PROPOSAL FOR INCREASING VIET CONG DEFECTIONS

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 02000282
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: September 26, 2024
• Document Release Date: August 21, 2024
• Case Number: F-2020-00664
• Publication Date: March 17, 1967

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17 March 1967
MEMORANDUM
SUBJECT: A Proposal for Increasing Viet Cong
Defections
1. The rate at which the Viet Cong have sur-
rendered in January and February of 1967 is run-
ning 65 percent higher than that the first two months
of 1966. Tet, the Vietnamese New Year celebration,
falls in this period. In the past, large numbers of
both government and enemy personnel have taken ad-
vantage of the traditional Tet visits to their families
as an opportunity to desert, go AWOL or ,over-stay
their leaves. But this year, the marked upsurge in
the number of Viet Cong who have formally rallied to
the government through the Chieu, Hoi system, reveals
two major causal factors. The high defection rate
is obviously a direct reflection of the erosion in
morale and the worsening conditions which the Viet
Cong have experienced in the year that has elapsed
since Tet 1966. As Allied and GVN pressure increases
and expands, this attitude of personal defeat and
loss of will to continue will become more widespread
in Communist military and political ranks of the
enemy causing the Communists internal problems. But
Since people are the essence of this war, negative
attitudes are insufficient for victOry. There must
be a demonStrable crossing of the line, a cessation
of active support for the enelay and at least an im-
plied political acceptance of the Saigon government.
2. Defection is a personal act, and this
raises the second factor underlying the recent step-
up in tile Chieu Hoi rate. The Tet truce removed
the most immediate, and probably most important,
barrier to defection. It enabled individual VC to
leave their units openly, with the blessings of their,
commanders and without the fear that is present, at
any ether time of the year,-that suchan act could mean
death. During the past ten months captured documents
and prisoner interrogations have shown that the
prevention of desertion has become a major enemy
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Pre-occupation. In April 1965 a captured document,
essentiallya priMer on how to spot incipient defec-
tions, revealed that the VC was willing, that early,
to chance the psychological losses that the admission
of the seriousness of the problem might cause, in an
effort to stem this rising tide. Security restric-
tions will become increasingly severe and will dis-
suade many from straying *hose decision, given the
overall climate of defeat, might otherwise be to
give up the fight. The major impediment to an even
greater disintegration of the Viet Cong organiza-
tion in the months ahead will be the very real, in-
dividual fear of immediate VC reprisal. The improve-
ments in the national admintstration of the Chieu
Hoi program, the addition of a host of new defection
inducements are actually less important than getting
the individual VC to lay down h18 gun and take the
first step away from his unit. Advice on how and
when to leave the VC, and a believeable guarantee of
safe escort out of the zone of retribution would be
the most incisive blow we could strike in the ex-
ploitation of the breakdown in morale.
3. With 1,100 ralliers now being processed
through the Chieu Hoi machinery weekly, we have that
many successful case histories to cull to determine,
pragmatically, how security restrictions can be cir-
cumvented. And in that number we also have the source
of talent for a program that will enable us to ag-
gressively engineer more defections. Experience
with the few armed Chieu Hoi teams that were created
on the model of the People's Action Teams showed
that, when properly re-motivated, they were highly
effective, zealous workers in the GVN cause.
4. We propose that under the Ministry of In-
formation and Chieu Hoi, teams of five to six ex-VC
with political and military experience be formed,
trained and posted to populous districts where Allied/
UN military actions are planned or where Revolu-
tionary Development programs are being expanded.
Actual utilization of the teams would vary from prov-
ince to province, but when assigned to combat units
as a psywar adjunct they would have access to prisoner
interrogations to assess, on the spot, the status of
the enemy units' morale and the potential for large-
scale defections at squad and platoon level. They
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could inventory the internal frictions, personnel
and disciplinary problems which could be exacerbated
later by tailored propaganda and determine as well
the identities of those others most likely to defect
to whom personal appeals then could be made.
5. With the entry of RD teams into new hamletS,
ex-VC Chieu Hoi teams, preferably ones native to
that area, would make initial appeals to the inhab-
itants to contact their VC relations and encourage
them to desert the lost cause. During their stay
in a hamlet, these teams could actually provide a
confidential counselling service on modes of con-
tact and escape. Citing their own experiences they
could offer their assistance to any VC willing to
defect--providing him the bridge to the nearest
secure reception point. If the control and utiliza-
tion of such teams were properly coordinated with
province and district officials (particularly with
an expanded provincial constabulary structure), the
teams could provide the contact instrument through
which secure defections were arranged.
6. No single program or technique is going
to crack the Viet Cong organization, but in the pool
of ex-VC who have already defected we have an utUtiliZed
resource which, if properly exploited, could produce
dramatic results.
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