ABSTRACT
The Vietnam War, 1961–75, is a frustrating, albeit fascinating, topic for the student of US intelligence performance. On the operational level, a great number of human and technical intelligence resources were mobilized in 1965 when US ground combat forces landed in South Vietnam and the air campaign against North Vietnam began. The Kennedy administration bound the United States to preserving South Vietnam from Communist domination. Between 1961 and 1963, a confluence of events and decisions enmeshed the United States in progressively larger commitments in support of this objective. The NSC Working Group conducted the policy review culminating in the recommendation of a two-phase expansion of the war, including an escalating air campaign against North Vietnam. American intelligence estimated Soviet defense expenditures at essentially the same levels as those given in the published Soviet budget. A brief assessment of intelligence performance in Vietnam can deal only briefly with the most important reasons for conceptual errors in analyzing traditionalist, non-Western societies.
