The illusion of progress: CORDS and the crisis of modernization in South Vietnam, 1965-1968

This article examines the relationship between Pacification and modernization theory during Lyndon B. Johnson stewardship of the Vietnam War. It uses Johnson-South Vietnamese pacification program, Civil Operations and. Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS), to reveal the hopes, intentions, and limitations of the administration approach. This article contends that CORDS represented. Johnson attempt to define the Vietnam conflict as a progressive expression of the Cold. War through modernization theory. It also argues that CORDS inability to resolve the contradictions implicit in development and security exposed. the limits of Johnson vision for both Vietnam and the Cold, War. Finally, the article illustrates how interadministrative debates regarding the intersection of pacification and modernization anticipated intellectual tensions that divided. modernization theorists and dominated the field in the 1970s.