Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
IV. A. 5. Tab 3.
HANOI AND THE INSURGENCY IN SOUTH VIETNAM
A. Character of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
Between 1954 and 1960, Ho Chi Minh had to face in North Vietnam, as did Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam, the problem of building a nation out of the ruins of nearly a decade of war. During those years, until the DRV declared its support for the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, Ho seemed preoccupied with the problems of consolidating his regime and securing the foreign aid he needed to assure economic growth. Certainly agricultural shortages and popular unrest in North Vietnam in the immediate aftermath of Geneva were sufficiently serious to have discouraged foreign adventures through 1956. However, by January, 1961, when Hanoi announced the formation of the NLF, the internal difficulties of the DRV seem to have been largely resolved. Inquiry into the timing and extent of the DRV's participation in the insurgency of South Vietnam, therefore, requires assessment of those conditions within the DRV which might have affected its capability and willingness to prosecute a war of aggression.
1. Structure of the Government. He possessed one distinct advantage over Diem: his government had been in existence, in one form or another, continuously since 1945. Ho and his lieutenants ruled in radically differing circumstances as the status of the regime shifted from that of a state within the French Union in 1946, to a belligerent in a colonial revolution, and back to a sovereign state in 19554, preserving remarkable continuity. The Geneva Conference of 1954 restored its actual territorial dominion to about what it had been in 1954, in that France acceded to a cease-fire based up on a territorial division of Vietnam at the 17th parallel and to Viet Minh "conduct of civil administration" in the regions to the north, pending "general elections.""1/ The withdrawal of French Military forces and civil authority from northern Vietnam was coordinated with the DRV forces and leaders so that the latter systematically replaced the former; by the end of May 1955, the DRV had acquired full control of all its territory, and began to act as a sovereign state.2/ However, formal recognition of DRV statehood dates from January, 1950 (China and Soviet Union), and best information now available to the U.S. Department of State indicates that thereafter twenty-two other nations established relations with it. 3/ Formally, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was organized under a Constitution promulgated in 1946 which, in language echoing Jefferson, guaranteed civic freedoms, and reposed principal state power in a people's parliament. A Second Constitution was adopted on January 1, 1960, more explicitly drawn from Communist thought, resembling the Chinese Constitution in general, but containing Soviet style clauses on civil rights and autonomy of national minorities.
