Saigon, 1965 and the Case for a 3rd Party Perspective

Saigon, 1965 and the Case for a 3rd Party Perspective

As the Vietnam war began to escalate throughout 1965 and '66, the Department of Defense reached out to a California based consulting firm known as the RAND company, and tasked them to gather intelligence about the Viet Cong, the communist faction that had taken over Northern Vietnam. The result of their work was the Viet Cong Motivation and Morale Project (VCMMP), consisting of over 64,000 pages of information gathered through interviews and interrogations - one of the most massive collections of military intelligence ever gathered up to that point. Inside of this report were the voices of thousands of Viet Cong soldiers and leadership, the raw data of intelligence gathering, giving an insight into the mindset and psychology of the northern communists. What happened with the information contained in the report shaped the course of both American foreign and domestic policy for almost three decades. 

This fascinating story, one which I will summarize here in more detail, is the subject of the second episode of the podcast Revisionist History, from the brilliant Malcolm Gladwell. But more than being interesting and thought-provoking, the story of the Viet Cong Motivation and Morale Project, and its key players, offers deep insight into how culture and our own biases and experiences shape the way we interpret otherwise 'objective' data. It shapes the way we see the world, our decision making, and ultimately, outcomes.

 

The VCMMP was the brain child of Leon Goure, a Russian intellectual whose parents came from the upper ranks of communist power. Like many, the forces of the state were eventually turned on the Goures, forcing them to flee to Germany, then to France, and ultimately to the United States. Goure, in an interview completed late in his life, called himself a 'professional refugee'. The experience of being dislocated from his home country, and thereby being, as he says, 'at the mercy of another country', was foundational for his intellectual framework. Goure, as a consultant at RAND, had already begun working on the VCMMP in order to provide the military with a psychological profile of the Viet Cong when he met Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense under Kennedy and Johnson and a key architect of the Vietnam war. When McNamara was informed by Goure of his project, he allocated a million dollars to expand it. 

So, throughout late '64 and into '65, Goure was in Vietnam gathering information. As Gladwell points out, the government's and military's understanding of the Vietnamese was basically zilch - incredibly, no one in Defense Department even spoke the language - and so Goure pulled many of his interviewers from the ranks of South Vietnamese soilders and refugees from the North. One such interviewer was Mai Elliott, a Vietnamese girl whose father was the mayor of Hai Fung under the French Colonial Occupation and was deposed and forced to flee under the Viet Cong, who later became instrumental in gathering information for Goure.

 

As noted, the result of Goure's work was an immense volume of information about the thinking of the North Vietnamese. After scouring the VCMMP, Goure became convinced that the North Vietnamese would ultimately relent under the crushing weight of American bombings. His favorite statistic: before the bombing campaign started 65% of the Viet Cong thought they could win; after 1 year of bombings, that number dropped to 20%. And so, with good news in hand, Goure began to tour the country from base to base, meeting with high ranking officers, State and Defense department brass, and even top elected officials, trumpeting the effectiveness of the American war effort. Of course Goure, being the bearer of great news, was treated accordingly: private planes, parties, access. 

But there was a major problem. As Gladwell notes, the RAND company is a place that prides itself on 'objective data', on 'checking, double checking, and triple checking facts.' And the sight of the head of a project hobnobbing with key military and civilian brass concerned many at RAND, as it could seriously compromise their necessary objectivity. So they reached out to another noted intelligence analyst, Konrad Kellen. Kellen was born in Berlin, the son of wealthy, educated Jews who fled from Germany during the rise of Hitler. (As an aside, Kellen lived one of those 'Forrest Gump' type of lives, where he ended up in the middle of and surrounded by many important events and people, and a brief read about his life is worth your time). 

As Kellen reviewed the VCMMP, his interpretation of the facts led him to a very different conclusion. A key turning point for his understanding came in an interview between a senior Viet Cong leader and Mai Elliott. Elliott recalled that this officer stood tall and proud. While she had been taught growing up that all communists were 'thugs' (in her native tongue, the idiom is 'the body of a horse with the head of a bull'; something brutish and less than human), as this officer began to open up she noted his strength and willpower, and that he was not as 'thuggish' as she originally thought. The key insight in the conversation was when the officer said, 'I have dedicated my whole life to fighting the French, and now I am fighting the Americans.' Fighting the French, who were then supplanted by the Americans, had been his entire life's work. And he was not going to give it up, no matter what. 

 

We, living 50 years after these events, know the outcome. We know that ultimately Kellen was right - the Viet Cong were never going to give up. They were going to fight to the last man, and ultimately the American public lost faith that the government was being straight with them about why we were there and what we were accomplishing. But in 1964-65, Kellen and his view on the ultimate outcome was in the minority. So how did he get it right when Goure and so many others who had access to the same information got it wrong? 

Put simply, Kellen was a 3rd party. While bringing his own experiences and biases to the table, it was not his baby. He was reviewing information; Goure had a personal stake in every ounce of the VCMMP. And once his perspective began to be reinforced - by perks, by important people, by the American public - it became the only lens through which to see the data. Whereas Goure and other military personnel saw dead soldiers as 'casualties', Kellen, based on his experience in WWII, saw them the way the public would see them: as dead brothers and husbands and fathers. And he knew that someone who had dedicated their whole life to fighting the French, and who saw the Americans as their successors, would never, ever back down. 

 

This is the same kind of process that happens in organizations all the time. The people inside a business, the executives and leaders and managers, are all so heavily invested in the culture that it is easy for them to miss other, equally plausible, perspectives. The business is their livelihood; they have poured blood, sweat, and tears into it. Ironically, this very devotion to the work - just like Goure with the VCMMP - can blind them to serious issues on the horizon.

There could be no better argument for an outside opinion. Are you having issues with your culture? Are you struggling with unproductive employees? Do you have grumpy, troublesome, or miserable workers? Do you deal with constant turnover? These are all symptoms that your culture could be an issue. Addressing the symptom will not fix the problem - you have to get to the root. But like your nose, the problem may be too close to your face for you to see properly, and it might take someone outside your organization to get the right vantage point.