If you just start telling me about the preliminaries, the run off, the...

If we could just carry on with you describing the maps and the photos.

Now one of the uh more interesting, in a way humorous, incidents that happened in connection with our going into Cambodia was the seeking to get some kind of map or photo of the area since we had been forbidden to conduct conventional operations there previously, when the commanding general who would be conducting the operation, and I were talking together several days before we decided we needed some aerial photos, so I dispatched the Intelligence Officer down to MACV in Saigon, to get some photos of the area early one morning.

And of course there were a lot of things going on and uh I didn't think much about it. But late in the afternoon it suddenly dawned on me that I hadn't seen this fellow before, since then, so we tried to get a hold of him and it turned out he was still down there. We got him on the phone and I said, where are the maps, we need them, and where are the photos, rather, and he said, well they won't give them to me. What do you mean they won't give them to you? And I said, do you explain why you want them, and he said, well they don't seem to know anything about it.

I said, well tell them to go over and talk to the Chief of Staff- Abrams, Chief of Staff and he'll explain why we need them. Well, in a few hours he returned with the photographs and then we found out why they didn't want to give them to us, was the photographs of course disclosed these huge craters, that B-52 bombing had been going on for some time- a year or more and we weren't aware of it officially. Indeed, I wasn't aware of it at all. Most of us weren't.

So I guess they didn't want to give us photographic evidence of that. But even though we were going to conduct an operation in to Cambodia. So I guess it was a question of Intelligence people not knowing what we were doing and also protecting this other bombing that we weren't privy to. But, anyway, that was I thought an interesting episode.

What about the notification about COSVN movements, if we could go on about that?

Well COSVN, of course, moved around a good deal across uh the border there and we were generally aware of their location through the normal intelligence means. And uh, uh, we knew, for instance, the day that the operation was to begin that they had left the area which is not surprising, because our movements I'm sure on the other side of the border alerted that something might well happen.

And of course it was, I presume, a rather small thing. Perhaps a foxhole and a couple of radios, and we went from the briefing that morning and the operation began, was due to begin, at seven o'clock and Nixon's speech came on about that time and here was President with his map making a big issue of the fact that we were going to capture COSVN which wasn't anything to begin with, as I've said. And of course we knew it wasn't there.

So I realized immediately that that was a gaffe and I'm not sure quite who put him up to that. I think he later found out he was kind of infatuated with a notion of COSVN being a major sort of United States sprawling type of headquarters, which it wasn't.

And how about your meetings with Charley Whitehouse? You talked before about the political impact.

Well the night before the operation was definitely to begin, and we had finished our final briefing, everything was set to go. Charley Whitehouse who was our our uh sort of senior diplomatic official in the second field force where I was Chief of Staff at the time, and I sat down to chat about the operation, and we didn't talk about the technical details, but what we talked about was the impact of the United States. And both of us agreed very strongly that it was going to be a very severe political impact at home.

What we wondered about was why, you know, given these sort of marginal necessity for the operation, anyone would undertake it given the political impact, and uh but we assumed perhaps that we were wrong, being that far away but it turned out that we had a sensitivity for the political impact which was substantial, I guess.

Can you pref—give me a rundown of the objectives of the operation and whether they achieved those objectives.

Well, I think the objectives at our level, you know for years...

Sir, could you say the objectives of the operations...

Oh, excuse me. Yeah. I think the objectives of the Cambodian operation at our level were rather objectives of a technical military nature in that for years the sanctuaries had been used, of course, just on the other side of the border which gave the other side the initiative, and so forth, but for various political reasons we were constrained from normal ground operations. The result, of course, was a rather substantial build up at times of manpower which at the moment was not there because of operations being conducted further to the West, but a good deal of supplies.

And uh since uh that time the supply movement was a rather tenuous thing down that long trail system. Our feeling was that if we could destroy and capture and take some of these supplies it would take a good deal of time to build them up again. And in effect, this would be a break for the uh South Vietnamese forces we were operating with in that area. Sort of a boon to Vietnamization, you might say.

And I think in that technical sense, we were probably successful. We did destroy a good number of supplies and statistics have been published captured some, and so I think in that very narrow sense, that the operation was probably a success. But, of course, one must weigh that versus what happened later in Cambodia and what the impact was politically at home. And it turns out to be a rather small part of the equation, sort of technical.

Um, why, could you explain why the operation was necessary given the fact there were thousands tons of bombs already dropped on the area by B-52's?

Well, I think of course there is a limitation, you know, to what you can do by aerial bombardment and Billy Mitchell and Duellet, notwithstanding. Uh the air enthusiasts, uh the results of WWII proved that until the you know the technical surprise at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so that bombing, you know, is not really that effective in detail. I mean there's things that can be concealed, you can't bomb everywhere. You know, certain things could take a little bit of fragmentation.

And so I think that just simply you have to go in and take them out of there and seize them. I just don't think you can do that much bombing. You know, there were huge areas that were covered over by triple canopy, they were, you know, unknown. Some of them were dug in which gave them, except for a direct hit, you know, a fairly good uh uh ability to take some kind of bombing fragmentation.

So I think that technically, from a purely technical reason, there wasn't reason to go in and disrupt the whole supply system and to take it out, in addition to bombing. Of course, we hadn't known about the bombing in advance, so maybe we would have changed our estimate, had we known about that.

What about the morale of the soldiers at the time. There was no problem about that, was there?

No, I don't think so, the uh, as you know...

Say I don't there was any problem.

No, I don't think there was any.

Just wait two seconds and then go.

I don't think there was any really serious problem in troop morale as far as the Cambodian incursion began. As you know, there was a decline in uhm morale of American Army, particular in Vietnam, beginning I would say, around this time. Around 1970, and certainly by ‘71 having to do with the last man theory, you know, and so forth.

I don't think the Cambodian incursion, my recollection, caused any major morale problems. If anything, it sort of generated a little bit of enthusiasm among those groups who wanted to do something. You know, it was tangible, here at last is an enemy or real supplies, and so forth.

And I don't think you know, any casualty of course is unfortunate. But my recollection of the casualties of that operation they were not heavy primarily because the enemy was operating elsewhere. You know, when we got in the area. So I don't think there was...from my point of view I don't think it was a major morale, but there was an obvious decline in morale during that period that kept going on and on as Vietnamization progressed. Oh, I don't recall any serious problems with combat units.

Okay. Cut.

Could I just ask you about...

I'll just ask you about the impact of the operation. We'll go over that ground. If you could talk about the purpose and the results of the operation.

Well, the purpose of the operation, you know, the incursion at our level was a rather technical one, a rather straight military one, didn't involve deeply in political ramifications of it and it was, you know, to destroy the buildup of supplies that come down the trail for a long time and realizing the long time it would take to replace them, presumably if we destroyed and captured, this would give the South Vietnamese in our area a sort of break uhm, extend Vietnamization in a way as kind of a bonus.

Now there could have been people over there, too, but it so happened they were operating further to the west at that time. So in that very technical and narrow way I think you could say the operation was a military success in that area. Now you must lay that against larger political, what happened in Cambodia, what happened in the United States, then you probably would come up with a different answer.

Okay. That's it.

That tight enough?

Yeah. That's good.

Could we just start, Doug, while you explaining about your analysis of these statistics, about death caused by sanctuaries, and caused by...

It is the role of the sanctuaries, of course, is on one level self-evident in that the enemy can retreat into them, you can't go there, that leaves them with the initiative and so forth. Oh when you start trying to be more specific as to precisely how many deaths were caused by allowing sanctuaries, then it becomes more difficult. I got into the research on that a little bit.

Uh in 1966-'7 when I was Chief of Operations Analysis in Saigon, in the headquarters, and people were of course trying to get some justification for us to operate, and so we uh did a good deal of statistical work attempting to show that uh because of the sanctuaries so many US deaths were caused. But it essentially a fruitless kind of operation and not statistically very sound. It was one of those things that on one hand is self-evident and the other hand, when you start trying to prove it it isn't quite that easy. And uh so I think there's a little hocus pocus connected with it.

What about the story of your difficulty in getting the maps and the photographs [incomprehensible]...Could we go over that slightly briefly.

When we uh began the detailed planning of this operation it was evident to us since we never operated in Cambodia, that we needed some kind of map or aerial photo. So I dispatched the G2 down to pick these up at the headquarters in Saigon and he had great difficulty in getting them. And after many hours I finally got him on the phone and said, what's happening down there? And he said, well they won't give me the aerial photos of Cambodia, and I said, why not? Tell them, well I don't think they know that we're going to go over there.

I said well go over and tell 'em to see the Chief of Staff Abrams, Chief of Staff, he'll explain it to them. So that worked, at least, and we got the photos and when he came back with them, we found out why they didn't want us to see them because here was the photographic evidence of the B-52 bombing and it had been going on for a year or more. Which, of course, we weren't aware of. It was not involved in our daily work and uh uh we didn't know it and they didn't want us to know. It was held secretly uh for obvious reasons.

That's good. That's very good. Now about the Wheeler back channels thing... If you would ruminate about that?

Yuh. I've often thought as historians try to reconstruct what happened in in Cambodia, especially the decision making processes, how far off they're going to be if they look at the normal kinds of messages that went back and forth because most of what happened there, in my recollection, was done on the so called back channel message, which goes only from the sender to uh whom ever he wishes to have the message, and of course, the eventual disposition of these messages is up at the discretion of the person who sent them.

And if you take this to the channel where the war was... where the incursion was mainly planned, between Abrams and Bus Wheeler, the joint Chiefs of Staff, this was all done by back-channel, for obvious reasons. And uh uh uh of course, eventually, Wheeler had all of this stuff shredded, and so that no longer exists, and Abrams' stuff has been sorted out in various categories, some of it destroyed, the more sensitive stuff put away. And the less sensitive stuff available, I suppose, soon to researchers.

But the whole story of the planning and the execution of and the rationale of this is really gone. And if you try to reconstruct it based upon the sort of normal message traffic, you're really dealing with a fiction. Ha ha.

You said "for obvious reasons" [incomprehensible], what were the obvious reasons.

Well, I think that it was closely held and sensitive operation which had many political overtones to it.

Would you say, "The Cambodian incursion was a secret...

Oh, the Cambodian incursion was, of course, a rather carefully held operation. We had, you know in my whole area in which I operated in which there were over 150,000 American troops. Only seven of us, for a week or so, knew that this was coming up and so uh uh it was closely held in Vietnam, it was closely held in Washington, I gather, and it was closely held between the two.

So, therefore, it was natural to use the so called back channel message in which the sender can control precisely who sees the message. In all of my correspondence back and forth on it, even to Saigon, was done on this back channel message, and all of the Abrams-Wheeler correspondence on it was done on back channel messages. And of course Wheeler had these, along with his other things, shredded before he died. And Abrams' things have been sorted out, most of the sensitive stuff either put away or or destroyed.

So that the real story of the planning of the operation from a military point of view, at least, doesn't exist. And if one were to look at the front, for normal message traffic, would appear in such things as State Department documents and other things, eventually, that really won't tell the story.

Okay. Uh, what was your story about General Do Cao Tri?

Oh yeah. One of the interesting things about the Cambodian incursion, of course, was that the uh operations of the ARVN forces preceded ours first without our physical going across the border and eventually with it and toward the end as we were pulling one of their major operations in which adviser, would be involved, we had picked out a certain day the new commander of the field force.

But word came back from Do Cao Tri who was our ARVN commander in that area that it couldn't be conducted in those days the stars weren't right and he in fact was staying home in bed that day, astrology was not quite correct and therefore the operation would have to be postponed a day or two until things were right. Now this was a sort of "Welcome to Vietnam" message to our new field force commander who was not uh interes—experienced with taking astrological matters into account in military operations.

That's good. Let's also go over again the COSVN disappearing act.

Hmm. Hmm. One of the things that I found interesting was, as I looked at Nixon's speech on, on the incursion, after we had started it, a few minutes after we had started it, was the great emphasis he had placed on the COSVN headquarters, sort of portrayed it as a kind of Pentagon that we were going to capture and my guess is that at best it was a foxhole and a couple of radios. But in any case we knew that in the last twenty-four hours it was well out of the area in which we were going to operate in which we knew from our normal Intelligence means, and so it was never really an objective. Although, as he portrayed it, it was a major objective to the American people. Seemed kind of a wooden type of presentation to me, uh.

Let's deal now with what Vietnam taught people and what it meant, what it means now for the other program, for D. Ellison’s program?

Well, I think there's no end of a lesson. I think, I suppo—

I think Vietnam was pro—

Sorry. Sorry. Don't look at me. Go ahead.

Well, I think Vietnam was no end of the lesson certainly for the military and everyone else. I suppose the thing that you would have to emphasize is that we really didn't know the enemy we were dealing with. We really didn't know our allies, but out of it came a sufficient caution that I suppose the lesson to the military for the future is to be very very cautious in getting involved in such operations.

Uh, of course, we knew that after Korea that "No, never again school" in Asia. I think, however, in Central American operations which are being discussed these days that probably among the more cautious group will be the military who know what it is to get involved in that kind of thing.

What about your own thinking about Vietnam? How has that evolved from your experience there, from [incomprehensible]?

Well, of course, I must say that despite my involvement over there for a couple of years. I...

Start...

No. How is my thinking evolved in terms of Vietnam since my involvement there in the mid to late '60s, I find now that I've done a great deal of research and writing on it that I really knew nothing about the background. I didn't understand the enemy we were dealing with, I didn't understand the allies, I don't think as my book on the War Managers indicated, most of the generals didn't understand the objectives and we're certainly willing to admit that in 1974.

I guess I now understand uh uh a little more about it, and I guess I understand also that had the decision makers understood what I now do, even without knowing the outcome, they could not have made the decisions they did. It was a total lack of understanding of the situation we were involved with. Sort of simplistic tying it in with Cold War things, you know.

What were the flaws do you think, were they fundamentally tactical, or strategic, or just the overall involvement?

No. I think there were, the uh, well, I don't know if you would call the flaws over there strategic or tactical, uh, at the sort of operational, the military operational level, you don't fight an operation on that scale without going where the enemy is. I mean, you don't fight it at his choice in time, and location which would give him the initiative. And so what you have here is you're fighting a war of attrition in which the enemy has the initiative.

And so that becomes a war of wills and this is the situation where the enemy in this case had the will and we had the power. But you can't apply power where he has the initiative unless he wants you to, so we fought it in the wrong dimension. We had the power and didn't use it, he had the will, and that's the kind of war we fought, it was a war of wills. I think that was the basic tactical or strategic mistake, whatever you wish. That okay?

Yeah, that's fine. Cut.