The Shadow That Rules Most of a Nation

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363-04817.pdf

Digital Object Identifier

363-04817

Title

The Shadow That Rules Most of a Nation

Description

Article published in the New York Herald Tribune about the Viá»‡t Cá»™ng's political arm, page 8

Date

1964, Oct. 26

Subject

Máº·t tráºn dÃ¢n tá»™c giáº£i phÃ³ng miá»n nam Viá»‡t Nam; Vietnam (Republic)--Politics and government

Location

Saigon, South Vietnam

Coordinates

10.8231; 106.6311

Container

B4, F6

Format

newspaper clippings

Collection Number

MS 363

Collection Title

Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers

Creator

Keever, Beverly Deepe

Copyright Information

These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.

Publisher

Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries

Language

English

extracted text

8

South: Viet Nam-a year after the overthrow of th9
Ngo Dinh Diem regime-is "a country of two gov
ernments," reports Herald Tribune corresponden
Beverly Deepe from Saigon. In the second article
in her new series, correspondenfDeepe tells how
1he second ("shadow") government-that of the
Communist Vie Cong-operates. Th9 report, Paga 8.

New

Yorlc ]{et.all; at'tilrnne

Viet a Year Later

The Shadow 1'hat Rules Most of a Natio
kangaroo courts against those persons with "incorrect
attitudes." They once beheaded a hamlet chief.
When the guerrillas need weapons and ammunition,
they arrange a "HollyWood battle" with the government
militia-there's lots of noise, the weapons are handed over,
but no one gets killed. When the Communists need more
guerrilla recruits, they hold a "mock kidnapping" of the
hamlet's youth.
In areas where the government is in firmer control,
the Comm11,.'lists still make themselves felt through socalled "people-divider" teams of secret agents. Their
activities range from barring sale of vegetables to American soldiers' houseboys in the Ca Mau Peninsula to encouraging bloody rioting between Buddhists and Roman
Catholics.
Secret Communist cells are known to exist in almost
every high school in Saigon. One Communist-front organization was uncovered in a high school in the old imperial
capital of Hue, 400 miles north of Saigon. Some university
students and professors in Saigon-and even more in Hueare known to have pro-Communist sympathies. But seldom
report them.
Communist cells are known to exist in the Saigon
labor unions; newspaper offices-and individual agents
reportedly work within the government itself. Communist
agents are considered to play a part in the actions and
policies of the Buddhist movement.

YEAR that has nearly passed since
IN-theTHEoverthrow
of the regime of President

Ngo Dinh Diem,, the South Vietnamese government has wavered on a precipice of instability. But a second government, known
more to world Communists than to the free
world, functions in much of the nati01t. This
second of a seven-part series assesses the Red
Viet Cong guerrillas' political program.
By Beverly Deepe
0/ Tht Herald: Tribune Stal/

SAIGON.
South Viet Nam, the battlefield o! opposing Communist
and anti-Communist armies, is also a country of two governments-the American-supported Saigon regime and the
Communist-dominated "shadow" government of the National Front for the Liberation of South Viet Nam.
Throughout much of the country, it is the Red-run
"shadow" government that functions in reality while the
Saigon regime provides the chiaroscuro.
The Viet Cong guerrilla fighters in the field are only
the military arm of the revolutionary movement in which
politics and military affairs are inseparably welded together.
A lawyers in his 50s named Nguyen Huu Tho is the
Communist chief. The 40-plus provinces of South Viet
Nam have in reality two province chiefs, one representing
the Saigon government; one representing the National Front
(NF'LSV). In the 250-odd districts of South Viet Nam,
there's a district chief representing the government and a
district commissar representing the Front.
This "shadow" government operates its own schools,
has its own strategic hamlets (called combat hamlets complete with anti-helicopter defense), erects bridges, collects
taxes, operates hospitals and first-aid wards, broadcasts
regularly from a clandestine radio station and has organized
the Liberation Press Agency,

AIDS ABROAD
Altlhough no government has fully recognized the
NFLSV, the organization maintains representatives . in
Havana, Prague and Algiers. and a press agency in East
Berlin. Several months ago it established a permanent
delegation in Jakarta, and more recently another in Peking.
It also maintains a. "people's representative" on the AfroAsian Solidarity Council in Cairo. It seems to be concentrating on non-Asian countries, mainly in Africa.
Officials in Saigon recently reassessed the political
capabilities of the Front. For the first time they expressed
fear that the Front may attei!lpt to send regular diplomatic
emo;ys tcrCommunist-countrie$;" establishing full diplomat!
relations. Such a move would be the most significant development for the Communists internally within the last three
years. It would pave the way for a diplomatic offensive as
a prelude to a political peace settlement favorable to them.
The hard core of the NFLSV is he People's Revolutionary party-the Communist party in South Viet Namwhich is directly related to the Lao DO!\g (Communist)
party in North Viet Nam.
The Front is organized into three broad groupings:
Associations (Peasants, Youth, Women and Workers are
most important) ; Political Parties (Democratic party and
Socialist Party, both non-Communist, and the Communists); and the Youth League (comparable to Komsomol
in Communist nations). These organizations are created
by and infiltrated by the Communist PRP, presumably to
give the appearance of spontaneous people's uprising instead
of organized political subversion, to recruit and train nonCommunists for party membership and to g,a in the cooperation of non-Communist but anti-government intellectuals,
workers and students. The Communists dominate the Front
in terms of leadership, though not necessarily in numbers.

PARTY RULES
The Front itself and the Communist party operate 1n
tightly knit paralleling organizations at five levels: The
Central Committee; the inter-zones (about eight); the
provinces (more than 30), districts (more than 250); the
villages (about 2,500). Below the village level are hamlets,
which are not considered committees or administrative
units.
The Central Committee of the Front is generally presumed to have its headquarters in the jungled province of
Tay Ninh on the Cambodian border 60 miles northwest of
Saigon.
The Communist party organization parallels, as well as
dominates, the Liberation Front. But below the village
committees are hamlet cells, which vary in number from
three to five members.
·
The cells report to the village committees, the village
to districts and on up the command ladder. Low-echelon
advice on local conditions goes Up while orders and policy
decisions are down.
In this way, the Communist party's policies appear to
be based on much closer rice-roots contacts than are the
decisions of the Saigon government.
As for the Viet Cong guerrillas, they studiously follow
Mao Tse-tung's systematization of guerrilla.·war-including
the Red Chinese leader's emphasis on combining war with
politics and thus winning the support, or acquiescence, o!
the civilian population. This emphasis is reflected in the
division of Communist party administration into 10 sections
-one of them military, the rest dealing with politics and
subversion.
It is also reflected in the fact that throughout the
Communist organization political commissars outrank
soldiers of equivalent military rank. A sergeant who is also
a high-ranking commissar can give orders to high regimental commander.
The hard core of the Communist army and political
apparatus consists of more than 13,000 South Vietnamese
who remained in the North when the country was divided
in 1954, were trained in warfare and subversion and infiltrated into the South starting in 1961.

SEEMS HOME GROWN
But the hard core, through persuasion a~d coercion,
has gained enough recruits so that the South Vietnamese
revolt sometimes appears homegrown. Take, for example,
the "strategic hamlet"
ana, in the relatively secure
province of Ninh ·"I'
130 miles northeast of Saigon.
In gove~nment ~t~ng~'. it is one of the most secure of

FORMER MEMBERS

the fortified hamlets. But in fact, refugees' stories show,
it is completely dominated by the Reds in a. tactic known
here as "termite war."
The Communist guerrillas come into the village to
play soccer games against the government's hamlet
militia, some of whom are their blood relatives. The Communist political agents 1n t e village gitate and oraanjz_e

Some of the strongest leaders of the Buddhist movement were formerly members of the Communist partythey admit this-but the question is whether they have
been converted to anti-Communism, as they profess..
Roman Catholic laymen and priests say that Communists
have even infiltrated the tightly-knit organization of the
Catholic Church.
The biggest question is how many agents have already
infiltrated the regular army. police and secret police; proCommunist agents and sympathizers have been picked up
in the regional forces.
With these kind of tactics, the Communists have little
difficulty getting participants for mass demonstrationswhich they represent as popular uprisings against the
government.
Another article will a:o1l.ear tomorrow'---_______.

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