Hearts and minds

SIR – Paul Hayward (Sport, June 7) says that “winning hearts and minds” was “a military concept framed to win over people in war zones, often while they were being carpet bombed”.

Notwithstanding the declaration by one US general that, “If you’ve got them by the b---s, their hearts and minds will follow”, the expression and strategy derived from Sir Gerald Templer’s campaign in Malaya in the Sixties, and related to the need to starve insurgents of popular support.

No one should belittle the efforts of British servicemen to prosecute operations effectively, and with the minimum collateral damage.

Colonel Philip Barry (retd)

Lydden, Kent