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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-04799.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-04799
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Title
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Little Known Red General Casts Shadow Across Viet
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Description
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Article published in the New York Herald Tribune about General Nguyá»…n Äôn, a Việt Cộng commander, page unknown
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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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Little-Known Red General
Casts Shadow Across Viet
By Beverly Deepe
A Special Correspondent
SAIGON.
The most important general in South Viet Nam is,
perhaps, one whom many have heard of but few have even
seen. He is Maj. Gen. Nguyen Don. He is the highest
ranking Communist commander in South Viet Nam; somé
Saigon officials speculate he will be named commander-
in-chief of the Communist Viet Cong "Liberation Army,"
if it ever becomes a regular, conventional army. Gen.
Don, trained in Moscow, commands the Communist Inter-
Zone 5, which covers the northern provinces of South Viet
Nam where for the past month guerrilla forces, reinforced
by North Vietnamese units, have waged an impressive,
but not entirely successful, offensive against government
forces. They have with some consistency employed mobile
warfare tactics-which are a step above usual guerrilla
warfare tactics.
Much of this Communist offensive has come in Gen.
Don's home province of Binh Dinh, which some Saigon
officials suspect the Communists will attempt to capture,
thus cutting the country into two parts, and then estab-
lishing a "mobile capital" for a provisional government
to rival the American-backed Saigon government.
NEW GENERATION
Gen. Don is considered to represent the new genera-
tion of Communist commanders-none of the Communist
generals who fought the Indochina War and defeated
the French are commanders in the South. However,
North Vietnamese generals, such as Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap,
who adapted Mao Tse-tung's principles of guerrilla war-
fare to the Indochina campaign, may play an important
role by remote control from Hanoi.
There is little confirmed information about Gen. Don,
but he is believed to be nearly 40 years old. Born in Binh
Dinh Province, 250 miles north of Saigon, the two-star
general is believed to have remained in South Viet Nam
after the 1954 Geneva accords, which divided North and
South Viet Nam, and which provided that Communist
troops would move to North Viet Nam. Reliable sources
indicate that in 1959, Don, then a captain, moved through
the jungle mountain trails to North Viet Nam. During
the next two years, he received additional military and
political training in North Viet Nam and in Moscow.
In 1961, shortly after the birth of "The National
Liberation Front," Don reportedly left North Viet Nam
with two eleven-man squads and fought his way through
Laos and government-held areas of South Viet Nam back
to Binh Dinh Province.
Although still a captain in rank, he was named
head of a military and political cadre in charge of Inter-
Zone 5, which extends along the populous, rice-growing
plains of the South China Sea southward for 300 miles
from the 17th parallel.
Viet Cong officers who have served with Don, and
have since been captured by the government, reportedly
consider him "more intelligent and competent than the
older generation generals," although this may be an
exaggeration of his ability.
Don's headquarters are, according to government com-
manders, in Do Xa, a jungled mountainous stronghold in
Quang Ngai Province, just north of Don's native Binh
Dinh Province. About once a year government forces
launch a large-scale operation through the intricately
tangled jungles around Do Xa, where they destroy store-
houses of food, medicines and administrative buildings
but are seldom able to capture or kill any of the command
headquarters staff.
FIVE CONDITIONS
The Viet Cong commanders of the five other inter-
zones and two special zones into which the Communists
have divided South Viet Nam are relatively unknown or
unheard of, but reliable sources indicate that they range
in rank from lieutenant colonel to brigadier general.
While the Communist offensive in Don's command
area have escalated into semi-conventional warfare tactics
along a mobile front line, the Communists themselves do
not claim the "Liberation Army" to be a regular, conven-
tional army.
According to a captured Viet Cong document, the
Communists require five conditions for the formation of a
regular, conventional army. These "five conditions for
unification" are:
1. Unification in military command. At this time, the
"Liberation Army" has reached the inter-zone level (a
combination of a number of provinces), but it does not
have a unified nation-wide military command under a
commander-in-chief.
2. Unification in political leadership. At this time, the
political backbone for the Communists in South Viet Nam
is the Communist party-directed "National Liberation Front
for South Viet Nam." But this is still a front, and not a
government.
3. Unification in equipment.
of the "new family" of weapons,
of Soviet weapons, indicates to
the "Liberation Army" is atte
equipment.
4. Unification in organizatio
conditions.
5. Unification in tining.
e capture of a number
se Communist copies
ilitary sources that
to standardize its
adaption to local
The Communist calendar in South Viet Nam revolves
around two important holidays-Dec. 20, which is the
founding of "The National Liberation Front," and May 19,
which is the birthday of North Vietnamese President
Ho Chi Minh. Observers in Saigon are carefully watching
these two dates this year to see whether the Communists
within the South create either an official provisional
government or a regular, conventional army.
Some Saigon observers, however, believe the "Liberation
Army" will not attempt to create a conventional army-
as they did in the final phases of the French Indochina
War-first, because militarily they are successful at their
present stage of development, and second, because large
concentrations of troops-of a division in strength-would
be vulnerable to the superior firepower and airpower of
the American-backed government forces.
Reliable sources indicate that since the Communists
have neither a commander-in-chief of a regular army nor
a provisional government, they are unable to issue an
official medal for meritorious services performed by their
troops. This has reportedly caused some grumbling and
dissatisfaction among the Viet Cong forces.
Since its official inception in 1960, the "Liberation
Army" has had a complex, but very effective, four-tiered
military structure. The bottom tier, like the lower level
of a large wedding cake, comprises the popular forces-
part-time farmers and part-time fighters. They may be
responsible for the production of food; there are no precise
estimates of their strength, as it varies from minute to
minute throughout the countryside.
Above this laye ris the guerrilla forces, which operate
in platoon strength in the villages. The third level is the
regional forces, which operate in at least one-company
strength in each district throughout the countryside. These
two levels are estimated to number more than 100,000 full-
time troops.
The fourth level is the mainforce units, which operate
in at least one-company strength in each district and at
least one-battalion strength per provice, plus regimental
strength at the six inter-zone levels. American military
officials estimate there are about 35,000 regular troops
organized into units in this category. So far, they have
not organized in division strength. Paralleling this military
organization at every level is the political organization of
the unarmed cadres and commissars of "The National
Liberation Front"-which revolves around the People's
Revolutionary party (Communist). Saigon observers believe
that even if "all the guerrilla units leave the country, the
Communists through political subversion can still take over
the country without firing a shot."
THE FIFTH LAYER
Since the beginning of 1964, a new and entirely differ-
ent fifth layer has been added to the "Liberation Army"
military structure. This has been the introduction of
North Vietnamese-born personnel, many of them operating
in organized units. American military officials have con-
firmed that at least 90 per cent of the 4,000 "confirmed"
persons who infiltrated from North Viet Nam during the
first months of 1964 were born and raised in North Viet
Nam, This is in marked contrast to previous infiltration,
which had largely been of persons born and raised in South
Viet Nam, but who moved to North Viet Nam during the
1954 division of the country, and then again infiltrated
back
to their native provinces during that con-
flict.
Officially, both the Saigon government and American
officials call these new North Vietnamese infiltrators as
"Viet Cong," a term which means Vietnamese Communist,
but which had largely been used to define the Southern-
born
Communist who moved to North Viet Nam and then
infiltrated back to his native province. American military
officials
call them "infiltration groups" from North Viet
Nam,
but are hesitant to label them units of the People's
Army
of North Viet Nam, commonly called PAVN.
This quibbling over semantics is largely overlooked,
however, by American advisers working in the Communist-
infested
areas where these units have infiltrated.
It is the introduction of these new PAVN units into
the Northern provinces of South Viet Nam which has
internally escalated the war. These units, operating in
battalion
and regimental strength, have been able to
employ
mobile warfare tactics. Last month, these PAVN
units
held a mobile front-line position of six miles in
length for four days-but this was still not a fixed front-
line
position which characterizes conventional warfare.
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Date
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1965, Mar. 21
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Subject
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Mặt trận dân tộc giải phóng miền nam Việt Nam; Nguyá»…n, Äôn (1918 – 2016); Vietnam War, 1961-1975
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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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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
