Download the PSYOPS-A psychological operations dataset

Downloads and caches the Psychological Operations (PSYOPS-A) dataset covering district-level surface psychological operations activity from 1970 to 1973. For associated aerial sortie records, see get_sortie.

Usage

get_psyops(cache = TRUE, force = FALSE)

Format

A data frame with 6,957 rows and 45 variables. Key variables include:

district_id: District identifier.
prov_name: Province name.
dist_name: District name.
dist_population: District population.
num_gvn_loyal_population: Population loyal to the Government of Vietnam (GVN).
num_hoi_chanh_ralliers: Number of Hoi Chanh ralliers (Chieu Hoi program).

Source

U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), College Park, MD. Electronic records collected by the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). Source file: Psychological Operations Information System, surface operations (PSYOPS-A). See Smith (2025) and its Online Appendix for full archival accession details.

Arguments

cache: Logical. If TRUE (default), the downloaded file is saved locally and reused on subsequent calls without re-downloading.
force: Logical. If TRUE, re-downloads the file even if a cached copy already exists. Default is FALSE.

Value

A data frame with 6,957 rows and 45 variables.

Details

Each row is a district-period record.

References

Smith, Gregory L. (2025). "Beyond body counts: Vietnam war ground combat data." Conflict Management and Peace Science. doi:10.1177/07388942251391081

Examples

if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{
  psyops <- get_psyops()
  head(psyops)
} # }