One of the more humanitarian and effective aspects of the war in Vietnam is psychological warfare, or "psywar" as it is better known.

Psywar involves fighting the enemy with pamphlets, posters and radio broadcasts. When I was in Vietnam earlier this year, working as a free lance journalist, I built up a collection of psywar pamphlets and posters. They had been printed and distributed by the Viet Cong, the Vietnamese Government and the Americans.

The Viet Cong pamphlets are distributed 6y hand amongst villagers, while American and Vietnamese Government pamphlets are dropped by air over enemy-held territory. Government posters are often displayed in Government controlled villages.

A theme common to the pamphlets of both sides is an appeal to enemy troops to give up the war and go home to their wives and families. Pamphlets of this kind were distributed by their thousands during Tet (the Vietnamese New Year).

The Americans now seem to be surpassing the Viet Cong in the production of psywar pamphlets, both in quantity and quality.

Every day American planes drop thousands of pamphlets over Communist positions throughout South Vietnam.

These are often dropped after air strikes warning the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong that the bombers will return. While air strikes seem to inflict relatively few casualties on the Viet Cong, they do have a tremendous psychological effect.

As one who has been with a jungle patrol less than half a mile from an air strike target, I feel I have some idea of what fear the Viet Cong mu9t experience every time the jets come after them.

When an air strike starts there is nothing one can do. The jungle cover is too high and too close for anything to be visible, but you can hear the rattle of cannon fire. You can feel the ground shaking like an earthquake as bombs fall, and you can see flames of napalm racing through the trees.

When the planes fly away psywar pamphlets Alter down through the trees calling on the Viet Cong to defect to the Government. It is not surprising that thousands do defect, every week.