Undercover Armies - CIA FOIA - Central Intelligence Agency

C05303949
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MANAGEMENT BY EXTEMPORIZATIOND
US as well asl ISouth Vietnamese ground and air forces.I I
summarized this exchange for Headquarters in a cable clearly intended to
preclude unrealistic, expectations in Washington of Agency operations in the
Panhandle. 46 0
While I lawaited word from Vang Pao's emissaries to the Nape
area, one of the Thakhek-based teams finally trekked overland, approaching in
somewhat gingerly fashion its Nape-Lak Sao target area. It began to report
useful information about enemy activity and seemed to have the sympathy of
, the villagers on whom it relied for information and food. A second team infiltrated
onto the Na Kay Plateau, northeast of Thakhek, and I
expressed both satisfaction and his modest expectations of the activity when
he reported that the Thakhek teams had "done better thanl ]hoped
or expected." Ambassador Brown, told that two of the three teams were now
installed behind enemy lines, had displayed "pleased surprise."47D
But Phoumi's Directorate of National Coordination teams never reached
their target, if indeed they were ever dispatched. And Vang Pao's mission to
the Hmong around NaRewas stalled not far from Muong Ngat; on 29 November
he and I
~and a column of 100 men had reached a point only
13 miles to the southeast. A week later, having proceeded another 10 miles,
word arrived that two North Vietnamese battalions had crossed the border, '
headed for Muong Ngat. Painful memories of the slaughter there in May
revived fears for families still in the area, and when the Hmong heard ieavr
firing from their rear on 7 December, the mission to Nape was aborted.•s
With these developments, the burden of working behind enemy lines in the
upper Panhandle fell by default on the Thakhek-based irregulars. This provoked
a reprise of the earlier discussion of 1,000 new Hmong volunteers for
the Nape sector. Headquarters, under pressure from assistant secretary Averell
Harriman to avoid provocative action, wanted more intelligence but without
any commitment to large-scale recruiting in the target area. Not only that, Harriman
anticipated that a political settlement would restrict the activity of irregulars
already under arms. The Soviets had promised him, he said, to "keep
communist forces in line in Laos" and to end the infiltration through Laos into
South Vietnam. In return, the United States would have to comply, "spirit and
letter," with the agreement. 49 0
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47 Author's recollection;
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