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mburnamfink's review
5.0
DeForest has a unique take on the Vietnam War, having run a very successful interrogation center for about five years. Coming in to the country after the Tet offensive, DeForest found an intelligence operation in shamble, with no spies, a minimal list of suspects, worthless methods, and no intelligence. This story chronicles how he worked against incompetence and resistance all around him to fix that.
In his time in country, DeForest used the timetested principles of police work to penetrate the Vietcong and generate operational intelligence. Starting with friendly interrogations of defectors, he developed a massive databank of rumors and background information about the Vietcong, which allowed him to target 'legal' cadres living under a civilian cover, and then press on their family obligations to get them to turn against the Vietcong. From this base, he was able to develop a handful of top level spies who provided precise intelligence for airstrikes and countering future attacks.
DeForest clearly thinks that the war was justified, and that he should've been on the right side of history. But he is also unstinting in criticizing the South Vietnamese government as corrupt and incompetent, the worst enemy of their own people. And he is rightfully bitter about the nearly 600 people he was forced to leave behind in the chaotic fall of Saigon, as his plan for an orderly evacuation was scuttled by high command. This was perhaps one of the supreme injustices of the war, as people who stood by the Americans were abandoned to the worst of communist re-education.
Overall, this is a fascinating and readable look into the proper role of intelligence and interrogation in a warzone, and the human dramas of being a CIA officer.
In his time in country, DeForest used the timetested principles of police work to penetrate the Vietcong and generate operational intelligence. Starting with friendly interrogations of defectors, he developed a massive databank of rumors and background information about the Vietcong, which allowed him to target 'legal' cadres living under a civilian cover, and then press on their family obligations to get them to turn against the Vietcong. From this base, he was able to develop a handful of top level spies who provided precise intelligence for airstrikes and countering future attacks.
DeForest clearly thinks that the war was justified, and that he should've been on the right side of history. But he is also unstinting in criticizing the South Vietnamese government as corrupt and incompetent, the worst enemy of their own people. And he is rightfully bitter about the nearly 600 people he was forced to leave behind in the chaotic fall of Saigon, as his plan for an orderly evacuation was scuttled by high command. This was perhaps one of the supreme injustices of the war, as people who stood by the Americans were abandoned to the worst of communist re-education.
Overall, this is a fascinating and readable look into the proper role of intelligence and interrogation in a warzone, and the human dramas of being a CIA officer.
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