spartans_in_darkness

OGA
TOP SECRETJlCONiiN rnx i
Thunder in a "real time" fashion." Eventually,
the Pacific Air Force (PACAF) commander would
have to resort to establishinganother center to
meet its needs for the air war in Southeast Asia,
known as the Pacific Air DefenseAnalysis Facility
(PADAF).
...---------------------------. parts of the country."
(TS//SI) It seemed that MACV's fears were
never settled. Two years later, in August 1967,
MACVrequested that NSA do a survey of SIGINT
activities supporting its command. A seven-man
NSA survey team traveled throughout South
Vietnam interviewing personnel and assessing
the effort. At one meeting, the MACVJ-2 personnel
asked for the setup of a Central Processing
Center in-country. The J-2 people told the survey
team that there was no single in-country SIGINT
element which was capable of putting all the disparate
field reporting into a single, coherent pic-
ture for MACV. 24 As far as the MACVpeople were
concerned, the NSA reporting, although detailed,
was not timely for tactical applications. At the
same time, the reporting from the field sites and
the direct support units was uncoordinated and
seldom reflected similar activities from other
(S//SI) The team considered the MACV
request and then decided that it could not support
it. The members, aware of the concerns from
the ASA 509th Group over additional manpower
constraints if the CPC was formed, found that
there were elements already in place that conceivably
could handle MACV's requirements. The
survey team recommended that the current
reporting setup, with the single collection management
authority overseeing the processing and
reporting of Hanoi's communications, adequately
covered the problem. Besides, the team also
pointed out, there was the SSG for MACV, which
could be the means for "pulling together" all related
activities reflected in communist cornmunications.i"
However, implicit in MACV's complaints
was the criticism that the SSG was not performing
its function.
(S//SI) These recommendations, though,
remained just that. They would not be implemented,
and there never would be a central processing
or reporting authority established in
Vietnam. MACV continued to rely on NSA for
1....- ----1 consolidated reporting of the war. The SSG
remained beyond Saigon's control. Although
Washington was capable of nearly instant communications
with Saigon, this technical connection
did not mean that their perspectives on the
war were the same. The gulf between the two was
more than just the several thousand miles separating
the two capitals. Each held altogether different
outlooks on what was happening in
Vietnam. And, in a few months, it would be this
difference that would would make a telling
change in the outcome of the war.
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