Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
party who wish to go and live in the zone assigned to the other party shall be permitted and helped to do so by the authorities in that district."
It is probable that none of the conferees foresaw the ramifications of that one sentence, for it put in motion one million Vietnamese refugees, most of them destitute, who became at first heavy burdens on the DRV and the GVN, and ultimately political and military assets for both regimes. For the United States, the plight of these peoples lent humanitarian dimensions to its policy toward Vietnam, and new perspectives to its economic and military assistance.
- 2. Exodus to South Vietnam
In accordance with Article 1 of the Agreement on Cessation of Hostilities, 190,000 troops of the French Expeditionary Corps were moved from North Vietnam to the South. In addition, some 900,000 civilians exercised their option under Article 14 (d) of the Armistice. While no wholly reliable statistics exist, there is agreement among several authorities that the figures presented by the International Commission for Supervision and Control in Vietnam (ICC), citing chiefly the Saigon Government as its source, are generally correct:40
| North Zone to South Zone | Period Ending | |||
| (i) | Total arrivals (Figs. given by the State of Vietnam) |
19.5.55 | By air | 213,635 |
| By sea | 550,824 | |||
| Across provisional demarcation line | 12,344 | |||
| By other means | 41,324 | |||
| Total | 818,127 | |||
| (ii) | Estimate of arrivals not registered (Figs. given by the State of Vietnam in April) | Total | 70 ,000. | |
| (iii) | Figs. given by PAVN | 19.5.55 | 4,479 | |
| 20.7.55 | ||||
| Up to 20.7.55 | Total | 892,876 | ||
The uncertainty of statistics concerning total numbers of refugees stems not only from DRV reluctance to report departures, but also the turbulent conditions which then obtained throughout Vietnam, where the French were in the process of turning over public administration
