🏥 Helping villagers
American and South Vietnamese teams built schools, clinics, wells and roads. Army doctors and medics held medical clinics in villages, and food and farming help was handed out.
The Impact of Conflict on Civilians in Vietnam and Attitudes in the USA » Hearts and Minds and the Phoenix Programme
What you'll learn this session
Study time: 30 minutes
Edexcel spec: Paper 2 Section A, Investigation A4, Key topic 5
- Why guerrilla warfare made the people of South Vietnam so important
- What 'Hearts and Minds' meant and how the USA tried to do it
- What the Phoenix Programme was and the problems it caused
- How to answer an 8-mark 'How far does Source A support Source B?' question
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Unlock This CourseFighting an enemy among the people
The Vietcong fought a guerrilla war. They wore no uniforms, hid in the jungle and in villages, and attacked in small groups before melting away. This made them hard to find. It also meant that they depended on ordinary villagers. Villagers gave them rice, shelter, hiding places and warnings about American patrols, and some joined them.
American leaders saw the problem. Big weapons could not win if the villagers helped the enemy. The USA therefore tried two very different answers: to win the people over, and to destroy the Vietcong's hidden organisation. Neither won lasting support.
Key terms:
- Hearts and Minds: the American plan to win the villagers' trust and loyalty by helping them, so that they stopped helping the Vietcong.
- Pacification: the work of making areas safe and loyal to the South Vietnamese government. Hearts and Minds was part of it.
- Vietcong Infrastructure (VCI): the hidden Vietcong organisers in villages and towns, such as tax collectors, recruiters, spies and political leaders, as opposed to its fighters.
- Phoenix Programme: the American and South Vietnamese plan to find and 'neutralise' the VCI.
- Neutralise: the official word for capturing, killing or persuading a suspect to change sides.
Hearts and Minds
In 1965 President Johnson said that the 'ultimate victory' in Vietnam would depend on 'the hearts and the minds' of the people (see Source A below). The idea was simple. If villagers were safe, fed and treated well, they would side with the South Vietnamese government and give the Vietcong no help.
🏡 Living in the village
From 1965 US Marines set up Combined Action Platoons. A small group of Marines lived in a village with local militia, learned about the people and protected them from the Vietcong.
In 1967 the USA brought its pacification work together in one organisation called CORDS, led by an American civilian, Robert Komer. It combined the work of soldiers and civilians in the countryside.
Why Hearts and Minds did not win the people
- The war was destroying the villages. Search and Destroy sweeps, air raids and artillery fire damaged homes and killed civilians, and many families were moved into refugee camps. Villagers could not be thanked with a clinic one day and bombed the next.
- Americans were outsiders. Most could not speak Vietnamese. Many villagers saw foreign soldiers as one more army to survive, not as friends.
- The South Vietnamese government was weak and corrupt. Officials took aid for themselves, and villagers often saw little reason to back them.
- The Vietcong came back. When American units left, Vietcong cadres returned at night and punished anyone who had helped the other side. Villagers could not safely choose the USA.
The Phoenix Programme
Phoenix was the tough side of pacification. It was set up in 1967-68 by the CIA, the US military and the South Vietnamese government. The target was the VCI, the hidden organisers who held the Vietcong together. The idea was that without recruiters, tax collectors and spies, the guerrillas could not keep going.
Teams of South Vietnamese police and special units, advised by Americans, made lists of suspects. They arrested them, questioned them, tried to turn them into informers, or killed them in raids. Suspects who were captured or who gave up could be described as 'neutralised'.
Phoenix did some damage to the Vietcong's local organisation. William Colby, the American who ran pacification from 1968, told Congress in 1971 that over 20,000 people had been killed under Phoenix between 1968 and May 1971.
Problems with Phoenix
- Targets and pressure. Officials were pushed to produce numbers, so there was little reason to check that a suspect really was in the VCI.
- Wrong people. Informers could name a rival or a neighbour for money or to settle a quarrel. Innocent villagers were arrested and some were killed.
- Abuse. There were claims of torture in questioning. Colby denied that Phoenix was a policy of assassination, but he admitted that there had been abuses.
- Fear. A programme that frightened villagers could not win their trust.
Why neither policy won the people's support
The two policies pulled in opposite directions. Hearts and Minds asked villagers to trust the government, while Phoenix and the wider war showed them its force. Foreign troops, a weak South Vietnamese government and the damage done by the fighting left many villagers more bitter than grateful. The Vietcong still had its roots in the countryside, and the USA could not take the people away from it.
Common mistakes
- Writing that Phoenix targeted every villager. Its official targets were the VCI, though innocent people were caught up in it.
- Saying Phoenix had no effect. It hurt the Vietcong's organisation, but it also cost the USA support. Give both sides.
- Mixing up Hearts and Minds (helping) with Phoenix (hunting). Say which one you mean.
- In a source question, describing each source on its own. Compare them: say what they agree on and where they differ.
Exam-style question
This is a Paper 2 Section A question. Both sources are real sources from the time.
Source A
From a speech by President Lyndon Johnson to the Texas Electric Cooperatives, Washington DC, 4 May 1965
Tonight, an REA team is in South Viet-Nam at my request, talking and planning and working with the officials there, to find ways to bring the healing miracle of electricity to that poor, war-torn countryside ... So we must be ready to fight in Viet-Nam, but the ultimate victory will depend upon the hearts and the minds of the people who actually live out there.
Source B
From a speech by the American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr at Riverside Church, New York, 4 April 1967, speaking about the National Liberation Front
Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. ... they are surely right to wonder what kind of new government we plan to help form without them, the only party in real touch with the peasants.
Study Sources A and B. How far does Source A support the evidence of Source B about the USA's chances of winning the support of the Vietnamese people? Explain your answer. [8 marks]
Model answer
The sources agree that the support of the Vietnamese people matters, but they disagree about whether the USA was winning it. Source A says that 'the ultimate victory will depend upon the hearts and the minds of the people who actually live out there'. Source B also treats the people as central. King says that the National Liberation Front, the group he is speaking about, is 'the only party in real touch with the peasants', which suggests the USA lacks that contact.
The sources differ over the American record. Source A is hopeful. It speaks of 'the healing miracle of electricity' for a 'poor, war-torn countryside' and presents American help as a way to gain the people's loyalty. Source B is critical. It says that 'the men we supported pressed them to their violence', so the USA had backed the problem, not cured it. A speaks of what America could offer, while B speaks of what it had already done, and in B the peasants have reasons to distrust the USA.
Overall, Source A supports Source B only partly. They agree that the people are the key to victory, but A expects American help to win them and B argues that American actions had already driven them away. A therefore supports B on the importance of the people, but not on the likely result.
What lifts it to the top level: it cross-refers the sources point by point, supports each with short quotations, covers both agreement and difference, and ends with a judgement on how far A supports B.
Exam tip
This question only asks about what the sources say, so you do not need to bring in your own knowledge. Quote a few words from each source in every paragraph, say whether they agree or differ, and finish by saying how far.
Recap
- The Vietcong were guerrillas who relied on villagers, so the USA tried to win the people's 'hearts and minds'.
- Hearts and Minds meant schools, clinics, wells, roads, Combined Action Platoons and, from 1967, CORDS.
- It failed because the war damaged villages, Americans were outsiders, the South Vietnamese government was weak and the Vietcong returned.
- Phoenix aimed to 'neutralise' the hidden Vietcong Infrastructure by capture, defection or killing. Colby said over 20,000 were killed between 1968 and May 1971.
- Phoenix was damaged by pressure for numbers, false accusations, abuse and fear.