DCI BRIEFING OF (STENNIS) CIA SUBCOMMITTEE OF SENATE ARMED SERVICES AND APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP82R00025R000500290004-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 24
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 27, 2004
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: August 6, 1965
• Content Type: BRIEF

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6 August 1965
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DCI BRIEFING OF (STENNIS)
CIA SUBCOMMITTEE OF SENATE
ARMED SERVICES AND APPROPRIATIONS
COMMITTEE
C O N T E N T S
Page
A. VIETNAM
North Vietnam - Soviet SAM Sites......,.... Al-3
North Vietnam - Other Developments......... A4
Role of Communist China in Vietnam.,.,..,,, A5-10
South Vietnam ............................... All-19
B. BACKGROUND MATERIAL
The Soviet Economy ......................... B1--3
Dominican Republic ......................... B4-5
Soviet Space ............................... B6-7
Characteristics of Soviet SA-2 SAM System.. B8-9
Greece ..................................... B10
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6 August 1965
DCI BRIEFING OF (STENNIS)
SENATE CIA SUBCOMMITTEE OF
ARMED SERVICES AND APPROPRIATIONS
A. VIETNAM
NORTH VIETNAMESE ? SOVIET SAM SITES
I. I would like to begin with the subject of the
North Vietnamese SAM sites. There are at pres-
ent seven known sites.
A. As you know, on 24 July a USAF jet fighter
was shot down vest of Hanoi by a surface-to-
air missile. There is no question about
this since the missiles ware actually sighted
by the pilots
B. Two days later on 26 July a DRONE aircraft
was sent in over the SAM sites and it too was
shot down,
C. Following these events an exhaustive analysis
of all available data was undertaken in an ef-
fort to determine which of the known SAM sites
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was involved. This analysis continues as ad-
ditional data becomes available--but as of
right now there are three suspect sites. These
are the three sites west of Hanoi which I
shall term SAM sites 4, 6 and 7 in the order
of their detection.
1. You may have heard or read that some of
these are dummy sites. I want to make it
clear that the sites--that is the actual
emplacements--are genuine and can be operated
as genuine missile sites if the equipment
is. installed.
2. We know now that one of the sites--site
6--contained dummy missile equipment as
of 28 July when we obtained low-level photo
coverage of this site. Prior to this,
however, it could have contained genuine
equipment. By 5 August, when the site
was photographed again, the dummy equip-
ment had been removed.
3. Photography of 29 July--also a low-level
mission and one which produced extremely
good photography--showed that SAM site-
7 was unoccupied but there were indications
that it had been occupied by genuine equip-
ment some time prior to this mission. This
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is based on certain tracks and imprints
in the ground and certain debris in the
area which indicates that real missile
equipment had been there,
4. There is one other possibility. That is
that the missile which downed our air-
craft was fired from an as yet undetected
site or a mobile site in an unknown loca-
tion. This site could have been dismantled
and relocated before it could be photographed.
5. Now what does this all mean? It suggests to us
that the SAM equipment is being moved from site
to site in order to make it more difficult
to mount an attack against an operational site,
It appears that if we are to succeed in knocking
out an operational site it will have to be at-
tack shortly after it is detected and not sev-
eral days later when it is likely that the equip-
ment will have been removed,
II., Concerning the much-publicized attack on the SAM sites
--referred to as SAM sites 6 and 7--other interesting
aspects have come to light,
1. We are now almost certain the strike of 27 July
did not hit the intended target area, Photog-
ranhy shows no damage to either SAM site 6 or
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7 or to the nearby barracks areas which
were also to be hit in the strike.
fWWe do not yet know exactly why the
strike did not hit the intended target area
but it must be kept in mind that planes were
coming in low at high speed and a slight de-
viation in course or wind drift could cause
such an error.
3. Six aircraft were lost. Two of these collided
while returning from the mission-one had
been damaged and rammed his wingman. Th
other four are believed to have been shot
down by ground fire which was described by
the returning pilots as intense.
4. In any case Communist propaganda--Soviet,
Chinese, and North Vietnamese--made no men-
tion of either the SAM firings against the
US aircraft or the 27 July strike except to
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claim that it was directed against a "heav-
ily populated area."
4. It is quite possible that since it was an-
nounced in the press that we hit the SAM
sites when in fact we did not that the Com-
munists interpret this as a US ploy to test
world reaction before launching an all out
attack against the Hanoi SAM complex.
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F4C was shot down.
III. There are other aspects of the events leading
up to the 27 July attack which I would like to
clarify.
1. The first indication that we had that any
of the SAM sites were operational was
The pilots of this flight had been briefed
on the fact that a SAM site was probably
operational in the Hanoi area and were in-
structed to stay out of the known SAM en-
velope. However, SAM sites 6 and 7 had
not been identified by that time. They were
warned while in flight that a
active but thinking that they were outside
the known SAM envelope did not change course.
2. Although SAM sites six and seven were photo-
graphed for the first time on 20 July (four
days before this incident in a high altitude
photographic mission, these sites were not de-
tected in the field readout and it was only on 25
July, after the photography had reached our
center in Washington that the sites were reported.
The 20 July photography showed these sites to be
still under construction at that time.
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the day before the
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3. Since both the F4C and the DRONE two days.
later were downed in the vicinity of the
new SAM sites--6 and 7--a preliminary
assessment was made that SAM sites 6 and/
or 7 may have fired the missile. This
was reported by us on 25 July, There was
nbsfi.rm evidence, however, in either
photography or intercepted material.which
SAM site fired the missile. As indicated
earlier, it is still not clear, despite
an exhaustive and continuing analysis.
4. In any case, the strike was planned on
the basis of a preliminary assessment
that sites 6 and/or 7 were the-culprits.
This assessment was based primarily on
the location of the downed aircraft and
their proximity to the two new sites.
indicated that an operational
L
SA-2 site was located somewhere in-the gen-
eral area northwest of Hanoi. CIA did not,
participate in the planning of this strike.
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NORTH VIETNAM - OTHER DWELOPMENTS
II. There has been other evidence of continuing
Soviet aid in the build-up of North Vietnam?s
defense.
B. Our aircraft have shot down five MIGsb Two
were shot down on 17 June by two US jet
fighters using Sparrow air-to-air missiles.
On 20 June two MIGs jumped two US piston-
engine attack planes but the US planes shot
down one of the MIGs with automatic weapons
fire. On 10 July two more MIGs were shot
down by USAF planes using Sidewinder air-to-
air missiles.
C. We have been hitting targets in northwest
North Vietnam which include major barracks
areas at Son Lag Dien Bien Phu and various am-
munition dumps. One-of the rail lines running
northwest and from Hanoi to China has also
been cut.
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6 August 1965
DCI BRIEFING OF
STENNIS SUBCOMMITTEE
VIETNAM - ROLE.' OF COMMUNI: