THE PHOENIX PROGRAM

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 conciliatory 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 Surete. 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.

Always inextricably linked, the Phoenix and PRU programs were simultaneously brought under military review in 1969. On October 20, 1969, in a secret memo to Defense Secretary Melvin Laird, Army Secretary Stanley Resor referred to "the social and moral costs and the desirability of a selective attack" and expressed "concern over these programs." [13] Later that day Laird conveyed his concern over "lack of progress in the Phoenix/Phung Hoang Program" to General Earle Weaver, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. [14] One month later Laird, referring to the My Lai massacre and the Green Beret murder case, informed Wheeler of his "growing anxiety over the PRU [sic] program in view of recent events concerning U.S. military conduct in South Vietnam." [15]

In response to Defense Secretary Laird's concerns about the Phoenix program, MACV Commander Abrams assured Washington that "Statistically [sic] the program has made significant progress in recent months." Abrams recounted the "reforms" cited on the preceding pages but then offered a candid and somewhat ominous appraisal, saying, "[I]t is clear to me and to the commanders in the field that the program does not yet have the degree of sophistication and depth necessary to combat the highly developed and long experienced VC infrastructure (VCI) in South Vietnam." Abrams noted that Ambassador Bunker had agreed to talk to President Thieu about Phoenix, "especially with respect to improving GVN local official attitudes." Abrams closed by promising "a separate report ... on the PRU." [16]

At this point the Pentagon had three elements interested in Phoenix: The Joint Chiefs were involved through SACSA, the Defense Department was involved through its office of International Security Assistance (ISA), and MACV was involved through CORDS.

For its part, SACSA was not in any chain of command but served the Joint Chiefs by bringing together representatives from the State Department, CIA, U.S. Information Agency, Agency for International Development, and the Department of Defense. Broad policies came down to SACSA from the White House through the National Security Council, while specific ideas regarding psywar and counterinsurgency came up from MACV or the individual services. SACSA assigned staff members to present recommendations for consideration by the Joint Chiefs. When the chiefs reached a decision on how a policy was to be implemented, the service responsible for implementing that policy was directed to provide manpower, materiel, and money. The Army Intelligence Corps had responsibility over Phoenix.

SACSA itself was divided into three parts: for special operations in South Vietnam; for special operations elsewhere; and for Revolutionary Development programs in Vietnam, including Phoenix. MACV reported data on Phoenix to SACSA only when solicited. SACSA's Revolutionary Development component did studies and drafted papers on Phoenix for the Joint Chiefs' signature.

From the inception of Phoenix until January 1969, Major General William DuPuy served as SACSA. A former CIA deputy division chief, DuPuy met regularly with State Department officer Phil Habib and CIA Far East Division chief William Colby to coordinate unconventional warfare policy in South Vietnam. DuPuy was replaced by Major General John Freund, commander of the 199th Infantry Brigade while it supported Cong Tac IV. Freund had little clout with the Joint Chiefs and was fired after six months. Replacing him was the former SOG commander Brigadier General Donald Blackburn, under whose management SACSA had little involvement in Phoenix.

The Defense Department's office of International Security Affairs (ISA) was, by comparison, more deeply involved with setting Phoenix policy. According to its charter, ISA "provides supervision in areas of security assistance, Military Assistance Advisory Groups and Missions, and the negotiating and monitoring of agreements with foreign governments." Insofar as Phoenix was a security assistance program funded by the military through CORDS -- which ISA authorized in May 1967 -- ISA had overall supervision of the program.

Called the Pentagon's State Department by Robert Komer, ISA coordinated State and Defense department policy on Vietnam. ISA representatives sat on the State Department's Ad Hoc Psyops Committee, and ISA representatives, along with CIA officers Jack Horgan and Tom Donohue, sat on the State Department's Vietnamization Task Force, which, through the National Security Council, determined how to turn the war, including Phoenix, over to the Vietnamese.

Within ISA, policy regarding Vietnamization was coordinated by the Vietnam Task Force (VNTF). Created in mid-1969, the VNTF was headed by Major General George Blanchard until October 1970, by Major General Fred Karhohs till May 1972, and by Brigadier General David Ott till the cease-fire. Each VNTF chief in turn reported to ISA chief Warren Nutter's deputy for East Asian and Pacific affairs, Dennis Doolin, and Doolin's assistant, Tom Constant. It was at the VNTF that Phoenix policies were coordinated between Saigon and the concerned parties in Washington.

So it came to pass that in November 1969 the VNTF was saddled with the task of bringing into line with "USAID budgets and the law," as one VNTF coordinator put it, a program that had been conceived by the CIA without any regard for legalities, and to do it without treading on the CIA's ability to conduct covert operations. It was a ticklish job that required squaring the hard reality of political warfare in Vietnam with the fluctuating political situation in Washington. The major effects were to bring the military into an adulterous relationship with the Special Branch and to set the State Department on a collision course with international law.

The Vietnam Task Force's assistant for concepts and strategies became the staff officer responsible for Phoenix. A Marine lieutenant colonel standing over six feet tall and weighing over two hundred pounds, he was a tough Korean War veteran with a resume that included employment with the CIA and the State Department as well as with the military. From 1964 to 1967 he prepared military officers for civil operations service in Vietnam, and from late 1967 to early 1969 he was a member of CORDS, serving as John Vann's deputy for plans and programs in III Corps. Jack, as he has been dubbed, preferred to remain anonymous when we met at his home in 1987.

Jack was at the center of the Phoenix drama as it was acted out in Saigon and Washington, and according to him, the VNTF was "Laird's baby; it was his locus." [17] Jack often briefed the defense secretary and prepared "hundreds" of memos for his signature; he wrote papers for and briefed the ISA director Warren Nutter; he coordinated on a daily basis with members of the National Security Council, the Vietnam Working Group, the Special Studies Group, the Vietnamization Task Group (over which the VNTF "had cognizance"), and Tom Donohue at SAVA. On matters affecting the Joint Chiefs, Jack coordinated with its representative, Colonel Paul Kelly -- later commandant of the Marine Corps. Jack's contact at SACSA was Colonel Ray Singer, and he worked with members of Congress investigating various facets of the Vietnam War. All in all, Jack was the man in the middle. He is an experienced. military theorist, and his recollections and assessment of the Phoenix program are especially incisive and well worth noting.

Jack adhered to Robert Thompson's theory that in order to succeed, a counterinsurgency requires a coordinated military-police-intelligence attack against the insurgent's political leadership. But, Jack contended, although the theory is valid, Thompson's extrapolation from Malaya to Vietnam was doomed to fail, for whereas the ethnic Chinese leading the insurgency in Malaya were visibly different from the Malayan people, those in the VCI were indistinguishable from other Vietnamese and impossible to track by foreigner advisers. What's more, said Jack, "the Brits were shrewd enough to offer large rewards ... to informers. But no Vietnamese was going to turn in Uncle Ho for fifty bucks." [i] Jack cited this misuse of resources as a major flaw in America's counterinsurgency policy in Vietnam. "Komer was trying to solve problems through Aid-in-Kind," he explained. "Komer would evaluate people on how many piasters they gave away. He did what corporate managers do; he set goals ... which were higher than people could achieve. But these were managerial-type solutions, a repeat of World War Two, and this was a political war. And the way to win hearts and minds was through security."

In order to establish security, Jack said, "You don't need to get each individual VCI; you just need to neutralize their organization. For example, the presence of a terrorist unit confers influence, so the idea is to prevent any accommodation. As John Vann explained, it's not enough to agree not to fight. That means you can still sell guns and medicine to enemy, like the Filipino group did in Tay Ninh. That is an active accommodation. The people had to have a dual commitment. They had to reject the VC and support the GVN. Many would support GVN, but not betray VC, and that was the problem."

Even if the Vietnamese had not identified with the VCI, and even if American resources had been properly used, Thompson's three-pronged attack on the VCI was doomed to fail, explained Jack, because the CIA did not report to CORDS on highly sensitive matters, like tracking high-level penetrations. Phoenix could have been effective only if the CIA had brought its CIO, PRU, and Special Branch assets to bear. But when the CIA relinquished control of the program in 1969, it took those assets -- which were the only effective tools against the VCI -- with it. In order to protect its political intelligence operations, the CIA never shared its sources with the military officers or Public Safety advisers assigned to Phoenix -- unless, of course, those people had been suborned. [ii] In this way the CIA kicked out from under Phoenix one of the three legs it stood upon. After June 1969 the agency conducted its own unilateral operations against the VCI, apart from Phoenix, through the PRU in rural areas and through the Special Branch in the cities. MACV and the Office of Public Safety in Saigon complained to their headquarters in Washington, making reform of the Special Branch and the PRU the central Phoenix-related issues, but these were areas over which the Defense and State departments had no influence.

After mid-1969 MACV tried desperately to obtain access to Special Branch intelligence in the DIOCCs. But, as Jack explained, Special Branch worked at the province level and above, primarily in urban areas, and avoided the rural areas where most DIOCCs were located. Nor did the Special Branch desire to share sources with its rival, the MSS, forcing the CIA into greater dependency on the PRU for its rural operations. Having been excluded by the CIA, military advisers to Phoenix relied totally on their ARVN counterparts, with a corresponding emphasis on tactical military rather than political operations.

There were rare instances when a CIA province officer would send the PRU down to a DIOCC to assist the Phoenix adviser. Other times the PRU fed "washed-out" bodies into the PICs. On the other side of the coin, the Special Branch was usually chasing dissidents, not the VCI. A study by Robert Thompson on behalf of the National Security Council revealed the Special Branch to be undertrained, understaffed, suffering from bad morale, and racked by corruption. Jack put it this way: "Whereas the average cop on the street would take fifty piasters as a bribe, when the Special Branch got involved, the price went up." He added, "There was good reason to believe that the VC had penetrated the inner circle of the Special Branch. This is why Colby requested that two FBI agents be sent to Saigon to set up a counterintelligence operation."

Knowing that the PRU and Special Branch were fractured beyond repair but that problems within them would remain hidden under layers of CIA security and that CIA officers would continue to mount their own operations apart from Phoenix, the State and Defense departments were compelled to seek other solutions. The question became whether -- in the absence of intelligence officers -- soldiers or policemen were better suited to mount anti-infrastructure operations.

"What you needed," Jack suggested, "was to be flexible in order to conform to Hamlet Evaluation System ratings; you needed police forces in secure areas, and the military in areas controlled by the enemy. But generally, in guerrilla warfare it's more military than police, and so that's where the emphasis should fall." Nevertheless, Jack explained, this flexible approach, applied to Phoenix after 1969, was slow to develop and basically ineffective. "In the beginning of the Phoenix program," he said, "the Army and Marines had a surplus of armor and artillery officers, who were assigned to the program but had no knowledge of running intelligence operations. We were sending out the third team against the first team. Then, when they began staffing the DIOCCs and PIOCCs with military intelligence officers, it became clear that their training was inadequate for the job. Six weeks is not enough time to train a Special Branch officer.

"So it became clear that what they needed was experienced police officers, and in 1970 the police through USAID began playing a larger role. But there were defects on this side, too. They should have had seasoned civilians coming into AID, but instead they got all the losers in that one. The civilians coming to AID were running away from bad marriages and bad careers. Many were alcoholics; they'd get a Vietnamese girl and enjoy the cheap living. These people had a good war." But they had little success against the infrastructure.

Jack said he believed that military policemen were the answer, and on his advice, on a trial basis, Colonel Albert Escola was appointed the Phoenix region coordinator in IV Corps. Now corporate secretary of Bechtel, Escola had received a degree in police administration from Michigan State in 1957 and was known as a protege of General Abrams's. For "improving procedures against the VCI;" Escola was awarded the Legion of Merit in 1970 and a few years later was promoted to major general -- rewards never bestowed upon Doug Dillard.

In any event, Phoenix as an organization proved far less than the sum of its parts. Moreover, by 1969 concerns about its concept had moved from the boardroom into the courtroom, where Phoenix was coming under attack as an assassination program. Suddenly its problems were legal and moral, not organizational and procedural.

Jack said, "Colby pushed Khiem to get Phoenix legitimized so it would have a constitutional basis in Vietnamese law, similar to the FBI or the CIA. Colby tried to make Phoenix legitimate internal security -- that to be a member of the Communist party is illegal. This is the nail upon which Phoenix is hung: If you're a Communist, you're breaking the law. Then Phoenix goes out and gets these guys."

Of course, Phoenix had been going out and getting those guys for fifteen years by the time 1970 rolled around. The effect of those fifteen years of illicit covert action, on both Vietnamese and Americans, is the next subject.

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Notes:

i. Jack suggested that a point system -- ten points for a COSVN cadre down to one point for a messenger boy -- with a monetary equivalent would have resulted in a truly qualitative attack.

ii. According to Michael McCann, Saigon Public Safety director from July 1969 until April 1972, his biggest Phoenix problem was that the CIA used the Public Safety program as a cover for its case officers, bringing all Public Safety advisers under suspicions. [18] Likewise, said Fred Dick, chief of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs in Vietnam, "Everyone had his rock to hide under, but CIA kept using our rocks, listing its officers as narcotics advisors to the embassy." [19]

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