He quickly expanded the Army's special forces, but army leadership was reluctant to endorse Kennedy's vision of combined military, economic, and social action to defeat the Viet Cong insurgency. General George Decker reportedly told Kennedy that "any good soldier can handle guerrillas" and the Army placed a priority on strengthening the ARVN rather than the police, militia, and para-military forces. Pacification or hearts and minds programs were only a minor factor contributing to the steady increase of U.S. advisers and other military personnel in Vietnam. The U.S. military command was optimistic that the assistance given to the South Vietnamese army was bearing fruit. The first commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) Paul D. Harkins, a proponent of conventional warfare, predicted that "the military phase of the war can be virtually won in 1963."