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

by Thomas Leo Briggs

"Cash on CIA Special Operations During the Secret War in Laos" is a detailed accounting of a CIA program directed by a CIA operations officer that sent small teams of irregulars behind enemy lines in Laos to find, fix and destroy North Vietnamese Army units, capture NVA soldiers or encourage them to defect, intercept NVA radio communications, and recruit NVA soldiers to spy and report on their comrades. It is a unique contribution to the history of the Vietnam War describing valuable experiences using surrogates to conduct intelligence and combat operations that have little or no adverse impact on the United States government's relations with the peoples and governments of other nations. An important lesson in the post 9/11 world of countering terrorism all over the globe where we do not have enough American troops to get the job done without political consequences. The book also describes the daring and dangerous rescue of Raven 42, a U.S. Air Force forward air controller shot down while supporting Lao irregular surrogate forces fighting NVA main force units in Laos, attempts to infiltrate Cambodia to collect intelligence on the North Vietnamese in early 1970, the effort to uncover information about a missing Air America crewman captured in 1963, the tragic fatal crash of an aircraft carrying four of the author's best Thai operational assistants, and the uncovering of a mole hidden in a Royal Lao government military headquarters. Here are intimate details, that have never before appeared in print, recounting the planning and execution of a variety of special operations, conceived and carried out behind enemy lines by the CIA using only Lao irregular surrogates. The CIA employed surrogates in southern Laos to force the North Vietnamese Army to keep combat units there to defend their logistical supply line rather than send them to fight U.S. and allied forces in South Vietnam. For the duration of U.S. participation in the Vietnam War the CIA succeeded in that goal.

380 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2009

Reviews

[Jerome Otte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Technically oriented and workmanlike, this book presents a dry, nuts-and-bolts account of CIA roadwatch operations in Laos during the Vietnam War. There is nothing on the CIA's support for Vang Pao's Hmong army, which was what I expected to read about, but this book still isn't that bad.

The balance of the narrative focuses on the tactical day to day work carried out from Pakse Base to insert various types of indigenous Lao guerrilla teams into the Ho Chi Minh Trail for roadwatch, sabotage and prisoner-snatch operations. It's a fascinating read, relating the story of often mundane day to day case officer work but punctuated throughout by accounts of the grave dangers confronting CIA Paramilitary Case Officers (PMCOs) and also the personal bravery by those CIA Officers and their indigenous charges. It also details the exceedingly brave actions by contract personnel of the several Agency proprietary airlines, by US Air Force Ravens (forward air controllers), and by uniformed pilots and air crews of the US Air Force and Navy-- all working with CIA as one team in an effort to tie up mainforce North Vietnamese Army units and to interdict their resupply routes along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

My only disagreement lies with the author's contention that CIA mis-used its SOG teams in the opening volley of the War on Terrorism following 9-11-01. The author is correct that our Jawbreaker teams did take on the role normally reserved for US military special forces teams. But surely he knows that in the immediate aftermath of 9-11-01, the US military had no action plan to get its personnel inside Afghanistan, while CIA/SAD/SOG and CIA/CTC already had a plan on the shelf, enabling our paramilitary officers to insert and immediately begin organizing tribal resistance to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. It took the US Army weeks to get its teams even to the staging areas in Uzbekistan and then they discovered that their Army helicopters did not have the altitude or power to airlift the Army Triple Nickle teams over the Hindu Kush range and into the Panshir Valley. CiA, on the other hand, was equipped with Russian-built MI-17s-- a jet powered work-horse with the ability to fly over the Hindu Kush. And in the end, CIA had to send its MI-17s out to pick up the Army special forces units and deliver them to theater. Were mistakes made? Sure, including some fatal ones. But the reality at the time was that when CIA had the only game-plan in town the President used his authority to send the CIA to war.

In all, this was still pretty good.

[Betsy Ashton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thomas Briggs's book is more personal history than a history of the CIA's involvement in Laos during the Vietnam war. It's packed with facts about the programs he ran, the dangers he personally experienced and an occasional death of a friend, both Lao and American.

The covers two years, 1970-1971, when the North Vietnamese Army moved war materiel down the Ho Chi Minh Trail for use in Vietnam. Briggs provides CIA-approved details of infiltration and spying on troop movement, how he ran road watch teams and used their intelligence to call in air strikes, and how his teams captured NVA regulars and officers for further interrogation.

The book reads like a combination of history, after-incident reports and memoir, where Briggs reconstructs dialog during one daring rescue of a downed pilot.

It belongs on your shelf with other Vietnam war reference books.