Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
In 1951, with the legalization of the Communist Party, an "economic leveling" program was launched, consisting of punitive taxes levied on the wealthy.44 In 1953, there was a short but sharp terror campaign, followed by a "Land Rent Reduction," which formed poor peasants into "land reform battalions" to administer "people's justice" to landlords and their families. These were only preliminaries, however, to the DRV's "Land Reform Campaign" of 1954 to 1956, which more systematically and terroristically struck at traditional wealth distribution. All of these undertakings were associated with the Viet Minh, and though mitigated by the victory over the French and the benign image of "Uncle Ho," they aroused rural resentment and fears.
But the flood of refugees also sprang from other sources. There were a few French, and 200,000 Vietnamese who had been French civil servants, or dependents of French soldiers, or retainers—these had every reason to anticipate hostility. There were the Nung tribal people, who had been allied with the French during the war, and would probably have clashed with the North Vietnamese government whatever its policies. The Chinese shadow over the Viet Minh deepened Nung fears, and strengthened tendencies within the Chinese community of Hanoi to split along Nationalist/Communist lines after the fashion of overseas Chinese throughout the Far East; many Chinese fled. Rich or landed Vietnamese could, with reason, be apprehensive over DRV policies toward the wealthy, and be drawn to the presumably more open South. A former ICC member was noted that there was a labor market in the South, and rumors of an impending corvee labor program in the labor surplus North—both incentives to migrate. Viet Minh propaganda painted grim pictures of life in South Vietnam, and savagely attacked the French and Americans who were aiding refugees. In turn, French and American propaganda promoted recourse to migration to escape the terrors and injustice of communism. Voice of America was active in rebutting the Viet Minh radio, and battery radios were reportedly distributed to extend the audience for Western programs. Colonel Lansdale described a U.S. instigated black propaganda campaign of pamphlets and announcements, ostensibly Viet Minh in origin, aimed at discrediting the DRV, depreciating its currency, and adding to popular fears of its new powers. One outcome was rampant rumor. For example, the ICC source cited above reported that some refugees believed that the U.S. would use atomic bombs on the Viet Minh. Dr. Tom Dooley found refugees with a Viet Minh pamphlet showing a Hanoi map with three concentric circles of nuclear destruction—conceivably, an example of Colonel Lansdale's handiwork.45
Again, however the salient political aspect of the migration was that most of the refugees—two out of three—were Catholics. Many northern Catholics, with a long history of persecution at the hands of non-Catholic Tonkinese, would probably have left with their French protectors whatever the character of the successor. But Catholic opposition to the Viet Minh during the war invited retribution, and Ngo Dinh Diem's ascendancy in Saigon was no doubt attractive to his northern co-religionists.
