The Once-Hidden War
ABRAMS, ARNOLD
ESCALATION IN LAOS The Once-Hidden War BY ARNOLD ABRAMS Although American officials refuse to see, hear or speak evil about their nation's involvement in Laos, the pace of the once-hidden war...
...These guys are tigers," says an American personally acquainted with many cia agents in Laos...
...They're tough, intelligent guys who know how to handle themselves...
...The ex-Green Berets train government troops, assist reconnaissance teams, and help plan terrorist and psychological warfare operations...
...American embassy officials give no signs of being concerned about the situation...
...With no Vietnam settlement yet in sight, Washington is in the precarious position of relying on Hanoi's restraint...
...Critics, of course, counter that it also is easier to maintain a policy if debate on it is avoided...
...For all anyone knows, Devlin may agree with Fulbright on that point...
...Thailand-based U.S...
...In addition to some 75 military advisers who are listed as embassy attaches, approximately 300 men are participating in a variety of clandestine missions supervised by the cia...
...government...
...This year's drive may be telling, for it follows a late-summer government campaign that pushed North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao forces off the strategic Plaine des Jarres for the first time in five years...
...We seek no wider war...
...The government effort was a desperation measure backed by unusually heavy American air support-euphemistically called "armed reconnaissance flights"-and logistical aid...
...The agency is just following orders," he said...
...Not surprisingly, Symington's subcommittee receives little sympathy from American authorities here...
...The cia mission chief in Laos is a man named Lawrence Devlin, listed as a "political officer" in the U.S...
...airpower, previously used largely against the Ho Chi Minh Trail in eastern Laos, was employed directly against enemy troop concentrations in the north...
...Escalation is the name of this game, and both sides have played it before...
...Cargo and military supplies are carried throughout Laos by Air America and Continental Air Services, private charter firms under contract to the U.S...
...Some say the hearings were unnecessary...
...He described the hearings as a "political gimmick...
...A sufficiently strong enemy thrust could force a crucial decision on Washington: whether or not to increase American involvement in Laos when standing fast might be tantamount to bugging out...
...government employes stationed here are involved in war activities...
...The rest, undisclosed, goes almost entirely for military purposes...
...The pressure tactics drove overextended enemy units back...
...A small covert conflict fought by volunteers may not be particularly laudable, these officials argue, but it beats a big bloody one battled by draftees...
...Nothing has yet been released...
...He seemed unaware of how hauntingly familiar his words were...
...I don't approve of this kind of activity at all," Fulbright said...
...Vientiane would undoubtedly consider a strong enemy strike now as escalation...
...ESCALATION IN LAOS The Once-Hidden War BY ARNOLD ABRAMS Although American officials refuse to see, hear or speak evil about their nation's involvement in Laos, the pace of the once-hidden war here has been quickened by a new escalatory cycle...
...concluded a week-long closed session on Laos last November...
...public about the extent of the American involvement here...
...ros, as requirements officers are known, are inconspicuous but hardly innocuous...
...Total American assistance to Prince Sou-vanna Phouma's neutralist government is reliably estimated at between $250 million and $300 million per year...
...Most of those committee members knew what has been going on here," said one embassy source...
...The North Vietnamese, moreover, did not stop at Muong Soui...
...Besides cia funds, money for many U.S...
...As Vang Pao addressed the newsmen on his official base at Sam Thong, American F-4 Phantom jets roared overhead, several American observation planes were parked nearby, and three cargo-laden American transport planes landed in quick succession...
...They are vital to any military operation...
...They are better known as the cia airlines, and most of their pilots are former Air Force officers...
...chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to raise pointed questions about the agency's role in Laos...
...It's much easier to back off from a policy if you haven't officially adopted it...
...Its staff of about 90-mostly ex-military men-Is stationed at field level to handle the distribution of arms and ammunition, as well as general logistics, for Laotian forces...
...Reports of the missiles arrived as U.S...
...The latest intensification came last month when, for the first time in the decade-long struggle between pro-government and Communist forces, military sources reported enemy use of surface-to-air-missiles...
...and Vientiane government officials braced for the enemy's annual dry season offensive, expected to start within several weeks...
...The cia also funds and controls General Vang Pao's secret army (Armee Clandestine), whose approximately 15,000 full-time members are mainly Meo hill tribesmen...
...They came to Laos because they were fed up with having their hands tied in Vietnam," he says...
...holding operation," a low-key effort with limited objectives (true neutralization of Laos...
...Testimony at the subcommittee hearings about these and other cia activities prompted Sen...
...Whatever its hopes, the Nixon Administration apparently wants the freedom to formulate policy on Laos without Congressional criticism or public pressure...
...If anything approaching an accurate picture ever emerges from the Senate subcommittee hearings, the American public will learn that its government is arming, training, supplying, transporting and directing Vientiane's forces...
...The commander, a flamboyant former French Army sergeant, recently made a fool of himself by declaring before a gathering of correspondents that his forces fight with antiquated weapons, inadequate communications and inconsequential American support...
...Of that, only the technical aid budget-about $60 million-Is made public...
...Officials privately contend that Hanoi's refusal to concede the presence of its Soviet-supported forces here makes it diplomatically unfeasible for Washington to act otherwise...
...They're not afraid to mix it up out in the jungle...
...After denying that he even received indirect U.S...
...Perhaps the greatest irony of this backstage battle is the general ignorance of the U.S...
...The action's significance lay less in the enemy victory than its timing: It came during the rainy season, normally a period of retreat or stand-down for the less mobile Communist forces...
...Less than 200 Americans-mostly airmen-have died in action here, and another 200 have been captured...
...They still describe the conflict as a U.S...
...They pushed south and west, severing road links between Vientiane and the royal capital of Luang Pra-bang...
...Although no American combat troops-meaning ground forces-operate in Laos, American pilots are fighting, and approximately 400 of the more than 1,000 U.S...
...Since its function ostensibly is to gather information, Fulbright asked, why is the cia directing war operations here...
...The unexpected drive shattered the morale of government troops and forced allied authorities into their late-summer offensive...
...ground troops into Laos or Thailand...
...The subcommittee, in turn, refuses to release any transcript unless it can present what it considers to be an accurate picture of the Laotian situation...
...They managed that until last June, when drastically changed enemy tactics altered the course of this war...
...The Nixon Administration will face a grievous problem if Hanoi chooses to force its hand...
...Now it is time for enemy retribution, and allied authorities wait anxiously to learn what price will be put on their recent success...
...The subcommitte, chaired by Stuart Symington (D.-Mo...
...Washington's public posture is presumably intended to conceal its violations of the 1962 Geneva Accord, which bars all forms of foreign military intervention in Laos...
...But if it is in the national security interest to do this, it seems to me it ought to be done by regular U.S...
...pilots fly hundreds of sorties over Laos every day to stem that flow, but are no more successful than the airmen who pounded North Vietnamese territory prior to Washington's 1968 bombing halt...
...To Hanoi, however, such an action would be a justifiable response to the government's last move-which, of course, was promoted by the enemy's June assault...
...Another official explained the potential harm of an open debate on Laos this way: "Publicly discussing a policy can have the effect of locking you into it...
...helicopter pilots also participated directly in the attack by ferrying government forces and supplies into combat areas...
...embassy...
...J. W. Ful-bright (D.-Ark...
...The enemy's June gambit involved an estimated seven North Vietnamese battalions in a sucess-ful four-day siege against the government outpost of Muong Soui, straddling the Plaine des Jarres' western edge about 100 miles north of Vientiane...
...There is no chance of this turning into another Vietnam," one high-ranking embassy officer recently remarked...
...Another cia adjunct in Laos has the innocuous title of "Requirements Office...
...While technically civilians, many cia agents in Laos are former Special Forces soldiers recruited because of military expertise and Vietnam experience...
...U.S...
...The introduction of Communist missiles into the Laotian conflict served unneeded notice of North Vietnam's determination to keep men and supplies flowing on the vital Ho Chi Minh Trail into South Vietnam...
...The Senator, in describing U.S...
...Reporters are allowed on rice drops to refugee camps and similar humanitarian missions, but are banned from flights carrying military and strategic materiel...
...The American is a civilian engineer who befriended many agents while helping to build airstrips on their remote outposts...
...That seems clear from the State Department's moves to muzzle large portions of testimony delivered at recent Senate subcommittee hearings on Laos...
...Probably...
...Senate sources say the Administration has sought to impose censorship restrictions far exceeding security needs in order to obscure the issue of American involvement in Laos...
...Here they're doing things the way they want to, and getting better pay for it as well...
...they also probed at Long Cheng, northern nerve center of Washington's Central Intelligence Agency and main operations base for the so-called secret army of Major General Vang Pao, the government's key commander...
...involvement in Laos as "most unusual and irregular-if not unconstitutional," stressed that he was not criticizing the cia...
...They wear combat fatigues and work from three main camps, where they administer rigorous training in jungle warfare, guerrilla tactics, communications handling, and weaponry...
...Hanoi understands our position here...
...An estimated 50,000 North Vietnamese troops operating at present in Laos could overrun the country...
...Were it not for North Vietnamese intervention, they add, the 70,000 pro-government troops could easily contain the 30,000 Pathet Lao troops, the Laotian equivalent of Vietcong...
...They deny the war is heating up and are sure, they say, that Hanoi will not act rashly...
...officials here point out that American money and manpower expenditures in Laos are miniscule compared to those in Vietnam...
...The Nixon Administration has made it clear that it is wary of being caught in another Asian quagmire, a possibility made even more remote by recent Congressional action barring funds for sending U.S...
...The public has yet to be told openly that Americans are fighting and dying in the Laotian conflict...
...Still, their critics insist that in a democracy matters of national policy ought to be aired publicly and debated before being decided upon...
...American policymakers have long been hoping to avoid such a situation by keeping the conflict here stalemated until a Vietnam settlement, with provisions for Laos, could be reached...
...We know the mistakes made in Vietnam, and we have no intention of repeating them...
...But the choice options in this shadowy war seem to be Hanoi's...
...The Senator went on to note that the National Security Act, which created the cia, "never contemplated this function" for it...
...Nothing has been hidden from them...
...operations in Laos comes from the budget of the mammoth Agency for International Development, or is channeled through other unobtrusive organizations...
...others insist that disclosure of too much testimony will prove harmful-though not in a military sense...
...Arnold Abrams is Southeast Asia correspondent of the Seattle Times...
...They stress that about $30 billion per year is being spent in Vietnam, and over 40,000 servicemen have been killed there...
...Army forces and not by an intelligence-gathering agency...
...military support, the General calmly climbed into an unmarked American helicopter, guarded by Laotians carrying American M-16 automatic rifles, and was flown back to his supposedly secret Long Cheng headquarters by a three-man American crew...
...They've been kept well-informed...
Vol. 53 • February 1970 • No. 4
