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annoyance at this, announcing that the reports were too ponderous to read and asking that henceforth the CIA append maps, with red arrows pointing to strategic points, and headline summaries to its daily intelligence digest.” 6
    Nightclub comedians, late-night TV comics, and the Democratic Party all had great fun with Ike’s red arrows and headline summaries. The truth was, however, that the CIA reports
were
too ponderous for anyone to read. It can be argued that the President is the busiest man in the world, operating on the tightest schedule, carrying the most responsibilities, and having the least amount of time for serious reading, or indeed reading of any kind. He wants his intelligence summaries to be brief, straightforward, accurate.
    But the world is much too complex and the CIA’S task much too difficult to meet those requirements. The honest intelligence officer knows that he can never be completely sure. He is trying to predict the actions of men and organizations that are resourceful, have every reason to hide their intentions, and have vast experience in doing so. And, obviously, many of the world’s great events are unpredictable, taking everyone by surprise. Inevitably, the CIA wants to cover itself, to qualify its predictions, to introduce nuances into its reports, to say that “such and so might happen if this takes place, but then on the other hand …” etc.
    A long, ponderous report, filled with qualifications, is an honest report. It is also of little use to the President. In predicting Communist reactions to possible American initiatives, however, the CIA was often quite exact, and most helpful, especially in giving Ike a reason not to do something he did not want to do anyway.
    Vietnam makes a good case study of this development. From 1953 to 1961 the CIA filed voluminous reports on the prospects in Vietnam. Called “National Intelligence Estimates,” they were issued at regular intervals. The estimates were submitted to the President and the NSC by Allen Dulles, who was careful to note on the cover page that “the following intelligence organizations participated in the preparation of this estimate: The CIA and the intelligence organizations of the Departments of State, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and the Joint Staff.” Some of the estimates were over thirty pages long, none less than ten.
    The first estimate Ike saw on Vietnam was published on June 4,1953. It was interesting but, for the President, of little use. The report said that the military situation might or might not get better. Who could tell if new French generals would help or not? The Chinese might or might not invade. There was one good, solid, straightforward prediction: “If present trends in the Indochinese situation continue through mid-1954, the French political and military position may subsequently deteriorate very rapidly.” 7 But then, that was hardly a secret.
    On June 15, 1954, the agency dealt with one of the most explosive problems the NSC ever handed it—to estimate Communist reactions to the use of nuclear weapons by the United States in Vietnam. The request came about because various members of the Eisenhower administration, led by Chief of Staff of the Air Force General Nathan Twining, and including all the JCS (except for Army Chief of Staff Matthew Ridgway), as well as the Secretary of Defense, and the Vice President, had urged the President to use atomic bombs. Twining said that the use of two or three “nukes” on the Vietminh around Dien Bien Phu would “clean those Commies out of there and the band could play the Marseillaise and the French would come marching out in fine shape.” 8
    Ike said that he would not use atomic weapons for the second time in less than a decade against Asians, partly because it would put the United States in the worst possible light in Asia and throughout the Third World, mainly because he hated what he called