Undercover Armies - CIA FOIA - Central Intelligence Agency

C05303949
SQUEEZING AN AurD
I IHe andI Iset up at Houei Kong, centrally
located on the Bolovens Plateau, and began building a dispensary, a rice
mill, and a school, and organizing an agricultural cooperative.47D
, .
The earlier talk of doubling the Kha force to 24 companies was replaced, as
a cease-fire and coalition loomed in late June 1962, by concern about CIA's
continued ability to use its Kha units even for intelligence. Having hoped to
"keep FAR out of it,"1 Inow complained that MR 4 had "worked its
way into the program" to a point which rendered covert exploitation impracticable.]
Itherefore, proposed a unilateral adjunct to the guerrilla
force, extracting from it potential staybehind intelligence cadres who might
also later recruit others to contest with the Pathet Lao for political influence in
communist-controlled territory.'0
The same uncertainty prevailed in northern and central Laos. That CIA
would support its irregulars if they came under attack was not, in principle, at
issue. But the timeliness and efficacy of such support would be determined by
the terms of the agreement and by the frequency and scale of any North Vietnamese
violations. Political and diplomatic factors would also playa part.
These included the state of overall Soviet-US relations and the viability of the
Laotian coalition, and especially the performance of likely prime minister
Souvanna Phouma. 4 'D
Fori
Ithis last factor represented the stickiest of several sticking
points. Headquarters considered soliciting Souvanna's endorsement of a
Hmong irregular force that Vang Pao would dedicate to unconditional support
of the presumptive new prime minister. Butl jdoubted that Vang Pao
would make any such unconditional pledge-and what if Souvanna then
ordered the Hmong disarmed?50D
47~recollectionsof theauthor, who later served with bothl
I
~d none of the Hemingway-style big-game-hunter macho; his avuncular manner
made it eas for him to win the confidence of tribesmen always wary of the intentions of
outsiders.
48 proposed notonly to draw personnel from existing units butalso to
train them at the Kha base on the Bolovens. All this was to be insulated from the elements not
included; just howdoesnot emerge from surviving documents. Thecomplaint about FARintrusion
probably reflectsGeneral Kot'spersonal involvement in enrolling new tribesmen, something
that robabl accounts for later criticism at Head uartcrs of aile edl indiscriminate recrullin .
SEc/RT/fMR
7131 .