Wiring Vietnam: The Electronic Wall

For years, the popular press and military pundits have misunderstood and ridiculed the electronic wall. Neither its sophistication nor the number of allied and civilian lives it saved during the Vietnam War are well known. The story can now be told of how military and civilian technicians, sitting in darkened rooms in a faraway country, monitored one of the most sophisticated electronic sensing systems invented. Working with electronic signals generated hundreds of miles from their computer screens, these technicians tracked the progress of enemy vehicle and troop movements flowing from North Vietnam, through Laos and Cambodia, and to destinations as distant as southern South Vietnam.