VIETNAM

General

L - M

Lansdale, Edward Geary.

1. In the Midst of Wars: An American's Mission to Southeast Asia. New York: Harper & Row, 1972. [Reprint] New York: Fordham University Press, 1991.

According to Surveillant 2.1, Lansdale "recounts his missions with CIA in the Philippines and, later, in Vietnam during the 1950s and 1960s."

For biographies of Lansdale, see Cecil B. Currey, Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988); and Jonathan Nashel, Edward Lansdale's Cold War (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2005).

2. "Vietnam: Do We Understand Revolution." Foreign Affairs 43, no. 1 (1964): 75-86.

Larson, Doyle [MAJGEN/USAF (Ret.)] "Direct Intelligence Combat Support in Vietnam: Project Teaball." American Intelligence Journal 15, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 1994): 56-58.

Larson discusses the success of "rapid exploitation of the enemy's COMSEC vulnerabilities coupled with direct and timely delivery of information to pilots." TEABALL is also discussed in Dan Hearn, "A Career Built on SIGINT," American Intelligence Journal 15, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 1994), 67-70. "The current version of TEABALL is called FASTBALL and uses the F-16." See also Earl Telford, Crosswinds and Setup.

Leary, William M. Perilous Missions: Civil Air Transport and CIA Covert Operations in Asia. Birmingham, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1984. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute Press, 2003.

According to Motley, IJI&C 1.1, Perilous Missions is an "important and penetrating account that unites CAT's airline history, intelligence activities, and the Cold War." CAT operated 1946-1959 when it became Air America. Tovar, IJI&C 8.3, calls it "a serious study of the operations of CIA proprietary airlines" (fn. 5).

For Goulden, Washington Times, 8 Jun. 2003, Leary's is a "sound work, based on CAT's corporate archives." It serves as "a palliative for the wild yarns circulated about CAT and its successor organization, Air America, over the years."

Bath, NIPQ 20.2, gives this work a "highly recommended" rating. The new edition has "a helpful new preface that summarizes CIA's proprietary air operations subsequent to the transformation of CAT into Air America.... Perilous Missions remains the best study of CAT and CIA's early involvement in the air over Asia."

Lee, Alex [LTCOL/USMC (Ret.)]. Force Recon Command: A Special Marine Unit in Vietnam, 1969-1970. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995.

From advertisement: The author "commanded the Third Force Reconnaissance Company in Vietnam from 1969 to 1970. Made up of small units of specially trained U.S. Marines, the company conducted long-range patrols deep in northern I Corps -- including the infamous Ashau Valley -- to gather intelligence about the North Vietnamese Army."

Campbell, WIR 16.3, finds this to be "an excellent book," the value of which "rests on its elucidation of the intelligence functions of a reconnaissance unit."

LeGro, William E. [COL/USA (Ret.)] "Intelligence in Vietnam after the Cease-Fire." INSCOM Journal 20, no. 2 (Mar.-Apr. 1992). [http://www.vulcan.belvoir.army.mil/BackIssues/ MarApr97/Mar-AprContent.htm]

The author covers the period from his arrival in Vietnam on 2 December 1972 to the fall of Saigon on 29 April 1975. His account of the Intelligence Branch, Defense Attaché Office, Saigon, successor to the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, is authoritative.

Lomperis, Timothy. From People's War to People's Rule: Insurgency, Intervention and the Lessons of Vietnam. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.

Berger, et al, I&NS 22.6 (Dec. 2007), see the author sliding "too easily from one time in place in history to another." He "explains the Vietnam War as a crisis of political legitimacy," but his "argument lacks depth and the centrality of political legitimacy is hardly a new insight."  Overall, "Lomperis raises more questions than he answers."

Manning, Robert, ed. War in the Shadows: The Vietnam Experience. Boston: Boston Publishing Co., 1988.

McGehee, CIABASE January 1995 Update Report, comments that in many respects this "is the most informative, concise and accurate of many of the books on Vietnam in regard to the clandestine operations of the Special Operating Groups (SOGs) and the CIA's various programs."

Mason, Herbert A., Jr., Randy G. Bergeron, and James A. Renfrow, Jr. Operation Thursday: Birth of the Air Commandos. Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1994.

Maximov, William J. "The Metal Traces Test." Studies in Intelligence 11, no. 4 (Fall 1967): 37-44.

Developing a test and implementing a process [the Trace Metal Detection Kit] for identifying insurgents in Vietnam through "the deposit of metal traces from handling metal objects."

McChristian, Joseph A. [MGEN/USA] The Role of Military Intelligence, 1965- 1967. Washington, DC: GPO, 1974.

According to Pforzheimer, the author, who later headed Army Intelligence, relates his experiences as J-2 MACV. Constantinides finds that the work is "of greatest value on the organization of military intelligence." Because the material is unclassified, many subjects are omitted.

McNamara, Robert S., with Brian VanDeMark. In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. New York: Times Books/Random House, 1995.

Choice, Sep. 1995, notes that McNamara "kept his silence for almost 30 years. Now that he has spoken -- in this extraordinary book -- he has reinflamed all the old passions and ignited a media extravaganza. The issue and controversy of Robert McNamara's mea culpa aside, this is one of the most important books on Vietnam in years.... McNamara's perspective is one of the most important on the complex and enigmatic Lyndon Johnson.... This is the most forthright memoir about culpability, error, and moral failure that this reviewer knows."

Polgar, CIRA Newsletter, Summer 1995, and Surveillant 4.2, expresses strong distaste for McNamara's In Retrospect, terming the work "misleading and disingenuous." According to Polgar, McNamara blames Vietnam "on the uncritical acceptance of the prevailing foreign policy concepts and the lack of expertise on East Asia in the State Department. This is nonsense." Polgar concludes that "McNamara's book is an example of his pervasive bad judgment, arrogance and vanity."

For Ford, Studies 39.5, McNamara's account is "ambiguous, debatable, and, above all, selective.... In Retrospect is nonetheless worth absorbing for the contributions it makes concerning the Vietnam policymaking process and the role therein that US intelligence did and did not play.... McNamara does not give CIA judgments specific credit for helping him change his basic attitude toward the war, but the inference is clear that he ... came increasingly to respect CIA's reporting candor and good track record."

Moyar, Mark. "Hanoi's Strategic Surprise." Intelligence and National Security 18, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 155-170.

In 1964-1965, the North Vietnamese changed from a strategy based on "protracted guerrilla warfare aimed at weakening the enemy" to one of "conventional warfare aimed at destroying the enemy rapidly." The U.S. intelligence failure to detect that shift in strategy "exerted extraordinary influence on both American and North Vietnamese policy."

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