VIET REPORTS FALSIFIED, CIA ANALYST SAYS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75B00380R000400040038-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 29, 2005
• Sequence Number: 38
• Publication Date: March 7, 1973
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2005/11/21: CIA-RDP75B00380R000400040038-7
`7 VhMc..-7
TOTE WASHINGTON POST a'rF
Viet Reports 'APE 9, From Al cription of the situation as it
I was in February, 1968-when
? 1 closure by Daniel Ellsberg and the Wheeler report was writ-
FaISLfied Anthony J. Russo Jr. of top-se? ten-by October, 1969, when
cret documents containing the
9 Ellsberg and Russo copied the
order of battle" would have document information would
Analyst Says been "virtually useless" to a foreign nation. have been "dated," Adams
said.
Adams' testimony . n-
By Sanford J.
Ungar trial here on charges of con-
Washington Post Staff Writer sidered specially significant,
espionage and thieft
because he is the onfv'cal
LOS ANGI'1LES March a --
~rti>rlent
ert
r
p
op
y as a
,e An intelligenceeaan_alyst for the rLT1t of their photocopying of lntelii~enee ana yst to appear
h a th^trial.
t
gentral Intelligence g pry
?
testified in federal. court here
today that American military
fficials in Vietnam systemati
all falsified re or on The
farnP_ c therm rl?r + ham late
1060S.
_Samuel A. Adams, subyoe-.
as a e tense witnsss in
t Pentagon P r ial,
said that at one point when
orres were acyu
the most sensitive items in
mm111T.13!
a in ing in Vie? am. .he,
that document and that its dis-
affuislU S. estimates of their
closure would have endan-
numbers - sent to the White
gered the U.S. "national de-
re ea e o the
Tense.
-press -- were going down.
One paragraph in the
This happened, he ex
plained, because the U.S. Mili
Puy, an assistant to the Army
tary Assistance Command in
Vietnam (MACV) deliberately:: Chief of Staff, said:
"removed components" of the "He (the Vietnamese
Communist forces from the Communists) committed over
"order of battle," which is the;.';; 67,000 combat maneuver
formal name of the intelli-:P , forces plus perhaps 25 per
genre estimate of opposing,.' cent'or 17,000 more impressed
men and boys, for a total of
about 84,000. He lost 40,000
Adams said of ?,?^Q ~:~ '^?^_~~;
ssi on, after attendin meet- forces. pre
killed, at least 3,000 captured,
s on the subject and perhaps 5,000 disabled or
died of wounds. He had
HIono u1 u and at CIA head
peaked his force total to about
anr~eo in Lanlev a., at!
240,000 just before Tet, by
this was done in 1968 as `are
sp of hard recruiting, infiltration,
i~ politilitical resst~es
within them civilian impressment, and
ary to = di
the enemy as weer ts ieb y! drawdowns on service and
guerrilla personnel."
actually was.,,
lams shown that para-
The CIA analyst suggested
from the witness stand that graph on a. tour room screen
Gen. Earle C. Wheeler- then
involved in the falsification of
the statistics.
tion, Adams testified, the dis-'
See PAPERS, A10, Col. 4
PAGE
inquiring about the intelli-II
gence analyst's contacts with
Ellsberg's and Russo's attor
neys apd consultants.
Adams acknowledged that
Morton H. Halperin, a formes
Pentagon official who is now
a consultant to Ellsberg, had
"referred to you (Nissen) as
an untrustworthy character"
during a conversation in Wash-
ington several weeks ago.
The intelligence analyst's.
testimony today included rare
and frank public appraisals of
the comparative quality of
American and Vietnamese
Communist intelligence opera-
tions.
He said that the Commu-
nists' intelligence was "excel-
lent" and that at one point
they "got copies of early
drafts" of a joint American-
South Vietnamese military op-
eration "before our own eom
manders did."
Byccontrast Adams testi-
fied U.S. in a igence in Vie -
nam was "bad."
Pentagon Papers and He was able to explain on
other classified material from
the Rand Corporation in 1969, the asis o persona wl-
ancT
ne of the documents men- a g ex"" a ence sou "in-
O
b One in the indictment t r n ancd a al-
vcis works, w 'le previous it-
against them is a 1968 assess- nsge for both sides have'te
ment by Gen. Wheeler of the ? on thi Point -'r ly
.Led affects of the Vietnamese
Communists' Tet offensive. A direct m 3 Yi descendant ~.E'rrog?
of John
Lt. Gen. William G. Depuy, Adams, the second president
testifying for the prosecution of the United States, he pro-
earlier in the trial, said the vided a brief chronicle of his
"order of battle" was one of career at the CIA, where he
first studied the Congo and
then, until April of last year,
the Vietcong. He said he is
now assigned to study
`another country."
When he first took the wit-
ness stand this morning, Ad-
ams turned to the jury and
said, "Incidentally. I am a re-
searcher not a spy, wfiicTl is
why -1 can e u ere d
talk
His testimony was full of
colloquialisms. He defined
"order of battle" this way, for
example: "Our estimate of
how many baddies there are
out there fighting against us."
After U.S. District Court
Judge W. Matt Byrne Jr. cut
in to ask what "baddies"
meant, Adams corrected him-
self to say "adversaries" or
"foe" each time he referred
to the subject.
His job, at the CIA with re-
gard to the Vietcong, Adams
said, was "trying to dope out
what made these guys tick."
As he testified, he became j
increasingly animated, an d
moved around so much on the
witness stand that his shirttail
was hanging out in back by
He expiaine`d'that the 240,-
000 figure included only the
Communists' "regulars,"
"guerrillas," and "service
4gm and even those at
Iothan realistic levels.
Left out altogether, Adams
added, were the "self-defense
mili !a." "secret self-defense,"
oltical sages" and "assault
effort.If-al- -they been in-
cluded, the intelligence ana-
lyst'said, as he stood at a easel
in the middle of the court-
room'tallying them up, the ac-
curate "order of battle" would
the time each recess came'.
around.
Byrne would not permit de-
fense attorney Charles Nessen
to question Adams about his
unsuccessful attempts to get
the Justice Department to use
the "order of battle" informa-
tion in this case, The defense.
charging that the i>rosecutior
was trying to "silence" Adams
subpoenaed him after learn
ing about those efforts.
Approvlod car'R~Cei 4 11/ ; -RDP OO B b00400040038-7
b
b
egan is cross exam
a -t issen
vent the or er o
tle" had been an accurate des- nation of Adams late today r;