Brutality with a Purpose

"Terror is a weapon as real as a gun --and sometimes more deadly. For it can kill not only the body but the spirit of those lives it touches with fear." So begins Terror in Viet Nam by Jay Mallin, a new book that in brief (114 pages), pointed style systematically analyzes the Viet Cong's use of violence. Mallin, a longtime Caribbean reporter (five years for TIME in Cuba) who flew to Viet Nam in 1965 to research his grim inquiry firsthand, quotes Che Guevara for the Red chapter and verse on terrorism. "Violence," asserted Che, is "the midwife of new societies." It is also for the Viet Cong, adds Author Mallin, "a highly developed, highly refined political weapon."

Viet Nam has become the classic arena for the Communist use of the tactic of terror, which Mallin rightly defines as violence inflicted by armed men on helpless civilians. Whether it be mining of roads, machine-gunning of buses, kidnaping villagers, burning homes, or torture and murder, the Viet Cong employ "brutality with a purpose": to destroy the morale of the Vietnamese citizenry and discredit the Saigon government. Any opportunity will do. When typhoon rains caused massive flooding in the fall of 1964, the Viet Cong fired repeatedly at evacuation helicopters carrying civilians.

Changes in Targets. The Viet Cong have two strategies of terror, one for rural areas and the other for crowded cities. In the countryside, Communists will behead a hamlet chief in order to substitute their own rule and make possible the collection of "taxes" and recruitment of men for the Viet Cong cause. They will cut off the arm of the chief's twelve-year-old daughter in order to frighten the neighboring peasants into silence about their whereabouts.

In the cities, the "urban guerrillas," of whom Mallin estimates there are at least 500 professionals in Saigon alone, seldom dare to attack an American or Vietnamese official on the streets, prefer to roll a grenade into a crowded bar or toss a plastic bomb into a teeming marketplace. The purpose is to erode confidence in the government's ability to provide protection and to try to "discourage business activity, cause investment capital to flee and, in general, to undermine the economy."

Incidents of terrorism have risen steadily in number and violence since 1960 and have also undergone discernible changes in emphasis and targets. Beginning in 1964, the Viet Cong became far less discriminate in their mayhem, far more ready to kill for killing's sake. And since last year, policemen have been a special target for the Red assassination squads--a tribute paid to the growing expertise of the nation's "white mice" in catching the terrorist before he strikes.

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