To View Book
CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers:
Three Episodes 1962-1968, 1998
Vietnam War Symposium
June 9, 1998Georgetown University
Symposium co-sponsor: Georgetown Institute for the Study of Diplomacy
Hal Ford’s new book, CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers: Three Episodes, 1962-68, is a scholarly and honest account of the ways in which the Intelligence Community, particularly the CIA, provided wartime intelligence support to the Johnson Administration. Dr. Ford was among CIA’s most knowledgeable and accomplished Vietnam analysts during the long US involvement in the Vietnam conflict. His views and insights as drafter of many National Intelligence Estimates throughout that stressful period in our history have withstood the test of time.
In his book, Dr. Ford examines the evaluations CIA officers provided policymakers, assesses the impact of those evaluations on policy decisions, and offers lessons learned. The three episodes addressed in the book are: the decision to commit US troops, the order-of-battle controversy, and the Tet offensive. The half-day symposium included a lively discussion by several prominent commentators on that still controversial period in American history. The speakers included Chester Cooper, former National Security Council staff officer for Vietnamese affairs; Stanley Karnow, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and historian; Thomas Hughes, President-Emeritus of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and ex-Director of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research; and Edward Keefer, Far East historian at the Department of State.