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"AGGRESION FROM THE NORTH":
STATE DEPARTMENT WHITE PAPER ON VIETNAM
February 27, 1965
(Department of State Bulletin, March 22, 1965)

South Vietnam is fighting for its life against a brutal campaign
of terror and armed attack inspired, directed, supplied, and
controlled by the Communist regime in Hanoi. This flagrant
aggression has been going on for years, but recently the pace
has quickened and the threat has now become acute.

The war in Vietnam is a new kind of war, a fact as yet poorly
understood in most parts of the world. Much of the confusion
that prevails in the thinking of many people, and even
governments, stems from this basic misunderstanding. For in
Vietnam a totally new brand of aggression has been loosed
against an independent people who want to make their way in
peace and freedom.

Vietnam is not another Greece, where indigenous guerrilla forces
used friendly neighboring territory as a sanctuary.

Vietnam is not another Malaya, where Communist guerrillas were,
for the most part, physically distinguishable from the peaceful
majority they sought to control.

Vietnam is not another Philippines, where Communist guerrillas
were physically separated from the source of their moral and
physical support.

Above all, the war in Vietnam is not a spontaneous and local
rebellion against the established government.

There are elements in the Communist program of conquest directed
against South Vietnam common to each of the previous areas of
aggression and subversion. But there is one fundamental
difference. In Vietnam a Communist government has set out
deliberately to conquer a sovereign people in a neighboring
state. And to achieve its end, it has used every resource of
its own government to carry out its carefully planned program of
concealed aggression. North Vietnam's commitment to seize
control of the South is no less total than was the commitment of
the regime in North Korea in 1950. But knowing the consequences
of the latter's undisguised attack, the planners in Hanoi have
tried desperately to conceal their hand. They have failed and
their aggression is as real as that of an invading army.

This report is a summary of the massive evidence of North
Vietnamese aggression obtained by the Government of South
Vietnam. This evidence has been jointly analyzed by South
Vietnamese and American experts.

The evidence shows that the hard core of the Communist forces
attacking South Vietnam were trained in the North and ordered
into the South by Hanoi. It shows that the key leadership of
the Vietcong (VC), the officers and much of the cadre, many of
the technicians, political organizers, and propagandists have
come from the North and operate under Hanoi's direction. It
shows that the training of essential military personnel and
their infiltration into the South is directed by the Military
High Command in Hanoi. In recent months new types of weapons
have been introduced in the VC army, for which all ammunition
must come from outside sources. Communist China and other
Communist states have been the prime suppliers of these weapons
and ammunition, and they have been channeled primarily through
North Vietnam.

The directing force behind the effort to conqueror South Vietnam
is the Communist Party in the North, the Lao Dong (Workers)
Party. As in every Communist state. the party is an integral
part of the regime itself. North Vietnamese officials have
expressed their firm determination to absorb South Vietnam into
the Communist world.

Through its Central Committee, which controls the Government of
the North, the Lao Dong Party directs the total political and
military effort of the Vietcong. The Military High Command in
the North trains the military men and sends them into South
Vietnam. The Central Research Agency, North Vietnam's central
intelligence organization, directs the elaborate espionage and
subversion effort...

Under Hanoi's overall direction the Communists have established
an extensive machine for carrying on the war within South
Vietnam. The focal point is the Central Office for South
Vietnam with its political and military subsections and other
specialized agencies. A subordinate part of this Central Office
is the liberation Front for South Vietnam. The front was formed
at Hanoi's order in 1960. Its principle function is to
influence opinion abroad and to create the false impression that
the aggression in South Vietnam is an indigenous rebellion
against the established Government.

For more than 10 years the people and the Government of South
Vietnam, exercising the inherent right of self-defense, have
fought back against these efforts to extend Communist power
south across the 17th parallel. The United States has
responded to the appeals of the Government of the Republic of
Vietnam for help in this defense of the freedom and independence
of its land and its people.

In 1961 the Department of State issued a report called A Threat
to the Peace. It described North Vietnam's program to seize
South Vietnam. The evidence in that report had been presented
by the Government of the Republic of Vietnam to the
International Control Commission (ICC). A special report by the
ICC in June 1962 upheld the validity of that evidence. The
Commission held that there was "sufficient evidence to show
beyond reasonable doubt" that North Vietnam had sent arms and
men into South Vietnam to carry out subversion with the aim of
overthrowing the legal Government there. The ICC found the
authorities in Hanoi in specific violation of four provisions of
the Geneva Accords of 1954.

Since then, new and even more impressive evidence of Hanoi's
aggression has accumulated. The Government of the United States
believes that evidence should be presented to its own citizens
and to the world. It is important for free men to know what has
been happening in Vietnam, and how, and why. That is the
purpose of this report...

The record is conclusive. It establishes beyond question that
North Vietnam is carrying out a carefully conceived plan of
aggression against the South. It shows that North Vietnam has
intensified its efforts in the years since it was condemned by
the International Control Commission. It proves that Hanoi
continues to press its systematic program of armed aggression
into South Vietnam. This aggression violates the United Nations
Charter. It is directly contrary to the Geneva Accords of 1954
and of 1962 to which North Vietnam is a party. It is a
fundamental threat to the freedom and security of South Vietnam.

The people of South Vietnam have chosen to resist this threat.
At their request, the United States has taken its place beside
them in their defensive struggle.

The United States seeks no territory, no military bases, no
favored position. But we have learned the meaning of aggression
elsewhere in the post-war world, and we have met it.

If peace can be restored in South Vietnam, the United States
will be ready at once to reduce its military involvement. But
it will not abandon friends who want to remain free. It will do
what must be done to help them. The choice now between peace
and continued and increasingly destructive conflict is one for
the authorities in Hanoi to make.

[LewWaters]

Is there a url or location for this to be found?
_________________
Clark County Conservative

[stylin19]

nevermind that the cia helped cement the further divide between the north\south.

Catholics fleeing North Vietnam, following the intense religious and political propaganda from the South. They were told that if they stayed under a Communist atheistic government they would be atom bombed out of existence and they would lose their souls. Catholic President Diem wished to create economic and political disruption to the North with an accelerated population dislocation. Catholic priests and the South

Vietnamese radio declared that the Virgin Mary and even her Son, Jesus Christ, had gone to South Vietnam to live under Catholic Diem. Ultimately three-quarters of a million North Vietnamese Catholics fled their homes and villages within a few months. The authorities in the North tried to stop the human flood but were helpless against the religious emotionalism used by the Catholics of South Vietnam.

To accelerate the exodus, or rather the disruption, the religious factor came to the fore. Suddenly all the villages were flooded by millions of leaflets. These told the faithful that Jesus Christ had gone south. When some Catholics expressed their doubts about Jesus' migration, additional millions of leaflets appeared all over, declaring that His mother, the Virgin Mary, had departed from the North. Why had the Virgin Mary left the North?—Because the Mother of God wished to go south and live under a Catholic premier, Diem.
_________________
U.S.M.C. - 1969-1971
RVN- 1970-1971