The Phoenix Program (Vietnamese: Chin dch Phng Hong) was designed and initially coordinated by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Vietnam War, involving the American, Australian and South Vietnamese militaries. In 1969, CIA responsibility was phased out and the program was put under the authority of the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS).The program, which lasted from 1967 to 1972, was designed to identify and destroy the Viet Cong (VC) via infiltration, torture, capture, counter-terrorism, interrogation, and assassination. The CIA described it as "a set of programs that sought to attack and destroy the political infrastructure of the Viet Cong". The Phoenix Program was premised on the idea that North Vietnamese infiltration had required local support within non-combat civilian populations, which were referred to as the "VC infrastructure" and "political branch" that had purportedly coordinated the insurgency.Throughout the program, Phoenix "neutralized" 81,740 people suspected of VC membership, of whom 26,369 were killed and the rest surrendered or were captured. 87 percent of those killed were attributed to conventional military operations by South Vietnamese and American forces; the remainder were assassinated.:1721The Phoenix Program was heavily criticized on various grounds, including the number of neutral civilians killed, the nature of the program (which critics have labelled as a "civilian assassination program",) the use of torture and other coercive methods, and the program being exploited for personal politics. Nevertheless, the program was very successful at suppressing Viet Cong political and revolutionary activities. Public disclosure of the program led to significant criticism, including US Congressional hearings, and the CIA was pressured to shut it down. A similar program, Plan F-6, continued under the South Vietnamese government.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, and analyzing national security information from around the world, primarily through the use of human intelligence (HUMINT) and performing covert actions. As a principal member of the United States Intelligence Community (IC), the CIA reports to the Director of National Intelligence and is primarily focused on providing intelligence for the President and Cabinet of the United States. President Harry S. Truman had created the Central Intelligence Group under the direction of a Director of Central Intelligence by presidential directive on January 22, 1946, and this group was transformed into the Central Intelligence Agency by implementation of the National Security Act of 1947.

Unlike the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which is a domestic security service, the CIA has no law enforcement function and is officially mainly focused on overseas intelligence gathering, with only limited domestic intelligence collection. The CIA serves as the national manager for the coordination of HUMINT activities across the U.S. intelligence community. It is the only agency authorized by law to carry out and oversee covert action at the behest of the President. It exerts foreign political influence through its tactical divisions, such as the Special Activities Center. The CIA was also instrumental in establishing intelligence services in several U.S. allied countries, such as Germany's BND. It has also provided support to many foreign political groups and governments, including planning, coordinating, training in torture, and technical support. It was involved in carrying out several regime changes, terrorist attacks, and planned assassinations of foreign leaders.Since 2004 the CIA is organized under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). Despite transferring some of its powers to the DNI, the CIA has grown in size as a response to the September 11 attacks. In 2013, The Washington Post reported that in the fiscal year 2010, the CIA had the largest budget of all IC agencies, exceeding previous estimates.The CIA has increasingly expanded its role, including covert paramilitary operations. One of its largest divisions, the Information Operations Center (IOC), has officially shifted focus from counter-terrorism to offensive cyber-operations.The agency has been the subject of many controversies, including human rights violations, domestic wiretapping and propaganda, and allegations of drug trafficking. It has also appeared in works of fiction, including books, films and video games.