In 1962, the cornerstone of Diệm's counterinsurgency effort – the Strategic Hamlet Program ("Vietnamese:" "Ấp Chiến lược"), "the last and most ambitious of Diem's government's nation building schemes", was implemented, calling for the consolidation of 14,000 villages of South Vietnam into 11,000 secure hamlets, each with its own houses, schools, wells, and watchtowers supported by South Vietnamese government. The hamlets were intended to isolate the National Liberation Front (NLF) from the villages, their source for recruiting soldiers, supplies, and information, and to transform the countryside. In the end, because of many shortcomings, the Strategic Hamlet Program was not as successful as had been expected and was cancelled after the assassination of Diệm. However, according to Miller, the program created a remarkable turnabout in Diệm's regime in their war against communism.