spartans_in_darkness

OGA
TOP SEGRE"FNGOMINTN*1
EO 1.4. (c)
by General Harkins, who saw no need at that time
for it, and by the Army which feared that all SIG­
INT resources would be pulled away from the
control of the local commanders. (See Chapter 4,
pages 144-145.) At this time, considering that the
American involvement was construed as short
term and advisory, the proposal for the JSA may
have appeared unnecessary and unwarranted.
(8//81) There also had been an effort to consolidate
reporting from Vietnam back in
November 1962, when the Southeast Asia
Processing and Intelligence Center (SEAPIC) was
established at the ASA site at Clark Air Base,
Philippines. The center was manned almost
entirely by ASA personnel and was meant to be a
second echelon-type reporting center. That is, the
center was to fill the gap between the available,
timely, but uncoordinated reporting by the individual
field sites in Indochina, and the more centralized,
complete, but tardy reporting from NSA.
The SEAPIC was supposed to take the reporting
from the sites in the region and produce more
complete and timely SIGINT for the main commands
like MACV.
(S//SI) However, manning remained the
biggest obstacle to an effective SEAPIC. The center
was supposed to have over 200 soldiers, but,
in reality, it could barely muster 60 percent of its
required manning. The problem, of course, was a
general shortage of qualified analysts in the
region. To fully man the SEAPIC meant stripping
the field sites of their already sparse experienced
personnel.l" Although early computers, such as
the IBM 1401, were introduced at the SEAPIC, the
manpower problem could not be overcome. In
late 1964, the DIRNSA ordered the center to be
phased out and its personnel dispersed to units in
Southeast Asia. The commander, ASA, Major
General William Craig, USA, objected to the
phaseout, and even offered an alternate suggestion
for building a consolidated, joint service
reporting center in the Philippines to support the
mainland effort!" But the SEAPIC was shut down
and nothing was erected in its place.
('f8//SI) A kind of operations center was
established in late 1965 in Hawaii -the NSA
Pacific Operations Group, known as the NOG.
The idea had come to the NSAPAC representative,
Colonel John E. Morrison, shortly after the
Gulf ofTonkin incident. He envisioned an operations
center that would coordinate the use of SIG­
INT in the Pacific Command (PACOM) region,
IThe "'.;,ork to get the Pacific NOG going
I
'--~~-'"
took about a vear.!
(8//811 However, the NOG never became the
answer to centralized reporting for Vietnam. The
NOG served the intelligence needs of the CINC­
PAC staff, and that command's interests ranged
all over the Pacific.1
impossible for the NOG to concentrate on the
needs of MACV. And, in truth, it could not do so.
For the operations group, the war in Vietnam was
'ust another issue to watch.
EO 1.4. (c)
'--
----'Yet,
timely intelligence support was beyond its ability.
The NOG proved incapable of supporting Rolling
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