Undercover Armies - CIA FOIA - Central Intelligence Agency

C05303949
Chapter Eleven
is taking necessary steps to assure that roads are secure." These included
"strict measures to control all people living along [the] roads," and the station's
teams and "loyal villagers who supported them have had to move away
from roads in order to survive. 1l5 l D
A New Approach in the PanhandleD
Blaufarb]
Itherefore proposed to supplement overland
infiltration with roadwatch teams introduced by air, using either helicopters
orl :techniques of parachuting into th~ jungle canopy.
These teams would "live completely black," covering their targets for six to
eight weeks before being exfiltrated by helicopter or by the so-called sky hook
recovery technique. Continuous coverage would be accomplished by deploying
a second, compartmented, team to a different observation point before the
first was withdrawn. With the manpower on hand, the station expected to create
up to 10 of these smaller new teams. The 7/13'" Air Force agreed to supply
helicopters, and State gave the needed policy approval."D
Certain teams would do no more than collect and report, but others would
be connected by voice radio to a Lao observer flying with a USAF forward air
controller. These teams would direct fire on enemy truck parks, chokepoints,
and similar lucrative targets. The enemy would quickly suspect their presence,
and the station did not plan to kecp any, one team in place for more than a
week. 5J D .
It looked like a very tall order, but Lair and Blaufarb were encouraged by
the quality of the 41 Lao junior officers, all volunteers, in training in late
19651 Iprovided by FAR commander General Quane, they were
better than any other Lao that CIA had ever trained. And there were salvageable
elements in the old teams, where retraining: more recognition, and some
relief from almost continuous deployment should allow their use in the new
format. 54 D
US military intelligence had long since acknowledged that the available
techniques of aerial reconnaissance offered little prospect of adequately coveringthe
trail network. Absent a new system of electronic coverage, human
sources (trailwatchers) would have to provide more information on enemy
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1966 for overland infiltration
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