Viet Cong order of battle controversy

This article addresses the order of battle (O/B) not for any single engagement of the war, but rather for the overall strength of communist forces in South Vietnam at the time, e.g., 1967.

In addition were politically organized support groups of civilians, some full-time, highly trained party cadres, often collectively called by American intelligence the Viet Cong Infrastructure (VCI).

Charges were made, e.g., by Sam Adams an analyst for the CIA, that MACV's low numbers were the result of political interference with the data of intelligence work.

In January 1968, communist forces dramatically changed their low-profile strategy: they brazenly attacked many cities and other targets across South Vietnam.

The O/B controversy came to an unexpected denouement, however, as a result of a failed military offensive by the VC that nonetheless reaped their cause significant political rewards.

A narrative derived from the strategy worked to coordinate both the military's explanation of the war, and the President's special care to maintain voter support for it.

[8] A significant benchmark of success was the cross-over point, achieved when the prevailing army wears down an enemy until he begins to suffer casualties at a rate higher than he can replace.

Yet in Vietnam a revolutionary situation existed, a civil war whose combatants were not only regular soldiers but also part-time guerrillas who were civilians by day.

[24][25][26][27] Starting in early 1966, however, the CIA, as well as some analysts at military intelligence, began discussing evidence indicating that the number of enemy combatants was much larger than earlier thought.

They were the subject of an ongoing debate within American intelligence, specifically, MACV and the civilian CIA sharply differed in their O/B appraisals of the VC.

The O/B numbers for the communist forces were kept, and work done for MACV's own compilation of the enemy's strength and composition, but apparently the VC O/B were not regularly updated using new reports from the field.

[62][63] Adams, a CIA mid-level analyst, discovered what appeared to be a large gap between MACV O/B numbers and the actual count of VC in the field.

Adams relied on multiple sources of information, including his own interviews with ARVN military officers, and GSV records on the conflict, especially files from its Chieu Hoi program which focused on defectors from the VC.

Adams also used CIA data derived directly from American MACV and its J-2 (military intelligence), which contained translations of captured documents, of interrogations with enemy POWs, and intercepts, as well as photo-reconnaissance.

More abstractly put, the political primacy of 'domestic affairs' in achieving, or at least in explaining, the military strategy in Vietnam, necessitated that certain intelligence findings be available to facilitate continuance of set policies.

His persistence, however, eventually led him beyond the CIA, and resulted in media activity, his magazine article, his trial testimony and appearance before Congress.

[70][71][72] The issue as it arose thus had several components, simplified as: a) the existing war narrative, b) the prior numbers broadcast to the public, and c) what type of combatants were included in the count.

[74] In part, this was due to the Army's established doctrine in which it viewed the struggle in more conventional terms, rather than as a revolutionary insurgency fighting a political war.

His critics began to find contradictions in his pronouncements, especially after his 1964 election as an anti-war candidate was followed by his 1965 escalation of the war in South Vietnam.

[89][90][91][92][93] "During the coming year [1968], the president was expected to seek reelection, which increased the likelihood that the presidential campaign would become a referendum on American policy in Vietnam.

As part of that effort both Bunker and Westmoreland returned to Washington in November [1967] and spoke before the U. S. Congress, reassuring the public and the legislature that the allies were winning the war.

As the dispute intensified, the question arose about which institution had priority for determining O/B issues: MACV whose officers commanded the soldiers and auxiliaries in the field doing the fighting, or the civilian analysts in Washington.

[99][100] Although raising factual questions, MACV ultimately depended on an asserted "command position" to convince the CIA to conform to its lower numbers.

Yet it also hinted at, or camouflaged, the institutional context of the military: MACV was a major instrument of the Johnson Administration's foreign policy.

MACV defended its "command position" stance, imposed by military leaders in Vietnam, due to political and strategic considerations sourced in Washington.

He sketched out a point of view which related the agreement to a conspiracy between the Washington institutions, both civilian and military, which compromised the integrity of the intelligence, for the sake of a hidden agenda driven by politics.

Hanoi believed 300-400,000 VC would rise up and swamp the half-strength ARVN and then the fence-sitters would join the communists in destroying the South Vietnamese regime.

In January 1968, after the Tet Offensive, the CIA adopted a much higher enemy count along the lines the analyst Sam Adams had recommended.

With his growing credibility gap, and changing stories, it was no longer possible for Johnson to pull the strings on the politico-military narrative.

In large part due to the persistence of Adams troubling issues about the above institutional conflicts over military intelligence remained in the public discussion about Vietnam.