North Vietnam’s Master Plan

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The People’s Army of Vietnam published an official history in Hanoi in 1994 that has shed light on a number of crucial actions taken by the North Vietnamese leadership. Before President John F. Kennedy’s November 1961 decision to increase American involvement in South Vietnam, North Vietnamese leaders met in Hanoi and secretly decided upon a series of actions that substantially escalated North Vietnam’s direct participation in the conflict in South Vietnam. Unknown to U.S. policy-makers at the time, these decisions provided the Vietnamese Communists with the means they needed to counter the effects of Kennedy’s decision and thereby maintain their strategic initiative in South Vietnam.

The history, titled History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, Volume II: The Coming of Age of the People’s Army of Vietnam During the Resistance War Against the Americans to Save the Nation (1954-75), did not use the terms ‘Viet Cong, South Vietnam Liberation Army or North Vietnamese Army, but instead treated all Communist military forces in both North and South Vietnam as components of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), the official name for what Americans referred to as the NVA. The only reference in the PAVN history to the Liberation Army states that in January 1961, following the formation of the Liberation Army of South Vietnam, the North Vietnamese Central Military Party Committee issued a specific directive stating that the Liberation Army of South Vietnam is a subordinate component of the People’s Army of Vietnam, contradicting their wartime stance that the VC was an independent entity. According to that history, the Politburo of the Vietnamese Communist Party held an important series of meetings in Hanoi beginning on January 31 and ending on February 25, 1961. During those meetings, the Politburo debated and approved a resolution concerning PAVN’s military responsibilities for the next five years, 1961-1965, and the direction to be taken in the immediate future by the revolution in the south. Since it took almost a month to pass the resolution, it seems likely that its contents were the subject of sharp and heated debate.

The Politburo resolution began by confirming the thrust of earlier Communist Party guidance, which held that building socialism in the North must take priority over support for the war in the South. The resolution stated that, in spite of the growing conflicts in Indochina, we have considerable prospects of being able to maintain peace in North Vietnam during the next five years. According to the resolution, preserving peace and guaranteeing the continued building of socialism in North Vietnam is [our] most vital responsibility. The 1961 resolution, however, altered the earlier formula by directing the North Vietnamese military to be prepared to take action to guarantee victory for the revolution in South Vietnam when the opportunity presents itself. In what seems to have been one of several key compromises in the resolution, this statement was softened somewhat by the proviso that any PAVN actions must be skillfully chosen so as to avoid a major armed intervention by the imperialists–meaning the Americans.

The Politburo resolution also approved a significant modification to the Communist Party’s strategy for the war in South Vietnam. While previous resolutions had directed that Communist forces should take military action only to protect and support the political struggle in the South, the February 1961 resolution decreed that the military struggle in South Vietnam would be raised to the same level of importance as the political struggle. The Politburo had authorized the PAVN to take virtually any military action it wished so long as it avoided provoking direct U.S. military action against the Vietnamese Communist movement.

Portions of the Politburo’s 1961 debate were discussed in some detail by retired Lt. Gen. Philip B. Davidson in his Vietnam At War, published in 1988. But the later part of the Politburo’s February 1961 deliberations, including the five-year military plan setting out detailed goals for PAVN expansion and operations, remained secret. Those goals and the strategy resolution’s approval for increased military action in the South laid the foundation for North Vietnam to become more directly involved in the war in South Vietnam.

Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Foreign Affairs, Historical Conflicts, Politics, Vietnam War

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