Intelligence and Security Operations of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam Ministry of National Defense

'5'E'GR-E-T_
thought out enemy proselytizing and intelligence-gathering programs were
incorporated into all PAVN campaign planning.
The PDV took into full account the ethnic and national differences
between various individuals in the French armed forces. Tactically oriented
operations were specifically designed to reduce the combat effectiveness of the
French. Long range strategic operations were designed to induce individuals
to serve the Communist cause upon return to their units and their homelands.
In the latter category, special leaflets were prepared and distributed to major
ethnic groups, such as Algerians, Czechs, French, Germans, Greeks,
Moroccans, Poles, Romanians, Senegalese, Spaniards, Tunisians, and other
nationalities. ~
Heavy emphasis was placed on targeting foreign nationals of the French
armed forces, particularly French Foreign Legionnaires. The PDV was
assisted in this activity by the Algerian, Czech, French, East German, Greek,
Moroccan, Polish, Romanian, Spanish, and Tunisian Communist Parties. The
French Communist Party distributed leaflets and pamphlets to French seamen
onboard French military transport ships. A French naval petty officer, Henri
Martin,* was arrested in 1951 for distributing such leaflets to French. naval
personnel. The East German United Socialist (Communist) Party (SED) also
distributed similar leaflets in the name of the German Democratic Republic to
Foreign Legionnaires of German origin. German language leaflets were sent to
secure DRV zones via the USSR and the People's Republic of China (PRC) for
distribution by PDV teams in Foreign Legion garrison areas.
Three East German SED members, who deserted from the Foreign
Legion in Vietnam, played a key role in the PDV targeting of Foreign
Legionnaires of German origin. One Rudolf Schroeder alias Ho Chi Long was
the first European to defect to the DRV on 17 December 1945. Between 1946
and July 1954, Schroeder was responsible for the indoctrination and
psychological exploitation of captured European Foreign Legionnaires at PDV
administered detention camps in northern Vietnam. Two other German SED
members, who later defected and assumed the Vietnamese names of Ho Chi
Dan and Nguyen Nhan, directed psychological warfare efforts against
European and North African members of the Foreign Legion. Each headed a
PDV armed propaganda unit composed of European defectors, which
conducted psychological warfare activities against non-French members of the
French armed forces. Their units occasionally posed as French units before
attacking isolated French outposts.
In the southern part of Vietnam, one Hoang Van Nhi alias Willy Hoang,
an ethnic North Vietnamese who had collaborated with the Nazis during
World War II in Paris and Berlin, was responsible for writing psychological
warfare leaflets against German Foreign Legionnaires. Assigned to the Nam
Bo/COSVN Political Staff's Enemy Proselyti-zing Section, Nhi directed
‘Since July 1961, Henri Martin has been the chairman of the French Communist Party's (PCF)
Franco-Vietnam Friendship Association Secretariat. He is a PCF Central Committee member in charge of
its Southeast Asian Section. ln November 1967, he wrote a report entitled "Vietnam Solidarity," which
highlighted meetings he had with DRV Lao Dong Party (now the VCP) officials in Hanoi on how the PCF
could best fulfill Hanoi's political action propaganda requirements in France.
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