campaign, during which suspected communists and other anti-government elements were arrested, imprisoned, tortured, or executed. He instituted the death penalty against any activity deemed communist in August 1956. The North Vietnamese government claimed that, by November 1957, over 65,000 individuals were imprisoned and 2,148 were killed in the process. According to Gabriel Kolko, 40,000 political prisoners had been jailed by the end of 1958. In October 1956, Diệm launched a land reform program limiting the size of rice farms per owner. More than 1.8m acres of farm land became available for purchase by landless people. By 1960, the land reform process had stalled because many of Diem's biggest supporters were large land owners. In May 1957, Diệm undertook a ten-day state visit to the United States. President Eisenhower pledged his continued support, and a parade was held in Diệm's honor in New York City. Although Diệm was publicly praised, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles privately conceded that Diệm had to be backed because they could find no better alternative. Insurgency in the South, 1954–1960 Between 1954 and 1957, the Diệm government succeeded in preventing large-scale organized unrest in the countryside. In April 1957, insurgents launched an assassination campaign, referred to as "extermination of traitors". Seventeen people were killed in an attack at a bar in Châu Đốc in July, and in September a district chief was killed with his family on a highway. By early 1959, however, Diệm had come to regard the (increasingly frequent) violence as an organized campaign and implemented Law 10/59, which made political violence punishable by death and property confiscation. There had been some division among former Viet Minh whose main goal was to hold the elections promised in the Geneva Accords, leading to "wildcat" activities separate from the other communists and anti-GVN activists. Douglas Pike estimated that insurgents carried out 2,000 abductions, and 1,700 assassinations of government officials, village chiefs, hospital workers and teachers from 1957 to 1960. Violence between the insurgents and government forces increased drastically from 180 clashes in January 1960 to 545 clashes in September. In September 1960, COSVN, North Vietnam's southern headquarters, gave an order for a full scale coordinated uprising in South Vietnam against the government and 1/3 of the population was soon living in areas of communist control. In December 1960, North Vietnam formally created the Viet Cong with the intent of uniting all anti-GVN insurgents, including non-communists.