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The Phoenix Program, known as Kế Hoạch Phụng Hoàng (a word related to fenghuang, the Chinese phoenix) in Vietnamese, was a covert intelligence operation undertaken by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in close collaboration with South Vietnamese intelligence during the Vietnam War. The program was designed to identify and neutralize the noncombatant infrastructure of Viet Cong (VCI) cadres who were engaged both in recruiting and training insurgents within South Vietnamese villages, as well as providing support to the North Vietnamese war effort. (Note: the term neutralize was used to denote action that captured, induced to surrender, killed or otherwise disrupted the VCI.) The Phung Hoang operations were officially established by Republic of Vietnam Presidential decree on July 1, 1968, although the program existed unofficially prior to that date. While the Phoenix operations were originated by the CIA, they were eventually turned over to the U.S. Army and Republic of Vietnam military, and later as part of the "Vietnamization" program they were transitioned to a Republic of Vietnam military program with just a handful of U.S. military advisors assisting. President Thieu would later declassify the program, and announce its existence publicly on October 1, 1969, in order to gain wider acceptance and cooperation from South Vietnam citizens. The program was eventually considered by both U.S. and Vietnamese officials to have been a failure. - "I never knew in the course of all those operations any detainee to live through his interrogation. They all died. There was never any reasonable establishment of the fact that any one of those individuals was, in fact, cooperating with the VC, but they all died and the majority were either tortured to death or things like thrown out of helicopters."..."It [Phoenix] became a sterile depersonalized murder program... Equal to Nazi atrocities, the horrors of "Phoenix" must be studied to be believed." -Former "Phoenix" officer Bart Osborne, testifying before Congress in 1971
Background
In South Vietnam during the 1960s and early 70s there was a secret communist network within the society which tried to impose its authority on the people through terrorism and threat. This network, called the Viet Cong infrastructure (VCI), provided the political direction and control of North Vietnam’s war within the villages and hamlets.
It laid down caches of food and equipment for the troops coming from border sanctuaries; it provided guides and intelligence for the North Vietnamese strangers; it conscripted, taxed, and terrorized. Protection against the North Vietnamese forces or even a Vietcong guerrilla group was often compromised because an elected village chief would be assassinated, or a grenade would explode in the market place, or a traitor would shoot the self-defender in the back.
During 1969, for example, over 6,000 people were killed in such terrorist incidents, over 1,200 in selective assassinations, and 15,000 wounded. Among the dead were some 90 village chiefs and officials, 240 hamlet chiefs and officials, 229 refugees, and 4,350 of the general populace.
This communist apparatus had been operating in Vietnam for many years and was well practiced in covert techniques. To fight the war on this level, the South Vietnamese government developed a special program called Phung Hoang or Phoenix. The government eventually publicized the need for this effort to protect the people against terrorism and had called upon all the citizens to assist by providing information.
Since the VCI were a sophisticated and experienced enemy, experts were also needed to combat it. Prior to 1968, the coordinated intelligence effort against them was handled by the Commander, United States Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (COMUSMACV) in a joint civilian/military advisory activity entitled “Intelligence Coordination and Exploitation (ICEX)” with the specific mission of assisting and supporting the GVN in a coordinated attack on the VCI. Initially this program received little official South Vietnamese Government attention and support. The Phoenix program was officially sanctioned in mid-1968 to bring together the police, military, and other government organizations to contribute knowledge and act against this enemy infrastructure. It secured information about the enemy organization, identified the individuals who make it up, and conducted operations against them. As a result of this program, members of this enemy apparatus are captured, turn themselves in as ralliers or are killed in fire fights.
The word Phung Hoang is derived from the Vietnamese word meaning coordination. The title of the program is also believed to have come from the rougher translation of phung hoang, a mythical Vietnamese bird endowed with omnipotent attributes.
Operations The Phoenix Program was an attempt to isolate and target specific individuals within the VCI network using Human Intelligence (HUMINT) sources. One US Army method for targeting this Viet Cong infrastructure was the cordon and search method in which troops surrounded a village suspected of Viet Cong activity, and interrogated and evacuated its population. Some Phoenix operations were also military in nature, such as when ambushing an armed Viet Cong assassination squad at night between villages.
Provincial Interrogation Centers (PIC) were set up in each of the 44 South Vietnam provinces. Most of the counter-infrastructure experts were in the Provincial Reconnaissance Units, called “PRUs.” Along with North Vietnamese defectors and South Vietnamese, they also included Cambodian and Chinese Nung mercenaries. These units of about 118 men each were recruited, trained and paid by the CIA, with the help of Navy SEALS and Green Beret special forces.
Administrators of the program instituted quotas to be met by provincial offices, in an attempt to increase participation and effectiveness of the Phung Hoang program. In late 1969, the quota was 1800 per province.
By January 1970, there were as few as 450 U.S. military advisors assisting the South Vietnamese government with the Phoenix program.
Measures of success and failure It was a program which resulted in both a refugee problem and greater discontent among the population. The Phoenix program was dangerous, for it was being used against political opponents of the regime, whether they were Viet Cong or not. Phoenix also contributed substantially to corruption. Some local officials demanded payoffs with threats of arrests under the Phoenix program, or released genuine Viet Cong for cash. Some military experts surmised that Phoenix was helping the Viet Cong more than hurting it. By throwing people in prison who were often only low-level operatives — sometimes people forced to cooperate with the VCI when they lived in Viet Cong territory — the government was alienating a large slice of the population.
The Phoenix Program has also been branded as an "assassination campaign" and has received much criticism as an example of human rights atrocities committed by the CIA and the organizations it supports. Indeed, faulty intelligence often led to the murder of innocent civilians, in contravention to the Geneva Conventions. American statistics showed 19,534 members of the Viet Cong “neutralized” during 1969 — 6,187 killed, 8,515 captured, and 4,832 defected to the South Vietnamese side. South Vietnamese government figures were much higher. However, fewer than 10% of the casualties attributed to Phoenix operations were actually targeted by program operatives, with most of the remaining casualties being assigned VCI status after they were killed. Efforts by provincial chiefs to meet quotas also led to manipulation of statistics by counting non-VCI arrests, arresting the same person multiple times, and attributing military casualties to the Phoenix program. It was widely recognized that statistical record keeping during the first few years of Phoenix program operations was subject to distortion, embellishment and was very inaccurate.
Due to ineffective intelligence and minimal commitment, the Phoenix Program was ultimately a failure; its lesson is in the difficulties of dealing with an insurgent population during wartime. Despite the controversial nature of the Phoenix operations, certain limited levels of success were achieved. A Vietnamese communist vice-foreign minister, Nguyen Co Thach, remarked after the war that the Phung Huang program had weakened the Viet Cong, helping to assassinate or compromise as much as 95% of the communist cadres in some areas of South Vietnam.
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