"In 1967 the war in Vietnam was escalating and. so too was the intelligence war between the CIA and the

Transcription

1 Adams - direct 00 AFTERNOON SESSION : p.m. (In open court) THE COURT: Call the jury, please. (Jury present) THE COURT: Good afternoon, members of the jury. You may proceed, Mr. Boies. MR. BOIES: Thank you, your Honor. BY MR. BOIES: Q. Mr. Adams, I'm going to continue the playing of the broadcast. "In the war in Vietnam was escalating and so too was the intelligence war between the CIA and the mil itary over the number of Vietcong we had to contend with. In that invisible war, hidden from the.~erican General ''estmoreland' s officers were in trouble. public, They had been instructed to argue for estimates far lower than they believed to be true, and they were still finding it next tc impossible to keep enemy strength totals under 00,000. It was at this point that General Westmoreland pursued a new tactic. He proposed that an entire category of the Vietcong army, the self-defense militia, a force of more than 0,000, simply be dropped from the order of battle. Those Vietcong had been included in the military's SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS. U.S. COURTHOUSE FOLEY SQUARE. NEW YORK, N.Y. - -0

2 Adams - direct 00 I estimates of enemy strength ever since the beginning of the war. Westmoreland had included them in his briefing to the President. But now he was suddenly saying they no longer posed a ~ilitary threat and henceforth should be treated as if they didn't exist." Q. Mr. Adams, at the time the broadcast was aired, did you believe that that statement that is included in the broadcast by ~lr. I'lallace was accurate? A. I did. Q. What was the basis of that belief? A. The dropping of the self-defense militia, you mean? Q. Yes. A. The first time I saw the MACV proposed to drop the self-defense ~ilitia was in early June. It was not an official position then, but apparently there was a proposal kicking around in the works somewhere. Again, when Colonel Hawkins came into CIA headquarters in August, he showed the vuegraph for the 0 first time, and the vuegraph this is the one that had the same total, revised estimate-new estimate, and the vuegraph showed that in the second group of -- in the revised estimate, the self-defense militia were no longer part of the order of battle. Then, in the -- finally, there was a cable on SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS. U.S. COURTHOUSE FOLEY SQUARE. NEW YORK. N.Y. - -0

3 Adams - di rect 00 a, the 0 of August,, sent by General Abrams and reviewed in an accompanying -- and reviewed -- let me back off of that and start off again. There was also a cable on the 0 of August sent by General Abrams and a second cable with it to approve the :irst cable, sent by General viestmoreland, the second cable was -- in which the dropping of the self-defense militia became a command position, and then, as I saw during the, September meeting, this command position became part of the - of MACV demands that ~;e not only drop the self-defense militia from the order of battle, but that in any listing after that would be nonquantified. In other words, we couldn't even, even if we took them out, we couldn't mention how many there were, and the n -- could have been. This occurred in the d ur i ng che closing hours of the September conference. I did not happen to be there at the September conference when these guys were dropped out of the OB. I found out about it 0 later when I arrived at CIA headquarters when I left -- after I left the Saigon conference. Then, of course, in the national intelligence estimate they were no longer listed in the order of battle. "Reporter George Crile asked the CIA's George Allen what part these Vietcong soldiers played in the war. "MR. CRILE: what was your position on the SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS, U.S. COURTHOUSE FOLEY SQUARE. NEW YORK. N.Y. - -0

4 Adams - direct 00 military potency of the self-defense militia, their part in this war? "MR. ALLEN: Well, they were an integral part of the military potential of the communist forces in South Vietnam. In fact, guerrilla militia forces are a fundamental part of -- of communist forces in any people's war. They were the ones that ambushed our forces when they would enter VC-controlled areas. They were the ones who booby-trapped, they were the ones who helped the populace in general build the pungi stakes and other devices that inflicted losses on our forces encroaching in their area. The self-defense ~ilitia were responsible for a large proportion of our casualties. They did have military po ten t i al. They did engage in activities which did inflict losses on U.S. forces. "GENERAL WESTMORELA~D: The fact is that these village defenders had a -- a minimum to do with the outcome of the war. The pungi stakes, sure, there were people hurt 0 by pungi stakes. "MR. WALLACE: And mines. "GENERAL WESTMORELAND: they had no offensive capability. But what they had -- but "MR. ADAMS: When they defect or come in, you H count them as a casualty. If then they defect to the government or surrender, you count them, you put them in SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS. U.S. COURTHOUSE FOLEY SQUARE. NEW YORK. N.Y. _.0

5 the POW cages. Adams - direct 00 If you -- if you knock one off, if you kill them, they join the body count, and I said, 'Look, if you are going to count these people when they arc dead why can't you count them when they are still alive?' "MR. ALLEN: By excluding the paramilitary forces, the militia and so forth, from the order of battle, we were skewing the -- our concept of the kind of war we were involved. ~ie were skewing our strategy. \ 'e were not acknowledging that indeed there was an important indigenous South Vietnamese component, that, indeed, it was a civil war. "GENERAL I-IEST'IORELAND: This is a nonissue, Mike. Well -- "MR. WALLACE: Here is the issue. "GENERAL WESTMORELAND: It's a non-issue. I mace the decision. It was my responsibility. I don't regret making it. I stand by it. And the facts prove tha t I was right. Now let's stop it. "MR. WALLACE: All right, sir. Question, and 0 this goes to something that you talked to me earl ier. Let we are moving ahead now. One wonders, you told me earlier that commanders in chief don't like to hear bad news. Presidents don't like to hear bad news? "GENERAL WESTMORELAND: Well, who does? "MR. WALLACE: Nobody does. SOUTHERN DlSTRCT REPORTERS. U.S. COURTHOUSE FOLEY SQUARE. NEW YORK. N.Y. - -0

6 Adams - direct 00 "GENERAL WESTMORELAND: Who does? "MR. WALLACE: Right. "GENERAL WESTMORELAIlD: I mean, you're talking about human nature. "MR. WALLACE: Of course. Isn't it a possibility that the real reason for suddenly deciding in the summer of to remove an entire category of the a enemy from the order of battle, a category that had been in that order of battle since, was based on political considerations? "GENERAL WEST'RELAIW: No, decidedly not. That- that-- "MR. viallac[;: Didn't you make this clear in your Aug ust 0 cabl e? "GENERAL WESTMORELAND: No, no. Yeah. No. "MR. WALLACE: I have a copy of your August 0 cable-- "GENERAL WESTMORELAND: Well, sure, okay, okay. All rig ht. All right. 0 "MR. WALLACE: Spelling out the command posi tion on the sel f-defense controversy. "GENERAL WESTMORELAND: Yes. "MR. WALLACE: As you put it in the cable, you save, the principal reason why the self-defense militia must go, quote, was 'press reaction.' SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS. U.S. COURTHOUSE FOLEY SQUARE. NEW YORK. N.Y. - -0

7 Ad am s - d i r ec t 00 That cable, dated August 0,, spelled out General \'Iestmoreland's predicament. 'We have been projecting an image of success over the recent months. The self-defense militia must be removed,' the cable explains, 'or the newsmen 'Ilill immediately seize on the point that the enemy force has increased.' The cable went on to say that 'No explanation could then prevent the press from drawing an erroneous and gloomy conclusion.' "GENERAL WESTMORELAND: Hell, sure. They could have drawn an erroneous conclusion because it was a non-issue, it was a false issue. It would have totally clouded the situation which would have been detrimental, but the fact is that since it was wrong, since it was not accurate, since it was not sound, would have brought about that impact, yes. "MR. WALLACE: And so went the intell igence war. Back in that summer of, the CIA knew how unpopular its cause was, trying to force a reluctant Washington to accept the reality of a far larger war. But it had no idea to 0 what lengths the military was prepared to go to keep the estimates of enemy strength under 00,000 men. CBS Reports has learned that in the midst of the national intelligence estimate, General Westmoreland's representatives met here at the Pentagon and commenced arbitrarily to slash MACV's own official estimates of the Vietcong units. It may be SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS. u.s. COURTHOUSE FOLEY SQUARE. NEW YORK. N.Y. -.0

8 . Adams - direct 00 that Westmoreland knew nothing about these specific cuts, but they were carried out by his officers, who were attempting to keep the total at the level dictated by thei r commander. Q. Mr. Adams, at the time the broadcast aired, did you believe that this statement in the broadcast made by Mr. Wallace concerning the arbitrary reduction of MACV's own official estimates of Vietcong units was an accurate onp? A. Ye s, I d id Q. What was the basis of that belief? A. Ther e were several sources from whom I got that information. Concerning the meeting which was described, I got it -- a description of what happened from two people who were at the meeting. I got it from then major now Colonel Barry Vlilliams, who was the DlA analyst on the order of battle and was part of the military delegation in the tile meetings. Barie Williams indicated to me that the head correction, that a representative from MACV, that is Colonel Daniel Graham, was in the -- in this narrow room in the Pentagon, as it has been described, and took the order of battle and started cutting down units, cutting strengths from, you know, from 0 down to 00, cut both local force units and administrative service units, according to SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTER S. u.s. COURTHOUSE FOLEY SQUARE. NEW YORK, N.Y. _.0

9 Adams - direct 0 my understanding of what Colonel Williams and Lieutenant Hamscher, who was also at the meeting, told me. Colonel Hamscher had a description which coincided almost exactly with that of Colonel Williams. said, and they both remembered that they were there, too, and, for example, Colonel Hamscher said Colonel Graham would take some units out and he, Hamscher, would look at He 0 Barry, and they would both shrug like that, and they would shake their heads, and say this oughtn't be done, and ye t Colonel Graham continued doing so in that narrow roo'll. However, I did no t stop wi th tha t. I-!ha t happened after -- this thing probably took place in late August,, and what happened right after that is that the military delegation, the military delegation to the NIE meetings in CIA headquarters in August, went back to Saigon and I asked lieutenant Colonel David Morgan, who was deputy head of the order of battle section under Colonel Hawkins, if he had received any -- any orders right after the return of the mil i tar y del eg a tion from Wa sh i ng ton to ac tua y slash the OB. Now, the slashing of the OB took place in the narrow room at the Pentagon. It was done without consul ting the analysts back in MACV headquarters, and what Lieutenant Colonel Morgan told me, that he was told by Colonel Hawkins, who was not at that meeting, but told by SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS. U.S. COURTHOUSE FOLEY SQUARE, NEW YORK, N.Y. -.0

10 Adams - direct 0 Lieutenant Colonel Hawkins to go around to the order of battle section, to tell the order of battle analysts that their numbers had been cut. I got hold of one analyst whose numbers were cut, that was then Lieutenant Marshall Lynn, and he told me that a lieutenant colonel came up to his desk, took his list of units that he was responsible for, which were rear service groups right around the Saigon area -- rear service meaning logistic groups, admin service groups, right around Saigon, and Lynn told me tha t he -- the lieutenan t colonel sa id, "Geez, you know, these numbers are too high." And Lynn said, "No, they are not too high." So oughtn't you not cut them down?" said the colonel. Lynn said "I'm not going to do it. But here's my pen." And so the lieutenant colonel thereupon proceeded to cut down the numbers. I remember this particularly well because of the way in which Lieutenant Colonel Morgan, who was one of the 0 people that went around the OB descr ibed it to me. section to cut down units, I called Lieutenant Colonel Morgan -- I can't remember exactly when, I think it was in ' -- don't know, I forget -- and Colonel Morgan was in when I was calling him to find out what he knew -- was in -- near San Diego, and I found his phone number and I said -- picked it up, SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS. U.s. COURTHOUSE FOLEY SQUARE. NEW YORK. N.Y. _.0

11 Adams - direct 0 and I sa id, "Is this Lieutenant Colonel Morgan? And and he said "yes," and he said "Who is this?" I said, "My name is Sam Adams." I said "You may remember me. I was part of the CIA delegation in Saigon in September '." And he said these were the very first words he said to me, he said, "~ie were wro ng Its been on my conscience for years. We were wrong, Sam. We shouldn't have done that." And he proceeded to tell me how he had cut the units in the order of battle. Q. You mentioned this Colonel Morgan. Is tha t the same Colonel Morgan whose deposition was read into the jur y?, A. The same one, yes. Q. And you mentioned Lieutenant ~larshall Lynn. Was that the same Lieutenant Marshall Lynn whose videotape was played for the jury? A. The same one. "One of tho se who rei uctan tl y par tic i pa ted in that cutting was Colonel George Hamscher. "MR. CRILE: You were a-- 0 "COLONOL HAMSCHER: I was a light colonel. "MR. CRILE: You were a light colonol with a S lot of responsibility in a time of war in a small room in the Pentagon and you were sitting there were five people w!o were trying to provide the President with accurate intelligence on the enemy. SOUTHER.N DISTRICT REPORTERS. U.S. COURTHOUSE FOLEY SQUARE. NEW YORK.. N.Y. -.0

12 r 0 Adams - direct 0 "COLONOL HAMSCHER: It was -- it was a group grope. to fake figures? "MR. CRILE: And it was a group grope to do what, "COLONOL HAMSCHER: To arrive, to arrive at a set of figures that MACV could live with. "MR. CRILE: To fake intelligence estimates? "COLONOL HAMSCHER: and that is too strong for me. That's your characterization, My misgiving was that we were fa king it. There was m?nipulation, yeah. "MR. CRILE: Is it fair to say that you got together and went unit by unit and arbitrarily decided to reduce the numbers of VC enemy in those categories? 'arbitrarily.' Yes. "COLONOL HAMSCHER: The operative word being "MR. WALLACE: Colonol Hamscher of DIA, 'Didn't you in fairness,' we asked, 'in fairness to your own 0 position, sit back in amazement when you watched this performance of arbitrarily cutting certain numbers out of units? "GENERAL WESTMORELAND: I didn't do that. "MR. WALLACE: I know you didn't. "GENERAL WESTMORELAND: I d id n 't do tha t "tir. WALLACE: Well, your -- people in your command d io SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS, U.S. COURTHOUSE FOLEY SQUARE. NEW YORK. N.Y. - -0

13 Adams - direct 0 "GENERAL WESTMORELAND: I didn't do that. Now "M R. \'lallac E: It was during your watch, sir. "GENERAL WESTMORELAND: I, well -- "tir. WALLACE: And he says, 'I was aghast.' "COLONOL HAM SCHER : It was lousy strength est ima t ion. It was shoddy, but we did it. "GENERAL WESTMORELAND: Now, who actually did it, the cutting, I don't know. It could have been my -- my Chief of Staff. this personally. I don't know, but I didn't get involved in "COLONOL HAM SCHER : Thi s bo i s down to ano ther one of those uncomfortable little jobs that you do for your commander. lind these vary in degree. "MR. WALLACE: CIA went on for weeks. The battle between MACV and the Before it was over, it would become the most bitterly fought battle in the history of American intelligence, but in the end, the CIA suddenly, without explanation, reversed its position and gave in to all of 0 General Westmoreland's demands. the CIA gave up the fight." George Allen explains why Q. Mr. Adams, we are going to have George Allen's answer to that question in a moment, but at the time the broadcast a ired, did you have an under stand ing of your own as to why, as Mr. vlallace put it, the CIA gave up the fight in September of? SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS. U.S. COURTHOUSE FOLEY SQUARE. NEW You. N.Y. - -0

14 Adams - direct 0 A. Yes, I did. Q. What was that understanding? A. The understanding basically came from the fact that I was there when it happened, or at least I found out about it very shortly thereafter. We, the CIA delegation, which included Carver, who~ I sat right next to during the Saigon conference, Carver and I went into the September conference with numbers in the neighborhood, I forget exactly what they were -- but in the neighborhood of 00,000. We were still carrying the self-defense militia in the order of -- in our estimate of enemy strength. The estimate of self-defense!ldlitiamen was quanti fied. l'le had a number hung on it. I t h ink i t wa s around 0,000, and during the September conference we were still -- I was, with Carver's encouragement, still carrying on what I thought was the good fight as to the numbers. I remember, for example, I sat next to -- I was 0 sitting next to Carver, and I wrote down in my notes wrote down on a piece of paper next to me, and I said, after MACV had presented one of their posi tions, and I I wrote him a note saying, "Mr. Carver" in words and effect, "Mr. Carver, these guys in the DB conference are clearly -- H clearly don't believe what they are saying. They are under orders obviously from general '." which meant General SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS, U.S. COURTHOUSE FOLEY SQUARE. NEW YORK. N.Y. _ -0

15 Ad am s - d i r ec t 0 viestmoreland, "Should I get up there and embarrass them or should I, by sort of blurting out the truth, or should I, you know, do something else?" And he wrote a note to me which said, "Sa'l, be emphatic as you want, but be tactful." And I tactfully and emphatically got up and presented once aga in the CIA position, and he he seemed to go along with everything I was saying, as well as -- there were a couple of other memebers of the delegation too, a Mr. Hylan and a Mr. Moor, and they defended some of the numbers. He went along with what they were saying. Then, I forget exactly what day it was, it must hav e been the third day of the conference that there was this crazy meeting at which all kinds of things were going on. I found mysel f -- the ACV posi tion concerning guerrillas went up a little bit and I just d.idn't know what was going on. Then, after that, I disappeared. I had other business in Saigon, and I went back to CIA headquarters -- not -- feeling that something very peculiar had happened. I didn't know what the hell was going on. And I went into George Allen's office, and I said, "Hi George," George Allen being back in CIA headquarters, and he said to me, "Sa'l it was a sellout." I said, "vhat was a sellout?" He SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS. U.S. COURTHOUSE FOLEY SQUARE, NEW YORK. N.Y. - -0

16 s Adams - direct 0 said, "The Saigon conference." I said, "Why?" Then he showed me a document which was dated, I believe it was the of Septe~ber,, the so-called Saigon conference report, which indicated to me that for the first time the self-defense militia had -been removed from the order of battle, that the political cadres had also left, and I saw all these numbers, which I knew were too low -- I might add here, one of the peculiar things that happened during the conference, MACV, in the Saigon conference, at one time a I'IACV colonol was arguing for,000 guerr Blas, and I was just shaking my head, you know, what's going on here, and then there was a coffee break and I was fooling around, taking extra notes or something, and there was a tap on my shoulder and it was Colonol Hawkins, and he said, "Sam, I feel that there's 0, 0,000 guerillas, not,000." And it was this kind of thing that -- it came as such a shock to me when I saw this Saigon conference report, which was a big deal in the agency. It went from office to 0 office, and I went around and asked various people. I asked Ron Smith, who was later to become my boss, and he said, in effect, it was a sellout. I talked to Don Blascak, who worked with me up in the order of -- correction, up in the situation room in Carver's office, and he said, "Cave-in. Se 0 ut " ~ rd s like that. I don't remember exactly what he said. SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS. U.S. COURTHOUSE FOLEY SQUARE. NEW YORK. N.Y. - -0

17 Adams - direct 0 Others said the same thing. Douglas Perry, who was just who had just taken over the guerrilla count down in Ron Smith's shop. Doug Stumpf who, was working on recruitment at that time, and finally, I think can't recall exactly when this happened, I had a and I conversation with a -- one of the chief guys up in the DDI front office. What the DDI front office is, it's the research staff of the CIA, and a man by the name of Richard Kovar, and he indicated to me that during the conference a cable had come had been sent by the CIA Director, Richard Helms, to Carver, saying, "Look. l'ie've got to get on with this. Come to an agreement." 0 And all these people indicated to me that they thought there had be a cave-in and a sellout, and I of course I thought it myself. Q. You mentioned in that answer that you and so:ne others thought the numbers were too lo~j? A. Yes. Q. Were you referr ing to just the sel f defense and secret self-defense and the political cadre or were you referring to other categories of the enemy as well? A. I was referring to all categories by now. For example, in the number -- I felt the number of guerr illas, for example, was 0,000. Colonol Hawkins had told me that he basically agreed with me, within a SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS, U.S. COURTHOUSE FOLEY SQUARE. NEW YORK. N.Y. - -0

18 Adams - direct 0 certain range, and yet the number to come in the Saigon conference was around 0,000. So that number was too low. The number of political cadres, something which I believed was well over 0,000, which I had been told by an order of battle analyst was up around 0,000. The Saigon conference report came out with,000. The service troops, which I had thought were up in the -0,000 range, came out in the Saigon conference at a range of, I think, to 0,000. Each one of these numbers, differences between what the evidence indi~ated, what I thought the evidence indicated, and what Hawkins agreed with me, and the number that came in the Saigon conference, each component was lower than the number agreed upon. When you star ted add ing all those differences up it came out to a lot of troops. "MR. ALLEN: It was strictly a political judgment, a political decision, to drop CIA's opposition and to go along ~lith the modified set of figures. 0 "MR. CRILE: But once you make that decision, once you officially say that the enemy is a size you don't believe in, how do you go about making it -- intelligence reports on the enemy subsequently? frustration. "MR. ALLEN: That -- that was the source of my SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS, U.S. COURTHOUSE FOLEY SQUARE. NEW YORK. N.Y. 0

19 Adams - dhec t 00 "tr. WALLACE: CIA director Richard Helms declined to talk to us for this broadcast, but without his authorization, MACV could not have prevailed. Helm's authority that the CIA finally accepted It was on Westmoreland's figure as the official estimate to be sent to the President. "MR. ALLEN: As I sa y, I did n' t ta k to Mr. Helms about why he thought we should drop our opposi tion to the MACV figures, but the feeling was, naturally, that it was a political problem that he didn't want the agency to be persisting -- to be perceived as persisting in a line which was contravening the policy interests of the -- of the Administration. "MR. WALLACE: General vlestmoreland had now won the intelligence war. And so, instead of being told of an enemy army of more than hal f a mill ion, the President, the Congress, and the American public, were told there were only,000 Vietcong left; that the enemy was running out of men. 0 "MR. CRILE: If the military had accepted the CIA's new position, if the national intelligence estimate had come out wi th a a claim that the Vietcong army was almost twice as large as we'd previously thought, what would the consequence have been? h~at would the reaction be? SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS, U.S. COURTHOUSE FOLEY SQUARE. NEW YORK. N.Y. -.0

20 Adams - direct 0 "MR. ALLEN: Well, it would have skuttled entirely the effort that had been going on that summer to convince the people that the Ad~inistration's '- policy was on the right track. It would have meant that Vietnam would would be a very important issue in the election, in the co~ing year,, and would have produced all sorts of congressional inquiry and reaction to the war, and would have fed the -- the, the popular opposi tion to the war. "MR. viallace: But now the CIA had capitulated and instead of a re-evaluation, the Administration launched a week-long publ ic rela t ions campa ign to conv ince the American public once and for all that we were winning the war. "GENERAL \"iestmoreland: Very, very encouraged. I've never been more encouraged during my entire almost four years in-country. I think we're making real progress. Everybody is very optimistic that I know of who is intimately associated with our effort there. 0 Vietnam militarily. VICE PRESIDENT HUMPHREY: vie are winning in "GENERAL WESTMORELAND: It's d ifficul t to conceive of a surrender, but it is not di fficul t -- difficult to conceive that the enemy may decide that he can't win. And the longer he holds out, the weaker he will get. This is in fact happening, but he does not yet SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS. U.S. COURTHOUSE FOLEY SQUARE. NEW YORK, N.Y. -.0

21 Adams - direct 0 apparently realize this. "MR. WALLACE: Ironically, it was at the same time that General Westmoreland was pronouncing an enemy al l but d efeated that a momentous decision had been taken in Hanoi. The Vietcong were ordered to prepare the major offensive of the war. It was to be an all-out attack to, quote, 'split the sky and shake the earth.' It was to b egin a few months hence dur ing the Vietmanese hoi iday kno wn as Tet. "~lr. \,ALLACE: These were the North Vietmanese regulars, among the most effective combat troops i n the world. They were the enemy soldiers trained in the North, armed by the Russians and Chinese, who infiltrated down the Ho Chi Minh Trail to fight in the South. Up until the fall of, the faking and suppression of estimates of eneny strength had focused on he Vietcong's local troops in the South, but never on these soldiers. Ev eryone agreed that 0 every effort must be made accurately to report how many of them were moving South to join the battle. "Throughout General Viestmoreland' s reports never indicated an infiltration rate higher than 000 per month. But CBS Reports has hearned that during the five months preceding the Tet offensive Westmoreland's infiltration analysts had actually been reporting not or,000 but more than,000 North Vietnamese coming down t he SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS. U.S. COURTHOUSE FOLEY SQUARE. NEW YORl(, N.Y. - 0

22 Adams - direct 0 Ho Chi Minh Trail each month, and that amounted to a near invasion. But those reports of a dramatically increased infiltration were systematically blocked. n Q. Mr. Adams, at the time the broadcast aired, did you believe that infiltration reports in the months preceding Tet showed infiltration in the range of,000 a month and that those infiltration reports were being systematically blocked? A. I did believe that, yes. Q. What was the basis of that belief? A. The basis of that belief was -- it came basically from my interviews of MACV analysts who were involved in the subject. However, I would like to point 0 out tha t even before these interviews, I was had wond er ed in my own :n i nd how t he Vie tcong and Nor th Vietnamese were able to launch such a big offensive, and in fact, in CIA headquarters in there were studies done which indicated that the pre-tet infiltration rate had been much higher than the official statistics indicated. I so I was willing to believe that there had been much higher infiltration. What I did not know, however, was that the MACV analysts had actually reported this and that these reports had been turned back. Okay. The first person I talked to concerning the blocking of infiltration rates was Bernard Gattozzi, SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS, U.S. COURTHOUSE FOLEY SQUARE. NEW YORK. N.Y. - -0

23 Ad am s - d i r ec t 0 who, as had been mentioned, is now something equivalent of a colonol in the Justice Department, and who back then was an officer in the -- in that office called OB stud i es, which was charged with co:ning up with the official statistics on MACV infiltration. Gattozzi told me that in the months prior to Tet tha.t he had worked and had seen the production of numbers wh ich were in the neighborhood of,000 for September, 0, 0 O~'-''S-r;;'o)iOiiO ~, -:iio'"" a';;n~drrs--;,ldf(jl0, ~fm:l=.tj;ia.;i;...~w:bh~e;,!n~e~v~e~r:",h:e:.~o r a of his, or somebody el se from the shop, too k over to MACV headquarte rs -- CICV was in a different building -- that these high estimates simply were not lr~t!t:~~egdi-il q;qn.li-!t~h::!;a~t~w~h~e~n~t~h~e~~i~n~f~~. l~t~r~a~t~i :o~n~r~e~p~o~r~t we n t 0 u t, i t was always in the neighborhood of,000 or so. One of the things that Gattozzi was kind enough to do for me was to look at his Christmas card list a nd t o a nd there, on his Christmas card list, was the name of Michael Hankins, who was the infiltration analyst, the person who was supposed to have prepared the official 0 statistics on infiltration. I called up Hankins and Hankins told me t hat there were at least 0,000 infiltrators that came down the trial in his view, according to his research, which were not reported in the official statistics. In other words, he was coming up with far higher SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS. u.s. COURTHOUSE FOLEY SQUARE. NEW YORK. N.Y. - -0

24 Adams - direct 0 numbers, numbers in the neighborhood of 0,000 or more, over and above the official statistics of,000 per month. George Crile and I also saw dur ing the production of the broadcast, together we went out and -- to interview Gattozzi's and Hankins's boss, a man by the name of Russell Cooley, then, I believe, a major, now a lieutenant colonel who works in -- used to work in Fairchild Industries -- I don't know where he works now -- and asked him if thi s wa s tr ue He replied that in fact there were over 0,000 unreported infiltrators during those five months and confirmed that it was -- that over in the J- complex, that.. - these -- that these reports were turned away. He sa id tha t it was done by Daniel Graham; that these numbers were c~t/ and that the official numbers went down, going out to ~ashington, were in the neighborhood of,000 a month. And then, just by happenstance, we happened to 0 run across this West Point textbook which indicated in this textbook that had been up at West Point for years that and it had a passage in it which said by November 0 the infiltration rate had reached 0,000 a month. This, of course, was something in the neighborhood of,000 a month higher than the infiltration rate reported back to Wash i ng ton. SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS, U,S. COURTHOUSE FOLEY SQUAR.E. NEW YORK. N.Y. -.0