Scott, Peter Dale. Air
America: Flying the U.S. into Laos. Boston: 1970. Scott, Peter Dale. Air
America: Flying the U.S. into Laos. Boston: 1970.
Secord, Richard V., and Jay Wurts. Honored and Betrayed: Irangate, Covert Affairs, and the Secret War in Laos. New York: John Wiley, 1992.
From publisher: "The inside account of Irangate by the man who coordinated and operated the Iran Initiative. Includes how it came about. Delineates his dealings with Oliver North, William Casey, Admiral Poindexter, and others. Reveals new information on what President Reagan's and then Vice President Bush's roles were. A point-blank response to Secord's accusers and the administration that hung him out to dry."
Armstrong, WPNWE, 19-25 Oct. 1992, believes that Secord's version of Iran-Contra adds "little that is new" and "is marred by myriad mistakes of fact.... [I]t is difficult to take seriously Secord's protestations that he is blameless and upright."
Shackley, Theodore, and Richard A. Finney. Spymaster: My Life in the CIA. Dulles, VA: Potomac, 2005.
Theodore (Ted) G. Shackley, retired CIA Associate Deputy Director for Operations, died on 9 December 2002 at the age of 75. He was a three-time recipient of the Distinguished Intelligence Medal. J.Y. Smith, "Theodore Shackley Dies; Celebrated CIA Agent," Washington Post, 13 Dec. 2002, B8.
Peake, CIRA Newsletter 30.4 (Winter 2005) and Studies 49.4 (2005), notes that Shackley comments "selectively on various aspects of his career.... For those who expected a more expansive tale of clandestine operations, Spymaster may be something of a disappointment. On the other hand, what Ted Shackley was able to give us is extremely valuable -- a first hand account with lessons for all."
For Schecter, I&NS 20.4 (Dec. 2005), "Shackley's first-person account is rich in remarkable detail.... They take CIA memoirs to a new level of specificity and revelation of tradecraft that makes for fascinating, and at times hilarious and bizarre reading."
Huck, Periscope (Summer 2006), feels that much was left out of this work, first by Shackley's death (not to denigrate the "tireless and faithful" work of Richard Finney to complete the book) and by the publisher's requirement that the manuscript be reduced in length.
Stevenson, Charles.
The End of Nowhere: American Policy Toward Laos Since 1954. Boston:
1972.
Stockinger, Edwin. "Five Weeks at Phalane." Studies in Intelligence 17, no. 1 (Spring 1973): 11-19.
Laotian paramilitary units fight North Vietnamese regulars for Muang Phalane in 1971.
Tovar, B. Hugh.
1. "Chronicle of a Secret War." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 8, no. 2 (Summer 1995): 245-254.
Tovar was the CIA's senior representative in Laos from September 1970 until May 1973. This is a "Review and Commentary" article on Jane Hamilton-Merritt's Tragic Mountains, and warrants reading on its own merits.
2. "Managing the Secret War in Laos." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 8, no. 3 (Fall 1995): 367-378.
This is a "Review and Commentary" article on Timothy Castle's At War in the Shadow of Vietnam, and should be consulted to balance some of Castle's presentation.
Usowski, Peter S. "Intelligence
Estimates and U.S. Policy toward Laos, 1960-63." Intelligence and
National Security 6, no. 2 (Apr. 1991): 367-394.
"On the whole, the assessments, judgements, and forecasts contained in the estimates were clear, well-founded, reliable, and, for the most part, accurate.... The available record shows that during Kennedy's three years of dealing with Laos the impact of intelligence estimates on major decisions was limited.... In specific policy areas, however, the CIA's assessments were influential."
Warner, Roger.
1. Back Fire: The CIA's Secret War in Laos and Its Link to the War in Vietnam. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.
According to Uhl, WPNWE, 16-22 Oct. 1995, Back Fire is "a useful, if somewhat anecdotal, contribution to the literature on the U.S. 'secret war' in Laos, which is rooted substantially in the recollections of former CIA operatives who were there.... Warner's extensive profiles of many of the agency's old hands in Laos reveal them to have been idealists ... [who] imagined they could beat the Communists at their own game by winning hearts and minds."
Surveillant 4.3 recommends Back Fire, noting that "Warner shows how the secret war in Laos was connected to Vietnam, and how Vietnam was central to the shifting alliances of Cold War geopolitical rivals."
McGehee (from alt.politics.org.cia), comments that Back Fire shows "the inside of this major covert operation, describe[s] the varied CIA personnel involved and to some extent detail[s] the consequences of the secret operations of the CIA."
To Finney, WIR 14.6, this book "is easy to read and well cushioned with personality sketches, photographs, and some useful maps.... As an engagingly superficial account of the Laos war, Back Fire has its good points. For a serious account of the entire war, the reader would do better with Kenneth Conboy's Shadow War."
2. Shooting at the Moon: The Story of America's Clandestine War in Laos. South Royalton, VT: Steerforth Press, 1996. [pb]
Tovar, CIRA Newsletter 22.2, notes that this is a "slightly modified version" of Back Fire. Warner's book is "highly readable," but "reiterates old charges made by other writers." In particular, the "depiction of [Ted] Shackley follows the David Corn stereotype, but is less vicious.... There seems to be an underlying assumption ... that Ted Shackley was a power unto himself in Laos. That is not so.... There is no way the chief of station could have controlled the course of events without the ambassador's full concurrence and without Washington's endorsement." The author's "coverage of the ground war in 1970-1972 is weak.... On the war in south Laos, his coverage is sound but skimpy." A similar review by Tovar appears in IJI&C 10.3.
Wetterhahn,
Ralph. "Ravens of Long Tieng." Air & Space/Smithsonian, Oct./Nov. 1998. [http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/ravens.html]
Long Tieng was in the north central highlands of Laos, and served as Hmong leader Vang Pao's headquarters from 1962. It was also a Lima Site from which U.S. Air Force forward air controllers (known by the radio callsign of Ravens) flew in support of the covert war in Laos. The article includes some oral history (reminiscences) by former Ravens, which makes it worth a read.
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