Biography
Joseph Michel Carrier was a counterinsurgency specialist for the Rand Corporation. He conducted fieldwork in South Vietnam in 1962 and again from 1965 through 1967. During the last half of 1966 and in the spring of 1967, this fieldwork focused on the Chieu Hoi Program. In the early 1970s, Carrier joined the National Academy of Sciences as a staff officer on the Herbicide Committee. At this time, he conducted more field investigations in Vietnam, gathering data on the effects of U.S. defoliation programs. The spraying, code named Operation Trail Dust and Operation Ranch Hand, was used to defoliate forests to expose Viet Minh (or "Viet Cong") compounds. In addition, the U.S. military sprayed Viet Cong food supplies with defoliants such as Agent Orange, which contained high levels of a poisonous contaminant known as dioxin. Carrier produced a National Academy of Sciences working paper on the effects of herbicides in 1974. He received his Ph.D. in Social Sciences from the University of California, Irvine in 1972.
The Chieu Hoi Program, also know as the Open Arms Program or the Great National Solidarity Program, was a ten-year campaign started by Republic of Vietnam (RVN) President, Ngo Dinh Diem, in April 1963. Operated by the RVN Government's Chieu Hoi Ministry, the program sought to persuade Viet Cong troops and supporters of the North Vietnamese cause to rally to the RVN cause. To accomplish this, the RVN and its allies used family contacts, radio and loudspeaker broadcasts, and propaganda leaflets. Provincial Chieu Hoi centers harbored these defectors, or "ralliers," who underwent reeducation and rehabilitation. RVN and U.S. military forces also employed ralliers, some in the well-known American Kit Carson Unit. Other ralliers were used for intelligence work against the Viet Cong infrastructure throughout South Vietnam. In addition, over forty Chieu Hoi villages were constructed to provide free housing for ralliers. From 1963 to 1973 the Chieu Hoi Program attracted nearly 160,000 defectors, of whom 30,000 were identified as Viet Cong.
For further information, see G. D. Brewer, "Chieu Hoi: The surrender program in Vietnam," Air University Review, v. 18 (1967): 50-60; E. J. Clarkson, "An unknown warrior," Marine Corps Gazette, v. 54 (1970): 38-43; and S. C. Tucker, ed., "Chieu Hoi (Open Arms) Program," in Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 1998), pp. 113-14.
From the guide to the Joseph M. Carrier collection on the Chieu Hoi program and Vietnamese conflict, Bulk, 1960-1967, 1958-1992, (Special Collections and Archives, University of California, Irvine Libraries)
