Hoàn had been exiled in Paris during the Diệm era, but remained active, publishing a magazine and keeping up to speed with developments in Vietnam. Hoàn had generated little popular following during his campaign for power in the 1940s and 1950s and was unable to form a government as prime minister when he returned. Hoàn was unpopular with the younger members of the Đại Việt who complained that he was too old and had spent too much time in exile to really understand modern Vietnam. Khánh decided to act as both Prime Minister and Chairman of the reorganised MRC, which he expanded to include 17 generals and 32 further officers, giving a total of 50 members. Khánh made Hoàn the first Deputy Prime Minister in charge of rural pacification. Khánh gave Hoàn five ministries, including the Interior, National Defense and Rural Affairs and two special commissions, which were primarily engaged in consolidating the strategic hamlets of Ngô Đình Nhu into the renamed New Rural Life Hamlets. A second Deputy Prime Ministerial post was given to Harvard University trained banker and economist Nguyễn Xuân Oánh, who was associated with the Đại Việt. Oánh was charged with managing the finance and economy of the country. Mậu was the third deputy, overseeing social and cultural affairs. Khánh selected a cabinet of thirteen ministers and two Secretaries of State at Cabinet level and chose new provincial and district chiefs. He originally tried to include members of a variety of political and religious groups including representatives of the Cao Đài and Hòa Hảo, which still had remnants of their private armies intact after their dismantling by Diệm in 1955. Although Khánh insisted that he had no party affiliation, the orientation of his government was toward the Đại Việt, who held many key posts. This provoked bitterness from other anti-communist nationalists and groups that were banned under the Diệm period and were seeking a greater role in the public life of South Vietnam, as well as from younger citizens who felt that the established nationalist parties were responsible for divisions in the country. In the meantime, the government continued to lose the war against the guerrillas of the National Liberation Front, better known as the Viet Cong, which increased the tempo of their operations in the countryside and began a campaign of assassinations and bombings in Saigon targeting government officials and American advisers.