ABSTRACT
Security for the South Vietnamese population from Viet Cong and North Vietnamese harassment and exploitation always had to be an essential part of pacification in South Vietnam and a key objective of the allied war effort. Vietnamese attempts to measure the security of the population began at least as early as 1963 and featured a wide variety of systematic reports about the situation in the countryside. The US-Vietnamese study team conducted interviews, researched records, and went into the field to develop its conclusions. The South Vietnamese Government required both military strength and political and administrative organization to achieve control over a hamlet. Considerable insight into the reliability and meaning of the Hamlet Evaluation System (HES) trends can be gained from analyzing the details reported in the HES. The public attitude surveys suggest that on average the hamlet residents felt less secure than the HES ratings showed.
