NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011 TOP SECRET – Sensitive
The strategic hamlet program has not succeeded. Under present conditions, given the scarcity of GVN forces and deeply entrenched Viet Cong shadow government, it can not be expected to… 18/
Whether or not the full seriousness of the situation in the Delta was appreciated at the time of the McNamara-Taylor mission in September 1963, it is entirely clear that the Delta vas recognized as a high priority problem. The recommendations set forth in their joint Report to the President of 2 October called for "the training and arming of hamlet militia at an accelerated rate, especially in the Delta" and for "a consolidation of the Strategic Hamlet Program, especially in the Delta, and action to insure that in the future strategic hamlets are not built until they can be protected and until civic action programs can be introduced." And in the appraisal of overall progress, the judgments were rendered that
The Delta remains the toughest area of all, and now requires top priority in both GVN and U.S. efforts. Approximately 40 percent of the people live there; the area is rich and has traditionally resisted central authority; it is the center of Viet Cong strength -- over one-third of the "hard-core" are found there; and the maritime nature of the terrain renders it much the most difficult region to pacify. 19/
During the Honolulu meeting of 20 November when Gen. Harkins presented a summary of the situation in 13 critical provinces, 7 were in the Delta. Secretary McNamara in a detailed discussion on that occasion of the situation on these provinces suggested that there were three things to be done in the Delta: (l) to get the Chieu Hoi program moving; (2) to get the fertilizer program going in order to increase the output of rice, and (3) most important, to improve the security of strategic hamlets by arming and training and increasing the numbers of the militia. It is recorded that at this point General Taylor made a suggestion that perhaps we needed joint U.S.-Vietnamese province teams to attack problems at the province level because the problems were in fact different in each province. This latter seems worth noting in view of the emphasis that was to be placed, some months later, upon getting more Americans into a supervisory or advisory capacity in the provincial areas.
When General Harkins presented his review of the military situation at this meeting, he indicated that weapon losses were quite high, particularly in November when the government forces lost nearly 3 weapons to every one captured from the VC. The losses were incurred largely by the Civil Guard, the Self-Defense Corps and the hamlet militia. It was also indicated at the meeting that the greatest single difficulty of a pacification program was in the problem of security in the hamlets. Nevertheless, the explanation that the difficulties of November resulted solely from the coup and (would therefore not continue) made it seem unnecessary to change the assumptions that over-all progress in the counter-insurgency effort justified programming a phase-out of the major portion of the U.S.
