Under the Phoenix Program, assassination and torture were regularly used against Viet Cong fighters and their civilian supporters, in order to gather intelligence and to strategically weaken the VC insurgency. Pictured here is a squad of U.S. soldiers posing with a beheaded Viet Cong operative, circa 1968.

The Phoenix Program (Vietnamese: Chiến dịch Phụng Hoàng, a word related to fenghuang, the Chinese phoenix) was a counterinsurgency program designed, coordinated, and executed by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), United States special operations forces, and the Republic of Vietnam's (South Vietnam) security apparatus during the Vietnam War.

The Program was designed to identify and "neutralize" (via infiltration, capture, terrorism, torture, and assassination) the civilian infrastructure supporting the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (NLF or Viet Cong) insurgency. The major two components of the program were Provincial Reconnaissance Units (PRUs) and regional interrogation centers. PRUs would kill suspected VC, and terrorize and capture civilians who were thought to have information on VC activities. These civilians were then taken to the interrogation centers where they were tortured in an attempt to gain intelligence on VC activities in the area.^[1] Few of the prisoners survived -- most of them were tortured to death, and those that survived the torture sessions were generally killed afterwards.^[2] The information extracted at the centers was then given to military commanders, who would use it to task the PRU with further capture and assassination missions.^[1]

The program was in operation between 1965 and 1972, and similar efforts existed both before and after that period. By 1972, Phoenix operatives had "neutralized" 81,740 suspected NLF supporters, of whom 26,369 were killed.^[3]

History[link]

The interrogation centers and PRUs were developed by the CIA's Saigon station chief Peer DeSilva. DeSilva was a proponent of a military strategy known as "counter terror" which held that terrorism was a legitimate tool to use in unconventional warfare, and that it should be applied strategically to "enemy civilians" in order to reduce civilian support for the Viet Cong. The PRUs were designed with this in mind, and began terrorizing suspected civilian sympathizers in 1964.^[1] Originally, the PRUs were known as "Counter Terror" teams, but they were renamed to "Provincial Reconnaissance Units" after CIA officials "became wary of the adverse publicity surrounding the use of the word 'terror'".^[4]

In 1967 all "pacification" efforts by the United States had come under the authority of the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support, or CORDS. CORDS had many different programs within it, including the creation of a peasant militia which by 1971 had a strength of about 500,000.^[5]

In 1967, as part of CORDS, the Intelligence Coordination and Exploitation Program (ICEX) was created. The purpose of the organization centered on gathering information on the NLF. It was renamed Phoenix later in the same year. The South Vietnamese program was called Phụng Hoàng, after a mythical bird that appeared as a sign of prosperity and luck. The 1968 Tet offensive showed the importance of the NLF infrastructure, and the military setback for the US made it politically more palatable for the new program to be implemented. By 1970 there were 704 U.S. Phoenix advisers throughout South Vietnam.^[5]

Officially, Phoenix operations continued until December 1972, although certain aspects continued until the fall of Saigon in 1975.^[6]

Operations[link]

The chief aspect of the Phoenix Program was the collection of intelligence information.^{[citation needed]} NLF members would then be neutralized (captured, converted, or killed). Emphasis for the enforcement of the operation was placed on local government militia and police forces, rather than the military, as the main operational arm of the program.^[5]

Neutralization was not arbitrary but took place under special laws that allowed the arrest and prosecution of suspected communists, but only within the legal system. To avoid abuses such as phony accusations for personal reasons, or to rein in overzealous officials who might not be diligent enough in pursuing evidence before making arrests, the laws required three separate sources of evidence to convict any individual targeted for neutralization. If a suspected NLF member was found guilty, he or she could be held in prison for two years, with renewable two-year sentences totaling up to six years.^[5]

According to MACV Directive 381-41, the intent of Phoenix was to attack the NLF with a "rifle shot rather than a shotgun approach to target key political leaders, command/control elements and activists in the VCI."

Heavy-handed operations—such as random cordons and searches, large-scale and lengthy detentions of innocent civilians, and excessive use of firepower—had a negative effect on the civilian population. It was also acknowledged that capturing NLF members was more important than killing them.^[6][7][8]

Torture[link]

A Viet Cong prisoner awaiting interrogation by U.S. troops, following the Tet Offensive of 1968

Common methods of torture used at the interrogation centers included:

"Rape, gang rape, rape using eels, snakes, or hard objects, and rape followed by murder; electric shock ('the Bell Telephone Hour') rendered by attaching wires to the genitals or other sensitive parts of the body, like the tongue; the 'water treatment'; the 'airplane' in which the prisoner's arms were tied behind the back, and the rope looped over a hook on the ceiling, suspending the prisoner in midair, after which he or she was beaten; beatings with rubber hoses and whips; the use of police dogs to maul prisoners."^[9]

Military intelligence officer K. Milton Osborne witnessed the following use of torture:

"The use of the insertion of the 6-inch dowel into the canal of one of my detainee's ears, and the tapping through the brain until dead. The starvation to death (in a cage), of a Vietnamese woman who was suspected of being part of the local political education cadre in one of the local villages ... The use of electronic gear such as sealed telephones attached to ... both both the women's vaginas and men's testicles [to] shock them into submission."^[10]

Targeted killings[link]

Lieutenant Vincent Okamoto, an intelligence-liaison officer for the Phoenix Program for two months in 1968 and a recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross said the following:^[11][12]

Strategic effect[link]

Between 1968 and 1972, Phoenix "neutralized" 81,740 people suspected of NLF membership, of whom 26,369 were killed. Although many of these were innocent civilians, a significant number of NLF were killed, and between 1969 and 1971 the program was quite successful in destroying NLF infrastructure in many important areas. By 1970, communist plans repeatedly emphasized attacking the government’s pacification program and specifically targeted Phoenix officials. The NLF also imposed quotas. In 1970, for example, communist officials near Da Nang in northern South Vietnam instructed their assassins to “kill 400 persons” deemed to be government “tyrant[s]” and to “annihilate” anyone involved with the pacification program. Several North Vietnamese officials have made statements about the effectiveness of Phoenix.^[5] According to William Colby, "in the years since the 1975, I have heard several references to North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese communists who account, who state that in their mind the most, the toughest period that they faced in the whole period of the war from 1960 to 1975 was the period from 1968 to '72 when the Phoenix Program was at work."^[13]

Public response and legal proceedings[link]

"One of the first people to criticize Phoenix publicly was Ed Murphy, a native of Staten Island, New York" in 1970.^{[citation needed]}

There was eventually a series of U.S. Congressional hearings. In 1971, in the final day of hearing on "U.S. Assistance Programs in Vietnam", a former serviceman named K. Barton Osborn, described the Phoenix Program as a "sterile depersonalized murder program." Consequently, the military command in Vietnam issued a directive that reiterated that it had based the anti-VCI campaign on South Vietnamese law, that the program was in compliance with the laws of land warfare, and that U.S. personnel had the responsibility to report breaches of the law.^{[citation needed]}

Abuses were common.^[6][14][15] In many instances, rival Vietnamese would report their enemies as "VC" in order to get U.S. troops to kill them.^[16] In many cases, Phung Hoang chiefs were incompetent bureaucrats who used their positions to enrich themselves. Phoenix tried to address this problem by establishing monthly neutralization quotas, but these often led to fabrications or, worse, false arrests. In some cases, district officials accepted bribes from the NLF to release certain suspects.^[5]

After Phoenix Program abuses began receiving negative publicity, the program was officially shut down. However, another program of a similar nature, code-named "F-6", was initiated as Phoenix was phased out.^[17]

See also[link]

• Operation Condor
• United States war crimes
• My Lai Massacre
• Vietnam War Crimes Working Group Files
• Tiger Force
• Operation Speedy Express
• Pentagon Papers
• Russell Tribunal
• Winter Soldier Investigation
• Nguyen Hop Doan
• Sidney Gottlieb
• Special Activities Division

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Andrade, Dale, Ashes to Ashes.
• Cook, John L. The Advisor.
• Herrington, Stuart, Stalking the Viet Cong.
• Moyar, Mark, Phoenix and the Birds of Prey.
• Douglas Valentine, The Phoenix Program, 1990. [2]. Chapter 24 "Transgressions" online: [3]. Author permission further explained: [4]
• Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism., Newsweek, 19 June 1972. [5]
• Don Luce, Hostages of War (Indochina Resource Center, 1973). [6]
• Seymour Hersh, Cover-Up, Random House, 1972. [7]
• Long Time Passing, by Myra MacPherson, Signet, 1984. [8]
• Then the Americans Came, by Martha Hess, Four Walls Eight Windows Press, 1996. [9]
• Deadly Deceits: My 25 years in the CIA, by Ralph McGehee, 1999. [10]
• Patriots: the Vietnam War remembered from all sides, by Christian G. Appy, Penguin, 2003. [11]

External links[link]

• Documents from the Phoenix Program^{[dead link]}
• Senate Review of Phoenix Program
• Counter-Revolutionary Violence - Bloodbaths in Fact and Propaganda, by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman
• Phoenix Program Bibliography
• Douglas Valentine articles online about the Phoenix Program
• "Focus on the Extrajudicial Killings in RP: Operation Phoenix's Long Shadow". By Joel Garduce. Bulatlat. Oct. 1-7, 2006. Republic of the Philippines (RP).
• The Information Collective. Summaries (with page numbers) of 1990 Douglas Valentine book, The Phoenix Program.
• "Phoenix And The Anatomy Of Terror". By Douglas Valentine. CounterPunch. November 8, 2001.
• "A Concept for Organization for Attack on VC Infrastructure". By Nelson H. Brickham and John Hansen. May 22, 1967. A founding document for the Phoenix Program, explained by Douglas Valentine.
• "An Open Letter to Maj. Gen. Bruce Lawlor". By Douglas Valentine. CounterPunch. August 25, 2002. Some history of a Phoenix officer.
• John Stockwell on the Phoenix Program Video of CIA Case Officer John Stockwell on the Phoenix Program.
• Interview with Carl F. Bernard, 1981 on the Vietnam War, including the effectiveness of the Phoenix Program. WGBH Open Vault. Served in World War II, Korea, Laos and Vietnam.

Coordinates: 38°57′06″N 77°08′48″W / 38.95167°N 77.14667°W / 38.95167; -77.14667

3-2-1 Contact is an American science educational television show that aired on PBS from 1980 to 1988, and an adjoining children's magazine. The show, a production of the Children's Television Workshop, teaches scientific principles and their applications. Dr. Edward G. Atkins, who was responsible for much of the scientific content of the show, felt that the TV program wouldn't replace a classroom but would open the viewers to ask questions about the scientific purpose of things.^[1]

History[link]

3-2-1 Contact was the brainchild of Samuel Y. Gibbon, Jr., who had been the executive producer of The Electric Company for CTW from 1971 to 1977. (Gibbon actually left CTW before Contact's production began, though he was still credited as "Senior Consultant.")

The first season of 65 programs began airing January 14, 1980 on select PBS member stations; it featured a cast of three college students who discussed science in an on-campus room known as the Workshop. The first season came to an end on April 11, 1980, but funds for more episodes were not sufficient until 1982.

When production resumed for the second season, which premiered on October 17, 1983, the show presented a more realistic appearance, as the new cast convened in a suburban basement (these segments were shot at Reeves Teletape, which also housed Sesame Street at the time). This cast continued until October 18, 1985. Ozzie Alfonso was Contact's new director and Al Hyslop its executive producer.

When the fifth season began on September 22, 1986, a third cast was introduced. However, unlike the previous casts, they did not meet in any specific setting; instead, they appeared in various taped and filmed segments. Episodes continued to be produced through November 1988.

For a time in the mid-1980s, the program was co-produced with the French television network FR3 and featured several new French cast members in addition to the American cast. From 1982 to 1983 the program was aired in Spain with dubbed-over versions of the American original broadcasts, and some local add-ons with four Spanish cast members: Sonia Martínez, Luis Bollain, Fernando Rueda and Marifé Rodríguez.^[2] Another Spanish version of the broadcast was aired from 1990 to 1992.

From September 1, 1991 until May 1, 1992, an edited version of the series titled 3-2-1 Classroom Contact was produced, specifically for in-school viewing.

It was reported in 1984 that 3-2-1 Contact had an audience of over 7 million viewers and was broadcast in 26 countries including West Germany, France, Italy and Spain making their own dubbed-over versions.^[1]

Broadcasters wanted the children to record the episodes without being afraid of infringement of copyright violations.^[1]

Hosts[link]

The Bloodhound Gang[link]

A frequent segment of the show was The Bloodhound Gang, a series about a group of young detectives who used science to solve crimes. Episodes of the series needed to be run in regular sequence for understandable viewing, as many Bloodhound Gang mysteries were cut among two or three Contact episodes.

The magazine[link]

Three months before the show premiered, a print magazine of the same name that also focused on science was released. In 1985, the magazine absorbed some of the content of sibling publication Enter (which went out of print that same year), including reader submissions of computer programs written in the BASIC computer language as well as reviews of popular computer programs. A new feature called "The Slipped Disk Show" appeared in mid-1985, starring a fictional disc jockey who answered computer-related questions submitted by readers.

Beginning in 1987, the magazine also featured content from another CTW production, Square One Television. Such content frequently took the form of a two-page comic strip, often parodying a popular show or movie of the time, with a math-related question at the end.

The Bloodhound Gang mysteries also made the leap to the magazine, but they were subsequently replaced with a series entitled The Time Team in September 1990. These stories found teenage characters Sean Nolan and Jenny Lopez traveling to different time periods in the past and future. Their surroundings and personal encounters were described with great detail, educating readers as to the customs of various cultures throughout history, and – on trips to the future – often pushing present day hot-button issues. For example, a 1993 story saw the duo traveling to what appeared to be a prehistoric forest, but near the end, they found a Brazil flag, a newspaper clipping from 1995, and a bulldozer at work: this was in fact a Brazilian rainforest being levelled.

In 1996, The Time Team was replaced by a comic serial, Cosmic Crew, which focused on the adventures of a group of teenagers and their robot butler in space. Their first story arc (which ran for more than a year) had them trying to figure out a series of riddles relating to places in the solar system in order to claim a treasure (which turned out to be a scholarship fund). Another story arc had a delinquent (who had been a villain in the first arc) join them in order to chase down a gang of other delinquents. Despite being effectively replaced, a few Time Team stories were run whenever there were gaps between installments of Cosmic Crew.

Many of the magazine's cover stories involved current events, such as 1990s oil fires in the Middle East. In addition, the magazine offered a games section in which most of the games were related to the stories in the issue.

In 1996, CTW presumably concluded that faithful readers from the late 1980s and early 1990s had long since moved on, and the magazine began to reprint non-time-sensitive stories from years past. For example, a 1991 article on the geography of the Galápagos Islands – a relatively unchanging subject – could very well re-appear in an identical format a half a decade later.

Under Sesame Workshop the magazine later became Contact Kids, removing the original reference to the television show. Production of the magazine was suspended indefinitely in 2001.

After production[link]

Though the show went off the air in 1988, it appeared in reruns from 1999 to 2003 on the cable television network Noggin, then a joint venture of CTW and Nickelodeon. Occasionally, shows were also rerun on Nickelodeon's Cable in the Classroom time period. For all these Nickelodeon and Noggin airings, the series was rated TV-Y7 (possibly due to the target audience). It also still aired on some PBS stations as reruns from 1989 to 1998 before it was switched to Noggin in 1999. As of 2003, Noggin no longer airs any shows produced by Sesame Workshop. The shows were modified for the shorter running time on these networks to allow for their interstitials.

Sources of funding[link]

Funding for 3-2-1 Contact was provided by the following:^[3]

• National Science Foundation (January 14, 1980–November 18, 1988)
• United States Department of Education (January 14, 1980–November 18, 1988)
• Corporation for Public Broadcasting (January 14, 1980–November 18, 1988)
• Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (January 14, 1980–November 18, 1988)
• IBM Corporation (January 14, 1980–November 18, 1988)
• Carnegie Corporation of New York (October 31, 1983-November 18, 1988)

Five sponsors funded the show for its entire run. They were originally supposed to fund for 20 new episodes until 1989.^[1]

References[link]

External links[link]

• 3-2-1 Contact at the Internet Movie Database
• 3-2-1 Contact at TV.com