# Demoralization Leaflet 26, soldiers drawn as livestock on the road south

Demoralization Leaflet 26 is a 1966 two-panel cartoon credited, per Wikimedia Commons, to U.S. forces psychological operations. A heavy seated man, whom Commons identifies as Mao, sits on sacks of "North Vietnamese rice" before two soldiers with a buffalo's and a horse's head, who then march toward a sign reading "the South" and a skull in blood.

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      Demoralization Leaflet 26: Gạo Bắc Việt (North Vietnamese Rice) cartoon

      Demoralization Leaflet 26, soldiers drawn as livestock on the road south
      A 1966 U.S. psychological operations cartoon drew North Vietnamese soldiers with animal heads, marching from rice sacks to a skull. Via Commons.

## Techniques named on the archive record

Name-callingFear appeal
      Date1966Made byU.S. forces psychological operations (JUSPAO/MACV), per CommonsMediumCartoonCountryUnited StatesRegimeJohnson AdministrationSourceUnidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosureSourceWikimedia Commons (copy via psywarrior.com) , retrieved October 2, 2026SourcePD-USGov per Commons page (17 U.S.C. 105 federal work); Public Domain Mark 1.0 U.S. Government; Wikimedia Commons.
      Object, image, and catalog record from the FRAME archive. Text on this page is CC BY 4.0. Image rights are as the archive records.

      Full record at propagandaarchive.org

  Demoralization Leaflet 26 is a 1966 two-panel cartoon credited, per Wikimedia Commons, to U.S. forces psychological operations. A heavy seated man, whom Commons identifies as Mao, sits on sacks of "North Vietnamese rice" before two soldiers with a buffalo's and a horse's head, who then march toward a sign reading "the South" and a skull in blood.

## The two panels

The cartoon is printed in orange, black and grey. In the left panel a heavy man sits on sacks of rice holding a rifle and a trident, facing two figures in uniform; one has a buffalo's head and the other a horse's. Wikimedia Commons identifies the seated man as Mao. In the right panel the same two figures march with the rifle and a trident dripping blood toward a signpost. Beneath the sign lie a skull and bones in a pool of blood. The only words are labels.

GẠO BẮC

GẠO BẮC VIỆT

GẠO BẮC VIỆT

[signpost] MIỀN NAM

FRAME transcription of the sack labels and signpost, read from the image and not independently checked. FRAME's English rendering (machine-assisted, not verified by a fluent reader): "North rice / North Vietnamese rice / North Vietnamese rice / [signpost] The South." The archive notes that any caption on the full leaflet is not in the hosted image. Full record at propagandaarchive.org.

## Who made it

The maker line reads "U.S. forces psychological operations (JUSPAO/MACV), per Commons." The archive's copy comes from Wikimedia Commons, which took it from psywarrior.com, retrieved 2 October 2026, with a PD-USGov tag. The audience is enemy forces and the purpose is coded as demonizing. FRAME's source category is "Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosure." The archive has no NAID or drop area for it.

## How to read it

FRAME tags it name-calling and fear appeal. Its reading: the enemy's soldiers are drawn as livestock, fed and driven to their deaths for the benefit of another power. The leaflet works without a sentence: the seated man on the rice sacks, the animal heads and the skull by the signpost carry the whole argument.

The animal heads are the insult, but the argument underneath is closer to pity. That is the demoralization method: persuade a man that he is being used, and he may stop fighting. It is a fair line of argument in war. The leaflet offers no evidence for the relationship it draws, and the archive does not test it.

A different U.S. leaflet reaches for Vietnamese history instead: the Sacred Sword leaflet with Le Loi, issued in the name of a league that did not exist. Fear in the opposite register, a promise of death with a named exit, is in Viet Cong Beware!. The Vietnam War messaging hub collects the rest.

## Sources

- FRAME object record, Demoralization Leaflet 26: Gạo Bắc Việt (North Vietnamese Rice) cartoon, 1966. U.S. forces psychological operations (JUSPAO/MACV), per Commons. English translation in the record is machine-assisted and not verified by a fluent reader.

- Wikimedia Commons, File:Demoralization_Leaflet_26_Vietnam.jpeg (copy via psywarrior.com), retrieved by the archive 2 October 2026. Rights as recorded: PD-USGov per the Commons page.

Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/demoralization-leaflet-26-mao-rice-1966/