A History of the Defense Intelligence Agency - Cryptocomb

1960s
Challenge and Reorganization: the Rise of DIA
(Far Left) During the Vietnam War, DIA
provided bomb damage assessments of
targets such as this Hanoi airfield.
(Left) DIA analysts also provided
targets for airstrikes in Vietnam.
(Right) Military intelligence support to
ground operations was critical to
fighting a large-scale war against
an elusive enemy. DIA helped
provide the increased level of
intelligence necessary to support
helicopter insertions against
remote enemy strongholds.
(Below Right) Lt Gen Joseph F. Carroll, USAF
First DIA Director, 1961–1969.
Credit: DIA History Office Collection
midable trials during the 1960s included the effort
to gather information about China’s first atomic
bomb test in 1964, the state of China’s armed
forces during the chaotic Cultural Revolution, and
increased anti-colonial unrest in Africa.
Crises only multiplied in the tumultuous later
years of the decade. The ongoing Vietnam War
was perhaps the most prominent, but the Six-Day
War between Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Israel, North
Korea’s seizure of the intelligence vessel USS Pueblo,
and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, strained
DIA’s ability to handle major challenges even as its
efforts at organization and consolidation continued.
Credit: DIA History Office Collection
A History