r. According to Lind, the Viet Cong executed 4000 of Diem's village officials between 1959 and 1961 (12). Itself the recipient of substantial Chinese and Soviet aid, the DRV sent Southern remnants, military aid and advisers down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. It, however, did not send in large numbers regular Peoples' Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF) south until October 1964 (Lewy 40). In January 1961 USSR Premier Nikita Khrushchev announced Soviet support of 'wars of liberation' in the Third World.
The incoming administration of John Kennedy faced a deteriorating situation in South Vietnam. Lewy said that "Diem's arbitrary and authoritarian methods . . . gradually alienated important segments of the urban population . . . Diem lost ground in the countryside by replacing elected village chiefs and councils with his own appointees" (14). However, JFK rejected the recommendations of General Maxwell Taylor and National Security Advisor
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