spartans_in_darkness

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Philippinesformed a special analytic support and
reporting team to back up Saigon's work.
However, it was soon evident that neither site was
prepared for the mission facing them. Partly, this
was attributable to the slow receipt of the raw
intercept from Tan Son Nhut; but the army analysts
and collectors at Clark Air Base simply were
not up to speed technically on theVC problern."
The short training sessions for selected ASA personnel
at NSA HQ earlier in the year had not been
successful in producing technically proficient
analysts.
L...-
....I1In late 1960, in response
to the Laotian crisis, a special TDY team of four
civilian intercept operators and one traffic analyst
from NSA had arrived at Clark Air Base to assist
in developing the Vietnamese mission, but it
could only foster an improvement at the site for
the duration of their visit.97
(TSl/SI) One solution was to send civilian
analysts from the NSA office responsible for
Southeast Asia (known then as ACOM, soon to
become B Group) as technical advisors to the field
sites. In fact, in May 1961there was a civilian analyst
from NSA stationed in the Philippines to help
there. When technical problems at Tan Son Nhut
were discovered as well, a meeting was held
amongst the NSA representative, Philippines,
and NSA personnel at Clark Air Base to decide
how to fix the shortcomings. The decision was
made to consolidate the analytic and reporting
missions from both sites at Saigon, giving the
"front end" of the SIGINT mission, that is the
field site in Vietnam, the wherewithal to carry out
its work. Part of the plan called for the NSA civilian,
I
Idetailed to the ASA site at
Clark, to go along to Tan Son Nhut and oversee
SIGINT operations there."
(TSl/SI) This first civilian tour in Saigon lasted
about six months. However, it set the precedent
for the entire period of the American cryptologic
presence in Vietnam: N$A civilians would
retain a critical position at virtually all field sites
involved in supporting the war, including those in
Thailand and the Philippines. Known familiarly
to the military personnel as "tech reps," these
civilians often provided the technical continuity
at military field sites which were frequently victimized
by the rapid and complete turnover
caused by MACV'sdecision to hold military tours
in Southeast Asia to one year. This was especially
true after the big communist SOl change which
crested in April 1962 when it was discovered that
the ASAsite at Tan Son Nhut had missed obvious
signs of it, as well as significant message relay
activity suggesting that communist units were
redeploying into South Vietnam from Laos.""
~ As the cryptologic presence increased
within South Vietnam, there was more pressure
from the Saigon command for maximizing its
effectiveness. The impetus for this started in
October 1961, when General Maxwell Taylor (as
chairman of the JCS) visited Saigon. He reviewed
the current intelligence structure, including that
of SIGINT, and strongly recommended that all
U.S. intelligence activities in Saigon be centralized
in a Joint Intelligence Center (JIC). He also
added that the JIC should be integrated to some
degree with a similar ARVN center. He added
that all efforts should be made to assure that this
proposed center have access to all timely infermarion.'"
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