Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
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a successful SEATO operation. Both would seek by political means and by military means short of major overt attack, to frustrate the SEATO effort.
3. In the situation assumed, we believe that the DRV would seek at first to test the seriousness and effectiveness of the SEATO effort by subjecting the SEATO forces and their land lines of communication to harassment, ambush, and guerrilla attack. The Communists could not be expected to recognize the announced intention Of the SEATO forces to avoid involvement in the internal struggle in South Vietnam. They would probably estimate that by using their Viet Cong apparatus in South Vietnam, by committing additional experienced guerrilla forces from North Vietnam[1] to operations in territory long familiar to them, and by exploiting the opportunities offered by the sizable junk traffic in coastal waters, they
- ↑ Approximately 90,000 Vietnamese Communist troops, most of them from south and central Vietnam, were evacuated to North Vietnam in the regroupment of forces following the Indochina War. The DRV has maintained relatively intact a large par of this pool of manpower experienced in guerrilla operations in South Vietnam, drawing upon it for cadres to reinforce the Viet Cong.
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