Ignored.

This is coolbert:

OSINT VIETNAM! As was the case prior the Easter offensive of the North Vietnamese Army, 1972. OSINT ignored!

"sub rosa: adverb - In secret; privately or confidentially"

"Intelligence Ignored"

From "Small Wars Journal" the article by W.R. (Bob) Baker 02/01/2023 an extract.

That extract:

"As the Easter Offensive of 1972  [North Vietnamese] was the precursor to the signing of the Paris Peace Accords of 1973, there were two occasions where the United States could and should have moved against North Vietnam earlier but didn’t."

"The first time occurred prior to the invasion of South Vietnam by the North Vietnamese Army (NVA), which began of March 30, 1972, was when William Stearman, a career Foreign Service member who went over to the National Security Council (NSC), put together a small sub rosa group before the Easter Offensive. This group was composed of NSA, CIA, and DIA members, as well as Dr. Steve Hosmer of RAND and Dr. Stearman. Using Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT)—the Hanoi newspapers—they had they first inkling of what was to be the Easter Offensive in the fall of 1971."

"They found that North Vietnamese men who were previously exempted (both skilled and physically unfit, Chinese, and Montagnards who didn’t speak Vietnamese) were all being conscripted in North Vietnam, they looked at seasonal weather patterns, and 'communications shifts,' all of which brought them to the conclusion that the date of the invasion was to be somewhere around 10 days before it actually occurred, which was March 30th."

As to the second occurrence when the USA should have more decisively in a pre-emptive manner against North Vietnamese army forces and North Vietnam in general, the devoted reader to the blog will have to read the remainder of the article for themselves.

Indeed! Even fifty years later I can recall quite well the comments of the famous television evening news anchor Howard K. Smith his reaction to the Easter Offensive:

"Someone has made a terrible mistake here. That South Vietnamese army [the USA had equipped and trained] is inadequate in defending itself against the infantry, artillery and armor combined arms formations of the North Vietnamese army." [not an exact quote but close enough]

Further from a comment to the article by David Hanna:

"I fear that when South Vietnam died, America began to slowly die thereafter."

A sentiment I for one am in 100 % total agreement with!

coolbert.