Undercover Armies - CIA FOIA - Central Intelligence Agency

C05303949
Chapter Two
and providing training, communications, and tactical advice. Washington
acceded, setting a pattern that endured for almost three years.'00
Lair flew to Ta Virg to drliver the news in person. Yang Pao's round face
lit up in delight, and was equally pleased, but he understood perhaps
better than the Hmong leader how small a window of opportunity they had all
been given. The Laotian army task force that General Phoumi had ordered to
pursue and engage Kong Le had just abandoned the junction of Routes 7 and
13.This left Luang Prabang isolated and the neutralists and their communist
allies free to attack any nascent opposition in Xieng Khouang. The outposts
around Ta Viang were even then under pressure, and the new program needed
a training site secure enough to assemble and train the initial group of volunteers.
Should this fail, the enemy would nip the whole thing in the bud and be
free to conduct reprisals on the Hmong population at large.SlD
Neither time nor airlift capability permitted exfiltrating volunteers to a
training facility in government-held territory. In any.case, the Hmong, whose
abiding motivation was to protect their families, would not have consented to
leave them to the mercies of the Pathet Lao and the North Vietnamese. Training
would have to take place under the enemy's nose, and Yang Pao proposed
bringing the first 300 volunteers to Ban (Village) Pa Dong, a tiny Hmong
hamlet about 8 miles south of the Plain of Jars. The rugged terrain would prevent
any instantaneous enemy reaction, and he promised at least three days of
training before Kong Le or his allies could attack."D
Three days was cutting it fine. The Hmong were fine marksmen with their
homemade flintlock rifles, and some had been trained as militia by the French,
but they would have to master new weapons and at least the basics of guerrilla
tactics. But Lairl Ihad anticipated just such a contingency in their
development of a training syllabus, and they told Yang Pao to assemble his
300 volunteers.D .
Back in Vientiane, Lair briefedI Iwho, although taken aback by the
tiny margin for error the training schedule allowed, agreed to take the chance
that 300 men would appear where and when Yang Pao said they would. Lair
radioedDto start off on the two-day march to Pa Dong, then he set to
work on a requisition of weapons and equipmentI
I
I
The Hmong could easily' outpace an enemy pursuit, but thel
with Yang Pao would be slowed by the bulky radio and generator-relics of
I
I
so
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