In an article about Intelligence and Military His-tory, Keith Jeffery reflects that because of thelack of a historical record about MI operations,we usually know more about intelligence fail-ures than successes.1 This observation has thering of another eternal verity. The time devotedto dissecting intelligence failures is indicative ofthe human frustration at not being able to predictthe future with any consistent success. There isan all too prevalent tendency in American soci-ety (the press, the congress) to call anything lessthan clairvoyance a failure. For many critics,the military intelligence analyst has no more sci-entific underpinning than the racetrack tout, stockmarket tipster or the cover-all-bases predictionsof Jeanne Dixon. It is not enough to say that thisattitude probably arises from growing accustomedto a usually reliable intelligence gathering appa-ratus, so that exceptions become even more jar-ring to our sense of safety. The successes of military intelligence in divin-ing enemy intentions often go to the grave withthe operatives or to the shredder with their restric-tive security classifications intact. This is felt tobe necessary to prevent an enemy from emulat-ing or thwarting those successes. While someimportant historical lessons are lost in this way,there are enough lessons to be learned from thefailures to keep historians occupied for a time. So yet another catalog of intelligence failure ispresented here along with some analysis of wherethe breakdown may have occurred. I have con-centrated on examples that directly affected U.S.military operations. A nation is facing increasing hostility from itsneighbor. Raids across its borders increase untilfinally a major attack is made on its sovereignty.It comes as a complete surprise to the United Statesgovernment. The press is agitated by the failureof the government to predict this move. Politi-cians fume. The situation described could be the1950 attack on South Korea by the CommunistNorth, the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslova-kia, the Arab surprise attack on Israel in 1973,the 1979 Chinese invasion of Vietnam, the Iraqiattack on Iran in 1980, the Argentinean invasionof the Falklands in 1982, or Saddam Husseinssudden overwhelming of Kuwait in 1990. Thescenarios are often the same. In this instance, I

am referring to the 1916 attack by Mexican ban-dit/revolutionary Pancho Villa on the Americantown of Columbus, New Mexico. Villa hit the sleeping town on 9 March 1916with a force of 485 men. The town and the garri-son were totally surprised. Having sent men intothe town the previous afternoon, he knew thatthere were only 30 soldiers in the garrison of the13th Cavalry. He broke off the attack at 6:30a.m., leaving behind 67 Americans dead and 13others dying of their wounds. The day before the attack, the foreman of aranch reported to Col. Herbert H. Slocum, com-manding the 13th Cavalry at Columbus, that hehad seen Villas force just six miles to the south.Other observers contradicted this report and itwas not taken seriously. In fact, farmers andranchers along the border were nervous andsightings of the Mexican bandits were legion. The threat of raid on American soil was a realone. In the year preceding the Villa attack, therewere 38 raids on the U.S. by Mexican bandits,resulting in the death of 37 U.S. citizens, 26 ofthem soldiers. Maj. Gen. Frederick Funston, commanding theSouthern Department at San Antonio, Texas, re-sponded to the press uproar that followed whenhe said in his 1916 Annual Report:

Much has been said about whether ornot this attack was a surprise. If therewas any person in the country who wasnot surprised at such an attack by a largebody of armed troops coming from a na-tion with whom we are at peace, that per-son must have been one of those residentsof the immediate vicinity, who were al-leged to have known of the plans for theattack, or to have guided Villas troops inthe attack....2

I use this example to show that there are someconstants in history, despite the revolutionaryadvances in technology. In this instance, as inmany to come, an intelligence failure was accom-panied by an operational lapse. The garrison atColumbus had settled into a routine and despite38 previous raids, vigilance was lax. Early in the 20th century intelligence was notrecognized as a separate and distinct military dis-cipline. Intelligence gathering was primitive and

relied mainly upon spies or reconnaissance. Com-munications were slow, even if a telegraph wasin the vicinity, and headquarters were almost al-ways a long way off. The field commander hadto rely upon his own collection system for secu-rity. In the case of the garrison at Columbus,usable intelligence was virtually nonexistent. Thecommander and many of the officers were awayattending polo matches at El Paso at the time ofthe attack. The villistas were aware of that fact,having first made a simple reconnaissance.

Pearl Harbor

That well known photograph of the USS Ari-zona, enshrouded in smoke, her superstructuretilting crazily, about to slip into the sizzling shal-lows of Pearl Harbor, stings the American con-sciousness. It has become a symbol of intelli-gence failure, that too common condition thatembarrasses governments, outrages congress-men, energizes the press, and causes servicemento die. It is the nightmare of every member of theintelligence community. People find the anatomyof a blunder both fascinating and instructive. Itis, therefore, a phenomenon that bears periodicreexamination. Given that the United States could read top se-cret Japanese codes in 1941, how could it be socompletely surprised as it was on the morning ofDecember 7, 1941? American military and political leaders all hadaccess to information that indicated a Japaneseattack. But the information was fragmented, lo-cated in different agencies, or slowed in bureau-cratic channels. There was no central clearinghouse for intelligence that could pull together theentire picture. Because there was so muchinformation pouring in on the situation beforePearl Harbor, no single person or agency everhad at any given moment all the signals existingin this vast information network.3 The information could be contradictory. TheMAGIC source pointed to a Japanese attack inSoutheast Asia. Coast watchers, on the otherhand, were sighting Japanese troop movementsto Manchuria. In Hawaii there were a number ofreports that pointed to a Japanese attack on So-viet Russia as well as alerts against local sabo-

tage. All of these signals were competing at theWashington, D.C. level with intelligence reportsflowing from the Atlantic and Europe where thethreats were frequent and paramount in the mindsof the leaders. Army and Navy intelligence predicted a Japa-nese attack on 30 November or 7 December onBritish (Malaya, Singapore), Dutch (Borneo) orAmerican targets (Guam or the Philippines).There was no shortage of information that a at-tack was imminent. The question was wherewould it fall. Wohlstetter puts the question thisway: If we could enumerate accurately the Brit-ish and Dutch targets and give credence to a Japa-nese attack against them either on November 30or December 7, why were we not expecting aspecific danger to ourselves? And by the wordexpecting, we mean expecting in the sense oftaking specific alert actions to meet the contin-gencies of attack by land, sea, or air.4 It is always easier to pick out of the fog theclear signal after the event.5 Wohlsetter con-cludes that we failed to anticipate Pearl Harbornot for want of the relevant materials, but becauseof a plethora of irrelevant ones. Then there wasthe matter of reacting to the danger in time. Sheadded: There is a difference, then between hav-ing a signal available somewhere in the heap ofirrelevancies, and perceiving it as a warning; andthere is also a difference between perceiving it asa warning, and acting or getting action on it.6 It has always been easier for intelligence ana-lysts to measure the enemys capabilities and de-termine if they had the means for an attack, thanto predict the enemys intentions or willingnessto use those means. So they are understandablyreluctant to make these kinds of educated guessesbecause they will be blamed for the failure to readminds. At Pearl Harbor it was not only enemy inten-tions that were misread, but their capabilities aswell. Information on Japanese torpedoes said theyneeded a depth of about 60 feet and instilled con-fidence that they would be worthless in the 30-40foot shallows of Pearl Harbor. Only a week be-fore the attack, the Japanese developed an im-proved torpedo that could navigate the shallowerdepths. Japanese capabilities were seriously misjudged

when their aircraft production was underestimatedby half, their pilot training pronounced inferior,their Zero fighter remained a mystery, their so-nar gear was written off as substandard, and thenumber of aircraft on their carriers wasundercounted.7 The question of where an attack would fall waswrongly answered just before Pearl Harbor whenanalysts prepared a list of possible targets whichomitted Hawaii altogether. Although U.S. plan-ners had considered Hawaii a potential target intheir training exercises for many years, the wide-spread belief that the islands were an impregnablefortress tended to cause U.S. intelligence to writeit off as a possibility. Warnings were dispatched to Admiral Kimmelby the Chief of Naval Operations and by the WarDepartment. On 27 November the CNO sent thismessage: An aggressive move by Japan is ex-pected within the next few days.... The numberand equipment of Japanese troops and the orga-nization of naval task forces indicated an amphibi-ous expedition against either the Philippines, Thaior Kra Peninsula, or possibly Borneo. ...Executean appropriate defensive deployment. On thesame day the War Department said, Negotiationswith Japan appear to be terminated...hostile ac-tion possible at any moment. On 3 Decemberthe CNO warned, Highly reliable informationhas been received that categoric and urgent in-structions were sent yesterday to Japanese diplo-matic and consular posts at Hongkong, Singapore,Batavia, Manila, Washington, and London to de-stroy most of their codes and ciphers at once andto burn all other important confidential and se-cret documents.8 Since none of these messagesspecifically mentioned Hawaii and because theJapanese were not told to burn all of their codes,no special importance was attached to them. Sometimes even apparent signals are rendereduseless by operational inaction. U.S. defenseplans anticipated that a single submarine attackwould mean that a larger surface force was in thearea. Yet when an enemy submarine was con-firmed in the area on 7 December at 0640, therewas no change in alert status.9 When Col. Rufus S. Bratton, the chief of ArmyFar Eastern Intelligence in Washington wastroubled by the implications of the new informa-

tion intercepted via the winds code and wishedto relay that information to his counterpart inHawaii, he was thwarted by the high security clas-sification which could not be sent through nor-mal channels. So instead he sent a message in theclear instructing the Army intelligence man inHawaii, Lt. Col. Kendall J. Fiedler, to ContactCommander Rochefort immediately thru Com-mandant Fourteenth Naval District regardingbroadcasts from Tokyo reference weather.Upon receipt, the untrained and inexperiencedFiedler in Hawaii filed the message and did nottry to see Commander Rochefort. He simply didnot see any urgency in this routine kind of mes-sage, especially since he did not expect any Japa-nese attack.10 Likewise, when Admiral Husband E. Kimmelwas informed that the Japanese were destroyingtheir codes in London, Washington and Far East-ern consulates, he attached no particular impor-tance to it vis-a-vis his situation. To congress-men and military leaders studying the event afterthe war, destruction of codes was an unmistak-able tip-off and put Admiral Kimmels judgmentin question. But while the admiral might assume,as everyone did after the fact, that this meant war,he did not necessarily come to the conclusion thatPearl Harbor would be attacked. And burning ofclassified documents by the Japanese was a regu-lar occurrence at the consulate in Honolulu. No one in the Far East U.S. military establish-ment seriously believed that Pearl Harbor was aserious target to the Japanese. So it became easierto misinterpret those signs that pointed to thispossibility. The human tendency to explain eventsaccording to their own expectations and beliefs,and the resistance to any information that over-turns their opinions were key factors in the PearlHarbor intelligence failure. Other factors werethe mass of conflicting information, the Japanesesuccess at keeping their intentions quiet, decep-tion operations, sudden changes in military capa-bilities that caused, for instance, U.S. estimatesof the range of the Zero to fall short, and ourown communications security which not onlydenied information to the enemy but to key Ameri-can officers as well. After Pearl Harbor, congressional findingsmade note of the tendency of military men to ac-

cept personal responsibility for actions withoutasking for orders from a superior.

While there is an understandable disposi-tion of a subordinate to avoid consultinghis superior for advice except where ab-solutely necessary in order that he maydemonstrate his self-reliance, the persis-tent failure without exception of Army andNavy officers...to seek amplifying andclarifying instructions from their superi-ors is strongly suggestive of just one thing:That the military and naval services failedto instill in their personnel the wholesomedisposition to consult freely with their su-periors.11

Wohlstetter found in her study of Pearl Har-bor that there was a general prejudice against in-tellectuals and intelligence specialists. She said,[intelligence officers] efforts were unsuccess-ful because of the poor repute associated withIntelligence, inferior rank, and the province ofthe specialist or long-hair.12 Analysts receive information piecemeal over aperiod of time and seldom are able to evaluatethe cumulative weight of their information. Thiswas true before Pearl Harbor when Magic inter-cepts were sent to decision-makers one at a time.A messenger waited outside their offices until thefile was read and then carried it to the next per-son on the list. So the fragments were never con-sidered as a body of evidence. Expectations have a big part in determininghow information will be interpreted. For example,the chief of Army intelligence in Hawaii was notexpecting a Japanese attack. As a result, whenhe received warning of the Japanese destroyingtheir codes, he attached no importance to it andmerely filed the message.13 An Army lieutenantreceived information from a radar station of aflight of approaching aircraft on morning of De-cember 7th. He readily believed that the flightwas friendly and told the radar operators to for-get it. The wishful-thinking phenomena isclosely related to expectations. It projects thedesires of an individual into the expected outcome. It is easy to misjudge the importance of newinformation in light of strongly held theories.Admiral Kimmel probably did so when he learnedin a for action warning that the Japanese were

destroying their codes. This Japanese action wasconveniently taken to mean that an attack wouldtake place in Southeast Asia, the belief of theAmerican leaders in Hawaii all along. So thisreport was not even passed on to the Army head-quarters in Hawaii. Another example of the tendency to reshapeinformation to fit preconceptions was the Octo-ber 1941 intercept of a Tokyo request of the Ho-nolulu consulate for information on the exact num-ber and location of U.S. warships in the harbor.No special importance was placed on this requestbecause, said the Chief of Naval Operations Ad-miral Harold Stark, We knew the Japanese ap-petite was almost insatiable for detail in all re-spects. The dispatch might have been put downas just another example of their great attention todetail.14 Of course, it was not entirely a failure of intel-ligence. Operational planning must be faulted aswell. Even if the signs of the imminent attack onPearl had been correctly interpreted and the warn-ing disseminated, the victims of the attack musthave sufficient time to react, to get into their de-fensive posture. Because the surprise attackershave a definite advantage in timing, seldom is theretime to get ready. Placing troops on constant alertis not feasible. That exhausts both soldiers andpatience. High levels of readiness cannot be sus-tained over long periods of time. There are al-ways peaks and valleys.15 Wohlstetter concluded her definitive study ofthe catastrophe at Pearl Harbor with this cautionfor the future: We have to accept the fact ofuncertainty and learn to live with it. No magic,in code or otherwise, will provide certainty. Ourplans must work without it.16 Ephraim Kam reached a similar conclusion thatsurprise attacks were inevitable when he said,History does not encourage potential victims ofsurprise attack. One can only hope to reduce theseverityto be only partly surprised, to issueclearer and more timely warnings, to gain a fewdays for better preparationsand to be more ad-equately prepared to minimize the damage oncea surprise attack occurs.17 The War Department General Staff began itsown study of the Joint Congressional Committeeon the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack

and published its findings in January 1947. Thestudy analyzed the evidence from the broad in-telligence viewpoint and drew its lessons fromthe analysis. Many of their findings and recom-mendations have been overtaken by changes inmilitary intelligence organization and technology.But some of the lessons they surfaced can be validin any era. Its first conclusion was there was a lack of ap-propriations for military intelligence. That is aperennial problem that will stay with Americansociety. A second finding was that intelligencetraining was not given sufficient weight in the se-lection of high-level intelligence staff officers.Emphasis was put on operations and command inArmy schools and that meant that more prestigewas attached to those positions. The net resultwas a tendency to consider the Intelligence Of-ficer in a junior advisory capacity and to usurphis evaluation functions. The study recom-mended that through the school system and mili-tary intelligence publications, the importance ofstrategic intelligence and its evaluation by trainedpersonnel be stressed. A third conclusion was that at every levelthere were failures to place sufficient credence inthe incomplete intelligence at hand to insure thatwithin existing capabilities no action was omittedwhich might improve our security against attack. Dissemination of intelligence and informationfrom Washington to the field was not adequate...tokeep the field...informed. Conversely, the fieldpersonnel did not at all times forward all the in-formation collected by their commands whichwould be of interest to the various intelligenceagencies in Washington. Often security precautions kept informationfrom being disseminated or slowed its flow. A final finding found fault with the analysis anddissemination of information.

The principles of the importance of firstinformation and of prompt dissemination ofthe conditions of first contact were widelyoverlooked. Japanese intention to attack PearlHarbor was widely rumored in Japan at aboutthe time we later learned it was first proposedby Yamamoto, but the rumors were disre-garded as fantastic and soon forgotten. Later,when the Japanese moved into Indo-China,

this was properly interpreted at all levels asindicating a complete break soon. However,no one in a position to act realized that thelogical target for initial surprise attack wasour fleet at Pearl Harbor, the one means wethen had to oppose their further obviouslyadvertised intention to continue south. Fi-nally, when their forces were first contactedat Hawaii, the significance of the contacts wasmissed until the bombs fell.

The five members of the study commission rec-ommended that there be required as a part ofevery course in all service schools a subcoursestressing the importance of rapid disseminationof first information and first contact, not only in ameeting engagement after hostilities have com-menced but also at any time the status of foreignrelations indicates that there is a possibility ofwar.18

Korea

In the moments before dawn on 25 June 1950,the North Korean Peoples Army moved out oftheir forward positions and swarmed into the Re-public of Korea, supported by armor columns andplanes. For the most part, they swept the small,woefully underequipped, US-trained Republic ofKorea Army before them. The North Koreansachieved complete tactical surprise and wouldnearly overwhelm the peninsula before U.S.forces, under United Nations auspices, could landand establish a toehold at Pusan. The U.S. had a small, but organized intelli-gence-gathering capability on the ground in Ko-rea in 1950. The U.S. Armys Korean MilitaryAdvisory Group (KMAG) had officers workingwith every echelon of the ROK Army and wouldcompile intelligence on the North Korean Army.Because KMAG was assigned to the State Depart-ment rather than to General Douglas MacArthursFar East Command (FEC) in Japan, that informa-tion would bypass his headquarters and be re-ported to Washington. To collect the informa-tion he needed, Maj. Gen. Charles A. Willough-by, the FEC G-2, organized the Korean LiaisonOffice in Seoul which was in fact a detachment ofintelligence specialists. Additionally, the U.S.Embassy in Seoul had its military attaches and

political analysts working on the military situa-tion. These assets did their work. They picked upplenty of warnings, like the evacuation of civil-ians north of the 38th parallel, troop buildupsalong the border, and the positioning of suppliesand equipment in these forward areas. And therewas a four-year record of border skirmishes andarmed North Korean reconnaissance into theSouth. So frequently had the North Koreans raidedalong the border, including two limited invasionsof the South, that these kinds of incidents werereferred to by Secretary of Defense Louis A.Johnson as Sunday morning incursions. Eventhough there was a marked lull in the frequencyof the border incursions, another possible indi-cator of an impending attack, no one thought theindicators of the 25 June Sunday morning attackto be out of the ordinary. Between June 1949 and June 1950, FEC intel-ligence dispatched 1,200 warnings to Washing-ton of an impending NK attack.19 Artillery du-els and border incursions were common. De-partment of Defense was saying that the ROKArmy was far superior to its Communist neigh-bor, leading officials to reject the possibility of aNK attack and to be confident that even if an at-tack occurred, the ROKs could defeat the Northin two weeks. Analysts failed to evaluate thesignificance of T-34 tanks amassed at the borderand underestimated their capabilities to negotiateflooded rice paddies.20 North Korean leader KIM Il Sung issued a proc-lamation on 7 June 1950 that elections would beheld Korea-wide on August 15th, the first timethat he had ever boldly asserted a deadline. Likeall such outpouring from the North, it was dis-missed as propaganda.21 The pattern took on increasing significance by1950 and General Willoughby was forwardingreports to Washington from his analysts who be-lieved that a North Korean invasion would takeplace in the Spring of 1950. Willoughby non-concurred, saying such an act is unlikely.22 James F. Schnabel reported in to the G-2, FEC,in Tokyo in November 1949 and was briefed onthe military situation in Korea. A major fromthe G-2 section, quite frankly stated that the feel-

ing in G-2 was that the North Koreans would at-tack and conquer South Korea in the coming sum-mer. The point was not emphasized particularlyand the fact seemed to be accepted as regrettablebut inevitable.23 So the failure to predict the North Korean in-vasion of the South in 1950 was not one of failingto target the enemy, nor of failing to pick up thesignals. It was one of analyses at the higher ech-elons. In March 1950, Maj. Gen. Willoughbywas reporting:

It is believed that there will be no civilwar in Korea this spring or summer....South Korea is not expected to seriouslyconsider warfare so long as her precipi-tating war entails probable discontinuanceof United States aid. The most probablecourse of North Korean action this springand summer is furtherance of attempts tooverthrow South Korean government bycreation of chaotic conditions in the Re-public of Korea through guerrillas andpsychological warfare.24

In the same month, the embassy in Seoul toldthe State Department that there was little possibil-ity of a North Korean invasion. In Washington,attention was focused elsewhere, on Indochinawhere a communist takeover appeared muchmore immediate. The Department of the ArmyG-2, Maj. Gen. Alexander R. Bolling, was say-ing in a March intelligence report that Recentreports of expansion of the North Korean PeoplesArmy and of major troop movements could beindicative of preparation for aggressive actionbut that Communist military measures in Koreawill be held in abeyance pending the outcome oftheir program in other areas, particularly South-east Asia. This was at a time when the AirForces Office of Special Investigations was alert-ing the Far East Air Forces that the Soviets haddefinitely ordered the North to launch their at-tack. It was also at a time when a remarkablenumber of indicators were piling up. DA G-2said in May that The movement of North Ko-rean forces steadily southward toward the 38thparallel during the current period could indicatepreparation for offensive action. A second intelsummary reported routinely that the outbreakof hostilities may occur at any time in Korea....25

Another routine report, just six days before theinvasion, noted the evacuation of civilians fromthe border area, the replacement of civilian freightshipments with military supply movement only,large influx of troops, including concentrationsof armor, and large stockpiling of weapons andequipment. No analyses accompanied this rawdata, but coincidentally, on the same day, Gen-eral Willoughby wrote: Apparently Soviet ad-visors believe that now is the opportune time toattempt to subjugate the South Korean Govern-ment by political means, especially since the guer-rilla campaign in South Korea recently has metwith serious reverses.26 Secretary of State Dean Acheson testified incongressional hearings:

Intelligence was available to the Departmentprior to the 25th of June, made available bythe Far East Command, the CIA, the Depart-ment of the Army, and by the State Depart-ment representatives here and overseas, andshows that all these agencies were in agree-ment that the possibility for an attack on theKorean Republic existed at that time, but theywere all in agreement that its launching in thesummer of 1950 did not appear imminent.27

Some of the reasons that highly placed Ameri-can officials discounted the intelligence indicat-ing an attack were an instinctive distrust of theirKorean sources who they felt were overstatingthe threat for their own purposes, and the factthat North Korean activity around the border wascontinuous and common. They were also dis-tracted by Soviet-instigated trouble around theglobe. Intelligence is given less validity if the sourceis rated as unreliable. South Korean officials weredoubted when they warned of a North Koreanattack because they had said the same thing somany times in the past and it was felt their cred-ibility was doubtful if not self-serving. GeneralMatthew Ridgway wrote that MacArthurs G-2staff did not rate its Asian agents as reliable be-cause they felt that South Koreans especially hada tendency to cry wolf when there was no beastin the offing.28 A major reason that the leadership was so re-luctant to accept the possibility of a North Ko-rean attack could well have been the psychologi-

cal specter that nothing had been done to preparefor such an eventuality, short of evacuating Ameri-can citizens. There were no contingency planson the shelf. In fact, the Republic of Korea hadbeen written out of the U.S. sphere of influencein a public speech given by Secretary of StateDean Acheson, a speech that is thought to haveemboldened the Korean communists. One way to dismiss contradictory informationis to question its validity or to simply pretend itdoesnt exist. When the American ambassadorin Seoul reported a heavy buildup by the Northalong the 38th parallel, he was thought to be mak-ing a case for his recent request for armor for theROK Army and thus ignored as an unreliablesource. It was commonly believed that NorthKorea did not have the power to attack the Southunless equipped by the Soviet Union. But theSoviet equipment was left out of the equation, andreports only said that the North did not have ad-equate resources for an invasion. To the Armys credit, it always looks for les-sons in failure. In this case, Maj. Gen. Lyman L.Lemnitzer, then the Director of the Office of Mili-tary Assistance, summed up those actions thatneeded to be taken to improve the intelligenceprocess. He said:

I believe that there are lessons to be learnedfrom this situation which can point the way tobetter governmental operations and thus avoidcostly mistakes in the future.... I recommendthat...a clear-cut interagency standing oper-ating procedure be established now to insurethat if (in the opinion of any intelligenceagency, particularly CIA) an attack, or othernoteworthy event, is impending it is made amatter of special handling, to insure that offi-cials vitally concerned...are promptly andpersonally informed thereof in order that ap-propriate measures may be taken. This willprevent a repetition of the Korean situationand will insure, if there has been vital intelli-gence data pointing to an imminent attack, thatit will not be buried in a series of routine CIAintelligence reports.

But intelligence was to fail again in Korea andin only four months. The war in Korea lookedlike it was rolling toward it conclusion. After theInchon landing, the Eighth U.S. Army in the west

and the X US Corps in the East were pushing thedecimated and demoralized North Korean Armyin front of them, moving quickly toward the YaluRiver, North Koreas border with China. On 25October 1950, U.S. patrols picked up an enemysoldier. He spoke neither Korean nor Japanese.Other prisoners followed. They were interrogatedthoroughly, lie detectors being used on three ofthem. They told stories about being part of largeChinese Communist armies that had crossed theYalu into Korea. Little reliance was placed on this intelligencebecause Eighth Army could find no other confir-mation of large Chinese Communist Forces (CCF)formations in Korea. They believed these Chi-nese were fillers in North Korean units, helpingstiffen the defenses as UN forces approached theChinese border.29 I Corps published an estimate at the end ofOctober which claimed, There are no indicationsat this time to confirm the existence of a CCF or-ganization or unit, of any size, on Korean soil.30 In late November, 96 Chinese volunteers hadbeen taken prisoner. They identified six differ-ent Chinese Communist armies to which they be-longed. Eighth Army was beginning to recognize theirpresence, however, and on 4 November notedthat two division-sized Chinese units were in Ko-rea. It upped that estimate to three the next day,but was still underestimating the number of armiesnow on the peninsula. At this time Peiping radiowas broadcasting a communique declaring thatChina was threatened by the UN forces in Koreaand that the Chinese people should come to theaid of North Korea. On 5 November, the dailyintelligence summary made clear that the Chinesehad the capability to attack UN forces withoutwarning. At the Far East Command, Gen.MacArthur recognized that possibility as well. On6 November he issued a communique of his own,referring to the massing of troops at the borderas an act of international lawlessness. He con-tinued, Whether and to what extent these reserveswill be moved forward to reinforce units nowcommitted remains to be seen and is a matter ofthe gravest international significance.31 As more prisoners were taken the numbers ofChinese in the theater rose and by the third week

of November Eighth Army intelligence reportswere putting the figure at about 60,000. TheEighth Army G2, Lt. Col. James C. Tarkenton,believed that the Chinese units in Korea were notorganized CCF forces but volunteers and thatChina would not enter the war.32 On the eveof the resumption of the UN offensive on 24 No-vember, estimates from the Department of theArmy, FECOM, Eighth Army and X Corps allwere in agreement that there were as many as76,800 CCF troops in Korea, but seemed todownplay the possibility of a full Chinese inter-vention. Maj. Gen. Willoughby has been quotedas saying that the Chinese would keep out of theKorean War. MacArthur too seemed to sharethe opinion of his intelligence experts. As theUN offensive got underway on the 24th, the Com-mander in Chief was declaring that little stood intheir way. He believed that the Chinese wouldnot enter the war in full force and, if they did, hisairpower would take care of them. Earlier, at themeeting with President Harry Truman at WakeIsland, on 15 October, the general was telling thepresident the same thing.33 The CIA believed that the Chinese were inter-ested in only establishing a buffer zone along theirborder with North Korea. They would changetheir mind by November 24, just before the Chi-nese began their major offensive, but their re-estimate was too late to have any effect on UNdefenses. The consensus in Washington and theFar East Command was that the communists wouldnot risk direct military action, relying instead onsubversion. Based on the historic record, rarely does thecollection effort fail to produce sufficient raw data.Only in the case of the Chinese intervention inKorea is the lack of information raised as a pos-sible source of failure. MacArthur claimed afterthe Chinese intervention that he did not haveenough information upon which to base any rea-sonable intelligence analysis. He said that hisaerial recon planes were prohibited from cross-ing the Yalu River where enemy troops could beconcentrated only a days march from his the-ater. Likewise, political intelligence regardingChinese intentions was hard to come by behindthe Iron Curtain. He said, no intelligence sys-tem in the world could have surmounted such

handicaps to determine to any substantial degreeenemy strength, movements and intentions.34Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Omar Bra-dley, backed up that claim when he testified thatwe had the intelligence that they were concen-trating in Manchuria.... We had the informationthat they had the capability [to intervene]. Butthey didnt know, according to Bradley, that theywould intervene. Failure to predict just when an attack will takeplace is common to most strategic surprise attackssince 1939.35 On 28 October 1950, after theChinese began infiltrating their forces into theKorean peninsula, U.S. intelligence believed thatwith victorious U.S. Divisions in full deploy-ment, it would appear that the auspicious time forintervention had long since passed.36 The reliability of the source came into play in1950 when the Indian ambassador to China, K.M.Panikkar, informed U.S. officials that the Chi-nese intended to intervene in Korea if the UNcrossed into the North. His impartiality was ques-tioned because he was known to favor Chinesepolicies over those of the U.S. A belief in the superiority of ones own mili-tary capabilities can often blind decision-makersto bold enemy moves. The very presence of thepowerful American fleet at Pearl Harbor wasthought to be a deterrent. Instead it was a target.Similarly, an overconfident MacArthur thoughtthat his airpower could take out any Chinesearmies attempting to interfere with his victory inKorea. There would be the greatest slaughter,he predicted. As he said this, the Chinese werealready in the war in massive numbers.37 In Kams analysis of surprise attacks from thevictims point of view, he assumed that the in-tellectual process at the level of the individualanalyst...is consistently biased, and that this biasis the cornerstone of intelligence failures.38Information about the enemy is interpreted in away that conforms to the personal beliefs andhypotheses of the analyst who will then resist anddismiss any information that contradicts his be-liefs. At the same time, analysts will give too muchweight to evidence that support their conclusions.When aerial reconnaissance failed to find largebodies of Chinese troops in the northernmostreaches of Korea, that information dovetailed

perfectly with the earlier conclusion that time forChinese intervention was past. It did not con-sider that the aerial photos might not show smallgroups of the enemy well camouflaged duringdaylight hours. It is the challenge of profession-als to apply rigid tests to their conclusions andovercome the psychology of cultural bias. In hindsight, it becomes clear that the Chinesehad decided in early October to intervene in Ko-rea if the UN forces crossed the 38th parallel.Between 14 and 20 October, they moved fourarmies across the Yalu River, three of them infront of the Eighth Army and one in the X Corpssector. In the following week two more armiescrossed into Korea. By the end of October therewere 180,000 CCF troops in the peninsula. Be-fore the UN offensive would begin, in the thirdweek in November, there were 300,000 Chinesesoldiers facing the UN. The Eighth U.S. Army had engaged Chineseforces, taken prisoners, and been informed ofChinese broadcasts that said they intended to in-tervene if the UN forces crossed the 38th paral-lel. The Air Force was providing photo reconmissions. Still they failed to correctly estimatethe number of Chinese, missing by more than 75percent, and ignoring the signals of intervention.Why? The Chinese used good operational security.They had made good use of deception, using codenames for their units that made them to appear tobe small, token units. They avoided detection byaerial observation by moving only at night andtheir daytime camouflage was excellent. An en-tire division marched 18 miles a day for 18 days,moving only at night over mountainous terrain.Roy Appleman described the march discipline thatkept aerial photography from uncovering theirpresence:

...The days march began after dark at 1900and ended at 0300 the next morning. De-fense measures against aircraft were to becompleted before 0530. Every man, animal,and piece of equipment were to be concealedand camouflaged. During daylight only biv-ouac scouting parties moved ahead to selectthe next days bivouac area. When CCF unitswere compelled for any reason to march byday, they were under standing orders for ev-

ery man to stop in his tracks and remain mo-tionless if aircraft appeared overhead. Offic-ers were empowered to shoot down immedi-ately any man who violated this order.39

Human intelligence, mainly reports from pris-oners and Korean civilians, was ignored becausethey could not be confirmed by imagery intelli-gence. The Chinese avoided contact with EighthArmy units. U.S. authorities thought the Chinesebroadcasts were merely threats. In Korea, U.S. intelligence has been accusedof overemphasizing capabilities and neglectingintentions. After concluding that the North didnot have the capacity to launch a major offen-sive, some analysts convinced themselves that theenemy would not therefore launch such an ambi-tious attack. When it comes to emphasizing intentions orcapabilities, there are two schools of thought. Onemaintains that the main concern should be enemycapabilities since these are more quantifiable, themethods more scientific, the results subject to onlypartial failure. To divine enemy intentions is adelphic enterprise that involves too much guess-work and can result in total failure and blame.Sometimes even the enemy does not know whathe is going to do. The other school has beenquoted as saying the most difficult and most cru-cial element in the intelligence craft lies in esti-mating the enemys intentions.40 Actually, the analyst must rely on both capa-bilities and intentions, since they cannot be iso-lated. This premise is recognized in the evolu-tion of U.S. Army doctrine. In 1951 the fieldmanual on Combat Intelligence cautioned com-manders to be certain they base their actions,dispositions, and plans upon estimates of enemycapabilities rather than upon estimates of enemyintentions. Because analysts concluded in 1950that North Korea had no intention of achievingits goals by an all-out attack, it ignored NK capa-bilities. Consequently, no measures were takento strengthen or reinforce the South Koreanarmy.41 Later editions of the Operations fieldmanual called for the consideration of both en-emy intentions along with capabilities. The 1976edition of FM 100-5 advised that enemy inten-tions must be considered along with capabilitiesand probable actions.42

Seizure of the U.S.S. Pueblo

On 23 January 1968, the U.S. electronic intel-ligence ship USS Pueblo was captured by NorthKorean patrol boats and two MiG jets, and its 83-man crew was taken prisoner. The ship was takenby surprise and Pueblo offered no resistance. Itwas boarded in international waters twenty-fivemiles from the Korean mainland and forced intothe North Korean port of Wonsan. It was thefirst American ship to be seized in 100 years. Thiswas two days after a 31-man team of North Ko-rean lieutenants was intercepted near the Repub-lic of Korea presidential mansion on a mission toassassinate the ROK president, Park Chung-hee,and after a year that saw increasing North Ko-rean infiltration across the Demilitarized Zone.43 The intelligence failure in this instance was cen-tered around the risk assessment for the Pueblomission. When the Navy headquarters assignedthe ship its collection task, it also evaluated thedangers associated with it. A sister ship, the USSBanner, had sailed on sixteen missions along thesame coasts. She had been harassed by both Chi-nese and Russian ships. But this had become anaccepted part of the game. So the mission pro-posal was forwarded up the chain of commandwith a minimal risk label. Rear Admiral Frank L. Johnson, Commander,Naval Forces Japan (COMNAVFORJAPAN),agreed that the risk was minimal and sent the re-quest to Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet(CINCPACFLT) in Hawaii. One of the manyagencies there that had a piece of the action wasthe Current Intelligence Branch. The North Ko-rean analyst, Ensign Charles B. Hall, Jr., was newon the job. He went along with the minimal riskassessment. He was quoted as saying, At thattime I did not see the North Koreans as a directthreat. I had no reservations because I franklydidnt know enough about it to have any. Halls superiors concurred as well. The assis-tant chief of staff for intelligence at CINCPACFLT,Captain John L. Marocchi, said, These evalua-tions were in no sense rubber stamps. The NorthKoreans were pushing bodies across the DMZ.They continued to seize South Korean ships andaccuse them of being spy boats. What we saw

and heard didnt seem any different from whatwe had been seeing and hearing for the past tenyears. The Koreans, up to that point, had donenothing to our ships, while the Russians had ha-rassed them. The mission looked like it would bequiet and safe. The logic was in the message. Ittook me about as long to approve it as it did toread it. The proposal worked its way throughsucceeding headquarters. From Commander inChief Pacific (CINCPAC) it went to the DefenseIntelligence Agency where it was bundled withseveral dozen other proposals into 14 to 16 inchesof dense paperwork. An overworked staff of-ficer did not have time to ask any questions andhe also approved it. So the mission was launched as planned as aminimal risk with no air support, no escort, andthe Pueblos pair of inadequate .50 caliber ma-chine guns useless under frozen tarpaulins. Themission was based on a fatal presumption ex-pressed by Captain George L. Cassell, assistantchief of staff for operations at CINCPACFLT, whothought It didnt follow that these people [theNorth Koreans], although they were attacking ourpeople across the DMZ, would do anything acrossthe water.44

Tet Offensive

It was a lousy year for intelligence coups. As1968 began, a message to the Defense IntelligenceAgency from the National Security Agency, alert-ing them to the possibility that the North Koreansmight seize the US intelligence ship Pueblo wasmisplaced on a clipboard and lost. It was locatedthree weeks later. Later in the year, after build-ing up their troops for seven weeks on the bor-der, the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia, takingthe U.S. by surprise. Then there was the Tet Of-fensive in Vietnam. During the Tet holiday in Vietnam, a time oftraditional ceasefires during the war, on 31 Janu-ary 1968, the Communist forces launched a ma-jor surprise offensive, attacking cities, militaryand government targets throughout the country.Simultaneous armed insurrection by South Viet-namese citizens was a key part of the Communiststrategy. If this succeeded, tens of thousands ofthe southern populace would be added to their

numbers. But it failed to materialize. As a diver-sion, the North aimed thrusts along the borderwith South Vietnam, especially the U.S. firebaseat Khe Sanh. These attacks successfully divertedthe allies attention away from their planned Tetattacks nationwide, but at the same time strainedtheir resources. Documents captured in November 1967 in-cluded an order to the Peoples Army which read:Use very strong military attacks in coordinationwith the uprisings of the local population to takeover towns and cities. Troops should flood thelowlands. They should move toward liberatingthe capital city.45 Concentrated attacks on U.S. facilities at DaNang, Tan Son Nhut, Bien Hoa Air Base, and thelogistical complex at Long Binh, caused initialconfusion but were eventually thrown back byquickly responding American combat units. Thebloody battle at Hue where U.S. Marines weredesperately engaged and the attacks on govern-ment offices in Saigon, most dramatically the U.S.Embassy, came as shocks to the already anxiousAmerican psyche. There seemed to be fightingand destruction everywhere. Television setsthroughout the United States magnified this per-ception. But the allies rallied to stymie the en-emy. American firepower was brought to bear.By 21 February, the Communists were withdraw-ing everywhere but Hue where they would holdout until the 24th when the Imperial Palace wasrecaptured. There were 4,000 Americans killed orwounded, and between 4,000 and 8,000 casual-ties for the ARVN. The Communists lost between40,000 and 50,000 killed in action. Their VietCong infrastructure was destroyed. Ironically,Tet was the biggest victory the allies ever gainedover the Communists during the war, but it wasnot recognized as such at the time. Instead, Tetwas seen by American political leadership andthe American people at large as proof that wewere not winning in Vietnam and could be sur-prised and hurt by an offensive by an enemy thatmost military intelligence experts were countingout. The Tet Offensive was a turning point in thewar. It produced a staggering recoil in the Ameri-can consciousness. It was a blow to the political

will on the homefront from which it would neverrecover. From that point on the U.S. policiesshifted toward a reduction of U.S. involvementin the war. President Lyndon Johnson decided afew months later not to seek reelection. Tet wasimmensely successful and owed its success to itssurprise. This was a result that was not foreseenby the planners of Tet. North Vietnamese Gen-eral Tran Do said after the war, We did notachieve our main objective.... As for making animpact in the United States, it had not been ourintentionbut it turned out to be a fortunate re-sult.46 One of the reasons U.S. analysts were sur-prised was the overreach and irrationality of theenemy plan, as it was based on the faulty assump-tion that the Souths citizens would seize this op-portunity to join with the Communists to over-throw their government. Collection did not fail before Tet. The allieshad a captured order for the attack, tape-recordeddiscussions taken off agents at Qui Nhon, pris-oner interrogations, the unprecedented numberof high priority messages that were interceptedby SIGINT pointing to the attack, and the strongevidence provided by premature attacks in I andII Corps Tactical Zones. Ephraim Kam assigns three levels of reliabilityto intelligence information: Nonreliable or partlyreliable, reliable but controlled [enemy knows weknow and can change plans], and reliablenoncontrolled [evidence that enemy does not knowwe know]. The attack order intercepted severalweeks before the Tet offensive was deemed asunreliable because it was written by someoneoutside the highest levels of the Communist lead-ership, because it was not specific as to the dateof the attack, and because it was then easily mis-taken for propaganda.47 There were at least four accurate reports ofenemy intentions. General Phillip Davidson,Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV)Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence (J-2),briefed General Westmoreland on 13 January thatattacks against Saigon were imminent andWestmoreland responded by strengthening thecity, a move that probably prevented its completeoccupation. But allied attention was drawn to thenorth by the enemy threat at Khe Sanh. On the

morning before the attack, General Davidson pre-dicted that the precipitate attacks against the cit-ies in I and II Corps foreshadowed similar attacksthroughout the country within 24 hours. Westmoreland heeded this warning but it wastoo late to take any real action to change any de-fensive dispositions. (The warning itself did notseem extraordinary to most commanders whowere used to receiving everyday information fromMACV headquarters over the telephone. Sincethe troops were on alert as often as they were offalert, this one issued at 1125 hours on 30 Janu-ary seemed not at all unusual.) The North Viet-namese had achieved surprise. Because U.S. intelligence analysts did not cor-rectly put together all the pieces of the puzzle untilhours before the Tet offensive, too late to make adifference, they are credited with an intelligencefailure. James Wirtz analyzes that failure of intelligenceanalysis in light of six empirical questions. Werethe Americans surprised because they failed to:(1) identify the adversary; (2) estimate the prob-ability of attack; (3) determine the type of actioninvolved; (4) identify the location of the attack;(5) predict the timing of the attack; and (6) deter-mine the motivation behind the initiative?48 Because it was wartime, the question of identi-fying the adversary becomes moot. When at war,it is also likely that an attack will take place, soanalysts assumed that a major offensive was to beexpected. And the type of action involved wasalso easy to figure since the North had no assetsto launch an air, amphibious, naval, airborne ornuclear attack. The attack would be undertakenby ground forces. So the clues to the analysisfailure lay in the where, when and why. U.S. leaders had two choices as to where theenemy blow would fallurban areas or along theDMZ. They chose the DMZ because, amongother reasons, it coincided with their analogies toDien Bien Phu. U.S. commanders were also moreinclined to see their troops as the biggest threat tothe enemy and to protect their own forces. Be-cause they were dug in around Khe Sanh and wellprepared, they would have preferred the attackto strike there. These beliefs were reinforced bySIGINT that indicated a massing of NVA troopsalong the borders.49 So the predispositions of

U.S. leaders caused them to mistake the diver-sion for the main attack and the main attack forthe diversion. The tendency of U.S. analysts to think in termsof U.S. troops rather than their ARVN allies con-tributed to the failure to consider the Tet holidays,a time when half of the ARVN soldiers would beon leave, as being an especially opportune timefor an enemy attack in ARVN areas of responsi-bility. They believed that the South Vietnamesearmy was protected by the American shield alongthe DMZ. In the past, the North had taken ad-vantages of truces to resupply and build up theirforces. Americans believed the attack would fallsometime after the truce. The motivation for the Communist offensive,the why of the equation, was, more than anythingelse, to try and reverse their declining combatreadiness and morale. U.S. analysts rightly sawsuch a possible enemy move as a desperate lastditch effort, not unlike the Germans offensiveduring the Battle of the Bulge. They did not rec-ognize a further objective of Communiststhatof playing upon U.S. strengths to deceive themand pouncing upon the vulnerable ARVN unitsto destroy them. More than a few historians have suggested thatAmerican Army intelligence specialists producedreports that would confirm the views of their lead-ers and the Johnson administration that the en-emy was just about finished. Wirtz offers this insightful analysis of Tet:

The story of the intelligence failure alsohighlights the herculean task faced by of-ficers, analysts, and policy makers as theystrove to complete the intelligence cycle.Remarkably, the Americans almost suc-ceeded in anticipating their opponentsmoves in time to avoid the military con-sequences of surprise, despite their un-derestimation of the weakness in their al-liance, the resourcefulness of their oppo-nents, and the handicaps they faced incompleting the intelligence cycle. But twofactors ultimately slowed them in their raceto predict the future: The influence ofbeliefs that could no longer account forevents and their inability to anticipate themistakes made by their opponents. The

failure to anticipate an attack in wartime,when Americans could have assumed thattheir opponents would do everything intheir power to hurt the allies, testifies tothe difficulty inherent in avoiding failuresof intelligence.50

Raid on Son Tay

In a daring raid on 20 November 1970, a 59-man assault force of elite soldiers, led by Col.Arthur D. Bull Simon, hit a small compoundjust 23 miles from Hanoi. It was the Son Tayprison camp that was thought to hold 61 Ameri-can prisoners of war. Months of planning andrehearsal paid off as the team flawlessly were air-lifted to their objective, executed their mission,overwhelmed all their opposition, and escapedwithout a single American casualty. There wasonly one problem. They brought out no prison-ers. The camp was empty. When the newsreached the war room in Washington, D.C. thatthe prison camp was empty, General William C.Westmoreland, then Army Chief of Staff, ex-ploded Another intelligence failure!51 52 Son Tay intelligence depended largely on photorecon from SR-71s, RF4s, RF101s, and un-manned Buffalo Hunter drones. Six drone flightswere either shot down or malfunctioned. The lastand seventh drone mission, after the camp wasevacuated, was to take shots from treetop level,but the aircraft banked as the shutter was trig-gered, producing only a photo of the horizon.SR-71 missions were hampered by cloud and dustcover. Agents were also inserted but with negli-gible results. The prisoners had been moved four and one-half months before the raid because of flooding.Speculation centered around whether the flood-ing had been caused by a covert cloud-seedingoperation designed to wash away resupply trailsin Laos that was so secret that even the plannersof the Son Tay raid could not be informed.53 An usually reliable foreign intelligence sourceprovided information that the camp was emptyand that information reached decision makers inWashington just hours before the final missionlaunch. When asked for an unequivocal answeron whether U.S. prisoners were in Son Tay or

not, Army Lt. Gen. Donald Bennett, command-ing the Defense Intelligence Agency, held out ahandful of messages and photos and said, Ivegot this much that says Theyve been moved.Then he extended the other hand which held athick folder and added, And Ive got this muchthat says Theyre still there.54 Defense Secretary Melvin Laird told the presi-dent on 20 November that the prisoners had beenmoved from Son Tay but that the camp had re-cently been reoccupied by unknown parties.Laird recommended the raid be given the goahead. The president concurred.55 The Son Tay raid had the top priority for elec-tronic intelligence coverage and ELINT was good.It had the North Vietnamese air defense systemwired. But the delivery of the product was time-consuming and there was little time at the lastminute to revise information. Because of equip-ment failures or delivery problems, the latestphoto imagery taken before the raid could not beexamined until the operation had been launched. The overall commander of the raid, Air ForceBrig. Gen. Leroy J. Manor couldnt get crucialweather information at the last minute because helacked the proper clearances.56 When reporters queried Simons at a press con-ference about who was to blame for the intelli-gence failure, the colonel replied, I cant answerthat question at all. I am not sure what you meanby intelligence failure.57 Before Senate hearings on the failed raid, Sec-retary of Defense Melvin Laird testified, we havemade tremendous progress as far as intelligenceis concerned. The hearing room erupted inlaughter. Laird went on to say, We have notbeen able to develop a camera that sees throughthe roofs of buildings. [Otherwise] the intelligencefor their mission was excellent. But since themission failed to bring home any prisoners, fewsaw that as being relevant.58 There are a lot of ways for intelligence to fail,and things usually go wrong in combination.There are many critical nodes in the process.Likewise, there are many blocks in the minds ofthe evaluators. There are errors in process. Therecan be too little data resulting from the omissionto target a given area. There can be too muchinformation, sometimes caused by enemy misin-

formation, that clogs the channels and slows theflow. In these cases it becomes important to as-sign the correct priority. There can be conflict-ing data. Often the reliability of the sources comesinto question. There can be a misreading of theurgency of the data. Human inaction quite oftencomes into play, like the lieutenant commanderwho told the excited clerk that the translation ofthe Japanese message that gave important indica-tors of the Sunday attack on Pearl Harbor couldwait until Monday. The repetitious occurrenceof indicators can cause the crying wolf syn-drome which causes evaluators to discount signsthat have taken on the appearance of the com-monplace. Then, there is the pinching off of theinformation to the decision makers by overzeal-ous executive officers or chiefs of staff who wishto protect their boss from adverse information. There are errors in judgment. Rarely do mili-tary intelligence professionals err on the side ofenemy capabilities. The numbers are usuallyright, or carefully qualified. If they are wrong, itis usually an overestimate resulting from caution.It is in the area of enemy intentions that the possi-bility of error multiplies. Here we enter thatcloudy realm of wishful thinking. We need tounderstand, as historians and intelligence offic-ers, the psychology of the human response to in-formation that shapes the decision process. Thepolicy makers inevitably sift the information thatthey receive through the filter of their own pre-conceptions. People will believe what they have been con-ditioned to believe, predicting the future basedupon their own vision of it. They see happeningwhat they want to happen, but the course of thefuture is never so accommodating. Harry Trumanwas unwilling to believe that the North Koreanswould do anything as irrational as cross that linethat western diplomats had so conscientiously andsagely drawn. Stubborn adherence to false as-sumptions is a failing that is common to all of us. The analyst never acts alone. He is always partof an organization with its own values, expecta-tions, biases, pressures to conform, and politicalmotivations. He works in an environment thatdoes not always reward dissent, discrepant infor-mation, or uncertainty. When dissenting views come from junior of-

ficers, they are often suppressed or just ignoredby those in higher positions. When CommanderArthur McCollum, Chief of the Far Eastern Sec-tion of Naval Intelligence, prepared a messagealerting the Pacific fleets, based on what he sawas imminent dangers, he was denied permissionto do so by four senior admirals who thought thatsufficient warnings had already been sent.59 Dissenters can also be senior officials as wasthe case with Admiral Richmond Turner, the Chiefof War Plans in the Navy Department, who be-lieved that Hawaii would be attacked. GeorgeKennan, a State Department Soviet expert, rec-ognized the true reaction of the Chinese to thecrossing of the 38th parallel by UN forces, butwas not given a hearing by Secretary of State DeanAcheson.60 The intelligence analyst works within an orga-nization, often a military one, and institutionsthemselves are subject to inherent inefficiencieslike bureaucracy, compartmentalization, security,faulty communication or rivalry between agen-cies or services. Group dynamics, or Groupthink,61 can alsoaffect the decision-making process as it is hard toresist the conclusions of a group of peers. Butthe group need not be small, or a selected cliqueof leaders. It can be as large as the entire Ameri-can society, a peace-loving group that does notreadily accept the possibility of war. An exampleof groupthink is seen in President Kennedysinner council of advisors prior to the Bay of Pigsinvasion. There are few people who would chal-lenge a presidents or generals decision. Intel analysts are sometimes overwhelmed bytrivial detail, daily workload, unrealistic expec-tations, and pressures to be politically correct. Itis difficult to sift the relevant from the noise priorto an event. It is understandable that analystswants to evaluate every scrap of information thatcomes their way, any clue that might help themreach correct conclusions. If the military leader is not warned in time, thereis little difference from not being warned at all.Because it would have taken almost three weeksto reinforce the Republic of Korea with U.S.forces from Japan, General MacArthur concludedthat even a 72-hour warning of an attack wouldhave mattered little to the outcome.

Some failures to provide sufficient warning ofan attack can be chalked up to bad luck. A mes-sage from Army Chief of Staff George Marshallcould not get through to Army headquarters inHawaii because no one was on duty that Sundaymorning. General Marshall had neglected to markthe message urgent so when it did reach Hono-lulu via Western Union it was too late. A motor-bike messenger was delivering the telegram whenthe bombs started to fall. Many portentous mes-sages intercepted by Magic were simply not trans-lated in time. In reviewing some of those too many instanceswhere intelligence has failed, we come to someobvious realizations. One is that science can beof little help when dealing with the often irratio-nal and unpredictable human mind.62 It is littlewonder that many of the invaders of our centuryhave been called madmen. Logic has its limitsin plumbing the waters of the human soul. If in-telligence analysis is then as much an art as it is ascience, future failures are inevitable. That is notto say that we cant improve upon the odds ofsuccess by adding to our understanding both ofthe process of intelligence analysis and of thehuman behavior. I have summarized in a Table some of the ob-vious conclusions that come to mind after review-ing those historic examples of intelligence fail-ures. It is an imperfect list and readers are in-vited to draw some of their own lessons and offersome of their own remedies. One thing becomesapparent. The key to guarding against intelligencedeficiencies lies in the area of education. Manyof the problems with communication and dissemi-nation have already been fixed by procedural re-forms and reorganizations. Problems residing inthe human psyche can only be addressed by train-ing that works at changing attitudes and judgmen-tal weaknesses. One can readily see how important educationis to bringing about change and solutions. It is adaunting responsibility for Army schools. If thereis going to be an improvement in intelligencework, there must be a corresponding movementwithin Army education to encourage open-mindedness, imaginative new approaches toanalysis, the encouragement of dissenting opin-ions, interservice cooperation, and leadership at-

titudes. This can be accomplished in basic, ad-vanced and pre-command courses. It would also be useful to inculcate throughtraining a higher tolerance to false alarms. Ad-mittedly this would mean a willingness to accepthigher costs in both dollars and up-time, but itwould have the benefit of avoiding surprise at-tacks and perhaps convince an enemy of our pre-paredness. It is thought that many of the problems of thepast have been overcome by technology. Com-puters handle and track the masses of informa-tion. Mathematical models compile indicators andidentify possible crises. Satellites relay voice andpictures in near real time. The President of theUnited States and the Joint Chiefs of Staff canwatch televised battlefield damage assessmentsminutes after an attack. The decision-makers havenever had so much information to aid them soquickly. While machines serve us well in gathering andquantifying the more voluminous and complexinformation in todays world, we will still be leftwith the human fallibilities in analyses and re-sponse. The recognition of this fact is the firststep toward understanding the process. The nextstep is understanding where deficiencies are likelyto occur in the system. And finally, for thoseconcerned with training the intelligence special-ists and for the students themselves, the last stepis to resolve that no intel failure should ever bethe result of a lack of skill on the part of the intelli-gence specialist.

1. Jeffery, Keith, Intelligence and Military History: ABritish Perspective, in Charters, David A., Milner, Marc,and Wilson, J. Brent, editors, Military History and theMilitary Profession, Praeger, Westport, Connecticut, 1992.

2. Funstons Annual Report, 1916.3. Wohlstetter, Roberta, Pearl Harbor, Warning and Deci-sion, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 1962, p.385.4. Wohlstetter, p. 387.5. Roberta Wohlstetter defines Signals as signs or indica-tions. Noise is competing and conflicting signs, ordisinformation. Most signals are read against a background ofnoise. It is easier to know which are signals and which arenoise after the disaster.6. Wohlsetter, p. 387.7. Kam, Ephraim, Surprise Attack: The Victims Perspective,Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1988, p. 75.

8. U.S. Congress, Senate. 1946, Report of the Joint Committeeon the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, 79th Cong., 2dsession, Washington, D.C., pp. 65, 102, 105, 126.9. Kam, pp. 47-8.10. Wohlstetter, pp. 389-90.11. U.S. Congress, p. 258.12. Wohlstetter, p. 312.13. Wohlstetter, pp. 388-90.14. Quoted in Kam, p. 102.15. Wohlstetter, pp. 397-8.16. Wohlstetter, p. 401.17. Kam, p. 49.18. Hunter, Col. W. Hamilton, Chairman, et al, Study of thePearl Harbor Hearings, War Department, General Staff, 23January 1947.19. Knorr, Klaus, and Patrick Morgan, eds., Strategic MilitarySurprise, Transaction Books, New Brunswick, NJ, 1983, 80.20. Ibid., p. 81.21. Ibid., p. 82.22. Schnabel, James F., Policy and Direction: The First Year,Center of Military History, Department of the Army, Govern-ment Printing Office, 1992, p. 63.23. Ibid., p. 63.24. Ibid., p. 63.25. Ibid., p. 63-4.26. Ibid., p. 64.27. Ibid., p. 62.28. Ridgway, Matthew, 1967, p. 14.29. Appleman, Roy E., South to the Naktong, North to theYalu, Center of Military History, Department of the Army,Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1992, p. 752.30. Ibid., p. 753.31. Ibid., p. 762.32. Ibid., p. 755.33. Ibid., p. 760-3.34. DeWeerd, H.A., Strategic Surprise in the Korean War,Orbis, 6, Fall 1962, pp. 450-1.35. Kam, p. 14.36. Ibid., p. 15.37. Ibid., pp. 80-1.38. Ibid., p. 85.39. Appleman, p. 770.40. Quoted in Kam, p. 57.41. Quoted in Kam, p. 59.42. Kam, p. 59.43. Finley, James P., The U.S. Military Experience in Korea,1871-1982, Command Historians Office, Secretary Joint Staff,Headquarters, U.S. Forces Korea/Eighth U.S. Army, APO SanFrancisco 96301, 1983.44. Armbrister, Trevor, A Matter of Accountability: The TrueStory of the Pueblo Affair, Coward-McCann, New York, 1970,p. 189-90.45. Arnold, James R., Tet Offensive 1968: Turning Point inVietnam, Osprey Publishing Ltd, London, 1990, p. 36.46. Ibid., p. 86.47. Kam, pp. 39, 41-2.48. Wirtz, James, The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure inWar, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, 1991. 49.James Wirtz makes the point that U.S. analysts have a weaknessfor SIGINT over other less reliable sources of intelligence and

thus fall victim to what he calls the Ultra syndrome (p. 274).50. Wirtz, p. 275.51. Schemmer, Benjamin F., The Raid, Harper and Row, NewYork, 1976, p. 182.52. Time was squandered in selling the idea to the military andpolitical hierarchy. The raid at Son Tay contrasted with theIsraelis raid on Entebbe on 4 July 1976 which successfullyrescued hostages. The difference is in operational realm, not inintelligence.53. Schemmer, p. 81.54. Ibid., p. 147.55. Ibid., p. 148.56. Ibid., p. 151.57. Ibid., p. 189.58. Ibid., p. 192.59. Kam, p. 161.60. Ibid., p. 162.61. Irving Janis defines groupthink as a mode of thinking thatpeople engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesivein-group, when the members strivings for unanimity overridetheir motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses ofaction. The condition can be recognized by these symptoms:

An illusion of invulnerability...which creates excessiveoptimism and encourages taking extreme risks;Collective efforts to rationalize in order to discount warn-ings which might lead the members to reconsider their as-sumptions...;Stereotyped views of enemy leaders...as too weak andstupid to counter whatever risky attempts are made to de-feat their purposes;Direct pressure on any member who expresses strongarguments against any of the groups stereotypes, il-lusions, or commitments....

Janis uses the example of Pearl Harbor to show how hard itwas to confront a strong leader with dissenting views:

During the week before the attack it would have been dou-bly difficult for any of Kimmels advisers to voice misgiv-ings to other members of the group. It was not simply amatter of taking the risk of being scorned for deviatingfrom the seemingly universal consensus by questioning thecherished invulnerability myth. An even greater risk wouldbe the disdain the dissident might encounter from his col-leagues for questioning the wisdom of the groups priordecisions. For a member of the Navy group to becomealarmed by the last-minute warning signals and to wonderaloud whether a partial alert was sufficient would be tanta-mount to asserting that the group all along had been mak-ing wrong judgments. Victims of Groupthink, Houghton-Mifflin, Boston, 1972, pp. 9, 197-8.

62. Irrationality on the part of the enemy is often the reasonanalysts give for failing to predict surprise attacks. The enemycannot succeed in such an endeavor so it wont risk it, goes thereasoning. And the reasoning does not appear to be flawed. Inthe eleven surprise attacks since 1939, only twice have the at-tackers achieved victory.