The 1970 plan was designed to expand the pacifi�cation advances of 1969. During that year the GVN and its allies had been able to extend their military presence and influence into most of South Vietnam's villages and hamlets. This had resulted in impressive territorial gains. By the end of the year, CORDS esti�mated that about 90 percent of the South Vietnamese people lived in localities wholly or partially GVN-controlled and that the enemy remained a major mili�tary threat in only nine provinces, including Quang Nam and Quang Ngai in MR I.*6 The GVN and its allies now planned to consolidate these security gains and to reinforce them by extending local self-government and intensifying efforts at economic and social improvement. As the preamble to the 1970 plan put it:
, . . We will vigorously push our attacks into the Com�munist base areas and exploit their weakness to eliminate them completely from pacified areas, and thus create an ad�vantageous milieu so we can increase the quality or life in the future. At the same time we must bring a new vitality to our people in a framework of total security, so that the people can build and develop a free and prosperous society7
The 1970 plan contained five guiding principles, five operational principles, and eight objectives. The guiding and operational principles were pacification truisms and generalities, such as "Pacification and De�velopment must unite to become one" (Guiding Prin�ciple One), and "Establish the hamlet where the people are; do not move the people to establish the hamlet" (Operational Principle Three). The practical goals for action for the year were established in the eight objectives, which were: "Territorial Security; Pro�tection of the People against Terrorism; People's Self Defense; Local Administration; Greater National Uni�ty; Brighter Life for War Victims; People's Informa�tion; and Prosperity for All." These titles covered programs or combinations of programs, most of which had been underway for many years.8
Under "Territorial Security," the Vietnamese Govern�ment committed itself to assuring that 100 percent of its people lived in hamlets and villages with pacifi�cation ratings of A, B, or C, the three highest grades on the six-level evaluation scale employed in the CORDS Hamlet Evaluation System (HES)** The gov�ernment set the goal of reducing attacks, shellings, terrorism, and sabotage by 50 percent of the 1969 level in areas being pacified and 75 percent in areas rated secure. Expansion in numbers and quality of the na�tional police "in order to help the local governments maintain law and order in both rural and urban areas" also came under this objective. "Protection of the People against Terrorism" covered the program codenamed Phoenix by the Americans and Phung Hoang by the Vietnamese. This program had been previously conducted under tight secrecy by Vietnamese police and intelligence agencies with su�pervision and advice from the US. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Its objective was "neutralization" by death or capture of members of the VCI, the Com-
* The other seven were Binh Dinh. Phu Yen, Pleiku, and Kontum in MR 2; and Kien Hoa, Vinh Binh, and An Xuyen in MR 4. Reportedly there were no enemy-controlled villages in MR 3. ** The Americans had instituted HES in 1966 to reduce the vast amount of pacification-related information to a more or less reli�able set of statistical indicators of progress or lack of it. Data for the system was collected by the U.S. senior district advisors who completed periodic questionnaires on each hamlet and village. The questions covered all aspects of pacification-security, political, and socio-economic. The information thus obtained was collared and translated into statistics. The system came under much criticism for incompleteness and biases in reporting and analysis, and on 1 January 1970. CORDS put into effect the improved Hamlet Evalu�ation System (HES)-70. While always controversial and viewed with skepticism by many Americans in the field, HES did provide a uni�fied quantitative picture of what was going on in pacification, and its numbers and percentages at least served to indicate trends.
CORDS in July 1969 defined its security letter categories as follows:
A, Hamlet has adequate security forces; Viet Cong Infrastruc�ture (VCI) has been eliminated; social and economic improvements are under way.
B. A VC threat exists, but so do organized and "partially effec�tive" security forces. VCI has been partially neutralized; self-help programs and economic improvements have been undertaken.
C. The hamlet is subject to VC harassment, the VCI has been identified; the hamlet population participates in self-help programs and local government.
D. VC activities have been reduced, but an internal threat still exists. There is some VC taxation and terrorism. The local populace participates in hamlet government and economic programs.
E. The VC is effective; although some GVN control is evident, the VCI is intact, and the GVN programs are nonexistent or just beginning.
VC- The hamlet is VC-controlled, with no resident government officials or advisors, although military may come in occasionally. The population willingly supports the VC. IDA Pacification Report, 3, p. 296.
