At the end of 1960, Hanoi created the Liberation Armed Forces of South Vietnam to wage war in the South, along with the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF) to serve as an umbrella organization for opposition political parties. The NLF was designed to foster the illusion that the war breaking out was a spontaneous, non-Communist uprising against the hated My-Diem (American-Diem) regime and its “lackey ruling clique of U.S. imperialists.”5 In reality, the NLF was as wholly controlled by
