SOUTHERN REGROUPEES AND NORTHERNERS IN THE COMMUNIST MILITARY FORCE IN SOUTH VIETNAM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78S02149R000200160005-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 29, 2002
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: November 9, 1966
• Content Type: MEMO

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DIRECTOR OF INTELLIGENCE AND' RESEARCH
RFE -49, November 9, 1966
To . The Secretary
-Through: S/S
From . INR - Thomas L. Hughes
Y
Subject: Southern Regroupees and Northerners in the Communist Military
Force in South Vietnam
In some future negotiating situation, the question of distinctions to
be made between ethnic northern and ethnic southern infiltrators into South
Vietnam may become of sore importance. In this memorandum we have examined
the problem of estimating, at any' given time the numcers of these two types
of infiltrators.
ABSTRACT
Our infiltration figures provide us with a simple, if not entirely reliable,
guide to the total nu7iber of ethnic Southerners and Northerners who have been
infiltrated into South Vietnam. According. to our statistics, infiltrators up
to the end of 1963 totalled more than 31,000. Our evidence suggests that those
infiltrators were almost all ethnic Southerners draw,,rn from the Viet Minh troops.
and supporters regrouped to the North in 1954. Beginning in 1964, however, the
infiltrators became predominantly North Vietnamese, although possibly another
4,000 regroupees entered dining that year. The remainder entering in 1964 and
those entering thereafter, totalling more than 82,000, are believed to have been
essentially ethnic Northerners.
To proceed from these figu es, h:wever, to an effort to estimate the
relative number of re groupee and ethnic northern infiltrators within the total
Communist forces at any given
State Dept. review completed
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