Visions of the Enemy from the Field and from Abroad: Revisiting CIA and Military Expectations of the Tet Offensive

Abstract

As the January 1968 Tet holiday approached, CIA analysts and American commanders in South Vietnam developed more accurate conclusions about communist military strategy than did intelligence analysts at CIA headquarters. Besides valuing different types of intelligence, General William Westmoreland, Lieutenant General Frederick Weyand, and CIA analysts in Saigon also placed greater emphasis on new information about communist military strategy than did CIA analysts at Langley. These different reactions to information highlight reasons why military commanders and intelligence analysts stationed in the theater of operations might develop more accurate conclusions about enemy military strategy than intelligence analysts stationed at their national headquarters.

Key Words:

• Tet Offensive
• Intelligence
• Threat Assessment

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Walter LaFeber and Fredrik Logevall for feedback on the original project from which this research originates, and he thanks the anonymous referee for revision suggestions. The author is also grateful to archivists who helped identify relevant documents at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library, the National Archives and Records Administration, and the US Army Military History Institute.

Notes

¹See, especially, Don Oberdorfer, Tet! The Turning Point in the Vietnam War (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP 2001).

²James H. Willbanks, The Tet Offensive: A Concise History (New York: Columbia UP 2007), 68.

³James J. Wirtz, The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1991).

⁴Ronnie E. Ford, Tet 1968: Understanding the Surprise (London/Portland, OR: Frank Cass 1995).

⁵American officials often used the term ‘manpower’ in reference to the number of individuals involved in the communist military effort in South Vietnam, although the military and CIA sharply disagreed over which communists units the term should subsume.

⁶The description and explanation of different reactions to intelligence rely on archival materials and secondary accounts, some of which were written by individuals discussed in the article. However, the personal recollections presented here are consistent with other types of sources.

⁷George W. Allen, None so Blind: A Personal Account of the Intelligence Failure in Vietnam (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee 2001), 250.

⁸‘Questions and Answers Relating to Vietnam’, 8 Dec. 1967, Lyndon B. Johnson National Security Files. Vietnam, Special Subjects: National Security Files, 1963–1969 (Fredrick, MD: Univ. Publications of America 1987), reel 5, frames 518–88.

⁹Sam Adams, War of Numbers: An Intelligence Memoir (South Royalton, VT: Steerforth Press 1994).

¹⁰This was clearly stated in a memo by the Saigon Station: ‘The Crossover – VC/NVA Manpower Balance’, 14 Nov. 1967, CIA Research Reports: Vietnam and Southeast Asia, Supplement (Frederick, MD: Univ. Publications of America 1982), reel 5, frames 338–56.

¹¹‘Review of Available Documentation on the Winter-Spring Campaign, Coalition Government, Negotiations, and Front's New Program’, 24 Nov. 1967, CIA Research Reports: Vietnam and Southeast Asia, Supplement, reel 5, frames 389–411.

¹²Wirtz, Tet Offensive, 175.

¹³CIA Memorandum, 2 Dec. 1967, Westmoreland v. CBS (New York: Clearing House 1985), Joint Exhibit 616, microfiche 744.

¹⁴‘Summary Extracts of Captured Documents’, 5 Dec. 1967, CIA Research Reports: Vietnam and Southeast Asia, Supplement, reel 5, frames 443–47.

¹⁵[Lubbock, Texas, Texas Tech University][The Vietnam Archive] VMQCC [Veteran Members of the 109th Quartermaster Company (Air Delivery) Collection] 23/2, Papers on Viet Cong Strategy, 16 Dec. 1967, Rostow to Johnson.

¹⁶[Austin, Texas, Lyndon B. Johnson Library] PCLF [Papers of the Capital Legal Foundation] CIA 149–167, 10 Dec. 1967, ‘The Winter-Spring Campaign – A Big Gamble?’.

¹⁷‘The State of Viet Cong Morale’, 27 Nov. 1967, CIA Research Reports: Vietnam and Southeast Asia, 1946–1976 (Frederick, MD: Univ. Publications of America 1982), reel 5, frames 418–25.

¹⁸The memo ‘The Crossover – VC/NVA Manpower Balance’ stated that it was not clear whether enemy manpower was declining.

¹⁹Adams, War of Numbers, 133.

²⁰[Lubbock, Texas, Texas Tech University][The Vietnam Archive] LBC [Larry Berman Collection (Westmoreland v. CBS)] 24/12, May 1981, Mike Wallace interview with Sam Adams.

²¹VMQCC 23/2, Papers on Viet Cong Strategy, 16 Dec. 1967, Rostow to Johnson.

²²C. Michael Hiam, Who the Hell are We Fighting? The Story of Sam Adams and the Vietnam Intelligence Wars (Hanover, NH: Steerforth Press 2006), 130.

²³VMQCC 23/2, Papers on Viet Cong Strategy, 15 Dec. 1967, Helms to Rostow, 4.

²⁴‘An Assessment of the Current Enemy Situation’, 25 Nov. 1967, Lyndon B. Johnson National Security Files, reel 5, frames 150–63.

²⁵[Carlisle, Pennsylvania, US Army Military History Institute][The William C.] Westmoreland Collection, Box 22, 10 Dec. 1967, Westmoreland to Wheeler.

²⁶Westmoreland Collection, Box 22, 20 Dec. 1967, Westmoreland to Wheeler.

²⁷Obtained from Merle L. Pribbenow, ‘North Vietnam's Final Offensive: Strategic Endgame Nonpareil’, Parameters 29/4 (Winter 1999–2000), 58–71. Permission for use of Figure 1 kindly granted by the Editor of Parameters, published by the US Army War College, on 4 January 2011.

²⁸Meeting with Gen. Vien, 8 Jan. 1968, War in Vietnam: The Papers of William C. Westmoreland (Bethesda, MD: Univ. Publications of America 1993), reel 12, frame 540.

²⁹For a full description of Capt. Simmons' realization and General Weyand's reaction, see John Prados, Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War (Lawrence: Univ. of Kansas Press 2001), 231.

³⁰[Carlisle, Pennsylvania, US Army Military History Institute][Frederick C.] Weyand Papers, [Senior Officer Oral History Program, Box 1, Gen. Frederick C.] Weyand interviewed by Dr [Lewis] Sorley [9–15 Nov. 1999], 123.

³¹William C. Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports (Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1976), 318.

³²Oberdorfer, Tet!, 137.

³³[College Park, Maryland, National Archives and Records Administration] GCIA [General CIA Records (Electronic Database)] 10 Jan. 1968, ‘The Enemy Threat to Khe Sanh’.

³⁴‘Alternative Interpretations of Hanoi's Intentions', 18 Jan. 1968, Intelligence Memorandum. Accessed at the CIA Freedom of Information Act webpage at <www.foia.cia.gov>.

³⁵Westmoreland, History Number 28 (I), War in Vietnam, reel 12, frame 438.

³⁶[Lubbock, Texas, Texas Tech University][The Vietnam Archive] LBC-PAR [Larry Berman Collection (Presidential Archives Research)] 8/9, 7 Jan. 1968, Westmoreland to Sharp, ‘Estimate of Current Enemy Strategy’.

³⁷Rostow to Johnson, 19 Jan. 1968, Westmoreland v. CBS, Joint Exhibit 982, microfiche 39.

³⁸Meetings with President Thieu and Gen. Vien, War in Vietnam, reel 12, frame 567.

³⁹LBC-PAR 8/9, 13 Jan. 1968, Rostow to Johnson.

⁴⁰Westmoreland, History Number 28 (I), War in Vietnam, reel 12, frame 438.

⁴¹Sharp to Wheeler, 21 Jan. 1968, War in Vietnam, reel 12, frame 615.

⁴²Westmoreland, History Number 28 (I), War in Vietnam, reel 12, frame 445.

⁴³Rostow to Johnson, 22 Jan. 1968, Lyndon B. Johnson National Security Files, reel 5, frames 776–81.

⁴⁴Ibid., frames 782–3.

⁴⁵Westmoreland Collection, Box 22, 20 Jan. 1968, Westmoreland to Wheeler and Sharp.

⁴⁶PCLF, Box 22, ‘General Davidson’, 18 Jan. 1968, Simmons to Davidson.

⁴⁷Prados, Vietnam, 231.

⁴⁸William Colby (with James McCarger), Lost Victory: A Firsthand Account of America's Sixteen-Year Involvement in Vietnam (Chicago: Contemporary Books 1989), 228.

⁴⁹Robert J. Hanyok, Spartans in Darkness: American SIGINT and the Indochina War, 1945–1975 (Ft Meade, MD: Center for Cryptologic History, National Security Agency 2002), 326, <www.fas.org/irp/nsa/spartans/index.html>.

⁵⁰‘Comments on Proposed VC Winter-Spring Campaign’, 23 Jan. 1968, CIA Research Reports: Vietnam and Southeast Asia, Supplement, reel 5, frames 542–55.

⁵¹VMQCC 23/2, Papers on Viet Cong Strategy, 16 Dec. 1967, Rostow to Johnson.

⁵²Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (New York: Random House 1988), 707.

⁵³Weyand Papers, Weyand interviewed by Dr Sorley, 123.

⁵⁴Harold P. Ford, CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers: Three Episodes, 1962–1968 (Langley, VA: Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency 1998), 116.

⁵⁵Weyand Papers, Weyand interviewed by Dr Sorley, 122.

⁵⁶[College Park, Maryland, National Archives and Records Administration] USAV RG 472 [Records of the United States Army Vietnam, Record Group 472] CH [Headquarters, United States Army Vietnam Command Historian] Senior Officer Debriefing Reports, 15 July 1968, Lt. Gen. Fred C. Weyand, Debriefing Report.

⁵⁷Samuel Zaffiri, Westmoreland: A Biography of General William C. Westmoreland (New York: William Morrow 1994), 275.

⁵⁸‘Indo-China War –1950–1975’, George Allen, Westmoreland v. CBS, Joint Exhibit 313, microfiche 668.

⁵⁹Ibid., 321.

⁶⁰Ford, Tet 1968, 181.

⁶¹The author thanks an anonymous referee for raising this point.

⁶²See, especially, Wirtz, Tet Offensive.