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ton and Saigon denied that it had happened.
However, on 28 March, the White House
announced that, if warranted in the judgment of
local U.S. commanders, American troops could
cross the border into Cambodia. Spokesmen for
the White House denied that an attack was pending;
this announcement only confirmed standing
U.S. policy.
CU) In April, fighting along the border intensified,
while communist troops in Cambodia drove
Nol's regular Cambodian army units out of several
provinces. Bythe middle of April, Phnom Penh
estimated that half the country was under communist
control. In Beijing, Sihanouk attended a
conference with other communist leaders,
notably Chou En Lai from the People's Republic,
Pham Van Dong from North Vietnam,
Souphanna Vong ofthe Pathet Lao, and Nguyen
Huu Tho of the Provisional Revolutionary
Government Cas the National Liberation Front
was now known) to announce joint action to
expel the United States and its allies from
Indochina.
CU) On 28 April, Nixon gave his approval to
the invasion of Cambodia. Ostensibly, his reason
for the invasion was to cover the American withdrawal
by destroying the communists' ability to
conduct operations. On 30 April, as 80,000
troops from U.S. and ARVN units entered
Cambodia, Nixon announced the invasion to a
nationwide 1V audience. In his speech, he said it
was necessary to attack Cambodia in order to
eliminate communist sanctuaries and staging
areas on the border, and to attack "the headquarters
for the entire communist military operation
in South Vietnam." He may have not quite meant
COSVN - technically, military operations were
handled by the HQ of the South Vietnam National
Liberation Army which was subordinate to
COSVN - but the popular understanding was that
a major target of the invasion was the ever-elusive
communist headquarters. In an almost symbolic
manner, this objective would come to reveal the
limits of SIGINT and underscore the frustration
American cryptologists felt during the war.
(SI!SI) Hunting the Elusive COSVN:
A Case Study ofthe Limits ofSIGINT,
1970
CD) In attacking the southern communist
headquarters, the problem for the U.S. command
in Saigon was twofold: envisioning what COSVN
looked like, and then pinning it down for the
knockout blow. Mired in their own understanding
of command and control centers, which were
realized in the huge and sprawling compounds in
Saigon and Tan Son Nhut airport, manned by a
small army of staffofficers, specialists, and clerks,
the American planners seemed to project this
image onto the Vietnamese COSVN.
(S//SI) Based on the estimates of American
intelligence concerning the size, scope, and functions
of COSVN, it was easy for Washington and
Saigon to infer a sort of jungle Pentagon hidden
away in the recesses of the Cambodian­
Vietnamese border. Intelligence reports issued
during the war spoke of political and military
staffs numbering in the thousands - in 1967
about 5,500 personnel were attributed to COSVN
- along with the Liberation News Agency and a
variety of training schools, supply depots, and
base camps A later CIA report placed the numbers
even higher - approaching 8,000 military
and civilian staff. 8
CU) The reality, of course, was much different.
COSVN was mostly a collection of detached, distant
staffs that lived a liquid existence, flowing
from one set of thatched huts to another whenever
the American attacks got too close. In 1964, the
deputy commander of the South Vietnam
Liberation Army described the COSVN "complex"
this way:
We slept in hammocks in small thatched bamboo
huts, and we held our meetings in underground
tunnels,which also served as shelter
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