Page:Pentagon-Papers-Part IV. A. 5.djvu/205

Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3 NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011  ""Land reform is a policy applied throughout the country) but it must be carried out step by step; first in locali ties Where sufficient conditions have been obtained and then in other localities ....

"The Government will deal with the regions inhabited by the national minorities, the Fifth Zone, South Viet- Nam, and the guerrilla bases later on . In guerrilla --and enemy--occupied areas, land reform will be carried out after their liberation ." 66/"

Nonetheless, though South Vietnam had been relegated to a low operational priority, its eventual unification with the DRV became an article of faith which the Lao Dong leaders repeatedly and solemnly affirmed; for example, Ho Chi Minh : ""'Our compatriots in the Southern area are citizens of Vietnam. Rivers can dry up and mountains wear away, but this truth stands.' [Letter to Southerners, May 3, 1946.] 'Each day the Fatherland remains disunited, each day you [of the South] suffer, food is without taste, sleep brings no rest. I solemnly promise you, through your determination, the determination of all our people, the Southern land will return to the bosom of the Fatherland.' [October 23, 1946.] 'National reunification is our road to life. Great unity-is the power that will surely triumph. Thanks to this great unity, the Revolution was successful and the Resistance victorious. Now, with great unity, our political struggle will certainly be victorious, our country will certainly be reunified.' [July 5, 1956.] 'South Vietnam is our flesh and blood .... Vietnam is one country. South and North are of the same family, and no react ionary force can partition it. Vietnam must be reunited.' [September 2, 1957.] 'Every hour, every minute, the people of the North think of their compatriots in the South. The South Vietnamese people relentlessly have fought for nearly twenty years, first the French colonialists, then the American-Diemists. They are indeed the heroic sons and daughters of the heroic Vietnamese nation. South Vietnam truly deserves the same: Brass Citadel of the Fatherland.’ [May 9, 1963.]"

After the Geneva Conference of 1954, the most Ho and the DRV leaders might have expected was that France and the U.S. would permit a plebescite to occur, or withdrawal under some one of the formulae mentioned above, with reunification to follow. However, for reasons which shall be set forth below, the actual course of events forced them to adopt what they probably regarded as a minimally acceptable policy, as follows : 63 / "Consolidate power in North Vietnam, and expect the South to collapse from internal dissension." Rh