World: As Real as an Invading Army

There apparently are still some people who think that the war in South Viet Nam is a civil war. To end that fiction, and to explain why it is stepping up its attack on North Viet Nam, the U.S. last week issued a 64-page White Paper replete with photographs, maps, charts and case histories to prove that the Communist Viet Cong are inspired, armed and controlled from the North.

Titled "Aggression from the North," the report represents the distillation of some 3,000 pages of Saigon, CIA, Defense and State Department intelligence. It nails down earlier estimates of North Vietnamese infiltration (TIME, Feb. 5), making nonsense of the often-heard contention—previously pushed by the Administration itself—that punishing the North would not change the situation because the guerrillas in the South are self-sustaining. The report describes how Hanoi runs its show, and points up the quickened pace of Hanoi's effort—an aggression "as real as that of an invading army." Key points:

∙THE MEN. Viet Cong's "hardcore" forces now number about 35,000, with 60,000-80,000 local, part-time guerrillas backing them up. Moreover, since 1959 at least 20,000 and perhaps as many as 37,000 infiltrators have entered South Viet Nam from the North. Thus the report's conclusion: "Infiltrators from the North—allowing for casualties—make up the majority, and probably the overwhelming proportion, of the so-called hard-core Viet Cong."

Previously, infiltrators from the North, sent down via the Ho Chi Minh Trail, were mostly drawn from 90,000 Southerners who had moved North after Viet Nam's partition in 1954 and had been trained by the Communists. These are now either too old for the tough guerrilla life or have been used up in the war to date. Thus most of the new arrivals from Hanoi are young North Vietnamese draftees. Of the 7,400 Viet Cong who entered the South last year, fully 75% were natives of North Viet Nam.

∙THE ARMS. With the stepped-up pace of the war, the Viet Cong can no longer rely on captured U.S. weapons. "Hanoi has undertaken a program to re-equip its forces in the South with Communist-produced weapons." Among them: a "new family" of Chinese Communist 7.62-mm. carbines, assault rifles and light machine guns, as well as heavier recoilless rifles, mortars, antitank mines, grenade launchers and bazookas. Whole Viet Cong companies have been outfitted with these new arms. The ominous conclusion: Viet Cong reliance on weapons that require ammo and parts from outside "indicates the growing confidence of Hanoi in the effectiveness of their supply lines to the South."