DeForest, Orrin and Chanoff, David. Slow Burn. New York: Pocket Books, 1991.
327 pages.
This book recounts the Vietnam experiences of Orrin DeForest, a CIA
officer who organized intelligence collection as part of the Phoenix Program
in Military Region Three from 1969 to the end of the war. DeForest had
previously done a tour in Vietnam as an investigator for the army's Criminal
Investigations Division, and was an air force investigator from 1955-1964.
His approach in Region Three was based more on his background as a
professional gumshoe, and less on the incompetence of Saigon's Special
Branch Police, or the macho Special Forces retreads that the CIA sometimes
used. DeForest organized a system to debrief defectors and develop spies
within the enemy infrastructure, and channeled this flow of information
into a data bank that provided timely access to those who depended on the
intelligence product. It worked so well that DeForest threatened not only
the enemy, but also the CIA bureaucracy that had grown comfortable with
failure in the field, covered up with bigger and better body counts. The
key to DeForest's success seemed to be that his techniques were usually
based on treating people like people. What the books lacks, however, is
some justification of the Phoenix Program as a whole, and an explanation
of why DeForest thought he had the right to be in Vietnam in the first
place. The U.S. defeat may have demonstrated a lack of technique, but
more importantly, it was also a failure of moral vision and character.
ISBN 0-671-73997-2
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