The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 31 (32)

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0:00 Good afternoon, everybody. Let's turn some lights on. Let's do that, Colonel. A good afternoon to you as well. Where are you at, SR? I'm at home preparing to go to New Zealand. Okay. Well, you have safe travels. I'm so excited that you get to go to New Zealand. Well, thank you very much, Colonel. I'm looking forward to it.

0:35 And please give our best to Shelly. Oh, and there she is. Okay. So we left off talking about Vietnam. And I do want to put a plug in for the show tonight with Alpha Warrior at nine o'clock. You guys aren't going to want to miss it. We're going to talk about what's actually going on behind the scenes in.

1:06 Lebanon. Weirdly enough I'm researching this other topic and found a company from the UK that has been doing a lot of nefarious shit all over the world but specifically in Lebanon for many many years and since Lebanon is on fire right now I thought it very timely that we would talk about it tonight.

1:35 And it goes into a lot of detail. It'll probably be a multi-show deep dive into not just what's going on in Lebanon, but you're going to immediately recognize what happened in Lebanon and the similarities to what has gone on in America between...

2:01 Trump's first term and Trump's second term. It's like you could replace, just scratch out Lebanon and put the US and many other countries. You guys know it's a pattern, but there's a lot of really juicy details in it. So you're not gonna wanna miss that show tonight. And weirdly enough, Alpha's already sent me the show link. He usually sends it to me five minutes before the show. So anyway, okay, let's get started.

2:32 We're talking about the CIA's project that greatly facilitated the clandestine mobilization in Laos. Supplies were disguised as what aid from USAID to Thailand. Money was hidden in military assistant budgets. Huh, like the Department of Defense? Yes, in USAID budgets.

3:00 and in CIA budgets. In fact, the main obstacle proved to be funding. The expansion of the secret army after 64 could not be accomplished without noticeable increases in all of those sources of revenue. Although the agency budget remained secret, the small CIA subcommittees of Congress had approved the higher request repeatedly.

3:28 So the CIA or the Congress knows they're funding clandestine operations. To obtain the approval, the CIA relied on its recognized role in counterinsurgency, except for it was the actual insurgents. The agency also spiced up its presentation.

3:59 Thailand matters at headquarters after he had spent years in Thailand, which of course we know what they do in Thailand. It has to do with the drug trafficking. Recalls being flattered one day when the division chief, William Colby, invited him to present parts of the CIA's presentation. Desmond Fitzgerald approved the briefing and asked Congress to fund more than 100 secret army units.

4:29 Congress funding stay-behind units. Vang Pao actually had only a couple of dozen at the time. But at Langley, McGeehy and other DO officers performed a paper reorganization, greatly enhancing the stated capability to justify the increase in funds. They endowed the Hmong overnight with the required number of units.

5:01 on a piece of paper. They didn't exist. McGeehy felt remorse over the falsification. Sure he did, but they got their money. Congress as a whole never explicitly considered the Laos request for Richard Helms, who became director of the CIA in 66. Congressional inattention freed him to do whatever he wanted. The CIA settled down to fight a secret war in Laos.

5:34 The only question that remained was how long would it remain secret? By now, the system had assumed its final form. The ambassador had the last word. Aware of the CIA's major projects, ambassadors were then consulted on activities. He retained specific approval authority for air operations other than the armed reconnaissance over the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

6:01 Since Project Momentum relied on close cooperation between the Hmong and the Air Force and the CIA, they were in the ambassador's office often. He became a key player in the Southeast Asian Coordination Center, which brought together the American ambassadors, military commanders, and intelligence chiefs in Laos, Thailand, and South Vietnam. They worked as a collective.

6:33 Ambassador Leonard Unger had the helm during the initial phase of the Laotian War. He was fluent in both Thai and Lao. Deeply interested in the land of the million elephants, meaning Laos, Unger successfully protected Suvanna when coup attempts were made against him. Although his successor calls Unger a reluctant militarist,

7:01 The escalation of the CIA secret war told otherwise. William Sullivan followed Unger. While Sullivan had been a senior member of the U.S. negotiating team at Geneva, in Laos, he became an enthusiastic field marshal in the secret war. The one Geneva that said we weren't supposed to be in Laos at all. There wasn't a bag of rice dropped in Laos that he didn't know about. William Bundy.

7:34 said of Sullivan. G. McGrathree Godley replaced Sullivan in 1969. They actually called him Field Marshal. The embassy had a small air staff that maintained a target list. It processed requests for new authorities and coordinated among the ambassadors, the CIA, the Air Force commanders in Thailand and in South Vietnam.

8:07 Emergency requests often came through the station chief. He supervised at least three parallel programs. One out of the embassy assisted the Laotian government directly. A second set of initiatives in tandem with U.S. forces in South Vietnam who sought to obstruct the Ho Chi Minh Trail where it crossed through the southern panhandle of Laos. One of these projects called Hard Nose looked to place

8:36 road watch teams, and report on movements. Two more CIA officers, Michael Duell and Michael Maloney, died working on Hard Nose in October of 65 when their helicopter crashed in the jungle. A third initiative was Project Momentum. Although only a few dozen CIA officers worked on Momentum full-time, the project

9:04 spun an increasingly complex web. The command center had been located in Thailand, just across the border at Udorn. You know, the base we talked about yesterday that I spent quite a bit of time at. There, Bill Layer and his deputy, Pat Landry, gave orders to Vang Pao's secret army. They arranged for Air America to support the Hmong and for airstrikes to back its operations.

9:32 Their air boss through the late 60s was none other than a major at the time, Richard Secord. You know Richard Secord, the guy that was in Iran-Contra? Yeah, that guy. He's running the secret air operation at Udorn for Laos, when we're not even supposed to be in Laos. For supplies, the Thai volunteers worked for the clandestine army.

10:06 and air missions. Lair dealt with the U.S. Command and CIA station in Thailand. Through much of this time, the station chief in Bangkok was Red Zansen, J-A-N-T-Z-E-N. Lair had known him for over 10 years. Jansen would be followed by Pierre de Silva and Lou Lapham. Both had spent time

10:37 as in the CIA office in Saigon. Relations between the field command and the CIA station in Laos varied. The agency chiefs of station had different styles and manners. Gordon Jorgensen left for Saigon in 62. Charles Whitehurst presided over the reignition of the Laotian War. He brought the Langley perspective, having headed the Far East Division branches for both Cambodia and Laos.

11:08 But much of his field experience had been in Thailand, running the drug operations there. Douglas Blaufarb, B-L-A-U-F-A-R-B. Blaufarb came to the CIA from a career at Voice of America and the U.S. Information Services, both CIA fronts. He cut his teeth in covert operations, setting up

11:42 radio networks in Albania. You know, the place where we kept sending in the stay behind teams and they all got killed. Yeah, he was running the propaganda machine for that. He believed in adaptive response and mostly gave Lair a free hand. Ted Shackley received the Laos posting as a reward for his job in Cuba.

12:12 As Ted Shackley arrived in the summer of 66, the Mekong River suddenly spilled over its banks, inundating the capital of Laos. In some places, rising to the equivalent of four stories. Only incredible ingenuity allowed the Americans to keep their embassy open. I just noticed my grandson has been in here messing with my pictures. I'm looking at my...

12:41 video camera, and I'm like, what the heck's wrong with my picture there? Shackley viewed the covert operations as a quote-unquote third option. Weird how that keeps coming up. He saw Project Momentum as an alternative to using U.S. troops, building an army for a fraction of the cost. He wanted to control everything, and he knew he couldn't do it if he used active duty military.

13:08 Shackley hurled the secret army into major confrontations with the Peocean Lao and the North Vietnamese. On his watch, Bain Powell's Hmong began to sustain serious losses. Lawrence Devlin came to Laos at the end of 1968 when Shackley moved on to Saigon. Hugh Tavler helped endow the Hmong with their own miniature air force of T-28s.

13:38 Vang Pao's losses continued to accelerate during Tovar's tenure. Tovar arrived in 1970 when the combat had intensified and the Hmong forces were falling. He introduced Thai troops in artillery and infantry roles, all the while denying that there was even any presence of U.S. in Laos.

14:09 Even after reporters revealed the existence of Long Tien and Sam Tong, they kept denying it. During Devlin's time, enemy troops actually threatened Long Tien with pitched battles for the ridge that dominated it. As Richard Helms puts it, quote, the agency was flat out in its effort to keep tribes viable militarily, unquote.

14:42 Kill as many of them as you want. Just keep throwing them at the North Vietnamese. In his later memoirs, Helms would call Laos the war we won. Working flat out meant about 250 Americans either in Laos or commuting to their assignments from places like Thailand and South Vietnam. Air Force permanently assigned to Long Tien and a budget.

15:09 that grew to be $300 million for a war that didn't exist. 300 million. In keeping with covert operations etiquette, whatever the hell that is, Ambassador Sullivan issued strict orders for Americans to not engage personally in combat.

15:36 He says that, quote, when I found those orders were willfully disobeyed, I removed the offenders from the country, unquote. But despite Sullivan's orders, the CIA station appears to have taken little action against the, quote, unquote, cowboys as Tony Poe, who reportedly suffered more than a dozen wounds in assorted firefights and once made.

16:02 a 30-mile trek to safety carrying a wounded native comrade. Disciplining Po meant giving him another assignment to a different tribal strike force. Just move them around. Air America made it all happen. In South Vietnam alone, by late 1965, the proprietary CIA airline moved 1,650 tons of cargo a month. 1,650 tons.

16:36 tons a month. They had a fleet of more than 50 aircraft made up of C-54s, C-46s, and C-47s. The load increased to 2,500 tons a month between 67 and 68. In Laos, the relative war effort of the United States and the royal Laotian government can be measured in monthly airlift tonnage.

17:05 The Laotian Air Force averaged 400 tons a month in 1966. Air America moved 6,000 tons plus 16,000 passengers. Air America had facilities in Bangkok, Takli, and Udorn with maintenance performed at Udorn, the site of a major proprietary base. They also had them in

17:39 Udon and the Laotian capital as well. The Air America helicopter fleet began at Udon with a transfer of 16 Air Force H-34s in March of 61. In addition to their general aviation role, the helicopters were vital for air rescue. During the first years of the U.S. bombing, Air America rescued four times as many airmen

18:07 as the Air Force. Pilots were supposed to fly during time off from work on regular flight routes. They were paid bonuses given tax advantages and could clear upwards of $40,000 a year. That was a huge sum of money in the 1960s. As in the Congo, Air America in the Laos capital had their favorite watering hole. Here it was a bar called the Purple Porpoise.

18:40 That was pointed out to us while we were there. As we were flying with clouds, sudden mist, rain, and enemy guns justified the pay. Of four Air America C-130 crews trained in the mid-60s, only one remained in the 1970s. Destinations, the Lima sites, were frequently tiny and tricky airfields. Long Tian had a paved runway, good navigation, beacons.

19:09 and all-weather landing systems. That was the exception. Sky had a sophisticated communication center, as well as the Hmong propaganda outlet Radio of the Union of Lao Races. That's basically Radio Free Europe for Laos. The CIA base at Sky funneled orders to Vang Pao.

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 Tien. But late 1966,

20:03 Press reports of Americans in the field with the Laotians were eroding the plausible deniability of the secret war in Laos. With the intensification of the war came a growth in the CIA proprietary that fed it, Flying Tigers. Of course, that's Claire Chenault, drug operations, William Polly, blah, blah, blah. William, or Flying Tiger, had...

20:35 been the largest private air charter airline in the world when Air America was formed. In 68, the Flying Tigers had 28 aircraft and was slightly more than 2,000 employees. Air America had almost 200 planes and four times as many workers. In February of 69, the Air America fleet in Thailand consisted of 29 helicopters, 20 light planes, 19...

21:04 medium transports. That unit alone was larger than the Flying Tiger's entire operation. The demand for air tonnage in Laos led to an anomaly in the secret war. Continental Air Service hired away an Air America manager, then sought some of the USAID contracts. Because legal action to preserve Air America monopoly threatened to reveal its ownership, Continental Air got some of the work.

21:34 accumulated a couple dozen aircraft in Thailand by 1968, including some C-46s and 47 transports. In addition, contract work would be done by Bangkok-based Bird Air, which we came across in our drug research a long time ago, and beginning in late 60s.

22:02 the CIA and USAID got together to buy Vang Pao's two old C-47s, the beginning of the Hmong leader's private air force that I guess we just paid for. Air America did a magnificent job, said William Colby, but it was not a combat air force, he said, except for the ones that we modified to be combat aircraft.

22:30 Attacks in support of the Hmong were carried out from Thailand and their air force of T-28s. A few of these planes were given to Laos to lend credibility to their cover story. The T-28 force eventually attained a strength of 100 fighter bombers for the 56th Special Operations Wing.

23:00 a further Laotian incarnation as leader of this formation. The fighter-bombers were supplemented by a wide range of U.S. Air Force gunships, the first of which was an AC-47, later AC-130s and AC-119s. Vane Powell's tactical combinations remained his special guerrilla units, plus the air support.

23:28 The air power did succeed for quite a while, and once the Hmong got their own air unit, its pilots' familiarity with the terrain made air more effective. But Hmong objectives sometimes diverged with the American ones. A staff officer at 13 Air Force in Thailand recalls an occasion when his commander informed the Hmong had hit a target on his prohibited list.

23:54 They demanded Vang Pao's immediate appearance so that he could be chewed out. Told the Air Force had no control over Vang's airplanes, the general demanded that gasoline and munition be cut off, which the Air Force had no authority to do either. Apparent success greatly pleased Washington. The Hmong program became something of a showcase. In August 1964, LBJ ostensibly received

24:24 Pop Brule at the White House. The Hmong New Year in 1966 was attended by the King of Laos and his diplomatic corps. In 1968, as a gift, Vang Pao gave LBJ an ornate flintlock musket of Hmong antiquity. On two occasions, the Americans rewarded Vang with secret visits to the U.S. On one of those trips,

24:56 They referred to him as the VP of Laos. He toured the Green Beret Training Center at Fort Bragg. The agency sent Stuart Methvin as his escort officer. During another trip, Vang went to Colonial Williamsburg and Disneyland. Isn't that nice? This is one of the covert army guys. He's basically the general of the entire operation going on in Laos.

25:27 supposedly secret, and he's touring the United States. He had six wives. The Hmong chief had a lot of shopping to do while he was here. At Disneyland, the CIA reciprocated Vang's gift with a replica of a Zorro costume. Vang Pao actually wore this outfit to boost morale when he returned to Laos. Holy crap. The campaign against Ho Chi Minh trail

26:01 gave the clandestine army a new mission. Accurate bombing required precise navigation, leading the Air Force to put a radio beacon at Phau Pha Tinh, a Hmong sacred place in one of the tallest mountains in Laos. Later, the U.S. added a radar and based helicopters for rescue missions there.

26:30 It was also referred to as Lima Site 85. Pony Express, an Air Force helicopter lift activity, moved 150 tons of equipment to the site for radar installation and a dozen Americans necessary to operate the equipment. Vang Pao's Hmong were to defend the facility. Bill Lair warned that the Lima site could not be defended against serious attack, but the managers of the Air War, who wanted that radar station there,

27:00 overrode everything, that mountain area did not escape Hanoi's attention. It made a concerted effort to neutralize the installation. In one of the few recorded instances of North Vietnamese bombing in January 1968, two of the four biplanes modified to carry bombs were shot down attempting to bomb that Lima site. One actually

27:32 by an Air America pilot firing a rifle from his helicopter. This battle punctuated Ted Shackley's final months as the station chief in Laos. The blonde ghost from Cuba and Berlin rode close herd over Project Momentum, installing his own man, Thomas Clines, as deputy chief at Udorn. Bob Blake and Richard Secord ran the air branch.

28:02 Secord, who liked to think he and Clines made a great team, watched the aerial photography of Hanoi's troops close in on the mountaintop. He called repeatedly for airstrikes to halt the buildup. Lair took those warnings to heart, but the readout on Clines and Shackley was more confusing. Deputy Chief James Lilly, who left Laos two months before the battle, records Shackley warning the Lima site.

28:31 could not be held beyond March 10th. Others believe Shackley's oddly complacent in the threat. Airstrikes would be too few and too late if they made a run for the radar site. The Hmong SGU guarding the base were driven off. Two of the CIA advisors as forward air controllers and five of the radar technicians barely escaped in a desperate helicopter evacuation.

29:01 The battle unfolded with the inevitability of a Greek tragedy. On the night of March 10th and 11th, 1968, the radar base fell. Ten Americans disappeared and one of those escaping died of gunshot wounds aboard the helicopter. For Jim Lilly, writing 30 years later, that battle still conjured up wishful thinking that could have been avoided.

29:30 Vang Pao's secret army attained its peak strength during that period. It numbered 40,000 soldiers, mostly local defense forces, but about 15,000 regrouped into special guerrilla units. Yet the North Vietnamese matched their strength. Soon, roughly two divisions of Hanoi's army regularly fought in northern Laos, quite frequently against the Hmong.

29:57 They made regular forays against Skyline Ridge and that overlooked Long Tian. The CIA had Laos wired for sound. It filled its air with photo reconnaissance planes. And that, by the way, is the U-2. We flew lots of flights over during this period, as we learned in our other series.

30:25 In at least one case, according to Shackley, CIA even planted radio beacons on a Leothan Lao unit and monitored its movements. A cycle of operations developed. During the dry season, the North Vietnamese attacked the Hmong in the mountains and the RLAF on the Plain of Jars, capturing many positions. During the wet season, Vang Pao would counterattack and recapture.

30:55 By this time, the CIA had an actual barracks and team house at Long Tien. Vince Shields became the chief of base. Pat Landry succeeded Bill Lehrer. And the sources reported that the CIA now backdropped Vang Pao and his guerrilla teams everywhere. About 30 more Americans assisted in training. And there was a couple dozen paramilitary specialists with the...

31:26 SGU's now being brigaded together as mobile groups to increase firepower. Agency teams with the special guerrilla units varied from 4 to 12 Americans. The CIA advisors mostly contract officers from the U.S. military under the agency called the JUUL program. Men like James Adkins, John Stockwell,

31:56 James Parker and Wilbur Green lived in the team houses at the bases and went into the field with the Hmong, even though there was not supposed to be any Americans. Aside from the Long Tien, there were three other CIA indoctrination bases in Laos and a major training facility in Thailand for their guerrillas, where Hmong would undergo unit exercises and training. James Lilly,

32:26 put the total CIA contingent at about 250. Officially, the U.S. Embassy had 70 assistant military attaches. There were also 73 Americans with Continental Air Service and 207 with Air America. In 1970, the Nixon administration admitted to almost 1,000 Americans in Laos, including more than 200 military.

32:55 almost 400 government employees and more than that number in contractors. According to the CIA officer, Victor Marchetti, rank and file CIA members were becoming less enamored in Laos, not because they objected to the operation, but because it was unwieldy and obviously not secret anymore. A few more were concerned with mounting losses.

33:25 Until 1969, the Air Force had been lucky. Only three helicopters had been shot down in Laos. And all but one of the air crews had been rescued. But luck ran out. In a year, six large Air Force CH-3 helicopters had been shot down and a seventh destroyed on the ground. Half the total of the choppers of this type lost in Laos during the entire war.

33:53 The Nixon administration admitted to more than 200 dead in Laos, with about that number missing. The CIA deaths now included Louis Hajibwe, Wilbur Green, Wayne McNulty, John Kearns, and John Peterson. One of them had died inside of North Vietnam. Richard Helms finally made a visit to Laos in September of 70. Station chief

34:21 Larry Devlin squired him around the country. He realized the war had grown. Hmong units now had to be larger to move safely. The North Vietnamese had begun using tanks and artillery. Vang Pao was literally running out of men. The wrecked C-47 that Helms and Devlin flew over symbolized the danger that lurked if Hanoi could gain control of Skyline Ridge.

34:50 Vang Pao impressed Helms with his command presence, but the Hmong leader had been reduced to recruiting child soldiers. Kids as young as 13 were being trained by the CIA to fight. Thai mercenaries now kept up the number of troops in the Hmong mobile groups. Perhaps the continuing losses had something to do with the change of heart.

35:20 a most important one that occurred in Congress. Political backing for Indochina war was beginning to be less and less. Support for Laos especially, since they weren't even supposed to be there. At one time or another, 50 senators had been informed of the CIA program, but one by one, they jumped off the boat. A case in point was Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri.

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 and commented on how efficient this secret war was.

36:16 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 battlefields for a fraction of the price of using U.S. military. Symington made that observation and Shackley agreed. Richard Helms sat beside Ted Shackley during this encounter.

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. Symington was quoted as saying, it is time the American people were told more of the facts. Like by you?

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 for conducting the covert war. Basically rephrasing the, quote, such other functions language.

37:43 in the 1947 National Security Act, which of course, General Counsel Lawrence Houston had said didn't give them any authority to do any of that. Ironically, after having authored a memo saying that they couldn't do that, Lawrence Houston argued in a memo on October 30th, 1969, that the CIA had no compat...

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 he doesn't see any evidence of them conducting wars where people have already been killed.

38:50 conducting warfare so simmington felt he had reason to be exasperated with the agency's disingenuousness as the senator put it quote i have never seen a country engage in so many devious undertakings as this unquote with your assistance sir helms for his part fastened on simmington's change of heart as dishonesty in a 1981 interview helms said this

39:24 Stuart Symington got up and started talking about a secret war, he knew far better than that. In his later memoirs, Helms added that the senator had been briefed several times on the CIA program and had even been Ted Shackley's house guest during his visit. Others also held out Symington as a blackguard. In the 1980s, former Deputy Director of Intelligence R. Jack Smith published a novel in which Senator

39:53 Symington was the thinly disguised villain. Agency officials had a deaf ear for the corrosive effects of secrecy on public support for their endeavor. Drug trafficking in Laos constituted an element that helps our key figures in Washington. It has already been noted that the Hmong raised poppy. Processed in labs, those poppies became opium, heroin, morphine, and other drugs.

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 decided to run a war in northern Laos, the drugs came with it. There was no way to avoid them. The Chinese in Burma, the old

40:56 Li Mi Band, bought some of the poppies and moved them across the border in caravans. Lo Lan Lau and Tai bought more. So when the airplanes came, they introduced the efficiency of transportation. By the mid-60s, CIA officers were reporting intelligence on the movement of the drugs. The agency passed the data on to drug enforcement authorities, but not much else was ever done about it.

41:25 Because if the DEA did anything about it, the CIA just thwarted them. And we learned that in the 70s, they did try to do something about it in that book that the Syntac organization that was set up. And every time they got to the kingpin of any of the drug operations, they found CIA and could proceed no further. This seemed too much for some.

42:02 On one occasion, Helms told Senator John Stennis, chairman of the Armed Services Committee of the CIA, reporting, Stennis paused, shook his head, then said, I'm not sure you people ought to be getting involved in things like that. I don't know that that's the proper activity for you. Drug trafficking? The CIA has done that from day one. Well, Mr. Chairman, the CIA director said.

42:29 How could we possibly not help the United States government when we've got such a hideous drug problem in the country? You created the drug problem. Helms insisted the CIA helped. Tony Poe, for example, threatened to throw out of his plane anyone carrying drugs, but he did nothing about the caravan traffic or drug labs in his sector. He said that, he never did it, and they were carried.

42:58 nor could the CIA do anything to prevent the Mung's drug operation. Right. You're supplying them with money, food, and weapons. I'm going to go ahead and say there's something you could do. A prohibition against smuggling on Air America planes had been in place since 1957. Well, the fact that you have to put the prohibition on it means that you knew they were doing it. The author says that that enforcement was left up.

43:35 to pilot by pilot. It was never remedied. When Air America crews themselves ran drugs, there was nothing to stop them. Not until 1972 did the proprietary airline set up a security inspection service, and even then, it did no good. That was just basically a paper tiger. Some of those running drugs are said to have been among the more senior commanders of the RLAF. Drugs moved on.

44:08 Laos military and private air carriers, which by the way, we've already discovered, are all supplied by the CIA. In the summer and fall of 1972, when Hugh Tovar led the CIA station in Laos, the agency's inspector general spurred by detailed revelations in a book, the agency tried to suppress the politics of heroin in Southeast Asia.

44:36 began a formal investigation. And I do have that book. As a matter of fact, it's right here. We're going to do that book because it's quite illuminating. Scott Breckenridge of the IG office participated in the team of officers who began in Hong Kong and spent more than two weeks at 11 CIA facilities interviewing more than 100 CIA, State Department, USAID, and Pentagon.

45:04 Air America and other employees. Their report, Investigation of the Drug Situation in Southeast Asia, found no evidence that the CIA had permitted any drug trafficking. But he qualifies it, end quote, as a matter of policy. They always have a qualifier. They knew they were doing it. It just wasn't written down anywhere.

45:36 They did note that there had been quote-unquote individual cases of smuggling. While exonerating the agency and claiming to discredit its critics, Breckinridge's account of these events confirm every charge aimed at the CIA's allies, including the Laotian generals, that they did participate in drug movements on military aircraft and boats.

46:07 They had laboratories, they were photographed, and the agency even discovered schedules for planned shipments to South Vietnam, all of which they knew about. This episode represented, it was the report represented this entire thing as a success in isolation as if the criminal activities of allies didn't reflect at all on the agencies.

46:42 That is 100% funding the entire operation. A few years later, a CIA officer serving in Burma witnessed an IG inquiry on another matter and came away unimpressed. Quote, IGs hoping for plum assignments have a personal stake in not rocking the boat. I never again trusted the IG investigation until an inspector general position became presidentially appointed and congressionally approved, unquote.

47:13 Even then, it doesn't matter because they buy the president and Congress. In any case, despite the denials, drugs were moving everywhere. Ambassador Godley arranged for one of the senior Laotian officers to be fired. No more. Breckinridge reached the conclusion that the CIA could not have achieved much more against the drug trafficking than it did.

47:37 This points directly to a key weakness of covert operations, making alliances with indigenous groups that involves buying into their features. That's the only reason they do it. Don't do this shit where there's not a resource that they can't exploit. And turning against the Laotian.

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 were becoming addicted, could not be overlooked. Officials who believed the military situation in Laos could be divorced from the others were wrong. In Laos and Washington, the situation looked quite serious by 1970.

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 release of a full transcript of his hearing. The Nixon administration sanitized this so heavily that it made it misleading. Whereupon, Symington refused to issue the document.

48:56 The request for airstrikes came in this charged political context, fearing leaks from the Pentagon about B-52s in Laos. Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird opposed the option so as to create a record of rejecting it. Secretary of State William Rogers also resisted the plan. According to Henry Kissinger, National Security Advisor to Nixon,

49:23 Laird wanted the strikes, but in a super secret program whose records could be falsified. Such B-52 missions were already underway in Cambodia, another place we weren't supposed to be. Growing congressional opposition and increasing enemy success sharpened Washington's problem. We got caught, said Kissinger.

49:45 Between officials seeking to protect the American forces for which they felt a responsibility and merciless congressional onslaught that rattled those officials. Sure, you're concerned about the American forces. Toward the middle of February, the Royal Laotian government appealed for B-52 strikes. Kissinger recommended the attack at a meeting with the president where SecDef Laird

50:12 Richard Helms and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman were all present. Richard Nixon approved the strikes if the Peocean Lows advanced. Within 24 hours, the condition had been met. An attack of three B-52 bombers took place on the night of February 17th and 18th. More followed, yet Vang Pao relinquished his last position on the Plain of Jars. Strikes by the B-52 were enough and Kissinger's

50:42 mind, quote, to trigger the domestic outcry, unquote. Senators Eugene McCarthy and Frank Church, along with the Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, deplored the escalation. By February 25th, Symington, with Mansfield and Charles Mattias, Albert Gore, John Sherman Cooper, and Charles Percy were demanding a forward release of the Laos hearings transcripts.

51:11 Within hours, the Laos war was secret no more. The story broke at Long Tien and press tickers all over the world, making the scoop prove as easy as walking down a mountain. Journalists had chartered an Air America plane to Sam Thung's USAID center. The secret warriors were proud of their civic action programs and wanted to show it off.

51:37 But three reporters were much more interested in Long Tien's clandestine army locations. They walked out of Sam Tung and down the trail to Long Tien, leaving behind the official tour. One reporter actually entered the base and watched for two hours after being challenged by a Laotian colonel, then questioned by an American. All were taken into custody and put on a plane to the capital.

52:09 Ambassador Godley was furious, but it was too late. For the first time, Long Tian had been observed by outsiders. Landings and takeoffs from the Lima site were clocked at one a minute. Air traffic was so intense that planes and helicopters had to be in a holding pattern. The reporters saw windowless buildings sprouting numerous radio aerials and tall men wearing civilian clothes and carrying automatic weapons. They knew the men were Americans.

52:39 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 administration to bring Ambassador Godley in to testify. Foreign Relations Committee Chairman J. William Fulbright went ahead and put on the record information the Nixon people had been trying to keep secret.

53:09 had admitted in testimony the CIA used USAID as a cover in Laos. Imagine that. Imagine that. That is in actual testimony. Fulbright added that the embassy's Rural Development Annex recruited partisan soldiers and native agents, while the mysterious Special Requirements Office did their logistics.

53:34 Further details were added in April 70 when continuing pressure forced the administration to relent and release the 1969 congressional testimony. Any chance of limiting the damage was lost when Nixon ordered an invasion of Cambodia. Perfect timing again. And by the way, that invasion of Cambodia was a setup.

53:59 That is covered in, I think the operation was Red Rock, where we took special forces on a no return mission. They didn't know that. We dropped them in wearing basically Chinese uniforms, had Chinese soldiers that had been captured, Chinese looking soldiers, something like that, and went into Cambodia to an airport.

54:28 and bombed a bunch of airplanes, the special forces guys did. The entire operation, they did not know the purpose of it, was to pretend that the communists were attacking Cambodia. So they dropped off these prisoners, most of which died in the air jump. And so they've got Chinese looking dead bodies laying at an airport that just got bombed. They, the special forces guys, went off to supposedly a rendezvous

54:58 to be picked up. But the pickup was a setup. The CIA was going to kill them all. They all survived. But most of them, only two eventually make it out. They were captured. They were tortured. All kinds of shit happened to them. And most of them died along the way. But the CIA set up this entire mission with an army colonel in Vietnam to airdrop these guys in on a one-way ticket.

55:30 They actually were in communication with a C-130 at one point in this adventure. And the C-130 was actually vectored in to pick them up. And there was somebody from the Department of Defense that basically said that they were being tricked into it. It was a setup and for them to get out of there.

55:55 They literally had opportunity after opportunity to rescue these SF guys. They wanted them dead because they didn't want any witnesses to the fact that they were setting up a sabotage of a Cambodian airport. And then that was used as the justification and pressured the Cambodian government to inviting the US in to Cambodia, which is how we started a war there and overthrew the government.

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 executive session. The record would be open. These political events, plus the military development in Laos, marked a shift in the secret war.

56:56 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 later to $375 million the next year. Wow, you're really showing them. Tovar's field officers were having trouble keeping the North Vietnamese off the Skyline Ridge.

57:26 By that time, Indochina peace negotiations were in full swing, leading to the Paris Agreements in January of 73. For Laos, these provided a coalition government, like the one that was intended that the CIA stopped from forming in 1958. So we ended right where we started with a whole bunch of more dead bodies, as we do in all of these.

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. Vang Pao became the biggest loser, which ended American air support for his secret army.

58:22 The ceasefire would go into effect on noon, February 22nd, 1973, when Vinh faced a renewed North Vietnamese offensive. Several outposts were under attack as the ceasefire neared. The Hmong general made a last appeal to the CIA. In a reply, he was handed a message from the chief of the unit at Sky. Quote, as we discussed previously, U.S. Air Force support has ceased at noon.

58:50 On 22 February, I confirmed this today by talking to, with Cricket, the air command post. In this area, U.S. Air Force is under instructions to clear Laos airspace, unquote. Disgusted, Vang Pao kicked the dirt and showed the message to a nearby reporter. Leaving Laos, one of the last shifts of American command planes, radioed back, goodbye, see you during the next war.

59:19 Long Lien Tien's outpost fell two and a half hours later. The last CIA advisors left aboard an Air America flight. Hugh Tovar soon left Laos also. Vang Pao, on his own, walked a road that could lead only to exile. Beginning in 73, the new Laotian government pressured Air America to cease operations. The CIA proprietary did halt flights to hundreds of airfields.

59:46 and gave dozens of their C-123 airports to the Laotian Air Force. You know, kind of like we did in Taiwan. Just give the shit away. Many Air America employees at Udon were laid off. After the Laotian prohibition on its air operations, Air America closed up shop in June of 74. The Udon facilities were taken over by Thai Airways Aircraft Maintenance Company.

1:00:14 The results of the CIA's post-mortem, and by the way, that Thai airline was Holland Drugs. The result of the CIA post-mortem on Laos are not known. One view is that Douglas Bloffarb, Laos' station chief in the mid-60s, who defended the Hmong against press criticism in the New York Times in 71, continued to believe the tribe.

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. But that's the reason why we imported a whole bunch of them too. He also believed the war effort was hampered by the predominance of American military in Southeast Asia, which constantly

1:01:08 menace the independence of the ambassador in Laos. Yeah, they didn't have enough freedom to kill enough people. Finally, he argued that the former CIA officer had improvised the nature of the secret war and led to an open-ended campaign without clear aims other than general US objectives in Indochina, which is horseshit. They were there for the drugs.

1:01:40 That's the end of the story for now. Okay. Any comments? I find it interesting. I like Kissinger's comment. We got caught. Yeah. I mean, well, what more is there to say, especially when we didn't have near the media.

1:02:11 Things that we have today between X and everything else that's going on, being able to converse around the world, and you get caught in the 60s. That's something. But along with that, the deal is it's not CIA policy. Yeah, CIA policy is nothing more than we don't tell anybody what we do. That's definitely their general policy. Deny, deny, deny. That is definitely their general policy.

1:02:43 And isn't it interesting that the first verification came from reporters who went on an official visit that was supposed to be totally controlled and they just walked away and walk onto a base flying all of these missions that supposedly aren't happening with all of these Americans on a base in these American airplanes going all over the place. So, yeah.

1:03:12 Very interesting. But you know what I find really interesting? So this actually started way back initially in Eisenhower to some degree during Kennedy, although he wanted everybody out. It's continued throughout LBJ's tenure. And Nixon is the one that got the hot potato. It's revealed.

1:03:43 during Nixon's presidency. Because some reporters were able to walk away from a gaggle and film all of it. And then you have the consistent irony of Congress who knew about the entire thing and then acts indignant when it gets known as if they didn't know the entire time. That's why I call Congress a kabuki theater.

1:04:13 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. Agency for International Development, back then I think it was just AID, knew when they were announcing the grants.

1:04:43 That, you know, it was that Vang Pao was almost certainly going to use, you know, that airport that they were funding for drug trafficking. Yeah. But the CIA pushed it through anyways. It's interesting what like Alfred McCoy was not trying to was trying to kind of expose the whole thing. But he was a, you know, young Ph.D. student and he wasn't necessarily trying to explicitly embarrass.

1:05:12 CIA, but if you read some of those footnotes in that book, it's interesting. He sits down for an interview with Lucian Conine in the summer of 1971, I think June or July, and there's a footnote in there that basically, the takeaway from that is he gives the exact day of the interview with Lucian Conine, and then he describes how Conine gets out this gold medallion.

1:05:42 That was given to him by the Corsican Mafia as a token of their friendship. That basically is something that's only given to high-ranking Corsican Mafia leaders. Right. And he gets out this gold coin and dangles it right in front of Alfred McCoy. And Alfred McCoy is kind enough not to put it.

1:06:09 in the text, and he's not trying to embarrass Conan, but he kind of left a trail of breadcrumbs there as simply, you know, a young, like, 26-year-old sociology PhD student who's trying to stay innocent of the whole thing, I think, but also, you know, detail what was going on as well. So, and that's a very interesting thing, because in many of these books,

1:06:39 With maybe the exception of William Bloom. The authors, even in The Devil's Chessboard, the authors always, it's like they're going 100 miles an hour to the point and then at the very end do a straight nosedive. They never come out and basically say that the CIA is explicitly

1:07:07 in the drug trafficking business. It's always, here's all the material, you guys form your own opinion. And even like here, the author will, yeah, it kind of looks like that, but they said, we didn't explicitly say that. And I see that over and over again, but after your...

1:07:35 into this study, 150 books, and all of these exact same things happen in all of these different locations, you have to go to the end result. Was the end result drug trafficking? Yes. Okay, then.

1:07:51 the drug trafficking happened here, here, here, here, here, here. And these are all of the places that they were doing all of this shit. So I'm gonna go ahead and come away with the impression that they were there for drug trafficking because you can't come up with another. It is, the end result is what the, it's not unintended consequences because if it was unintended consequences after the second time, you're gonna not do it again.

1:08:21 But we've got iteration after iteration after iteration that everywhere they go and do this shit, either the oligarchs get a resource or the CIA gets drugs. And there are no exceptions to that. All along, go ahead. Yeah, Colonel, I think, you know, in conjunction with Lucian Coden, who's obviously a very key figure in all kinds of narratives.

1:08:52 It's at the core of November 1963 and the disagreement about whether there was a coup called for by JFK or done by the CIA. And I think that what the historians, John Newman in JFK's second edition, and also an outstanding book that I think it's important for everyone to read because

1:09:26 You know, this is such an important topic about, you know, was JFK getting out of Vietnam or was he not, which is at the core of our narrative that affects every single high school, blah, blah, blah. But is Kaiser's book, American Tragedy at Harvard University Press 2000, published in 2000. So, you know, Lucian Conan is obviously a key general in the coup planning.

1:09:54 It's very worth noting that and also noting what we just stated about and learned about him later in Laos. Right. And it's also important that we realize, as you know, Colonel, I have repeatedly pointed out that the CIA was disagreeing and their people in the State Department, as well as the CIA's people in State Department. I mean.

1:10:23 See, this is where it gets kind of tricky in terms of wondering which area to agree, because, you know, the guy nicknamed the crocodile, right, Harriman, who adopted, you know, the first secretary of defense's son after the said first secretary of defense forced all jumped out the window or was pushed, encouraged out the window, depending on your narrative choice. Right. He those two were in the critical August 24th, 1963 memo.

1:10:53 And the third person being our good friend, who you mentioned before, what's his name? You know who I'm talking about. Lyman Lemonsker? No, the State Department guy who wrote that 1967 book called, oh, crap, I can't remember. Okay. Yeah, so they were, and that's the one where it's the memo to, you know, Lucian Conan.

1:11:22 JFK was not in the White House at the time. He was out of town and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So there's ambiguity built into this stuff. But it's really important to understand that Lucian Conan is, you know, at both of these situations at the very core. It's almost like it's such an important intersection here in terms of, you know, how narrative is divided and split. But, yeah, I recommend this passionately.

1:11:51 You know, Kaiser's book called American Tragedy and the second edition of John Newman's book, because both of those, you know, this is something that's real, in my opinion. I'm kind of I think it's worth actually reading for the average citizen to, you know, just spend time reading the peer reviewed historians as many as possible, because this is such a contra disputed.

1:12:15 point about whether what CIA was doing versus what JFK was doing in Saigon in 1963 it's just plain worth it because it affects you know double government like what is the real government right now probably more directly than anything else and it's the most lied about by the fake left but anyway yeah great show thanks for uh thanks for sure and American Tragedy is definitely on our list to do um it's a fabulous book um to your point um

1:12:42 Yeah, it is very interesting because what we also just covered is the fact that they will state something on the record and not mean it for meeting minute purposes. And that's critical to this whole thing. Also, if you, I know all of you guys do, and I insert this point to all along comment about Lucy and Koenig, he's French.

1:13:12 That's where he's from. So to Illini's point about him being accepted into the Corsican mafia as one of their dons, very critical because it was French OAS agents that were in Dallas on November 22nd. So those are not separate stories. They are not not related. They are definitely related to each other. SR and then Illini.

1:13:44 Thank you, Colonel, and thank everybody for attending here on Spaces and on Rumble. Today is a really good session. You started out with William Putnam Bundy, and you talk about checking all the boxes. Yes, he does. Following Colonel Towner and War Hamster on secret societies and what's going on here. This man checked them all. Yes.

1:14:09 He was at Groton School where he was prepped. He was in Yale and Harvard both. And to kick it all off, he was a member of Skull and Bones. Yes, we covered him. So he didn't get any more bona fide than that. Yeah, the whole Bundy family is steeped in this hierarchy. Thank you for bringing that up, SR. Illini, go ahead.

1:14:34 Hey, Colonel. So I think I have it like on the one hand, I totally agree with your conclusion. On the other hand, I might have a little bit of insight on what's going on with Prados and all these other books that, you know, came out before 2016. And a lot of cases really nailed it. But it certainly put all the facts together.

1:14:57 but that didn't, you know, kind of take that last step towards, you know, the chilling and dark conclusion. Right. And I think, you know, I remember my reaction as a college kid in the aughts watching Conspiracy of Silence. I remembered, you know, watching the story of the Franklin scandal and everything and John DeCamp going around talking to all the different witnesses and looking at the whole thing. And first off,

1:15:27 You know, saying, number one, how horrible. Number two, wow, this is like, you know, watching a Robert Ludlum movie, you know, reading a Robert Ludlum book. And then number three, you know, how horrible if any of this were true. Oh, well, I need to go back to my life, you know, in terms of trying to be a college student as a computer science major, trying to get a job. And, you know.

1:15:56 And hopefully that's not how the government actually works because from everything – the rest of what I can see in my life, everything is relatively normal. And I think that that sort of model probably worked all the way up until 2016 when they were actively trying to frame Trump for Russian collusion and then all these other various hoaxes and everything.

1:16:24 And the country was finally forced to come to the, you know, dark and chilling and ugly realization that, you know, really only, you know, you know, some historians touched that a lot of others, you know, put all the different facts together.

1:16:42 And basically said, wow, this looks like a whole chain of incompetence here. Who could make this many mistakes? Wow, our government's really screwed up and this is a big scandal. But obviously nobody would do this intentionally. Right. That's exactly my point. Thank you for saying that. And I think it was the betrayal blindness that everybody was operating under. And everybody kind of woke up to it.

1:17:11 You know, over a different period of time, some people woke up to it, you know, well before 2016. Right. Before they finally wake up. So to your point, so 2016 to 2020 was what the hell's going on? They're literally repeatedly Russiagate, the Ukraine phone call. They're literally trying to overthrow the government right in front of our face. And then 2020.

1:17:40 with the COVID and the jab. And it finally dawned on all of those people who had lived in the incompetence of the last 50 years, and I'm using incompetence in air quotes, no, no, they really want to kill us. What the fuck? And so when you realize you watch four coups consecutively, attempts, and they turn around and try to kill us. At that point, the gloves came off. And I,

1:18:10 firmly believe that, that it took that sequence of events. And I'm not saying that was planned at all. I think it took that sequence of events of people that had lived as Illini just beautifully articulated with.

1:18:28 all of this pent up knowledge over time that they were just inept, that they just fucked everything up, you know, and it wasn't, you know, it wasn't evil or any, no, they want to kill us. They're all evil. And I think that's what really jerked a knot in everybody. And so once you realize they really want you dead.

1:18:52 Then you have to go back and reevaluate every single thing that you ever thought about your government. And that's literally where I was at. And it's not that I wasn't doing the whole COVID thing anyway. It's not like that. But that just perfectly coincided with my reading, which then turned into research, which then turned into what we're doing. Because I was just happily sitting around.

1:19:21 the house reading, as I always do, when I stumbled across Antony Sutton, which led me to Paul Williams, which led me to, you guys know the story. I'm reading that material, which I would have gotten around to reading at some point anyway, but under the context that I'm just trying to kill all of us, it has a completely different meaning.

1:19:45 and having personally watched them knowing that they were trying to coup the president. And then you go back even further. And of course, you know that they killed JFK. We've all known it for a very long time, but it didn't have, you know, that happened when I was barely born. We'll just leave it at that. And it.

1:20:05 it didn't have the personal meaning to me that seeing this stuff with my own eyes and of course being vaccine injured myself, it all has very personal meaning for me. So that kind of led us to where we're at today.

1:20:25 And then when you put it all in perspective and you go back and you start reviewing all of this stuff that people have written that fell just short of them going, oh my God, the government's really doing this stuff. But thank God that they did all of the documentation that they did and rightfully so. I don't think a book written with that type of, especially.

1:20:50 at the time these books were being written, that type of accusatory, people would not have been ready for that yet. And so they're leaving as a responsible author does. Here's the facts. You do with them what you want. And when you take them in this order in which we've presented them over the last three plus years, they definitely.

1:21:15 illustrate the pattern that we now have come to recognize. And you're gonna recognize it again tonight when we go over some very recent events that's happening in Lebanon. We're gonna go back in time a little bit, but not too far back in time. And you're gonna see all the same things that are going on in the United States right now and how they played out in Lebanon.

1:21:43 And it's what they have in store for everybody everywhere. That's what they want. So SR, go ahead. And then I've got to run. Thank you, Colonel. We do have a question from Rumble concerning the show tonight with Alpha Warrior. What time is that going to be? Because he's traveling, if I understand. 9 p.m. East Coast time. Thank you, Colonel. Sure. Unless he does another one of his switcheroos and calls me at the last minute and says, can we move it to 930? But it will be tonight.

1:22:14 preferably at nine. But sometimes he does move it back to 9.30 because of current events. He has little ones. So anyway, all right, thanks. I'm gonna run out to dinner with family and I will see you tonight at nine o'clock. Take care, everybody.

Entities here

CIA50 Laos26 Vang Pao25 Thailand21 Hmong people20 United States20 Air America18 Long Tieng17 U.S. Air Force12 Richard Helms11 Vietnam11 Secret War in Laos11 Stuart Symington9 Richard Nixon9 Ted Shackley9 North Vietnamese8 USAID7 Lima Sites7 Hmong6 Henry Kissinger6 Cambodia6 Bill Lair6 Hugh Tovar5 Lucien Conein5 Cambodian Incursion5 Lawrence Devlin4 Project Momentum4 William Sullivan4 South Vietnam4 U.S. Congress4 Udorn Air Force Base4 Scott Breckenridge4 Melvin Laird4 Royal Laotian Air Force4 Peocean Lao4 William H. Godley4 1969 Senate Hearings on Laos4 Plain of Jars3 U.S. State Department3 Ho Chi Minh Trail3

Claims made here

Stuart Symington funded Secret War in Laos documented ▶ 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 ab…”

Ted Shackley spied_on Secret War in Laos documented ▶ 36:16

“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. Th…”

Richard Helms headed CIA documented ▶ 36:16

Stuart Symington funded Secret War in Laos documented ▶ 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 ye…”

William Sullivan member_of CIA documented ▶ 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 r…”

Lawrence Houston member_of CIA documented ▶ 37:43

“in the 1947 National Security Act, which of course, General Counsel Lawrence Houston had said didn't give them any authority to do any of that. Ironically, after having authored a memo saying that the…”

Jack Smith member_of CIA documented ▶ 39:24

“Stuart Symington got up and started talking about a secret war, he knew far better than that. In his later memoirs, Helms added that the senator had been briefed several times on the CIA program and h…”

CIA trafficked Laos host_asserted ▶ 39:53

“Symington was the thinly disguised villain. Agency officials had a deaf ear for the corrosive effects of secrecy on public support for their endeavor. Drug trafficking in Laos constituted an element t…”

CIA trafficked Laos host_asserted ▶ 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 …”

CIA trafficked Laos documented ▶ 40:56

“Li Mi Band, bought some of the poppies and moved them across the border in caravans. Lo Lan Lau and Tai bought more. So when the airplanes came, they introduced the efficiency of transportation. By th…”

Richard Helms spied_on John Stennis documented ▶ 42:02

“On one occasion, Helms told Senator John Stennis, chairman of the Armed Services Committee of the CIA, reporting, Stennis paused, shook his head, then said, I'm not sure you people ought to be getting…”

Anthony Poshepny member_of CIA documented ▶ 42:29

“How could we possibly not help the United States government when we've got such a hideous drug problem in the country? You created the drug problem. Helms insisted the CIA helped. Tony Poe, for exampl…”

CIA funded Vang Pao host_asserted ▶ 42:58

“nor could the CIA do anything to prevent the Mung's drug operation. Right. You're supplying them with money, food, and weapons. I'm going to go ahead and say there's something you could do. A prohibit…”

CIA supplied_arms_to Vang Pao host_asserted ▶ 42:58

Hugh Tovar headed CIA documented ▶ 44:08

“Laos military and private air carriers, which by the way, we've already discovered, are all supplied by the CIA. In the summer and fall of 1972, when Hugh Tovar led the CIA station in Laos, the agency…”

Scott Breckenridge member_of CIA documented ▶ 44:36

“began a formal investigation. And I do have that book. As a matter of fact, it's right here. We're going to do that book because it's quite illuminating. Scott Breckenridge of the IG office participat…”

Scott Breckenridge covered_up CIA documented ▶ 45:04

“Air America and other employees. Their report, Investigation of the Drug Situation in Southeast Asia, found no evidence that the CIA had permitted any drug trafficking. But he qualifies it, end quote,…”

William H. Godley removed_from_power Laos documented ▶ 47:13

“Even then, it doesn't matter because they buy the president and Congress. In any case, despite the denials, drugs were moving everywhere. Ambassador Godley arranged for one of the senior Laotian offic…”

CIA covered_up Secret War in Laos documented ▶ 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 …”

Melvin Laird member_of United States documented ▶ 48:56

“The request for airstrikes came in this charged political context, fearing leaks from the Pentagon about B-52s in Laos. Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird opposed the option so as to create a record of…”

Henry Kissinger member_of United States documented ▶ 48:56

William P. Rogers member_of United States documented ▶ 48:56

Henry Kissinger ordered_assassination_of Cambodia documented ▶ 49:45

“Between officials seeking to protect the American forces for which they felt a responsibility and merciless congressional onslaught that rattled those officials. Sure, you're concerned about the Ameri…”

Richard Nixon ordered_assassination_of Cambodia documented ▶ 50:12

“Richard Helms and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman were all present. Richard Nixon approved the strikes if the Peocean Lows advanced. Within 24 hours, the condition had been met. An attack of three …”

William Fulbright exposed Secret War in Laos documented ▶ 52:39

“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. …”

USAID front_for CIA documented ▶ 53:09

“had admitted in testimony the CIA used USAID as a cover in Laos. Imagine that. Imagine that. That is in actual testimony. Fulbright added that the embassy's Rural Development Annex recruited partisan …”

Richard Nixon ordered_assassination_of Cambodia documented ▶ 53:34

“Further details were added in April 70 when continuing pressure forced the administration to relent and release the 1969 congressional testimony. Any chance of limiting the damage was lost when Nixon …”

CIA framed China host_asserted ▶ 54:28

“and bombed a bunch of airplanes, the special forces guys did. The entire operation, they did not know the purpose of it, was to pretend that the communists were attacking Cambodia. So they dropped off…”

CIA carried_out_attack Cambodia host_asserted ▶ 54:58

“to be picked up. But the pickup was a setup. The CIA was going to kill them all. They all survived. But most of them, only two eventually make it out. They were captured. They were tortured. All kinds…”

CIA overthrew Cambodia host_asserted ▶ 55:55

“They literally had opportunity after opportunity to rescue these SF guys. They wanted them dead because they didn't want any witnesses to the fact that they were setting up a sabotage of a Cambodian a…”

Stuart Symington funded Secret War in Laos documented ▶ 56:56

“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 leve…”

Vang Pao member_of Hmong documented ▶ 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…”

Douglas Blaufarb headed CIA documented ▶ 1:00:14

“The results of the CIA's post-mortem, and by the way, that Thai airline was Holland Drugs. The result of the CIA post-mortem on Laos are not known. One view is that Douglas Bloffarb, Laos' station chi…”

Alfred McCoy exposed Secret War in Laos book_quoted ▶ 1:04:13

“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 cov…”

Lucia Conine member_of Mafia book_quoted ▶ 1:05:42

“That was given to him by the Corsican Mafia as a token of their friendship. That basically is something that's only given to high-ranking Corsican Mafia leaders. Right. And he gets out this gold coin …”

Avraham Harman member_of U.S. State Department host_asserted ▶ 1:10:23

“See, this is where it gets kind of tricky in terms of wondering which area to agree, because, you know, the guy nicknamed the crocodile, right, Harriman, who adopted, you know, the first secretary of …”

Lyman Lemnitzer member_of U.S. State Department host_asserted ▶ 1:10:53

“And the third person being our good friend, who you mentioned before, what's his name? You know who I'm talking about. Lyman Lemonsker? No, the State Department guy who wrote that 1967 book called, oh…”

William P. Bundy member_of Skull and Bones documented ▶ 1:14:09

“He was at Groton School where he was prepped. He was in Yale and Harvard both. And to kick it all off, he was a member of Skull and Bones. Yes, we covered him. So he didn't get any more bona fide than…”