"From the first large-scale Viet Minh offensive against the French in 1950, to the fall of Saigon in 1975, the United States tried desperately to understand the nature of the fierce Communist-led struggle to create a unified, independent Vietnam. Even before its military involvement, and through the years of combat, American intelligence played a key role in gathering information on the political and military situation in Vietnam and on the strengths and weaknesses of both sides." "But as George Allen shows in this memoir, intelligence appraisals were consistently discounted, ignored, and rejected by policymakers in every administration from Eisenhower through Nixon - because these assessments undermined the mistaken assumptions of the White House, the State Department, and the Pentagon." "In its inside view, its recitation of facts, and its powerful argument, None So Blind is a remarkable contribution to the history of the Vietnam War."--Jacket.