Parker as program director, and its Executive Officer, Chief of Operations, an analyst, and two secretaries also came from the Station. For the most part, the Stations participation in Phoenix staffing entailed a second hat for an Agency officer already working against the VCI. As Phoenix Chief of Operations, for example, John Hart was assigned to Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) the chief of his Intelligence. Operations Division (lOD), which conducted joint operations with the Police Special Branch. The entire division adopted CORDS cover under the title. While Phoenix has often been called a CIA program, that is not entirely correct. It was under the direction of William Colby, who had been Saigon Deputy CIA Station Chief, and then Station Chief, between 1959 and 1962. He returned to Vietnam in 1968, as deputy to Robert Komer, the civilian head of the American efforts against the Communists, called CORDS. Shortly after arriving, Colby succeeded Komer as head of CORDS, which drew on a wide range of U.S. and South Vietnamese organizations, including the CIA station's Rural Development cadre. There were many allegations of torture among The Phoenix Program. Such tactics included were: rape, gang rape, rape using eels, snakes, or hard objects, and rape followed by murder; electric shock ('the Bell Telephone Hour') rendered by attaching wires to the genitals or other sensitive parts of the body, like the tongue; the 'water treatment'; the 'airplane' in which the prisoner's arms were tied behind the back, and the rope looped over a hook on the ceiling, suspending the prisoner in midair, after which he or she was beaten; beatings with rubber hoses and whips; the use of police dogs to maul prisoners. The Phoenix Program can be called a resounding failure. The South Vietnamese had a resounding lack of interest and investment in this part of the conflict. Many of those people who were captured and put into prison or who were executed were indeed not high ranking communists, but were instead average citizens. Numerous neighbors would turn in individuals who were their personal enemies or people who owed them money. American troops would commonly buy into these stories. Many of the victims of The Phoenix Program were indeed innocent. By 1972, Phoenix operations were responsible for 81,740 Vietcong and 26,369 prisoners 'neutralized'. Military action The U.S. countered Viet Cong tactics through the use of prison camps, assassinations, and psychological