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In 1961, infiltration into South Vietnam increased to nearly 4,000 men. The NLF was remarkably successful in recruiting new members and in training them to be guerrillas (also known as "Vietcong", meaning "Vietnam Communist"). They gained control over the villages in the mountainous regions in the western part of South Vietnam and rapidly extended their power southwards.
In reaction, the U.S. government whose president became John F. Kennedy in 1961, authorized a vast increase of American equipment and military advisers (the MAAC was replaced by an enlarged and reorganized Military Assistance and Advisory Group, Vietnam). Kennedy at the first place saw Vietnam narrowly connected with the maintenance of America's credibility which was at risk after the incident at the Bay of Pigs and the commitment to Laos.
The Diem regime attempted to contain the activity of the NLF by means of "counterinsurgency" including the so-called "strategic hamlet program" which stands for the relocation of the peasants into armed villages. That program aimed to protect the villagers from NLF terror and to bind them to the regime through social reforms. But as the hamlets were often established in areas where no security existed, many of them were destroyed by NLF units either by direct attack or by infiltration. Despite of the deployment of helicopters and the involvement of American advisers in combat mission, which was denied in public by the Kennedy administration, the South Vietnamese Army was incapable of weakening the NLF forces. The inferiority of the ARVN showed best in a major battle near the village of Ap Bac in early 1963 when they were inflicted heavy losses though outnumbering the guerrilla companies 10 to 1. The killing of innocent civilians by ARVN soldiers and the use of napalm and defoliants turned more and more people against the government. In May of 1963 government troops fired into crowds of demonstrators in Hue who protested against the prohibition of displaying flags on the anniversary of Buddha's birth. As a result Buddhist leaders accused Diem of religious persecution and the self-immolation of several monks gave rise to mass protests of the disaffected urban population in South Vietnam. A group of ARVN generals secretly contacted the United States reporting on Diem negotiating with Hanoi and inquiring about America's response to an overthrow of the regime. Finally the U.S. abandoned Diem, whom they had supported mainly because of the lack of a political alternative. Although constantly demanding for more American aid Diem had refused to carry out necessary political reforms despite the insistence of the U.S. Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu were assassinated during a military coup in November of 1963. There are speculations whether President Kennedy intended to extricate America from Vietnam recognizing the futility of its involvement before his assassination in Dallas at the end of 1963.
Desertions from the NLF increased after the overthrow of Diem, who had been the main cause for opposition in South Vietnam, and the NLF lost ground. Consequently the leadership of the Communist party in Hanoi decided to send regular units into the south and to extend infiltration in order to force military operations against the Saigon government. While several unstable administrations followed in quick succession after the coup, anarchy prevailed in South Vietnam's cities where Catholics and Buddhists mobilized against each other. President Lyndon B. Johnson retained the policy of his predecessor realizing to have come to a point where there is no turning back. Besides an increase of economic and military assistance he directed the expansion of covert operations in North Vietnam. Defying firm warnings of the U.S. Hanoi persisted with supporting the insurgency. The North Vietnamese regular army was prepared for war and the Ho Chi Minh Trail was made a modern logistical network. Hanoi's policy may have been based on the premise that its intervention would cause the downfall of Saigon and compel America to withdraw from the country.
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