Phoenix Program

[1] The program, which lasted from 1968 to 1972, was designed to identify and destroy the Viet Cong (VC) via infiltration, assassination, torture, capture, counter-terrorism, and interrogation."[6] The Phoenix Program was premised on the idea that North Vietnamese infiltration had required local support within noncombat civilian populations, which were referred to as the "VC infrastructure" and "political branch" that had purportedly coordinated the insurgency.[7] Public disclosure of the program led to significant criticism, including hearings by the US Congress, and the CIA was pressured into shutting it down.In June 1967, as part of CORDS, the Intelligence Coordination and Exploitation Program (ICEX) was created, from a plan drafted by Nelson Brickham.[16]: 50 In July 1968 South Vietnamese President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu signed a decree implementing Phụng Hoàng.[17] The program's effectiveness was measured in the number of VC members who were "neutralized",[18] a euphemism[19][20] meaning imprisoned, persuaded to defect, or killed.[17] Originally, the PRUs were known as "Counter Terror" teams, but they were renamed to "Provincial Reconnaissance Units" after CIA officials "became wary of the adverse publicity surrounding the use of the word 'terror'".[27] According to MACV Directive 381-41, the intent of Phoenix was to attack the VC with a "rifle shot rather than a shotgun approach to target key political leaders, command/control elements and activists in the VCI [Viet Cong Infrastructure]."[34]Military intelligence officer K. Barton Osborn reports that he witnessed "the use of the insertion of the 6-inch dowel into the canal of one of my detainee's ears, and the tapping through the brain until dead.[41] Lieutenant Vincent Okamoto, an intelligence-liaison officer for the Phoenix Program for two months in 1968 and a recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross said the following:[42] The problem was, how do you find the people on the blacklist?[27]: 17–21 By 1970, communist plans repeatedly emphasized attacking the government's pacification program and specifically targeted Phoenix officials.In 1970, for example, communist officials near Da Nang in northern South Vietnam instructed their assassins to "kill 1,400 persons" deemed to be government "tyrant[s]" and to "annihilate" anyone involved with the pacification program.They saw it as a significant threat to the viability of the revolution because, to the extent that you could ... carve out the shadow government, their means of control over the civilian population was dealt a death blow.[50] In 1970, author Frances FitzGerald made several arguments to then-U.S. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger against the program, which she alludes to in Fire in the Lake.Phoenix tried to address this problem by establishing monthly neutralization quotas, but these often led to fabrications or, worse, false arrests.