Category:Phoenix Program

English: The Phoenix Program (Vietnamese: Chiến dịch Phụng Hoàng, a word related to fenghuang, the Chinese phoenix) was one of the CIA's rural security programs in South Vietnam during the 1960s. Its aim was to cleanse the South Vietnam from the existing parallel communist political infrastructure in the countryside and diminish the Viet Cong support base. The program was run by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1967-1971 in coordination with the US Navy Seal teams, the US special operations forces, special forces operatives from the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam (AATTV), and the Republic of Vietnam's (South Vietnam) security apparatus, including Provincial Reconnaissance Units (PRU) also known as Counter-Terror Teams. The CIA funded and administered the Phoenix Program, supplied advisers and interrogators, and processed collected information, all other parties provided operational manpower. As a result, near 80,000 Viet Cong suspected operatives were neutralized through defection, detention, or death.