Documents / FOIA release

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

Central Intelligence Agency · 1979-12-01 · 120 pages · text from the file's own layer

This is a December 1979 Central Intelligence Agency study published by the Directorate of Operations Counterintelligence Staff. It describes the Enemy Proselytizing Department (Cuc Dich Van) of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam Ministry of National Defense. The study traces the department's origins from 1941 through the French and Vietnam wars. It covers psychological warfare, fifth column penetration of ARVN and allied forces, the handling of US and allied prisoners of war, and the postwar reeducation of former ARVN personnel. It contains no material on UFOs.

  • p. 47 …In return, the SVNLA promised not to attack the units if they complied with the agreed…
  • p. 50 …These penetrations hampered the arrest of military proselytizing agents by providing them with advance warnings of…
  • p. 64 …Each category was given a three-day period, fixed in advance by the authorities, to report…
  • p. 90 …the MND Intermediate-Advanced Political School in Hanoi. Upon graduation, he was promoted to the rank…
mm 099011 ---__ ’> '7 Q
_S'E‘CR‘ET
Vietnamese Liberation Army (SVNLA), and head of the SVNLA
Political Staff Department in charge of cadre organization (person-
nel), enemy proselytizing, and propaganda-training affairs. Do
imposed strict ethnic North Vietnamese control throughout the
SVNLA Political Staff Department structure. Three ‘senior PAVN
officers who infiltrated with him were appointed Deputy SVNLA
Political Staff Department Directors: Colonel Nguyen Lan alias Ba
Luu, the cadre organization (personnel) office chief; Colonel Tran
Van Phac alias Tam Tran; and Colonel Pham Thai alias Nam Thai,
the military security office chief. In 1968, he headed an SVNLA
Command Group during the general offensives on Saigon, where he
was reportedly killed. This report was later deemed false. In
1969/1970, he became a full Lao Dong Party Central Committee
member. Wounded in a B-52 air strike, he returned to Hanoi in 1970
for medical treatment and reassumed his positions with
COSVN/SVNLA in 1971. In September 1972, he attended a meeting
of PAVN Military Region 5 as an SVNLA representative to coordinate
campaign planning. Following the January 1973 Paris Ceasefire
Agreement, he became the political officer of SVNLA Command
Group 801. Following the Communist takeover of South Vietnam on
80 April 1975, Do attended the Ninth Congress of the East German
United Socialist Party which was held in April 1976. From at least
January 1977 to present, he has held the concurrent positions of
Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) Central Committee member,
deputy director of the VCP Propaganda and Training Department,
Vice Minister of Culture and Information, and Secretary of the
Current Affairs Committee of the Ministry of Culture and
Information Party Committee. Do has used the aliases Cuu Long,
Truong Son, Chin Vinh, and Tran Quoc Vinh.
Tran Van Du alias Bay Du,
Deputy Chief and later Chief,
COSVN Military Proselytizing
Section, 1960 to 1975. Born
about 1927 in Long An or
Dinh Tuong Province, delta
area of South Vietnam, Du
was a battalion commander
during the 1945-1954 French
Resistance War who refused
to regroup to North Vietnam ~
in 1954. Between 1954 and
1959, he was the personal
secretary of Nam Bo/COSVN
Party Committee Secretary Le
Duan. In 1959, he was reas-
signed to the Military Proselytizing Section of the Nam Bo Public
Security Office as a command-level cadre. When COSVN was
reestablished in 1960, Du became the deputy chief of the COSVN
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80
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 120 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.