handle guerrillas" and the Army placed a priority on strengthening the ARVN rather than the police, militia, and para-military forces. Pacification or hearts and minds programs were only a minor factor contributing to the steady increase of U.S. advisers and other military personnel in Vietnam. The U.S. military command was optimistic that the assistance given to the South Vietnamese army was bearing fruit. The first commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) Paul D. Harkins, a proponent of conventional warfare, predicted that "the military phase of the war can be virtually won in 1963." Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, three weeks after the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem. Kennedy adviser Roger Hilsman stated that "The Kennedy administration had developed a concept for fighting guerrilla warfare, an idea for a political program into which military measures were meshed, but we had failed so far to convince the Diem regime or even the top levels of the Pentagon to give it a fair trial." The war intensifies New governments in Washington and Saigon created new pacification programs in 1964 as it became clear that, contrary to the U.S.'s optimism of 1963, the Viet Cong were steadily taking control of more territory and more people. British counter-insurgency expert Robert Grainger Ker Thompson said that the government's survival was at stake. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara said in May 1964 that he could not understand "how the Viet Cong continually attacked and overran hamlets that the government and MACV listed as secure." The next iteration of the pacification program came in 1964 with, for the first time, the direct participation in planning and execution by the American Embassy and MAC/V, now headed by General William Westmoreland. The Chien Thang (Struggle for Victory) pacification program was less ambitious than the Strategic Hamlet program, envisioning a gradual expansion, like an "oil spot" from government-controlled to communist-controlled areas, by providing security and services to rural areas. Along with the Chien Thang program was the related Hop Tac (Victory) program, directly involving the U.S. military in pacification for the first time. Hop Tac envisioned a gradual expansion outward from Saigon of areas under South Vietnamese government control. These programs also failed as the South Vietnamese army was unable to provide adequate security to rural residents in disputed areas. In 1965, with the government of South Vietnam failing, the U.S. became directly involved in the war with