Chapter 5 he Present Past of Vietnam Implications of Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support for Today’s “Other Wars” Sandra A. Scham Bob, I’m going to put you in charge of the other war. —Pres. Lyndon Baines Johnson In his characteristic casual manner, as he greeted guests at a party, Pres. Lyndon Johnson introduced Robert Komer to the task that be- came the most prominent undertaking of his career. 1 his presiden- tial pronouncement took Komer completely by surprise and, at the time, must have seemed more of a threat than a promise. Neverthe- less, the man who soon thereater earned the nickname of “the Blow- torch” began to move at full speed toward winning the trust and co- operation of the Vietnamese people as part of the ongoing paciication efort. Despite an uncertain beginning, Komer’s Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) program was a unique efort to pursue stabilization and development goals within the framework of an ongoing conlict and managed to achieve a modicum of success within the context of what is now largely ac- knowledged as a major setback for US interests in the region and overall US foreign policy. 2 While “hearts and minds” became a deri- sive slogan for the futility of the entire Vietnamese efort, CORDS team members were quietly proving that this ight actually could be won—at least on a small scale. 3 he realization in recent years that CORDS was an efective pro- gram has not come easily. his may be due to the fact that the military outcome of the war has overshadowed almost all analyses of the US presence in Vietnam. Gen David Petraeus’s prescient statement— “the legacy of Vietnam is unlikely to soon recede”—in his 1987 doc- toral dissertation on the subject has been demonstrated time and again by the many articles and analyses on current conlicts that refer- ence the earlier war, usually to strike a warning note. 4 In the same work, Petraeus further stated that “historical analogies are particularly