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Slow Burn: The Rise and Bitter Fall of American Intelligence in Vietnam
A CIA leader in Vietnam recalls his experiences
294 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 1990
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 11, 2025
When Orrin DeForest arrives in Vietnam, he finds we have no spies. I agree with him. What the fuck. The other side had tons of them. William Westmoreland believed in body count. The result was a bloody failure in so many ways.
There were no statistics, so DeForest started making them on index cards. He says "the vaunted Phoenix program was nothing but a bust and a fake." He set up a data bank.
He studied defectors and why they defected. Many were drafted and sick of war. They could not send or receive letters. They were used as fodder. Some felt life was better in the South.
Westmoreland left in 1968, but by then it was too late to change enough.
He was delighted by the so-called "Christmas bombings." He wanted more.
The honest and best South Vietnamese leaders were Colonels Thao, Dinh, and Thanh, and Major Ngo.
After the "Peace" agreement, they were doomed. The North just kept building up, while the South was abandoned.
The North Vietnamese took over the Viet Cong apparatus. They never wanted leaders from the south to have any power.
Word from higher up was always "everything is ok."
DeForrest had about 600 spies he wanted to save. He was refused. They were put in "safe houses" in Saigon. That meant they were doomed to execution. There were also about 200,000 defectors who if found would certainly be executed.
It broke my heart to read about the people stranded in Saigon.
There were no statistics, so DeForest started making them on index cards. He says "the vaunted Phoenix program was nothing but a bust and a fake." He set up a data bank.
He studied defectors and why they defected. Many were drafted and sick of war. They could not send or receive letters. They were used as fodder. Some felt life was better in the South.
Westmoreland left in 1968, but by then it was too late to change enough.
He was delighted by the so-called "Christmas bombings." He wanted more.
The honest and best South Vietnamese leaders were Colonels Thao, Dinh, and Thanh, and Major Ngo.
After the "Peace" agreement, they were doomed. The North just kept building up, while the South was abandoned.
The North Vietnamese took over the Viet Cong apparatus. They never wanted leaders from the south to have any power.
Word from higher up was always "everything is ok."
DeForrest had about 600 spies he wanted to save. He was refused. They were put in "safe houses" in Saigon. That meant they were doomed to execution. There were also about 200,000 defectors who if found would certainly be executed.
It broke my heart to read about the people stranded in Saigon.
December 25, 2022
This really happened. DeForest, a WW2 vet, became an Intel agent and served in Japan (learned Japanese) and learned the value of good records and police methods. In Vietnam he turned an interrogation program into a database collection blockbuster. I should know. I was there.
December 14, 2022
DeForest was definitely embittered by his experience in Vietnam - particularly the American withdrawal, now echoed in that from Afghanistan - but this taut little memoir doesn't at all come across as a settling of scores. Rather, it offers a unique approach to intelligence-gathering and interrogation one truly aimed at winning "hearts and minds" not just for the sake of it, but because it also generates better results. Treating Vietnamese POWs and defectors with respect and decency goes a long way towards revitalizing the Bien Hoa/Military District III intel enterprise, increasing reports 16-fold and recruiting several high-ranking Vietcong spies.
The tragedy, as with so many aspects of the Vietnam War, was how little the CIA and State Department leadership in-country listened to it. I have a relative who served at Bien Hoa and part of my motivation for reading this was to try and identify him. I hope he was one of the good ones... But all too few were.
The tragedy, as with so many aspects of the Vietnam War, was how little the CIA and State Department leadership in-country listened to it. I have a relative who served at Bien Hoa and part of my motivation for reading this was to try and identify him. I hope he was one of the good ones... But all too few were.
October 30, 2013
DeForest has a unique take on the Vietnam War, having run a very successful interrogation center for about five years. Coming in to the country after the Tet offensive, DeForest found an intelligence operation in shamble, with no spies, a minimal list of suspects, worthless methods, and no intelligence. This story chronicles how he worked against incompetence and resistance all around him to fix that.
In his time in country, DeForest used the timetested principles of police work to penetrate the Vietcong and generate operational intelligence. Starting with friendly interrogations of defectors, he developed a massive databank of rumors and background information about the Vietcong, which allowed him to target 'legal' cadres living under a civilian cover, and then press on their family obligations to get them to turn against the Vietcong. From this base, he was able to develop a handful of top level spies who provided precise intelligence for airstrikes and countering future attacks.
DeForest clearly thinks that the war was justified, and that he should've been on the right side of history. But he is also unstinting in criticizing the South Vietnamese government as corrupt and incompetent, the worst enemy of their own people. And he is rightfully bitter about the nearly 600 people he was forced to leave behind in the chaotic fall of Saigon, as his plan for an orderly evacuation was scuttled by high command. This was perhaps one of the supreme injustices of the war, as people who stood by the Americans were abandoned to the worst of communist re-education.
Overall, this is a fascinating and readable look into the proper role of intelligence and interrogation in a warzone, and the human dramas of being a CIA officer.
In his time in country, DeForest used the timetested principles of police work to penetrate the Vietcong and generate operational intelligence. Starting with friendly interrogations of defectors, he developed a massive databank of rumors and background information about the Vietcong, which allowed him to target 'legal' cadres living under a civilian cover, and then press on their family obligations to get them to turn against the Vietcong. From this base, he was able to develop a handful of top level spies who provided precise intelligence for airstrikes and countering future attacks.
DeForest clearly thinks that the war was justified, and that he should've been on the right side of history. But he is also unstinting in criticizing the South Vietnamese government as corrupt and incompetent, the worst enemy of their own people. And he is rightfully bitter about the nearly 600 people he was forced to leave behind in the chaotic fall of Saigon, as his plan for an orderly evacuation was scuttled by high command. This was perhaps one of the supreme injustices of the war, as people who stood by the Americans were abandoned to the worst of communist re-education.
Overall, this is a fascinating and readable look into the proper role of intelligence and interrogation in a warzone, and the human dramas of being a CIA officer.
February 10, 2022
The only thing DeForest gets right is how we cruelly abandoned the Vietnamese who worked for the US and instead rescued corrupt Saigon bureaucrats and friends of CIA and Embassy executives. Otherwise he's no different from any other gung ho American, like when he wishes we had bombed the North the way we had bombed Tokyo at the end of WW2--where over 100,000 died.
I never meant to read this book, but mistook it for one I actually wanted to read and which DeForest references about halfway through. It's also by a former CIA guy, but it's about how we underestimated the number of Vietcong we were fighting, ostensibly so we could keep the war going.
I never meant to read this book, but mistook it for one I actually wanted to read and which DeForest references about halfway through. It's also by a former CIA guy, but it's about how we underestimated the number of Vietcong we were fighting, ostensibly so we could keep the war going.
May 16, 2016
This book is awesome. It is a memoir of the war, a great insight into the workings of counterintelligence, and a glaring indictment of the American Vietnam effort. Oh- and there's even a romance. Orrin Deforest went to Vietnam in the post Tet era, and tried to salvage the CIA's pathetic counter intelligence war and the Phoenix program. By using improved interrogation techniques and a little bit of basic policework, he was able to give the Agency a real understanding of the Viet Cong/NLF organisation... too late for them to really use the information that would have solved so many issues, had it come in 1963, instead if 1973. But the reader will learn a lot more than from another "grunts in the bush" book...
At the end, there is the intense dramatics of the crazy Saigon Embassy escape. It's a great read and a great ride!
At the end, there is the intense dramatics of the crazy Saigon Embassy escape. It's a great read and a great ride!
July 22, 2016
Another in a set of "best of interrogation" books I have in my list to be read, this one covers the late to the game intelligence effort in Vietnam.
The total lack of any real intelligence infrastructure until the final few years is mind-boggling, but also explains why it was such a protracted and brutal fight; until DeForest organized a screening facility the services were out just "searching and destroying" with little or know hard intel to apply to the problem. It's a shame no one organized something like this earlier in the effort. The book did a fine job educating me about how ineffective base actions were without a intelligence context to make gains.
I learned quite a bit about an aspect I did not know of the Vietnam War in this book.
The total lack of any real intelligence infrastructure until the final few years is mind-boggling, but also explains why it was such a protracted and brutal fight; until DeForest organized a screening facility the services were out just "searching and destroying" with little or know hard intel to apply to the problem. It's a shame no one organized something like this earlier in the effort. The book did a fine job educating me about how ineffective base actions were without a intelligence context to make gains.
I learned quite a bit about an aspect I did not know of the Vietnam War in this book.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews