Vietnam, Protest, and Counterculture 453Johnson’s admission about just how weak Diem was meant that the U.S.
would be doing more in Vietnam. By 1962, it was clear that the RVN and its
army [the ARVN] was not capable of preserving the country below the 17th
parallel–the guerrilla warfare tactics of the NLF’s military force, the Viet Cong
[VC], and general hatred of Diem were making things much worse in the
South–so Kennedy added to the U.S. mission in Vietnam. He sent Army heli-
copter companies, fixed-wing aircraft, a troop carrier squadron, reconnaissance
planes, air controllers, crop defoliants to destroy the VC’s jungle cover, Navy
mine sweepers, CS gas and napalm.He also authorized the development of
strategic hamlets in the RVN—a disastrous program in which Vietnamese peas-
ants were removed from their homes and possessions and relocated to alleg-
edly safe hamlets [similar to concentration camps] where they would be
protected from the NLF.
The program, though, had an opposite effect and alienated even more vil-
lagers from the government and helped enemy recruiting efforts by taking
peasants away from the traditional homes and virtually incarcerating them in
the hamlets. At the same time the number of U.S. “Advisors” in Vietnam, 800
in January 1961, rose to 3400 in April 1962 and over 11,000 by the end of
the year, and would go up again to 16,700 by the time of Kennedy’s assassina-
tion. Briefly, the U.S. escalation worked, and the helicopters, armor and other
technology sent the NLF and its fighters, the VC [an insulting term for
“Vietnamese Communist”] into hiding. But by 1963, they had rallied and in
a major battle, at a village called Ap Bac, shot down several American helicop-
ters and forced the Vietnamese army to flee. Again, the U.S. was facing poor
prospects in Vietnam.
And the situation would get worse. As noted earlier, Diem and his family
were Catholic, as were most civilian and military officials. But the country was
about 80 to 90 percent Buddhist, and Diem began to harass and attack the
Buddhists, even passing laws against them practicing their religion and sending
troops into their temples. Everything came to a head on June 10th, 1963 when
a bonze, or Buddhist monk, named Quang Duc sat down in the middle of a
busy Saigon street, doused himself with gasoline, and lit himself on fire to
protest Diem’s repression of his people [the image would serve as the cover
for Rage Against the Machine’s first CD]. The world’s media, tipped off by the
Buddhists, were there and Quang Duc’s story and photo were front page news
worldwide. Diem’s sister-in-law, Madame Nhu, tactlessly referred to the