Phoenix Program

by Douglas Valentine

  Statistical evidence of success so pleased the Washington brain trust that additional computer systems were quickly introduced. In March 1969 the National Police Evaluation System went on-line, recording “police assignment data” for analysis and “counter-measures.” In 1970 Big Mack’s bilingual replacement, the Big Mack Special Collection Program, shifted the burden of reporting and accountability to the RVN Territorial Intelligence System. In January 1970 the VCI Neutralization Information System was inaugurated to record all anti-VCI operations. The National Police Criminal Information System (NPCIS) was implemented in April 1970 to track VCI who were held beyond “statutory limitations.” Designed to “interface” with a Chieu Hoi “tracking system,” which aided province security committees in the “post-apprehension monitoring of released VCI,” NPCIS was also compatible with the VCI Neutralization and Identification Information System, which stored in its classified files “a history of the VCI member from the time of his identification to his neutralization.”30

  Complementing these “tracking systems” was the National ID Registration Program System. Within twenty-four hours of arrest, detainees were booked. A report was then sent to the proper Province Intelligence and Operations Coordination Center, and a fingerprint card sent to the National Identity Records Center in Saigon, where a data sheet was plugged into the computer. In the field, nearly two thousand policemen worked in two shifts, seven days a week, sending twenty thousand documents from the provinces to Saigon every day. By November 1970 more than seven million laminated fingerprint cards had been classified, searched, and placed in the fingerprint bank for instant access.

  Climaxing the computer process in January 1971 was the National Police Infrastructure Analysis Sub-System-II (NPIASS-II), which was used to plan “countermeasures” against the 73,731 confirmed and suspected VCI still “at large” (and called “logical records” in its files). NPIASS-II functioned until March 1973, when, with the assistance of technicians from the Computer Science Corporation, it was transferred to the Vietnamese along with PHMIS and the National Police Identification Follow-up Sub-System (NPIFUSS). Yet another “tracking system,” NPIFUSS “provided a means of determining the action taken on wanted person notices and statistics on the disposition of wanted person cases.” There was even a National Police Directory Table Sub-System on National Police units and correction centers. However, the reliance on computer systems was a poor substitute for a judicial system based on due process. As Public Safety officer L. M. Rosen wrote on November 27, 1970, “The NPCIS will not of itself improve the administration of justice or the processing of detainees.”31 Further reforms remained to be made.

  * See Addendum 1 in Appendix.

  CHAPTER 20

  Reforms

  Caught between its stated goal of building democratic institutions and its operational goal of ensuring internal security, the South Vietnamese government, in order to improve its public image vis-a-vis the Provisional Revolutionary Government, began instituting in 1969 a series of cosmetic “reforms” designed to square its security needs with the civil rights of its citizens. In essence it was an attempt to resolve the problem posed by Nelson Brickham back in 1967, when he asked, “What do you do with identified VCI?”

  The “reform” process got off to a feeble start on March 24, 1969, with Ministry of Interior Circular 757, “Classification and Rehabilitation Guidelines for Proper Processing of VCI.” Signed by Interior Minister Tran Thien Khiem, it was created by William Colby specifically to enable province security committees to ensure faster prosecution and sentencing of VCI suspects. However, as Ralph Johnson notes, “there was a general recognition that the circular was neither understood nor properly applied throughout the country.”1

  Circular 757 reiterated who was a class A, B, or C Communist offender, how long each could be detained, and who decided. It directed the coordination of “All local National Police Services … with the Phung Hoang Committee and the Correction Center involved.” As for the status of VCI held in detention centers, 757 reasoned circularly that “The method of classification and the detention period for these Communist Offenders shall be carried out like that for those who are captured under the Phung Hoang Plan.”2

  In addition, Circular 757 directed the National Police to establish “PsyWar Groups” to “carry out the rehabilitation of offenders.” PsyWar Groups were to teach Communist offenders how to recognize and abide by constitutional government. Circular 757 also ordered GVN’s Directorate of Corrections to form five Mobile Corrections Groups and to include in them “Corrections Cadre qualified in culture and propaganda indoctrination.” Cadres came from the ministries of Information and Chieu Hoi and the CIA-advised Directorate of Political Warfare, which had cognizance over the Military Security Service. One mobile group was assigned to each corps, and the fifth handled Con Son, Chi Hoa, Thu Duc, and Tan Hiep prisons. Mobile Correction Groups supported PsyWar Groups in the “rehabilitation” of Communist offenders and provided cover for CIA “talent scouts” who recruited convicts into the PRU and armed propaganda teams, and as prison informers.

  To oversee psywar and intelligence operations inside correctional facilities, in September 1969 the CIA created the GVN’s Central Security Committee, chaired by General Khiem and including Director of Corrections Colonel Nguyen Psu Sanh (advised by Donald Bordenkircher), the director general of the National Police, and the prison wardens. More important, the Central Security Committee reviewed cases of Communist offenders considered for conditional or early release from the five national correction centers, recommending further detention if the offender was deemed dangerous, as was universally the case. The Vietnamese National Assembly tried unsuccessfully to abolish the Central Security Committee in December 1970.

  Province Security Committees were reorganized to include a province prosecutor as legal adviser, although the deputy chief for security—the CIA asset on the province chief’s staff—secretly managed the affairs of the Committee. Pressure for more meaningful reforms was brought, however, when the lower house of the National Assembly interpellated the ministers of justice, defense, and the interior on June 20, 1969, concerning alleged abuses by officials in the Vinh Binh Province Phoenix program. This action came after a delegation composed of the Interior, RD, and Anticorruption committee chairmen returned from Vinh Binh Province with reports of illegal arrests, torture, corruption, and abuses of authority. The interpellation resulted from a petition signed by eighty-six deputies asking for an explanation of the no longer secret Phoenix program.

  Justice Minister Le Van Thu outlined the stated goals of the program, noting that the Province Security Committees had the power to sentence VCI members for up to two years without accusing or convicting them of any specific crime. His explanation that the practical difficulties of amassing solid evidence made it necessary to arrest everyone suspected of complicity for further interrogation and investigation was not well received. A cross section of legislators bitterly cited examples of abuses in their own provinces.

  Tin Sang publisher and Anticorruption Committee Chairman Ngo Cong Duc charged the Vinh Binh police chief with “knowingly” arresting innocent people for the purpose of extortion. A Buddhist legislator from Thua Thien Province alleged that suspects were often detained for six to eight months (instead of the one-month maximum cited by Justice Minister Thu) before their cases were heard and that suspects were frequently tortured to extract confessions. She said the people “hated” the government for starting the Phoenix program. Other deputies were incensed that American troops forcefully and illegally detained suspects during military operations. Deputy Ho Ngoc Nhuan, a Saigon Catholic, charged that village chiefs were not consulted before VCI suspects were arrested during military operations, contrary to what Thu and Khiem claimed.

  Khiem responded by promising further reforms. He said the Joint General Staff had already moved to prevent further detentions by American forces, with the exception of the VCI caught flagrante delicto. His concili
atory tone assuaged the deputies, and an improved circular was issued.

  As a remedy for what Ralph Johnson calls “various deficiencies” in the judicial system, Colby and Khiem, in August 1969, issued Circular 2212, “Improvements of the Methods of Resolving the Status of Offenders.”3 As a result of Circular 2212, a Political Security Office was formed to provide policy guidance for the three GVN agencies—the Central Phung Hoang Committee, the National Police, and the Directorate of Corrections—that were involved in processing Communist offenders. Plans were made to send more prosecutors to the provinces to assist “in the proper legal handling of such cases” and “to ensure the proper functioning of Province Security Committees.”4 However, in a nation with fewer lawyers than warlords, establishing due process was like tilting at windmills.

  As a way of reducing prison overcrowding and ending the revolving-door syndrome, Circular 2212 provided for the “mandatory” sentencing and transfer of class A and B VCI from the mainland to Con Son Prison. Province Security Committees were given thirty days to open an offender dossier on each VCI detainee, scrutinize the evidence therein, and pass judgment. To speed the process, a short-form offender dossier (on which the detainee signed a confession) highlighted the incriminating evidence which the Security Committee needed for a quick conviction. To reduce backlog, Circular 2212 required security committees to meet at least once a month and to submit transcripts to the Political Security Office for review before passing judgment. Such was the judicial system in South Vietnam.

  In response to the charges leveled by the lower house deputies in June, Annex II of Colby’s 1970 pacification and development plan, “Protection of the People from Terrorism,” called for “notification to village chiefs of planned Phoenix operations in their villages.” However, notifying village chiefs was tantamount to notifying the VCI, and again, the operational goal of security was at odds with the stated goal of notification, which in practice rarely occurred. So a few more Phoenix reforms were crafted, including an improved quota system stipulating that VCI be identified before they were neutralized, rather than “revealed” after being captured or killed. Under this proposal, suspected VCI were to be counted as “captured” only after being convicted and sentenced, rather than upon apprehension.

  The other significant and related “reform” of 1969 was Decree 044, dated March 12, 1969, placing the PRU under the jurisdiction of the director general of the National Police. Canceling out this decree was a long-standing law, never rescinded, that prohibited PRU from serving in the Vietnamese Army or government in any capacity. Operational control in each province remained with the province chief in conjunction with a PRU province commander, and even though, as of September 1969, Americans were prohibited from venturing out on PRU operations, they did (see Frank Thornton in the previous chapter). Americans continued to advise and assist in the planning of operations.

  Prior to June 1968, when President Thieu embraced Phoenix, the PRU operated only at province level under the direction of the CIA. After June 1968 the national PRU commander, Major Nguyen Van Lang occupied himself primarily by selling “PRU-ships” to the highest bidders at the province and region levels.

  The CIA staff officers who managed the PRU program at the national level along with Lang’s brother-in-law Tucker Gougleman were Phil Potter and Rod Landreth. Harvard graduate Phil “Potts” Potter was an old Vietnam hand who in the early 1950’s had been case officer to Emperor Bao Dai and had hired some of the CIA’s first assets in the Sûreté. During the battle for Saigon Potter had served as acting chief of station, as liaison to Ngo Dinh Nhu and Dr. Tran Kim Tuyen, and as control of the station’s ten or twelve intelligence officers running agents in the field. During his stint as acting chief of station, while Saigon was in turmoil and the piaster was nearly worthless, Potter had purchased property—safe houses and such—for the CIA at 10 to 15 percent of its real value. His efforts in this respect laid the groundwork for a generation of spooks to come.

  Potter also served as station chief in Tanzania and Greece and as consul general in Norway and Hong Kong. But his heart was in Vietnam, where he formed close friendships with Ralph Johnson and Tucker Gougleman. During his years in Saigon Potter developed personal and professional relationships with the most influential Vietnamese, including the CIO chief, General Nguyen Khac Binh, and President Thieu. First and foremost, though, Potter was an intelligence officer actively engaged in recruiting and running agents in the field.5

  The other PRU manager, Rodney Landreth, described by a colleague, Harry “Buzz” Johnson, as “the kind of guy you’d like to have as an uncle,” arrived in Saigon in 1967 and served as a deputy to Ted Shackley. Station Chief Shackley, described by Buzz Johnson as “a cold pale fish,”6 relied on likable Rod Landreth to represent him at diplomatic functions and on the interagency committees formed to investigate GVN corruption and drug dealing. While Potter was case officer to CIO Chief Binh, Landreth was case officer to General Dang Van Quang, Thieu’s national security chief. Potter and Gougleman are credited with having organized the Special Branch, while Ralph Johnson and Landreth worked more closely with the CIO. All four were intimately involved in formulating CIA policy regarding Phoenix, the Special Police, and the PRU.

  Opinions vary on the impact Potter, Johnson, Gougleman, and Landreth had on the course of events in South Vietnam. To some people they were the consummate insiders; to others they were tired old men who were totally out of touch with the war in the villages and who, like clones of the colonialists they had displaced, gathered every evening at the Circle Sportif to drink by the pool and bask in the adoration of beautiful Vietnamese women.

  Likewise, the inner circle of Landreth, Johnson, Gougleman, and Potter had little patience with the ambitious technocrats Langley sent out to Saigon to play at being station chief, or with their corrupt GVN lackeys. In private they ridiculed Ted Shackley, calling him Tran Van Shackley for his reliance on Senator Tran Van Don. Tom Polgar, who replaced Shackley in 1972, fared even worse and was described as “rigid” and “a bureaucrat” who “was not well versed in intelligence field work.”7

  For his part, Tom Polgar called Landreth and Potter “fine officers” who were “past their prime.”8 Ed Brady concurred: “These people had their jobs. …But they weren’t trying to achieve anything. They had no objectives.”9

  Brady gave an example of how the Washington bureaucrats shamed “old Vietnam hand” Potter into submission. “Potter lived with a Vietnamese woman whom he wanted to marry,” Brady recalled. “He was near retirement, but the agency, citing operational security, said, ‘No. If you marry her, you’re through. But it’s okay if you live with her.’ It was the height of hypocrisy.”

  Perhaps the “old Vietnam hands” do symbolize the proprietary, but essentially moribund, American policy in Vietnam after 1969; those who had understanding were subordinated to the ideologues and functionaries. Living in splendid sand castles, they alternately cursed and ignored the rising tide of corruption and deception that was engulfing South Vietnam. For example, Landreth’s main job was chairing the interagency committee charged with investigating the black market, an inquiry he deflected away from the CIA. Likewise, the interagency narcotics committee chaired by Landreth focused entirely on the North Vietnamese, studiously avoiding General Dang Van Quang, who Stanley Karnow notes was “accorded the rice and opium franchise in his region” while commander in the Delta. Writes Karnow: “Among those allegedly involved in the trade were Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky and his successor, General Tran Thien Khiem, said to have funneled the proceeds from the business into their political machines.”10

  Although Rod Landreth was the agency’s liaison to General Quang, who on behalf of President Thieu set PRU policy, the day-to-day business of the PRU was handled by CIA officers Ben Mandich and William Buckley, both of whom are deceased, as are Potter, Landreth, Gougleman, and Johnson. Of those who were involved in PRU matters, only Ralph Johnson has left behind statements for the record. “The
impact of the GVN on the PRU was negative,” Johnson writes, because of “the failure of PRU commanders to work closely with the PIOCCs. The PRU commanders, supported by the Province chiefs, excused this failure by citing poor security in the PIOCCs, as a result of which the PRU were failing to report intelligence to the Coordinating Centers.” Furthermore, says Johnson, “when the ARVN and the RF/PF absorbed the tactics of the PRU during 1968-1969, then the PRU probably should have been disbanded and their members integrated into one of the nation-building programs which constituted the major portion of the Pacification Program. Or, the PRU should have been returned to their native villages as part of the Refugee Program, to bolster the People’s Self-Defense Forces.”11

  Veteran CIA paramilitary officer Rudy Enders disagreed when we met and insisted that the PRU operated effectively at least until the cease-fire, when they were put under control of the Special Branch.12 In any case, the March 1969 decree putting the PRU under the National Police facilitated plausible denial. It enabled William Colby to swear on a stack of Bibles that the CIA was not operationally involved. The GVN became accountable as the CIA maneuvered to scapegoat its oblivious client. But the GVN could not afford (even with CIA-sanctioned corruption and drug trafficking) to support the PRU on its own, nor was the CIA willing to abandon the rifle shot approach at the moment it said it had the VCI on the ropes. But resources channeled through the Phoenix program could not compensate for the reduction in CIA support and supervision, so the PRU turned to shakedowns of lucrative targets in the private sector to keep their organization intact. Phoenix and the PRU became captive to criminal enterprises and the subject of increasing controversy.