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To have its desired effect, terror must be judiciously applied. So in 1962, Hanoi sent down orders to "set up specialized units and clandestine forces" to take over most such operations. Since then, the level of violent incidents has risen from 5,000 a year to 25,000, the work of elite three-man cells that travel from job to job, like any gangster gun for hire. They take pride in their work, often pinning a note on the chest of a victim describing the reasons for his execution. They do not like to be blamed for other people's murders. Sometimes the V.C. go so far as to issue leaflets denying responsibility for a killing and blaming the death on bandits posing as Viet Cong.
Larger attacks, such as the shelling of Saigon on National Day last Nov. 1, are designed to demonstrate that the Viet Cong are everywhere able to strike at will, even in the cities that are under government control. Oddly enough, there is evidence that the National Day attack was spoiled by the Viet Cong's own stupidity. Loyal V.C. often operate on Hanoi time, an hour behind Saigon, and set their watches accordingly. The shells fell before the festivities had begun, while the reviewing stands were still comparatively empty—in short, an hour too soon. Timing has been ruthlessly better in other attacks. On March 30, 1965, a terrorist drove a sedan loaded with explosives up to the guard post of the American embassy in Saigon and killed 20, wounded 190, many of them Vietnamese passersby. Three months later, a V.C. bomb blasted the My Canh houseboat restaurant where Americans often ate, killing 43 people. A favorite terrorist gambit is to set a Claymore mine to go off some minutes after a primary explosion, thus killing rescuers and the inevitable crowd that gathers at a disaster.
Contradictions of Government. For the task of ruling the people they have stolen from the government of South Viet Nam, the Viet Cong use every type of propaganda and coercion at their command. Loudspeaker teams travel through V.C. villages, whispering rumormongers scuttle through government zones, U.S.O.-type song-and-dance troupes and armed propaganda teams enter a village to "protect" it after advance men have sounded out the villagers' grievances. Whatever the complaints—whether they deal with a corrupt headman or a lack of land reform—the Viet Cong move in and offer redress where they can. Their methods are direct: shoot the corrupt chief, redistribute the land.
Nor do they ever let villagers forget any improper behavior on the part of South Vietnamese troops, who often steal pigs and chickens as they forage across the land. The large entry of the U.S. in the war has provided a variety of fresh verbal ammunition. The Americans are depicted as the new French colonialists, out to rule Viet Nam economically. G.I.s are whispered to have brought three new strains of venereal disease into Viet Nam. After a bombing raid on a V.C. village by