America's Strategic Blunders

Matthias/Book 3/5/01 9:22 AM Page i America’s Strategic Blunders Matthias/Book 3/5/01 9:22 AM Page ii Matthias/Book 3/5/01 9:22 AM Page iii Willard C. Matthias AMERICA’S STRATEGIC BLUNDERS Intelligence Analysis and National Security Policy, 1936–1991 The Pennsylvania State University Press University Park, Pennsylvania Matthias/Book 3/5/01 9:22 AM Page iv Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Matthias, Willard C. America’s Strategic Blunders : intelligence analysis and national security policy, 1936–1991 / Willard C. Matthias. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-271-02066-0 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Intelligence service—United States—History—20th century. 2. United States—Foreign relations—20th century. 3. Cold War. I. Title. JK468.I6 M42 2001 327.1273'009'045—dc21 00-022029 Copyright © 2001 The Pennsylvania State University All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA 16802-1003 It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-free paper for the first printing of all clothbound books. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48—1992. Matthias/Book 3/5/01 9:22 AM Page v Contents Introduction 1 1 Intelligence Triumphs and Failures in World War II 7 2 How the Cold War Began 43 3 The Korean War: A Pivotal Event 71 4 The 1950s: Evolving U.S. Views of the Soviet Threat 97 5 1958–1960: A New Communist-Bloc Activism? 139 6 1960: The Strategic Situation and Its Dangers 163 7 President Kennedy’s Crises 171 8 The Estimate That Changed the World 195 9 Prophecies and Events of the 1960s 217 10 The Nixon Era and the Beginning of Détente 237 11 The Early 1970s: A New World Environment 257 12 Renewal of the Cold War 273 13 An Assault upon the National Intelligence Process 293 14 The Early 1980s: Years of Danger 315 15 The Road to Peace: 1983–1991 337 References 349 Index 353 Matthias/Book 3/5/01 9:22 AM Page vi Matthias/Book 3/5/01 9:22 AM Page 1 Introduction This book is a survey of more than fifty years of national security policy and of the role long-term analytic intelligence played—or should have played— in its formulation. Critical questions are at the heart of strategic analysis. Before 1941, U.S. foreign and military policymakers should have been ask- ing such questions as, Japan’s What are Japanese long-range plans for Asia? How do the Japanese think about American military capabilities in the Pacific? What are the implications of the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis for U.S. interests in the Pacific? Had U.S. policymakers been well enough informed to have asked such questions, still there was no central analytic body to provide answers. The Japanese provided an answer on December 7, 1941, in the form of a surprise attack on an unprepared nation. When war came, military planners were interested only in tactical intelligence, that is, the acquisition of information about enemy planes, forces, weaponry, and dispositions, in order to guide Allied military operations. They did not regard long-term strategic intelligence as their concern. In 1943, when Allied political and military leaders were considering war aims, they appar- ently settled for “unconditional surrender” without having made a careful study of the consequences within enemy countries. We now know that the tough lan- guage prolonged the war. Moreover, in 1943–44, Allied leaders, because of their preoccupation with tactical matters, failed to take into consideration the existence of an active anti-Hitler plot, which the OSS team in Berne had been reporting in detail. Even though Hitler had survived the attack, the Allied forces failed to exploit the great confusion provoked within the German army. Indeed, General Eisenhower thought the plot might have been faked. After World War II ended, U.S. leaders set about to construct a peacetime intelligence system around the concept of a centralized, civilian intelligence agency whose primary function would be current intelligence reporting. In Matthias/Book 3/5/01 9:22 AM Page 2 2 America’s Strategic Blunders 1950, with the Korean War in progress, a strategic intelligence function was clearly recognized and assigned to a newly created Board and Office of National Estimates. The board was charged with supervising the production of National Intelligence Estimates and coordinating them with the intelligence staffs of other executive departments. In the pursuit of their mission, the new CIA strategic analysts soon encountered a military ethos and manner of thinking quite different from their own. This writer concluded that the military’s approach to strategic questions could be explained by examining how U.S. military leaders conceived and pursued their World War II mission. It now seems clear that the leaders developed and carried out their war plans on the assumption that their task was exclusively military—the destruc- tion of the enemy forces and the governments that controlled them and, on achieving total victory, the establishment of military governments. Not only were they uninterested in political and psychological developments in enemy countries, their ethos of warfare did not include negotiating with the enemy or with dissident groups in enemy territory. This book shows that if the Allied commanders had paid greater attention to what was happening behind enemy lines, the wars in both Europe and the Far East could have ended much ear- lier, and at a much reduced cost in human life. The state of mind that dominated the conduct of World War II carried over into the postwar years. The trauma created by Pearl Harbor convinced military leaders to be alert to possible surprise attacks by a militarily strong foreign power. That state of mind led to a quick identification of the USSR as the future enemy and plans to build a military force that could fight a general war against the Soviet Union. In making those decisions of the late 1940s and early 1950s, military and political leaders demonstrated a grievous fail- ure to understand the Soviet leaders and Communist doctrine. It is true that the Soviets were truculent on the matter of a peace treaty and made a deter- mined effort to establish pliant Communist regimes in Eastern Europe; they launched violent propaganda attacks upon the United States and stirred up political unrest in Western Europe. But the behavior of the Soviet leaders in critical situations and the character of their thinking as disclosed in Soviet archival material now available make it quite clear that the Soviets were fear- ful of a U.S. nuclear attack and were unwilling to undertake any actions that risked war with the United States. They were ambitious to create a Communist world, but they hoped to achieve it through nonmilitary means. The National Intelligence Estimates, estimative memoranda, and other materials produced in the Office of National Estimates and its predecessors from 1946 onward show quite clearly that the CIG/CIA analysts were consistently Matthias/Book 3/5/01 9:22 AM Page 3 Introduction 3 correct in challenging the military view and in advancing their own analyses of Soviet thinking and behavior. The CIA analysts also pointed out that the Marxist conception of history, which Communism espoused, posited the eventual emer- gence of a Communist world without wars of Communist military conquest. From these diverse views there developed a four-decade-long debate between the civilian and military intelligence agencies over Soviet intentions. We in the Office of National Estimates observed that when the United States took a firm position on historically strong grounds, the Soviet leaders would mod- erate their stand. We believed that we should keep Soviet policies under con- tinuing review and not take refuge in any fixed theories about Soviet intentions. The military, on the other hand, saw military power as the prime determi- nant of the behavior of states. Hence, so long as the Soviets carried out pro- grams that enhanced their military power, the U.S. military saw the USSR as committed to the pursuit of a Communist world, even at the cost of a nuclear war. This book is a partial history of that civilian-military debate. Now that the Cold War has ended, it is imperative that its history be brought into the public record. This book is a contribution to that enterprise. It has been made possible by the declassification and release of many CIA docu- ments, beginning in the late 1980s, and by a partial opening of Soviet, East European, and Communist Party archives. Selection of the particular cases for inclusion in this narrative has been strongly influenced by my personal experience. I was one of the principal CIA analysts during the period covered, and it has seemed to me imperative to exploit my experience by undertaking an effort to juxtapose important U.S. intelligence estimates with studies based on Communist archives covering the same events. During my years of service in the Office of National Estimates, I wrote or supervised the preparation of estimates on all parts of the world. I also wrote a periodic “Estimate of the World Situation.” Those world estimates were intended to identify trends in all parts of the world, but especially in Communist-controlled areas. In one such estimate published as early as 1958, we observed that liberalizing changes were tak- ing place in the USSR, and we also saw a widening gap between Soviet and Chinese attitudes toward revolutionary action in the rest of the world.

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