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Phat, a onetime Saigon architect and, like Photographer Okamura, a Buddhist, insisted—for what it was worth—that he was a Socialist, not a Communist. He said that the Viet Cong had initially followed the guerrilla tactics of Nguyen Giap, the victor of Dienbien-phu, but "now Giap's lessons are outdated. Times have changed. American weapons are different. Now, except for tanks and planes, we have everything we need. Our weapons are as good as the enemy's."
Most of the Viet Cong weapons seen by Okamura were either homemade or of U.S. manufacture, with a sprinkling of identifiable Communist bloc arms. Phat scoffed at sizable outside aid, saying, "You don't understand the logistics. If we needed to supply only small units, it would be easy to get enough from Hanoi. But we have to supply a million people—V.C. political cadres as well as soldiers. We grow our own food. We have ordnance depots in the jungle where we make weapons—crude but serviceable." Besides, as he put it, "we get stronger every time there is a coup in Saigon and more and more military men are put in jail or flee the country."
"Desperation Measures." The Viet Cong, Phat said, try to brainwash U.S. prisoners. "We talk to them repeatedly, try to convince them they are being used as cat's-paws of imperialism." He followed the regular Viet Cong line by dismissing U.S. bombing raids in North Viet Nam as "desperation measures" that have "no effect on us." As to the ground war, he upped the usual Communist propaganda: "If the Americans want to fight us on equal terms, they'll need at least 4,000,000 men."
Okamura, 22 Ibs. lighter as a result of his ordeal, was finally released after 53 days. The Viet Cong returned all his possessions except two films with pictures of the photographer in conversation with Phat, which were forwarded to him later. Among the Communist's last words to Okamura was a warning that the Viet Cong planned to intensify terrorist reprisals such as the vicious bombings that killed 42 people aboard a floating restaurant in Saigon last week (see THE NATION). These will continue, he threatened, until "every single American is gone." As to the ultimate outcome of the war, Phat allowed jovially: "The Americans have been calling themselves 'advisers' to the Saigon forces. But soon there will be no Saigon forces and the Americans will be needing Vietnamese 'advisers.' When that happens, half the Vietnamese 'advising' the Americans will be our own Viet Cong agents."