Phoenix Program

by Douglas Valentine

  And history was rewritten. The IPA was abolished but, like a Phoenix, was reborn in the guise of a new organization called the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration.

  Despite its ability to regenerate and survive, the CIA was taking its lumps in 1974, too. Richard Helms was accused and later convicted on perjury charges after William Colby admitted that the agency had spent eight million dollars to “destabilize” Allende’s regime in Chile. Colby himself was under attack, not only for alleged Phoenix-related war crimes but for having censored John Marks’s book The Cult of Intelligence and for trying to block publication of Philip Agee’s CIA Diary.

  Agee in particular was despised by his CIA colleagues for saying, in an interview with Playboy magazine, that there was “a strong possibility that the CIA station in Chile helped supply the assassination lists.” Agee asserted that the CIA “trains and equips saboteurs and bomb squads” and that the CIA had “assassinated thousands of people …. When the history of the CIA’s support of torturers gets written,” Agee predicted, “it’ll be the all-time horror story.11

  “Thousands of policemen all over the world,” Agee said, “are shadowing people for the CIA without knowing it. They think they’re working for their own police departments when, in fact, their chief may be a CIA agent who’s sending them out on CIA jobs and turning the information over to his CIA control.”

  Some of those people were Special Branch officers in Vietnam. For example, in August 1974, Colonel Ben Hamilton prepared a report titled “Results of Communist Infrastructure Neutralization Efforts Made by Phoenix Committees” for Colonel Doug Dillard at 500th MIG headquarters. The report cited the number of neutralizations from February 15 through May 31, 1974. The source of the information was a “friendly Foreign Intelligence agency,” meaning the National Phoenix Committee under Colonel Nguyen Van Giau, who signed the report and sent it to the Directorate of Political Security. Noting that the figures were probably “inflated,” Hamilton sent the report to the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the acting chief of staff for intelligence at the Pentagon. According to the report, I Corps tallied 39 percent of its yearly quota from February till May. In II Corps Binh Thuan Province racked up 54 percent of its yearly goal, with 39 convictions, 47 killed, and 29 rallied. In III Corps Phuoc Long Province tallied 3 VCI killed and 2 rallied, and in IV Corps, 169 VCI were killed in Chuong Thien Province.

  In September 1974 William Colby was asked by a panel of citizens why Watergate burglar and CIA officer James McCord’s personnel records had been burned by CIA officer Lee Pennington immediately after the break-in and why the CIA had destroyed tapes of Richard Helms instructing Nixon and John Erhlichman how to respond to congressional inquiries. They asked Colby to defend CIA financing of the National Student Association, and he responded by citing Point 5 of the National Security Act, which allows the CIA to perform “functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security as the National Security Council may from time to time direct.”

  Senator James Abourezk asked Colby, “But you do undertake activities overseas that would be crimes in this country?”

  Replied Colby: “Of course. Espionage is a crime in this country.”12

  ABOUREZK: “Other than espionage?”

  COLBY: “Of course.” Added Colby: “I think … the use of an atomic bomb is justified in the interest of national security, and I think going down from there is quite a realm of things you can do in the reasonable defense of the country.”

  Asked John Marks: “But in peacetime?”

  On January 6, 1975, the NVA overran Phuoc Long Province.

  A few days later UPI reporter Robert Kaylor reported that the United States was still involved with “the ill-famed Phoenix program,” that the program had been renamed the “Special Police Investigative Service (SPIS)” and was being conducted by fourteen thousand special troops whose operations are monitored on a part-time basis by CIA operatives in Saigon and in provincial capitals throughout the country. According to Kaylor, “The U.S. also provides data processing facilities for SPIS through a contractor, Computer Science Services Inc.,” which “runs intelligence reports through its machines to classify and collate them and then turns the material over to SPIS.”13

  Writes Kaylor: “According to sources here, about 100 American personnel are now involved in monitoring the program. They said that overall responsibility for watching it rests with a U.S. Air Force officer on detached duty with the American Embassy in Saigon.”

  When Ambassador Martin read Kaylor’s article, he immediately sent a telegram to Washington calling Kaylor’s article “journalistic fiction” and assured the State Department that, as regarded Phoenix, “No element of the U.S. Government is involved in any way with any program in Vietnam of any such description.”14 As for the Special Police, “The U.S. Government has no relationships to this organization whatsoever.” According to Martin, “There is no U.S. Air Force officer on detached duty,” and as for the Computer Science Corporation (CSC), it merely contracted with the National Police “in logistics and personnel.” Said Martin: “At the present time, CSC … is uninvolved in any counter-insurgency or other operational matters.”

  On March 10, 1975, the NVA overran Ban Me Thuot. In desperation, Ted Serong drew up a plan to abandon the Central Highlands and withdraw all ARVN forces to cities along the coast. The South Vietnamese agreed, opening the floodgates to the NVA. Hue fell on March 25. Chu Lai and Quang Ngai City fell on the same day, amid attacks by the South Vietnamese against CIA officers who abandoned their records and agents. Within hours all that remained in I Corps was Da Nang. II Corps was going down just as fast. Kontum and Pleiku had fallen two weeks earlier, and thirteen province capitals were to be gone by April. The Third NVA Division was heading toward Qui Nhon, and a million refugees were fleeing toward Nha Trang.

  In Da Nang the scene was one of fire, murder, looting, and rape. ARVN soldiers had seized the airport control tower, and planes meant to evacuate them were frozen on the ground. CIA helicopters were ferrying Americans out of the city, abandoning their Vietnamese assets. Thousands of panicked people moved to the waterfront, piled onto piers and barges, dived into the water, tried to swim to boats. Hundreds of bodies were later washed up on the shore. The CIA contingent joined the exodus, fleeing their quarters while their Nung guards fired shots at their heels. At Marble Mountain airstrip the consul general was beaten into unconsciousness by ARVN soldiers. By March 29 Da Nang was defenseless and being shelled. By the thirtieth Special Branch and Military Security Service officers were being rounded up and shot by NVA security officers.

  On March 29 PVT found himself stranded in Da Nang, on the verge of a harrowing experience. “The ranger and airborne generals left, saying they had to go to a meeting,” he recalled. “We were told to wait for orders, but they didn’t come. After that there was no coordination.”15 Growing impatient, PVT and eight members of his PRU team made their way with Police Chief Nguyen to police headquarters. But “They were all gone.” Knowing they had been abandoned, PVT and his comrades decided to stick together and fight their way out. Taking charge, PVT led the group to the waterfront, where, by force of arms, they commandeered a boat and set off down the river into the bay. That night they were picked up by a U.S. Navy vessel crowded with refugees. On April 2 the ship disembarked its human cargo at Cam Ranh Bay. PVT and his crew began walking south down Route 1 but were stopped at gunpoint at an ARVN checkpoint; no one was being allowed to leave the city. Luckily, though, PVT was recognized by an ARVN commander, who put them on a truck going to Nha Trang. Several hours later they arrived there only to find that the American Embassy had been abandoned the day before. Nha Trang would be bypassed by the NVA on its way to Cam Ranh.

  With cities in II Corps falling like dominoes, PVT led his group to the home of another friend, Colonel Pham, the Khanh Hoa province chief. After curfew Colonel Pham loaded his own family along with PVT’s PRU team in the back of a truck, drove them to the dock,
and put them on a ship bound for Vung Tau. PVT could think of nothing else but getting to Saigon and arranging safe passage for his family out of Vietnam. Upon arriving off the coast of Vung Tau, however, PVT and his companions were informed that all traffic to Saigon, both by river and by road, had been cut. In Washington the CIA’s Far East Division chief Ted Shackley had ordered the city sealed off from refugees. His heart sinking as fast as Vietnam, PVT sailed off toward Phu Quoc Island.

  Still holding hopes for a negotiated settlement, the war managers met one last time in Saigon to plan the city’s defense. While evacuation plans were drawn up on a contingency basis, the American brain trust drew a Maginot Line extending from Tay Ninh to Phan Rang and told its Vietnamese clients to defend it to the death. Behind the scenes Air Marshal Ky pressed for a coup d’etat, and General Loan—then a special assistant to General Vien—warned station chief Polgar that unless “high-risk” Vietnamese were evacuated as promised, American hostages would be taken. To avert such a catastrophe, an evacuation team under State Department officer Dean Brown was formed in Washington. Among those chosen to select which Vietnamese were to be saved were Lionel Rosenblatt, Frank Wisner, Ev Bumgartner, Craig Johnstone, Ken Quinn, and Frank Scotton. Bill Johnson, the CIA’s Saigon base chief, got the job of setting up CIA stay-behind nets.

  On April 4, 1975, Congress was debating how much money to give Saigon for its defense, while in Saigon, Valium and scotch were selling at a premium in the besieged U.S. Embassy. Metropolitan Police Chief Tran Si Tan slapped a twenty-four-hour curfew on the city. Panic began to spread. The war reached Saigon four days later when a South Vietnamese Air Force pilot dropped three bombs on the Presidential Palace. Inside, Thieu consulted with fortune-tellers. Tran Van Don and General Khiem, who had resigned as prime minister, nominated General Duong Van “Big” Minn as Thieu’s replacement.

  On April 12 Henry Kissinger ordered the evacuation of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. As the American contingent boarded helicopters and flew to safety, Sirak Matak cried that he had been betrayed. Five days later, when Khmer Rouge troops rolled into the city, he was arrested and summarily executed. Meanwhile, six NVA regiments were poised north of Can Tho in the Delta, and numerous others were heading south toward Saigon. Knowing the country was doomed, Tucker Gougleman wrote a letter to a friend on April 13, spelling out his plans to rescue his family. Posted from Bangkok, where he managed Associated Consultants Limited, Gougleman’s letter told how he planned his “extraction from Phu Quoc Island to Trat near Chantaburi on the southernmost part of the Thai east coast.” Gougleman commented on the “totally undependable” ARVN and its “cruel perpetrations on civilian refugees” and noted that “Thieu has killed SVN.” He closed the letter with “C’est la fucking vie.”

  Being stuck on Phu Quoc Island was a frustrating experience for PVT, and as soon as they could, PVT and his PRU comrades boarded a boat heading for Saigon. Immediately four Vietnamese marines armed with M-16’s commandeered the boat and stole everyone’s money and watches. “But they didn’t know we were police or that we were armed,” PVT told me with a glint in his eye. “I told my men to wait till dark. When the marines were eating, I organized an assault. We got control.” A few hours later PVT arrived in Saigon.

  Phan Rang fell on the sixteenth. On Saturday, the nineteenth, the CIA began flying selected Vietnamese out on unauthorized black flights. Ostensibly these were “high-risk” assets from the various security programs who were unable to obtain the necessary exit visas from the Ministry of the Interior. More often they were girl friends of their CIA case officers. On the twentieth the CIA began burning its files. On the twenty-first, Xuan Loc fell, and the evacuation rate was accelerated. Fifteen hundred people were flown out that day.

  Having finally set foot in Saigon, PVT reported to Colonel Hai, who only a few weeks before had taken over command of the PRU and who proposed to PVT that he and his PRU team provide security for the CIA. Having been unable to find a single CIA officer to vouch for him in Saigon, PVT refused. Instead, he began making arrangements to save his family. On the twentieth PVT gathered his wife and children together in a house he owned near Tan Son Nhut airport. He visited his brother at the Cholon branch of the Thanh Thien bank and arranged to have his savings transferred to a branch office in Gia Dinh Province. “Communist political cadre were even then moving everyone out of the city,” he said. Thieu resigned on the twenty-first and turned the government over to Vice President Huong. That day PVT piled his family into a jeep and drove them to Tan Son Nhut airport, where they were given sanctuary by a police colonel—a close friend of Ky’s—whose house was inside the gates.

  Inside Tan Son Nhut, PVT contacted his old friend from Da Nang, Police Captain Nguyen Minh Tan. After the flap over the Da Nang City PRU, PVT had used his influence to get Tan a job in the Saigon Phoenix office. When Colonel Nguyen Van Giau assumed command of Phoenix after the cease-fire, he reassigned Tan to the immigration office inside Tan Son Nhut. On the twenty-first Tan told PVT that it was time to go. PVT handed his sister his life’s savings—five hundred thousand in piasters—and asked her to change it in Cholon. She returned with two hundred American dollars. On the twenty-second Tan brought PVT into the office of the South Vietnamese Air Force captain in charge of flights to Clark Air Force base in the Philippines. For two hundred American dollars the captain put PVT’s name on manifest. At 9:00 P.M. on the twenty-second, while the NVA rolled toward Bien Hoa and Vung Tau, PVT and his family and Nguyen Minh Tan and his family bade adieu to their homeland.

  On the same day PVT left Saigon, Lionel Rosenblatt and Craig Johnstone arrived, set up shop in the Regent Hotel, and arranged safe passage out of Vietnam for a number of their friends. By the time the two left on the twenty-fifth (the same day that Thieu and Khiem fled to Taiwan), they had smuggled out anywhere from three to two hundred high-ranking police and PRU officers.

  On April 25, while U.S. Marines exchanged rifle fire with South Vietnamese paratroopers, President Huong offered to free the two hundred thousand political prisoners the U.S. Embassy claimed had never existed. The Communists laughed in his face. On the twenty-seventh the road between Tay Ninh and Saigon was cut, rockets began falling in Saigon, and Huong turned the government over to Big Minh. That night CIO chief General Binh bade adieu to Vietnam. By the twenty-eighth there was fighting in the streets of Saigon. U.S. helicopter gunships roamed the smoke-filled skies while Saigon base chief Bill Johnson paid a final visit to his colleagues in the Special Branch and CIO. He suggested that they get out of town fast. According to Frank Snepp, four hundred Special Branch and four hundred CIO officers were left behind, along with “files identifying defectors, collaborators, prisoners, anyone who had helped us or seemed likely to.”16 Snepp says the CIA abandoned “countless counter-terrorist agents—perhaps numbering as high as 30,000—specially trained to operate with the Phoenix program.”17

  On William Colby’s orders, U.S. helicopters began flying Americans to ships offshore on the twenty-eighth; the following day the NVA hit Tan Son Nhut. With the army in full retreat and no policemen left to enforce the curfew, rioting and looting broke out in Saigon. Panic spread through the American community while the one man with the most to lose, Tucker Gougleman, decided to go down with the ship. Perhaps he was having a drink on the veranda of the Continental Hotel when Saigon, like the Phoenix in flames, gave up its ghost.

  * Phoenix advisers began participating in drug investigations between August and October 1971. Tom Thayer wrote that “reports from field advisers indicate that the joint US/GVN program to dry up South Vietnam’s drug traffic may have added to Phung Hoang’s chronic problems. Phoenix assets are being used to ferret out drug dealers,” he said, adding, “Their attention has in many provinces been turned partially away from anti-VCI efforts. While both problems are essentially police matters, they apparently cannot be handled concurrently. The number of province advisors who mentioned this in their July reports underscores the lack of depth of the Phung Hoang organizatio
n.”5

  * See Chapter 1: The Can Lao party—the Can Lao Nham Vi—translates as the “Personal Labor party.”

  EPILOGUE

  In the opinion of Stan Fulcher (who in 1972 was the Binh Dinh Province Phoenix coordinator and whose experiences are recounted in Chapter 28), “Phoenix was a creation of the old-boy network, a group of guys at highest level—Colby and that crowd—who thought they were Lawrence of Arabia.”1

  Indeed, the Phoenix program in South Vietnam was set up by Americans on American assumptions, in support of American policies. Unfortunately America’s allies in South Vietnam were people whose prosperity depended on American patronage and who therefore implemented a policy they knew could not be applied to their culture. In the process the definition of the Vietcong infrastructure was misinterpreted to mean any Vietnamese citizen, and Phoenix was broadened from a rifle shot attack against the “organizational hierarchy” into a shotgun method of population control.

  It happened, Fulcher said ruefully, because “any policy can find supporting intelligence,” meaning “the Phoenix Directorate used computers to skew the statistical evaluation of the VCI. Dead Vietnamese became VCI, and they lucked out the other five percent of the time, getting real VCI in ambushes.” As Fulcher explained it, “The Vietnamese lied to us; we lied to the directorate; and the directorate made it into documented fact…. It was a war that became distorted through our ability to create fiction. But really, there were only economic reasons for our supporting the fascists in Vietnam, just like we did in Iran.”

  Professor Huy agrees, asserting that America “betrayed the ideals of freedom and democracy in Vietnam.” Furthermore, writes Huy, “American politicians have not yet changed their policy. What happened later in Iran was a repetition of what happened in South Vietnam. Almost the same people applied the same policy with the same principles and the same spirit. It is amazing that some people are still wondering why the same result occurred.”2