SCORING ALPHABET SOUP TRIAL

Let’s see now, a key issue in the trial is whether the SD and SSD should have been listed as combat troops in the MACV OB that became part of the SNIE cited in the trial of CBS that CNN vainly sought to televise.

There’s also the matter of the infiltration rate of the PAVN, also known as the NVA, into SVN, also known as RVN, in late 1967. And how much that rate increased after the CIA and MACV resolved their fierce debate over the role of the SD and SSD in the VC.

Perhaps to confuse the enemy, or other agencies, the CIA was then known in top-secret cables as CAS.

But it is fortunate that the lawyers in the case are just using CIA. One more set of initials and the trial might have been called on account of acronym.

The trial, of course, pits Gen. William C. Westmoreland against CBS. The former commander of U.S. troops in Vietnam is suing for $120 million. He claims that CBS libeled him in a 1982 Vietnam documentary. CBS denies the charge.

The court battle began its 16th week in New York today (Monday), with CBS resuming its defense of the disputed documentary, “The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception.”

But there now seems a respite from the attack of acronyms--cited in testimony and countless government documents--that made the trial’s early weeks an epic in bureaucratese. Back then, the constant fluttering of official initials about the courtroom resembled the locust scene from “The Good Earth.”

What were all these initials and what did they mean? Herewith, a brief attempt to explain, starting with a simple one, OB. It meant Order of Battle, usually the enemy’s.

The enemy included the SD and the SSD, the hamlet-level Self-Defense and Secret Self-Defense forces of the VC, or Viet Cong. With political cadres, they constituted the VCI, or Viet Cong Infrastructure. The VCI and the VC worked with the PAVN.

PAVN was the People’s Army of Vietnam, also known as the NVA, or North Vietnamese Army, which sent its troops into RVN, or Republic of Vietnam, also known as SVN, or South Vietnam. SVN troops were called ARVN, for Army of the Republic of Vietnam.

MACV, which as any old Vietnam hand knows, meant Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. The CIA, well, it needs no introduction (there also was a SOG, a Special Operations Group, but not much is known about it; it was thought to engage in special operations or something).

Moving right along, now, parts of MACV’s enemy OB, plus estimates from the CIA, were incorporated in the SNIE. That was the Special National Intelligence Estimate, often studied by what “eyes-only” cables called “the highest authority,” i.e., the President.

As trial testimony shows, MACV reported to CINCPAC (Commander in Chief, Pacific), which in turn answered to the JCS (Joint Chiefs of Staff). The JCS could be found at DoD, the Department of Defense, which was pretty high up indeed.

But MACV was the starting point for a lot of what eventually went into the SNIE, which went to the highest up.

Contributing to MACV’s efforts were the CMIC (Combined Military Interrogation Center); the CDEC (Combined Document Exploitation Center); the CMEC (Combined Material Exploitation Center) and the CICV (Combined Intelligence Center Vietnam), which pondered the meaning of it all.

All this, and data emanating from the CIIED (Current Intelligence Indications and Estimates Division), naturally led to a lot of high-level briefings. The briefing most often cited early in the trial was the WIEU (Weekly Intelligence Estimate Update).

Those who attended it called it the “woo.” But one also could peruse the PERINTREP (Periodic Intelligence Report) or dawdle over the DISUM (Daily Intelligence Summary) if one weren’t up for a bit of woo.

(There was also a USO, but its function basically was regarded as one of entertainment.)

MACV and the CIA kept track of VC and NVA doings in SVN, but they weren’t alone. The DIA, or Defense Intelligence Agency, and the NSA, or National Security Agency, pitched in, too. And there were times even the INR got into the act.

INR, not to be confused with the IRS, was the Intelligence and Research Branch of the State Department. It helped State, hereinafter referred to as State, brief Congress and others on how the Vietnam War was going. Some of its information came from MACV, CIA, DIA, or NSA, or a combination thereof.

Interestingly, the American troops who actually fought in Vietnam, far removed from all these agencies and acronyms, had no real acronym of their own. Reporters called them GIs. But the infantrymen gave themselves nicknames like “grunts,” “11-Bravos,” or “snuffies.”

Sure, the kid just joining a rifle squad might be called a FNG, which, tidied up a bit, meant Fairly New Guy. But as his 12- or 13-month Vietnam tour neared its end, he often would cross his fingers and just nervously call himself “short.”

Roughly translated, it meant “happy man.”