The Ravens: The True Story of a Secret War (71 page)

Nail
FAC based in Nakhon Fhanom, flying OV-10s over the Trail - occasionally used on missions in Laos.

Negative objective
The code used over the radio to announce that a pilot had been found dead.

Neutralists
In the military sense, the forces who followed Capt. Kong Le after his coup attempt in 1960, and who originally sought to oust all foreigners - American and North Vietnamese - from the country. After a brief allegiance to the Communist Pathet Lao, they later sided with the Royal Lao forces - except for a small group, calling themselves the Patriotic Neutralists, who fought with the North Vietnamese throughout the war.

Nixon Doctrine
Part of the strategy to remove U.S. forces from Vietnam, the part of U.S. policy that supported Vietnamization. On July 25,1969, the president reaffirmed the United States would honor its treaty commitments and would continue to provide a nuclear shield and military and economic assistance as appropriate. However, the nation directly threatened would continue to assume the primary responsibility of providing the manpower for its defense. U.S. air power would now substitute for U.S. manpower.

NKP
Nakhon Phanom, the town just across the border in Thailand that housed the secret base of the Air Commandos.

NVA
North Vietnamese Army.

O-1
Spotter plane used by FACs in Laos.

O-2
Specially designed spotter plane that replaced the O-1 in Vietnam.

out-country
Anywhere not in Vietnam, but used specifically - as in ‘out-country war’ - to mean Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand.

OV-10
North American Bronco, specially designed for FAC use, a latecomer to the war and used widely over the Trail.

Pathet Lao
Generic term used throughout the book for the various Lao Communist movements. First used in 1950 within Laos to describe the forces that followed the Communist Vietminh. Later gained international currency at the Geneva Conference of 1954 (although no Pathet Lao representatives were present, and a Vietminh general signed the cease-fire with the French on their behalf). Lao Communist movements included: the People’s Party of Laos (Phak Pasason Lao - PPL); the Lao Patriotic Front (Neo Lao Hak Sat - NLHS), the central committee of which commanded the armed forces known as the Lao People’s Liberation Army; and the Patriotic Neutralists. But by any name, these groups were little more than front organizations manipulated by Hanoi.

PDJ
Plain of Jars, the fertile, rolling plain to the northeast of Long Tieng, named after the mysterious ancient stone funeral urns dotted throughout it. The French named it the Plaine de Jarres. Also known as the J.

PEO
Program Evaluation Office. A disguised military mission set up by the State Department in 1959 to create and train the Royal Lao Army. Headed by a general from the U.S. Army, its members wore civilian clothes and were described as ‘technicians.’

Phantom
See F-4.

phi
The spirits that the Meo believed inhabited everything, from rocks to humans, from trees to airplanes.

pickle
Term used by pilots to describe a bomb coming off the plane. They could either ‘clean the wing’ - pickle off all bombs at the same time - or drop them in pairs, or one at a time.

Pilatus Porter
A Swiss-built short-takeoff-and-landing (STOL) airplane used by both Air America and Continental Air Services.

pipper
A dot in the gunsight placed on the target.

Project 404
The code name of the secret Air Force operations in Laos and Thailand.

PSP
Pierced steel planking, the perforated metal planks used to construct runways in remote strips.

Purple Heart
Medal awarded to troops wounded in action.

ramp
The area at an airport where airplanes are parked.

R&R
Rest and recreation - leave from the war.

REMF
Rear-echelon motherfucker - the name given to all people stationed away from the combat areas.

Robin
The call sign used later in the war for a Meo Backseater.

ROE
Rules of Engagement, by which the U.S. military sought to control and limit the war.

Romeos
Slang for the ROE.

RON
Remain overnight.

RTB
Return to base.

SAC
Strategic Air Command, under which the B-52 bombers were flown.

SAR
Search and rescue. An elaborate procedure under Air Force rules involving the suppression of ground fire by fighters before Jolly Green helicopters attempt a pickup.

SEL
Suspected enemy location.

SGU
Special Guerrilla Unit. The most effective of Vang Pao’s troops, using helicopters, were organized into these small combat units.

Short
Term used to describe someone with only a few days left in his tour.

shortitis
The psychological condition which goes with the above, ranging from the reckless to extreme anxiety.

Sikorsky
See H-34.

Silver Star
America’s third-highest medal for bravery awarded in the name of the president for gallantry in action against the enemy.

Skyraider
See A-1.

smart bombs
Bombs capable of homing in on their target during flight. Introduced late in the war, they cost four or five times more than conventional ‘iron’ bombs and in 1971 accounted for less than 1 percent of the total weight of munitions dropped on Indochina.

sortie
One attack, or operational flight, by a single military aircraft or single formation of aircraft.

Split-S
A maneuver combining a half-roll followed by an inverted half-loop, making the lower half of the letter S. The result is rapid loss of altitude and a reversal in the direction of flight.

stall
At high altitude or in bad weather the wing of a plane can no longer generate sufficient lift to support it. Not an engine failure.

Steel Tiger
Code name for the area and operations of the U.S. Air Force over the northern portion of the Laotian panhandle aimed at interdicting the Ho Chi Minh Trail (see Tiger Hound).

STOL
Short takeoff and landing - used to designate various aircraft and strips used in Laos.

strategic air warfare
The
Dictionary
of U.S. Military Terms
defines this: ‘Air combat and supporting operations designed to effect, through the systematic application of force to a selected series of vital targets, the progressive destruction of the enemy’s war-making capacity to a point where he no longer retains the ability or will to wage war. Vital targets may include key manufacturing systems, sources of raw material, critical material, stockpiles, power systems, transportation, communication facilities, concentration of uncommitted elements of enemy armed forces, key agricultural areas, and other such target systems.’ (See tactical air warfare.) War proper - especially a war with no front line and a large guerrilla element - never falls quite so neatly into either category; strategy and tactics often overlap and sometimes blur to the point of becoming metaphysical.

T-28
North American Nomad, a two-seat armed counter-insurgency airplane, extensively modified from the Trojan Trainer. Maximum level speed 360 mph, cruising speed 276 mph. The principal attack plane of the Royal Lao Air Force. First flown in 1949; the T-28s used in South Vietnam all carried the tail-number prefix O, meaning obsolete. They were extremely effective in the war in Laos.

TACAIR
Tactical Air Command. (See next entry.)

TACAN
Tactical air and navigation control system, developed by the military to enable a pilot to pick up a-radio bearing providing directional and distance-measuring information.

tactical air warfare
Operations carried out in coordination with ground or naval forces in a direct relationship to the conflict on the battlefield and against military forces in being. (See strategic air warfare.)

TDY
Temporary duty, the status of all Ravens in Laos.

Thud
See F-105.

Tiger Hound
Code name for the area and operation of the U.S. Air Force in the lower portion of the Laotian panhandle. The term was not used after 1968 when operations against the Trail were renamed Commando Hunt.

trash hauler
Transport airplane or pilot.

TWIX
Military cable.

U-17
Cessna with side-by-side seating and with greater range than the O-1, but less serviceable as a FAC aircraft.

USIS
United States Information Service, generally referred to by warriors and reporters alike as ‘useless.’

Uzi
Israeli-manufactured sub-machine gun.

Vietnamization
An integral part of Nixon’s strategy to bring the Vietnam War to a close, where the war was gradually turned over from the control of U.S. forces to the South Vietnam armed forces. Meanwhile, U.S. forces would gradually be withdrawn. The term was coined by Defense Secretary Melvin Laird and was officially initiated by Nixon on June 8,1969.

Volpar
Light, general-purpose aircraft used by Air America in Laos to carry passengers (fifteen) or cargo.

Walleye
A ‘smart’ bomb, carrying a TV camera, that can be set on release to home in automatically on a selected visual feature.

Waterpump
The code name of the Air Commando program to train native fighter pilots.

White Sta
r The White Star Mobile Training Team replaced the PEO (see PEO) and was the U.S. Special Forces group responsible for training the Royal Lao Army – particularly Gen. Vang Pao’s military forces. Withdrawn after the signing of the Geneva Accords in 1962.

WIA
Wounded in action.

Willy Pete
White phosphorous rocket used by FACs to mark a target.

Winchester
Out of bullets or bombs.

zoomies
Nickname applied to graduates of the Air Force Academy.

ZPU
‘Zeep,’ a rapid-firing, small-caliber anti-aircraft gun extremely effective at low altitudes.

Notes

Ravens interviewed are listed in Acknowledgments. When the source of information is a Raven mentioned in the text, no numbered endnote has been thought necessary.

1. Many of the documents, oral histories, and end-of-tour reports requested by the author, but not released to him, were covered by the whole gamut of the classification system: Top Secret, Secret, Confidential, Air Force Eyes Only, No Foreign Dissemination, Especially Sensitive Information, etc. A detailed, 400 page classified history of the secret war,
   The War in Northern Laos, 1954-1973,
   was written by Air Force historians, Victor B. Anthony and Richard R. Sexton, as a volume in the official history series,
   The Air Force in Southeast Asia.
   It remained secret until 2006 when the Air Force released a heavily excised version. Since then more information has become available as a result of a successful Freedom of Information appeal by the National Security Archive (the Archive first requested the manuscript in 1990!). Both the State Department and the CIA opposed the publication of the Air Force history because of its intensely critical view of their role in the war. The history reveals that a plan for U.S. military intervention in Laos as early as 1959, almost two years earlier than previously thought. During the first Laotian crisis of that year the Air Force wanted to deploy a squadron of B-47 bombers to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines to be used in possible bombing missions to cut Pathet Lao lines of communication into North Vietnam. The plan envisioned the possible use of nuclear weapons. It was rejected by President Eisenhower. The history further reveals that U.S. Special Forces began to train Laotian soldiers in the fall of 1959. This predates both the creation of the Hmong “secret army” and the already known Special Forces
   White Star
   training mission in 1960.
   
2. Monopoly briefing: Col. Robert Foster, interview with author, Lompoc, Calif., January 16,1985. Only the later Ravens received this briefing.
   
3. Steve Canyon’s biographical data from
   Milton Camff’s Steve Canyon Magazine
   (Kitchen Sink Comix, a division of Krupp Comic Works, Inc. 1983).
   
4. USAF FAC policy in Vietnam: William M. Momyer,
   Airpower in Three Wars
   (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978), pp. 266-68.
   
5. USAF Project, Contemporary Historical Evaluation of Combat Ops (CHECO) reports, ‘Evolution of the ROE for South East Asia 196O-1965; 1966-1969; 1969-1972.’ Declassified by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger at the request of Senator Barry Goldwater and placed in the
   Congressional
   Record, March 1985.
   
6. Capt. D. C. Morrison, FV3176367, Journal. The first entry is made on April 18, 1969, and entries continue sporadically until April 19,1970, covering seventy-seven pages of blue-lined paper. The journal is a slim black leather book with the Vietnam FAC badge stuck to the cover -Snoopy in his First World War flying helmet holding the joystick of his shot-up kennel, with ‘Vietnam’ written underneath. Quoted with Permission.
   
7. USO show at Phan Rang: Craig Morrison, interview with author, Santa Monica, Calif., December 6,1983.
   
8. Welcoming speech: Capt. Karl L. Polifka, interview con-ducted by Lt. Col. Robert G. Zimmerman for the USAF Oral History Program, December 17,1974, Washington, D.C., classified Secret. Declassified on December 31, 1982.
   
9. Blank on form: Col. Larry Sanborn, interview with author, San Antonio, Texas, October 18,1985.
   
10. Col. Tom Shera, interview with author, Hurlburt Field AFB, Florida, March 15,1985.
    
11. Hmong and Meo: Dr. Yang Dao, conversation with author, April 11,1987.
    
12. Almost all of the Ravens stationed at Long Tieng interviewed by the author compared the base to Shangri-La. An invention of James Hilton in his 1933 novel
    Lost Horizon
    , the paradise was conceived as an ageless retreat of peace and prayer. However, the name has been used before by Americans with warlike intentions. Franklin D. Roosevelt called his mountain refuge in Maryland Shangri-La, and the ‘base’ from which the U.S. planes flew in the Tokyo air raid in 1942 - an aircraft carrier - was also code-named Shangri-La.
    
13. Lockheed engineers: Ambassador William H. Sullivan, interview with author, Columbia University, New York, N.Y., May 21,1985.
    
14. 150 tons of equipment: Ray L. Bowers,
    Tactical Airlift: The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia
    (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1983), p. 455.
    
15. A garbled account of the air action was reported in the
    Far Eastern Economic Review
    and its yearbook in 1969. For a sanitized version, see William Colby,
    Honorable Men
    (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978), p. 200.
    
16. A Top Secret Air Force report on the incident, written in August 1968, remained classified until 1986, when it was released to Ann Holland, the widow of T. Sgt. Melvin Holland, who lost his life on the Rock. The testimony of Maj. Stanley Sliz, given in a closed hearing before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on May 8, 1970, remains classified, but was made available to the
    Sunday Oklahoman
    , which published excerpts on October 5,1986.
    
17. Seesaw and change in enemy tactics during this period: Douglas S. Blaufarb,
    The Counterinsurgency Era: U.S. Doctrine and Performance 1950 to the Present
    (New York: Free Press/Macmillan, 1977), pp. 158-60.
    
18. The Pentagon Papers
    , Senator Gravel edition (Boston: Beacon, 1971-72), vol. 4, p. 595.
    
19. Charlie Jones (one of the original Butterflies), interview with author, Fort Walton Beach, Fla., March 15,1985.
    
20. Patrick Mahoney, interview with author, Washington, D.C., May 15,1985.
    
21. Samuel M. Deichelman, missing in action, September 6, 1968.
    
22. Lt. Col. Howard K. Hartley, Secret interview #K239. 0512-746, USAF Oral History Program. Declassified December 31,1984.
    
23. The note, written in blue ballpoint pen on a lined sheet of paper from a yellow legal pad, was kept by Jim Baker as a memento.
    
24. Marlin L. Siegwalt, killed in action, October 30,1968.
    
25. Charles D. Ballou, killed in action, November 7,1968. The official explanation for his death is ‘Fuel exhaustion - crash-landed.’
    
26. Don A. Schanche,
    Mister Pop: The Inside Story of the American Involvement in Laos
    (New York: McKay, 1970), p. 298.
    
27. Edward E. McBride, killed in action, November 27,1968. Details of his last flight: Wayne Landen, interview with author, Fort Walton Beach, Fla., March 16,1985; and Jim Baker, interview with author, San Antonio, Texas, October 18,1986.
    
28. Stanley Karnow,
    Vietnam:
    A
    History
    (New York: Viking, 1983), p. 124; P. J. Honey,
    Communism in North Vietnam: Its Role in the Sino-Soviet Dispute
    (Cambridge, Mass.: MTT Press, 1963).
    
29. No record of the Jungle John briefings exists, as Garritty did not use written notes. The reader will have to settle for the more prosaic descriptions of Laos and its history presented here.
    
30. Norman Lewis,
    A Dragon Apparent: Travels in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam
    (London: Jonathan Cape, 1951), p. 284. The book gives a lyrical description of Laos in the early 1950s, before it was engulfed by the brutalities of modern war.
    
31. ‘The Hmong of Laos: No Place to Run,’
    National Geographic
    , January 1974, p. 86.
    
32. Quotes from Col. Roger Trinquier are from interview with author (unless noted otherwise). Vence, France, September 29,1985.
    
33. G. Linwood Barney, ‘The Meo of Xieng Khouang Province,’ in Peter Kunstadter, ed.,
    Southeast Asian Tribes, Minorities, and Nations
    , Vol. 1 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967), p. 292.
    
34. And continues to be so today even under a puritanical, Vietnamese-controlled Communist government. For a detailed account of the history of the narcotics industry in Laos and in Southeast Asia in general, see Alfred W. McCoy,
    The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia
    (New York: Harper & Row, 1972). Although well documented, McCoy’s book ignores early attempts by the Air Commandos to curb the trade - see Secret oral history of Lt. Col. Howard K. Hartley, declassified December 31, 1984 - or later efforts by CIA station chief Hugh Tovar and Ambassador G. McMurtrie Godley. Indeed, when the CIA promoted the use of herbicides against opium poppy fields, after a 1971 government ban, there was a furious backlash from the Meo.
    
35. Gen. Vang Pao’s background:
    Conflict in Laos
    , p. 294; Don Schanche, Mister Pop, passim;
    National Geographic
    ,
    op cit
    ; author’s interview with Trinquier.
    
36. Charges the author is guilty of promulgating in an earlier book,
    Air America
    . But in judging Vang Pao one should use the standards of his own people.
    
37. Bernard Fall,
    Anatomy of a Crisis: The
    Laotian Crisis of 1960-61
    (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1969), p. 52.
    
38. Ibid. p. 53.
    
39. The anthropologist was Henri Deydier, whose findings were published posthumously:
    Lokapala - Genies, Totems et Sorciers du Nord
    Laos
    (Paris: Plom, 1954). References to Blind Bonze, pp. 164-84; quoted by both Fall and Dommen.
    
40. But British intelligence took a different view. Sir Maurice Oldfield, who became director-general of M16 between 1973 and 1978, was posted to the Far East during the period directly before the French defeat in Indochina. He took a special interest in Laos, ‘one of my favorite countries in the whole world.’ Sir Maurice, a medievalist who spoke Latin in his sleep, studied the
    I Ching
    , the
    Egyptian Book
    of the Dead,
    and the Nine Star Ki system of Chinese astrology. See Richard Deacon,
    ‘C: A Biography of Sir Maurice Oldfield, Head of M16
    (London: Macdonald, 1985).
    
41. Fall,
    Anatomy of a Crisis
    , p. 57.
    
42. Bernard Fall,
    Street Without
    Joy
    (New York: Schocken, 1972), p. 116.
    
43. For a detailed account of the Vietnamese role in the genesis of the Pathet Lao and the Vietnamese control over the Laotian Communist movement, see Paul F. Longer and Joseph J. Zasloff,
    North Vietnamese and the
    Pathet Lao: Partners in the Struggle
    for Laos
    (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970).
    
44. George Ball’s remark quoted in Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas,
    The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made
    (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986), p. 606.
    
45. General Aderholt was made the senior air adviser to the CIA in Southeast Asia on January 1, I960. Interview with author, Fort Walton Beach, Fla., March 15,1985.
    
46. Pentagon Papers
    , Gravel ed., vol. 2, p. 646.
    
47. For detailed accounts of this extremely complicated period, see the hooks of Dommen, Toye, and Fall listed in the bibliography.
    
48. Kennedy briefed by Eisenhower:
    Pentagon Papers
    , Gravel ed., vol. 2, pp. 636-37.
    
49. Domino theory: Dwight D. Eisenhower, news conference, April 7,1954.
    
50. ‘Kung Fu movie’: Isaacson and Thomas,
    Wise Men
    , p. 607.
    
51. Highest-priority supply operation: Deputy Foreign Minister G. M. Pushkin to Averell Harriman, in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.,
    A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House
    (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965).
    
52. President Kennedy, television address, March 23,1961.
    
53. Quotes from William Sullivan are from interview with author (unless noted otherwise).
    
54. Kennedy view: Arthur Schlesinger,
    A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House
    , p. 368.
    
55. ‘Why take risks’: Roger Hilsman,
    To Move a Nation: The Politics of Foreign Policy in the Administration of JFK
    (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967), p. 130.
    
56. Quoted in Arthur Dommen,
    Conflict in Laos: The Politics of Neutralization
    , rev. ed. (New York: Praeger, 1971), p. 287.
    
57. American view of king: Roger Hilsman,
    To Move
    a Nation,
    p. 109. King’s choice of automobile: Don Moody, AOC commander at Luang Prabang, interview with the author, Fort Worth, Texas, April 12,1985.
    
58. Quoted in Dommen,
    Conflict in Laos
    , pp. 183-84.
    
59. Quoted in Hilsman,
    To Move
    a
    Nation,
    p. 136.