Phoenix Program - Public Response and Legal Proceedings

Public Response and Legal Proceedings

"One of the first people to criticize Phoenix publicly was Ed Murphy, a native of Staten Island, New York" in 1970.

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.

Abuses were common. In many instances, rival Vietnamese would report their enemies as "VC" in order to get U.S. troops to kill them. 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.

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.