Strategic Hamlet Program
Encyclopedia
The Strategic Hamlet Program was a plan by the governments of South Vietnam
and the United States
during the Vietnam War
to combat the Communist insurgency by means of population transfer
.
In 1961, U.S. advisors in South Vietnam, along with the Diem regime
, began the implementation of a plan attempted to isolate rural peasants from contact with and influence by the
National Liberation Front (NLF). The Strategic Hamlet Program, along with its predecessor, the Rural Community Development Program, played an important role in the shaping of events in South Vietnam during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Both of these programs attempted to separate rural peasants from Communist insurgents
by creating "fortified villages". The program backfired drastically and ultimately led to a decrease in support for Diem’s regime and an increase in sympathy for Communist efforts.
sympathizers in the South were subject to escalating repression by the RVN. In December 1960 the National Liberation Front of Southern Vietnam was formed and rapidly achieved de facto control over large sections of the South Vietnamese countryside. At the time, it is believed that there were approximately 10,000 Communist insurgents throughout South Vietnam. Recognizing the danger that the guerrillas posed if they had the support of the peasants, President Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu
implemented the Rural Community Development Program (later known as "Agroville") in 1959. Based partly on the success of a similar program
in Malaya
used by the British to suppress a communist uprising
beginning in 1948, the Agroville Plan endeavored to remove the "neutral" population from guerrilla contact. Through direct force and/or incentives, peasants in rural communities were separated and relocated into large communities called "Agrovilles". By 1960, there were twenty-three of these Agrovilles, each consisting of many thousands of people.
This mass resettlement created a strong backlash from peasants and forced the central government to rethink its strategy. A report put out by the Caravelle group, consisting of among others, Bishop Thuc (a brother of Diem) described the situation as follows:
, then director of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research
, to assess the situation in Vietnam firsthand. There Hilsman met Sir Robert Thompson, head of the British Advisory Mission to South Vietnam and a veteran of the Malayan counter-insurgency
effort. The two discussed counter-insurgency
doctrine and Thompson shared his revised system of resettlement and population security, a system he proposed to Diem later in the year and that would eventually become the Strategic Hamlet Program. The program was implemented on the American side by CIA
operative (and later CIA director
) William Colby
.
In Vietnam, strategic hamlets would consist of villages consolidated and reshaped to create a defensible perimeter. The peasants themselves would be given weapons and trained in self-defense. Moreover, the strategic hamlets would not be isolated; instead, they would function as a network. The first hamlets would be placed in secure areas, free of the enemy; new hamlets would then be added slowly to create a secure, expanding frontier in what was known as the “oil blot” principle. But, Thompson said, it was important that the strategic hamlets provide more than just physical security. The hamlets should be used as an administrative tool to institute reforms and to improve the peasants’ lives economically, politically, socially, and culturally.
This would strengthen the tie between the peasants and the central government. Hilsman later summarized this theory of the Strategic Hamlet Program in a policy document entitled "A Strategic Concept for South Vietnam," which President Kennedy read and endorsed.
President Diem also liked the idea of Strategic Hamlets. In an April 1962 speech, he outlined his hopes for the Program:
(GVN) agreed that the Strategic Hamlet Program was strong in theory, its actual implementation, beginning in early 1962, was criticized on several grounds. Roger Hilsman himself later claimed that the GVN's execution of program constituted a "total misunderstanding of what the [Strategic Hamlet] program should try to do."
The speed of the implementation of the Program is important to note, as it is one of the main causes for its eventual failure. The Pentagon Papers reported that in September 1962, 4.3 million people were housed in 3,225 completed hamlets with more than two thousand still under construction. By July 1963, over eight and a half million people had been settled in 7,205 hamlets according to figures given by the Vietnam Press. In less than a year, both the number of completed hamlets and its population had doubled. Given this rapid rate of construction, the GVN was unable to fully support or protect the hamlets or its residents, despite the immense funding by the United States government. Vietcong insurgents easily sabotaged and overran the poorly defended communities, gaining much sought access to the South Vietnamese peasants. It is estimated that only twenty percent of the hamlets in the Mekong Delta area were controlled by the GVN by the end of 1963. In an in interview, a resident of a hamlet in Vinh-Long described the situation: “It is dangerous in my village because the civil guard from the district headquarters cross the river to the village only in the daytime…leaving the village unprotected at night. The village people have no protection from the Viet Cong so they will not inform on them to the authorities.”
There are several other important problems that the GVN faced in addition to those created by the failure to provide basic social needs for the peasants and over-extension of its resources. One of these was wide public opposition to the Program stemming partly from an aggressive propaganda campaign by the NLF, but also brought about by the inability of the committee to choose safe and agriculturally sound locations for the development of the hamlets. However, according to the Pentagon Papers, the most important source of failure was the inflexible nature of the Ngo family.
President Diem and his brother Nhu, who oversaw the GVN side of the Program, decided—contrary to Hilsman's and Thompson's theory—that in most cases they would relocate entire villages rather than simply restructuring them. This decision led to unnecessary amounts of forced relocation that was deeply unpopular among the peasantry. The mostly-Buddhist peasantry practiced ancestor worship, an important part of their religion that was disrupted by being forced out of their villages and away from their ancestors' graves. Some who resisted the resettlement were summarily executed by GVN forces.
Each hamlet was given a radio with which to call for ARVN support, but in fact ARVN forces were unreliable in responding to calls for help, especially when attacks occurred after nightfall. The villagers were also given weapons and training, but were only expected to hold out until conventional reinforcements arrived. Once it became clear those forces could not be relied upon, many villagers proved unwilling to fight even small Vietcong detachments, which could then capture the villagers' weapons. "Why should we die for weapons?" asked one Vietnamese peasant.
started criticizing the Program in their official reports. They also began expressing their concerns to reporters who began to investigate more closely. David Halberstam's
coverage of the Program's shortcomings even caught the eye of President Kennedy.
The Strategic Hamlet Program was exposed as an almost complete failure in the aftermath of the November 1, 1963 coup
that left Diem and his brother Nhu murdered. US officials discovered, for example, that only 20% of the 8600 hamlets that the Diem regime had reported "Complete" met the minimum American standards of security and readiness. The situation had passed the point of possible recovery. The U.S. government never officially acknowledged the end of the Strategic Hamlet Program, but it quickly disappeared from diplomatic correspondence in early 1964.
On the ground in Vietnam, the demise of the program was much easier to see. By the end of 1963, empty hamlets lined country roads, stripped of valuable metal by the Vietcong and the fleeing peasants: “The rows of roofless houses looked like villages of play huts that children had erected and then whimsically abandoned,” according to Neil Sheehan
.
Years later Roger Hilsman stated his belief that the strategic hamlet concept was executed so poorly by the Diem regime and the GVN "that it was useless, worse than useless."
South Vietnam
South Vietnam was a state which governed southern Vietnam until 1975. It received international recognition in 1950 as the "State of Vietnam" and later as the "Republic of Vietnam" . Its capital was Saigon...
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
during the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
to combat the Communist insurgency by means of population transfer
Population transfer
Population transfer is the movement of a large group of people from one region to another by state policy or international authority, most frequently on the basis of ethnicity or religion...
.
In 1961, U.S. advisors in South Vietnam, along with the Diem regime
Ngo Dinh Diem
Ngô Đình Diệm was the first president of South Vietnam . In the wake of the French withdrawal from Indochina as a result of the 1954 Geneva Accords, Diệm led the effort to create the Republic of Vietnam. Accruing considerable U.S. support due to his staunch anti-Communism, he achieved victory in a...
, began the implementation of a plan attempted to isolate rural peasants from contact with and influence by the
National Liberation Front (NLF). The Strategic Hamlet Program, along with its predecessor, the Rural Community Development Program, played an important role in the shaping of events in South Vietnam during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Both of these programs attempted to separate rural peasants from Communist insurgents
Insurgency
An insurgency is an armed rebellion against a constituted authority when those taking part in the rebellion are not recognized as belligerents...
by creating "fortified villages". The program backfired drastically and ultimately led to a decrease in support for Diem’s regime and an increase in sympathy for Communist efforts.
Background and Precursor Program
Starting around 1954, Viet MinhViet Minh
Việt Minh was a national independence coalition formed at Pac Bo on May 19, 1941. The Việt Minh initially formed to seek independence for Vietnam from the French Empire. When the Japanese occupation began, the Việt Minh opposed Japan with support from the United States and the Republic of China...
sympathizers in the South were subject to escalating repression by the RVN. In December 1960 the National Liberation Front of Southern Vietnam was formed and rapidly achieved de facto control over large sections of the South Vietnamese countryside. At the time, it is believed that there were approximately 10,000 Communist insurgents throughout South Vietnam. Recognizing the danger that the guerrillas posed if they had the support of the peasants, President Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu
Ngo Dinh Nhu
Ngô Ðình Nhu was the younger brother and chief political advisor of South Vietnam's first president, Ngô Ðình Diệm. Nhu was widely regarded as the architect of the Ngô family's nepotistic and autocratic rule over South Vietnam from 1955 to 1963...
implemented the Rural Community Development Program (later known as "Agroville") in 1959. Based partly on the success of a similar program
Briggs Plan
Briggs' Plan was a military plan devised by British General Sir Harold Briggs shortly after his appointment in 1950 as Director of Operations in the anti-communist war in Malaya. The plan aimed to defeat the Malayan communists, who were operating out of rural areas as a guerrilla army, primarily by...
in Malaya
Federation of Malaya
The Federation of Malaya is the name given to a federation of 11 states that existed from 31 January 1948 until 16 September 1963. The Federation became independent on 31 August 1957...
used by the British to suppress a communist uprising
Malayan Emergency
The Malayan Emergency was a guerrilla war fought between Commonwealth armed forces and the Malayan National Liberation Army , the military arm of the Malayan Communist Party, from 1948 to 1960....
beginning in 1948, the Agroville Plan endeavored to remove the "neutral" population from guerrilla contact. Through direct force and/or incentives, peasants in rural communities were separated and relocated into large communities called "Agrovilles". By 1960, there were twenty-three of these Agrovilles, each consisting of many thousands of people.
This mass resettlement created a strong backlash from peasants and forced the central government to rethink its strategy. A report put out by the Caravelle group, consisting of among others, Bishop Thuc (a brother of Diem) described the situation as follows:
Tens of thousands of people are being mobilized… to take up a life in collectivity, to construct beautiful but useless agrovilles which tire the people, lose their affection, increase their resentment and most of all give an additional terrain for propaganda to the enemy.
Strategic Hamlet Program
In late 1961, President Kennedy sent Roger HilsmanRoger Hilsman
Roger Hilsman is an author and political scientist. He served as an American soldier in Merrill's Marauders and then the Office of Strategic Services in China-Burma-India Theater of World War II during World War II and as an aide and adviser to President John F. Kennedy...
, then director of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research
Bureau of Intelligence and Research
The Bureau of Intelligence and Research is an intelligence bureau in the U.S. State Department tasked with analyzing information. Originally founded as the Research and Analysis Branch of the Office of Strategic Services , it was transferred to the State Department at the end of World War II...
, to assess the situation in Vietnam firsthand. There Hilsman met Sir Robert Thompson, head of the British Advisory Mission to South Vietnam and a veteran of the Malayan counter-insurgency
Malayan Emergency
The Malayan Emergency was a guerrilla war fought between Commonwealth armed forces and the Malayan National Liberation Army , the military arm of the Malayan Communist Party, from 1948 to 1960....
effort. The two discussed counter-insurgency
Counter-insurgency
A counter-insurgency or counterinsurgency involves actions taken by the recognized government of a nation to contain or quell an insurgency taken up against it...
doctrine and Thompson shared his revised system of resettlement and population security, a system he proposed to Diem later in the year and that would eventually become the Strategic Hamlet Program. The program was implemented on the American side by CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
operative (and later CIA director
Director of Central Intelligence
The Office of United States Director of Central Intelligence was the head of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, the principal intelligence advisor to the President and the National Security Council, and the coordinator of intelligence activities among and between the various United...
) William Colby
William Colby
William Egan Colby spent a career in intelligence for the United States, culminating in holding the post of Director of Central Intelligence from September 1973, to January 1976....
.
In Vietnam, strategic hamlets would consist of villages consolidated and reshaped to create a defensible perimeter. The peasants themselves would be given weapons and trained in self-defense. Moreover, the strategic hamlets would not be isolated; instead, they would function as a network. The first hamlets would be placed in secure areas, free of the enemy; new hamlets would then be added slowly to create a secure, expanding frontier in what was known as the “oil blot” principle. But, Thompson said, it was important that the strategic hamlets provide more than just physical security. The hamlets should be used as an administrative tool to institute reforms and to improve the peasants’ lives economically, politically, socially, and culturally.
This would strengthen the tie between the peasants and the central government. Hilsman later summarized this theory of the Strategic Hamlet Program in a policy document entitled "A Strategic Concept for South Vietnam," which President Kennedy read and endorsed.
President Diem also liked the idea of Strategic Hamlets. In an April 1962 speech, he outlined his hopes for the Program:
... strategic hamlets represented the basic elements in the war undertaken by our people against our three enemies: communism, discord, and underdevelopment. In this concept they also represent foundation of the Vietnamese society where values are reassessed according the personalist revolution where social, cultural, and economic reform will improve the living conditions of the large working class down to the remotest village.
Problematic implementation
Although many people in both the U.S. government and the government of South VietnamSouth Vietnam
South Vietnam was a state which governed southern Vietnam until 1975. It received international recognition in 1950 as the "State of Vietnam" and later as the "Republic of Vietnam" . Its capital was Saigon...
(GVN) agreed that the Strategic Hamlet Program was strong in theory, its actual implementation, beginning in early 1962, was criticized on several grounds. Roger Hilsman himself later claimed that the GVN's execution of program constituted a "total misunderstanding of what the [Strategic Hamlet] program should try to do."
The speed of the implementation of the Program is important to note, as it is one of the main causes for its eventual failure. The Pentagon Papers reported that in September 1962, 4.3 million people were housed in 3,225 completed hamlets with more than two thousand still under construction. By July 1963, over eight and a half million people had been settled in 7,205 hamlets according to figures given by the Vietnam Press. In less than a year, both the number of completed hamlets and its population had doubled. Given this rapid rate of construction, the GVN was unable to fully support or protect the hamlets or its residents, despite the immense funding by the United States government. Vietcong insurgents easily sabotaged and overran the poorly defended communities, gaining much sought access to the South Vietnamese peasants. It is estimated that only twenty percent of the hamlets in the Mekong Delta area were controlled by the GVN by the end of 1963. In an in interview, a resident of a hamlet in Vinh-Long described the situation: “It is dangerous in my village because the civil guard from the district headquarters cross the river to the village only in the daytime…leaving the village unprotected at night. The village people have no protection from the Viet Cong so they will not inform on them to the authorities.”
There are several other important problems that the GVN faced in addition to those created by the failure to provide basic social needs for the peasants and over-extension of its resources. One of these was wide public opposition to the Program stemming partly from an aggressive propaganda campaign by the NLF, but also brought about by the inability of the committee to choose safe and agriculturally sound locations for the development of the hamlets. However, according to the Pentagon Papers, the most important source of failure was the inflexible nature of the Ngo family.
Forced relocation
In the best case scenario, restructuring peasant villages to create a defensible perimeter would require the forced relocation of some of the peasants on the outskirts of the existing villages. To ease the burden, those forced to move were supposed to be financially compensated, but they were not always paid by the GVN forces. To make matters worse, their old homes were often burned before their eyes.President Diem and his brother Nhu, who oversaw the GVN side of the Program, decided—contrary to Hilsman's and Thompson's theory—that in most cases they would relocate entire villages rather than simply restructuring them. This decision led to unnecessary amounts of forced relocation that was deeply unpopular among the peasantry. The mostly-Buddhist peasantry practiced ancestor worship, an important part of their religion that was disrupted by being forced out of their villages and away from their ancestors' graves. Some who resisted the resettlement were summarily executed by GVN forces.
Corruption
As stated previously, promised compensation for resettled peasants was not always forthcoming and instead found its way in the pockets of GVN officials. Peasants were also promised money in exchange for working to build the new villages and fortifications; once again some corrupt officials kept the money for themselves. Wealthier peasants sometimes bribed their way out of working on the construction, leaving more labor for the poorer peasants. Although the U.S. provided materials like sheet metal and barbed wire, corrupt officials would force the locals to "buy" the materials intended to provide them with protection.Security shortcomings
Perhaps the greatest shortcoming of the Strategic Hamlet Program as implemented on the ground was its failure to provide the basic security envisioned by its proponents. This failure was partly due to poor placement of the hamlets. Ignoring the "oil-blot" principle, the GVN began building strategic hamlets as fast as possible and seemingly without considering "geographical priorities," according to a U.S. official. The randomly placed hamlets were isolated, not mutually supporting, and tempting targets for the Vietcong.Each hamlet was given a radio with which to call for ARVN support, but in fact ARVN forces were unreliable in responding to calls for help, especially when attacks occurred after nightfall. The villagers were also given weapons and training, but were only expected to hold out until conventional reinforcements arrived. Once it became clear those forces could not be relied upon, many villagers proved unwilling to fight even small Vietcong detachments, which could then capture the villagers' weapons. "Why should we die for weapons?" asked one Vietnamese peasant.
Eventual Failure
Despite the Diem regime's attempt to put a positive spin on its execution of the Strategic Hamlet Program, by mid-1963 it was becoming clear to many that the Program was failing. American military advisors like John Paul VannJohn Paul Vann
John Paul Vann was a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army, later retired, who became well known for his role in the Vietnam War.-Early life:...
started criticizing the Program in their official reports. They also began expressing their concerns to reporters who began to investigate more closely. David Halberstam's
David Halberstam
David Halberstam was an American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author and historian, known for his early work on the Vietnam War, his work on politics, history, the Civil Rights Movement, business, media, American culture, and his later sports journalism.-Early life and education:Halberstam...
coverage of the Program's shortcomings even caught the eye of President Kennedy.
The Strategic Hamlet Program was exposed as an almost complete failure in the aftermath of the November 1, 1963 coup
1963 South Vietnamese coup
In November 1963, President Ngô Đình Diệm of South Vietnam was deposed by a group of Army of the Republic of Vietnam officers who disagreed with his handling of the Buddhist crisis and, in general, his increasing oppression of national groups in the name of fighting the communist Vietcong.The...
that left Diem and his brother Nhu murdered. US officials discovered, for example, that only 20% of the 8600 hamlets that the Diem regime had reported "Complete" met the minimum American standards of security and readiness. The situation had passed the point of possible recovery. The U.S. government never officially acknowledged the end of the Strategic Hamlet Program, but it quickly disappeared from diplomatic correspondence in early 1964.
On the ground in Vietnam, the demise of the program was much easier to see. By the end of 1963, empty hamlets lined country roads, stripped of valuable metal by the Vietcong and the fleeing peasants: “The rows of roofless houses looked like villages of play huts that children had erected and then whimsically abandoned,” according to Neil Sheehan
Neil Sheehan
Cornelius Mahoney "Neil" Sheehan is an American journalist. As a reporter for The New York Times in 1971, Sheehan obtained the classified Pentagon Papers from Daniel Ellsberg. His series in the Times revealed a secret U.S. Department of Defense history of the Vietnam War and resulted in government...
.
Years later Roger Hilsman stated his belief that the strategic hamlet concept was executed so poorly by the Diem regime and the GVN "that it was useless, worse than useless."
See also
- Population transferPopulation transferPopulation transfer is the movement of a large group of people from one region to another by state policy or international authority, most frequently on the basis of ethnicity or religion...
- Counter-insurgencyCounter-insurgencyA counter-insurgency or counterinsurgency involves actions taken by the recognized government of a nation to contain or quell an insurgency taken up against it...
- VillagizationVillagizationVillagization is the resettlement of people into designated villages by government or military authorities....
- Briggs PlanBriggs PlanBriggs' Plan was a military plan devised by British General Sir Harold Briggs shortly after his appointment in 1950 as Director of Operations in the anti-communist war in Malaya. The plan aimed to defeat the Malayan communists, who were operating out of rural areas as a guerrilla army, primarily by...
- New VillageNew VillageNew Villages , also known as Chinese New Villages , are settlements created during the waning days of British rule over Malaysia in the mid-1950s.-History:...
- Operation Ranch HandOperation Ranch HandOperation Ranch Hand was a U.S. Military operation during the Vietnam War, lasting from 1962 until 1971. It was part of the overall herbicidal warfare program during the war called "Operation Trail Dust"...