Page:Pentagon-Papers-Part IV. A. 5.djvu/218

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Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011


TOP SECRET – Sensitive

Year 1959 ) (4) 1960 ) 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3 NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011 TOP SECRET - Sensitive Infiltration from North to South Vietnam 1959-1965 Confirmed (1) Probable (2) 4556 26 4118 2177 5362 7495 4726 3180 9316 3108 23770 1910 Total (3) --- 4582 6295 12857 7906 12424 25(;80

(1) A confirmed unit/group is one which is. determined to exist on the basis of accepted direct information from a minimum of two prisoners, returnees or captured documents (any combination, in addition to indirect evidence).

(2) A probable infiltration unit/group is one believed to exist on the basis of accepted direct information from one captive, returnee, or captured document, in addition to indirect evidence.

(3) The total does not represent all the data on hand. In 1965 a "possible" category was added to show 1l...11its/group thought to be in South Vietnam on the basis of unconfirmed evidence . Adding the "possible" category raises the totals for 1965 to 33,730. Still other information, though available, has been considered insufficient to warrant adding to the totals.

(4) The figure shown is for both 1959 and 1960. There is no evidence that the regroupees themselves exerted significant pressure upon the DRV leaders to undertake the infiltrations or force reunification by other means. Many were dissatisfied with the North, but there is no record that they openly and collectively agitated for return to the South. Rather, they appear to have been retained in large groups only within disciplined military units, and otherwise they had no appreciable collective identity outside the formal groupings organized or authorized by the DRV. The DRV did appeal to them as a group from time to time, but principally when it wished to mobilize opinion against some deed of the GVN. For example, in December, 1958) in Diem's "political re-education center" at Phu Loi (Tpu Dau Mot), just north of Saigon) there was an epidemic food-poisoning in which at least twenty prisoners dies. Hanoi launched at major propaganda effort to exploit the mishap, claiming that: 120/

"Six thousand former resistance members and fighters for peace and national reunification, six thousand patriots, men

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TOP SECRET – Sensitive