As Real as an Invading Army

There apparently are still some people who think that the war in South Viet Nam is a civil war. To end that fiction, and to explain why it is stepping up its attack on North Viet Nam, the U.S. last week issued a 64-page White Paper replete with photographs, maps, charts and case histories to prove that the Communist Viet Cong are inspired, armed and controlled from the North.

Titled "Aggression from the North," the report represents the distillation of some 3,000 pages of Saigon, CIA, Defense and State Department intelligence. It nails down earlier estimates of North Vietnamese infiltration (TIME, Feb. 5), making nonsense of the often-heard contention--previously pushed by the Administration itself--that punishing the North would not change the situation because the guerrillas in the South are self-sustaining. The report describes how Hanoi runs its show, and points up the quickened pace of Hanoi's effort--an aggression "as real as that of an invading army." Key points:

sbTHE MEN. Viet Cong's "hardcore" forces now number about 35,000, with 60,000-80,000 local, part-time guerrillas backing them up. Moreover, since 1959 at least 20,000 and perhaps as many as 37,000 infiltrators have entered South Viet Nam from the North. Thus the report's conclusion: "Infiltrators from the North--allowing for casualties--make up the majority, and probably the overwhelming proportion, of the so-called hard-core Viet Cong."

Previously, infiltrators from the North, sent down via the Ho Chi Minh Trail, were mostly drawn from 90,000 Southerners who had moved North after Viet Nam's partition in 1954 and had been trained by the Communists. These are now either too old for the tough guerrilla life or have been used up in the war to date. Thus most of the new arrivals from Hanoi are young North Vietnamese draftees. Of the 7,400 Viet Cong who entered the South last year, fully 75% were natives of North Viet Nam.

sbTHE ARMS. With the stepped-up pace of the war, the Viet Cong can no longer rely on captured U.S. weapons. "Hanoi has undertaken a program to re-equip its forces in the South with Communist-produced weapons." Among them: a "new family" of Chinese Communist 7.62-mm. carbines, assault rifles and light machine guns, as well as heavier recoilless rifles, mortars, antitank mines, grenade launchers and bazookas. Whole Viet Cong companies have been outfitted with these new arms. The ominous conclusion: Viet Cong reliance on weapons that require ammo and parts from outside "indicates the growing confidence of Hanoi in the effectiveness of their supply lines to the South."

"Incontrovertible evidence" of the arms buildup came on Feb. 16 when U.S. and South Vietnamese planes sighted and sank a camouflaged, 120-ft. Viet Cong supply ship at Vungro Bay. Last week, after a tough fire fight, government forces finally reached the sunken ship. Aboard it and in caches nearby were at least 100 tons of arms, ammo and supplies, including nearly a million rounds of small-arms ammunition, 2,000 Mauser rifles, 1,000 submachine guns and 500 Ibs. of medical supplies from North Viet Nam, Communist China, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Russia and--oddly enough--Japan. The ship itself was built in China, and aboard it were found a Jan. 23 copy of a Haiphong newspaper, North Vietnamese navigational charts as well as snapshots, letters and medical records of North Vietnamese soldiers.

sbTHE COMMAND. Hanoi's command and control apparatus--the elaborate array of political, military and espionage hookups by which it manipulates the Viet Cong effort--is carefully described in the report. The political chain-of-command starts with the "Reunification Department" of the Lao Dong Party's Central Committee in Hanoi. Its directives are transmitted to the "Central Office for South Viet Nam," a roving command last believed to be located in Tayninh province near Saigon. The Central Office controls six regional units plus a special "death squad" in the Saigon-Cholon-Giadinh area.

The military chain begins with General Vo Nguyen Giap, victor of Dienbienphu, author of a celebrated book on guerrilla warfare (People's War, People's Army) and commander of the People's army of North Viet Nam. Giap's orders move through Hanoi's Ministry of Defense to six military regions in South Viet Nam corresponding to the political units. The beefed-up Viet Cong hard core is composed of 50 "Main Force" battalions, overseen by five regimental headquarters (compared to two in 1961). Political and military control are synchronized, giving Ho Chi Minh "assurance of political control over the military"--something his coup-happy opponents to the South must envy.

Ho reportedly pays keen personal attention to the Viet Cong intelligence organization, headquartered in Hanoi under the title of "Central Research Agency" (Cue Nghien-Cuu Trung-Uong). Three special C.R.A. centers handle operations not only in South Viet Nam but in Cambodia and Laos as well. Terrorists and saboteurs receive a special six-month course in Haiphong, learning how to blow up everything from ships to oil storage tanks. One pint-size James Bond named Tran Van Bui was out fitted with an automatic pistol (plus silencer), explosives and a small knife that could inject poison.

The C.R.A. also maintains "a large and expanding" radio network, uses its agents to run coded messages--either written or memorized--to and from Hanoi. Inevitable conclusion: Hanoi has the apparatus at hand to step up the pace of the war at short notice, or to call it off if it wants to.

sbTHE FACE OF THE ENEMY. Much of the U.S. report is based on interrogation of Viet Cong prisoners, and beneath the statistics and organizational framework, the individual face of the enemy comes into human focus. Major Tran Quoc Dan had been fighting since the age of 15 as a Viet Minn regular. But at 33, after joining the Viet Cong, being wounded, and leading 45 separate attacks, he said his farewell to arms and defected. As the report put it: "Most of all, he was tired of killing other Vietnamese."

Not so with Guerrilla-cum-Metallurgist Nguyen Cam, the son of a South Vietnamese farmer. Cam fought against the French, later was transferred to an agricultural camp. Early in 1960 he was back in uniform, this time learning cast-iron production and simple blast furnace design. Then Cam and 35 other metallurgists hit the Ho Chi Minh Trail, set up a secret Viet Cong iron foundry in Kontum province. Cam built kilns and smelted the ore from nearby iron deposits to make grenades and mines. He was captured by Vietnamese Rangers one day while gathering corn.

Even more elaborate were the preparations concerning Senior Captain Tran Van Tan of the central intelligence organization. Tan and three other Viet Cong agents were sent south to set up a clandestine radio station. The move was by sea, and the fledgling spies were outfitted with false identity papers, voting cards and fishermen's permits, then sent aboard an actual fishing boat. They were even trained in fishing skills so their covers would hold up. Aboard the boat they carried six sealed boxes containing guns, a generator, several radios and a bundle of South Vietnamese currency. But no sooner were they at sea than a storm blew up. The fishing boat's captain ordered the six boxes thrown over the side, but even that didn't placate the storm gods. The boat was beached and within a few days all the agents were captured.

The White Paper convincingly demonstrates the tight control exercised by Hanoi over the war in South Viet Nam. It does not trace specific attacks like those at Pleiku and Quinhon directly back to Hanoi, but there is little doubt that Ho Chi Minh and his North Vietnamese aides approved them. As the report summarizes: "The government in Saigon and the Government of the United States both hoped that the danger could be met within South Viet Nam itself. The leaders in Hanoi chose to respond with greater violence. Clearly the restraint of the past was not providing adequately for the defense of South Viet Nam against Hanoi's open aggression."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.