Quote Originally Posted by Steve Blair View Post
This shows quite clearly in Westmoreland's lukewarm reception of intelligence provided by SOG teams working the Trail in Laos and (later) Cambodia. The same goes for at least parts of his staff as well. SOG had the potential to deliver incredible intelligence, but it was often wasted by people who didn't have a good understanding of what they had.
I concur to a degree. In the early days, the product delivered by OPS-35 was pretty variable, and only covered a very small AO. By 1968, B-52 strikes were being put in based on OPS-35 product.

...however, and I say this as a man with many friends who served in the OPS-35 Recon Teams, the role of the NSA in Laos (Angry Talker, and Polaris 2) has never really been researched. As far as I can tell, most of the targets run in 1969/70 were based on Angry Talker intercepts.

Quote Originally Posted by AGBrina View Post
....Congress had allocated just a fourth of the funds lavished on the Israelis in 1974 toward the South Vietnamese instead....
What crippled ARVN was oil prices. Giving ARVN more equipment (which was what the IDF needed to replace 1973 losses - (and US support broke the will of Jordan and Egypt to continue by military means) ARVN just lacked training and mostly combat power across the board. Giving RVN more M113s and F4E's would not have altered the military outcome.

However, it would have saved Cambodia! - a nation truly betrayed by the US Congress and a few other people. I've never wanted to talk to Jane Fonda about Hanoi, but I would love to chat about Cambodia!