Viet Cong The Viet Cong ( ) , or National Liberation Front , was a political organization and army in South Vietnam and Cambodia that fought the United States and South Vietnamese governments during the Vietnam War ( 1959 – 1975 ) , and emerged on the winning side . It had both guerrilla and regular army units , as well as a network of cadres who organized peasants in the territory it controlled . Many soldiers were recruited in South Vietnam , but others were attached to the People ' s Army of Vietnam ( PAVN ) , the regular North Vietnamese army . During the war , communists and anti - war spokesmen insisted the Viet Cong was an insurgency indigenous to the South , while the U . S . and South Vietnamese governments portrayed the group as a tool of Hanoi . Although the terminology distinguishes northerners from the southerners , communist forces were under a single command structure set up in 1958 . North Vietnam established the National Liberation Front in 1960 to foment insurgency in the South . Many of the Viet Cong ' s core members were " regroupees " , southern Viet Minh who had resettled in the North after the Geneva Accord ( 1954 ) . Hanoi gave the regroupees military training and sent them back to the South along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the early 1960s . The NLF called for southern Vietnamese to " overthrow the camouflaged colonial regime of the American imperialists " and to make " efforts toward the peaceful unification . " The Viet Cong ' s best - known action was the Tet Offensive , a massive assault on more than 100 South Vietnamese urban centers in 1968 , including an attack on the US embassy in Saigon . The offensive riveted the attention of the world ' s media for weeks , but also overextended the Viet Cong . Later communist offensives were conducted predominately by the North Vietnamese . The organisation was dissolved in 1976 when North and South Vietnam were officially unified under a communist government . Names . The term " Việt cộng " appeared in Saigon newspapers beginning in 1956 . It is a contraction of " Việt Nam Cộng - sản " , ( Vietnamese communist ) , or alternatively " Việt gian cộng sản " ( " Communist Traitor to Vietnam " ) . The earliest citation for " Vietcong " in English is from 1957 . American soldiers referred to the Viet Cong as Victor Charlie or V - C . " Victor " and " Charlie " are both letters in the NATO phonetic alphabet . " Charlie " referred to communist forces in general , both Viet Cong and North Vietnamese . The official Vietnamese history gives the group ' s name as the Liberation Army of South Vietnam or the National Liberation Front for South Vietnam ( " Mặt trận Dân tộc Giải phóng miền Nam Việt Nam " ) . Many writers shorten this to National Liberation Front ( NLF ) . In 1969 , the Viet Cong created the " Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam " ( " Chính Phủ Cách Mạng Lâm Thời Cộng Hòa Miền Nam Việt Nam " ) , abbreviated PRG . Although the NLF was not officially abolished until 1977 , the Viet Cong no longer used the name after PRG was created . Members generally referred to the Viet Cong as " the Front " ( " Mặt trận " ) . Today ' s Vietnamese media most frequently refers to the group as the " Liberation Army " ( " Quân Giải phóng " ) . History . Origin . By the terms of the Geneva Accord ( 1954 ) , which ended the Indochina War , France and the Viet Minh agreed to a truce and to a separation of forces . The Viet Minh became the government of North Vietnam and communist forces regrouped there . Non - communist forces regrouped in South Vietnam , which became a separate state . Elections on reunification were scheduled for July 1956 . A divided Vietnam angered Vietnamese nationalists , but it made the country less of a threat to China . Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai negotiated the terms of the ceasefire with France and then imposed them on the Viet Minh . About 90 , 000 Viet Minh were evacuated to the North while 5 , 000 to 10 , 000 cadre remained in the South , most of them with orders to refocus on political activity and agitation . The Saigon - Cholon Peace Committee , the first Viet Cong front , was founded in 1954 to provide leadership for this group . Other front names used by the Viet Cong in the 1950s implied that members were fighting for religious causes , for example , " Executive Committee of the Fatherland Front " , which suggested affiliation with the Hòa Hảo sect , or " Vietnam - Cambodian Buddhist Association . " Front groups were favored by the Viet Cong to such an extent that its real leadership remained shadowy until long after the war was over , prompting the expression , " the faceless Vietcong . " . Led by Ngô Đình Diệm , South Vietnam refused to sign the Geneva Accord . Arguing that a free election was impossible under the conditions that existed in communist - held territory , Diệm announced in July 1955 that the scheduled election on reunification would not be held . After subduing the Binh Xuyen organized crime gang in the Battle for Saigon in 1955 , and the Hòa Hảo and other militant religious sects in early 1956 , Diệm turned his attention to the Viet Cong . Within a few months , the Viet Cong had been driven into remote swamps . The success of this campaign inspired U . S . President Dwight Eisenhower to dub Diệm the " miracle man " when he visited the U . S . in May 1957 . France withdrew its last soldiers from Vietnam in April 1956 . In March 1956 , southern communist leader Lê Duẩn presented a plan to revive the insurgency entitled " The Road to the South " to the other members of the Politburo in Hanoi . He argued adamantly that war with the United States was necessary to achieve unification . But as China and the Soviets both opposed confrontation at this time , Lê Duẩn ' s plan was rejected and communists in the South were ordered to limit themselves to economic struggle . Leadership divided into a " North first " , or pro - Beijing , faction led by Trường Chinh , and a " South first " faction led by Lê Duẩn . As the Sino - Soviet split widened in the following months , Hanoi began to play the two communist giants off against each other . The North Vietnamese leadership approved tentative measures to revive the southern insurgency in December 1956 . Lê Duẩn ' s blueprint for revolution in the South was approved in principle , but implementation was conditional on winning international support and on modernizing the army , which was expected to take at least until 1959 . President Hồ Chí Minh stressed that violence was still a last resort . Nguyễn Hữu Xuyên was assigned military command in the South , replacing Lê Duẩn , who was appointed North Vietnam ' s acting party boss . This represented a loss of power for Hồ , who preferred the more moderate Võ Nguyên Giáp , who was defense minister . An assassination campaign , referred to as " extermination of traitors " or " armed propaganda " in communist literature , began in April 1957 . Tales of sensational murder and mayhem soon crowded the headlines . Seventeen civilians were killed by machine gun fire at a bar in Châu Đốc in July and in September a district chief was killed with his entire family on a main highway in broad daylight . In October 1957 , a series of bombs exploded in Saigon and left 13 Americans wounded . In a speech given on September 2 , 1957 , Hồ reiterated the " North first " line of economic struggle . The launch of Sputnik in October boosted Soviet confidence and led to a reassessment of policy regarding Indochina , long treated as a Chinese sphere of influence . In November , Hồ traveled to Moscow with Lê Duẩn and gained approval for a more militant line . In early 1958 , Lê Duẩn met with the leaders of " Inter - zone V " ( northern South Vietnam ) and ordered the establishment of patrols and safe areas to provide logistical support for activity in the Mekong Delta and in urban areas . In June 1958 , the Viet Cong created a command structure for the eastern Mekong Delta . French scholar Bernard Fall published an influential article in July 1958 which analyzed the pattern of rising violence and concluded that a new war had begun . Launches " armed struggle " . The North Vietnamese Communist Party approved a " people ' s war " on the South at a session in January 1959 and this decision was confirmed by the Politburo in March . In May 1959 , Group 559 was established to maintain and upgrade the Ho Chi Minh Trail , at this time a six - month mountain trek through Laos . About 500 of the " regroupees " of 1954 were sent south on the trail during its first year of operation . The first arms delivery via the trail , a few dozen rifles , was completed in August 1959 . Two regional command centers were merged to create the Central Office for South Vietnam ( " Trung ương Cục miền Nam " ) , a unified communist party headquarters for the South . COSVN was initially located in Tây Ninh Province near the Cambodian border . On July 8 , the Viet Cong killed two U . S . military advisors at Biên Hòa , the first American dead of the Vietnam War . The " 2d Liberation Battalion " ambushed two companies of South Vietnamese soldiers in September 1959 , the first large unit military action of the war . This was considered the beginning of the " armed struggle " in communist accounts . A series of uprisings beginning in the Mekong Delta province of Bến Tre in January 1960 created " liberated zones " , models of Viet Cong - style government . Propagandists celebrated their creation of battalions of " long - hair troops " ( women ) . The fiery declarations of 1959 were followed by a lull while Hanoi focused on events in Laos ( 1960 – 61 ) . Moscow favored reducing international tensions in 1960 , as it was election year for U . S . president . Despite this , 1960 was a year of unrest in South Vietnam , with pro - democracy demonstrations inspired by the South Korean student uprising that year and a failed military coup in November . To counter the accusation that North Vietnam was violating the Geneva Accord , the independence of the Viet Cong was stressed in communist propaganda . The Viet Cong created the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam in December 1960 at Tân Lập village in Tây Ninh as a " united front " , or political branch intended to encourage the participation of non - communists . The group ' s formation was announced by Radio Hanoi and its ten point manifesto called for , " overthrow the disguised colonial regime of the imperialists and the dictatorial administration , and to form a national and democratic coalition administration . " Thọ , a lawyer and the NLF ' s " neutralist " chairman , was an isolated figure among cadres and soldiers . South Vietnam ' s Law 10 / 59 , approved in May 1959 , authorized the death penalty for crimes " against the security of the state " and featured prominently in Viet Cong propaganda . Violence between the Viet Cong and government forces soon increased drastically from 180 clashes in January 1960 to 545 clashes in September . By 1960 , the Sino - Soviet split was a public rivalry , making China more supportive of Hanoi ' s war effort . For Chinese leader Mao Zedong , aid to North Vietnam was a way to enhance his " anti - imperialist " credentials for both the domestic and international audiences . About 40 , 000 communist soldiers infiltrated south in 1961 – 63 . The Viet Cong grew rapidly and an estimated 300 , 000 members were enrolled in " liberation associations " ( affiliated groups ) by early 1962 . The ratio of Viet Cong to government soldiers jumped from one to 10 in 1961 to one to five a year later . The level of violence in the South jumped dramatically in the fall of 1961 , from 50 guerrilla attacks in September to 150 in October . U . S President John F . Kennedy decided in November 1961 to substantially increase American military aid to South Vietnam . The arrived in Saigon with 35 helicopters in December 1961 . By mid - 1962 , there were 12 , 000 U . S . military advisors in Vietnam . The " special war " and " strategic hamlets " policies allowed Saigon to push back in 1962 , but in 1963 the Viet Cong regained the military initiative . The Viet Cong won its first military victory against South Vietnamese forces at Ấp Bắc in January 1963 . A landmark party meeting was held in December 1963 , shortly after a military coup in Saigon in which Diệm was assassinated . North Vietnamese leaders debated the issue of " quick victory " vs " protracted war " ( guerrilla warfare ) . After this meeting , the communist side geared up for a maximum military effort and PAVN troop strength increased from 174 , 000 at the end of 1963 to 300 , 000 in 1964 . The Soviets cut aid in 1964 as an expression of annoyance with Hanoi ' s ties to China . Even as Hanoi embraced China ' s international line , it continued to follow the Soviet model of reliance on technical specialists and bureaucratic management , as opposed to mass mobilization . The winter of 1964 – 1965 was a high - water mark for the Viet Cong , with the Saigon government on the verge of collapse . Soviet aid soared following a visit to Hanoi by Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin in February 1965 . Hanoi was soon receiving up - to - date surface - to - air missiles . The U . S . would have 200 , 000 soldiers in South Vietnam by the end of the year . In January 1966 , Australian troops uncovered a tunnel complex which had been used by COSVN . Six thousand documents were captured , revealing the inner workings of the Viet Cong . COSVN retreated to Mimot in Cambodia . As a result of an agreement with the Cambodian government made in 1966 , weapons for the Viet Cong were shipped to the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville and then trucked to Viet Cong bases near the border along the " Sihanouk Trail " , which replaced the Ho Chi Minh Trail . Many Viet Cong units operated at night , and employed terror as a standard tactic . Rice procured at gunpoint sustained the Viet Cong . Squads were assigned monthly assassination quotas . Government employees , especially village and district heads , were the most common targets . But there were a wide variety of targets , including clinics and medical personnel . Notable Viet Cong atrocities include the massacre of over 3 , 000 unarmed civilians at Huế , 48 killed in the bombing of My Canh floating restaurant in Saigon in June 1965 and a massacre of 252 Montagnard s in the village of Đắk Sơn in December 1967 using flamethrowers . Viet Cong death squads assassinated at least 37 , 000 civilians in South Vietnam ; the real figure was far higher since the data mostly cover 1967 - 72 . They also waged a mass murder campaign against civilian hamlets and refugee camps ; in the peak war years , nearly a third of all civilian deaths were the result of Viet Cong atrocities . Ami Pedahzur has written that " the overall volume and lethality of Vietcong terrorism rivals or exceeds all but a handful of terrorist campaigns waged over the last third of the twentieth century " . Tet Offensive . Major reversals in 1966 and 1967 , as well as the growing American presence in Vietnam , inspired Hanoi to consult its allies and reassess strategy in April 1967 . While Beijing urged a fight to the finish , Moscow suggested a negotiated settlement . Convinced that 1968 could be the last chance for decisive victory , General Nguyễn Chí Thanh , suggested an all - out offensive against urban centers . He submitted a plan to Hanoi in May 1967 . After Thanh ' s death in July , Giáp was assigned to implemented this plan , now known as the Tet Offensive . The Parrot ' s Beak , an area in Cambodia only 30 miles from Saigon , was prepared as a base of operations . Funeral processions were used to smuggle weapons into Saigon . Viet Cong entered the cities concealed among civilians returning home for Tết . The U . S . and South Vietnamese expected that an announced seven - day truce would be observed during Vietnam ' s main holiday . At this point , there were about 500 , 000 U . S . troops in Vietnam , as well as 900 , 000 allied forces . General William Westmoreland , the U . S . commander , received reports of massive troop movements and understood that an offensive was being planned , but his attention was focused on Khe Sanh , a remote U . S . base near the DMZ . In January and February 1968 , some 80 , 000 Viet Cong struck more than 100 towns with orders to " crack the sky " and " shake the Earth . " The offensive included a commando raid on the US Embassy , Saigon and a massacre at Huế of about 3 , 500 residents . House - to - house fighting between Viet Cong and South Vietnamese Rangers left much of Cholon , a section of Saigon , in ruins . The Viet Cong used any available tactic to demoralize and intimidate the population , including the assassination of South Vietnamese commanders . A photo by Eddie Adams showing the summary execution of a Viet Cong in Saigon on February 1 became a symbol of the brutality of the war . In an influential broadcast on February 27 , newsman Walter Cronkite stated that the war was a " stalemate " and could be ended only by negotiation . The offensive was undertaken in the hope of triggering a general uprising , but urban Vietnamese did not respond as the Viet Cong anticipated . About 75 , 000 communist soldiers were killed or wounded , according to Trần Văn Trà , commander of the " B - 2 " district , which consisted of southern South Vietnam . " We did not base ourselves on scientific calculation or a careful weighing of all factors , but . . . on an illusion based on our subjective desires " , Trà concluded . Earle G . Wheeler , chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , estimated that Tet resulted in 40 , 000 communist dead ( compared to about 10 , 600 U . S . and South Vietnamese dead ) . " It is a major irony of the Vietnam War that our propaganda transformed this debacle into a brilliant victory . The truth was that Tet cost us half our forces . Our losses were so immense that we were unable to replace them with new recruits " , said PRG Justice Minister Trương Như Tạng . Tet had a profound psychological impact because South Vietnamese cities were otherwise safe areas during the war . U . S . President Lyndon Johnson and Westmoreland argued that panicky news coverage gave the public the unfair perception that America had been defeated . Aside from some districts in the Mekong Delta , the Viet Cong failed to create a governing apparatus in South Vietnam following Tet , according to an assessment of captured documents by the U . S . CIA . The breakup of larger Viet Cong units increased the effectiveness of the CIA ' s Phoenix program ( 1967 – 72 ) , which targeted individual leaders , as well as the Chiêu Hồi Program , which encouraged defections . By the end of 1969 , there was little communist - held territory , or " liberated zones " , in South Vietnam , according to the official communist military history . There were no predominantly southern units left and 70 percent of communist troops in the South were northerners . The Viet Cong created an urban front in 1968 called the Alliance of National , Democratic , and Peace Forces . The group ' s manifesto called for an independent , non - aligned South Vietnam and stated that " national reunification cannot be achieved overnight . " In June 1969 , the alliance merged with the NLF to form a " Provisional Revolutionary Government . " ( PRG ) Vietnamization . The severe communist losses during Tet allowed the U . S . to gradually withdraw combat forces and to shift responsibility to the South Vietnamese , a process called Vietnamization . Pushed into Cambodia , the Viet Cong could no longer draw South Vietnamese recruits . In May 1968 , Trường Chinh urged " protracted war " in a speech that was published prominently in the official media , so the fortunes of his " North first " fraction may have revived at this time . COSVN rejected this view as " lacking resolution and absolute determination . " The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 led to intense Sino - Soviet tension and to the withdrawal of Chinese forces from North Vietnam . Beginning in February 1970 , Lê Duẩn ' s prominence in the official media increased , suggesting that he was again top leader and had regained the upper hand in his longstanding rivalry with Trường Chinh . After the overthrow of Prince Sihanouk in March 1970 , the Viet Cong faced a hostile Cambodian government which authorized a U . S . offensive against its bases in April . However , the capture of the Plain of Jars and other territory in Laos , as well as five provinces in northeastern Cambodia , allowed the North Vietnamese to reopen the Ho Chi Minh Trail . Although 1970 was a much better year for the Viet Cong than 1969 , it would never again be more than an adjunct to the PAVN . The 1972 Easter Offensive was a direct North Vietnamese attack across the DMZ between North and South . Despite the Paris Peace Accords , signed by all parties in January 1973 , fighting continued . In March , Trà was recalled to Hanoi for a series of meetings to hammer out a plan for a massive offense against Saigon . Fall of Saigon . In response to the anti - war movement , the U . S . Congress passed the Case - Church Amendment to prohibit further U . S . military intervention in Vietnam in June 1973 and reduced aid to South Vietnam in August 1974 . With U . S . bombing ended , communist logistical preparations could be accelerated . An oil pipeline was built from North Vietnam to Viet Cong headquarters in Loc Ninh , about 75 miles northwest of Saigon . ( COSVN was moved back to South Vietnam following the Easter Offensive . ) The Ho Chi Minh Trail , once a treacherous mountain trek , was upgraded into a drivable road . Between the beginning of 1974 and April 1975 , the communists delivered nearly 365 , 000 tons of war material to battlefields , 2 . 6 times the total for the previous 13 years . The success of the 1973 – 74 dry season offensive convinced Hanoi to accelerate its timetable . When there was no U . S . response to a successful communist attack on Phước Bình in January 1975 , South Vietnamese morale collapsed . The next major battle , at Buôn Ma Thuột in March , was a communist walkover . After the Fall of Saigon on April 30 , 1975 , the PRG moved into government offices there . At the victory parade , Tạng noticed that the units formerly dominated by southerners were missing , replaced by northerners years earlier . The bureaucracy of the Republic of Vietnam was uprooted and authority over the South was assigned to the PAVN . Perhaps 1 million people considered tainted by association with the former South Vietnamese government were sent to reeducation camps , despite the protests of the non - communist PRG members including Tạng . Without consulting the PRG , North Vietnamese leaders decided to rapidly dissolve the PRG at a party meeting in August 1975 . North and South were merged as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in July 1976 and the PRG was dissolved . The NLF was merged with the Vietnamese Fatherland Front in February 1977 . Relationship with Hanoi . Spokesmen against American involvement in Vietnam said that the Viet Cong was a nationalist insurgency indigenous to the South . They claimed that Viet Cong was composed of several parties People ' s Revolutionary Party , the Democratic Party and the Radical Socialist Party . NLF Chairman Nguyễn Hữu Thọ was not a communist . Anti - communists counter that the Viet Cong was merely a front for Hanoi . They say some statements issued by communist leaders in the 1980s and 1990s suggest that southern communist forces were influenced by Hanoi . According to the memoirs of Trần Văn Trà , the Viet Cong ' s top commander and PRG defense minister , he followed orders issued by the " Military Commission of the Party Central Committee " in Hanoi , which in turn implemented resolutions of the Politburo . Trà himself was deputy chief of staff for the PAVN before being assigned to the South . The official Vietnamese history of the war states that , " The Liberation Army of South Vietnam [ Viet Cong ] is a part of the People ' s Army of Vietnam " .