With advice from Thompson and the U.S. Embassy, the Vietnamese formulated a program which in theory was to evolve in several rather distinct phases. First it would be necessary to select specific geographic areas wherein the Strategic Hamlet Program would be implemented. Once specific objective areas had been established, regular military units would initiate operations to clear those areas of Viet Cong formations. Following the completion of these operations RVNAF units would resettle the inhabitants of the area in fortified hamlets. Initially these hamlets were to be defended by Civil Guard units while regular forces continued screening operations in the surrounding countryside. In the final phase, Self Defense Corps units would assume responsibility for local security while regular units continued to screen Viet Cong forces from the developments. During this phase district civil authorities would initiate economic and social programs within the newly formed communities in an effort to recapture the allegiance of the local populace. Thus, in this final phase, it was expected that the Communist political infrastructure would be broken. Following the pacification of a few contiguous hamlets, the same process was to be repeated over and over, in an expanding pattern. In this manner Diem hoped to expand the GVN’s control progressively outward from the initial secure hamlets over large areas of the countryside. Ultimately the GVN intended to construct nearly 11,000 such protected communities in several of the country’s most critical rural areas. A principal shortcoming of this method of pacification was that the success of the entire program within a specific area depended on the successful completion of virtually every developmental phase in every strategic hamlet. Should the Communist infrastructure remain intact in even one hamlet, that hamlet could precipitate the collapse of the entire campaign by contaminating the surrounding communities in a geometric progression. Given this critical requirement that all phases be accomplished in a deliberate and orderly manner, it was unfortunate that Nhu initiated the program in an uncoordinated fashion. By the first of the year, months before the appropriate American and South Vietnamese agencies had been formed to guide the program, the construction of hamlets had begun on a scale which already suggested a nationwide campaign. Furthermore, the government failed to test the plan in a pilot project such as Thompson (as well as U.S. advisors) had recommended. Instead, it launched rather extensive campaigns simultaneously in several traditional Communist strongholds during the spring of 1962.