Winning hearts and minds is a concept occasionally expressed in the resolution of war, insurgency, and other conflicts, in which one side seeks to prevail not by the use of superior force, but by making emotional or intellectual appeals to sway supporters of the other side. The use of the term "hearts and minds" to reference a method of bringing a subjugated population on side, was first used by Louis Hubert Gonzalve Lyautey as part of his strategy to counter the Black Flags rebellion along the Indochina-Chinese border in 1895. More famously, it was used during the Malayan Emergency by the British who employed practices to keep the Malayans' trust and reduce a tendency to side with ethnic Chinese communists, in this case, by giving medical and food aid to the Malays and indigenous tribes. Boris Hembry, a member of the Federal War Council, recalled:
"Although many believe the Americans to have coined the phrase in Vietnam.., I maintain that those words were first used simply as a throw-away remark by Del Tufoe while we were chatting informally prior to a Federal War Council meeting he chaired in November 1951... I repeated the phrase during the ensuing meeting".
According to another account: A criticism at the time was that "here is much talk of fighting for "the hearts and minds" of Malayans, but only blind obedience is demanded of them". During the 1960s, the United States engaged in a "Hearts and Minds" campaign in Vietnam. The program was inspired by President Lyndon Baines Johnson. He used some version of the phrase "hearts and minds" a total of 28 times. In ten of these instances, Johnson inverted the words and used the phrase "minds and hearts." The first time he used the phrase in his presidency was on 16 January 1964, and the last time was 19 August 1968. In his usage he addressed very different audiences, including heads of state, congressmen, and the American people. Also, Johnson referred to the "hearts and minds" of disparate groups, including the above-mentioned audiences and even humanity as a whole. His use of the phrase is most commonly taken from the speech "Remarks at a Dinner Meeting of the Texas Electric Cooperatives, Inc." on 4 May 1965. On that evening he said, "So we must be ready to fight in Viet-Nam, but the ultimate victory will depend upon the hearts and the minds of the people who actually live out there. By helping to bring them hope and electricity you are also striking a very important blow for the cause of freedom throughout the world." A similar "Hearts and Minds" campaign in Iraq was carried out during the 2003 invasion and occupation of that country. American use of the phrase is most likely based on a quote of John Adams, the American Revolutionary War patriot and second president of the United States, who wrote in a letter dated 13 February 1818: "The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations…. This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution". The phrase, "hearts and minds" is also found in a biblical quotation, in Philippians 4:7, although that passage does not address the "winning" of hearts and minds as a tactic. The phrase "winning hearts and minds" has come to be used, often in a derisory sense, to refer to any endeavor by the United States to influence public opinion in foreign countries.
