CORDS and the Phoenix Program in Vietnam Term Paper

CORDS and the Phoenix Program in Vietnam - Term Paper Example The term paper "CORDS and the Phoenix Program in Vietnam" talks about the success operations of the CORDS and the Phoenix programs during the Vietnam War. The Phoenix program came into existence in the period between 1967 and 1971, which was part of the CIAs effort to find intelligence access to policy levels of the Vietnam Cong Infrastructure as a way of directing development actions to the rural South Vietnam and taking control of the communist political structure by eliminating high-ranked VC cadre. At this time, phoenix program received assassination allegations. In 1993, there developed alerting evidence of VCI organization emerging after the downfall of the Diem regime. The program was then obliged to join MACV and USOM’s public safety division in advocating for the reorganization of GVN (Government of South Vietnam) intelligence. MACV had to carry out its operations through Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) supported by the CIAs phoenix program. The main purpose at this time was to coordinate efforts of police, local leaders and paramilitary groups to identify and tear down insurgent operations by arresting the local enemy ranking cadre and even using force if needed. The phoenix program was viewed as controversial as it received allegations of assassinations, and it was also imaged as an unlawful program targeting civilians. On the positive side, phoenix program was one of the many programs of the CIA tailored towards pacification and rural security programs run in South Vietnam. with a promise to the c ivilians that the collaboration between the government of the United States and South Vietnam was aimed at shielding them from VCI and they were even trained in self-defense by US Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV). After some time in 1967, the MACV had succeeded in uniting all military and civilian pacification attempts which were known as Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support. From this point, the CIA and MACV were intensively engaged in CORDS which was also run in unison with the Saigon administrative government. CORDS and phoenix programs hence worked as an entity by establishing an extensive network over 100 provincial and district operations committee programs in Southern Vietnam (Andrade?, 27). Basically, these committees were established to implement the CORDS and Phoenix programs. Cords programs were to come up with innovative all encompassing government approach to achieving rural pacification through development activities purposefully organized a nd directed with military operations and aid programs. In general, the program succeeded in incorporating civilian and military efforts under one command structure. The CORDS program