Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XXVII, Mainland Southeast Asia; Regional Affairs

395. Memorandum Prepared by the Central Intelligence Agency¹

No. 0604/68

Washington, July 10, 1968.

SUBJECT

• Intelligence and the Thai Insurgency: An Assessment

1. It is our judgment that because of the nature of an insurgency movement there can be no such thing as full and comprehensive intelligence on an insurgency situation. Intelligence on the Thai insurgency is no exception; it is plagued with information gaps and other deficiencies.

2. By the same token, it is not inconsistent to say that intelligence over the past four years has provided an accurate outline of the insurgency problem in Thailand. Even in the early days of 1965, when the question of whether Thailand was faced with an insurgent threat was still a matter of dispute, intelligence from the field provided the basis for a relatively confident and, as events subsequently proved, wholly justified estimate that the threat was real enough. If the intelligence was strongly reportorial in nature, it nonetheless represented no mean accomplishment given the disorganized state of the Thai security and intelligence services.

3. The alacrity and doggedness with which US officials in Thailand followed the developing insurgency started to show results in late 1965 and early 1966, when interrogations and captured documents began to provide depth to what had been a two-dimensional picture of the insurgency. The accumulation of these reports, taken together with the routinely acquired knowledge of Communist activities, provided the basis for a national intelligence estimate in July 1966 which concluded, in effect, that the insurgency would grow somewhat over the following two years but would remain manageable. A CIA memorandum in August described in some detail the apparent weaknesses of the Communistsʼ (and the governmentʼs as well) organization in the countryside and concluded that for all of the bellicose statements emanating from Peking and Hanoi the insurgency was not on a firm footing, and the Communists would soon find the going rough. The judgments in both papers were made on the basis of raw intelligence developed in the field, and if they have weathered well, it is to the credit of the early intelligence effort in Thailand.

4. With the dimension of the insurgency situation largely established by the end of 1966, the more difficult task of filling in the holes in the intelligence picture became a major order of business. Performance in this area has been mixed. There is no question, for example, that we have a better, albeit still general, understanding of the Chinese role in promoting the Thai insurgency, but the relationship between Peking and Hanoi in this field is far from clear. Nor do we have a sound appreciation of the relationship between the Chinese and Thai Communist parties, although our information on the latter, particularly on its role in directing the insurgency, has grown significantly since the not-very-distant days when the Thai partyʼs very existence could be accepted only as an article of faith.

5. The blanks in the big picture, however, are less serious than the defects in coverage of the insurgent apparatus in Bangkok and the countryside. Despite the considerable strides that have been made over the past year, coverage is still largely focused on the military organization to the virtual exclusion of the more elusive, and, perhaps ultimately more important, political organization. Attention has been focused on Communist paramilitary groups and the areas where they exist. Communist propaganda and similar overt activities are reported from throughout Thailand, but the amount of clandestine subversive activity is harder to know, even through Thai villagers, due largely to the nonindigenous character of the insurgent organization in Thailand, volunteer information considerably more frequently than is the case in Vietnam.

6. [26–1/2 lines of source text not declassified.

7. Although there may be some disagreement over details, none of the problems or deficiencies either described or alluded to in this assessment will come as a surprise to those with a continuing and close interest in Thai affairs. More is being done now, however, to ensure that knowledge of the Thai insurgency is sufficient to avoid unpleasant surprises. Shoddy Thai procedures for handling enemy interrogations and captured documents are being tightened so the maximum return can be obtained from these primary sources, and strong efforts to develop unilateral penetrations of the enemy at appropriate levels are being pushed. Finally, a healthy skepticism prevails both in the field and in Washington about the current state of the insurgency—especially the pitfalls of relying too heavily on statistics—and this bodes well for the future in terms of a continuing hard look at the intelligence picture.

1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Agency File, SIG, Vol. 4, 36th meeting. Secret; No Foreign Dissem. A covering note from Hartman to SIG members, July 16, indicated that at the May 9 meeting of the SIG, the Chairman asked Helms for this assessment. It was given to the members of the SIG on a limited distribution basis. (Ibid.)