Alan Cheslow

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEicHdQi85s]

The Phoenix Program or Operation Phoenix was a covert intelligence operation and assassination program undertaken by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in close collaboration with South Vietnamese intelligence during the Vietnam War. The program was designed to identify and “neutralize”—capture; induce to surrender; kill; or otherwise disrupt—the noncombatant infrastructure of Viet Cong (VCI) cadres who were engaged both in recruiting and training insurgents within South Vietnamese villages, as well as providing support to the North Vietnamese war effort. The operation was directed by the CIA’s Evan J. Parker, then by Ted Shackley and his deputies, including Thomas Clines, Donald Gregg, and Richard Secord.