The Urban Grind

The first document is a 1971 "Circular" distributed by the Vietnamese communists within Vietnam. It discusses strategies to coordinate their national propaganda effort with their orchestration of the activities of sympathetic counterparts in the American anti-war movement. Specifically, the document notes that the Vietcong and North Vietnamese delegations to the Paris Peace talks were being used as the communications link to direct the activities of anti-war activists meeting with them in Paris. To quote from the document:

The spontaneous antiwar movements in the US have received assistance and guidance from the friendly ((VC/NVN)) delegations at the Paris Peace Talks.

The second document, captured by US military forces in South Vietnam on May 12, 1972, is a communist Directive designed to motivate discussions within Vietnam about promoting the ongoing antiwar activities in the United States. The fifth paragraph of this document makes clear that the Vietnamese communists were utilizing for their propaganda purposes the activities of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. The protest described as occurring from April 19 through April 22, 1971 coincides directly with the dates of Dewey Canyon III, the Washington, DC, protest led by John Kerry, during which John Kerry’s testimony before Senator Fulbright's Foreign Relations Committee was a televised centerpiece. The description of the protest activities in the Directive even include the "return their medals" ceremony in which John Kerry and other VVAW members threw their medals and/or ribbons toward the steps of the US Capitol, with several shouting threats of violence against their government as they did so.

# posted by Zelda @ 10/26/2004 02:30:00 AM