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Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3 NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011  efforts to mobilize the tribal peoples against it, and in opening access to South Vietnam via the Laotian panhandle.

It is not clear whether the DRV found it necessary to pressure or subvert the Cambodian government in order to bring it into line with its general strategy, but align the Cambodians did. As in Laos, the Viet Minh had fronted for Khmer Resistance at the Geneva Conference of 1954, and there is evidence that in the years following it supported subversive organizations in Cambodia. In 1958, a crisis between South Vietnam and Cambodia erupted over boundary disputes and border violations. Cambodia formally laid claim to all of Cochinchina in a declaration to the United Nations, while South Vietnam laid claim to off-shore islands and other nominally Cambodian territory.

Beginning in 1958, Cambodia declared for "neutralism," and thereafter its relations with the DRV were marked with increasing cordiality and cooperativeness. Evidence collected since-1963 indicates that the Viet Cong built bases adjacent to the Cambodian border, used sanctuary areas across it, operated trans-frontier supply routes, and had sources of supply within Cambodia. . Insofar as the minimal evident objectives of DRV policy were concerned -- use of Cambodian territory to further the campaign to reunify Vietnam -- Cambodia proved to be incapable of interfering even when, apparently, it wished to police its territory. 201/

c. Explication of the Strategy, 1960

During 1958 and 1959 work had progressed on a revision of the DRV Constitution. On 1 January 1960, with much fanfare, the new basic law was promulgated. The Preamble recounted the modern history of Vietnam, in part as follows: ""Vietnam is a single entity from Lang-Son to Camau.

"The Vietnamese people, throughout the thousands of years of history, have been an industrious working people who have struggled unremittingly and heroically to build their country and defend the independence of their Fatherland . . . With the Dien Bien Phu victory, the Vietnamese people defeated the French imperialists and the U.S . interventionists ..

"This major success of the Vietnamese people was also a common success of the liberation movement of the oppressed peoples, of the world front of peace, and of the socialist camp.

"Since the restoration of peace in completely liberated North Viet-Nam, our people have carried through the National People's Democratic Revolution. But the South is still under" Rh