1

Red Star Over Indochina

By Nevin Gussack

The communist attempt to conquer all of Indochina from the 1940s until the 1970s could

be characterized by three factors:

1) Conscription of Western and American leftists to demoralize the home front and

disseminate propaganda on behalf of the communist enemy.

2) Constant military buildup of the North Vietnamese armed forces, even in violation of

the Geneva Accords.

3) The subversion of South Vietnamese and other noncommunist Indochinese nations.

4) North Vietnam (later Vietnam) working part and parcel with the USSR in promoting

international revolution.

5) Absorption of American technology and military equipment as a consequence of the

Nixon-Kissinger betrayal and leftwing subversion.

The North Vietnamese/Viet Minh laid out a psychological warfare strategy during their

struggle against the French and their Vietnamese supporters. Such a propaganda and

psychological warfare campaign conducted by the Vietnamese Communists (called the Viet

Minh during the period of the war against the French and their Indochinese allies) helped

accelerate the defeat of the French forces and their Vietnamese allies. In 1946, top Vietnamese

Communist Truong Chinh noted “Concerning our foreign policy what must our people do? We

must isolate the enemy, win more friends. We must act in such a way that the French

people…will actively support us…that all peace loving forces in the world will defend us and

favor the aims of our resistance…The French people and soldiers should oppose the war by

every means: oppose the sending of troops to Indochina, oppose military expenditure for the

reconquest of Vietnam…They should demand from the French government peaceful negotiations

with the Ho Chi Minh government. The French soldiers in Vietnam should demand repatriation,

protest against the setting up of a puppet government.”1 North Vietnamese General Giap noted

that “Our foreign policy was directed to winning the support of the people throughout the world,

and particularly to influence the French public opinion against the war.” North Vietnamese

General Nguyen Van Hinh said “In fighting while negotiating, the side which fights more

strongly will compel the adversary to accept its conditions.”2 The French Communist Party

(PCF) maintained links with the Viet Minh throughout the period of the First Indochinese War of

1946 to 1954. The Party and its sympathizers sabotaged the war effort in France. Forty percent of

weapons and supplies for French forces in Indochina were sabotaged before they reached their

destination. The North Vietnamese and the PCF also cooperated in carrying out propaganda

work among South Vietnamese students studying in Paris.3

Over 25% of the French Parliament

during the First Indochina War (1946-1954) was composed of Communists and this provided a

liaison with the Viet Minh to provide valuable intelligence. The Viet Minh exploited the

divisions within the French communities in Hanoi and Paris. French Communist mobs stoned

1

Turner, Robert F. Vietnamese Communism, Its Origins and Development (Hoover Institution

Press, Stanford University, 1975) page 80. 2Miranda, Joseph. “Political Warfare The Decisive Strategy” The Journal of Social, Political, and

Economic Studies, Winter 1983 pages 427-448 3 Greig, Ian. The Assault on the West (Foreign Affairs Publishing Company 1968) pages 140-

169.

2

trains unloading wounded soldiers in their home towns and abused departing troops at the train

stations.4

The defecting Hungarian communist diplomat Janos Radvanyi noted that “Not

surprisingly, the French Communist party mobilized itself behind Ho Chi Minh's war effort.

Together with the Confederation General du Travail, it organized protest demonstrations,

strikes, and walk-outs, and party intelligence workers began sabotaging military hardware

moving through French ports to Indochina.”5

During the formative years of the Indochinese Communist Party (later the Workers’ Party

of Vietnam), Ho Chi Minh and his comrades laid out their plans for the subjugation of Southeast

Asia. Contrary to the propaganda of the American Left, the Vietnamese Communists maintained

that their long-term goal was an Indochinese Communist Federation under Hanoi’s domination.

The communist war in Indochina did not stop with the conquest of South Vietnam. In 1932, Ho

Chi Minh and the Indochinese Communist Party drew up the “Action Programme” which called

for “a fraternal union of all nationalities of Indochina.” In 1951, the Workers’ Party of Vietnam

called for “the federation of the states of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.”6

After the defeat of the French and their allies in 1954, some of North Vietnam’s allies felt

that political and diplomatic warfare could be used to split the Western bloc apart on the issue of

reunification of the two Vietnams through elections. Chinese Foreign Minister Chou En-lai noted

to Ho Chi Minh that “It is possible to gain all Vietnam through peace… It is possible to unite

Vietnam through elections when (the) time is ripe. This requires good relations with south-east

Asian countries as well as among the Indochinese countries…The answer is to unite them

through peaceful efforts. Military means can only drive them to the American side…Peace can

increase the rift between France and the USA…Peace can drive Great Britain and the USA

apart…All in all, peace has all the advantages. It can isolate the USA…If the Americans should

block peace, we cannot but fight on…We will be morally in the right. Everyone will sympathize

with us. Peace will come eventually after a period of fighting. By that time, the USA will be more

isolated.”7

North Vietnam also pursued the strategy of possible military conquest of South Vietnam

through its regular forces and irregular guerrillas and terrorists. Hanoi quickly increased its troop

numbers for its regular army and started to acquire both light and heavy weapons from the USSR

and China. Hanoi soon violated the Geneva Accords on the number of troops and types of

equipment held by its armed forces. Governor Tran Van Lam of South Vietnam charged that

North Vietnam kept sleepers in the non-communist zones. These sleepers were composed of

demobilized soldiers and civilians who were drafted into a “popular army.”8 In 1955, the US and

South Vietnam charged that North Vietnam increased their army by four to six divisions,

equipped with Soviet bloc-made weapons that were shipped to Hanoi via China.9 In June 1956,

it was reported that the North Vietnamese army had a little less than 20 divisions, who were

advised by 5,000 Red Chinese personnel. The North Vietnamese army received T-34 tanks,

4

Joes, Anthony. Victorious Insurgencies (University Press of Kentucky 2010). 5

Radvanyi, Janos. Delusion and Reality (Gateway Editions, University of Michigan 1978) page

4. 6The World and I Volume 2 Issue 4 1987 page 140.

7 Gaddis, John Lewis. We Now Know (Clarendon Press, University of Michigan1997) pages

158-161. 8 “Reds Said to Plant Fifth Column” New York Times October 8, 1954 page 8.

9 “Geneva Breach Cited” New York Times July 1, 1955 page 10.

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artillery, and anti-aircraft weapons from the communist countries.10

South Vietnamese President

Diem charged that the North Vietnamese army increased its number of troops from 450,000 to

500,000 in 1957.11

It was reported that in the mid-1950s, an estimated 5,000-10,000 Viet Minh

political workers remained in the South to agitate against South Vietnam and to support a French

and North Vietnamese-endorsed plebiscite that would have benefited Hanoi. Later estimates

revealed that the Viet Minh left 50,000-60,000 political and military cadres in the South in the

mid-1950s.12

In 1954-1955, Viet Minh agents remained in the South undetected and launched

occasional attacks in rural areas and infiltrated into the Diem government and other institutions

in the cities. The North Vietnamese forces that withdrew in the period 1954-1956 looted and

destroyed public buildings, railroads, destroyed or stole files and documents from government

offices and the land registries located in the South Vietnamese provinces near the 17th

Parallel.13

Such pilferage and selective destruction mirrored the actions taken by North Vietnam in its

conquest and occupation of South Vietnam in April 1975. It also mimicked the systematic

looting and exploitation undertaken by the Soviet Red Army in 1944 and 1945 as it invaded

much of Eastern Europe and Germany.

It also appeared that the demoralization and withdrawal of the French from North

Vietnam in 1954 and 1955 inadvertently left the communists with American and French-made

firearms. Paris foolishly allowed the communists to retain these weapons, while other American-

made arms were forwarded by the Red Chinese, who in turn inherited or captured them from

Chiang Kai-shek’s betrayed Nationalist forces. In 1954, the Viet Minh captured at least two

American-made M-24 tanks and they were consequently used for propaganda purposes. In 1956,

the North Vietnamese Army (PAVN) formed an armored company which consisted of M-8

armored cars and M-3 half-tracks. These weapons either were captured from the French or

passed from captured Nationalist stocks held by the Chinese Communists. These American-made

armored vehicles participated in a parade in Hanoi in 1956.14

In 1959, the 202nd Armored

Regiment was formed by the North Vietnamese army and had as its equipment Soviet-made SU-

76 guns, US-made M-8 armored cars, US-made M-24 tanks, and some World War II era

Japanese arms.15

Evidence also existed regarding the North Vietnamese transferring of Western-made

weapons to various leftist and communist revolutionaries in foreign countries. The General

Military Party Committee and the Ministry of Defense’s Ordnance Department in North Vietnam

passed firearms to the leftist Algerian FLN rebels in that French-held colony in 1958. The

declassified document noted that the North Vietnamese “arranged for a large quantity of Tulle

submachine guns (weapons captured by our forces during the resistance war against the French)

to be wrapped and packaged so that they could be provided to the Algerian people to help them

in their resistance war against the French colonialists.” The Tulle submachine guns actually

were the MAT-49s captured by the Viet Minh from the defeated French forces and their

10

“Viet Minh’s 20 Divisions” Times (London) June 12, 1956 page 9. 11

“Ngo Says Reds Have 3-to-1 Troop Margin” New York Times October 30, 1957 page 11. 12

Hennessy, Michael Strategy in Vietnam (Praeger Publishers Westport CT 1997) page 40. 13

Trager, Frank N. Why Vietnam?(Frederick A. Praeger, 1966) page 164. 14

“North Vietnamese Armored Forces” Accessed From:

http://15thengineer.50megs.com/9th_&_vn_history.htm 15

Conboy, Ken and Bowra, Ken. The NVA and Viet Cong (Osprey Publishing 2012) page 48.

4

Vietnamese allies. The weapons were transferred onto a Polish merchant ship and then unloaded

under the guise of commercial goods for the FLN.16

Large stores of captured Western and Japanese-made weapons were also transferred by

the North Vietnamese to their puppet Viet Cong forces in the South during the 1950s and early

1960s. Between 1965 and 1968, these older Western and Japanese-made firearms were passed

down to the VC Local Forces. These weapons included French MAS 36 rifles, MAS 38 SMG,

Berthier rifles, Mle 1892 and Mle 1916 carbines, and Japanese Type-38 and Type-99 rifles and

light machine guns. These were left behind by French and Japanese forces in the 1940s and

1950s. The Soviets, East Germans, and Czechoslovaks also sent ex-Nazi STG-44 assault rifles,

Mauser K-98 rifles, MP-40 submachine guns, and MG-34 light machine guns to North Vietnam.

These firearms were then forwarded to VC forces in the South.17

The North Vietnamese quasi-diplomatic representatives in South Vietnam sought to

exploit their presence for the purpose of subverting and ultimately weakening the quasi-fascistic

dictatorship of President Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam. People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN-

North Vietnamese) officers were present in Cambodia, Laos, and South Vietnam after the 1954

Geneva Conference. Senior North Vietnamese officers were stationed in South Vietnam, along

with their interpreters and political cadres. They were members of the Joint Commission, its sub

commissions and teams, and liaison officers attached to the ICC headquarters. The ICC and its

personnel were formed to monitor elections that were originally intended to reunify the two

Vietnams. After the mid-1950s, the ICC monitored alleged violations of the Geneva Accords by

both the North and South. The North Vietnamese officers stationed in South Vietnam asserted

their control over the local communist movement. North Vietnamese Colonel Ha Van Lau was

the head of the PAVN Liaison Mission to the ICC since 1954.18

In 1955, North Vietnam set up a

liaison mission in South Vietnam (RVN-Republic of Vietnam) and set up radio communications

equipment to pass information from Hanoi to Viet Cong cells in the RVN. Diem requested that

the North Vietnamese mission be withdrawn in 1958 and the radio equipment was removed.19

Amazingly, even US defectors and some captured POWs were brainwashed into

supporting the Vietcong and North Vietnamese on the battlefield and propaganda front. Clearly,

they were not a majority. However it is true that even a small, well organized cadre of

individuals can make a difference in assisting a country in promoting their interests. Once again,

the North Vietnamese/Viet Minh made use of captured POWs There were reports that some

French POWs intensive indoctrination in communist revolutionary doctrine and anti-colonialism

at re-education centers before they were repatriated to French African and North African

colonies. The Viet Minh separated officers, non-commissioned officers, and other enlisted

troops. They separated colonials from Legionnaires, and French regulars from all other troops.

They separated the prisoners by race and emphasized the differences in races between

16

“Ordnance: Chronology of Historical Events Volume 1” June 23, 1958 Accessed From:

http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/110524 17

“Weapons of the Vietnam War” Accessed From:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapons_of_the_Vietnam_War#Small_arms_2 18

Nutt, Anita Lauve. Prisoners of War In Indochina (Rand Corporation Santa Monica CA

January 1969) Accessed From:

http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/Personnel_and_Personnel_Readiness/POW_MIA/34.pdf 19

Bergen, John D. Military Communication: A Test for Technology (Center of Military History

Government Printing Office 1985) page 20.

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Europeans, the blacks, and the Arabs. African and North African colonial troops were subjected

to Marxist-Leninist reeducation. Ex-French colonial soldiers became revolutionaries after return

to their home states and interestingly, Legionnaires and paratroopers became the French fascist

extremists.20

George Boudarel was a Frenchman who served as the Deputy Political Commissar in

Vietnamese prison camps during the First Indochina War. Boudarel was in charge of the Viet

Minh brainwashing program of French prisoners. He served in the COMINTERN underground

in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia. French POWs in Viet Minh prison camps were subjected

to forced labor and separated according to race. Re-education in Marxism-Leninism was

concentrated on the African and Northern African colonial troops of the French Army. It was

reported by the National Alliance of Families that French “colonial soldiers became

revolutionaries after return to their home states; and, oddly, Legionnaires and paratroopers

became the French extreme right-wing militarist.”21

The Viet Minh’s Enemy Proselytizing Department (EPD) also targeted French POWs

from its overseas colonial empire serving in its Foreign Legion and regular armed forces for

recruitment and brainwashing. The Communist Parties in Algeria, Czechoslovakia, East

Germany, France, Greece, Morocco, Poland, Romania, Spain, and Tunisia assisted the North

Vietnamese EPD in these efforts. French Communist Party members and undercover

communists in the French armed forces such as Navy Petty Officer Henri Martin distributed

flyers and leaflets to the French soldiers and officers. Martin was arrested in 1951. The ruling

East German Socialist Unity Party (SED) also sent flyers to German-speaking Foreign Legion

personnel via China and the USSR to Viet Minh zones for distribution to EPD personnel. Three

East German SED members also worked with the EPD in Vietnam in targeting German-speaking

personnel and were involved in brainwashing activities against captured German-speaking

Foreign Legion troops. Their units also posed as French forces before attacking French positions.

Another ethnic Vietnamese who collaborated with the Nazis in Paris and Berlin Hoang Van Nhi

(Willy Hoang) headed the effort to write psychological warfare leaflets against German-speaking

units of the Foreign Legion. He was assigned to the Nam Bo/COSVN Political Staff EPD and

was a political commissar for German speaking Foreign Legion defectors to North Vietnam. The

North Vietnamese EPD also arranged prisoner releases of French soldiers and civilians who were

double agents for Hanoi and were assigned to create a fifth column in the French armed forces.

The Military Proselytizing Department (MPD) maintained agents in South Vietnamese (RVN)

territory. They consisted of agents in South Vietnam who communicated through secret radio

networks, couriers flown on ICC flights to Hanoi, land courier lines across the Demilitarized

Zone (DMZ), and the official North Vietnamese delegation to the International Control

Commission (ICC) in Saigon. The Moroccan, Tunisian, French, and Algerian Communist Parties

induced the defection of 500 African Foreign Legion troops to Viet Minh zones at the behest of

the USSR.22

20

“The French Experience” Accessed From:

http://www.nationalalliance.org/vietnam/ovrvw12.htm 21

“The French Experience” Accessed From:

http://www.nationalalliance.org/vietnam/ovrvw12.htm 22

Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Operations.Intelligence and Security Operations

of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam Ministry of National Defense Enemy Proselytizing

Department December 1979 Accessed From: http://www.virtual.vietnam.ttu.edu/cgi-

6

Defectors and brainwashed US POWs also served the North Vietnamese and Vietcong in

military and propaganda capacities. In 1968, a communist defector told an Air Force Intelligence

official in South Vietnam of an African-American serviceman who defected to the VC. This

defector assisted the VC in marksmanship, tactics, and helping the VC 303rd Battalion plan their

attacks. One captured communist charged that US defectors to the VC were sent into contested

areas to turn villagers against the US by raping and killing civilians. The Defense Intelligence

Agency (DIA) received a total of 150 reports on defectors to the VC were engaged in

propaganda for the communists. In one South Vietnamese VC camp, the Defense Department

reported that 18 foreign POWs were being brainwashed, including Americans, South Koreans,

and Filipinos. The report noted “After peace comes to Vietnam and the nation is unified the

POWs will be allowed to return to their homes where they will become active in the communist

party.”23

A captured US Air Cavalry private with the initial “L” and whose second name began

possibly with the letter “A” was observed on several occasions writing propaganda leaflets for

the Viet Cong. “Progressives” who had been “brainwashed” were selected for counter-

espionage operations. They were used to intercept American communications, monitor American

radio broadcasts, and conduct propaganda. Others still were seen fighting with VC and North

Vietnamese units.24

Despite the “anti-fascist” image of the Viet Minh (and later the North Vietnamese), they

also stooped to the low moral level of using the military and technical skills of Nazis and

Japanese militarists for their battle against the French. Even worse, there were some reports that

formerly ardent admirers of Hitler’s National Socialism retained elite positions in North

Vietnamese society. Tran Dai Nghia, the Vietnamese communist Chairman of State

Commissions and the Vice President of Hanoi University Dr. Le Van Thiem were examples

mentioned by P.J. Honey of many North Vietnamese“senior officials” who “actively supported

Hitler.”25 In 1945, 1,500 to 4,000 Imperial Japanese officers and troops joined the Viet Minh.

These ex-Japanese forces were led by Lt. Col. Mukayama and included Kempetai military police

officers. The Viet Minh built their first artillery units around personnel from the old Japanese

51st Mountain Artillery Regiment. Former Nazi officials and Wehrmacht soldiers also served

with the Viet Minh in their war against the French and their Vietnamese allies.26

In 1951, it was

reported that former German Luftwaffe and SS officers to serve with the communist Viet Minh

forces. A former Luftwaffe officer in West Germany supervised the recruitment of former

Luftwaffe and SS officers and he reported to the Viet Minh representative in East Germany

Wang Chiang-Cha. Czech highway engineers and German mechanics and engineers were also

recruited by the former Luftwaffe officer for service with the Viet Minh. The German and Czech

volunteers were sent to the Viet Minh-occupied zones through the Soviet Union and Sinkiang

Province in China to northern Indochina. The German SS officers were ordered to join the

French Foreign Legion and then to desert immediately to the Viet Minh once they arrived in

bin/starfetch.exe?9L866cKpsKhTejnUbNEYsz80Uzgpn6@93HCAeAV01ZwX@yIEP1aAo6M

LxfIixnAnnQhic0gazZBCpEk550ktN@M.zNL10SFKeRqiSTXcAJQ/11271303001a.pdf 23

Sauter, Mark and Sanders, Jim.The Men We Left Behind (National Pr Books: 1993) page 232. 24

Cawthrone, Nigel. Bamboo Cage (SPI Books: New York NY 1991) page 24. 25

McDonald, Congressman Lawrence P. “Hanoi Prepares a Bloodbath” Congressional Record

April 21, 1975 page 11121. 26

Nofi, Albert A. and Dunnigan, James F. Dirty Little Secrets of the Vietnam War (St. Martin’s

Press: New York) pages 38-39.

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Indochina. One such defector, an SS major, worked with other German Nazis who served as Ho

Chi Minh’s bodyguard force.27

Some Pathet Lao leaders collaborated with the Japanese such as

Phay Dang and Phoumi Vongvichit.28

The Viet Minh also forged opportunistic alliances with the French colonial forces against

rival communists, nationalists, and religious sects. When Trotskyite Communists opposed Ho

Chi Minh’s temporary alliance with the French, Viet Minh official Nguyen Van Tao warned “All

those who have instigated the peasants to seize the landowners’ property will be severely and

pitilessly punished…” In 1946, Ho Chi Minh noted at the 2nd

National Congress of the

Vietnamese Workers Party in reference to the pact with France that “Lenin said that even if a

compromise with bandits was advantageous to the revolution he would do it.” The Viet Minh

and General Leclerc issued a joint communiqué urging the residents of North Vietnam to

welcome the French troops. Ho Chi Minh himself stated “I love France and French soldiers.

You are welcome. You are all heroes.” In 1971, Le Duan wrote a manuscript (approved by the

Politburo) which stated “We would at one time reach a temporary compromise with…the French

in order to drive out the Chiang Kai Shek troops and to wipe out the reactionaries, their agents,

thus gaining time to consolidate our forces and prepare for a nationwide resistance to French

colonialist aggression, which the Party knew was inevitable.” In June 1946, the Viet Minh

newspaper Cuu Quoc attacked “reactionary saboteurs of the March 6 agreement.” The French

troops and Viet Minh police jointly suppressed the Nationalists. The Viet Minh also received

weapons from the French including artillery. Lucien Bodard noted that “…Ho Chi Minh allowed

Leclerc’s soldiers to come and how the Expeditionary Force let the Viet Minh wipe out the

Nationalists with all their hatred of the French and their xenophobia. It had meant extermination

or very nearly.” Truong Chinh noted that the 1946 Franco-Vietnamese treaty that it was a

temporary measure “in order to give our people a moment’s breathing space in which to

consolidate the position of the democratic republican regime…and to strengthen our real forces

to march towards a new stage.” The elections held in October 1946 for the National Assembly

was watched by Viet Minh security police.29

North Vietnam also became a hub for international revolutionary and terrorist cadres.

They were conscious of their role in exporting world revolution as a part of the international

communist empire. As early as 1962, Western intelligence services reported that they captured

documents indicating that North Vietnamese agents provided advice to communist terrorists in

Portuguese Guinea and Kwiliu Province in the Congo. It was also reported that PLO terrorists

received training in North Vietnam.30

The North Vietnamese Dac Cong (Special Tasks) trained

the Indonesian Army Airborne units (RPKAD) in 1964 near Xuan Mai in North Vietnam

(DRV).31

A special North Vietnamese army unit was formed in 1955 and 1956 which contained

27

“Eastern Germany: Viet-Minh Reporting Recruiting Secretly In Eastern Germany” Radio Free

Europe/Radio Liberty Research Institute Accessed From:

http://storage.osaarchivum.org/low/62/53/6253354a-3dca-4d3d-8ea4-c1748fcf4368_l.pdf 28

Hamilton-Merritt, Jane. Tragic Mountains (Indiana University Press 1993) page 21. 29

Turner, Robert F. Vietnamese Communism (Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University,

1975) pages 62-63. 30

Greig, Ian. Subversion (Tom Stacey, 1973) pages 152-153. 31

Akhmad Bukhari Saleh. “Jakarta Axis” August 12, 2002 Accessed From: http://www.mail-

archive.com/yonsatu@mahawarman.net/msg01473.html

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300 French, Algerian, and Moroccan POWs. Some were pro-communists while others stayed

and married Vietnamese wives.32

South Vietnamese society was also targeted by “active measures” propaganda

campaigns. Such measures included manipulation of South Vietnamese officials and military

leaders and fomenting division within all levels of society. In April 1955, Ho Chi Minh wrote in

Pravda that “our struggle shifts now from the stage of armistice to that of political struggle…The

present political struggle is only a stage in our national democratic revolution.” A captured VC

document noted that “After the armistice the peace movement in the Saigon and Cholon area

was very active.”33

The North Vietnamese governmental defector Dr. Dang Tan noted that “…the People’s

Democratic Peace Front is just a plot of the communists. The VC is organizing the mass

organizations through which to influence a large majority of the people. In proposing a coalition

government, the communists hope to gain power legally…In addition the communists are

preparing to surface overt offices which will serve as a screen behind which the party

committees will be hidden and continue to operate.”34

General Lu Mong Lan of the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) General Staff recalled

that “…the enemy was infiltrating our society at the highest level. Sometimes students speaking

English would approach GIs at beaches like Nha Trang and talk about politics. They would

denounce the Diem regime and couch their arguments in terms that would sway Americans who

were naïve to the whole situation in Vietnam and isolated from the Vietnamese society because

they could not speak the language. The first person who would communicate with these

Americans was a pre-positioned VC underground agent claiming to be an ordinary student.”35

In September 1972, the Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the North Vietnamese Army

General-Lieutenant Chan Van Kuang (Tran Van Quang), outlined at the Vietnamese Workers

Party Politburo session “the measures which are being carried out by the leadership of the

Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) in South Vietnam to develop opportunities for

cooperation with and for the recruitment of representatives of the Saigon government and army

to the side of the Patriots. With this in mind, contacts have been established and meetings

conducted with several civilian and military leaders, to include generals Ngo Din Dzu

(Commander, 2nd regional Corps), Nguyen Khanh and Zyong Van Min (former leader of the

Saigon administration), Khoang Suan Lam (former Commander, 1st Regional Corps) and

others.The meetings and contacts which we initiated were conducted with complete equality of

rights and helped us recruit representatives of all strata of South Vietnamese society to our side.

This is our grandest victory, won in the course of these contacts with the aim of resolving the

32

Jensen, Holger. “Frenchmen Aid Hanoi Defector” May 1, 1971 Accessed From:

http://www.virtual.vietnam.ttu.edu/cgi-

bin/starfetch.exe?AiM6FiWKkhc3ABvUVWDI3F6XtKUGVzG6cUG@xYrOvrPJ6OMBkYNjh

1EODeIXOhWRY2.Yke7FtvbCVjOuPzhLitF9yXHWZbST4JeEntommr4/11271611010.pdf 33

Turner, Robert F. Vietnamese Communism, Its Origins and Development (Hoover Institution

Press, Stanford University, 1975) page 173. 34

Dang Tan. “A Red Defector Speaks Out” July 1971 Accessed From:

http://www.virtual.vietnam.ttu.edu/cgi-

bin/starfetch.exe?NOEHc4mMGCwhdSjajenhcMo13UnEjFHkdiEHKRzry6mmLeIRsrUsoi0X6j

0cI0PXBQPTuZoVCTJvgXv0pdoDSTUtIusF09NtR3jToVix678/2311711023.pdf 35

Santoli, Al. To Bear Any Burden (Indiana University Press 1999) page 118.

9

Vietnamese issue.Thus, thanks to these contacts we understand which part of the population

considers the course we are taking to be just i.e. we have exposed all of those who are against

Nixon’s politics for the prolongation of the war, against Nguyen Van Thieu’s clique, and will

join with us in the creation of a coalition government.” Quang noted that “The political views of

puppet army officers captain and above are very reactionary.”

ARVN General Khoang Suan Lam was cited by General-Lieutenant Quang as a “very

reactionary man…(who) came out against our revolution.” Quang noted that Lam had a secret

meeting with PAVN officials. According to Quang, Lam stated to the PAVN that “…the Saigon

puppet army will not be able to carry out missions, led by the plan of the ‘Vietnamization’ of its

forces…the revolutionary forces will gain the victory and that the puppet army will not be able to

stop it. The pace must be increased to realize this plan. We have to quickly throw these people

from North to South Vietnam in order to destroy a large amount of the enemy’s kinetic energy

from within.” Quang also noted that “We must attract the neutral forces to our side; those who

are fighting for national independence; against the USA; forces who earlier fought against the

regime of Ngo Din Dhiem and now fight against the regime of Nguyen Van Thieu. We must to do

everything necessary in order to successfully carry out the ‘Ba Be’ plan.” Quang summarized

the North Vietnamese political warfare strategy (the Ba Be Plan) directed at South Vietnam in

this fashion:“The goal of Plan ‘BA BE’ is introduction of division into the ranks of the enemy

and lowering of his will to resist. Successful implementation of Plan ‘BA BE’ will help us to

attain successes at the Paris negotiations on Vietnam.”36

Many progressive leftist and communist elements in the United States were more than

willing to assist communist forces on the path to military victory. During the Vietnam War,

American New Leftists, along with the Old Left (the Communist Party USA and its fronts)

played a major role in demoralizing elite and popular opinion concerning a willingness to

prosecute the Vietnam War. One of element of the North Vietnamese Army’s Political Dau

Tranh or political warfare was called Dich Van. Dich Van stipulated the implementation of a

massive demoralization/disinformation program to “sow discontent, defeatism, dissent, and

disloyalty among enemy’s population.”37 This program was carried out by Hanoi and its

communist allies through the manipulation and funding so-called peace movements and

communist fronts, the duping of Western journalists, and other methods of political warfare.

These measures were intended to turn public opinion against South Vietnam and its Western

allies and force a withdrawal of military and economic support for the Saigon regime. The

Information and Press Departments of the North Vietnamese government issued permits for

foreign journalists, television crews, leftist, pacifists, communists, and other antiwar delegations

on visitations to Hanoi. Americans were divided by the North Vietnamese communist planners

into “ruling circles” and “good” Americans. Hence, the Communists sought to split the

American masses and intellectuals from their leaders. Foreigners were billeted at the well-

appointed, formerly French-owned Metropole Hotel in Hanoi.38

36

“Report of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the VNA (Vietnamese People’s Army)

General-Lieutenant Tran Van Quang at the Politburo Meeting of the Tsk PTV” (Moscow 1972)

Accessed From: http://www.aiipowmia.com/sea/quang.html 37

“Viet Cong and PAVN Strategy, Organization and Structure” Accessed From:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong_and_PAVN_strategy,_organization_and_structure 38

Salisbury, Harrison. “Hanoi Inviting Westerners to Inspect Bomb Damage” New York Times

January 11, 1967 page 1.

10

Early on, the North Vietnamese and their Vietcong allies recognized the role played by

leftist-progressive, antiwar, and pacifist movements in undermining the American war effort in

South Vietnam. The communists sought to manipulate these movements in order to pressure the

elites in the United States to withdraw troops and abandon all assistance to the non-communist

governments in South Vietnam. In December 1963, the 9th

Plenum of the Central Committee of

the ruling Vietnam Workers’ Party (VWP) noted “…we must step our diplomatic struggles for

the purposes of isolating warmongers, gaining the sympathy of antiwar groups in the US and

taking full advantage of the dissensions among the imperialists to gain the sympathy and support

of various countries which follow a peaceful and neutral policy.”

The 4th

Congress of the Vietcong (VC) Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN) in

March 1966 noted that “…the more the American imperialists will be isolated from the rest of

the world and even from their own people, the stronger will be the antiwar movement in the

world and in the US and the better the opportunity for the other imperialist nations to take

advantage and seize the interests of the US in many areas of the world.”

A captured document of a VC Party cadre noted that “Within the United States public

opinion is fervently demanding the end of aggressive warfare in South Vietnam. With this it can

develop into a special victory for us.” The 9th

Conference of the VC COSVN in July 1969 noted

that the internal contradictions “between the US rulers and…the American people” were in its

view “the greatest weak point of the Americans at this time.”

Lt General Nguyen Van Vinh, the Deputy Chief of Staff of the North Vietnamese Army

and head of the ruling Vietnamese Workers Party Unification Board, noted to the 4th

Congress of

the COSVN “Fighting while negotiating is aimed at opening another front with a view to making

the puppet army more disintegrated, stimulating and developing the enemy’s internal

contradictions, and thereby making him more isolated in order to deprive him of propaganda

weapons, isolate him further, and make a number of people who misunderstood the Americans

clearly see their nature…” A captured VC cadre notebook from late 1967 noted that “Our

efforts will then be devoted to the isolation of the US and acquisition of the sympathy of the

countries of the world.”39

The Viet Cong document titled Circular on Antiwar Movements in the US noted that

“The spontaneous antiwar movements in the US have received assistance and guidance from the

friendly (VC/NVN) delegations at the Paris Peace Talks.”40

The COSVN Subcommittee on Foreign Activities prepared a Report on Propaganda and

Foreign Affairs in June 1966 which stated “In capitalist countries, such as the United States, we

always keep abreast of the American people’s opinions and try to motivate youths, intellectuals

and religious sects to protest the war of aggression waged by their government in Vietnam. At

the same time, we motivate families of the US troops dispatched to Vietnam to protest the

sending of troops…Make every effort to persuade the people of America and its satellites to

support us, to oppose the US Government’s aggressive policy, and to exploit the anti-war spirit

of American and satellite soldiers in the South…Motivate the American people against the (US)

crimes, and request an end to the war of aggression in South Vietnam. Every effort should be

made to motivate soldiers’ dependents to launch anti-war demonstrations…”

39

Turner, Robert F. Vietnamese Communism, Its Origins and Development (Hoover Institution

Press, Stanford University, 1975) pages 235-249. 40

Lipscomb, Thomas. “Hanoi Approved Of Role Played By Anti-War Vets” The New York Sun

October 26, 2004 page 1.

11

The document noted further that the VC and North Vietnamese needed to “Isolate the

Americans and their lackeys…” The document also noted that “Make every effort to persuade

the people of America and its satellites to support us, to oppose the US Government’s aggressive

policy, and to exploit the anti-war spirit of American and satellite soldiers in the South…”41 The

North Vietnamese Ambassador Xuan Thuy called for the “progressive American people and all

antiwar organizations to unite closely.”42

North Vietnamese Premier Pham Van Dong noted in 1970 in Hanoi that “The

Vietnamese people are sincerely grateful for the warm sympathy and very effective support given

them by…the peace-and democracy-loving people of the world, including the progressive people

of the United States.”43

Nguyen Khac Vien, a North Vietnamese propagandist told an imprisoned future Admiral

Stockdale that: “Our country has no capability to defeat you on the battlefield. But war is not

decided by weapons so much as national will…We will win this war on the streets of New

York.”44

Pham Van Dong noted in a 1970 speech that “Contradictions among the US ruling

circles have become acute in regard to many domestic as well as foreign policies, chiefly the Viet

Nam and Indochina problems. Many influential political and economic circles and many well-

known figures in both houses of the US Congress have used all in their power to oppose the

Vietnamization of the war.”45

In 1975, the North Vietnamese journal Hoc Tap noted in an article by Truong Chi Cuong

that the “internal ranks of the United States are seriously divided” and that the US was reeling

from the effects of inflation and recession.46

The North Vietnamese, along with their Soviet and international communist allies,

actively participated in the destruction of American morale during the Vietnam War. Funds in

hard currency, propaganda, and international solidarity conferences all were examples of the

tangible forms of support that the USSR, China, Cuba, and the Warsaw Pact provided to the

North Vietnamese and the Vietcong. Such support enabled the North Vietnamese to undermine

the popular will for the United States to prosecute the war on behalf of our Indochinese allies.

French intelligence reported that the USSR remitted hard currency to North Vietnam under the

guise of economic aid, which was then transmitted to the antiwar movement. Over $1 million in

“peace contributions” was sent to the antiwar groups via money disbursed to Swiss and Swedish

banks from the Soviet Union, China, Czechoslovakia, Cuba, and Allende’s Chile. For ten years,

the numbered account of the Skandinaviska Banken in Stockholm Sweden (#5210-10-045-34)

41

Rothrock, James. Divided We Fall: How Disunity Leads to Defeat (Authorhouse 2006) pages

7-8. 42

Powell, S. Steven. Covert Cadre (Green Hill, University of Michigan 1987) page 42. 43

Pham Van Dong. Twenty-Five Years of National Struggle and Construction (Foreign

Languages Publishing House: Hanoi 1970) page 64. 44

Hirsch, James S. Two Souls Indivisible: The Friendship That Saved Two POWs in Vietnam

(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005) page 36.

103 Pham Van Dong. Twenty-Five Years of National Struggle and Construction (Foreign

Languages Publishing House: Hanoi 1970) page 83. 46

“Hoc Tap Shows How Congress Aided Hanoi” Human Events April 26, 1975 page 3.

12

was the repository of such funds. Indirect funding was sent via the Communist states to the 1970

Stockholm Conference on Vietnam and War Crimes Trials of Bertrand Russell.47

The defecting Soviet GRU Colonel Stanislav Lunev revealed that the “GRU had a

massive presence in both North and South Vietnam; their operatives worked under the cover of

the North Vietnamese Special Services Our instructors also told us about how the GRU

influenced the American public. The GRU and KGB helped to fund just about every antiwar

movement and organization in America and abroad. Funding was provided via undercover

operatives or front organizations. These would fund another group that in turn would fund

student organizations. The GRU also helped Vietnam organize its propaganda campaigns as a

whole. What will be a great surprise to the American people is that the GRU and KGB had a

larger budget for antiwar propaganda in the United States than it did for economic and military

support for the Vietnamese. The antiwar propaganda cost the GRU more than $1 billion, but as

history shows, it was a hugely successful campaign and well worth the cost. The antiwar

sentiment created an incredible momentum that greatly weakened the US military.”48

Despite certain sectarian, doctrinal differences, much of the American Left was united in

the effort to assist the North Vietnamese and the VC on the material and political fronts. In

testimony before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, Max Friedman noted that “While

there is a definite doctrinal split between the two major communist parties, CPUSA and SWP

there is however unity in their efforts to weaken the will of the United States in resisting

communist aggression against the Republic of Vietnam.”49 Tom Hayden admitted when he wrote

in Trail that the antiwar left “gave encouragement to the Vietnamese revolutionaries while

demoralizing the American military and the puppets they supported.”50

The CIA was not unaware of the negative power and influences the leftist/antiwar/pacifist

movements played in slowly demoralizing the American war effort in South Vietnam. A CIA

Intelligence Information Cable noted that “North Vietnamese morale has been boosted

considerably by the Civil Rights and the ‘Black Power’ movement in the United States. The

North Vietnam government has indicated to the French Mission in Hanoi that the riots and the

emergence of the ‘Black Power’ movement signal the beginning of a popular revolution in the

United States against the ruling classes. The North Vietnamese government also believes that the

Civil Rights disturbances will adversely affect American participation in the Vietnam War. The

United States government will be forced to divert large sums of money to educational, housing,

and other social reforms to maintain the loyalty of the underprivileged elements and prevent

them from joining the ranks of the Civil Rights dissidents. The North Vietnamese further believe

that the United States will have to maintain more troops in the United States to control the

rioters. The North Vietnamese government has also indicated that it expects the ‘Black Power’

movement to spread in perhaps two or three years to the American military establishment.

Within that time span the North Vietnamese expect the American forces in Vietnam to be

47

Warner, Denis Ashton. Certain Victory (Sheed Andrews and McMeel 1978) page 295. 48

Lunev, Stanislav and Winkler, Ira. Through the Eyes of the Enemy (Regnery Publishers 1998)

pages 72-79. 49

Rothrock, James. Divided We Fall: How Disunity Leads to Defeat (Authorhouse 2006) page

81. 50

Ibid, page 94.

13

seriously weakened by racial tensions which might possibly result in actual clashes between the

Negro and white troops.”51

High-ranking defectors from the VC and North Vietnam admitted the central role of

propaganda and disinformation in forcing an American withdrawal from Indochina. Some of the

top communist officials from the North even bragged of their success in duping Western liberals

and journalists. The reality of the hard-line Stalinist murderers and militarists in North Vietnam

were transformed into the image of patriotic liberators and crusaders for social justice by many

American liberals, leftists, and journalists. Former Vietcong Minister for Justice Truong Nhu

Tang stated: “We had been preparing for the Tet Offensive since 1966 to create pressure and to

help the anti-war movement in the United States. We needed to deliver a dramatic blow so that

public opinion in the world and the United States would turn against the American

government. After pointing out that over half their fighting forces were wiped out in the Tet

Offensive, he continued: I believe that the Americans at Tet did not sustain great losses of human

lives, but from the political point of view it was a very heavy blow for President Johnson’s

government....So what we lost on the military front we won on the diplomatic and

psychological fronts. Above all on the fourth front--the mass media, the press, television and

the liberals in the United States.”52

Tang recollected that “Another section of the NLF was responsible for working with

groups in the West opposed to the war and Western media to weaken the resolve of the American

government.” He also noted “In South Vietnam religious organizations like Buddhists or

Catholic, protested against the regime. But behind them were always some political activists who

were communists. This is a tactic we call ‘the watermelon’-green on the outside and red on the

inside. These tactics were used in South Vietnam before 1975. This is a tactic of the Soviet bloc

for propaganda against the Free World.”53

Tang also recalled that the American media and antiwar groups worked “to weaken the

resolve of the American government. And the American media is easily open to suggestion and

false information given by communist agents. The society is completely hypnotized by the media.

(For example Pham Xuan An manipulated several important American reporters in Vietnam for

years. Today An is a high ranking intelligence officer in communist intelligence in Ho Chi Minh

City).” Pham Xuan An was also a high-ranking North Vietnamese intelligence officer during the

war and later served in the Vietnamese Mission to the United Nations (UN) in New York in the

post-1975 period.54

Stephen Young, a Minnesota attorney and human rights activist interviewed Colonel Bui

Tin, who served on the General Staff of the North Vietnamese Army and became editor of the

People’s Daily of the Vietnamese army. Colonel Tin noted that “Visits to Hanoi by people like

Jane Fonda, and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that

51

Central Intelligence Agency. “Comments on the Effect of Food Shortages, Bombing Raids and

the American Race Riots on North Vietnamese Morale” August 28, 1967 Date Declassified:

September 20, 1979 Accessed From:

http://www.aavw.org/served/racetensions_riots_abstract01.html 52

“How Not to Win a War” AIM Report February A 1991 Accessed From:

http://www.aim.org/publications/aim_report/1991/02a.html 53

Santoli, Al. To Bear Any Burden (Indiana University Press: Bloomington Indiana 1999) page

166. 54

“How Reds Influence the Media” Human Events July 6, 1985 page 3.

14

we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses. We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing

a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in

the war and that she would struggle along with us.”55

Colonel Tin also noted that American antiwar leftists were “essential to our strategy.

Support for the war from our rear was completely secure while the American rear was

vulnerable. Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9 a.m. to

follow the growth of the American anti-war movement. Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane Fonda

and former Atty. Gen. Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in

the face of battlefield reverses…Those people represented the conscience of America. The

conscience of America was part of its war-making capability, and we were turning that power in

our favor. America lost because of its democracy; through dissent and protest, it lost the ability

to mobilize a will to win.”56

Even well after the collapse and conquest of South Vietnam in April 1975, the

Vietnamese Communists were forever grateful to their American leftist allies for their

propaganda support. Many elements of the American Left continued to express their amicable

feelings for the ruling communists in Hanoi. In April 1985, Dave Dellinger and American

Friends Service Committee (AFSC) official John McAuliffe attended the massive military

parade of Vietnamese troops commemorating the collapse and surrender of South Vietnam.57

In

April 1985, Mai Chi Tho, Chairman of the Peoples Committee of Ho Chi Minh City, noted at

this parade that “This victory was achieved by our people at great sacrifice…When we fought the

Americans, we received assistance from the American people.”58

Liberal and left-wing American journalists were notorious in allowing themselves to be

manipulated by the VC and North Vietnamese into either providing outright support for the

communist cause or overly magnifying the alleged sins of American and its allies, while ignoring

the crimes of Hanoi. At first, the North Vietnamese were hesitant in reaching out to liberal

American journalists. Mieczyslaw Maneli, a Polish Member of the International Control

Commission (ICC), was impressed by the hostility expressed by the American journalists Neil

Sheehan and David Halberstam towards the US Embassy and Military Assistance Command

Vietnam (MACV). Maneli urged Pham Van Dong to grant Sheehan and Halberstam visas to

enter North Vietnam. However, the communists turned that idea down, stating “we are not

interested in building up the prestige of American journalists.”59

By the mid-1960s, Hanoi had a

change of heart. Intelligent and articulate English-speaking VC and North Vietnamese agents

influenced American journalists who were lodged in the luxurious Caravelle and Continental

Hotels in Saigon. These communist agents would chat with the American journalists and provide

55

“Bui Tin Interviewed by Stephen Young How North Vietnam Won The War” Wall Street

Journal August 3, 1995 Accessed From: http://www.viet-myths.net/BuiTin.htm 56

Holzer, Henry Mark and Holzer, Erika. Aid and Comfort: Jane Fonda in North Vietnam

(McFarland & Co., 2002) page 80. 57

“Ho Chi Minh City Marks Liberation Anniversary and May Day” Vietnam News Agency May

1, 1985 58

Anderson, Paul. “Vietnamese Leader Credits Americans in Fall of Saigon” United Press

International April 28, 1985 59

Langguth, A.J. Our Vietnam: The War 1954-1975 (Simon & Schuster: New York 2000) page

243.

15

false stories to the newsmen who rarely ventured outside their hotels.60

The British historian of

Vietnamese Communism P.J. Honey commented that “Reading the Hanoi papers you would

think that the only Senator in the US is Wayne Morse and the only columnist Walter Lippmann.

They offer all this as proof that their cause will succeed.”61 The formerly pro-Hanoi French

leftist journalist Jean Lacouture confessed that he was sorry that his articles and reporting in

Vietnam “…contributed to the installation of one of the most repressive regimes history has ever

known.” Lacouture noted that he and other liberal journalists served as “intermediaries for a

lying and criminal propaganda - ingenuous spokesmen for tyranny in the name of liberty…I

conducted myself as a militant, sympathetic to their cause and concealed the Stalinist aspect of

their system, of which I was well aware.”62

Early on, the North Vietnamese also sought to lobby the Western countries for trade in

vital capital goods for industries and some strategic items. A main tool in this lobbying effort

was the stationing of North Vietnamese trade representatives in capitalist and developing

countries. As of 1963, North Vietnam maintained trade representatives in the following non-

communist countries: Burma, Cambodia, France, Hong Kong, India, and Laos. Leftist Third

World countries with North Vietnamese trade offices were, as of 1963: Algeria, Iraq, Egypt,

Indonesia, and communist Guinea.63

Hanoi initially utilized Red China as an intermediary in its trade relations with the West

during the 1950s. It was reported in 1955 that “Not only will the North Vietnam Democratic

Republic benefit from Chinese production, but, at least before any direct trade is established

between Hanoi and Western States, China will act as a valuable intermediary, importing goods

via Hong Kong for re-export to North Vietnam. As –for the other countries of the Soviet bloc,

Czech-and Polish economic and commercial delegations are expected here shortly, and

Communist sources have hinted. Here that the USSR not only supplies goods, but may later join

Hanoi in triangular trade agreements, purchasing goods from- third parties with rubles for re-

export to the Vietminh thus indirectly granting Hanoi credits to make up for the Vietminh

government's shortage of foreign exchange.”64

Sometimes, the North Vietnamese capitalized on the war damage and lost American lives

to earn hard currency. In 1974, it was reported that North Vietnam sold scrap copper from

downed US aircraft for hard currency. The North Vietnamese occupied parts of South Vietnam

(Quang Tri Province) and collected valuable copper and sold it on the international market. This

business was conducted through North Vietnamese representatives in Hong Kong. It was shipped

out of the North Vietnamese port at Dong Ha.65

60

Harrison, Benjamin L. Hell on a Hill Top (iUniverse Inc 2004) 61

Budenz, Louis. The Bolshevik Invasion of the West (Bookmailer, 1966) page 155. 62

Jasper, William F. “Seven Myths About the Vietnam War” The New American March 25,

2002 Accessed From: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1021097/posts 63

Chamber of Commerce of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. “List of Export and Import

Goods of State Foreign Trade Enterprises” Hanoi 1963 Accessed From:

http://www.virtualarchive.vietnam.ttu.edu/starweb/virtual/vva/servlet.starweb

64 Bloodworth, Dennis. “Vietnamese Nationalistic After Years Of Struggle” Winnipeg Free

Press January 26, 1955 page 4. 65

McArthur, George. “Hanoi Held Selling US War Scrap” Los Angeles Times July 5, 1974 page

A7.

16

At the height of the Vietnam War, Hanoi imported goods that were crucial for the North

Vietnamese economy and its heavy industries. In 1966, it was reported that North Vietnam

continued to trade with capitalist countries. For example, North Vietnam received the following:

Italy shipped mechanical and electrical spare parts; West Germany sent metal working

machinery and electrical apparatus; Britain sent electrical equipment and chemicals; Hong Kong

shipped Canadian rice; Japan sent tinned plates and sheets; France sent wheat; and Cambodia

sent rice.66

Hanoi sought to continue North Vietnam’s economic relationship with France. In October

1954, a French delegation discussed the provisioning of French credits for North Vietnam. It was

reported that the Vietminh/North Vietnam purchased Saigon piasters to finance essential

imports.67

In April 1954, the French agreed with the Vietminh that they would turn the French-

owned Tonkin coal mines to the communists. The Vietminh would provide 1 million tons of coal

to France per year.68

In October 1955, France and North Vietnam signed a trade agreement worth

over $2.8 million. The North Vietnamese would ship hard coal, silk, some farm products, and

handicrafts. The French would ship spare parts, cars, trucks, bicycles, food, drugs, chemicals,

machines, and other products.69

Since 1955, North Vietnam shipped to France anthracite coal, high quality handicrafts,

and specialty rice. Some of these handicrafts were sold by French department stores, such as

Galeries Lafayette. France sells to North Vietnam machine tools, trucks, some linen products,

pharmaceuticals, and wheat. These products were shipped back and forth on Polish ships.70

While the North Vietnamese stonewalled on its initial promises to return the remains of

French POWs, Hanoi nevertheless gained quantities of hard currency from Paris. From 1955 to

the 1970s, the French government paid the North Vietnamese about $30 million for the

maintenance of French military graves in North Vietnam. These French payments were made to

the North via communist Hungarian banks.71

The French were required to pay the Vietnamese

Communists $10 million US dollars from 1954 until 1986 for remains of French soldiers and

officers. The Enemy Proselytizing Department (EPD) cadres manipulated the French out of this

money.72

In 1955, it was reported that the British traded with North Vietnam. British coastal

vessels from Hong Kong secretly docked at Vietminh ports. The British exported to North

Vietnam cotton, rice, and other scarce goods, while the North exported to Britain/Hong Kong

66

Cromley, Ray. “U.S. Slashes Free World's Trade With North Viet Nam” Evening Standard

December 28, 1965 page 4. 67

Durdin, Tillman. “Credit for Vietminh Studied by French” New York Times October 15, 1954

page 1. 68

“Troop Move Set by France, Reds” Palm Beach Post April 10, 1955 page 38. 69

“France Makes Pact With North Vietnam” New York Times October 15, 1955 page 3. 70

Farnsworth, Clyde H. “Trade by France with Hanoi Small” New York Times November 1,

1970 page 5. 71

National Alliance of Families for the Return of America’s Missing Servicemen Accessed

From: http://www.nationalalliance.org/vietnam/namdx.htm 72

Garnett “Bill” Bell and George J. Veith. “POWs and Politics: How Much does Hanoi Really

Know” A Paper Presented on 19 April 1996 at the Center for the Study of the Vietnam Conflict

Symposium “After the Cold War: Reassessing Vietnam,” at Texas Tech University

Accessed From: http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/events/1996_Symposium/96papers/jay3.htm

17

timber, meat, lacquer, abrasives, vegetable oil, and tea. A “respectable” firm in Hong Kong

handled this trade.73

Bernard Fall noted: “A British consulate in Hanoi, though severely limited

in its activities…is the official intermediary for D.R.V.N. trade with Hong Kong, where Hanoi

also maintains a purchasing office. For prestige reasons and also in order to obtain some badly

needed foreign exchange, Hanoi exported foodstuffs to Hong Kong even when its supply was

grimly short.”74 In 1966, North Vietnam exported $1.03 million worth of rice to Hong Kong.75

Such currency could have been used to purchase vital capital goods, sent to American antiwar

leftists, or was channeled to VC espionage agents in the South.

Despite the fact that Japan was Vietnam’s wartime enemy, Tokyo and Hanoi opened

trade ties in the mid-1950s on a barter basis. In 1954, several Japanese trading companies started

to deal with North Vietnam. Trade was initially conducted through intermediaries such as

Czechoslovakia and France. In August 1955, Japanese companies established the Friday Club

which later became the Japan-Vietnam Trade Association (JVTA). In May 1955, JVTA signed

the first non-official trade protocol with North Vietnam. Trade at this point was conducted

through Hong Kong.76

In June 1956, Japanese business leaders and the North Vietnamese signed a trade

agreement worth $8.4 million. The North Vietnamese were to carry on this trade via Hong Kong

and then would later open the ports of Hongay and two others to Japanese ships. North Vietnam

would ship Japan raw materials and minerals and some agricultural products and Japan would

ship to North Vietnam machine tools, radios, iron and steel products, ships, railroad equipment,

electric appliances, fertilizers, textiles, movie equipment, and other products.77

In 1958, it was

reported that North Vietnam and a private Japanese group signed a private trade pact. The value

of the trade pact was not publicized.78

As a result of the Northern First Five Year Plan, Japanese-North Vietnamese trade

relations and interactions increased in the early 1960s. In March 1962, a North Vietnamese trade

delegation visited Japan for the first time. In August 1963, the North Vietnamese Chamber of

Commerce signed a new trade protocol with Japan.79

By the 1960s, trade ties between North Vietnam and Japan deepened to a point where

mutual trade fairs were held. Japan was to hold a trade fair in Hanoi in 1965 to exhibit

machinery. Two-way trade was expected to grow to $30 million in 1964.80

On occasion, Tokyo

exported strategic items to North Vietnam for the war effort against the South. In 1966, Japan

sold North Vietnam $275,800 worth of military field wire.81

In January 1969, officials of the Japan-Vietnam Trade Association, a private

businessmen’s association, traveled to North Vietnam to discuss ways of increasing trade. The

73

US News and World Report Volume 38 1955 page 32. 74

Fall, Bernard. The Two Vietnams (Praeger, 1967) page 194. 75

Fall, Bernard. “Report on North Vietnam The Other Side Of the 17th Parallel” New York

Times July 10, 1966 page 181. 76

Shiraishi, Masaya. Japanese Relations With Vietnam (SEAP Publications, 1990) pages 37-39. 77

Hailey, Foster. “Tokyo and Hanoi Sign Trade Pact” New York Times June 1, 1956 page 5. 78

“Pact With Vietnam Reds Signed” New York Times March 20, 1958 page 2. 79

Shiraishi, Masaya. Japanese Relations With Vietnam (SEAP Publications, 1990) pages 37-39. 80

“Japan Plans Fair at Hanoi” New York Times August 23, 1964 page 86. 81

“Major purchase of military field wire by North Vietnam” July 6, 1966 Accessed From:

http://library2.usask.ca/vietnam/index.php?state=view&id=581

18

Japanese delegation was invited by the North Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce.82

As a result

of some American pressure, trade ties between Tokyo and Hanoi were reduced.

Japanese-North Vietnamese trade fluctuated between 1968 and 1972, as a result of US

bombing. However trade relations were never ruptured due to the efforts and pressure of the

North Vietnamese government and JVTA.83

In 1972, trade between North Vietnam and Japan

totaled $5.6 million both ways.84

In 1972, the North Vietnamese sent a trade delegation to Japan

which visited several factories and companies and conferred with Foreign Ministry officials. In

late 1972 and early 1973, North Vietnam sent a small number of students, agricultural experts,

and engineers to Japan for education and training. In March 1975, North Vietnam sent an official

economic mission to Tokyo. In April 1973, Japan resumed the importation of Hon Gay

anthracite coal. Japanese trade with North Vietnam increased to $5 billion in 1974 and to $7

billion in 1975. In May 1973, an NGO Association for Japan-Vietnam Scientific and Technical

Exchanges was established in Tokyo and signed an agreement with North Vietnam in May 1974

with the official Vietnam Scientific and Technical Association.85

The North Vietnamese also launched influence operations to subvert the South

Vietnamese economy. This included opening up of trade ties between Saigon and Hanoi as a

means of binding the Diem regime to the communists in the North. It appeared that before the

outbreak of open hostilities, there was trade between North and South Vietnam. The South

Vietnamese shipped to North Vietnam farm products and Hanoi shipped raw materials and some

finished goods to the South.86

In 1954-1955, Red China and South Vietnam (RVN) sent rice to

North Vietnam. Even at that time, the North hoped to re-establish meaningful trade relations with

South Vietnam.87

A large portion of Saigon piasters were budgeted by North Vietnam to

purchase rice from South Vietnam in the mid-1950s. In May 1963, top-ranking South

Vietnamese official Ngo Dinh Nhu (Diem’s brother in law) offered via the Polish Communist

ICC official a proposal for a barter trade deal where Southern rice and Northern coal would be

exchanged.88

Hanoi successfully cultivated an image of a regime beholden to the ideals of austerity and

incorruptibility. Well hidden from many sympathetic foreign progressives were the privileges

extended to the Party, government, and military elites and Western visitors (businessmen,

diplomats, and leftwing activists).

The privileges of the North Vietnamese elite became very apparent even in the mid-

1950s. It was reported in a 1958 research paper that 1,000 students from North Vietnam were

being trained in the Soviet bloc technical schools “at great expense to Hanoi, which pays for

their tuition and upkeep abroad.” The Hanoi periodical Cuu Quoc noted in 1957 that “The

emergence of a new class of bureaucrats-venal and luxury loving…The article recounted the rise

82

“Japanese Seek Hanoi Trade” New York Times January 12, 1969 page 11 83

Shiraishi, Masaya. Japanese Relations With Vietnam (SEAP Publications, 1990) pages 37-39. 84

Halloran, Richard. “Tokyo and Hanoi Open Formal Ties” New York Times September 22,

1973 page 10. 85

Shiraishi, Masaya. Japanese Relations With Vietnam (SEAP Publications, 1990) pages 37-39. 86

The Postwar Development of the Republic of Vietnam: Policies and Programs Summary

Volumes 1-2 Joint Development group 1969 page 34. 87

Gordon, David F. and Allen, John K. Estimative Products on Vietnam 1948-1975 (GPO 2005)

page 78. 88

Porter, Gareth. Perils of Dominance (University of California Press 2005) pages 124-125.

19

of one Minh, director of the Duyen Hai factory in Haiphong from modest living to a life of

corruption and self indulgence. Minh became increasingly corrupt especially after marrying a

wife who appeared at first glance to be a woman of wide experience. While the couple treated

the factory as their own property, embezzling machinery and funds freely, living in luxury in the

house of the former French owner, and driving frequently to Hanoi in a Frigate car bought with

the factory’s money, any worker who protested was threatened with discharge…Little by little,

Minh acquired all the negative characteristics of the bourgeois class i.e. ruse and tyranny.

Nowadays, all over the country, there are many similar cases of corruption.” In March 1956,

managers of cotton mills in Nam Dinh embezzled 20 million piastres for their personal use.89

P.J. Honey noted that “Senior Party and state officials are, of course, given everything

they may require in the way of material comforts either free of charge or at a small nominal cost.

Such persons receive a large house, servants, food, clothing, a car, and much else besides from

the state. Their cash salaries are small, a fact fully exploited by the propagandists, but there is

little for them to spend these on since all they need is supplied. Numerically, this super-

privileged class is small and its standard of living is so vastly above that of ordinary Vietnamese

that the latter hardly bother to draw comparisons any longer.”90

Even the allegedly “austere” Ho Chi Minh enjoyed life’s little luxuries while the average

North Vietnamese citizen starved. As of July 1965, Ho Chi Minh’s salary was the equivalent of

$480 per year. This was ten times the average annual income of the average North Vietnamese.

He did enjoy luxuries such as US-made Philip Morris and Camel American cigarettes and his

favorite food was a rare delicacy called “swallow’s nest,” which was a meringue of sea algae

and swallow’s saliva. Time magazine commented that “No such luxuries are available to the

average North Vietnamese.”91

The elites and foreigners also had access to special stores in Hanoi. The stores for higher

cadres of the Workers’ Party of Vietnam were established in Hanoi in 1962.92

Some foreign

visitors reported on the existence of these stores and the reactions of the average North

Vietnamese to these oases of plenty in the sea of poverty and privation. In 1963, there were two

to three shops in Hanoi with imported luxuries for diplomats, foreigners, and Workers’ Party of

Vietnam cadres. Ordinary people formed “goggle eyed bunches at the windows” outside these

shops.93

In 1969, foreign diplomats and senior Vietnamese Workers’ Party members enjoyed the

privilege of shopping at a special store in Hanoi to which ordinary citizens were not permitted

access. The “goods on sale there would not be accounted very special anywhere in the outside

world, the range of items offered for sale is enormous by comparison with the few goods found in

89

Benson, George. North Vietnam: A Communist Showpiece with Cracks 1958 Accessed From:

http://www.virtual.vietnam.ttu.edu/cgi-

bin/starfetch.exe?c0rrUYcGTRVLzUcEzrtM7YPQVCxVrs9dLbeXRB58L5Cwc55SqPHSRG9a

ermWq5eV@vUs7yt0PU6GTOC3eA8KdeK@DGl9KzscxOgfGW4sNnM/2320102010.pdf 90

Honey, P.J. North Vietnam Today: Profile of a Communist Satellite (Praeger 1962) pages 20-

23. 91

“The Jungle Marxist” Time Magazine July 16, 1965 Accessed From:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,833974,00.html 92

Porter, Gareth. Vietnam: the politics of bureaucratic socialism (Cornell University Press, 1993)

page 62. 93

The Geographical magazine, Volume 36 page 122.

20

the other stores.”94 In 1967, the diplomatic store in Hanoi offered high quality consumer goods

of North Vietnamese origin and items from China, the USSR, France, Bulgaria, and Romania.95

Some American leftists reported on the comparative luxury of their lodging in North

Vietnam during the 1960s. Susan Sontag reportedly visited the diplomatic store in 1968 and

witnessed a tailor making pants for customers. Visiting diplomats and foreign guests, along with

very high government officials patronized this store. Meals at the Thong Nhat Hotel consisted of

meat and fish at lunch and dinner, along with chauffeured Volga limousines courtesy of the

North Vietnamese Peace Committee.96

Mary McCarthy also reported on the luxurious

accommodation at the Thong Nhat Hotel: plentiful hot water, toilet paper tastefully laid out in a

box in a fan-like pattern, unlimited tea, candies, cigarettes, and a mosquito net draped over the

bed.97

In 1961, the state guest house in Hanoi was reportedly a luxurious facility for visiting

foreigners to North Vietnam. The dining room was described as “bright” and the furnishings

“ornate Chinese.” A “perfectly poised Vietnamese communist official” poured French

champagne.98

More experienced foreign communist experts trained the North Vietnamese state hotel

staff in the maintenance of luxury accommodations for visitors from abroad. Ten North

Vietnamese traveled to East Germany in February 1975 to receive training in hotel keeping and

other related functions at various Interhotels, such as the Panorama. They were to return to North

Vietnam to staff and manage the modern Hotel Thang Loi.99

In 1967, the Metropole Hotel in Hanoi reportedly served French Cointreau, Beefeater gin,

Johnnie Walker Scotch, and Cuban cigars. Poles, Soviets, Chinese, North Vietnamese army

officers, Cubans, French, English, Canadians, East Germans, Indians, Mongolians, North

Koreans, Romanians, and African all were lodged or had access to this hotel.100

Foreign diplomats were well-provided for by the North Vietnamese government. The

ICC was based in the Thong Nhat Hotel during the war years. In 1966, the French Embassy

reportedly had 15 North Vietnamese workers employed there. Embassies in Hanoi were supplied

with rice and buffalo meat by North Vietnamese officials; fresh and frozen food were flown in

from Phnom Penh Cambodia; groceries and drinks were imported from Hong Kong via

Haiphong.101

It also appeared that North Vietnam retained a small hard currency shop system. In

1973, a duty-free gift shop was reported to be located at Gia Lam airport and it sold high quality

94

China news analysis, Issues 751-800 1969 page 36. 95

Salisbury, Harrison. Keep Them Rolling pages 109-110 Accessed From:

http://www.virtual.vietnam.ttu.edu/cgi-

bin/starfetch.exe?LtEczZ.ChcIsvYSPVu78DXKVXGbkuK9coSTu2eeo1XGGR9ybNyUFjinehv

GpzrdFF8NpJ32ytFQkFRcx3tEVKVN2JPRDZ2Tm7GQJXOfhzz8/2130806007.pdf 96

Enzensberger, Magnus. Critical essays, Volume 98 (A&C Black, 1982) pages 180-181. 97

Hollander, Paul. Political Pilgrims (Oxford University Press, 1981) pages 363-364. 98

“Hanoi Run Down Under Red Rule” New York Times March 8, 1961 page 10. 99

Whitney, Craig R. “North Vietnamese Learn East German Hotel Keeping” New York Times

February 2, 1975 page 10. 100

Lockwood, Lee. “Recollections of Four Weeks” Life Magazine April 7, 1967 page 448. 101

Logan, William S. Hanoi: Biography of a City (UNSW Press, 2000) page 165-167.

21

North Vietnamese goods such as lacquered chessboards, beer, silver products, and jewelry.

These items reportedly were sold for US dollars.102

VC and North Vietnamese delegations abroad occasionally engaged high living in the

West. In October 1968, it was reported that the Vietcong information office in Paris and its head

Pham Van Ba chose the George V Hotel as a location for a conference. It is a luxury hotel

favored by wealthy Arabs and one South Vietnamese official joked that “I guess they have more

money than we do.”103

The Pathet Lao also followed a similar strategy of the North Vietnamese in co-opting

Western leftists to boost the image of its communist regime in the court of world public opinion.

By 1980, the ruling Pathet Lao government used Westerners to convince world public opinion

that the postwar concentration camps were closed by late 1980. An American professor Dr.

MacAlister Brown gave a lecture in Thailand that indicated he was told by Laotian ministry

officials that the communist concentration camps were closed. The Mennonite and American

Friends Service Committee (AFSC) were the only private religious groups from the United

States that were allowed to conduct outreach efforts in Laos. One Mennonite official named

Frederick Swartzendruber served in Laos from 1979-1981. He was given guided tours of the

country aboard Soviet helicopters. Swartzendruber advanced the theory that the damages and

deaths caused by the yellow rain chemical weapons dropped by Vietnamese and Pathet Lao

troops were simply the result of the proliferation of “bee feces.” Swartzendruber also

participated in tours of alleged Hmong markets, where people were supposedly shopping.

American antiwar activists denounced the anti-Pathet Lao Hmong resistance led by former Royal

Lao General Vang Pao. Vietnamese-trained Laotian agents trained were dispatched to the United

States under the guise of political refugees. The INS allowed many of these agents into the

United States as a result of a sloppy screening process. These Laotian agents also threatened

former Royal Lao Army General Vang Pao with untraceable poisoning and other death threats.

One refugee Thao Yia expressed his concerns about Pathet Lao infiltration of the United States:

“I’m worried that American ‘Reds’ and the US will make relations with Laos so we can’t take

back Laos. I see Red Lao who come here as refugees. In Fresno I see Red Lao come here to visit

sent by the Lao government to tell the refugees propaganda. They also collect money from

refugees here saying they’ll take it to their families in Laos. They are only here to make money

for themselves. There were four Red Hmong in Fresno last week. These Red Hmong and Red Lao

start rumors in California to cause problems for Hmong living in America.” The US Committee

on Refugees and the Mennonites blamed the Hmong resistance for the violence and atrocities in

Laos at a human rights conference with the Laotian charge d’ affaires to the United States

present. A State Department official and the Laotian charge d’ affaires traveled to this

conference together. This illustrated the fact that the Bush Administration also helped to collude

with American leftists and the Pathet Lao in covering up communist atrocities.104

The Khmer Rouge also praised the role of the antiwar Left in assisting in their seizure of

power in April 1975. The peace movement and the New Left played a critical role in pressuring

Congress and the Ford Administration in reducing and eliminating American aid for the Lon Nol

102

“American Military Men Shop at Hanoi's Airport” New York Times March 6, 1973 page 9. 103

Smith, Hedrick. “N.L.F. to Compete With Saigon On the Cocktail Circuit in Paris” New York

Times October 29, 1968 page 4. 104

Hamilton-Merritt, Jane. Tragic Mountains (Indiana University Press 1993) pages 448-449 and

502-503.

22

government. In September 1975, the Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister Ieng Sary visited New York

City and met with American leftists and antiwar activists. Sary commented that the Khmer

Rouge “always remembered that the American people were supporting us.” He stated “This

victory is not the victory of the Cambodian people alone, it is the victory of all the people, the

American people included-especially the American youth and the people that love peace and

justice.” Sary stated “The Cambodian people know you very well, especially students who are

fighting on our behalf, especially your students at Jackson state and Kent State…we always

remembered the American people as friends, and especially the people of New York City.”105

Historian Sophal Ear noted that the pro-Hanoi and pro-Khmer Rouge Indochina Resource Center

was “the Khmer Rouge’s most effective apologists in the West.” By 1978, the Chinese launched a

propaganda campaign to defend the Democratic Kampuchea regime and distributed films such as

Democratic Kampuchea is Moving Forward and printed glossy magazines. When Foreign

Minister Ieng Sary traveled to New York in 1978, he hosted a viewing of the film Democratic

Kampuchea is Moving Forward and distributed the glossy propaganda magazines.106

Vietnamese Senior General Van Tien Dung wrote an article in the Army newspaper Nhan

Dan titled the Great Spring Victory in April 1976. General Dung described the South

Vietnamese forces as being weakened to the point where the North Vietnamese forces was

“altogether superior” and as being “passive and utterly weakened” by late 1974. According to

General Dung, the reduction of US aid forced the ARVN to “fight a poor man’s war.”General

Dung noted that “Enemy firepower had decreased by nearly 60 percent because of bomb and

ammunition shortages … its mobility was also reduced by half due to the lack of aircraft,

vehicles, and fuel.” In October 1974, the Vietnamese Workers’ Party Politburo and Central

Committee determined that the US could not assist South Vietnam due to “the internal

contradictions within US administration and among US political parties…” The North

Vietnamese later revealed that the purpose of the Paris Agreement was to “get the Americans out

and gain time to make preparations to overthrow the GVN which had been forced to concede its

heretofore ‘basic requirement’-the withdrawal of North Vietnamese troops from South

Vietnam.” By September 1973, eight months after the Paris Agreement, the North Vietnamese

sent an additional 140,000 tons of weapons and 100,000 additional troops to the communist-held

zones in South Vietnam.107

In the first two months after the Paris Peace Accords (1973), more

than 30,000 North Vietnamese personnel were infiltrated into South Vietnam through Laos and

Cambodia. By late 1973, 70,000 North Vietnamese troops infiltrated illegally and in early 1975,

the number increased to 170,000. The Ho Chi Minh Trail was converted into a four lane hard top

superhighway. During 1973, the North Vietnamese constructed 12 airfields in the South,

installed SA-2 SAMs in Khe Sanh, and built an oil pipeline in the western part of their

occupation zones in South Vietnam. Polish and Hungarian ICC officials sabotaged Canadian

efforts to being North Vietnamese violations of the Paris Peace Accords to light. In March 1973,

the VC/North Vietnamese Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN) issued a top secret

document that stated that Hanoi needed to exploit the Paris Peace Accords as “an additional

105

“Address by Mr. Ieng Sary” September 6, 1975 on Indochina Resource Center Letter Head

Accessed From: http://www.virtual.vietnam.ttu.edu/cgi-

bin/starfetch.exe?eKnmuFLMs0BEHzdQSHSWJL9TFpaRTIjB04Ae.apzZ@yApeOvZ1QJRKK

eitDCRTg5ObPAOf4IYbmFJBdPDGKsWpY9UQjFtbJ6it706BGseps/2430803022.pdf 106

Maguire, Peter. Facing Death in Cambodia (Columbia University Press 2013) page 55. 107

Rothrock, James. Divided We Fall (AuthorHouse, 2006) pages 73-75.

23

sharp weapon with which to attack the enemy.” VC cadres were instructed to “develop the new

assault posture” and “to launch continuous attacks to demand the enemy implement the Cease-

Fire Agreement strictly.” COSVN announced that the Paris Peace Accords must not be

considered a replacement for “the other types of struggle” and warned that “the ratio of forces is

actually the decisive factor.” COSVN emphasized that “We must use national concord…to aim a

sharp point at our enemies.”108

When the North Vietnamese invaded and defeated South Vietnam, the communists

conditioned the conquered population to accept a fall in their material living standards. Top

Vietnamese Communist leader Le Duan noted “Those people in the south who, as a result of the

U.S. imperialist war of aggression, had attained a living standard much too high for the

country's economy and their own working capacity, should understand that this prosperity was a

sham one was misery and death for millions of their countrymen, destruction for innumerable

villages and towns, degradation for many young people and humiliation for countless women in

areas under enemy occupation, and enslavement of the country. They should know that the

frantic needs and vulgar tastes of that ‘consumer society’ are the complete opposite of a truly

happy and civilized life. Such people today can and should come back to reality and the life of

the nation, and live by their work. This is the way to a happy, beautiful life with meaning and

dignity, a life of true and lasting happiness for themselves and their children.”109

Much of the wealth and goods of South Vietnam were pillaged by the North Vietnamese

administrators and officers and sent back to the North. Hence, the North Vietnamese conquered

and pacified the South with an exploitative streak similar to the old Western colonialists and to

Stalin’s Red Army in the closing stages of World War II. Soviet military forces traveled on the

heels of the North Vietnamese Army as South Vietnam collapsed in 1975. The Soviets inspected

radar facilities captured by the North Vietnamese Army before the fall of Saigon. Within hours

of the capture of Da Nang in April 1975 by the North Vietnamese Army, Soviet naval officers

arrived to inspect the captured facilities. Within days, the Soviets restored the radar facilities.110

In April 1975, when the North Vietnamese captured Saigon, they quickly captured the IBM

computers which provided top secret data that identified the members of the ARVN (Army of

the Republic of Vietnam), policemen, CIO (Central Intelligence Organization) agents, and other

members of the South Vietnamese military, intelligence, and law enforcement community. This

was confirmed by North Vietnamese General Van Tien Dung, the field commander during the

conquest of South Vietnam.111

In 1975, North Vietnam plundered South Vietnam and carted

goods to Hanoi. Workers at the port in Saigon reported in 1975 that North Vietnamese ships and

trucks were loaded with South Vietnamese cars, air conditioners, refrigerators, TVs, motor

scooters, and other consumer goods. Weapons and Big John cranes were also removed. Broken

naval and commercial vessels and armaments were repaired and then shipped north.112

In

108

Nash, George H. “Dissolution of the Paris Peace Accords” National Review October 24, 1975 109

Duan, Le. This Nation and Socialism are One: Selected Writings of Le Duan (Vanguard

Books, 1976) page 186. 110

Pike, Douglas. Vietnam and the Soviet Union (Westview Press, 1987) page 192. 111

Hoar, William P. “The Human Coast of Betrayal” American Opinion October 1977 pages 77-

83. 112

“Situation in South Vietnam According to Refugees” November 1975 Accessed From:

http://www.virtual.vietnam.ttu.edu/cgi-

24

November 1975, the International Store in Hanoi also sold captured US and Western-made

consumer goods from South Vietnam, such as cosmetics, champagne, and whiskey.113

Another feature of the Vietnam War that was often covered up or denied by the US

Government and the Left during the 1960s and 1970s was the involvement of a veritable

international communist army of troops and advisers who assisted the North Vietnamese and VC

forces who fought to conquer South Vietnam. One SDS questionnaire posed the following: “The

war in South Vietnam is supposed to be part of our policy to contain Communist Chinese

aggression. How many Communist Chinese troops are actively engaged in combat in Vietnam?”

The answer provided by SDS was “The correct answer is (A) None. Neither the U.S. Government

or Saigon claim Communist Chinese troops are involved in the war.”114 Hence, the American

public was largely unaware of the massive, covert presence of military forces from the

communist bloc countries in Indochina.

During the First Indochina War (1946-1954), the Viet Minh received Japanese-made

rifles from Red China and the Soviet Union. The Japanese-made rifles that were sent by the

USSR originated from captured stocks in Soviet-occupied Manchuria. The Viet Minh also

smuggled weapons from Thailand and the Philippines. These arms were paid for by the sale of

rice and opium produced in Viet Minh-occupied areas.115

In March 1946, the Viet Minh provided

the First Regiment of the Chinese Red Army with assistance such as food and medicine. The

Viet Minh received training by the Chinese Red Army. By July 1947, 830 Viet Minh

commanders and soldiers were trained by the Chinese Red Army. The Chinese Communist Party

Hong Kong Sub-Bureau provided funds to the Viet Minh. In the spring of 1947, the Chinese

Communists and Viet Minh established direct telegram communications links. US intelligence

reported in 1946 that the Viet Minh government was in touch with the Soviets and Mao Tse-

tung’s headquarters. It was also reported in 1946 that the Chinese Communist Party and the

Soviet advisers trained Viet Minh troops.116

In May 1989, the Red Chinese admitted that 300,000 People’s Liberation Army (PLA)

troops participated in fighting with the North Vietnamese and VC during the Vietnam War.

Chinese officials noted that “more than 4,000 Chinese soldiers were killed during the war.”117

During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Red Chinese newspapers openly bragged that 20,000-

30,000 PLA troops assisted the Viet Minh.118

bin/starfetch.exe?WLgTM6I9oyGOoyaZXVSCGBFXN@4Oi21eHdLFBsGG6L.qI2pdPGAQLC

XpTKD4GBleLInnJO9BaHgPMv09d6w5lYUv@A3X3qg9epjgDsH305A/2322511076.pdf 113

“Hard Times for our Man in Hanoi” Times (London) November 26, 1975 page 26. 114

National Vietnam Examination Prepared By Students for a Democratic Society and Inter-

University Committee for Debate on Foreign Policy http://www.sds-1960s.org/exam.htm and

http://www.sds-1960s.org/answers.htm 115

Windrow, Martin. The French Indochina War 1946-54 (Osprey Publishing 2013)page 24. 116

Zhai, Qiang. China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950-1975 (University of North Carolina Press,

2000) pages 12-13. 117

Van Atta, Michael. “Seven New Areas That Were Classified In Kiss The Boys Goodbye”

Nam Vet Newsletter December 14, 2000 Accessed From:

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/history/marshall/military/vietnam/nvet_archive/nvet0412.t

xt 118

McLean, Jim. “How Mao Tse-Tung Planned to Unleash Nuclear War in Vietnam” Scotland

on Sunday March 15, 1998 page 7.

25

In July 1950, China sent 400 PLA soldiers to assist the Viet Minh. In August 1950,

French intelligence reported that Viet Minh cadres received tank training in Canton China. In the

mid-1950s, the North Vietnamese sent 202 soldiers to the USSR and China for armor

training.119

A military trade agreement was signed between the Viet Minh and China in January

1950. The Chinese provided the Viet Minh with 150,000 Japanese rifles and 10,000 US-made

carbines. In mid-1951, 4,000-6,000 Chinese troops were assisting the Viet Minh. In early 1952,

7,000-8,000 Chinese troops helped the Viet Minh. In the siege of Dien Bien Phu, the Chinese

and Soviets provided 100 105mm howitzers, several batteries of Katyusha multiple rocket

launchers (MRLs), and 180 antiaircraft guns. Chinese PLA drivers manned Soviet-made

Molotova trucks and PLA laborers constructed roads along the attack routes.120

The South Vietnamese complained to the International Control Commission (ICC) in

August 1964 that Chinese advisers assisted the VC in its territory. The Chinese PLA reportedly

led the VC 514th and 261st Battalions in an attack on Sung Hieu. In July 1966, South

Vietnamese Special Forces captured VC documents in Tay Ninh Province. These documents

revealed that the Chinese PLA fought with VC troops in South Vietnam. These documents were

never made public in the US. In January 1973, a Pathet Lao defector reported that the Red

Chinese stationed 700-800 PLA troops in communist-held sections of Laos.121

Mao Tse-tung

threatened to drop atomic bombs on Saigon and other South Vietnamese bases and cities if the

United States used tactical nuclear weapons against North Vietnam. Mao’s threat was made in

the presence of PLA generals in the mid-1960s.122

During the anti-French war of 1946-1954, Viet Minh commanders had a number of

Soviet advisers attached their staffs. They oversaw logistics and advised on tactics. Two Soviet

officers reportedly were killed in the Plain of Reeds and Ben Tre in 1951. Soviet officers also

interrogated French POWs, with an emphasis on Foreign Legionaries. They also developed

excellent propaganda into inducing them to defect.123

In 1957, Soviet officers served in North

Vietnamese artillery and engineering schools.124

In 1954, the KGB established relations with the

North Vietnam and a KGB Advisory Group arrived in Hanoi in 1958. The KGB established

relations with the North Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security, the North Vietnamese Army’s

Military Security Department, while the GRU established relations with the North Vietnamese

Army General Staff’s General Research Department.125

A Diem-era South Vietnamese report indicated that the North Vietnamese hosted Soviet

and Chinese military advisers in the DMZ. It also reported that the North Vietnamese imported

training aircraft, MiG-15 jet fighters, Ilyushin and Antonov transport planes, helicopters, anti-

119

Conboy, Ken and Bowra, Ken. The NVA and Viet Cong (Osprey Publishing Limited 2012)

page 45. 120

Turner, Robert F. Vietnamese Communism, Its Origins and Development (Hoover Institution

Press, Stanford University, 1975) page 85. 121

Silva, Luis. “Ho Chi Minh’s Foreign Legion” Accessed From:

http://www.globusz.com/ebooks/LuisSilva/00000018.htm 122

McLean, Jim. “How Mao Tse-Tung Planned to Unleash Nuclear War in Vietnam” Scotland

on Sunday March 15, 1998 page 7. 123

Brown, F.C. “Soviet Cong: Ivan in Indochina” Soldier of Fortune November 1985 pages 70-

74. 124

Pike, Douglas. Vietnam and the Soviet Union (Westview Press, 1987)page 116. 125

Harrison, Benjamin L. Hell on a Hill Top (iUniverse Inc 2004)

26

tank and anti-aircraft artillery, and gunboats. After the 1954 Geneva Accord, the North

Vietnamese established a unit of marines, self-defense forces at factories and farms, and the so-

called Popular Security Army. In October 1959, it was reported that the North Vietnamese

negotiated a military alliance with the USSR, China, and North Korea. In early 1960, the Soviets

sent a military mission to North Vietnam to reinforce the military bases. North Vietnamese anti-

aircraft weapons at Hoi-Xuan, Hanoi-Haiphong, and Hoi-Xuan-SonTay were supervised by

Chinese PLA advisers.126

In 1954 and 1955, the North Vietnamese expanded existing airfields. In 1956, North

Vietnamese air force students were sent to Czechoslovakia and the USSR. By the end of 1956,

Chinese advisers were also training future pilots in North Vietnam. By 1957, North Vietnamese

pilots learned how to fly the MIG-15 in Soviet Air Force schools. By 1957, two new airfields

were built in Cao Bang and Do Son. By 1958, the USSR sent to the North Vietnamese IL-14, Li-

2 and AN-2 transports and Mi-4 helicopters. These aircraft were used by North Vietnam to

supply the Pathet Lao. By 1959, at least 13 airfields existed in North Vietnam. In 1960, North

Vietnam pilots went to China for training on MIG-17 fighters. By December 1960, an air bridge

was developed between the North Vietnam and Xam Nua airfield in Laos. This bridge was

manned by Li-2 transports piloted by joint teams of North Vietnamese and Soviet pilots. By

1962, Soviet air force advisers left and the USSR provided MIG-17 and MIG-15 fighters.127

In the early 1960s, South Vietnamese forces nearly captured a Soviet delegation touring

VC-held territory in the eastern Mekong Delta in South Vietnam. Former US Ambassador to

Laos William Sullivan reported that in 1961, the USSR stationed over 500 troops in Laos. In the

fall of 1967, South Vietnamese Military Intelligence reported that VC regiments in Phouc Tuy

Province were accompanied by advisers from Red China, Poland, Czechoslovakia, East

Germany, and North Korea.128

Two Soviet trawlers electronically equipped were stationed near the US Air Base in

Guam (four miles offshore) and relayed data to the North Vietnamese. In 1969-1973, East

Germany and Czechoslovakia provided 25% of the North Vietnamese army’s war materials.

From 1973-1975, the USSR provided the North Vietnamese with $2.5 billion of war material.129

In April 1989, the USSR admitted that it awarded Soviet officers who “helped shoot down 24 US

bombers.” In 1970, VC defector Bui Con Tuong reported that in 1967, he accompanied a Soviet

delegation that included a one star Red Army general and a captain to Kien Hoa in South

Vietnam to inspect a “liberated” hamlet. This delegation was evacuated after a South

Vietnamese and US attack in the area. In May 1965, communist defector Nguyen Van Ton

revealed that he “escorted Russians on military operations in War Zone C.” In 1967, a US Navy

SEAL killed a Soviet adviser in combat in the Kien Gia Province. In September 1969, defecting

126

Government of the Republic of Vietnam. Violations of the Geneva Agreements by the Viet-

Minh Communists From July 1959 to June 1960 (Saigon 1960) Accessed From

http://www.virtual.vietnam.ttu.edu/cgi-

bin/starfetch.exe?YMaoFm1Szf2U9Nojk@9L@usLXKXOyN69Mxn@ZCj@a98gCwt3DvvlLU

Zfp7vDr94hnUwyY@Nx1jAbT@fe6jEgGYaVj2C04ZxiYw2MXlcbhlE/2410403027.pdf 127

Toperczer, Istvan. Air War Over North Vietnam (Squadron/Signal Publications 1998) pages 4-

7. 128

Silva, Luis. “Ho Chi Minh’s Foreign Legion” Accessed From:

http://www.globusz.com/ebooks/LuisSilva/00000018.htm 129

Pike, Douglas. Vietnam and the Soviet Union (Westview Press, 1987) pages 121-125.

27

North Vietnamese official Dr. Dang Tan revealed that he personally saw Soviet advisers in South

Vietnam and Laos that carried weapons. Dr. Tan was also in contact with 4 to 5 groups of

foreign advisers from Cuba, Red China, the USSR, and North Korea.130

In May 1965, a VC defector named Nguyen Van Ton stated that he worked with a Soviet

officer, Ivan Esnot, who was involved in propaganda efforts and the Australian Communist

journalist Wilfred Burchett. He also escorted a French collaborator with the VC, Madeleine

Riffaud. Navy SEALS reportedly killed Soviet advisers in Kien Giang Province in 1967. Major

Len Campbell also claimed hearing Soviet voice transmissions in Takeo Province in

Cambodia.131

In 1971, Soviet GRU/Spetsnaz operatives operated in South Vietnam. Soviets that were

disguised as Americans also targeted the US Special Operations (SOG) forces, gauging their

effectiveness. In 1969, Soviet-piloted Mi-6 helicopters reportedly transported troops and supplies

in South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. A VC defector reported that Soviet Navy submarines

unloaded personnel and munitions along the South Vietnamese coast. Soviet troops

operated with North Vietnamese troops in Camau in February 1973, at An Loc in November

1973, and outside of Danang in February 1974.132

One South Vietnamese officer noted in 1974

that he saw members of the Russian Engineering Corps bulldozing earth near a North

Vietnamese manioc farm. This officer also witnessed Soviet personnel manning tanks attacking

South Vietnamese forces at base 801 at Le Tanh.133

The Soviets also compromised the SOG groups by forming counter-raider teams that

mimicked Americans and South Vietnamese troops in every fashion. They were first deployed in

1971 and operated in the tri-border region. Many bona fide SOG teams were compromised and

defeated. These fake SOG teams also purchased A-1E aircraft, command helicopters, and UH-

1Hs from Third World countries and international business concerns and transported to North

Vietnam on Soviet and Eastern European freighters. The Soviet allegedly painted and marked the

craft so well that they were indistinguishable from bona fide SOG aircraft. The fake SOG teams

were believed to be either KGB or GRU. Soviet piloted Mi-6 and Mi-4 helicopters reportedly

operated in Laos, Cambodia, and South Vietnam.134

South Vietnamese security officials also claimed that KGB agents stirred up anti-US

dissent in Saigon and disseminated disinformation. KGB officers worked underground in Saigon,

Phnom Penh, Bangkok, Hong Kong, and Macao.135

A Pathet Lao defector indicated that Soviet liaison officers were attached to Pathet Lao

HQ at Ban Na Kay Neua. He also reported that large Soviet helicopters were manned by Soviets

130

Colvin, Rod. First Heroes (Ardent Media, 1987) pages 48-49. 131

Brown, F.C. “Soviet Cong: Ivan in Indochina” Soldier of Fortune November 1985 pages 70-

74. 132

Van Atta, Michael. “Seven New Areas That Were Classified In Kiss The Boys Goodbye”

Nam Vet Newsletter December 14, 2000 Accessed From:

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/history/marshall/military/vietnam/nvet_archive/nvet0412.t

xt 133

Colvin, Rod. First Heroes (Ardent Media, 1987) pages 48-49, 134

Brown, F.C. “Soviet Cong: Ivan in Indochina” Soldier of Fortune November 1985 pages 70-

74. 135

Ibid.

28

who flew between Hanoi and Sam Neua. Soviet forces were also sighted Camau (February

1973), An Loc (November 1973), and the foothills west of Danang (January/February 1974).136

Reportedly, ex-French Foreign Legionnaires joined the Viet Minh as advisers. A French

unit called the “International Combatants” also fought with the Viet Minh and even serves as

spies who disguised themselves as US news correspondents. Former North Vietnamese Defense

Ministry official Dr. Dang Tan reported that French military advisers assisted the VC and North

Vietnamese. It was believed that these Frenchmen assisted Hanoi in “ fighting imperialism” as

radical leftists or deserters from French colonial forces present in Indochina before 1954.

Reportedly, Western leftists from The Netherlands, Australia, and the United States volunteered

to fight with the VC and North Vietnamese well into the 1970s.137

The East Germans stationed a National People’s Army engineer battalion in Laos, while

East Berlin’s advisers assisted VC and North Vietnamese forces in South Vietnam.138

East

Germany sent 200 troops to man missile and communications facilities. They were attached

officially as a “study group” affiliated with the East German Embassy in Hanoi.139

In the late

1950s, the Stasi exported listening devices to North Vietnam for telephone and room

surveillance. By the mid-1960s, the Stasi assisted the North Vietnamese in developing a modern

technical department for Hanoi to combat “USA Imperialism.”

During the 1980s, the East Germans also provided the Vietnamese intelligence services

with Western-made Ricoh and Robot cameras, a Swiss-made Aciera milling machine, and

supplies for disguising agents.140

In 1982, Lt-Col Helmut Foerster, Navy and Air Force Attaché

at the East German Embassy in Vietnam, praised the co-operation between the armed forces of

the two countries. He said that “many infantry officers from the GDR had assisted the

Vietnamese army in building the technical NCO school in Ho Chi Minh City and formulating its

teaching and training programmes, while many Vietnamese officers had been sent to the GDR

for long-term training to become lecturers and instructors in the Vietnamese army.”141

In April 1971, VC and NVA units in the Soi Ba Huyen area, near the Phu Cat Air Base

were accompanied by five North Korean military advisers.142

By December 1966, 25-50 North

Korean pilots assisted the North Vietnamese in engaging US aircraft. North Korean soldiers and

pilots continued to assist North Vietnam until April 1975. Communist Vietnam then transferred

US-made weapons captured from South Vietnamese to their North Korean allies. Such

equipment included M-113 APCs and M-48 tanks, which were transferred to North Korean

special reconnaissance forces.143

136

Ibid. 137

Silva, Luis. “Ho Chi Minh’s Foreign Legion” Accessed From:

http://www.globusz.com/ebooks/LuisSilva/00000018.htm 138

Ibid. 139

“East German Aid to Hanoi Detailed” New York Times October 14, 1966 page 14. 140

Macrakis, Kristie. Seduced by Secrets (Cambridge University Press 2008) Accessed From:

http://worldtracker.org/media/library/Intelligence%20&%20Espionage/Seduced%20by%20Secre

ts%20Inside%20the%20Stasi's%20Spy-Tech%20World.pdf 141

“GDR Military Attache On Co-Operation With Vietnam” Hanoi Home Service March 9, 1982 142

Silva, Luis. “Ho Chi Minh’s Foreign Legion” Accessed From:

http://www.globusz.com/ebooks/LuisSilva/00000018.htm 143

Bermudez, Joseph S. Terrorism: The North Korean Connection(Crane Russak 1990)page 166.

29

In January 1973, 4,000 Cuban army engineers landed in Hanoi and commenced the

reconstruction of the Phuc Yen/Da Phuc Airfield. Cuba also reportedly piloted MIG aircraft for

the North Vietnamese and also accompanied Hanoi’s forces in the conquest of South Vietnam.144

Soviet specialists selected a variety of advanced aircraft in Da Nang in November 1975.

They included F-5s, A-37s, internal equipment of an AC-119, CH-47 helicopters, and UH-1

helicopters. The captured planes were then sent to the USSR, Poland, and Czechoslovakia for

study and analysis by military engineers in those nations.145

In 1979, the Soviets dispatched to

ex-US naval base at Cam Ranh Bay various warships such as F class submarines. The Soviets

reconstructed the former US facilities at Cam Ranh Bay and added on 7 piers. Between 1979 and

1984, the Soviets based Tu-95/Tu-142 Bear reconnaissance planes, Tu-16 Badger bombers,

MIG-23 fighter/bombers, Ka-25 anti-submarine warfare helicopters, and Yak-36 V/STOL

fighters. The Soviets also stationed several hundred naval infantrymen at Cam Ranh Bay.146

General Van Tien Dung attended the West-81 Warsaw Pact exercises as a Vietnamese Army

observation team in 1981. North Vietnamese officers took part in other Warsaw Pact war games.

In 1984, a battalion of Soviet naval infantry staged amphibious landings along the central

Vietnam coast 100 miles south of Haiphong. Nine Soviet naval vessels took part in this

exercise.147

After 1979, the KGB and GRU increased their relations with Vietnam. In mid-1980,

the GRU cooperated with the Vietnamese Army Signals Intelligence units.148

Perhaps some of the most prized items captured by the North Vietnamese were the

American-made arms of the old South Vietnamese armed forces. Since some of the weapons

were manufactured with high quality technologies, Hanoi’s communist allies requested samples

of the leftover US-made weapons. Other captured South Vietnamese arms were passed to North

Vietnam’s allies in the Third World and various “national liberation” (terrorist) movements

throughout the world. A large number of these American-made armaments were also utilized in

combat by the North Vietnamese against their erstwhile communist allies in Democratic

Kampuchea and China.

The Soviets and Warsaw Pact sensed that they inherited a treasure trove of potentially

advanced American weapons and requested samples from North Vietnam. Soviet specialists

selected a variety of advanced aircraft in Da Nang in November 1975. They included F-5s, A-

37s, internal equipment of an AC-119, CH-47 helicopters, and UH-1 helicopters.149 By 1977,

Poland and Czechoslovakia received sample A-37B and F-5E aircraft.150

On May 30, 1975 two

new regiments of the North Vietnamese Air Force was set up consisting of captured F-5s and A-

37s. They were the 935th

and 937th

Regiments.151

By 1979, reports indicated that the Vietnamese

144

Benge, Michael. “Cuban War Crimes Against American POWs During the Vietnam War”

October 4, 1999 Accessed From: http://www.nationalalliance.org/cuba/benge4.htm 145

Toperczer, Istvan. Air War Over North Vietnam (Squadron/Signal Publications 1998) page 58. 146

Smith, Frederic N. “Cam Ranh Bay Just an R and R Port?” Defense & Foreign Affairs April,

1988 page 37. 147

Pike, Douglas. Vietnam and the Soviet Union (Westview Press, 1987) page 199. 148

Harrison, Benjamin L. Hell on a Hill Top (iUniverse Inc 2004) 149

Toperczer, Istvan. Air War Over North Vietnam (Squadron/Signal Publications 1998) pages

49 and 58. 150

Stapfer, Hans-Heiri. Red Ladies in Waiting (Squadron/Signal Publications 1994) pages 46-48. 151

Stapfer, Hans-Heiri. Red Ladies in Waiting (Squadron/Signal Publications 1994) pages 46-48.

30

Air Force had captured US-made F-5 and A-37 fighter bombers, C-130, C-47, and C-7

transports, AC-119K gunship planes, and UH-1 and CH-47 helicopters.152

Clearly, these aircraft were quickly conscripted by the North Vietnamese in their

occupation of South Vietnam and to engage in combat with their communist rivals in Democratic

Kampuchea. By the end of 1975, captured C-130As were shuttling personnel and supplies

between Saigon, Hanoi, and Vientiane (Laos).153

In 1977, A-37B Dragonfly fighter-bombers attacked targets in Democratic

Kampuchea.154 In 1978, F-5 fighter bombers and A-37 jet light bombers were used by the

PAVN to bomb Democratic Kampuchean positions, while C-130A transports launched pallet

bombing missions at Stung Treng.155

In the early 1980s, the Vietnamese deployed captured

American-made UH-1H Huey helicopters to assist their allies in the People’s Republic of

Kampuchea.156

In 1979, US-made C-130 transport planes were utilized to airlift Vietnamese

troops to northern Vietnam during the war with China.157

The North Vietnamese Navy acquired 1,300 mostly American-made South Vietnamese

vessels, including Admiral-class corvettes. Some were conscripted into combat service with

Hanoi’s forces. These corvettes were later used in 1978 against the navy of Democratic

Kampuchea.158

Throughout the early to mid-1980s, Hanoi still utilized albeit a dwindling number of

serviceable US-made F-5 aircraft. One of the last known public appearances of captured US-

made jets occurred when F-5 fighter bombers flew during the anniversary parade in 1985 that

commemorated the fall of Saigon.159

Some reports indicated continued Vietnamese use of captured US aircraft even as late as

the end of 1989. As of November 1989, old American-made F-5As and F-5Es were reportedly in

storage at Vietnamese hangers, while some were still utilized as active combat aircraft. US-made

transport planes and A-37B Dragonfly fighter-bombers saw continued use by the Vietnamese Air

Force.160

Leftover American-made heavy weapons were also incorporated into the North

Vietnamese Army. By July 1975, 25 US-made 105 mm howitzers were reportedly shipped from

the occupied South Vietnamese territory to the port of Haiphong in North Vietnam. It was

shipped in a former US-made South Vietnamese landing ship that was conscripted by the North

Vietnamese navy. It was believed that the North Vietnamese was able to acquire ammunition and

152

“Vietnam Air Force: 1979” Air Forces Intelligence Study Directorate of Research DIA

October 1, 1979 Accessed From: http://www.virtual.vietnam.ttu.edu/cgi-

bin/starfetch.exe?2KZrLZwwQgcs4URjUTLedYzA7Q60DUNEeB3o177eMruR7Yrn8LOtZsFx

5eKGqddPptkSOco.p7Sl3CYMCv863RwAEL6OGpwiuNokOIdyWrs/2123309006.pdf 153

Conboy, Ken and Bowra, Ken. The NVA and Viet Cong (Osprey Publishing 2012) page 49. 154

Conboy, Kenneth. “How Vietnam’s People's Army Achieved Regional Power With A

Bankrupt State at Home” Defense & Foreign Affairs August, 1990 page 6. 155

Conboy, Ken and Bowra, Ken. The NVA and Viet Cong (Osprey Publishing 2012) page 49. 156

Conboy, Kenneth. “How Vietnam’s People's Army Achieved Regional Power With A

Bankrupt State at Home” Defense & Foreign Affairs August, 1990 page 6. 157

Ibid. 158

Conboy, Ken and Bowra, Ken. The NVA and Viet Cong (Osprey Publishing 2012) page 51. 159

Ibid, page 49. 160

“Vietnam-Air Forces” Flight International November 29, 1989

31

spare parts from Red China for the 105 mm howitzers.161

As of 1990, the Vietnamese actively

utilized US-built M-113 armored personnel carriers that were retrofitted with Soviet-made

engines.162

There were attempts by Hanoi to procure spare parts for these captured weapons from

corporations based in Hong Kong and Japan. After all, these were relatively high-performance

weapons that added a higher quality to North Vietnamese firepower. In 1975, it was reported that

Vietcong officials were meeting with Third World and European Communist buyers in Hong

Kong to purchase captured American-made equipment. This business was conducted from the

North Vietnamese trade office in the People’s Bank of China office building in Hong Kong.163

North Vietnam also reportedly approached the Japanese looking for private firms to repair

captured aircraft.164

The North Vietnamese also handed US air and naval infrastructure to the Soviets as

military bases. As of November 1989, the Soviet Navy and Air Force retained the former US

armed forces bases at Cam Ranh Bay and Da Nang. Soviet Navy and Air Force units based at Da

Nang and Cam Ranh Bay were equipped with Tu-95 Bear bombers, Il-38 reconnaissance

aircraft, and Tu-26 Backfire bombers.165

Other captured US firearms and weapons systems were provided to terrorist movements,

communist parties, and ideological allies who also possessed vast stores of American-made

weapons from the old governments displaced by Islamists and Communists. In 1977, the Soviets

reportedly urged the communist Ethiopian military dictatorship to approach the Vietnamese for

spare parts for American-made weapons. At that time, the Ethiopian army used predominantly

US-built weapons.166

Vietnam also shipped spare parts for captured American-built F-4 Phantom

aircraft to Islamist Iran. These parts originated from captured South Vietnamese stocks at the old

American airbase at Danang.167

Starting in 1980, Vietnam shipped spare parts and arms from its

US-made stocks to Iran.168

Communist Vietnam then transferred US-made weapons captured

from South Vietnam to their North Korean allies. Such equipment included M-113 APCs and M-

48 tanks, which were transferred to North Korean special reconnaissance forces.169

The North

Koreans would then disguise themselves as South Korean forces and thus gain an advantage in a

potential attack on the government in Seoul.

Hanoi also dumped vast stores of small arms and infantry weapons to communist

movements and terrorists all over the world. In late December 1975, the North Vietnamese

agreed to transfer to the USSR ten thousand captured American-made rifles and 10 million

161

“Captured US Arms Are heading for Hanoi” Evening Capital July 25, 1975 page 2. 162

Conboy, Kenneth. “How Vietnam’s People's Army Achieved Regional Power With A

Bankrupt State at Home” Defense & Foreign Affairs August, 1990 page 6. 163

Hughes, Richard. “Captured US Arms to be Sold in Vietnam” Times (London) September 9,

1975 page 7. 164

Anderson, Jack. “US Weapons Left in Vietnam Turning Up Around the World” The Progress

August 23, 1979 page 4. 165

“Vietnam-Air Forces” Flight International November 29, 1989 166

“Conflict in the Horn of Africa” Heritage Foundation Report July 13, 1977 Accessed From:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/thf_media/1977/pdf/bg24.pdf 167

Tanter, Raymond. Rogue Regimes (Palgrave Macmillan 1999) page 50. 168

Hiro, Dilip. The Longest War (Psychology Press, 1989) pages 71-72. 169

Bermudez, Joseph. Terrorism, the North Korean connection (Crane Russak, 1990) page 166.

32

rounds of ammunition to be “utilized for assistance in struggle with the imperialism and for

providing aid to the national liberation movements.”170

Congressman Wolff (D-NY) reported in 1977 that some of the American weapons

captured by the North Vietnamese in 1975 were transferred to Communist guerrillas fighting on

the Thai-Malaysian border.171

In 1980, US-made M-16 rifles were stockpiled in the Cuban

Embassy in Jamaica for use by leftist Prime Minister Michael Manley’s leftist forces during a

nation-wide election that year. A portion of these M-16s found in Jamaica had serial numbers

that signified that they saw usage in South Vietnam by the ARVN and US forces.172

In October 1980, the Cuban Military Attache in Vietnam visited one of the warehouses

which stored captured American-made weapons that were being transferred to revolutionary

forces all over the world. A declassified Vietnamese document noted that “This visit to your unit

is of special significance because all of the officers and enlisted men of the General Warehouse

have completed a task that, although relatively simple, is of tremendous significance for the

success of the Asian and Latin American revolutions and for all peoples who have or are

prepared to fight for their own permanent liberation.”173

From August to October 1980, the Soviets, Cubans, and Vietnamese coordinated their

efforts to send captured 60-80 tons of American-manufactured weapons to the Salvadoran

FMLN rebel forces. The Soviet airline Aeroflot transported these firearms from Hanoi to

Havana.174

In June 1975, the North Vietnamese invited French experts to inspect leftover US-made

IBM computers in Saigon. The French team reported that South Vietnamese had more computers

than Thailand and Philippines combined.175

The French Commercial Bank of Northern Europe

aided the North Vietnamese in retrieving South Vietnamese assets in the United States and

trained North Vietnamese banking officials in France.176

After the conquest of South Vietnam in April 1975, the North Vietnamese sought to

foment communist revolution in other Indochinese countries. North Vietnam provided massive

assistance to the Pathet Lao in Laos in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Hanoi also provided troops

170

KGB report. Shipments of American weapons captured in Vietnam to the USSR December

31, 1975 Accessed From: http://bukovsky-archives.net/pdfs/terr-wd/0915_gb75-1-Eng-ybz.pdf 171

The Associated Press April 13, 1977 172

United States Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs. “Cuba’s Renewed Support of

Violence in Latin America” December 14, 1981 Accessed From:

http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/guerrilla/report-90.htm 173

Military Attaché of the Cuban Embassy in Vietnam Visits General Warehouse 767

October 12, 1980 Accessed From: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/vietnam-covertly-

supplied-weapons-to-revolutionaries-algeria-and-latin-america 174

A request from leadership of the Communist Party of El Salvador. Shipment of 60-80 tons of

Western-made small arms and ammunition from Hanoi to Havana for Communist Party of

Salvador in September-October 1980.August 20, 1980 Accessed From: http://bukovsky-

archives.net/pdfs/terr-wd/0959_ct225b80-Eng-Sklyar.pdf 175

Beech, Keyes. “US Legacy Aids Vietnam Economy” The Calgary Herald June 14, 1976 page

73. 176

Gottesman, Evan. Cambodia After the Khmer Rouge (Yale University Press, 2003) pages

121-122.

33

and arms to the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, who conquered that tormented country in April

1975.

In 1960, the Soviets established air connections with Laos at Vientiane Airport. Soviet

copies of C-47 and Convair 240 transports delivered oil and weapons bound for Kong Le’s

neutralist forces. North Vietnamese artillery troops and 105 mm howitzers were unloaded from

these planes and were destined for Pathet Lao and Kong Le forces. Chinese, Soviet, North

Vietnamese, and Pathet Lao established military missions at Khang Khay and North Vietnam

established “information offices” in Phong Savan. In December 1960 and January 1961, the

USSR airlifted and dropped weapons in Pathet Lao areas 184 times. Chinese armed work crews

constructed roads in northern Laos near the Chinese border and supplied weapons to the Pathet

Lao.177

Once the US commenced its withdrawal of troops from Indochina after the 1973 Paris

Peace Accords, the communist forces redoubled their efforts to conquer Southeast Asia. In Laos,

the anti-communist elements of the Royal Lao government were undermined by both the

Americans and the communist Pathet Lao. Right-wing elements of the Royal Lao Army were

rendered impotent by the US Embassy in Vientiane. Anti-communist opposition by the Royal

Lao Army was quashed by US Embassy orders to cut off rice, oil, and money shipments. Royal

Lao troops were attacked by Pathet Lao, North Vietnamese, and Red Chinese troops while

placing cease-fire border markers. Royal Lao government troops were attacked by communist

troops who manned mortars, grenades, and machine guns. Once the US withdrew from Laos in

1973 following the Vientiane Agreement, Soviet planes airlifted 1,000 Pathet Lao soldiers

disguised as “policemen.” Red China airlifted other Pathet Lao forces to Luang Prabang.

Neutralist Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma refused to have Royal Lao forces inspect Pathet

Lao materials and personnel. This occurred despite the protocols of the Agreement stipulating

inspections. All US and Thai soldiers withdrew by mid-1974. However, 40,000 North

Vietnamese troops and advisers remained and fought alongside the Pathet Lao. One military

adviser termed Souvanna Phouma “naïve and his ego got in the way. He truly believed with his

princely status his notion that he was so well liked by so many and his belief that he had the

ability to work out something with his princely half-brother Souphanouvong he had reason to be

confident about the future of Laos. He was wrong.” In 1974, a Pathet Lao infantry battalion was

allowed into Vientiane to protect its mission. Instead it engaged in propaganda and agitprop

activities and destabilized the Royal Lao government. They stirred up strikes and demonstrations

by university students who demanded that the government chart a socialist course. Capitalism

and the US were denounced, along with the Royal Lao government. By mid-1974, strikes were

conducted by traffic police and municipal workers in Vientiane. The disorder soon spread to

other towns. By 1975, teachers joined the strikes. The non-communists in the Royal Government

were denounced as incompetent and corrupt. In February 1975, Pathet Lao forces attacked

government positions at Sala Phou Khoun with the aid of North Vietnamese troops. By March

1975, the Royal Lao government lodged 80 protests to the joint commission with no response.

Pathet Lao demonstrators carried signs stating “The War is Ended; the Meo Are Dead.” In early

1975, demonstrations and strikes by teachers and civil servants continued with people carrying

signs calling for “popular uprisings,” “people’s seizure of power,” “purification,” and the

elimination of “reactionaries,”“foreign consultants,” and the National Assembly and the

177

Hamilton-Merritt, Jane. Tragic Mountains (Indiana University Press 1993) pages 84-86, 93,

and 99-101.

34

Constitution. Mobs struck the USIS and USAID offices and threatened US citizens. All Royal

Lao Army commanders other than Gen. Vang Pao retreated under orders from Souvanna

Phouma. On May Day 1975, Pathet Lao and leftist demonstrators in Laotian cities rode US-made

jeeps and Soviet-made PT-76 tanks and denounced the US, demanded the resignation of rightist

cabinet members, and hailed the fall of Cambodia and South Vietnam to the communists.

Prominent Pathet Lao communist Phoumi Vongvichit announced on national radio that the

Hmong must be “taken out at the roots.” A repentant Yang Dao presented a paper in 1981 which

stated “At first I did not realize that a plan of extermination carefully set in place in Moscow and

its allies was about to be put into motion against the Hmong of Laos. On May 9, 1975 returning

from my trip to the communist countries of Asia and Europe I received confirmation through the

Khaosane Pathet Lao, the Pravda of the Laotian Communist Party which wrote ‘We must

eradicate the Meo minority completely.’” In May 1975, Royal Lao and Pathet Lao troops

collaborated in preventing Hmong civilians and officials from leaving Laos. In June 1975, Radio

Pathet Lao reported that Royal Lao Army requested Pathet Lao advisers. The Vientiane

Domestic Service disseminated Order 904 which confiscated all firearms. All citizens were

required to turn in all firearms to “arsenal depots in their respective military regions.” One

refugee recounted that the Pathet Lao moved in “many soldiers, trucks, and two big tanks…The

PL took over CIA headquarters and ordered everyone over age 9 to attend day long reeducation

classes.” Large numbers of Lao and Hmong were placed in so called “seminar camps.” The

“Red Hmong” were also used by the regular Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese forces to conquer

Laos.178

In June and July 1975, many provinces fell to the Pathet Lao and took over the USAID

compound at Kilometer 6. The US Embassy was pressured to reduce their staff to 22. In late July

1975, Souvanna Phouma ordered that all military commanders, provincial chiefs, and other non-

communist officials to go to Vientiane for a meeting. They were all detained. The mixed

Royal/Pathet Lao forces created by the 1973 Agreement were disbanded and the new Minister of

Defense ordered all rightists to turn in their weapons. Soviet helicopters and planes, along with

Royal Lao government planes assisted in the arrests of the rightist and non-communist officials.

In late August 1975, the Laotian border with Thailand was closed. By September 1975, all

professionals, civil servants, and businessmen were arrested and placed in “seminar camps.” As

a result of a secret meeting at K-6, the former American compound in November 1975, the

Pathet Lao abolished the monarchy and proclaimed the Laos People’s Democratic Republic in

December 1975. Lists of former Laotians who worked for American agencies and trained

military forces were captured by the Pathet Lao and used in the purges that were occurring.

Pathet Lao lecturers stated to the prisoners at the seminar camps assertions such as: “Marxism

was very strong and the only country that resisted Marxism was the United States. No longer did

the Marxist worry about England, France, or other European countries; they were no longer a

threat to Marxism and no longer resisted. Only the United States resisted…” Thus, the Pathet

Lao took over Laos by December 1975 by a combination of foreign troop intervention,

neutralization through propaganda, and false promises of a future Laos rife with peace and

cooperation between the Royal Lao government and the Pathet Lao.179

In 1979, Soviet General V.K. Pikolov visited Laos with a 500 man team to inspect LPLA

chemical weapons warehouses and train LPLA troops in chemical and conventional warfare.

178

Ibid pages 320-337. 179

Ibid pages 362-376.

35

They actually ran the Laotian Air Force.180

Laos sent troops to aid Vietnam in its 1979 conquest

of Democratic Kampuchea. Over 180 Soviet, Czech, and Hungarian soldiers who posed as

technicians built strategic roads in Laos near Savannakhet.181

Meanwhile, Pathet Lao atrocities

against the Hmong continued. In 1979, a defecting LPLA pilot defected and revealed that he was

ordered since 1976 to carry out “Extinct Destruction Operations” which was intended to “wipe

out the reactionary Hmong people.” Chemical and conventional weapons were used.

The Pathet Lao also followed a similar strategy of the North Vietnamese in coopting

Western leftists to boost the image of its communist regime in the court of world public opinion.

By 1980, the ruling Pathet Lao government used Westerners to convince world public opinion

that the seminar camps were closed by late 1980. A US professor Dr. MacAlister Brown gave a

lecture in Thailand that indicated he was told by Laotian ministry officials that the seminar

camps were closed. The Mennonite and AFSC were the only private religious groups from the

US allowed to conduct outreach efforts in Laos. One Mennonite official Frederick

Swartzendruber served in Laos from 1979-1981 and was given guided tours of the country

aboard Soviet helicopters. He advanced the theory of the damages and deaths caused by the

yellow rain chemical weapons as simply being “bee feces.” Swartzendruber also participated in

tours of alleged Hmong markets, where people were allegedly shopping. Anti-Vietnam War

activists in the US denounced Gen. Vang Pao. Laotian agents trained by Vietnam were sent to

the US as refugees and entered because of a sloppy screening process. They threatened former

Royal Lao Army General Vang Pao with untraceable poisoning and other death threats. One

refugee Thao Yia stated in 1985 that “I’m worried that American ‘Reds’ and the US will make

relations with Laos so we can’t take back Laos. I see Red Lao who come here as refugees. In

Fresno I see Red Lao come here to visit sent by the Lao government to tell the refugees

propaganda. They also collect money from refugees here saying they’ll take it to their families in

Laos. They are only here to make money for themselves. There were four Red Hmong in Fresno

last week. These Red Hmong and Red Lao start rumors in California to cause problems for

Hmong living in America.” The US Committee on Refugees and the Mennonites blamed the

Hmong resistance for the violence and atrocities in Laos by the Pathet Lao at a human rights

conference with the Laotian charge d’ affaires to the United States present. A State Department

official and the Laotian charge d’ affaires traveled to this conference together. This illustrated the

fact that the Bush Administration also helped to collude with American leftists and the Pathet

Lao in covering up communist atrocities.182

The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia was also assisted by the Red Chinese, North Vietnamese,

and other communist powers. Chhang Song, Director of the Ministry of Information in the

Khmer Republic and an assistant in the cabinet of Prince Sihanouk reported that the Soviets and

Chinese had lots of intelligence personnel in their embassies in Phnom Penh who were described

as “basically KGB types” that aided the Khmer Rouge, the North Vietnamese, and the Vietcong.

Khieu Samphan was saved from the authorities by the Chinese Embassy.183

In October 1973, the

USSR withdrew much of their Embassy staff from Phnom Penh and opened a channel to the

180

Ibid page 417. 181

Scott, Joanna. Indochina’s Refugees: Oral Histories from Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam

(McFarland 1989) page 253. 182

Hamilton-Merritt, Jane. Tragic Mountains (Indiana University Press 1993) pages 448-449 and

502-503. 183

Santoli, Al. To Bear Any Burden (Indiana University Press 1999) 222-223.

36

Khmer Rouge based in China. The Khmer Rouge received money from China to maintain its

diplomatic missions and also received weapons from North Korea and Cuba. The North

Vietnamese also provided the Khmer Rouge with AK-47s, 12.7 mm machine guns, 82 mm

mortars, Soviet-made 122 mm rocket launchers, and Chinese-made 107 mm rocket launchers.184

A US Embassy document noted that Soviet support for the Khmer Rouge focused in on “the

recent military successes of the Khmer Rouge forces; the alleged military and economic

weakness of the Phnom Penh regime; and Moscow’s support for the ‘just cause of the

liberator.’”185

The North Vietnamese also provided troops and advisers during the Khmer Rouge’s

battles against the authoritarian pro-US government of President Lon Nol. Frank Snepp noted

that the North Vietnamese provided the Khmer Rouge in 1975 with captured US-made 105mm

howitzers.186

A Red Chinese official in 1977 noted that the North Vietnamese sent two army

divisions to assist the Khmer Rouge in the conquest of Phnom Penh. Vietnam later claimed that

their army provided artillery support to the Khmer Rouge. A State Department official T. Carney

reported that the North Vietnamese developed a shield that protected the Khmer Rouge in eastern

Cambodia from 1970 to 1972. Communist “journalist” and KGB agent Wilfred Burchett noted

that North Vietnamese artillerymen assisted the Khmer Rouge in the final offensive against

government forces in 1975. The Deputy Foreign Minister of Vietnam Vo Dong Giang noted in

1980 that the mortar operators among the Khmer Rouge forces were all North Vietnamese

soldiers.187

The Khmer Rouge itself placed itself on the side of global communist revolution. The

May 1970 program of the Khmer Rouge supported the “struggle of the peoples of the world for

peace, independence, democracy and social progress, against the aggressive and warlike

American imperialists, against old and new colonialism in all its forms; it expresses full support

for the struggle of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America for independence and freedom,

the struggle of the Chinese people for the recovery of Taiwan, an integral part of the People’s

Republic of China, the struggle of the Korean people against the American imperialist

aggressors and for the liberation of the southern part of their country and the reunification of

Korea, the struggle of the Arab people, the Palestinian people in particular, for their

fundamental national rights against the Israeli aggressors in the pay of the American

imperialists, the struggle of the American people against the war of aggression, against racial

discrimination and for peace and their genuine interests, etc…”188

As of 1977, rightwing Khmer Serei leadership reported that “The Khmer Rouge are said

to be divided into four factions: the pro-Chinese; the pro-Soviet; the pro-Vietnamese; and a

184

Jackson, Karl D. Cambodia 1975-1978 (Princeton University Press 1992) page 32. 185

Department of State, Operations Center. “Soviet Support for Khmer Insurgents” Accessed

From: http://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1975STATE052840_b.html 186

Kiernan, Ben. The Pol Pot Regime (Yale University Press 2008) page 102. 187

Ibid, pages 75 and 99. 188

“Political programme of the National United Front of Kampuchea (NUFK) : (adopted

unanimously by the Congress held in Peking on Sunday, May 3, 1970)” Accessed From:

http://archive.org/stream/PoliticalProgrammeOfTheNationalUnitedFrontOfKampucheanufkadopt

ed/NUFK_djvu.txt

37

group that wants to collaborate with the former head of state Prince Norodom Sihanouk.”189

Many of the pro-Hanoi and pro-Soviet Khmer Rouge leaders and activists were purged and

others fled to Vietnam. They returned to Cambodia on the heels of the Vietnamese invasion

forces.

After the Khmer Rouge conquest of Cambodia in April 1975 and renamed the country

Democratic Kampuchea, relations between Hanoi and Phnom Penh were relatively inconsistent.

On the one hand, the Khmer Rouge deeply distrusted North Vietnamese intentions for an

Indochina under Hanoi’s sole control. Yet Hanoi and Phnom Penh also maintained party-to-

party, trade, and diplomatic relations. Some reports indicated that the war booty captured by the

Khmer Rouge were diverted to North Vietnam either in barter exchanges or to repay the North

Vietnamese for their wartime assistance. You Kim Lanh noted that he “had to search all the

houses and collect any rice left in them and stock up the medicine from all the pharmacies. We

loaded everything onto boats run by Vietnamese crews.” Yen Savvanarry noted that there was

steady traffic on Highway 1 in late April 1975 to Saigon. The Khmer Rouge transported radios,

motorcycles, and other small vehicles, weapons, bicycles, packaged medicines, 105mm

howitzers, and cars, such as Mercedes and Peugeot 404s to North Vietnamese-occupied South

Vietnam.190

The Khmer Rouge reportedly used American-made jeeps and Red Chinese-built

trucks to transport chairs, refrigerators, air conditioners, fans, TVs, and sacks and bags of

unknown merchandise to North Vietnam. These captured goods were either sold or given to the

North Vietnamese at no charge.191

The first harvest in Democratic Kampuchea was partially

exported to Vietnam.192

In July 1976, the civil aviation authorities of Vietnam and Democratic

Kampuchea opened up direct air routes between Vietnam and Democratic Kampuchea.193

Vietnamese ships docked at Phnom Penh and unloaded salt, while Democratic Kampuchea

imported 500,000 meters of Vietnamese cloth.194

The Vietnamese also issued propaganda and diplomatic support on behalf of the Khmer

Rouge (Democratic Kampuchea) until the irreversible hostilities became apparent in 1978. In

April 1977, the Vietnamese denounced the “slanderous campaign against the socialist countries

to discredit them and sap their influence. Colluding with the Thai reactionaries the United States

has conducted several armed attacks against Laos and Cambodia.” In April 1977, Vietnamese

Communist leader Le Duan noted that “…under the leadership of the Cambodian Revolutionary

Organization and in the tradition of ardent patriotism and industry the heroic people of

Cambodia over the past two years have upheld the spirit of self reliance and have overcome

many difficulties…The Vietnamese people warmly hail these fine achievements of the fraternal

Cambodian people…On this great occasion the Vietnamese people sincerely thank the fraternal

Cambodian people for your vigorous support and precious assistance to our revolutionary cause

and sincerely wish you many more and still greater successes in building an independent, united,

189

Groueff, Stephane. “The Nation As Concentration Camp” National Review September 2,

1977 pages 988-990. 190

Ponchaud, Francois. Cambodia Year Zero (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1978) pages 31-32. 191

Ngor, Haing. A Cambodian Odyssey (Macmillan, 1987) pages 99-100. 192

Paul, Anthony and Barron, John.Murder of a Gentle Land (Reader’s Digest Press: distributed

by Crowell 1977) page 198. 193

“Accord On Air Route Reached With SRV” Phnom Penh Domestic Service July 26, 1976 194

Kiernan, Ben. The Pol Pot Regime (Yale University Press 2008) pages 128 and 123.

38

peaceful and neutral, nonaligned, sovereign, democratic and territorially integral

Cambodia.”195

In May 1975, the Khmer Rouge held victory rallies in Phnom Penh to celebrate the North

Vietnamese victory and conquest of South Vietnam. Officials of the Cambodia-Vietnam

Friendship Association were present along with 1,000 Cambodian workers, intellectuals, and

soldiers, who shouted “Long Live the Militant Solidarity between Cambodia and Vietnam!”196

In December 1975, a Vietcong ambassador from North Vietnamese-occupied South

Vietnam arrived in Phnom Penh and was warmly received by Democratic Kampuchean Foreign

Ministry officials.197

The Democratic Kampuchean government hailed the “elections” of “the

common National Assembly of unified Vietnam” in March 1976.198

In April 1977, the

Vietnamese communist media praised Democratic Kampuchea on its second anniversary. Nhan

Dan wrote a glowing description of a visit of a Vietnamese Women’s Delegation to Democratic

Kampuchea by stating: “The Cambodian people were enthusiastically embarking on irrigation

work…women are vigorously surging forward and joining men to become owners of the

country.”199

In February 1976, apparently on the eve of the Democratic Kampuchea-Vietnam summit,

a Vietnamese Communist Party high level official named Xuan Thuy, informed the Soviet

ambassador that “the relations of Vietnam and Cambodia are slowly improving.” In July 1976,

the Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Hoanh Van Loi informed the Soviet

Ambassador that the Communist leadership “deems it necessary to have patience and work

towards gradually strengthening its influence in Cambodia.” In 1976, the Deputy Director-

General of the Vietnamese Information Agency, Tran Thanh Xuan led a large delegation of

Vietnamese journalists to Democratic Kampuchea and interviewed Pol Pot. Pol Pot remarked to

Xuan that “we consider friendship and solidarity between the Kampuchean and Vietnamese

revolutions, between Kampuchea and Vietnam a strategic question and a sacred feeling. Only

when such friendship and solidarity are strong, can the revolution in our countries develop

adequately. There is no other alternative. That is why, honoring these principles, we consider

that both parties and we personally should aspire to maintain this combat solidarity and

brotherhood in arms and make sure that they grow and strengthen day by day.” In March 1977,

Vietnamese Communist Party Politburo member Truong Chinh noted to the Soviet Ambassador

that “Democratic Kampuchea is also generally building socialism, but the leaders of

Kampuchea are not clear enough as to forms of socialist construction. There is no unity in the

Kampuchean leadership and much depends on which line will win.”200

The Red Chinese proved to be Democratic Kampuchea’s strongest economic, political,

and military sponsors. Between 1975 and 1977, Red China exported 200 tanks, 16 F-6C jet

195

Shawcross, William The Quality of Mercy (Fontana 1985) page 57. 196

“Khieu Samphan Addresses Vietnam Victory Rally in Phnom Penh” Phnom Penh Domestic

Service May 17, 1975 197

“South Vietnam Envoy Arrives” Phnom Penh Domestic Service December 2, 1975 198

“Cambodians Apprised of Vietnamese Elections” Phnom Penh Domestic Service March 27,

1976 199

Morris, Stephen J. Why Vietnam Invaded Cambodia (Stanford University Press, 1999) page

98. 200

Yale University Genocide Studies Program Accessed From:

www.yale.edu/gsp/publications/Mosyakov.doc

39

fighters, a number of naval gunboats, 30,000 tons of ammunition, and at least 15,000 People’s

Liberation Armed Forces (PLA) troops to Democratic Kampuchea. The Chinese PLA trained

Khmer Rouge pilots on leftover US-made T-41 and T-28 training planes based in Battambang.

Chinese propaganda films showed Khmer Rouge pilots flying T-28 combat planes with rocket

pods and T-41 trainers flying from bases in Battambang and Phnom Penh. A delegation from

communist Yugoslav TV observed in 1978 that US-made C-47s operated from Phnom Penh.201

In mid-1975, 320 Chinese PLA air force troops were stationed in Democratic Kampuchea. The

Chinese PLA also trained Khmer Rouge pilots and crews on US-made UH-1H helicopters based

in Phnom Penh. The AFKLA received from Red China F-6 jets and H-5 bombers. Red Chinese

PLA forces constructed an air base at Kompong Chhnang.202

The Red Chinese also assisted the Khmer Rouge in setting up front companies in order

for the Phnom Penh regime to trade with the capitalist world (including occasionally the United

States). In 1976, the Khmer Rouge established the Khmer Company for Foreign Trade and the

Ren Fung Corporation.203

The Overseas Commercial Bank (Foreign Trade Bank) of Democratic

Kampuchea was started with 140 million Chinese yuan.204

Ren Fung was set up by the Khmer

Rouge in Hong Kong in mid-1976 and was housed in a communist Chinese bank. It was staffed

by Khmer Rouge officials and its purchasing was tasked to a Hong Kong Chinese citizen. Ren

Fung’s purchases were funded by the PRC firm, China Resources Company.205

One diplomatic

observer noted “Khmers are not yet sure of themselves. They don’t know how the capitalist world

will react to their shopping inquiries. They naturally prefer to operate from the shadows and

with the help of those who know the capitalist jungle.”206 Cambodian economic plans were

tailored to the export trade with Red China. After a meeting on the implementation of the state

plan in 1978, Pol Pot noted that “In 1978 we must export to China from 100,000 to 150,000 tons

of rice and 20,000 to 25,000 tons of rubber. The contract has been signed and we must carry it

out.”207

In addition to the heavy Red Chinese presence, other communist countries provided

scattered assistance to the Khmer Rouge during their period in power from 1975 to 1979. In

September 1977, Kim Jong-il of North Korea congratulated the Khmer Rouge on its 17th

anniversary and for having “wiped out…counterrevolutionary group of spies who had committed

subversive activities and sabotage” The two top leaders in the Khmer Rouge security apparatus

201

‘Air War in Cambodia 1953-2003” Accessed From:

http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_411.shtml 202

“Cambodia: Air Force of the Khmer Liberation Army: Air Force History 1975-1979

Accessed From: http://www.aeroflight.co.uk/waf/aa-eastasia/cambodia/cam-af-history3.htm 203

Chanda, Nayan. “Phnom Penh’s Undercover Men” Far Eastern Economic Review December

10, 1976 pages 49-50. 204

Co-Prosecutors’ Rule 92 Submission Regarding Indicia of Reliability of the 978 Document

Listed in Connection With Those Witnesses and Experts Who May Be Called During the First

Three Weeks of Trial” Accessed From:

http://www.cambodiatribunal.org/sites/default/files/documents/E158_EN.PDF 205

Kiernan, Ben. The Pol Pot Regime (Yale University Press, 2002) pages 145-146. 206

Chanda, Nayan. “Phnom Penh’s Undercover Men” Far Eastern Economic Review December

10, 1976 pages 49-50. 207

Genocide in Cambodia: Documents from the Trial of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary (University of

Pennsylvania Press, Apr 4, 2000) page 538.

40

met with North Korean intelligence and held several working level meetings where they received

material aid and training. North Korea also sent advisers to Democratic Kampuchea to teach the

Khmer Rouge torture and to improve the functioning of Democratic Kampuchean security

cadres.208

In December 1978, North Korean KPA pilots flew a Chinese-made AFKLA H-5 jet

bomber against Vietnamese and their Cambodian puppets.209

In 1976, Albania shipped tractors to

Democratic Kampuchea in exchange for rubber, coconuts, and wood. Democratic Kampuchea

exported 3,000 tons of rice to Laos for political reasons. In January 1977, the Yugoslav freighter

Hrvaska unloaded in Democratic Kampuchea $3 million worth of goods such as tractors and

mechanical equipment.210

The Soviets and their allies hailed the seizure of the American merchant ship Mayaguez.

An unnamed high official of US intelligence indicated in May 1975 that the Soviet Union and

China were “egging on the Khmer Rouge regime.” The Soviets and Chinese congratulated the

Phnom Penh regime for its capture of the Mayaguez. This was based on intercepted radio

communications between Moscow, Peking, and Phnom Penh. This unnamed official noted “I

can only say that nothing in the messages carried any suggestion that the Cambodians should

back down.”211 The propaganda organs of the Warsaw Pact supported the Khmer Rouge in its

seizure of the Mayaguez. In May 1975, the Voice of the GDR noted that the USS Mayaguez

“engaged in espionage activities in Cambodian territorial waters…”212 In May 1975, the East

German news agency ADN noted that the East German Peace Council opposed US rescue of the

Mayaguez by stating “This atrocious arbitrary act against a sovereign country runs counter to

international law and seriously endangers world peace.”213 In May 1975, Voice of the GDR

214

commentator Hans-Juergen Wittenburg noted that the Mayaguez was “camouflaged as a

freighter” and “was carrying weapons” and was “equipped with espionage equipment.” He felt

that “the Cambodian patrol boats were therefore within their right when they seized the boat.”215

Under the Khmer Rouge administration at Tuol Sleng Prison, their security cadres studied the

works of Lenin and the book created by the East German Stasi, Who’s Who in the CIA.216

It is

possible that the Khmer Rouge security cadres had a relationship with the Stasi on the account of

being in receipt of Who’s Who in the CIA.

The Soviets and their Eastern European allies provided propaganda and diplomatic

support for the Khmer Rouge (Democratic Kampuchea) even as late as 1978. Throughout 1975,

the Soviets and their allies hailed the fall of Indochina to communist forces. In April 1975, the

Bulgarian communist newspaper Rabotnichesko Delo praised the “patriotic forces in Cambodia

208

Thayer, Nate. “Pol Pot Meets Kim il-Sung” September 12, 2012 Accessed From

http://www.nate-thayer.com/pol-pot-meets-kim-il-sung/ 209

“Cambodia: Air Force of the Khmer Liberation Army: Air Force History 1975-1979

Accessed From: http://www.aeroflight.co.uk/waf/aa-eastasia/cambodia/cam-af-history3.htm 210

Ponchaud, Francois. Cambodia Year Zero (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1978) page 84. 211

Tully, Andrew.“Mayaguez Story: A Warning” Lodi News Sentinel May 20, 1975 page 4. 212

“Voice of GDR Reports US Sinking of Cambodian Ships” East Berlin Voice of the GDR

Domestic Service May 14, 1975 213

“Peace Council Cables Ford About Cambodian Aggression” ADN May 16, 1975 214

Acronym for German Democratic Republic or East Germany. 215

Hans-Juergen Wittenburg “Commentary” East Berlin Voice of the GDR Domestic Service

May 15, 1975 216

Shawcross, William The Quality of Mercy (Fontana 1985) page 42.

41

and South Vietnam are defeating the anti-people’s regimes created by the US imperialist circles

for the purpose of suppressing the people’s national liberation movement in Indochina.”217 In

April 1975, Pravda praised “the courage and staunchness of the peoples of this region of Asia

enabled them to repulse imperialist aggression, defeat internal reaction, and defend their

national interests…Soviet people share the joy of the Khmer liberation fighters who have saved

the country from the clique of the imperialist underlings.”218 In April 1975, the Voice of the

GDR noted that “What we are now experiencing and let us not forget it, is being shaped jointly

with our solidarity, the victory by nations over their oppressors, the victory of freedom and

morals over oppression and immorality, of revolutionary movements over the

counterrevolution.”219 In April 1975, Bulgarian leaders Todor Zhivkov and Stanko Todorov

noted that the Khmer Rouge victory “inflicted a grave blow against the imperialist policy of

interference in the domestic affairs of Indochina in favor of the anti-people’s reactionary

forces.”220 In April 1975, Neues Deutschland hailed the fact that the “Phnom Penh regime has

surrendered to the forces of the people’s liberation. The inhabitants of the Cambodian capital

welcomed their liberators with great joy, and celebrated their victory…The victory of the people

over the puppets and their wirepullers is the result of a heroic and sacrificial struggle.”221 In

May 1975, Neues Deutschland congratulated the Khmer Rouge’s “historic victory of the

Cambodian people over imperialist aggression and domestic reaction.”222 In April 1977,

Izvestia noted that “the Cambodian patriots completed their many years of heroic struggle

against the reactionary clique of puppets supported by the aggressive circles of imperialism.”223

A message from Todor Zhivkov and Stanko Todorov dated from April 1977 supported “the

Cambodian patriots against the aggression of the imperialists and the bloody anti-popular policy

of the local reactionaries.”224

The Soviets also admitted their support for the Khmer Rouge after their victory over the

Lon Nol government in April 1975. Kosygin met with Cambodian Charge D’Affairs to the

USSR Nu Pek in April 1975. Nu Pek “thanked the Soviet government and the entire Soviet

people for the powerful support the Soviet Union had invariably given to the patriotic forces of

Cambodia in their struggle for national liberation.”225 In April 1975, Radio Moscow noted that

“the Soviet Union has learned with deep satisfaction of the liberation of Phnom Penh and of the

restoration of peace on Cambodian soil.” It also admitted that “various socialist countries

including the Soviet Union and progressive peoples throughout the world have provided all out

aid and support to the just cause of the Cambodian people’s struggle for the freedom and

independence of their fatherland.”226

217

“The Disgraceful End” Rabotnichesko Delo April 18, 1975 218

“New Phase in Cambodian History Has Started” Pravda April 23, 1975 219

“US Failure in Cambodia Seen As End of Era” East Berlin Voice of the GDR Domestic

Service April 14, 1975 220

“Leaders Congratulate Cambodians on Victory” Sofia BTA Domestic Service April 19, 1975 221

“Neues Deutschland Hails Cambodia People’s Victory” Neues Deutschland April 18, 1975 222

“Cambodian Leaders Cable Thanks for Victory Congratulations” Neues Deutschland May 1,

1975 223

“Izvestia Hails Anniversary of Cambodia’s Liberation” Izvestia April 17, 1977 224

“Bulgarian Leaders’ Message” Phnom Penh Domestic Service April 17, 1977 225

“Kosygin Receives Cambodian Charge D’Affairs in Kremlin” Moscow TASS April 21, 1975 226

“Soviet Official Re-Affirms USSR Support for Cambodia” Radio Moscow April 25, 1975

42

Throughout much of their rule, the Khmer Rouge were the recipients of stentorian praise

from the Soviet bloc. In 1976, when Pol Pot officially became prime minister of Democratic

Kampuchea, Aleksei Kosygin sent a telegram of congratulations, which was published in

Pravda.227

Brezhnev noted at the plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the CPSU in

October 1976 that “the path of independent development was opened among other countries

before Democratic Kampuchea.”228 In April 1976, the East German newspaper Neues

Deutschland congratulated Democratic Kampuchea for their elections.229

In April 1977, Pravda

hailed the “triumph of the people of Cambodia over the corrupt pro-American regime has made

it possible to carry out profound political and socioeconomic transformations in the country.”

The article praised the Democratic Kampuchea constitution, elections, and the collectivization of

the economic sectors.230

In October 1977, the Soviet foreign affairs weekly New Times praised

Pol Pot’s “progressive social and economic reforms.”231

In November 1977, a message from

Khieu Samphan to Brezhnev noted that “the great Comrade Lenin…achieved the historic Great

October Socialist Revolution by founding the glorious proletarian dictatorship state on Soviet

soil, thereby greatly changing the world situation.”232 In April 1977, Soviet President Nikolai

Podgorny sent a message to Khmer Rouge president Khieu Samphan, which stated that the

USSR hoped Democratic Kampuchea would “succeed in the cause of strengthening

independence and in efforts to strengthen and develop the national economy.”233 As late as

January 1978, Radio Moscow broadcasted a New Year’s message of support to the Khmer

Rouge which stated “In the international arena the Soviet people have constantly supported the

struggle of the heroic Cambodian people and have constantly adhered to the stand of friendship

between Kampuchea and the Soviet Union.”234 In January 1978, Moscow Radio conveyed to

“the entire Cambodian people the best of health, success in their work and stable peace.”235

In

1978, the USSR Central Committee of the CPSU welcomed the formal announcement of the

existence of the Communist Party of Kampuchea.236

Visiting communist delegations traveled to Democratic Kampuchea to express their

solidarity with the Khmer Rouge. In December 1975, a reception was held with high level

Democratic Kampuchean officials such as Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan, and officials from the

227

Labedz, Leopold. The Use and Abuse of Sovietology (Transaction Publishers, 1989) page

256. 228

Yale University Genocide Studies Program Accessed From:

www.yale.edu/gsp/publications/Mosyakov.doc 229

“Cambodian Leaders Congratulated on Election” Neues Deutschland April 17-18, 1976 230

“USSR Seeks Friendship, Cooperation with Cambodia” Moscow Pravda April 17, 1977 231

Labedz, Leopold. The Use and Abuse of Sovietology (Transaction Publishers, 1989) page

256. 232

“Khieu Samphan Greets Brezhnev on Revolution Anniversary” Phnom Penh Domestic

Service November 6, 1977 233

“Foreign Leaders Send Congratulations on National Day” Phnom Penh Domestic Service

April 16, 1977 234

Tyson, James L. Target America (Regnery Gateway, 1983) page 129. 235

“Moscow Radio’s New Year’s Message to Cambodian People” Moscow International Service

January 1, 1978 236

Labedz, Leopold. The Use and Abuse of Sovietology (Transaction Publishers, 1989) page

256.

43

Foreign Ministry. They hosted diplomats and officials from China, North Korea, North

Vietnamese-occupied South Vietnam, Albania, North Vietnam, and Cuba. Ieng Sary noted that

“the international situation had evolved in favor of the struggle of the peoples of Asia, Africa,

Latin America, and throughout the world against imperialism and all forms of reaction.”237

Various Maoist communist parties, along with Soviet satellites also issued their greetings

and congratulations to the Khmer Rouge. In May 1976, the state-controlled women’s, solidarity,

and labor movements from Laos, North Korea, and the Soviet Union, along with the Chosen-

Soren (General Association of Korean Residents in Japan), and leftwing groups from Finland,

France, Switzerland, and Austria sent their congratulations to the Democratic Kampuchea

regime.238

In April 1977, the deputy foreign ministers and foreign ministers of the following

countries sent their greetings to Democratic Kampuchea: North Korea, Vietnam, Laos,

Yugoslavia, Egypt, Albania, Romania, Algeria, Senegal, Burma, Tunisia, Greece,

Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and Mongolia.239

In April 1978, Radio Phnom Penh reported

that the communist parties in Malaysia, Mongolia, Bulgaria, the Communist League of

Luxembourg, and the Japan Workers’ Party sent congratulatory messages to Democratic

Kampuchea.240

Meanwhile, the Khmer Rouge also hailed what it viewed as the collapse of the US

economy. In that respect, Phnom Penh’s propaganda mirrored that of North Vietnam and other

communist states. In February 1978, Radio Phnom Penh noted this about a coal strike in the US:

“The strike was first launched in an effort to resist the cruel oppression and exploitation

committed by the US monopoly capitalists and to demand and protect workers’ rights which

have been incessantly violated by these monopoly capitalists in their bid to accumulate more

wealth by bleeding the workers white.” The Khmer Rouge also noted that the strike increased

“the already serious energy crisis that US imperialism is experiencing.”241 In October 1977,

Radio Phnom Penh noted that “The oil producing countries have used oil as an effective weapon

with which to strike at the big capitalist countries and especially at US imperialism.” The radio

also noted that “the US economic crisis has created three difficulties for US imperialism” which

the radio listed as loss of confidence in the US dollar, the trade deficit, and unemployment.”242

Democratic Kampuchea also aligned itself with global revolutionary causes supported by

both the Soviet Union and Red China. In October 1978, Ieng Sary noted before the UN General

Assembly that “In the Middle East, the struggle of the Palestinian people and all the Arab

peoples to exercise their national rights and to recover their territories has not developed

according to the will of the imperialist and expansionist big powers. This struggle will still

remain long and bitter. The Palestinian and Arab peoples have learned precious lessons through

their sacrifices. Their will for independence will continue to light the way of their struggle…The

peoples of Zimbabwe, Azania and Namibia, using revolutionary violence in their struggle for

independence and for the right to decide their own destiny against colonialism, racism and

237

“Ieng Sary Hosts Reception for Diplomats” Phnom Penh Domestic Service December 31,

1975 238

“Friendly Anniversary Greetings Relayed” Phnom Penh Domestic Service May 5, 1976 239

“Foreign, Deputy Ministers’ Greetings” Phnom Penh Domestic Service April 28, 1977 240

“More Congratulatory Messages on National Day” Phnom Penh Domestic Service April 20,

1978 241

“US Coal Mines Strike Noted” Phnom Penh Domestic Service February 6, 1978 242

“Radio Notes US Economic Problems” Phnom Penh Domestic Service October 3, 1977

44

apartheid, are on their way towards victory, despite obstacles created by the rivalries of the

imperialist and expansionist big powers. The struggle of the countries in Latin America to

exercise their national rights has also progressed. The victory won by Panama to recover its

sovereign right to the canal is the result of a stubborn struggle waged by the Panamanian

people. It is also the result of the solidarity among the peoples of Latin America.”243

The Khmer Rouge also praised the role of the antiwar Left in assisting in their seizure of

power. The peace movement and the New Left played a critical role in pressuring Congress and

the Ford Administration in reducing and eliminating US aid for the Lon Nol government. In

September 1975, Foreign Minister Ieng Sary visited New York City and met with American

leftists and antiwar activists. Sary commented that the Khmer Rouge “always remembered that

the American people were supporting us.” He stated “This victory is not the victory of the

Cambodian people alone, it is the victory of all the people, the American people included-

especially the American youth and the people that love peace and justice.” Sary stated “The

Cambodian people know you very well, especially students who are fighting on our behalf,

especially your students at Jackson state and Kent State…we always remembered the American

people as friends, and especially the people of New York City.”244 Gunnar Bergstrom of the

Swedish-Cambodian Friendship Association visited Democratic Kampuchea in 1978. He noted

that “I was at that time a member of a friendship association which was a remnant of the anti-

Vietnam/Cambodia War movement in Sweden, which was very strong in the Western world…Of

course we didn't want to believe that the liberators had become oppressors.” Bergstrom enjoyed

sumptuous meals of rice, chicken, fish, and oysters with high ranking Khmer Rouge officials

such as Pol Pot and Ieng Sary.245

Historian Sophal Ear noted that the Indochina Resource Center

was “the Khmer Rouge’s most effective apologists in the West.” By 1978, the Chinese launched a

propaganda campaign to defend the Democratic Kampuchea regime and distributed films such as

Democratic Kampuchea is Moving Forward and printed glossy magazines. When Foreign

Minister Ieng Sary traveled to New York in 1978, he screened the film mentioned above and

distributed glossy propaganda magazines.246

In December 1978 Cambodian Radio noted this

about British Labor Party member and underground Maoist Communist Malcolm Caldwell: “I

have been trying for years to create more sympathy for your country in Britain. And I know that I

shall be able to carry on this work much more successfully as the result of having the

opportunity to visit your country.”247

243

“Speech by the deputy prime minister in charge of foreign affairs, Ieng Sary, chairman of the

delegation of Democratic Kampuchea at the 33rd session of the United Nations General

Assembly, delivered on October 12, 1978” Accessed From:

http://archive.org/stream/SpeechByTheDeputyPrimeMinisterInChargeOfForeignAffairsIengSary

/Iensary_djvu.txt 244

“Address by Mr. Ieng Sary” September 6, 1975 on Indochina Resource Center Letter Head

Accessed From: http://www.virtual.vietnam.ttu.edu/cgi-

bin/starfetch.exe?eKnmuFLMs0BEHzdQSHSWJL9TFpaRTIjB04Ae.apzZ@yApeOvZ1QJRKK

eitDCRTg5ObPAOf4IYbmFJBdPDGKsWpY9UQjFtbJ6it706BGseps/2430803022.pdf 245

Kinetz, Erika. “Pol Pot’s Former Dinner Guest Admits to Lapse in Judgment” The Cambodia

Daily November 1, 2007 Accessed From: http://www.cambodiadaily.com/stories-of-the-

month/pol-pots-former-dinner-guest-admits-to-lapse-in-judgment-279/ 246

Maguire, Peter. Facing Death in Cambodia (Columbia University Press 2013) page 55. 247

Tyson, James L. Target America (Regnery Gateway, 1983)

45

Between November 1977 and the end of 1978, official delegations from Burma,

Malaysia, Thailand, Romania, Yugoslavia, and the Scandinavian countries traveled to

Democratic Kampuchea. Delegations from pro-Chinese communist parties in Australia,

Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Japan, Norway, and the United States also traveled to

Democratic Kampuchea. These delegations were given the usual guided tours of Angkor and

selected agricultural collectives. During this period, Democratic Kampuchea published

propaganda in French, English, and Khmer for foreign consumption.

Khmer Rouge supporters in the US published a booklet titled Long Live the 17th

Anniversary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea. It was published by the Group of

Kampuchean Residents in America. The book also contained the speeches of Pol Pot. The

Comite des Patriotes du Kampuchea Democratique en France and the British Kampuchea

Support Campaign-Great Britain distributed press releases from the Khmer Rouge. The British

Kampuchea Support Campaign lasted until 1991. Other groups that defended Democratic

Kampuchea proliferated in the 1970s. They existed in Sweden, West Germany, Switzerland,

Denmark, Japan, Hong Kong, and Australia. The Paris Mission of Democratic Kampuchea

issued statements and propaganda that countered statements by Khmer Rouge defectors and

refugees. Hard-line Maoist communists such as Malcolm Caldwell used Government of

Democratic Kampuchea bulletins to back up their positions. Conferences of groups such as the

Swedish-Kampuchea Friendship Association used materials that were published by the

government of Democratic Kampuchea and its officials such as President Khieu Samphan.248

It

should be noted that the Paris Mission for Democratic Kampuchea was closed by the French in

mid-1976.249

Since that time, the ruling communist regime in Democratic Kampuchea lacked a

diplomatic mission in the West.

The Khmer Rouge also saw itself as the purveyor of communist revolution in the

remaining noncommunist countries in Southeast Asia. In October 1976, a Congress of the high-

ranking personnel of the Democratic Kampuchean Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted: “…we

must strengthen and expand relationships with friends all over the world, especially

revolutionary and peace-loving nations to defeat the American imperialists and the free (world).

Concentrate mainly on the revolutionary forces in Southeast Asia and the progressive forces in

both the Nonaligned Nations and the Third World and secondarily on the forces of justice in the

world. Essentially, we must gather the revolutionary force in Southeast Asia such as in

Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia etc. We must pay attention to the close solidarity,

mutual help, and the progressive force in the neutral block and the forces of justice. Pay

attention to close solidarity with the pure Marxist-Leninist forces, especially those with no

conflicts with us…Continue to fight to get friends in Southeast Asia and to make friends with the

neutral countries in the world as well…Pay attention to solidarity with Marxist parties.”250 In

January 1978, the Thai military admitted that Democratic Kampuchea supported the Thai

Communist Party with weapons and military training. They also admitted that Democratic

Kampuchean troops accompanied Thai Communist Party forces during invasions of Thai

248

Ear, Sophal. “The Khmer Rouge Canon 1975-1979” University of California, Berkeley May

1995 Accessed From: http://jim.com/canon.htm 249

“France Closes Cambodian Diplomatic Mission” Times (London) July 31, 1976 page 5. 250

“The B-1 Ministry Congress (10-7-1976)” Accessed From:

http://www.yale.edu/cgp/iengsary.htm#BM_E__THE_B_1_MINISTRY_CONGRESS__10_7_1

9

46

territory. Sometimes Democratic Kampuchean troops directly attacked Thai border villages in

1977 and 1978.251

The Khmer Rouge also followed the Soviet and Chinese pattern in attracting (albeit

cautiously) foreign investment and trade to Democratic Kampuchea. In November 1978, the

Khmer Rouge invited executives from the Thai tourism firm Erawan International to discuss

charter flights of foreign tourists to Angkor.252

Under the Khmer Rouge and the PRK, foreign

tourist flew from Bangkok to Siem Reap. The Khmer Rouge originally undertook this measure to

attract hard currency and to gain international respectability from the outside world.253

It was

reported in September 1978 that Democratic Kampuchea would open Angkor Wat to tourists

traveling from Bangkok. Major General Chatchai of Thailand represented the Erawan

International Company Ltd in a meeting with Kampuchean Foreign Minister Ieng Sary. Erawan

was to set up daily flights from Bangkok to Siem Reap. The Managing Director of Erawan noted

that Bangkok would become “the gateway to Angkor Wat.” The tours will be 2-3 hours long and

the tourists would then return to Bangkok.254

Japanese trading companies (a total of 32 firms) banded together in July 1975 to form the

Japan-Cambodia Trade Association. These firms were also members of the Japan-North Vietnam

Trade Association. The Governor of this Association was Koshiro Iwai, secretary general of the

Japan-North Vietnam Trade Association. It was to work for establishment of trade ties between

Japan and Cambodia, “people-to-people contacts” in the economic field and “private level trade

agreements.”255

In August 1977, Koshiro Iwai, a Japanese industrialist and President of the

Japan-Cambodia Trade Association announced that he would send a delegation to Democratic

Kampuchea (DK). In the first half of 1977, Japan-DK trade totaled over 1.1 billion yen. The

Association was created in 1976 and had 41 Japanese corporate members. This trade was

conducted through the Hong Kong-based Ren Fung Corporation. Japanese exports to DK

included textiles, bulldozers, dump trucks, other vehicles and spare parts, and chemicals, while

DK exports to Japan consisted of farm products.256

In early 1977, the Khmer Rouge purchased

from a Japanese firm 10,000 tons of rolled steel.257

The trickle of foreign capitalist delegations were feted in the best luxuries the Khmer

Rouge had to offer. A Cambodian named Nekuie reported that a banquet was held for a Japanese

delegation in 1978, at which Ieng Sary supposedly treated them with fine bottles of wine that he

described as “the spoils of war” and where other Khmer Rouge officials attended wearing luxury

“Swiss watches” and “fine American clothes.” This delegation reportedly was lodged by the

Khmer Rouge “at the biggest hotel in Siem Reap.”258

251

Morris, Stephen J. Why Vietnam Invaded Cambodia: Political Culture and the Causes of War

(Stanford University Press 1999)pages 78-81. 252

“Bangkok, Thailand” Associated Press November 13, 1978 253

Gray, Denis D. “Cambodia Bringing Tourism Back To Ancient Angkor Ruins” Associated

Press April 10, 1980 254

“Post Reports Cambodia to Reopen Angkor Wat to Tourists” Bangkok Post September 6,

1978 255

“New Body Established To Promote Trade with Cambodia” Kyodo July 17, 1975 256

“Industrialist Sees Increase in Trade with Cambodia” Kyodo News Agency August 10, 1977 257

Kiernan, Ben. The Pol Pot Regime (Yale University Press, 2002) pages 145-146. 258

“A Day of ‘Chaotic Situations:’ Witness Ny Kan Continues His Testimony

47

The Vietnamese Communists sought to install a friendly puppet government in Phnom

Penh by 1978 and gathered Khmer Rouge defectors and pro-Vietnamese elements of the

Cambodian Communist movement into a coalition that would form a new regime. The

Vietnamese engaged in meticulous planning for the invasion and occupation of Democratic

Kampuchea. In April 1979, the Red Chinese reportedly captured Vietnamese documents that

dated from January 17, 1979. These hand-written documents were titled “On the war along the

south-western border and the victory in smashing the Kampuchean reactionary clique” and

originated from the 1st Military District of the Vietnamese army and the commander of the First

Company of the First Battalion of the 567th Regiment under the Cao Bang Provincial Military

Command. The document stated: “The fourth plenum convened by the Central Committee

passed a resolution which explicitly stated that our basic and long-term enemy was US

imperialism; while ‘our direct enemies’ and ‘the direct targets of war’ were ‘Peking and

Kampuchea’… After the Central Committee adopted this resolution (in June and July 1978), we

were determined to win quick political and military victories along the south-western border. It

was an important task from beginning to end…the plan of the operation was divided into two

phases of attack. The first phase of the operation was to attack Kampuchean combat effectives in

border areas (from 26th December 1978 to 1st January 1979). The second phase was the

liberation of Phnom Penh…” Another Vietnamese document stated “We must establish a front

including six categories of people such as those who sided with Vietnam at the beginning of the

period of resistance against the United States in Kampuchea…We have enough conditions to

help friends conduct revolution once again…There is only one such previous example in the

world…the Soviet assistance to Czechoslovakia in 1968.”259

The Vietnamese and their Cambodian supporters formed a new communist dictatorship

called the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK). A new ruling party was formed called the

Kampuchean People’s Revolutionary Party (KPRP) and it attracted old Vietnamese agents

within the Cambodian Communist movement and elements of the Khmer Rouge. As

communists, the captured and defecting Khmer Rouge soldiers and officers were treated

leniently by the PRK. In 1983, PRK Minister of Justice Ouk Boun Chheoun and Vietnamese

Justice Minister Phan Hien admitted that “re-education” in the PRK favored the ex-Khmer

Rouge fighters over the noncommunist groups. Elizabeth Becker explained that “a former officer

of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge need only accept a different interpretation of Marxist Leninism; a

noncommunist officer who did little more than follow orders in battle is imprisoned indefinitely

because he rejects communism. No other Khmer Rouge figure, whether a commanding officer or

a minor bureaucrat, has been tried or charged.” PRK Minister of Justice Ouk Boun Chheoun

noted that “The only conditions we place on them is that they return to their native village and

they cease any illegal activities.” Becker reported that “noncommunists who fought against Pol

Pot while he was in power get harsher treatment. Even though these ‘counterrevolutionaries’ are

innocent of the Pol Pot massacres the Heng Samrin regime denounces daily, they are the most

likely to be imprisoned indefinitely in ‘reeducation.’”260 In January 1983, the Kampuchea radio

Before The ECCC” Accessed From: http://www.cambodiatribunal.org/sites/default/files/05-29-

12_CTM%20Blog%20Entry_Trial%20002.pdf 259

“Chinese Comment on Vietnamese Documents on Kampuchea” New China News Agency

April 2, 1979 260

Becker, Elizabeth. “Cambodia Uses Double Standard in Punishing Wartime Enemies”

Washington Post March 1, 1983 page A12.

48

noted that Khmer Rouge defectors assisted PRK forces in their battles against the anti-

Vietnamese opposition. The radio noted that “with correct understanding of the clemency policy

of the Revolution, many defectors left the enemy and joined the people and the Revolution. They

have made every physical and spiritual effort to increase their achievements in response to their

conscience. They have participated in battles against the enemy and have persuaded others to

join the revolution.”261

The PRK leadership also hailed the bloody, brutal Khmer Rouge revolution as a blow to

the United States. In April 1982, Heng Samrin described the 1975 Khmer Rouge takeover in this

fashion: “The date 17th April 1975 is inscribed in the pages of history as the day when the

Kampuchean people, closely uniting and co-operating with the Vietnamese and Lao peoples,

seized brilliant victory over the US imperialist aggressors and their lackeys. The reactionary Lon

Nol clique collapsed and its ringleaders were compelled to flee in shame from Kampuchean

territory. After the country was liberated from the US neo-colonialist yoke, the Kampuchean

people were happy to begin building a new and happy life.”262

The PRK regime also sought to use the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge as a propaganda

tool to discredit the entire anti-Vietnamese opposition and attract international legitimacy from

the West and the progressive left. One author noted that “what further boosted the Heng Samrin

regime’s propaganda war against the Khmer Rouge was the release of the American film The

Killing Fields…” SPK reported that in 1985 that the Killing Fields was shown in Phnom Penh’s

Bassac Theater. The PRK regime used the film’s release and the presence of foreigners in the

theater to gain a propaganda victory against the Khmer Rouge. Under a North Vietnamese

Colonel named Mai Lam, East German experts turned the Tuol Sleng Prison (S-21) into a

“propaganda machine.”263

The Khmer Rouge strategic repositioning of its stance on communism was not a sincere

break with Marxism-Leninism or its style of governance. The background of this shift had its

origins in a meeting with the Khmer Rouge and the Chinese Communist Party. Ieng Sary, Deng

Xiaoping, and the Chinese Communist Party leadership under Hua Guofeng held a conference in

January 1979 where Hua stated “With regard to the Thai Communist Party as Comrade Deng

Xiaoping has told you it’s not that we don’t support their struggle; it’s that we must take the

overall situation into account. If Kampuchea is not steady the Thai party will also wobble. We

must pay attention to policy and tactics…”264

In a conversation between Deng and Pol Pot in January 1979, a joint Sino-Democratic

Kampuchean deception strategy was outlined:

“Deng: World public opinion has taken note of several aspects of the purges you are carrying

out purges that are a bit excessive and on a bit too large a scale. I am certain that this

information has reached you as well. I am raising this issue for the sake of the future struggle…”

Ieng Sary: We all agree and we all understand that we must not abandon the socialist

revolution, but at this time, gather together all our forces.

Deng: During the war against the Japanese, we together with Chiang Kai-Shek turned all the

revolutionary military forces into an army of national revolution, namely the Eighth Route Army

261

“Defectors from DK forces aid PRK military operations” Phnom Penh home service January

29, 1983 262

“Heng Samrin’s Victory Anniversary Speech” Phnom Penh home service April 21, 1982 263

Maguire, Peter. Facing Death in Cambodia (Columbia University Press, 2012) page 84. 264

Shawcross, William The Quality of Mercy (Fontana 1985) pages 126-127.

49

and the Fourth New Army. In doing this, we did away with the distinction between the two sides.

We allied with Chiang Kai-Shek so that he would wage war against the Japanese. We declared

that we agreed with the doctrine of national democracy was a necessity for China. That did not

mean the abandonment of the struggle for socialism and communism. For now, Sihanouk is

taking a good approach. To be sure he has made some poor statements in Peking, but he has his

reasons. He tried to exonerate himself and denounced certain acts that he did not like and people

believed him…It would be a great loss if we did not unite behind him; at worst the date of victory

will be delayed a bit. So that an appropriate time in the near future after an exchange of views

on the matter, I ask you to give the position of head of state to Sihanouk. Comrade Pol Pot will

be prime minister in charge of defense, as well as commander in chief…the greater the unity, the

more it will result in good consequences for the struggle at this difficult time….For now, don’t

talk a lot about the communist party. Talk about patriotism, nationalism, and democracy. The

flag of patriotism, nationalism, and of democracy is more important…”265

In December 1981, the Voice of Democratic Kampuchea noted that the Communist Party

of Kampuchea dissolved as a strategic maneuver. The broadcast noted that “…in this new

situation, under these new historic circumstances when the life of the Kampuchean nation,

people and race is in the face of the Vietnamese Le Duan enemy aggressors and race

exterminators, in complicity with Soviet international expansionism; in the situation in which

we are pursuing a new strategic line which does not practice communism and socialism…on

behalf of all Party members after thoroughly discussing and evaluating the pros and cons since

February 1979 and, particularly, in accordance with the decision of the joint congress of 3rd,

4th, 5th and 6th September 1981, the CPK Central Committee would like to issue the following

communiqué…the CPK is permanently dissolved…On this occasion of its dissolution, the CPK

calls on all Party members to end all activities as the CPK members, in their capacity as the true

patriots who have profound affection for the people and who are constantly upholding the

banner of national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, peace and neutrality of

Kampuchea, have the full and sacred right to carry on the lofty mission of fighting against the

Vietnamese Le Duan enemy aggressors, expansionists, annexationists and race exterminators in

their glorious life of struggle, in accordance with their normal posts, duties and tasks in the state

organs of Democratic Kampuchea. It was for the sacred cause of the Kampuchean nation and

people that the CPK was founded. It is also for the sacred cause of the Kampuchean nation and

people that the CPK is dissolved under new circumstances. In the process of its work, the CPK

has had both virtues and weaknesses. But, the virtues of the CPK prevailed.”266 However, it

appeared that the Khmer Rouge admitted that they were still committed to the ideals of the

extreme Left. The Khmer Rouge Chairman of the Khao Ta-Ngoke camp Chhea Rin noted in

1985 that “Before, the policies of Democratic Kampuchea were communist…Now they are

socialist.”267

A 39-page Khmer Rouge document that was prepared in December 1986 fell into the

hands of the US Embassy in Bangkok. The document was a talk to Khmer Rouge party cadres

265

Genocide in Cambodia: Documents from the Trial of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary (University of

Pennsylvania Press, Apr 4, 2000) pages 393-395. 266

“Dissolution of Communist Party of Kampuchea” Voice of Democratic Kampuchea

December 8, 1981 267

Quinn, Paul. “Khmer Rouge; Group that killed a million Cambodians change its tactics”

Christian Science Monitor April 4, 1985 page 20.

50

that surveyed the history of Democratic Kampuchea and its “victories and mistakes.” The text

also attacked “the others” who were the anti-communists who fought the Vietnamese and the

PRK. The document, believed to be authored by Pol Pot, proposed “a range of actions was

permitted in line with the political slogan of Nation, Democracy and Livelihood. We use

Livelihood (that is, maintaining decent standards of living) as the means of drawing in people

from the base areas; Democracy to mobilize middle stratum people, like students and

intellectuals; and Nation to mobilize upper level people of the front as widely as possible.” The

document noted that in 1975 “for the very first time in more than two thousand years of history

people from base areas had taken charge of state power.” This empowerment of the poor of the

world never happened, “aside from the Paris Commune in 1871,” which had been “taken over by

capitalists.” The document noted that communist dictatorship of Democratic Kampuchea had

been “strategically and tactically correct…right on target.” The document noted that the Khmer

Rouge’s Four Year Plan “was moving along nicely, considering that we had so little

capital…(W)e strove to meet our schedule so that the Vietnamese would not catch up with us and

be our master.” The document also noted that the United States, France, Britain, and Australia

were “land swallowers, race destroyers, megacolonialists…and human rights violators.” As of

1985, Khmer Rouge defectors reported that their zones of control were characterized by a

“rigidly authoritarian society whose leaders are driven by an almost pathological suspicion of

any other group, including those also fighting the Vietnamese.” In the sector under the control of

Khmer Rouge divisional commander Ny Korn punished residents who were “just thinking about

something or talking about something, listening to the radio broadcasts of the non-Communist

resistance factions, boys and girls flirting, or demanding pagodas and Buddhist ceremonies,

saying things are being done the way Pol Pot used to do things, engaging in political discussions

with relief agency workers, and moving from one sector to another.”268

Even well into the 1990s, the Khmer Rouge spoke in anti-American, leftwing tones. In

January 1995, the Khmer Rouge noted on its radio program that “after the 1954 Geneva

conference, French colonialists left Cambodia. The French barely left when the US imperialists

came in with the strategic goal of bringing down independent, peaceful, neutral and non-aligned

Cambodia. However, they were opposed by the Cambodian nation and people; they were

expelled from Cambodia in 1963-1964…From 1960 to 1969 during the US-communist

Vietnamese war, the US imperialists violated Cambodia’s territorial integrity by most savagely

and brutally bombing and killing the Cambodian people…Also in that period, the US

imperialists used chemicals spread from aircraft to destroy thousands of hectares of Cambodia's

forest and rubber plantations and hundreds of villages on the eastern border. Hundreds and

thousands of people, young and old, men and women, children and babies, died at that

time…The US imperialists ordered the Lon Nol-Sirimatak clique to stage a coup to topple

independent, peaceful, neutral and non-aligned Cambodia in blatant violation of international

law on 18th March 1970. Since then the US imperialists fully escalated the war in Cambodia to

kill the Cambodian nation and people.”269

268

Cummings-Bruce, Nicholas. “Khmer Rouge’s new image cannot disguise old habits:

Suspicions about contact with Westerners persist” The Guardian (London) July 27, 1985 269

“Khmer Rouge radio reviews US ‘war crimes’” Radio of the Provisional Government of

National Union and National Salvation of Cambodia January 31, 1995

51

In 1988, most of the Khmer Rouge-held camps were inaccessible to international relief

agencies and foreign journalists. The “showcase” civilian camp of the Khmer Rouge, Site 8 was

used for propaganda purposes.270

The Chinese and even in the “post”-Cold War period, the Cubans and Vietnamese backed

the Khmer Rouge. As of February 1991, the Khmer Rouge troops continued to receive Red

Chinese-made weapons via Thailand.271

In August 1990, the Khmer Rouge reportedly received

24 Type-59 tanks from Red China.272

In September 2000, the Cambodian newspaper

Moneakseka Khmer noted that a high-ranking Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) official reported

that the Khmer Rouge leaders used hard currency from the sale of gemstones and logs to Hun

Sen to purchase land and farms in Communist Cuba. The same CPP official reported that the

former Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister Ieng Sary used to visit Cuba once or twice a year. Sary

traveled to Cuba via Red China and Vietnam.273

Elements of the international communist and terrorist movement supported the Khmer

Rouge in the wake of the Vietnamese invasion and occupation. In November 1979, the

International Conference in Solidarity with Kampuchea opened in Stockholm and hosted

delegations from the Swedish-Kampuchean Friendship Association, Swedish communist writer

Jan Myrdal, Democratic Kampuchean officials, Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), Red China’s

People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, and 250 delegates and observers

from 35 countries.274

Hanoi’s ambitions clearly went beyond the subjugation of Laos and Democratic

Kampuchea. Vietnamese communist National Assembly defector Nguyen Cong Hoan noted

“During the first session of the unified National Assembly held in Hanoi in June 1976 we were

given a copy of a document entitled Vietnam-Southeast Asia which was subsequently taken back

because of its sensitive nature. At this same session Mr. Tran Quynh private secretary to Le

Duan told me ‘The liberation of Thailand will be next. It is a historical necessity and a

responsibility of ours.’”275

As of June 1981, sources reported that Vietnam had a plan to occupy Thailand by 1982 or

1983. These plans were gleaned from conversations between Thai military and police officials

and Laotian soldiers stationed on the border. A report by the Thai newspaper Matichon noted

“Vietnam has instructed Vietnamese refugees in Thailand to slip into provinces throughout

Thailand to assist future Vietnamese military actions in Thailand. The refugees were also

instructed to time their sabotage of government buildings and people’s homes to coincide with

and to create confusion, thereby facilitating Vietnamese occupation attempts…since May 1981

Vietnam has moved forces from Danang through Highways 9 and 13 to Saravane, Champassak

270

Richburg, Keith B. “Life With the Khmer Rouge Guerrillas; Some Defectors Tell of Forced

Labor, Other Hardships” Washington Post November 25, 1988 page A1. 271

“Chinese official says Cambodian resistance still receiving Chinese arms” Japanese News

Agency News Agency February 28, 1991 272

“Phnom Penh radio on supply of Chinese tanks to Khmer Rouge” Voice of the People of

Cambodia, Phnom Penh home service October 16, 1990 273

“Khmer Rouge leaders to seek refuge in Cuba” BBC Summary of World Broadcasts

Moneakseka Khmer September 23, 2000 274

“International Conference in Solidarity with Kampuchea Opens in Stockholm” Xinhua

General News Service November 18, 1979 275

Santoli, Al. To Bear Any Burden (Indiana University Press 1999) page 288.

52

and Attopeu. On 2nd May, 21 military trucks were sighted, while six more trucks were sighted on

6th May and 25 others on 8th May. The report says a battalion of Cuban and Soviet soldiers are

located at (Phou Kongtoun) in (Phou Kongtoun) Canton, Saravane Province. These soldiers

advise Lao soldiers in the field and at various Lao military headquarters. A total of 30 medium

and large tanks, two trucks and a total of 37 artillery and anti-aircraft guns were seen at (Phou

Bachiang) camp in Pakse town. A radar station manned by three Vietnamese soldiers and

guarded by a platoon of Vietnamese troops was located at a former ammunition storage building

in Pakse about 150 m west of Highway 13…large numbers of Lao have been conscripted for

military service and posted in areas along Laos’ southern border with Thailand. Laos has also

claimed that it will launch a battle with Thailand sometime in the future.”276

A defector from the Vietnamese puppet People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) Pom

Delis noted in June 1980 that: “Great interest was aroused over a recent meeting concerned with

‘military preparedness’ including strategy against Thailand as the ‘next target.’ A map of

Thailand was issued. Presided over by Prime Minister Heng Samrin, the meeting was attended

by Vietnamese, Soviet, Cuban, East German, and Hungarian officials. The Vietnamese said that

they had been fighting for 20 years while Thailand had not had battle experience.”It was

significant to note that Pom was the secretary and wife of Ros Samay, the PRK Minister for

Economic Affairs.277

In September 1979, a captured Vietnamese spy named Phan Vinh Hoi alleged that the

“Vietnamese Party leaders and army commanders have frequently made it known that once they

have seized the whole of Kampuchea, the Vietnamese forces will immediately attack

Thailand.”278

In July 1983, the Vietnamese and Laotians reportedly created a task force near Vientiane

to organize infiltration and subversion of Thailand in the “national salvation” style of Hanoi’s

invasion of Democratic Kampuchea. This task force also controlled a group of 100 Thai

Communist Party troops in Laos. According to the Bangkok Post, the first attempt at a

Vietnamese conquest of Thailand occurred from “1976 to 1977 when Hanoi offered to supply

three regiments to the CPT to help ‘liberate’ the north-east. The forces were supposed to be

‘volunteers’ sent to aid the indigenous insurgents. The situation in Thailand at that time was very

critical with students and other youths going into the jungles to join the communists. Several

went to Laos and were formed into a group to act as the Thai nucleus for the Vietnamese armed

force to make the proposed incursion across the Mekong River…Among the designations given

the new party of Thai communists is the name ‘national salvation movement party’ - almost the

same wording for the Kampuchean group headed by Heng Samrin who became Hanoi’s puppet

in Phnom Penh. The CPT’s pro-Peking Politburo, however, turned down the offer. The Thai

government’s declaration of amnesty has also drawn many Thais out of the jungles and from

Laos, thus robbing the Vietnamese of the essential Thai core for the ‘salvation movement.’

Intelligence sources described the offer to the CPT as the precursor to the Vietnamese pattern of

organizing and using a local communist organization sympathetic to itself as a ‘front’ for

276

“Thai Paper Reports Vietnam’s Plans to Occupy Thailand” Bangkok Matichon June 1, 1981 277

“Disclosures on Heng Samrin Regime by Ros Samay’s Ex-Wife” Bangkok Post June 19,

1980 278

“Confession of Vietnamese Spy Captured in Cambodia” VODK September 4, 1979

53

turning unstable domestic conditions to their advantage for the purpose of seizing control from

within the target country.”279

Richard Gabriel speculated that “…the present deployment of Vietnamese Army divisions

in Kampuchea could permit a rapid advance from the border to Bangkok, using the unobstructed

approach afforded by the ‘Wattana Corridor,’ while the remaining PAVN divisions continued

their campaign against Khmer Rouge remnants. The Vietnamese are superior in every combat

element and have substantially more experience than the Thailand Army.”280

The Vietnamese continued to flood Southeast Asia with intelligence officers in order to

gain information, goods, and to sow subversion. As of August 1979, a defecting Vietnamese

intelligence official noted that Hanoi dispatched agents to Hong Kong through infiltration on

Vietnamese freighters. These Vietnamese agents posed as refugees. The divisions of the

Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security that were responsible for infiltrating Hanoi’s agents were

the Dispatching Bureau and the Political Security Bureau. In the late 1970s, Vietnam sent

intelligence officers to East Germany and the USSR for advanced training. Moscow and East

Berlin also provided sophisticated espionage equipment to the Vietnamese intelligence service.

The Vietnamese agents infiltrated via merchant vessels were dispatched to spy in Hong Kong,

Japan, Singapore, and the Middle East.281

As of September 1981, Soviet KGB agents in Thailand

collaborated with Eastern European, Laotian, and Vietnamese diplomats that were resident in

Bangkok.282

In September 1980, it was reported that Vietnam and the Heng Samrin regime set up a

center that trained special agents in Siem Reap Province to pave the way for Hanoi’s conquest of

Thailand. The centers had 50 trainees, who were Kampucheans of Vietnamese nationality who

spoke Thai fluently.283

In October 1979, the Vietnamese opened a pacification and espionage

course in Battambang. These agents were to infiltrate Thailand as refugees where they would

“collect information, stir up opinion on Thai internal affairs, destroy Thai peasants’ crops, and

plunder storages and any Thai property they can.” The instructors were Soviets who taught

espionage, camouflage, and sabotage techniques.284

The Vietnamese clearly were ready to use chemical weapons in an effort to attack

Thailand. After all, Hanoi deployed chemical weapons against the South Vietnamese, US forces,

Democratic Kampuchea, Hmong rebels in Laos, and the Red Chinese. A Vietnamese artillery

officer reported to Agence France Presse that the poison gases used to defeat Democratic

Kampuchea originated from the USSR, Red China, and captured stocks leftover from the South

Vietnamese army. During the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese used captured stocks of South

Vietnamese and US-made CS and DM nausea gas in tear gas grenades and mortar shells. It was

279

“Thailand Alleges Vietnam has Set up Task Force in Laos for Infiltration” Bangkok Post July

26, 1983 280

Gabriel, Richard A. Fighting Armies: Nonaligned, Third World, and Other Ground Armies, A

Combat Assessment (Greenwood Press, 1983)page 63. 281

“Viet Nam’s Spying in Hongkong Revealed” Xinhua General News Service August 28, 1979 282

“Thai Weekly Exposes KGB Activities in Thailand” Xinhua General News Service

September 3, 1981 283

“Special Agents Trained in Cambodia to Spy on Thailand” BBC Summary of World

Broadcasts September 20, 1980 284

“Other Reports on Cambodia; Soviet Instructors Training Spies in Cambodia” BBC Summary

of World Broadcasts October 12, 1979

54

reported that Red China possibly provided North Vietnam with CS grenades. A July 1981 Soviet

shipment of crates destined to Ho Chi Minh City reportedly contained “deadly toxic

chemicals.”285

The Vietnamese Communists publically praised and admitted the important role played

by chemical weapons in the battle for Indochina. In April 1980, the chemical armed branch of

the Vietnamese army received the Ho Chi Minh Order, Third Class by Vice-Minister of Defense

Col-Gen Le Trong Tan, who was a member of the Vietnamese Communist Party Central

Committee and the Central Military Party Committee’s Standing Committee. Col-Gen Le Trong

Tan noted that “the branch’s cadres and combatants have actively studied and mastered science

and technology and have been brave, resourceful and creative in combat and combat support.

Together with the whole people and the entire army, they countered enemy acts and, with

chemical weapons, contributed to the great victory in the anti-US national salvation resistance

struggle. Units of the chemical armed branch also used colored smoke successfully to protect

some important work. In the North, during the years of the US imperialists’ war of destruction,

the branch initially trained a force of command and technical cadres who displayed high combat

spirit and ability…To fulfill the tasks in the new situation, cadres and combatants of the chemical

armed branch must be thoroughly imbued with the revolutionary line and tasks, the military line

of the Party and the branch's tasks in a war of national defense. They must carry out

satisfactorily scientific and technological research and train themselves actively to manage and

use effectively the weapons and equipment allotted to them. As their immediate goal, the units

must accelerate the campaign to develop the fine traditions and increase the fighting strength of

the people’s armed forces; pay attention to observing discipline; strive to build themselves into

standard units; and actively engage in production in order to improve the soldiers’ material and

spiritual life.”286

In conclusion, the evidence clearly illustrates how the North Vietnamese and their

Indochinese allies utilized the psychological warfare to evict first the French and later the

Americans. These efforts resulted in the eventual communist occupation of almost all of

Indochina. The Soviet-Chinese axis also provided massive military assistance, including troop

support to the North Vietnamese and their Indochinese allies. To this day, Vietnam dominates

Cambodia (through the Cambodian People’s Party-formerly the Khmer People’s Revolutionary

Party) and Laos (through the ruling Pathet Lao). Despite tensions with China, Hanoi is still

ideologically aligned with Beijing. Since the early 2000s, communist Vietnam also forged closer

ties with Putin’s Russian Federation. In all likelihood, if a Third World War broke out between

the United States and the Sino-Russian alliance, Vietnam would assuredly join America’s

enemies. Presently, American big business is also pushing for the passage of the Trans-Pacific

Partnership, which will provide political legitimacy and economic benefits to Hanoi and quite

possibly Red China. Young patriots, conservatives, and other anti-communists should remember

the true history and circumstances of the Vietnam War and reject any current propaganda

campaigns on behalf of the ruling communists in Hanoi. Meanwhile, much of the American Left

is still in thrall of communist Vietnam. Such support stemmed from a common “anti-

imperialism” and adherence to “progressive socialist” ideals. Many American leftists are still

285

Burck, Gordon and Flowerree, Charles C. International Handbook on Chemical Weapons

Proliferation (Greenwood Press 1991) pages 378-402. 286

“Award Presented to Vietnamese Army’s Chemical Branch” Hanoi Home Service April 23,

1980

55

bitter at US involvement in supporting Indochinese anti-communist governments. However,

Hanoi’s rulers are a gang of corrupt, totalitarian, and anti-worker communists who cooperate

with multinational corporations in outsourcing and the oppression of labor. Disaffected leftists

and conservatives need to forge an anti-communist front in an effort to spread freedom.