Pacification: The American Struggle For Vietnam's Hearts And Minds [Paperback]

Richard A Hunt (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0813334594 | ISBN-13: 978-0813334592 | Publication Date: February 27, 1998

During the Vietnam War, the United States embarked on an unusual crusade on behalf of the government of South Vietnam. Known as the pacification program, it sought to help South Vietnam’s government take root and survive as an independent, legitimate entity by defeating communist insurgents and promoting economic development and political reforms. In this book, Richard Hunt provides the first comprehensive history of America’s “battle for hearts and minds,” the distinctive blending of military and political approaches that took aim at the essence of the struggle between North and South Vietnam.Hunt concentrates on the American role, setting pacification in the larger political context of nation building. He describes the search for the best combination of military and political action, incorporating analysis of the controversial Phoenix program, and illuminates the difficulties the Americans encountered with their sometimes reluctant ally. The author explains how hard it was to get the U.S. Army involved in pacification and shows the struggle to yoke divergent organizations (military, civilian, and intelligence agencies) to serve one common goal. The greatest challenge of all was to persuade a surrogate—the Saigon government—to carry out programs and to make reforms conceived of by American officials.The book concludes with a careful assessment of pacification’s successes and failures. Would the Saigon government have flourished if there had been more time to consolidate the gains of pacification? Or was the regime so fundamentally flawed that its demise was preordained by its internal contradictions? This pathbreaking book offers startling and provocative answers to these and other important questions about our Vietnam experience.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This is a major look at the so-called other war: the combined efforts of the U.S. and Saigon governments to win the allegiance of the South Vietnamese populace in the struggle against the Viet Cong. Hunt describes how various pacification efforts were put under a single authority in 1967 with the creation of the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS), headed in turn by Robert Komer and William Colby. He reveals that the Phoenix Program, centerpiece of the effort to dismantle Viet Cong leadership, was originally a system for pooling information from South Vietnamese intelligence agencies. Hunt shows how the program hurt not only the enemy but also the allies. "There remains a profound ambivalence about the Phoenix Program," he writes, for ordinary Vietnamese citizens were caught in the dragnets that killed the Viet Cong. His authoritative study provides a clear account of the pacification effort in each of the four military-political regions of South Vietnam, essential to an understanding of the war itself. One odd shortcoming: the short shrift given to the Marines' Combined Action Platoon (CAP) program. All pacification programs failed in the end, but the CAP was arguably working the best at the time of the U.S. pullout. Hunt is director of the army's Oral History Program. Illustrations.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Vietnam war literature is heavily weighted toward traditional military history: campaign histories, battle studies, weapons analysis, officer's memoirs, soldier's narratives, and political and diplomatic treatises. It is also notable for the almost complete lack of accounts by South Vietnamese participants and scholars and the scarcity of works on American assistance in nation-building and pacification. The pacification program is expertly detailed by Hunt, the director of the U.S. Army Center of Military History Oral History Program. This exhaustive study will stand as a benchmark in research on U.S. civil and military initiatives in countering NVA and VC insurgency. This account of the pacification program is certain to be of interest to students of the conflict. The several counterinsurgency efforts are clearly presented, and the evaluation of their effectiveness is supported by extensive research. An essential addition to academic Vietnam collections.
John R. Vallely, Siena Coll. Lib., Loudonville, N.Y.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Westview Press (February 27, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813334594
• ISBN-13: 978-0813334592
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,352,387 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Pricey, November 1, 2011

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Bruce Kinsey (Shenandoah Valley, Virginia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Pacification: The American Struggle For Vietnam's Hearts And Minds (Paperback)

I haven't read this book, and at this ridiculous price, it's highly unlikely that I ever will. Why so expensive? Sounds interesting, though.