Chapter Summaries from Cash on Delivery: CIA Special Operations During the Secret War in Laos

Click on the chapter names to read the full summary.

Preface

This book is not only a unique contribution to the history of the Vietnam War but also an important lesson on how to use surrogates to conduct intelligence and combat operations that have little or no impact on the United States Government’s relations with the peoples and governments of other nations.

Introduction

A broad overview of the CIA mission in Laos and specifically its mission in southern Laos, the focus of this book. This chapter provides historical context for CIA’s presence in Laos, describes the events occurring at the beginning of the author’s assignment and establishes the enemy situation in southern Laos in early 1970.

Background

A description of how the author joined the CIA and became involved in special operations and the war in Laos and the author’s year of training in preparation for becoming a CIA paramilitary special operations officer. This chapter describes how the author wound up in Laos instead of Vietnam and his travel from Washington, D.C. to Pakse, Laos via Bangkok, Vientiane and Udorn with his new wife. It includes meeting his superiors and colleagues, his first assignment, background on the special operations program to which the author was assigned and some of the events in his first few months in-country.

Roadwatch

CIA special operations, as versus large unit combat operations, in southern Laos were run from two separate programs, Roadwatch and Commando/Raiders. The largest program in terms of number of personnel and missions was the Roadwatch program. This chapter introduces it and describes what it was designed to accomplish. It also discusses the ethnic makeup of the teams, which included lowland Lao as well as Lao hill tribesmen, and such things as the methods of communication with the teams, the types of aircraft used for infiltration and exfiltration, and the variety of weapons issued to the teams.

 

 

Infiltrating Cambodia

A serious intelligence gap developed when the regime of Norodom Sihanouk collapsed and was replaced by Lon Nol in 1970. The American ambassador asked the CIA to develop intelligence on northeastern Cambodia and the author was told to send indigenous irregular small teams into Cambodia to collect that intelligence. This chapter describes how this was done.

The Battle for PS-26

The North Vietnamese Army needed to capture and control the Bolovens Plateau in order to secure the western flanks of its supply line into the Republic of Vietnam, known as the “Ho Chi Minh Trail”. The battle for the Bolovens Plateau began with the NVA capture of PS-26, a small Royal Lao Government outpost on the rim of the plateau. This chapter describes events that occurred during the successful recapture of PS-26.

Remote Sensors and Beacons

CIA needed to gather intelligence on the North Vietnamese Army’s activities on the Ho Chi Minh Trail running through Laos and in its efforts to do so decided to employ technical collection methods. Quite often, the attempt to bring to bear high technology methods in a low technology environment does not work out well. The use of remote sensors on the Ho Chi Minh Trail did not work out – this is a detailed description of just why high technology beacons and remote sensors did not succeed.

 

Cash on Delivery

Captured soldiers can be a valuable source of intelligence in a war zone. In Laos and Vietnam enemy soldiers were captured on the battlefield, gave themselves up or at times American special operations units headquartered in the RVN went behind enemy lines to capture them and bring them back alive. This chapter describes how the first successful aggressive program in Laos of going behind enemy lines and either snatching NVA soldiers or encouraging them to defect was developed. This success led to other case officers imitating this program and even to recruiting the first NVA spy in place behind enemy lines.

Death of a North Vietnamese Army Political Officer

As more captured NVA soldiers were brought in, teams tried harder to capture more enemy soldiers. In this chapter, a team tried to capture an NVA, however, during the capture attempt the NVA soldier put up such a fight the team panicked and killed him as his four-man bodyguard tried to come to his rescue. When the team returned to base camp with captured documents, they turned out to be much more valuable than could have been imagined.

The North Vietnamese Army's Mole

Deeply immersed in intelligence collection against the North Vietnamese Army the author became very conversant with NVA order of battle and NVA methods of operation in Laos both in combat and in their clandestine activities. The author became suspicious of a former NVA soldier cooperating with the Royal Lao Government. During an interview requested by the author, this former NVA solider gave information that indicated that NVA military intelligence had planted a mole in the Headquarters of Lao Military Region IV.

 

Our North Vietnamese Army Spy

This chapter describes the successful recruitment of an NVA soldier behind enemy lines using a pitch letter supplied by the soldier’s NVA friend, who was already in Royal Lao Government hands. The new spy gave details on NVA plans for the Easter Offensive of 1972, contributing to the filing of an intelligence report well in advance of the beginning of the enemy attack.

Find, Fix and Destroy

The current War in Afghanistan has focused attention on the use of special operations ground units directing laser-guided smart bombs accurately into enemy targets. The first generation of laser guided bombs were used in the Vietnam War and this chapter describes the training, infiltration and successful direction of an indigenous Lao special operations team behind NVA lines to find targets and report them to American forward air controllers.

Operation Shotgun

This chapter describes how a method was devised to use an indigenous Lao irregular team to spot tanks and truck convoys and report them to the U.S. Air Force Airborne Command & Control Center flying over Laos and Vietnam 24 hours per day, controlling all USAF and Navy strike aircraft. The team occupied high ground over a valley and had an English speaking Lao with a radio.

This Is the Monthly Report for Binh Tram 35

Significant sums of money were spent to install and operate highly technical radio intercept collection operations aimed at the North Vietnamese Army’s logistics activities on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. This chapter describes how, after the last remaining radio intercept site in the tri-border area of Indochina was lost, a small team of indigenous Lao operated from a location in Laos from which these logistics communications could once again be intercepted.

His Brother's Keeper

An Air America cargo plane was shot down in 1963 and its crew was declared dead. Subsequently, the photographs of one American, two Thai and one Nationalist Chinese crewmember appeared in a communist propaganda publication. This chapter tells what was done to try to find the missing American and how this search goes on until today.

 

Raven 42 Is Down

In mid-1971 an American forward air controller, call sign Raven 42, was shot down in the middle of swarming enemy troops fighting to capture the key Lao city of Paksong. This chapter describes the events of that day and the search and rescue attempt to reach the severely wounded pilot.

 

Fragging the Nai Kou

The author was dedicated to insuring that the intelligence and action teams he was directing were truthfully reporting their activities. This chapter describes some of these unusual methods and how one team leader, suspecting he might not be paid for his mission, tried to kill the author with a hand grenade.

The Tragic Crash of XW-PCL

A Pilatus Porter short takeoff and landing aircraft crashed at PS-47 killing the pilot and everyone on board. Four of the author’s seven Thai operational assistants, two of whom were experienced key members of the Roadwatch staff of operational assistants, were killed in the disaster, casting a pall over the author’s final months in Laos.

Departure

After two years being deeply involved in clandestine special operations, it was difficult for the author to pull up and leave the Lao irregular soldiers and the Thai operations assistants behind. This chapter deals with his final days in Laos and return to the United States.

Speaking Truth to Power - Lessons Learned

An after action report is not really useful unless it describes the lessons learned from the actions taken, identifies successful actions and why they succeeded, and identifies failures and why they failed. Moreover, it helps no one to criticize unless prescriptions for doing better are offered. The author offers some observations on special operations and on other intelligence issues.