CHAPTER 6

WHY THE STRATEGIC HAMLET PROGRAM FAILED

The assassination of President Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu did not bring about the sudden end of the Strategic Hamlet Program. The end of the program had been coming for some time. By mid 1963, attacks had been increasing against the hamlets, especially in the populous Mekong Delta area. and many previously secure hamlets had been lost to the Viet Cong. Now with the death of the President and his brother, and the haste of the new regime to disassociate itself from anything to do with Diem's regime, the Strategic Hamlet Program simply fell apart.

This study of the Strategic Hamlet Program while identifying some limited success, has catalogued the overall failure of the program to bring about pacification in South Vietnam over the period 1961 to 1963.

REASONS FOR FAILURE

Inadequate Planning and Coordination. The strategic hamlets were inadequately planned and poorly coordinated. This was due to the desire to complete the program quickly and to the absence of a sufficient number of administrators with the knowledge and experience to implement a program of