Moyar, Mark. Phoenix and the Birds of Prey: The CIA's Secret Campaign to
Destroy the Viet Cong. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1997. 416 pages.
Phoenix was created by the CIA in 1967 to "neutralize" those insurgent
communist and nationalist civilians who formed South Vietnam's "shadow
government." U.S. Phoenix advisors had monthly "neutralization" quotas
and by 1970 at least 20,000 persons had been killed. Based on the word
of anonymous informers, many more were tortured and falsely imprisoned.
In 1971, three U.S. congressmen concluded that Phoenix was an instrument
of terror, and violated that part of the Geneva Conventions guaranteeing
protection to civilians during time of war. But instead of being abolished,
Phoenix became a "counter-terror" program, and was used as the model for
CIA-sponsored death squads in El Salvador, Guatemala, and elsewhere.
Author Mark Moyar rationalizes the Phoenix holocaust in a book that is
intellectually informed by an Agency riding high from victories in the Cold
War, Latin America, and Iraq. His naive, albeit avant-garde revisionism
casts CIA officers as misunderstood heroes, and blames Phoenix failures on
an insidious anti-war movement that manipulated the press and inhibited the
CIA and its South Vietnamese allies from "neutralizing" as many people as
was needed to win the Vietnam War. If you thought William Calley got a bum
rap, you'll enjoy this book. Otherwise bring along an air-sickness bag.
-- Douglas Valentine
ISBN 1-55750-593-4
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