the Eighth Army’s intelligence chief to “Keep
him [the CIA station chief in Korea] clear of inter rogation.” It was the prototypical case of shooting the messenger. 35
In the weeks that followed, an increased volume of disquieting intelligence came out of AFSA indicating that the Chinese military
was preparing to attack. In early November, AFSA reported that the Chinese had just moved three more armies by rail to Manchuria,
and that the security forces guarding Beijing had just been placed on a state of alert. 36 On November 24, the CIA issued a report based on COMINT, which revealed that an additional one hundred thousand Chinese troops
had just arrived in Manchuria and that the Chinese were shipping thirty thousand maps of North Korea to its forces in Manchuria. 37 AFSA also produced intelligence indicating that MacArthur was looking for a fight with the Chinese. On November 11, Army
chief of staff J. Lawton Collins sent a Top Secret Codeword “Eyes Only” message to MacArthur containing the text of a decrypted
message from the Brazilian ambassador in Tokyo, Gastão P. Do Rio Branco, to his home office in Rio de Janeiro. According to
the decrypt: “Speaking with . . . frankness, he [MacArthur] told the President that it would be better to face a war now than
two or three years hence, for he was certain that there was not the least possibility of an understanding with the men in
the Kremlin, as the experience of the last five years has proved. He felt, therefore, that in order to attain peace it is
necessary to destroy the focus of international bolshevism in Moscow.” 38
The general got his wish. At 8:00 p.m. on the night of November 25, 1950, the Chinese army struck once again, this time with
even greater force, decimating the combined U.S. and South Korean forces stretched out along the Yalu River, sending the allied
forces reeling backward in retreat. The final word appropriately goes to MacArthur, who sent a panicky Top Secret cable to
Washington on November 28 including the now-famous line: “We face an entirely new war.” 39
World War III Cometh
On the night of November 30, General Walker’s Eighth U.S. Army broke contact with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA)
forces along the Yalu River and began a two-week-long, 120-mile retreat south to the Imjin River, north of Seoul. During this
critically important two-week period, there was no contact whatsoever between the Eighth Army and the pursuing Chinese forces,
which resulted in the entire U.S. intelligence community being left almost completely in the dark concerning the PLA forces.
Declassified documents show that during the Eighth Army’s hasty retreat southward, SIGINT was not able to provide much in
the way of substantive intelligence information about the strength, locations, or movements of the three hundred thousand
Chinese troops following them. Apart from exploiting intercepted low-level railroad traffic, AFSA had devoted virtually no
resources to monitoring Chinese military communications prior to the Chinese intervention in Korea. Even if the U.S. military
SIGINT units in the Far East were intercepting Chinese radio traffic, they didn’t have any Chinese linguists who could translate
the intercepts. The result was that as of mid-December 1950, senior U.S. military commanders found themselves in the embarrassing
position of having to admit that information from all sources was “vague and indefinite on the exact disposition of CCF [Chinese
Communist Forces] in Korea.” 40
On December 23, Lieutenant General Walker was killed in a jeep accident. He was replaced by Lieutenant General Matthew Ridgway,
one of the U.S. Army’s best field commanders, who flew in from Washington on December 26 and discovered that the intelligence
situation map at his Eighth Army headquarters in Seoul showed only “a large red goose egg” north of his front lines, indicating
an estimated 174,000 PLA troops—which was all that army intelligence then
him [the CIA station chief in Korea] clear of inter rogation.” It was the prototypical case of shooting the messenger. 35
In the weeks that followed, an increased volume of disquieting intelligence came out of AFSA indicating that the Chinese military
was preparing to attack. In early November, AFSA reported that the Chinese had just moved three more armies by rail to Manchuria,
and that the security forces guarding Beijing had just been placed on a state of alert. 36 On November 24, the CIA issued a report based on COMINT, which revealed that an additional one hundred thousand Chinese troops
had just arrived in Manchuria and that the Chinese were shipping thirty thousand maps of North Korea to its forces in Manchuria. 37 AFSA also produced intelligence indicating that MacArthur was looking for a fight with the Chinese. On November 11, Army
chief of staff J. Lawton Collins sent a Top Secret Codeword “Eyes Only” message to MacArthur containing the text of a decrypted
message from the Brazilian ambassador in Tokyo, Gastão P. Do Rio Branco, to his home office in Rio de Janeiro. According to
the decrypt: “Speaking with . . . frankness, he [MacArthur] told the President that it would be better to face a war now than
two or three years hence, for he was certain that there was not the least possibility of an understanding with the men in
the Kremlin, as the experience of the last five years has proved. He felt, therefore, that in order to attain peace it is
necessary to destroy the focus of international bolshevism in Moscow.” 38
The general got his wish. At 8:00 p.m. on the night of November 25, 1950, the Chinese army struck once again, this time with
even greater force, decimating the combined U.S. and South Korean forces stretched out along the Yalu River, sending the allied
forces reeling backward in retreat. The final word appropriately goes to MacArthur, who sent a panicky Top Secret cable to
Washington on November 28 including the now-famous line: “We face an entirely new war.” 39
World War III Cometh
On the night of November 30, General Walker’s Eighth U.S. Army broke contact with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA)
forces along the Yalu River and began a two-week-long, 120-mile retreat south to the Imjin River, north of Seoul. During this
critically important two-week period, there was no contact whatsoever between the Eighth Army and the pursuing Chinese forces,
which resulted in the entire U.S. intelligence community being left almost completely in the dark concerning the PLA forces.
Declassified documents show that during the Eighth Army’s hasty retreat southward, SIGINT was not able to provide much in
the way of substantive intelligence information about the strength, locations, or movements of the three hundred thousand
Chinese troops following them. Apart from exploiting intercepted low-level railroad traffic, AFSA had devoted virtually no
resources to monitoring Chinese military communications prior to the Chinese intervention in Korea. Even if the U.S. military
SIGINT units in the Far East were intercepting Chinese radio traffic, they didn’t have any Chinese linguists who could translate
the intercepts. The result was that as of mid-December 1950, senior U.S. military commanders found themselves in the embarrassing
position of having to admit that information from all sources was “vague and indefinite on the exact disposition of CCF [Chinese
Communist Forces] in Korea.” 40
On December 23, Lieutenant General Walker was killed in a jeep accident. He was replaced by Lieutenant General Matthew Ridgway,
one of the U.S. Army’s best field commanders, who flew in from Washington on December 26 and discovered that the intelligence
situation map at his Eighth Army headquarters in Seoul showed only “a large red goose egg” north of his front lines, indicating
an estimated 174,000 PLA troops—which was all that army intelligence then
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