Study Interpretations 1 and 2. They give different views about the reason for the Strategic Hamlets Programme.

What is the main difference between these views? Explain your answer using details from both interpretations. (4 marks)

Interpretation 1

From "Ngo Dinh Diem and South Vietnam Reconsidered," an article by Philip E. Catton in Triumph Revisited (2010):

The Strategic Hamlet program [was] not only a Vietnamese initiative, but also an elaborate nation-building project. It was, in fact, the last and most ambitious of the regime's [Diem's government] plans for developing South Vietnam.

Interpretation 2

From "The Failed Search for Victory," an article by Lawrence J. Bassett and Stephen E. Pelz in Major Problems in the History of the Vietnam War (1995):

Diem regained some favour with Washington by accepting another part of the Kennedy plan for Vietnam—strategic hamlets. Roger Hilsman, an official in Kennedy's government, correctly concluded that the villages of South Vietnam willingly provided supplies and a great majority of recruits to the NLF [Vietcong]. He argued that the South Vietnamese government had to provide villagers with civic action programmes [schools, clinics, and self-defence training] and physical security by creating fortified hamlets.