Brief History of Army MI - Fort Huachuca - U.S. Army

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A GUIDE TO STUDYING HISTORY AT FORT HUACHUCAfilled the void. This involvementwith civilian intelligence brought criticismand recriminations for the Armywhich ended its domestic collectionin 1970. The Defense InvestigativeService came into being to performthe background investigations necessaryto grant security clearances, a jobthat had made up 90 percent ofUSAINTC’s mission. Significantlycut back in mission and personnel,USAINTC was closed down in 1974.It was replaced by the U.S. Army IntelligenceAgency (USAINTA), a fieldoperating agency of ACSI.The U.S. Army Security Agency(USASA) became a major army fieldcommand in 1964 and then becameknown as the U.S. Army Intelligenceand Security Command (INSCOM)in 1977.Army Chief of Staff Harold K.Johnson approved on 1 July 1967 therecommendations of the NorrisBoard, a body specially created to lookat the Army’s intelligence programsand organization. As a result, the oldArmy Intelligence and SecurityBranch, which had included the ArmySecurity Agency (ASA), now becamethe Military Intelligence Branch. TheMI mission changed from one ofcombat service support to combatsupport. And now the Army beganstudying the possibility of moving theIntelligence School from FortHolabird and centralizing the trainingfor the many intelligence specialties.The early years of the war foundmilitary intelligence assets inadequateand unsophisticated, a situation whichhad become the pattern in everyAmerican war. In 1965 there were200 U.S. army officers serving as intelligenceadvisers with Republic ofVietnam troops. When U.S. combattroops were committed in thatyear, the 704th Intelligence CorpsDetachment, a detachment of the500th Intelligence Corps Group, andthe 3d Radio Research Unit were onduty in Vietnam. But there wereshortages of specialists, especially linguists.Lieut. Gen. Harry W. O.Kinnard, commanding the 1st CavalryDivision in 1965, commented onthe early problems with identifyingthe enemy:When I took the 1st CavalryDivision to Vietnam in 1965, I knewthat finding the enemy would be oneof our toughest jobs. It occurred tome that perhaps we would be able toidentify the guerrilla, a farmer by dayand a fighter by night, by the darkcircles under his eyes.... As it turnedout, our surveillance was just aboutthat unsophisticated.But improvements were on theway. By the 1968 Tet Offensive,there were 2,500 intelligence specialistsin country under the supervisionof the U.S. Military Assistance Command,Vietnam (MACV), J-2. InSaigon the 525th Military IntelligenceGroup exercised command and controlover the 135th MI Group, acounterintelligence unit; the 149thMI Group, which engaged in positivecollection; the 1st MI Battalion(Aerial Reconnaissance); and the519th MI Battalion, which operatedthe joint US/RVN intelligence centers.The combined intelligence centersshared jointly gathered intelligence,translated captured documentsand interrogated prisoners. There wasa center at MACV and at each of thefour corps areas in which the Republicof Vietnam Army (ARVN) operated.There were over 600 intelligenceadvisers on the ground nowwith the RVN Army. The 509thRadio Research Group ran a field stationand provided support through itstactical units to units down to brigadelevel. Combat troops had their ownorganic intelligence assets.Another unique type of unit to beintroduced in the Vietnam War wasthe Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrol(LRRP) which consisted of fourto six-man teams inserted into enemyterritory to gather intelligence or submitbattle-damage assessments. TheMilitary Assistance Command, Vietnam,Studies and Observation Group(MACV-SOG) was a joint serviceunit under the command of the Commander-in-Chief,Pacific(CINCPAC), which inserted intelligenceteams into enemy territory byland, sea or air.It was during the Vietnam Warthat military intelligence reached apotential unparalleled in history. Usingthe latest electronic gear to detectthe enemy, both from the air and theground, hostile concentrations werepin-pointed and enemy traps wereavoided or surprised. Ground surveillanceradars were employed, sidelookingairborne radar (SLAR) wasdeployed and a variety of night observationdevices were used whichtook advantage of infrared and image-intensification.The first use of UnattendedGround Sensors (UGS) was made bythe Marines at Khe Sanh in 1968.They were credited with contributingto the successful defense of theMarine base and would evolve in bothsophistication and numbers deployed.The UGS could detect the presenceof the enemy by acoustic, seismic, ormagnetic indicators which were sentback to monitoring stations.38Call (520) 533-3638, DSN 821-3638, FAX (520) 533-5736.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF U.S. ARMY MILITARY INTELLIGENCEThe combat intelligence battalionthat was assigned to a division duringthe Vietnam War was organized asfollows: A headquarters and headquarterscompany was responsible forcommand and control, communications,radar, remote sensor and vehiclemaintenance, and supply services.Ground surveillance radars and remotesensors were deployed by a materielexploitation platoon of theHHC. An intelligence operationscompany furnished counterintelligenceand interrogation support forthe division and manned the battlefieldinformation control centers(BICC) and battlefield informationcenters (BIC). Long-range reconnaissancefor the division was providedby the ground recon-naissance and surveil-lancecompany. An aerial targetacquisition and combat surveillancecompany had the job of providingboth aerial electronic surveillance andimagery inter-pretation through theuse of utility and attack helicopters.Some concepts growing out of theVietnam experience were the Surveillance,Target Acquisition, Night Observation(STANO) program, an intensivemanagement system for surveillanceoperations and products; andthe Integrated Battlefield ControlSystem (IBCS), a program designedto aid the commander’s decisionmakingprocess by combining all ofthe technological tools.Perhaps the single greatest reasonfor the improved intelligence apparatusin the Vietnam War was the senseof professionalism instilled by an MIbranch. During the war in Vietnam,the Military Intelligence Branch grewto 7,000 officers and became the fifthlargest branch. Colonel William F.Strobridge, the G2 in the 4th InfantryDivision operating along the Cambodianborder in 1970, expressed hisfeelings on being in the Military IntelligenceBranch, created only threeyears earlier:...possibly unlike the non-MIBranch officer, I felt as an MI officerworking as a combat division G2 thatI was at the zenith of my professionaland personal satisfaction. I was playingfirst fiddle for a varied and skilledassemblage of intelligence players thatwere part of my chosen career field. Ifelt, as an MI officer, I had greatercommand of the multiple types ofintelligence support I could get for thedivision. As an MI officer, I couldtalk nose-to-nose with other MIpeople on the quality and timelinessof their support, and as an MI officerI could eradicate any hangups MI personnelmight have about supportingan infantry division. There is no questionin my mind that the MI specialists,sergeants, warrant officers, lieutenants,captains, and majors that Iworked with each day passed the testin the 4th Infantry Division, becausewhen the division commander receiveda richly deserved promotion,he specified he wanted another MIofficer for his G2.Despite all of the acknowledgedsuccess of intelligence support in Vietnam,there were still deficiencies, mostof which could be categorized under“untimely response.” It was GeneralPatton who remarked that he likedintelligence, “like eggs, the fresher thebetter.” The appetite for intelligenceis and always will be insatiable. Theresult is often an information overloadthat strains the ability of the systemto process and disseminate theanalyzed information in a timely manner.In Vietnam, depending on thesource, the time elapsed from the occurrenceof an event to the time thereport reached the hands of the usercould range from 15 minutes in thecase of a triggered ground surveillanceradar to 72 hours in the case of anagent report. In between were elapsedtimes of 20 minutes for an airbornepersonnel detector, 50 minutes for anunattended ground sensor, an hourand a half for a usually reliable intelligencereport, known as “special intelligence,”four hours for SLAR and airborneinfrared, five and one-half hoursfor prisoner interrogation, and sixhours for intelligence civic action program.These processing times weretoo long to be useful to the commanderwho was dealing with a fastmoving,guerilla force which dependeda great deal on deception.After Vietnam, the U.S. Armywas determined to find a better wayto organize and focus its intelligenceassets to more efficiently serve thecombat commander.In the final years of the VietnamWar, and over the decades that followed,Army intelligence faced athicket of challenges and alternatingbouts of contraction and growth. Thelast quarter of the 20th century wouldbe a time of self-definition and reemergenceas an equal partner withoperations, personnel, and logistics.With the war in Southeast Asiaover, the emphasis pivoted to theEuropean theater where intelligencewas expected to counter the superiornumbers of the Warsaw Pact forceswith the celerity of its early warninginformation.The MI community would betransformed, not only by its ownfrenzy of reorganization, but bychanges taking place in the U.S. Armyas a whole. In 1972 the draft was discontinued,drying up a reservoir ofWrite Fort Huachuca Museums; U.S. Army Intelligence Center and Fort Huachuca; ATTN: ATZS-PAM; Fort Huachuca, AZ 85613-6000.39
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Brief History of Army MI - Fort Huachuca - U.S. Army

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