Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
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talk with key Vietnamese leaders by a responsible U.S. official would end this plotting, especially if the political oppositionists had another outlet for their energies. A small start on providing another use of political energies has been made by the younger leaders of the Northern Dai Viets, who have started trying to coalesce all the non-Communist opposition parties in a "Front for Democratization."
In the propaganda field, the Communists are way out in front. They have made this a major effort, while we have done too little, too late. Radio facilities in the South are still inadequate, with Radio Hanoi coming in more powerfully to many areas than do Free Vietnamese broadcasts. The Communists reportedly have ten transmitters in the Hanoi area, all 100 KW medium and short-wave; relay transmitters built by Chinese Communists in Cambodia apparently give Radio Hanoi strong broadcast coverage of the South. The south has 15 transmitters listed, with 9 in the Saigon area; 4 are medium wave (1KW to 5KW), 5 short-wave (12 KW and 25 KW); the remainder are 1 KW transmitters scattered around the country.
In this connection, Vietnam is the Asian counterpart of Germany, as far as being a showplace of direct competition between the Free world and the Bloc is concerned. Americans in Vietnamese too often forget that they have Bloc opposite numbers just to the North of them, working like beavers to make the 'place get ahead of us or at least appear that way.
One of the customary working groups in Washington is being called together next week by John Steeves, Acting Assistant Secretary o{State for Far Eastern Affairs. It will be composed of "desk" personnel handling Vietnam's daily problems in State, Defense, ICA and CIA. It will address itself to some of the current questions arising out of the U.S. formulated. Counter-Insurgency Plan.
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