Office of the Historian

155. Summary of Conclusions for a Meeting of the Washington Special Actions Group1

Washington, March 18, 1971, 5:05–6:07 p.m.

SUBJECT

  • Intelligence on North Vietnamese Supply Movements

PARTICIPATION

  • Chairman—Henry A. Kissinger
  • State
    • Mr. U. Alexis Johnson2
    • Ambassador William Sullivan
    • Mr. Ray Cline
  • Defense
    • Mr. David Packard
    • Lt. Gen. Donald Bennett
    • Col. Harold Belles
  • CIA
    • Mr. Richard Helms
    • Mr. George Carver
    • Mr. Paul Walsh
  • JCS
    • Adm. Thomas H. Moorer
    • Lt. Gen. John W. Vogt
  • OMB
    • Mr. James Schlesinger
  • NSC Staff
    • Col. Richard T. Kennedy
    • Mr. John H. Holdridge
    • Mr. Thomas K. Latimer
    • Mr. K. Wayne Smith
    • Mr. Keith Guthrie
[Page 466]

SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS

The intelligence community will prepare by March 25 an assessment of North Vietnamese logistical performance during the 1970–71 dry season and of its impact on the range of military options open to the enemy during 1971 and 1972. The analysis should compare 1969–70 and 1970–71 performance, take into account additional requirements imposed on the enemy’s overland logistical system during 1970–71, and estimate the increment in throughput to South Vietnam and Cambodia that would be required in 1970–71 for the enemy to continue a protracted warfare strategy or increase military activity above that level. Countervailing factors which increase enemy logistical capabilities (e.g., trail improvements) or decrease throughput requirements (e.g., withdrawal of troops from South Vietnam to Laos) should also be considered. In assessing relative performance in 1969–70 and 1970–71, percentage comparisons should be provided if it is not considered feasible to estimate tonnages.3

[Omitted here are the minutes of the meeting.]

  1. Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Institutional Files (H-Files), Box H–115, WSAG Meetings Minutes, Originals, 1971. Top Secret; Nodis; COMINT. The meeting took place in the Situation Room of the White House. Smith informed Kissinger in a March 18 memorandum that the “intelligence community is obsessed with preparing for today’s WSAG and would not accomplish the analytical tasks we set out.” Smith assured Kissinger that the NSC staff and CIA analysts had devised a simple model to assess Lam Son’s effects but that the CIA believed it needed a White House order to gain DIA’s cooperation in doing the calculations. Smith wrote that the underlying problem was that CIA, unlike DIA, believed that the operation did not cut off all enemy supplies. (Ibid, Box H–80, WSAG Meeting File, Intelligence on NVSM 3–18–71)↩
  2. Not present at the beginning of the meeting. [Footnote in the original.]↩
  3. In a March 23 meeting with Congressmen Ford, Arends, and Anderson, Kissinger commented on the March 16 and 18 WSAG meetings: “You will see leaks all over town in the next few weeks on this issue, because the intelligence community is like a hysterical group of Talmudic scholars doing an exegesis of abstruse passages. If any of you are on an intelligence subcommittee, you might find this a good reason to cut the budget for the intelligence agencies. We had all the analysts at a meeting in the Situation Room, where they were debating tonnages and arguing over whether you can trust the sensors as opposed to COMINT. This bores the hell out of me—I want to know results, not tonnages.” (Memorandum of conversation, March 24; National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 1025, Presidential/HAK Memcons, MemCon—Kissinger, Messrs MacGregor, Cook, et al., March 25, 1971)↩