Undercover Armies - CIA FOIA - Central Intelligence Agency

C05303949
Chapter Thirteen
eral passes, dropping mortar shells as makeshift bombs on the radar installations
and strafing] Ibivouac below the peak. 60 D
Having inflicted minor damage, the attackers fled. Air America helicopter
pilot Capt. Ted Moore applied the expertise he had acquired as an army gun-.
ship pilot in Vietnam. He pursued a lumbering Colt until he brought it within
range of the M-2 automatic carbine wielded by his flight mechanic, Glenn
Woods, who began firing through the open side door. Apparently hit, the Colt
began losing altitude and soon crashed into a ridge near the Vietnamese border.
The other, safely distant from Moore's helicoptr tlen also crashed, perhaps
the victim of earlier ground fire from Site 85. 61
TSQ-8l operation was not interrupted, and the North Vietnamese accepted
that only some kind of ground operation could be relied on to take it out.
Enemy pressure on the Site 85 perimeter cost the defenders several.outposts, .
but bad weather hid the main enemy threat, the extension of the road leading
west from Sam Neua town. By mid-February, when Vang Pao and CIA
learned of it, the road was only 2,000 yards short of bringing North Vietnamese
artillery within range of Phou Pha Thi. By early March, the North Vietnamese
had the equivalent of seven battalions within striking distance of Phou
Pha Thi, and there had been a skirmish within 3 miles of the mountain. D 62
As Shackley and Sullivan had already toldI
I
Site 85 would not withstand a determined North Vietnamese assault, and the
ambassador now wanted a "date certain" beyond which the radar crews could
no longer stay. The station calculated the likely timing of an attack by the
pace of road construction, and set 10 March as the deadline for evacuation.
When he was apprised of this on 7 March, Gen. William Momyer, 7/13 1h Air
Force commander, had already essentially abandoned Commando Club's
raison d'etre, guiding raids on North Vietnam. In its last 10 days on the air,
the TSQ-8l at Site 85 operated almost exclusively in its own defense, directing
just three strikes on North Vietnam while guiding 153 missions in Laos,
mostly around Phou Pha Thi. Nevertheless, Momyer objected to what appar-
60 Castle, One Day Too Long, 76-78;1
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611 ~he station
briefly thought that Na Khang, as the major support base for Sam Neua 0 erations, would
ta",ke,-t",h",e."fi",rsO-t",bl",o..w,.,h",u"-t.. th",is,-,i",nt,,,e,.,r"'re"'ta"'t"io..n-'w"'as=u"'i"'ck..l'--"'ab"a..n"'do"n"'ed"'."-- -I--__---,
",
'-__"""7__.JThe same document cites the "forward intelligence teams" dispatched into
enemy territory north and west 'of Sam Neua town; these apparently did nol encounter the roadbuilding
activity, I
"Appraisal of the security of the guerrilla base at Phou Pha Thi, Sile 85, as of 9 March 1968,"
FRUS 1964-1968. 664-65.0
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