The Phoenix Program (Vietnamese: Chiến dịch Phụng Hoàng) was a program designed and coordinated by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Vietnam War, involving the American, Australian and South Vietnamese militaries.
The program was designed to identify and destroy the Viet Cong (VC) via infiltration, torture, capture, counter-terrorism, interrogation, and assassination. The CIA described it as “a set of programs that sought to attack and destroy the political infrastructure of the Viet Cong”. The Phoenix Program was premised on the idea that infiltration had required local support from non-combat civilian populations, which were referred to as the “political branch” that had purportedly coordinated the insurgency.
Throughout the program, Phoenix “neutralized” 81,740 people suspected of VC membership, of whom 26,369 were killed and the rest surrendered or were captured. The Phoenix Program was heavily criticized on various grounds, including the number of neutral civilians killed, the nature of the program (which critics have labelled as a “civilian assassination program”,) the use of torture and other coercive methods, and the program being exploited for personal politics. Nevertheless, the program was described as suppressing Viet Cong political and revolutionary activities. Disclosure of the program publicly had led to significant criticism, including US Congressional hearings, and the CIA was pressured to shut down the Phoenix Program. A similar program, Plan F-6, continued under the South Vietnamese government.
“This shocking expose of the CIA operation aimed at destroying the Vietcong infrastructure thoroughly conveys the hideousness of the Vietnam War” (Publishers Weekly).
In the darkest days of the Vietnam War, America’s Central Intelligence Agency secretly initiated a sweeping program of kidnap, torture, and assassination devised to destabilize the infrastructure of the National Liberation Front (NLF) of South Vietnam, commonly known as the “Viet Cong.” The victims of the Phoenix Program were Vietnamese civilians, male and female, suspected of harboring information about the enemy—though many on the blacklist were targeted by corrupt South Vietnamese security personnel looking to extort money or remove a rival. Between 1965 and 1972, more than eighty thousand noncombatants were “neutralized,” as men and women alike were subjected to extended imprisonment without trial, horrific torture, brutal rape, and in many cases execution, all under the watchful eyes of US government agencies.
Based on extensive research and in-depth interviews with former participants and observers, Douglas Valentine’s startling exposé blows the lid off of what was possibly the bloodiest and most inhumane covert operation in the CIA’s history.
The ebook edition includes “The Phoenix Has Landed,” a new introduction that addresses the “Phoenix-style network” that constitutes America’s internal security apparatus today. Residents on American soil are routinely targeted under the guise of protecting us from terrorism—which is why, more than ever, people need to understand what Phoenix is all about.