Phoenix Program (78 page)
Authors: Douglas Valentine
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 1971 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 17â20 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. 70â72.
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
.Â
J. J. Zasloff, “Origins of the Insurgency in South Vietnam 1954â1960” (Rand Memorandum RM-5163), p. 8.
18
. Noam Chomsky,
Counter-Revolutionary Violence: Bloodbaths in Fact and Propaganda
(A Warner Modular Publication, 1973, USA), p. 57â18.
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. 37â38.
6
. Lansdale, pp. 82â88.
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. 38â39.
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. 239â240.
7
. “Vietnam Policy and Prospects 1970,” p. 245.
8
. “Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders” (94th Congress, 1st Session, Senate Report No. 94â465: Church Select Committee, Senate Select Committee on Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence [U.S. G.P.O., 1975], p. 278.
9
.Â
“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.