0 - The Black Vault

THE BDM CORPORATION
defense through crude fortifications and to organize tha populace in order
to improve their military capability and political cohesiveness. The
social and economic needs of the rural people played second fiddle to the
GVN's drive to transform the villages and hamlets into antiguerrilla
bastions.
Nhu set up an Interministerla' Committee for Strategic Hamlets
(IMCSH) to oversee the program., High goals were established- he annourced
that by 1962 some 11,030 of the country's 16,000 to 17,000 hamlets would be
fortified.40/ By fortifying existing hamlets, a continucus frcot line ot
interdependent combat villages was to be established.
With each village
and hamlet fortified, armed and trained to fight by employing "people's
guerrilla tactics", the VC would find it difficult to select a point of
weakness, meeting strong resistance everywhere.
General Tran Dinh 7ho in his recent monograph on pacification had
the following to say about the genesis of the Strategic Hamlet Program:
This concept [Strategic Hamlets] was an amalgamation
of ideas derived from Vietnamese self-defense
villages, British anti-Communist tactics successfully
used in Malaya, and the Israeli Kibbutz defense
system.41/
The Ngo brot;iers lOOKea to Sir Robert Thompso., and his British
advisory mission (a small group of experts with previous experience in the
Malayan counte rinsurgency) for technical assistance and program evaluation.42/
Meeiwhile, large-scale US support for the Strategic Hamlet Program
was Pot i,,mei&.ely forthcoming. Tran Dinh Tho claims the program was
funded partly by the GVN's national budget and partly by the US
Assistance Program 43/
Military
Other sources have observed that American support
came primarily from the CIA. 44/ As Blaufarb noted, we can be safe in
assuming that, "frm..the CIA undertook to support these
efforts."45/
a. US Participation
Strategic sae
Looking back to the early sixties, it can be seen that
although the pattern of VC insurgency against the Diem government seemed
familiar, following Lhe Viet Ininh, Malayan and Philippine insurgericies, the
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