FLOWERS OF EVIL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84-00499R000100040008-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 17, 2005
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: July 1, 1972
• Content Type: BOOK

JULY 1972
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Alfred W. McCoy ; ;.. fN IL e
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The CIA and the heroin trade
adies and gentlemen," announced the genteel British
diplomat, raising his glass to offer a toast, "I give you
Prince Sopsaisana, the uplifter of Laotian youth."
The toast brought an appreciative smile frdbi the guest of
honor, cheers and applause from the luminaries of Vientiane's
diplomatic corps, assembled at the farewell banquet for the
Laotian ambassador-designate to France, Prince Sopsaisana. A
member of the royal house of Xieng Khouang, the Plain of
Jars region, the Prince was vice-president of the National
Assembly, chairman of the Lao Bar Association, president of
the Lao Press Association, president of the Alliance Franyaise,
and a member in good standing of the Asian People's Anti-
Communist League. After receiving his credentials from the
King in a private audience at the Luang Prabang Royal Palace
on April 8, 1971, he was treated to an unprecedented round
of cocktail parties, dinners, and banquets. For Sopsai, as his
friends call him, was not just any ambassador; the Americans
considered him an outstanding example of a new generation of
honest, dynamic national leaders, and it was widely rumored in
Vientiane that Sopsai was destined for high office some day.
The final send-off party at Vientiane's Wattay Airport on
April 23 was one of the gayest affairs of the season. Everybody
was there; the champagne bubbled, the canape's were flawlessly
French, and Mr. Ivan Bastouil, charge d'affaires at the French
Embassy, gave the nicest speech. Only after the plane had
soared off into the clouds did anybody notice that Sopsai had
forgotten to pay for his share of the reception.
the Laotian Embassy had turned out to welcome the new
ambassador. There were warm embraces, kissing on both
cheeks, and more effusive speeches. Curiously, the Prince
insisted on waiting for his luggage like any ordinary tourist,
and when his many suitcases finally appeared after an unex-
plained delay, he immediately noticed that a particular one was
missing. Sopsai angrily insisted that his suitcase be delivered at
once, and French authorities promised, most apologetically,
that it would be sent to the Laotian Embassy as soon as it was
found. Sopsai departed reluctantly for yet another reception at
the Embassy, and while he drank the ceremonial champagne
with his newfound retinue of admirers, French customs of-
ficials were examining one of the biggest heroin seizures in
French history.
The Ambassador's suitcase contained sixty kilos of high-
grade Laotian heroin - worth $13.5 million on the streets of
New York, its probable destination. A week later, a smiling
French official presented himself at the Embassy with the
suitcase in hand. Although Sopsaisana had been bombarding
the airport with outraged telephone calls for several days, he
suddenly realized that accepting the suitcase was tantamount to
an admission of guilt and so, contrary to his righteous in-
dignation, he flatly denied that it was his. Ignoring his
declaration of innocence, the French government refused to
accept his diplomatic credentials, and Sopsai remained in Paris
for no more than two months before he was recalled to
Vientiane.
His arrival at Paris's Orly Airport on the morning of April
25 was the occasion for another reception. The French am-
bassador to Laos, home for a brief visit, and the entire staff of
Fragile flower, cash crop
espite its resemblance to comic opera, the Prince Sop-
Al/red I K McCoy, a Ph.D. student in Southeast Arian history at Yale D saisana affair offered a rare glimpse into the workings of
Univrrtity, has written numerous articles on Southeast Asia and has the Laotian drug trade. That trade is the principal business of
edited a political history of Laos.
Laos, and to a certain extent it depends on the support (money,
Adapted from a chapter in The Politics of Hcroin in Southeast Asia, by guns, aircraft, etc.) of the CIA. Unfortunately, the questions
Alfred W. McCoy with Cathleen B. Read, to be published by Harper
& Row, Publishers, Inc., in Septgmber. Copyright ? 1972 by Al/red raised by the P'rince's disgrace were never asked, much less
W. McCoy. answered. The French government overlooked the em-
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 Pitira"'' ar:Ytii "..'tu..?~u.~~c..i.:.l .i ~'dArMa.a~..x -...2...; ).a
The harvesting of the opium crop takes place between January and
early March. ti"hcn the opium is ready, the petals fall away, leaving the
bare bulb. In late afternoon or early evening the Jfeo women cut
striations in the bulb with the three-pronged knife shown beloru.
The f olloiving morning the congealed opium sap is collected from the
bulb's surface with a small shovel-like tool and carried in a small
container worn around the neck.
I I,
barrassment for diplomatic reasons, the international press
ignored the story, and the United States Embassy demonstrated
a remarkable disinterest in the entire subject.
Over the past fifty years, Laos has become something of a
free port for opium. The delicate opium poppy grows abun-
dantly at high elevations in the northern mountains, and under
a sequence of different regimes (French, American, Laotian),,
the hill tribesmen have been encouraged to cultivate the poppy
as the principal cash crop. Opium dens can be found in every
quarter of Vientiane, and the whereabouts of the opium
refineries are a matter of common knowledge. The leading
citizens, whether princes, generals, or politicians, zealously
control the drug traffic and regard it, with good reason, as a
strategic industry.
The Laotian indifference to Prince Sopsaisana's misfortune
therefore becomes easily understandable. The reticence of the
American Embassy, however, requires a few words of ex-
planation. Sopsai had allegedly received his sixty kilos of heroin
through the kind offices of a particularly aggressive Laotian
general named Vang Pao. Vang Pao also happens to be the
commander of the CIA secret army in northeastern Laos. He
has commanded that army since 1961, and during the past
eleven years he has become an increasingly notorious en-
trepreneur in the Laotian drug trade.
But the American Embassy remains curiously unaware of
his involvement in the narcotics traffic. Nobody has any in-
formation on the operation of the Laotian drug business, and
Embassy officials appear to have adopted an attitude of benign
neglect. That attitude was characteristically expressed in a
letter written in December 1970 by Ambassador G. McMurtie
Godley to a journalist inquiring about the opium traffic. Godley
wrote:
The purchase of opium in Southeast Asia is certainly
less difficult than in other parts of the world, but I believe
the Royal Laotian Government takes its responsibility
seriously to prohibit international opium traffic...
However, latest information available to me indicated
.Continued
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 A,pproved Forlease 20
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John rvoringham
that all of Southeast Asia produces only 5% of narcotics
which are, unfortunately, illegally imported to Great
Britain and the U.S. As you undoubtedly are already
aware, our government is making every effort to contain
this traffic and I believe the Narcotics -Bureau in
Washington D.C. can give you additional information if
you have some other inquiries.
Ambassador Godley did not deem it worthy of mention that
the latest information available to him should have indicated.
that the great majority of heroin being used by American GIs
in Vietnam was coming from Laotian laboratories. Nor (lid he
deem it necessary to mention two other facts:
s In 1967 the United Nations reported that poppy farmers in
northeastern Burma, northern Thailand, and northern Laos -
a region known as "the Golden Triangle" - were producing
1,000 tons of raw opium annually, which was then about 70
per cent of the world's supply. The available evidence indicates
that the exports have increased, and that heroin from the
Golden Triangle is now being shipped into the United States
through Europe and South America.
o During the last several months of 1970 more American sol-
diers were evacuated as casualties from South Vietnam for drug-
related reasons than for reasons having to do with war wounds.
To Americans living in cities plagued by heroin, it may seem
controversial, even shocking, that any U.S. Government
agency would ignore. the international drug traffic. But when
considered in the perspective of historical precedent, and
conceding the demands of mountain warfare in northern Laos,
the U.S. IEnmbassy's tolerant attitude seems almost inevitable.
Rather than sending U.S. combat troops into Laos, four
successive American Presidents and their foreign-policy ad-
visers worked through the CIA to build the Meo guerrillas of
northern Laos into the only effective army in Laos. The fun-
damental reason for American involvement in any aspect-of the
Laotian opium traffic lies in these policy decisions, and they can
be understood only in the context of the secret war in Laos, a
war in which Vang Pao emerged as one of the principal figures.
C IA operations with Meo guerrillas began in 1959 as part of
a regional intelligence-gathering program. Noting with
alarm renewed guerrilla activity in South Vietnam and Laos
in the late 1950s, American intelligence analysts interpreted
these reports as the first signs of communist plans for the
"subversion and conquest" of Southeast Asia. General Ed-
ward G. Lansdale, who directed much of the Defense
Department's strategic planning on Indochina during the early
years of the Kennedy Administration, recalls that these hill-
tribe operations were set up to monitor communist in-
filtration: "The main thought was to have an early warning,
trip-wire soot of thing with these tribes in the mountains
getting intelligence on North Vietnamese movement. This
would be a part of a defensive strategy of saving the rice-
producing lowlands of Thailand and Vietnam by sealing off
the mountain-infiltration routes from China and North
Vietnam."
While the U.S. military sent half a million troops to fight in
South Vietnam, the mountain war has required only a handful
of U.S. personnel. "I always felt," General Lansdale told me,
"that a small group of Americans organizing the local
population was the way to counter communist wars of national
liberation.". In South Vietnam, computerized command
decisions and automated firepower dehumanized the fighting,
while the rapid rotation of U.S. personnel made military
commanders seem like replaceable parts in a giant machine.
However, American paramilitary personnel serving in Laos
have tended to serve long tours of duty, sonic a decade or more,
and have been given an enormous amount of personal power.
Since there were too few U.S. operatives to assume complete
responsibility for daily operations in the hills of Laos, the CIA
usually selected one leader from every hill tribe as its surrogate
commander. The CIA's chosen ally recruited his fellow
tribesmen as mercenaries, paid their salaries with CIA money,
and led them in battle. Because the CIA had only as much
influence with each tribe as its surrogate commander, it was in
the agency's interest to make these men local despots by
concentrating military and economic power in their hands.
dontinued
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 As soon as he reached his headquarters, Colonel Kham Hou
radioed a full report - Vientiane. The next morning Army
ClAtRfpg4.QO488 do4lo ifeddg- ieng Khouang and
summoned Vang Pao.' Weeping profusely, Vang Pao
prostrated himself before Ouan and begged for forgiveness.
Perhaps touched by this display of emotion or influenced by the
wishes of U.S. Green Beret officers working with the Mco,
Ouan decided not to punish Vang Pao. I-Iowever, most of the
Laotian high command seemed to feel that his career was
finished.
-nut Vang Pao was to be rescued from obscurity by unforeseen
circumstances that made his services invaluable to the
Laotian right wing and the CIA. In the weeks that followed,
Laos blundered into one of its chronic civil wars. Vang Pao
volunteered his Meo irregulars to the cause of the tottering
regime, and, as a reward, he was pardoned and promoted.
In January 1961 the CIA began sending Green Berets, CIA-
financed Thai police commandos, and a handful of its own
agents to Vang Pao's headquarters at Padong, a 4,000-foot
mountain due south of the Plain of Jars. The object was to build
up an effective secret army that would keep the Pathet Lao
bottled up on the Plain of Jars by recruiting all of the eligible
young 1Mco in the surrounding mountains as commandos.
Using Padong as a base of operations, Vang Pao's officers and
CIA operatives flew to scattered Meo villages in helicopters and
light FJelio Courier aircraft. Offering guns, rice, and money in
exchange for recruits, these advance men leapfrogged from
village to village around the western and northern perimeter of
the Plain. Under their supervision, dozens of crude landing
strips for Air America aircraft were hacked out of the mountain
forests, and scattered villages were linked with CIA
headquarters at Padong. Within several months, Vang Pao's
influence cxtctlded from Padong north to Phou Fa and east as
far as Bouam Long.
One local Meo? leader in the Long Pot region west of the
Plain of Jars says that Meo officers who visited his village
following General Kong Le's capture of the Plain used threats
as well as inducements to win a declaration of loyalty. "Vang
Pao sent us guns," he recalled. "If we did not accept his guns,
he would call us Pathet Lao. We had no choice. Vang Pao's
officers came to the village and warned that if we did not join
him lie would regard us as Patliet Lao, and his soldiers would
attack our village."
By 1964 Vang Pao had extended his authority northward
into Sam Neua Province, openly attacking Pathet Lao
*Gen. Ouan Rathikun deserves passing; menloriali?ration in this
account. A former commanding officer of the Royal Laotian Army --
the only army in the world apart from our own that is wholly financed
by the American taxpayer lie so brilliantly acquitted himself in that
post to earn his country's highest decoration, the Grand Cross of the
Million Elephants and the White Parasol. A round and genial nian,
the General has also controlled, since 1962, an elephant's share of
that part of the opium traffic through Laos that originates in 'T'hailand
and the Shan states of northern Burnia. Tithing this traffic has been
immensely profitable to the various right wing governments that
Ouan has served so faithfully over the years, yielding revenues of
almost $100,000 a month even as early as 1962. And, like his
subordinate Vang Pao, General Ouan also readily perceived the
splendid opportunities available to entrepreneurs of opium refining.
By 1970 he allegedly controlled the largest laboratory in Southeast
Asia, refining some of the purest heroin in the world.
n the Meo region of northern Laos, the CIA had the good
fortune to find, in Vang Pao, a man with unlimited
ambitions and a willingness to take battlefield casualties. For
Vang Pao, peace is a distant, childhood memory. Ile saw battle
for the first time in 1945 at the age of thirteen, while working as
an interpreter for French commandos who had parachuted onto
the Plain of Jars to organize anti-Japanese resistance. In April
1954 he led 850 hill-tribe commandos through the rugged
mountains of Sam Neua Province in a vain attempt to relieve
the doomed French garrison at Dienbienphu.
When the first Indochina war ended that same year, Vang
Pao returned to regular duty in the Laotian Army. Ile ad-
vanced quickly to the rank of major and was appointed com-
mander of the Tenth Infantry Battalion, which was assigned to
the mountains east of the Plain of Jars. While he had a good
record as a wartime commando leader, it was in his new
command that Vang Pao first displayed the personal corruption
that would later make lihn such a despotic warlord.
In addition to his regular battalion, Vang Pao was also
commander of Meo self-defense forces in the Plain of Jars
region. Volonteers had been promised regular allotments of
food and money, but Vang Pao pocketed these salaries, and
most voluntdcrs went unpaid for months at a time. When one
Meo lieutenant demanded that the irregulars be given their
back pay, Van, Pao shot hint in the leg. That settled the matter
for the monienr, but several months later the rising chorus of
complaints finally came. to the attention of the provincial army
commander, C; )1. Kham I-Iota Boussarath. In early 1959
Colonel Kham 1-Iou. called Vang Pao to his headquarters in
Xieng Khouan-, confronted him with the accusations, and
ordered him to pay up. Several days later Colonel Kham lion
was driving back from an inspection tour of the frontier areas
and was approaching the village of Lat I-Iouang, when a burst of
machine-gun fire shattered his windshield. More than thirty of
Vang Pao's soldiers hidden in the brush alongside the road
were shooting frantically at the automobile. But it was twilight,
and most of the shots went wild. Kham Hou floored the ac-
celerator and emerged from the gauntlet unscathed.
aontinuod
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 Air America helicopter t d.r at a A4ao village in northern Laos.
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ryw, -?'~ 1.i V? ~
strongholds with the continued assistance of the CIA. (His
offensives took place after the United States ?had signed the
Geneva agreements whereby it promised not"
ot to interfere in
Laotian military affairs.) As soon as a village was captured and
Pathet Lao cadres eliminated, the inhabitants were put to work
building a crude landing strip, usually 500 to 800 feet long, to
receive the airplanes that followed in the conqueror's wake,
carrying "refugee" supplies of rice and guns. These goods
were given away in an attempt to buy the hearts and minds of
the Meo and eliminate any remaining loyalty to the Pathet Lao.
Within a matter of months a fifty-mile-long strip of territory --
stretching from the northeastern rim of the Plain of Jars to
Phou Pha Thi mountain, only fifteen miles from the North
Vietnamese border - had been added to Vang Pao's domain.
More than twenty new aircraft landing strips clotted the
conquered corridor, linking Meo villages with the new CIA
headquarters at Long Cheng. Most of these Mco villages were
perched on steep mountain ridges overlooking valleys and
towns controlled by the Pathet Lao. The Air America landing
strip at Hong Non, for example, was only twelve miles from
the limestone caverns near Sam Neua City where the Pathet
Lao later housed their national headquarters, a munitions
factory, and a cadre training school.
Airlining opium
As might be expected, the fighting on the Plain of Jars and the
d'i opening of these landing strips produced changes in
northeastern Laos's opium traffic. For over sixty years the
Plain of Jars had been the hub of the opium trade there. After
every winter's opium harvest, Chinese merchants would leave
their stores on the Plain and ride into the surrounding hills to
barter for Meo opium. During the colonial era, Chinese traders
sold opium to the French Opium Monopoly or to smugglers
headed for northern Vietnam. When the French military
became involved in the opium traffic in the early 1950s, the
Chinese sold opium to French commandos for shipment to
Saigon on military transports. After the French departure in
1954, Chinese merchants dealt with Corsican charter airlines,
which made regular flights to Vietnam and the Gulf of Siam.
No longer able to land on the Plain of Jars, the Corsican
airlines began using Air America's mountain landing strips to
pick up raw opium. As Vang Pao circled around the Plain and
advanced into Sam Neua Province, the Corsicans were right
behind in their 13ccchcrafts and Cessnas, paying Meo farmers
and Chinese traders a top price. Rather than deliver their opium
to trading centers on the Plain, most traders brought it to Air
America landing strips serviced by the Corsican charter lines.
But when the Laotian government forced the Corsicans out
of business in 1965, a serious economic crisis loomed in the
Moo highlands. The war had in no way reduced Mco depen-
dence on opium as a cash crop and may have actually increased
production. Assured of food supplies from the CIA, the Meo
had given up growing rice so that they could allot more land to
the growing of opium.
While Mco villages on the southern and western edges of the
Plain were little affected by the transport problem, the end of
the Corsican flights made it impossible for villages on the
northern perimeter and in Sam Neua Province to market their
opium. Air America was the only form of air transport
available, and,. according to Gen. Oran Rathikun and Gen.
Thal Ma, then commander of the Laotian Air Force, it began
flying Moo opium to markets in Long Cheng and Vientiane.
Air logistics for the opium trade were further improved in
1967 when the CIA and USAID (United States Agency for
International Development) gave Vang Pao financial assistance
in forming his own private airline, Xieng Khouang Air
Transport. The company's president, Mr. Lo Kham Thy, says
the airline was formed in late 1967 when two C47s were
acquired from Air America and Continental Air Services. The
company's schedule is limited to shuttle flights between Long
Cheng and Vientiane that carry relief supplies and an oc-
casional handful of passengers. Financial control is shared by
Vang Pao, his brother, his cousin, and his father-in-law.
According to one former AID employee, AID supported the
-COUt.1.22ragd
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 I" ujI_............. ..
cornrmrcial center of the northeast and, thereby, reinforce reduced hill-tribe opn
Vang Pao's political position. The USA ID officials involved Meo guerrilla operations in 1960, northeast n L aosth dwtho a
000 e, of
apparently realized tlApcprryocxf+df~,~}~aQt019t: G41-c1'-~(~4{QQ"y across the rugged
would involve opium, but decided to support the project were eo opuu
anyway. highlands.
When Vang Pao began to lose control of Sam Ncua in early
1968, the CIA decided to deny the population to the Pathct Lao
verybody continued to profit from the various arrangements by evacuating all the Moo tribesmen under his control. By 1967
until early 1968, when the Pathct Lao began the first of the U.S. Air Force bombing in northeastern Laos was already
dry-season offensives that eventually, by late 1971, forced Vang heavy, and Meo tribesmen were willing to leave their villages
Pao's army into a narrow stretch of hill country within a rather than face the' daily horror of life under the bombs. By
relatively few miles of Vientiane. But the only people who lost early 1970 an estimated 50,000 hill tribesmen were living in
by the military retreat were the Moo hill tribesmen. According Sam Thong and Long Cheng while 100,000 more were
to reliable Laotian sources, despite the drop in Moo opium crowded into a crescent-shaped piece of territory lying between
production after 1968, Vang Pao was able to continue his role these two cities and the Plain of Jars.
ietnamese and Pathct
in Laos's narcotics trade by opening a heroin laboratory at Long During thei1970
fforsive, North
across
of Vfern Jars, eseend Pa the
ff
Chong, the CIA headquarters town. Lao troops jumped o
loss of Sam Neua Province in 1968 signaled the first of Meo "refugee" areas, and by March were on the heights
the massive Moo migrations that transformed much of north- overlooking Sam Thong. As the attacks gained momentum,
Moo living west of the Plain fled soutli, and eventually more
than 100,000 were relocated in a forty-mile-wide strip of
General Vang Pao, commander of the CIA's mercenary Meo army territory between Long Cheng and the Vientiane Plain. When
in Laos's Military Region 11. the Pathet Lao and the North Vietnamese attacked Long Cheng
1? i-te
t
f
orcec to Vv-'
during the 1971 dry season, the CIA was
some 50,000 mercenary dependents from Long Cheng, valley
this overcrowded resettlement area. By mid 1971, USAID
t
i
n
o
of
estimated that almost 150,000 hill-tribe refugees, whom 60
per cent were Meo, had been resettled in the Ban Son area
south of Long Cheng.
After three years of constant retreat, Vang Pao's Moo
followers were at the end of the line. Once a prosperous people
living in small villages surrounded by miles of fertile,
uninhabited nWountains, 90,000 ~,lco, almost a third of all the
Moo in Laos, were now packed into a forty-mile-long dead end
perched above the sweltering Vientiane Plain. Traditionally the
Mco have built their villages on mountain ridges more than
3,000 feet in elevation where the temperate climate is con-
ducive to poppy cultivation, the air is free of malarial
mosquitoes, and the water is pure. Since most refugee villages"
in the Ban Son resettlement area are less than 2,500 feet in
elevation, many Mco, lacking normal immunities, have been
stricken with malaria and have become seriously ill. The lower
elevation and crowded conditions make opium cultivation
almost impossible, and the Meo are totally dependent on Air
America's rice drops. If the North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao
capture Long Cheng and advance on Vientiane, the Moo will
probably be forced down onto the Vientiane Plain where their
extreme vulnerability to tropical disease might result in a major
medical disaster.
The Ban Son resettlement area is the guardian at the gate,
blocking any enemy advance on Vientiane. If the Pathct Lao
and North Vietnamese choose to attack the Laotian ad-
ministrative capital after they have taken Long Clieng, they
will have to fight their way through the resettlement area. Meo
leaders arc well aware of the danger and have pleaded with
USAID to either begin resettling the Meo on the Vientiane
Plain on a gradual, controlled basis or shift the resettlement
area to the cast or west, out of the probable line of an enemy
advance. Knowing that the Meo fight better when their
families are threatened, USAID had refused to accept either
.d..~i_?,,_,.~. awwuit,.~y,;.p~~.~~.,~,~,,..~:u,ur.N4^.u~w.,,il ,....a~,:-:_.-:;,,?;,,,; alternative and seems intent on keeping them in the present
Pontiuued
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 area4or a final, bloody stand against the North Vietnamese and quaint local custom and have generally turned a blind eye to
Tathet Lao. Most of the Meo have desire to i uc gIf' i yo vc r Vi tnamese general who
fighting for Vang ~ ti? Nt~jd lffR~r~~ PAP m-Cl4~T r fti ~ r'000 ~i e'~y to find himself on the
boyant excesses-his habit of personally executing his own next plane out of the country, but one who tells the in-
soldiers, his willingness to take excessive casualties, and his ternational press about his role in the opium trade does not
massive grafting from the military payroll-and regard him as a even merit a raised eyebrow. However, American involvement
corrupt warlord who has grown rich from their suffering. But has gone far beyond coincidental complicity; embassies have
since USAID decides where the rice is dropped, the Meo have consciously covered up involvement by client governments,
no choice but to stand and fight. CIA contract airlines have reportedly carried opium, and
individual CIA men have abetted the opium traffic.
Deranged priorities
''the chronicle of American complicity in the Laotian drug
trade ends with one final irony. When President Nixon
issued his declaration of war on the international heroin traffic
in mid-1971, the U.S. Embassy in Vientiane was finally forced
to take action. Instead of trying to break up drug syndicates and
purge the government leaders involved, however, the Embassy
introduced legal reforms and urged a police crackdown on
opium addicts. A new opium law submitted to government
ministries for consideration on June 8 went into effect on
November ' 15. As a result of the new law, U.S. narcotics agents
were allowed to open an office in early November-two full
years after GIs started using Laotian heroin in Vietnam and six
months after the first large seizures were made in the United
States. Only a few days after their arrival, U.S. agents received
a tip that a Filipino diplomat and a Chinese businessman were
going to smuggle heroin directly into the United States. U.S.
agents boarded the plane with them in Vientiane, flew halfway
around the world, and arrested them with 15.5 kilos of high-
grade heroin in New York City. Even though these men were
carrying a large quantity of heroin, they were still only
messenger boys for the powerful Laotian drug merchants. But,
so far, political expediency has been the order of the clay, and
the U.S. Embassy has made absolutely no effort to go after the
men at the top.
In the long run, the American effort seems to be aimed at
closing Vientiane's hundreds of wide-open opium dens and
making life difficult for the average Laotian drug user (most of
whom are opium smokers). The Americans are pressuring the
Laotian police into launching a massive crackdown on opium
smoking, and there is evidence that the campaign is getting
under way. Since almost no money is being made available for
detoxification centers or outpatient clinics, most of Vientiane's
opium smokers will be forced to become heroin users.
(Opium's cumbersome smoking paraphernalia and strong
smell make its addicts much more vulnerable to arrest.)
Vientiane's brand of low-grade heroin seems to be particularly
high in acid content and has produced some horribly debilitated
zombie addicts. No less'' in authority than General Ouan
believes that Vientiane's brand of low-grade heroin can kill a
healthy man in less than a year. It would indeed be ironic if
America's antidrug campaign drove Laos's opium smokers to a
heroin death while it left the manufacturers and international
traffickers untouched.
After pouring billions of dollars into Southeast Asia for over
twenty years, the United States has acquired enormous power
in the region. And it has used this power to create new nations
where none existed, to handpick prime ministers, to topple
governments, and to crush revolutions. But U.S. officials in
Southeast Asia have always considered the opium traffic a
As a result of direct and indirect American involvement
opium production has steadily increased, high-grade heroin
production is flourishing, and the Golden Triangle's poppy,
fields have become linked to markets in Europe and the United
States. Southeast Asia's Golden Triangle already grows 70 per
cent of the world's illicit opium and is capable of supplying the
U.S. with unlimited quantities of heroin for generations to
conic. Unless something is done to change America's policies
and priorities in Southeast Asia, the drug-crisis will deepen and
the heroin plague will continue to spread. ^
-r 1.10
K`, i ~~? Kr s^Y.i~
rs+
Above: Label for Tiger and the Globe brand No. 4 heroin
(90 to 99 per cent pure) manufactured in the Golden Triangle
region. Each package contains 7/ 10 of a kilogram. 13oth this brand
and the Double U-O Globe brand are purchased for export to
the United States and for sale to American GIs serving in
South Vietnam,
Below: Label for Double U-O Globe, also No. 4 heroin. manu-
factured in the Golden Triangle region. Almost all bulk heroin
seizures in Smith Vietnam are of this brand. On November 11,
1971, the U.S. Bureau of Narcotics seized $13 million worth of
Double U-O Globe brand heroin at the Lexington Hotel in
New York City.
Approved For Release 2005/07/01 : CIA-RDP84-00499R000100040008-4