The Infiltrators

South Viet Nam formally observed its "Day of Shame" -- the tenth anniversary of the signing of the 1954 Geneva Treaty, which split Viet Nam in two, giving the northern half to the Communists. There were speeches, mourning processions, demonstrations. The Communists were celebrating the day in their own way--by sending an increasing flow of soldiers across the border from North Viet Nam.

In South Viet Nam's mountainous I Corps area, a three-week Communist offensive apparently had just about spent itself. Elsewhere the Reds launched nothing larger than company-size attacks, although there was fairly heavy fighting in Chuong Thien province. In neighboring Laos, Communist Pathet Lao troops attacked Muong Soui, a neutralist military base on the edge of the Plain of Jars, but fell back when Laotian Air Force T-28 fighter-bombers cut their supply lines. All battles and skirmishes, however, were overshadowed by the fact that North Viet Nam was playing an ever more aggressive and significant role in the war. Precisely what role is still a subject for argument.

Replacements. One right-wing Laotian general charged that two full regiments of the North Viet Nam army had infiltrated into South Viet Nam through the Attopeu region of Laos. South Viet Nam's Premier, General Nguyen Khanh, said his I Corps had recently captured some Viet Minh (North Vietnamese) troops. U.S. Colonel John H. Wohner, senior American adviser to the I Corps, charged in a Saigon newspaper interview that soldiers from almost all North Viet Nam army divisions had been identified--by their insignia--fighting with the Viet Cong guerrillas in South Viet Nam. In some cases, he said, the troops from the north made up 60% of the strength of their Viet Cong units.

Officially, that version was cautiously qualified. According to a high-ranking briefing officer, the Viet Cong battalions operating in the I Corps area have received at least 180 "native North Vietnamese replacements during the past six months." The 180 had been confirmed; the actual number might be much higher. The official account insisted that these were cadres, not combat units, although admittedly the cadre category has included battalion commanders, skilled technicians and, "it would be logical to assume, some fighting men." When they crossed the border, they severed all connections with the North Viet Nam army; thus technically, they became free agents.

But that distinction was perhaps a little too technical. So was another distinction much discussed in Saigon: whether the infiltrators are native North Vietnamese or South Vietnamese taken north for training and then sent back to fight. Both types are obviously used, and the "trainees" from the south have been among the most effective Communist fighters. Some of them, lately defected to the Saigon government, are giving interrogators a picture of just how the Communists manage their secret traffic in soldiers.

Defectors. At a special Chieu Hoy (Open Arms) Camp twelve miles east of Saigon, where defectors are gathered for rehabilitation, TIME Correspondents Frank McCulloch and James Wilde talked to six former Communist infiltrators. Born and raised in South Viet Nam, all had been exposed to the harangues of political commissars in their home villages and joined the Communist movement before 1954. They moved to the Communist north after the Geneva partition, mostly out of sheer hero worship for the conquerors of the hated French. Former Viet Minh Infantry Captain Huynh Due That, 35, joined the Viet Minh as a civil guard when he was 20, after partition was taken to Hanoi aboard a Polish troopship. Nguyen Thao, 32, joined his local Young Communist movement even earlier, at twelve, and walked to North Viet Nam.

In the north, all received years of intensive military, technical and political training--and eventually all were selected by the North Vietnamese government to return to the south. The trip home began at a camp south of Hanoi where units of infiltrators were assembled, then driven south by automobile to within 15 miles of the border. There, they set out on foot, following the spidery footpaths of the Ho Chi Minh trail west into Laos, then southeast across the mountainous border of South Viet Nam. The march was slow--five to seven weeks. Before they crossed into Laos, the whole band changed from their Viet Minh uniforms into the khaki of the Pathet Lao, and at the South Viet Nam border they changed once again--into the black of the Viet Cong.

Disillusion. Each unit was made up of men from the same area, and once back in South Viet Nam, they headed for their home regions. Some went to fight alongside or instruct the local Viet Cong, but others had more specialized tasks. Nguyen Thao actually built a complete small-arms factory under the South Viet Nam army's nose.

All six were hardened, highly trained Communists when they arrived. Their reasons for eventually defecting were much the same. One factor was homesickness: "It is harder to hide and fight in the hills near your home and not be able to go to it than it is to be far away from it." More important was their disillusionment with Communism. As one defector put it: "They told us the Americans were running all of South Viet Nam and that living was very bad there. When we had a chance to see for ourselves, we learned that the Vietnamese were still running Viet Nam, and things in the south were better than in the north."

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