CIA activities in Vietnam planning an immediate takeover, but are concentrating on psychological operations to increase unrest in the south and among American forces. Special National Intelligence Estimate 10-9-65, was done to assess the reactions, in various parts of the world, to an escalation of US attacks on North Vietnam. This estimate is especially significant in the conflict between the White House and the military & intelligence community. By summer of 1965 there were more than 125000 US ground troops in Vietnam and there did not seem to be an end in sight for their continuous arrival. In August 1965, after Prime Minister Quat
1965 in the Vietnam War The siege led up to the Battle of Ia Drang. A CIA intelligence estimate said that "Hanoi continues to asset its determination to press on with the war in South Vietnam despite the continuing attrition of the air war and the increase of US troops in the South." To protest the Vietnam War, a Quaker named Norman Morrison doused himself in kerosene and set himself on fire in front of The Pentagon. Morrison died. In a memorandum to President Johnson, Secretary McNamara estimated total communist forces in South Vietnam as having increased to 230,000, including 71,000 Viet Cong main force,