BLOODBATHS IN VIETNAM: THE REALITY AND THE MYTH

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01601R000300350009-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 13, 2000
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: October 24, 1972
• Content Type: NSPR

NEW YORK TIMES STATINT
Approved For Release 2001 /0 ilQ4o lAMDP80-01601
loodhaths i Vietnam
By Robert F. Turner
and the Myth
STANrORD, Calif.-Administration for reasons which are too complicated
spokesmen have argued that the to detail here, the number of execu-
Lions was probably smaller than that.
United States cannot unilaterally
Most Vietnam
withdraw from Vietnam without in- sd the s, including
viting a vast bloodbath, In support of Iloang Van Chi and the late Bernard
this thesis, they assert that following Fall, accept the figure of 50,000 exe-
the Communist takeover in North Viet- cutiolls.
nam in I954 a massacre occurred The "people's ccairt" executions,
resulting in the killing of more than however, accounted for only a small
50,000 people and the indirect deaths part of the total victims of the "land
of hundreds of thousands more. Critics reform." Far more numerous were the
of the Administration have recently "class enemies" who committed suicide
charged that no bloodbath took place rather than face Communist justice,
in the Nortli-that President Nixon's and the wives and children of "land-
apparent concern is founded on a lords" who died of starvation under
myth. the "isolation' policy."
I have been to Vietnam three times, The most thorough study of the
twice working for the North Viet- "land reform" to date is Hoang Van
namese Affairs Division of a branch Chi's excellent book, "From Colonial-
of the .U.S. Embassy in Saigon. Ivry ism to Communism," which concludes
duties included following the North - that the total victims of the purge
Vietnamese radio and press, studying numbered nearly 500,000. I have found
captured documents and interviewing nothing in my.own research to dispute
important North Vietnamese and Viet- this estimate, and I am quite sure that
Bong defectors. Having a personal in- the victims numbered in six digits.
tetest in the early days of the Commu-
nist regime in North Vietnam, I
discussed the "bloodbath" with many
defectors frov various areas of North
'Vietnam who had been present during
the period in question. It should be
noted that several of these individuals
had been Communist party members
and active participants in the so-called
"bloodbath"---either as specially trained
cadres or as "people's court" judges.
On the basis of these interviews and
other evidence accumulated during the
past eight years, I arm convinced that
there was in fact a large-scale purge
of opposition elements following the
Communist takeover in North Vietnam,
and that its magnitude was sufficient
to warrant the label "bloodbath," The
purge took the form of a "land re-
form." However, it was clear to most
observers that an incorrect political
standpoint was as likely as economic
prosperity to bring a death sentence.
It is difficult to determine the actual
human cost of the "land reform" be-
cause no official figures are available
and those witnesses who have escaped
the Communist North seldom are
knowledgeable about events ouside of
their own village or province. It is
known that the, party established a
quota of at least five "landlords" for
execution in each village.
To Van Mein, a Communist party
member since 1950 who served on the
planning committee in Thaibinh Prov-
ince, reports 31 executions Our of
All of the defectors are in agreement
that a Communist "land reform" in
South Vietnam would dwarf the blood-
bath which occurred in the North. Cap-
tured Vietcong documents and state-
ments by high-ranking defectors indi-
cate that the Vietcong have between
three and five million names on "blood
debt" lists for punishment in the
future, TWO leading British authorities
-P. J. Honey and Sir Robert Thomp-
son---have estimated that a Vietcong
bloodbath would result in over one
million deaths. Unfortunately, the re-
stilts of my own research support such
an ominous conclusion,
Robert F. Turner is a research asso-
ciate at the hoover Institution on War,
Revolution and peace at Stanford Uni-
versity.
By D. Gareth Porter
ITHACA, N. Y. President Nixon now
justifies continued United States mil-
itary involvement in Vietnam in large
part by portraying Vietnamese Com-
munist leaders as bloodthirsty fanatics
who would order a massive "blood-
bath" against their former foes if they
were to gain power in South Vietnam
-one which would be even worse than
the present daily bloodletting. In sup-
port of that argument, he has charged
that the North Vietnamese Govern-
ment carried out wholesale liquida-
ri 000 residents in Cot tr ilk n e flogs during the land reform from
single source: the book "From Colonial-
ism to Communism" by Iloang Van
Chi. A native of North Vietnam who
left for Saigon early in 1955, Air. Chi
has been presented to the American
public as an authoritative source on
the ]and reform, with intimate knowl-
edge of Communist party policy. But
a careful examination of his account
and of the original documents in Viet-
namese discloses a series of distor-
tions and fabrications which totally
misrepresents the land reform program.
On the basis of Iloang Van Chi's
gross mistranslations of key passages,
General Vo Nguyen Giap's speech on
land reform errors in October, 1956,
has been quoted frequently as proof of
a reign of terror in the North. As
translated by Mr. Chi, the speech ap-
pears to admit that terror, torture and
execution of innocent people had been
official policy. But in the original Viet-
namese text, Giap says nothing of the
sort. This complete alteration of Giap's
statement was accomplished by no loss
than eight serious mistranslations in
three sentences. This distortion by mis-
translation was no mistake; Mr. Chi
has now admitted, in an interview with
The Washington Post, that he departed
from an accurate translation in order
to impart the "true meaning" of the
documents in question.
In many cases, he has simply in-
vented evidence to support his charges.
For example, in order to prove that the
purpose of the land reform was to
physically destroy the landlord class,
he quotes the main slogan of the land
reform as exhorting cadres to "liqui-
date the landlords." But the slogan in
question said, "Abolish the feudal re-
lgime of landownership in a manner
that is discriminating, methodical and
under sound leadership." In fact, only
those landlords guilty of specific
f, El se f* 5
fir eve ytttI6~ 0 11 eld)coplFm e, vlticTtlease ~y Iek~~i'lflilhT[ APA4-01601 R000300350009-5
projected nationwide would suggest tions in secondary sources on the land Co11t7.11UG-'d
approximately 100,000 executions reform, are based ultimately on a