Phoenix and the Birds of Prey: The CIA's Secret Campaign to Destroy the Viet CongFor more than thirty years the mere mention of the Phoenix Program, the CIA's top-secret effort to destroy the Viet Cong by neutralizing its "civilian" leaders, has conjured up dark images of secret assassinations, kidnappings, and the torture of civilians by the South Vietnamese and their U.S. advisers. This study explodes many of the prevailing myths and perceptions of the program and the myriad efforts that until now have been mistakenly lumped together under the term Phoenix. Drawing on recently declassified documents and interviews with more than one hundred U.S., South Vietnamese, and North Vietnamese sources, Mark Moyar dissects the various attempts to eradicate the Viet Cong infrastructure and analyzes the effectiveness of each. With balance and full documentation, he addresses serious misconceptions about these efforts and provides the most accurate and complete picture available of the allies' decapitation of the Viet Cong shadow government. |
Contents
Before Phoenix | 3 |
The Shadow Government and the Viet Cong | 9 |
The Shadow Government and the People | 18 |
Copyright | |
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action activities addition advisers agencies agents Allied Americans areas armed Army arrested ARVN attack attitudes authority became believed better cadres caused centers chapter civilians claim Collection commanders Communists considerable coordination CORDS Corps district documents early effective effort enemy fact fight gave groups hamlets identified important insurgent intelligence interrogators interview involved killed knew lacked land leaders leadership less lived main force military needed neutralization North Notes offensive officers operations organizations pacification Party performance period person personnel Phoenix Phung Hoang places political popularity population positions prisoners problems province province chiefs PRUS ralliers reasons received relatives reports result served shadow government soldiers sometimes sources South Vietnamese Special Police strength success territorial territorial forces tion told took torture tried troops units usually Viet Cong Vietnam villagers wanted