Rural Pacification in South Viet Nam

Report Outline
New Action to Combat Viet Cong Terror
Long Struggle to Control Countryside
Prospects for Pacification of Villages

New Action to Combat Viet Cong Terror

As a new year of conflict opens in Viet Nam, chances of making headway toward negotiation of a satisfactory peace settlement seem little more promising than in the past. Prospects of progress in one important phase of the continuing struggle are nevertheless brighter. Basic changes in the approach to so-called rural pacification give ground for hoping that a solid start may finally be made toward strengthening peasant support of the South Vietnamese government and thereby progressively weakening and narrowing Viet Cong control in the countryside.

Failure of numerous past efforts to accomplish this objective emphasizes the need to view new efforts with caution. All agree that rural pacification will be a long and an arduous task. But it is agreed also that success in its pursuit is as essential as military victory to the future maintenance of South Viet Nam as a free and independent state.

Rural pacification was put on the way to a new and firmer footing at the Manila Conference last October. South Viet Nam announced there that it planned to “train and assign a substantial share of the armed forces to clear-and-hold action in order to provide a shield behind which a new society can be built.” Later statements in Washington and Saigon gave notice of a substantial revision of strategic priorities and an impending shift in the respective roles of American and Vietnamese forces.