In the early 1960s, the American-backed South Vietnamese government
began an aggressive counterinsurgency program aimed at eliminating the
Viet Cong. The policy - known as the Strategic Hamlet Program -
seriously hurt and 'cut up' the VC.
The second volume in this series, Hunting the Viet Cong: The Fall of
Diem and the Collapse of the Strategic Hamlets, 1961-64 looks at why
the strategy ultimately failed. Focussing on events in South Vietnam,
the book exposes Viet Cong atrocities, South Vietnamese corruption and
American military and political negligence. The book reveals just how
violent and aggressive the Viet Cong were towards their own people. Fear
was a weapon of choice: beheading civilians, mutilating children and
destroying schools and hospitals were all legitimate tactics in the VC
toolbox. The book also explains how a strategy designed to protect
Vietnamese villagers made them easy targets for violent guerrillas.
Finally, it reveals that there were many decent Americans in South
Vietnam who understood the nation and its people but who were constantly
ignored by those in power.
Using the Viet Cong's own written documentation, in-field reports from
American advisors and the testimony of the South Vietnamese themselves,
the second volume in the Hunting the Viet Cong series shines a light on
multiple failures in South Vietnam: terror, corruption, ineptitude and
arrogance caused the Strategic Hamlet Program to fail. The book covers
the collapse of the Strategic Hamlet Program, the rise of the insurgency
and the overthrow of President Diem.
Volume One of Hunting the Viet Cong: The Counterinsurgency Campaign in
South Vietnam, 1961-63. The Strategic Hamlet Programme revealed how
close the South Vietnamese Government came to eliminating the
insurgency. Volume Two shows why things began to go wrong. The book
changes large parts of the Historical narrative, explains why America
and its allies failed, and sets the scene for the tragedy that was to
follow.
