saying that there was little remaining doubt
that elements of the Cambodian Army, with high level complicity,
were engaged on an organized basis in shipping arms to the
Communists. But it also found that the evidence available did
not permit a quantification of this flow. Much of the evidence came
from suspect sources, from hearsay, or reflected misinterpretation
of normal commercial and economic activity within Cambodia. For
example, MACV claimed in December 1968 that almost 14,000 tons
of arms and ammunition had entered Sihanoukville between October
1966 and August 1968. But at that time we were able to substantiate
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with hard intelligence less than. 1,700 tons of military supplies,
less than a fourth of which was arms and ammunition. We also
noted that MACV classed all the military deliveries to Sihanoukville
as arms and ammunition and failed to distinguish between arms and
other types of military supplies.
9. Our inability to quantify the arms flow through
Sihanoukville was,, of course, unsatisfactory in view of the high
level interest in the problem. We moved on the basis of the
Team's recommendation to a concentrated collection and analytical
effort to clarify the many uncertainties about the role of Cambodia
and, hopefully, to resolve our differences with the field. This 25X1
was no easy problem. Cambodia itself was to a considerable degree
a denied area to the US at that time.
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10. At Headquarters, the CIA International Transportation
Branch (which gained great credit for its work on Soviet arms
shipments to Cuba) turned its years of professional experience
in monitoring Bloc ship movements, to an analysis of cargos
entering Sihanoukville from 1966 onward. It examined and re-
examined the MACV data on munitions arrivals at that port and
made its own independent analysis.
11. As a result of these activities, and other studies and
collection efforts too numerous to mention, we began to get a more
confident and firm grip.on the role of Sihanoukville, the Cambodian
Army, and individual Cambodian personalities in the movement of
arms to the Communists. By early 1970 we were able, for example,
to produce a highly reliable analysis of all Communist military
deliveries to Sihanoukville, and to specify with much greater
assurance how much of these deliveries included actual ordnance.
Moreover, we were able to derive reliable estimates of the minimum
ammunition stocks held. in FARK depots. By subtracting FARK con-
sumption and inventories from total deliveries to Sihanoukville,
we were able to calculate a residual representing the probable
maximum amount of arms that might have been available for delivery
to the Communists. These calculations provided a cross check
on actual shipments by truck from Cambodian
depots to Communist base areas.
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12. The result of our study makes two things clear:
a. That military deliveries to Sihanoukvillr. until
some time in mid-1968 fell far short of Communist require-
ments and that the Sihanoukville route simply could not have
been the primary supply channel since October 1966 as
maintained by MACV.
b. That even when the Sihanoukville route did become
an important supply route in 1968-1969, it probably supplied
little more than half of the enemy's requirements in southern
South Vietnam.
13. At the same time, our continuing analysis of the flow
of supplies through Laos showed more than enough arms and ammuni-
tion moving on these routes to meet Communist requirements in all
of South Vietnam. Photography revealed that the Communists
continued to improve trails and road segments from the tri-border
area southward to lower 11 Corps, and other sources continued to
confirm the existence of a functioning logistic organization
along these trails. For all these reasons, we continued to
conclude that while Sihanoukville had become an important source
of arms for the Communists, the overland route was basic to the
Communist position and strategy in southern South Vietnam.
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14+. We are proud of our effort on this subject; it has been
highly professional, highly objective, and aimed at providing
our consumers with authenticated data. We are still not
satisfied, of course, because we still lack a firm overall figure
for the arms passed to the Communists through Sihenoukville, nor
do.we have any basis in hard evidence to quantify the actual flow
of supplies on the overland routes to southern South Vietnam.
15. We hope, however, that with a little bit of luck, docu-
ments will soon turn up in the recently invested Communist base
areas that will provide the final answers to these questions and
permit us to close the books -- one way or another -- on the
Sihanoukville versus the overland route issue.
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AN EVALUATION OF RECENT CLANDESTINE REPORTING
ON CAMBODIA
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WARNING
This document contains information affecting the national
defense of the United States, within the meaning of Title
18, sections 793 and 794, of the US Code, as amended.
Its transmission or revelation of its contents to or re-
ceipt by an unauthorized person is prohibited by law.
GROUP 1
EKdd.d from o.-lic
downgrading and
declarrifiwtion
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One of the most intriguing -- and important --
intelligence problems of the war in Vietnam con-
cerns the flow of materiel from external sources
to VC/NVA troops in South Vietnam. In recent
months there has accumulated a large body of
clandestine reporting that points to Cambodia as
an important route for such supplies which, it is
argued, arrive by sea at the port of Sihanoukville
This evaluation examines in detail the clan-
destine sources which have provided the bulwark
for the "Cambodian supply route" thesis. The
strengths and weaknesses of each source and their
principal contributions to our knowledge of enemy
logistics in Cambodia have been set forth without
any intention to lead to conclusions beyond the
obvious one that there are still important gaps
in our information yet to be filled, particularly
the data needed to quantify the flow of supplies
from Cambodia. No attempt has been made to weigh
the evidence of an active Cambodian supply route
against the substantial picture which has been
developed over the years of a logistics system
operating through the Laotian Panhandle, this
being outside the scope of this evaluation.
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