Vietnam phoenix operation

Within four years from to , the Phoenix program neutralized 81, suspects, of whom 26, were killed. As a result, the program managed to destroy the VCI in many important areas quite successfully. The major criticism of the program was the use of torture and assassination which were considered undermining the U.

However, William Colby argued that most of those who died were actually killed in combat, not tortured or executed. Moreover, two-thirds of neutralized VC were captured not killed. In fact, imprisonment and defection were the preferred methods of neutralization as that would enable them to get valuable information about the VCI, he claimed.

Colby likewise denied torture was part of the interrogation at Province Interrogation Centers. It is suggested that torture was only used in order to deal with the die hard and stubborn prisoners to get more accurate information from them. The military command in Vietnam issued the directive in suggesting that the campaign against VCI remained within the South Vietnamese law.

The program respected the laws regarding the warfare in the country. S officials were held responsible for reporting the breach of law at any stage. Other criticism of Phoenix was that low- and middle-level VCI members or villagers were usually captured or killed in order to meet neutralization quotas while most senior and high level officials eluded capture.

The Viet Cong usually operated in rural areas where they set up their own propaganda teams to intimidate, proselytize, and encourage the people to adhere to the Communist leadership. These team usually entered a hamlet or village at dusk. They were backed by Viet Cong guerillas who could wage terror campaigns against targeted village chiefs and South Vietnamese officials to convince the villagers that support for revolution was the best course.

With the passage of time, a significant number of people would readily join the Viet Cong, whose members were estimated between 70, to , by In , CIA and U. The primary purpose of this collaboration was to increase intelligence on this rising political threat as well as enhance South Vietnamese influence on the countryside. CIA expanded its advisory and financial support to the program since All those things were of interest to me. So when I look at a subject, I look at it comprehensively from all those different points of view, plus my blue collar, working class perspective.

Literary criticism teaches the power of symbolic transformation, of processing experience into ideas, into meaning. To be a Madison Avenue adman, one must understand how to use symbols and myths to sell commodities. Admen use logos and slogans, and so do political propagandists. The left is as adept at branding as the right.

To be a speech writer or public relations consultant one must, above all, understand the archetypal power of the myth of the hero. That way you can transform Joe the Plumber, or even a mass murdering politician, into a national hero. First, it demonstrated that I understood what it means to be a soldier, which was essential in terms of winning the trust of CIA officers, most of whom think of themselves as soldiers. The CIA is set up like a military organization with a sacred chain of command.

Somebody tells you what to do and you salute and do it. Colby himself had parachuted behind enemy lines in France during World War Two. Some of them even acknowledged that I was attempting to reconcile with them in a way their own sons never had. So I told Colby I wanted to write a book that would de-mystify the Phoenix program, and he was all for that. Colby liked my approach — to look at it from all these different points of view — so he got behind me and introduced me to a lot of senior CIA people.

And that gave me access from the inside. After that it was easy. I have good interview skills. Critics charged tha the one U. Agency which used political assassination as a weapon was the Central Intelligence Agency. Many of its men in Vietnam assassinated civilian Communists in an effort to destroy the Vietcong infrastruclure.

Military Assistance Command in coordination with scveral U. Operation Phoenix is not and was not a program of assasination. It countered the Viet Cong apparatus attempting to overthrow the Goverruneut of Vietnam by targetttng its leaders. Wherever possIble, these were apprehended or invited to defect, but a substantial number were killed in firefights during military operations or resisting capture.

There is a vast difference in kind. In CORDS reported that since the Tet Offensive, Phoenix had removed over 5, VCI from action, and that conventional military actions and desertions--some prompted by Phoenix--accounted for over 20, more. MACV claimed that Phoenix and the US military's response to the Tet Offensive, along with other rural security, and militia programs, had eliminated upwards of 80, VCI through defection, detention, or death.

That figure lies on the high end of estimates, all of which were dependent on statistics of varying reliability. By most accounts, however -- including those of Vietnamese communists -- Phoenix which ended in and other pacification programs drove the VCI so far underground that it was unable to operate effectively.

In the Easter offensive, and again in , there was no sign of the VCI or the Viet Cong military because Phoenix and its allied activities had dealt them a very serious blow. Phoenix was, arguably, one of the most effectiveoperations of the Vietnam War. Interviews conducted with VCI leadership after the war. The former VC minister of justice wrote in his memoirs: "In some locations Phoenix was dangerously effective. In Haug Nghia Province, for example, Tran Do, described Phoenix as "extremely destructive.

Nguyen Co Thach, a senior North Vietnamese diplomat during the war, who later became foreign minister,stated "We had many weaknesses in the South because of Phoenix.