AN INTERVIEW WITH SAMUEL ADAMS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80R01720R000400050001-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 10, 2004
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: April 21, 1975
• Content Type: TRANS

RADIO TA0pr W6 e1N(t4/12/22 : CIA-RDP80RO172OR000400050001-8
PROGRAM The Today Show
April 21, 1975 7:00 AM
STATION
WRC TV
NBC Network
Washington, D.C.
AN INTERVIEW WITH SAMUEL ADAMS
BARBARA WALTERS: There has been a good deal of
speculation that the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese will
execute thousands and thousands of South Vietnamese if and
when they win the war. Some even speculate that the number
could be as many as a million people before this bloodbath
ends.
Samuel Adams is a former CIA analyst and he has made
a study of this alarming possibility for the CIA. He is in
our Washington news center this morning with NBC News
correspondent Douglas Kiker.
Good morning, Doug.
DOUGLAS KIKER: Good morning, Barbara.
Mr. Adams, you have estimated earlier that perhaps,
not a million but perhaps as many as 100,000 South Vietnamese
could be killed. How did you arrive at that figure and who.
are these people?
SAMUEL ADAMS: I primarily arrived at the figure by
looking at Viet Cong documents in which they listed the type
of people they wanted to bump off. And then found out how many
of these people there were and then took sort of a half-beat
guess at how many they'd actually....
KIKER: Well, it's not a haphazard list, is it?
ADAMS: Oh, absolutely not. No.
KID{ER: How did they -- who's -- who's on the list,
first of all.
ADAMS: Well, you would certainly have President Thieu,
just starting at the top, then South Vietnamese policemen, particu-
larly in the special branch, the military security service people,
people that worked for the Phoenix program.
KIKER? What is that?
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ADAMS: That is that program which was directed against
the Communist party. It was an allied program of both the South
Vietnamese and the -- and the Americans.
KIKER: It's an assassination program?
ADAMS: It included assassination, too. Yeah. The
object of the exercise was to rub out the....
KIKER: Viet Cong defectors, obviously, would be
part of it?
ADAMS: Viet Cong defectors would also be among those
that would -- they tried to kill, assuming that the defector
had done somthing wrong to them.
KIKER: What about teachers? When the North Vietnamese
captured Hue they rubbed out an awful lot of teachers, educators,
they seemed to think that teachers were dangerous. Even though
they weren't political, would teachers be on the list?
ADAMS: Conceivably they could, yeah. Some of the --
I presume somebody that -- particularly anti-Communist teachers.
The normal, you know, everyday high school teacher, no. .
KIKER: And what about the wives and dependents of the
people who are scheduled for execution, would they be killed, too,
in your opinion?
ADAMS: That, I don't know. I would -- I would think
not, no. But you can't tell because families are so close in
Vietnam. Sometimes they figure if they're going to kill one guy,
they might as well kill his family, too, cause they'll just have
a vendetta on their hands if they don't rub them all out.
KIKER: Well now, this list is made up by the North
Vietnamese intelligence apparatus. Tell me how that works. It's
all directed from Hanoi, isn't it?
ADAMS: Yeah, the -- the outfit that makes a black list
is run by the Ministry of Public Security up in Hanoi. It's the
same thing as the Soviet KGB. And they've been making these
black lists for years, for example, during the Hue massacre when
they killed one, two, three thousand guys. They did it off of
black lists prepared by operatives who were in -- had been in
the city of Hue. And these guys were under control -- ultimate
control by the Ministry of Public Security up in Hanoi.
KIKER: How many people do you estimate are undercover
agents, double agents, within the South Vietnamese government
today? This is how they, get their list from informers, right?
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ADAMS: The number would be absolutely enormous. Let
me just say-that it's hard to tell with anything you don't know
how they -- what they have left. You know, they've taken over
the top half, the top two-thirds of the country, I guess. I
would.say that before the offensive, they might have had as
many as 30,,40, 50,000 agents in the South Vietnamese government
and army. Enormous, biggest agent structure in the history of
espionage.
KIKER: Well, your former agents say the CIA at one
point was only estimating 300, 400, isn't that right?
ADAMS: Yeah, that's right.
KIKER: Well, how -- how could the two figures be so
far apart? I know that you arrived at this after careful study
of documents and so forth. How could the CIA possibly say there
are 500 agents within the South Vietnamese government when there
were at least 30,000, probably as you say now, 50,000?
ADAMS: The reason was is that the study had never been
done before, nobody had looked at the evidence before. And when --
once you've started looking at the evidence, these guys popped
out of the woodwork all over the place, you know, in documents
and POW reports and thousands of these guys. And they're the
ones who immediately would turn against the South Vietnamese
government if and when it falls.
KIKER: They would be the ones who point the finger.
ADAMS: They would be among the ones who point the finger.
They also have guys who compile blacklists that, say, live in
the village. An average guy -- an average village, say, with
a thousand people in it might have three or four guys who do --
whose job it is to compile blacklists of people who support the
government.
KIKER: There would be no trial, it would simply be
an execution, shot in the back of the head?
ADAMS: There will be some sifting of evidence. I --
obviously these guys can't kill everybody who at one time or
another had done something against them or they'd be killing
millions. So there will be some kind of sifting out, of deciding
who -- who catches it.
KIKER: Some people have expressed the hope that perhaps
in an effort to gain world sympathy quickly that the North
Vietnamese will not, after all, carry out these executions. Do
you believe that?
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ADAMS: I tend to believe that they might not carry
out as many as they would during the war. They killed an awful
lot of people by execution during the war. There's less
reason for them to do it now. But I still think they're going --
they'll continue to bump off, you know, many tens of thousands
of people.
KIKER: As many as 100,000?
ADAMS: Conceivably. It's a dummy number in a way.
KIKER: Let's say -- let's mention the unmentionable.
Let's just say that there are thousands of Americans who are
left trapped in Saigon. Do you think that their lives would
be in danger?
ADAMS: I think -- oh, yeah. But I don't think
primarily from the Viet Cong. I think they'd more likely
catch it from the South Vietnamese, just, you know, a South
Vietnamese guy, get me an American before I go under myself.
KIKER: What about Cambodia? You studied that country
also. Do you think there's going to be any sort of bloodbath
there?
ADAMS: I certainly think so. You know, it's --
when they're taking over in other parts of the country; the
Khmer Rouge, the Red Cambodians, have killed large numbers of
people. Now I just can't see them not doing it. Perhaps
they won't, but I just think -- I think that based on their
past performance, I think they will.
KIKER: You spent years studying Viet Cong's strength
to the CIA, and you came up with estiamtes which were at wide
variates from the official estimates. At the time it was
officially estiamted at about a quarter.of a million Viet Cong
operating. You came up with the number 600,000.
ADAMS: That's right.
KIKER: And history has proved you to be correct.
Why did the military underestimate the number of the Viet Cong
and the CIA for that matter?
ADAMS: Good question. I suppose in the first instance
when they had this 250,000 figure, they just hadn't bothered to
look at the evidence, that there was a lot more. And then once
the evidence was sort of handed to them on a silver platter, then
-- then it became a political problem. How do we tell the
American public that there's twice as many of the little guys out
there as we thought there were?
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KIKER: Because the numbers that you came up with
would have meant that the troops that we had in there weren't
adequate to meet the problem, is that correct?
ADAMS: Absolutely. Yeah, we had to send several
hundred thousand more than we did.
KIKER: Well now, after watching this offensive,
how -- how many do you think? Do you still think about
600,000 VC?
ADAMS: It depends on how you define them. I would
say by one definition, sure, you could easily come up with
600,000. There's an awful lot more out there.
KIKER: Finally, quickly. How long do you think
Saigon has?
long.
ADAMS: Oh, a month or two maybe. Maybe not that
KIKER: Thank you very much.
We've been talking with Sam Adams, a former CIA
analyist. Now back to Barbara Walters in New York.
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The 1967 Saigon Order of Battle Conference
Estimated Strength of Communist Forces in South Vietnam
Category
VC/NVA Military Force
Main and Local Forces
Administrative Services (Support)
Guerrillas
Sub - Total
Other Organizations
Irregulars
(Self-Defense Forces )
(Secret Self-Defense Forces)
(Assault Youth )
Conference F naI
35 - 40, 0001,
70 - 90, 000
35
- 40, 000-1-
70
- 90, 000
223
- 248, 000
75
- 85,000
Quantification'*' No Quantification <
299,000 -
491, 000 298,000 334,000
11
To be qualified in the text of SNIE 14. 3/67
August Draft
90,000 85,000, 75 - 85,000
SNIE 14. 3/67 MACV Agreement SNIE 14, 3/67
121,000 119,000
60 - 100, 000
431, 000
29,000
65, 000
221 - 281, 000 213, 000 ' 224 - 249'$ 1000
119,000 118,000
298, 000 -
333, 000
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