[10-B] U.S. Marines figured prominently in the crisis which followed the North Vietnamese attacks. A Marine expeditionary brigade, the 9th MEB, was activated from elements of the 3d Marine Division and 1st Marine Aircraft Wing and deployed on board amphibious shipping to a position off Da Nang where it was available to support U.S. contingency plans. Its commander, Brigadier General Raymond G. Davis, and his staff attended planning conferences in Da Nang and reconnoitered possible landing sites near the city, but the MEB was not committed. Instead, the organization remained in existence throughout the remainder of 1964 and into early 1965 when, in March, two of its battalions were landed at Da Nang. The formation and subsequent commitment of the 9th MEB in the Republic of Vietnam are covered in detail in the 1965 history of U.S. Marine operations in the Republic of Vietnam. While the tensions generated by the Tonkin Gulf incidents never really subsided, the immediate crisis soon passed. Thereafter the American attentions focused once again on South Vietnam where the political and military situation began to deteriorate at an unprecedented rate after midyear. Ironically, this process of accelerated decay coincided with the initiation of a new South Vietnamese pacification strategy designed to prevent just such an occurrence. One aspect of the strategy was the Chien Tang (“Struggle for Victory”) Plan. Announced by General Khanh shortly after his rise to power, this campaign was similar in method and objective to the defunct Strategic Hamlet Program. Like the earlier program, the Chien Tang Plan envisioned the restoration of government influence in selected rural areas through the coordination of military and paramilitary operations with social and economic development programs.[10-C] While the Chien Tang campaign was better planned and far less ambitious than the Strategic Hamlet Program, there were definite similarities between the two. The instrument for the social, economic, and political developmental phase of the new effort, for example, was the New Life Hamlet--a variation of the planned government community. Begun in some areas around midyear, the New Life Hamlets were to become the symbol of the new pacification effort in much the same manner that the fortified hamlets had symbolized the earlier Strategic Hamlet Program.