The CIA’s Counterinsurgency in Vietnam Was Brutal … And Effective

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By Darien Cavanaugh,War Is Boring

As U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War escalated after the passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964, U.S. Army general William Westmoreland knew he would be simultaneously fighting two different types of enemies on the ground — the main battle force of the North Vietnamese Army and the guerilla insurgency of the Viet Cong in South Vietnam.

Westmoreland, who served as commander of Military Assistance Command Vietnam in the early years of the war, considered the North Vietnamese Army the greater threat. However, he could not ignore the Viet Cong, a versatile and resilient fighting force guided by its network of political cadres spread across the villages and towns of South Vietnam.

The Phoenix Program became the primary counterinsurgency operation against the Viet Cong. Although Phoenix was ostensibly under military control, the Central Intelligence Agency often directed operations on the ground. As is often the case with CIA counterinsurgency programs, either by design or circumstance, Phoenix quickly became notorious for allegations of widespread torture, summary executions, and indiscriminate killings.

Westmoreland viewed the North Vietnamese Army as “bully boys with crowbars” and the Viet Cong guerrillas and their political cadres as mere “termites.” The former posed a grave and immediate threat, while the latter was a nuisance that needed to be suppressed until the bigger problem of the NVA could be dealt with.

The Viet Cong relied on the Ho Chi Minh Trail for much of their supplies and logistical support, but it also needed their political cadres and the Viet Cong infrastructure for additional supplies, recruiting and intelligence. In addition to providing support, the cadres also acted, to the extent they were capable, as a Communist shadow government in South Vietnam in order to undermine the authority of Saigon and U.S. influence.