Phoenix Program

by Douglas Valentine

  How could this happen? “You’re a shadow,” Fulcher explained, his face contorted with anguish. “You’re a bureaucrat. You only think things, so you don’t investigate.”

  After the disappearances, Fulcher complained to a State Department officer. As a result, two things happened. First, in addition to his job as province Phoenix coordinator, Fulcher was made senior adviser in the three districts—Hoi An, Hoi Nan, and Binh Khe—that the NVA had seized. Next, an attempt was made on his life.

  “Jackson was unhappy with the PRU,” Fulcher explained. “He couldn’t pay them anymore, so they moved in with Binh Khe district team. I was scheduled to go up there to pay them [from the Intelligence Contingency Fund], but a West Pointer, Major Pelton, the Phoenix guy from Phu Cat, went instead. And the PRU shot him in the helicopter right after it landed. Pelton was killed, and the Phu Cat district senior adviser, Colonel Rose, was wounded. The incident was blamed on the VC, but Mr. Vinh and I went to the landing zone and found Swedish K rounds (which only the PRU used) in the chopper. First I went to [the PSA], then Millett at Nha Trang, then Healy in Pleiku. But nothing ever happened.”

  In explaining how such tensions might occur, Connie O’Shea (who replaced Lew Millett as II Corps Phoenix coordinator in August 1972) points to the inclusion of key military leaders as well as civilians in the definition of VCI. “Vann put pressure on to get these guys,” O’Shea explained, “but Special Branch would not give their names for security reasons…. And as a result … military advisers started going after the commo-liaison links—those VCI that were more military than political. And when you got very strong personalities like Stan Fulcher in there, that situation became explosive. Stan wanted access, and his solution,” O’Shea said, “was to force it back up to Vann or Healy, who would say, ‘I can’t force them to open up files.’ So it was kept at the local level, where it went back and forth between Stan and Jackson. And I had to go down there and try to mediate between them. But we just had to accept that this was not the period of time to be arguing with the CIA that to run an effective PIOCC, we had to have their dossiers. The time to do that was four years prior. But Stan was insisting … that he was going to get at them. Well, the CIA would give other stuff—Revolutionary Development or Census Grievance—but not Special Branch.”

  When asked why he and Millett could not exert influence, O’Shea replied, “This is why Phoenix was not as effective as it should have been.”

  In March 1972 Ambassador Bunker sent a telegram (040611Z) to the State Department saying, “We question whether the USG should concede failure of an An Tri system to meet test of Article 3.” Because he thought that An Tri probably did violate the Geneva Conventions, Bunker asked that a decision be put off until completion of a study written by CORDS legal adviser Ray Meyers. In the study, entitled “An Tri Observations and Recommendations,” Meyers suggested, among other things, opening An Tri hearings to the public. On April 11, John Tilton advised against doing that, saying it would “result in the compromise of sources…. Under Executive Order 10460,” Tilton wrote, “the American public is not allowed to attend U.S. administrative security proceedings nor are transcripts of the proceedings releasable to the public. It is difficult to justify why a nation which is seriously threatened by internal subversion should institute a procedure that is not even allowed in a nation which has no such threat.”15

  Tilton’s recommendation on this point was accepted.

  Meyers also noted that “the great majority of the Vietnamese people are completely ignorant of the purposes, procedures and results of either Phung Hoang or An Tri.” Tilton retorted that that was “a subjective statement … and could cause a reader with little background … to reach the erroneous conclusion that the programs are pretty much of a failure.” Tilton recommended that “many” be substituted for “great majority.”16 That suggestion, too, was implemented.

  On April 12, the CORDS Public Safety Directorate added its two cents, calling An Tri “a relaxation of the RVN’s right of self-defense and … a gratuity.” The embassy recommended “that detentions based on a charge of belonging to or supporting the VCI [a crime of status] be eliminated on a province by province basis over a period of years to eliminate gradually the whole An Tri structure instead of institutionalizing it by transferring jurisdiction over VCI from the province security committees to the courts.”17 However, Tilton advised against the province-by-province phaseout, and his position, again, was accepted.

  Faced with intractable CIA internal security considerations, the embassy decided to defer reform of An Tri indefinitely. But it did not want to appear to be sanctioning summary executions either, so embassy political officer Steven Winship emphasized that “the mission recognizes this to be a serious problem, particularly when excessive legalism or consideration of public relations are [sic] introduced tempting the police to neutralize by killing instead of arrest and prosecution.”18 It was suggested that the computer system at the National Identity and Records Center “be supported and that some provision be made for the review of cases where VCI suspects were released by the Province Security Committees.” The idea was to set up a central control that would prevent abuses at the local level and would allow the GVN to market preventive detention as a “substitute for killing people.”

  The result was that An Tri was to be reformed into a system not of “sentencing” but of indefinite “detention” with periodic review by the Central Security Committee. It was to apply only to Communists. This system was to be a “temporary” measure, which “offers possibilities for avoiding possible criticism under the terms of the Geneva Convention.” Article 19 of Decree Law 004 of 1966 was amended to “preclude charges that the system violates Article 7 (2) of the RVN Constitution,” and Bunker put the U.S. seal of approval on An Tri.

  While the subject of An Tri was being debated in Saigon, IV Corps Commander Truong in Can Tho authorized, on April 21, 1972, a “special” F6 Phung Hoang campaign designed to neutralize the VCI by moving against suspects with only one adverse report on the record. A response to the Easter offensive, the F6 campaign was started in Chau Doc Province on the initiative of the province chief, who was concerned with reports that NVA units were being guided and assisted by the VCI. More than a thousand VCI suspects were quickly rounded up.

  Flying as it did in the face of An Tri reforms, F6 was the cause of some concern. “Mission is aware of potential pitfalls in special Phung Hoang campaign and possibilities of adverse publicity if campaign used for mass roundups of suspects,” wrote Ambassador Bunker.19

  A hundred twenty-five Phoenix advisers were left in Vietnam in October 1972, when a tentative agreement was reached calling for the formation of a National Council for Reconciliation and Concord composed of representatives from the GVN, NLF, and Third Force neutralists. On October 24, President Thieu presented sixty-nine amendments to the agreement and, stating that the VCI “must be wiped out quickly and mercilessly,” ordered a new wave of arrests. On November 25, 1972, three weeks after Richard Nixon was reelected, Thieu signed Decree Law 020, “Concerning National Security and Public Order.” Issued in secret, 020 modified An Tri to the extent, Ambassador Bunker wrote, “that these powers are no longer limited to wartime and may be applied following a ceasefire and the end of an officially declared state of war. The evident purpose of the law is to provide for an extension of An Tri procedures in preparation for a ceasefire confrontation with the Communists.”20

  Broadening An Tri to include people deemed dangerous to “public order,” Bunker wrote, “means that virtually any person arrested in South Vietnam can now be held on criminal instead of political charges.”

  The “public order” provision was included in Decree Law 020 precisely because the cease-fire agreement prohibited the incarceration of political prisoners. According to Decree Law 020, Communist offenders already in jail under the An Tri Laws would also have their sentences automatically extended. Likewise, Province Security Committees were directed to extend auto
matically the detention of categories A and B VCI until the end of the “present emergency,” which did not end with the cease-fire.

  As a result of Decree Law 020, thousands of Vietnamese remained incarcerated until April 1975. On December 18, 1972, Newsweek estimated that there were forty-five thousand “official” prisoners in Vietnamese prisons and another hundred thousand in detention camps. Amnesty International reported at least two hundred thousand political prisoners, and other observers cited higher estimates. The U.S. Embassy identified on its computer tapes fewer than ten thousand political prisoners and called the criticism unfounded in light of An Tri reforms. In Saigon, three thousand people were arrested in one night. The cost of having an enemy’s name placed on a Phoenix hit list, now easier than ever, thanks to Decree 020, was reduced to six dollars.

  In December 1972 cease-fire talks collapsed, and Nixon bombed Hanoi. Thieu called for a return to the denunciation of Communists campaign of 1956 and ordered his security officers to target neutralists in the National Council of Reconciliation and Concord. With Decree Law 020 safely in place, Prime Minister Khiem canceled the F6 campaign and ordered a return to the three-source rule. “However,” wrote Bunker, “there is some evidence that the National Police do not regard the order as terminating the accelerated Phung Hoang campaign.”21

  By 1973 South Vietnam had come full circle. Only the names had changed. Empowered by secret decrees written by CIA officers, security forces now arrested dissidents for violating the “public order” instead of the “national security.” In March 1972 Prime Minister Khiem determined that “it is important not to get hung up on the term Phung Hoang …. The problem that the Phung Hoang structure was erected to address will still remain … with or without the term.”22 In a report on Phoenix, “Phung Hoang Effectiveness During August and September 1972,” John Tilton crossed out the words “Phung Hoang” and inserted in their place the term “Anti-Terrorist,” explicitly heralding the modern era of low-intensity warfare.

  In Nha Trang in December 1972, Connie O’Shea transferred the records and equipment in the region Phung Hoang office to the Public Safety adviser, “who didn’t want them. Then I turned off the lights,” he said, “locked the door, walked across the street to the CORDS building, and turned in the key.”

  * Phong was killed with five bodyguards and advisers William Bailey and Luther McLendon in a plane that exploded on the ground on December 1, 1972, in Tuy Hoa, the capital of Phu Yen Province.

  † New Times is an English-language version of Nove Vremya, which is published in Moscow and distributed in various countries.

  CHAPTER 29

  Phoenix in Flames

  After the cease-fire agreements were signed in Paris on January 27, 1973, the armed forces and government of South Vietnam were expected to stand on their own. To meet the challenge, General Khiem signed Circular 193, creating political struggle committees in every province, city, district, and village. Political struggle committees were described by Ken Quinn, a State Department officer in Chau Doc Province, in a February 24, 1973, memo, as the “principal vehicle for organizing anti-Communist demonstrations” and for combating “the Communist plot for a General Uprising.” Each struggle committee’s subcommittee for security and intelligence was given jurisdiction over the existing Phung Hoang Committee. But, observed Quinn, “unless more specific instructions are forthcoming, even those village officials who understand why they are part of the committee will not understand what they are supposed to do.”

  To ensure that government officials followed the party line, the GVN through its Quyet Tam campaign put an officer in each village as its special political warfare cadre. A member of Thieu’s Dan Chu party, the cadre put in place agents who organized networks in the hamlets to spy on local GVN officials as well as Communists and dissidents.

  On the American side of the fence, under the terms of the cease-fire agreements, MACV was replaced by a Defense Attache Office (DAO) in the U.S. Embassy. The DAO consisted of some four hundred civilian Defense Department employees, fifty military officers, and twenty-five hundred contract workers. Colonel Doug Dillard, who in 1973 commanded the 500th Military Intelligence Group and managed all U.S. military intelligence activities in Southeast Asia, recalled “The Five Hundredth MIG, under Operation Fast Pass, received primary responsibility for intelligence support to the embassy in Saigon during the remainder of the U.S. presence. The other services bowed out, but the Army, via General Alexander Haig, agreed to provide the people.”1

  According to Dillard, “as part of the in-country structure, there was a province observer in each province as liaison with the MSS and Special Branch, in coordination with Phoenix under the U.S. Embassy. But they didn’t work at province, really. They worked as liaison with the South Vietnamese Army, Navy, Air Force, and General Staff, because U.S. Navy and Air Force intelligence had phased down and only the Five Hundredth provided support after the drawdown.

  “There were several province observers on the Five Hundredth’s payroll,” Dillard continued, “in a civilian capacity.” Many of them had served in Vietnam before, as liaison officers or Phoenix coordinators. But, Dillard added, their function was often so tightly controlled by province State Department representatives, who were “very jealous of their prerogatives … and didn’t want that billet filled …, that they contributed very little and the program never got off the ground.”

  Other province observers were doing more than merely training and reporting on South Vietnamese units. According to PRU adviser Jack Harrell, his counterpart, Tran Ahn Tho, went to work for Province Observer David Orr (formerly the CIA’s paramilitary adviser in Binh Dinh Province) in 1973 as a principal agent organizing stay-behind nets. In “From the Ashes” Jeff Stein writes that “the prime mission of intelligence agencies is to set-up stay behind operations in the event a truce does actually go into effect.”2 Noting that the focus was on political reporting, Stein goes on: “American case officers are meeting frequently with their agents now and developing alternative means of communication so that when the officers are removed to such areas as Bangkok or Phnom Penh or even Tokyo or the United States, they can maintain communication with their agents and direct them toward political personnel, the VCI. So that … the operations would be able to continue indefinitely—whether there was one American in Vietnam or not.”

  As civilians, province observers were often disguised as employees of private companies, like the Computer Science Corporation, on contract to the Pentagon. In a November 1972 article in The New York Times, Fox Butterfield wrote that “as many as 10,000 American civilian advisers and technicians, most of them under DOD [Defense Department] contract, will stay on in Vietnam after the ceasefire.” Among those staying behind through a loophole in Article 5 of the cease-fire agreements were a number of Public Safety advisers from Japan, Israel, Taiwan, and Australia, as well as from America. In fact, the last two Army officers at the Phoenix Directorate—Colonel Richard Carey and Lieutenant Colonel Keith Ogden—completed their tours as Public Safety advisers.

  Other people, like Ed Brady, hired on with the State Department’s Reconstruction and Resettlement Directorate or as part of SAFFO (the special assistant for field operations), which replaced CORDS and was managed by George Jacobson.

  Several hundred CIA officers also remained in Vietnam beyond the ceasefire. Among them was George French, who as the officer in charge of propaganda broadcasts into North Vietnam managed the Con Te Island complex near Hue until 1974. Frank Snepp continued to interrogate prisoners at the National Interrogation Center. Robert Thompson returned as an adviser to the National Police, and Ted Serong returned as an adviser to the Joint General Staff.

  The allied strategy was simple. For the first half of 1973 Henry Kissinger relied on massive B-52 raids into Cambodia as a way of turning Hanoi’s attention away from South Vietnam. But then Congress cut off funds for further bombing, and Kissinger and Thieu again turned to Phoenix and a renewed round of political repression.r />
  On May 15, 1973, State Department officer Frank Wisner sent a memo from Can Tho to Washington, subject “Phoenix Goes Underground.” “After a two month respite, the Phoenix program is quietly coming back to life,” Wisner notes, adding, “Phoenix activities have been generally restrained since the ceasefire, partly because they violate article 10 of the Paris agreement, and partly because the working level forces … lacked the zeal to pursue their risky business” (author’s emphasis).

  “For a time [deleted] tried to continue the program under cover of changing the names of the targets from VCI to ‘disturbers of domestic tranquility,’” Wisner continues. Noting that that pretext had been dropped, he writes: “Saigon had instructed all province Phung Hoang (Phoenix) Committees to double the number of monthly operations against VCI without the fanfare and publicity that it used to receive. The GVN has assigned it high priority.”

  Further bolstering the attack against the VCI and the Third Force was Prime Ministerial Decree 090 of May 12, 1973, which authorized detention for up to two years and enforced residence in their homes, confiscation of their property, and/or banishment from prohibited areas of persons deemed dangerous to National Security or Public Order. Province security committees examined cases, which were reviewed by the Central Security Committee in Saigon. The prime minister issued the final decision.

  On May 19, 1973, Decree 093 modified Decree 090 to the extent that the director of military justice was given a seat on the Central Security Committee, which then included the minister of the interior; prosecutor general of the Saigon Court of Appeals; director general of the National Police; director of military justice; director of political security and his chief of statistics and records; the chief of the Penitentiary Directorate; and their American counterparts.