Overview
National Liberation Front
Quick Reference
(NLF)
A South Vietnamese resistance movement formed in December 1960 at a secret location, sponsored by the Communist Party of North Vietnam. Based upon the organizational and operational experience of the Vietminh, its primary aim was the overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem, and beyond this the unification of all Vietnam under the banner of ‘freedom and democracy’ (effectively under Communist rule). It came to encompass millions of members at grass‐roots level, absorbing Communists in the South. It developed a complex power structure linked with its Communist sponsors in Hanoi. Its members rapidly infiltrated all of society, including Saigon itself. A foreign relations committee established links with all Communist countries and several neutral ones, sending representatives to the UN and in 1968 to the Paris Peace Conference (Paris Peace Accords). It provided a generous pool for recruitment for its military wing, the Liberation Army, or Vietcong. It was merged with its North Vietnamese counterpart, the Fatherland Front, upon unification in 1975.
