PRESS ITEMS RELATED TO US ACTIVITIES IN LAOS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP73B00296R000300080047-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 19, 2002
• Sequence Number: 47
• Publication Date: August 14, 1971
• Content Type: NSPR

z!! r X~i u j,Sll ~ iS,..o
Approved For Feleasc, 1(ij2019-7IA-RDP73B00296R0tP0300080047-0
kiin
b
By D. E. Ronk
rren Laos Drive
Use of the forward air
guides in guerrilla operations
raises the questions here of
to have played an important
role in Vang Pao's movement
back onto the plain.
Special to The washinston Post
VIENTIANE, Aug. 13-P, or-
ward air guides are "doing a
fine job" of assisting the cur-
rent Royal Laotian govern-
ment drive to recapture large
areas of Laos lost to Comrnu.
.nist forces. during the dry sea-
sons of 1970 and 1971, U.S.
government spokesmen say.
Forward air guides are spe-
cially selected soldiers who
control U.S. and Laotian bomb-
ers from the ground, guiding
them in oil targets.` The exist.
,once of, the _ guides was. di-i the rules, according to the
vuigeci. last week by the Sen-!subcommittee report.
ate subcommittee on Unitedi Doubt that the rules can re-
States Security Agreements tain even their limited success
and Commitments Abroad,
headed by Sen., Stuart Syming-
ton (D-Mo.).
According to the commit-
tee's report, there are 182 such
guides, 53 from the Royal Lao
army and 1.29 from CJA-sup-
ported irregular forces in
Laos, roost of whom are Thai
nationals and veterans of the
-'Vietnam war, according to
sources in Laos.
Sources say the guides are
carefully selected on the basis
of intelligence, experience and
.either ability to speak English
or ability to learn it easily and
well, then throughly trained.
Allure officers or senior non-
commissioned officers.
Functioning like guerrillas,
they infiltrate within sight of
enemy troops or installations
and direct either bombing or
artillery fire onto the target,
moving on after bombardment
is completed.
According to the guides,
their orders to propeller-driv-
en T-28 bombers are relayed
through forward air control-
lers flying overhead. Orders
to U.S. Air Force jet pilots are
,usually given directly because
of the speed of the bombing
runs, hence the English lan-
guage requirement.
further departure from the I In southern Laos, Royal
rules of engagement proce- Laotian government troops
dures established by the U.S. continue a slow, careful thrust
government to protect nonmil- toward Paksong on the Bolov-
itary targets, procedures in-
cluding prior clearance of tar- ells plateau east of Pakse
gets by the U.S. ambassador in under cover of bombing and
Vientiane. artillery, much of it controlled
Royalist T-28 bombers arc by the guides.
already exempted from the paksong, informed sources
rules as are U.S. berthing mis-
sions supporting infiltrating say, is expected to be captured
or exfiltrating troops, caemp- by Royalist troops within the
tions creating a "loophole" in next few days.
in protecting nonmilitary tar-
gets if guides are allowed to
target. bombers is expressed
by many observers here, al-
though the presence of a
guide would appear to
strengthen the system.
A measure of the successes guerrilla troops beyond
being enjoyed b Poyalist;lloung Phalane, although the
troops in thrust in their both current northern -I town itself has not been occu-
pi
and southern Laos is attributa-pled.
Considerable complaint has
ble to use of the guides work-been expressed -ill months
ing with air and artillery sup- both by Laotians and by U.S.
port, according to spokesmen. mission sources working in
In northern Laos, irregular lnorthern Laos over indiscrimi-
nate bombing in particular by
Gen. Van,, Pao at Long Chen:,iLao planes-which, according
control most of the Plain of to U.S, mission sources et
Jars, according to o f f i c i a l g
their bombing sorties over
spokesmen, while otherlwith quickly to earn extra pay.
have captured the entire plain,
including Khang Khai and
Thirty-five miles east Iof-,Sa
vannakhet and 120 miles north
of Pakse, a third thrust has
stalled about the town of
Moung Phalane after encoun-
tering stiff enemy resistance,
according to the government
sources. Air guides are be-
lieved to he operating with
As the report says, pilots in at
least two of Laos' five military
regions receive a "bonus"
corner.
Intelligence reports through
U.S. government spokesmen
say that the high -ground at
the northeast corner of the
plain is still held by a conven-
tion of Communist troops,
however, blocking movement
along routes leading toward
Dienhienphu in North Viet-
nam.
Forward air guides are said
Approved For Release 2002/08/01
CI0DP7 B0Q29 10?300080Q47-0
use of non-Laotians is also
seen as dangerous.
ties flown. U.S. sources say
Laotian pilots get $1 per sortie
and that the payment pro-
duces frequent "dumping"
only minutes from their bases
at Luang Prahang and Long
Cheng during routine mis-
sions.
Part of the rising American
investment ir; bombing ord-
nance is attributed by a
knowledgable source to the
dumping, though the bulk of
the rise is in cost alone. Dated
bomb stocks now have been
expended, thus requiring pur-
chase of new ordnance at pre-
vailing prices.
Although there may be
more frequent success in ac-
tually bombing the enemy by
using guides, observers here
fear that their existence will
merely add to the illusion that
bombing is more controlled in
 pproved For Release 2002/08/01 : CIA-RDP73B00296R000300080047-0
SENATE, ADMINISTRATION DISPUTE ON THAIS IN LAOS
b
Two months after the Senate met behind closed doors
to discuss United States involvement in Laos, a sanitized
version of what was said June 7 during the secret
session was printed in the Congressional Record Aug. 3.
(Secret session, Weekly Report p. 1268)
Although the censored version of the discussion was
punctuated by deleted facts, the arguments which evolved
from the missing material provided a picture of the dif-
ficulties encountered when members of Congress, who
feel they have a right to know, attempt to obtain infor-
mation classified secret by the executive branch and
learn the position of the Administration on disclosing
such information.
Also revealed in the debate was the executive
branch's explanations for congressional charges that
secret U.S.-supported military operations had been car-
ried out in defiance of the laws set by Congress.
The first attempt to acquire information that was
mentioned in the censored floor debate was a letter
written by Sen. J.W. Fulbright (D Ark.), chairman of
the Foreign Relations Committee. The Jan. 27, 1971,
letter was to Defense Secretary Melvin R. Laird and in-
cluded a list of questions on Laos.
The April 14 Pentagon reply was signed by Assistant
Defense Secretary G. Warren Nutter, who wrote: "I regret
we are unable to comply with your request in this in-
stance. It would not be at all appropriate to disclose out-
side the executive branch highly sensitive information on
military combat operations of the kind your questions
would elicit if answers were to be provided."
When the Senate met June 7 in secret session, mem-
bers were briefed on the Laos situation by Sen. Stuart
Symington (D Mo.) from a Foreign Relations Committee
staff report. The staff report was sanitized and released
Aug. 3 also. (Weekly Report p.'1660)
Thai Guerrillas. Included in the censored staff
report was a section dealing with Thai irregular forces
fighting in Laos. "The CIA supervises and pays for the
training of these irregulars in Thailand," the report stated,
"and provides their salary, allowances (including death
benefits) and operational costs in Laos.... The Thai ir-
regulars are transported from Thailand to Laos by Air
America (private airline sponsored by the CIA) and are
returned to Thailand when their tours are up again."
Sen. Clifford P. Case (R N.J.), a member of the,Foreign
Relations Committee, had sent a letter to the State De-
partment April 23 requesting information on any agree-
ments between the United States and Thailand by
which Thai troops were being imported into Laos against
the provisions of United States law.
Assistant Secretary of State David M. Abshire re-
plied to Case's letter May 19: "We believe that it has
been made clear that this is not a question of U.S. sup-
port for regular Thai forces in Laos. The irregular forces
involved, while raised and trained in Thailand, are all
one-year volunteers who go to Laos to serve under the
command of the Royal Lao government. These guerrilla
forces are therefore considered to be local forces in Laos."
Abshire further explained: "There are no written
agreements between our government and the governments
of Thailand or Laos concerning this program. All agree-
ments are made orally."
Thai Mercenaries and the Law
The paragraphs below were excerpted from
the 1971 Defense Department ApprtLpriations bill
(PL 91-668). The first section of this provision pro-
hibits the United States from hiring mercenaries
(from a third country) to fight in either Laos or
Cambodia. The second provides the means by which
such a practice could be justified.
"Nothing... hereunder shall he construed as au-
thorizing the use of any such funds to support Viet-
namese or other free world forces in actions designed
to provide military support and assistance to the
governments of Cambodia or Laos.
"Provided further, that nothing contained in
this section shall be construed to prohibit support of
action required to insure the safe and orderly with-
drawal or disengagement of U.S. forces from South-
east Asia or to aid in the release of Americans held
as prisoners of war."
After reading Abshire's letter to the Senate, Syming-
ton said: "Common sense forces one to ask, how can these
Thai irregulars in Laos be described as local forces?
They are Thai, not Lao. They are recruited in Thailand,
not Laos."
Sen. Robert P. Griffin (R Mich.), Assistant Minority
Leader, argued in behalf of the Administration: "There
is no question, I suppose, -under the language here,
that if the,Thai government sent forces into Laos under
a Thai military command and they fought, that there
would be a violation (of the law)." (Box this page)
"But are we going to say that the Laos military com-
mand cannot recruit volunteers... should limit the recruit-
ing of troops in its own country?" Griffin said.
The Washington Post subsequently reported Aug. 9
that at least some of the CIA-supported Thai irregulars
fighting in Laos were recruited directly from the ranks of
the Thai armed forces and were asked to accept special
assignments in all-Thai battalions fighting in Laos. In
response to the Post story, a State Department spokes-
man said that the Thai soldiers in Laos were fighting there
in violation of the Geneva Accords of 1962, but only be-
cause some 80,000 North Vietnamese were moving against
the neutralist country. The State Department spokesman
did not confirm or deny the Post story, and no mention
was made of violation of United States statutes.
Safe and Orderly Withdrawal. The justification
advanced on the Senate floor for B-52 bombings in north-
ern Laos and along the Ho Chi Minh trail in southern Laos
was that it was part of over-all U.S. strategy to ensure
the safe and orderly withdrawal of U.S. troops from
South Vietnam. Symington said his staff investiga-
tors were told that the bombings were crucial to the
withdrawal plans because they interrupted supplies
coming down the Ho Chi Minh trail bound for South
Vietnam and kept enemy forces pinned down in Laos
when, if unharassed, they would be an added force
against the South Vietnamese.
COPYRIGHT 1971 CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY INC.
II.P.&,tlon =IbIl.d In We at I pen no*p by edNwIW dlmn
Approved For Release 2002/08/01 : CIA-RDP73B00296R000300080047-0
 Approved For Release 2002/08/01 : CIA-RDP73B00296R000300080047-0
92nd Congress - 8
"This," Symington said, "we are told, will buy more
time for Vietnamization." Symington said that what his
investigators were not told was how long the operations
would continue in Laos. He conceded the bombings
in southern Laos along the Ho Chi Minh trail might be
of sonic help to the South Vietnamese and to the success-
ful withdrawal of U.S. troops.
"But if anyone tries to justify the bombings and
napalming of military and occasionally civilians up in
northern Laos as a way to protect Americans we say
are leaving Vietnam, in my judgment they are very wrong,"
Symington said.
"The stated aim of Vietnamization," he said, "is to
spend these billions in order to put the Thieu-Ky govern-
ment of South Vietnam in a position to defend itself
after U.S. forces have been withdrawn. But what about
Laos?
"Surely the Lao are in no position to defend them-
selves, and the South Vietnamese have shown they are
not capable of fighting in Laos even with extensive U.S.
air support. Are we to believe our involvement in Laos
will end when our troops are withdrawn from Vietnam?
Or are we planning to stay and fight and pay for others
to fight indefinitely?
"It has now become clear that the United States
is using the people of Laos for its own purposes, at a
startlingly heavy increased cost to our taxpayers in money
and to the Lao people in terms of destroyed hopes, des-
troyed territory and destroyed lives."
CIA Budget. Symington, who was a member of the
Armed Services Committee's CIA Oversight Subcom-
mittee, said that he did not know about the details of the
CIA-supported irregular army in Laos until the Foreign
Relations Committee issued the staff report. "In all my
committees there is no real knowledge of what is going on
in Laos," he said. "We do not know about the cost of the
bombing. We do not know about the people we maintain
there. It is a secret war."
Sen. Jack Miller (R Iowa) said: "We should not
leave the impression that the Senate somehow or other
has been helpless in this matter. We are all mature in-
dividuals, and we know what we are doing. We have ap-
propriated a lot of money for the CIA. If we have done
so, knowing the CIA is an executive privilege agency,
I think we have done so with our eyes wide open. May-
be we should change that. That is something else. But let
us not say the Senate has been hoodwinked or leave the
impression we have been misled and have not known
what is going on." d
FOREIGN TRAVEL
Many members of Congress planned foreign travel
during the summer recess, at both government and per-
sonal expense. Congressional trips in 1970 at public
expense totaled at least $825,118, according to a study
by Congressional Quarterly. (Weekly Report p. 1383)
Asia. Speaker Carl Albert (D Okla.) led a biparti-
san group of 24 Representatives on a two-week tour of
Asia which included visits to Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong
and the Philippines. Seventeen members were accom-
panied by their wives.
Transportation was at government expense aboard
an Air Force passenger jet. Members, wives and staff
were to pay their own hotel hills and other expenses,
according to an aide in the Speaker's office.
Democrats on the trip were:
Representatives Joseph P. Addabb" (N.Y.), Edward P. Bo-
land (Mass.), John C. Culver (Iowa), Eiigio de la Garza (Texas),
Frank E. Denholm (S.D.), Thomas S. Foley (Wash.), Cornelius
E. Gallagher (N.J.), Richard T. IJann11 (Calif.), John M. Mur-
phy (N.Y.), Edward J. Patten (N..J.). W. R. Poage (Texas),
Melvin Price (111.), James 11. Schcuer (N.Y.) and Lester L.
Wolff (N.Y.).
Republicans were:
William G. Bray (Ind.), Tim Lee Carter (Ky.), Silvio O.
Conte (Mass.), John J. Duncan (Tenn.). Delbert L. Latta (Ohio),
Robert. Price (Texas), James H. (Jimmy) Quillen (Tenn.), J.
William Stanton (Ohio) and Larry Winn.Jr. (Kan.).
Africa-Europe. Rep. Charles C. Diggs Jr. (D
Mich.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcom-
mittee on Africa, and Guy Vander ,Jagt (R Mich.), a
member of the subcommittee, left Aug. 6 for a month-
long fact-finding trip to Africa and Europe. They were
accompanied by two committee staff consultants and
one aide to Vander Jagt, traveling at, his own expense.
The group first went to Portugal, Portuguese
Guinea and the Cape Verde Islands. On Aug. 11, they
went to South Africa. Diggs, a Negro, was refused a
visa for a planned South African visit in 1966. The itiner-
ary included Nigeria, Gambia, Senegal, Mauritania and
Algeria, Morocco, Paris and Stockholm.
Rep. Seymour Halpern (R N.Y.) planned to join the
group in Mauritania for the last leg of the trip.
Military Bases. Seven members of the House
Armed Services Committee were scheduled to leave
Aug. 20 for a two-week tour of military installations in
Europe, the Middle East and Africa'. They were:
Representatives W. C. (Dan) Daniel (D Va.), William L.
Dickinson .(R Ala.), John E. Hunt (R N.J.), Robert H. Mollohan
(D W.Va.), Bill Nichols (D Ala.) and Bob Wilson (R Calif.).
Paris. Thirteen Senators and 10 Representatives
planned to attend the 60th conference of the Inter-
parliamentary Union in Paris Sept. 2 to 11. The value of
U.S. participation in the union has been questioned in
the past in Congress. Rep. H. R. Gross (R Iowa) called
it "the granddaddy of all junketing organizations" in a
speech May 6 on the House floor.
Senate delegates to the meeting were:
Gordon Allott (R Colo.), Birch Bayh (D Ind.). Vance
Hartke (D Ind.), Ernest F. Hollings (D S.C.), Jacob K. Javits
(R N.Y.), B. Everett Jordan (D N.C.), Len B. Jordan (R Idaho),
Mike Mansfield (D Mont.), Frank E. Moss (D Utah), William
B. Saxbe (R Ohio), Hugh Scott (R Pa.), John Sparkman (D
Ala.) and Harrison A. Williams Jr. (D N.J.).
House delegates were:
Jackson E. Betts (R Ohio), Bob Casey (D Texas), Edward
J. Derwinski (R I11.), Lee H. Hamilton (D Ind.), John Jarman
(D Okla.), Robert McClory (R Ill.), John S. Monagan (D
Conn.), F. Bradford Morse (R Ma::s.), Alexander Pirnie (R
N.Y.) and Bob Wilson (R Calif.).
Bengal. Chairman Edward M. Kennedy (D Mass.)
of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Refugees and
Escapees arrived Aug. 10 in India for a week-long survey
of the East Pakistani refugee problem. Kennedy had
planned to go to East and West. Pakistan and to meet
with President Yahya Khan, but the Pakistani govern-
ment canceled the visit.
An aide to Kennedy said the Senator would remain
in India until Aug. 17 as originally planned, touring
refugee camps near Calcutta and meeting with Indian
leaders in New Delhi. I/
CO-YRIGMT 1971 CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY INC.
Rproduabn p,shU.d b, wb.4.., M pad ....p' by dlledol ,I
Approved For Release 2002/08/01 : CIA-RDP73B00296R000300080047-0