Undercover Armies - CIA FOIA - Central Intelligence Agency

C05303949
Chapter Six
The next day, Phoumi summonedI
and unloaded his accumulated grievances. He was "too deeply shocked" by the
"defeatist policy" of the United States, he said, to be able to continue. The
United States was treating the RLG "like a small child," admonishing it 'to give
a little here, then a little more there, "downhill into communism." Phoumi
despaired of being able to get the right-leaning cabinet to cede both Defense
and Interior to Souvanna,
pointed out that RLG intransigence
'=ri'=s"'ke:Cd""th=-=e'--e"'n=-=d'o"'f'U"'"S'--s"'uC:p""p-=-or=t-.r;P;:-ho"'u:-:m~ishrugged this off; he "really didn't see
much use in US support if all it meant was giving in to the enemy."4D
Ambassador Brown recognized that any resort to sanctions against the RLG
would involve Washington in a ,game of "chicken," in which both parties
stood to lose. The RLG might "simply dig in," and sanctions would harm both
the civilian and the military sectors. Meanwhile, the. communists would be
encouraged to increase their military pressure in an incremental way that
clouded their responsibility for renewed hostilities. But Brown saw that inaction
would put the United States at Phoumi's mercy, and he "regretfully"
renewed a recommendation to' suspend military aid until the RLG agreed to
, "sacrifice the Defense and Interior Ministries."'D
Washington found it difficult to administer such strong medicine, and, at a
meeting on 6 January, President Kennedy confronted the familiar dilemma:
The terms of the best possible negotiated settlement might fatally weaken the
noncommunist elements in a coalition. DCI John McCone offered two reservations
about imposing Souvanna's cabinet choices on the RLG First, he
advanced the Intelligence Community's view that the Defense and Interior
Ministries in the hands of Souvanna's appointees meant "an open roadstead
[through Laos] from North Vietnam to South Vietnam." McCone then rather
tentatively suggested that such a government "would not be very strong."O
Governor Harriman leaped on this, pointing out that the "Sou vanna solution"
had been US policy since the previous August. The only issue was
"quite simply whether Phoumi or the President of the United States was to run
US foreign policy." Harriman also dismissed the infiltration issue: "The Russians
had specifically agreed that this border should be closed." He believed
that "the Russians did not want fighting, and [did] want a reasonable agreement."
The alternative, in his view, was what Gen. [Omar] Bradley had once
called "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." The president
I
'Vientiane Embassy Telegram 916, 31 December 1961. FRUS 1961-1963. 551-$0
'Vientiane Embassy Telegram 932, 3 January 1962, FRUS 1961-1963, 553-54.U-
6 McGeorge Bundy, Memorandum forthe Record, "Meeting in the Cabinet Room on January 6.
1962,on the subject of Laos," 6 January 1962,FRUS 1961-1963, 571-73D
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