ABSTRACT
Over twenty years after his tour of service, a combat veteran of the US 25th Infantry Division recalled that Hau Nghia province was "green and fertile. It is difficult to trace events in the Hau Nghia area in the period between the Geneva Convention and the Party's decision to begin armed struggle in 1959. Although other scholars have described the organizational structure of the Front and Party in great detail, a summary is required. Because the general direction of the insurgency was firmly in the hands of the Party, the highest organizational echelon was the Central Committee in Hanoi. No major policy was developed without its consent. Although the village committee was the lowest echelon on the organizational chart, it was considered by the Party to be the most important for the purpose of waging revolutionary war.
