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...the incompetence of intelligence agencies is legendary.... Just take Vietnam.... In the late 1940s, the United States was kind of unclear about which side to support.... In the case of Indochina, for whatever reason, they decided at one point to support France in its reconquest of Indochina. Well, at that point, essentially orders went to the U.S. intelligence communities, CIA and others, to demonstrate ... that Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh were agents of either the Russians or the Chinese.... They couldn't do it. They couldn't find anything.... The conclusion in the State Department was, "OK, this proves that they're agents of the international communist conspiracy. Ho Chi Minh is such a loyal slave of"—pick it, Mao or Stalin—"that he doesn't even need orders.. (en) |