tames of all government agencies, prepared the an­nual Pacification and Development Plans. Similar military region and province councils, working close­ly with their counterpart CORDS organizations, over­saw implementation of the national plans at lower levels of government.

Between 1967 and 1970, President Nguyen Van Thieu had consolidated his administrative and polit­ical control over South Vietnam. In the process of do­ing so, he devoted increased attention to pacification and made important advances on the crucial problems of development of local government and land reform. Thieu's regime restored to the villages and hamlets their ancient right, suspended under Ngo Dinh Diem, to elect their own governing councils.

President Thieu delegated to these elected coun­cils increased control over local budgets and taxation, and he gave the village chiefs, who were chosen by the councils, command of the PF platoons. Revolution­ary Development teams, and national police working in their villages. To enlarge their prestige and self-confidence as well as improve their training, he held national conferences of village and hamlet officials. Thieu also took the province chiefs out from under the authority of the senior ARVN commanders in their provinces and made them responsible directly to their military region commanders and through them to Sai­gon. At the same time, he transferred the power to appoint province and district chiefs from the local ARVN commanders to the central government. American observers interpreted these changes as ef­forts by Thieu to create a new political constituency for himself outside the RVNAF and the established Saigon political parties, but the changes also offered the promise of a more responsive and efficient civil government-a major goal of pacification.3

Land reform, for years urged upon the GVN by its American advisors as a means of winning the loyalty of the peasants and half-heartedly attempted by previ­ous Saigon regimes, also took a step forward under President Thieu. Early in 1970, he signed the 'Land to the Tiller' bill passed the year before by the Na­tional Assembly after long debate. The bill drastical­ly limited the amount of land any one person could own and required distribution of the excess acreage (for which the owners would be compensated) to the tenants who actually worked it and to other categories of needy and deserving Vietnamese. While implemen­tation of the law quickly bogged down in administra­tive and legal difficulties, its adoption gave the GVN a means of matching Communist promises on an is­sue long monopolized by the VC.4

The 1970 GVN Pacification and Development Plan

On 10 November 1969, President Thieu pro­mulgated his government's 1970 Pacification and De­velopment Plan which was approved by President Thieu, the Prime Minister, and the Cabinet. It was to be signed in formal ceremony by each province chief and American province senior advisor. Designed to complement the allies' military combined campaign plan for the year, the Pacification and Development Plan constituted the guiding directive on pacification for South Vietnamese and Free World Military Armed Forces (FWMAF). General Abrams distributed copies of it to the United States corps area commanders, in­cluding the Commanding General of III MAF, with instructions to regard it as 'guidance, directive in na­ture to advisory personnel at all echelons.'5