Army Security Agency ONLINE Military Intelligence RVN
07-27-00
US Army Military Intelligence RVN
The Electronic Battlefield
Excerpt from:
Military Communications: a Test for Technology
by John D. Bergen.
courtesy of Frank "Henry" Ford
Still not convinced that COMSEC violations by US Forces ,as was dutifuly reported by ASA COMSEC units such as the 101st RRCo to MACV, gave the North the edge on the field of combat?
Then read MACV Lessons Learned No. 79,1970.
Still buy into the myth that the ASA failed to provide timely intelligence info to MACV
and/or Division Commands?
Then read on .... NSA Warns of TET Offensive 1968
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The National Security Agency stood alone in issuing the kinds of warnings the US Intelligence Community was designed to provide. The first SIGINT indicators of impending major enemy activity began to appear in the second week of January 1968. In the following days NSA issued a number of alerts, culminating in a major warning it disseminated widely in communications intelligence channels on 25 January, titled :
Coordinated Vietnamese Communist Offensive Evidenced in South Vietnam.
(Classified NSA Historical Files, VIII, Box 19, "Tet Offensive, Jan/Feb 1968)
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In the period 25-30 January, NSA issued a number of followup alerts for specific areas of Vietnam. Even so, as NSA stated later in its review of Tet reporting, SIGINT was unable to provide advance warning of the true nature, size, and targets of the coming offensive. This was due in large measure to the fact that the enemy's local and irregular forces, which played such a large role in the offensive, made only limited use of radio communications.
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