"Practically every morning, the President's Daily Brief reminded Nixon that North Vietnam and its communist allies in Southeast Asia were winning and that US military strategy was failing.
US intelligence had broken enough North Vietnamese ciphers to be able to follow the infiltration along the Ho Chi Minh trail (via Laos and Cambodia) of North Vietnamese regular troops into South Vietnam. The number of troops was staggering and belied the Pentagon's estimate that US bombing raids had a net effect of reducing the number of North Vietnamese soldiers fighting in the south.
After Nixon decided in April 1970 to send US troops 20 miles into Cambodia to clean out North Vietnamese bases along the border, the CIA reported that these operations were failures. The North Vietnamese just abandoned the bases and retreated farther into Cambodia, rather than pick a fight with the better-equipped US army. "Communications intelligence," the CIA writers noted on June 4, "provides nearly a complete picture of these movements (11 regiments). ... Most, but not all, of these relocations appear to have been in direct response to allied operations, reflecting the enemy's anxiety to avoid contact while dropping back to more secure areas."
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/26/opinions/secret-briefings-to-presidents-from-cia-naftali/index.html
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