The obscure intelligence bureau that got Vietnam, Iraq, and Ukraine right | Hacker News Reader

The obscure intelligence bureau that got Vietnam, Iraq, and Ukraine right

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By being small the INR is less impacted by the politics of the day.

In history messengers of bad news were shot. In modern times bringing bad news is a career limiting (if not, destructing) move. So the chiefs of the intel agencies will only bring palatable info to Washington.

I basically agree, but I would phrase it slightly differently: it isn't about "good news" vs "bad news" it's "what the dominant politicians want to hear" vs "what they don't."

If you're looking for a specific example of this, you might look at 'War of Numbers' by Sam Adams, a CIA analyst during the Vietnam War. It was published posthumously. It should be on the Internet Archive.

The book is about the US intelligence community, the military / DOD / Whitehouse in coming up with an "Official" Order of Battle about the Viet Cong, and his and some of his colleagues efforts to get an honest / accurate number. Ultimately he couldn't do it internally through the CIA and resigned, there was a CBS series on it in the 1980s that led to a lawsuit.

Essentially the number of Enemy troops was set by official policy at a certain level, while the actual number was at least double this. The numbers were fudged to make it work, including removing entire categories of troops. If the real numbers came out it would make people look back, and lead the public to make some bad conclusions.

It's really a shame War of Numbers isn't better known, even among scholars. I think the lack of attention is because it was published after most of the generation who really cared had passed on. My cohorts in the 1980s talked a good deal about Frank Snepp's Decent Interval (1977) and its revelations about intelligence work. Sam Adams' book would have been a bombshell.

I just checked, and assumed that War of Numbers was published in the 80s, but no not until 1998.

What I remember from Decent Interval, was that the US Ambassador refused to accept that South Vietnam was going to collapse. Avoiding panic aside, he took forever to get an evacuation going.

This stuff (Vietnam war) happened before I was born, but I still find it fascinating.

EDIT:

I was also thinking, as I realize that I'm getting 'old', what younger generations know about historical events. What does an average 20-something know about the Vietnam War, vs World War 2? Even the (2nd) Iraq War started over 20 years ago.

Not in a critical sense, just curious.

> INR is tiny, with fewer than 500 employees total.

Maybe that's why they are always right.

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