THE SITUATION IN VIETNAM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00472A001900020011-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 7, 2012
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: March 11, 1965
• Content Type: MEMO

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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Office of Current Intelligence
11.March 1965
INTELLIGENCE MEMORANDUM
Internal Developments in South Vietnam
2. II Corps has come under increasingly heavy
Viet Cong pressure in recent weeks.
3. Premier Quat, meanwhile, is moving ahead
with his efforts to get the central government
moving again. He has scheduled a meeting in Saigon
for 15-17 March to be attended by Vietnam's 50 prov-
ince chiefs and 150 other provincial representatives.
Quat hopes by this move to demonstrate that his gov-
ernment is trying to establish its influence over
all of the people and to understand their problems.
He also thinks that this conference might lead to
greater acceptance of his government by the military.
Viet Cong.Military Activity
4. Viet Cong military activity continues at
a relatively high level, especially in the northern
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provinces, but no major engagements have been re-
ported in the past 24 hours.
Communist Political Developments
5. There has been no significant Soviet prop-
aganda commentary on the Vietnam situation which
goes beyond the standard themes and denunciations
of US policy.
6. Peiping, in a 9 March broadcast, sharply
criticized recent Indian proposals for negotiation
of the Vietnam crisis, claiming that they were put
forward to help the US out of its predicament in
Vietnam. Peiping was particularly critical of an.
Indian government statement calling for-suspension
of "provocative" action by .all of the parties in-
volved. The broadcast included selected quotes
from Indian press sources which stated that "spas-
modic" US attacks on North Vietnam would be far
from decisive and that the US militarily was at a
serious disadvantage.
7. Hanoi propaganda on the situation in Viet-
nam continues along routine lines. Apparently to
keep their record of protests against US acts in-
tact, the North Vietnamese issued a new government
statement on 10 March castigating the "direct com-
mitment" of US forces to the war. The statement
cited the landing of US marines at Danang and the
use of US jets against the Viet Cong as examples.
The statement did not, however, go beyond previous
Hanoi pronouncements in promising Communist counter-
action.
8. Hanoi also broadcast a Liberation Front
Central Committee statement on 10 March which
reiterated the Front position that the situation
in South Vietnam can only be "stabilized" when the
US has been "driven out of Vietnamese territory,"
a national coalition government formed, and the
"stooge" administration in Saigon abolished. The
Front statement called on the "people and Libera-
tion Army" to "continue to deal deadly blows at
the US aggressors."
9. The first public comments by a high DRV of-
ficial since the US air strikes on the possibility
of negotiating a settlement of the Vietnamese war
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were issued in Hanoi on 10 March. The comments
were made by the DRV defense minister Vo Nguyen
Giap in an interview with a.Japanese television
delegation. According to Giap, the "only way out"
for the US at present lies in the withdrawal of US
forces from South Vietnam and the cessation of at-
tacks on the DRV. The Vietnamese people must then
be allowed to "settle their own affairs" in accord-
ance with the program of the National Liberation
Front.
.Communist Military Developments
10. No unusual movements of North Vietnamese,
Chinese, or Soviet forces have been detected within
the past 24 hours.
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