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The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs)

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Jim, a very respected member of the faculty at the Naval Postgraduate School, has provided us with a very well documented study of how the U.S. missed the Tet Offensive in Viet-Name. Among his findings: we knew fully two months in advance at the tactical collection level, with several additional collection successes and some modest analysis successes in the weeks preceding the offensive. We were distracted by Khe Sanh, the commanders did not want to hear it, "intelligence to please" was the standard within the Military Assistance Command Viet-Nam intelligence bureaucracy, and when we finally did grasp, one day before the attack, its true strategic nature, we failed to disseminate the warnings to the tactical commanders with sufficient effectiveness.

This book was published in 1991, well before Informations Operations doctrine was refined to today's level. Consequently, the author laboriously labels all communist actions prior to the Tet Offensive as 'deception.' According to current doctrine, most communist actions prior to Tet were forms of operational security or OPSEC, not deception. This difference is critical to understanding the communist strategy, yet since the author does not make this distinction, the analytical framework is unsound and distracts heavily from the objective of the book- to show intelligence failure. After reading the book I was more convinced that the communists achieved OPSEC success rather than a US intelligence failure. According to the author, Gen Westmoreland made reasonable assumptions based on the information he had available at the time and adjusted his assessments as more information became available. The indicators and warnings of communist violation of the Tet truce were not that clear-cut and are, to the author's own admission, based on hindsight in many cases. The first true indication of impending attacks came on 28 Jan, mere days before the attacks and this is not revealed until page 217 of the book. It seems that the criticism rests on the fact that MAC-V did not have a crystal ball. I would prefer to see better analysis of the indicators and warnings including how the intelligence community directed collections and processed the information to achieve understanding of the communist timing of the offensive.

Sometimes, it can be dangerous to study your history and have better intelligence than your adversary. That is the paradoxical conclusion in this excellent academic piece by James Wirtz, which focuses on the Tet Offensive, the one event most responsible for the US withdrawal from Vietnam.

An intelligence advantage - including the thoughtful, objective analysis of your adversary's previous actions - is usually a critical success factor in business, sports, war or any other competitive endeavor. But what happens when the enemy embarks on a totally unexpected course of action because, primarily, they do not have as accurate a picture of the situation as you do? In that case, the enemy may act in ways entirely unanticipated - with equally unanticipated outcomes - owing to an inaccurate reading of current events. Such was the case, the author argues, in January 1968 when US and South Vietnamese forces were attacked in an all-out communist assault that was destined to fail militarily in the tactical sense, but ultimately had the most far-reaching and unexpected strategic impact.

The communist plan was simple, yet fundamentally flawed: a widespread guerilla offensive would capitalize on the element of surprise, ignite a general uprising against the US forces and their South Vietnamese puppets, isolate and defeat feeble ARVN units, precipitate the collapse of the Saigon regime, and force the US to settle for a coalition government. US intelligence received advanced warning of the attack, but its make-up and motivation was so out-of-character and inconsistent with reality on the ground that the threat was simply dismissed as hollow propaganda.

There were many mistakes made on both sides, Wirtz says. Superior US intelligence led analysts to dismiss the warnings of a major assault as mere bluster meant for domestic and international consumption. Rather, US military intelligence was focused on the "real" threat: a communist attack in the border region, particularly Khe Sanh. This interpretation fit better with US perceptions of the VC's current strategic position and accommodated the anticipated "rational" response it would generate - the attack of US forces because they were most threatening and inhibiting to communist activities. On the one hand, the communist miscalculation of popular strength for their cause significantly enhanced their diversionary efforts as large numbers of US forces were moved from the intended urban target areas to the more remote border regions, such as Khe Sanh. On the other hand, while their miscalculation certainly enabled "surprise", it also ultimately led to the annihilation their offensive as the general uprising failed to materialize.

In Wirtz's opinion, there was no shortage of evidence that the communists were sincere in their belief in the efficacy of an all-out offensive. He cites Giap's "The Big Victory, the Great Task" (September 1967), captured Tet attack orders, NSA SIGINT intercepts, "Qoi Nhon" tapes to be played over captured radio outlets encouraging the population to revolt, POW interrogations, and premature attacks as all sufficient warning of the how, when, why, and where of the Tet Offensive. US analysis of the situation, however, was much more suspect. With the notable exception of the reports from the CIA's Joseph Hovey and some last minute assessments from Generals Weyand and Davidson, US intelligence failed to accurately predict the size, scope or intensity of the attack - especially its focus on the urban centers.

The US and allied response was dulled for several reasons, according to Wirtz. First, half of the ARVN forces were on personal leave for the Tet holiday. Second, US forces were on high alert only about 50% of the time. Third, Westmoreland's warnings and actions ahead of the attack were not particularly unusual or forceful.

Interestingly, Wirtz concludes that US intelligence got it about half right. For instance, Tet was a result of Hanoi's realization that they were losing the war and unless they "used it" they would certainly "lose it." This concept of declining communist capability was detected and enthusiastically disseminated by US intelligence. Thus, US intelligence understood and in some ways anticipated the communist response to their military demise - a Battle of the Bulge-like last gasp, combined with a Dien Bien Phu-like hope for gaining a strategic psychological victory to influence the forthcoming peace negotiations. What was not perceived by US intelligence was the offensive nature and focus of Tet. Specifically, the US did not anticipate the attempt to isolate ARVN units with the intent to destroy them and then exploit the fractured US/Allied command.

In a sense, Tet represented a strategic innovation in response to US troops fighting in Vietnam - a response the US intelligence apparently completely failed to recognize. For instance, Westmoreland was convinced that the US troops would be the focus of any forthcoming attack and was therefore concerned mostly with a Christmastime attack. In the allied mind, it made no sense for the communists to attack during Tet because the US forces did not celebrate the holiday and they were the assumed target. Also, any infraction of the holiday would be near sacrilegious in Vietnam or so it was assumed. The potential vulnerability of the ARVN forces over Tet was never considered, according to Wirtz.

In the end, Wirtz argues that US intelligence failed on two critical issues. First, once a mental image of the communist situation emerged US leadership tended view any new information in a way that validated that perspective. Second, it never occurred to US intelligence that the communists might actually misunderstand the nature and extent of their popular support in the South that could lead them into making an enormous tactical military miscalculation.

This is an excellent, thought-provoking analysis that deserves close consideration by students of the Vietnam War and intelligence studies.

I read this book and was appalled at the slanted agenda it had. Are omissions lies? If so, this book is a huge lie and here is why; I served in F Company, 51st LRP (Airborne) Infantry and I am the author of the book 'I SERVED.' We were the military field Intel performing recon and ambush in six and 12-man teams that watching the enemy's movements throughout the Saigon II Field Forces AO (area of operation) to the Cambodian border. We were the eyes and ears for IIFFV directly under General Fred Weyand who started up this 200-man strong shock, Ranger type, LRP unit in September 1967.

On Jan. 3, 1968, one of our recon teams captured a high-ranking VC officer who was carrying a map of the upcoming Tet 1968 Offensive that matches other military Intel that was coming in. Gen. Frederick Weyand laid out some great plans to hammer the enemy, but you'd have to read my book to get those facts.

The objective of the Army was not to run around a blab everything to news reporters that there was a huge attack coming! We were there to stave off the enemy's aggression in South Vietnam. LBJ had led General Westmoreland to believe that he could jump off from Khe Sanh once the North Vietnamese broke the cease-fire during Tet 1968 and cut off the Ho Chin Minh trail in Loas. President LBJ not only lied to the military he lied to the American people in his failure to set the records straight about Tet 1968, but he was bored and burnt out by this time! Walter Cronkite came out with his statements of what our government should do in Vietnam. You can see the same happening with today's reporters talking about the military with the War on Islam. How many of these reporters served in the military? NONE, but my goodness they know everything don't they?!

The South Vietnamese soldiers were allowed leave during Tet in order that they would defend their own hamlets, towns and cities with Hue being the only failure.

If you ever want a real military failure on your hands tell a news reporter or some 200 US Army colonels gathered for a party in Saigon that this author seem to take as a total and compete failure of Tet 1968 because none of these colonels knew what was coming!

The final straw that broke the credibly of this author's book is his not mentioning what harm Saint Walter Cronkite did during Tet 1968. Cronkite was sent to visit Gen. Weyand after his visit to Hue and told General Weyand that he had a good story of how the enemy were slaughtered in open fields starting at 0106 hours, long before the first rockets fell at 0300 hours in Saigon region, but he was going with the story of the thousands of bodies that he saw in and around Hue. Those bodies were those of Vietnamese reporters, school teachers, lawyers, doctors and anyone who wore eyeglasses and, of course, the hit list that the Commies had.

Don't waste your money of this book. It is very slanted and I bet the author was a journalist at one time or another with this book making out that the Military is "BAD!" News reports are "GOOD" and other such BS.