Project Handclasp
Project Handclasp is a humanitarian program of the United States Navy, started in 1962, that distributes materials and medical help. It serves as a public relations program for U.S. Navy personnel in foreign countries and more broadly as a counterinsurgency organization; all branches of the U.S. military have a "civic action" program for this purpose. History Since 1962, during the Vietnam War, Project Handclasp has been a formal U.S. Navy program that coordinates the transportation and delivery of humanitarian and educational items to foreign countries on a space-available basis. It succeeded an earlier program, called "Operation Handclasp", that in the 1950s had the explicit purpose of waging the Cold War by humanitarian means. Starting in 1963, the program sent medical teams, food, and various other supplies to Vietnam, becoming part of a "politicization of medicine" that by 1966 had become an outright pro-South Vietnam propaganda operation. In collaboration with the Project Handclasp Foundation, Inc., U.S. embassies, American charities, and foreign organizations, the U.S. Navy provides free transportation and storage of donated materials from various American charities to countries that have asked for assistance. U.S. embassies, or U.S. country teams, coordinate with the host country about the relief work and materials