CIA and Vietnam and the Future of Intelligence

   My problem re CIA intelligence on Vietnam has been the 
belief that key Agency personnel knew of the mass-based 
liberation associations but deliberately did not include 
them in its intelligence reporting. The Agency did this as 
accurate intelligence would undermine its policy of creating 
a non-communist government in Vietnam. Instead CIA produced 
reams of propaganda, and propaganda under the guise of 
intelligence, to justify policy.  

   My first hand encounter with the problem was with Colby
when I briefed him extensively on the makeup of the liberation 
association of farmers in Thailand. I was pulled out of Thailand 
and the indisputable information on the size and existence of 
this structure disappeared from CIA and other government reports. 
This was deliberate, not a failure of intelligence or a lack of 
information. However, the problem was not so much Thailand, but 
Vietnam. If the CIA recognized the existence of the liberation 
association members in Thailand, then it would be forced to do 
the same for Vietnam -- since Thai communists learned their 
revolutionary lessons from schools in China and Vietnam.

   I agitated in Headquarters over the bad intellgience
re the Thai Communist Party only to be warned that I was jeopardizing 
my career. Later in Headquarters I sent a compiled report of the 
CIA's omissions and malfeasance to the Executive Director, who was 
then Colby. Of course, it did no good. As I continued to protest 
-- I was assigned to non-significant positions where I could do 
little damage to established intelligence postures. In the CI Staff, 
I wrote a report in January 1975, that it was all over in Vietnam -- 
this report was ignored.  A few months later I watched as we evacuated 
from the roof of the embassy. and knew that the Vietnam war could 
have been avoided with accurate intelligence. Even a top war supporter,
Robert McNamara claimed that we were "wrong, terribly, terribly 
wrong" in Vietnam. One of the areas where we were wrong, per
McNamara, is that we did not recognize the strength of nationalism
motivating the Vietnamese -- a mistake of recognition we can lay
directly at the feet of our Central Intelligence Agency.

   How the CIA could not see or accidentally ignore the sine 
qua non of the revolutionary forces (written about in books by all Asian
revolutionaries from Mao to Amato Guerro [sp]) -- the liberation associations 
-- over a period of 25 years (or if you back to MAO, about 45 years) 
defies logic. It had to ignore the liberation associations in order 
to justify the Agency's policy of winning in Vietnam.  I believe 
the historical record clearly indicates the CIA exists to implement 
policy and whenever truth gets in the way of that policy, it is 
distorted or new "truths" created to support policy. 

   As we can now see with the appointment of the new Director 
of Operations, David Cohen, a man with an established record 
of manipulating intelligence to the requirements of his superiors, 
there will be further intelligence failures and foreign policy 
disasters. I believe until we recognize this and do something 
about the CIA we are doomed to repeat our failures.

Ralph McGehee    

     1965  Liberation (NLF) forces by mid 65 had four-fifths of
  territory and 10 million out of Vietnam's 14 million population 
  in liberated zones. There were 4,300 front "fortified villages"  
  in South Vietnam. Burchett, W. (1965). Vietnam: Inside story 
  of the Guerrilla War. 
 
     The Viet Cong organiztion of the population proceeded hamlet by hamlet,
  incorporating ever-larger numbers into associations of peasants [farmers],
  women, youth. Such village organizations meant reduced rent, distribution of
  free land, freedom from both corvee labor and conscription into army,
  protection from extortion and brutality of appointed village chiefs,
  security police or army. Guerrillas saw themselves "as the legitimate 
  rulers of an independent Vietnam." The  NLF is best described as
  a coalition led by party members but held together by a common program.
  Front committees were established in thousands of villages. In 2/61, PLAF
  formally organized. Southern and central branches of Lao Dong Party
  merged into central committee directorate for the South which U.S. Called
  COSVN. 75% of villagers supported front, 20% trying to remain neutral, and
  5% firmly pro-gvt. M. Young. (1991). The Vietnam Wars 1945-1990.