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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Laos
Index
With the end of the war, Laos was no longer under the
French
Union but entirely sovereign. The country was divided into
five
military regions. The chain of command of the Royal Lao
Army was
placed under the Ministry of Defense in Vientiane.
To meet the threat represented by the Pathet Lao, the
Royal Lao
Army depended on a small French military training mission,
headed
by a general officer, an exceptional arrangement permitted
under
the Geneva agreement. Military organization and tactical
training
reflected French traditions. Most of the equipment was of
United
States origin, however, because early in the First
Indochina War,
the United States had been supplying the French with war
matériel
ranging from guns to aircraft. A small United States
legation in
Vientiane kept Washington informed about the status of the
Royal
Lao Army. There was real concern that Laotians were not
maintaining
their equipment properly and that much of it was becoming
useless
under the tropical sun and rain. The question also arose
of who was
to pay the salaries of the Royal Lao Army as France was no
longer
responsible for Laos's finances.
It seemed evident to the legation that only United
States
personnel in Laos could ensure that the Royal Lao Army was
capable
of meeting the threat posed by the Pathet Lao backed by
North
Vietnam. To get around the prohibition against foreign
military
personnel imposed by the 1954 Geneva agreement--which the
United
States had pledged to honor--the Department of Defense in
December
1955 established a disguised military mission in Laos
called the
Programs Evaluation Office (PEO). The PEO worked under the
cover of
the civilian aid mission and was staffed by military
personnel and
headed by a general officer who wore civilian clothes.
Over the
1955-61 period, the PEO gradually supplanted the French
military
mission in providing equipment and training to the Royal
Lao Army.
With increasing numbers of Laotian officers receiving
training in
Thailand and at staff schools in the United States, there
was a
perception that the French military mission in Laos was a
relic of
colonialism. By 1959 the PEO had more than 100 members on
its
staff, and the United States was paying the entire cost of
the
Royal Lao Army's salaries.
The prohibition against joining any military alliance
prevented
Laos from joining the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization
(SEATO-- see Glossary),
formed by Australia, Britain, France, New
Zealand,
Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, and the United States
in
September 1954. However, a protocol to the treaty
designated Laos
as a country to which its mutual security provisions would
apply in
the event it became the victim of aggression. When
fighting broke
out along Laos's border with North Vietnam in
July-September 1959
following the collapse of efforts to integrate two
battalions of
Pathet Lao into the Royal Lao Army, the Royal Lao
Government (RLG)
wanted to appeal to SEATO for help. The RLG was dissuaded
from
doing so by the United States, which felt that such an
appeal
risked involving United States troops in combat in Laos.
The nature
of the fighting--by guerrillas belonging to ethnic tribes
that
lived on both sides of the border--made the question of
aggression
ambiguous. Similarly, in January 1961, when the RLG
proposed
appealing to SEATO to counter North Vietnam's intervention
on
behalf of the Pathet Lao and Kong Le, it was discouraged
from doing
so by the United States.
Kong Le's coup d'état on August 9, 1960, threatened to
split
the army between Kong Le's Lao Neutralist Revolutionary
Organization--known as the Neutralists, whose troops'
unofficial
name was the Neutralists Armed Forces--and the rest of the
army
under General Phoumi Nosavan, the former minister of
defense
(see The Attempt to Restore Neutrality
, ch. 1). PEO
headquarters in
Vientiane became inactive because United States diplomats
were
instructed to find a way to isolate the rebellious
paratrooper.
Finally, aid was cut off. Meanwhile, the PEO branch office
in
Savannakhét--Phoumi's headquarters--continued to supply
and pay
Phoumi's troops. After Phoumi captured Vientiane, the
Neutralists
were compelled--for their survival--to enter into an
alliance with
the Pathet Lao and their North Vietnamese backers, on whom
they
thereafter depended for supplies.
In April 1961, the PEO was upgraded to a Military
Assistance
Advisory Group (MAAG), and its members were allowed to
wear
uniforms. The MAAG was withdrawn in 1962 under the terms
of the
Geneva Agreement, which was supposed to neutralize Laos
(see International Pressure and the Advent of the Second Coalition
, ch.
1). Because the North Vietnamese did not respect the
withdrawal
requirement, however, the United States stepped up
military aid to
the RLG, but avoided sending ground troops into Laos,
which would
have violated the agreement.
As part of this effort, United States Central
Intelligence
Agency (CIA) personnel operating from a base at Udon
Thani,
Thailand, took over the support of 30,000- to
36,000-person
irregulars, including Hmong guerrillas who bore the brunt
of the
fighting in northern Laos. A CIA-chartered airline, Air
America,
dropped rice and ammunition from its C-46s and C-47s to
isolated
Hmong outposts, which were sometimes behind enemy lines. A
variety
of short takeoff and landing aircraft used dirt airstrips
carved
out of the jungle by the Hmong. The irregulars, who became
known as
the Secret Army, were instrumental in helping to rescue a
large
number of United States airmen who were shot down over
Laos. By
this time, the Hmong leader Vang Pao had risen to the rank
of
general in the Royal Lao Army and commanded the Second
Military
Region.
In October 1964, in response to an offensive by the
Pathet Lao
and North Vietnamese to expel the Neutralists from the
Plain of
Jars, the United States began providing air support
against Pathet
Lao positions and North Vietnamese supply lines. However,
it was
not until March 1966 at Phoukout, northwest of the Plain
of Jars,
that the Pathet Lao started to win major battles against
the Royal
Lao Army. In July 1966, the Pathet Lao won another major
battle in
the Nambak Valley in northern Louangphrabang Province by
overrunning a Royal Lao Army base and inflicting heavy
casualties.
These victories gave the Pathet Lao new momentum in the
war for
control of Laos.
Meanwhile, in southern Laos, where the North Vietnamese
had
been working steadily every dry season to expand the Ho
Chi Minh
Trail network leading into the Republic of Vietnam (South
Vietnam),
the intensity of the air war also grew. The air war in
Laos
operated under a complicated command and control system
that
involved the United States embassy in Vientiane, the
Military
Assistance Command Vietnam in Saigon, Royal Thai air bases
in
Thailand, the commander in chief Pacific in Honolulu, and
sometimes
even the White House. The United States ambassador in
Vientiane had
the final say on target selection, using criteria that
included
taking into account the distance of targets from civilian
habitations and the types of ordnance to be expended. The
ambassador also was to keep the RLG informed so as to
avoid, or at
least minimize, the latter's embarrassment vis-à-vis the
British
and Soviet embassies in Vientiane and the heads of the
Indian,
Canadian, and Polish delegations to the International
Control
Commission who were jointly responsible for enforcing the
1962
Declaration on the Neutrality of Laos signed in Geneva.
During the June 1969 rainy season, the Pathet Lao and
two North
Vietnamese battalions, using Soviet tanks, pushed the
Royal Lao
Army and the Neutralists out of their base at Muang Souy
northwest
of the Plain of Jars. Fighting continued during the
monsoon season.
In September 1969, Vang Pao's Hmong, supported by United
States
bombing, launched a series of surprise attacks against key
points
on the Plain of Jars. A new North Vietnamese army division
joined
the battle shortly thereafter and by February 1970 had
regained all
of the devastated plain.
In 1970, despite eight years of ground offensives by
the Royal
Lao Army and massive United States air support, the Pathet
Lao had
grown into an army of 48,000 troops and was prepared to
challenge
Royal Lao Army forces on their own territory by mounting
large
offensives in the south engaging an even greater number of
North
Vietnamese forces. The introduction of Soviet-made
long-range 130-
mm artillery pieces onto the battlefield in that year
allowed the
Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese to neutralize to some
extent the
Royal Lao Army's advantage of air superiority.
In 1970 the combat elements of the Royal Lao Army were
organized into fifty-eight infantry battalions and one
artillery
regiment of four battalions. The largest tactical unit was
the
battalion, which was composed of a headquarters, a
headquarters
company, and three rifle companies. Royal Lao Army units
were
devoted primarily to static defense and were stationed
near
population centers, lines of communication, depots, and
airfields.
These units were complemented by military police and
armored,
engineer, and communications units. Between 1962 and 1971,
the
United States provided Laos with an estimated US$500
million in
military assistance, not including the cost of equipping
and
training irregular and paramilitary forces. During the
1971-75
period, it added about seventy-five T-28 light-strike or
training
aircraft, about twenty C-47s in both transport and gunship
configurations, fewer than ten H-34 helicopters, and some
small U-1
and U-17 aircraft.
In February 1971, a major offensive by the South
Vietnamese
army, with United States logistical and air support, sent
two
divisions into Laos in the vicinity of Xépôn with the
objective of
cutting North Vietnamese supply lines. However, once
inside Laos,
South Vietnamese commanders were separated from their
resupply
bases by long logistics lines resulting in an early
termination of
the offensive. By December 1971, the Pathet Lao had taken
Paksong
on the Bolovens Plateau and had invested the main Hmong
base at
Longtiang. Communist advances continued into 1972 and
encircled
Thakhek on the Mekong, and Vientiane.
The cease-fire of February 22, 1973, ended United
States
bombing and temporarily halted ground offensives. The
Pathet Lao,
however, following their usual practice, used the
cessation of
military operations to resupply their forces over the long
and
exposed roads from North Vietnam. In further fighting in
the spring
of 1975, the Pathet Lao finally broke the resistance of
Vang Pao's
Hmong blocking the road junction linking Vientiane,
Louangphrabang,
and the Plain of Jars. Under the watch of two battalions
of Pathet
Lao troops, which had been flown into Vientiane and
Louangphrabang
on Soviet and Chinese planes for neutralizing those towns
under the
cease-fire agreement, the communists organized
demonstrations to
support their political and military demands, leading to
the final,
bloodless seizure of power in the towns that the RLG had
held up to
then.
Data as of July 1994
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