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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-04649 to 363-04656.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-04649 to 363-04656
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Title
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Article about Việt Cộng reconnaissance in Saigon
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Description
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Original title: "capture", Keever's title: "Viet Cong Rexamine[?] Spies on Hunter[?] - But Some are Captured." Article draft about the Việt Cộng's attempts to gain reconissance in and around Saigon and the resultant capture of their spies. Written for the Christian Science Monitor
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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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zcze sag
yy nnm
capture 1 (normass/doope)
SAIGON, JULY 5--Senior Viet Cong field commanders have been
reconnitering the heart of downtown Saigon, its suburbs and satellite
cities some of them on flashy red motorcycles--to gain first-hand
intelligence information prior to leading their major units into assaulting
the areas.
A handful of these
HAVE SURRENDERED
senior officers
have either been captured
or voluntarily derected to the Vietnamese government side, including the mos
most important Communist officer caught alive since the beginning of the
Vietnam war eight years ago. Roughtly a dozen more junior officers,
as lieuteants and captains,
the
IN
Allied side!
such
have also been captured or surrendered to A the
Saigon
FREA.
more reuter
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capture 2 (normass/deepe)
Allie D
Intelligence sources report that since many Communist units got lost
enroute to their city-battlefields during the Tet offensive, the Viet Cong
high command has ordered for the deputy regimental commanders and
battalion commanders, and sometimes even company commanders, to reconnoitre
urban areas which are slated to become targets in future Communist attacks.
Sine E
ahe
And, more of these senior officers/roaming around the government-controlled
cing
areas,
more of them have been captured than t
any previous period of the
war.
More Rent 2.
Monc
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capture 4 (normann/deepe)
Some reliable sources believe that during the Communist Tet attacks
in late January and their "gocond offensive" around Saigon in May,
the "middle-echelon" of the Communist military structure around the
tare has been seriously weakened both in troop strength and in command
leadership. The result has been more North Vietnamese replacements,
increasing "Worthornisation" at the command level, and increasing
frictions between the local Southern Vietnam and the incoming personnel.
"The second floor of the Communists' three-story military house
ese
is beginning to czumble," one of these sources explained. "This second
story of local, provincial battalions and rogiments is vital. It is tho
link between the Communist guerrille movement at the base and their
regular North Vretnemede Vietnamese units which do not know the terrain
or the people. If themmin this middle-ocholon continues
to crumble, it could be a key military development affecting the battlefield
situation around the capital city."
more router
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capture 4 (normass/deepe)
Vignettes of the capture of some of the senior officers reveal some
of the James Bond-like facets of fighting a war like Vietnam.
In late May,
The
a goverment int Vietnamese government intelligence
officer became suspicious about a fortune teller, in his forties, wearing
the traditional long robe and turban, in the famous Le Van Duyet size
shrine across the street from the Gia Dinh provincial headquarters.
fortunt fortune teller appeared nervous and kept glancing around the area.
The government officer struck up a conversation and began flipping through
the fortuntell fortuneteller's notebook of Chinese characters.
RA
A map
The
was found, containing diagrams of the provincial headquarters, nearby
prison camp Jard American advisory officers and communications site.
fortune teller was arrested and confessed being a Viet Cong lieutenant
in charge of a reconnaissance unit.
more reuter
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capture 5 (normass/deepe)
colonel.
HE
Then came the capture of Nguyen Chi Sinh, the deputy commander of the
fifth Viet Cong subdivision around Saigon, and the highest ranking Communist
officer captured to alive to date in the war. His rank was a step higher
than listen lieutenant cel colonel, but had not yet been appointed full
He had been reconnoitering the Thu Duc area outside of Saigon
on a R red Japanese-made Honda, carrying a woman on the seat behind him.
By coincidence, Vietnamese government soldiers were conducting a mopping
up operation in the area and began checking identification papers and family
lists of the villagers. Sinh and the woman were detained as suspects, along
with a number of low-ranking local village guerrillas. Sinh's identity papers
were not in order; he said he was just visiting the area in hopes of buying
some water buffaloes. Under intensive interrogation, one village guerrilla
The women was
broke down and identified Sinh as a high-ranking officer.
identified as Nguyen Thi Ba, the no. 2 leader of the Viet Cong's Women
m South V.STNAM
Sinh said he learned to ride his Honda in Bien Hoa city, as
Association
he was doing reconnaissance work there earlier. He said he had once hit
the child of a Vietnamese government's security officer, had paid the officer
five hundred pais piastres ($5) for hospitalization fees of the child--but ha
Sinh operated under a number of aliases;
had escaped detection at that time.
his real name is Le Van Ngot.
more reuter
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capture 6 (normass/deepe)
The fourth important seizure was Major Huynh Thanh Dong, commander
of the third battalion of the Communists' 208th Artillery Regiment, whose
rockets had been peppering Saigon in May and June. He was captured
near the Binh Loi bridge on the outskirts of Saigon, along with his
eight-man reconnaissance escort team. He refused to say how much
reconnaissance work he had accomplished in Saigon proper, but he carried
maps and diagrams of the American Embassy, Vietnamese Presidential
Palace, Vietnamese Navy headquarters on the waterfront, the Gia Dinh
provincial police headquarters, the Newport shipping complex between
Picture
Ncolok
Saigon and Bien Hoa-as well as commercial echer post cards of bridges argu
around Saigon.
more reuter
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capture 7 (normass/deepe)A
A fifth important capture developed from the arrest of a Viet Cong
village guerrilla, who, under t third-degree interrogation, showed
a Vietnamese government intelligence unit, financed by the American
Central Intelligence Agency, the hideout of two important Viet Cong
tours. The hideout: a tunnel near the
taxcollectors
gate of the To Car Chau repeat Ch
Chau textile factory, situated
just off the Bien Hoa highway leading out of Saigon and not far from
a Vietnamese government military academy. The opening of the tunnel was
camouflaged by a pile of firewood. The goverment intelligence agents
noticed another person had been living in the tunnel, because of the
One of the Viet Cong confessed the fourth person
number of rice bowls.
MAJOR
was named/Nam Mai, who had ridden his bare black Japanese-made Suzuki
The next day, the Viet Cong
motorcycle to Saigon for reconnaissance work.
SCANNED
captives, hiding in a te truck, searched the réa highway with binoculars
and we when Mai appeared on his black motorcycle, the government forces
captured him. He admitted he had been familiarizing himself with the
first precinct of Saigon--in the heart of the d downtown area-so he would
be prepared to lead in his assault unit, the Dong Ngai Regiment. He
was deputy commander of the regiment.
--more reuter
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capture 8 (normass/deepe)
As HAVE
Two other Viet Cong deputy regimental compondery commanders surrender D
to the V.ETNAMESE GOVER" Men
after their units suffered heavy casualties in engagements with Allied forces.
-end reuter
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Date
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1968, Jul. 5
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Subject
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Mặt trận dân tộc giải phóng miền nam Việt Nam; Espionage; Spies; Prisoners of war; Vietnam War, 1961-1975; Saigon (Vietnam)--Reconnaissance operations
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Location
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Saigon, South Vietnam
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Coordinates
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10.8231; 106.6311
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Size
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20 x 26 cm
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Container
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B10, F38
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Format
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dispatches
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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
