Viet Cong Motivation and Morale Project
The Viet Cong Motivation and Morale Project was a series of studies done by the American research institute RAND from late 1964 through the end of 1968.
[1] The project interviewed Viet Cong prisoners and defectors with the intention of better understanding the motivating factors and assessing morale of the insurgency during the Vietnam War.
[5]162 Because the military-university relationship was increasingly seen as a source of institutional conflict, private research organizations such as RAND corporation provided a more feasible alternative.
[8] In 1961, RAND faced budget constraints from the Air Force and turned to other clients for funding, resulting in a contract with ARPA that same year, which began its in-depth involvement in social research in Vietnam.
[1] Interviewers worked to build a friendly and relaxed environment, offering cigarettes and coffee, and using formal, respectful pronouns when addressing the respondents.
[1] Drafted reports were sent to team leaders who made light edits, removing information deemed irrelevant, and typed up the final form.
[2] By 1967, criticisms of the project's methodology were increasingly prevalent, with claims that there was not enough structure to the analysis and questionnaire, allowing results to be skewed according to Gouré's personal inclinations.
[9] In this report, Zasloff and Donnell concluded that the Viet Cong was composed of participants with widely varying levels of commitment and engagement.
For younger members, reasons for joining were more diverse, including frustration with economic opportunities, social injustice, combating a government they saw as being run by the rich, seeking interesting personal experiences, or fighting against American imperialism.
[2]74 In 1965, a report authored by Zasloff, Pauker, and Donnel suggested that a strategy of attrition could possibly weaken Viet Cong morale and help the United States win the war, which also contributed to the escalation and prolonged bombing operations in Vietnam.
[2]90 Gouré was the loudest proponent of air-operations, despite a 1965 RAND report written by Zasloff, Donnel, and Pauker, suggesting that the air-war contributed to anti-US hatred, inflicted more damage on civilians than on Viet Cong combatants, and provided an opportunity for the Viet Cong to regain trust of the population by providing support in the aftermath of US damages.
The list of vulnerabilities focused on growing divisions between the older and younger members of the Viet Cong, losing power in the countryside, and general failure of the VC to make significant gains leading to poor morale.
[2]156-157 Gouré also produced an informal note that bolstered military leaders with optimism about the efficacy of the air war, claiming that morale was being severely depleted.
[2]160 During this year, RAND participants such as Doug Scott, Tony Russo and Russ Betts felt that Gouré was selecting data for reporting that aligned with his own views about the war, and that the interview responses were so diverse that they could be used to argue anything.
[10][2]165 Despite this growing controversy, Gouré's influence helped bolster Johnson's and other military leaders' optimism about the prospects of the war.
[2]201 In fall of that year, Gouré was put back on the project and continued it with a focus on interviewing Viet Cong prisoners who had infiltrated South Vietnam through neighboring countries.
[2]209 During this phase, the project also focused on the efficacy of crop-destruction, how US bombing affected civilian attitudes toward the US, and if the Viet Cong was really declining in response to the air war.
[2]225 Kellen and others began to increasingly interpret the interviews with a focus on the elements that had allowed the Viet Cong to maintain cohesion and keep fighting through the war, in contrast to Gouré's claims that they were declining.
[3][14] RAND's and other extra-governmental organizations' involvement in the war effort has attracted criticism for creating ideological echo-chambers that re-affirm the military's preexisting goals.
[16][17] The project has also been criticized for its interview structure being built upon American philosophical assumptions, patterns of othering, coercion, and an overall goal to help the military defeat the Viet Cong, not just understand them.
