Nelson Henry Brickham, Jr. (23 January 1927 – 1 February 2007) was a

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, ...

officer, best known for his role in developing the

Phoenix Program The Phoenix Program ( vi, Chiến dịch Phụng Hoàng) 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 ...

Career

Brickham graduated from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

in 1949, and joined the

the same year. After some years in the Directorate of Intelligence, he transferred to the Operations Division in 1955, serving in the Soviet-Russia Division. In 1960 Brickham was posted to

Teheran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...

, managing intelligence and

counterintelligence Counterintelligence is an activity aimed at protecting an agency's intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering information and conducting activities to prevent espionage, sabotage, assassinations or ...

operations against Soviet targets in Iran.Douglas Valentine (1990)
The Phoenix program
Morrow, p101-102 By 1964 he was working in the Sino-Soviet Relations Branch. In 1965-66 Brickham was the senior CIA officer in charge of Foreign Intelligence Field Operations throughout South Vietnam. In 1966 Saigon station chief John Limond Hart assigned Brickham to

Robert Komer Robert William "Blowtorch Bob" Komer (February 23, 1922 – April 9, 2000) was an American national security adviser known for managing Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support during the Vietnam War. Early life and education Born ...

's staff, where in late 1966 to June 1967 Brickham developed ICEX-SIDE (later renamed the

) as a single organizational structure to coordinate intelligence, military and police activities in Vietnam. The system was modelled on the

Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobi ...

's executive staff structure. It was also inspired in part by David Galula's ''Counterinsurgency Warfare'' (1964), a book based on Galula's experiences in the Algerian War which Brickham was "very taken" with and carried with him around Vietnam.Ann Marlowe (2010),
David Galula: His Life and Intellectual Context
', Strategic Studies Institute, p15

References

External links

Interview recordings
1927 births 2007 deaths Yale University alumni American spies People of the Central Intelligence Agency American expatriates in Vietnam {{US-gov-bio-stub