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Phoenix Program

Page 58

by Douglas Valentine


  MACV

  Military Assistance Command, Vietnam: arrived in Saigon in February 1962 as a unified command under the Commander in Chief, Pacific, managing the U.S. military effort in South Vietnam

  MAAG

  Military Assistance and Advisory Group: arrived in South Vietnam in November 1955 to provide support and training to the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces. Its function was absorbed by MACV in 1964.

  MASA

  Military Assistance Security Adviser: U.S. military officer who manages a security assistance program in a foreign country

  MAT

  Mobile advisory team: team of U.S. military personnel assigned to CORDS, charged with training and supporting the Territorial Security Forces of South Vietnam in a province or district

  Mike Forces:

  Mobile strike force commands: corps-level units under the command of the 5th Special Forces

  MOI

  Ministry of the Interior: branch of the GVN with authority over pacification, including Phung Hoang

  MSS

  Military Security Service: counterintelligence branch of the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces

  MSUG

  Michigan State University Group: employees of Michigan State University contracted in 1954 to provide technical assistance to the GVN

  NIC

  National Interrogation Center: CIA facility built in 1964 inside CIO headquarters in the naval shipyard in Saigon

  NLF

  National Liberation Front: formed in 1960 by the various insurgent groups in South Vietnam

  NPC

  National Police Command: organized in June 1971 to incorporate Phung Hoang within the existing National Police structure

  NPCIS

  National Police Criminal Information System: computer system designed to track identified VCI

  NPFF

  National Police Field Force: paramilitary branch of the National Police

  NPIASS

  National Police Infrastructure Analysis Sub-Section: data bank containing biographical information on the VCI, used to plan countermeasures

  NPIC

  National Police Interrogation Center: located at National Police headquarters on Vo Tanh Street in Saigon

  NVA

  North Vietnamese Army

  oco

  Office of Civil Operations: formed in Saigon in November 1966 to manage U.S. pacification programs in South Vietnam

  OSA

  Office of the Special Assistant: code name for the CIA station in Saigon

  PA&E

  Pacific Architects and Engineers: private company that did construction work for the GVN

  PAAS

  Pacification Attitude Analysis System: computer system designed to assess the political effects of CORDS pacification programs

  PAT

  People’s action team: CIA version of the standard Vietcong armed propaganda team

  PCOC

  Phoenix Coordinators Orientation Course: begun November 1968 at Vung Tau’s Seminary Camp to train Phoenix coordinators

  PHMIS

  Phung Hoang Management Information System: computer system containing biographical and organizational data on the VCI, created January 1969

  PHREEX

  Phung Hoang reexamination: study begun in 1971, designed to critique the Phoenix program

  Phung Hoang:

  The mythological Vietnamese bird of conjugal love that appears in times of peace, pictured holding a flute and representing virtue, grace, and harmony. Also the name given to the South Vietnamese version of Phoenix

  PIC

  Province Interrogation Center

  PICC

  Province Intelligence Coordination Committee: established by decree in November 1964 to serve as the senior intelligence agency in each province, but never put into effect

  PIOCC

  Province Intelligence and Operations Coordination Center: headquarters of the Phoenix adviser in each of South Vietnam’s forty-four provinces

  PIRL

  Potential intelligence recruitment lead: VCI removed from the Phoenix blacklist and approached to become an agent of the CIA

  PM

  Paramilitary: branch of the CIA that obtains intelligence through unconventional warfare operations

  POIC

  Province officer in charge: senior CIA officer in a province, supervising both police liaison and paramilitary operations

  PP

  Political and Psychological: branch of the CIA that manages black propaganda and political liaison activities

  PRG

  Provisional Revolutionary Government: formed in June 1969 by the NLF to negotiate the reunification of North and South Vietnam

  PRP

  People’s Revolutionary party: created in January 1962 as the southern branch of the Vietnamese Communist party

  PRU

  Provincial Reconnaissance Units: mercenary forces under the control of the CIA in South Vietnam

  PSA

  Province senior adviser: senior CORDS official in each of South Vietnam’s forty-four provinces

  PSC

  Province Security Committee: nonjudicial body charged with the disposition of captured VCI

  PSD

  Public Safety Division: branch of CORDS responsible for advising the National Police

  PSCD

  Pacification Security Coordination Division: CIA component of CORDS

  PSDF

  People’s self-defense forces: South Vietnamese civilian militia

  psyops

  Psychological operations

  psywar

  Psychological warfare

  PTSD

  Post traumatic stress disorder: stress that continues after the traumatic event that caused it

  RD

  Revolutionary Development: CIA program to build support for the GVN in the provinces of South Vietnam

  RDC

  Revolutionary development cadre: South Vietnamese trained by the CIA at Vung Tau to persuade the citizens of South Vietnam to support the central government

  RDC/O

  Revolutionary Development Cadre, Operations: CIA officer in charge of paramilitary operations in a province

  RDC/P

  Revolutionary Development Cadre, Plans: CIA officer in charge of liaison with the Special Branch in a province

  RF/PF

  Regional Forces and Popular Forces: a National Guard under the control of district and province chiefs

  RMK/BRJ

  Raymond Morrison Knudson, Brown Root Jorgansen: private company that did construction work for the GVN

  ROIC

  Region officer in charge: senior CIA officer in each of the four corps and Saigon

  RVNAF

  Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces

  S2

  Sector intelligence adviser: senior MACV intelligence adviser to the South Vietnamese forces in a province

  SACSA

  Special Assistant (to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) for Counterinsurgency and Special Activities: office within the Joint Chiefs with responsibility for Phoenix policy

  SARC

  Special airmobile resource control: method of interdicting VCI attempting to resupply armed Vietcong guerrillas

  SAVA

  Special Assistant for Vietnamese Affairs: office in the CIA reporting directly to the Director of Central Intelligence on developments in South Vietnam

  SCAG

  Saigon Capital Advisory Group

  SEAL

  Sea-Air-Land: the U.S. Navy’s Special Forces

  SES

  Special Exploitation Service: formed in April 1964 as the JGS counterpart to SOG, renamed Strategic Technical Directorate in September 1987

  SIDE

  Screening, interrogation, and detention of the enemy: ICEX program begun in September 1967 to resolve the problem of separating genuine VCI from innocent civilian detainees

  SIFU

  Special Intelligence Force Units: small units formed in 197
1 to replace PRU, composed of Special Branch and Field Police

  SMIAT

  Special Military Intelligence Advisory Team: formed in 1965 to mount sophisticated operations against the VCI

  SMM

  Saigon Military Mission: CIA office formed in 1954 to help the South Vietnamese conduct psychological warfare against the Vietminh

  Snatch and snuff

  Kidnap and kill

  SOG

  Special Operations Group: joint CIA-military organization formed in 1964 to conduct operations outside South Vietnam in support of MACV, but under the control of SACSA

  SP

  Special Police: term used in reference to the CIA-advised and -funded Special Branch of South Vietnamese National Police

  Trung-doi biet kich Nham dou:

  people’s commando team, formed by Frank Scotton in 1964

  USARV

  United States Army Republic of Vietnam: created July 1965 at Long Binh to control all logistical and administrative units of the U.S. Army in Vietnam

  USIS

  United States Information Service: branch of the U.S. government responsible for conducting psychological operations overseas

  TDY

  Temporary duty

  TRAC

  Target Research and Analysis Section: created in January 1965 to develop targets for Strategic Air Command B-25s in support of MACV

  VBI

  Vietnamese Bureau of Investigation: precursor organization to the Special Branch, also known as the Cong An

  VC

  Vietcong: Vietnamese Communist

  VCI

  Vietcong infrastructue: all Communist party members and NLF officers, plus Vietcong and NVA saboteurs and terrorists

  VCS

  Vietcong suspect: Vietnamese civilian suspected of being VCI

  VIS

  Vietnamese Information Service: branch of the GVN responsible for conducting psychological operations in South Vietnam

  VNQDD

  Vietnam Quoc Dan Dang: Vietnamese branch of the Kuomintang

  VNTF

  Vietnam Task Force: office within ISA responsible for Vietnam

  NOTES

  CHAPTER 1: Infrastructure

  1. “Vietnam Policy and Prospects 1970” (Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, February 17–20 and March 3, 14, 17, 19, 1970), p. 723.

  2. Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (New York: Viking, 1982), p. 60.

  3. Karnow, p. 76.

  4. Karnow, p. 82.

  5. Karnow, p. 87.

  6. David Galula, Counter-Insurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (New York: Praeger, 1964) p. 80

  7. Robert Slater, “The History, Organization and Modus Operandi of the Viet Cong Infrastructure” (Defense Intelligence School, March 1970), p. 3.

  8. Richard Harris Smith, OSS: The Secret History of America’s First Central Intelligence Agency (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), p. 347.

  9. Nguyen Ngoc Huy, Understanding Vietnam (The DPC Information Service, the Netherlands, 1982), p. 85.

  10. Interview with Jack.

  11. Edward Lansdale, In the Midst of Wars (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), pp. 70–72.

  12. Lansdale, p. 72.

  13. Kevin Generous, Vietnam: The Secret War (New York: Bison Books, 1985), p. 94.

  14. Generous, p. 66.

  15. Lansdale, p. 211.

  16. Huy, p. 85.

  17. J. J. Zasloff, “Origins of the Insurgency in South Vietnam 1954–1960” (Rand Memorandum RM-5163), p. 8.

  18. Noam Chomsky, Counter-Revolutionary Violence: Bloodbaths in Fact and Propaganda (A Warner Modular Publication, 1973, USA), p. 57–18.

  19. Huy, p. 85.

  20. Lansdale, p. 340.

  21. Lansdale, p. 343.

  22. Lansdale, p. 344.

  CHAPTER 2: Internal Security

  1. Graham Greene, The Quiet American (New York: Viking, 1956), p. 8.

  2. Jeffrey Race, War Comes to Long An (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), p. 19.

  3. Race, p. 67.

  4. Race, p. 52.

  5. Ralph Johnson, Phoenix/Phung Hoang: A Study of Wartime Intelligence Management (Washington D.C.: American University, 1985), pp. 37–38.

  6. Lansdale, pp. 82–88.

  7. Interview with Clyde Bauer.

  8. Don Schrande, “Father Hoa’s Little War,” The Saturday Evening Post, February 17, 1962, p. 76.

  9. Schrande, p. 76.

  10. Interview with Bernard Yoh.

  11. Slater, pp. 38–39.

  12. Slater, p. 56.

  13. Johnson, A Study, p. 64.

  14. Johnson, A Study, p. 72.

  15. “Vietnam Policy and Prospects 1970,” p. 724.

  16. Karnow, p.. 410.

  17. Race, p. 196.

  18. Interview with William Colby.

  19. Karnow, p. 284.

  CHAPTER 3: Covert Action

  1. Interview with Stu Methven.

  2. Ralph Johnson, Phoenix/Phung Hoang: Planned Assassination or Legitimate Conflict Management? (Washington D.C.: American University, 1982), p. 5.

  3. Methven interview.

  4. Ralph Johnson, Phoenix/Phung Hoang: A Study of Wartime Intelligence Management (Washington D.C.: American University, 1985), p. 441.

  5. Methven interview.

  6. Race, pp. 239–240.

  7. “Vietnam Policy and Prospects 1970,” p. 245.

  8. “Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders” (94th Congress, 1st Session, Senate Report No. 94–465: Church Select Committee, Senate Select Committee on Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence [U.S. G.P.O., 1975], p. 278.

  9. “Alleged Assassination Plots,” p. 139.

  10. “Alleged Assassination Plots,” p. 336.

  11. “Vietnam Policy and Prospects 1970,” p. 722.

  12. Interview with Frank Scotton, July 1986.

  13. Ngo Vinh Long, “The CIA and the Vietnam Debacle” in Uncloaking the CIA, ed. Howard Frazier (New York: The Free Press, 1978), p. 72.

  14. Scotton interview.

  15. Scotton interview.

  16. Karnow, p. 281.

  17. Huy, p. 97.

  18. Huy, p. 101.

  19. Huy, p. 110.

  20. Scotton interview.

  21. Interview with Walter Mackem.

  CHAPTER 4: Revolutionary Development

  1. Scotton interview.

  2. Peer DeSilva, Sub Rosa (New York: New York Times Books, 1978), p. 249.

  3. DeSilva, p. 247.

  4. DeSilva, p. 245.

  5. DeSilva, p. 250.

  6. Lansdale, p. 75.

  7. Seymour Hersh, Cover-Up (New York: Random House, 1972), p. 85.

  8. Interview with Tom Donohue.

  9. Huy, p. 123.

  10. Huy, p. 123.

  11. Scotton interview.

  12. William A. Nighswonger, Rural Pacification in Vietnam (New York: Praeger, 1966), p. 298.

  CHAPTER 5: PICs

  1. Galula, p. 117.

  2. Slater, p. 21.

  3. Galula, p. 124.

  4. Scotton interview.

  5. John Marks, The Search for the Manchurian Candidate (New York: New York Times Books, 1979), p. 178.

  6. Marks, p. 179.

  7. Johnson, A Study, p. 400.

  8. Major General Joseph McChristian, The Role of Military Intelligence 1965–1967 (Washington D.C.: Department of the Army, 1974), p. 14.

  9. McChristian, p. 71.

  10. McChristian, p. 50.

  11. McChristian, p. 26.

  CHAPTER 6: Field Police

  1. Interview with William Grieves.

  2. Letter to the author from Nguyen Van Dai.

  3. Interview with Douglas McCollum.

  CHAPTER 7: Special Branch

  1. Interview with Nelson Henry Brickham.

  2. Interview with Tom Donohue.

  3. Warren Milberg, “The Future Applicability of the Phoenix Program” (Research
Study, Report #1835–74, Air Command and Staff College, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, May 1974), pp. 33–34.

  4. Galula, p. 120.

  5. The Herald Tribune, October 21, 1965.

  6. Anthony Herbert, Soldier (New York: Holt Rinehart & Winston, 1973), pp.

  105–106.

  7. Herbert, p. 106.

  8. Milberg, p. 50.

  9. Milberg, p. 34.

  10. Galula, p. 110.

  11. Interview with James Ward.

  12. Interview with Sam Drakulich.

  CHAPTER 8: Attack on the VCI

  1. The Pentagon Papers (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Defense, 1971), Vol. V, p. 58.

  2. Brickham interview.

  3. The Pentagon Papers, Vol. V, pp. 120–122.

  4. Nelson Brickham, “Attack on the VCI” (Saigon: November 1966), p. 1.

  5. Brickham, “Attack,” p. 1.

  6. Brickham, “Attack,” p. 4.

  7. Brickham, “Attack,” p. 4.

  8. McChristian, p. 72.

  9. MeChristian, p. 72.

  10. McChristian, p. 74.

  11. Interview with Tulius Acampora.

  12. Interview with Dang Van Minh.

  13. Interview with Lawrence Tracy.

  14. McChristian, p. 78.

  15. Interview with Robert Wall.

  CHAPTER 9: ICEX

  1. Brickham interview.

  2. Nelson Brickham, “A Proposal for the Coordination and Management of Intelligence Programs and Attack on the VC Infrastructure and Local Irregular Forces (Saigon: June 1967), p. 1.

 

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