Undercover Armies - CIA FOIA - Central Intelligence Agency

C05303949
Chapter Eighteen
song made substantial progress, sometimes overcoming substantial resistance
to do so. In addition, by way of further diversiMegular detachments began
sweeping the southeastern rim of the plateau. 4 , .
The diVergin~ and always contingent goals of the American and La~
[ participants gave even large, meticulously planned operations
like SAYASILA a somewhat unfocused look. The NVA's spoiling capacity
meant that any objective might be changed or abandoned with little notice.
Moreover, the differing Laotian and American emphasis on individual targets-Saravane
and Paksong, for example-might produce different
responses to changed circumstancesD
Headquarters, constantly under pressure from apprehensive policymakers,
seems to have expressed some such perception about Operation SAYASILA.
Within a week of the first deployments, COS Tovar was objecting to what he
judged to be its "unrealistic" preoccupation with orderly progress toward predetermined
goals. Initial planning had called for holding Saravane just a week,
on a diversionary basis, but its easy capture had encouraged Souvanna­
Tovar, too-to start thinking about installing a permanent garrison there and
letting its civilian population return. 4J D .
But Washington had reason to worry about the always-erratic Lao. Four
. FAR and neutralist battalions were blocked by the NVA short of Paksong, and
were then routed by a barrage of heavy weapons fire. As they fled in disorder,
a second FAR column, nearing Paksong from the northwest, was halted and
driven back almost to its original infiltration point on the western Bolovens
escarpment. 44D .
Soutchay I
[American advisers responded with a threepronged
operation involving eight irregular and seven FAR battalions. Moving
out on 21 August, the various commanders inexplicably failed to synchronize
their advances on Paksong, and the North Vietnamese 9 1h Regiment, the
perennial nemesis of the Lao in MR 4, chewed them up piecemeal. Four FAR
battalions simply disintegrated, and four others were put out of action. 'D
4
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45 Ibid., 305-06. Soutchay was nominally in charge of Operation SAYASILA, buthe enjoyed full
control onlyof theparticipating FAR units and presumably consulted wit~ land US advisers
on the deployment of the irregulars. Many years later, Hugh Tovar did not recall the exact
sequenceof events butidentified four factors that he thought probably contributed to the debacle:
weakness of the FAR units; relatively well-trained andwell-led butinexperienced' ,
newly installed MR 4 commander Soutchay's uncertain control of his subalterns; and the fact that
many units moved on foot, giving t~VA ample opportunity to scout their dispositions. (Note
from Hugh Tovar, 31 January 200l.)U ' .
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