De Cornoy, Jacques. "Laos: The Forgotten War." Bulletin of the Concerned Asian
Scholars 2 (Apr.-Jul. 1970): 21-23. [Petersen] De Cornoy, Jacques. "Laos: The Forgotten War." Bulletin of the Concerned Asian
Scholars 2 (Apr.-Jul. 1970): 21-23. [Petersen]
De Hoog, John. "Secret
War in the Secret Country." Orientations 3 (Jul. 1972): 5-9.
[Petersen]
Dengler, Dieter. Escape
from Laos. San Rafael, CA: Presidio, 1979. [Petersen]
Dommen, Arthur J. Conflict
in Laos: The Politics of Neutralization. Rev. ed. New York: Praeger,
1971.
According to Tovar, IJI&C 8.4:506/fn. 2, this "stands as the classic study of the political and diplomatic history of Laos between 1954 and 1971."
Fall, Bernard B. "Reappraisal
in Laos." Current History 42 (Jan. 1962): 8-14. [Petersen]
Freedman, Lawrence. Kennedy's Wars: Berlin, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Roberge, I&NS 17.4, calls this "the most insightful work yet produced on US national security policy during the early 1960s." However, the author's "detached style takes some of the drama out of the story."
Gay, Dick. "Tony This and Tony That." CIRA Newsletter 28, no. 2 (Summer 2003): 30-35.
"Tony Poe [Anthony Alexander Poshepny] was a CIA special operations paramilitary (PM) expert dispatched on covert operations across Asia from the 1950s to 1970s."
See Stephen Magagnini, "An Inside Look at a CIA Secret War," Capitol Hill Blue, 31 Aug. 2000 [http://capitolhillblue.com], where Tony Poe talks (minimally) about the war in Laos.
Goldstein, Martin E. American
Policy Toward Laos. Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press,
1973.
Hamilton-Merritt, Jane.
Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret War in Laos,
1942-1992. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1993.
Yang, FILS 12.1, sees Tragic Mountains as a "depressing yet accurate tale.... When the last stronghold at Long Chieng fell after a long siege, the Hmong waited for U.S. evacuation planes that never came."
Tovar, IJI&C 8.2 ("B. Hugh Tovar was the Central Intelligence Agency's senior representative in Laos from September 1970 until May 1973."), asks: "What kind of case does Hamilton-Merritt make for [her] fiercely critical review of the American role in Laos? She makes a good one, but there are serious flaws in her presentation. Her primary achievement is to give the Hmong a voice.... To contend, however,... that the U.S. Mission ... forced the action ... and callously exploited Hmong willingness to fight is to misconstrue the way things worked in Laos.... [T]he Lao had reasons of their own for fighting, and those reasons were not always congruent with American interests. The Lao authorities ... shared the decisionmaking and often, in the face of U.S. objections, called the shots on what they wanted done....
"Factual inaccuracies abound, and in the absence of documentation the recollections of her sources have to be taken at face value. Policy issues are treated loosely, if at all.... Operations in central and south Laos are given no attention.... Hamilton-Merritt's use of the word betrayal is too strong.... Despite the upheaval in U.S. policy that accompanied the debacle in South Vietnam, the United States tried hard to cushion its impact on the Hmong."
Holm, Richard L. "No Drums, No Bugles: Recollections of a Case Officer in Laos, 1962-1964." Studies in Intelligence 47, no. 1 (2003): 1-17.
This is an excellent firsthand, tactical look at one piece of the early effort in Laos (January 1962-July 1964) by a long-serving and highly regarded CIA officer in his first action. Holm's thoughts looking backward are in line with those of many who served in that fragment of the war in Southeast Asia:
"Now, some 35 years later, I lament many of the unintended results of our efforts.... The ignorance and the arrogance of Americans arriving in Southeast Asia during that period were contributing factors. We came to help, but we had only minimal understanding of the history, culture, and politics of the people we wanted to aid.... US policies in Laos are largely responsible for the disaster that befell the Hmong..... Their way of life has been destroyed. They can never return to Laos. In the end, our policymakers failed to assume the moral responsibility that we owed to those who worked so closely with us during those tumultuous years."
Kaufman, Marc. "U.S. Reverses, Lets Hmong Exiles Resettle; 15,000 War Refugees Allowed To Apply to Leave Thai Camp." Washington Post, 22 Dec. 2003, A3. [http://www.washingtonpost.com]
"[T]he State Department has agreed to allow the last major group of Indochinese refugees from the Vietnam War era to apply for resettlement in the United States. The order is directed at about 15,000 Hmong refugees -- the remnants of the former CIA secret army of Laos -- who have been living with no legal status at a Buddhist temple north of Bangkok for more than a decade."
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