reaction, and credibility of people to indigenous public information. Distribution of non-indigenous propaganda materials (leaflets, radio broadcasts, and loudspeaker broadcasts). Attitude, reaction, and credibility among local people. Numbers of people who listen to or see nonindigenous propaganda. Word-of-mouth communication and gossip systems. Meetings, speech making, and other modes of information dissemination. Postal system. Telephone system. Telegraph and teletype systems.

Personal Care and Decoration. Cleanliness. Perfumes. Sanitation. Personal apperance (hair-dressing, nails, teeth, cosmetics, tattoos, clothing, personal ornaments, recognition marks, and visible symbols of rank, emblems and badges, membership in organizations, status).

Housing. Patterns of housing in cities, towns, and villages. Description of interiors and exteriors of houses. Lists of and placement of all objects found in each room and in and around houses. Functions of each room of a house or apartment and facilities near the dwelling. Ownership of houses. Who lives in houses-family relationship. Assignment of houses. Arrangement of houses in villages. Other structures in villages. Urban dwellings-houses, apartments, and rooms. Relation of dwelling to place of employment. Shortage of houses. Attitude of people to housing.

Food. Foods and their preparation. Seasonal variations. Availability of food and drink. Preservation and storage of food. Cooking techniques. Nature and times of all meals. Condiments. Special customs. Rationing of food. Forbidden food. Food preferences. Water and other liquids consumed-source, availability, and preparation. Stimulants and narcotics. Attitudes of the people relating to all of the above.

Travel and Transportation. Modes of travel and transportation. Vehicles. Routes and roads. Restrictions and documentation related to travel and transportation. Resettlement of.population. Migration.

The Arts. Drawing, painting, sculpture, music, musical instruments, dancing, singing, literature, poetry, drama, games, and amusements. Descriptions of the preceding. When and where do they take place? Sponsorship of such activities.

Health and Sanitation. Medical Practices. Modern and traditional medical techniques. Personal hygiene. Training of practitioners. Medical organization and system. Availability of medical service and supplies at all levels. Attitude and reaction of people to medical services.

THE NVA SOLDIER IN SOUTH VIETNAM AS A PSYOP TARGET BY THE JUSPAO PLANNING OFFICE

The presence of soldiers in a country other than that of their origin, even when this country of deployment has had a long history of close cultural contact with their country of origin, offers a variety of themes to PSYOP unavailable for use against indigenous forces.

*Excerpts from PSYOPS POLICY, No 59, 20 February 1968 JUSPAO Planning Office, Saigon, Republic of Vietnam.

PROBLEM

To focus PSYOP more effectively on the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) soldier in South Vietnam; devise surrender or defection appeals for dissemination to NVA units in South Vietnam (SVN); and provide field personnel with information on the most recent vulnerabilities and deterrents to surrender or defection in the psychological makeup of the NVA soldier.

DISCUSSION

The North Vietnamese soldier in South Vietnam presents a particularly difficult target for GVN/US PSYOP aimed at inducing surrender or defection. He has a relatively high state of indoctrination, reinforced by a range of psychological controls wielded by the cadre which include selfcriticism sessions, the three-man cell, and the endless repetition of communist themes. A contributory reason for the resistance of the NVA soldier to Chieu Hoi inducements is that unlike the Viet Cong, defection for most does not hold the promise of an early family reunion.

Moreover, unlike the VC guerrilla who may be a teenager conscripted from his hamlet environment by VC "recruiters" and sent into battle without much party schooling and political indoctrination, the NVA soldier is the product of a closed, totalitarian society, subjected to communist indoctrination from his earliest school days. This makes him more resistant as a PSYOP target. Unlike the VC he finds himself fighting in a region unfamiliar and semi-antagonistic to him, usually in relatively uninhabited areas and with little chance for contact with the civilian population.

There are three options that should be pointed out to him in US/GVN PSYOP messages:

The first is to rally, take advantage of the Chieu Hoi program and in short order become a free citizen of the RVN. (Until further notice, only defection appeals as outlined in PSYOP Policy #57 of 8 Feb 68 are to be observed.)

Second is to surrender as a prisoner of war and await repatriation at the end of the war in the safety and relative comfort of a prisoner of war camp.

As a third alternative, until the opportunity of either rallying or surrendering may present itself, NVA soldiers should be counseled to devote all their efforts to individual survival rather than getting killed or maimed for an unjust cause. Malingering, the avoidance of risks, passive resistance to the exhortations of the cadre should be stressed as a way to survive the war. Even a partial success in this PSYOP effort will contribute to shortening the war by reducing the combat effectiveness of NVA units.

While a decision to rally will be personally more advantageous to the individual, it may involve too direct a renunciation of country, family and all past training to form the substance of a viable PSYOP appeal in every

instance. Whichever of the alternatives are offered to NVA soldiers in our PSYOP messages, the vulnerabilities which they exploit remain the

same.

The NVA as a PSYOP Target

The most recent study shows that the age of infiltrators has dropped significantly. Prior to 1966, the most frequent age at infiltration was 22 years, with a lesser age peak for cadre at 25. By mid-1967 the age distribution had changed to a very sharp concentration at 19 with a much lesser age peak (again cadre) at 26 years. Further age drops are indicated. For instance, prisoners captured in July 1967 stated that 60 NVA replacements received by the battalion in June had all been 16 or 17 years old. Moreover, the composition of the NVA force has undergone a change from a majority of volunteers to over 70 percent draftees or former servicemen recalled to duty.

There is also some indication that soldiers with relatives in the South were included for the first time among the infiltrators, by mid-1967, although no estimate of their number is available. Previously, the NVA avoided sending to the South men whose immediate families regrouped to the South in 1954.

These factors would appear to reduce to some degree the responsiveness of the latest NVA infiltrators to cadre propaganda and provide greater opportunity for exploitation of vulnerabilities by US/GVN PSYOP techniques.

Vulnerabilities

The vulnerabilities themselves have not changed significantly over the past two years but they may have been intensified somewhat due to the change in the makeup of the force.

Separation from families, the hardships of infiltrations, fear of allied arms, and perhaps most significantly, the contrast between what they have been told by the cadre and what they experience themselves, are major exploitable weaknesses. For example:

NVA soldiers, told that most of South Viet Nam is already "liberated," come South and find that they must hide in the jungle and are stalked continuously by the heavy weapons of their adversaries.

They have been told by the cadre that the side which controls the people will win the war and that the VC have already won the support of more than two-thirds of the people and control four-fifths of the land. But instead of being welcomed by the people, NVA soldiers find that they must live in hiding, cut off from the people, who are sullen and seek to avoid contact with them. the recent NVA-VC Tet offensive, which failed in its aim to induce a general uprising, reinforces this vulnerability.

They have been force-fed in training and throughout the constant indoctrination sessions with tales of NVA/VC victories and GVN/U.S. defeats. According to the cadre, Americans have low morale and fighting

skill, cannot stand the climate, think only of going home. ARVN troops are reported to be poor fighters who are despised by the people. In the face of these optimistic forecasts, NVA soldiers find that they are subjected to incessant pounding and that the VC units to which they are attached or with which they operate are forever withdrawing from areas or hiding in the jungle.

They are told that the Americans, like the French before them, have enslaved the people, who are living in misery, exploited by the colonialists and the landlord class. These are the lackeys of the Americans and compose the puppet government in Saigon. Instead, on the rare occasions that NVA troops come in contact with the civilian population, they find them relatively well off, in possession of more material goods than are available in the North, and not interested in being 'liberated.' Though US/GVN media messages are in part discounted because of the training and indoctrination of NVA soldiers, our PSYOP products with which they come into occasional contact (leaflets, radio broadcasts, posters) may also give them pause for thought if they project convincingly an image of SVN well-being and confidence.

The party's concern for the soldiers is a standard indoctrination topic, the gist being that the party and the country are proud of the fighter who will be given a hero's welcome when he returns after the Americans are driven out, or if wounded along the way, he will be well taken care of, or if killed in battle, he will die a hero's death and will be buried with honor and live forever in the grateful memory of his countrymen. But NVA soldiers fear that they will get little care if wounded, might even be left behind on the battlefield, and if killed, might be hastily buried in unmarked graves, which their families will never find. They have this fear because they know that this is what happened to some of their comrades, contrary to what they had been taught to expect.

There is almost no mail connection with their families in the North. While several years ago letters could be sent to immediate families without limitation, latest interrogations state that only one letter on a single sheet can be sent North every six months, and mail from the families is similarly sparse, censored, and uncommunicative. This deprivation is intensely felt by the soldiers, most of whom despair of ever seeing their families again.

Deterrents

The endless repetition of the same communist themes by the cadre, by official publications and training documents, and in the cadre-managed self-criticism sessions sets up near automatic responses along the lines desired by the party, irrespective of objective reality. Because of this pattern, there is a tendency to reject Allied arguments out of hand. It is hard to break through to the NVA soldier with PSYOP messages because of this mental conditioning.

....The capability of the party cadre to instill a spirit of self-sacrifice in

the minds of the troops is another of the strengths of its propaganda. To endure hardships, to be wounded or die for the just cause and live forever in the memory of the people as a hero of the revolution is a potent theme in talking to the young. By the time the trail and the hardships in the South have ground them down, they go on automatically. Each successive disillusionment alienates them further from the cause, but these doubts cannot be expressed to anyone, and with all the suffering and blood spilled for the cause, it is difficult for an NVA member to rationalize himself into defection.

A powerful cohesive element is the three-man cell system present throughout the NVA, by which political and disciplinary control is maintained. Though detested as a device to prove the cadre right most of the time, it serves the function of letting off steam, improving survival chances in combat, and responding to emotional needs as a kind of family substitute. But just as in the family group in a totalitarian state, innermost thoughts are kept to oneself.

Conclusion

While vulnerabilities among the NVA in South Viet Nam appear to be on the increase, units continue to show a remarkable degree of cohesion, largely due to the psychological controls and continuous group therapy (cell system, self-criticism sessions) to which they are exposed. However, according to the available evidence, NVA units and individual infiltrators are now younger and less conditioned than ever before. The effects of war weariness, disenchantment, and the nagging deprivations on these less seasoned troops should serve to make them a more promising PSYOP target than in the past.

GUIDANCE

In devising a PSYOP program aimed at NVA units and individual NVA infiltrators, both the elements of cohesion and the psychological vulnerabilities of the target audience will have to be taken into account. Whittling away at the indoctrinated response might be less productive in the short run than exploiting obvious vulnerabilities, but in the long run a weakening of the soldiers' psychological defenses, laboriously built by the cadre, may cause their entire world view to crumble. At any rate our approach should be in tandem. We deal here with the cohesive elements first, as they are harder to tackle.

Attacking Elements of Cohesion

The endless repetitions of communist themes of colonial oppression, liberation and revolutionary duty must be countered by patient, reasoned, and repetitive efforts to explain American policies and intentions in Vietnam simply and convincingly. That we seek no colonial status, no bases or special privileges, that we have solemnly stated we will withdraw when the Vietnamese people themselves have had a chance