Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
Most of the physically fit Southerners had been placed in the North Vietnam Army (NVA) where they acquired military training and discipline, and political indoctrination--the 305th, 324th, 325th, 330th, and 338th NVA Divisions Viere filled with Southerners, and remained so until 1959, when infiltration started on a large scale. 107/ Those Southerners with non-military professional skills were placed in DRV civilian society where they could be useful. But all, no matter where placed, were apparently watched to assess their reliability, and eventually selected for return to the South by DRV authorities. Civilians were urged to "volunteer" to return, soldiers were ordered to do so. Almost all were pleased to comply, not only because it meant a return to family and land of birth, but because few liked North Vietnam, and because they had heard of the sufferings inflicted upon their people by the GVN, and wanted to "liberate" them from Diem and the Americans. The chosen were then sent to special training centers -- the most important of which for the interviewed regroupees was at Xuan Mai -- where they attended courses of several weeks to several months, depending on their background. The emphasis -- about two-thirds of instructional time -- was on political indoctrination . Themes included an impending victory in the South, to be followed by "peace, neutrality, and reunification." They were taught that after infiltration, they were to approach uncommitted Southerners, by stressing the land reform policy of the Viet Cong, by urging families to call back sons serving in ARVN, and by castigating the agroville-strategic hamlet program of the GVN. One propaganda specialist related that he Vias instructed to press three programs: political struggle, armed struggle, and "military proselyting" (vinh van) -- the latter again aimed at sapping the will of ARVN to fight, and causing desertions.
Following training, the regroupees were formed into units of 40 to 400 for the trip south. A few were infiltrated by sea, but the majority were taken by truck through North Vietnam to Laos, and thence walked south on foot. The journey took at least two and one-half months; . most reported the trails were well organized, with camps built at intervals, and guides available at each ca mp to conduct arrivals on the next leg of their trip. Strict camouflage discipline was observed, and conversations with camp attendants or guide personnel was forbidden. On arrival at their destinations in South Vietnam, they were smoothly integrated into local Viet Cong organizations. (Little subsequent friction was reported by the regroupees between themselves and the Viet Cong, but some southern VC recruited in the late Fifties or early Sixties, the "winter cadres," have expressed animosity toward the "autumn cadres," as the regroupees were called.)
The interviews with the regroupees suggest that:
The DRV quite deliberately organized, and trained an infiltration force of Southerners.
The infrastructure for doing so -- the training centers and the infiltration routes south -- indicate extensive preparations for the process before it ·Has started in earnest in 1960.
