The former Democratic Republic of Viet Nam (DRV – now the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam) emerged from revolutionary conspiracy, with roots in native independence movements as well as international communism. Ho Chi Minh – the name itself an alias – led what was originally a small band of revolutionaries in the period between the two world wars. Operating during the Japanese occupation of the 1940s as an underground resistance group (with incidental support from America's OSS) and continuing through the thirty-year struggle to establish the independence of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, first against the French, then the noncommunist Republic of Viet Nam, and, finally, the United States and its allies, his followers made secrecy a way of life. The leadership had noms de guerre (Vo Nguyen Giap, for example, was VAN). Given that background, the universal military penchant for abbreviations, acronyms, and nicknames, and a Sino-Vietnamese literary tradition that admired obscurity or hidden meaning, they produced an extraordinarily rich manner of expression, intended only for the initiate. Added to that was cryptography – secret writing – the art and science of codes and ciphers.
Essential Matters is a translation of a 1990 Vietnamese publication, History of the Cryptographic Branch of the People's Army of Viet Nam, 1945–1975 (Hanoi: People's Army Publishing House). A supplement drawn from the History of the Cryptographic Branch of the Border Guard, 1959–1989 (Hanoi: The Staff, Border Guard HQ, 1989), an organization originally known as the Armed Public Security Forces, extends the coverage by fourteen years, into the cipher machine era, and provides a natural complement. The Vietnamese of the titles (co' yêú) literally means vital, essential, important, matters, with a heavy overtone of confidentiality or secrecy, as opposed to the normal Vietnamese word for cryptography,
In this translation, both
Because of a century of French colonial domination in which the Vietnamese language was displaced by French, the generation of revolutionaries – or, at least, the younger ones they recruited – had little scientific knowledge of their own language, especially as a basis for applying cryptography. Learning as they went, by trial and error and precious few publications, they developed an indigenous cryptography, until, by the early 1950s, men trained in China returned to share the benefits of their learning. Presumably under Chinese influence, the native cipher systems were gradually superseded by enciphered codes. Always conscious of enemy cryptanalytic probing, improvement in maintaining secrecy of message content was a driving concern, adjusting for the educational level of their personnel and the circumstances in which they found themselves, with respect to geography, climate, and equipment.
The evident willingness of Hanoi authorities to break their traditional silence and permit the public reading of this work may be interpreted in several ways: perhaps the rigid protection of all aspects of Vietnamese cryptography has abated, at least for the period covered by these two books, a period that ended nearly two decades ago. Perhaps the techniques described are now passé. And in any event, as time moves on, the anonymous crypto-warriors age and die: for many, this was the last opportunity to see their names in print, and to share in the telling of their unsung role in winning the final victory. In any event, the result is an extraordinary contribution to the history and literature of cryptography. It affords insight into a previously hidden aspect of the military life of a people who, for a few years, held the center stage in world attention. With the passing of that generation, it preserves the names of participants, men and women who once led lives of intentional and enforced obscurity. It tells us of their training and their accomplishments, their hardships and suffering. It tells of the toll they paid – some 500 cryppies paid the supreme sacrifice, nearly 10 percent of those on duty as of 1972. It forms the tradition for the coming generations.
These men and women had created an effective communication security system literally "from scratch." More conversant with French than their native language (which now represented nationalist aspirations), they had to subject their language to the most basic analysis of structure, its specialized military and technical vocabulary, the frequencies of its letters and words, and its rendering for cryptographic and radio transmission purposes. As in other aspects of Vietnamese military life, deprivation was made a virtue: lacking the ability to establish central control over the production and use of cryptomaterials, standards were set and models adopted; then local initiative was encouraged through competition and emulation campaigns. An enemy was thus confronted, not with an Enigma or "Purple" to break, so much as a wide variety of similar cryptosystems, having to be attacked individually, much as was the challenge offered the Allies by Japanese army systems in World War II. (An interesting and instructive companion to the present translation can be found in Edward J. Drea, MacArthur's ULTRA: Codebreaking and the War Against Japan, 1942–1945 [University Press of Kansas, 1992], which also illustrates the principles of enciphered code.) Production figures, tonnage of materials delivered, and scores attained in cryptographic competition ("Comrade Nguyen Van Hai encrypted x groups in y minutes with an error rate of only z") seem tedious or even silly to the Western reader, until one realizes the importance of such matters in an army using often crudely printed (or even handwritten) manual cryptosystems, distributed over rugged, distant jungle trails by couriers or man-pack, later to be transmitted by finger or tongue.
In a form reminiscent of the old revolutionary army, lacking ranks and titles, other than "warriors" and "cadre," and with individuality subordinated to "the team," the authorship of this work is identified collectively. The senior of the two officers identified as being responsible for its content, Brigadier General Nguyen Chanh Can, was a graduate of the first formal Vietnamese class in cryptography, September-October 1946, selected to remain at the General Staff Cryptographic Bureau. He may also have been one of the original forty-five-man Vietnamese group sent to China for some six months of training, returning in May 1951, when, as bureau deputy chief, he was concurrently made chief of the Campaign Cryptographic Section of the reorganized Cryptographic Bureau of the General Staff. He headed the Cryptographic Section of the historic Dien Bien Phu campaign (1953–1954), and he figures elsewhere in the text. We can thus assume that the book represents the efforts of both participants and a later generation of researchers, editors, and publishing staff, as presumably is the case with the book drawn upon as a supplement.
At the same time, the book lacks the detailed documentation expected in comparable Western military histories, leaving one to wonder to what extent documentation has been preserved and the extent to which recollections play a major role in this account, making it the basic documentation for the future and, in the process, shaping the traditions and perceptions of coming generations in the speciality.
Finally, and in a departure from conventional orthography, this translation has rendered the Vietnamese letter "unbarred D" as "Dz," approximating its sound, by contrast with the "barred D," comparable to the "d" sound in English. (This results, for example, in the name of General Van Tien Dung being rendered as Van Tien Dzung, avoiding the unfortunate American tendency to call him "General Dung.")
DAVID W. GADDY