ABSTRACT
The United States Ambassador had the same role as the Governor under the French. The plebiscite between North and South was to be held in 1956 but actual aggression in the South by Diem forces began prior to that and United States advisers were already there. In ‘Operation Sunrise’, from the end of March to the end of June 1962, in the southwest, the Delta, 3,000 houses were burned down, 500 tons of paddy rice was destroyed and 60,000 people were concentrated into hamlets. The next witness was Tran Thi Van, from Quang Nam province, in the centre of South Vietnam. United States forces are present in only twenty-eight out of the forty-two provinces of the South. To have United States troops in all of them would obviously increase the United States position in case of eventual negotiations.
