Undercover Armies - CIA FOIA - Central Intelligence Agency

C05303949
A LIMITED OFFENSIVED
wing or every American initiative in Indochina. Souvanna remained deeply
suspicious of General Phoumi and Prince Boun Ourn and hostile to Air America,
which he clearly viewed as an instrument of possible unilateral American
purposes in Laos. Aside from the problem of dealing with Souvanna, Washington
still faced the need to avoid blatant, provocative violations of the 1962
Geneva Agreements it had negotiated and signed. The urgency of this requirement
varied over time, depending partly on the scale of communist violations
and partly on the state of diplomatic play, especially with the Soviets. But it
was always a material consideration, and in mid-1963, resre the activist cast
of NSAM 249, it still constituted an important factor.19
With respect to the noncommunist factions, the United States could do little
to improve matters beyond urging them to demonstrate their good will by
working together. The question of air support was equally intractable. Whatever
was done to comply with the cease-fire inevitably detracted from the
morale and combat effectiveness of both Yang Pao's Hmong and the ethnic
Lao units in the Panhandle. For two months in mid-1963, the US Mission
wrestled with the problem of supplying the station-supported irregulars-and
the FAR units scattered among them-as hardly any of them could be reached·
by either road or river.D
Souvanna's well-known sensitivities were not the only issue. The Polish
delegate to the ICC had already accused Air America of transporting troops
and ordnance in violation of the Geneva Agreements; he chose to ignore the
communist attacks on Yang Pao and the Plain of Jars neutralists that provoked
them.I Iwanted to lease Air America aircraft to Souvanna-if he
would accept them-but the State Department held that Laotian markings on
the aircraft would not make it legal for Air America pilots to fly them.2°0
In one of innumerable such arguments-they persisted for over a year, until
the rising scale of combat rendered the issue more or less academic--l
Oomplained about what it termed the Department's "legalistic" objections.
It noted that State had raised no such objection to Bird & Sons pilots in the
cockpits of the six aircraft already given or leased to Souvanna, and demanded
to know why a different standard now applied."D
The possibilities included a new and presumably untainted American firm,
or one from a third country, or Lao pilots in leased American planes. The per-
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