Strategic Hamlet Program
In 1962, Nhu began work on the ambitious Strategic Hamlet Program, an attempt to build fortified villages that would be secure zones for rural Vietnamese. The objective was to lock the Vietcong out so that they could not operate among the villagers. Thảo supervised these efforts, and when told that the peasants resented being forcibly removed from their ancestral lands and put into forts that they were forced to build, he advised Nhu and Tuyến that it was imperative to build as many hamlets as fast as possible. This pleased the Vietcong, who felt that Thảo's efforts were turning the rural populace against Saigon. Thảo specifically had villages built in areas that he knew had a strong Vietcong presence. This increased the number of communist sympathisers who were placed inside the hamlets and given identification cards. As a result, the Vietcong were able to more effectively penetrate the villages to access supplies and personnel.
Later in 1962, United States Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara visited South Vietnam and was taken on an inspection tour of the country, accompanied by Diệm and Thảo. Perhaps because Thảo divulged the tour details to Vietcong guerrillas, each of McNamara's stopovers was punctuated by bloody attacks on nearby ARVN installations. For example, when McNamara was in Binh Duong Province, five government soldiers were killed. As he flew from Đà Lạt north to Đà Nẵng near the demilitarised zone, he was greeted by a Vietcong bombing of a southbound troop train, which killed 27 and wounded 30 Civil Guard members.
Read more about this topic: Pham Ngoc Thao
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