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

S-E€R’ET
South Vietnamese who had regrouped to North Vietnam after the July 1954
Geneva Accords. The training course was given at a CDV training facility in
Thuong Than Village outside Hanoi. Trainees received instruction on the
“administration, reeducation and release of POWs. They were briefed that
provincial-level detention camps detained ARVN enlisted and noncommis-
sioned (NCO) personnel, while officers and US/ Allied forces personnel were
detained at regional-level enemy proselytizing detention camp subsections
before transfer to CDV SVNLA Enemy Proselytizing Office detention
facilities in southern_South Vietnam or to Hanoi from Central Vietnam.
Provincial-level detention camp chiefs were responsible for properly
receiving, searching, and storing POW personal effects in a bag marked with
the POW's -name and rank; indoctrinating POWs on NLFSVN clemency
policies and camp regulations; maintaining status records ondetained POWs
and those being interrogated. Interrogations were conducted to obtain basic
biographical data, exploitable tactical. military intelligence, and political
information on enemy unit morale and combat effectiveness. Interrogation
results were sent to the provincial unit and / or military region headquarters for
followup exploitation by military intelligence components. _
By mid-1970, the CDV had centralized all enemy military proselytizing
training under Military Proselytizing School 105 in Ha Dong City, Ha Tay
Province, North Vietnam. CDV School 105 trained 140 cadres annually
between 1970 and 1974 for assignments to various field commands in South
Vietnam.
CDV personnel wear regular armed forces uniforms, receive salaries in
accordance with PAVN pay scales, and hold PAVN ranks. '
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Organization
Headed by Major General Le Ouang Dao, the CDV headquarters is
located inside the Hanoi Citadel compound of the MN D on the right hand side
of the east gate on Ly Nam De Street. Within this area, the CDV maintained a
maximum security detention facility—“Alcatraz"—where a small select group
of uncooperative US POW officers underwent intensive brutal indoctrination
and interrogation.
Although the personnel strength of the CDV is a closely guarded secret, its
total estimated strength in the armed forces is about 15,000. It has an
estimated 250-man headquarters staff inside the Hanoi Citadel" compound,
plus an unknown number of interrogation, indoctrination, and military POW
detention camp specialists assigned to about 30 detention camps for an
estimated 120,000 former ARVN personnel in Vietnam.
During the Vietnam War years in South Vietnam, the CDV had about
10,000 personnel assigned to four forward “commands. About 1,500 were
assigned to the.SVNLA Enemy Proselytizing Office forward command and its
field components; 4,600 to the COSVN Military Proselytizing Section forward
command and its field components; 3,500 to the Region 5 Enemy Military
Proselytizing Section forward command and its field components in Central
Vietnam; and about 400 to the Tri-Thien-Hue Military Region Enemy
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