Recollections of a Case Officer in Laos, 1962-1964

by Richard D. Holm

In early January 1962, I arrived in Vientiane, Laos, for my first assignment with the Central Intelligence Agency. Young case officers like myself, having completed basic training for the Clandestine Service and then paramilitary (PM) instruction, were being sent out in support of President Kennedy's decision to hold the line against communist expansion. Trying to help the Laotians maintain their territorial integrity and their “independent” government was a tall order for a new officer. The demand for quick decision making and constant flexibility to handle the unexpected in a war zone proved to be excellent preparation for my long career as a case officer in the field.

Assignment Laos

I traveled to Vientiane with three colleagues—the four of us had trained together and now would serve together in Southeast Asia . In the area of the airport reserved for Air America operations, we were met by Bill Lair and Pat Landry, among others. These officers were already legends. Bill Lair headed the Agency's paramilitary operations in Laos. He had come to Southeast Asia in the early 1950s and spent a decade in Thailand organizing and training the elite Thai Police group called the Police Air Reconnaissance Unit (PARU). Landry had served in Indonesia during the communist rebellion in the late 1950s, where he had almost been captured and was eventually ex-filtrated by submarine. Landry, now Lair's deputy, carried a swagger stick, and it was easy to picture him handling tough and dangerous situations.

Lair was soft-spoken and quiet, but one sensed a man who was reflecting on issues. When he came to conclusions, you knew they were well considered. Landry had a gruff exterior but was in reality a considerate and caring man. He worried about his subordinates, especially the “kids” he was sending up country. In their own ways, both were great guys and splendid to work for.

Lao communist forces, known as the Pathet Lao (PL), were challenging the government's Royal Lao Army (FAR) throughout the country. Although badly organized and poorly trained and equipped, the PL was bolstered by support from North Vietnam, whose units were called the VC (Vietnamese Communists).

The opposing forces in Laos at the time also included a renegade FAR captain, Kong Le, who commanded an elite battalion of parachutists. Angered by corruption in the FAR, he had staged a coup in Vientiane in 1960. When the coup failed, he had broken away from the FAR to form what he called neutralist forces. This group, known as the KL, fought the FAR, but not the PL or the VC.

The United States had opted to use Agency for International Development (AID) programs, AID advisers, and ultimately “covert action” to bolster the Lao government. The CIA's paramilitary efforts in Laos were divided roughly along geographic lines: There were separate programs in north Laos, where I was initially assigned; central Laos — also known as the Panhandle — where I would later be assigned; and south Laos. Each program involved working with different tribal/ethnic groups, such as the Hmong in the mountainous north and the Lao in the lowlands.

Although the Hmong and the Lao had a common enemy, they did not like each other. Nonetheless, they had their own reasons for working with us and their objectives were complementary. North Vietnam's primary goal was to make free use of eastern Laos to support its war against South Vietnam. The average tribesman could not have distinguished between communism and capitalism, but the ethnic groups felt threatened by the Lao communists and their Vietnamese supporters and decided to fight to preserve their autonomy and their territory. All they wanted from us was financial and material support.

The biggest and most active of our programs was the one in north Laos supporting the Hmong tribe. Bill Lair struck the first agreement at a meeting with leader Vang Pao in December 1960. For the Hmong, it began more than a decade of fighting and dying.

First Posting

In mid-July 1962, Pat Landry told me that I was being assigned to Ban Na just west of the Plain des Jars (PDJ). The region was quiet, and I was to concentrate on getting a landing strip lengthened. Only single-engine planes or helicopters could land, and we needed it to handle twin-engine planes. I was flown to Ban Na in a single-engine Helio-Courier. A short-takeoff-and-landing (STOL) aircraft, the Helio did yeoman service for Air America.

Before we departed, my pilot introduced me to Panit, the leader of the four-man PARU team that would work with me in Ban Na. The team members, who had been at Ban Na for three months, had been selected from hundreds of applicants. All PARU personnel were at least high school graduates, and most spoke a language from a neighboring country in addition to Thai. They were trained at a jungle camp in central Thailand and organized like the US Army Special Forces. Counterguerrilla tactics were one of their specialties.

In addition to their general training, PARU personnel all had specific capabilities designed to enhance small unit operations. Panit was a weapons man, which meant that he could handle the whole range of weapons that we were providing to the Hmong. His team consisted of a medic, a radio operator, and an explosives expert. All four could provide basic training, and all were jump qualified. They exuded confidence and a willingness to get things done.

To lengthen the landing strip, Panit had begun work to remove a big hump in the middle of an adjacent sloping area. When I arrived, the villagers were using hoes and shovels to dig at the hump and then carrying away the dirt in wicker baskets slung on poles. What we really needed was a bulldozer, but I quickly judged that some cratering charges would at least help. With such charges, Panit predicted that the strip would be ready in two weeks. I cabled Landry for the explosives.

The second day, Panit showed me the outposts around Ban Na, which formed a semi-circle facing the Plain des Jars, an area under the control of the PL and the KL since 1960. Each outpost had mortar and machinegun emplacements and a small shelter in which some 15 Hmong ate and slept. At each stop, we looked at maps while the team leader explained why the particular outpost was placed where it was.

Each site afforded a good view of a portion of the western section of the plain. The PDJ is a prominent, and unusual, geographic feature in north Laos. The plateau was so named by the French colonialists because of the enormous, centuries-old earthen jars that are strewn about it. Midway between Vientiane and the border with North Vietnam, the plain covers more than 30 square miles. At that time, the VC had free run of the PDJ and truck convoys from North Vietnam arrived regularly during the dry season bringing all types of supplies for the PL and KL units in the area.

Life in Ban Na featured few highlights. Days were spent working on the hump at the airstrip, training the Hmong, and walking to nearby outposts. Our radio contacts kept us aware of the day of the month. Evenings passed quickly. We would sit around and talk, but communications were difficult, since only Panit spoke good English and none of the PARU spoke French.

Dinner was always an adventure as the PARU strove to prepare things that I would like; however, there really was not much choice—pieces of chicken or pork (sometimes beef or horsemeat), boiled rice (because the Thai were not that fond of sticky rice), and some kind of green vegetable; all of it boiled or stir-fried over a wood fire. It was always spicy, as both the Thai and the Hmong love red peppers. Managing my PARU team was not difficult, because they knew more about what was going on than I did. Thai and Lao languages are similar, and the Hmong all spoke at least basic Lao in addition to their native tongue. My most important role was to serve as the link to Lair and Landry in Vientiane to ensure that the villagers and my team received the supplies that they needed. This made me a key person, and they all knew it.

I met regularly with the Nai Ban (the village chief), who, in this case, was also a Nai Khong (chief of a group of villages), to discuss supplies. Because most of the local men had become fighters, agricultural activity was almost at a standstill. Therefore, the village required food supplies regularly to augment the meager amounts they were producing. Periodically, I would send a cable to Landry to request a rice drop. Our system was amazingly efficient. I could always count on prompt responses to my cables. Within one or two days, sometimes within hours, the drop would arrive. One hundred to 200 sacks of rice would land in our drop zone. We also received drops of uniforms, boots, tools, and whatever else was needed. Weapons and ammo came by Helio, chopper, or parachute.

One of the reasons we wanted the longer strip at Ban Na was so that we could bring in more supplies to build up Hmong defenses on the western end of the PDJ. We sent out patrols and individual villagers frequently to watch what the enemy was doing, and I reported regularly to Vientiane.

I had arrived during the rainy season when enemy mobility was greatly decreased by impassable roads. That was one of the reasons our sector was so quiet in July. The Hmong got around easily in the mountains, however, which gave us the advantage until the next dry season started in October or November. We were able to conduct hit-and-run attacks on enemy supply points with relative impunity. Our ultimate goal was to retake the PDJ, thereby relieving pressure on the Hmong territory all around it.

True to his word, Panit had the hump removed and the length of the landing strip almost doubled in just over two weeks after we received the cratering charges. With the end in sight, the villagers, mostly women, worked steadily after the charges simplified their task. The Air America pilot who came to check out the airstrip gave it his OK despite a dip in the middle and an uphill slope to the whole strip. Rolling uphill after landing would help planes stop, he said, and going downhill on take off was also a plus.

The Ban Na strip could now handle the Caribou, a Canadian-made STOL aircraft with great stability at low speeds. It could land on strips not much longer than those needed by the Helio, but, with two engines and a rear-opening ramp, it had a much greater payload. Bringing it into Ban Na meant getting more supplies closer to the PDJ, a strategic step forward. A few days later, the first Caribou landed without problems at Ban Na. The pilot said that he had room to spare.

In less than three weeks, I had adapted quickly to the routine and knew the sector well, having walked all over it. I was absorbed in and enjoying my work, and felt like I was contributing something tangible to an important objective. But a cable came ordering me back to Vientiane for reassignment.

The capital city was quite a change. Primarily inhabited by Lao lowlanders who comprised the majority of the 3 million inhabitants of the country, Vientiane also had large numbers of foreigners, including Chinese, Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, and French. These foreigners, mostly merchants, created the hustle and bustle evident in many parts of the city.

Lao politics at the time would have been grist for Shakespeare's mill: a king without power, royal princes working toward conflicting goals, corrupt politicians selling influence and position, and military officers manipulating the system. Mainly because of the infusion of aid funds and supplies coming into Laos, there was a lot of money to be made in Vientiane. Graft and corruption thrived. Working discreetly (sometimes openly) with Lao politicians and military officers, foreign merchants siphoned off huge sums of official money.

In retrospect, a greater understanding of what was going on in Laos might have enabled us to work more effectively and perhaps would have spared some of the pain that the country experienced. We knew about the corruption, but few Americans wanted to take on the job of trying to control it. I was fully involved in our program and considered our effort as something apart from the mess in the capital. We saw ourselves as supporting US policy and we believed in it.

When I walked into Pat Landry's office, he asked if I had ever heard of Phou Song. I had not, and he said that it was north of Ban Na. Our program was expanding into that area, and he needed me up there to keep things organized. Phou Song also had a PARU team for me to work with. Although the area was “quiet,” he acknowledged that he was worried about what the PL units nearby had on their minds. And, with that, Landry said that I was to leave in a few hours.

Richard L. Holm, a career CIA officer, served in America's "secret war" in Laos, then in 1965 was transferred to the Congo where he was injured in a plane crash and suffered appalling burns. This near-death experience had a profound effect on him, and after two painful years of recuperation he went to Hong Kong to run agents into China, then returned to CIA Headquarters as Chief of the Counter Terrorism Centre. In this role he played a key part in tracking down Carlos the Jackal, and when he was posted to Paris as Station Chief he participated in his arrest in the Sudan.

Holm's work in Paris proved highly controversial when a French source became a double agent and compromised the CIA station, resulting in Holm's expulsion from France and his forced resignation from the Bureau. Two months later he was invited back to receive an official Medal of Commendation. Working under 13 different heads of the CIA in theatres of operations across the world, Dick Holm's memoir is the eventful life of one of the CIA's most celebrated officers and diplomats.