ABSTRACT
The Office of Civil Operations (OCO) was set up at a time when the president had come close to making the military responsible for pacification support. OCO also assigned an American official to serve as tactical area coordinator to each Army of the Republic of Vietnam division involved in supporting pacification. To allay the fears of the civilian agencies that the military would dominate the entire American effort, the new leadership in Saigon emphasized the roles that civilians would play under the new setup. The companies' new role would be to help coordinate the civic action activities of American units with Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support programs (CORDS). The province senior adviser had operational control of all American advisers assigned to South Vietnamese units when they were attached to the province chief for direct support of pacification. American civilians in the provinces were linked in a single chain of command, reporting to Ambassador William Porter.
