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The Viet Cong function as part of a massive, well-oiled machine with controls that stretch northward from the smallest hamlet all the way to Hanoi. Their stubborn skills in the use and abuse of the Vietnamese people have been honed by decades of practice, starting with the Viet Minh guerrillas of Ho Chi Minh, who finally defeated the French in 1954. The Geneva accords that same year partitioned the country into North and South Viet Nam, a partition that Ho assumed would last only until he won a plebiscite on reunification that was scheduled for 1956. The
Communists, after all, were superior in numbers and organization. So well prepared was Ho that when the Diem government in South Viet Nam called off the vote, he was ready to try another kind of takeover. To a 10,000-strong network of Viet Minh he had left behind in the South, he sent orders for the start of what has now become the century's second longest war in Asia (after the Malayan guerrilla war against the British, 1948-60).
In 1954, Ho had also taken back to North Viet Nam some 44,000 mainly Southern-born Viet Minh officers, soldiers and cadres. In a few years the revolution was ready for the 44,000 "re-groupees" to begin infiltrating back to South Viet Nam to flesh out the Viet Cong's fledgling army. They did not call themselves Viet Cong, which means simply Vietnamese Communists. That term was first applied to them by the press—and resented, presumably because Hanoi hoped to draw all the country's dissidents into the struggle, Cong or not. The enemy prefers to be known as the National Liberation Front, which is in turn a wholly owned subsidiary of North Viet Nam's ruling Lao Dong (Workers) Party. The Liberation Army is the Front's military arm. But North Vietnamese prejudices aside, the name Viet Cong remains a handy catch-all for the enemy in South Viet Nam.
Down with Diem. During the Diem regime, the Viet Cong slowly gathered momentum. Diem's government tended to be remote from the people, and the rural administrators sent out from Sai gon were seldom honest, nor were they native to their assigned areas. They were considered foreigners by the peasants, and the V.C. were quick to exploit and exacerbate grievances. They harped on local issues, set up cells, village committees and small military units. Political terrorism was started, and the first armed attacks began in 1958.
By 1961, the Viet Cong were ready for an all-out campaign to subvert the countryside. Diem responded with repressive measures that only fueled the Viet Cong's enlistment program. When Diem was finally overthrown by his own generals (without U.S. protest) in 1963, the Viet Cong took a dip in strength. But during the revolving-door sequence of governments that followed Diem, the peasants lost faith in Saigon's ability to rule. The Viet Cong picked up strength again. They began to roam at will through the countryside, backed up by North Vietnamese regular soldiers who had come down the Ho Chi Minh trail, poised to consolidate and supervise the victory the Viet Cong were on the verge of winning. By early 1965, the South