VIET NAM'S STRATEGIC HAMLET: DEVELOPMENT AND DENOUEMENT By Leland E. Prentice Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science at the MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY August 1969 Signature Redacted Signature of Author D&partment of Political Science Certified by Signature Redacted Tht1is S ulepervJsor Sign ature Redacted Accepted by Chairman, Departmental Commi ttee on Graduate Students Archives iAss. INST. rtEC. OCT 2 9 1969 rA RI S 77 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02139 MIT Libraries http://libraries.mit.edu/ask DISCLAIMER NOTICE Due to the condition of the original material, there are unavoidable flaws in this reproduction. We have made every effort possible to provide you with the best copy available. Thank you. Some pages in the original document contain text that runs off the edge of the page. I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS As in most research, there are certain individuals who contribute to a study but do not appear on the title page. I am personally indebted to many individuals for their contributions throughout my period of study at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There are certain individuals to whom I wish to extend my personal appreciation for their efforts to aid me not only in the writing of this thesis, but also in the completion of my academic program. Professors William W. Kaufmann and Donald Blackmer greatly assisted me in my development as a student of political science. Colonel Marshall 0. Becker has relieved me of numerous responsibilities, to the burden of my fellow staff members, in order that I might complete this study. Mrs. Ruth Longhenry of the Army War College, Colonel Richard H. Moore, Director of Foreign Area Studies of The Center for Research in Social Systems, and Lieutenant Colonel Rufus C. Lazzell in the office of Special Assistant For Counter- insurgency and Special Activities, Department of Defense, responded unselfishly to my numerous questions and requests. In the final analysis, this endeavor must end on the typed page. To the debts of my two typists, Sandy and Elana Prentice, who suffered my daily tirades, I owe my deepest appreciation. L VIET NAM'S STRATEGIC HAMLET: DEVELOPMENT AND DENOUEMENT By Leland E. Prentice Submitted to the Department of Political Science on 18 August, 1969, in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Science. ABSTRACT This study is concerned with the efforts of the Government of Viet Nam to establish peace and security in the rural areas of South Viet Nam. The focus of the study is upon the development, concept, implementation, and collapse of the strategic hamlet program. Beginning in 1955, President Ngo Dinh Diem initiated measures aimed at controlling the rising influence of the Viet Cong in the countryside and at gathering in the support of the rural peasants. These measures failed. By the fall of 1961 Viet Cong aggression in Viet Nam had accelerated to the point where the war was rapidly being lost. The serious proportions of the deteriorating situation caused a reappraisal of United States assistance programs and their reorientation toward those efforts considered more immediate to winning the war against the insurgents. A major new strategy based on the British experience in the Malayan Emergency was developed. This strategy was termed the "strategic hamlet program." The introductory chapter presents the roles that population and village defense play in insurgency and counterinsurgency warfare. Chapter Two provides the physical setting with an analysis of some of the problems peculiar to hamlet defense in the Viet Nam environment, and Chapter Three outlines those methods initiated by the Diem government in its attempt to stem the unfavorable tide developing in the countryside with particular emphasis on those pacification measures involving villages -4 and hamlets. It further provides an analysis of the involvement of the United States and the efforts of the United States Government in developing a method of engendering popular support from the rural masses by providing them with social and economic benefits, government services which formed the basis for an improved standard of living, and a means of protecting and insulating the peasant from the guerrillas' threats and use. Chapters Four and Five direct attention to the strategic hamlet program as the Vietnamese Government's all-encompassing solution to the needs of Viet Nam, and to the concept of the program as it was developed by the Diem regime. Chapter Six considers the primary reasons why the hamlet program failed. It describes the program's birth in "Operation Sunrise," set in a mold of optimism, and then outlines the decline in the overall security condition of the country. The final chapter presents the unravelling of the program as the increasingly successful Viet Cong attacks against the numerically small, minimally-trained hamlet defenders caused the total collapse of the program and its formal abandonment. The study closes with a commentary on the program and a discussion of some basic principles required for a more responsive and flexible system. Thesis Supervisor: Dr. William W. Kaufmann Title: Professor of Political Science TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction .. ... .... .. a * .. *. .... 2 Role of Population in Guerrilla Warfare Role of Village Defense in Anti-Guerrilla Warfare Scope The Environmental Setting .. .. .. * . 24 The Population Physical Conditions Border Aspects Comment Historical Setting . .. .. .. .. .. .. 48 The Emergence of the Concept Viet-Cong Build-Up Push from the United States A Solution: The Strategic Hamlet Program .. .. 92 The Strategic Hamlet Concept.......... .. .. .. 99 Imolementation . .. .. .. .. .. .......... 123 The Numbers Game "Operation Sunrise" Security Denouement . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 173 Chronology SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS Tables. ........ .. ....... ... 214 Maps . ........ .... ... .. ... 227 Appendices * ..*. .. .. .. .. ....... 234 Bibliography ........................ 252 There is a difference between us French and Don Quixote. Don Quixote rode against windmills believing they were giants, but we ride against windmills knowing they are windmills but doing it all the same because we think there ought to be someone in this materialistic world who rides against windmills. Colonel Wainwright (quoted in) B. Fall Street Without Joy INTRODUCTION Role of Population in Guerrilla Warfare The path of recent history has been heavily marked by insurgency warfare which has given birth to a core of currently accepted doctrine about insurgency. Contrary to classic Marxist revolutionary dogma,-i.e., that the only genuine source of revolutionary power is the working classT-this core has ascribed a dominant role to popular attitudes, loyalties and support in the process by which insurgent movements emerge, gain momentum, and erupt in "liberation wars."1 Although fully realizing the subsidiary role of military factors, external assistance, and international politics in the guerrilla equation, analysts of insurgency warfare have made requisite to the success of a modern guerrilla movement the support of the local population. One of the leading proponents of this thesis, and oft- times the most quoted, is Mao Tse-tung.2 Mao wrote in 1934 that ",..revolutionary war is a war of the masses; it can be waged only by mobilizing the masses and relying on them." 3 Mao states further that 'the most abundant strength in war' lies in the masses and that 'a people's army organized by awakened and united masses of people' will be invincible 'throughout the world.' 4 Pursuing his now-famous 2 analogy of the people as water and the guerrillas as fish, he states in On the Protracted War: "With the common people of the whole country mobilized we shall create a vast sea of humanity and drown the enemy in it."5 In reviewing the failure of the Chinese Communist Party's activities in the 1920's Mao emphasized two main errors: first, insufficient emphasis had been placed on the role of the peasant and second, there had been insufficient emphasis on armed struggle, especially as waged by the peasantry. 6 Many practitioners of guerrilla warfare have extended and reiterated this doctrine using experiences in China, Cuba, Viet Nam, and South America to reaffirm Mao's assertions. Giap, who acknowledges the Viet Minh's theoretical indebtedness to Mao's precepts, in his own popular book People's War, People's Army, claims that the people are to the army what water is to the fish, that "Guerrilla war is the war of the broad masses," and that "Our resistance war (was) the work of the entire people. Therein lies the key to victory. (The) war proceeded in a backward agricultural country where the peasants,..constitututed the essential force of the revolution...," 7 Che Guevara, who emphasized "the tremendous role of rural people" in the Cuban revolution, declared that "guerrilla war is a fight of the masses,.,(and) popular support is indispensable."8 3 A In his 1965 dictum "Long Live the Victory of People's War," Lin Piao explicitly restates Mao's earlier theory to the effect that "The peasant constitutes the main force of the national-democratic revolution against the imperialists and their lackeys," 9 Bohannan, Debrary and others have used similar phrases and metaphors to describe and analyze insurgency. 1 0 These are also the terms in which this doctrine is formulated by at least some social scient ists, such as Peter Paret, John Shy, David Galula, and Be rnard Fall. 1 1 Fall in Street Without Joy clearly del ineates how the Viet Minh had advantages in communication an d intelligence over the French forces because they commanded the support of the population, and, conversely, that French tactical intelligence was often faulty because of the Communis t-created isolation of the 1 2 French forces from the populat ion in which it operated. According to this doctrin e, the primary activating force behind insurgency movements li es in popular attitudes and animus, the weaken ing and crum bling of mass support for established institutions, and the gaining of popular support and commitment by the insurgents, The populat ion represents the new ground of combat and the guerrilla's onerations focus upon it.