MAAG issued its "Geographically Phased National Level Operation Plan for Counterinsurgency" plan which envisioned the pacification of South Vietnam by the end of 1964. The first step proposed in the plan was a sweep by ARVN through the VC dominated "Zone D", a forested area 50 miles (80 km) northeast of Saigon. The South Vietnamese government did not execute the plan, favoring instead an alternative, and much less detailed, plan advanced by British counterinsurgency expert Robert Thompson.[1]: 66–7