The Viet Cong (VC) insurgency expanded in South Vietnam in 1962. U.S. military personnel flew combat missions and accompanied South Vietnamese soldiers in ground operations to find and defeat the insurgents. Secrecy was the official U.S. policy concerning the extent of U.S. military involvement in South Vietnam. The commander of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), General Paul D. Harkins, projected optimism that progress was being made in the war, but that optimism was refuted by the concerns expressed by a large number of more junior officers and civilians. Several prominent magazines, newspapers and politicians in the U.S. questioned the military strategy the U.S. was pursuing in support of the South Vietnamese government of President Ngô Đình Diệm. Diệm created the Strategic Hamlet Program as his top priority to defeat the VC. The program intended to cluster South Vietnam's rural dwellers into defended villages where they would be provided with government social services.
North Vietnam increased its support to the VC, infiltrating men and supplies into South Vietnam via the Ho Chi Minh Trail. North Vietnam proposed negotiations to neutralize South Vietnam as had been done in neighboring Laos and Cambodia, but the failure of the Laotian neutrality agreement doomed that initiative.
U.S. analyses and statements about progress and problems with the war often conflicted or contradicted each other which is reflected in this article.
January
Two South Vietnamese technicians working in the government's anti-malaria program, Pham Van Hai and Nguyen Van Thach, were killed by VC with machetes, 12 miles (19 km) south of Saigon.
The first United States Air Force (USAF) military transport aircraft arrived in South Vietnam under Operation Mule Train. The aircraft would be used to transport South Vietnamese soldiers.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric recommended to General Lyman Lemnitzer, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that for military operations involving Americans in South Vietnam The Pentagon develop a "suitable cover story, or stories, a public explanation, a statement of no comment...for approval of the Secretary of Defense."
The first Operation Ranch Hand mission began. Agent Orange defoliants were sprayed from USAF aircraft along several miles of Highway 15 leading from the port of Vũng Tàu to Bien Hoa Air Base northeast of Saigon. Although the United States wished to keep the use of defoliants secret, the South Vietnamese government announced publicly that defoliants supplied by the U.S. were being used to kill vegetation near highway routes.
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara met with his top military advisers. CINCPAC intelligence told him that the VC now numbered 20,000 to 25,000 and were increasing by 1,000 per month after casualties. South Vietnam's armed forces had suffered more than 1,000 casualties in the previous month, most by the paramilitary Self Defense Corps. McNamara ordered sending 40,000 M-1 carbines to South Vietnam to arm the Self Defense Corps and the Civil Guard, although those two organizations were the sources of many of the VC's captured weapons.
McNamara pressed for a "clear and hold" operation in a single South Vietnamese province. Clear and hold envisioned the ARVN securing the province followed by civic and political action to exclude the VC permanently. Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) chief General Lionel C. McGarr proposed instead using two ARVN divisions in a conventional military sweep focused on killing VC but without the follow-up to hold the area.
Admiral Harry D. Felt, CINCPAC commander, authorized American advisers to accompany South Vietnamese military forces on combat operations.
In the Battle of Luang Namtha the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and Pathet Lao seized control of northwestern Laos from the Royal Lao Army.
February
Roger Hilsman, a U.S. State Department official with World War II experience in guerrilla war, submitted a paper entitled "A Strategic Concept for South Vietnam" to President Kennedy and General Taylor. Drawing heavily on British adviser Robert Grainger Ker Thompson's plan for strategic hamlets, Hilsman said "the struggle for South Vietnam...is essentially a battle for control of the villages." He stated that "the problem presented by the Viet Cong is a political and not a military problem, and that to be effective counterinsurgency "must provide the people and the villages with protection and physical security." Hilsman's solution to this problem was similar to that of Thompson's. Hilsman advocated that the ARVN adopt tactics of mobility, surprise, and small unit operations. Conventional warfare such as the use of artillery or aerial bombardment to soften up the enemy will "only give advance warning of an operation, permit the Viet Cong to escape and inevitably result in the death of uncommitted or wavering civilians whose support is essential for the Viet Cong's ultimate defeat."
Diệm created by presidential decree the strategic hamlet program headed by his brother, Ngô Đình Nhu. The program called for rural people to provide manpower and labor to build and defend the strategic hamlets. It was an ambitious program which projected that 7,000 strategic hamlets would be built by the end of 1962 and 12,000 by the end of 1963, thus consolidating nearly all the rural population of South Vietnam.
The first American helicopter is shot down.
Kennedy authorized the creation of "Military Assistance Command – Vietnam" (MACV) to support and assist South Vietnam in defeating the Viet Cong insurgency. MAAG continued to exist, but only to train Vietnam's armed forces. General Paul D. Harkins, recommended by President Kennedy's military adviser, General Maxwell Taylor, was named MACV commander. Harkins and his staff had little or no counterinsurgency experience. Moreover, the counterinsurgency effort lacked a "single directing authority" and a "continuing, authoritative interagency oversight." The MACV commander did not have control of the entire counterinsurgency effort and MACV "labored under complex command relationships and had to thread its way through intractable interservice conflicts over fine points of organization, staffing, and doctrine. MACV commander Harkins reported to CINCPAC Chief, Admiral Felt who kept MACV "on a tight rein."
An Operation Farm Gate SC-47 crashed 70 miles (110 km) north of Saigon while on a leaflet-dropping mission, killing eight Americans (six Air Force and two Army) and one Vietnamese.
Journalist James Reston published an article in The New York Times stating that "The United States is now involved in an undeclared war in South Vietnam. This is well known to the Russians, the Chinese Communists, and everybody else concerned except the American people...Has the President made clear to the Congress and the nation the extent of the U.S. commitment to the South Vietnam government and the dangers involved?"
North Vietnam contacted diplomats from the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, co-chairs of the Geneva Accords of 1954, requesting that they "urgently study effective measures to end U.S. aggression in South Vietnam." Later, North Vietnam requested that the UK and USSR "proceed to consultations with the interested countries to seek effective means of preserving the Geneva settlement of 1954 and safeguarding peace."
Senator Wayne Morse said in a Senate Hearing closed to the public, "when those ships start coming back to the west coast with the flag-draped coffins of American boys, look out, because the American people, in my judgement are going to be very much divided....I have grave doubts as to the constitutionality of the President's course of action in South Vietnam."
VC threw four hand grenades into a crowded village theater near Cần Thơ, killing 24 women and children. In all, 108 persons were killed or injured.
The Department of State cabled instructions about dealing with the media to the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. The instructions said that it was not in U.S. interest "to have stories indicating that Americans are leading and directing combat missions against the Viet Cong."
A National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) estimated VC numbers in South Vietnam. There were at least 25,000 full time fighters supported by 100,000 part time locals serving as village defense forces. The NIE estimated that 800 North Vietnamese PAVN officers and soldiers were in South Vietnam assisting the VC.
Newsweek magazine asked the question: "Will the sending of U.S. troops lead to escalation, more guerrillas, more Americans, and an eventual confrontation of the U.S. and Red China? Above all can the U.S. strategy win the war?"
Two Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF) pilots flying U.S. supplied A-1 Skyraiders bombed the Independence Palace in Saigon to protest President's Diệm's priority on remaining in office rather than defeating the VC. Diệm and his family were uninjured. One of the pilots was imprisoned; the other fled to Cambodia. Both returned to duty after Diệm's death.
March
The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) estimated that the VC numbered 20,000 full-time guerrillas, up from 4,000 two years earlier. DOD estimated that the VC controlled 10 percent of South Vietnam's hamlets and had influence in another 60 percent. In the cities, however, VC influence was minimal and the Montagnard people of the Central Highlands supported neither the government nor the communists. The bulk of the VC fighters were located in the Mekong Delta and near Saigon.
DOD identified three types of VC fighters. First the main forces were well armed and used only on large operations; second were the provincial and district units, a mixture of guerrillas and organized units; and third, not part of the 20,000 estimate, were the part-time guerrillas, often armed only with primitive weapons but important for intelligence, logistics, and terrorist operations. Five hundred to 1,000 men monthly were estimated to be infiltrating South Vietnam from North Vietnam.
The People's Republic of China called for an international conference to seek peace in South Vietnam. Cambodia and the Soviet Union supported the proposal. Negotiations in Geneva to create a neutralist coalition government in Laos seemed the inspiration for proposals by North Vietnam, its allies, and neutral Cambodia to seek the convening of a conference.
The New Republic magazine said, "The US has 'capitulated' to Diệm and has bound itself to the defense of a client regime without exacting on its part sacrifices necessary for success. American lives are to be risked in a holding action based on the inexplicable hope that with sharpened-up counter-guerrilla operations and marginal reforms the regime will last."
Flying Tiger Line Flight 739 disappeared approximately 300 miles (480 km) west of Guam. The Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation with a crew of 11 was transporting 93 U.S. soldiers and three South Vietnamese from Travis Air Force Base, California to Tan Son Nhut Air Base.
Operation Sunrise was the first operation in the strategic hamlet program, carried out by ARVN with U.S. advice and transport assistance in the Bến Cát region of the Bình Dương province, 25 miles (40 km) north of Saigon. The plan was to kill or expel VC guerrillas and relocate the rural people to four strategic hamlets. However, unlike Thompson's plan which contemplated beginning the strategic hamlet program in relatively secure areas, Bình Dương was heavily under the influence of the VC, nearly all of whom had prior warning of the operation and escaped. The remaining inhabitants were rounded up and forcibly resettled in the strategic hamlets. To control the area, ARVN had to keep a large number of soldiers stationed in Bến Cát and the VC harassed both the army and the hamlets, bringing them under its control in 1964.
Begun in November 1961 in the village of Buon Enao with 400 inhabitants, the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) project in Darlac province among the Montgnard peoples had expanded to cover 14,000 people with 972 village defenders and a 300-man strike force to combat VC guerrillas. The CIDG was supported by U.S. Army Special Forces and ARVN Special Forces and the CIA with Special Forces soldiers being assigned to villages to train the defenders. The project was managed by David A. Nuttle, an agriculture adviser from Kansas, ARVN Captain Nguyen Duc Phu and Montagnard leader Y-Ju, the village chief of Buon Enao.
The Joints Chiefs of Staff finalized instructions to MACV concerning "maximum discretion" and "minimum publicity" for U.S. air operations in South Vietnam. If an enemy aircraft was shot down, MACV was instructed to remain silent unless it became necessary to contradict communist propaganda in which case MACV was to say that while on a routine training flight, an unidentified airplane initiated hostile action and was shot down. If a U.S. airplane was lost, MACV was instructed to say that the aircraft was on a routine orientation flight and the cause of the accident is being investigated. MACV was further instructed to ensure that all knowledgeable personnel were "instructed and rehearsed" with these rules.
April
The VC executed two wounded American prisoners of war near the village of An Châu. Each, hands tied, was shot in the face because he could not keep up with the retreating captors.