Undercover Armies - CIA FOIA - Central Intelligence Agency

C05303949
SEtETIIMR
TAKING TIlE WAR TO TIlE ENEMrC
Vientiane as a reference to the river along the planned route of march-actually
reflected CIA officers' judgment of the human material in the unfortunate
Chantala's unit....: ]
A More Concerted ElTort:J
Despite the failure of Operation MAENG DA. Larry Devlin now adopted a
more aggressive stance than the one he displayed in the May exchange with
Bill Nelson. The COS announced "Phase I of the South Laos Interdiction Program,"
which opened on 29 August 1970. The station committed 5,700 irregulars
to several operations against three main lines of communications in the
western pan of the Ho Chi Minh Trail network. " 0
111(' S(' Kong Va1f~', lookinNnortheast from Ran BOt
To penetrate the enemy's sanctuaries required securing one's own . COS
Devlin judged that, if it was to accomplish anything significant east and southeast
of the Bolovens, the interdiction program had to hold on to its launch
bases on the plateau. The key site, PS-26 on the southeastern edge, had earlier
fallen to the North Vietnamese, and Devlin regarded its recapture as essential
to the future of MR 4 and indeed to the outcome of the war in general. In mid­
September, two battalions began sweeping the Se Kong Valley below the
46 Conbo Shadow War. 270;[
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