ABSTRACT
The Tet Offensive forced pacification officials to use funds and supplies originally allocated for development projects in the countryside to rebuild damaged urban neighborhoods and care for the homeless. The South Vietnamese pacification program as a whole suffered from the absence of a top-level, oversight body similar to Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS), despite Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker’s and Robert Komer's hope that the Tet emergency would prompt Thieu to overhaul his administration. The Central Revolutionary Development Council, the closest South Vietnamese organizational counterpart to CORDS, met irregularly and lacked a working staff. Strong executive action by South Vietnamese authorities in the aftermath of the January and May attacks helped minimize the economic disruption of the fighting. The District Intelligence Operations Coordinating Centers were to mount operations against communist armed units and the infrastructure based on information gathered by American and South Vietnamese intelligence agencies, police, and military units.
