Introduction
Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in Studies in Intelligence Vol. 40, No. 4 (December 1996). It subsequently appeared in the 1997 annual unclassified edition of the journal. The content of this version is identical to the original, although the formatting has been changed for ease of reading selected quotes at the end of the narrative.
It is well documented and well known that for decades CIA analysts were skeptical of official pronouncements about the Vietnam war and consistently fairly pessimistic about the outlook for “light at the end of the tunnel.” Less well known is why the Agency’s analysts were so doubtful, especially because CIA was all the while a central player in US operational efforts to create and strengthen South Vietnam. Thus, it is important to examine the sources of CIA analyses’ doubts about successive administrations’ repeated assurances and claims.