From: Ralph McGehee Subject: American Invasion of Vietnam, Debate Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- McGehee response to Larry Engelman as follows: >From lde421@aol.com Fri Nov 7 15:59:44 1997 >Newsgroups: soc.history.war.vietnam >To: rmcgehee@igc.apc.org (Ralph McGehee) >From: lde421@aol.com (LDE421) >Subject: Re: The American Invasion of Vietnam >There are so many distortions here...you really are obsessed. Your paranoia > about the CIA seems more like a religion than a rational position. So I > surrender. There is freedom of religion in this country. Burn your candles, > say your manatra and do not go kindly into the night, Ralph. TO LDE421 (Larry Engelmann): What are the distortions -- if you would identify specific "distortions," I believe I can document all of my claims. Re "my paranoia," I spent roughly seven years trying to convince the CIA that the forces of the Vietnamese communists were very different than reported in its intelligence; and, that we could never win. It seems that I was correct. You know of course of McNamara's mea culpa. I note that earlier you were asked to identify the factual problems in Frank Snepp's book and you, I believe, replied you would do this? Other than 25 years of contrived, bad intelligence re Vietnam, we also have the CIA's egregious record of being the last to recognize the collapse of the Soviet Union. Just a few days ago the CIA admitted it was wrong (the last to accept) facts re the so-called testing of a nuclear device in Russia. These represent only a tiny portion of intelligence failures by this "intelligence agency." But the CIA has a loyal contingent of time-servers and veterans who will never admit the truth even to themselves. I know the problem from my own agonizing apostasy. If we are to survive as a healthy nation we must confront the 50-year-long secrecy-protected bureaucracy, said by former DCI Deutch to be in a state of deep rot; and, by the House Intelligence Committee, to be incompetent. The CIA, prior to computers, was able to make claims that no one could successfully challenge. Those days, thankfully are past, and it must, to some degree, confront its ugly truths. Mantra chanting in the CIA is the only way it can live with the consequences of its operations and failures. I fear for those who stop chanting and face reality. Ralph McGehee CIABASE ------------------------------- end --------------------------------------