Undercover Armies - CIA FOIA - Central Intelligence Agency

C05303949
Chapter Twenty-one
From its earlier concentration on such things as the performance characteristics
of various kinds of weapons, reporting now dealt with the arcana of0
I lagricultural projects:
An additional 50 hectares adjacent to the essential oils project was
selected and cleared for expansion of pigeon pea plantings, and the
distillery unit for essential oil production was delivered to Long
Tieng ... brood-lac for the pigeon pea trees was procured for the
infesting process to begin in November.
Crop diversification would raise the standard of living and substitute for
poppy production, and new projects included 4,000 coffee trees planted at
Long Tieng.1
IVang Pao were distributing water buffalo, and the
grass needed to raise these essential animals was being planted at a village
west ofLong Tieng. D .'.
75
Economic progress required a physical and institutional infrastructure.
Yang Pao's Xieng Khouang Savings and Loan Cooperative, I
Iwas gradually introducing the Hmong into the use of
agricultural credit. Meanjhile'l construction of a water distribution system
proceeded at Long Tieng.>
I
However fragile the prospects for the survival of a noncommunist Laos,D
had little choice but to try helping the Hmong achieve political integration.
orked withVang Pao to emphasize cooperation with the
executive agencies now run by the provisional government. When 32 Hmong
students graduated from veterinary school in October" the provisional government
agriculture officer for Xieng Khouang Province presented the students
their diplomas. In December, the provincial college, evacuated to Vientiane
during the war, was about to be moved north again, this time to Sam Thong,
near Long Tieng. 77D
Hopes for these civilian programs, and for Yang Pao as a major postwar
political figure, were encouraged by the relative quiet that had prevailed in
Laos after the February 1973 cease-fire..Previously-or at least since 1964,
when the Johnson administration launched the first airstrikes on North Vietnam-the
entire effort in Laos had been linked to the contest between Hanoi
I
75
77
760
Anothereffort, the Committeefor Reconstruction and National Development, seems to have tried
to apply the Agency's Census-Grievance Program,developed in South Vietnam. After the appropriate
training,FARofficerswere to serve as·PGNUadvisersto Hmongcommunities, conducting
a census and identifyingeconomicand social needs.They wouldalso counter Pathet Lao "propa-
. ganda and encroachments."0 . .
SECLuTllMR
008