Kit Carson

Although Chaplain McGonigal's 1966 survey and General Walt's message reflected some of the negative features resulting from Marine infantry units operating in populated areas, Marines more often than not demonstrated that they could work with individual South Vietnamese to bring stability to the countryside. One of the most unusual and yet successful of these attempts was the formation of special cadre made up of former VC. These men, former enemy troops, had taken advantage of the government 'open arms' (Chieu Hoi) policy and rallied to the government cause.

The Marines began to use a selected few of these 'ralliers' or Hoi Chanhs during the spring of 1966. In May, a group of VC surrendered to units of the 9th Marines, asking for asylum. The enemy immediately started a rumor among the people that the Marines had tortured and killed one of the ralliers by the name of Ngo Van Bay. Colonel Simmons, the regimental commander, asked Bay and two of his compatriots to return to the village and put the rumor to rest for once and for all. The three former Viet Cong agreed and, according to Simmons, this, in a small way, was the beginning of the program.

Other Marine units at Da Nang, and eventually in all of the TAORs, started using former VC as scouts, interpreters, and intelligence agents. By October 1966, the program was established on a permanent, official basis. General Nickerson, the commanding general of the 1st Marine Division, who was part Indian and a Western history buff, designated the former VC working with the Marines as 'Kit Carson scouts'. He selected the name because the Hoi Chanhs working with the Marines were good scouts, in the tradition of Kit Carson, the famed frontiersman, Indian agent, and soldier.

The scouts provided more than just tactical capability. They were also a valuable propaganda tool. Villagers were much more ready to listen to them than to representatives of the government. During a December County Fair one scout gave a speech to the gathered villagers and evoked applause from his audience several times. According to the Marine report, the scout then:

ventured into the VCC/VCS compound and spoke to them... . A definite response was observed by the facial expressions of some of the individuals. Attention seemed to follow the Kit Carson Scout wherever he went, including an apparent interest generated among the ARVN troops who participated in the operation.

Psychological Warfare

The Kit Carson program was only part of an intensive psychological warfare campaign that III MAF had begun in the latter half of 1966. In fact, it was an officer in the III MAF Psychological Warfare Section, Captain Stephen A. Luckey, who recommended the formal implementation of the Kit Carson project and it was the Psychological Warfare Section that developed the Kit Carson SOP. The section had consisted of only Luckey and a senior staff NCO until 4 August, when General Walt assigned Colonel Robert R. Read as the psychological warfare officer. In September the section became a special staff section, directly responsible to the III MAF Chief of Staff. According to the force order establishing the section, Colonel Read had four basic missions:

1. to reduce the combat efficiency of the VC;

2. to further the effort of the South Vietnamese Government in establishing control by attempting to modify attitudes and behavior of special audiences;

3. to coordinate psychological operations with civic action programs;

4. and finally to obtain the assistance and cooperation of the South Vietnamese villagers.

Civic Action

The people needed more than just words to persuade them to join in the national effort against the Communists. An integral part of the Marine pacification campaign was its civic action program, aimed at improving the lot of the Vietnamese peasant as well as giving him a reason to support the government. According to Brigadier General Jonas M. Platt, General Walt's Chief of Staff during most of 1966, an effective civic action program had to fulfill certain requirements: it had to meet not only the needs of the people but involve them; the Marines should listen to what the people wanted and then offer them material and advice; work had to be done by the populace themselves.

Marines were to ensure that the Vietnamese Government received the credit for the various projects. Provincial, district, and village officials had to be involved from the beginning in both the planning and execution of any project. The entire effort was dependent upon coordination with the Vietnamese Government and U.S. civilian agencies so that the projects had the desired impact upon the local populace.

The activities of Lieutenant Colonel William R. Corson's 3d Tank Battalion in the Hoa Tho village complex, on the northern bank of the Cau Do River, provided an excellent example of a coordinated civic action program. In December, the battalion's civic action team sponsored a farmers' meeting in the hamlet of Phong Bac. The village chief of Hoa Tho and the hamlet chiefs participated in the event; over 80 farmers attended. They discussed raising live stock and a representative from the U.S. Army 29th Civil Affairs Company distributed seed to the farmers. After the meeting, the village chief took the occasion to tell the people of the hamlet about the Marines. He stressed that the Marines were guests of the Government of Vietnam and that they were only trying 'to help the Vietnamese people in the struggle for freedom and fight against Communism'.

By the end of 1966, the Marines had accumulated impressive statistics reflecting the assistance they had furnished to the South Vietnamese. Marine units entered hamlets and villages 25,000 times during the year for the express purpose of conducting civic action. Navy corpsman and doctors attached to the Marines provided medical treatment for over a million South Vietnamese and trained more than 500 Vietnamese to assist in meeting the health needs of the population. Even more significantly, South Vietnamese villagers and Marines working together, completed 1,100 construction projects. The Marines had supported schools, assisted in the resettlement of victims of the war, provided basic items such as soap and food, and generally attempted to make life somewhat easier for the civilian population, caught in the webs of war. To the Marines, civic action was more than just a giveaway, but a weapon designed specifically to win the people to the government cause. One young Marine officer, First Lieutenant Marion (Sandy) L. Kempner, described the intermingling of the anti-guerrilla war and the civic action program in the following terms:

We have been doing a lot of work in the villages lately, of the community development type, so it looks as though I will never get away from the Peace Corps days. We must be really messing up these people's minds: by day we treat their ills and fix up their children and deliver their babies and by night, if we receive fire from the general direction of their hamlet, fire generally will reach them albeit not intentionally; they must really be going around in circles. But I guess that just points up the strangeness of this war. We have two hands, both of which know what the other is doing, but does the opposite anyway, and in the same obscure and not too reasonable manner—it all makes sense, I hope The Marines never presumed that they had the sole solution for 'winning the hearts and minds' of the people. They were among the first to recognize that they needed assistance from the other U.S. agencies in Vietnam, civilian as well as military, and from the Vietnamese themselves. The U.S. Army 29th Civil Affairs Company had arrived in June 1966 to furnish expert assistance to the Marines in their relations with the South Vietnamese civilians. Long before that, General Walt had recognized the need for coordination. In August 1965, he had contacted Marcus Gordon, the chief of the U.S. Operations Mission for I Corps at that time, and suggested the formation of an interagency clearing committee. The result of his efforts was the creation of the I Corps Joint Coordinating Council JCC). Eventually, representatives from American civilian agencies, Marines, and the South Vietnamese I Corps command met weekly to try to give unified direction to the allied civic action effort.

Although the spring political crisis temporarily halted the functions of the council, it began to meet on a regular basis once again in July 1966. By this time the JCC had sponsored several subordinate committees designed to meet specific problems: public health, psychological warfare, roads, commodities distribution, port affairs, and education, and by the end of the month, the council was prepared to expand its activities even further.  On 3 August, Mr. Gordon suggested that the JCC should concern itself with all of I Corps. He observed that, until now, the cities of Da Nang and Hue, and the Marines TAORs had received most of the council's attention. He stated that the JCC, as the overseeing body, could function more significantly if it considered all projects in the context of all of I Corps. Major General Robertshaw, Commanding General of the 1st MAW and permanent chairman of the JCC, agreed with Gordon's remarks and suggested that the group should hold one meeting a month in a different provincial capital to give the South Vietnamese provincial officials and their American advisors the opportunity to discuss their particular problems with the JCC.  The JCC concurred with General Robertshaw's suggestion. For the rest of the year, it held its monthly meeting in a different provincial capital, on a rotating basis.

In addition, the JCC encouraged the provinces to establish their own committees to coordinate Revolutionary Development efforts at the provincial level. By the end of December, three provincial committees had been formed. Although the provincial committees mirrored the organization, mission, and functions of the I Corps JCC, they were not subordinate to the larger council, but operated independently. The important aspect of both the I Corps JCC and the provincial committees was that they provided a vehicle for the coordination of the military and civilian aspects of pacification, and at the time the only such organizations at the corps and province levels in South Vietnam.