How Did John F Kennedy's Failure With The Strategic Hamlet Program

Kennedy’s failure with the Strategic Hamlet Program
The John F. Kennedy Administration who inherited the responsibility of the Vietnam war from President Eisenhower, did not want to lose Southeast Asia to communism.(78) The fear of allowing the disease of communism to spread, fueled the Administration to take a more involved stance, supporting a regime that did not have the support of the people. From the beginning of his presidency until the year of 1963, the time of his assassination, the military personnel in Vietnam rose from 900 to 16,000. Robert Thompson, a member of the British Advisory Mission suggested a program called the Strategic Hamlet Program. This program was a way to protect the people from communism in Vietnam but instead caused

The Kennedy Administration did not take into consideration when creating these hamlets that about 75 percent of the people in South Vietnam supported the Viet Cong. According to Marilyn Young, “When the government responded to small engagements with massive displays of force, villagers who might have otherwise have been hesitant to support the Front were enraged”(73). They wanted to win the hearts and mind of the people but yet they forced them to live in the hamlets by gun point. The goal of the Strategic Hamlet program was to separate the Viet Cong guerrillas and supporters from the peasant population physically and politically. Even though the goal was to keep the Viet cong away from the peasants the mistreatment that was directed towards the people actually drove them closer to Viet

Most of the government officials actually believed in this cause, but there was also corruption within the ranks of President Diem’s forces. For example, the families were supposed to receive compensation for moving from their ancient ancestral land into the hamlets, but never received the money because some of the officials pocketed the money. As stated by Marilyn Young “American funds ($300,000) to pay for the move and the construction of new housing were withheld ‘until the resettled families indicated they would not bolt the new hamlet’. ‘The operation,’ Bernard Fall wrote, ‘was hailed as a vast success,’ but by August 1962 the NFL had taken over the whole settlement”(83). Even though the government of Vietnam received money to take the hamlets and make them smaller to fit more people, they still made the peasants rebuild and pay for the new housing while they bulldozed the old houses. The officials that were supposed to be in charge of the hamlets were confused about the success of this program. They obviously thought that the program was a good idea because of how it was supposed to keep communism from spreading any more than it already did. Roger Hilsman, the director of the state department’s bureau of intelligence and research, knew that the program that President Diem presented was a complete misunderstood version of the Hamlet