Secret War in Laos operation
also: war in Laos, secret war, Laotian War, covert war, war in northern Laos
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Related entities (most co-mentioned)
CIAintelligence service · 14Vang Paoperson · 10Hmongfamily · 9Vietnamcountry · 8Laoscountry · 8Thailandcountry · 6United Statescountry · 4Stuart Symingtonperson · 3Sam Thongplace · 3Project AFRIENDoperation · 2Pentagonorganization · 2Cambodiacountry · 2Bill Lairperson · 2Nugan Hand Bankorganization · 2Stuart Methvenperson · 2Plain of Jarsplace · 21954 Geneva Agreementevent · 2Michael Handperson · 2Bernie Houghtonperson · 2Richard Nixonperson · 2Harry Aderholtperson · 2Long Tiengplace · 2Senate Foreign Relations Committeeorganization · 2Peocean Laoorganization · 2
Claims (12)
CIA covered_up
Secret War in Laos documented
“With Hanoi and the Paocean Laos pressing against the Plain of Jars in the Hmong area, Ambassador Godley asked for massive strikes from B-52s. By now, Washington was at loggerheads over the secrecy of the Laotian War. Symington pressed for r…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 31 (32) @ 48:31
Richard Secord member_of
Secret War in Laos host_asserted
“and with the opium warlock, warlord, Vang Pao. In 66, Secord had already flown more than 200 secret combat missions, mostly into Cambodia, and won four air medals. When he appealed to General Aderholt for his chance to join the secret war i…”
▶ Operation Gladio (241113) @ 17:42
Vang Pao headed
Secret War in Laos host_asserted
“which became the main centers of the secret army. Long Tien served as Vang Pao's headquarters, a major mountain commercial center with Hmong population of about 40,000 people, which is huge as far as villages go. The CIA created a base ther…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 30 (31) @ 46:17
Air America supplied_arms_to
Secret War in Laos host_asserted
“He consolidated things throughout the mid-60s. A modern hospital and the first high school was built there. The Geneva Agreement had little effect on the CIA's support. Air America continued their flights. Even before fighting resumed in th…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 30 (31) @ 47:11
Stuart Symington funded
Secret War in Laos documented
“who helped, had been especially important because of his membership on a CIA subcommittee. Symington had backed the Laotian War. On a visit to Laos and Thailand in 66, the senator said great things about the pilots and the embassy people an…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 31 (32) @ 35:50
Stuart Symington funded
Secret War in Laos documented
“Two years later, Stuart Symington steered a different course. At hearings on the U.S. worldwide commitment, he demanded explanations, asserting that the U.S. was waging war in Laos and had been for years. Yeah, with his approval and funding…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 31 (32) @ 36:47
Ted Shackley spied_on
Secret War in Laos documented
“He encouraged the CIA to tell its story and listen to the Armed Services Committee on October 5th, 1967, when Ted Shackley talked for two hours about where fighting took place and how much it cost. The CIA put soldiers on Laotian battlefiel…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 31 (32) @ 36:16
William Fulbright exposed
Secret War in Laos documented
“And then they discovered that the base had an air-conditioned American-style officer's club with panoramic glass windows. Beginning with the Los Angeles Times, the Long Tan story appeared everywhere. In the Senate, Symington asked the admin…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 31 (32) @ 52:39
Stuart Symington funded
Secret War in Laos documented
“In late 1971, Senator Symington sponsored an amendment to the appropriation bill that set a ceiling of $350 million for all U.S. funds spent in Laos. $350 million. Wow, you really heard him. This level prevailed in 1972, though it increased…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 31 (32) @ 56:56
Alfred McCoy exposed
Secret War in Laos book_quoted
“The entire thing is bullshit. It's been bullshit for decades. Illini, did you want to say something? Hey, Colonel. Yeah, interesting stuff. I was going back through Alfred McCoy's book, which does cover Vang Pao and the fact that the U.S. A…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 31 (32) @ 1:04:13
CIA funded
Secret War in Laos host_asserted
“He consolidated things throughout the mid-60s. A modern hospital and the first high school was built there. The Geneva Agreement had little effect on the CIA's support. Air America continued their flights. Even before fighting resumed in th…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 30 (31) @ 47:11
Vang Pao carried_out_attack
Secret War in Laos host_asserted
“and Tu Bi Leng Fong became a minister of the Royal Laotian government. Vang Pao struck his greatest blow to date in 1963 in a raid that destroyed the Pao Ocean Lao supply road, dynamiting a kilometer and sending sections tumbling down the m…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 30 (31) @ 49:42
Mentions (37)
▶ 17:42
and with the opium warlock, warlord, Vang Pao. In 66, Secord had already flown more than 200 secret combat missions, mostly into Cambodia, and won four air medals. When he appealed to General Aderholt for his chance to join the secret war i…
▶ 22:15
Houghton would play a key role in money laundering for the American Private Intelligence Network through 1980, and that is with Nugent Hand, even though this author doesn't mention that. Another man who assisted Shackley in the secret war i…
▶ 25:03
Hand, with the assistance of Houghton, developed a knack for handling the profits of the opium crops. Eventually, both Houghton and Hand became key players at Nugent Hand Bank and the CIA's successor to Paul Helliwell's offshore banks and t…
▶ 27:26
was to get the drugs out of there. It had nothing to do with national security, a domino effect, or anything else. Victor Marchetti, who was at the time an up-and-coming CIA executive, said, quote, we were officially spending $27 million a …
▶ 1:10:38
Senators Eugene McCarthy and Frank Church, among the Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, depored the escalation. By February 25th, Symington, with Mansfield and Senators Charles Mathias, Albert Gore, John Sherman Copper, and Charles Perc…
▶ 1:15:31
Further details was added to the record in April 1970 when continuing political pressure forced the administration to relent and release the 1969 congressional testimony. Any chance of limiting the damage was lost when Nixon ordered an inva…
▶ 1:16:01
out allowing Nixon's officials to testify in executive session. This record would be in the open. These political events, plus the military developments in Laos, marked the final shift in the tide on the secret war. Nowhere was deterioratio…
▶ 1:16:26
The North Vietnamese seemed to be everywhere all at once and capable of doing anything to include the plane of jars. There was panic everywhere. An evacuation was hastily ordered. Some 110,000 Hmong sought refuge, carrying out whatever they…
▶ 1:16:57
was improvised. The Long Thien, for the first time in the Hmong War, the base had to be prepared for defense. Vang Pao reduced his headquarters by sending administrative elements elsewhere. Air America was at the center of the action. From …
▶ 1:17:48
One of the Air Force Hercules transports went down in April with 13 Americans aboard, the only aircraft of this type to be lost in the Laotian War. In fact, North Vietnamese threat was less than it had been. Of their 12,000 troops, fully 10…
▶ 1:18:18
in this territory as opposed to attacking. The Vietnamese dynamited the houses used by Americans, burned down the hospitals and the USAID warehouses, and then they left. After a few weeks, the Hmong reoccupied the place. That summer, Operat…
▶ 1:20:18
So he had already couped one government that we know of. Tovar helped maintain the warm relationship between the CIA and the Indonesian military, which was responsible for giving the U.S. access to a wide range of information. Together with…
▶ 1:23:12
It said, quote, as we discussed previously, U.S. Air Force support would cease at noon, 22 February. I confirmed this today by talking with Cricket, the airborne command plane in this area. U.S. Air Force was under instructions to clear Lao…
▶ 1:23:41
Goodbye, see you next war, because there always will be another one. One of the outposts fell later within the hour and many more after. The secret war brought the Hmong no nationhood, only three unhappy migrations, far from uniting them. T…
▶ 1:24:38
Only a handful of CIA battle deaths were admitted by the agency or State Department. The Pentagon maintained that about half of its losses resulted from the air war, but lists over 400 deaths and 556 servicemen still missing in action in th…
▶ 42:11
with the CIA in Thailand. Bill Lehrer was in Thailand during the Ben Ven Phu fiasco. Lehrer ran Project Momentum for almost a decade and had the contacts in Thailand that were crucial to the assistance of the Hmong people, the link between …
▶ 42:44
was critical and Bill Layer had been part of it. Known as his codename Cigar in agency cable traffic, Layer ran the entire secret army with eight other CIA officers, a White Star team soon withdrawn, and a hundred of the paramilitary in Tha…
▶ 43:14
the system that would help with the secret army for the next 11 years. That would be Major Harry Adderholt, commander of the Air Force's small unconventional warfare detachment in Okinawa from 59 to 60. And by the way, Henry Adderholt is li…
▶ 46:17
which became the main centers of the secret army. Long Tien served as Vang Pao's headquarters, a major mountain commercial center with Hmong population of about 40,000 people, which is huge as far as villages go. The CIA created a base ther…
▶ 46:43
who remained after the 1962 Geneva Convention, Geneva Agreement, but was told to stay out of sight. Known by his radio handle, Sky, Long Tian became the nerve center of the Laotian Secret War. Sam Thong became the administrative, medical, a…
▶ 48:43
Activities were possible only to the degree that the central government extended autonomy to the tribal people. Saigon triggered a Montegard political crisis in 64 and 65 precisely by reducing the autonomy accorded to the central islands. T…
▶ 49:13
keeping the Laotian government weak and it would enable their secret army to flourish. In recognition of Hmong autonomy, Vang Pao received repeated RLAF promotions and was treated as a commander because he was basically under the control of…
▶ 50:34
The clandestine force grew to 30,000 troops. Vang Pao and the CIA worked out a program to increase striking power. A third of the Hmong formed special guerrilla units, partisan battalions supported by bazookas and heavy mortars. These becam…
▶ 19:38
sent others to the Thai teams that accompanied the Hmong special guerrilla units and insured supply deliveries. Vent Lawrence left Laos and the CIA for a career as a cartoonist. When Tony Powell went upcountry, new blood took over at Long T…
▶ 35:50
who helped, had been especially important because of his membership on a CIA subcommittee. Symington had backed the Laotian War. On a visit to Laos and Thailand in 66, the senator said great things about the pilots and the embassy people an…
▶ 36:47
Two years later, Stuart Symington steered a different course. At hearings on the U.S. worldwide commitment, he demanded explanations, asserting that the U.S. was waging war in Laos and had been for years. Yeah, with his approval and funding…
▶ 37:13
At this October 69 hearing, Senator Symington nudged William Sullivan into the admission that there had been no formal U.S. obligation to Laos or the Hmong. In his own testament, Mone, Richard Helms refused to be drawn out on the authority …
▶ 38:17
combatants as such in Laos. I know of no definition which would consider our activities in Laos as waging a war. That's from the CIA's general counsel. They're running an entire fucking war, bringing in 2,500 tons of shit every month. And h…
▶ 40:23
The lucrative drug trade became pervasive in northern Laos. It's the whole reason they were there. It matched Upper Burma, CIA, and Thailand, CIA. Indeed, the area became known as the Golden Triangle for this very reason. When the CIA decid…
▶ 48:01
Secret War, Senator Symington, and others in Washington were reacting to factors other than military situation. Drugs were a major problem at the time in the U.S., and the real military implications in South Vietnam, where American soldiers…
▶ 48:31
With Hanoi and the Paocean Laos pressing against the Plain of Jars in the Hmong area, Ambassador Godley asked for massive strikes from B-52s. By now, Washington was at loggerheads over the secrecy of the Laotian War. Symington pressed for r…
▶ 56:26
So, and it just happens that it happened right at the time when all this shit was breaking here. Weird. Further Laos hearings were scheduled for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Angry senators ruled out allowing testimony in executiv…
▶ 57:54
All of these activities had made the Pei Ocean Lao much more powerful because they were seen to the local tribal people as the one trying to protect their homeland from the invaders called the CIA. 14 years of warfare accomplished nothing. …
▶ 1:00:39
had a right to fight for its future. Their struggle misunderstood in the U.S. in part precisely because of its secrecy. In mobilizing the Hmong, the U.S. incurred an undoubted moral obligation which it could not meet, like we do everywhere.…
▶ 43:39
a secret war in Kurdistan, Laos, and Vietnam, all of which had been long-term over a decade and a half. And it had worked against, and the CIA had been working against Cuba for years. They had been working in Tibet. Except for Project Mongo…
▶ 50:23
Handled relations with the FNLA in Mobato. Matt's been a covert project man par excellence. A member of the first class to graduate from Camp Perry was a Langley legend. His exploits in Southeast Asia ranged from training DM spooks in 1950s…
▶ 51:51
John Stockwell fought alongside the Hmong in Laos and had also been in service with Methvin. But their relations soured over Project Feature. Stockwell saw Methvin as far too willing to pander to Joseph Mubato, presiding over payoffs and ba…