A map of South Vietnam showing provincial boundaries and names and military zones: I, II, III, and IV Corps.
The Viet Cong (VC) insurgency expanded in South Vietnam in 1962. U.S. military personnel flew combat missions and accompanied South Vietnamese soldiers in ground operations to find and defeat the insurgents. Secrecy was the official U.S. policy concerning the extent of U.S. military involvement in South Vietnam. The commander of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), General Paul D. Harkins, projected optimism that progress was being made in the war, but that optimism was refuted by the concerns expressed by a large number of more junior officers and civilians. Several prominent magazines, newspapers and politicians in the U.S. questioned the military strategy the U.S. was pursuing in support of the South Vietnamese government of President Ngô Đình Diệm. Diệm created the Strategic Hamlet Program as his top priority to defeat the VC. The program intended to cluster South Vietnam's rural dwellers into defended villages where they would be provided with government social services.
North Vietnam increased its support to the VC, infiltrating men and supplies into South Vietnam via the Ho Chi Minh Trail. North Vietnam proposed negotiations to neutralize South Vietnam as had been done in neighboring Laos and Cambodia, but the failure of the Laotian neutrality agreement doomed that initiative.
U.S. analyses and statements about progress and problems with the war often conflicted or contradicted each other which is reflected in this article.
January
2 January
Two South Vietnamese technicians working in the government's anti-malaria program, Pham Van Hai and Nguyen Van Thach, were killed by VC with machetes, 12 miles (19km) south of Saigon.[3]
3 January
The first United States Air Force (USAF) military transport aircraft arrived in South Vietnam under Operation Mule Train. The aircraft would be used to transport South Vietnamese soldiers.[4]:23
4 January
Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric recommended to General Lyman Lemnitzer, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that for military operations involving Americans in South Vietnam The Pentagon develop a "suitable cover story, or stories, a public explanation, a statement of no comment...for approval of the Secretary of Defense."[5]:205
10 January
The first Operation Ranch Hand mission began. Agent Orange defoliants were sprayed from USAF aircraft along several miles of Highway 15 leading from the port of Vũng Tàu to Bien Hoa Air Base northeast of Saigon. Although the United States wished to keep the use of defoliants secret, the South Vietnamese government announced publicly that defoliants supplied by the U.S. were being used to kill vegetation near highway routes.[6]
12 January
Operation Chopper was the first combat operation for United States Army soldiers in Vietnam. U.S. pilots transported about 1,000 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) paratroopers by helicopter to land and attack VC guerrillas about 10 miles (16km) west of Saigon. The operation was deemed a success. Chopper heralded a new era of air mobility for the U.S. Army, which had been growing as a concept since the Army formed twelve helicopter battalions in 1952 during the Korean War. U.S. PresidentJohn F. Kennedy said only that the U.S. was helping the ARVN with "training and transportation." He declined to offer more details about Operation Chopper to avoid "assisting the enemy."[7]
15 January
Secretary of DefenseRobert McNamara met with his top military advisers. CINCPAC intelligence told him that the VC now numbered 20,000 to 25,000 and were increasing by 1,000 per month after casualties. South Vietnam's armed forces had suffered more than 1,000 casualties in the previous month, most by the paramilitary Self Defense Corps. McNamara ordered sending 40,000 M-1 carbines to South Vietnam to arm the Self Defense Corps and the Civil Guard, although those two organizations were the sources of many of the VC's captured weapons.
McNamara pressed for a "clear and hold" operation in a single South Vietnamese province. Clear and hold envisioned the ARVN securing the province followed by civic and political action to exclude the VC permanently. Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) chief General Lionel C. McGarr proposed instead using two ARVN divisions in a conventional military sweep focused on killing VC but without the follow-up to hold the area.[5]:175–8
20 January
Admiral Harry D. Felt, CINCPAC commander, authorized American advisers to accompany South Vietnamese military forces on combat operations.[4]:24
Roger Hilsman, a U.S. State Department official with World War II experience in guerrilla war, submitted a paper entitled "A Strategic Concept for South Vietnam" to President Kennedy and General Taylor. Drawing heavily on British adviser Robert Grainger Ker Thompson's plan for strategic hamlets, Hilsman said "the struggle for South Vietnam...is essentially a battle for control of the villages." He stated that "the problem presented by the Viet Cong is a political and not a military problem, and that to be effective counterinsurgency "must provide the people and the villages with protection and physical security." Hilsman's solution to this problem was similar to that of Thompson's. Hilsman advocated that the ARVN adopt tactics of mobility, surprise, and small unit operations. Conventional warfare such as the use of artillery or aerial bombardment to soften up the enemy will "only give advance warning of an operation, permit the Viet Cong to escape and inevitably result in the death of uncommitted or wavering civilians whose support is essential for the Viet Cong's ultimate defeat."[9]
A strategic hamlet in South Vietnam.
3 February
President Diệm created by presidential decree the strategic hamlet program headed by his brother, Ngô Đình Nhu. The program called for rural people to provide manpower and labor to build and defend the strategic hamlets. It was an ambitious program which projected that 7,000 strategic hamlets would be built by the end of 1962 and 12,000 by the end of 1963, thus consolidating nearly all the rural population of South Vietnam.[10]
President John F. Kennedy authorized the creation of "Military Assistance Command – Vietnam" (MACV) to support and assist South Vietnam in defeating the Viet Cong insurgency. MAAG continued to exist, but only to train Vietnam's armed forces. General Paul D. Harkins, recommended by President Kennedy's military adviser, General Maxwell Taylor, was named MACV commander. Harkins and his staff had little or no counterinsurgency experience.[12]:64–5 Moreover, the counterinsurgency effort lacked a "single directing authority" and a "continuing, authoritative interagency oversight." The MACV commander did not have control of the entire counterinsurgency effort and MACV "labored under complex command relationships and had to thread its way through intractable interservice conflicts over fine points of organization, staffing, and doctrine. MACV commander Harkins reported to CINCPAC Chief, Admiral Felt who kept MACV "on a tight rein."[13]:28–9,41
11 February
An Operation Farm GateSC-47 crashed 70 miles north of Saigon while on a leaflet-dropping mission, killing eight Americans (six Air Force and two Army) and one Vietnamese.[14][15]
14 February
Journalist James Reston published an article in The New York Times stating that "The United States is now involved in an undeclared war in South Vietnam. This is well known to the Russians, the Chinese Communists, and everybody else concerned except the American people...Has the President made clear to the Congress and the nation the extent of the U.S. commitment to the South Vietnam government and the dangers involved?"[16]:57
18 February
North Vietnam contacted diplomats from the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, co-chairs of the Geneva Accords of 1954, requesting that they "urgently study effective measures to end U.S. aggression in South Vietnam." Later, North Vietnam requested that the UK and USSR "proceed to consultations with the interested countries to seek effective means of preserving the Geneva settlement of 1954 and safeguarding peace."[17]:127
20 February
Senator Wayne Morse said in a Senate Hearing closed to the public, "when those ships start coming back to the west coast with the flag-draped coffins of American boys, look out, because the American people, in my judgement are going to be very much divided....I have grave doubts as to the constitutionality of the President's course of action in South Vietnam."[16]:259–60
VC threw four hand grenades into a crowded village theater near Cần Thơ, killing 24 women and children. In all, 108 persons were killed or injured.[3]
21 February
The Department of State cabled instructions about dealing with the media to the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. The instructions said that it was not in U.S. interest "to have stories indicating that Americans are leading and directing combat missions against the Viet Cong."[5]:206
A National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) estimated VC numbers in South Vietnam. There were at least 25,000 full time fighters supported by 100,000 part time locals serving as village defense forces. The NIE estimated that 800 North Vietnamese PAVN officers and soldiers were in South Vietnam assisting the VC.[5]:194–5
26 February
Newsweek magazine asked the question: "Will the sending of U.S. troops lead to escalation, more guerrillas, more Americans, and an eventual confrontation of the U.S. and Red China? Above all can the U.S. strategy win the war?"[16]:257
27 February
Two Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF) pilots flying U.S. supplied A-1 Skyraidersbombed the Independence Palace in Saigon to protest President's Diệm's priority on remaining in office rather than defeating the VC. Diệm and his family were uninjured.[18] One of the pilots was imprisoned; the other fled to Cambodia. Both returned to duty after Diệm's death.[19]
March
1 March
The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) estimated that the VC numbered 20,000 full-time guerrillas, up from 4,000 two years earlier. DOD estimated that the VC controlled 10 percent of South Vietnam's hamlets and had influence in another 60 percent. In the cities, however, VC influence was minimal and the Montagnard people of the Central Highlands supported neither the government nor the communists. The bulk of the VC fighters were located in the Mekong Delta and near Saigon.
DOD identified three types of VC fighters. First the main forces were well armed and used only on large operations; second were the provincial and district units, a mixture of guerrillas and organized units; and third, not part of the 20,000 estimate, were the part-time guerrillas, often armed only with primitive weapons but important for intelligence, logistics, and terrorist operations. Five hundred to 1,000 men monthly were estimated to be infiltrating South Vietnam from North Vietnam.[13]:72–3
6 March
The People's Republic of China called for an international conference to seek peace in South Vietnam. Cambodia and the Soviet Union supported the proposal. Negotiations in Geneva to create a neutralist coalition government in Laos seemed the inspiration for proposals by North Vietnam, its allies, and neutral Cambodia to seek the convening of a conference.[17]:127
12 March
The New Republic magazine said, "The US has 'capitulated' to Diệm and has bound itself to the defense of a client regime without exacting on its part sacrifices necessary for success. American lives are to be risked in a holding action based on the inexplicable hope that with sharpened-up counter-guerrilla operations and marginal reforms the regime will last."[16]:262
Operation Sunrise was the first operation in the strategic hamlet program, carried out by ARVN with U.S. advice and transport assistance in the Bến Cát region of the Bình Dương province, 25 miles (40km) north of Saigon. The plan was to kill or expel VC guerrillas and relocate the rural people to four strategic hamlets. However, unlike Thompson's plan which contemplated beginning the strategic hamlet program in relatively secure areas, Bình Dương was heavily under the influence of the VC, nearly all of whom had prior warning of the operation and escaped. The remaining inhabitants were rounded up and forcibly resettled in the strategic hamlets. To control the area, ARVN had to keep a large number of soldiers stationed in Bến Cát and the VC harassed both the army and the hamlets, bringing them under its control in 1964.[12]:67–9[10]
26 March
Begun in November 1961 in the village of Buon Enao with 400 inhabitants, the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) project in Darlac province among the Montgnard peoples had expanded to cover 14,000 people with 972 village defenders and a 300-man strike force to combat VC guerrillas. The CIDG was supported by U.S. Army Special Forces and ARVN Special Forces and the CIA with Special Forces soldiers being assigned to villages to train the defenders. The project was managed by David A. Nuttle, an agriculture adviser from Kansas, ARVN Captain Nguyen Duc Phu and Montagnard leader Y-Ju, the village chief of Buon Enao.[21]
29 March
The Joints Chiefs of Staff finalized instructions to MACV concerning "maximum discretion" and "minimum publicity" for U.S. air operations in South Vietnam. If an enemy aircraft was shot down, MACV was instructed to remain silent unless it became necessary to contradict communist propaganda in which case MACV was to say that while on a routine training flight, an unidentified airplane initiated hostile action and was shot down. If a U.S. airplane was lost, MACV was instructed to say that the aircraft was on a routine orientation flight and the cause of the accident is being investigated. MACV was further instructed to ensure that all knowledgeable personnel were "instructed and rehearsed" with these rules.[5]:214–5
April
8 April
The VC executed two wounded American prisoners of war near the village of An Châu. Each, hands tied, was shot in the face because he could not keep up with the retreating captors.[3]
Operation Sea Swallow began in Phú Yên province in central South Vietnam. The objectives were similar to those of Operation Sunrise. The goal was to build more than 80 strategic hamlets in the province before the end of 1962. As of 18 May, more than 600 Civic Action personnel had been trained in the province. Although relatively positive about the strategic hamlet program, Roger Hilsman reported to the State Department that the program suffered from "inadequate direction, coordination, and internal assistance...In the short run, the success of the effort will depend largely on the degree of physical security provided the peasantry, but in the long run the key to success will be the ability of the government to walk the thin line of meaningful and sustained assistance to the villagers without obvious efforts to direct, regiment, or control them."[23]
Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Vann arrived in Mỹ Tho in the Mekong Delta40 miles (64km) south of Saigon as head of the U.S. advisory mission to the ARVN 7th Division. The southern half of the delta was under VC control and the northern half was contested.[24]:1–43
26 May
General William B. Rosson who had recently visited Buon Enao and the CIDG program in the Central Highlands told General Maxwell Taylor, President Kennedy's military adviser, that the Special Forces soldiers assigned to CIDG were being used "improperly" and that they should be engaged in offensive operations. Rosson's opposition to Buon Enao was especially significant because he was the U.S. Army's Director of Special Operations which oversaw the Special Forces.[12]:31,71
The Canadian and Indian representatives on the International Control Commission accused North Vietnam of subversion and covert action against South Vietnam, the Polish representative rejected the accusations.[4]:25
6 June
President Kennedy spoke to the graduating class at West Point attempting to instill in them his emphasis on counterinsurgency: "This is another type of war, new in its intensity, ancient in its origin – war by guerrillas, subversives, insurgents, assassins, war by ambush instead of by combat; by infiltration, instead of aggression, seeking victory by eroding and exhausting the enemy instead of engaging him...It requires...a whole new kind of strategy, a wholly different kind of force, and therefore a new and wholly different kind of military training."[27]
8 June
Senator Wayne Morse went public with his criticism of the war. "I have heard no evidence which convinces me that it would be militarily wise to get bogged down anywhere in Asia in a conventional war."[16]:267
10 June
Senator Mike Mansfield became the first prominent Democrat to question U.S. policy in South Vietnam. Mansfield, an early supporter of President Diệm and the most knowledgeable Senator on Vietnam, called for Diệm to put more emphasis on political and economic development – as had been emphasized to Diệm "for many years." He advocated a greater use of diplomacy by the United States and less emphasis on military aid.[16]:263–4
12 June
The RLG, Pathet Lao and Forces Armées Neutralistes agreed a power-sharing arrangement, temporarily suspending the civil war.[4]:25
The VC ambushed a civilian passenger bus near Le Tri, An Giang province, killing five men and women.[3]
July
North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh visited China. He told the Chinese that the United States might attack North Vietnam. China was alarmed by his statement and offered to equip 230 battalions (more than 100,000 soldiers) of the PAVN.[28]
16 July
Journalist Bernard Fall met with Prime Minister Phạm Văn Đồng and Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi. Đồng said "we do not want to give pretexts that could lead to an American military intervention in the South." Fall expressed the view that the North Vietnamese would accept a neutralist government in South Vietnam to end U.S. military involvement in South Vietnam, provided that the government did not include President Diệm. That same month, North Vietnamese official Lê Duẩn instructed the VC leadership to avoid escalating the war by attacking cities as that might cause the United States to intervene in the war.[17]:134[29]
19 July
The National Liberation Front proposed to end the war in South Vietnam with a ceasefire, the withdrawal of American soldiers and the creation of a coalition government of all factions pending elections. South Vietnam would become a neutral country, as were Cambodia and Laos, guaranteed by international treaty.[17]:136
23 July
The CIA had requested an increase in Special Forces soldiers to 400 to expand the CIDG program among the Montagnards in the Central Highlands. Instead, Secretary of Defense McNamara and MACV commander General Harkins transferred responsibility for CIDG from CIA to the DOD which wanted the Special Forces "used in conjunction with active and offensive operations, as opposed to support of static training activities." The transfer of responsibility was called Operation Switchback.[12]:71–2 A factor possibly influencing the takeover by DOD of the CIDG program was the concern of President Diệm. He was afraid that the Montagnards in Darlac, having gained weapons, training and organization under CIDG, might demand autonomy within South Vietnam. Diệm demanded that the Montagnards be disarmed and be under the control of provincial authorities appointed by him.[21]:29–30
General Harkins told a meeting of Secretary of Defense McNamara and U.S. military leaders in Hawaii that "there is no doubt we are on the winning side." He predicted that it would take about one year for MACV to develop the South Vietnamese military forces to the point where they could fully engage the VC. McNamara was more cautious stating that he thought it would take three years to get the VC insurgency under control.[30]:131
The International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos was signed in Geneva by 14 countries, including China, the Soviet Union, and the United States. The agreement declared a cease fire between the Royal Lao government and the communist Pathet Lao guerrillas and aimed to maintain Laos as a neutral country with a coalition government. What resulted instead was a resumption of the Laotian Civil War and a de facto partition of the country with the government controlling the western half of the country and the Pathet Lao the eastern half. The Ho Chi Minh Trail was in territory controlled by the Pathet Lao.[13]:17–8
An Australian analysis of North Vietnam's proposal for the neutralization of South Vietnam concluded that President Diệm was "unlikely...to agree to internal negotiations for the withdrawal of United States military aid and the neutralization of South Vietnam." Thus, Hanoi was exploiting international opinion by appearing to be open to negotiations. The failure of the Geneva Agreement on Laos and the outbreak of hostilities between the Royal Lao Government, supported by the U.S., and the Pathet Lao, supported by North Vietnam, in the summer of 1962 destroyed whatever faith North Vietnam had in negotiations with the United States and South Vietnam and strengthened the militants, notably Lê Duẩn, in their conviction that Vietnam would only be united by military action.[17]:137–43
20 August
Cambodia's Prince Norodom Sihanouk asks Kennedy to convene an international conference to guarantee Cambodian neutrality, otherwise he threatens to request Chinese protection.[4]:26
September
11 September
In a briefing for President Kennedy's military adviser, General Taylor in Saigon, Colonel Vann attempted to present his views that the war was going badly, but General Harkins overrode or refuted him. Vann believed that the ARVN was too passive and that indiscriminate bombing, by both South Vietnamese and American pilots, of villages and hamlets was counterproductive, aiding the VC in gaining recruits. He also believed that too many American arms provided to the ARVN and security forces were ending up in the hands of the VC, thus contributing to their growth in numbers.[30]:131[24]:98–100
20 September
After his visit to South Vietnam, General Taylor returned to Washington. His report was optimistic, citing progress in implementing the strategic hamlet program and training ARVN, improved performances by the paramilitary Civil Guard and Self-Defense Forces, and a larger area of territory under the control of South Vietnam. He also cited problems with intelligence, South Vietnam's lack of a counterinsurgency plan, and continued infiltration of men and supplies from North Vietnam.[30]:134
October
A Montagnard tribesman during training in 1962.
The Buon Enao CIDG project in Darlac province now counted about 200 Montagnard villages with a population of 60,000 people joined to resist the VC. They were protected by 10,600 defenders and 1,500 strike force personnel. Both the defenders and strike force personnel were themselves villagers. The U.S. Special Forces had four soldiers in each of six Area Development Centers responsible for both civic and paramilitary action. Firefights between the VC and the villages were nearly daily occurrences. About 50 villagers were killed by the VC during 1962; VC casualties were estimated at 200 killed and 460 captured. Buon Enao was considered by some senior U.S. military officers as the most impressive American accomplishment achieved until then in South Vietnam.[21]:25–9 However, the transfer of responsibility for the CIDG from the CIA to the DOD under Operation Switchover would soon destroy the effectiveness of the program as U.S. Special Forces were increasingly assigned purely military missions.[12]:72–3[32]:128–9
Two UH-34Ds of HMM-361 were shot down by VC while on a search-and-rescue mission 38 miles (61km) southwest of Da Nang killing four pilots, five Marine crewmen, the squadron's flight surgeon and two Navy corpsmen in the largest one-day U.S. loss of life to that point in the war.[33]
9 October
After being deluged with more than 200 visitors from the DOD in the previous month, all requiring food, housing, entertainment, and visits to the countryside to see the war, General Taylor issued a directive to "reduce the number of visitors...to those having actual business of pressing interest." The directive only temporarily reduced the number of visitors.[13]:41
The Utility Tactical Transport Helicopter Company equipped with 15 armed UH-1A helicopters arrived in South Vietnam. They would make their combat debut escorting troop carrying helicopters ten days later.[34]
11 October
The first sea shipment of weapons from North Vietnam to the VC was unloaded in Cà Mau province.[35]
20 October
Journalist David Halberstam wrote in The New York Times that "the closer one gets to the actual contact level of the war, the further one gets from official optimism."[30]:131
A VC threw a grenade into a holiday crowd in downtown Saigon, killing six persons, including two children and injuring 38 people.[3]
November
4 November
A VC threw a grenade into an alley in Cần Thơ, killing one American serviceman and two Vietnamese children. A third Vietnamese child was seriously injured.[3]
14 November
A Situation Report prepared at The Pentagon expressed satisfaction at progress being made in South Vietnam. The ARVN was becoming more effective; VC activity was diminishing. The ARVN now numbered 219,000, the Civil Guard 77,000 and the Self Defense Corps 99,500. In South Vietnam, the U.S. had 11,000 advisers, 300 aircraft, 120 helicopters, heavy weapons, pilots flying combat missions, defoliants and napalm.[30]:136
30 November
Senator Mansfield arrived in Saigon as head of a congressional fact-finding delegation. Ambassador Nolting and General Harkins gave the delegation optimistic briefings on the military situation in South Vietnam. "We can see the light at the end of the tunnel", said Nolting. Mansfield had been an early supporter of Diệm, but found him on this occasion "gradually being cut off from reality." He met with an "aggressive" Madame Nhu and her husband Ngô Đình Nhu who touted the Strategic Hamlet Program. Mansfield's meeting with journalists, however, revealed a different and much more pessimistic view of Vietnam. Embassy Deputy Chief of MissionWilliam Trueheart hinted to Mansfield that the journalists' view was correct.[16]:270–3
December
10 December
The Politburo of North Vietnam assessed the progress of the insurgency in South Vietnam, in a meeting from 6 to 10 December. Although the VC had achieved many successes, they were still not able to counter American and ARVN mobility. The VC were tasked with studying how they could overcome that mobility. Political and military struggle was still rudimentary in South Vietnam and liberated areas were small. A priority for the VC was to destroy the Strategic Hamlet Program with an expanded insurgency. Military Transportation Group 559 was instructed to build a road through Laos to facilitate the transportation of greater quantities of arms and supplies from North Vietnam to the VC.[36]
26 December
Senator Mansfield gave Kennedy a copy of his lengthy report on South Vietnam and briefed the President. Mansfield concluded that little progress had been made by Diệm, politically or militarily, since the Geneva Accords of 1954. Diệm had also made little progress in gaining popular support in the countryside, which by night was ruled largely by the VC. It "wasn't a pretty picture" that Mansfield presented to Kennedy, who disagreed with some of Mansfield's opinions.[16]:273–6
27 December
The reports of several American military officers who had visited South Vietnam were mostly pessimistic. They said that President Diệm's control of the ARVN extended to refusing to arm certain units because he feared they would attempt a coup d'état against him. Regarding the performance of ARVN, one officer said it was "proficient at attacking an open rice field with nothing in it and...quickly bypassing any heavily wooded area that might possible contain a few VC." The reports were given to Marine Corps general Victor Krulak, who was preparing to visit South Vietnam as part of a high-level U.S. military mission to assess progress in the war.[30]:132
31 December
North Vietnam infiltrated 12,850 persons into South Vietnam, mostly southern communists who had migrated to North Vietnam in 1954–1955.[17]:243 Fifty-three American soldiers were killed in South Vietnam during the year.[1] The South Vietnamese armed forces suffered 4,457 killed in action, 10 percent more than the total killed in the previous year.[2]
Related Research Articles
The Tet Offensive was a major escalation and one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War. The Viet Cong (VC) and North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) launched a surprise attack on 30 January 1968 against the forces of the South Vietnamese Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), the United States Armed Forces and their allies. It was a campaign of surprise attacks against military and civilian command and control centers throughout South Vietnam. The name is the truncated version of the Lunar New Year festival name in Vietnamese, Tết Nguyên Đán, with the offense chosen during a holiday period as most ARVN personnel were on leave. The purpose of the wide-scale offensive by the Hanoi Politburo was to trigger political instability in a belief that mass armed assault on urban centers would trigger defections and rebellions.
The Battle of Ấp Bắc was a major battle fought on 2 January 1963 during the Vietnam War in Định Tường Province, South Vietnam. On 28 December 1962, US intelligence detected the presence of a radio transmitter along with a sizable force of Viet Cong (VC) soldiers, reported to number around 120, in the hamlet of Ap Tan Thoi in Dinh Tuong Province, home of the Army of the Republic of South Vietnam (ARVN) 7th Infantry Division. The South Vietnamese and their US advisers planned to attack Ap Tan Thoi from three directions to destroy the VC force by using two provincial Civil Guard battalions and elements of the 11th Infantry Regiment, ARVN 7th Infantry Division. The infantry units would be supported by artillery, M113 armored personnel carriers (APCs), and helicopters. However, Viet Cong forces anticipated a major attack from the South Vietnamese government from a variety of sources including movement of supplies, an undercover VC agent, and decoded radio communications from the ARVN. Accordingly, the VC prepared for an attack by US and South Vietnamese forces.
The Civilian Irregular Defense Group was a military program developed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Vietnam War, which was intended to develop South Vietnamese irregular military units (militia) from indigenous ethnic-minority populations. The main purpose of setting up the CIDG program was to counter the growing influence of Viet Cong (VC) in the Central Highlands by training and arming the villagers for village defense. The program rapidly expanded after the US military transferred its control from CIA to MACV after two years since its inception and changed its focus from village defense to more conventional operations. From June 1967 onwards the CIDG members were made part of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) or other government agencies to increase Vietnamese participation. By late 1970, the remaining CIDG camps were converted to Vietnamese Rangers camps. The indigenous ethnic-minority people that formed the CIDG reaped significant benefits by the government of South Vietnam for their allegiance and it was the first time that minority groups were given full status as citizens of South Vietnam.
Hearts and Minds or winning hearts and minds refers to the strategy and programs used by the governments of South Vietnam and the United States during the Vietnam War to win the popular support of the Vietnamese people and to help defeat the Viet Cong insurgency. Pacification is the more formal term for winning hearts and minds. In this case, however, it was also defined as the process of countering the insurgency. Military, political, economic, and social means were used to attempt to establish or reestablish South Vietnamese government control over rural areas and people under the influence of the Viet Cong. Some progress was made in the 1967–1971 period by the joint military-civilian organization called CORDS, but the character of the war changed from a guerrilla war to a conventional war between the armies of South and North Vietnam. North Vietnam won in 1975.
The Battle of An Lão took place in the An Lão District of Bình Định Province, just over 300 miles north-east of Saigon between December 7–9, 1964. The battle was part of a larger 5th Military Region operation known as Campaign An Lão to capture An Lão valley, and use it as a corridor between their military bases in Quảng Ngãi Province and Bình Định Province.
During the Vietnam War, the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (NLF), and the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), used a distinctive land warfare strategy to defeat their South Vietnamese Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and American opponents. These methods involved closely integrated political and military strategy – what was called dau tranh – literally "to struggle".
The involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War began in the 1950s and greatly escalated in 1965 until its withdrawal in 1973. The U.S. military presence in Vietnam peaked in April 1969, with 543,000 military personnel stationed in the country. By the end of the U.S. involvement, more than 3.1 million Americans had been stationed in Vietnam, and 58,279 had been killed.
The South Vietnamese Regional Forces, originally the Civil Guard, were a component of Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) territorial defence forces. Recruited locally, they served as full-time province-level forces, originally raised as a militia. In 1964, the Regional Forces were integrated into the ARVN and placed under the command of the Joint General Staff.
The Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces were the elite military units of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). Following the establishment of the Republic of Vietnam in October 1955, the Special Forces were formed at Nha Trang in February 1956. During the rule of Ngô Đình Diệm, the Special Forces were run by his brother, Ngô Đình Nhu, until both were assassinated in November 1963 in a coup. The Special Forces were disbanded in 1975 when South Vietnam ceased to exist after the Fall of Saigon.
The McNamara–Taylor mission was a 10-day fact-finding expedition to South Vietnam in September 1963 by the Kennedy administration to review progress in the battle by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam and its American advisers against the communist insurgency of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam. The mission was led by US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and General Maxwell D. Taylor, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The Vietnamese Rangers (Vietnamese: Biệt Động Quân), commonly known as the ARVN Rangers or Vietnamese Ranger Corp (VNRC), were the light infantry of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. Trained and assisted by American Special Forces and Ranger advisers, the Vietnamese Rangers infiltrated beyond enemy lines in search and destroy missions. Initially trained as a counter-insurgency light infantry force by removing the fourth company each of the existing infantry battalions, they later expanded into a swing force capable of conventional as well as counter-insurgency operations, and were relied on to retake captured regions. Later during Vietnamization the Civilian Irregular Defense Group program was transferred from MACV and integrated as Border Battalions responsible for manning remote outposts in the Central Highlands.
CIA activities in Vietnam were operations conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency in Vietnam from the 1950s to the late 1960s, before and during the Vietnam War. After the 1954 Geneva Conference, North Vietnam was controlled by communist forces under Ho Chi Minh's leadership. South Vietnam, with the assistance of the U.S., was anti-communist under Ngo Dinh Diem's leadership. The economic and military aid supplied by the U.S. to South Vietnam continued until the 1974. The CIA participated in both the political and military aspect of the wars in Indochina. The CIA provided suggestions for political platforms, supported candidates, used agency resources to refute electoral fraud charges, manipulated the certification of election results by the South Vietnamese National Assembly, and instituted the Phoenix Program. It worked particularly closely with the ethnic minority Montagnards, Hmong, and Khmer. There are 174 National Intelligence Estimates dealing with Vietnam, issued by the CIA after coordination with the U.S. intelligence community.
CORDS was a pacification program of the governments of South Vietnam and the United States during the Vietnam War. The program was created on 9 May 1967, and included military and civilian components of both governments. The objective of CORDS was to gain support for the government of South Vietnam from its rural population which was largely under influence or controlled by the insurgent communist forces of the Viet Cong (VC) and the North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN).
The 1959 to 1963 phase of the Vietnam War started after the North Vietnamese had made a firm decision to commit to a military intervention in the guerrilla war in the South Vietnam, a buildup phase began, between the 1959 North Vietnamese decision and the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, which led to a major US escalation of its involvement. Vietnamese communists saw this as a second phase of their revolution, the US now substituting for the French.
During the Cold War in the 1960s, the United States and South Vietnam began a period of gradual escalation and direct intervention referred to as the "Americanization" of joint warfare in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. At the start of the decade, United States aid to South Vietnam consisted largely of supplies with approximately 900 military observers and trainers. After the assassination of both Ngo Dinh Diem and John F. Kennedy close to the end of 1963 and Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964 and amid continuing political instability in the South, the Lyndon Johnson Administration made a policy commitment to safeguard the South Vietnamese regime directly. The American military forces and other anti-communist SEATO countries increased their support, sending large scale combat forces into South Vietnam; at its height in 1969, slightly more than 400,000 American troops were deployed. The People's Army of Vietnam and the allied Viet Cong fought back, keeping to countryside strongholds while the anti-communist allied forces tended to control the cities. The most notable conflict of this era was the 1968 Tet Offensive, a widespread campaign by the communist forces to attack across all of South Vietnam; while the offensive was largely repelled, it was a strategic success in seeding doubt as to the long-term viability of the South Vietnamese state. This phase of the war lasted until the election of Richard Nixon and the change of U.S. policy to Vietnamization, or ending the direct involvement and phased withdrawal of U.S. combat troops and giving the main combat role back to the South Vietnamese military.
The year 1961 saw a new American president, John F. Kennedy, attempt to cope with a deteriorating military and political situation in South Vietnam. The Viet Cong (VC) with assistance from North Vietnam made substantial gains in controlling much of the rural population of South Vietnam. Kennedy expanded military aid to the government of President Ngô Đình Diệm, increased the number of U.S. military advisors in South Vietnam, and reduced the pressure that had been exerted on Diệm during the Eisenhower Administration to reform his government and broaden his political base.
The defeat of the South Vietnamese Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) in a battle in January set off a furious debate in the United States on the progress being made in the war against the Viet Cong (VC) in South Vietnam. Assessments of the war flowing into the higher levels of the U.S. government in Washington, D.C. were wildly inconsistent, some citing an early victory over the VC, others a rapidly deteriorating military situation. Some senior U.S. military officers and White House officials were optimistic; civilians of the Department of State and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), junior military officers, and the media were decidedly less so. Near the end of the year, U.S. leaders became more pessimistic about progress in the war.
South Vietnam was in political chaos during much of the year, as generals competed for power and Buddhists protested against the government. The Viet Cong (VC) communist guerrillas expanded their operations and defeated the South Vietnamese Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) in many battles. North Vietnam made a definitive judgement in January to assist the VC insurgency with men and material. In November, North Vietnam ordered the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) to infiltrate units into South Vietnam and undertake joint military operations with the VC.
In 1960, the oft-expressed optimism of the United States and the Government of South Vietnam that the Viet Cong (VC) were nearly defeated proved mistaken. Instead the VC became a growing threat and security forces attempted to cope with VC attacks, assassinations of local officials, and efforts to control villages and rural areas. Throughout the year, the U.S. struggled with the reality that much of the training it had provided to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) during the previous five years had not been relevant to combating an insurgency. The U.S. changed its policy to allow the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) to begin providing anti-guerrilla training to ARVN and the paramilitary Civil Guard.
1959 saw Vietnam still divided into South and North. North Vietnam authorized the Viet Cong (VC) to undertake limited military action as well as political action to subvert the Diệm government. North Vietnam also authorized the construction of what would become known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail to supply the VC in South Vietnam. Armed encounters between the VC and the government of South Vietnam became more frequent and with larger numbers involved. In September, 360 soldiers of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) were ambushed by a force of about 100 VC guerrillas.
↑ Conboy, Kenneth; Morrison, James (1996). Shadow War: The CIA's Secret War in Laos. Paladin Press. ISBN0-87364-825-0.
↑ Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Vol. II, Vietnam, 1962, Document 42; The Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition, Vol. 2, Chapter 2, "The Strategic Hamlet Program, 1961–1963", pp. 128-159
1 2 3 Harris, J. P. "The Buon Enao Experiment and American Counterinsurgency", Sandhurst Occasional Papers, No. 13, 2013, pp. 15-25
1 2 Whitlow, Robert (1977). US Marines in Vietnam: The Advisory And Combat Assistance Era, 1954-1964. History and Museums Division Headquarters United States Marine Corps. ISBN9781494285296. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
↑ Hilsman, Roger, "Progress Report on South Vietnam", in The Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition, Vol. 2, pp. 673-681
1 2 Sheehan, Neil (1988). A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. Vintage Books. ISBN978-0679724148.
↑ Chen Jian (June 1995), " China's Involvement in the Vietnam War, 1964–69", The China Quarterly, No. 142, p. 359. Downloaded from JSTOR.
↑ Logevall, Frederik (1999). Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam. University of California Press. p.8. ISBN978-0520229198.
1 2 3 4 5 6 Buzzanco, Robert (1996). Masters of War: Military Dissent and Politics in the Vietnam Era. Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0521599405.
↑ Nagl, John (2002). Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam. University of Chicago Press. ISBN978-0226567709.
↑ Davies, Peter (2021). UH-1 Huey Gunship vs NVA/VC forces Vietnam 1962-75. Osprey Publishing. p.52. ISBN9781472845153.
↑ Military History Institute of Vietnam (2002). Victory in Vietnam: A History of the People's Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975. trans. Pribbenow, Merle. University of Kansas Press. pp.115–6. ISBN0-7006-1175-4.
↑ Ang Cheng Guan, "The Vietnam War, 1962–1964: The Vietnamese Communist Perspective", Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Oct. 2000), pp. 66–67
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
South Vietnam 
United States
Laos Kingdom of Laos 
North Vietnam 
Republic of South Vietnam Viet Cong 
Laos Pathet Lao 
