But Who Wants Uncle Ho?

ARE some G.I.s actually fighting with the Viet Cong? In Paris last week, V.C. Spokesman Duong Dinh Thao called a press conference to announce that "there are a number of American soldiers fighting in the ranks of the liberation army." He then went on to launch what sounded very much like an UNCLE HO WANTS YOU campaign. U.S. defections, Thao proclaimed, would be encouraged by a just-issued V.C. "order of the day." The five-point order instructed the Viet Cong not to attack G.I. units that refrained from hostile action. G.I.s desiring to slip over to the other side would need only to flash some antiwar literature to secure safe conduct into V.C. territory. Defectors would be assured help in getting to a neutral country—or home to the U.S. if they wanted. But those who would stay and fight with the Viet Cong would find themselves in line for unspecified "appropriate rewards."

Since 1966, there have been periodic reports—few of them confirmed—of G.I. defectors in Viet Nam. In 1968 an American reconnaissance patrol happened on a Viet Cong squad that was led by a sandy-haired American who wore a red sash and carried a Communist AK-47 assault rifle; killed in the subsequent shootout, the American was identified as a Marine deserter. The latest sighting of a suspected defector occurred just three weeks ago near Kontum: villagers reported a visit by a Viet Cong patrol that included one very tall man who appeared to be a black G.I.

Still, U.S. officials estimate, fewer than a dozen of the 1,505 G.I.s listed as captured or missing in the war are turncoats working for the enemy. And those few, said one intelligence officer, "are lifelong losers drawn by the guerrilla mystique."