The Colonels corner president, secret wars chapter 14 continued

auto-scroll word highlight ▶ Rumble @ here

Transcript

0:00 Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Colonel's Corner Book Club. Let me get SR-71. Bridget's going to be a few minutes late. So if you guys wouldn't mind, SR-71, when you see Bridget come in, just let me know. All right. I'm going to get us going over here on Rumble as well. All right. Click a few more buttons.

0:41 There's like 50 things you have to do on here. All right. So, we are going to, let me get this going live here. Go live. All right. So, we left off yesterday with the Laos campaign. Plain and Jars, CIA, basically running the show.

1:23 We're going to pick up right there. William Sullivan almost missed his assignment to Laos as the ambassador because Maxwell Taylor had wanted him to serve as chief of staff for the new mission in Vietnam. Taylor, as ambassador there, directed all aspects of U.S. operations, including the military advisory, which is very interesting because that absolutely is not the chain of command.

1:53 President Johnson had prevailed on Taylor to assume the ambassadorship at Saigon, leaving his post as chairman. That's kind of where we left off yesterday. So Bill Sullivan could hardly refuse the summons. Taylor was President Johnson's like right hand man. And everybody knew it, which, again, I thought very interesting. I don't know if you guys.

2:24 have ever thought about this because when I was first doing the research into the JFK and the assassination as it related to Operation Gladio, one of the things that's very distinctive to me, which almost never happens, is Johnson left all of the players basically in the same chairs. So normally, you would want to have your own sect up. Normally,

2:52 you would want to have your own like military assistant slash chairman. And if you go back and you look at all of the players, it almost seems very eerie, like JFK was set up from the beginning, kind of a vibe. So anyway, and if you remember, we talked about Colby convincing Avril Harriman.

3:21 who was known as the crocodile and his influence in Washington, D.C., and how they were basically going to work with the Hmong in theater. So as boss in the Laotian capital, Sullivan could be certain that the American mission would pursue the program.

3:53 of basically this kind of CIA special operations with the energy necessary. And we covered that Shackley was his lieutenant in that location as well. And that at the time, he had just left the Miami station having run all of the Cuba failures. So, you know, where would you want him other than...

4:22 Laos, right? So, and then if you remember that a CIA had set up all of these agricultural programs like fish ponds and pig breeding centers, you know, almost like they're doing a planned smart city or something like that. And then we had Richard Helms.

4:45 The CIA quoted as saying the agency was flat out in its effort to keep the tribes viable militarily in the Plain of Jars area, meaning that there was a contingent of 250 Americans either in Laos or commuting there daily to fly missions and other operations, and that the budget had grew to $300 million.

5:13 million dollars a year. In keeping with covert operations, Sullivan issued strict orders for Americans to keep out of the combat and say that, quote, when I found those orders were willfully disobeyed, I removed the offenders from the country, unquote, which is bullshit because if you talk to the Ravens that were flying those missions, they were flying combat missions.

5:43 The CIA station appears to have taken no action against people like Tony Poe, who was in the middle of it and who suffered more than a dozen wounds in firefights because he was actively engaging in combat. In large part, Air America made it all work. The CIA's proprietary airline is far more extensively.

6:12 used for this mission than most people realize. In South Vietnam alone, by late 1965, Air America had moved 1,600 tons of cargo a month. They had over 50 planes, and dozens of them were C-45s, 46s, and 47s.

6:41 And they would fly at the height of the missions in the mid-1960s approximately 2,500 tons of cargo a month. So the importance for Laos was Thailand, where, of course, all of the Air America maintenance facilities were set up. And they were primarily...

7:13 Udorn, which we talked about yesterday, Bangkok, and Thale. The maintenance was available within the Laos capital as well. And there was a major base for the proprietary airlines inside of Laos. It was there that the transfer of 16 Air Force helicopters in March 1961 that the Air America fleet brought in.

7:44 In mid-1966, the proprietary aircraft based in Thailand included 21 helicopters, 12 Hilo U-10 light planes, and 20 medium transports. The helicopters were vital for air rescue missions. During the first two years the U.S. was bombing from Laos, Air America rescued four times as many downed air crew as the Air Force did.

8:14 Air America pilots were supposed to be flying during their time off from service on regular flights. They were paid bonuses given tax advantages and could clear up to $40,000 extra a year by flying with the CIA. And if you talk to those guys, it wasn't like it was extra missions. That was their job while they were there. And especially sensitive base in...

8:42 Thailand was Thakli, T-A-K-H-L-I, and it was codenamed Pepper Grinder. They were basically what was referred to as a spook compound where top secret projects were housed to include the U-2 and the SR-71 aircraft would land and take off. They also had some specially retrofitted C-130s there.

9:09 Because Air America owned no C-130s, the Air Force lent it some for their special air warfare from their E-flight at Okinawa. Of four Air America crews trained on C-130s in the mid-1960s, one was left by 1970. So the hub of the Hmong War was codenamed Sky. That was the name of the base.

9:39 because it was located high atop a mountain, well, in a valley where it had very high mountains on both sides. Sky boasted of an increasingly well-developed airbase with a long runway, good radio navigation beacons, and all-weather landing systems. They also had air traffic controllers there because it was so busy.

10:05 planes would land and take off every few seconds. There were flight lines on both sides of a concrete airstrip. And I actually saw what was the remains of this in one of the flights that we took when we were in Laos. It's crazy looking at it from overhead. There used to be pictures on the internet of it. They had sophisticated telecommunications. They had an air conditioner.

10:35 officers club. They also had rescue helicopters located there. Surrounding the base was a Hmong town that grew to a population of approximately 40,000 people. There were no paved streets or streetlights, but it was all of the shops there were incredibly well stocked.

11:03 Vang Pao imported a Cadillac and a road was built up the ridge to connect the airbase with another village. Vang Pao had his headquarters at a place called Lone Tin, together with a propaganda outlet that was basically like Radio Asia. With the intensification of the secret war went the growth of the CIA proprietary that fed it.

11:33 Flying Tiger, by way of comparison, had been the largest private air charter airline in the world when Air America was formed. By 1968, Flying Tiger had 28 aircraft and 2,000 employees, whereas Air America had almost 200 airplanes and four times as many workers.

11:54 Now, it's interesting that they use that comparison because Flying Tigers is the basic airline that was set up by Claire Chenault, a retired two-star general for Chiang Kai-shek that William Pauly created because it's all being used for the same thing. In February 1969, the Air America fleet in Thailand consisted of 29 helicopters, 20 light aircraft, 19 medium transports. This unit alone was larger.

12:25 than the entire Flying Tiger fleet. The demand for air tonnage for the Laos operation led to an anomaly in secret warfare, competition from a private company. An Air America manager was hired away from Continental Air Services, which then sought some of the same USAID contracts because of a legal action against Air America monopoly when threatened to reveal the real ownership.

12:55 The Air America Continental Air got some of the Laotian work. The company built up a fleet of 21 aircraft in Thailand in 1966, rising to 25 three years later. In addition, some contract work was carried out in Bangkok by another airline called Bird Air. And that basically...

13:24 was part of the CIA too. We came across it before. And so why they say that they're competing, if you do the homework and you find out who all was sitting on the boards of these aircraft, they really weren't competing. Air America did a magnificent job. What they were doing was setting up like dual sources of capability in case one got outed in the public, they still had a backup.

13:54 These are not separate. They're not actual competitors. The attacks in support of the Hmong were also carried out from Thailand by Air Force T-28s in jungle gym type units. A few of the planes were given to the Laotian troops to lend credence to the cover that they were actually doing the war themselves because they weren't.

14:24 The T-28 force eventually attained a strength of 100 fighter bombers and was referred to as the 56th Special Operations Wing. This was supplemented by a wide use of the Air Force gunships, which was first the AC-47, later the AC-119, and then eventually the AC-130s.

14:51 which are the Air Force Special Operations Command models that have the guns mounted to the aircraft. In all of these activities, Thailand played a vital role. One established at the beginning of the 1960s. The chief of the CIA station there at the time was a guy by the name of Robert Jansen, whom Desmond Fitzgerald once called

15:20 the greatest single asset in all of Southeast Asia for the United States. And we ran across him before as well. With help from the ambassadors, Alexis Johnson and Kenneth Young, Janssen encouraged the TIE to assume a cooperative attitude. And the TIE responded not only with supply ports and air bases, but pilots for the T-28s and contract agents for the CIA on the ground.

15:49 It's been a couple of weeks since I've read through this chapter. I thought this part was hilarious because obviously the author at this point in the story, they just miraculously was helping. Yeah, no, that's not how it happened. Because if you guys remember in the other books that we've read, the Thai National Police was bribed and the general that was running it was paid $35 million.

16:19 to have air and sea ports accessible by these people. It wasn't because they just was cooperative. They were paid to do it. In 1964, the Hmong units cooperated in an ambitious counteroffensive during the rainy season, attacking...

16:49 the eastern flank of the Paiotlao on the Plain of Jars, called Operation Triangle. The offensive was possible only because of an American airlift that was so substantial that it had to be approved at the highest level of the Johnson administration. With Air America and the T-28 combat air support, the...

17:15 Forces regained critical positions on the Plain of Jars before the rainy season ended in November. The retreating Peot and Lao and the North Vietnamese troops were repeatedly ambushed by the Hmong. Operation Triangle set the pattern for the remainder of the war in Laos. In the dry season, the Peot and Lao would attack. When the rains came,

17:42 the Americans would counter that attack. American support was coordinated by the embassy's shadow office called... Let's see. The requirements office was actually a front for the CIA unit that had replaced the military PEO structure after the 1962 Geneva Agreement when we said we wouldn't be there at all. So the opposing units...

18:25 The ones that we were supporting was participating in attacks that would first be sent to Thailand for special training to circumvent the Geneva prohibitions from us training people in Laos. You know, we just lie about all of it. For the first part, the North Vietnamese soon were permanently maintaining two full divisions in northern Laos, which was the whole point of the exercise. In addition to.

18:53 having security there to protect the poppy, they wanted a distraction for the North in order to be able to do what they wanted in the South. Apparent success in 1964 and 65 pleased Washington. The Hmong program was something of a showcase. To show his appreciation of the Laotian effort, LBJ received Pop Buell, B-U-E-L-L, the guy we were talking about yesterday.

19:22 at the White House. By the end of 1965, USAID was reporting that on its $1.6 million investment in the village health program. It was funding 140 hospitals and dispensaries, serving 150 patients a month, and had trained 268 medics in the last fiscal year because they're killing everybody.

19:51 Nothing like bragging about your medical setup when you're bombing everybody, mining everything, dropping napalm, and creating your own patients. Training work was contracted out to the Filipino health organization called Operation Brotherhood, who had worked in Laos but was being paid by the CIA front company called USAID. One aspect of the Laotian War

20:22 that was not going so well was an attempt to seal off the borders of South Vietnam. There were three components to this effort. Aerial reconnaissance by a thing called the Yankee team, a bombing campaign, and a cross-border scouting team that was trying to basically set up operations inside of the North. The Yankee team mission was a complete failure.

20:50 North Vietnam anti-aircraft fire against the planes led to the first bombing, so-called protective reaction strikes by aircraft accompanying the reconnaissance planes. Even with this support, the results were awful. In June 1965, Ambassador Sullivan spent a full day with the general commanding the Laotian Air Force being briefed in detail on

21:17 parts of the Ho Chi Minh Trail recently used to infiltrate the North Vietnamese regular divisions that had already crossed the boundary into the South. In his report, Sullivan noted, all our Yankee team photo reconnaissance missions over this area have failed to turn up a decent trace of a route. They couldn't see anything. The Yankee team was soon

21:46 into the regular air effort over Laos. The air campaign began in December 1964 when the U.S. aircraft were authorized to add armed reconnaissance strike missions, which basically is just, hey, I'm going to take a few pictures, but I'm going to bomb the hell out of you. The number of aircraft sorties allowed daily was increased in the spring of 1965 because, again,

22:14 This is at the height of everything being managed out of Washington, and you weren't allowed to do anything to actually accomplish a mission. You were only allowed to do what they told you to do. There were strikes that they nicknamed Steel Tiger, and there was air support under the Vang Pao in northern Laos called Barrel Roll.

22:47 Between 65 and 71, it is estimated that 1 million tons of bombs was dropped in steel tiger operation alone. Another half million tons of bombs were dropped in the exercise called barrel roll. That's a shit ton of bombs. By the time a peace agreement was signed in Paris, you know another one.

23:18 In early 1973, the weight of the bombs dropped on Laos exceeded the tonnage of all munitions that had been expended in every theater during World War II. They decimated this entire area. And of course, not all of the ordnance exploded. There were bombs everywhere. The entire country of Laos, Vietnam, and this was just Laos, but...

23:50 the country, we still have Marines there that go out on missions to recover mines. They even have, it's just, it's horrific. When I was over there, we met several of the people, the kids that had been, you know, had an arm blown off or whatever from finding a mine. So everywhere you go, every street you go down, every dirt road you go down, there's signs of

24:18 what the ordinance looks like, pictures of them. And they have not on the road sign itself, but these like dispensers that every so often have like markers where if you find something that is suspicious, you put one of these markers on it. So when the teams come in,

24:46 They know where people believe these unexploded ordinances are. It's just the whole thing. I met the Marine. I want to say he was a major. We had a shirt that has their emblem on it that they gave all of us. It was horrific. Just to hear his stories of things that he had personally witnessed. I think he'd been over there for like two years doing this. It was horrible.

25:16 Cross-border operations from South Vietnam were the bread and butter of the military advisory group called Study and Observation Group, or the SOG. This effort gathered momentum in 1964 when the Vietnamese officers acting for the Americans and senior Laotian generals reached an agreement allowing these missions, which had been recommended in Washington, D.C. for over a year.

25:44 The earliest cross-border missions were for scouting and were organized along the same lines as the attempts to put the agent teams into the north, basically gladio units. Eight mid-agent teams were inserted at night across the Laotian border by South Vietnamese helicopters. An early reevaluation of the project occurred when four teams provided by Special Operations Project Leaping Lena

26:12 were almost completely destroyed, with only four survivors escaping to the south. A fifth team inserted after a renewed go-ahead returned with meager intelligence resorts, which of course is the same kind of result that they were having in Albania. Other participants in this cross-border operation were teams of CIA NUNG, N-U-N-G.

26:43 It was not the first time Nung had fought in Laos. In 1961 and 2, the CIA had secretly reinforced the Laotian troops with an obscure unit called the 111 Special Battalion. The soldiers were identified as quote-unquote Chinese, but they were not Chinese. Well, not the Chinese that you think.

27:15 The Project Shining Brass, which was the SOG's code name for the cross-border patrols, the Nung, N-U-N-G, were given final training by the Vietnamese, and the patrols became more extensive in 1965. The SOG code name was changed from Prairie Fire, now including Overland Infiltrations,

27:43 from special forces camps into Vietnamese border region. The patrols identified the Ho Chi Minh Trail routes and marked them for bombing by Steel Tiger. This effort was supplemented by a road watch program in which the patrols scouted for specific North Vietnamese movements and then called in airstrikes. In Thailand, the Air Force deployed a special air warfare helicopter detachment that had the code name Pony Express.

28:13 To help move the road watch teams, Prairie Fire executed over 250 missions in 67 alone, including patrols penetrating as far as 12 miles into Laos, where they're not supposed to be. But in 68, in addition to the Green Berets serving in the 5th Special Forces Group, there were another 598 Americans assigned to the Prairie Fire operation.

28:41 Ambassador Sullivan's biggest problem with the cross-border operation was the commander of the military, General Wes Moreland. Saigon wanted a lot more action in the Laos panhandle, either an occupation by friendly forces or an actual invasion to cut off Ho Chi Minh.

29:06 The Military Advisory Command prepared plans for such an invasion in September 1966 and again in 68, but Sullivan repeatedly advised against it. The biggest job Bill Sullivan had, observed one American official, was to keep Westmoreland's paws off of Laos. They don't want anybody else in there because they're running drugs. In 1971,

29:33 When both Sullivan and Westmoreland had returned to Washington for a meeting, the Vietnamese army went ahead with an invasion of the Panhandle using the code name Lam Sung 719. The operation turned into a major military debacle. Warfare on the ground continued in North Laos. Strong Peotin Lao attacks on a Lima site in early 1966 resulted in

30:02 stationing AC-47 gunships in Thailand for the first time. By mid-1966, three had gone down over Laos because they had been shot down. Americans in Laos began to collect hostile fire pay beginning in January 1966, when they're not supposed to be there. That was also a peak of sorts for the Hmong, whose New Year celebrations that month was attended by the King of Laos and a diplomatic corps.

30:32 During the dry season, the opposing forces had cleared several of the provinces, but the Hmong and some of their irregulars had took the hills in what basically amounted to a guerrilla resistance. Later that year, the CIA quietly shifted its support from the neutralist military unit to a deputy who promptly ousted Kung Lee, who was finally forced to seek refuge in Thailand.

31:02 Another coup was attempted in Laos, capital, but failed. Toward the end of the 66th, press reports of Americans in the field with Laotian forces further eroded any plausible deniability of a quote-unquote secret war in Laos. A good measure of relative war effort of the Americans and the Laotian government is the monthly tonnage hauled by the airlift.

31:29 The Laotian Air Force averaged 400 tons a month in 66 through Air America. The CIA was moving 6,000 tons a month plus 16,000 passengers. That year, the Air Force flew 7,000 strike missions in a place they're not even supposed to be. The campaign against Ho Chi Minh Trail furnished the

31:56 clandestine units with a new mission in support of the air war. Accurate bombing required accurate navigation, leading the Air Force to put a radio beacon atop a sacred mountain called Phu Pha Thai. Later, a radar was added and helicopters were based in forward areas for search and rescue missions. Phu Pha Thai.

32:24 was called Project 404. It became a Lima site designated as 85. Pony Express lifted 150 tons of equipment to the site for the radar installation and a dozen Americans were required to run the equipment. Fang Pao's Hmong were asked to defend the facility. Sam Nua

32:51 was not a backwater, but rather the front lines in the effort of Laos. And, let's see, Pony Express was still helicoptering in equipment to the Site 85 when the Paiute and Lao preparations for the 1968 dry season offensive made it clear that they were going to take that site out. A Pony Express helicopter

33:21 was shot down during its approach for landing in December 1967. Within months, government forces had been ejected from most of the site. Now, Phu Pha Thai did not escape the adversary's attention.

33:40 The North Vietnamese made a concerted effort to knock out this installation. In one of the few recorded instances of North Vietnamese bombing, in January 1968, two Soviet-built transports modified to carry bombs were actually shot down attempting to bomb the site. On March 11, 1968, a major ground attack overwhelmed the Hmong defenders in 56,000-foot-high areas.

34:09 13 Americans died in combat. Now, if you guys look that up, I'm going to fail my professional military education quiz here. But the chief that they were trying to rescue during the attack and the chief that was like the last guy, he ended up being the Medal of Honor.

34:40 And I'm not going to remember his name. But every, when you're an airman, when you're a junior NCO and you're meeting the boards and they test you on your military history, it's something Berger, I think is his last name, like Lineberger. It's coming back to me. That was always a test.

35:03 because he was so significant in Air Force history as far as his efforts of trying to save everybody at that site. Incredibly sad. And they weren't even supposed to be there. The spooks had Laos wired for sound and filled its air with photo reconnaissance planes. In at least one case, according to Ted Shackley,

35:32 CIE even had radio beacons planted in the Paioth and Lao units and could monitor everything. The Military Advisory Command intelligence estimates show that between December 1967 and August 68, the combined strength of the opposing forces increased from 51,000 to 110.

35:59 The longer they're fighting, the more opposition they're having with the local population, which is inevitably what happens because we're not supposed to be there. The northern Vietnamese contingent comprised another 34,000 combat troops, 6,000 advisors, and 18,000 support troops. The results of the campaign were ominous. Within three months, the Hmong had driven once and for all.

36:29 from the Sam Nua Valley area and from points around the Plain of Jars. Between January 10th and 15th, Air America and Pony Express helicopters joined hands to lift over 5,000 people off near Sam Nua. Another evacuation reduced losses in the fall of the Lima Site 36. 34 airfield sites were lost in these operations. Air power was the American response.

36:58 more specifically constant support from AC-47 gunships from the 14th Special Operations Wing. The unit's operation officer, Colonel William Ginn, G-I-N-N Jr., met with Vang Pao to explain the air support system and promised that no more Lima sites were going to be lost. The Hmong had given strobe lights to identify their own positions at night, enabling the gunships to suppress surrounding areas.

37:28 to keep them safe. North Vietnamese attacks failed in May, but again in June, Lima Site 108 was overran, necessitating another air rescue. Vang Pao did not lose many more positions and even managed to recapture a couple. Even Bill Sullivan's powers were taxed by the demands of the meeting in 1969 during the dry season offensive.

37:57 There wasn't a bag of rice dropped in Laos he didn't know about, said William Bundy of Ambassador Sullivan. But in the capital of Laos, which is where Sullivan was and had been for now four years, in the spring of 1969, the new Nixon administration recalled the ambassador. Sullivan was disappointed to learn that he would go back.

38:27 to the same Vietnam interagency committee that he had left in Washington. In Laos, the embassy team was not quite the same. Ted Shackley moved over to Saigon as chief of station there because that's about the time they were fixing up the Phoenix program. His place was taken by Lawrence Devlin, one of the members of the Congo Lumumba assassination. He's the guy that drove...

38:55 Lumumba around for two weeks in his trunk, dead. And G. McMurtry Godley, who was the former ambassador to the Congo, is now Richard Nixon's choice for Laos. Oh, imagine that. Just like I said, move them around to do the destabilization slash assassination slash coup wherever they want people.

39:27 Godley proved, if anything, to be even more involved than his predecessor in the day-to-day managements. They referred to him as a field marshal. Richard Nixon backed up the ambassador's authority with a letter confirming the primacy of the State Department over all military operations, which is literally ass backwards. There were sea changes in Washington as well as Laos.

39:57 at least for the CIA. An era passed unheralded when a deeply depressed Frank Wisner put a shotgun to his head and killed himself in 1965. Lots of questions about that. It was Richard Helms, the professional espionage specialist, that then became director in 1966. The paramilitary club at Langley suffered another real blow in February of 67 when Desmond Fitzgerald collapsed.

40:24 while playing tennis on his home court. The director of plans was awarded a post-humus national security medal, but his replacement was Thomas Karaminenz, a Helms protege from the espionage crowd. The secret warriors could no longer count on the same support from the highest levels of the CIA. According to CIA officer Victor Marchetti,

40:53 The rank-and-file CIA people were also becoming less enamored with the Laos operation, not because they objected to the involvement, but because the effort was not giving them what they wanted. They're never opposed to overthrowing government or pretending that they're doing military operations.

41:13 A few in the military were becoming concerned with the increasing losses, and until 1969, the Air Force had been very lucky only losing three helicopters that were shot down, and 14 of the 15 air crew had been rescued. Now, luck had ran out. In one year, six large CH-3 helicopters had been shot down, and a seventh one lost on the ground. Half of the total

41:42 total helicopters of this type lost in Laos during the entire war. Perhaps the sudden amount of losses had something to do with the change of heart, a most important one that occurred in the United States Congress. Political support was gone. One case in point was Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri, whose support had been important at the beginning.

42:11 But given his membership on the CIA subcommittee, he was now expressing concerns. Symington had backed the Laotian War. And on a visit to Laos and Thailand in 66, the senator had had good things to say to the pilots and the embassy people about how the secret war was going. So secret that your congressmen and your senators knew you just didn't know.

42:40 So he encouraged the CIA to tell their story and watched in the Armed Services Committee on October 5th, 1967, when Theodore Shackley presented the assembled senators with a two-hour briefing about how and where the war was being fought and how much they were spending on it. The CIA was putting soldiers on Laotian battlefields for many times less dollars per man than the military. Because you are...

43:13 hiring like Filipino mercenaries and sending them, just like they do Colombians today. Two years later, Stuart Symington was taking a different approach. He demanded an explanation in hearings about the U.S.'s military commitments in waging war in Laos. He is quoted as saying, quote, it is time the American people were told more of the facts, unquote.

43:43 In October 1969 hearing, Senator Symington succeeded in drawing William Sullivan into admitting that there were no formal obligations by the U.S. to the Mao, the Meng, sorry. In his own testimony, the CIA chief Helms refused to be drawn out on the authority to conduct such covert war.

44:14 basically saying such other functions on that directive in 1947 that we talk about all the time, the 5412-2. In October 30, 1969, the memorandum to Helms and the general counsel, Lawrence Houston, argued that the CIA had no combatants as such in Laos.

44:39 And that, quote, I know of no definition which would consider our activities in Laos as waging war, unquote. They are just fucking liars. They're killing people. They dropped more bombs in Laos than they did in World War II. And they are lying out their ass saying there's no activities going on here that even remotely looks like a war. If their lips are moving, they're lying.

45:14 Bridget just texted me and said she's here. And I just noted SR-71 got kicked out. Oh, shoot. I just kicked him out. Hopefully I didn't kick him out like kick him out. Did you get it, Bridget? Go find SR-71. I think I kicked him out. Sorry about that. I don't know if I can un-kick him out. Let's see.

45:57 Anyway. All right. He's over here on. I got him. OK. He's over here on Rumble anyway. All right. OK. Well, he should be able to come back in now. All right. So. All right. So where are we at? So he said he says he has no idea whether or not we're waiting. Nothing we're doing. It looks like waging war. Although the CIA lawyer carefully noted that from 1947 on my position.

46:32 My position has been that this is rather doubtful statutory authority on which to hang a paramilitary activity. The part about the quote where it says and other functions. I have let's see. I think you were exactly right to stick to the language of the National Security Act again, because it's that it's the vague language that allows them to skirt the law.

47:01 Clearly, Symington had some reason to be exasperated with the agency's disingenuousness because, of course, he had been one of their biggest supporters. He was over there. He knew exactly what they were doing. Here's another quote from Symington. I have never seen a country engage in so many devious undertakings as this. When the country, it was the CIA. Helms, for his part, fastened.

47:31 on Symington's change of heart as dishonesty. And in a 1981 interview, Helms said that when Senator Symington got up and started talking about a secret war, he knew far better than that. One element that may have helped sour key people in Washington was the drug traffic. It has already been noted that the Hmong-raised poppies

48:01 and had done so for decades. Processed into laboratories, those poppies turned into opium and heroin, morphine, along with other dangerous drugs. The drug trade was lucrative and as pervasive in northern Laos as it had been in Burma and Thailand. The area indeed is known as the Golden Triangle for that exact reason. When the CIA decided to run a war in northern Laos, the drugs came with it, and that was the entire purpose of being there. The Chinese

48:31 from Burma, meaning Chiang Kai-shek, bought some of the poppies and moved them across the border in caravans. The Thai bought, this author wants us to believe that it was all those surrounding countries that bought all this shit and it wasn't the CIA running all of it. But when the CIA came with Air America,

48:57 They provided the most efficient transportation for all of it. And by the mid-1960s, the CIA officers were reporting intelligence on the movement of drugs to supplement their regular activities and their paychecks. The information was passed on, quote unquote, to drug enforcement authorities, but we know very well that it was not. The only information flowing to the drug authorities was where the shipments were going.

49:24 because the drug people that they were passing the information on to protected them. Helms told Senator John Dennis, chairman of the Armed Services Committee of the CIA reporting, basically making it sound like the CIA was actually reporting the trafficking of the drugs, but not reporting it was the actual CIA that was trafficking the drugs and they were using embedded DEA.

49:50 agents in order to protect themselves so they could say, yeah, we notified them. We just didn't tell everybody else that they were actually our protection. Because you remember the one book that we read, they were talking about the phone ringing in the office where the CIA was trafficking the drugs for the DEA office. So they were basically one in the same.

50:21 The chief of the CIA said to the Senate committee, well, Mr. Chairman, how could we possibly not help the U.S. government when we've got such a hideous drug problem in this country? Again, that just lies. They created the drug problem. Helms maintains that the CIA did help. They did. They brought the drugs in. They didn't help the problem.

50:49 But its attitude was ambivalent at best. Tony Poe, for example, threatened to throw out of his plane anyone carrying drugs, but he did nothing about the caravan traffic or drug laboratories in the sectors where he was in charge. Nor could the CIA do anything to prevent the Hmong's own use of drugs. There was a few attempts to encourage the Hmong to raise other cash crops. No, there wasn't. This is just all bullshit.

51:18 Air America had a policy against smuggling on its aircraft, which is hilarious. They didn't have a policy against it, but security against drug running was dependent on the pilot. No, it wasn't. The only sanction provided for passengers found with drugs was to land at the nearest airfield and put them off. When the Air America crews themselves were running the drugs, there was nothing to stop them.

51:49 Not until early 1972 did the CIA proprietary even set up an inspection service, which was something that they basically got bullied into doing, but it didn't actually change anything. It also said some of the people involved in moving drugs are said to have been among the most senior officers in the Laotian Armed Forces because that's why we were working with them.

52:21 Air America crews were daily faced with the temptation of huge profits. And again, that's why I want you guys, when we read books like this, to understand you can't just read this one because this guy is intentionally misleading people to basically import to you that the CIA

52:47 While they were involved on the peripheral, they really wasn't in charge of this whole thing. They weren't in charge when, in fact, they were. They were running the entire drug operations. And we went over this before because the CIA, Paul Helliwell, is the one that convinced Alan Dulles to use Chiang Kai-shek, where they came up with the model of selling opium to pay for covert warfare.

53:15 So the entire reason we're there is because of that. In the summer and fall of 1972, the CIA inspector general undertook a formal investigation of the drug traffic spurred on by the detailed revelations that appeared in a book the agency had tried to suppress called The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, which I have that book. The charges were so serious, there was little alternative.

53:44 but to launch an investigation, which for our practical purposes means they basically were going to cover it up. The team of officers began in Hong Kong and spent over two weeks at 11 agencies interviewing over 100 CIA, State, USAID, Pentagon, Air America, and other employees. You know, all the guys doing it. The resulting report called Investigation of Drug Situation in Southeast Asia, unquote.

54:11 miraculously found no evidence that the CIA or any senior official had ever permitted drug trafficking as a matter of policy. There had been individual cases, but it really wasn't what they were there for. Despite the denials, the drugs were moving. This pointed directly to a key weakness of covert activities, making alliances with indigenous groups.

54:43 inevitably led for you to be involved with their operations, which again is horseshit. In turning against the Laotian secret war, Senator Symington and others in Washington were reacting in part to factors other than basic military situation because there was no basic military situation. Drugs had been a major problem in the United States.

55:07 But they had gotten progressively worse and there was no denying what was going on. And the more involved we got in Southeast Asia, the more drugs resulted. But also something that this author obviously is not aware of at all is that just so that you guys remember, this is exactly the time from 70 to 72 that Richard Nixon did his quote unquote war on drugs.

55:37 and was working hand in hand with the president of France to massacre the Corsican mafia. Now, just so that you guys know, here's the flow. Drugs, because France was in Vietnam before us, so they basically still kind of had a grip on, well, they had a grip on the source. Now, we're in control of the source, but they still had.

56:05 the only lab that was around that produced the highest quality of heroin called number four. And that was in the Corsican Mafia-controlled city of Marseille. And so that...

56:30 was kind of a sticking point for the CIA because they wanted the Corsican mafia out of the heroin supply coming into America. So they wanted to be able to copy what was being done by the Corsican mafia and set it up in Sicily, Italy, under the mafia there. And so the quote-unquote war on drugs was actually the war on the CIA's competition in France.

56:58 And so over 300 mafia people were assassinated, like just literally walk up and blow their head off with a gun. One after another, after another, after another. So that happens. And the guy that was the chemist that had perfected this, they had basically kind of infiltrated his network and got people as apprentice.

57:26 trying to do trade secrets and all that other stuff in order to be able to get it as close as they could to the way he was doing it, because that was the preferred source. And so once that was done, and now we control Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Golden Triangle, we are able to capture all of the heroin flow into the United States.

57:56 And as a result of that, the CIA is down in South America setting up the alternative because by this time we've acknowledged that we're not getting Cuba back because that was the staging place. They were setting up all of the cartels to run the drugs in across the border, which, of course, is why Reagan never secured the border or Nixon or Carter or anybody else. They weren't allowed because the CIA has been running the show all this time. And so.

58:27 That whole thing got set up. And you remember when we were talking to Paul Williams, he was saying about them putting the heroin in plastic oranges out of Sicily and using them to traffic them into the United States. So now we're in the early 70s and heroin.

58:48 And all of that stuff is exploding the use. So even Congress couldn't pretend like what we were doing over there in Laos and capturing the entire market around the world of heroin isn't happening because it was exploding in the United States. And the more of a tight grip we got on the network via the CIA, the worse the problem got in the United States.

59:15 Because that was the whole purpose. They want us drugged and stupid. All right. So North Vietnamese dry season offensive of 1969 climaxed with the loss in late June of the Hmong LS-108, the largest airfield in northern Laos, which the royal government had held since the early days of Operation Triangle.

59:44 Seven battalions backed by light tank and powerful artillery spearheaded the attack over several nights. Not even heavy support from sophisticated AC-130 Spectre gunships could stop it. Several times the forces on the ground requested strikes on enemy tanks, but the gunships were unable to spot any. Government troops finally broke and ran away.

1:00:12 One unit was saved by three U.S. Air Force and 11 Air America helicopters flying out of sky at Long Tin. The next morning, several large fires burning out of control were all that was left of the defenses. There were two reactions to the loss of this area. One was propaganda. The government's foreign affairs area issued white papers.

1:00:38 papers charging North Vietnamese violations of the 1962 Geneva Agreement, the one that we've never paid attention to the entire time, but it's North Vietnam's fault. The paper described instances of North Vietnamese involvement in combat, named prisoners of Vietnamese nationalities, and estimated the size and composition of the forces in Laos. This was a departure from the practice of pretending that the 1962 agreement

1:01:08 Still held any sway at all because we've ignored it the entire time. But the propaganda was designed to justify a further intensification of the war. Planning for the counteroffensive was ordered by Ambassador Godley, because we ain't giving up yet. As one of the earliest actions in Laos at Godley's urging the U.S., which had been refusing to furnish supplies and air cover for operations in the Plain of Jars since Operation Triangle.

1:01:36 now agreed to provide some support because they had been given more misinformation, the CIA lying. Several of the largest towns on the plain was targeting and were now being destroyed by bombing. The offensive onto the high plateau was to be carried out by the Vang Pao's clandestine units. Vang visited the Laotian

1:02:06 to coordinate plans for the attack, which drew the code name About Faith. In August, the secret army moved north and Air America helicopters lifted the Hmong special guerrilla forces to key points. Vang Pao was chosen because of the Laotian army, though comprising 50,000 troops, lacked initiative and offensive capability. Vang was, moreover, a character whom the CIA trusted.

1:02:38 In 1968, as a gift, Vang Pao gave President Johnson a flintlock musket that the Hmong had for, I mean, it was an antique. On two occasions, the Americans rewarded Vang with secret visits to the U.S. On one of those trips, Vang was referred to as the Hmong commander, toured the Green Beret Training Center at Fort Bragg.

1:03:09 During the other trip, Vang was taken to see Colonial Williamsburg in Disneyland with six wives installed. The Hmong chief had a lot of shopping to do. Disneyland, the CIA, reciprocated Vang's gifts and gave them a replica of a Zorro costume. A few months later, Vang Pao was back in uniform leading the offensive.

1:03:38 called Operation About Fate. The secret army spilled onto the plain of jars from the mountains and about 15,000 men, according to Lau's sources, the CIA was backing him with a command team of three officers. About 30 more Americans were in training programs and a couple of dozen men were in other units. The CIA teams were embedded with the special guerrilla units.

1:04:06 anywhere from four to 12 each, and mostly had all came from Green Beret backgrounds. Basically, they were mercenaries under contract to the CIA. Aside from Long Tien, there were three other CIA training bases in Laos. At least one was a major facility and in Thailand.

1:04:31 There was estimates of a total number of CIA officers at this point engaged in this to be about 50, but it could have been as high as 70. There were also military attaches that were involved, and the Hmong Army, with its American support, was fabulously successful. By the end of September, they had advanced practically to the border of North Vietnam, recapturing the...

1:05:01 Hmong bases along the way. At a critical juncture of the campaign, the Vang Pao dressed up in his Zorro suit to visit the Plain of Jars. But the success was deceptive. Operation About Face proved to be the high-water mark of the Hmong in this secret war. In their next dry season offensive, the Pao Ocean Lao and North Vietnamese went straight for the clandestine bases.

1:05:29 Both on the plain of jars and the mountain strongholds were threatened. The secret army was not what it had used to be. Increasingly employing Thai mercenaries contracted by the CIA, they did not have the same commitment because they had already went through so many of the Hmong people through all of this fighting. First to go was the plain of jars.

1:05:56 lost it. Vang Pao himself, with 1,500 troops backed by artillery, was forced out of the area. This loss was an important indicator to reflect the sagging morale of the Hmong in general. The government claimed 6,000 North Vietnamese troops had attacked the town. Most of them had in fact been diverted carrying supplies. Actually, the Hmong had retreated before a force led only by 400.

1:06:26 Vietnamese. Equipment left behind included all kinds of crap that the CIA had supplied them with. They just took off running. They included cannons, recoilless rifles, Russian-made tanks, seven trucks, and an American Air America helicopter pilot, J.C. Murky of North

1:06:55 of Fort Worth, Texas, was killed by sniper fire on a supply ferry flight into the Plain of Jars. In the Laos capital in Washington, the situation looked serious. Ambassador Godley requested massive airstrikes by B-52s as a result. By this time, however, Washington was not interested in supporting the quote-unquote secret war anymore.

1:07:25 which is literally not secret anymore. Symington was pressing for a release and a full transcript of the meeting that they had already had on Laos so that it wasn't going to be secret at all. The Nixon administration sanitized the transcript so heavily that it was misleading, where Symington refused to issue it.

1:07:48 Thus, Godley's request for airstrikes came in the midst of all of this political charged situation. Fearing leaks from the Pentagon about the B-52 in Laos, Secretary Marvin Laird, Secretary of Defense, instructed his representatives to oppose the B-52 in order to create a record of rejecting the option. Even if they later did it, he wanted something in writing that he could say gave him plausible deniability.

1:08:16 Secretary of State William Rogers also opposed the plan. But according to Henry Kissinger, the national security advisor for Nixon, Laird wanted the strikes, but within the purview of it being secret, so none of it fell back on him. Howard, the growing congressional opposition and increasing enemy successes made the matters worse. Kissinger would later write, quote, we were caught.

1:08:47 between officials seeking to protect American forces, no, they weren't, for which they felt a responsibility and a merciless Congress onslaught that rattled those officials, unquote. That's the biggest bunch of shit that I've ever heard. They are absolutely not caught between a rock and a hard place as far as merciless congressional onslaught. Are you fucking kidding me? They've been allowed to do all of this shit.

1:09:17 And just brief Congress and Congress knew the entire time they were doing it, but it was quote unquote secret. They weren't caught between a rock and a hard place at all. And they weren't absolutely not protecting American forces. They were protecting their money tied up in the illegal drug trade. The Royal Laotian government made the first of several appeals to the B-52 strikes.

1:09:43 Toward the middle of February, Kissinger recommended the option at a meeting with the president, secretary of defense, CIA director, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Richard Nixon approved strikes if the Laotian Lao advanced beyond the Hmong area. Within 24 hours, these conditions had been met, or at least they just faked the intelligence and said they were so they could go ahead and do it.

1:10:11 This, again, is plausible deniability. An attack with three B-52 bombers, a typical quote-unquote cell strike, was carried out on the night of February 17th through the 18th. More followed, yet a few days later, the Ving Pao relinquished his last position on the plane of jars. Strikes by the B-52 were enough in Kissinger's phase to trigger the domestic outcry.

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 Percy were demanding the full release of the Laos hearing transcripts. Within hours, the Laos War was not secret anymore. The story broke not in Washington, but in...

1:11:08 And on the press tickers, the world over. Making the scoop as a simple walking down a mountain. Journalists with embassy cooperation chartered Air America planes to a USAID center. The secret warriors were proud of their civic action programs and wanted to show off. Over a thousand Laotian nurses and medics had been trained there. Sam Thung.

1:11:37 had a 200-bed hospital, a junior high, and a high school. But three journalists were much more interested in the main base of the clandestine army. The three reporters walked out of Sam Thung, then down the trail, leaving behind the larger party. One of the reporters, Tom Ullman,

1:11:58 A stringer for the New York Times in the Bangkok Post actually walked into one of the secret army's main bases and watched two hours before being challenged by a Laotian colonel, then questioned by Americans. The other reporters, Max Kofet of a French newspaper and John Saar of Time Life, were taken into custody and all placed on a plane to Laos' capital.

1:12:27 Ambassador Godley was furious. The American mission has lost any interest in helping out because the press. It is too late to halt revelations. However, Altman filed a dispatch to LA Times. For the first time, the base had been observed by outsiders. Landing of the takeoffs from the Lima sites were clocked at one a minute.

1:12:54 On the apron were about a dozen transport planes, 10 light planes, a dozen unmarked T-28s, these observation planes, and three large helicopters. Air traffic was so intense that planes and copters had to form a holding pattern to even land. The reporters wandering at will through the base counted scores of windowless buildings sprouting numerous radio antennas.

1:13:22 There were tall men wearing civilian clothes, but carrying automatic weapons. All men became convinced their nationality when he discovered the base had an air conditioner and that it was American officer clubs with panoramic glass windows. The report broke the dam.

1:13:42 led to a flood of revelations. The White House, in an effort to manage the breaking story, immediately announced that Nixon would be releasing some information on the U.S.'s activities in Laos. A statement admitted that Americans had fought there. Three days later, a State Department spokesman asserted that American war deaths in Laos totaled 25 contractors and one dependent. A reporter then wrote of a military

1:14:12 fatality. Captain Joseph Bush killed on February 10, 1969. In rapid succession, the press revealed several other incidents where Americans had been killed, including radar base at Phu Pha Thai. The Nixon administration countered with a new statement after a search of the records that 200 Americans had died and 193 were still missing.

1:14:39 Numbers of Americans in the country was put at 228 military, 388 government employees, and 424 contract personnel. In the Senate, Symington asked the administration to bring Godley back to testify in front of the committee, Foreign Relations. The chairman, William Fulbright, went ahead and put on the record some information that the administration had been trying to keep secret.

1:15:08 CIA Chief Helms had admitted to testimony that the CIA used USAID as cover in Laos. Fulbright added that recruiting and training of soldiers and native agents was handled by the embassy, while the mysterious Special Requirements Office handled logistics and military aid.

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 invasion of Cambodia. Because, you know, if you want to avoid one problem, create another. Further last hearings was scheduled by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Angry senators ruled.

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 deterioration more apparent than among the Hmong and the refugees that suddenly tripled.

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 could. Sam Thung was abandoned with most of the civic improvements that the Hmong had gained in a decade of war. Large new refugee centers.

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 Sam Thung, it flew out 16 Americans, 200 hospital patients, and over 2,000 Hmong.

1:17:23 The CIA proprietary also brought reinforcements in to Vang Pao, two battalions of Thai contract mercenaries. The U.S. Air Force itself began daily flights to Pepper Grinder and to the Sky location with C-130 gunships. This, an exception to the usual rule, the Air Force planes could be flown by Air American crews.

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 10,000 were working to move supplies forward. The assault force was basically only 2,000 soldiers, and they were more just kind of setting up.

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, Operation Leapfrog, the secret army, regained some of its lost territory, but the pendulum had swung. Vang Pao was no longer successful in defending any territory that was challenged.

1:18:48 With their new supply roads, the Vietnamese, meanwhile, were stronger than ever. They forced the permanent abandonment of many of the former Lima sites. The Hmong forces had begun irreversible decline. An army with a strength of 27,000 sounded formidable, but the proportion of the Hmong had fallen to only about 20%. The rest were Thai mercenaries. The Laotian officers

1:19:17 were basically less literate because they went through quite a few of them by this time. Naturally, the Americans did not stand by idly through all of this. The CIA did everything it could to shore up their old buddies. By this time, the Laotian capital CIA station was under the command of Hugh Tovar, T-O-V-A-R. Devlin had returned to Langley as chief of the African Division.

1:19:45 Yay, more coups there. The OSS veteran Tovar had been parachuted into Laos once already at the end of World War II. The kind of activists the CIA seemed to prefer in Laos. Tovar had been a chief of station in Indonesia in 1965, which would have been right after they killed Kennedy when they were beginning the overthrow of Sukarno.

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 Ambassador Godley, Tovar had at his disposal more resources than had been devoted to Laos before.

1:20:45 The disclosure of the secret war had led Nixon to put Laotian military aid back in the Pentagon budget, thus openly funding the war and increasing the amount. The fiscal year 1971, the U.S. expenditures was going to amount to $162 million for military aid, $52 million for USAID, and at least $70 million for the CIA. So don't think that they were going to stop when they got caught.

1:21:14 No, they're just going to fund it with your tax dollars. All of the above board, overtly, all of the money could not make up for the Hmong's decreasing support. This DIA further contributed to Bing Pao's political difficulties by sanctioning the use of herbicides against the poppy fields after 71. Enraged Hmong, let's see, basically,

1:21:46 Some of the people were disenchanted by that. In late 1971, Senator Symington sponsored an amendment to the appropriation bill that set up a ceiling of $350 million for all U.S. funds spent in Laos. So it's not like we're not going to do it. And we've already violated every accord that we said. And Symington, who supposedly was the good guy outing it, is now funding it.

1:22:15 Just to keep clear on what's going on here. So this same level stayed until 1972. It was even increased in 1973. And supposedly we were in 1973 at the peace table again, you know, because that means something, which it doesn't. It means nothing.

1:22:41 Vang Pao was one of the biggest losers in the negotiated settlement, which ended American's air support of his secret army, which isn't secret anymore. The sea spire was to go into effect on February 22nd, a time when Vang Pao was facing renewed North Vietnamese offensives. The Hmong general had a last appeal to the CIA to continue American air support. He, in a reply, he was handed.

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 Laos airspace, unquote. Disgusted, Bing Powell kicked the dirt and showed the message to reporters. Leaving Laos, one of the last shifts of American command planes radioed back.

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. The effect of the Laotian refugee camps in Thailand, their numbers periodically increased with new immigrants from home.

1:24:08 The 55,000 Hmong have resettled in the United States. Vang Pao himself has become a farmer in Montana. There were pockets of Hmong in places as diverse as Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and Fresno. Direct losses of the war in Laos was still not known with certainty. Over a million Laotians were made refugees at one time or another, a third of the country's entire population. Destruction from the bombing was immense.

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 that theater. Deaths in plane wrecks and other combats for Air America totaled 17 Americans plus an equal number of locals. Beginning in 1973, the new Royal

1:25:06 Laotian government pressured Air America to cease its operations. The CIA proprietary did halt flights to 350 airfields and turned a dozen C-123 transports over to the Laotian Air Force. Many employees of Air America's base at Udorn, Thailand, were laid off. Americans working there had numbers

1:25:34 had numbered as high as 250, including 100 pilots. 42 of them left in 73. After the Laotian prohibition of its air operations, Air America closed up shop in June of 1974. The Udorn facilities was taken over by Thai aircraft. The result of the CIA's postmortems on Laos was not known. One view has been furnished, however, by Douglas Bloffarb.

1:26:00 B-L-A-U-F-A-R-B, a senior CIA official with a long record in Laos and Vietnam. He defended the Hmong against press criticism when he served at the embassy in 1971 and continues to believe that the tribe had a right to fight for a future and that the struggle was misunderstood by the U.S. and precisely because of its secrecy is why it was misunderstood. This entire

1:26:30 thing to me is so frustrating um we didn't give a shit about the mong just like we didn't give a shit about the kurds we use these people we use these people as human shields and excuses to get what we want which is drugs not we as in the cia um the mong people and then of course the rest of you and i

1:26:58 living in America, when they bring the quote unquote refugees in, who a lot of them are basically trafficked once they get here, because there's no record of being here. So it goes back to that diagram we drew when we first started doing Operation Gladio, where you have the weapons trafficking, you have the drug trafficking, and you have the human trafficking. And as you

1:27:25 look at that and you apply that lens to this operation. You have the entire operation with Laos was done because of the drugs, right? So they're going to use the drugs to pay for their covert operation, black money. They set up during the same time, 72, we're at 72 in the book, is when they set up Nugent Hand Bank. So they've now secured the area, although they may say that the

1:27:52 official B-52 operations are gone, they're still harvesting all of the opium because they did this as a rouge in order to basically buy off, learn who all's growing the opium so they can control the field. So now they've got all of their people there. They've met all the farmers. They've basically taken over the opium market in these areas. So they set up Newton Hand Bank in Australia and it's going to be used to money launder.

1:28:19 all of the opium out of the Golden Triangle. And as that is set up, you have the military flying weapons in, right? So you skim off weapons that you're going to redirect and sell to other players. And so you're going to generate funds from the weapon cells. You've just generated funds from the opium cells.

1:28:44 Now, because of all of the military operations, you have all of these refugees. Well, if I traffic the refugees in addition to the drugs and the weapons that I'm generating out of these bullshit conflicts, then I'm going to make a lot more money, which I'm going to launder through Nugent Hand, BCCI, Castle Bank and all these other banks. And that's the cycle.

1:29:11 It just keeps going over and over and over again. And as I said, when we first started talking about this, the grease that keeps it all going is blackmail, which is basically what you see. I don't know what they had on Symington, but they're controlled and they're controlled generally by some form of blackmail. And the destruction.

1:29:38 That happens to Americans when you have 100,000 refugees picked up and relocated because it wasn't just Laos. It was Cambodia. We mass exited large amounts of Cambodians, Laotians, and Vietnamese into America because we used them to destroy their country in order to steal their resources.

1:30:05 Every time they do this mass importation of people, they destroy our culture. And this is the plan. This is exactly what you're seeing play out in America right now on steroids. But it has always been the plan. It was done slowly and outside of the purview of most people. And so most people never knew it was occurring. It's been occurring for a very long time.

1:30:35 It's now been sped up to a speed that you can't help notice. Nothing is going on new today. It's just being done on a pace that you can't ignore anymore. So, all right. You'd have been so proud last night. I said those exact words nearly.

1:31:03 to my father on the phone. He said, why are they bringing, why would anybody let all these illegals in our country? And had to go down that exact road. Yep. I mean, it's so obvious when you look in hindsight after what's all been going on. So, anyway. Hi, Miles. What's going on? Well, Colonel, I'm not going to lie to you that I'm having a tough time listening.

1:31:38 Let me explain why. Because of my age and because I was there, not in Vietnam, but I was in that era, that they did a head job on all of us back then. And so it didn't really make sense to a lot of teenagers growing up and watching what was going on that we didn't know what a forever war was.

1:32:07 That's not what we were taught in the history books. You know, we went into a war and we won. So it just kept going on and on and on. And we didn't understand why you had to have a draft for a conflict. That's what they're saying. It was a conflict. It wasn't a major war, world war. And, you know, you were put on like a lottery. Well, that look, the psychological war that they were waging on.

1:32:36 The population at home watching the news because it was very controlled. You only had like three or four stations to watch. And there wasn't a visible alternative media. Now, we were trying to get the truth, you know, because it just, you know, like common sense. It wasn't making sense. Let's put it that way. So I'm admitting to you that I'm.

1:33:06 Even though I didn't go into battle or anything like that, the psychological war that they were running on our military and what was happening over there, it really devastated a lot of people. Because even if you weren't there, you were touched by what was happening there with your friends and relatives and stuff like that. And information was coming.

1:33:34 out through them. And they even set it up where they divided us against our military when they came home. That was horrible what they were doing. So let me just, on a lighter note, this is kind of funny. I don't know if you're familiar with this, but China had a little conflict going on after the Vietnam War, once we had pulled out of there.

1:34:03 They went into North Vietnam, and I don't know if it was a border dispute or what the incursion was about, but I'll never forget this. On PBS, they had like a, I think it was a weekend show, and it was kind of like a celebrity jeopardy about the news, current day events. And I was watching it one day, and they asked the panel, I can't even remember the person on the panel. They said,

1:34:32 When do you think that China is going to withdraw from North Vietnam? And off the top of their head, they said, well, if the Chinese know anything about withdrawal, there wouldn't be a billion of them. Oh, my God. OK, that's not funny. It's not funny. Oh, my God. OK. Yes. Do you think the reason why they did put the war, so to speak?

1:35:08 as Mal said beautifully, against our, trying to divide us against each other, was to keep the people from, to keep people coming back from the Vietnam War from talking about what happened during the Vietnam War. Because I know from my own experience with, I have relatives that are Vietnam War vets, and my husband's brother was. And none of them,

1:35:37 whatsoever want to talk about anything having to do with what happened over there. So that is very much the case. You know, you have to go back and look at it in its entirety, right? So you had first the Hollywood music industry, the

1:36:03 destruction of any credibility that the anti-war movement had. So basically that was propagandized into oblivion. Then there was a concerted effort that if you could demonize, and think about what happened. You went from 1945, where America was on cloud nine as far as winning, quote unquote winning,

1:36:32 World War II and the praise and glorification of our military. And then you fast forward 30 years and they were vilified. And the absolute necessity to drive a wedge between the public and anyone returning from Vietnam, they had to basically destroy those people and their credibility.

1:37:02 In order for no one to listen to them because they had some horrific stories to tell and they didn't want them anywhere around telling those stories. So, yes, I believe that. Hey, Patrick, what you got? Well, I'm a Vietnam veteran and flew helicopters over there, so I got to see it up close and personal. I went to West Point from 64 to 68 and was commissioned in the Corps of Engineers, went through the usual Ranger Airborne.

1:37:33 And then to helicopter flight school was assigned to the 45th Engineer Group in I-Corps to fly helicopters covering three different battalions. So we got to see a lot of the coast out to the first level of fire bases. And Lamshawn 719 on page 281 was my main operation. It was allegedly the biggest operation of the war. We were allegedly going to.

1:38:01 helped the South Vietnamese to go in and take over that air base at Chapon, I think it was, so they could show that they are independent and capable and whatnot. And it happened. But I remember the one day, the worst day in helicopter history, we had 79 helicopters shot down on one day because it was the pickup day because somebody like the president of South Vietnam.

1:38:32 talked about the operation and how successful it was and how the troops were all coming back at 10 a.m. on Sunday morning. And they had a bunch of 51-caliber machine guns ready and all the pickup spots that shot down our 79 helicopters. We had all kinds of dead people. Do you remember who was president at the time? Was it Diem still? No, maybe it was Key or one of those next people.

1:39:04 But if you're being over there, though, I remember I would fly around every day. I flew six or eight hours. And I wasn't killing people. And if people tried to kill me, I was supposed to save the guy in the back seat. So I wasn't doing the gun stuff. I got to see a lot and hear a lot. And working with the engineers, we were doing land clearing and road building and all kinds of things.

1:39:30 But I looked around a few times and said, what are we doing here? And I finally decided that we were there to get the good cameras and the stereos because it was hard to figure out what else was going on. And obviously all this stuff is amazing. There were 20 people in my West Point class who died over there in all kinds of different ways. We have a book written about them, and we celebrate them every year at different kind of reunions.

1:39:57 You kind of ripped your heart out when you kind of hear the truth here. Thank you for delivering it to us, Colonel. You're welcome. And obviously, thank you for sharing your story, number one. What were the dates that you were over there? July 70 to July 71. Okay. All right. So, yeah. Oh, God. That just ripped my heart out. Obviously, I have talked.

1:40:26 I came in in 79 and all of the guys that I worked with had either been in Thailand. Um, a lot of them have worked on, I was in aircraft maintenance when I enlisted. And so I, I, um, while I was stationed at the school at Chanute Air Force Base, um,

1:40:45 All of the guys that I worked with had been in Vietnam. They'd either been literally in Vietnam or they had been in a lot of them had been in Thailand at Udorn, which is why I know so much about that operation there. A few of them had been at some of the CIA black sites in Laos. I remember some of the stories specifically, you know, from their experience there. And obviously, having gone over there.

1:41:14 I think it was 2003 when I made my trip over there and was able for the first time to actually put eyes on all of these stories that I had heard all of my entire career. Because I know you know that we were told as professional military officers from the end of Vietnam until, you know, basically for the next 20 years that.

1:41:41 Vietnam was a noble fight and that the only reason we quote unquote lost is because the war was ran out of Washington, D.C. and not the military people on the ground was not allowed to execute. But then you find out after that and that was professional military education. That's what I learned at squadron officer school. That's what I learned at Air Command and Staff. That's what I learned at Air War College.

1:42:11 It was brainwashing us into believing bullshit. The only reason that we were in Vietnam from day one is because the CIA and their lying asses wanted to secure the opium fields to be able to fund covert operations. That's the only reason we were there. Go ahead. One of the major things they were telling us was

1:42:41 Tin and rubber and some other kinds of resources. Well, let's talk about that. You're absolutely right. That is the reason. Rubber, tin, all of them. So the CIA, under understanding Operation Gladio, you figure out for the first time in my adult life that the CIA does not work for the American government. They work for oligarchs.

1:43:06 They work to go in and disrupt countries in order to steal their resources. And there is no better example than Vietnam of that process because the OSS, the precursor to CIA, was in bed with Ho Chi Minh. We developed him. We trained him. Yeah, we trained him. Yes. And so he loved us.

1:43:33 He wanted to be just like us. He drafted a constitution that read and I read it. It reads just like our constitution. He was so proud to go to Paris and present it to the Americans there because he wanted to be like us. And because he made it perfectly clear to them that he was going to not allow France back into their country and he was going to mine his own resources so he could be as prosperous and successful as the United States.

1:44:02 They cut them off at the knees. Yep. So we were there to secure the resources to include the opium. But primarily, as you pointed out, the rubber, big rubber plantations there. And they liked having those facilities over there. It didn't matter. The entire half of America was filled with rubber. We would have still done it overseas because you can pay people a dollar a day.

1:44:34 and not provide them with any benefits or anything else. And that's not what goes on in America. And because it doesn't go on in America, we just assume when these same companies go overseas that they're basically treating their employees there the same way they treat us. And it's absolutely not true. So thank you for being here.

1:44:59 I understand, not in the way that, I mean, obviously I was never, I deployed to Iraq, but I've never been in anything that would compare to the experience that you experienced in Vietnam. And I know the past two years that I've been working on this, how devastating it is to understand the sacrifices, especially losing teammates.

1:45:29 um, to a corrupt oligarchical system that has been going on for the last 70 years. It's just, it's like sticking a knife in your gut and twisting it. So God bless you. Thank you. Thank you. AP Jonah. And thank you for your service. Thanks a lot. Absolutely. But that's what, when we figured, uh, going to West point though, um,

1:46:00 It's a free ride. There's no tuition. It's a great education. So when we were there, we said, okay, we're supposed to serve. We're supposed to go to war if there is a war. And when we had the Gulf of Tongan thing, we kind of looked around and said, okay, guys, we were all guys at the time. We're going to be in this war, whatever this war is. And we didn't know it was fake, though. That would have made it a whole lot worse. Yeah.

1:46:28 Yeah. It's an awesome story you're telling. Thank you. And I think that's the situation we're in right now. And thank you for mentioning that. Because today's different. Today, it is very easy for the people in our military to know the truth. Not that they all do, because I don't believe they do. I still know quite a few people in the military on active duty.

1:46:56 I have conversations with them about this particular topic. Now, obviously, the people I'm talking about have 17 or 18 years in the military and they're not getting out. But the morale that is in the military, especially after the last four years, is devastatingly low. Most of them know.

1:47:23 The crowd, and you can attest to this as well, the crowd that is going to be the hardest hit by real information is our special forces crowd. I was just on a space a couple of days ago. I go into some of them anonymously because as soon as I go into some, they want me to come up and talk.

1:47:51 And I had my grandson here. So I was just there anonymously. And there was and I won't even name him because he's a good guy. But there was a special forces guy there. And the way he was talking is obviously doesn't know anything about Operation Gladio. But talking about how they are taught at Fort Bragg that.

1:48:22 If you're at Fort Bragg, you're not in the fight. And that there's literal competition for going on the next mission to do whatever. And again, the whatever, 99% of the time is based on fraudulent intelligence generated by the CIA telling you.

1:48:47 that the good guys are actually the bad guys and the bad guys are actually the good guys. And here's this guy who is chomping at the bit, ready to go kill a bunch of people and hasn't figured out that every time he's ever been on one of those missions, he's been lied to by his own country. And, you know, part of you want to just scream, wake the F up.

1:49:15 The other part of you just you want to weep at the sadness of the situation that we're currently in. But anyway, Carrie, go ahead. I'll go ahead. One other comment. One of our leaders at West Point was Alexander Haig, Colonel Haig. Exactly. So so he.

1:49:44 Our senior class, our football team was good our senior year, and we were supposed to get a nomination to go to the Sugar Bowl. And suddenly they decided not to do that because of something with General Johnson. And we were, some seniors took all the Sugar Bowls out of the mess hall. They were like solid brass, really expensive things.

1:50:07 Colonel Haig brought all the seniors together and said, well, we received a lawful order from our superiors. We have to follow it. Bring the sugar bowls back. Don't let anybody know about this. And he talked about being in a foxhole and saving lives in Vietnam and so forth. And he was I don't know if he was CIA already, but he was later. He definitely was. Yeah. I don't know either. He was.

1:50:34 So one of my classmates, though, just walked to the back of the room and called the New York Times with the story. And it was in there the next day, just kind of in. It was nice to embarrass Al Haig and Wes Point, for that matter, about the feisty seniors taking the sugar bowls out. That's hilarious. That was an Al Haig. When I read this, when I read Gladio, I said, oh, my gosh, Al Haig was, and he did the coup against Nixon and all kinds of other stuff. Yes, he is in so much of it, the whole.

1:51:04 I ran Contra. I mean, yeah, he's a bad guy. Another good West Pointer, like Petraeus and Papio. Yeah, Papio, yeah. Yeah, my fraternity brothers. Well, you know, in one way that kind of makes sense, because they have a much better opportunity, and I'm going to say this, no offense, but you know what I mean.

1:51:34 You have a much better opportunity to brainwash people in a common setting where you live there 24-7 for four years. Yep. You know who they are, too. Yeah. We only had one guy that we knew was in the CIA. Oh, no, I'm sorry. One of my good friends was in the CIA in Pakistan for his whole career. So they did come out of West Point, and they were very loyal.

1:52:05 Loyal, good shoeshiners. Yes. Obviously, I met. You know, and it's kind of funny when I first I'm a ROTC grad. And when I first joined the military, everybody said that the academy grad people had. And not only was I a ROTC grad, I was prior service, which those were, you know, unlike the other services in the Air Force that was frowned upon.

1:52:33 You know, like the Navy has an awesome program. The Army does it less than the Navy, but it is not as weird in the other services as it is in the Air Force. So you don't have a whole lot of them that are prior service. But I was told as a ROTC grad that I was going to be at a huge disadvantage because all of the real good perks went to the academy grads.

1:53:01 My first experience as an officer was at Los Angeles Air Force Base. And the only two officers that were discharged under very bad circumstances, and I worked in personnel, and I was in charge of the section called Quality Force, which meant I ran the disciplinary.

1:53:25 board for the base. And so I tracked everybody pending court-martial, all of that crap. So you got in on all of the dirt. The OSI agents, like our NCIS version, we had a monthly meeting so we could track so no one fell through the cracks as far as who was being investigated. You didn't let them PCS, blah, blah, blah. So you didn't let them move to another base while they were pending investigation because most of the time they didn't know they were under investigation.

1:53:54 investigation when they were being investigated. So one guy, and they were both academy grads. And so I'm thinking of myself as a second lieutenant. I'm like, these guys ain't got nothing on me. The first one was caught, had broken into passing ID and stolen like 4,500 ID cards and was caught in Arizona on his way to the Mexican border.

1:54:23 And he was an Air Force Academy grad. The other guy had gotten to a fistfight and took out like two cops at one of the bars because he was a boxing team guy from the Academy. So I just, again, I'm a very impressionable young second lieutenant going, what the hell are they doing at the Academy? But anyway, very interesting. Carrie, go ahead.

1:54:53 Hey, I would love to hear you guys talk forever. You two sharing stories. So beautiful. As you know, Colonel, I am Occupy Wall Street. And so we studied all kinds of like tactics about what we could do that was nonviolent to get at these crazy fucks. And one of the things that I uncovered was.

1:55:21 this action that activists took in Czechoslovakia after the Soviet Union left. The regime was extremely brutal and there was a lot of police violence, like incredible police violence. And so they decided to take huge photos of the violence,

1:55:51 the bodies that they had killed, photos of the bodies they had killed and take them to the elementary schools of the police and show them to the, they figured out where the police, where their children went to school and showed them to their children. And it was the only thing that changed them being brutal.

1:56:20 Like they tried all kinds of stuff. They did protests. They did everything. And once they did that, everything changed. Everything. So I just wanted to throw that out there. It just sparked for me, like, what do we do? What do we do? Oh, my God, what do we do? And the other thing I wanted to talk about was.

1:56:45 Uh, the CIA blaming, um, China for the fentanyl because you were talking about the heroin and now it's, now I'm like, well, it's not so much heroin anymore. Is it? I don't know, but I know it's fentanyl and, uh, the CIA are blaming China having to do with Mexico. Um, and it's really confusing for me.

1:57:14 I don't know what your take on that is, but anyway. Well, wondering what you think. I will tell you my take is I don't believe anything the CIA says. If their lips are moving, if their pen is writing, if their computer is typing, they're lying. So what I do know is it had never been China. It had always been Taiwan.

1:57:42 And in our research project of Taiwan, which is ongoing, by the way, I just realized something that I'm doing kind of on the side, you know, as the other 10 balls I have in the air, that there are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 other islands that the CIA gave Chiang Kai-shek.

1:58:08 So off the coast of China, to include one within a mile of the coastline, all are basically occupied to this day with KMT military associated with Taiwan. Now, most people don't know that. And if one of those islands, again, is where these products are coming from, of course, the CIA is going to tell us it's China, whether it's China or not.

1:58:37 And in addition to that, if you look at the amount of pharmaceutical companies that are on Taiwan, it's disproportionate to the number of people. And not that they would obviously be manufacturing just for their own people. Obviously, they're manufacturing to export it. But even that, it's exponentially way more.

1:59:08 pharmaceutical capacity than a small island would normally dedicate to one industry. So is it possible that under the one China policy that is recognized by the U.S. government that they are in their intelligence report saying it's of Chinese origin when in fact

1:59:34 They mean Taiwan. Yes, that's absolutely. And is that something they do? Absolutely. That is just like saying the laptop story had the quote unquote hallmarks of Russian disinformation. So their plausible deniability is we never said it was Russian disinformation. We just said it looked like that. So when you ask them about the origins of fentanyl coming out of China.

2:00:02 They will go back and they will tell you, oh, we never said it was actually China, China. Because, you know, it could be Taiwan because we only we recognize Taiwan under the one China policy as being part of China. So you can't believe a fucking thing they say. Nothing. Right. Oh, I'm sorry. It is just as possible that it's coming from Taiwan or one of these other eight islands.

2:00:30 That they are in charge of. I was just listening to neutrality studies all posted in the pill about Taiwan. And the woman was saying she she's I don't I don't know what her name is, but she was saying she's in Taiwan. She was saying that it's actually Japan that has reinvaded.

2:00:58 you know, through the political process, Taiwan. And I was so shocked by that. I'll post it in the poll. SR71. Thank you, Colonel. And as always, thank everybody for joining us and listening in. I have a request from Richard. He's having issues with X. So he posted in the pill. What he wants to know, Colonel, is if you can discuss

2:01:31 Mr. Burkholder Smith, Deputy Station Chief of Mexico City, and his statements. He was taken to Argentina to meet with two Nazis working with the CIA on drugs trade with Theodore Shackley, linked to Iran, Contra, etc. to keep his job in the CIA all set out by Daniel Sheehan. I'm assuming that's a book by Daniel Sheehan or some book by Daniel Sheehan. And that's what Richard is requesting. Okay.

2:02:01 Let me try to find it in here so I can read it myself. Did he post it in the pill? Yes, ma'am. All I see is your post. You've been busy. You and my girlfriend, Patriot Sarah. Y'all are awesome. Yeah, I don't see it. If you'll DM it. Oh, right there, Richard. I see it. Colonel, can you discuss Mr. Burkholder Smith?

2:02:36 He was taken to Argentina to meet Nazis working with the CIA on drug trade with Theodore Shackley linked to Iran Contra. All right. I'm going to have to take that as a homework assignment. I have that in one of my books, but it's out in the cottage. So I'll bring that tomorrow. I do want to give a shout out.

2:03:07 I just wanted you guys to know that I take my own advice. And we were at the State of Florida Electrical Contractors Conference last weekend, wherever it was, or the weekend before that. And I was telling everybody at the table I was sitting with what I'd been doing because, of course, I couldn't join them on Friday because we had the interview, the second interview with Paul Williams.

2:03:35 So that night when we went to the banquet, I was telling everybody about what we've been doing. And two of the people that live here in Polk County wanted the site where the podcast was. And lo and behold, as soon as I got off the air yesterday, we get a text from them. And I have to share this with you guys because I was so tickled.

2:04:06 by it. And so I'm going to say hi to Gail and Randy. Hopefully they're watching again. And he texts saying, me and Gail are watching Roxanne. That girl is one badass. We love her. So of course my husband sends them, you know, a heart back. And so evidently they have now joined the family of watching through Rumble.

2:04:36 And welcome, Randy and Gail, to History Uncovered by the Colonel. So anyway, I just wanted to let you guys know I do follow my own advice. And when I am with people, I do talk about this and I try to get people actively involved to learn real history. So anyway, that's that.

2:05:06 I am going to have to get off here today's Wednesday. So we're going to dinner with Brian and his brother, Dwayne. And I will be on Alpha Warriors program to finish our Battelle story tonight at 930. So hope to see you guys there. Otherwise, we will be back here tomorrow's Thursday. So we'll be on at noon and at four. Warhamster and I will be on Rumble live. It will come.

2:05:35 over to the spaces, but we will not be live on spaces. But you'll be able to watch it through the X platform, but we will be live on Rumble. If you guys want to chat with us in the chat, you'll have to go over to Rumble to do that. So that'll be at noon and then we'll be back here at four. So thanks for being here. You guys take care and I will see you tonight at 930 or tomorrow.

Entities here

CIA53 Vietnam40 United States25 Air America25 Hmong people25 Thailand25 Laos25 Vang Pao22 China16 Plain of Jars14 Richard Nixon12 Hmong12 Secret War in Laos11 G. McMurtry Godley10 Richard Helms10 William Sullivan10 United States Military Academy9 Stuart Symington8 USAID8 Washington, D.C.7 Phu Pha Thai6 North Vietnamese6 Ted Shackley6 Vietnam War5 U.S. Air Force5 Lyndon B. Johnson5 Operation About Face4 Udorn Air Force Base4 John Symington4 Communist Party of China4 Chiang Kai-shek4 France4 World War II4 Sam Thong4 U.S. Congress4 U.S. State Department4 Henry Kissinger4 Pentagon4 Pony Express4 Mafia3

Claims made here

Maxwell D. Taylor appointed William Sullivan book_quoted ▶ 1:23

“We're going to pick up right there. William Sullivan almost missed his assignment to Laos as the ambassador because Maxwell Taylor had wanted him to serve as chief of staff for the new mission in Viet…”

Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Maxwell D. Taylor book_quoted ▶ 1:53

“President Johnson had prevailed on Taylor to assume the ambassadorship at Saigon, leaving his post as chairman. That's kind of where we left off yesterday. So Bill Sullivan could hardly refuse the sum…”

Lyndon B. Johnson funded CIA host_asserted ▶ 2:24

“have ever thought about this because when I was first doing the research into the JFK and the assassination as it related to Operation Gladio, one of the things that's very distinctive to me, which al…”

CIA funded Hmong book_quoted ▶ 4:45

“The CIA quoted as saying the agency was flat out in its effort to keep the tribes viable militarily in the Plain of Jars area, meaning that there was a contingent of 250 Americans either in Laos or co…”

CIA funded Air America book_quoted ▶ 5:43

“The CIA station appears to have taken no action against people like Tony Poe, who was in the middle of it and who suffered more than a dozen wounds in firefights because he was actively engaging in co…”

Air America supplied_arms_to Laos book_quoted ▶ 6:12

“used for this mission than most people realize. In South Vietnam alone, by late 1965, Air America had moved 1,600 tons of cargo a month. They had over 50 planes, and dozens of them were C-45s, 46s, an…”

Air America supplied_arms_to Laos book_quoted ▶ 6:41

“And they would fly at the height of the missions in the mid-1960s approximately 2,500 tons of cargo a month. So the importance for Laos was Thailand, where, of course, all of the Air America maintenan…”

Air America supplied_arms_to Laos book_quoted ▶ 7:13

“Udorn, which we talked about yesterday, Bangkok, and Thale. The maintenance was available within the Laos capital as well. And there was a major base for the proprietary airlines inside of Laos. It wa…”

Air America supplied_arms_to Laos book_quoted ▶ 7:44

“In mid-1966, the proprietary aircraft based in Thailand included 21 helicopters, 12 Hilo U-10 light planes, and 20 medium transports. The helicopters were vital for air rescue missions. During the fir…”

CIA paid Air America book_quoted ▶ 8:14

“Air America pilots were supposed to be flying during their time off from service on regular flights. They were paid bonuses given tax advantages and could clear up to $40,000 extra a year by flying wi…”

CIA funded Thakli book_quoted ▶ 8:42

“Thailand was Thakli, T-A-K-H-L-I, and it was codenamed Pepper Grinder. They were basically what was referred to as a spook compound where top secret projects were housed to include the U-2 and the SR-…”

United States supplied_arms_to Air America book_quoted ▶ 9:09

“Because Air America owned no C-130s, the Air Force lent it some for their special air warfare from their E-flight at Okinawa. Of four Air America crews trained on C-130s in the mid-1960s, one was left…”

CIA funded Air America book_quoted ▶ 11:03

“Vang Pao imported a Cadillac and a road was built up the ridge to connect the airbase with another village. Vang Pao had his headquarters at a place called Lone Tin, together with a propaganda outlet …”

Vang Pao headed Lone Tin book_quoted ▶ 11:03

Claire Chennault founded Flying Tigers book_quoted ▶ 11:54

“Now, it's interesting that they use that comparison because Flying Tigers is the basic airline that was set up by Claire Chenault, a retired two-star general for Chiang Kai-shek that William Pauly cre…”

CIA front_for Bird Air host_asserted ▶ 12:55

“The Air America Continental Air got some of the Laotian work. The company built up a fleet of 21 aircraft in Thailand in 1966, rising to 25 three years later. In addition, some contract work was carri…”

Air America supplied_arms_to Hmong book_quoted ▶ 13:54

“These are not separate. They're not actual competitors. The attacks in support of the Hmong were also carried out from Thailand by Air Force T-28s in jungle gym type units. A few of the planes were gi…”

Robert Jansen headed CIA book_quoted ▶ 14:51

“which are the Air Force Special Operations Command models that have the guns mounted to the aircraft. In all of these activities, Thailand played a vital role. One established at the beginning of the …”

Robert Jansen recruited National Police Board book_quoted ▶ 15:20

“the greatest single asset in all of Southeast Asia for the United States. And we ran across him before as well. With help from the ambassadors, Alexis Johnson and Kenneth Young, Janssen encouraged the…”

United States paid National Police Board host_asserted ▶ 15:49

“It's been a couple of weeks since I've read through this chapter. I thought this part was hilarious because obviously the author at this point in the story, they just miraculously was helping. Yeah, n…”

Hmong carried_out_attack Communist Party of China book_quoted ▶ 16:19

“to have air and sea ports accessible by these people. It wasn't because they just was cooperative. They were paid to do it. In 1964, the Hmong units cooperated in an ambitious counteroffensive during …”

United States funded Operation Jungle book_quoted ▶ 16:49

“the eastern flank of the Paiotlao on the Plain of Jars, called Operation Triangle. The offensive was possible only because of an American airlift that was so substantial that it had to be approved at …”

Hmong carried_out_attack North Vietnamese book_quoted ▶ 17:15

“Forces regained critical positions on the Plain of Jars before the rainy season ended in November. The retreating Peot and Lao and the North Vietnamese troops were repeatedly ambushed by the Hmong. Op…”

Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Pop Buell book_quoted ▶ 18:53

“having security there to protect the poppy, they wanted a distraction for the North in order to be able to do what they wanted in the South. Apparent success in 1964 and 65 pleased Washington. The Hmo…”

USAID funded Laos book_quoted ▶ 19:22

“at the White House. By the end of 1965, USAID was reporting that on its $1.6 million investment in the village health program. It was funding 140 hospitals and dispensaries, serving 150 patients a mon…”

USAID front_for CIA book_quoted ▶ 19:51

“Nothing like bragging about your medical setup when you're bombing everybody, mining everything, dropping napalm, and creating your own patients. Training work was contracted out to the Filipino healt…”

William Sullivan spied_on Ho Chi Minh Trail book_quoted ▶ 20:50

“North Vietnam anti-aircraft fire against the planes led to the first bombing, so-called protective reaction strikes by aircraft accompanying the reconnaissance planes. Even with this support, the resu…”

Yankee Team spied_on Ho Chi Minh Trail book_quoted ▶ 21:17

“parts of the Ho Chi Minh Trail recently used to infiltrate the North Vietnamese regular divisions that had already crossed the boundary into the South. In his report, Sullivan noted, all our Yankee te…”

United States carried_out_attack Laos book_quoted ▶ 21:46

“into the regular air effort over Laos. The air campaign began in December 1964 when the U.S. aircraft were authorized to add armed reconnaissance strike missions, which basically is just, hey, I'm goi…”

United States carried_out_attack Laos book_quoted ▶ 22:14

“This is at the height of everything being managed out of Washington, and you weren't allowed to do anything to actually accomplish a mission. You were only allowed to do what they told you to do. Ther…”

United States carried_out_attack Laos book_quoted ▶ 22:47

“Between 65 and 71, it is estimated that 1 million tons of bombs was dropped in steel tiger operation alone. Another half million tons of bombs were dropped in the exercise called barrel roll. That's a…”

Special Operations Group recruited Nung book_quoted ▶ 26:12

“were almost completely destroyed, with only four survivors escaping to the south. A fifth team inserted after a renewed go-ahead returned with meager intelligence resorts, which of course is the same …”

CIA recruited 111 Special Battalion book_quoted ▶ 26:43

“It was not the first time Nung had fought in Laos. In 1961 and 2, the CIA had secretly reinforced the Laotian troops with an obscure unit called the 111 Special Battalion. The soldiers were identified…”

Special Operations Group trained Nung book_quoted ▶ 27:15

“The Project Shining Brass, which was the SOG's code name for the cross-border patrols, the Nung, N-U-N-G, were given final training by the Vietnamese, and the patrols became more extensive in 1965. Th…”

Special Operations Group spied_on Ho Chi Minh Trail book_quoted ▶ 27:43

“from special forces camps into Vietnamese border region. The patrols identified the Ho Chi Minh Trail routes and marked them for bombing by Steel Tiger. This effort was supplemented by a road watch pr…”

United States supplied_arms_to Laos book_quoted ▶ 27:43

Special Operations Group carried_out_attack Laos book_quoted ▶ 28:13

“To help move the road watch teams, Prairie Fire executed over 250 missions in 67 alone, including patrols penetrating as far as 12 miles into Laos, where they're not supposed to be. But in 68, in addi…”

William Sullivan removed_from_power William Westmoreland book_quoted ▶ 29:06

“The Military Advisory Command prepared plans for such an invasion in September 1966 and again in 68, but Sullivan repeatedly advised against it. The biggest job Bill Sullivan had, observed one America…”

Communist Party of China carried_out_attack Laos book_quoted ▶ 29:33

“When both Sullivan and Westmoreland had returned to Washington for a meeting, the Vietnamese army went ahead with an invasion of the Panhandle using the code name Lam Sung 719. The operation turned in…”

CIA funded Hmong book_quoted ▶ 30:02

“stationing AC-47 gunships in Thailand for the first time. By mid-1966, three had gone down over Laos because they had been shot down. Americans in Laos began to collect hostile fire pay beginning in J…”

CIA removed_from_power Kong Le book_quoted ▶ 30:32

“During the dry season, the opposing forces had cleared several of the provinces, but the Hmong and some of their irregulars had took the hills in what basically amounted to a guerrilla resistance. Lat…”

CIA funded Laos book_quoted ▶ 31:29

“The Laotian Air Force averaged 400 tons a month in 66 through Air America. The CIA was moving 6,000 tons a month plus 16,000 passengers. That year, the Air Force flew 7,000 strike missions in a place …”

United States supplied_arms_to Phu Pha Thai book_quoted ▶ 31:56

“clandestine units with a new mission in support of the air war. Accurate bombing required accurate navigation, leading the Air Force to put a radio beacon atop a sacred mountain called Phu Pha Thai. L…”

Vang Pao supplied_arms_to Phu Pha Thai book_quoted ▶ 32:24

“was called Project 404. It became a Lima site designated as 85. Pony Express lifted 150 tons of equipment to the site for the radar installation and a dozen Americans were required to run the equipmen…”

Pony Express supplied_arms_to Phu Pha Thai book_quoted ▶ 32:24

North Vietnamese carried_out_attack Phu Pha Thai book_quoted ▶ 33:40

“The North Vietnamese made a concerted effort to knock out this installation. In one of the few recorded instances of North Vietnamese bombing, in January 1968, two Soviet-built transports modified to …”

CIA trafficked Pony Express book_quoted ▶ 36:29

“from the Sam Nua Valley area and from points around the Plain of Jars. Between January 10th and 15th, Air America and Pony Express helicopters joined hands to lift over 5,000 people off near Sam Nua. …”

CIA trafficked 56th Special Operations Wing book_quoted ▶ 36:58

“more specifically constant support from AC-47 gunships from the 14th Special Operations Wing. The unit's operation officer, Colonel William Ginn, G-I-N-N Jr., met with Vang Pao to explain the air supp…”

CIA trafficked William Ginn Jr. book_quoted ▶ 36:58

Richard Nixon removed_from_power William Sullivan book_quoted ▶ 37:57

“There wasn't a bag of rice dropped in Laos he didn't know about, said William Bundy of Ambassador Sullivan. But in the capital of Laos, which is where Sullivan was and had been for now four years, in …”

CIA trafficked South Vietnam book_quoted ▶ 38:27

“to the same Vietnam interagency committee that he had left in Washington. In Laos, the embassy team was not quite the same. Ted Shackley moved over to Saigon as chief of station there because that's a…”

Ted Shackley succeeded Lawrence Devlin book_quoted ▶ 38:27

CIA trafficked Phoenix Program book_quoted ▶ 38:27

Richard Nixon appointed G. McMurtry Godley book_quoted ▶ 38:55

“Lumumba around for two weeks in his trunk, dead. And G. McMurtry Godley, who was the former ambassador to the Congo, is now Richard Nixon's choice for Laos. Oh, imagine that. Just like I said, move th…”

CIA trafficked Langley book_quoted ▶ 39:57

“at least for the CIA. An era passed unheralded when a deeply depressed Frank Wisner put a shotgun to his head and killed himself in 1965. Lots of questions about that. It was Richard Helms, the profes…”

Richard Helms succeeded Frank Wisner book_quoted ▶ 39:57

Tom Karamessines succeeded Desmond Fitzgerald book_quoted ▶ 40:24

“while playing tennis on his home court. The director of plans was awarded a post-humus national security medal, but his replacement was Thomas Karaminenz, a Helms protege from the espionage crowd. The…”

CIA trafficked Missouri book_quoted ▶ 41:42

“total helicopters of this type lost in Laos during the entire war. Perhaps the sudden amount of losses had something to do with the change of heart, a most important one that occurred in the United St…”

CIA trafficked U.S. Congress book_quoted ▶ 42:11

“But given his membership on the CIA subcommittee, he was now expressing concerns. Symington had backed the Laotian War. And on a visit to Laos and Thailand in 66, the senator had had good things to sa…”

CIA trafficked Senate CIA Subcommittee book_quoted ▶ 42:11

CIA trafficked Lawrence Houston book_quoted ▶ 44:14

“basically saying such other functions on that directive in 1947 that we talk about all the time, the 5412-2. In October 30, 1969, the memorandum to Helms and the general counsel, Lawrence Houston, arg…”

CIA trafficked Thailand book_quoted ▶ 48:01

“and had done so for decades. Processed into laboratories, those poppies turned into opium and heroin, morphine, along with other dangerous drugs. The drug trade was lucrative and as pervasive in north…”

CIA trafficked Laos host_asserted ▶ 48:01

CIA trafficked Burma book_quoted ▶ 48:01

CIA trafficked Golden Triangle book_quoted ▶ 48:01

CIA trafficked Chiang Kai-shek book_quoted ▶ 48:31

“from Burma, meaning Chiang Kai-shek, bought some of the poppies and moved them across the border in caravans. The Thai bought, this author wants us to believe that it was all those surrounding countri…”

Air America trafficked CIA host_asserted ▶ 48:57

“They provided the most efficient transportation for all of it. And by the mid-1960s, the CIA officers were reporting intelligence on the movement of drugs to supplement their regular activities and th…”

CIA trafficked John Stennis book_quoted ▶ 49:24

“because the drug people that they were passing the information on to protected them. Helms told Senator John Dennis, chairman of the Armed Services Committee of the CIA reporting, basically making it …”

CIA trafficked House Armed Services Committee book_quoted ▶ 49:24

CIA trafficked DEA host_asserted ▶ 49:50

“agents in order to protect themselves so they could say, yeah, we notified them. We just didn't tell everybody else that they were actually our protection. Because you remember the one book that we re…”

CIA trafficked Air America host_asserted ▶ 51:18

“Air America had a policy against smuggling on its aircraft, which is hilarious. They didn't have a policy against it, but security against drug running was dependent on the pilot. No, it wasn't. The o…”

CIA trafficked Royal Lao Armed Forces book_quoted ▶ 51:49

“Not until early 1972 did the CIA proprietary even set up an inspection service, which was something that they basically got bullied into doing, but it didn't actually change anything. It also said som…”

Paul Helliwell recruited Allen Dulles host_asserted ▶ 52:47

“While they were involved on the peripheral, they really wasn't in charge of this whole thing. They weren't in charge when, in fact, they were. They were running the entire drug operations. And we went…”

CIA covered_up The Politics of Heroin book_quoted ▶ 53:15

“So the entire reason we're there is because of that. In the summer and fall of 1972, the CIA inspector general undertook a formal investigation of the drug traffic spurred on by the detailed revelatio…”

CIA trafficked Hong Kong book_quoted ▶ 53:44

“but to launch an investigation, which for our practical purposes means they basically were going to cover it up. The team of officers began in Hong Kong and spent over two weeks at 11 agencies intervi…”

CIA trafficked Pentagon book_quoted ▶ 53:44

CIA trafficked USAID book_quoted ▶ 53:44

CIA trafficked U.S. State Department book_quoted ▶ 53:44

CIA trafficked Air America book_quoted ▶ 53:44

CIA covered_up Investigation of Drug Situation in Southeast Asia host_asserted ▶ 53:44

CIA trafficked France host_asserted ▶ 55:37

“and was working hand in hand with the president of France to massacre the Corsican mafia. Now, just so that you guys know, here's the flow. Drugs, because France was in Vietnam before us, so they basi…”

CIA trafficked Mafia host_asserted ▶ 56:30

“was kind of a sticking point for the CIA because they wanted the Corsican mafia out of the heroin supply coming into America. So they wanted to be able to copy what was being done by the Corsican mafi…”

CIA trafficked Sicilian Mafia host_asserted ▶ 56:30

CIA trafficked Italy host_asserted ▶ 56:30

G. McMurtry Godley ordered_assassination_of Mafia host_asserted ▶ 56:58

“And so over 300 mafia people were assassinated, like just literally walk up and blow their head off with a gun. One after another, after another, after another. So that happens. And the guy that was t…”

CIA trafficked United States host_asserted ▶ 57:26

“trying to do trade secrets and all that other stuff in order to be able to get it as close as they could to the way he was doing it, because that was the preferred source. And so once that was done, a…”

CIA trafficked Cuba host_asserted ▶ 57:56

“And as a result of that, the CIA is down in South America setting up the alternative because by this time we've acknowledged that we're not getting Cuba back because that was the staging place. They w…”

CIA trafficked South America host_asserted ▶ 57:56

Vietnam carried_out_attack Lima Sites book_quoted ▶ 59:15

“Because that was the whole purpose. They want us drugged and stupid. All right. So North Vietnamese dry season offensive of 1969 climaxed with the loss in late June of the Hmong LS-108, the largest ai…”

CIA trafficked U.S. Air Force book_quoted ▶ 1:00:12

“One unit was saved by three U.S. Air Force and 11 Air America helicopters flying out of sky at Long Tin. The next morning, several large fires burning out of control were all that was left of the defe…”

Vang Pao carried_out_attack Operation About Face book_quoted ▶ 1:01:36

“now agreed to provide some support because they had been given more misinformation, the CIA lying. Several of the largest towns on the plain was targeting and were now being destroyed by bombing. The …”

CIA supplied_arms_to Hmong book_quoted ▶ 1:02:38

“In 1968, as a gift, Vang Pao gave President Johnson a flintlock musket that the Hmong had for, I mean, it was an antique. On two occasions, the Americans rewarded Vang with secret visits to the U.S. O…”

CIA trafficked Fort Bragg book_quoted ▶ 1:02:38

CIA trafficked Disneyland book_quoted ▶ 1:03:09

“During the other trip, Vang was taken to see Colonial Williamsburg in Disneyland with six wives installed. The Hmong chief had a lot of shopping to do. Disneyland, the CIA, reciprocated Vang's gifts a…”

CIA trafficked Colonial Williamsburg book_quoted ▶ 1:03:09

CIA trained Hmong book_quoted ▶ 1:03:38

“called Operation About Fate. The secret army spilled onto the plain of jars from the mountains and about 15,000 men, according to Lau's sources, the CIA was backing him with a command team of three of…”

CIA funded Hmong book_quoted ▶ 1:03:38

CIA trafficked U.S. Army Special Forces book_quoted ▶ 1:04:06

“anywhere from four to 12 each, and mostly had all came from Green Beret backgrounds. Basically, they were mercenaries under contract to the CIA. Aside from Long Tien, there were three other CIA traini…”

CIA trafficked Royal Lao Government book_quoted ▶ 1:05:56

“lost it. Vang Pao himself, with 1,500 troops backed by artillery, was forced out of the area. This loss was an important indicator to reflect the sagging morale of the Hmong in general. The government…”

CIA supplied_arms_to Hmong host_asserted ▶ 1:06:26

“Vietnamese. Equipment left behind included all kinds of crap that the CIA had supplied them with. They just took off running. They included cannons, recoilless rifles, Russian-made tanks, seven trucks…”

CIA trafficked Texas book_quoted ▶ 1:06:55

“of Fort Worth, Texas, was killed by sniper fire on a supply ferry flight into the Plain of Jars. In the Laos capital in Washington, the situation looked serious. Ambassador Godley requested massive ai…”

CIA trafficked Washington, D.C. book_quoted ▶ 1:06:55

CIA trafficked Fort Worth book_quoted ▶ 1:06:55

Richard Nixon covered_up Stuart Symington book_quoted ▶ 1:07:25

“which is literally not secret anymore. Symington was pressing for a release and a full transcript of the meeting that they had already had on Laos so that it wasn't going to be secret at all. The Nixo…”

Marvin Laird covered_up G. McMurtry Godley book_quoted ▶ 1:07:48

“Thus, Godley's request for airstrikes came in the midst of all of this political charged situation. Fearing leaks from the Pentagon about the B-52 in Laos, Secretary Marvin Laird, Secretary of Defense…”

Vang Pao relinquished Plain of Jars documented ▶ 1:10:11

“This, again, is plausible deniability. An attack with three B-52 bombers, a typical quote-unquote cell strike, was carried out on the night of February 17th through the 18th. More followed, yet a few …”

Tom Ullman filed_dispatch Los Angeles Times documented ▶ 1:12:27

“Ambassador Godley was furious. The American mission has lost any interest in helping out because the press. It is too late to halt revelations. However, Altman filed a dispatch to LA Times. For the fi…”

Vang Pao reduced_headquarters Long Thien documented ▶ 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 Americ…”

CIA commanded_by Hugh Tovar documented ▶ 1:19:17

“were basically less literate because they went through quite a few of them by this time. Naturally, the Americans did not stand by idly through all of this. The CIA did everything it could to shore up…”

Hugh Tovar parachuted_into Laos documented ▶ 1:19:45

“Yay, more coups there. The OSS veteran Tovar had been parachuted into Laos once already at the end of World War II. The kind of activists the CIA seemed to prefer in Laos. Tovar had been a chief of st…”

Hugh Tovar chief_of_station_in Vietnam documented ▶ 1:19:45

Vang Pao made_appeal_to CIA documented ▶ 1:22:41

“Vang Pao was one of the biggest losers in the negotiated settlement, which ended American's air support of his secret army, which isn't secret anymore. The sea spire was to go into effect on February …”

U.S. Air Force ceased_support Laos documented ▶ 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 F…”

Vang Pao became_farmer_in Montana documented ▶ 1:24:08

“The 55,000 Hmong have resettled in the United States. Vang Pao himself has become a farmer in Montana. There were pockets of Hmong in places as diverse as Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and Fresno. Direct…”

Hmong resettled_in United States documented ▶ 1:24:08

Douglas Blaufarb defended Hmong documented ▶ 1:26:00

“B-L-A-U-F-A-R-B, a senior CIA official with a long record in Laos and Vietnam. He defended the Hmong against press criticism when he served at the embassy in 1971 and continues to believe that the tri…”

Office of Strategic Services trained Ho Chi Minh guest_asserted ▶ 1:43:06

“They work to go in and disrupt countries in order to steal their resources. And there is no better example than Vietnam of that process because the OSS, the precursor to CIA, was in bed with Ho Chi Mi…”

Ho Chi Minh targeted_for_regime_change France guest_asserted ▶ 1:43:33

“He wanted to be just like us. He drafted a constitution that read and I read it. It reads just like our constitution. He was so proud to go to Paris and present it to the Americans there because he wa…”

Alexander Haig member_of United States Military Academy guest_asserted ▶ 1:49:15

“The other part of you just you want to weep at the sadness of the situation that we're currently in. But anyway, Carrie, go ahead. I'll go ahead. One other comment. One of our leaders at West Point wa…”

Stanley McChrystal member_of United States Military Academy guest_asserted ▶ 1:51:04

“I ran Contra. I mean, yeah, he's a bad guy. Another good West Pointer, like Petraeus and Papio. Yeah, Papio, yeah. Yeah, my fraternity brothers. Well, you know, in one way that kind of makes sense, be…”

David Petraeus member_of United States Military Academy guest_asserted ▶ 1:51:04

Joseph Smith traded_network_to Ted Shackley caller_asserted ▶ 2:01:31

“Mr. Burkholder Smith, Deputy Station Chief of Mexico City, and his statements. He was taken to Argentina to meet with two Nazis working with the CIA on drugs trade with Theodore Shackley, linked to Ir…”

Ted Shackley member_of Iran-Contra affair caller_asserted ▶ 2:01:31