This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "CIA activities in Laos" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR(March 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
CIA activities in Laos started in the 1950s. In 1959, U.S. Special Operations Forces (Military and CIA) began to train some Laotian soldiers in unconventional warfare techniques as early as the fall of 1959 under the code name "Erawan".[1] Under this code name, General Vang Pao, who served the royal Lao family, recruited and trained his Hmong and Iu-Mien soldiers. The Hmong and Iu-Mien were targeted as allies after President John F. Kennedy, who refused to send more American soldiers to battle in Southeast Asia, took office. Instead, he called the CIA to use its tribal forces in Laos and "make every possible effort to launch guerrilla operations in North Vietnam with its Asian recruits." General Vang Pao then recruited and trained his Hmong soldiers to ally with the CIA and fight against North Vietnam.[2] The CIA itself claims that the CIA air operations in Laos from 1955 to 1974 were the "largest paramilitary operations ever undertaken by the CIA."[3]
For 13 years, the CIA paramilitary officers from what is now called Special Activities Center directed native forces against North Vietnamese forces to a standstill. The CIA particularly organized Hmong people to fight against the North Vietnamese-backed Pathet Lao. The Pathet Lao were the communists in Laos. The CIA-backed Hmong and Iu Mien guerrillas used Air America to "drop 46 million pounds of foodstuffs. ... transport tens of thousands of troops, conduct a highly successful photo-reconnaissance program, and engage in numerous clandestine missions using night-vision glasses and state-of-the-art electronic equipment."[3] This was the largest paramilitary operation in which the CIA participated, spanning 13 years until the Afghanistan War. The CIA was responsible for directing natives of Laos to fight the North Vietnamese. Although such efforts were ended at the 1973 signing of the Paris Peace Accords, the CIA believed it a success as it managed to fight the enemy to a standstill and combat the communist threat.[3] They saw it as a victory and as an accomplishment. The director at the time, Richard Helms, called it superb and discussed the amount of manpower required, and that the CIA did a good job in supplying it.
Along with funding anti-communist militias, the CIA also conducted a massive bombing effort in Laos from 1964 to 1973. 580,000 bombing missions took place over the nine-year campaign, but it is not known how many of them were dropped by the United States Air Force and how many were dropped by the CIA.[4] For the CIA, this was the largest paramilitary operation they had to date. By the summer of 1970 the CIA owned airline Air America had two dozen twin-engine transports, two dozen STOL aircraft and 30 helicopters dedicated to the operations in Laos. This airline employed more than 300 pilots, copilots, flight mechanics, and airfreight specialists flying out of Laos and Thailand.[3] Although the bombing campaign was only formally disclosed to the American public in 1969, stories about the Laos bombing effort were published prior to that in The New York Times.[3] Even after the United States government made the war public, the American people were in the dark as to how large scale the bombing campaign was.
^"Fighting the war in Southeast Asia".
^Ahern, Thomas L. Jr. "Undercover Armies: CIA and Surrogate Warfare in Laos 1961-1973" (PDF). Central Intelligence Agency. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
^ abcdeLeary, William M. (2008). "CIA Air Operations in Laos, 1955-1974". Central Intelligence Agency. Archived from the original on June 13, 2007. Retrieved July 16, 2016. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
^Eberle, Marc (February 9, 2015). "YouTube". The Most Secret Place on Earth: The CIA's Covert War in Laos. Retrieved July 15, 2015.
and 24 Related for: CIA activities in Laos information
CIAactivitiesinLaos started in the 1950s. In 1959, U.S. Special Operations Forces (Military and CIA) began to train some Laotian soldiers in unconventional...
complete failure. The CIA was involved in anti-Communist activitiesin Burma, the Congo, Guatemala, and Laos. Operations inLaos continued well into the...
The CIA conducted secret operations in Cambodia and Laos for eight years as part of the conflict against Communist North Vietnam. The National Intelligence...
embarrassing activities of the CIA. The Ford administration attempted (but failed) to keep the Rockefeller Commission from investigating reports of CIA planning...
The activities of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Japan date back to the Allied occupation of Japan. Douglas MacArthur's Chief of Intelligence...
the Fire: CIA Covert Operations in Indonesia, 1957–1958, and Warner's Shooting at the Moon: The Story of America's Clandestine War inLaos. Most experts...
The CIA's surrogate there was a Laotian general, Vang Pao, who commanded Military Region 2 in northern Laos. He enlisted 30,000 Hmong tribesmen in the...
Tony Poe, was a CIA Paramilitary Operations Officer in what became the Special Activities Division (renamed Special Activities Center in 2016). He was known...
secret CIAactivitiesinLaos revealed that B-52s were used to systematically bomb targets within Laos and Cambodia. The bombers were first used in Southeast...
Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR or LPDR), is the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia. At the heart of the Indochinese...
Special Activities Division. He was a native Texan, raised in a broken family, but a good student. He joined the CIA after serving in a combat unit in Europe...
many years.[citation needed] The CIA was credited with assisting in anti-Communist efforts in Burma, Guatemala, and Laos. There have been suggestions that...
school in Saint Paul, Minnesota, home to many Hmong refugees, was named Long Tieng Academy, but it closed in 2012 Asia portal CIAactivitiesinLaos Lao...
The CIA extracted him from Laosin 1970 and reassigned him to Thailand until his retirement in 1974. He received another Intelligence Star in 1975 for...
of the Laotian National Assembly and military commander of the CIA controlled Laotian Hmong army. In April 1971 Prince Sopsaisana, then Laos's new Ambassador...
June 23, 2015. "The CIA and the "Secret" War inLaos: The Battle for Skyline Ridge, 1971–72" (PDF). "Michael McPherson Deuel - CIA". Central Intelligence...
1941 - April 29, 1982) was a CIA Paramilitary Operations Officer (PMOO) in their Special Activities Center who worked inLaos and Thailand from the early...
elite to become a Paramilitary Operations Officer in the CIA's famed Special Activities Division in 1960. For his extraordinary heroism at the Bay of...
external support in a proxy war between the global Cold War superpowers. It is called the Secret War among the CIA Special Activities Division and Hmong...
the north. Back in 1959 a Laotian Lieutenant Colonel of the minority Hmong tribe had been taken under the wing of the CIA effort inLaos. The highland Hmong...