VIETNAM AND THE NEW ISOLATIONISM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000200310041-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 62
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 14, 2003
• Sequence Number: 41
• Publication Date: February 23, 1965
• Content Type: SPEECH

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oRecord
PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE 89th CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION
Vietnam and the New Isolationism
Speech of
Hon. Thomas J. Dodd
of Connecticut
in the
Senate of the United States
Tuesday, February 23, 1965
Not printed
at Government
expense
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Vietnam and the New Isolationism
HON. THOMAS J. DODD
OF CONNECTICUT
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
Tuesday, February 23, 1965
THE NEW ISOLATIONISM
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, there has
been developing in this country in recent
years a brand of thinking about for
affairs which, I believe, can aptly be de-
scribed as "the new isolationism." This
internal phenomenon is, in my opinion,
potentially more disastrous in terms of
its consequence than the major external
problems that confront us.
Its background is a growing national
weariness with cold war burdens we have
been so long carrying, a rising frustra-
tion with situations that are going
against us in many places, a long-sim-
mering indignation over the fact that our
generosity and sacrifice have too often
been met abroad, not just with indiffer-
ence and ingratitude, but even with hos-
tility and contempt.
Its political base seems to be to the left
of center, although it forms as yet a dis-
tinct minority there.
Its scareword is "escalation"; its cure-
all is "neutralization."
Its prophets include some of my col-
leagues in the Congress, influential
spokesmen in the press, and leading fig-
ures in the academic? world. Some are
new volunteers in this cause of retrench-
ment; they regard themselves as prag-
matists. Others are old hands at Polly-
anna-ism, those unshakable romantics
who were disillusioned by Moscow at the
time of the Hitler-Stalin pact, disillu-
sioned by Mao when they discovered that
he was not really an agrarian reformer,
disillusioned by Castro when they learned
765-428-96923 (3)
that he was not a cross between Thomas
Jefferson and Robin Hood-and who,
having again dusted themselves off, now
look for new vistas of adventure.
If I may digress, let me say that I have
always admired their durability. The
manner in which they have survived, un-
chastened, a whole series of intellectual
Dunkirks is, if nothing else, a tribute to
man's invincible confidence in himself;
and their adeptness in avoiding discredi-
tation, in the face of repeated catas-
trophes and evacuations, must be ac-
knowledged as one of the marvels of
modern history-a triumph of self-recti-
tude over reason.
The basic premise of the new isola-
tionism is that the United States is over-
extended in its attempt to resist Com-
munist aggression around the world,
overcommitted to the defense of distant
outposts, and overinvolved in the murky
and unintelligible affairs of remote areas.
The corollaries of the new isolationism
are many. It is contended that we
should deemphasize the cold war and
reverse our national priorities in favor of
domestic improvements; that we should
withdraw from South Vietnam; that we
should cease involvement in the Congo;
that we should relax the so-called ri-
gidity of our Berlin policy; that for-
eign aid has outlived its usefulness
and should be severely cut back;
that our Military Establishment and our
CIA, organizations that seem particu-
larly suspect because they are symbols of
worldwide involvement, should be hum-
bled and "cut down to size" and stripped
of their influence in foreign policy
questions.
In my judgment all of these proposi-
tions have one thing in common. Each
of them would strike at the heart of our
national effort to preserve our freedom
and our security; and collectively they
add up to a policy which I can describe
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WANSA
by no other name than "appeasement,"
subtle appeasement, unintentional ap-
peasement, to be sure, but appeasement
nonetheless.
My purpose, this afternoon then, is to
oppose these propositions and to enlist
Senators' opposition against them-for
the new isolationism is as bankrupt as
the old.
First of all-to tackle the main prem-
ise-I reject the assumption that the
United States is overextended, or over-
committed, or overinvolved.
We are enjoying a spectacular growth
in every index of national strength.
Our population, our wealth, our indus-
trial capacity, our scientific potential,
our agricultural output, all are enjoying
great upward surges. We were informed
that our gross national product was
again up in January, and the trend seems
ever upward.
Far from overextending ourselves in
the cold war, we are actually in a period
of declining defense budgets, of steadily
lowered draft calls, of sharply reduced
foreign aid, of one tax out after another.
Let me emphasize this: In every basic
resource, we have greater capacity today
than during the past 5 years; by every
military or economic standard, we are
stronger; and by every physical measure-
ment, the percentage of our resources
going into the cold war is lower. Why
then should we talk of weariness or over-
commitment?
We are not even straining ourselves.
We are actually pursuing today a policy
not only of both guns and butter, but of
less guns and more butter.
So far as our resources go, we are
capable of indefinite continuation and
even intensification of our present ef-
forts, if need be. It is only our mental,
and perhaps our moral, resources which
seem to be feeling the strain.
We would, of course, prefer to live in a
world in which it were possible for us to
have no commitments, a world in which
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we could devote all of our energies to
the task of perfecting our society at
home and enriching the lives of our peo-
ple.
But we must face the world as it is.
And the basic fact of our world is that
Western civilization, itself terribly rent
and divided, both politically and philo-
sophically, has been forced into a twi-
light war of survival by a relentless and
remorseless enemy.
It is incontestable, in terms of peoples
enslaved and nations gobbled up over
the past 20 years, that we have not been
holding our own. And each year, the
world Communist movement is com-
mitting more and more of its resources
to the task of subjugating our allies, all
around the perimeter of freedom.
Against this background it is prepos-
terous to maintain that we should reduce
our effort and lessen our commitment to
the great struggle of our century.
Yet, according to Time magazine, it
is the widespread sentiment of the aca-
demic world that we have overreached
ourselves and ought to pull back. Walter
Lippmann, the well-known columnist,
for whom I have great respect, says that
"the American tide will have to recede."
It has been argued that we would be in
a "precarious situation" if we were at-
tacked on several fronts. Of course we
would, but does anyone believe that we
can solve the problem by abandoning
our commitments and defensive alli-
ances? Would the loss of these coun-
tries be any the less disastrous because
they were given up undefended?
On the contrary, if we are not strong
enough to honor our commitments to-
day, then we should solve the problem,
not be reducing our commitments, but
by becoming stronger, and by aiding our
allies to become stronger.
The defense of the free world rests on
a very delicate balance. The key ele-
ments in that balance are American
power and American determination. If
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we lack the power to maintain that bal-
ance then certainly all is lost.. If we
reveal that we lack the determination, if
we, for instance, allow ourselves to be
pushed out of Vietnam, such a humilia-
tion may indeed be the second shot heard
around the world; and a dozen nations
might soon throw in the sponge and
make whatever accommodation they
could with an enemy that would then
seem assured of victory.
Fortunately, at the present time we do
not lack the power to carry on the de-
fense of freedom. Our power is at its
peak and we have the capacity to in-
crease it vastly if necessary. It is our
spirit, apparently, that needs shoring up.
Four years ago, after a visit to south-
east Asia, I said on the floor of the
Senate:
If the United States, with its unrivaled
might, with its unparalleled wealth, with its
dominion over sea and air, with its heritage
as the champion of freedom-if this United
States and its free world allies have so di-
minished in spirit that they can be laid in
the dust by a few thousand primitive guer-
rillas, then we are far down the road from
which there is no return.
In right and in might, we are able to work
our will on this question. Southeast Asia
cannot be lost unless we will it to be lost;
it cannot be saved unless we will it to be
saved.
This problem, seemingly so remote and
distant, will in fact be resolved here in the
United States, in the Congress, in the ad-
ministration, and in the minds and hearts
of the American people.
The passage of 4 years has not dimin-
ished my belief in this course.
If the main premise of the new isola-
tionism is erroneous, then surely the
lesser premises are fraught with terrible
danger.
It is argued that we should de-
emphasize the cold war and turn more
of our resources to domestic welfare.
The annual congressional revolt
against the foreign aid bill grows more
765-428-96923
violent and successful each year, and the
administration, forced to yield, now
sends foreign aid requests 40 percent
below what it solemnly declared 2 years
ago to be the minimum figure tolerable
for free world survival.
And a small but growing band of
Senators have begun offering each year
amendments making across-the-board
percentage. cuts in our defense budget,
cuts not directed to any specific econ-
omy, but rather to a principle-the prin-
ciple that we should be spending less on
defense and more on welfare.
Here, in my judgment, are sure-
fire formulas for defeat.
Where are the victories in the cold
war that. would justify such a reversal
of priorities? In what global trouble
spots are there lessened tensions or im-
proved postures that would make this
plausible? I can see a lot of cold war
areas where things are looking worse-
but very few where things are getting
better.
More effort, more sacrifice-not less-
is the need of our time. And I speak as
one who does not disparage the need or
the importance of domestic improve-
ments. As a credential of this I recom-
mend to Senators my scorecard, com-
piled last year by the ultraconservative
Americans for Constitutional Action,
which asserts that I voted right only 13
percent of the time-one of the worst
records, alas, in the Congress.
But I say to you that if our foreign
affairs are going badly, no aspect of
internal welfare is secure or stable. And
if we cope successfully with the great
problem, the cold war, no internal prob-
lem can long defy solution.
Our first national priority is and must
ever be the survival of our country and
our freedom-and if the 20th century
has taught men anything, it is that sur-
vival and freedom cannot be purchased
on the cheap, in a discount store or a
bargain basement.
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But our situation is such that we can
meet our needs both at home and
abroad-not as handsomely as we would
prefer, but well enough. This I take to
be the objective of the Johnson adminis-
tration. The war on poverty and the
struggle against tyranny can go hand in
hand, if our vision be broad.
Twenty-five years ago, our country,
comparatively new and untried among
the great nations of the earth, through
passage of the Lend-Lease Act, described
by Winston Churchill as "the most un-
sordid act of recorded history," em-
barked irrevocably upon the path that
has brought us to our present posture in
history. Through that act, we affirmed
the preservation and expansion of liber-
ty as our highest goal; we acknowledged
that freedom was insecure everywhere so
long as tyranny existed anywhere; and
we assumed the burden, and the glory,
of being the champion and defender of
man's highest aspirations.
Since that embattled hour, when the
light of freedom was but a flicker in the
dark, our journey across the pages of his-
tory has been fantastic and unprece-
dented: tragic, to be sure, in its mistakes
and naivities, but heroic in its innova-
tions and commitments, prodigious in its
energy and power, gigantic in its gen-
erosity and good will, noble in its re-
straint and patience, and sublime in its
purpose and in its historic role.
We have not realized the high goals
we set for ourselves in World War II.
But we have preserved freedom and
national independence in more than half
the earth; we have prevented the nu-
clear holocaust; we have restored West-
ern Europe; we have helped friend and
foe to achieve prosperity, freedom and
stability; we have launched a world peace
organization and have kept it alive; we
have offered the hand of friendship and
help to the impoverished and backward
peoples of the world if they will but
take it.
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It may be said of our country today,
as of no other in history, that wherever
people are willing to stand up in defense
of their liberty, Americans stand with
them.
We cannot know at this hour whether
our journey has just begun or is nearing
its climax; whether the task ahead is the
work of a generation, or of a century.
President Kennedy said, in his Inaugural
Address, that the conflict would not be
resolved in our lifetime.
The Chief of Staff of the Army recently
told the Congress that it might well take
10 years to decide the issue in Vietnam
alone. And Vietnam is only one symp-
tom of the disease, the epidemic, we are
resisting.
Against this somber background, how
foolish it is to talk of deemphasizing the
cold war, of pulling out of Vietnam, of
abandoning the Congo to Communist
intrigue, of slashing the defense budget
by 10 percent, or of any of the other ir-
responsibilities of the new isolationism.
VIETNAM
It is against this background that I
take up today the question of Vietnam,
which has been the favorite target of
those who urge withdrawal and re-
trenchment.
Over the past several months, a num-
ber of my most respected colleagues have
taken the floor to urge that we get out of
Vietnam or that we enter into negotia-
tions over Vietnam.
The propriety of our presence in Viet-
nam and the validity of our position has
been challenged. It has even been sug-
gested that we are the real aggressors in
Vietnam. The war has been called "Mc-
Namara's War." It has been suggested
that we more or less ignore Asia and
Africa and concentrate on Europe and
the Americas.
I have listened with growing dismay
to these presentations-and with all the
more dismay because of the respect and
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affection I have for the Senators who
made them.
If I have not risen to reply to my
colleagues before now, it was not be-
cause Vietnam was a new subject to me,
but because I felt that their arguments
required the most carefully considered
and most painstakingly prepared reply.
I had visited most of the countries
of southeast Asia in early 1961, and I
have spoken a number of times on the
floor of the Senate on the subject of
Vietnam and Laos and Indonesia since
my return. I have endeavored to keep
up with the situation in that part of the
world as best one can do by reading
the press and official publications. But
I realized that there were important gaps
in my information because the press cov-
erage of Vietnam was, with a few out-
standing exceptions, weak and in some
cases completely misleading. I have,
therefore, sought to fill these gaps by
correspondence with friends in Vietnam,
both Vietnamese and American, and by
conversations with Americans who have
served in Vietnam in various capacities-
some of them for long periods of time.
The senior Senator from Wyoming
[Mr. McGEE] and the senior Senator
from Oklahoma [Mr. MONRONEY] on the
one side, and the distinguished minority
leader, the junior Senator from Illinois
[Mr. DIRKSEN] and the senior Senator
from Massachusetts [Mr. SALTONSTALL]
have already spoken eloquently on the
need for standing fast in Vietnam.
A debate has been joined which is
worthy of the best traditions of the
Senate.
I hope that the remarks I make today
will contribute at least in some measure,
to the further unfolding of this debate.
Out of this debate, let us hope, will ulti-
mately emerge the kind of assistance and
guidance that every President must have
in dealing with vital issues of our for-
eign policy.
765-428-96923
What we say here may help to guide
the President. But in the final analysis
the terrible responsibility of decision is
his and his alone. He must listen to the
exchanges which take place in this
Chamber. He must endure a hundred
conflicting pressures from public sources,
seeking to push him in this direction
or that. He must also endure the im-
patience of those who demand answers
to complex questions today, and who
accuse him of not having made the
American position clear when he has in
fact made our position abundantly clear
on repeated occasions.
And finally, when all the voices have
been heard, when he has examined all
the facts, when he has discussed all as-
pects of the situation with his most
trusted advisers, the President must alone
decide-for all Americans and for the
entire free world-what to do about
Vietnam.
No President has ever inherited a more
difficult situation on coming to office.
No President has ever been called upon
to make a decision of greater moment.
At stake may be the survival of freedom.
At stake may be the peace of the world.
I believe the United States can count
itself fortunate that it has found a Presi-
dent of the stature of Lyndon B. Johnson
to meet this crisis in its history. I also
believe that, whatever differences we in
this Chamber may have on the question
of Vietnam, our feelings to a man are
with the President in the ordeal of deci-
sion through which he is now passing.
I have said that I have been dismayed
by the rising clamor for a negotiated
settlement. In the type of war which
the Communists are now waging against
us, I fear that, although those who urge
negotiation would be among the first to
oppose an outright capitulation, their at-
titude may not be construed in this way
by the Communists.
The Vietnamese war, in the Commu-
nist lexicon, is described as a "war of
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national liberation." Its strategy is
based on the concept of what the Com-
munists call "the long war." This strat-
egy is premised upon the belief that the
free world lacks the patience, the
stamina, the fanatical determination to
persist, which inspires the adherents of
communism. It is based on the convic-
tion that if the Communists keep on at-
tacking and attacking and attacking in
any given situation, they will ultimately
be able to destroy the morale and the will
to resist of those who oppose them in the
name of freedom.
China affords the classic example of
the long war. It took 20 years for Mao
Tse-tung to prevail. There were several
times during this period when his entire
movement seemed on the verge of col-
lapse. But, even in his blackest days,
Mao Tse-tung remained confident that,
if he persevered, ultimately his enemies
would crack and he would emerge as
China's undisputed ruler.
There is no more cruel test of courage
and staying power than "the long war"
as it is waged by the Communists. Five
years, 10 years, 20 years, means nothing
to them. And if they detect any sign
that those opposed to them are flagging,
that their patience is growing thin or
that their will to resist has weakened, the
Communists can be relied upon to re-
double their efforts, in the belief that vic-
tory is within their grasp.
I disagree strongly with my colleagues
who have spoken up to urge negotiations.
But if there is any way in which my
voice could reach to Peiping and to Mos-
cow, I would warn the Communist lead-
ers that they should not construe the
debate that is now taking place in this
Chamber as a sign of weakness; it is,
on the contrary, a testimony to our
strength.
Nor should they believe that those who
speak up in favor of negotiations are the
forerunners of a larger host. of Ameri-
cans who are prepared to accept sur-
765-428--96923
render. Because there is no one here
who believes in surrender or believes in
capitulation. I believe the senior Sena-
tor from Idaho made this abundantly
clear in his own presentation, in which
he underscored his complete support for
the retaliatory air strikes against North
Vietnam.
I have been amazed by a number of
letters I have received asking the ques-
tion, "Why are we in Vietnam?" or
"What is our policy in Vietnam?" I have
been even more amazed to have the same
questions put to me by sophisticated
members of the press.
To me the reasons for our presence in
Vietnam are so crystal clear that I find
it difficult to comprehend the confusion
which now appears to exist on this sub-
ject.
We are in Vietnam because our own
security and the security of the entire
free world demands that a firm line be
drawn against the further advance of
Communist imperialism-in Asia, in
Africa, in Latin America, and in Europe.
We are in Vietnam because it is our
national interest to assist every nation,
large and small, which is seeking to de-
fend itself against Communist subver-
sion, infiltration, and aggression. There
is nothing new about this policy; it is a
policy, in fact, to which every admin-
istration has adhered since the procla-
mation of the Truman doctrine.
We are in Vietnam because our as-
sistance was invited by the legitimate
government of that country.
We are in Vietnam because, as the dis-
tinguished majority leader, the Senator
from Montana [Mr. MANSFIELD], pointed
out in his 1963 report, Chinese Commu-
nist hostility to the United States
threatens "the whole structure of our
own security in the Pacific."
We are in Vietnam not merely to help
the 14 million South Vietnamese defend
themselves against communism, but be-
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cause what is at stake is the independ-
ence and freedom of 240 million people
in southeast Asia and the future of free-
dom throughout the western Pacific.
These are the reasons why we are in
Vietnam. There is nothing new about
them and nothing very complex. They
have never been obscure. They have
never been concealed. I cannot, for the
life of me, see why people fail to under-
stand them.
IS THERE A POSSIBILITY OF A NEGOTIATED
SETTLEMENT?
The senior Senator from Idaho, and
several other Senators who spoke last
Wednesday, repeated the proposal that
we should seek negotiations for the pur-
pose of terminating the bloodshed in
Vietnam and of avoiding an enlarge-
ment of the war. We are told by some
people that negotiations are the way of
diplomacy and that if we reject negotia-
tions now, we are in effect rejecting
diplomacy.
The proposal that we negotiate now
overlooks the fact that there does exist
a negotiated agreement on Vietnam, ap-
proved by the participants of the Geneva
Conference of 1964. The final declara-
tion of this agreement read, and I think
it is worth while reading it for the REc-
ORD and for our own recollection:
Each member * * * undertakes to respect
the sovereignty, the independence, the unity,
and the territorial integrity of the above-
mentioned states and to refrain from any
interference in their internal affairs.
Since there is no point to negotiating
if it simply means reiterating the Gene-
va agreement, I cannot help wondering
whether those who urge negotiations en-
visage rewriting the agreement so that
it does not "guarantee the territorial in-
tegrity of the above-mentioned states."
The history of negotiated agreements
with the Communists underscores the
fact that their promises are worthless
and that only those agreements have
765-428-96923
validity which are self-enforcing or
which we have the power to enforce. A
report issued by the Senate Subcommit-
tee on Internal Security-on which I
have the honor to serve-establishes that
the Soviet Union has since its inception
violated more than 1,000 treaties and
agreements. The Communists have re-
peatedly violated the terms of the Ko-
rean armistice, of the Geneva agreement
on Vietnam, and of the Laotian armis-
tice.
Incidentally, I had hoped the Senator
from Idaho [Mr. CHURCH] would be pres-
ent. He had hoped to be here. He is
tied up on another matter, but hopes to
get here later.
The Senator from Idaho has held up
the Laotian armistice as an example of
a rational agreement with the Commu-
nists that has served our interests. He
could not possibly have picked a worse
illustration for his argument.
I can think of no more dramatic proof
than the Laotian armistice that agree-
ments with the Communists are worth-
less, and that every time we try to escape
from today's unpleasantness by entering
into a new covenant with an implacable
aggressor, we are always confronted on
the morrow by unpleasantness com-
pounded 10 times over.
I traveled through southeast Asia just
before the conclusion of the Laotian
armistice.
I talked to many people at that time.
It is true that the armistice was favored
by our Ambassador in Laos, and it ob-
viously must have had the support of
important members of the State Depart-
ment hierarchy. But the personnel of
our Embassies in Saigon and in Bangkok
did not conceal from me their grave ap-
prehensions over the consequences of
such an armistice for Vietnam and
southeast Asia.
All of this I, reported on confidentially
upon my return.
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At that time, the Saigon government
still controlled the situation throughout
most of the countryside, although the
15,000 Vietcong guerrillas were giving it
increasing difficulty. Our Embassy per-
sonnel in Saigon expressed the fear that
the conclusion of the Laotian armistice
would enable the Communists to infil-
trate men and material on a much larger
scale and would result at an early date
in a marked intensification of the Viet-
cong insurgency. Needless to say, the
apprehensions which they expressed to
me have been completely borne out by
subsequent developments.
The Laotian armistice has served Laos
itself as poorly as it has served the cause
of freedom in Vietnam. The Commu-
nists have continued to nibble away at
what is left of free Laos, in one aggres-
sive act after another, so that by now
they firmly control more than half the
country, while their infiltress and guer-
rillas are gnawing relentlessly at govern-
ment authority in the rest of the
country. -
In mid-1964, I asked the Library of
Congress to prepare for me a study of
Communist violations of the Laotian
armistice agreement. The study which
they submitted to me listed 14 specific
violations up until that time.
That was last year. There have been
many more since then.
Mr. President, I plan to insert into the
RECORD at the conclusion of my remarks
a copy of the survey of Communist vio-
lations of the Laotian armistice prepared
for me by the Library of Congress. I
earnestly hope the Senator from Idaho
will take the time to study this before
he once again holds up the Loatian armi-
stice as a model for Vietnam.
I should also like to quote from a
statement made on March 30, 1963, by
Gen. Kong Le, the neutralist military
commander who, as is common knowl-
edge, had favored the conclusion of the
Laotian armistice. Kong Le's statement
765--428-96923
is significant because it illustrates how
Communists will deal tomorrow with
non-Communist elements that they are
prepared to accept into coalition gov-
ernments today.
Referring to certain Communist
stooges, Gen. Kong Le said:
Despite their continual defeats, however,
these people learned their lessons from their
Communist bosses. * * * When the Prime
Minister went abroad, they moved rapidly to
destroy the neutralist forces. They used
tricks to provoke the soldiers and people to
overthrow Colonel Ketsana. When these did
not succeed, on February 12 they used an as-
sassin to murder Ketsana. They also savage-
ly killed or arrested all neutralist party
members, and their bloody hands caused the
death of many people.
This was the statement of Gen.
Kong Le, one of those who had pressed
the hardest for the Laotian armistice,
after he saw what the armistice had done
to his country.
Finally, I do not believe that the Lao-
tian armistice has served the interests
of the other peoples of southeast Asia.
I have in my possession a map of north-
ern Laos showing areas where the Chi-
nese Communists have been building
roads that would give China direct ac-
cess to the borders of Burma and Thai-
land. The construction of these roads
bodes ill for the future peace of south-
east Asia. That they are intended for
future military use is taken for granted
by everyone in the area.
So much for the example of the Lao-
tian armistice.
All this does not mean to say that we
must not under any circumstances enter
into negotiations with the Communists.
I do not suggest that at all. It simply
means that when we do so, we must do
so with our eyes open and with a clear
understanding of the ingredients re-
quired to enforce compliance with the
agreement about to be entered into.
That is all I have ever urged.
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Moreover, there is a time to negotiate
and a time not to negotiate.
The demand that we negotiate now
over Vietnam is akin to asking Churchill
to negotiate with the Germans at the
time of Dunkirk, or asking Truman to
negotiate with the Communists when
we stood with our backs to the sea in the
Pusan perimeter in . Korea. In either
case, the free world could have negoti-
ated nothing but total capitulation.
The situation in Vietnam is probably
not as desperate and certainly no more
desperate, than Britain's plight at the
time of Dunkirk or our own plight at
the time of Pusan. If we are of good
heart, if we refuse to listen to the coun-
sels of despair, if we again resolve that
"we will never give in"-as Churchill
put it-there is every reason to be con-
fident that a time will arrive when we
can negotiate with honor and for a more
acceptable objective than a diplomatic
surrender.
There are those who say that the
whole of southeast Asia will, whether
we like it or not, go Communist. These
people are at least consistent in urging
negotiations now. But anyone who be-
lieves that we can negotiate now and
nob lose Vietnam to communism is de-
luding himself in the worst possible way.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF DEFEAT IN VIETNAM
It is human to oppose the cost of stay-
ing on in Vietnam when American boys
are dying in a faraway land about
which we understand very little. I am
conscious of this. I am sensitive to it.
I share the troubled minds of all Sena-
tors. But I am convinced that the great
majority of those who advocate that we
abandon Vietnam to communism, either
by pulling out or by "negotiating" a set-
tlement, have not taken the time to
weigh the consequences of defeat.
. In my opinion, the consequences of an
American defeat in Vietnam would be
so catastrophic that we simply cannot
765-428-96923
permit ourselves to think of it. This is
truly an "unthinkable thought," to use
an expression coined by the Senator
from Arkansas. He was not applying it
to this problem, I point out, but I find
the words particularly apt in reference
to Vietnam.
GENOCIDE
For the Vietnamese people, the first
consequence would be a bloodletting on
a genocidal scale.
In the Soviet Union and in Red China,
tens of millions of "class enemies" were
eliminated by the victorious Communists.
While it is true that there are some
slightly more moderate Communist re-
gimes in certain countries, Vietnamese
communism is characterized by utter
disregard for human life of Stalinism
and Maoism. What will happen to the
more than 1 million refugees from North
Vietnam? What will happen to the mil-
lions of peasants who resisted or bore
arms against the Vietcong. I shudder
to think of it. The massacre of inno-
cents in Vietnam will be repeated in every
southeast Asian country that falls to
communism in its wake, in a gigantic
bloodletting that will dwarf the agony
and suffering of the war in Vietnam.
Those who urge our withdrawal from
Vietnam in the name of saving human
lives have the duty to consider the rec-
ord of Communist terror in every country
that has fallen under the sway of this
merciless ideology, with its total disre-
gard for human life.
The total number of victims of commu-
nism will probably never be known. Stu-
dents who have followed the Chinese
Communist press closely claim that it can
be demonstrated that Chinese commu-
nism has cost the lives of at least 25
million and more, probably 50 million
people, while students of Soviet commu-
nism put the overall figure for the So-
viet Union at approximately the same
level. They point out that, entirely
apart from the purges and mass killings
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at periodic intervals and the forced star-
vation of 5 million Ukrainian farmers,
the reported death rate in the Soviet
forced labor camps ran approximately
25 percent per annum in bad years, and
15 to 20 percent in good years. If one
accepts the average population of the
slave labor camps as 10 million over the
20 odd years of Stalin's undisputed rule,
this would mean that approximately 2
million slave laborers died annually in
Stalin's camps, or 40 million for the 20-
year period.
According to the Polish Government
in exile, in London, the Soviets deported
11/2 million Poles to Siberia after they
had occupied eastern Poland in the wake
of ? the Hitler-Stalin pact. Approxi-
mately 150,000 were returned through
Teheran after the Nazi invasion of Rus-
sia. Another 300,000 drifted back after
the war. More than 1 million never
came back. Such was the mortality in
the Soviet slave labor camps.
All of this seems incredible to the
Western mind.
I remember, when I was in Nuremburg,
that when I first read the terrible sta-
tistics about the mass killings by the
Nazis, I could not comprehend them. If
I suggested to Senators that a train
wreck had occurred in which 100 persons
had lost their lives, or a shipwreck in
which 150 had lost their lives, or some
common. disaster with hundreds or even
thousands of lives lost, we would react,
we would feel it. But if I suggested that
1 million murders had taken place, our
minds would not be able to grasp the
enormity of such a crime.
Perhaps that is just as well. There
must be built into our intellectual mech-
anism some kind of governor. Unfortu-
nately, while it does probably save us
from insanity, the fact that our minds
cannot comprehend the murder of 1 mil-
lion people or 40 million people serves as
a protective asset to the perpetrator of
such an evil deed. It does not make the
.765-428-96923
crime any less horrible. It simply makes
our task that much more difficult.
Even after Khrushchev's denunciation
of Stalin confirmed all the essential
charges that had been made against the
Soviet regime, men of good will in the
Western World refused to believe that
the Communist regime could be so, evil.
They refused to believe, because it is dif-
ficult for them to conceive of horror and
brutality on such a mass scale.
To those who refuse to believe, I would
like to read the eloquent words penned by
Dr. Julius Margolin, a prominent Jewish
leader in prewar Lithuania, one of the
scores of thousands of Lithuanians, de-
ported to Soviet slave labor camps after
the Soviet occupation of his country.
When he was released after 7 years in
the camps, Dr. Margolin wrote:
Until the fall of 1939, 1 had assumed a
position of benevolent neutrality toward the
U,S.S.R. * * * The last 7 years have made
me a convinced and ardent foe of the Soviet
system. I hate this system with all the
strength of my heart and all the power of
my mind. Everything I have seen there has
filled me with horror and disgust which will
last until the end of my days. ?I feel that
the struggle against this system of slavery,
terrorism, and cruelty which prevails there
constitutes the primary obligation of every
man in this world. Tolerance or support of
such an international shame is not permis-
sible for people who are on this side of the
Soviet border and who live under normal
conditions. * * *
Millions of men are perishing in the camps
of the Soviet Union. * * * Since they came
into being, the Soviet camps have swallowed
more people, have executed more victims,
than all the other camps-Hitler's in-
cluded-together; and this lethal engine con-
tinues to operate full blast.
And those who in reply only shrug their
shoulders and try to dismiss the issue with
vague and meaningless generalities, I con-
sider moral abetters and accomplices of ban-
ditry. 1
Let those who talk of getting out of
Vietnam. for the ostensible purpose of
L
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saving human lives weigh the words of
Dr. Julius Margolin-a man who, like
themselves, refused to believe that com-
munism could be so inhuman until he saw
its punitive machinery at work with his
own eyes.
And if the administration should ever
succumb to their pressure and negotiate
the surrender of Vietnam, and if the
Vietnamese Communists then embark on
the orgy of bloodletting which has always
accompanied the establishment of Com-
munist power, let those who are pressur-
ing for negotiations not be heard to say,
"But we didn't intend it this way." Be-
cause there is today no excuse for igno-
rance about communism.
(B) THE FURTHER CHOICE: COMPLETE WITH-
DRAWAL OR MAJOR ESCALATION
Our withdrawal from Vietnam would
immediately confront us with an agoniz-
ing choice.
If we decide to try to defend what is
left of southeast Asia against the advance
of communism, it will require far more
money, far more men, and far more
American blood than we are today in-
vesting in the defense of Vietnam. What
is more, it would involve a far greater risk
of the major escalation which we seek
to avoid.
If, on the other hand, we decide to
abandon the whole of southeast Asia to
communism, as some of the proponents
of withdrawal have frankly proposed, it
would result in the early disintegration
of all our alliances, and in the total
eclipse of America as a great nation.
Because no nation can remain great when
its assurances are considered worthless
even by its friends.
(C) MORE VIETNAMS
Whether we decide to abandon south-
east Asia or to try to draw another line
outside Vietnam, the loss of Vietnam will
result in a dozen more Vietnams in dif-
ferent parts of the world. If we.cannot
cope with this type of warfare in Viet-
765-428-96923
nam, the Chinese Communists will be en-
couraged in the belief that we cannot
cope with it anywhere else.
In the Congo, the Chinese Communists
have launched their first attempt at ap-
plying the Vietnamese strategy to Africa.
In the Philippines, the Huk guerrillas,
after being decisively defeated in the
early 1950's, have now staged a dramatic
comeback. According to the New York
Times, the Huks are now active again in
considerable strength, control large areas
of central Luzon, and are assassinating
scores of village heads and local admin-
istrators on the Vietcong pattern.
In Thailand, Red China has already
announced the formation of a patriotic
front to overthrow the Government and
eradicate American influence. This al-
most certainly presages the early launch-
ing of a Thai Communist insurrection,
also patterned after the Vietcong.
An article in the Washington Post on
January 16, pointed out that the Vene-
zuelan Communists now have 5,000 men
under arms in the cities and in the
countryside, and that the Venezuelan
Communist Party is openly committed to
"the strategy of a long war, as developed
in China, Cuba, Algeria, and Vietnam."
And there are at least half a dozen
other Latin American countries where
the Communists are fielding guerrilla
forces, which may be small today, but
which would be encouraged by a Com-
munist victory in Vietnam to believe that
the West has no defense against the
long war.
It is interesting to note in this con-
nection that, according to Cuban re-
ports, a Vietcong delegation which
came to Havana in 1964 signed a "mu-
tual aid pact" with the Venezuelan guer-
rilla forces. In addition, Marguerite
Higgins, the distinguished correspondent
for the Washington Star and other
papers, points out that Vietcong experts
have teamed up with experts from Com-
munist China and the Soviet Union in
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training Latin Americans for guerrilla
operations in the several schools main-
tained by Fidel Castro.
(D) WHAT NEW DEFENSE LINE?
It has been suggested that if we aban-
don southeast Asia, our seapower would
make it possible for us to fall back on
Japan and the Philippines and the oth-
er. Pacific islands, and constitute a more
realistic defense line there. This is non-
sense. American seapower and Ameri-
can nuclear power have thus far proved
impotent to cope with Communist politi-
cal warfare. Cuba is the best proof of
this.
If we abandon southeast Asia, the
Philippines may prove impossible to
hold against a greatly stepped-up Huk
insurgency.
Japan, even if it remains non-Commu-
nist, would probably, by force of circum-
stances, be compelled to come to terms
with Red China, adding the enormous
strength of its economy to Communist
strategic resources.
Okinawa, where our political position
is already difficult, would become politi-
cally impossible to hold.
If we fail to draw the line in Viet-
nam, in short, we may find ourselves
compelled to draw a defense line as far
back as Seattle and Alaska, with Hawaii
as a solitary outpost in mid-Pacific.
(E) THE ECLIPSE OF AMERICAN PRESTIGE
To all those who agree that we must
carefully weigh the consequences of
withdrawal before we commit ourselves
to withdrawal, I would refer the recent
words of the well-known Filipino politi-
cal commentator, Vincente Villamin.
The abandonment of Vietnam, wrote Mr.
Villamin, "would be an indelible blemish
on America's honor. It would reduce
America in the estimation of mankind
to a dismal third-rate power, despite her
wealth, her culture and her nuclear ar-
senal. It would make every American
ashamed of his Government and would
965-428-96923
make every individual American dis-
trusted everywhere on earth."
This is strong language. But from
conversations with a number of Asians, I
know that it is an attitude shared by
many of our best friends in Asia.
VIETNAM AND MUNICH
The situation in Vietnam today bears
many resemblances to the situation just
before Munich.
Chamberlain wanted peace. Churchill
Wanted peace.
Churchill said that if the free world
failed to draw the line against Hitler at
an early stage, it would be compelled to
draw the line under much more difficult
circumstances at a later date.
Chamberlain held that a confronta-
tion with Hitler might result in war, and
that the interests of peace demanded
some concessions to Hitler. Czechoslo-
vakia, he said, was a faraway land about
which we knew very little.
Chamberlain held that a durable
agreement could be negotiated with Hit-
ler that would guarantee "peace in our
time."
How I remember those words.
Churchill held that the appeasement
of a compulsive aggressor simply whet-
ted his appetite for further expansion
and made war more likely.
Chamberlain's policy won out, because
nobody wanted war. When he came back
from Munich, he was hailed not only by
the Tories, but by the Liberals, and the
Labor Party people, including leftwing-
ers like James Maxton and Fenner
Brockway.
Churchill remained a voice crying in
the wilderness.
But who was right-Churchill or
Chamberlain?
Who was the true man of peace?
In Vietnam today, we are again deal-
ing with a faraway land, about which
we know very little.
In Vietnam today, we are again con-
fronted by an incorrigible aggressor,
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fanatically committed to the destruc-
tion of the free world, whose agree-
ments are as worthless as Hitler's. In-
deed, even while the Communist propa-
ganda apparatus is pulling out all the
stops to pressure us into a diplomatic
surrender in Vietnam, the Chinese Com-
munists are openly encouraging a new
Huk insurgency in the Philippines and
have taken the first step in opening a
Vietcong type insurgency in Thailand
through the creation of their quisling
Thai patriotic front.
In signing the Munich agreement, it
was not Chamberlain's intention to sur-
render the whole of Czechoslovakia to
Hitler. The agreement was limited to
the transfer of the German-speaking
Sudetenland to German sovereignty.
And no one was more indignant than
Chamberlain when Hitler, having de-
prived Czechoslovakia of her mountain
defenses, proceeded to take over the
entire country.
While there are some proponents of
a diplomatic solution who are willing
to face up to the fact that negotiations
at this juncture mean surrender, there
are others who apparently quite hon-
estly believe that we can arrive at a
settlement that will both end the war
and preserve the freedom of the South
Vietnamese people. If such negotia-
tions should ever come to pass, I am
certain that the story of Czechoslovakia
would be repeated. Having deprived
South Vietnam of the political and mil-
itary capability to resist, the North Viet-
namese Communists would not tarry
long before they completely communized
the country.
And, before very long, those who urge
a diplomatic solution for the sake of
preventing war, may find themselves
compelled to fight the very war that
they were seeking to avoid, on a bigger
and bloodier scale, and from a much
more difficult line of defense.
I take it for granted that no one in
this Chamber and no loyal American
765-428-96923
citizen believes that we should stand by
indifferently while communism takes
over the rest of the world.
I take it for granted that every in-
telligent person realizes that America
could not long survive as a free nation
in a world that was completely
Communist.
I take it for granted that everyone
agrees that somewhere, somehow, we
must draw the line against further
Communist expansion.
The question that separates us, there-
fore, is not whether such a line should
be drawn, but where such a line should
be drawn.
I believe that we have been right in
drawing the line in Vietnam and that
President Johnson is right in trying to
hold the line in Vietnam, despite the
setbacks we have suffered over the past
year. Because, if this line falls, let us
have no illusions about the difficulty of
drawing a realistic line of defense any-
where in the western Pacific.
NEITHER SURRENDER NOR ESCALATION
We have been told in many statements
and articles that the only alternative to
withdrawal from Vietnam, with or with-
out negotiations, is a dramatic escala-
tion of the war against the North. And
we have been warned that such an esca-
lation might bring in both Red China
and the Soviet Union and might bring
about the thermonuclear holocaust that
no one wants.
These are supposed to be the choices
before us.
It is my belief, however, that the tide
of war in Vietnam can be reversed and
that this war can ultimately be won
without an invasion of the North and
without a significant intensification of
our military effort. It is my belief that
there are many measures we can take,
primarily in the nonmilitary field, to
strengthen our posture and the posture
of South Vietnamese forces in the fight
against the Vietcong insurgency.
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Before outlining some of the measures
which I believe can and must be taken,
I wish to deal with a number of widely
accepted fallacies and misconceptions
about the situation in Vietnam, because
one cannot intelligently approach the
problem of what to do about Vietnam
without first establishing the essential
facts about the present situation in that
country.
THE FALLACY THAT THE VIETNAMESE WAR IS A
The belief that the Vietnamese war is
a civil war is one of the most widespread
misconceptions about Vietnam. This is
frequently associated with the charge
that it is the United States, and not
North Vietnam or Red China, which is
intervening in South Vietnam.
The war in South Vietnam is not a
civil war. It was instigated in the first
place by the North Vietnamese Commu-
nists, with the material and moral sup-
port of both Peiping and Moscow. There
is overwhelming proof that Hanoi has
provided the leadership for the Vietcong
insurrection, that it has supplied them
massively, and that. it has served as the
real command headquarters for the Viet-
cong.
The present insurrection in South
Vietnam goes back to the third Commu-
nist Party Congress in Hanoi in Septem-
ber of 1960. At this. Congress it was
decided "to liberate South Vietnam from
the ruling yoke of the U.S. Imperialists
and their henchmen in order to achieve
national unity and complete independ-
ence." The Congress also called for the
creation of a broad national front in
South Vietnam directed against the
United States-Diem clique. Several
months later the formation of the front
for the liberation of the south. was an-
nounced.
I understand that there is an official
report, according to which, the U.S. Mili-
tary Assistants Command in Vietnam is
in possession of reliable evidence indi-
765-428-96923
eating that probably as many as 34,000
Vietcong infiltrators have entered South
Vietnam from the north between Jan-
uary 1959 and August 1964.
The report indicates that the majority
of hard-core Vietcong officers and the
bulk of specialized personnel such as
communications and heavy weapons spe-
cialists have been provided through in-
filtration. Infiltrators, moreover, appar-
ently make up the major part of Vietcong
regulars in the northern half of South
Vietnam.
The infiltration from the north sup-
plies the Vietcong with much of its
leadership, specialist personnel, key sup-
plies such as heavy ordnance and com-
munications equipment, and, in some
cases, elite troops.
This information is derived from the
interrogation of many thousands of Viet-
cong captives and defectors and from
captured documents.
It is this hard core that has come
down from the north that has provided
the leadership cadres in all major in-
surgent actions, including the series of
sensational attacks on American instal-
lations.
The scale on which. Hanoi has been
supplying the Vietcong insurgency was
dramatically illustrated this weekend
when an attack by an American helicop-
ter on a ship off the coast of South Viet-
nam resulted in the discovery of an enor-
mous arms cache-almost enough, in the
words of one American officer, to equip
an entire division. The haul included a
thousand Russian-made carbines, hun-
dreds of Russian submachine guns, and
light machine guns, and Chinese burp
guns, and scores of tons of ammunition.
There were also a variety of sophisticated
land mines and ammunition for a new
type of rocket launcher used against
tanks. A Communist guerrilla who was
captured in the action said that the ship
which delivered the weapons had made
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six trips to bases along the South Viet-
nam coast, dropping off supplies.
Finally, we would do well to consider
the fact that the general offensive
launched by the Communist forces in
Vietnam 2 weeks ago was preceded by an
open call by Hanoi radio for assaults
throughout the country on Vietnamese
and American positions.
The public confusion on the nature of
the Vietnamese war stems in large meas-
ure from the sabotage of the Communist
member of the three-man International
Control Commission set up to supervise
the carrying out of the-Geneva agree-
ment. By 1961, reports of 1,200 offensive
incidents of Communist agents, ranging
from one-man assassinations to large-
scale military actions, had been pre-
sented to the Commission. The Commis-
sion, however, took no action because the
Polish Communist member consistently
refused to investigate reports of North
Vietnamese intervention in South Viet-
nam. In this way, this entire massive
body of evidence of Hanoi's Intervention
in South Vietnam was muted and ren-
dered ineffective.
In order to understand the war in Viet-
nam, we have to get away from tradi-
tional concepts in which armies with
their own insignias cross clearly marked
national demarcation lines after their
governments have duly declared war.
Communist guerrilla warfare is waged
without any declaration of war. In the
case of Vietnam, it is waged from exter-
nal sanctuaries which claim immunity to
attack because the state which harbors
them has not formally declared war.
It blends military cadres who have in-
filtrated into the country with native
dissidents and conscripts, in a manner
which conceals the foreign instigation of
the insurgency, and which enables the
Communists to pretend that it is merely
a civil war.
It is time that we nail the civil war
lie for what it is. It is time that we rec-
ognized it as a form of aggression as
765-428-96923
intolerable as open aggression across
marked frontiers.
Why did Ho Chi Minh decide to launch
the current war for the liberation of
South Vietnam? The answer to this
question is really very simple.
After the Geneva agreement, it had
been the expectation of the Communists
that South Vietnam would collapse in
administrative and political chaos be-
fore many months had passed, and that
it would fall into their hands like an
overripe plum. Indeed, when Ngo Dinh
Diem took office as Premier after the
surrender of North Vietnam to the Com-
munists, 99 percent of the Western press
viewed the situation in South Vietnam
as hopeless and predicted an early take-
over by the Communist guerrillas.
Cut off from the mineral and indus-
trial riches of the north; swamped by
an influx of 1 million refugees; without
an adequate army or administration of
its own; with three major sects, each
with private armies, openly challenging
its authority-confronted with this com-
bination of burdens and handicaps, it
seemed that nothing could save the new
born South Vietnamese Government.
But then there took place something
that has properly come to be called the
Diem miracle; this term was used at
different times by President Kennedy and
Secretary McNamara prior to Diem's
overthrow, which most people, I believe,
now realize was a tragic mistake.
Diem first of all moved to destroy the
power of the infamous Binh Xyuen, a
sect of river pirates who, under the
French, were given a simultaneous mo-
nopoly on the metropolitan police force
of Saigon and on the thousands of opium
dens and houses of prostitution and
gambling that flourished there.
So powerful was the Binh Xyuen and
so weak were the Diem forces at the
time that even the American Ambassa-
dor urged Diem not to attack them.
Diem, however, did attack them and
drove them out of Saigon.
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Having defeated the military sects
and integrated them into the Armed
Forces of the republic, Diem within a
few years was able to resettle the 1 mil-
lion refugees and to create a stable uni-
fied state where none had previously ex-
isted.
I could not help feeling indignant over
articles and publications dealing with
North Vietnam which have underscored
what the Communists have done for
their people. Among other things, they
have stressed the fact that the Commu-
nists have greatly expanded. their school
system. What these articles did not
mention. was that from 1955 to 1963
President Diem has doubled the number
of students in elementary schools, while
at the secondary school level the in-
crease has been fivefold.
The remarkable progress in the field
of education was no exception. The en-
tire South Vietnamese society scored re-
markable advances in every field of eco-
nomic and social endeavor, so that in
1963 South Vietnam for the first time
had a sizable rice surplus for export.
There were significant increases in all
sectors of industry and agriculture, and
a 20-percent rise in per capita income.
Meanwhile, in North Vietnam, things
were going from bad to worse. As in
every other Communist country the col-
lectivization of the peasants resulted in
a dramatic reduction of food output and
in chronic food shortages throughout
the country. The resentment of the
peasants was compounded by the brutal
and indiscriminate punishment of hun-
dreds of thousands of peasant farmers
who were hailed before so-called people's
courts and charged with being bourgeois
elements or exploiting landlords. Dur-
ing the course of 1955 peasant revolts
broke out in several areas. There was
even a revolt in Ho Chi Minh's own vil-
lage. And there was some evidence that
the troops sent to suppress these revolts
sometimes sympathized with the peas-
765-428-96923
ants. Shortages increased year by year.
The people became increasingly apa-
thetic.
The contrast between the growing
prosperity of the South and the growing
misery in the North confronted the Viet-
namese Communists with a challenge
they could not tolerate. That is why
they decided that they had to put an
end to freedom in South Vietnam.
While they have scored some sensational
victories in their war of subversion
against the South Vietnamese Govern-
ment, I think it important to point out
that this war has gravely complicated
the already serious internal difficulties
of the North, so that in 1963, for exam-
ple, the per capita output of rice in Com-
munist North Vietnam was 20 percent
lower than in 1960.
And I also consider it important to
understand the significance of the fact
that 'the Vietcong insurgency was di-
rected not against a government that
had failed to improve the lot of its peo-
ple but against a government which,
over a short period of time, had scored
some of the most dramatic economic and
social advances recorded anywhere in
Asia;
ESCALATION: FACT AND FALLACY
There has been a good deal of talk
about the United States escalating the
war in South Vietnam. Several Senators
who spoke last week warned that if we
escalate the war by means of air strikes
against North Vietnam, the escalation
may get out of hand and wind up as a war
with Red China or perhaps even a world
war.
But it is not we who have escalated the
war; it is the Communists. Peiping and
Hanoi have been busy escalating the war
in South Vietnam for several years now.
They have sent in tens of thousands of
soldiers of the North Vietnamese Army ;
they have trained additional tens of thou-
sands of dissident South Vietnamese;
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they have supplied them with massive
quantities of equipment; and. they have
stepped up the tempo of their attacks
against the Vietnamese people.
Now we are told that if we take any ac-
tion against the territory of North Viet-
nam, which has mounted and directed
the entire attack on South Vietnam, it
will entail the risk of world war.
If the Communists are always to be
permitted the privilege of escalating their
attempts to take over new countries,
while we shrink from retaliation for fear
of further escalation, we might as well
throw in the sponge now and tell the
Communists the world is theirs for the
taking.
I find it difficult to conceive of Red
China sending in her armies in response
to air strikes against carefully selected
military targets. After all, if they did
so, they would be risking retaliation
against their highly vulnerable coastal
cities, where most of Red China's indus-
try is concentrated. They would be risk-
ing setting back their economy 10 or 20
years.
Moreover, both the Chinese Commu-
nists and the Hanoi Communists are
aware that the massive introduction of
Chinese troops would create serious pop-
ular resentment because of the tradi-
tional Vietnamese suspicion of Chinese
imperialism.
That there will be no invasion of the
North by Vietnamese and American
forces can, I believe, be taken as axio-
matic. Nor do I believe there will be any
large-scale involvement of American
troops on the Korean model. We will
have to continue to provide the Viet-
namese with logistical support and air
support, as we are doing now. But on
the ground, the fighting can most effec-
tively be done by the Vietnamese armed
forces, supported, I believe, by military
contingents from the other free Asian
countries.
765-428-96923
THE FALLACY THAT THE ASIAN PEOPLES DO NOT
KNOW THE MEANING OF FREEDOM
It has been stated by the senior Sena-
tor from Idaho CMr. CHURCH] and by
other critics of our foreign policy in Viet-
nam that it is pointless to talk about
fighting for freedom in Asia because the
Asian people historically do not know the
meaning of freedom. It has even been
implied that, because of their ignorance
of freedom and their indifference to it,
communism exercises a genuine attrac-
tion for the peoples of Asia.
I am sure that most Asians would con-
sider this analysis condescending and
offensive. I myself would be disposed to
agree with them. It is an analysis which,
in my opinion, is false on almost every
score.
We have grown accustomed to equat-
ing freedom with the full range of free-
doms that we in the United States today
enjoy. But, in the world in which we
line, the word "freedom" has at least
three separate and perhaps equally im-
portant connotations.
First, there is national freedom, or in-
dependence from foreign control.
Second, there is freedom of speech
and press and the other freedoms in-
herent in parliamentary democracy, such
as we enjoy.
And, third, there is the type of natural
freedom that is enjoyed by primitive
peasants and tribesmen in many back-
ward countries, even under political
autocracies.
It is true that most Asian governments
are autocratic; and it is probably true
that the Vietnamese people do not un-
derstand or appreciate freedom in the
sense of parliamentary democracy. But
they certainly understand the meaning
of "freedom" when the word is used to
mean independence from foreign rule.
They are, in fact, a people with a long
and proud history and a strong sense of
national identity. Every Vietnamese
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schoolboy knows that his people fought
and triumphed over the hordes of
Genghis Khan in defense of their free-
dom; and he also knows that his country
was free for five centuries before the
French occupation. Finally, he knows
and takes pride in the fact that his peo-
ple drove out the French colonialists de-
spite their army of 400,000 men. Do not
tell me that these people know nothing
about freedom.
To the westernized Saigonese intellec-
tuals, freedom of speech and freedom of
the press are certainly very real issues;
and even though they may have not mas-
tered the processes, they would unques-
tionably like to see some kind of parlia-
mentary democracy in their country. It
is completely understandable that they
should have chafed over the political con-
trols that existed under the Diem gov-
ernment, and that have existed, in one
degree or another, under succeeding gov-
ernments.
But in the countryside, where the great
mass of the people reside, the political
controls that exist in the city are mean-
ingless. The peasant is free to own his
own land, to dispose of his produce, to
worship according to his beliefs, to. guide
the upbringing of his children, and to
elect his local village officials. To him,
these freedoms that touch on his every-
day life are the freedoms that really
count, not the abstract and remote free-
doms of constitutional and federal gov-
ernment.
And, if on top of granting him these
natural freedoms, the government as-
sists him by building schools and dis-
pensaries and by providing seed and fer-
tilizer, then, from the standpoint of the
southeast Asian peasant, his life is full
and he is prepared to fight to defend it
against the Communists.
It is, in short, completely untrue that
the Vietnamese people and the other
peoples of Asia do not know the mean-
ing of freedom. And it is equally untrue
766-428-96928
that communism is acceptable to the
Asian peasant because of his indiffer-
ence to freedom.
Communism has never been freely ac-
cepted by any people, anywhere, no mat-
ter how primitive.
It has never been accepted for the
simple reason that even primitive peoples
do not enjoy being pushed around and
brutalized and terrorized, and told what
to do and what not to do, and having
their every activity ordered and super-
vised by political commissars.
This is why communism must govern
by means of ruthless dictatorship wher
ever it takes power.
This is why the primitive mountain
peoples of both Laos and Vietnam have,
in an overwhelming majority, sided
against the Communists.
This is why there are almost 8 mil-
lion refugees from Communist rule in
Asia today-people who have seen the
reality of the so-called People's Democ-
racy, and who have given up everything
they possessed and frequently risked
their lives to escape from it.
That is why there is barbed wire and
iron curtains surrounding the Commu-
nist countries. The inhabitants of the
Communist countries would all leave if
they could.
There is one final comment I would like
to make while dealing with this sub-
ject. Too often I have heard it said
that the Vietnamese people are not fight-
ing because there is nothing to choose
between communism and the kind of gov-
ernment they now have.
To equate an authoritarian regime like
that in South Vietnam, or Taiwan, or
Thailand with the totalitarian rule of
communism is tantamount to losing all
sense of proportion. Not only have these
regimes never been guilty of the massive
bloodletting and total direction of per-
sonal life which has characterized Com-
munist rule in every country, but, care-
fully examined, it will turn out that these
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regimes are a mixture of natural democ-
racy at the bottom with political controls
of varying rigidity at the top.
Even at their worst, the political au-
tocracies that exist in certain free Asian
countries are a thousand times better
than communism from the standpoint of
how they treat their own people. And
at their best, some of these autocracies
have combined control of the press and
political parties with remarkably pro-
gressive social programs.
But perhaps more important from our
standpoint is that these free autocracies,
for lack of a better term, do not threaten
the peace of their neighbors or of the
world or threaten our own security,
whereas world communism has now be-
come a threat of terrifying dimensions.
THE FALLACY THAT THE VIETNAMESE PEOPLE
HAVE NO WILL TO RESIST COMMUNISM
We have been told that the Vietnamese
people are indifferent to communism;
that they resist it only halfheartedly.
Some commentators have even sought to
create the impression that America is in
a position of coercing the South Viet-
namese to fight against communism.
This estimate of the attitude of the
South Vietnamese people is totally false.
True, South Vietnam is suffering from
political instability.
True, the war against the Vietcong is
going badly.
But these things by themselves do not
constitute proof that the Vietnamese
people are indifferent to communism or
that they do not have the will to resist.
The people of South Vietnam are, in
fact, one of the most anti-Communist
peoples in the world. Among them are
more than 1 million refugees who sacri-
ficed everything they possessed to flee
from North Vietnam to South Vietnam
after the country was divided by the
Geneva agreement of 1954; and it is esti-
mated that there are another 300,000 in-
ternal refugees who have fled from Com-
munist-controlled areas in the south.
765-428-96923
Among the present population of 14 mil-
lion, in addition, there are several million
peasants and workers and students who.
have at one time or another borne arms
against the Communists, some of them
in the Vietnamese Army, the majority in
village self-defense units.
The overwhelming majority of the.
people of South Vietnam know what com-
munism means because they have experi-
enced it on their own backs. There are
indeed very few South Vietnamese who
do not have friends or relatives who have
been the victims of Communist brutality
and terror.
Let me tell the story of one such act
of Communist terror, because statistics
by themselves tend to be meaningless.
In the village of Phu Hoa, there was a
teenage girl by the name of Giau, the
pride of her parents and a born leader of
others. As a member of the Republican
Youth Organization, she organized the
village youth and gave talks. On the
evening of January 15, 1962, she was ab-
ducted from her village by Vietcong sol-
diers. The next morning her mutilated
and decapitated body-I have a photo-
graph of it-was discovered in the road-
way outside the village with a note on
her breast captioned "Death Sentence
for Giau," and signed by the "People's
Front of Liberation."
For a long period of time, assassina-
tions such as this were going on at the
rate of some 500 a month, or 6,000 a
year. The victims were most frequently
active supporters of government, local
administrators, village heads, and school-
teachers. The families of village mili-
tiamen were another favorite target.
The Vietcong would entice the militia
away from the village-and when they
returned they would find their wives and
children massacred.
While the facts of these mass assassi-
nations are not generally known in our
country, they are known in Vietnam.
And this is one of the reasons why the
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Vietnamese people hate the Communists,
and why they continue to resist them
despite the chronic political instability
in Saigon and despite the seeming hope-
lessness of their situation.
For some strange reason, the torture
of one Vietcong prisoner aroused far
more indignation in our country than
the assassination of scores of thousands
of innocent civilians by the Vietcong
Communists, including the bombing of a
schoolbus in which a score of children
died.
But, if the Vietnamese people are anti-
Communist, I have been asked: Why has
the Vietnamese Army put up so poor a
show?
The Vietnamese Army has been handi-
capped by political instability by the fre-
quent shifts of officers, by poor staff
work, by its inadequate use of scouts and
security patrols, and by the many dis-
advantages under which counterguer-
rilla forces must always operate. But,
it is simply not true that the Vietnamese
Army has shown no willingness to fight.
They have fought bravely in thou-
sands of engagements. They have taken
heavy casualties and inflicted much
heavier casualties on the enemy.
The belief that the Vietnamese people
do not have the will to resist the Com-
munists and that the Vietnamese forces
have fought poorly against them, is in
large measure due to the unfortunate
emphasis which the press always places
on disasters and defects.
It probably also springs in part from
the traditional attitude of the American
newspaperman that it is his duty to
mercilessly expose every weakness in
his city government, in his State govern-
ment, in his National Government.
I do not complain about that. I sup-
pose that is the way it has to be.
But whatever the reasons may be, the
emphasis in the press has been so mis-
leading that even knowledgeable mem-
bers of the administration have been con-
765--428-96923
fused by it. For example, a member of
the administration who very recently
visited Vietnam informed me that, con-
trary to his impressions from reading the
press he was amazed to learn that in
eight engagements of battalion size and
larger which took place during the
month of January 1965, the Vietnamese
Army got the better of the engagement
in every single case.
I have here the comparative figures
for Vietnamese and Vietcong casualties
for the 3-year period 1962-64, which
I have received from an official source.
I wish to read them, Mr. President, be-
cause they throw an altogether new light
on the situation in Vietnam. I do not
know why these figures were not released
long ago. I hear people complaining
that they do not know what is going on
in Vietnam. The release of these figures
would have helped them to understand.
In 1962 the Vietnamese Army lost 4,400
killed in action against 21,000 Vietcong
killed, and 1,300 prisoners against 5,500
captives taken from the Vietcong.
Those are pretty good statistics. They
ought to be read and studied by those
who have been telling us that the South
Vietnamese have no will to fight.
Listen to these further figures:
In 1963 the figures were 5,700 Vietna-
mese soldiers killed in action against
21,000 Vietcong, and 3,300 missing or
captured against 4,000 Vietcong cap-
tured.
And even last year, when the fortunes
of war turned against the Vietnamese
government, the Vietnamese Army killed
17,000 Vietcong against a loss of 7,000
men, and took 4,200 Communists captive
against 5,800 captives lost to them.
To those who say that the Vietnamese
Army has not shown the will to resist,
I point out that, over the 3-year period
for which I have presented figures, this
army suffered a total death toll of 17,000
men, which is almost as high as the total
American toll in South Korea. The
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enemy's casualties have been much heav-
ier. But the Communists have continued
to attack regardless of losses. And be-
cause it has not been possible to recon-
stitute a stable government since the
overthrow.of Diem, and, because no one
knows where guerrillas may strike next,
and because unlimited terror is a dread-
fully effective instrument, the Vietcong,
over the past 15 months, have been able
to make most of the Vietnamese country-
side insecure.
The fact that the Vietcong seem to be
winning and that they have been so
effective in resisting government count-
erattacks, has led some people to believe
that the Vietcong soldier is convinced of
the justice of his cause and that this is
why he fights more grimly.
The Communists are masters of the
art of imposing iron discipline by means
of unlimited terror.
Senators will recall that during the
Korean war we all marveled at the dis-
cipline of the Chinese Communist sol-
diers who kept on marching without
breaking step while they were being
bombed and strafed by American planes,
or who attacked our positions, wave upon
wave, apparently oblivious to casualties.
I remember people saying, "See the
dedication of these Chinese Communists.
See how they bear themselves against
bullets and bombs. See how fanatically
they believe in their cause." I did not
think that was the reason, but I did not
have an effective answer until after the
war was over.
Senators will recall the terrible riots
in the Koje prisoner-of-war camp, when
the prisoners seemed so grimly united
against us that for weeks on end Amer-
ican soldiers could not venture into the
POW compound. Again, the common
assumption was that the prisoners were
all fanatical Communists.
But then the end of the war came-
and it turned out that 20,000 out of 25,000
of the Communist prisoners in our hands
765-428-96923
asked for refugee status rather than
return to North Korea or China. And
these were supposed to be the dedicated
Communists who believe so fanatically
in communism.
Of the 5,000 who returned home, there
is reason to believe that the majority
did so with heavy hearts, because of
strong family ties and not because of
any love for communism.
I remind the Senators-because these
things tend to be forgotten-of the evi-
dence which emerged that the Koje pris-
oners of war had been terrorized by a
tiny minority of Communist militants
who ran the camp with an iron hand,
torturing political opponents, staging
kangaroo courts, and executing and
burying those who were sentenced.
I also remind them of the scenes that
took place when the prisoners were
brought before the Communist interro-
gators under the procedures set up by
the Neutral Nations Repatriation Com-
mission. The prisoners had to be dragged
before the interrogators forcibly, their
arms pinned behind their backs by In-
dian soldiers. When the Communist in-
terrogators spoke to them, urging that
they return to their homeland, the pris-
oners spat out their hatred with a vehe-
mence that Western observers found
frightening. So embarrassing were the
interrogations for the Communists that
after a number of sessions they decided
to call off the whole show.
In the light of this conclusion, how
much significance can one attach to the
seemingly fanatical courage displayed by
the Chinese and North Korean soldiers
in attacking our positions, or to the grim
unity of the Koje prisoners of war in
resisting their American captors?
Before we marvel at the apparently
high morale of the Vietcong forces in
South Vietnam, I suggest that we recall
the experience of the Korean war, be-
cause the evidence is overwhelming that
the Vietcong Communists are using ter-
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ror on the same scale and in the same
manner that it was employed on the
Korean battlefront and in the prisoner-
of-war camps.
That the morale of the Vietcong forces
is not 10 feet tall is demonstrated by the
substantial number of Vietcong prisoners
taken over the past 3 years. It is demon-
strated even more dramatically by the
fact that from February 1963 through
the end of 1964 there were approxi-
mately 17,000 Vietcong defections. The
number of defections. would be far
larger, I am certain, if a stable govern-
ment could establish itself in Saigon.
It is interesting to note that, while
most of the defectors have been young
peasants who were conscripted by the
Vietcong, their ranks also include North
Vietnamese officers who were told that
they were going south to fight the Amer-
icans and who broke when they dis-
covered that they were fighting their
own people.
Impatient constituents have sometimes
asked me why the Communists have been
able to plan elaborate attacks on our
airfields and other installations without
advance intelligence reaching us from
members of the local population who
must have observed the Communists.
The instrument of terror is also appli-
cable to the control of the civilian popu-
lation. Whenever the Communists take
over a village or a town, they systemat-
ically massacre all known anti-Commu-
nist leaders and those who are suspected
of informing. They frequently mutilate
their bodies as an example to the people.
If we could give the Vietnamese vil-
lagers a feeling of greater security, I am
sure that more intelligence would, be
forthcoming. As matters now stand, the
average Vietnamese peasant fears that
the Communists are going to win the
war, and he knows the terrible punish-
ment that awaits those who inform on
the Communists. This is why our in-
telligence has admittedly been inade- .
766-428--96923
quate-one of the reasons, certainly.
But this is a situation that could change
dramatically if we succeeded in convinc-
ing the Vietnamese people of our deter-
mination to help them retain their free-
dom, and if we succeeded in inflicting a
number of significant defeats on the
enemy.
THE BUDDHIST FALLACY
I now wish to discuss the Buddhist sit-
uation, about which we have heard so
much over the several years.
The myth of Buddhist persecution and
the parallel myth that the Buddhists are
opposed to the Government, have be-
cause of the so-called militant Buddhist
movement, become important political
factors in Vietnam. It is, therefore, im-
portant that we should seek to under-
stand the nature of this movement, the
motivation of its leaders, and the real
degree of influence it exerts over the
Vietnamese people.
The campaign which resulted in the
overthrow of President Diem was marked
by the charge that he had subjected the
Buddhist religion to inhuman persecu-
tion; and, in protest against this alleged
persecution, a number of Buddhist monks
went through the horrifying ritual of
self-immolation.
Week after week, month after month,
the American people and the people of
the world were inundated with stories
supporting the charge that Diem was
persecuting the Buddhist religion. There
were a number of experienced corre-
spondents of national reputation who
challenged the authenticity of these
stories. But their voices were drowned
by the torrent of charges and allegations
that appeared in some of our major news-
papers, and that were lent further
credence because of repetition of our of-
fical information agencies.
At the invitation of President Diem, the
U.N. General Assembly decided to send a
factfinding mission to South Vietnam to
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look into the situation. I find this rarely
referred to in any discussion of the Bud-
dhist question, but it is a fact that the
United Nations did send a mission over
there.
. While the mission was still in the coun-
try, President Diem and his brother,
Ngo Dinh Nhu, were overthrown and
assassinated.
The mission decided that the overthrow
of Diem made it unnecessary to come up
with a formal finding. I believe that
this was most regrettable. But the sum-
mary of the testimony which it had taken
in Vietnam pointed strongly to the con-
clusion that the persecution of the
Buddhists was either nonexistent or
vastly exaggerated and that the agita-
tion was essentially political. This, in
essence, was what I was told in a per-
sonal conversation with Ambassador Fer-
mando Volio Jiminez, of Costa Rica, who
had introduced the motion calling for the
setting up of the U.N. mission and who
served as a member of it.
I went to New York and saw Ambas-
sador Volio. I said, "Mr. Ambassador, I
understand you were a member of the
United Nations commission which went
to Vietnam. I should like to ask you
what the facts are." Ambassador Volio
gave me the facts as I have given them to
you here.
Ambassador Pinto, of Dahomey, an-
other member of the U.N. mission, ex-
pressed himself in similar terms in
public.
The entire tragic story suggests that
the free world was made the victim of a
gigantic propaganda hoax, as a result of
which the legitimate government of
President Diem was destroyed and a
chaotic situation created which has in-
evitably played into the hands of the
Communists.
If Senators have not yet had time to
read the report of the U.N.factflnding
mission to Vietnam, I urge them to do so
because it throws essential light on the
765-428-96923
current activities of the militant
Buddhists. I am arranging to have copies
mailed to every Senator, and I hope that
all Senators will read it, because they
will learn a great deal about the present
Buddhist situation from it.
The first fact which needs to be estab-
lished in evaluating the militant Buddhist
movement is that the Buddhists do not
constitute 80 or 85 percent of the popula-
tion, as was widely reported at the time
of the Buddhist crisis. According to Dr.
Mai Tho Truyen, one of the greatest au-
thorities on Vietnam Buddhism, the Viet-
namese Buddhists number approximately
4 million people, or about 30 percent of
the population.
The second point that must be made is
that the militant Buddhists constitute
only a small fraction of the total Bud-
dhist population. The millions of the
Buddhist peasants, in their great ma-
jority, do not approve of the militant
political actions and the government-
toppling intrigues of the Buddhist mili-
tants in Saigon. Their activities, indeed,
run completely counter to the pacific
traditions of the Buddhist religion.
It is questionable whether the Bud-
dhist militants have been able to mobilize
as many as 50,000 active supporters in
all the demonstrations they have staged
in Saigon and Hue and other cities. But
because political power resides in the
cities, the several tens of thousands of
Buddhist militants, by their clamor and
their persistent demonstrations and their
clever propaganda, have succeeded in
creating the impression that they speak
for the people of the cities and for the
majority of the people of Vietnam.
What do the Buddhist militants want?
Before the overthrow of President Diem,
Thich Tri Quang told Marguerite Hig-
gins frankly: "We cannot get an arrange-
ment with the north until we get rid of
Diem and Nhu."
The evidence is clear that Thich Tri
Quang and some of his other militants
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are still bent on an agreement with the
north. Indeed, only last Friday, Quang
called for U.S. negotiations with Ho Chi
Minh.
If there is reason to believe that Thich
Tri. Quang is a neutralist, there is even
more reason for fearing that some of the
other members of the Buddhist opposi-
tion movement are openly pro-Commu-
nist or that they have become tools of
the rather substantial Communist infil-
tration which is known to exist in the
Buddhist clergy in the various countries
of Asia.
That such an infiltration should exist
is not surprising because there are no
barriers to it.
A man who wants to become a Bud-
dhist monk does not have to prepare him-
self for his ministry by engaging in
studies, nor does he have to be ordained,
nor does he take any vow.
He simply shaves his head and dons
the saffron robe and enters a monas-
tery-and overnight he becomes one of
the religious elite.
When he wishes to leave the mon-
astery, he sheds his robe and leaves it;
if he wishes to reenter, he dons his robe
again and reenters. That is all there
is to it.
I do not criticize this procedure on
religious grounds.
Buddhism is one of the great religions
of mankind and much can be said for
an arrangement that enables every man
of religious disposition to spend at least
a portion of his life under the voluntary
monastic discipline characteristic of
Buddhism.
But, regrettably, it is a procedure that
leaves the door wide open to Communist
infiltration.
I remember that when we were digging
into the files of the Nazis at Nuremberg,
we found that Hitler had under consider-
ation a program of infiltrating the
churches by inducing young people to
enter seminaries, so that he could have
them at his disposal.
76&4-28---96923
When I first began to hear of the
Buddhist situation, it occurred to me
that more than likely there was a sim-
ilar infiltration of religion at work.
The militant Buddhists have used the
influence and prestige which accrued to
them from the overthrow of Diem for
the prime purpose of making stable gov-
ernment impossible: in this sense, what-
ever the intent of their leaders, they
have been serving the desires of the
Communist Vietcong.
They have organized demonstrations,
provoked riots, inflamed passions with
highly publicized fasts and self-immola-
tions, and subjected the government to
a ceaseless propaganda barrage. They
overthrew the Khanh government.
Then they overthrew the Huong govern-
anent which succeeded it. And they
!seem to be intent on making things im-
possible for any government that may
'come to power.
It is, of course, difficult to deal with a
political conspiracy that camouflages it-
self in religious robes. In any case, this
is a matter for the Vietnamese Govern-
ment and not for our own Government.
But it would make matters immeasur-
ably easier for the Vietnamese authori-
ties if the true facts about Buddhism
in Vietnam, were given. to the American
people and if they could be helped to
understand how little the Buddhist mili-
tants really represent, how nefarious
their political activities have really been,
and how much they have done, to under-
mine the fight against Communists.
No stable government can be created
in Vietnam without the participation and
support of responsible Buddhist leader-
ship. But this responsible leadership
cannot be found among the handful of
monks of questionable antecedents who
have been misdirecting the militant
Buddhist movement in the cities of Viet-
nam.
It is time to speak bluntly on this issue.
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THE FALLACY OF THE FRENCH ANALOGY
Over and over again in recent months
I have heard it said that our position in
Vietnam is impossible because the
French, who knew Vietnam so much bet-
ter than we do, were compelled to admit
defeat after 8 years of war against the
Vietminh. A recent half-page adver-
tisement in the New York Times asked:
"How can we win in Vietnam with less
than 30,000 advisers, when the French
could not win with an army of nearly
half a million?"
Our own position is entirely different
from the French position in Indochina.
The French were a colonial power, ex-
ploiting and imposing their will on the
Indochinese people and stubbornly deny-
ing them their freedom. The French
military effort in Indochina was doomed
because it had against it not only the
Communists but the overwhelming
majority of the Indochinese people. It
was a war fought by Frenchmen against
Indochinese.
The United States, however, does not
seek to impose its control on Vietnam or
exploit Vietnam. We are not a colonial
power. We seek only to help the people
of South Vietnam defend their freedom
against an insurgency that is inspired
and directed and aided by the North Viet-
namese Communists. This is understood
by the Vietnamese people. And that is
why hundreds of thousands of Vietnam-
ese who fought with Ho Chi Minh against
the French are today fighting for the
Saigon government against the Vietcong.
That is why the war against the Viet-
cong can be won, while the war of French
colonialism against the Indochinese inde-
pendence movement was doomed from
the outset.
There is no similarity in the two situa-
tions that has any meaning or validity.
WHAT CAN BE DONE?
I believe the war in Vietnam can be
won without a significant increase in our
military effort. There are many things
765-428-96923
that can be done to improve the perform-'
ance of our side, and most of them lie
essentially in the nonmilitary field.
Let me set forth some of the things
that I believe can be done.
THE NEED FOR IMPROVED LIAISON
One of the most obvious and most seri-
ous weaknesses of the American position
in Vietnam is the lack of adequate liaison
with the leaders of the various sectors of
the Vietnamese community.
Because of this lack of communication,
we have frequently been caught un-
awares by developments; we have re-
mained without serious ability to influ-
ence them; and we have not been able to
effectively assist the Vietnamese in com-
municating with each other and in sta-
bilizing the political situation in Saigon.
No one person is to blame for this. It
is, rather, the system which rotates mili-
tary officers and AID officials and other
Americans in Vietnam on an annual or
2-year basis.
As one American officer pointed out in
a recent interview, "It takes about 8
months before you can really get to know
the country and the people. And, just
about the time you are beginning to
understand something, you are rotated
home and that is the end of your utility."
I believe that something can be done to
improve this situation.
I have met a number of Americans,
former soldiers and former AID officials,
who have spent 5 years or more in Viet-
nam, have built up personal friendships
with leaders of every sector of the Viet-
namese community, enjoy the confidence
of the Vietnamese because of their
understanding and dedication, and who
would jump at the opportunity to return
to Vietnam for the purpose of helping it
in this critical hour. I am told that
there may be as many as 10 or 12 such
people in this country.
I have proposed in a letter to the
President that these Americans be con-
stituted into a liaison group and that
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28
'they be dispatched to Saigon imme-
diately for the purpose of helping the
Embassy to establish the broadest and
most effective possible liaison with the
army leaders, with the Buddhists, with
the intellectual community, and with the
Vietnamese political leaders.
I know that there is always a tendency
on the part of World War II officers to
resent World War I officers, and on the
part of those who are involved in a situa-
tion .today to resist the assistance of
those who preceded them. There is also
sometimes a tendency for those who were
there yesterday to believe that they
understand things better than those who
are there today.
But this is a situation in which I am
confident every American, no matter
what his rank, will seek to rise above his
personal prejudices. It is a situation that
demands the utilization of every ounce
of experience and dedication available
to us.
It is my earnest personal conviction
that the dispatch of such a liaison group
to Saigon would result in an early im-
provement in our ability to communicate
with the Vietnamese and in our ability to
assist them in achieving the political sta-
bility which is essential to the successful
prosecution of the war.
THE NEED FOR A STEPPED-VP POLITICAL WARFARE
EFFORT
From many conversations with Viet-
namese and with Americans who have
served in various capacities in Vietnam,
I am convinced that another one of our
major weaknesses lies in the field of po-
litical warfare.
We have, by and large, been trying to
meet the Communist insurgency by tra-
ditional military methods or by tradi-
tional methods slightly tailored to meet
the special requirements of guerrilla war-
fare. In the field of political warfare,
where the Communists have scored their
most spectacular triumphs, our own ef-
fort has been limited, and halting, and
766-428-96923
amateurish, and, in fact, sadly ineffec-
tive.
The prime goal of political warfare, as
it must be waged by freemen, is to win
men's minds. The prime goal of political
warfare, as it is waged by the Commu-
nists, is to erode and paralyze the will to
resist by means of total error.
An effective. political warfare program
requires three major ingredients: First,
a handful of basic slogans which capsul-
ize popular desires and which are capable
of striking responsive chords in the
hearts of the people; second, a propa-
ganda apparatus capable of conveying
this program both to those on the Gov-
ernment side and those on the side of the
insurgents; third, specially trained cad-
res to direct the effort.
Bud the slogans we have are inade-
quate. Our propaganda program is dis-
mally weak compared with that of the
Communists. And according to my in-
formation, we still have not assisted the
Vietnamese to set up an intensive train-
ing program in Communist cold war
methods and how to counter them.
An article in the New York Times on
August 3, 1964, pointed out that in every
area "the basic cutting tool of the Viet-
cong is a squad of about 10 armed men
and women whose primary function is
propaganda." The article also said that
"Most of the experts in psychological
warfare and propaganda here believe the
Vietcong's agitprop teams have done the
Saigon government more damage than
even the tough Vietcong regular batta-
lions." Finally, the article made the
point that according to estimates there
were 320 Vietcong "agitprop" teams
working in the country, against 20 "in-
formation teams" for the government
side. This gave the Vietcong an edge of
16 to l in the field of propaganda per-
sonnel. And the edge was probably even
greater in terms of finesse and effective-
ness.
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Even if we. help the South Vietnamese
Government intensify its propaganda ef-
fort, there would still remain the prob-
lem of basic goals and slogans.
I have pointed out that the Vietnamese
people have a proud history and a strong
sense of national unity. All Vietnamese,
whether they live in the north or south,
would like to see a unified and peaceful
Vietnam. But as matters now stand, only
the Communists are able to hold forth
the prospect of the reunification of Viet-
nam. To date we have not given the
South Vietnamese Government the green
light to set up a "Committee for the
Liberation of North Vietnam," as coun-
terpart to the "Liberation Front" which
the Communists have set up in the south.
This places the South Vietnamese side
at a grave disadvantage.
There are any number of patriotic
North Vietnamese refugees who have
been itching for the opportunity to set
up a Liberation Committee for the North.
The establishment of such a committee
could, in my opinion, have an immediate
and profound impact on the conduct of
the war.
But above all, the situation in Vietnam
underscores the need for an effective
training program in political warfare,
for our own foreign service and military
personnel so that they can help to com-
municate this knowledge to nationals of
other countries who, like the South Viet-
namese, are engaged in a life-and-death
struggle for survival against the most
cunning and most ruthless practitioners
of political warfare history has ever
known.
In this connection, I wish to bring
to the attention of my colleagues the
fact that there has been pending before
Congress for some 6 years a bill calling
for the establishment of a Freedom
Academy. This would be an institu-
tion where Americans and citizens of
other free countries could receive con-
centrated training in Communist tech-
765-428-96923
niques and operations, and in tactics and
methods designed to frustrate the Com-
munists at every operational level, from
elections for the control of trade unions
and student organizations, to street riots,
to attempted insurrections.
The Senate Judiciary Committee in
reporting this measure to the floor in
May of 1960, described the bill as "one
of the most important measures ever In-
troduced in the Congress." But, unfor-
tunately, although the bill was passed
by the Senate, the House took no action.
When the bill was reintroduced for the
third time in early 1963, it has the spon-
sorship of the following Senators :
MUNDT, DOUGLAS, CASE, DODD, SMATHERS,
Goldwater, PROXMIRE, FONG, HIcKEN-
LOOPER, MILLER, Keating, LAUSCHE, and
SCOTT.
The distinguished senior Senator from
South Dakota last Friday reintroduced
the measure for the fourth time, and it is
now lying on the table, so that those who
wish to add their names as cosponsors
may do so. It is my earnest hope that
the measure will have the sponsorship
of an even larger bipartisan group of
Senators than it did in 1963. It is my
hope too that there will be no further
delay, no foot dragging, in enacting this
long-overdue measure. It is time, high
time, that we recognize the imperative
need to equip ourselves and our allies
with the knowledge and the trained per-
sonnel required to meet the Communist
onslaught.
CARRYING THE GUERRILLA WAR TO THE NORTH
First of all, I think there is a growing
acceptance of the need for punishing the
North with hit-and-run raids. It would
be much more effective if these raids
could be carried out in the name of a
North Vietnamese Liberation Front than
in the name of the South Vietnamese
Government.
Second, I have reason for believing
that increasing consideration is being
given to the need for countering the Viet-
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tong insurgency in the South with a
guerrilla warfare effort in the North.
In May of 1961, when I returned from
Laos and Vietnam, I made a statement,
which I should like to repeat today:
The best way for us to stop Communist
guerrilla action in Laos and in South Viet-
nam is to send guerrilla forces into North
Vietnam; to equip and supply those patriots
already in the field; to make every Commu-
nist official fear the just retribution of an
outraged humanity; to make every Commu-
nist arsenal, government building, commu-
nications center and transportation facility
a target for sabotage; to provide a rallying
point for the great masses of oppressed peo-
ple who hate communism because they have
known it. Only when we give the Commu-
nists more trouble than they can handle at
home, will they cease their aggression against
the outposts of freedom.
I believe that every word I said in 1961
Is doubly valid today. It is not too late to
embark upon such a program. And if we
do give the South Vietnamese Govern-
ment the green light to embark upon it
on an effective, hard-hitting scale, again
I think it would add significantly to the
psychological impact of the entire pro-
gram if all guerrilla activities were car-
ried out in the name of the "Committee
for the Liberation of the North."
A FEW MILITARY SUGGESTIONS
I do not pretend to be a military ex-
pert. But I have discussed the situation
in Vietnam with a number of military
men of considerable experience in the
area, and I have been encouraged to be-
lieve that the several suggestions which
I have to make in this field are realistic.
I submit them for the consideration
of my colleagues, because I think they
make sense.
My first proposition is that we cannot
regard the war in Vietnam in isolation
from the rest of southeast Asia.
The Communist Party over which Ho
Chi Minh presided for many years was
the Communist Party of Indochina. In-
deed, to this day, there is no such thing
765-428--96923
as a Communist Party in Vietnam. Ho
Chi Minh's thinking and strategy are
directed toward the reunification of all
the former territories of French Indo-
china under his personal sway. This
makes it imperative for us to develop a
coordinated strategy for the entire area
if we are to cope effectively with the
Communist strategy.
Proposition No. 2 is that there are
certain dramatic military actions open
to us that do not involve the territory of
North Vietnam.
The hub of the Ho Chi Minh trail is
the town of Tchepone, inside the Lao-
tian frontier, just south of the 17th par-
allel, the dividing line between North
Vietnam and South Vietnam. Through
Tchepone pour most of the reinforce-
ments and equipment from North Viet-
nam. From Tchepone the men and
equipment are infiltrated into South
Vietnam along hundreds of different
jungle trails.
I recall that when I met with Presi-
dent Diem in April of 1961, he urged that
the Americans assist him and the Laotian
Government in preemptive action to
secure three key centers in the Laotian
Panhandle-Tchepone, Saravane, and
Attopeu-in order to prevent the large-
scale infiltration which is today taking
place. I still have a copy of the marked
map which he gave me in outlining his
project. Had Diem's advice been fol-
lowed there would have been no Ho Chi
Minh trail. But this was at the time of
the Laotian armistice and we were not
disposed to take any actions which might
provoke the Laotian Communists. So
nothing was done.
The seizure of Tchepone by Laotian
and Vietnamese forces, with American
air support would, I have been. assured,
be a feasible military operation and one
that could be carried out with the means
available to us on the spot. It would
do more to put a crimp in the Ho Chi
Minh trail than any amount of bombing
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we could attempt. And it would have
as dramatic an impact on the situation
in Laos as on the situation in Vietnam.
Finally, there is the matter of collec-
tive action by the SEATO nations.
As late as April of 1961, the SEATO na-
tions in the immediate area of the
Philippines, Thailand, Australia, New
Zealand, and Pakistan-all favored com-
mon action against the Communist
menace in Laos. But the British and
French were opposed to such action, and
we ourselves sat on the fence; and the
result was that nothing was done.
The charter of SEATO will have to be
modified so that one nation cannot veto
collective action by all the other nations.
Britain, I am inclined to believe, would
now be disposed to support collective ac-
tion by SEATO because of the situation
in Malaysia. But, perhaps France should
be invited to leave SEATO, on the
grounds that she has no vital interests in
the area, and her entire attitude toward
Red China is one of appeasement. In
view of the fact thpt something has to be
done immediately, however, the sensible
course is to encourage collective action
by the free nations in the area, outside
the framework of SEATO, until SEATO
can be reorganized in a manner that
makes it effective.
In this connection, I am most encour-
aged by the news that South Korea has
decided to send a contingent of several
thousand military engineers to South
Vietnam, and the Philippines have de-
cided to do likewise. It is infinitely bet-
ter from every standpoint to have Asian
troops supporting the Vietnamese forces
against the Vietcong on the ground, than
it is to have American troops actively in-
volved.
THE NEED FOR UNDERSCORING OUR
LONG-TERM COMMITMENT
The retaliatory strikes ordered by
President Johnson against the North
have had the effect of reiterating our
commitment in a manner that the Com-
765-428-96923
munists understand; and this, in the
long run, is probably more important
than the damage wrought by these
strikes.
But if the Communists are to be dis-
couraged from continuing this costly
war, we must seek every possible means
of underscoring our determination to
stand by the people of South Vietnam,
to pay whatever cost may be necessary,
and to take whatever risk may be neces-
sary to prevent the Communists from
subjugating the Vietnamese people and
other peoples in the area.
It is important to reiterate our resolve
at every opportunity. And it is even
more important to translate this resolve
into hard political and military actions.
The American Friends of Vietnam
have suggested another dramatic meas-
ure. They have suggested a commit-
ment to a massive southeast Asian de-
velopment program based on the har-
nessing of the Mekong River-a kind of
Tennessee Valley Authority for south-
east Asia. Such a plan, they point out,
would offer incredible promise to Laos,
Cambodia, and Thailand as well as to
South Vietnam, and it would offer equal
promise to the people of North Vietnam,
which only the continued belligerence
and noncooperation of their Government
could frustrate.
This, to me, sounds eminently sensi-
ble.
FOR A COMMITMENT TO VICTORY
If we decide to withdraw from Viet-
nam we can certainly find plenty of ex-
cuses to ease our path. We can blame it
on the geography; or on the topography;
or on local apathy; or on political in-
stability; or on religious strife; or even
on anti-Americanism. But that will fool
no one but ourselves. These conditions
make our success there difficult, but only
our own timidity and vacillation can
make it impossible.
It has become obvious that we cannot
go on fighting this undeclared war under
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the rules laid down by our enemies. We
have reached the point where we shall
have to make a great decision, a decision
as to whether we are to take the hard
steps necessary to turn the tide in Viet-
nam or whether we are to refrain from
doing so and thus lose inevitably by de-
fault.
The ultimate outcome of the cold war
depends upon an affirmative decision to
do whatever is necessary to achieve vic-
tory in South Vietnam. The events of
recent weeks demonstrate again that the
administration is not lacking in resolve
and that it is rapidly approaching such a
decision.
Whether that means a larger commit-
ment of forces, or continued retaliatory
strikes against the North, or carrying
guerrilla warfare to the enemy home-
land, or completely sealing off South
Vietnam from Communist aid-I say to
the administration, "Give us the plan
that will do the job, and we will support
you."
Whether our victory be near or far, can
we, dare we, turn away or begin to turn
away from the task before us, however
frustrating or burdensome it may be?
Here surely is a time for us to heed
Santayana's maxim "Those who will not
learn from the past are destined to re-
peat it."
And so I speak today not merely to urge
that we stand fast in Vietnam, but also
to urge that we meet head on the new
isolationism in its incipient stages, before
the long months and years of discontent,
frustration, and weariness that lie ahead
have swelled the chorus urging disen-
gagement and withdrawal to a deafening
roar.
Let us expound a foreign policy nur-
tured in our constantly growing strength,
not one fed by fear and disillusionment;
a policy which each year is prepared to
expend more, not less, in the cause of
preserving our country and the decencies
of man.
765-428-96928
Let, us insist upon a defense budget
based upon the dangers we face abroad,
not upon the benefits we seek at home.
Let us embrace a doctrine that refuses
to yield to force, ever; that honors its
commitments because we know that our
good faith is the cement binding the free
world together; a doctrine that recog-
nizes in its foreign aid program not only
that the' rich are morally obligated to
help the poor, but also that prosperity
cannot permanently endure surrounded
by poverty, and justice cannot conquer
until its conquest is universal.
Let us, above all, encourage and inspire
a national spirit worthy of our history,
worthy of our burgeoning, bursting
strength, in our arms, in our agriculture,
in industry, in science, in finance, a spirit
of confidence, of optimism, of willingness
to accept new risks and exploit new op-
portunities.
And let us remember that providence
has showered upon our people greater
blessings than on any other, and that,
great though our works have been, much
greater is expected of us.
In recent days, the free world has paid
tribute to its greatest champion of our
age, Winston Churchill.
It is a curious thing that though
Churchill is acknowledged on all sides
as the preeminent figure of our time
and as the highest embodiment of West-
ern statesmanship, he was, throughout
his life, and remains today, a prophet
unheeded, a statesman whom men ven-
erate but will not emulate.
It may well be that Winston Church-
ill's greatest legacy will prove to be, not
the legacy of his immortal deeds, but
that of his example and his precepts; and
that freemen of the future will pay him
the homage denied by his contempo-
raries, the tribute of imitation and ac-
ceptance of his message.
As we ponder the passing of this he-
roic figure and reflect upon. his career
and try to draw from it lessons which
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33
we might apply to the aggressive on-
slaught that we face today in a hundred
ways on a hundred fronts, we might
take to heart this advice which he gave in
the dark days of 1941 to the boys of Har-
row, his old school:
Never give in. Never, never, never, never.
Never yield to force and the apparently over-
whelming might of the enemy. Never yield
in any way, great or small, large or petty,
except to convictions of honor and good
sense.
Let us resolve to nail this message to
the masthead of our ship of state in this
year of decision.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous con-
sent to have printed in the RECORD the
following documents: First, a summary
of Communist violations of the Laotian
armistice prepared for me by the Library
of Congress; second, a copy of a state-
ment released yesterday by the American
Friends of Vietnam, under the caption of
"A New Policy for Vietnam"; third, a
copy of a telegram to the President from
the Veterans of Foreign Wars; fourth,
various newspaper clippings bearing on
the situation in Vietnam.
There being no objection, the sundry
documents were ordered to be printed in
the RECORD, as follows:
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS,
Washington, D.C., May 28, 1964.
To: Hon. THOMAS J. Donn.
From: Foreign Affairs Division.
Subject: List of violations by the Commu-
nist Pathet Lao of the Geneva armistice
of 1961-62.
July 27, 1962: Laotian cease-fire committee
of the three factions (neutralists, rightists,
and pro-Communist Pathet Lao) reaches an
agreement on principles to implement a
truce: forces of each faction will remain in
their previous positions; frontline forces
and military supplies are not to be increased;
and troops of the three factions will not at-
tack each other.
August 22, 1962: Several companies of pro-
Communist Pathet Lao troops attack out-
posts of rightist forces near Sam Neua. in
northeastern Laos.
765-428-96923
November 27, 1962: U.S. C-123 cargo plane,
flying rice and other supplies to neutralist
forces, is shot down over the Plaine des
Jarres. Two American airmen are killed and
one wounded. Investigation shows that the
plane was shot down by dissident neutralist
troops tied up with Pathet Lao.
April 4, 1963: Premier Souvanna Phouma
announces that Pathet Lao troops have at-
tacked neutralist troops of Gen. Kong Le in
the Plaine des Jarres. On April 8 the U.S.
State Department accuses the Pathet Lao of
a serious violation of the cease-fire.
April 16, 1963: Following brief cease-fire,
fighting breaks out again on the Plaine des
Jarres. The neutralist forces of Gen. Kong
Le are attacked and suffer new setbacks. On
April 16 U.S. Under Secretary of State George
Ball says that the United States does not
rule out the possibility of sending troops
into Laos if the situation should continue to
deteriorate. Warnings are also issued by Sec-
retary of State Dean Rusk on April 18 and
President Kennedy on April 19.
May 3, 1963: Pathet Lao troops fire. on two
helicopters of the International Control Com-
mission in the Plaine des Jarres, destroying
one and wounding four occupants. On May
10, U.S. Ambassador Leonard Unger accuses
the Pathet Lao of disrupting the peace and
violating the Geneva accords, and he says
that the United States will never leave Laos
standing alone "to face its enemies from
within and abroad."
May 21, 1963: Premier Souvanna Phouma
issues communique stating that severe fight-
ing has been going on for 2 days In the
Plaine des Jarres between Pathet Lao troops
and neutralist forces. On May 23, the ICC
asks Britain and the Soviet Union to issue
immediate appeal for a cease-fire on the
Plaine des Jarres.
June 1, 1963: Premier Souvanna Phouma
charges that Pathet Lao forces are continu-
ing their attacks, resumed on May 30, against
neutralist positions near the Plaine des
Jarres.
September 7, 1963: U.S. C-47 unarmed
cargo plane is shot down by Pathet Lao in
central Laos. The government says they
carry only rice and other relief supplies.
September 9, 1963: Fighting breaks out in
Vientiane between. the Pathet Lao and the
rightist police force under Deputy Premier
Phoumi Nosavan.
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November 17, 1963: Cease-fire is broken as
fighting resumes in the Plaine des Jarres.
Talks between neutralist and Pathet Lao
military leaders subsequently break down
as the Pathet Lao rejects a proposal for the
ICC to police the cease-fire.
January 29, 1984: Neutralist military head-
quarters reports that six Pathet Lao and four
North Vietnamese battalions have launched
an attack in southern Laos, have defeated
neutralist and rightist forces at Na Kay, and
are now heading toward the the strategic
post of Thakhek.
April 19, 1964: Military coup in Vientiane,
organized by rightist army officers, ousts gov-
ernment of Premier Souvanna. Coup lead-
ers give as reason for their action the pre-
mier's failure to establish peace in Laos.
May 15, 1964: The Laotian Government re-
ports that Pathet Lao forces have seized Tha
Thom, a key town about 90 miles northeast
of Vientiane. It also report.- that an attack
on the defense perimeter of Paksane is immi-
nent. On May 16, Pathet Lao forces renew
attacks on neutralist position on the Plaine
des Jarres. A State Department spokesman
calls the new attacks a "flagrant and open
violation" of the Geneva accords of 1961-62.
DAVID E. LOCKWOOD,
Analyst in Far Eastern Affairs.
A NEW POLICY FOR VIETNAM
(Statement by the American Friends of Viet-
nam)
THE DILEMMA
If we are to identify wisely our most effec-
tive forward course in Vietnam, it is impor-
tant first to understand the exact nature of
our dilemma there.. We know the inherent
generosity, both toward free Vietnam and its
neighboring countries, which has led us to
involve our substance and our blood. We
know that but for our commitment, free Viet-
nam would long since have fallen into the
political darkness and physical despair which
oppresses Communist North Vietnam. We
know that our presence there is in response
to the wish of most segments of Vietnamese,
leadership, however they differ among them-
selves on other matters. We know that our
presence there is earnestly desired by most
neighboring countries of southeast Asia. We
know that our purpose is to assist responsible
765-428-96923
and responsive government and to enable
Vietnam and its neighbors to maintain na-
tional independence against external en-
croachment. We know that we have neither
wished to "establish" nor "dominate" a Viet-
namese government nor to seek for ourselves
political, military, or economic advantage.
Our dilemma flows in part from the fact
that this knowledge is not shared by all of
the Vietnamese people, is not accepted by the
members of the Vietcong, is not believed in
parts of the less developed world still suf-
fering the scars of recent colonial experience.
Nor, in fact, is this understanding uniformly
shared by our own people.
The dilemma is sharpened further by a
spreading doubt among leadership elements
in independent southeast Asian countries
that the United States has staying power.
Thailand's foreign minister, Thanat Kho-
man, recently warned members of the Over-
seas Press Club: "The Thai Government
knows much better but some people are not
sure we can depend, on outside help-especial-
ly when there is so much talk of quitting and
going home. The Communists have never
spoken that line of quitting. When they go
some place they stay there."
In part, at least, this skepticism is fos-
tered by the doubt among some Americans
that any valid purpose led to our presence
in Vietnam in the first place.
THE ALTERNATIVES
The lack of public understanding flows in
part from inadequate examination of the
alternatives confronting the United States
now. In our opinion there are six choices:
1. Continue as now. Whether or not the
Vietcong are, in fact, increasing their ef-
fectiveness there is a growing conviction. in
Saigan, in the United States, and in much
of the rest of the world, that this is so.
This alone makes continuation of our present
policy undesirable. The overriding hazard
of the present policy is the undeniable fact
that it has not provided sufficient psycho-
logical and political potency to sustain a
Vietnamese Government.
2. Withdraw. This would violate our pledge
not to abandon the Vietnamese people. It
would manifest throughout the world a U.S.
inability to long sustain an effort designed
to frustrate Communist intentions. The im-
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35
plications would be read as eloquently in
Berlin or in Cuba, as they would be in Viet-
nam, Indonesia, or India. There can be no
question that this alternative would require
the Governments of the Phiilippines, Thai-
land, Taiwan, India, Japan, to reassess totally
present policy and to reorient toward what
would be the dominating new facts of Asian
life.
("Neutralization" of Vietnam is not sug-
gested here for a simple reason: genuine and
reliable neutralization of Vietnam is not pos-
sible at the present time. What is most often
talked of in this connection is merely a
rhetorical euphemism designed to make
withdrawal more palatable. On the other
hand, the proposals discussed here are valu-
able to part precisely because they do hold
the promise that they may generate sufficient
free Vietnamese vitality to make true and
assured neutralization possible at some
future time.)
3. Military cordon sanitaire across Viet-
nam and Laos. An estimated military force
of up to 100,000 would be involved in mak-
ing such a cordon truly effective and enemy
penetration genuinely hazardous. Its great-
est contribution would be in providing hard
evidence of new determination to maintain
southeast Asian integrity. Although mili-
tary effect of interdicting the Vietcong's
transport and supply may be limited, it is
nonetheless one useful alternative, espe-
cially when employed with other steps out-
lined here.
4. Extend military action to the north.
Until last week, steps taken in this di-
rection were, in our judgment, not suf l-
ciently explicit, either to rekindle Vietnam-
ese faith in our intentions or to inspire con-
fidence in other Asian countries that we are
indeed willing to accept risk as the price
of our commitment to freedom. The in-
creased external, Communist intervention in
South Vietnam has made it both reasonable
and essential that there be a vigorous anti-
Communist military response. The limited
air strikes in North Vietnam by American
and Vietnamese planes constituted such an
appropriate response.
There are many other forms of stronger
American action and involvement and they
are not mutually exclusive. They include:
765-428-96923
(a) Formation of an open, well-publicized
North Vietnam liberation movement spon-
soring major psychological operations pro-
grams, including paramilitary action, against
the North Vietnamese regime.
(b) Establishment of an International
Voluntary Corps dedicated to the mainte-
nance of free nations in the Mekong basin.
This corps should consist primarily of vol-
unteers from Asian countries but may also
contain a liberal admixture of Americans
with military experience. Operating nor-
mally in small units with sufficient air sup-
port, this force-under the sponsorship of
the proposed North Vietnam Liberation
Movement-would harass the enemy wher-
ever suitable targets exist, including targets
within North Vietnam.
(c) Positioning of U.S. combat forces
within South Vietnam to act as a general
reserve-a sizable firefighting force. Such
a military contingent (perhaps as many as
two brigades) should not be used for routine
combat or security duties, but as an imme-
diate-reaction fighting force intended to
engage Vietcong troops in fixed positions.
Desirably, combat elements from other na-
tions will be attached to this force.
(d) Continued bombing of selected mili-
tary targets in North Vietnam. In contrast
to the indiscriminate terrorist activity of the
Vietcong in South Vietnam, the free world's
concern for the Vietnamese people in both
halves of the country make it undesirable for
us to conduct warfare upon cities where the
innocent will be hurt. However, those mili-
tary targets in North Vietnam which are vital
to their aggressive capability and which can
be destroyed with our assistance are, in our
view, legitimate targets for stage-by-stage
destruction.
What is the risk involved in such action?
In our judgment the possibility of Chinese
involvement in South Vietnam would be only
slightly increased. The possibility of Chi-
nese help thrust upon North Vietnam would
be greater. However, this probability may be
precisely what is needed to make clear to
even the most Communist leaders of North
Vietnam how undesirable such help is to
them in the long run. A heightened aware-
ness of this danger might, in fact, force
greater restraint upon the Government in
Hanoi than our present policy can achieve.
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Frankly, however, the direct military dam-
age inflicted on the Communist regime In
North Vietnam is the lesser of our reasons
for suggesting that these steps be under-
taken. In our opinion, it is urgent that the
people of free Vietnam be assured that Presi-
dent Johnson means what he says-that we
mean to stay and help, no matter what risks
we must incur. It is equally urgent that
these intentions be understood also in
Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia,
the rest of Asia, and the world. Stanch,
long-term American commitment-fully
communicated and understood-would pro-
vide a lift to morale in free Vietnam, inject
new vitality in the Vietnamese Government
and require a new assessment of the United
States among neighboring countries and
among Asian allies elsewhere.
There is one final reason we support this
painful course of action. Basic require-
ments for victory in Vietnam are not primar-
ily military. They are psychological, social,
and economic. Below we address ourselves
to instruments which can meet the nonmili-
tary aspects of the undertaking. But neither
the economic nor political measures we pro-
pose will get off the ground without evidence
of the seriousness of our military intention,
Nor will our military commitment produce
the desired results without the companion
economic and psychological supports.
America's experience in relation to the in-
stability In postwar Europe is clearly rele-
vant. The Marshall plan did not begin to
come to life until the physical security prom-
ised by NATO was added. Nor would NATO
by itself have been meaningful without the
human vision and economic future presented
by the Marshall plan.
5. Forging a more popular or responsive
government. It is clear that the difficulties
confronting any Vietnamese Government un-
der Communist attack are enormous. We
can but sympathize with those who carry
the burdens of government in circumstances
so frustrating and continuously demanding.
It is possible that 20 years of civil war, co-
lonial war, and Communist insurrectionary
war, have so debilitated the structure of gov-
ernment as to preclude the immediate pos-
siblity, no matter how desirable, of absolutely
stable government. There are political per-
sonalities with nationalist backgrounds who
are deserving of our help and encourage-
ment, We must do what we can to help them
and bring them forward., At the same time,
we must help to diminish the present conflict
of personalities that has proved in past years
to be so destructive. In any event, we believe
it is futile to concentrate, as we have in the
past, on personalities, rather than on pur-
poses, ideas, and institutions.
6. Injection of new purpose. If charis-
matic leadership is unavailable, charismatic,
purpose can be found. One aspect of that
purpose involves the modest extension of
military effort discussed above. It involves
the clear demonstration that the United
States means to remain committed even at
enlarged risk. And such charismatic pur-
pose must, of necessity, accept as workable
"the best available choices of Vietnamese
Government personnel"-choices made by
the Vietnamese not by us. But our object
would be to harness our military commit-
ment and the Vietnamese effort to an in-
finitely larger objective than has previously
motivated our participation. It would make
crystal clear that the objectives which unite
us with the Vietnamese people, as with our
other allies on southeast Asia, are construc-
tive and inextricably linked to the welfare
of all southeast Asian peoples.
We suggest that all of our military, po-
litical, and economic programs in Vietnam be
subordinated to a massive southeast Asian
development program. A Johnson plan for
the full flowering of southeast Asian econom-
ic resources and independence will have as
much potency and promise for success in
that corner of the world as the Marshall plan
did in Europe and the Tennessee Valley Au-
thority in the United States.
The Mekong Basin is one of the world's
richest- and least developed areas. In an
area of the world already food rich there is an
opportunity to harness the tributaries of the
Mekong Basin toward an economic flowering
offering infinite promise to Laos, Cambodia,
and Thailand as well as to South Vietnam,
and offering to the people and the Govern-,
ment of North Vietnam economic oppor-
tunity which only their blindness or non-
cooperation can frustrate. To Burma, Malay-
sia, and even India, this would present an op-
portunity in both economic and political
terms which, especially at this moment, could
not possibly be more desirable. To the
Philippines such a program would provide
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the same magnetic opportunity for participa-
tion as led them generously to create and
man Operation Brotherhood a decade ago.
It would also offer the first possibility of
really involving the wealth and energy of the
Japanese Government and people. A John-
son development plan for southeast Asia
would manifest to the entire world that the
welfare of the people of southeast Asia is
our only purpose.
The Mekong Basin development program
will provide for the first time a future-
oriented thrust around which a Vietnamese
resurgency program can be made vital and
toward which the efforts of Americans, Ja-
panese, Lao, Thai, Cambodians, and Filipinos
can hopefully be attracted.
THE MISSING LINK
Within the last 3 years the Communist
nations have revealed their inability to meet
their own most pressing economic needs,
The shortcut to the future has suddenly
proved to be a dead end of economic failure,
recrimination, and political embarrassment.
But this has not frustrated the wars of na-
tional liberation nor prevented the Com-
munists from mounting insurrectionary war-
fare whether in Congo or Vietnam. National
governments and native peoples assaulted by
such Communist purposes have, at best,
sought to sustain their own energy through
defensive effort. Virtually unused has been
the enormous potential for hope which can
be found only in the non-Communist, world,
cooperatively employing the resources of the
United States and nations friendly to it
whether in Asia, the Pacific, or Western
Europe.
We have offered to the Vietnamese people
our assistance in their struggle for national
independence. We have failed, however, to
harness that struggle and our assistance to
an all but miraculous future, a flowering of
man, his capabilities, his resources, his aspi-
rations. Ours indeed is the truly revolu-
tionary opportunity. The Johnson plan
offers to southeast Asia a genuine oppor-
tunity to harness nature, enlarge justice, ex-
tend life, eradicate the scourges of illness and
illiteracy and enable long-suffering peoples
to reap the fruits of their soil and the per-
manent benefits of national independence.
Behind this large vision, men throughout the
world may be led to voluntary association in
Lincoln Brigades, Gandhi Brigades, Mag-
765-428-96923
saysay, and Marti Brigades-an international
volunteer corps for peace and freedom.
The Johnson plan for the development of
the Mekong Basin has, in our judgment, the
following potential, essentially unavailable
in the present circumstances:
1. It will inject dramatic, viable, and po-
litically potent new purpose adequate to
sustain popular support of Vietnamese Gov-
ernment leaders.
2. It will infuse new energy into the Viet-
namese already risking their lives in daily
defense against the Vietcong.
3. The plan offers concrete reasons for the
cooperative involvement of neighboring
southeast Asian countries as well as a gener-
ous commitment able to sustain emotionally
an international corps of volunteers.
4. It contains an enormous incentive to
North Vietnam to turn away from its present
fratricidal course.
5. Finally, the Johnson plan constitutes a
pioneering laboratory of hopeful consequence
to other less developed areas where Commu-
nist insurrectionary warfare presently finds
soil in which to sow the seeds of destruction.
THE PRESIDENT,
The White House,
Washington, D.C.
DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: The Veterans of For-
eign Wars wholeheartedly and without res-
ervation supports your decision in taking
retaliatory armed action against the Com-
munist aggressors in North Vietnam. Your
wise and bold decision in this matter will go
far toward assuring our allies throughout all
Asia that the United States stands by its
commitments and will not be intimidated by
Communist threats and aggressive action.
U.S. action against North Vietnam is en-
tirely consistent with the unanimously
passed resolution of our 1964 VFW national
convention which called for all action nec-
essary to win in South Vietnam. The VFW,
consisting of 1,300,000 overseas combat vet-
erans fully recognizes that communism has
launched a deliberate attack against all
southeast Asia and, consequently, the inter-
est of U.S. security and the cause of free-
dom can be protected, in the final analysis,
only by the judicious and willing use of
military power.
JOHN A. JENKINS,
Commander in Chief, Veterans of For-
eign Wars of the United States.
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REMARKS OF HON. WILLIAM
PROXMIRE
(The text of the U.S. White Paper on
North Vietnamese intervention in South
Vietnam was inserted into the RECORD by
Senator WILLIAM PROXMIRE of Wisconsin in
his remarks of March 1, 1965. The text is
reproduced below.)
AGGRESSION FROM THE NORTH-THE RECORD
or NORTH VIETNAM'S CAMPAIGN To CONQUER
SOUTH VIETNAM
"Our purpose in Vietnam is to join in the
defense and protection of freedom of a brave
people who are under attack that is con-
trolled and that is directed from outside
their country." (President Lyndon B. John-
son, February 17, 1965.)
INTRODUCTION
South Vietnam is fighting for its life
against a brutal campaign of terror and
armed attack inspired, directed, supplied,
and controlled by the Communist regime in
Hanoi. This flagrant aggression has been
going on for years, but recently the pace
has quickened and the threat has now be-
come acute.
The war In Vietnam is a new kind of
war, a fact as yet poorly understood in most
parts of the world. Much of the confusion
that prevails in the thinking of many peo-
ple, and even many governments, stems from
this basic misunderstanding. For in Viet-
nam a totally new brand of aggression has
been loosed against an independent people
who want to make their own way in peace
and freedom.
Vietnam is not another Greece, where in-
digenous guerrilla forces used friendly
neighboring territory as a sanctuary.
Vietnam is not another Malaya, where
Communist guerrillas were, for the most
part, physically distinguishable from the
peaceful majority they sought to control.
Vietnam is not another Philippines, where
Communist guerrillas were physically sepa-
rated from the source of their moral and
physical support.
Above all, the war in Vietnam is not a
spontaneous and local rebellion against the
established government.
There are elements in the Communist
program of conquest directed against South
Vietnam common to each of the previous
areas of aggression and subversion. But
there is one fundamental difference. In
Vietnam a Communist government has set
out deliberately to conquer a sovereign peo-
ple in a neighboring state. And to achieve
its end, it has used every resource of its
own government to carry out its carefully
planned program of concealed aggression.
North Vietnam's commitment to seize con-
trol of the South 1s no less total than was
the commitment of the regime in North
Korea in 1950. But knowing the conse-
quences of the latter's undisguised attack,
765-428-96923
the planners in Hanoi have tried desperately
to conceal their hand. They have failed
and their aggression is as real as that of
an invading army.
This report is a summary of the massive
evidence of North Vietnamese aggression ob-
tained by . the Government of South Viet-
nam. This evidence has been jointly ana-
lyzed by South Vietnamese and American ex-
perts.
The evidence shows that the hard core of
the Communist forces attacking South Viet-
nam were trained in the north and ordered
into the south by. Hanoi. It shows that the
key leadership of the Vietcong (VC), the
officers and much of the cadre, many of the
technicians, political, organizers, and propa-
grandists have come from the north and oper-
ate under Hanoi's direction. It shows that
the training of essential military personnel
and their infiltration into the south is di-
rected by the military high command in
Hanoi. (See see. I.)
The evidence shows that many of the
weapons and much of the ammunition and
other supplies used by the Vietcong have
been sent into South Vietnam from Hanoi.
In recent months new types of weapons have
been introduced in the VC army, for which
all ammunition must come from outside
sources. Communist China and other Com-
munist States have been the prime suppliers
of these weapons and ammunition, and they
have been channeled primarily through
North Vietnam. (See sec. II.)
The directing force behind the effort to
conquer South Vietnam is the Communist
Party in the north, the Lao Dong (Workers)
Party. As in every Communist State, the
party is an integral part of the regime itself.
North Vietnamese officials have expressed
their firm determination to absorb South
Vietnam into the Communist world. (See
sec. III.)
Through its central committee, which con-
trols the government of the north, the Lao
Dong Party directs the total political and
military effort of the Vietcong. The military
high command in the north trains the mili-
tary men and sends them into South Viet-
nam. The Central Research Agency, North
Vietnam's central intelligence organization,
directs the elaborate espionage and subver-
sion effort. The extensive political-military
organization in the north which directs the
Vietcong war effort Is described in sec-
tion IV.
Under Hanoi's overall direction the Com-
munists have established an extensive ma-
chine for carrying on the war within South
Vietnam. The focal point is the Central
Office for South Vietnam with its political
and military subsections and other special-
ized agencies. A subordinate part of this
Central Office is the Liberation Front for
South Vietnam. The front was formed at
Hanoi's order in 1960. Its principal func-
tion is to influence opinion abroad and to
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create the false Impression that the aggres-
sion in South Vietnam is an indigenous rebel-
lion against the established government.
(See sec. IV.)
For more than 10 years the people and the
Government of South Vietnam, exercising the
inherent right of self-defense, have fought
back against these efforts to extend Commu-
nist power south across the 17th parallel.
The United States has responded to the
appeals of the Government of the Republic
of Vietnam for help in this defense of the
freedom and independence of its land and its
people.
In 1961 the Department of State issued a
report called "A Threat to the Peace." It
described North Vietnam's program to seize
South Vietnam. The evidence in that report
had been presented by the Government of
the Republic of Vietnam to the International
Control Commission (ICC). A special re-
port by the ICC in June 1962 upheld the
validity of that evidence. The Commission
held that there was "sufficient evidence to
show beyond reasonable doubt" that North
Vietnam had sent arms and men into South
Vietnam to carry out subversion with the
aim of overthrowing the legal government
there. The ICC found the authorities in
Hanoi in specific violation of four provisions
of the Geneva accords of 1954.
Since then, new and even more impressive
evidence of Hanoi's aggression has accumu-
lated. The Government of the United States
believes that evidence should be presented
to its own citizens and to the world. It is
important for freemen to know what has
been happening in Vietnam, and how, and
why. That is the purpose of this report.
1. HANOI SUPPLIES THE KEY PERSONNEL FOR THE
ARMED AGGRESSION AGAINST SOUTH VIETNAM
The hard core of the Communist forces
attacking South Vietnam are men trained in
North Vietnam. They are ordered into the
south and remain under the military dis-
cipline of the military high command in
Hanoi. Special training camps operated by
the North Vietnamese Army gave political
and. military training to the infiltrators. In-
creasingly the forces sent into the south are
native North Vietnamese who have never seen
South Vietnam. A special infiltration unit,
the 70th Transportation Group, is responsible
for. moving men from North Vietnam into the
south via infiltration trails through Laos.
Another special unit, the maritime infiltra-
tion group, spends weapons and supplies
and agents by sea into the south.
The infiltration rate has been increasing.
From 1959 to 1960, when Hanoi was establish-
ing its infiltration pipeline, at least 1,800
men, and possibly 2,700 more, moved into
South Vietnam from the north. The flow
increased to a minimum of 3,700 in 1961 and
1 For the text of pertinent sections of the
ICC report, see app. A.
765-428-96923
at least 5,400 in 1962. There was a modest
decrease in 1963 to 4,200 confirmed infiltra-
tors, though later evidence is likely to raise
this figure.
For 1964 the evidence is still incomplete.
However, it already shows that a minimum
of 4,400 Infiltrators entered the south, and
it is estimated more than 3,000 others were
sent in.
There is usually a time lag between the
entry of infiltrating troops and the discovery
of clear evidence they have entered. This
fact, plus collateral evidence of increased use
of the infiltration routes, suggests strongly
that 1964 was probably the year of greatest
infiltration so far.
Thus, since 1959, nearly 20,000 VC officers,
soldiers, and technicians are known to have
entered South Vietnam under orders from
Hanoi. Additional Information indicates
that an estimated 17,000 more infiltrators
were dispatched to the south by the regime
in Hanoi during the past 6 years. It can
reasonably be assumed that still other infil-
tration groups have entered 'the south for
which there is no evidence yet available.
To some the level of infiltration from the
north may seem modest in comparison with
the total size of the Armed Forces of the Re-
public of Vietnam. But one-for-one calcu-
lations are totally misleading in the kind of
warfare going on in Vietnam. First, a high
proportion of infiltrators from the north are
well-trained officers, cadres, and specialists.
Second, it has long been realized that in
guerrilla combat the burdens of defense are
vastly heavier than those of attack. In Ma-
laya, the Philippines, and elsewhere a ratio
of at least 10 to 1 in favor of the forces of
order was required to meet successfully the
threat of the guerrillas hit-and-run tactics.
In the calculus of guerrilla warfare the
scale of North Vietnamese infiltration into
the south takes on a very different meaning.
For the infiltration of 5,000 guerrilla fighters
In a given year is the equivalent of marching
perhaps 50,000 regular troops across the
border, in terms of the burden placed on the
defenders.
Above all, the number of proved and prob-
able infiltrators from the north should be
seen in relation to the size of the VC forces.
It is now estimated that the Vietcong num-
ber approximately 35,000 so-called hard-core
forces, and another 60,000 to 80,000 local
forces. It is thus apparent that infiltrators
from the north-allowing for casualties-
make up the majority of the so-called hard-
core Vietcong. Personnel from the north,
in short, are now and have always been the
backbone of the entire VC operation.
It Is true that many of the lower level ele-
ments of the VC forces are recruited within
South Vietnam. However, the thousands of
reported cases of VC kidnapings and terror-
ism make it abundantly clear that threats
and other pressures by the Vietcong play a
major part in such recruitment.
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A. The infiltration process
The infiltration routes supply hard-core
units with most of their officers and non-
commissioned personnel. This source helps
fill the gaps left by battle casualties, illness,
and defection and insures continued control
by Hanoi. Also, as the nature of the conflict
has changed, North Vietnam has supplied
the Vietcong with technical specialists via
the infiltration routes. These have included
men trained in armor and ordnance, anti-
aircraft, and communications as well as med-
ical corpsmen and transport experts.
There is no single infiltration route from
the north to South Vietnam. But by far
the biggest percentage of infiltrators follow
the same general course. The principal
training center for North Vietnamese Army
men assigned to join the Vietcong has been
at Xuan Mai near Hanoi. Recently captured
Vietcong have also reported an infiltration
training camp at Thanh Hoa. After comple-
tion of their training course-which involves
political and propaganda work as well as
military subjects-infiltrating units are
moved to Vinh on the east coast. Many have
made stopovers at a staging area in Deng Hot
where additional training is conducted.
From there they go by truck to the Laos
border.
Then, usually after several days' rest, in-
filtrators move southward through Laos.
Generally they move along the Laos-South
Vietnam border. Responsibility for infiltra-
tion from North Vietnam through Laos be-
longs to the 70th Transportation Group of
the North Vietnamese Army. After a time
the infiltration groups turn eastward, enter-
ing South Vietnam in Quang Nam, Quang
Tri, Thua Thien, Kontum, or another of
the border provinces.
The Communists have established regular
lanes for infiltration with way stations es-
tablished about 1 day's march apart. The
way stations are equipped to quarter and
feed the Vietcong passing through. Infil-
trators who suffer from malaria or other ill-
nesses stay at the stations until they recover
sufficiently to join another passing group
moving south.
The map on page 4 [not shown in RECORD]
shows the infiltration route from North Viet-
nam to the south followed by VC Sgt. Huynh
Van Tay and a group of North Vietnamese
Army officers and men in September 1963.
Tay was captured during an engagement in
Chuong Thien Province in April 1964.
Local guides lead the infiltration groups
along the secret trails. Generally they di-
rect the infiltrators from halfway between
two stations, through their own base sta-
tion, and on halfway to the next supply base.
Thus the guides are kept in ignorance of all
but their own way stations. Only group
leaders are permitted to talk with the guides
in order to preserve maximum security. The
765-428-96923
men are discouraged from asking where they
are or where they are going .2
The same system of trails and guides used
along the Lao infiltration routes is used
within South Vietnam itself. Vietcong in-
filtrators may report directly to a reassign-
ment center in the highlands as soon as they
enter South Vietnam. But in the past year
or more some groups have moved down trails
in South Vietnam to provinces along the
Cambodian border and near Saigon before re-
ceiving their unit assignment. Within South
Vietnam infiltration and supplies are han-
dled by VC units such as the Nam Son Trans-
portation Group.
At the Laos border crossing point infil-
trators are reequipped. Their North Viet-
namese Army uniforms must be turned in.
They must give up all personal papers, let-
ters, notebooks, and photographs that might
be incriminating. Document control over
the infiltrators has been tightened consider-
ably over the past 2 years. A number of
Vietnamese infiltrators have told of being
fitted out with Lao neutralist uniforms for
their passage through Laos.
Infiltration groups are usually issued a set
of black civilian pajama-like clothes, two
unmarked uniforms, rubber sandals, a
sweater, a hammock, mosquito netting, and
waterproof sheeting. They carry a 3- to 5-
day supply of food. A packet of medicines
and bandages is usually provided.
The size of infiltration groups varies
widely. Prisoners have mentioned units as
small as 5 men and as large as 500. Gen-
erally the groups number 40 to 50. When
they arrive in South Vietnam these groups
are usually split up and assigned to various
VC units as replacements, although some
have remained intact.
B. Military personnel
The following are individual ease histories
of North Vietnamese soldiers sent by the
Hanoi regime into South Vietnam. They are
only an illustrative group. They show that
the leadership and specialized personnel for
the guerrilla war in South Vietnam consists
in large part of members of the North Viet-
nam armed forces, trained in the North and
subject to the command and discipline of
Hanoi.
1. Tran Quoc Dan
Dan was a VC major, commander of the
60th Battalion (sometimes known as the 34th
Group of the Thon-Kim Battalion). Disil-
lusioned with fighting his own countrymen
and with communism and the lies of the
Hanoi regime, he surrendered to the authori-
ties in South Vietnam on February 11, 1983.
2 For additional maps of the routes taken
by VC infiltrators into South Vietnam, see
app. B.
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At the age of 15 he joined the revolutionary
army (Viet Minh) and fought against the
French forces until 1964 when the Geneva
accords ended the Indochina war. As a regu-
lar in the Viet Minh forces, he was moved to
North Vietnam. He became an officer in the
so-called people's army.
In March 1962 Major Dan received orders
to prepare to move to South Vietnam. He
had been exposed to massive propaganda in
the north which told of the destitution of the
peasants in the south and said that the
Americans had taken over the French role of
colonialists. He said later that an important
reason for his decision to surrender was that
he discovered these propaganda themes were
lies. He found the peasants more prosperous
than the people in the north. And he recog-
nized quickly that he was not fighting the
Americans but his own people.
With the 600 men of his unit, Major Dan
left Hanoi on March 23, 1962. They traveled
through the Laos corridor. His group joined
up with the Vietcong 1st Regiment in cen-
tral Vietnam.
The 35-year-old major took part in 45 ac-
tions and was wounded once in an unsuc-
cessful VC attack on an outpost. As time
passed he became increasingly discouraged
by his experience as a VC troop commander.
Most of all, he said, he was tired of killing
other Vietnamese. After several months of
soul-searching he decided to surrender to
the authorities of the Republic of Vietnam.
He has volunteered to do "anything to serve
the national cause" of South Vietnam.
2. Vo Thoi
Sgt. Vo Thoi (Communist Party alias Vo
Bien) was an assistant squad leader in the
VC Tay Son 22d Battalion. On the night of
October 7, 1963, his unit attacked An Tuong
village in Binh Dinh Province. After over-
running the village, Vo's company was as-
signed to set up an ambush against Repub-
lic of Vietnam troops rushing to defend the
village. In the ensuing fight Vo was seri-
ously wounded. He was picked up by local
farmers and turned over to the authorities.
Vo's life and experiences were similar to
those of thousands of Vietcong. Born in
Quang Ngai Province in 1932, he went
through 5 years of school and then worked
on his parents' small farm. During the war
against the French he joined the Viet Minh
forces. When the fighting ended, he was
transferred to North Vietnam with his unit,
the 210th Regiment. He remained in the
North Vietnamese Army until 1960 when he
was sent to work on a state farm in Nghe An
Province. Vo said 3,000 men and women
worked on the farm, of whom 400 were sol-
diers. In September 1962 Vo was told he
must join the newly activated 22d Battalion.
All the members of the battalion came from
provinces in South Vietnam, from Quang Tri
to Phu Yen. But it was not an ordinary
battalion; two-thirds of its members were
cadre with. ranks up to senior capitain.
765.428-96923
The group was put through an advanced
training course that lasted 6 months. The
training program included combat tactics
for units from squad to company and the
techniques of guerrilla and counterguerrilla
fighting. There were heavy doses of politi-
cal indoctrination.
On March 5, 1963, the 22d Battalion re-
ceived orders to move south. They were
transported in trucks from Nghe An Province
to Dong Hoi in Quang Binh, just north of
the 17th parallel. From there the unit was
moved westward to the Lao border. Then
the more than 300 men began walking to
the south following mountain trails in Laos
and the Vietnam border area. They marched
by day, rested at night. Every fifth day
they stopped at a way station for a full day's
rest. One company dropped off at Thua
Thiem Province. Vo and the remainder of
the group marched on to Pleiku Province.
Two fully armed companies from a neighbor-
ing province were assigned to the battalion.
The assignment given to the battalion was
to harass strategic hamlets in the Hoai An
district of Binh Dinh, to round up cattle
and rice, to kill or kidnap cadre of the
Government forces, and to recruit local
youth for service with the Vietcong.
3. Nguyen Thao
Nguyen Thao was a VC weapons tech-
nician. A native of Khanh Hao Province in
South Vietnam, he joined the Viet Minh in
1950. He worked at a secret arsenal manu-
facturing weapons for use by the guerrilla
forces. He went to North Vietnam after the
Geneva accords were signed in 1954. In
North Vietnam he attended a technical
school specializing in arms and manufacture.
He received special training in foreign small
arms and artillery.
At the end of 1962 he was ordered to Ha
Dong to attend a special course of political
training in preparation for infiltrating into
South Vietnam. On completion of the
training course he was assigned to a group
of 14 men who would move to the south to-
gether. Nguyen Thao said the group was
composed of four armament specialists, two
chemical engineers, and eight middle-level
technical cadre.
They left Ha Dong in March 1963, crossed
into Laos, and reached their destination in
the northern part of South Vietnam in May.
Nguyen Thao went to work at a secret VC
arsenal near the Quang Ngai border. Fifty
men, some local workers, manned the arsenal
weapons section. The group manufactured
mines and grenades for. the VC units in the
area and repaired weapons.
Nguyen Thao said he soon realized from
talking with the local workers at the arsenal
that most of what he had heard in the North
about conditions in South Vietnam was
wrong. He said the Communists had de-
ceived him. Two months after his arrival at
the arsenal he decided to defect. He asked
permission to rejoin his family and to work
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42
in a national defense factory and continue
his studies.
4. Nguyen Viet Le
This VC soldier was born in Quang Nam
Province in South Vietnam. He served with
the 305th Division of the Viet Minh and
moved to North Vietnam in 1954. In April
1961, Nguyen Viet Le and his unit, the 50th
Battalion, moved into Laos. He said the unit
remained in Laos for 2 months, during which
it fought in four battles alongside the
Pathet Lao. During these engagements one
of the battalion's four companies was badly
mauled and had to be returned to North
Vietnam.
The other three companies were assigned
to South Vietnam. They arrived in Quang
Ngai Province in the summer of 1961. For a
month they rested and waited for orders.
They took part in a major action against an
outpost of the Government of South Viet-
nam in September. Nguyen Viet Le was
captured during a battle in Quang Ngai
Province in April 1962.
5. Nguyen True
Corp. Nguyen True was born in 1933, the
son of a farmer in Phu Yen Province in
South Vietnam. From 1949 to 1954 he served
as a courier and then as a guerrilla fighter
with the Viet Minh. In early 1955 he board-
ed a Soviet ship and moved with his unit,
the 40th Battalion, to North Vietnam. He
remained in the army, but in 1959, bothered
by illness, he went to work on a state farm.
In August 1962 Nguyen True was notified
that he was back in the army and that he was
being sent to South Vietnam. He reported
to the Xuan Mai training center and under-
went 8 months of military and political re-
education. His unit was the newly activated
22d Battalion. The training course was com-
pleted in February 1963, but departure for
South Vietnam was delayed until April.
For infiltration purposes the battalion was
divided into two groups. On April 27, Ngu-
yen True and his group boarded trucks at
Xuan Mai. They went first to Vinh, then on
to Dong Hoi, and finally to the Laos-North
Vietnam border. There they doffed their
North Vietnamese army uniforms and put on
black peasants' clothing. The march to the
south began, sometimes in Lao territory,
sometimes in Vietnam. They passed through
Thua Thien Province, then Quang Nam,
Quang Tin, and Quang Ngai, and finally to
their destination, Pleiku. Each day they had
a new guide, generally one of the mountain
people of the area.
Nguyen said that he and most of the troops
who were sent north after the Indochina
war wanted to return to their homes and
rejoin their families. In August 1963 Nguyen
True was sent out on a foraging expedition
to find food for his unit. He took the oppor-
tunity to defect to Government forces at An
Tuc in Binh Dinh Province.
765-428--96923
6.. Nguyen Cam
Cam is the son of a farmer in Quang Tin
Province. Born in 1929, he joined the Viet-
minh youth group in his home village in 1946.
In 1 year he became a guerrilla fighter. In
1954, as the Indochina war was drawing to a
close, he was serving with the Vietminh 20th
Battalion. In May 1955 he went to North
Vietnam with his unit.
Ill health caused his transfer to an agri-
cultural camp in 1958. By 1960 he was back
in uniform, serving in the 210th Regiment.
In May of that year he was assigned to a
small group that was to set up a metallurgi-
cal workshop. Early in 1961 he was sent to
a metallurgical class in Nghe An Province.
They were taught a simple form of cast iron
production, simple blast furnace construc-
tion, and similar skills. Their instructor was
an engineer from the Hanoi industrial de-
partment.
Their special course completed, Cam and
his group of 35 men prepared to go to South
Vietnam. They went by truck from their
training center at Nghe An to the Lao bor-
der. After 19 days marching through Laos,
they arrived in the vicinity of Tchepone.
There they waited for 3 days until food sup-
plies could be airdropped by a North Viet-
namese plane. Nineteen days of walking
took them to the Laos-South Vietnam bor-
der.
Delayed en route by illness, Cam finally
reached his destination in November 1961.
It was a secret VC iron foundry in Kontum
Province. Several iron ore deposits were
nearby, and the hill people had long used
the iron to make knives and simple tools.
Cam's job was building kilns to smelt the
ore. The Vietcong hoped to use the iron
for mines and grenades.
On August 4, 1963, Sergeant Cam went
to a nearby village to buy salt for his group.
On his return he found his comrades had
gone to one of their cultivated fields to
gather corn, and he joined them. The group
was interrupted at their work by a Viet-
namese ranger company. After a brief fight
Cam was taken prisoner.
7. Nguyen Hong That
Thai, 32 years old, was born and grew up
in Quang Nkai Province in South Vietnam.
After service with the Vietminh we was
moved to North Vietnam in 1954. After 3
years of military service he was assigned to
a military farm. In December 1961 he was
recalled to his former unit, the 305th Divi-
sion, and went to the special training camp
at Xuan Mai in preparation for fighting with
the Vietcong in South Vietnam.
Training began in January 1962 and
lasted for 4 months, The training group,
designated the 32d Battalion, was composed
of 650 men who came from various branches
of the North Vietnamese Army-engineers,
artillery, airborne, transport, marines, and
some factory workers and students. Three-
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fourths of the training was military (guer-
rilla tactics, ambushes, sabotage, etc.) and
one-fourth was political. In the latter,
heavy emphasis was laid on the necessity
for armed seizure of power in the south.
Group 32 was divided into sections and
began, infiltrating to the south on July 14,
1962. It moved in three groups. Thai said
it took his group more than 55 days to travel
from North Vietnam through Laos to Quang
Ngai Province in the south. He reported that
all the communications and liaison stations
on the route to South Vietnam are now op-
erated by the Army of North Vietnam. Soon
after his arrival in South Vietnam, Thai was
promoted to the rank of lieutenant. He was
made a platoon leader in the 20th Vietcong
Highland Battalion. In February 1963 the
unit moved from Quang Nam to Kontum
Province,
Combat conditions and the rigors of guer-
rilla life began to depress Thai. He said he
wanted only to rejoin his family and live in
peace. In September he asked and received
permission to visit his family in Quang Ngai.
When he got home, he surrendered to a South
Vietnamese Army post.
8. Dao Kien Lap
Lap is a civilian radio technician. He has
been a member of the Communist Party in
North Vietnam since 1955. In February 1963
he was selected for assignment to South
Vietnam where he was to work with the
Liberation Front. He infiltrated into South
Vietnam with a group of about 70 civilian
specialists. They included doctors, pharma-
cists, union organizers, radio specialists,
propagandists, and youth organizers. One of
the Infiltrators in Dao's group was a man
named Binh, publisher of the newspaper
Labor of the Lao Dong Party. Another was
a member of the city soviet of Hanoi.
The specialists in Dao's group received 3
months of basic military training at Son
Tay, and then departed for the south in mid-
June. Their orders were to report to the
central office of the Vietcong in South Viet-
nam where they would be assigned accord-
ing to their individual specialties. Dao and
Binh were to help run a radio station of the
Liberation Front.
They traveled through Laos and along the
Vietnam border. They had to stop for sev-
eral weeks in Quang Nam Province to recu-
perate from their travels. On October 1 they
were directed by guides to a VC station in
Ban Me Thuot.
Dao said he had by then decided to defect
to the government authorities in the south.
He set off with one companion, but they were
separated as they crossed a swiftly flowing
river. Dao gave himself up at a government
post in Ban Me Thuot on October 13, 1963.
9. Tran Ngoc Linh
Linh was a Vietcong senior sergeant,
leader of a reconnaissance platoon. He is the
son of a middle-class farm family in Tay
765-428-96923
Ninh Province. He served with the Viet
Minh against the French and moved to North
Vietnam in 1954. He spent the next 7 years
in the North Vietnamese Army. In Septem-
ber 1962 Linh was assigned to the Xuan Mai
training center at Ha Dong to prepare for
duty in South Vietnam. His group was given
a 4-month refresher course in infantry tac-
tics with emphasis on guerilla fighting. Then
he received 6 months of special training in
the use of machineguns against aircraft.
Antiaircraft training has become an increas-
ingly important part of the preparation of
North Vietnamese troops assigned to the
Vietcong.
Linh and about 120 others made up the
406th Infiltration Group commander by Sen-
ior Capt. Nguyen Van Do. They were divided
into four platoons. During the final 2 weeks
of preparation each member of the group
was issued new equipment-black, pajama-
like uniforms, a khaki uniform, a hammock,
mosquito netting, rubber sandals, and other
supplies, including two packets of medicine.
In the early morning hours of July 4, 1963,
his group started its journey from the Xuan
Mat training center outside Hanoi. The con-
voy of six Molotov trucks moved south along
Highway 21 to Nghe An Province and then
on to Quang Binh. On July 7 they arrived
at the final processing station near the Laos-
North Vietnam border. There they turned
in their North Vietnamese Army uniforms
as well as all personal papers and anything
else that might identify them as coming from
the north. But their departure for the south
was delayed for several weeks. In August
they set off through Laos.
Twice along the way Linh had to stop at
liaison stations because of illness. When the
infiltrators recovered from their illnesses,
they were formed into special groups to con-
tinue their penetration into South Vietnam.
Linh reported being delayed once for 8 days,
and the second time for 10 days.
Finally, in the first week of November 1963,
Linh was sufficiently recovered to begin the
final leg of his journey to a VC center where
he was to be assigned to a combat unit. He
and three others who had been similarly de-
layed by attacks of malaria and other sickness
made up a group. They moved through the
jungles of Quang Due Province near the Cam-
bodian border. On the morning of Novem-
ber 9 they crossed the Srepok River. There
they ran into a unit of the South Vietnamese
Army. One of the infiltrators was killed,
Linh was taken prisoner, and the other two
Vietcong escaped.
These are typical Vietcong. There are
many other officers like Tran Quoc Dan, tech-
nicians like Nguyen Thao, and simple sol-
diers like Nguyen True. They were born in
South Vietnam, fought against the French,
and then went north and served in the army
of North Vietnam. They were ordered by the
Communist rulers in Hanoi to reenter South
Vietnam. Violating the Geneva accords of
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1954 and 1962, they used the territory of
neighboring Laos to infiltrate into the South.
They are the means by which Communist
North Vietnam is carrying out its program
of conquest in South Vietnam ..9
0. Infiltration of native North Vietnamese
The Communist authorities in Hanoi are
now assigning native North Vietnamese in
increasing numbers to join the VC forces
in South Vietnam. Heretofore, those in
charge of the infiltration effort have sought
to fill their quotas with soldiers and others
born in the south. The 90,000 troops that
moved from South Vietnam to the north
when the Geneva accords ended the Indo-
china War have provided an invaluable res-
ervoir for this purpose. Now, apparently,
that source is running dry. The casualty
rate has been high, and obviously many of
those who were in fighting trim 10 years
ago are no longer up to the rigors of guer-
rilla war.
In any case, reports of infiltration by na-
tive North Vietnamese in significant num-
bers have been received in Saigon for several
months. It is estimated that as many as
75 percent of the more than 4,400 Vietcong
who are known to have entered the south
in the first 8 months of 1964 were natives
of North Vietnam.
Vo Thanh Vinh was born in Nghe An Prov-
ince in North Vietnam in 1936. He was cap-
tured by South Vietnamese forces on May 5,
1964. He described himself as a military
security officer. He infiltrated into South
Vietnam in April 1964 with a group of 34
police and security officers from the north.
Another native North Vietnamese captured
in the south was VC Pfc. Vo Quyen. His
home was in Nam Dinh Province. He was a
member of the 2d Battalion of the North
Vietnamese Army's 9th Regiment. He said
the entire battalion had infiltrated into
South Vietnam between February and May
last year. He was captured in an action in
Quang Tri Province on July 4. He told in-
terrogators that the bulk of his unit was
composed of young draftees from North
Vietnam.
Le Pham Hung, also a private, first class,
was captured on July 7 in Thua Thien
Province: He is a native of Nam Dinh in
North Vietnam. Drafted for military service
in May 1963, he was in the 324th Division.
His group, consisting solely of 90 North
Vietnamese draftees, infiltrated into South
Vietnam in May 1964. He reported that an-
other company of the North Vietnamese
entered the south at the same time as his
unit.
A former member of the 90th VC Battal-
ion reported that his unit had been rein-
forced by native North Vietnamese troops
earlier this year. Le Thua Phuong, an in-
8 See app. C for additional details on mili-
tary infiltrators.
766--428-96923
formation cadre and a native of Quang Ngai
Province in the south, surrendered to Gov-
ernment forces on April 23, 1964. He said
that the 90th Battalion had received 80
North Vietnamese replacements in February.
A medical technician named Hoang Thung
was captured in Thua Thien Province on
July 4, 1964. He said he had infiltrated into
the south in late 1963 with a group of 200
Vietcong, the majority of whom were ethnic
northerners, 120 of them draftees.
These reports destroy one more fiction
which the authorities in Hanoi have sought
so long to promote-that the fighting in the
south was a matter for the South Viet-
namese. They underline Hanoi's determina-
tion to press its campaign of conquest with
every available resource.
D. Infiltration of Vietcong agents
No effort to subvert another nation as
elaborate as that being conducted by the
Ho Chi Minh regime against South Vietnam
can succeed without an intelligence-gather-
ing organization. Recognizing this, the au-
thorities in Hanoi have developed an exten-
sive espionage effort. An essential part of
that effort is the regular assignment of secret
agents from the north to South Vietnam.
The heart of the VC intelligence organiza-
tion is the Central Research Agency in Hanoi.
(See sec. IV, C.) Communist agents are
regularly dispatched from North Vietnam,
sometimes for brief assignments but often
for long periods. Many of these agents move
into South Vietnam along the infiltration
trails through Laos; others are carried by
boats along the coasts and landed at pre-
arranged sites. A special maritime infiltra-
tion group has been developed in North Viet-
nam, with its operations centered in Ha
Tinh and Quang Binh Provinces just north
of the 17th parallel.
1. Maritime Infiltration
The following case illustrates the methods
of maritime infiltration of secret agents
used by the Communist regime of North
Vietnam.
in July 1962 a North Vietnamese intelli-
gence agent named Nguyen Viet Duong be-
gan training to infiltrate South Vietnam. A
native southerner, he had fought against the
French and had gone to North Vietnam after
the war ended. Selected for intelligence
work, he was assigned to the Central Re-
search Agency in 1959.
After a period of intensive instruction in
radio transmission, coding and decoding, and
other skills of the intelligence trade, he was
given false identity papers and other sup-
plies and was transported to the south. His
principal task was to set up a cell of agents
to collect military information. He flew
from Hanoi to Dong Hot., and from there the
Maritime infiltration group took him by boat
to South Vietnam. That was in August 1962.
In January 1963 Duong reported to Hanoi
that he had run into difficulties. His money
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and papers had been lost, and lie had been
forced to take refuge with VC contacts in an-
other province. Another agent was selected
to go to South Vietnam. One of his assign-
ments was to contact Duong, find out details
of what happened to him, and help Duong
reestablish himself as a VC agent. The man
selected for the task was Senor Captain
Tran Van Tan of the Central Research
Agency.
Tan had already been picked to go to the
South to establish a clandestine VC commu-
nications center. Making contact with Du-
ong was one of his secondary assignments.
After intensive preparations Tan was ready
to move to South Vietnam in March. He
was transferred to an embarkation base of
the maritime infiltration group just north
of the 17th parallel.
He was joined by three other VC agents
and the captain and three crewmen of the
boat that would take them south. All were
given false identity papers to conform to
their false names. They also were provided
with fishermen's permits, South Vietnamese
voting cards, and draft cards or military dis-
charge papers. The boat captain received a
boat registration book, crew lists, and sev-
eral South Vietnamese permits to conduct
business.
The agents and boatmen were given
cover stories to tell if captured. Each man
had to memorize not only the details of his
own story but the names and some details
about each of the others. The agents had
to become familiar with simple boat proce-
dures so they could pass as legitimate fisher-
men.
The expedition left the embarkation port
on April 4. In addition to the four agents
the boat carried six carefully sealed boxes
containing a generator, several radios, some
weapons, and a large supply of South Viet-
namese currency. They also carried some
chemicals and materials for making false
identification papers. Their destination was
a landing site on the coast of Phuoc Tuy
Province.
Soon after leaving North Vietnam the VC
boat encountered high winds and rough seas.
On April 7 the storm became violent. The
boat tossed and threatened to capsize.
Strong northeasterly winds forced it ever
closer to shore. Finally the boat captain,
Nguyen Xit, ordered that the six boxes be
thrown overboard. This was done, and the
boat then was beached. The eight men de-
cided to split up into pairs and try to make
contact with VC forces. They buried their
false papers and set out. Six of the eight
were captured almost immediately by au-
thorities in Thua mien Province, and the
other two were taken several days later,
2. Student Propaganda Agents
The student population of South Vietnam
is an important target group for VC propa-
gandists. These agents seek to win adher-
ents for the Communist cause among young
765-428-96923
workers, students in high schools and uni-
versities, and the younger officers and en-
listed men in the armed forces of the Repub-
lic of Vietnam.
Typical of the agents sent into South
Vietnam for this purpose is Nguyen Van Vy,
a 19-year-old VC propagandist. He is a
native of the Vinh Linh District in North
Vietnam, just north of the demilitarized
zone. He was a member of a Communist
Party youth group in his native village. He
was recruited for propaganda work in the
south in the fall of 1962. He was one of 40
young persons enrolled in a special political
training course given by the Communist
Party in his district.
The first phase of the training consisted of
political indoctrination covering such sub-
jects as the advance of communism, the
North Vietnamese plan for winning control
of the country, the responsibility of youth
in furthering this plan, the war in the south,
and the need for propaganda supporting the
Liberation Front.
Those who successfully completed the first
phase were selected for the second level of
training, the so-called technical training
phase. In this the trainees were given their
mission in the south. Vy was told he should
infiltrate into South Vietnam and there sur-
render to the authorities, describing himself
as a defector who was "tired of the miserable
life in the north." He was to say he wanted
to complete his schooling, which was impos-
sible in the north. He was told to ask to
live with relatives in the south so he could
go to school. Once his story was accepted
and he was enrolled in a school, he was to
begin his work of propagandiizng other stu-
dents. He was to wait for 3 or 4 months,
however, until he was no longer the subject
of local suspicion. He was assigned to work
under an older agent to whom he had to
report regularly.
A third member of the team was a younger
man who was to assist Vy. The three were
to infiltrate into South Vietnam separately
and to meet there at a rendezvous point.
At first Vy was to do no more than to
observe his fellow students carefully, col-
lecting biographical data on them and study-
ing their personalities, capabilities, and as-
pirations.. He was then to select those he
thought might be most influenced by Com-
munist propaganda and try to make friends
with them.
Once he had selected targets, he was to
begin to influence them favorably toward the
north and to implant Communist propa-
ganda, He was responsible then for bringing
into his organization those he had influenced
effectively. These individuals were to be
given their own propaganda assignments to
work on other students.
Students who wanted to evade military
service in the Government forces were con-
sidered prime targets. Where possible, Vy
was to help them get to. North Vietnam. He
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was also told to make contact with any stu-
dents who had been picked up by the author-
ities for suspected Communist activities.
These, too, were to be helped to escape to
North Vietnam. Any useful information
concerning developments in the south or
military activities were to be reported
through his superior, Nguyen Van Phong.
In case he became suspect, he was either
to make his own way back to North Vietnam
or to go into the jungle and try to contact
a VC unit.
Vy entered South Vietnam on January 2,
1963, by swimming across the Ben Hal River.
He encountered an elderly farmer who led
him to the local authorities in Hai Gu.
There he told his story but it was not be-
lieved. He then admitted his true mission.
3. Other Agents
The Communist authorities in North Viet-
nam send their agents into South Vietnam
by a wide variety of means. A few like
Nguyen Van Vy cross the demilitarized zone,
more Infiltrate by sea, and still more along
the infiltration routes through Laos. But
there are other methods for entering South
Vietnam. VC espionage agent Tran Van
But attempted one such method.
But was a graduate of the espionage train-
ing school in Haiphong, North Vietnam. He
completed a special 6-month course in July
1962. The training included political in-
doctrination, but most of the time was spent
on such things as use of weapons, preparing
booby traps, and methods of sabotage. He
was also given instruction in methods for
enlisting help from hoodlums, draft dodgers,
and VC sympathizers. Once in South Viet-
nam, he was to organize a small unit for
sabotage and the collection of Information.
On specific assignment by his superiors he
was to be ready to sabotage ships in Saigon
harbor and to blow up gasoline and oil stor-
age points and Vietnamese Army Installa-
tions. He was told to be prepared to assas-
sinate Vietnamese officials and American per-
sonnel.
In September 1962 But was given his mis-
sion assignment. He was to hide aboard a
foreign ship. When discovered, he was to
claim to be a refugee who wanted to escape
to South Vietnam. He was given an auto-
matic pistol with silencer, some explosive de-
vices, and a small knife that could inject
poison into the body of a victim.
But stole aboard a foreign ship in Hai-
phong harbor. After 3 days at sea-when
he was sure the ship would not turn
around-But surrendered to the ship's cap-
tain. When the ship arrived in Bangkok,
But was turned over to the Thai authorities.
They in turn released him to the South Viet-
namese as he had requested. But in Saigon
his true mission was disclosed and he made
a full confession.
765-428-96923
It. HANOI SUPPLIES WEAPONS, AMMUNITION, AND
OTHER WAR MATERIEL TO ITS FORCES IN THE
SOUTH
When Hanoi launched the VC campaign of
terror, violence, and subversion in earnest
in 1959, the Communist forces relied mainly
on stocks of weapons and ammunition left
over from the war against the French. Sup-
plies sent in from North Vietnam came
largely from the same source. As the military
campaign progressed, the Vietcong depended
heavily on weapons captured from the Armed
Forces in South Vietnam. This remains an
important source of weapons and ammuni-
tions for the Vietcong. But as the pace of
the war has quickened, requirements for up-
to-date arms and special types of weapons
have risen to a point where the Vietcong can-
not rely on captured stocks. Hanoi has
undertaken a program to reequip its forces
in the south with Communist-produced
weapons.
Large and Increasing quantities of mili-
tary supplies are entering South Vietnam
from outside the country. The principal
supply point is North Vietnam, which pro-
vides a convenient channel for materiel that
originates In Communist China and other
Communist countries.
An increasing number of weapons from
external Communist sources have been seized
in the south. These include such weapons
as 57-millimeter and 75-millimeter recoilless
rifles, dual-purpose machineguns, rocket
launchers, large mortars, and antitank mines.
A new group of Chinese Communist-manu-
factured weapons has recently appeared in
VC hands. These include the 7.62 semiauto-
matic carbine, 7.62 light machinegun, and
the 7.62 assault rifle. These weapons and
ammunition for them, manufactured in
Communist China in 1962, were first cap-
tured in December 1964 in Chuong Thien
Province. Similar weapons have since been
seized in each of the four corps areas of
South Vietnam. Also captured have been
Chinese Communist antitank grenade
launchers and ammunition made in China
in 1963.
One captured Vietcong told his captors
that his entire company had been supplied
recently with modern Chinese weapons. The
reequipping of VC units with a type of weap-
ons that require ammunition and parts from
outside South Vietnam indicates the growing
confidence of the authorities in Hanoi in the
effectiveness of their supply lines into the
south.
Incontrovertible evidence of Hanoi's elabo-
rate program to supply its forces in the south
with weapons, ammunition, and other sup-
plies has accumulated over the years. Dra-
matic new proof was exposed just as this re-
port was being completed.
On February 16, 1965, an American heli-
copter pilot flying along the South Viet-
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namese coast sighted a suspicious vessel. It
was a cargo ship of an estimated 100-ton
capacity, carefully camouflaged and moored
just offshore along the coast of Phu Yen
Province. Fighter planes that approached
the vessel met machinegun fire from guns on
the deck of the ship and from the shore
as well. A Vietnamese Air Force strike was
launched against the vessel, and Vietnamese
Government troops moved into the area.
They seized the ship after a. bitter fight with
the Vietcong.
The ship, which had been sunk in shallow
water, had discharged a huge cargo of arms,
ammunition, and other supplies. Docu-
ments found on the ship and on the bodies
of several Vietcong aboard identified the ves-
sel as having come from North Vietnam. A
newspaper in the cabin was from Haiphong
and was dated January 23, 1065. The sup-
plies delivered by the ship-thousands of
weapons and more than a million rounds of
ammunition-were almost all of Communist
origin, largely from Communist China and
Czechoslovakia, as well as North Vietnam.
At least 100 tons of military supplies were
discovered near the ship.
A preliminary survey of the cache near the
sunken vessel from Hanoi listed the follow-
ing supplies and weapons:
Approximately 1 million rounds of small-
arms ammunition; more than 1,000 stick
grenades; 500 pounds of TNT in prepared
charges; 2,000 rounds of 82-millimeter mortar
ammunition; 500 antitank grenades; 500
rounds of 57-millimeter recoilless rifle am-
munition; more than 1,000 rounds of 75-
millimeter recoilless rifle ammunition; one
57-millimeter recoilless rifle; 2 heavy ma-
chineguns; 2,000 7.95 Mauser rifles; more
than 100, 7.62 carbines; 1,000 submachine-
guns; 15 light machineguns; 500 rifles; 500
pounds of medical supplies (with labels from
North Vietnam, Communist China, Czecho-
slovakia, East Germany, Soviet Union, and
other sources).
The ship was fairly new and had been
made in Communist China. Documents
aboard the ship included three North Viet-
namese nautical charts (one of the Hai-
phong area and one of Hong Gay, both in
North Vietnam, and one of the Tra Vinh area
of South Vietnam). The military health
records of North Vietnamese soldiers were
found. One man had a political history sheet
showing he was a member of the 338th Di-
vision of the North Vietnamese Army. (See
app. E.)
Also abroad the North Vietnamese ship
were: an instruction book for a Chinese
Communist navigational device; postcards
and letters to addresses in North Vietnam;
snapshots, including one of a group of men
in North Vietnamese Army uniforms under a
flag of the Hanoi government.
Members of the ICC and representatives of
the free press visited the sunken North Viet-
namese ship and viewed its cargo. The
765-428-96923
incident itself underlined in the most drama-
tic form that Hanoi is behind the continuing
campaign of aggression aimed at conquer-
ing South Vietnam. it made unmistakably
clear that what is happening in South Viet-
nam is not an internal affair but part of a
large-scale carefully directed and supported
program of armed attack on a sovereign state
and a free people.
There have been previous seizures of large
stocks of ammunition and weapons and
other military supplies that could only
have come from Communist sources outside
South Vietnam. In December 1963, a Re-
public of Vietnam force attacked a VC
stronghold in Dinh Tuong Province south-
west of Saigon. A large cache of VC equip-
ment was seized. Included in the captured
stocks were the following weapons and am-
munition, all of Chinese Communist manu-
facture:
One 90-millimeter rocket launcher; 2 car-
bines (type 53); 120 rounds of 75-millimeter
recoilless rifle ammunition; 120 detonating
fuses for recoilless rifle ammunition; 14,000
rounds of 7.62 (type P) ammunition; 160,000
rounds of 7.62 carbine ammunition; 150 fuses
for mortar shells; 100,000 rounds of 7.92
Mauser-type ammunition; 110 pounds (ap-
proximate) of TNT; two 60-millimeter mor-
tars.
These weapons and ammunition are the
same as those used in the North Vietnamese
Army. Some of the 7.62-millimeter am-
munition was manufactured as recently as
1962.
Materiel is sent into South Vietnam from
the North by a variety of methods-over-
land, by river and canal, and by sea. In one
instance Vietnamese troops discovered a
cache in which the 75-millimeter ammuni-
tion alone weighed approximately 11/2 tons,
It has been estimated that it would require
more than 150 porters to carry this quantity
of ammunition over rough terrain. How-
ever, a few sampans, each manned by a few
men, could transport it with little difficulty.
It is worth noting, in this connection, that
the delta where the cache of materiel was
seized has 460 miles of seacoast as well as
2,500 miles of canals navigable by large water-
craft and another 2,200 miles of canals over
which sampans can move easily. Much of
the transport of large stocks of ammunition
is undoubtedly waterborne for at least much
of its travel into South Vietnam .5 '
4 On Jan. 29, 1964, the Government of the
Republic of Vietnam supplied the Inter-
national Control Commission with a list of
weapons, ammunition, and other equipment
of Communist origin captured in South Viet-
nam since June 1962. The list is summar-
ized in app. D.
5 Photographs of additional Vietcong weap-
ons and ammunition of Communist origin
are contained in app. E.
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. Large quantities of chemical components
for explosives have been sent into South
Vietnam for the Vietcong. During 1963
there were at least 15 incidents in which
boats, junks, or sampans were seized with
explosives aboard. More than 20 tons of
potassium chlorate or nitrate were captured.
All these cases were in the delta area, and
the majority were on or near the Mekong
River. Red phosphorus made in Communist
China has been among the chemicals cap-
tured from the Vietcong.
The Communists have shown extreme
sensitivity to exposure of the fact that war
material is going to the Vietcong from North
Vietnam, Communist China, and other Com-
munist countries. A secret document cap-
tured from a VC agent last year reflected
this sensitivity. The document was sent
from VC military headquarters in Bien Hoa
Province to subordinate units. It ordered
them to "pay special attention to the re-
moval of all the markings and letters on
weapons of all types currently employed
by units and agencies and manufactured by
friendly East European democratic countries
or by China." It said incriminating mark-
ing should be chiseled off "so that the enemy
cannot use it as a propaganda theme every
time he captures these .weapons."
III. NORTH VIETNAM: BASE FOR CONQUEST OF
THE SOUTH
The Third Lao Dong Party Congress in
Hanoi in September 1960 set forth two tasks
for its members: "to carry out the socialist
revolution in North Vietnam" and "to lib-
erate South Vietnam."
The resolutions of the congress described
the effort to destroy the legal Government
in South Vietnam as follows: "The revolu-
tion in the South is a protracted, hard, and
complex process of struggle, combining many
forms of struggle of great activity and flexi-
bility, ranging from lower to higher, and
taking as its basis the building, consolida-
tion, and development of the revolutionary
power of the masses."
At the September meeting the Communist
leaders in the north called for formation of
"a broad national united front." Three
months later Hanoi announced creation of
the "Front for Liberation of the South."
This. Is the organization that Communist
propaganda now credits with guiding the
forces of subversion in the south; it is pie.
tured as an organization established and run
by the people in the south themselves. At
the 1960 Lao Dong Party Congress the tone
was different. Then, even before the front
existed, the Communist leaders were issuing
orders for the group that was being organized
behind the scenes in Hanoi. "This front
must rally", "The aims of its struggle are";
"The front must carry out"-this is the way
Hanoi and the Communist Party addressed
the Liberation Front even before its found-
ing.
The Liberation Front is Hanoi's creation;
it is neither independent nor southern, and
what it seeks is not liberation but subjuga-
tion of the south.
In his address to the Third Lao Dong Party
Congress, party and government leader Ho
Chi Minh spoke of the necessity "to step up
the Socialist revolution in the north and,
at the same time, to step up the national
democratic people's revolution in the south."
The year before, writing for Red Flag,
the Communist Party newspaper of Belgium,
Ho had said much the same thing: "We are
building socialism in Vietnam, but we are
building it in only one part of the country,
while in the other part we still have to direct
and bring to a close the middle-class demo-
cratic and antiimperialist revolution."
In the same vein, the commander in chief
of the North Vietnamese armed forces, Vo
Nguyen Giap, spoke at the 1960 party con-
gress of the need to "step up the national
democratic people's revolution in the south."
Earlier in the year, writing for the Commu-
nist Party journal Hoc Tap in Hanoi, General
Giap described the north as "the revolution-
ary base for the whole country."
Le Duan, a member of the Politburo and
first secretary of the Lao Dong Party, was even
more explicit when he talked at the party
congress about the struggle in the south and
the party's role. After noting the difficulties
involved in overthrowing the existing order
in South Vietnam, Le Duan said: "Hence the
southern people's revolutionary struggle will
be long, drawn out, and arduous. It Is not a
simple process but a complicated one, com-
bining many varied forms of struggle-from
elementary to advanced, legal and illegal-
and based on the building, consolidation, and
development of the revolutionary force of the
masses. In this process, we must constantly
intensify our solidarity and the organization
and education of the people of the south."
Another high official of the Hanoi regime,
Truong Chinh, writing in the party organ Hoc
Tap in April 1961, expressed confidence in the
success of the struggle to remove the legal
government in South Vietnam because:
"North Vietnam is being rapidly con-
solidated and strengthened, is providing good
support to the South Vietnamese revolution,
and is serving as a strong base for the strug-
gle for national reunification."
He outlined the steps by which the Com-
munists expect to achieve control over all
Vietnam as follows: The Liberation Front
would destroy the present Government in the
south; a coalition government would be
established; this government would agree
with the North Vietnamese government in
Hanoi regarding national reunification un-
der one form or another. It takes little
imagination to understand the form that is
intended.
"Thus," wrote Truong Chinh, "though
South Vietnam will be liberated by nonpeace-
ful means, the party policy of achieving
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peaceful national reunification is still cor-
rect.'
The official government radio in Hanoi is
used both overtly and covertly to support
the Vietcong effort in South Vietnam. Cap-
tured agents have testified that the broad-
casts are used sometimes to send instructions
in veiled code to Vietcong representatives in.
the south.
Hoc Tap stated frankly in March 1963:
"They [the authorities in South Vietnam]
are well aware that North Vietnam is the firm
base for the southern revolution and the
point on which it leans, and that our party
is the steady and experienced vanguard unit
of the working class and people and is the
brain and factor that decides all victories of
the revolution."
In April 1964 the Central Committee of the
Lao Dong Party issued a directive to all
party echelons. It stated: "When the forces
of the enemy and the plots of the enemy are
considered, it is realized that the cadres,
party members, and people in North Viet-
nam must * * * increase their sense of re-
sponsibility in regard to the South Vietnam
revolution by giving positive and practical
support to South Vietnam in every field."
Nguyen Chi Thanh, writing in a Hanoi
newspaper in May 1963, underlined the im-
portance of the role of the North Vietnamese
Army in Hanoi's plans to unify Vietnam un-
der Communist rule: "Our party set forth two
strategic tasks to be carried out at the same
time: to transform and build socialism in the
north and to struggle to unify the country.
Our army is an instrument of the class strug-
gle in carrying out these two strategic tasks."
IV. ORGANIZATION, DIRECTION, COMMAND, AND
CONTROL OF THE ATTACK ON SOUTH VIETNAM
ARE CENTERED IN HANOI
The VC military and political apparatus
in South Vietnam is an extension of an
elaborate military and political structure in
North Vietnam which directs and supplies
it with the tools for conquest. The He Chi
Minh regime has shown that it is ready to
allocate every resource that can be spared-
whether it be personnel, funds, or equip-
ment-to the cause of overthrowing the legit-
imate Government in South Vietnam, and
of bringing all Vietnam under Communist
rule.
A. Political organization
Political direction and control of the Viet-
cong is supplied by the Lao Dong Party, i.e.
the Communist Party, led by Ho Chi Minh.
Party agents are responsible for indoctrina-
tion, recruitment, political training, propa-
ganda, anti-Government demonstrations,
and other activities of a political nature.
The considerable intelligence-gathering fa-
cilities of the party are also at the disposal
of the Vietcong.
Overall direction of the VC movement is
the responsibility of the Central Committee
of. the Lao Dong Party. Within the central
765-428-96923
committee a special reunification depart-
ment has been established. This has replaced
the committee for supervision of the
south mentioned in intelligence reports 2
years ago. It lays down broad strategy for
the movement to conquer South Vietnam.
Until March 1962 there were two principal
administrative divisions in the VC structure
in the south. One was the interzone of
South-Central Vietnam (sometimes called
interzone 5); the other was the Nambo re-
gion. In a 1962 reorganization these were
merged into one, called the central office for
South Vietnam. The central committee,
through its reunification department, is-
sues directives to the central office, which
translates them into specific orders for the
appropriate subordinate command.
Under the central office are six regional
units (V through IX) plus the special zone of
Saigon/Cholon/Gia Dinh. A regional com-
mittee responsible to the central office directs
VC activities in each region. Each regional
committee has specialized units responsible
for liaison, propaganda, training, personnel,
subversive activities, espionage, military
bases, and the like.
Below each regional committee are simi-
larly structured units at the province and
district levels. At the base of the Com-
munist pyramid are the individual party
cells, which may be organized on a geographic
base or within social or occupational groups.
The elaborateness of the party unit and the
extent to which it operates openly or under-
ground is determined mainly by the extent
of VC control over the area concerned.
1. The Liberation Front: The National
Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam
is the screen behind which the Communists
carry out their program of conquest. It is
the creature of the Communist Government
in Hanoi. As noted above the Communist
Party in the North demanded establishment
of such a front 3 months before its forma-
tion was actually announced in December
1960. It was designed to create the illusion
that the Vietcong campaign of subversion
was truly indigenous to South Vietnam
rather than an externally directed Commu-
nist plan.
The front has won support primarily from
the Communist world. Its radio faithfully
repeats the propaganda themes of Hanoi and
Peiping. When its representatives travel
abroad, they do so with North Vietnamese
passports and sponsorship .6 The front's pro-
gram copies that of the Lao Dong Party in
North Vietnam.
In late 1961, in still another effort to con-
ceal the extent of Communist domination
of the front, the Communists announced
formation of a new Marxist political unit,
the People's Revolutionary Party (PRP).
0 Pictures of North Vietnamese passports
and travel documents used by front officials
are in app. F. [Not printed in REcoan.]
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This mechanism provided a way to explain
the Communist presence in the front while
at the same time making it appear that the
Communist voice was only one of several
affiliated organizations in the front. The
PRP itself claimed direct descent from the
original Indochinese Communist Party and
from the North Vietnamese Communist
Party in Hanoi? .
B. Military organization
Military affairs of the Vietcong are the
responsibility of high command of the Peo-
ple's Army of North Vietnam and the Min-
istry of Defense, under close supervision from
the Lao Dong Party. These responsibilities
include operational plans, assignments of
individuals and regular units, training pro-
grams, infiltration of military personnel and
supplies, military communications, tactical
intelligence, supplies, and the like. The six
military regions are the same as those of
the VC political organization.
The military structure of the Vietcong is
an integral part of the political machinery
that controls every facet of VC activity in
South Vietnam under Hanoi's overall direc-
tion. Each political headquarters from the
central office down to the village has a mili-
tary component which controls day-to-day
military operations. Similarly, each mili-
tary headquarters has a political element, an
individual or a small staff. This meshing
of political and military activity is designed
to insure the closest cooperation in support
of the total Communist mission. It also
gives assurance of political control over the
military.
Associated with the central office, believed
to be located in Tay Ninh Province, is a mili-
tary headquarters. Through this headquar-
ters, as well as through other channels, Hanoi
maintains direct contact with its principal
military units in the south.
In addition to its supervision of the gen-
eral military effort of the VC, the military
section of the central office is believed to
have direct command of two regimental
headquarters and a number of security com-
panies.
The hard core of the VC military organiza-
tion is the full-time regular unit usually
based on a province or region. These are
well-trained and highly disciplined guerrilla
fighters. They follow a rigid training sched-
ule that is roughly two-thirds military and
one-third political in content. This com-
pares with the 50-50 proportion for district
units and the 70 percent political and 30
percent military content of the village guer-
rilla's training.
The size of the Vietcong regular forces has
grown steadily in recent years. For exam-
7 For evidence that the People's Revolu-
tionary Party in the south and the Com-
munist Lao Dong Party in the north are one
party, see app. G.
765-428-96923
ple, the Vietcong have five regimental head-
quarters compared with two in 1961. And
the main VC force is composed of 50 battal-
ions, 50 percent more than before. There
are an estimated 139. VC companies. Hard-
core VC strength now is estimated at about
35,000, whereas it was less than 20,000 in
1961.
The main force battalions are well armed
with a variety of effective weapons includ-
ing 75-millimeter recoilless rifles and 81-82-
millimeter mortars. The companies and
smaller units are equally well equipped and
have 57-millimeter recoilless rifles and 60-
millimeter mortars in their inventory. It is
estimated that the Vietcong have at least
130 81-millimeter mortars and 300 60-milli-
meter mortars. There is no precise estimate
for the number of recoilless rifles in their
hands, but it is believed that most main
force units are equipped with them. In at
least one recent action the Vietcong em-
ployed a 75-millimeter pack howitzer. This
mobile weapon, which has a range of 8,500
yards, will increase the Vietcong capabilities
to launch long-range attacks against many
stationary targets in the country.
Supporting the main force units of the
Vietcong are an estimated 60,000-80,000 part-
time guerrillas. They are generally orga-
nized at the district level where there are
likely to be several companies of 50 or more
men each. These troops receive only half
pay, which means they must work at least
part of the time to eke out a living.
Below the irregular guerrilla forces of the
district are the part-time, village-based guer-
rillas.
They are available for assignment by higher
headquarters and are used for harassment
and sabotage. They are expected to warn
nearby VC units of the approach of any force
of the legal government. They provide a
pool for recruitment into the VC district
forces.
The record shows that many of the village
guerrillas are dragooned into service with
the Vietcong. Some are kidnapped; others
are threatened; still others join to prevent
their families from being harmed. Once in
the Vietcong net, many are reluctant to leave
for fear of punishment by the authorities or
reprisal by the Communists.
Lam Van Chuoi is a typical example. He
was a member of the village civil defense
force in his home village in Kien Giang pro-
vince. In March 1960, he was kidnaped by
the Vietcong and kept a prisoner in the
highlands for 1 month. There he was sub-
jected to intense propaganda and indoc-
trination. He was returned to his village but
kept under close observation and steady
pressure. Finally, he was convinced he must
join the VC. Later, he was transferred to
a Communist military unit in another pro-
vince. After learning of the Government's
open arms program, he decided to defect
from the VC. In May 1964, he walked into
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a Government outpost and asked for protec-
tion.
Money to pay the regular VC units comes
from a variety of sources. Funds are sent
from Hanoi. "Taxes" are extorted from the
local population. Landowners and planta-
tion operators often must pay a tribute to
the VC as the price for not having their lands
devastated. Similarly, transportation com-
panies have been forced to pay the VC or
face the threat of having their buses or boats
sabotaged. Officials and wealthy people have
been kidnaped for ransom. The VC have
often stopped buses and taken the money
and valuables of all on board.
For the most part, the VC have concen-
trated their attention on individuals, iso-
lated or poorly defended outposts, and small
centers of population. They have mercilessly
killed or kidnaped thousand of village chiefs
and other local officials. But over the past
year the VC have moved into larger unit
operations. Their ability to operate on a
battalion level or larger has substantially
increased.
C. Intelligence organization
A key element in the Vietcong effort is an
elaborate organization in Hanoi called the
Central Research Agency (CRA) (Cue Nghi-
en-Cuu Trung-tlong). Though it handles
Hanoi's intellience effort on a worldwide
scale, the main focus of its operation is on
South Vietnam, This agency is able to draw
on the intelligence capabilities of both the
Lao Dong Party and the North Vietnamese
armed forces for information, personnel, and
facilities.
The CRA reportedly operates under the
close personal scrutiny of Ho Chi Minh him-
self. Some of the top officials in the Hanoi
government reportedly sit on its directing
committee, including Premier Pham Van
Dong, Deputy Premier Truong Chinh, and
Defense Minster Vo Nguyen Giap.
Considerable information on the organiza-
tion of the CRA has become available from
captured Vietcong agents and from the work
of intelligence agents of the Republic of
Vietnam. Much of this information cannot
be made public for security reasons, but it
is possible to describe the CRA organization
and its operations in broad outline.
The headquarters of the CRA in Hanoi is
divided into six main sections, not including
a special code unit. The six sections are re-
sponsible for administration, cadres, com-
munications, espionage, research, and train-
ing. Each section has units to handle the
specialized activities of its particular area of
responsibility. The research section, for ex-
ample, has subsections that handle political,
economic, and military affairs respectively.
CRA headquarters directs a number of
special centers for oversea operations. One
such center maintains intelligence channels
to oversea areas. It operates through spe-
cial units at Haiphong and at Hon gay.
765-428-96923
A second special center is responsible for
VC intelligence operations in Cambodia and
Laos. A third center handles activities along
the "demarcation line," the border with
South Vietnam. This unit, based in Vinh
Linh in southeast North Vietnam, is respon-
sible for sending agents and supplies to the
south by sea. It also cooperates with the
North Vietnamese army in planning and
carrying out infiltration. The CRA main-
tains intelligence bases in Laos and other
countries.
Inside South Vietnam the Vietcong have a
large intelligence network. Some of its units
are responsible for receiving and sending on
agents arriving from the North. They feed
and give instructions to groups infiltrating
into South Vietnam. They take delivery of
equipment and supplies received from the
North and relay them to Vietcong units in
the south.
Many Vietcong agents have been captured
in Saigon. They have exposed the extensive
effort by the CRA to penetrate all Republic
of Vietnam Government agencies, foreign
embassies, and other specialized organiza-
tions. Party and military intelligence units
and agents work closely with the CRA.
Each of the main centers operating under
CRA headquarters has its own sections and
units designed to carry out its main func-
tions. The center at Vinh Linh, responsible
for the main infiltration effort of the Viet-
cong, has separate sections for radio com-
munications, coding, documentation and
training, and liaison. It also has specialized
units for infiltration through the moun-
tains, infiltration by sea, and "illegal action"
in the mountain area.
The CRA maintains a large and expanding
radio communications network. Agents also
are used to carry messages, usually in secret
writing or memorized.
Taken as a whole, the North Vietnamese
intelligence operation in support of the
Vietcong is one of the most extensive of its
kind in the world .B
V. A BRIEF HISTORY OF HANOI'S CAMPAIGN OF
AGGRESSION AGAINST SOUTH VIETNAM
While negotiating an end to the Indochina
war at Geneva in 1954, the Communists were
making plans to take over all former French
territory in southeast Asia. When Vietnam
was partitioned, thousands of carefully se-
lected party members were ordered to remain
in place in the south and keep their secret
apparatus intact to help promote Hanoi's
cause. Arms and ammunition were stored
away for future use. Guerrilla fighters re-
joined their families to await the party's call.
Others withdrew to remote jungle and
mountain hideouts. The majority, an esti-
mated 90,000, were moved to North Vietnam.
8 Charts of the VC organizational structure
are in appendix H.
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Hanoi's original calculation was that all
of Vietnam would fall under its control with-
out resort to force. For this purpose, Com-
munist cadres were ordered to penetrate offi-
cial and nonofficial agencies, to propagandize
and sow confusion, and generally to use all
means short of open violence to aggravate
war-torn conditions and to weaken South
Vietnam's government and social fabric.
South Vietnam's refusal to fall in with
Hanoi's scheme for peaceful takeover came
as a heavy blow to the Communists. Mean-
time, the Government had stepped up ef-
forts to blunt Vietcong subversion and to
expose Communist agents. Morale in the
Communist organization in the south
dropped sharply. Defections were numerous.
Among South Vietnamese, hope rose that
their nation could have a peaceful and inde-
pendent future, free of Communist domina-
tion. The country went to work. The years
after 1955 were a period of steady progress
and growing prosperity.
Food production levels of the prewar years
were reached and surpassed. While per cap-
ita food output was dropping 10 percent in
the north from 1956 to 1960, it rose 20 per-
cent in the south. By 1963 it had risen 30
percent, despite the disruption in the coun-
tryside caused by intensified Vietcong mili-
tary attacks and terrorism. The authorities
in the north admitted openly to continuing
annual failures to achieve food production
goals.
Production of textiles increased in the
south more that 20 percent in 1 year
(1958). In the same year, South Vietnam's
sugar crop increased more than 100 percent.
Despite North Vietnam's vastly larger indus-
trial complex, South Vietnam's per capita
gross national product in 1960 was estimated
at $110 a person while it was only $70 in the
North.
More than 900,000 refugees who had fled
from Communist rule in the North were suc-
cessfully settled in South Vietnam. An
agrarian reform program was instituted.
The elementary school population nearly
quadrupled between 1956 and 1960. And
so it went-a record of steady improvement
In the lives of the people. It was intolerable
for the rulers in Hanoi; under peaceful con-
ditions, the south was outstripping the
north. They were losing the battle of peace-
ful competition and decided to use violence
and terror to, gain their ends.
After 1956 Hanoi rebuilt, reorganized, and
expanded its covert political and military
machinery in the South. Defectors were
replaced by trained personnel from party
ranks in the north. Military units and polit-
ical cells were enlarged and were given new
leaders, equipment, and intensified training.
Recruitment was pushed. In short, Hanoi
and its forces in the South prepared to take
by force and violence what they had failed
to achieve by other means.
765-428-96923
By 1958 the use of terror by the Vietcong
increased appreciably. It was used both to
win prestige and to back up demands for
support from the people, support that poli-
tical and propaganda appeals had failed to
produce. It was also designed to embarrass.
the Government in Saigon and raise doubts
about its ability to maintain internal order
and to assure the personal security of its
people. From 1959 through.1961, the pace.
of Vietcong terrorism and armed. attacks ac-
celerated substantially.
The situation at the end of 1961 was so
grave that the Government of the Republic.
of Vietnam asked the United States for in-
creased military assistance. That request
was met. Meantime, the program of stra-
tegic hamlets, designed to improve the peas-
ant's livelihood and give him some protec-
tion against Vietcong harassment and pres-
sure, was pushed energetically.
But the Vietcong did not stand still. To
meet the changing, situation, they tightened
their organization and adopted new tactics,
with increasing emphasis on terrorism, sabo-
tage, and armed attacks by small groups.
They also introduced from the North tech-
nicians in fields such as armor and anti-
aircraft. Heavier weapons were sent in to the
regular guerrilla forces..
The military and insurgency situation was
complicated by a quite separate internal po-
litical struggle in South Vietnam, which led
in November 1963 to the removal of the
Diem government and its replacement with
a new one. Effective power was placed in
the hands of a Military Revolutionary Coun-
cil. There have been a number of changes in
the leadership and composition of the Gov-
ernment in Saigon in the ensuing period.
These internal developments and distrac-
tions gave the Vietcong an invaluable op-
portunity, and they took advantage of it.
Vietcong agents did what they could to en-
courage disaffection and to exploit demon-
strations in Saigon and elsewhere. In the
countryside the Communists consolidated
their hold over some areas and enlarged their
military and political apparatus by increased
infiltration. Increasingly they struck at re-
mote outposts and the most vulnerable of
the new strategic hamlets and expanded their
campaign of aggressive attacks, sabotage,
and terror.
Any official, worker, or establishment that
represents a service to the people by the Gov-
ernment in Saigon is fair game for the Viet-
cong. Schools have been among their favor-
ite targets. Through harassment, the mur-
der of teachers, and sabotage of buildings,
the Vietcong succeeded in closing hundreds
of schools and interrupting the education
of tens of thousands of youngsters.
Hospitals and medical clinics have often
been attacked as part of the anti-Govern-
ment campaign and also because such at-
tacks provide the Vietcong with needed med-
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ical supplies. The Communists have en-
couraged people in rural areas to oppose the
Government's antimalaria. teams, and some
of the workers have been killed. Village and
town offices, police stations, and agricultural
research stations are high on the list of pre-
ferred targets for the Vietcong.
In 1964, 436 South Vietnamese hamlet
chiefs and other Government officials were
killed outright by the Vietcong and 1,131
were kidnaped. More than 1,350 civilians
were killed in bombings and other acts of
sabotage. And at least 8,400? civilians were
kidnaped by the Vietcong.9
Today the war in Vietnam has reached new
levels of intensity. The elaborate effort by
the Communist regime in North Vietnam to
conquer the South has grown, not dimin-
ished. Military men, technicians, political
organizers, propagandists, and secret agents
have been infiltrating into the Republic of
Vietnam from the north in growing num-
bers. The flow of Communist-supplied
weapons, particularly those of large caliber,
has increased. Communications links with
Hanoi are extensive., Despite the heavy
casualties of 3 years of fighting, the hard-
core VC force is considerably larger now than
it was at the end of 1961.
The Government in Saigon has undertaken
vigorous action to meet the new threat. The
United States and other free countries have
increased their assistance to the Vietnamese
Government and people. Secretary of State
Dean Rusk visited Vietnam in 1964, and he
promised the Vietnamese: "We shall remain
at your side until the aggression from the
north has been defeated, until it has been
completely rooted out and this land enjoys
the peace which it deserves."
President Johnson has repeatedly stressed
that the U.S. goal is to see peace secured in
southeast Asia. But he has noted that "that
will come only when aggressors leave their
neighbors in peace."
Though it has been apparent for years that
the regime in Hanoi was conducting a cam-
paign of conquest against South Vietnam,
the Government in Saigon and the Govern-
ment of the United States both hoped that
the danger could be met within South Viet-
nam itself. The hope that any widening of
the conflict might be avoided was stated
frequently.
The leaders in Hanoi chose to respond with
greater violence. They apparently inter-
preted restraint as indicating lack of will.
Their efforts were pressed with greater vigor
and armed attacks and incidents of terror
multiplied.
Clearly the restraint of the past was not
providing adequately for the defense of
South Vietnam against Hanoi's open ag-
gression. It was mutually agreed between
the Governments of the Republic of Viet-
0 For additional details of VC terrorism,
see app. I.
765-428-96923
nam and the United States that further
means for providing for South Vietnam's
defense were required. Therefore, air strikes
have been made against some of the mili-
tary assembly points and supply bases from
which North Vietnam is conducting its ag-
gression against the South. These strikes
constitute a limited response fitted to the
aggression that produced them.
Until the regime in Hanoi decides to halt
its intervention in the South, or until effec-
tive steps are taken to maintain peace and
security in the area, the Governments of
South Vietnam and the United States will
continue necessary measures of defense
against the Communist armed aggression
coming from North Vietnam.
VI. CONCLUSION
The evidence presented in this report could
be multiplied many times with similar ex-
amples of the drive of the Hanoi regime
to extend its rule over South Vietnam.
The record is conclusive. It establishes
beyond question that North Vietnam is carry-
ing out a carefully conceived plan of ag-
gression against the South. It shows that
North Vietnam has intensified its efforts in
the years since it was condemned by the In-
ternational Control Commission. It proves
that Hanoi continues to press its systematic
program of armed aggression into South
Vietnam. This aggression violates the
United Nations Charter. It is directly con-
trary to the Geneva Accords of 1954 and of
1962 to which North Vietnam is a party. It
shatters the peace of southeast Asia. It is a
fundamental threat to the freedom and se-
curity of South Vietnam.
The people of South Vietnam have chosen
to resist this threat. At their request, the
United States has taken its place beside them
In their defensive struggle.
The United States seeks no territory, no
military bases, no favored position. But we
have learned the meaning of aggression else-
where In the postwar world, and we have
met it.
If peace can be restored in South Vietnam,
the United States will be ready at once to
reduce its military involvement. But it will
not abandon friends who want to remain
free. It will do what must be.done to help
them. The choice now between peace and
continued and increasingly destructive con-
flict is one for the authorities in Hanoi to
make.
APPENDIX A
FINDINGS OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONTROL
COMMISSION
On June 2, 1962, the International Com-
mission for Supervision and Control in Viet-
nam (ICC) sent a special report to the Gov-
ernments of the United Kingdom and of the
Soviet Union in their role as cochairmen of
the Geneva Conference on Indochina. The
ICO is composed of delegates from India
(chairman), Canada, and Poland.
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In its report the ICC noted the following
finding of the Commission's Legal Commit-
tee:
"Having examined the complaints and the
supporting material sent by the South Viet-
namese mission, the committee has come to
the conclusion that in specific instances
there is evidence to show that armed and
unarmed personnel, arms, munitions, and
other supplies have been sent from the zone
in the north to the zone in the south with
the object of supporting, organizing, and
carrying out hostile activities, including
armed attacks, directed against the Armed
Forces and administration of the zone in the
south. These acts are in violation of articles
10, 19, 24, and 27 of the agreement on the
cessation of hostilities in Vietnam.
"In examining the complaints and the sup-
porting material in particular documentary
material sent by the South Vietnamese mis-
sion, the Committee has come to the further
conclusion that there is evidence to show
that the PAVN (people's army of Vietnam)
has allowed the zone in the north to be used
for inciting, encouraging and supporting the
hostile activities in the zone in the south,
aimed at the overthrow of the administration
in the south. The use of the zone in the
north for such activities is in violation of
articles 19, 24, and 27 of the agreement on
the cessation of hostilities in Vietnam.
The ICC report then stated:
"The Commission accepts the conclusions
reached by the Legal Committee that there
is sufficient evidence to show beyond reason-
able doubt that the PAVN has violated arti-
cles 10, 19, 24, and 27 in specific instances.
The Polish delegation dissents from these
conclusions. On the basis of the fuller re-
port, that is being prepared by the Legal
Committee covering all the allegations and
incidents, the Commission will take action
as appropriate in each individual case."
The full text of the IC'C reports is con-
tained in a publication, "Special Reports to
the Cochairmen of the Geneva Conference on
Indochina" issued by the Bureau of Far
Eastern Affairs of the Department of State
on July 2, 1962.
APPENDIX B
INFILTRATION OF MILITARY PERSONNEL FROM
NORTH VIETNAM INTO SOUTH VIETNAM
(See sec. I, B.)
(Maps showing infiltration routes not
printed in the RECORD.)
APPENDIX C
DETAIL ON MILITARY INFILTRATION WITH CASE
STUDIES
(See sec. I, B, and C.)
The following table shows the scale of in-
filtration of military personnel from North
Vietnam Into the South since 1959. The
confirmed list is based on information on
765-428--96923
infiltration groups from at least two inde-
pendent sources.
Year
Confirmed
Estimated
additional
Total
1059-60 -----------
1,800
,
2,700
4,500
1961______________
3
750
1,650
5,400
1962--------------
5,400
7,000
12,400
1063 --------------
4,200
3,200
7,400
1964--------------
4,400
3,000
7,400
Total --------
19, 550
17, 550
37,100
Brief case histories of typical Vietcong who
were sent into South Vietnam by the author-
ities in Hanoi follow:
Name: Le Van Thanh.
Alias: Hun Tam.
Date and place of birth: July 12, 1936, Hoa
Hao hamlet, Cat Tai village, Phu Cat dis-
trict (Binh Dinh).
Rank and position in North Vietnam:
Lieutenant, formerly platoon leader of signal
platoon of 3d Battalion, 90th Regiment,
324th Division.
VC position in South Vietnam: Platoon
leader of signal platoon of 95th Battalion, 2d
Regiment, 5th Inter-Region.
Date entered South Vietnam: Departed
November 27, 1961, arrived Do Xa station
early February 1962.
Date, place, and circumstance of defection:
Rallied to government at Nhon Loc post,
Nghia Hanh district (Quang Ngai), May 24,
1962.
Name: La Thanh.
Allias: Nguyen Ba Tong-La Giau.
Date and place of birth: 1928, Can Tho
city (Phong Dinh).
Rank and position in North Vietnam:
Senior sergeant, formerly squad leader in
charge of construction of barracks for 338th
Division.
VC position in South Vietnam: Squad
leader, 8th Squad, 3d Platoon, 3d Company,
218B Battalion (War Zone D).
Date entered South Vietnam: Accompa-
nied Infiltration Group 15; departed April 4,
1962, arrived War Zone D early August 1962,
Date, place, and circumstance of defection:
Rallied at Cau Song Be (bridge) post Sep-
tember 8, 1962, with 1 MAS 36.
Name: Le Van Quyen.
Alias: Ho Hai, Hong Thanh.
Date and place of birth: 1929, Tan Binh
Than village, Cho Gao district (My Tho).
Rank and position in North Vietnam:
Lieutenant, formerly assigned to 388th Bri-
gade as instructor on heavy weapons such as
57 mm. recoilless rifle and machinegun.
VC position in South Vietnam: Platoon
leader, 2d Platoon, 2d Company, Infiltration
Group 15.
Date entered South Vietnam: Accompa-
nied Infiltration Group 15; departed April 3,
1962, arrived Suoi Da (War Zone D) Septem-
ber 10, 1962.
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Date, place, and circumstance of defection:
Rallied at Hieu Liem district (Phuoc Thanh)
October 7, 1962.
Name: Nguyen Van Do.
Party name: Thanh Minh.
Infiltration alias: Nguyen Thuan.
Date and place of birth: 1923, Thuan Giao
village, Lai Thieu district (Binh Duong).
Rank and position in North Vietnam:
Senior captain (battalion commander) 1st
Battalion, 338th Brigade.
VC position in South Vietnam: Subject
was to be appointed commander of Phuoc
Tuy Province Main Force Battalion.
Date entered South Vietnam: Commander
of Infiltration Group H, 26; departed Xuan
Mai, Ha Dong (North Vietnam) July 4, 1963;
arrived Ban Me Thuot October 23, 1963.
Date, place, and circumstance of defec-
tion: Rallied at Ban Don post, Ban Me Thout,
October 23, 1963, while guiding Group H. 26
to Hai Yen Zone.
Name: Nguyen Thanh Phi.
Party name: Hung Phuong.
Infiltration alias: Nguyen Tu.
Date and place of birth: November 16,
1926, Thanh Van village, Thanh Chuong
district (Nghe An).
Rank, and position in North Vietnam:
Doctor, chief of internal disease section, Tiep
Viet Hospital.
VC position in South Vietnam: Doctor,
health team leader, 5th Region base con-
struction group (Do Xa).
Date entered South Vietnam: March 1962.
Date, place, and circumstance of capture:
Captured by South Vietnamese armed forces
May 4, 1963, with one 12-millimeter Colt
pistol and five rounds.
Name: Le Van Net.
Party name: Le Hung Tien.
Infiltration alias: Le Na.
Date and place of birth: 1924, Tan Hiep
village, Go Cong, Dinh Tuong.
Rank and position in North Vietnam:
Discharged lieutenant, served in Co Dinh
chromite mine (Thanh Hoa) with grade of
senior sergeant.
VC position in South Vietnam: Senior ser-
geant, 6th Squad, 2d Platoon, Infiltration
Group H. 26.
Date entered South Vietnam: Late June
1963 with Infiltration Group H. 26.
Date, place, and circumstance of capture:
Captured November 16, 1963, by inhabitants
in strategic hamlet in.Ban Me Thout (Dar-
lac) with one Communist Chinese rifle and 70
rounds.
Name: Van Cong Khanh.
Narty name : Pham Tien.
Date and place of birth: 1924, An Hot vil-
lage, Chan Thanh district (Kien Hoa).
Rank and position in North Vietnam:
Discharged and reassigned to Co Dinh chrom-
ite mine (Thanh Hoa) as senior sergeant.
765-428-96923
VC position in South Vietnam: Aspirant,
leader of 7th Squad, 3d Platoon, 608th Engi-
neer Company subordinate to Headquarters
Region 7.
Date entered South Vietnam: Accompan-
ied Group 49, infiltrated into South Vietnam,
March 18, 1962.
Date, place, and circumstance of capture:
captured November 23, 1962, in Bung Dia
hamlet.
Name: Nguyen Thanh Hoa.
Party name: Quoc.
Infiltration alias: Nguyen Quoc Trung.
Date and place of birth: 1917, Phong Coe
village, Ha Nam canton (Quang Yen).
Rank and position in North Vietnam: Cap-
tain, discharged and reassigned to Chi Ne
agricultural camp May 1957.
VC position in South Vietnam: Com-
mander, 4th Main Force Battalion.
Date entered South Vietnam: Accom-
panied Infiltration Group 52; departed Xuan
Mai, April 13, 1961, arrived about August
1961.
Date, place, and circumstance of capture:
Captured by South Vietnamese Armed
Forces with 1 PA 38 (pistol) in Quon Long
(Dinh Tuong) August 1962.
Name: Tran van Khoa.
Alias: Tran Hong Hai.
Date and place of birth: 1935, Giong Gach
hamlet, An Hiep village, Ea TA district,
Ben Tre Province (Kien Hoa).
Rank and position in North Vietnam:
Sergeant, formerly driver of Transportation
Group 3 of (Hanoi) Logistical Bureau.
VC position in South Vietnam: Member of
46th Infiltration Company; cover designa-
tion V. 2 (infiltrated unit).
Date entered South Vietnam: Accompa-
nied the 46th Infiltration Company; de-
parted for South Vietnam, April 17, 1962.
Date, place, and circumstance of capture:
Captured by South Vietnamese Rangers in
ambush (after being wounded) along with
one MAS 36, July 7, 1962, in Phuoc Long
Province.
APPENDIX D
LIST OP COMMUNIST WEAPONS CAPTURED IN
SOUTH VIETNAM
(See sec. II.)
On January 29, 1964, the Government of
Vietnam submitted to the International
Control Commission a list of weapons and
other military equipment which had been
captured from the Vietcong. The weapons
and equipment came from Communist
sources outside South Vietnam and obvious-
ly had been introduced clandestinely into
the country in support of the Vietcong cam-
paign of conquest directed by Hanoi.
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APPENDIX E
PHOTOS OF CAPTURED VIETCONG WEAPONS AND
AMMUNITION FROM EXTERNAL COMMUNIST
SOURCES
(See sec. II.)
The following are photographs of some of
the many weapons and the large stocks of
ammunition supplied to the Vietcong in
South Vietnam from external Communist
sources (not printed in the RECORD).
APPENDIX F
NORTH VIETNAMESES PASSPORTS AND TRAVEL
DOCUMENTS USED BY LIBERATION FRONT
OFFICIALS
(See sec. IV, A, 1.)
Huynh Van Nghia and Nguyen Van Tien
are officials of the "National Liberation
Front of South Vietnam." Though they pro-
fess to be citizens of South Vietnam, their
ties are with and their support comes from
North Vietnam and the Communist regime
in Hanoi. In 1963, when the two men
traveled abroad on front business, they
traveled as North Vietnamese with passports
and other documents issued by the Hanoi
regime.
Photographs Of these documents follow
(not printed in the RECORD).
APPENDIX G
THE PEOPLE'S REVOLUTIONARY PARTY (SOUTH)
AND THE LAO DONG PARTY (NORTH) ARE
ONE COMMUNIST PARTY
(See sec. IV, A.)
In May 1962 a military force of the Gov-
ernment of Vietnam captured a number of
Vietcong documents in Ba Xuyen Province.
One of these documents contained instruc-
tions from the provincial committee of the
Lao Dong Party (Communist Party) in Ba
Xuyen to the party's district committees con-
cerning formation of the new People's Revo-
lutionary Party (PRP).
Pertinent sections of the instruction, dated
December 7, 1961, follow:
"To D2 and K:
"In regard to the foundation of the People's
Revolutionary Party of South Vietnam, the
creation of this party is only a matter of
strategy; it needs to be explained within the
party; and, to deceive the enemy, it is neces-
sary that the new party be given the outward
appearance corresponding to a division of
the party (Lao Dong) into two and the foun-
dation of a new party, so that the enemy
cannot use it in his propaganda.
"Within the party, it is necessary to ex-
plain that the founding of the People's Revo-
lutionary Party has the purpose of isolating
the Americans and the Ngo Dinh Diem re-
gime, and to counter their accusations of an
invasion of the South by the North. It is
means of supporting our sabotage of the
Geneva agreement, of advancing the plan of
invasion of the South, and at the same time
765-428-96923
permitting the Front for Liberation of the
South to recruit new adherents, and to gain
the sympathy of nonalined countries in
southeast Asia.
"The People's Revolutionary Party has only
the appearance of an independent existence;
actually, our party is nothing but the Lao
Dong Party of Vietnam (Vietminh Commu-
nist Party), unified from North to South,
under the direction of the central executive
committee of the party, the chief of which
is President Ho. * *
"During these explanations, take care to
keep this strictly secret, especially in South
Vietnam, so that the enemy does not perceive
our purpose. * * *
"Do not put these explanations in party
bulletins."
Another party circular of the same date
said:
"The reasons for the change in the party's
name must be kept stricly secret. Accord-
ing to instructions of the Central Commit-
tee, one must not tell the people or party
sympathizers that the People's Revolutionary
Party and the Lao Dong Party of Vietnam
are one. One must not say that it is only a
tactic, because it would not be good for the
enemy to know."
A third party circular, dated December 8,
1961, said:
"Study the instructions so that you will
be able to execute them. In passing them to
D2V, D2, and K, be very careful that the
documents do not fall into enemy hands.
After D2N/C has passed to the sections, de-
stroy the written documents immediately."
The originals and translations of the above
documents were submitted to the Interna-
tional Control Commission by the Govern-
ment of Vietnam on May 30, 19621
In 1964 new rules and regulations were
promulgated for the People's Revolutionary
Party. A copy of the new rules was captured
from the Vietcong in Chuong Thien Province
in November 1964. A photograph of the
captured document appears on the next page.
Key portions of the instructions said that
new rules and regulations had been ap-
proved for the PRP, "but the real nature of
those rules and regulations is that they still
are the rules and regulations of the Vietnam
Lao Dong Party (in North Vietnam)."
The instructions added: "* * * we should
realize that our country is one country, that
the Vietnamese People's Revolutionary Party
and the Vietnam Lao Dong Party are one
party. * * * There is nothing different be-
tween the two parties."
I For picture of captured documents and
text, see the white paper "Communist Viet-
minh Aggressive Policy," published by the
Government of the Republic of Vietnam,
Saigon, July 1962.
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62
APPENDIX H
CHARTS OF THE VIETCONG ORGANIZATION,
NORTH AND SOUTH
(See sec. IV.)
Lines of control, political and military,
from the Hanoi regime to the Vietcong in
South Vietnam (charts not printed in the
RECORD).
APPENDIX I
DETAIL ON VIETCONG TERRORISM
(See section V.)
The following table lists the Government
officials and other civilians killed, wounded,
or missing as a result of Vietcong terrorist
activities during 1964. Combat casualties
are not included:
Village, district, and other Government officials
Jan.
Feb.
Mar.
Apr.
May
June
July
Aug.
Sept.
Oct.
Nov.
Dec.
Killed___________________________
Wounded__________________________
47
14
34
16
49
24
30
9
25
8
31
9
45
14
36
15
46
48
21
24
Kidnaped__________________________
93
113
91-
67
74
132
93
103
13
144
10
69
22
52
7
100
Total ------------------------
154
163
164
106
107
172.
152
154
203
127
-95
131
Jan.
Feb.
Mar.
Apr.
May
June
July
Aug.
Sept.
Oct.
Nov.
Dec.
Killed_____________________________
Wounded__________________________
111
146
110
174
138
239
116
218
105
163
110
173
181
194
103
122
132
203
100
90
66
94
88
154
Kidnaped__________________________
694
500
1,531
647
727
483
964
834
778
477
200
498
Total_______________________
951
874
1,908
980
995
766
1,339
1,059
1,113
667
360
740
The following table shows the number of forced propaganda sessions, and armed at-
incidents of Vietcong terrorism, sabotage, tacks during 1964:
Jan.
Feb.
Mar.
Apr.
May
June
July
Aug.
Sept.
Oct.
Nov.
Doe,
Attacks ----------------------------
Terrorism__________________________
223
1,244
217
1,389
203
1, 632
220
1, 738
175
1, 418
140
1, 390
184
2,123
113
1, 775
118
1, 938
83
1
790
60
1
301
96
1
719
Sabotage___________________________
Propaganda------------------------
129
174
201
271
158
167
169
157
217
140
176
162
286
224
315
173
482
178
,
480
197
,
247
109
,
318
128
Some of the consequences of Vietcong ter-
rorism are shown in the accompanying pho-
tographs (not printed in the RECORD).
LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE U.N.
SECURITY COUNCIL
(Signed by A. Stevenson)
(Circular No. 1589, dated February 27.)
For the information of members of the
Security Council, I am transmitting a spe-
cial report entitled "Aggression from the
North, the Record of North Vietnam's Cam-
paign To Conquer South Vietnam," which
my Government is making public today. It
presents evidence from which the following
conclusions are inescapable:
First, the subjugation by forces of the
Republic of Vietnam by the regime in north-
ern Vietnam is the formal, official policy of
that regime; this has been stated and con-
firmed publicly over the past 5 years.
Second, the war in Vietnam is directed
by the Central Committee of the Lao Dong
Party (Communist) which controls the gov-
ernment in northern Vietnam.
765-428-96923
Third, the so-called Peoples Revolutionary
Party in the Republic of Vietnam is an inte-
gral part- of the Lao Dong Party in North
Vietnam. - -
Fourth, the so-called Liberation Front for
South -Vietnam is a subordinate unit of the
Central Office for South Vietnam, an integral
part of the governmental machinery in
Hanoi.
Fifth, the key leadership of the Vietcong-
officers, specialists, technicians, intelligence
agents, political organizers and propagan-
dists-has been trained, equipped and sup-
plied in the north and sent into the Republic
of Vietnam under Hanoi's military orders.
Sixth, most of the weapons, including new
types recently introduced, and most of the
ammunition and other supplies used by the
Vietcong, have been sent from North to
South Vietnam.
Seventh, the scale of infiltration of men
and arms, including regular units of the
Armed Forces of North Vietnam, has in-
creased appreciably in recent months.
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Eighth, this entire pattern of activity by
the regime in Hanoi is in violation of gen-
eral principles of international law and the
Charter of the United Nations, and is in di-
rect violation of the Geneva accord of 1954.
Such a pattern of violation of the treaty ob-
ligations undertaken at Geneva was con-
firmed by a special report of the Interna-
tional Control Commission in 1962 and it
has been greatly intensified since then.
These facts about the situation in Viet-
nam make it unmistakably clear that the
character of that conflict is an aggressive war
of conquest waged against a neighbor-and
makes nonsense of the cynical allegation
that this Is simply an indigenous insurrec-
tion.
I request that you circulate copies of the
report, together with copies of this letter,
765-428-96923
to the delegations of all member states as a
Security Council document.
In making this information available to
the Security Council, my Government wishes
to say once more that peace can be restored
quickly to Vietnam by a prompt and assured
cessation of aggression by Hanoi against the
Republic of Vietnam. In that event, my
Government-as it has said many times be-
fore, would be happy to withdraw its mili-
tary forces from the Republic of Vietnam
and turn promptly to an International effort
to assist the economic and social develop-
ment of southeast Asia.
In the meantime, my Government awaits
the first indication of any intent by the
Government in Hanoi to return to the ways
of peace and peaceful resolution of this In-
ternational conflict.
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