WAR ON LAOS OPIUM EVOKES NO HURRAHS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200300022-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Sequence Number: 22
• Content Type: NEWSPAPER CLIPPING

Approved For Release 20061tT1,4TIN1DJA-RDP88-01350R0( )200300
CHICAGO, ILL.
NEWS .
434,849
OCT 13 2
era who seems amuse y
II U.S. efforts to stamp out the
traffic.
ar on laos op]tu
By Keyes Beech
Daily News Foreign Service
VIENTIANE, Laos - To the
Americans who came to Laos
more than a decade ago to
fight a clandestine war against
the Communists, the poppy
was a red paper flower you
bought on Veterans Day.
Today, as the United States
struggles to extricate itself
from the Southeast Asian
,If somebody wants to ac-
cuse us of being shortsighted,"
said a CIA official with unac-
customed passion, "that is one
thing. But to say that we delib-
erately fostered the opium
traffic as a matter of policy is
Godley has issued a vigorous
eight-page single-spaced rebut-
tal to McCoy's charges as con-
tained in a Harper's magazine
article. McCoy is the author of
.a newly published book, "The
Politics of Heroin in Southeast
Asia," the product of . 18
---------- - -
BUT ONE FACT is in-
escapable. The CIA could not
ask the Meos to fight on the
time demand that they give up
their opium-growing.
The handful of CIA men who
have worked with the Meos
The CIA is McCoy's chief over the years may have felt
target. It his contention that they were : fighting for de-
the CIA, by working with cor- mocracy. But the :Moos were
rupt local officials who were ( fighting for their land - and
engaged in the drug traffic, the right to grow opium on
has contributed to America's that land.
quagmire, the poppy has quite ++as ~,E tars
~`a~'.=
a different meaning. It is a sin-
Ister flower that, if not exactly
s o
the root of all evil, has cor- ", e d
rupted governments, made her-
oin addicts of thousands of Last in a series
TIIE EMBASSY'S position
was not helped earlier this
GIs, tarnished America's in1- rive buying" of the Laos year when French police con-
age and besmirched the repu- I! opium because it isn't alto- fiscated a suitcase containing
tation of dedicated public ser- gether happy with the results 60 kilos of Laotian heroin. The
wants. of its purchases in Thailand suitcase belonged to Prince
Now, after what one critic and Turkey. Sopsaisana, newly appointed
called a policy of "benign peg If the United States did buy ambassador to Paris,
lest" toward Laos' uninhibited tip Laos' surplus stock, there is
opium trade, the U.S. mission
here has declared war on all
narcotics.
no assurance the primitive
t rib e s ill e it v; oulchl't regard
Uncle Sam as a steady custom-
SINCE THE DRUG traffic in I er and produce more, not less,
OP Illltl.
Laos was perfectly legal until Like other U.S. mission
a year ago, when U.S. officials 1 chiefs in Southeast Asia, Am-
forced an anti-narcotics law chiefs in G. i`theastt Godley
through the national assembly, bassador the campaign has a long way has felt the heat of President
to go. Nixon's r lobal war on narc:ot-
ics. Here, as in neighboring
mbhrmen
ise
The American Embassy was
almost as embarrassed as the
prince, who returned to Vien-
tiane after the French
govern- ment refused to accept his cre-
dentials. For, as McCoy states,
Sopsaisana was widely re-
garded by the Americans as
"an outstanding example of a
new generation of honest, dy-
namic national leaders."
In their long war with the
Communists the Meos have
been driven from most of their
mountain retreats by relent-
1 e s s Communist pressure.
Since opium doesn't grow well
n
ti
d
o
uc
I below 3,000 feet, pro
has declined from an esti.
mated 100 tons 10 years ago to
30 tons today.
"The more territory the
Communists take, the less
I opium," said one cynical. ob-
server. "That may be the ulti-
mate solution to the drug prob-
lem in Laos."
ONE LITTLE-KNOWN fact
is that Prime Minister Sou-
vanna Phounla was an opium
tax collector in French colo-
nial days. And. Gen. Ouan
Rathikun, former commander
of the Royal Laotian Army,
will freely discuss his role in
the drug traffic with almost
anybody who takes the trouble
Already sot,le r
Thailand, the war on the drug
are agitating for repeal of the i traffic seems to have taken
law because, they say, it has p r e c e d e n c e over the war
worked a hardship on the against conlnlunism.
opium-growing oleo mountain b
tribesmen who are America's "It is as if the United States
uief allies in northern Laos in were fighting two fires at
the 1011g-unnitlg Central In. once," said an old Southeast.
V telligence Agency-backed war Asia ]land, "contnnlnism and ?
against the Communists. drugs - and the irony is that
is a direct
ble
d
h
rug pro
m
t
e
One tribal leader has three result of the fight against cons- to go around and see him.
tons of opium to sell and 110 " munism." After all, says the general,
takers because of the U.S. 1. there was nothing unlawful
crackdown. Since opium is, or GODL.EY HAS come tinder about it, and opium has been a
was, Laos' only cash crop, the attack by Alfred W. McCoy, it ? rich source of government rev-
tribesmen have a genuine eco- young Yale graduate, for being cnuc in Laos since French co-
nonlic complaint. "soft" on the drug traffic and loiiial clays. It was also a rich
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