Page:Pentagon-Papers-Part IV. A. 5.djvu/265

Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3 NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011  139. ., 9–10.

140., RM 4703-ISA/ARPA, 25–37. A senior captain in the Viet Cong intelligence service wrote a record of his experiences in a document entitled : according to this document, his political officer lectured the unit as follows: /

"(1) Have confidence in the leadership of the General [Central?] Committee. In two years, the country will be re-unlfied, because that was the decision of an international body, which gives us reason to trust it. This does not mean that we should be too trustful, but we must continue to struggle.

"(2) The Party will never abandon the people of the South who will stay to fight; when the time comes, they will be led.

"(3) Those who go north should feel happy in their duties. Those who remain behind should carry out the glorious missions entrusted to them by the Party, standing side by side with the people in every situation of struggle."

The political officers also stressed the dangers to which the stay-behinds would be subjected. A cadre whose party history extended back to 1930 stated that: /

"Those who did regroup did it voluntarily, after realizing that it was the thing to do. They did it to protect themselves from being arrested by the authorities in the South. They were afraid of being charged with having participated in the Resistance before. All cadres were afraid of future persecution by the South Vietnamese authorities; they all wanted to regroup … They were afraid …"

Still, the records that one cadre bet his comrades "three to ten, the country won't be reunified in two years," and that many cadres were worried about leaving family and friends behind. / In the RAND Study, the regroupees were asked, "Were you a volunteer for regroupment?" The following responses were typical: /

(A Defector) At the time it was said that we were volunteers. In reality, they took measures to make sure that everyone left. At the time of regroupment, we had to go. If I had remained, I would have been arrested. I believed that I would remain in the North two years. Rh