Bit on the Phoenix program

lobster mag:https://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/free/lobster80/lob80-view-from-the-bridge.pdf

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“…Colby and Phoenix
I have just started reading Douglas Valentine’s book The CIA as Organised Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World (Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2017). This is a collection of essays written by Valentine and the 31transcript of interviews with him. The first chapter is his account of the writing of his book about the Phoenix Program in Vietnam. How did Valentine do it? He contacted former CIA Director William Colby, the CIA officer most associated with Phoenix. ‘No one had written a book about it, so I wrote Colby a letter and sent him my first book, The Hotel Tacloban. I told him I wanted to write a book that would demystify the Phoenix program, and he was all for that. Colby liked my approach – to look at it from all these different points of view – so he got behind me and started introducing me to a lot of senior CIA people. And that gave me access from the inside. After that it was pretty easy. I have good interview skills. I was able to persuade a lot of these CIA people to talk about Phoenix.’ On the face of it, Colby was simply conned by Valentine. Is this possible? Would a former DCIA not routinely make a phone call or two before talking to a writer, even about events from 20 years before? In which case, would he not have learned something about Valentine’s political orientation? I emailed Valentine about this and he replied:

‘Alas, I don’t know if Colby checked me out initially. He knew I’d written the book about my father, because I gave it to him, and I remember him making a comment that he felt I’d understand what it meant to be a soldier assigned to the Phoenix program. I’m sure the people he referred me to reported back to him, and the reports must have been favorable at first, because he kept vouching for me into 1986. But CIA officers often make snap judgments and I suspect his decision was based on my appearance and presentation and stated objectives. The CIA itself certainly did not want me mucking around. They helped me at first by forwarding letters to ex-officers I was looking for, but then the curtain came down.’ So: for whatever reason, the single greatest exposure of CIA methods and people since Philip Agee in the 1970s was enabled by former DCIA Colby…”