# Phoenix Program (1968–1972)

URL: https://allhistories.com/vietnam/timeline/1968-phoenix-program
Location: South Vietnam (nationwide)
Themes: Counterinsurgency, Intelligence

Between 1968 and December 1972 the Phoenix Program, run by American and South Vietnamese agencies, tried to identify and destroy the Viet Cong's civilian political infrastructure through infiltration, capture, interrogation and assassination. Its groundwork was laid in 1967, when pacification efforts moved under CORDS and South Vietnam issued the decree creating Phụng Hoàng. American planners saw the Viet Cong's cadres, rather than its soldiers, as the key to its control of villages. The programme coordinated intelligence from several agencies, including the CIA, and fed it to South Vietnamese provincial units and police. Intelligence centres at province and district level were to compile lists of suspects and pass them to action teams. The program 'neutralised' 81,740 suspected members, meaning imprisoned, persuaded to defect or killed; 26,369 were killed, 87 percent of them in conventional military operations, according to the cited figures. Critics objected to killings of noncombatants, torture and abuse for personal gain. Congressional hearings followed, and a similar South Vietnamese programme, Plan F-6, continued. At this point in the timeline (1968), in the south, the Republic of Vietnam was headed by President Nguyen Van Thieu (14 June 1965 – 21 April 1975), with Prime Minister Tran Van Huong (28 May 1968 – 22 August 1969); Ho Chi Minh (2 September 1945 – 2 September 1969) led the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, with Le Duan as First Secretary of the Workers' Party and Prime Minister Pham Van Dong (20 September 1955 – 2 July 1976). Vietnam had been divided at the 17th parallel by the 1954 Geneva Accords.

## Why it matters
It is among the war's most controversial programmes, remembered both as an effective strike on insurgent networks and as a vehicle for abuse.

Ruler at the Time: [Ho Chi Minh](https://allhistories.com/vietnam/rulers/ho-chi-minh)

## Sources
- [Wikipedia — Phoenix Program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Program)
- [Encyclopaedia Britannica — Vietnam War](https://www.britannica.com/event/Vietnam-War)