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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-04833.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-04833
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Title
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Cong Propagandizes Rice Paddies
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Description
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Article published in the New York Herald Tribune about rice paddy politics, page 5
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AI Usage Disclosure
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Draft transcripts were automatically generated via Google Document AI and are currently under review. Please report significant errors to Archives & Special Collections at archives@unl.edu.
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Transcript
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- Page 1
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Cong Propagandizes Rice Paddies
By Beverly Deepe
A Special Correspondent
SADEC,
South Viet Nam.
Rice-paddy politics is in-
extricable from the Com-
munist military effort here.
The persuasion is part terror,
of course, but an often ignored
element appeals-and appeals
well to pride.
Villagers near this South
Vietnamese army divisional
headquarters town, 73 miles
southwest of Saigon in the
Mekong Delta, are told, for
example, that they can stand
tall among the downtrodden
of the earth if only they'll
heed the word from the Viet
Cong's political stump.
"Half of our country, with
only 14 million population, is
heroically standing up against
a nation of 200 million
people," many of them were
told recently.
"We will win this war and
our friends in other parts of
the world will follow our ex-
ample and the American ag-
gressors will be defeated.
"We will be international
heroes," the harangue went
on.
It comes from the little-
known top echelons of the
Communist National Libera-
tion Front. It appears at
monthly meetings of Viet
Cong
political cadre and
propagandists. They then fan
out into the Communist con-
trolled "combat hamlets," in-
to villages in contested areas
and into the paddy fields
themselves.
Villagers exposed to the
spiels repeatedly can quote
them. A recent one:
"The 'people's revolutionary
war' is completely different
from the conventional, Ko-
war, which the
rean-type
Americans are trying to man-
ufacture in South Viet Nam,"
they were told in a village
near here.
"After a number of years,
the Americans then hope to
end it with a conference, and
they will continue to occupy
South Viet Nam as they do
South Korea. Viet Nam will
be divided forever.
"Then the Americans can
resume the war any time they
wish. The Vietnamese people
will never have peace. The
country will never be reunited
and our fatherland will never
prosper," the Communist
agent went on.
"The only way to peace and
prosperity is to fight the
American aggressors to the
end."
As well as instilling ambi-
tion for "international hero-
ism" in the Southerners, the
Viet Cong political agents
promise them they are to be
"masters of the countryside."
They can dominate the roads
and bridges once reserved for
the rich and the powerful;
they can give orders to land-
owners, they are told.
One older villager laughed
openly at the Communist
propaganda and said older
villagers do not believe it, but
that the teen-agers are in-
flated and inspired by it.
"We dare not laugh out
loud when we see these kids
of 15 or 16 carrying Russian
rifles that reach all the way
to their ankles," the elder
said. "They have weapons
and they are the masters of
the countryside. Who dares
challenge them except the
government troops?"
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Date
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1966, Jan. 18
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Subject
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Mặt trận dân tộc giải phóng miền nam Việt Nam; Vietnam (Republic)--Politics and government; Land reform; Public opinion; Psychological warfare
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Location
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Sa Đéc, South Vietnam
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Coordinates
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10.2901; 105.7517
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Container
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B4, F6
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Format
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newspaper clippings
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Collection Number
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MS 363
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Collection Title
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Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers
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Creator
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Copyright Information
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These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.
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Publisher
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Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries
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Language
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English
