In north-central Indochina lies a sleepy nation, the land of a thousand elephants and white parasols – Laos. This idyllic Shangri La, with its verdant peaks to the north and the broad Mekong snaking lazily south, became the site of some of the CIA’s formative operations, becoming the testbed for clandestine activity, and shaping the organisation’s activity for decades to come.
Why Laos:
Strategically situated on the road to Communist China, with several roads crossing the highlands into Vietnam and the easily-navigable Mekong flowing down its spine towards Cambodia and South Vietnam; Laos was an essential component to the Ho Chi Minh Trail (HCMT) and the North Vietnamese war effort. Despite assurances of Lao (and Cambodian) neutrality under the Geneva Peace accords of 1954 that followed the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, the North Vietnamese Army had cells in northern Laos dating back as far as the 1930s. Now as a power vacuum formed, they activated. 40,000 NVA soldiers and 2,000 of the nascent Pathet Lao began the insurgence while the French, supported by American funds, were overwhelmed.
The significance of Domino Theory within the White House shouldn’t be underestimated. It had already led the Americans to fight in Korea and Vietnam, now it would lead them to act in Laos and Cambodia to protect Thailand and prevent communism from taking hold in Southeast Asia. Aircraft consistently bombing North Vietnam under Operation Rolling Thunder would drop any remaining bombs over Laos on the return leg. This, combined with three separate, major air operations by the United States Air Force (USAF) meant that Laos remains the most bombed country per capita.
Covert Activities:
The USAF were not the only ones flying missions, American Intelligence and Special forces were also being ‘sheep-dipped’, a process by which the army transfers a soldier to clandestine operations and so must provide cover for their ‘departure’ from the army and a plausible civilian job. These soldiers fell into two camps: firstly were Ravens, lightly/un-armed Forward Air Controllers (FAC) that, due to technological limitations, would identify targets for the USAF, flying low and fast between mountains and valleys under enemy fire. The second camp were the Air America and CASI pilots, who flew ‘logistical’ operations that are subject to much conjecture. Many claim that these pilots would transport the only cash crop the Hmong had to exchange – opium.
The claims suggest that while it did not personally enrich American pilots, they did turn a blind eye to it, only inspecting large packages and not smaller ones. This tacit approval would become the Modus Operandi for the CIA (who handled all clandestine activity in Laos) when dealing with cash-strapped guerrilla armies. The US were similarly culpable for allowing the production of opium to proliferate under the Mujahideen during the Soviet-Afghan war; Barry Seal was a CIA asset whilst transporting cocaine for the Medellin; and the infamous Contras case in Nicaragua – suggesting a pattern of effectively using the drug industry to launder and move cashing exchange for goods/information between seedy individuals and the US Government.
Moreover, the use of proxy guerrilla armies with the support of American weapons and a handful of highly effective personnel, rather than committing the entire military, proved an effective way to wage this war, and one that would be repeated. By enlisting the help of General Vang Pao, a messianic figure among the Hmong, their loyalty to America was assured and Hmong fighters of all ages fought valiantly, bearing the brunt of the conflict on behalf of America. Cruelly, this also meant they were very expendable. Following their defeat at Long Tieng, Vang Pao would be airlifted out, eventually to California, while his people would be persecuted and forced into Thailand where many remain as refugees five decades later. This model of using an expendable, local force by forming an alliance with a key local powerbroker/warlord, was especially effective during the Cold War, where victory in proxy wars was one of the only ways to inflict damage on the USSR. Support for UNITA in Angola, tribal leaders in Afghanistan, and even attempts to invade Cuba such as the Bay of Pigs, all used local forces supported by Americans without risking the lives of American soldiers. This was essential to the fulfilment of the Reagan doctrine as it meant the US could continue to fight Communism everywhere it reared its head. Without going to Congress for funding or facing the war-weariness that infected the public during Vietnam simply by using its financial heft and transferring some of its military might into local hands – in the case of the Mujahideen, this would backfire spectacularly.
The Laos Secret War therefore one of the most essential and underrepresented theatres of the Vietnam War principally because its influence was highly significant to the outcome of the broader conflict since Laos was a key nexus for NVA smuggling, training, and resupplying their Viet Cong brothers in South Vietnam. More significantly though, the legacy of the conflict is enormous given that it was a sideshow to the main event. Not only were the people of Laos ‘Bomb[ed] back to the Stone Age’ as USAF Chief Curtis LeMay intended, devastating the country even today, but the clandestine work that the CIA pioneered there would influence every facet of the organisation and their dealings for over four decades.
Rahul Bhatia
HISTORY IN POLITICS 