CHAPTER 3

TOWARDS STRATEGIC HAMLETS

The new pacification effort was to become known as the Strategic Hamlet Program. Like all previous efforts and those to follow, it was an attempt to gain the allegiance of the peasantry. To govern successfully, President Diem had to secure the loyalty of the peasants who comprised the vast majority of the population. According to Joseph Zasloff, the Viet Cong also sought the allegiance of the peasants:

Although the peasants are politically unorganized, they constitute both the base and the core of Vietnamese society and are, therefore, the medium in which the Viet Cong's guerilla activity is centered.1

THE GOVERNMENT OF VIETNAM

For the Government of Vietnam, the adoption of the Strategic Hamlet Program was not a novel or revolutionary step. In many ways the strategic hamlets were a continuation of the pacification efforts that had gone before. As a result, It is difficult to make a clear delineation between the end of the Agrovilles and the start of the Strategic Hamlet Program. What is clear is that the strategic hamlets were a change in focus away from the