Page:Pentagon-Papers-Part-V-B-4-Book-I.djvu/321

Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3 NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011

To estimate the extent and nature of Bloc support of the Communist effort against South Vietnam.

1. The Communist subversive and guerrilla apparatus in South Vietnam, known as the Viet Cong, is an integral part of the North Vietnamese Communist Party and it looks to Hanoi for political and military guidance and various forms of support. Hanoi is the implementing agency for Bloc activity in South Vietnam, and the Hanoi authorities are allowed considerable local freedom in conducting Viet Cong guerrilla and subversive activity. The Communist Bloc probably views the guerrilla and subversive campaigns in Laos and South Vietnam as two parts of a single broad political-military strategy, and of the two, considers South Vietnam as the more significant prize.

2. The Viet Cong are using Maoist tactics. A large part of the North Vietnam Army was trained in Communist Chin a during the Indochina war ending in 1954, and some of these troops are leading operations in South Vietnam now. Each Bloc country has supported the "struggle" in the South with propaganda, notably during Pham Van Dong's trip to other Bloc areas in June-August, 1961.

3. Since early 1960 a general Hanoi-directed political and paramilitary Communist offensive against President Diem and his government of Vietnam (GVN) has been underway, and during the past year this campaign has taken on increased tempo and scale. The Viet Cong apparatus has undergone rapid expansion, and the scope and area of operations of its guerrilla units have increased significantly. More recently, the Viet Cong has begun to operate in larger sized units (500-1,000 men) and they have extended large-scale attacks to include, for the first time, the plateau area in the northern part of South Vietnam.

4. Apparently in response to this direction from Hanoi, cadre personnel and many special items, such as communications equipment, chemicals, medical supplies, and other items needed for guerrilla warfare not available in the countryside, are being infiltrated into South Vietnam via long established land and sea routes. Thousands of junks which ply the coastal routes of the Indochina peninsula provide a means of infiltration extremely difficult to control. Mountain trails in southern Laos have been used freely by the Communists for years for movement of men and supplies between North and South Vietnam. Other infiltration routes pass through Cambodia. Nevertheless, the Viet Cong effort is still Rh