Undercover Armies - CIA FOIA - Central Intelligence Agency

C05303949
FOCUS ON THE PANHANDLED
continued in leapfrog fashion until the enemy gave up the pursuit. But the
defenders were impeded by 4,000 panicky refugees and sometimes could not
even return the harassing fire that came from ahead as well as behind them.
The rocky terrain closed in on the retreating column, and flank security
became impossible. The I !leader saw terrified, screaming refugees
surge forward and back on the trail, knocking soldiers off the narrow trail in
their panic while enemy fire picked.off.military and civilian alike. Before it
was over, some 300 refugees died.>U .
Two days later, the exhausted survivors had managed II miles, andCJ
delivered an airdrop of cooked food. At sundown, with the food just distributed,
the enemy again struck in force, this time from the south. In the sudden
chaos.l
jalong with the acting regimental commander,
and the team leader later estimated that he had seen another 100 people
killed. On 5 May, only 1,000 of the 4,000 refugees had arrived at Nam
Keng, almost 30 miles of precipitous mountain trails from Phou Non'] All
told, 900 FAR soldiers and 400 Hmong irregulars joined]
and
the senior FAR commander among the missing. And the agony continued: an
enemy probe two days later forced a withdrawal even farther south. D 28
The enemy encroachments that began in early 1964 and accelerated during
the political chaos of April and May, did achieve one decisive political effect.
Souvanna Phouma, no longer hoping for restraint from the Pathet Lao and
Hanoi, essentially abandoned the idea that neutrality could be achieved or
preserved by accommodation. He did not, of course, formally repudiate the
coalition, something that would have invited Hanoi into the Mekong Valley.
But his newly combative stance prompted Ambassador Unger to make the
unprecedented suggestion in mid-May that T-28 fighter-bombers flown by
American pilots be deployed against the advancing enemy. Souvanna did not
hesitate, and a week later, Air America pilots were bombing and strafing
enemy positions both east and west of the Plain of Jars. From this point on,
Air America helicopters resumed flying troops and ordnance as they had
done before October 1962."0
On 20 May, Souvanna told Unger that "the only way Laos could be saved
from the communists was by military intervention by the Western Powers."
Washington responded in terms of the now-conventional formula: convene the
::0
29 Vientiane Embassy Telegrams 1329 (17 May (964) and 1411 (24 May 1964). FRUS 1964­
1968,86-87, passim and 105. Unger rescinded this a few days later; the T-28s were taking too
many hits, Butl ,nd USAF ~ilnts shortiy re~laeed them.O L
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