Rufus Colfax Phillips III (born August 10, 1929—died December 29, 2021) was an American writer, businessman, politician, and

Central Intelligence Agency 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, ...

employee.

Life

Phillips was born in

Middletown, Ohio Middletown is a city located in Butler and Warren counties in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Ohio, about 35 miles (47 km) north of Cincinnati. The population as of the 2020 census was 50,987. It is part of the Cincinnati metropo ...

and was raised in rural

Charlotte County, Virginia Charlotte County is a United States county located in the south central part of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Its county seat is the town of Charlotte Court House. As of the 2020 census, the county population was 11,529. Charlotte County is ...

. He attendee

Woodberry Forest School Woodberry Forest School is a private, all-male boarding school located in Woodberry Forest, Madison County, Virginia, in the United States. Woodberry's current enrollment is 405. Students come from 28 U.S. states (plus the District of Columbia ...

and then

Yale College Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...

from 1947 to 1951. He was a Central Intelligence Agency officer in

Saigon , population_density_km2 = 4,292 , population_density_metro_km2 = 697.2 , population_demonym = Saigonese , blank_name = GRP (Nominal) , blank_info = 2019 , blank1_name = – Total , blank1_ ...

in the 1950s. In 1954, Phillips joined the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

and became an officer. He served as a military advisor to the

South Vietnam South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam ( vi, Việt Nam Cộng hòa), was a state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of th ...

government. Phillips was a protégé of General

Edward Lansdale Edward Geary Lansdale (February 6, 1908 – February 23, 1987) was a United States Air Force officer until retiring in 1963 as a major general before continuing his work with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Lansdale was a pioneer in cl ...

and participated in the 1962 RAND Counterinsurgency Symposium alongside other counterinsurgency experts such as

David Galula David Galula (10 January 191911 May 1967) was a French military officer and scholar who was influential in developing the theory and practice of counterinsurgency warfare. Early life Born in Sfax, then part of the French protectorate of Tunisia ...

and

Frank Kitson General Sir Frank Edward Kitson, (born 15 December 1926) is a retired British Army officer and writer on military subjects, notably low intensity operations. He rose to be Commander-in-Chief UK Land Forces from 1982 to 1985 and was Aide-de-C ...

. In Vietnam, Phillips was one af the architects of the

Chieu Hoi The Chiêu Hồi program ( (also spelled "chu hoi" or "chu-hoi" in English) loosely translated as "Open Arms") was an initiative by the U.S - Republic of Vietnam to encourage defection by the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and Viet Cong (VC) and t ...

program to persuade

Vietcong , , war = the Vietnam War , image = FNL Flag.svg , caption = The flag of the Viet Cong, adopted in 1960, is a variation on the flag of North Vietnam. Sometimes the lower stripe was green. , active ...

fighters to defect. Phillips then lived in

Fairfax County, Virginia Fairfax County, officially the County of Fairfax, is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is part of Northern Virginia and borders both the city of Alexandria and Arlington County and forms part of the suburban ring of Washington, D.C. ...

and was president of the Inter-Continental Consultants, Inc. He served on the

Fairfax County Board of Supervisors The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, sometimes abbreviated as FCBOS, is the governing body of Fairfax County; a county of over a million in Northern Virginia. The board has nine districts, and one at-large district which is always occupied by t ...

and was a

Democrat Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to: Politics *A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people. *A member of a Democratic Party: **Democratic Party (United States) (D) **Democratic ...

. He ran for the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the Lower house, lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States Senate, Senate being ...

in 1974, and lost the primary election. Phillips is the author of ''Why Vietnam Matters: An Eyewitness Account of Lessons Not Learned''. He is a regular guest on ''

The John Batchelor Show John Calvin Batchelor (born April 29, 1948) is an American author and host of ''Eye on the World'' on the CBS Audio Network. His flagship station is New York's 710 WOR. The show is a hard-news-analysis radio program on current events, world his ...

'' and discusses topics on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Krulak Mendenhall mission

Works

*''Why Vietnam Matters: An Eyewitness Account of Lessons Not Learned'' Naval Institute Press, 2017. ,

References

External links

Interview with Rufus C. Phillips, III

Meeting Lt. Col. David Galula - April 1962

Why Vietnam Matters

Webcast Interview
at the

Pritzker Military Museum & Library The Pritzker Military Museum & Library (formerly Pritzker Military Library) is a non-profit museum and a research library for the study of military history on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. The institution was founded in 2003, and its spe ...

on November 22, 2008 * {{DEFAULTSORT:Phillips, Rufus 1929 births Living people People from Middletown, Ohio People from Charlotte County, Virginia People from Fairfax County, Virginia Military personnel from Ohio CIA personnel of the Vietnam War Yale College alumni Businesspeople from Virginia United States Army officers People of the Central Intelligence Agency Virginia Democrats Members of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Writers from Ohio Writers from Virginia American male writers