William Colby, the Hmong and the CIA
"Don't get the Hmong to do any attack against the North Vietnamese.
We don't want to escalate this thing any more than possible.
We would just like to dampen it down where it is ... where we
don't let it get any further but we don't try to win any victories there [Laos]."
-William Colby
Former CIA Director
In 1962, with few viable options, President John E Kennedy asked the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to find people in Laos who valued their independence enough to resist the North Vietnamese encroachment into their country.
With that order, two agents contacted the Hmong, recounted former CIA chief William E. Colby to a small group of mainly Hmong students who had gathered at the Georgetown Hmong Youth Conference.
The events Colby spoke of transpired some thirty years ago during the time of their parents, long before any of these students had been born. So appropriately enough, it was in this room at Georgetown University last April-surrounded by the very children of transplanted Hmong veterans the CIA recruited to fight the "secret war" in Laos-that Colby's long, distinguished life came full circle.
No one knew it at the time but unfortunately, this would be Colby's last public speaking engagement. just three weeks after filling in important gaps in the formation of the CIA's relationship with these students' parents, Colby was found dead in the Potomac River, the victim of a ruptured aneurysm.
As one of the less than twenty people present at his last speech, it was a true pleasure to meet the man and to have him place the Laotian war into the larger context of the worldwide conflict in Southeast Asia. The following analysis presents parts of Colby's speech along with other evidence that will help clarify the conflict in Laos and the Hmong role.
As with the Hmong, the Vietnam War remains a traumatic period in history for many Americans. The aftershocks of the American effort to contain communism in Southeast Asia continue to be felt to this day. in just two decades, a whole new community with an ancient culture was transplanted from one world to another. Twenty years ago, many Americans would not have known who a "Hmong" person was.
Today, the Hmong inhabit all regions of the United States - and all five continents.
For the Hmong people, the drama in Laos remains at the center of attention. Fighting the secret war in Laos forced the Hmong to assume many roles and identities; from highland farmers they became guerrilla warfare specialists, then refugees fleeing genocide and finally the Hmong found themselves taking on the role of immigrants, adopting new homes around the world. It is with this understanding of Hmong history that one must have to truly know the significance of the Hmong people in Colby's speech.
Colby is better known for giving away the CIA's "family jewels," top level cloak and dagger secrets which included plots to topple foreign governments and schemes of assassination. His importance to Hmong history however, lies in his revelations about the American government's policy position with respect to Laos. What was America doing in Laos, a small count of only three million people, full of mountains and as backward as any third world country?
After two decades, the Hmong are still uncertain as to why the Americans turned to them for help against the communists. The origin of the relationship between the Hmong and the United States can be traced to events that began before 1962 which culminated in the signing of the Geneva Accords.
Before 1962, American, Soviet, Chinese and North Vietnamese military and paramilitary forces were all present in Laos. American policy-makers became concerned with the possibility of military confrontation between the superpowers. To them, the consequences of such an encounter could have disastrous results, as three of the four countries possessed nuclear capabilities.
"President Kennedy and General Secretary Kruschev the Soviet Union had a meeting in 1961," Colby explained. "They both agreed, we were going to have our confrontations. Laos [was] not the place for it. Let's recognize a neutral and independent Laos, withdraw all our military and para-military forces, just leave it alone and leave it out of the equation."
General agreements from that meeting resulted in the signing of the Geneva Accords in 1962. In itself, the primary goal of the Accords was simple and symbolic: it expressed the mutual American and Soviet interest in avoiding possible confrontation in the tiny country by broadly prohibiting all nations from interfering in the affairs of Laos. Specifically, it required all nations to remove non-diplomatic personnel from Laotian soil.
To ensure compliance, Canada, India and Poland were selected to the ICC or International Commission for Supervision and Control of Laos. Its duty: To monitor and report violations of the Accords to the signatory countries.
In theory, the carefully chosen members of the ICC - one communist state (Poland), one American-allied state (Canada) and one supposedly neutral state (India) - was to secure fair and equal representation from the two principle governing/social theories, democracy and communism. One system was not to gain an advantage over the other. In practice however, the United States felt that India leaned favorably toward communism. This bias on India's behalf quickly presented the Americans with a major obstacle.
Pursuant to the agreement, the USSR, China and the United States all withdrew their troops. But when the North Vietnamese dishonored the Accords and removed only forty soldiers from a force of 7,000, American policy-makers faced the first of a series of major dilemmas. As feared, despite obvious breech of international agreement by North Vietnam, the ICC stalled investigations and failed to rigorously enforce treaty conditions. At the same time, the United States could not reintroduce American troops into Laos to force compliance with the Geneva Accords without breaking the treaty themselves. Such a move risked drawing Chinese and Soviet military presence back into Laos.
Keeping with policy, the American government didn't want to risk unnecessary military confrontation with the other two world powers. However, the United States still needed to prevent the North Vietnamese from helping the communist Pathet Lao take over Laos. It was within this global context that forged the alliance between the United States and the Hmong. The 1962 Geneva Accords proscribed the manner in which the Americans could help the Hmong and the type of war the Hmong would be required to fight.
"We began to get the signals in 1962 after the agreement [Geneva Accords] that the North Vietnamese were beginning to move. The were beginning to build up their forces. They were beginning to move out of the area Nam Sam Neau and so forth, down towards the Plain de Jars. They began to push the Hmong around. . .. He [President Kennedy] said: 'CIA, can you provide a little quiet help to the people in Laos who want to fight for their own independence?' and our two officers were in contact with the Hmong," Colby recounted.
"They said, 'Yes, the Hmong want to fight.' They wanted to defend their territory against these North Vietnamese who were beginning to push down into them and that was basically the origin of the [Hmong/CIA] relationship."
American desire to adhere to the spirit of the Geneva Accords deemed it necessary that the Hmong serve as a clandestine force which could harass the North Vietnamese without being directly linked to the United States. The Hmong were prohibited from taking any offensive actions as that could lead to an escalation in the war on the part of the North Vietnamese. Increased fighting also had the potential to expose the American support of the Hmong and could possibly lead to a complete annulment of the Geneva Accords. Colby - then CIA Deputy Director - was instructed by Assistant Secretary W. Averell Harriman of the State Department to keep the effort in Laos purely defensive in nature.
"'Okay, one hundred guns but no attacks, only for defense,' " Colby said of Harriman's orders.
"Don't get the Hmong to do any attack against the North Vietnamese. We don't want to escalate this thing any more than possible, " explained Colby of the American policy in the 1960s. "We would just like to dampen it down where it is ... where we don't let it get any further but we don't try to win any victories there [Laos]."
The need to conceal American involvement in Laos was also substantiated by the testimony of William Sullivan, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.
In October of 1969, Sullivan was questioned by the Counsel Roland A. Paul before a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on the United States's commitment to the Hmong.
Paul asked of Sullivan: "So the presence of American military forces in Laos is not in itself a commitment-generating factor?" "We do not consider that it is a commitment," Sullivan replied. Paul clarified his own question: "Would this means that we could increase our military presence in stages in Laos with the ability to terminate that augmentation at any time?" "I believe that we have that ability currently. In fact, we used to use a rule of thumb our ability to make it reversible and terminate it within eight hours," Sullivan answered. "It would probably take 24 hours now, but it still could be done."
From the very beginning the United States was interested in maintaining the neutrality of Laos. American diplomats negotiated the Geneva Accords in good faith not knowing beforehand that the North Vietnamese would not honor the agreement. Even in supporting Hmong, the United States tried to hold to the spirit of the Accords by discouraging the Hmong from taking the offensive. American forces in Laos were held to 24-hour rule, partly to minimize the chances of detection.
What was the commitment of the United States with respect to the Hmong given the American desire for neutrality?
Sullivan testified in 1969, there was no commitment to the Hmong from day to day. The relationship between the Hmong and the United States served the greater purpose of keeping Laos neutral. The Americans assumed the attitude that the Hmong had lived on this land long enough to defend it against foreign encroachment. According to Colby, from an American policy-making standpoint, the arrangement appeared mutually beneficial.
The United States provided the munitions and general directions but left the decisions up to the Hmong. It was an arrangement that suited the Hmong perfectly Being intensely independent, fighting the war as they saw fit was a level of control that few Hmong leaders had ever experienced before. With American aid, the Hmong advanced rapidly beyond the limits imposed on them by Laotian society. At this basic level of analysis, the relationship served both sides well.
However, given that the secret war in Laos was dictated to be a stalemate by the American interest in preserving the neutrality of Laos, what would have been the fate of the Hmong in Laos if the war had not ended? Since the Hmong were expected to fight a purely defensive war, there was no chance the North Vietnamese would ever be driven out of Laos. The war in Laos could have continued without a final resolution. But by the close of the war in Laos, the age of some of the front-line Hmong troops were starting to dip into the low teens. The estimated casualties sustained by Hmong forces by 1969 was 18,000. From such sobering facts, it is evident that the Hmong could not have sustained a defensive war indefinitely, regardless of US or Hmong desire to continue such a fight.
Colby maintains that the defensive strategy devised by the CIA and employed by the United States was ultimately in the best interest of the Hmong. "I have to say that that was good for Laos, and for the Hmong. You were not subjected to the massive kind of military contest that might have developed otherwise, including the massive destruction that [a major war effort] brings," Colby said.
It will never be known how a full-scale war would have affected the Hmong in Laos. Were more Hmong lives saved because the situation never escalated beyond a minor war in a backward, agrarian country? What did happen was that support from the United States ended with the commencement of the Paris peace talks with the North Vietnamese, Laos fell to communism and the Hmong had no alternatives but to flee in masses.
More than two decades after the war in Laos, the Hmong continue to struggle to understand the war and their role in it. Many in the Hmong community still claim the war could have been won. However, given the limitations placed upon American support, there is little doubt that if the war could have been won by Hmong forces alone, it would have been won at a tremendous cost in Hmong lives. It is about time that the Hmong community know the complete truth about the war in Laos. Knowing the truth will finally allow the older generation to put to rest any feelings that they lost a war. Knowing the truth will give the new generations respect for their people and their origin.
Colby's final remarks reflect many of the American voices who worked with, fought alongside, and died with the tens of thousands of Hmong in Laos: "As an American, I for one am delighted that our country has been strengthen by the addition of people like yourselves. You can be good Hmong and at the same time, you can be good Americans. You can be both," Colby said. "And I think you will be."
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On meeting Jerry Daniels
Handwriting on 1976 Hmong immigration photos may expose an FBI Cover-up.
On the Thai Lao Boarder
Ampur Loei
Summer 1976.
It would seem odd that I would spring to Jerry Daniels Defense. It probably requires clarification. He was a very brave man. He saw his government engaged in dishonorable behavior toward the friends he had promised so much, and he brilliantly corrected the Injustice.
Much of what I know of Jerry Daniels is from his mouth, the rest is from a volunteer I replaced, and the incredible respect shown him by the tribe of starving Hmong in Ampur Loei refugee camp, Loei Thailand. who were looking to him for a way out of the nightmare in the summer of 1976.
I guess its a little irresistible not to start at the beginning. Peace Corps started out real interesting in the village of Mae Jon, but the guerilla activity in the three counties of Mae Jon, Mae Sae and in particular in Ching San along the Lao boarder required my relocating to Chang Rai. Moving from a house with six inch spiders whom you could hear coming on the rough teak floor (woke you up) (tap tap tap kinda like "with fava beans") to the relative luxury of the Chang Rai Hotel. Old but still colonial elegance by comparison. Trips to the field got scarce with the Agricultural agents preferring to hang at the County Seat. With little to do but play the guitar poorly, read history of American foreign policy in South East Asia (Best and Brightest back to Truman), and take Aussie Junkies on junket for walks in the hills to meet the Akha ...junkets to Bangkok every first to get and spend the paycheck were a real highlight.
On one of these trips to the RongRam Liberty (Liberty Hotel near Klong Thoy) I was told of a job opening that required both Thai, Hmong, English and American bureaucracy skills that paid a literal fortune and was supposed to be a little exciting. I applied and interviewed with Lionel Rosenblatt and was hired.
I had spent the last year reading about various aspects of American Foreign policy in South East Asia and now I was suddenly working in a refugee evacuation next the former head of AID Cambodia. When Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia went down that only left Thailand and Malaysia as the ASEAN bureaucratic unit. Bosses I read about were now file clerks, bored and choc-a full of gossip about what was really happening, and block-a full of what had happened.
There was really only one game left in town if you were human...get your people out.
Army wanted the Vietnamese colonels out, AID fought for the Cambodians, and the CIA wanted the Hmong. Congress wanted as few as it took to look good as long as it did not include the primitive Hmong. The "Jungle" folks would never fit in went congressional thinking by all local reports.
The arguments raged. No Hmong was blatant racism and an easy mark for the politically savvy spooks. By the numbers and divide was what was fair. It looked good until they saw the numbers. Too many Hmong still. The trap of their own prejudice was masterfully laid. "Your right, we can do that with a test, primitivos get the boot, democracy's face is saved, see it was really fair after all (politely ignoring the fact that the whole tribe got massacred for saving so many American lives and always keeping their word).
Ok, so lets see how do we do this. Lets do it by points like a school grade card. Ah Points if you been to America, that should help the second time, Language is going to be tough, points for each non primary language fluency ...a bonus for English, oh and of course job skills, after all we want taxes out of these folks in five years not welfare.
The Hmong all trained at camp some name or other in the US, many several times for updated spook courses on something or other related to killing your fellow man. The Hmong occupied the hilltops and had to speak the languages of all sides to survive. Hmong, Chinese, French, Lao and of course English. Then there were all those courses at American bases on things like Vehicle Maintenance...by the time they added up the points there were about three PRA numbers left for the Vietnamese ...war hero's with a rank of colonel or above :)
Congress Freaked. Viet's X, Cambodian's Y Hmong's Z (11,000) end of discussion, end of embarrassing episode, end of thinking challenges to current political Theocracy. DO IT.
I can't remember the name of the guy I replaced but I only met him once in a Restaurant for lunch in a busy noisy Thai market. He was heading out country as I recall. He was a friend of the brunet I had a crush on who introduced me to Lionel Rosenblatt and got the me Job in the first place. (Linda?). His nerves had broke and he wanted out. The job description included twice weekly trips up a long dirt road to Ampur Loei right in the crook of the Mekong to organize and load busses of refugees for the trip to Bangkok. Gunfire was frequent in that area. Busses were getting hit. and then he started to tell me about having to ride with that guy sometimes into the camp ... that who...there was obvious awe in his voice.
"I don't really know who he is, but this guys too god damned important to be sharing a cab with on the road to Loei". He said as I recall. He had a point...good instincts...quite sharp as I recall. I think I was daydreaming/flirting with Linda at the time and it sort of registered :)
He started to tell me the story of the agenda and I started to pay attention. He was a dumb shit volunteer just like me. Except he never got to talk to someone like himself. 100 percent green. Out of TEFL* I think, one of those Bangkok volunteers who mostly spoke English. He shows up at the camp trying to get folks organized. Everybody's listless he isn't quite sure what's going on but can't quite get folks in line. According to his account he looked up and saw the Ambassadors Limo roaring into camp with both flags waving and out jumps Jerry Daniels. He'd grabbed the car, the man was away by tale. Fluent Hmong, action and reaction like a spring and its hustle hustle hustle, papers in a line and now quiet.
He had spent the entire morning just trying to explain what he wanted and get everybody in line with their papers and they did it automatically themselves in five minutes flat at the sight of Jerry Daniels.
Mr. and Mrs. Xiong with nine kids first in Line. Dejection then polite worried smile and they leave. Back and fro and its always the two kids to the front. Mr. Xong, wife maiden Xiong, no kids and "kablam...stamp...smile". In that one critical day Jerry Daniels saved what was left of the people he came to help. In three years its PRA (Permanent Resident Alien) status for the the couple, and visas the Xongs, and visas for the Xiongs and on and on it went. PRA relatives are eligible in three years for PRA and on it goes. Oskar Schindler had a list... and Jerry Daniels had a chain letter. Three thousand PRA's today became 90,000 a few years later because Jerry Knew his people, their family's, who was related to who etc et al. He faced death too. In a way that's not for money.
Anyway, I had to meet this guy. Not sure, but I think I started on a Tuesday and was introduced to Corvalier. The French Tyrant. This was at the heart a file clerk business, whatever went on in the field. Corvalier was the epitome of the rule of the chief file clerk, pure terror. But you had to get through the time in the Bangkok office before they let you anywhere near the field. WHO's protected the clerks, as well as the Americans at the other end. Corvalier was legend. In Chile he moved ten thousand refugees out in three months starting from scratch. Now he had tea every afternoon with the French ambassador and returned at the end of the day for the ceremonial three questions. You had to know everything to be safe. Miss one and its the slide back to Hoboken looming in the horizon. By the end of the week it was a crisis in photos and matching up and finding the right Xiong. I spent the weekend organizing hundreds of photos, writing the name on the back of the photos, which were later pasted onto Transit, Visa and WHO documents. I got everything nice and orderly and got myself bumped quick to the Nong Kai embassy to start taking out three thousand Hmong refugees from Loei. In a real war I guess you would have called me a replacement. The couple with the Southern Accent opposed the quickness saying I wasn't paperwork qual'd yet, but it was needed now. I moved into a spacious bungalow in Nong Kai with a bar and a housekeeper and a shower and a car and a driver and a gate and a wall around it and heavy bureaucrats dealing with devastation in their careers and all around.
Papers and busses were organized at the Nong Kai office. Transport was requested and assigned. Usually a Thai taxi driver (Lon?). I made the trip from Nong Kai to Loei with Daniels several times and drank with him occasionally at a bar whose porch overhung the Mekong. Once a body from the Cambodian massacres going on just across the river floated past smelling badly. In the restaurants and bars and over games of snooker he told me his version of the story of his life and it is largely that which I impart.
He said he had grown up in Montana and was working as a smoke jumper on forest fires when he got an offer to do Air transport in Laos of medical supplies to remote villages. He did it for years before the plain of jars blew up and kept at it because he liked the people and the adventure. They became his friends. When the Vietnamese came through, the Hmong were the only unallied group they could pick on, so they did. Murder and forced service became the order of the day at the hands of the Pathet Lao. He was already flying in guns purchased with Hmong money for their defense, when the CIA offered them for free. At the end of the war the company wanted him to go to Africa which was supposed to be the next hot spot for spook super spies in 1976. He declined. Abandoning friends at their darkest hour to climb a corporate ladder just wasn't in his playbook. He assisted Vang Pao in liquidating certain properties and helicopters and bought the ranch south of Missoula to get the tribe landed in the new land. Why Missoula ? His only relative, a niece (?) was sponsored by Daniels mother at U of M Missoula and therefore that is where he went. It was his only living relative in the US. That story alone kind of makes me believe him, let alone the reverence shown him by Ly Teng among others. But who knows I could have just been a dumb shit volunteer who got snowed, it was very confusing at the time, but I doubt it.
The first time I met him was on the four hour ride to the refugee camp. When the taxi driver turned up the dirt road to the camp still some two plus hours away yet, he scrunches down in the back seat and tells me to do the same. "Don't keep any part of your head above the line of sight, lots of snipers around here..." he says. I scootched REAL low as the taxi bumped along the rough dirt road... Two six footers coiled in a back seat bumping heads on a rough dirt road for two hours...and he's telling stories all the time. The Hmong at the end of the war in Laos get pushed across the boarder into Thailand who doesn't want them and categorizes them as an invading army. Surrender your guns or go or war. I was in those camps. Nothing but a few Men, mostly women and children were what was left. The UN offered to feed the refugees, the Thais said it had to go through them and then stole all the money. The Vietnamese kept sending zapper squads over the boarder with machine guns after the refugees trying to gather bamboo shoots to eat while defending themselves with crossbows... cause the Thais took all the weapons..., then the money..., then the food. The bamboo shoots closest to the camp went first. They also shot up busses sometimes on the way out. There were three roads out I had to choose from, then it was luck. About that point we arrive at the village to a warm welcome. We are ushered into a lodge inside the camp walls where I am first introduced to Colonel Ly Teng whom I would work with. Vang Pao may have been at the head of the long table to my right**, Ly Teng across from me near Pao, my back toward the door. I was famished with the long ride, the heat and the fear as we sat with a dozen Hmong around a long square table (Hut on the left from the entrance to Ampur Loei refugee camp). I started to devour the chicken and he nudged me in the ribs. I looked up to see others just picking. I ate a small portion which would have been a feast to any of my hosts that day and am embarrassed about it to this day. He told me later it was one of only three chickens left in the entire camp. I was really just the bus man checking off names on a list to be sure everybody got on board with what was needed but I guess I looked like a little more than that to them at the time. I was the bus man on the bus to America.
Killed in a drug deal in Bangkok, maybe, it was the Hmong occupation for centuries and money is hard to come by on the loosing end of a war. Purely for personal profit, I don't know, but I doubt it. How would you pay a guy enough to do what he did. The possibility that he was murdered over the denial of refugee status during the enterprise in which we were both involved, I find troubling. I never carried a gun in his presence, but I had an instinct that said he was the right guy to have along if it ever came to that. Mel Gibson got him just right in his portrayal, (based in part I understand on Daniels life) in the movie "Air America". He described himself as a Montana Cowboy, and when I later spent time there and got to know it, I saw what he meant. Different time Different place Different cast... but he was still a Bitterroot Rancher talking about the Bankers back east.... He seemed a good guy to me.
Handwriting on the back of photos on Hmong transit papers will match the Nathan R note which is a key piece of Evidence in a current matter of Murder (2001). This also is true of many photos of I.C.E.M. (International Committee for European Migration) refugees that passed through Bangkok, including those known as "The CIA secret army in Laos", as well a a small subset of the Vietnamese Boat people of 1975-76***
A cross stitch sewn for me by Mrs Ly Teng (Vang Pao's sister) is still in my families possession. It is colorful Nylon on black set of squares about two feet square loose without a border.
Early Bio
King Solomon's Gate, Biblical Archaeological Proof at Tel Gezer
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