A Great Place to Have a War

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Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1451667892
Total Pages : 360 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (516 download)

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Book Synopsis A Great Place to Have a War by : Joshua Kurlantzick

Download or read book A Great Place to Have a War written by Joshua Kurlantzick and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-01-24 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The untold story of how America’s secret war in Laos in the 1960s transformed the CIA from a loose collection of spies into a military operation and a key player in American foreign policy. January, 1961: Laos, a tiny nation few Americans have heard of, is at risk of falling to communism and triggering a domino effect throughout Southeast Asia. This is what President Eisenhower believed when he approved the CIA’s Operation Momentum, creating an army of ethnic Hmong to fight communist forces there. Largely hidden from the American public—and most of Congress—Momentum became the largest CIA paramilitary operation in the history of the United States. The brutal war lasted more than a decade, left the ground littered with thousands of unexploded bombs, and changed the nature of the CIA forever. With “revelatory reporting” and “lucid prose” (The Economist), Kurlantzick provides the definitive account of the Laos war, focusing on the four key people who led the operation: the CIA operative whose idea it was, the Hmong general who led the proxy army in the field, the paramilitary specialist who trained the Hmong forces, and the State Department careerist who took control over the war as it grew. Using recently declassified records and extensive interviews, Kurlantzick shows for the first time how the CIA’s clandestine adventures in one small, Southeast Asian country became the template for how the United States has conducted war ever since—all the way to today’s war on terrorism.

Battle for Skyline Ridge

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Author :
Publisher : Open Road Media
ISBN 13 : 1504060156
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (4 download)

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Book Synopsis Battle for Skyline Ridge by : James E. Parker

Download or read book Battle for Skyline Ridge written by James E. Parker and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An incredibly powerful account of a little-known chapter in the Vietnam War saga” written by a CIA veteran who fought in the Secret War (Booklist, starred review). In the 1960s and ’70s, the Laotian Civil War became a covert theater for the conflict in Vietnam, with the US paramilitary backing the Royal Lao government in what came to be known among the CIA as the Secret War. In late 1971, the North Vietnamese Army launched Campaign Z, invading northern Laos on a mission to defeat the Royal Lao Army. General Giap had specifically ordered the NVA troops to kill the CIA army and occupy its field headquarters in the Long Tieng valley. The NVA faced the small rag-tag army of Vang Pao, mostly Thai irregulars recruited to fight for the CIA. But thousands more were quickly recruited, trained, and rushed into position in Laos to defend against the impending NVA invasion. Despite overwhelming odds in the NVA’s favor, the battle raged for more than one hundred days—the longest battle in the Vietnam War. In the end, it all came down to Skyline Ridge. Whoever won Skyline, won Laos. Historian James E. Parker Jr. served as a CIA paramilitary officer in Laos. In this authoritative and personal account, Parker draws from his own firsthand experience as well as extensive research into CIA files and North Vietnamese after-action reports in order to tell the full story of the battle of Skyline Ridge.

The Battle for Laos

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Author :
Publisher : Pen & Sword Military
ISBN 13 : 9781526757043
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (57 download)

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Book Synopsis The Battle for Laos by : Stephen Emerson

Download or read book The Battle for Laos written by Stephen Emerson and published by Pen & Sword Military. This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By 1959 the newly independent Kingdom of Laos was being transformed into a Cold War battleground for global superpower competition, having been born out of the chaos following the French military defeat and withdrawal from Indochina in 1954. The country was soon engulfed in a rapidly evolving civil war as rival forces jockeyed for power and swelling foreign intervention further fueled the fighting. Adding even more fuel to the fire, "neutral" Laos's geographic entanglement in the intensifying war in neighboring South Vietnam deepened in the early 1960s as Hanoi's reliance on the Ho Chi Minh Trail for moving men and materiel through the southern Laotian panhandle grew exponentially and became a priority target of American interdiction efforts. For almost twenty years, the fighting between the Western-supported Royal Lao government and the communist-supported Pathet Lao would rage across the plains, jungles, and mountaintops largely unseen by most of the world in this so-called "secret war." Thousands on each side would die and many more would be displaced as the conflict on the ground ebbed and flowed from season to season and year to year. And in the skies above, American and Royal Laotian aircraft would rain down their deadly payloads, decimating large swaths of the countryside in pursuit of victory. Nearly 3 million tons of bombs would be dropped on Laotian territory between 1965 and 1973, leaving a deadly legacy of unexploded ordnance that lingers to this day. Thus, the battle for Laos is the story of entire communities and generations caught up in a war seemingly without end, one that pitted competing foreign interests and their proxies against each other, and one that was forever tied to Washington's pursuit of victory in Vietnam.

Covert Ops

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Author :
Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 9780312963408
Total Pages : 284 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (634 download)

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Book Synopsis Covert Ops by : James E. Parker

Download or read book Covert Ops written by James E. Parker and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1997-11-15 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the same time the Vietnam War was being broadcast into the living rooms of Americans across the country the CIA was conducting a large-scale secret war in northeastern Laos that few heard about. Agency case officer Jim Parker's five years of combat and immersion in Southeast Asian culture had a lasting influence on him and his family. His dramatic, provocative reminiscence of those years is the first account by a participant to portray America's involvement in Laos.

Invasion of Laos, 1971

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Author :
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN 13 : 0806145897
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (61 download)

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Book Synopsis Invasion of Laos, 1971 by : Robert D. Sander

Download or read book Invasion of Laos, 1971 written by Robert D. Sander and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2014-02-26 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1971, while U.S. ground forces were prohibited from crossing the Laotian border, a South Vietnamese Army corps, with U.S. air support, launched the largest airmobile operation in the history of warfare, Lam Son 719. The objective: to sever the North Vietnamese Army’s main logistical artery, the Ho Chi Minh Trail, at its hub, Tchepone in Laos, an operation that, according to General Creighton Abrams, could have been the decisive battle of the war, hastening the withdrawal of U.S. forces and ensuring the survival of South Vietnam. The outcome: defeat of the South Vietnamese Army and heavy losses of U.S. helicopters and aircrews, but a successful preemptive strike that met President Nixon’s near-term political objectives. Author Robert Sander, a helicopter pilot in Lam Son 719, explores why an operation of such importance failed. Drawing on archives and interviews, and firsthand testimony and reports, Sander chronicles not only the planning and execution of the operation but also the maneuvers of the bastions of political and military power during the ten-year effort to end Communist infiltration of South Vietnam leading up to Lam Son 719. The result is a picture from disparate perspectives: the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations; the South Vietnamese government led by President Nguyen Van Thieu; and senior U.S. military commanders and army aviators. Sander’s conclusion is at once powerful and persuasively clear. Lam Son 719 was doomed in both the planning and execution—a casualty of domestic and international politics, flawed assumptions, incompetent execution, and the resolve of the North Vietnamese Army. A powerful work of military and political history, this book offers eloquent testimony that “failure, like success, cannot be measured in absolute terms.”

The Battle for Laos

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Author :
Publisher : Pen and Sword
ISBN 13 : 1526757052
Total Pages : 249 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (267 download)

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Book Synopsis The Battle for Laos by : Stephen Emerson

Download or read book The Battle for Laos written by Stephen Emerson and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2019-05-30 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the “secret war” in Southeast Asia in which nearly three million tons of bombs decimated a newly independent nation. By 1959 the newly independent Kingdom of Laos was transforming into a Cold War battleground for global superpower competition, having been born out of the chaos following the French military defeat and withdrawal from Indochina in 1954. The country was soon engulfed in a rapidly evolving civil war as rival forces jockeyed for power and swelling foreign intervention intensified the fighting. Adding even more fuel to the fire, “neutral” Laos’s geographic entanglement in the war in neighboring South Vietnam deepened in the early 1960s as Hanoi’s reliance on the Ho Chi Minh Trail for moving men and matériel through the southern Laotian panhandle grew exponentially, making it a priority target of American interdiction efforts. For almost twenty years, the fighting between the Western-supported Royal Lao government and the communist-supported Pathet Lao would rage across the plains, jungles, and mountaintops largely unseen by most of the world. Thousands on each side would die and many more would be displaced as the conflict on the ground ebbed and flowed from season to season and year to year. And in the skies above, American and Royal Laotian aircraft would rain down their deadly payloads, decimating large swaths of the countryside in pursuit of victory. Nearly three million tons of bombs would be dropped on Laotian territory between 1965 and 1973, leaving a legacy of unexploded ordnance that lingers to this day. The battle for Laos is a tale of entire communities and generations caught up in a war seemingly without end, one that pitted competing foreign interests and their proxies against each other and was forever tied to Washington’s pursuit of victory in Vietnam. This book tells the story of this so-called “secret war.”

Shooting at the Moon

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Author :
Publisher : Steerforth Italia
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 464 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Shooting at the Moon by : Roger Warner

Download or read book Shooting at the Moon written by Roger Warner and published by Steerforth Italia. This book was released on 1996 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Shooting at the Moon, Roger Warner chronicles a covert operation that used Hmong villagers as guerrilla fighters against the North during the Vietnamese War. Thought to be an expendable resource by Central Intelligence Agency strategists, the Hmong died by the thousands fighting the North Vietnamese. Those who survived were abandoned to their fate when the United States pulled out of the war. Warner's history is the moving and tragic story of how America's 'secret war' devastated its own allies in Southeast Asia.

Into Laos

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Author :
Publisher : Presidio Press
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 418 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Into Laos by : Keith William Nolan

Download or read book Into Laos written by Keith William Nolan and published by Presidio Press. This book was released on 1986 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The War in Laos 1960–75

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Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1780967640
Total Pages : 116 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (89 download)

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Book Synopsis The War in Laos 1960–75 by : Kenneth Conboy

Download or read book The War in Laos 1960–75 written by Kenneth Conboy and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-05-20 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As World War II drew to a close, the Imperial Japanese military seized control of Laos, a French protectorate, and encouraged nationalist movements to forestall the revival of French power in the region. Despite these efforts the French re-entered Indochina and methodically retook the protectorate. By 1957, the government of Laos and the core of the Communist Laotian forces, known as the Pathet Lao, entered an uneasy truce, which plunged the country into 15 years of war. This text explores the resulting war, providing a summary of events and profiling the Laotian government forces, the government Allied forces and the Communist forces.

Special Air Warfare and the Secret War in Laos

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781079351712
Total Pages : 516 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (517 download)

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Book Synopsis Special Air Warfare and the Secret War in Laos by : Air University Press

Download or read book Special Air Warfare and the Secret War in Laos written by Air University Press and published by . This book was released on 2019-07-02 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of special air warfare and the Air Commandos who served for the ambassadors in Laos from 1964 to 1975 is captured through extensive research and veteran interviews. The author has meticulously put together a comprehensive overview of the involvement of USAF Air Commandos who served in Laos as trainers, advisors, and clandestine combat forces to prevent the communist takeover of the Royal Lao Government. This book includes pictures of those operations, unveils what had been a US government secret war, and adds a substantial contribution to understanding the wider war in Southeast Asia.

Spies on the Mekong

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Author :
Publisher : Casemate
ISBN 13 : 1636240208
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (362 download)

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Book Synopsis Spies on the Mekong by : Ken Conboy

Download or read book Spies on the Mekong written by Ken Conboy and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2021-08-09 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Cold War, the Central Intelligence Agency’s biggest and longest paramilitary operation was in the tiny kingdom of Laos. Hundreds of advisors and support personnel trained and led guerrilla formations across the mountainous Laotian countryside, as well as running smaller road-watch and agent teams that stretched from the Ho Chi Minh Trail to the Chinese frontier. Added to this number were hundreds of contract personnel providing covert aviation services. It was dangerous work. On the Memorial Wall at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, nine stars are dedicated to officers who perished in Laos. On top of this are more than one hundred from propriety airlines killed in aviation mishaps between 1961 and 1973. Combined, this grim casualty figure is orders of magnitude larger than any other CIA paramilitary operation. But for the Foreign Intelligence officers at Langley, Laos was more than a paramilitary battleground. Because of its geographic location as a buffer state, as well as its trifurcated political structure, Laos was a unique Cold War melting pot. All three of the Lao political factions, including the communist Pathet Lao, had representation in Vientiane. The Soviet Union had an extremely active embassy in the capital, while the People’s Republic of China—though in the throes of the Cultural Revolution—had multiple diplomatic outposts across the kingdom. So, too, did both North and South Vietnam. All of this made Laos fertile ground for clandestine operations. This book comprehensively details the cloak-and-dagger side of the war in Laos for the first time, from agent recruitments to servicing dead-drops in Vientiane.

Magical Reels

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Author :
Publisher : Verso
ISBN 13 : 9781859842331
Total Pages : 332 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (423 download)

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Book Synopsis Magical Reels by : John King

Download or read book Magical Reels written by John King and published by Verso. This book was released on 2000-09-17 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On Latin American cinema.

Ho Chi Minh Trail 1964–73

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Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1472842545
Total Pages : 97 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (728 download)

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Book Synopsis Ho Chi Minh Trail 1964–73 by : Peter E. Davies

Download or read book Ho Chi Minh Trail 1964–73 written by Peter E. Davies and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-09-17 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Trails War formed a major part of the so-called 'secret war' in South East Asia, yet for complex political reasons, including the involvement of the CIA, it received far less coverage than campaigns like Rolling Thunder and Linebacker. Nevertheless, the campaign had a profound effect on the outcome of the war and on its perception in the USA. In the north, the Barrel Roll campaign was often operated by daring pilots flying obsolete aircraft, as in the early years, US forces were still flying antiquated piston-engined T-28 and A-26A aircraft. The campaign gave rise to countless heroic deeds by pilots like the Raven forward air controllers, operating from primitive airstrips in close contact with fierce enemy forces. USAF rescue services carried out extremely hazardous missions to recover aircrew who would otherwise have been swiftly executed by Pathet Lao forces, and reconnaissance pilots routinely risked their lives in solo, low-level mission over hostile territory. Further south, the Steel Tiger campaign was less covert. Arc Light B-52 strikes were flown frequently, and the fearsome AC-130 was introduced to cut the trails. At the same time, many thousands of North Vietnamese troops and civilians repeatedly made the long, arduous journey along the trail in trucks or, more often, pushing French bicycles laden with ammunition and rice. Under constant threat of air attack and enduring heavy losses, they devised extremely ingenious means of survival. The campaign to cut the trails endured for the entire Vietnam War but nothing more than partial success could ever be achieved by the USA. This illustrated title explores the fascinating history of this campaign, analysing the forces involved and explaining why the USA could never truly conquer the Ho Chi Minh trail.

Tragic Mountains

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Author :
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780253207562
Total Pages : 632 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (75 download)

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Book Synopsis Tragic Mountains by : Jane Hamilton-Merritt

Download or read book Tragic Mountains written by Jane Hamilton-Merritt and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 632 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tragic Mountains tells the story of the Hmong's struggle for freedom and survival in Laos from 1942 through 1992. During those years, most Hmong sided with the French against the Japanese and Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh, and then with the Americans against the North Viemamese.

The Pathet Lao: Leadership and Organization

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Author :
Publisher : Lexington, Mass : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 200 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis The Pathet Lao: Leadership and Organization by : Joseph Jermiah Zasloff

Download or read book The Pathet Lao: Leadership and Organization written by Joseph Jermiah Zasloff and published by Lexington, Mass : Lexington Books. This book was released on 1973 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The report analyzes the Laotian revolutionary movement commonly known as the Pathet Lao--its leaders, commanding party (People's Party of Laos), the Lao Patriotic Front, its political and administrative organization, and its military forces. The document also presents biographical information on 12 'founding fathers' who are probably among the leading policymakers, and discusses their characteristics. Leadership continuity is remarkable, having lasted through 20 years of intermittent war and coalition with no evidence of major purges or defections. Eight appendixes include biographies, policy statements, a list of fronts, and brief profiles of 53 informants.

A History of Laos

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Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521597463
Total Pages : 278 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (974 download)

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Book Synopsis A History of Laos by : Martin Stuart-Fox

Download or read book A History of Laos written by Martin Stuart-Fox and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1997-09-28 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This authoritative and wide-ranging 1997 history traces events in this little-known country from ancient monarchy, through its establishment as a French colony, to independence in 1953, the People's Democratic Republic, and the present one-party authoritarianism. The book highlights Laos' complex and shifting political alliances. The struggle for independence from France was followed by a struggle for unity and neutrality in the face of persistent foreign intervention, as the country was drawn into the war in Vietnam. Only with the end of the Cold War and the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops has Laos been able to reassert its neutral foreign policy and develop a market economy. This book is an impressive political, social, cultural and economic history. It will be essential for anyone wanting to understand Laos as it joins ASEAN, faces great economic challenges and struggles to maintain its cultural identity.

A Great Place to Have a War

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Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1451667868
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (516 download)

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Book Synopsis A Great Place to Have a War by : Joshua Kurlantzick

Download or read book A Great Place to Have a War written by Joshua Kurlantzick and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-01-24 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1960. President Eisenhower was focused on Laos, a tiny Southeast Asian nation. Washington feared the country would fall to communism, triggering a domino effect in the rest of Southeast Asia. In January 1961, Eisenhower approved the CIA's Operation Momentum, a plan to create a proxy army of ethnic Hmong to fight communist forces in Laos. Kurlantzick shows how the brutal war lasted nearly two decades, killed one-tenth of Laos's total population, and changed the nature of the CIA forever.