The Ravens: The True Story of a Secret War (73 page)

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Authors: Christopher Robbins

Tags: #Vietnam War, #Vietnamese Conflict, #Laos, #Military, #1961-1975, #History

BOOK: The Ravens: The True Story of a Secret War
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  1. Background paper J-5 Joint Staff, ‘The Situation in Laos,’ August 2, 1969. State/Defense/CIA Coordinated Response, ‘Military Options in Laos,’ August 19,1969.
  2. House Judiciary Committee, ‘Bombing of Cambodia,’ Book n, Statement of Information and Hearings, Presidential Impeachment Investigation, 1974.
  3. G. McMurtrie Godley, unpublished manuscript. Quoted by permission.
  4. Fall,
    Street Without Joy
    , p. 282. The French dropped napalm - restricted by the Americans against structures - in Ban Ban village in May 1954. Fall, p. 110.
  5. As opposed to the Allies in World War II when Lord Portal, onetime commander in chief of RAF Bomber Command, propounded the outright killing of 900,000 German civilians, the injury of a million more with 25 million made homeless. The aim was to turn Germany into a nation of refugees.
  6. Senior CAS (CIA) official, interview, March, 17,1970, by Ken Sams and Lt. Col. J Schlight. The official, unidentified in the report, was CIA station chief Larry Devlin.
  7. Ibid.
  8. Security Agreement Hearings, 1979, p. 784.
  9. Capt. Karl L. Polifka, interview, classified Secret, USAF Oral History Program, December 17,1974, Washington, D.C. Declassified December 31,1982.
  10. Raphael Littauer and Norman Uphoff,
    The Air War in Indochina
    (Boston: Beacon, 1972), p. 79.
  11. Meo outrun own intelligence: John Clark Pratt, interview with author, Fort Collins, Colo., November 29,1984.
  12. A-1s help Black Lion: Maj. Albert E. Preyss, transcript of tape recording sent home to his family, quoted in Pratt, Vietnam Voices, pp. 414-18.
  13. Although nothing was said to Morrison at the time, he was later awarded the Silver Star for his day’s work.
  14. Craig Morrison, journal, December 20,1969.
  15. Details of Perot’s Christmas trip: H. Ross Perot, letter to author May 15,1985.
  16. Mahoney passed one rifle on to General Brown, and today it is in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
  17. Official History of the USAF in Southeast Asia
    , p. 131.
  18. The 21st Helicopter Squadron was flown to Long Tieng on January 4,1970. Bowers,
    Tactical Airlift,
    p. 458.
  19. In November 1968 there were 200 guns inside Laos; by the end of 1969 the figure had passed the 650 mark. Briefing notes, HQ 7th Air Force, Saigon, January 15, 1970. Declassified May 6,1982. Ravens consider these ‘official’ assessments very low.
  20. Blaufarb,
    Counterinsurgency Era
    , p. 162.
  21. Official History of the USAF in Southeast Asia
    , p. 131.
  22. Henry Kissinger,
    The White House Years
    (Boston: Little Brown, 1979), p. 451.
  23. Assessment of Laird: Bruce Palmer, Jr.,
    The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam
    (Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, 1984), p. 107.
  24. Kissinger,
    White House Years
    , p. 452.
  25. Detailed memoranda were kept on the daily ‘Vietnamization’ meetings held between Secretary Laird and his Pentagon staff. For Laird’s view on Kissinger’s military illiteracy, see William Shawcross,
    Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia
    (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979), pp. 212-13.
  26. Kissinger,
    White House Years
    , p. 452.
  27. Shawcross,
    Sideshow
    , p. 213.
  28. Bowers,
    Tactical
    Airlift,
    p. 458.
  29. Kissinger,
    White House Years
    , pp. 452-53.
  30. DOCO contribution to Commander’s End of Tour Report, HQ 7/13 AF, Udorn, RTAFB, Thailand. Col. Edward Kenny. March 1,1970. Declassified 1982.
  31. Official History of the USAF in Southeast Asia
    , p. 131.
  32. The film was seen by Karl Polifka.
  33. New York Times
    , February 19,1970.
  34. Kissinger,
    White House Years
    , p. 453.
  35. New York Times
    , February 25,1970.
  36. Kissinger,
    White House Years
    , p. 451.
  37. Ibid. p. 451.
  38. Ibid. p. 455.
  39. Seymour Hersh,
    The Price of Power: Kissinger in the White House
    (New York: Summit, 1983), p. 171.
  40. Kissinger,
    White House Years
    , p. 456.
  41. Ibid. p. 455.
  42. Ibid. p. 456.
  43. Ibid. p. 456.
  44. Ibid. p. 455.
  45. FBI wiretap: Hersh,
    Price
    of Power,
    p. 194.
  46. Henry Kissinger, letter to Mel Laird, March 9, 1970, in Kissinger, White House Years, p. 456.
  47. Quoted in ‘The Pendulum of the War Swings Wider,’ Hugh D.S. Greenway,
    Life,
    April 3,1970.
  48. Morrison, journal, entry for March 21,1970.
  49. John Clark Pratt,
    The Laotian Fragments
    (New York: Viking, 1974).
  50. Pratt, interview with author.
  51. Quoted in Sams, Schlight, and Pratt,
    Air Operations in Northern Laos
    , November 1, 1969 - April 1970 (HQ PACAF, Project CHECO, May 3, 1971), pp. 79-80.
  52. Lt. Henry C. Allen, and Capt. Richard G. Elzinga, missing in action, March 26,1970.
  53. Morrison, journal, entry for April 1,1970.
  54. Dommen,
    Conflict in Laos
    , p. 305.
  55. Sullivan, interview with author.
  56. A series written by Jacques Decomoy was published in
    Le Monde
    , July 3-9,1968.
  57. T. D. Allman, quoted from interview with author (unless noted otherwise), Brooklyn, N.Y. December 5,1985.
  58. Daniel Southerland, ‘What U.S. Bombing Feels Like to Laotians,’
    Christian Science Monitor
    , March 14, 1970; ‘The Laotians Caught in the Cross Fire,’
    Guardian
    , March 14, 1970; ‘Laotian Refugees Want a Sanctuary,’
    Washington Post
    , March 26, 1970; Robert Shaplen, ‘Our Involvement in Laos,’
    Foreign Affairs,
    April 1970, pp. 488-89.
  59. T. D. Allman, ‘Long Tieng Yields Its Secrets,’
    Bangkok Post
    , February 25,1970.
  60. Story compiled from wire-service coverage of Associated Press and Reuters, April 21,1970.
  61. Godley, interview with author.
  62. O-1 Altitude record held by Chuck Engle, confirmed by Craig Duehring in interview with author, London, July 5, 1985.
  63. The citation for Chuck Eagle’s Air Force Cross, June 20, 1970, was written by Craig Duehring, based on sworn eyewitness accounts by himself and Ray Dearrigunaga. Dearrigunaga received the Silver Star for his part in directing the SAR.
  64. John Fuller, Jr., wounded in action, May 25,1970. He was medevac’d to the Philippines, and only returned to flying status after lengthy hospitalization in the United States. It would be ten years, after repeated exertions by Bob Foster, before he was awarded his end-of-tour DFC from Laos.
  65. Air Commando colonel: Col. Roland K. McCoskrie, Oral History, Washington, D.C., July 14,1975. Unclassified.
  66. Chuck Engle was awarded the Silver Star for this mission of January 2-3,1971.
  67. 1st Lt. Grant Uhls, killed in action, February 11,1971.
  68. Bangkok Post
    , February 8,1971.
  69. Ban Son resettlement figures: U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on the Judiciary, War-Related Civilian Problems in Indochina, Part II: Laos and Cambodia, 92nd Congress, 1st sess., 1971, p. 48.
  70. The Meo soldier was hit in the back of the head by a white-hot ball bearing and was to suffer blinding headaches for years. Later, as a refugee in Minnesota, he told welfare workers he had suffered his ‘industrial accident’ as an employee of the CIA. The CIA disclaimed all responsibility, claiming that the Meo had technically worked for the USAF. The USAF also refused to do anything. The Meo was finally given an operation through the good offices of the State of Minnesota, and the headaches went away. Karl Polifka, letter to author, December 22,1986.
  71. Bangkok Post
    , February 16,1971.
  72. Pathet Lao attack:
    Far Eastern Economic
    Review
    Yearbook, 1972.
  73. Quoted in Powers,
    The Man Who Kept the Secrets
    , p. 177.
  74. Ivan Delbyk, quoted in Michael Maclear,
    The Ten Thousand Day War
    (New York: St. Martin’s, 1981), p. 182.
  75. Details on Igloo White Program: Paul Dickson,
    The Electronic Battlefield
    (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976), passim.
  76. Kissinger,
    White House Years
    , p. 992.
  77. Kissinger’s power: Palmer,
    25-Year War
    , p. 107.
  78. T. D. Allman, interview with author.
  79. Kissinger,
    White House Years
    , p. 1002.
  80. Palmer,
    25-Year War
    , p. 115.
  81. Official History of the USAF in Southeast Asia
    , p. 116.
  82. Richard Nixon,
    RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon
    (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978), p. 498. Kissinger is quoted as saying this by Nixon, but does not record the remark in his own memoirs.
  83. Kissinger,
    White House Years
    , p. 1010. Kissinger goes to some trouble in his memoirs to apportion blame on the U.S. military and the South Vietnamese, but does not share in it himself.
  84. Nixon, UN, p. 499.
  85. Sullivan and Godley, interviews with author.
  86. Lloyd Duncan, wounded in action, June 11,1971.
  87. Frank Kricker was awarded the Silver Star for this mission.
  88. The Bolovens Campaign, July 28, 1971. Prepared by Project CHECO, 7th Air Force. Classified Secret May 8, 1974. Declassified December 31,1982.
  89. Earl H. Tilford, Jr.,
    Search and Rescue in Southeast Asia, 1961-1975
    (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, USAF, 1980).
  90. Sullivan, interview with author.
  91. Godley, interview with author.
  92. Henry Kissinger,
    Years of Upheaval
    (Boston: Little Brown, 1982).
  93. Prince Mangkhra Phouma, interview with author, Paris, October 12,1985.
  94. Oudone Sananikone,
    The Royal Lao Army and U.S. Army Advice and Support
    (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1981), pp. 149-50.
  95. Lao Presse editorial quoted in Arnold Isaacs,
    Without Honor; Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia
    (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), p. 153.
  96. Kissinger’s critics: Palmer, 25-Year War, pp. 186-87.
  97. Kissinger,
    Years of Upheaval
    , pp. 22-23.
  98. Bowers,
    Tactical Airlift,
    p. 462.
  99. Congressional Record
    , May 9,1973, p. 14991.
  100. Quoted in Isaacs,
    Without Honor
    , p. 179.
  101. Quoted in ibid., p. 179.
  102. Quoted in ibid., p. 179.
  103. Senate Foreign Relations Committee: Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam: April 1973. Staff report. June 11,1973, p. 12.
  104. Official History of the USAF in Southeast Asia
    , p. 135.
  105. Madame Lulu died in Paris in 1985.
  106. The last time the Ravens were ever in Vientiane as a group was when they were cleared for an overnight visit from Udorn for the wedding of Carl Goembel to his fiancée, Margaret. Briggs Diuguid, Davy Dreier, Al Galante, Doug Mitchell, H. Ownby, Jim Roper, and Chad Swedberg duly arrived in town. In the hours before the ceremony they bought gold - Galante and Guff in were vying to own the largest Raven ID bracelet - and visited old haunts. During the wedding reception the groom was divested of his attire. The following morning the Ravens left via the windows of the Vientiane Hotel when a Pathet Lao patrol made a spot check for passports, which Ravens never carried.

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