Editing Phoenix Program (section)

==Background==
{{see also|Viet Cong}}

Shortly after the [[Geneva Conference (1954)|1954 Geneva Conference]] and the adoption of the Geneva Accords, the government of [[North Vietnam]] organized a force of several thousand to mobilize support for the [[communists]] in the upcoming elections.<ref name="Andrade" /> When it became clear that the elections would not take place, these forces became the seeds of what would eventually become the [[Viet Cong]], a North Vietnamese insurgency whose goal was unification of Vietnam under the control of the North.<ref name="Tovo">Lieutenant Colonel Ken Tovo. [http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/army-usawc/ksil241.pdf ''FROM THE ASHES OF THE PHOENIX: LESSONS FOR CONTEMPORARY COUNTERINSURGENCY OPERATIONS''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060824203432/http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/army-usawc/ksil241.pdf |date=2006-08-24 }}. United States Army War College</ref><ref name="Pentagon Papers">{{Cite web |url=http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon/pent14.htm |title=The Pentagon Papers, Volume 1, Chapter 5, Section 3, "Origins of the Insurgency in South Vietnam, 1954-1960" |access-date=18 June 2011 |archive-date=19 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171019184424/http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon/pent14.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>

While [[counterinsurgency]] efforts had been ongoing since the first days of US military involvement in Vietnam, they had been unsuccessful with dealing with either the armed VC or the VC's civilian infrastructure (VCI)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v07/d256 |title = Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume VII, Vietnam, September 1968–January 1969 - Office of the Historian}}</ref> which swelled to between 80,000 and 150,000 members by the mid 1960's.<ref name="Moyar">[[Mark Moyar]]. ''Phoenix and the Birds of Prey : The CIA's Secret Campaign to Destroy the Viet Cong''. United States Naval Institute Press. 2007</ref> The VCI, unlike the armed component of the VC, was tasked with support activities including recruiting, [[political indoctrination]], [[psychological warfare|psychological operations]], intelligence collection, and logistical support.<ref name="Tovo"/><ref name="Committee on Foreign Relations">United States Senate. [http://www.archive.org/details/vietnampolicypro00unit''Vietnam: policy and prospects, 1970: hearings before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate'']. Author: United States. Congress (91st, 2nd session : 1970). Senate</ref> The VCI rapidly set up [[Continuity of government|shadow government]]s in rural South Vietnam by replacing local leadership in small rural hamlets loyal to the Saigon government with communist cadres.<ref name="Moyar"/><ref name="Committee on Foreign Relations"/> The VCI chose small rural villages because they lacked close supervision of the Saigon government or the South Vietnamese Army<ref name="Andrade1">Dale Andrade. ''Ashes to Ashes: The Phoenix Program and the Vietnam War''. Lexington Books. 1990.</ref>

VCI tactics for establishing local communist control began by identifying towns and villages with strategic importance to either the VC or North Vietnamese [[People's Army of Vietnam]] and local populations with communist sympathies with the Hanoi government putting a great deal of emphasis on the activities and success of the VCI.<ref name="Andrade1"/> After a community was identified, the VCI would threaten local leadership with reprisals if they refused to cooperate or kidnap local leaders and send them to [[Re-education camp (Vietnam)|reeducation camps]] in North Vietnam. Local leaders who continued to refuse to cooperate or threatened to contact the Saigon government were murdered along with their families.<ref name="Andrade1"/> After VCI agents took control of an area it would be used to [[Quartering Acts|quarter]] and resupply VC guerrillas, supplying intelligence on US and South Vietnamese military movements, providing taxes to VCI cadres, and conscripting locals into the VC.<ref name="Moyar"/>