Brown critiqued the CIA’s and the Pentagon’s endorsement of the anti-communist ruler General Phoumi Nosavan. The autocratic general had risen to power through the CIA’s formation, under the Eisenhower administration, of a Laotian “patriotic organization,” the Committee for the Defense of the National Interest (CDNI).[23] Brown told Kennedy frankly that Laos could be united only under the neutralist Souvanna Phouma, whose government had been deposed by CIA-Pentagon forces under Eisenhower.
