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Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3 NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011  could harass the SEATO land forces and infiltrate the SEATO blockade. The Communists would expect worthwhile political and psychological rewards if their harassment and guerrilla operations against SEATO forces were successful, including lowered GVN morale and increased tensions among some of the SEATO members. While seeking to test the SEATO forces, the DRV would not relax its Viet Cong campaign against the GVN.

4. It is expected that the SEATO action would cause the DRV to try to gain "compensation" in some manner, such as possibly declaring the 1954 Geneva Agreements, or certain articles of the Agreements, abrogated. It might also begin to receive increasing military assistance from the Soviet Union and Communist China openly and in unconcealed violation of the Agreements, and to buildup an air force which would include jets. The Bloc would attempt to encourage and instigate Laos and Cambodia to protest to the UN if any SEATO forces crossed the South Vietnam border.

5. If no agreement on Laos had been reached at Geneva prior to the assumed SEATO action, we believe that the Communists would take steps to hasten their takeover of Laos. They would intensify their efforts to achieve political control, and they would step up military pressures against the Rh