VIETNAM

Pacification, Counterinsurgency, & the Phoenix Program

Andrade, Dale. Ashes to Ashes: The Phoenix Program and the Vietnam War. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1990.

According to Surveillant 1.1, Andrade covers both "good and bad aspects of this controversial program."

McGehee, alt.politics.org.cia, says that, "better than any other source," this book traces "the mechanisms of this assassination program and describes specific operations.... The author is a military historian specializing on the Vietnam War and generally views the program as an effective counterinsurgency tool."

Blaufarb, Douglas S. The Counterinsurgency Era: U.S. Doctrine and Performance, 1950 to the Present. New York: Free Press, 1977.

"The crime of Phoenix was not the use of harsh methods to apprehend or destroy the enemies of the GVN. Its crime was ineffectiveness, indiscriminateness, and, in some areas at least, the violation of the local norms to the extent that it appeared to the villagers to be a threat to them in the peaceful performance of their daily business. The Americans involved erred in not appreciating the extent to which the pathology of Vietnamese society would distort an apparently sound concept. The GVN was guilty of both misfeasance and malfeasance in executing the program." (p. 276)

Brown, F.C. "The Phoenix Program." Military Journal 2 (Spring 1979): 19-21, 49. [Petersen]

Cable, Larry E. Conflict of Myths: The Development of American Counterinsurgency Doctrine and the Vietnam War. New York: New York University Press, 1986.

Colby, William E., with Peter Forbath. Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978.

Covers his career from OSS to DCI.

Colby, William E., with James McCarger. Lost Victory: A Firsthand Account of America's Sixteen-Year Involvement in Vietnam. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1989. [pb] 1990.

The title sends a clear message of Colby's theme. The former DCI was convinced that mistakes, both of omission and of commission, made in the White House and by the military cost the United States a victory in Vietnam.

For Valcourt, IJI&C 3.4, Colby's book "should have been the definitive insider's guide to the intelligence side of the Vietnam conflict. Perhaps not so surprisingly he has fallen short." Colby's explanation of how he developed the Phoenix Program "is inadequate because he fails to delve deeply enough into his own frame of mind.... Despite its shortcomings,... [this is] an informative book, giving numerous personal insights of a sad and controversial period in American history."

Wirtz, I&NS 5.3, comments that readers "interested in the conduct of CIA operations ... will be disappointed by the book, which largely provides Colby's interpretations of major developments during the Vietnam war." The author "fails to address adequately the reasons why Americans so badly miscalculated the gravity of the task they faced in Vietnam.... Colby's work does offer important insights into past and present American efforts at counter- insurgency."

Other reviews include: Robert Manning, "We Could Have Won Vietnam," New York Times Book Review, 12 Nov. 1989, pp. 18-19; and Angelo Codevilla, "The Bureaucrat & the War," Commentary 89, no. 1 (Jan. 1990), pp. 60-62.

Finlayson, Andrew R. [COL/USMC (Ret.)] "A Retrospective on Counterinsurgency Operations: The Tay Ninh Provincial Reconnaissance Unit and Its Role in the Phoenix Program, 1969-70." Studies in Intelligence 51, no. 2 (2007): 59-69. [https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol51no2/a-retrospective-on-counterinsurgency-operations.html]

The author offers "a snapshot in time and place," which "represents a picture of the way one important and highly effective aspect of Phoenix worked in the years immediately after the 1968 Tet offensive. It is the story of a single operational unit that was part of the larger, country-wide action element of the Phoenix program -- the Provincial Reconnaissance Units (PRUs)."

Grant, Zalin. Facing the Phoenix: The CIA and the Political Defeat of the United States in Vietnam. New York: Norton, 1991.

Surveillant 1.3 says this book is "based on the central figure of Tran Ngoc Chau ... [whose] plan to defeat communists by community action ... was perverted by CIA."

According to NameBase, "Grant believes that certain players had a good handle on how to neutralize the enemy through local political action and enlightened aid programs. Just as they were making significant progress, however, they were defeated by corruption in Saigon and by big-bang, big-bucks conventional-warfare mongers like William Westmoreland.... This book is valuable because the author's experience in Vietnam (he speaks the language), along with his many contacts and interviews, add to our impression of what was happening in the country."

Wirtz, I&NS 7.2, concludes that "by describing the experiences of many of the officials involved in covert operations during the war, Grant has made a significant contribution to both the history of the conflict and the story of the CIA's role in Saigon."

Hunt, Richard A. Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam's Hearts and Minds. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995.

Cushman, Proceedings, Dec. 1995, says that "Hunt's comprehensive book is the well-written product of a research effort that seems to have scoured virtually everything that has been written and reported on the subject. He tells the whole story about as well as it can be told."

Surveillant 4.3 notes that from the creation of CORDS, "Hunt moves on to a discussion of the Phoenix Program.... Hunt believes that the program hurt both sides ... [and] implies that all pacification programs failed in the end."

Moyar, Mark. Phoenix and the Birds of Prey: The CIA's Secret Campaign to Destroy the Viet Cong. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997.

Peake, History 26.3, calls the book "remarkable," and notes that Moyar's account is both balanced and corrective of the popular view of the Phoenix program, the Viet Cong, and the nature of the Vietnam War. Along the way, the author "displays an uncommon grasp of the problems of agent recruitment and handling peculiar to Vietnam." He also uncovers a number of often-repeated fabrications that continue to mar discussions of Phoenix.

Lauding Moyar's "balance and objectivity," Periscope 22.2 says that Phoenix and the Birds of Prey "is the definitive work on the Phoenix program to date, and will remain so for a long time." Similarly, Jonkers, AIJ 18.1&2, comments that Moyar "does not engage in moralizing, provides a clear-eyed account and thereby contributes to understanding of the facts."

Dunn, Infantry, Jan.-Apr. 1999, refers to the author's thorough research amd balanced perspective, and concludes that "[t]his is a fine, readable, and captivating book that I recommend most highly."

Interestingly, McGehee, from cloaks-and-daggers@maelstrom.stjohns.edu, comes to somewhat the same conclusion as the above reviewers: "The book presents a thorough description of the development of the Phoenix program and its administrative structure.... Mr. Moyar's presentation of this seems generally accurate and is the most detailed available." Regrettably, McGehee cannot resist a parting shot at one of his staple targets, commenting that the author's "reliance on William Colby raises serious questions of objectivity."

Moyar, Mark. "The Phoenix Program and Contemporary Warfare." Joint Forces Quarterly 47 (4th Quarter 2007): 155-159. [http://www.ndu.edu/inss/Press/jfq_pages/i47.htm]

This article "is an abridged chapter" from a new edition of Moyer's Phoenix and the Birds of Prey. The author argues that "indigenous forces are much more effective than foreigners at quelling local subversion.... The great question is whether the local forces can become strong enough to establish and maintain security on their own."

Valentine, Douglas. The Phoenix Program: A Shattering Account of the Most Ambitious and Closely-Guarded Operation of the Vietnam War. New York: Morrow, 1990. [pb] New York: Avon Books, 1992.

Surveillant 1.2 says that "Valentine seeks to 'lay bare the bloody conclusion of this misbegotten program.'"

To Brown, FILS 12.3, The Phoenix Program is a "compendium of disinformation, selective testimony, and outright fabrication in which facts are routinely bent to conform to the author's theories.... [T]he shoddy scholarship, dubious sources, and outright distortions that characterize this book raise serious questions about the author's intent."

NameBase takes another tack, noting that "Valentine spent four years researching this name- intensive book, and managed to interview over 100 Phoenix participants. If post-Vietnam America had ever looked into a mirror, this book might have become a bestseller. Instead it was published just as the Gulf War allowed us to resume business as usual, and went virtually unnoticed."

For Wirtz, I&NS 7.2, the work reflects "the standard critique of American policy towards Southeast Asia offered by 'anti-war' activists." The reviewer finds it "difficult to believe that anyone ... would still cite Moscow's Nove Vremya ... as a credible source regarding the abuses perpetrated by Phoenix."

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