DIY History | Transcribe | Campus Culture | University of Iowa anti-war protests, 1970 | 1970-10-07 ""Iowa City People's Peace Treaty Committee"" Page 7

Transcribe
Translate

University of Iowa anti-war protests, 1970

1970-10-07 ""Iowa City People's Peace Treaty Committee"" Page 7

for final approval before being turned over to the Air Force for execution. 
The Ambassador during this period, William Sullivan, was opposed to unrestricted bombing of civilian targets, and imposed other limitations such as forbidding the use of napalm in populated areas. He argued basically that a widened air war could only result in an escalated ground war, and possibly open up a second front for the United States in Laos. Opposing the introduction of American ground troops against the Ho Chi Minh trail on much the same basis, he was infrequent conflict with both the military and the CIA.
By 1967 the CIA had become a forceful advocate of bombing population centers in Pathet Lao territory. Unlike Vietnam, where its main function was intelligence-gathering, the CIA has been intimately involved in operations here. It directs the 30,000 man Armeee Clandestine, which does the bulk of the fighting. And with its own team of photo interpretors, control of reconnaissance aircraft, and teams of local ground observers, the CIA has played a key role in targeting sessions as well. As the Armee Clandestine began suffering reverses on the ground, the CIA held that heavy bombing of the Pathet Lao civilian infrastructure was necessary. 
Its position was in part conditioned by the attitude taken by Meo General Vang Pao, who controls most of the Armee Clandestine's forces. Vang Pao is generally reluctant to launch offensives unless they are preceded by massive American bombing. He is well known in Laos his periodic retreats to his base at Long Cheng, where he is said to sulk until requests are granted. The need to keep Vang Pao fighting had much to do with the CIA's hard line on the bombing. 
As long as the Air Force placed first priority on the air war over North Vietnam, however, Sullivan was able to enforce a policy of limited strikes. Relatively few aircraft were available for strikes outside the Ho Chi Minh trail. And, through the use of his own photo interpretation team. Sullivan managed to keep tabs on most of the bombing. 
When the bombing began, a group of four photo interpretors were assigned to Vientiane. Although members of the Air Force, they were assigned to the top-secret Project 404 of supplementary military personnel. As such, they were directly responsible to the Ambassador. Going over reconnaissance film daily, they provided an independent check on Air Force Activities. 
This means of verification, however, has its limitations. Unlike in North Vietnam, reconnaissance missions were not flown after each strike. Rather, a given target would be photographed by jets of the 432nd tactical reconnaissance squadron once over a period of 2 weeks to 3 months. Thus it was often most difficult to assess when a given strike had occurred, or who had been responsible for it. In addition, reconnaissance was rarely done on areas which had not been approved as targets.
The Terrain Following Radar, meant to record the point at which bombs were released, proved equally imprecise. Depending upon the wind and angle of delivery, ordinance might land as far as a half mile away from the point over which it was dropped. And it was rarely possible to check back over the tens of thousands of feet of barely distinguishable black blobs recorded on the radar tape. 
These restrictions on the Ambassador's control over the bombing were dramatically illustrated by the bombing of Sap Nao in September, 1967. Sap Nao was a small village in northern Laos, about 2 miles from a communist off landing area near Highway 19. The CIA, arguing that ammunition was being stored in Sap Nao, put it forth as a target for bombing on four separate occasions. The Ambassador refused to authorize it each time, on the ground that there was no evidence that it was an arms depot and that as a village it was this off limits. 
In November, 1967. however, a reconnaissance aircraft accidentally strayed off target and happened to photograph Sap Nao. A routine check of the film revealed that the village had been obliterated. Unofficial investigations showed that CIA personnel on their own initiative had instructed AIE pilots of the 56th Special Operations Wing at Nakhorn Phanom Air Force base in Thailand to bomb Sap Nao. The pilots, unaware that the Ambassador had not approved the target, had made the strikes. It was later established as well that in fact no ammunition had been stored in the village. 
The incident did more than reveal the inadequacy of Ambassadorial verification procedures. No disciplinary action was taken against the CIA men responsible. Caught between powerful pressure groups, Sullivan was unable to exert full control over the air war. 
Sap Nao and similar incidents led to a good deal of friction between the CIA and the Project 404 photo reconnaissance teams in Vientaine. In September 1968, CIA pressure finally resulted in the removal of the reconnaissance group down to Udorn, Thailand. Its departure marked the 

[insert] " The President has made it very clear that should any decision be made, or a recommendation on his part be made as far as the use of American military ground combat forces in Laos, that he would come to the Congress of the United States for such approval."
Melvin R. Laird
Secretary of Defense
Washington D.C. 
February 26, 1970 

end of independent verification by the Embassy of strikes against targets it had approved. 
November, 1968, marked the befinning of the end of the restricted strike policy. As bombers began to pour into Laos. limited targeting and strike control became almost impossible. 
The departure of Ambassador Sullivan five months later removed most of the remaining limitations on civilian raids. His replacement G. McMurtie Godley III, soon allied himself with those urging a wider bombing campaign. Arriving at the end of a dry season in which the communists had made greater gains than ever before, Godley also felt that operational efficiency demanded closer working relations with the military and CIA.
An American official intimately concerned with the bombing recently explained the change: " Sullivan was constantly on the outs with the Air Force. Oftentimes he'd have to go all the way to Washington to get the military to do what he wanted. But under Godley, things are much smoother. Everything is worked out here. Basically, he allows them to do what they want on the "Trail" and in return he gets the aircraft he wants 

[hand drawn map]
elsewhere His requests have top priority now."
Godley's tenure has seen a meeting of minds between the Embassy, Air Force and CIA. All are in agreement on the necessity of a widened air war.
At this point, target selection within Laos rests almost entirely with the CIA. Based on its own photo interpretation team, and ground observers operating behind or near enemy lines, the CIA puts up targets for Embassy approval. 
These requests are handled by a junior Foreign Service Officer, who lacks both formal training in photo interpretation and independent means of verification. Embassy authorization of suggested targets has become largely pro forma. 
With the abolition of weekly target meetings, the Air Force has acquired a greater degree of control over the air war. Weekly "frags" (strike schedules) are no longer the result of heated controversy. They are prepared by the Air Force from a large list of approved targets, based on its own priorities and CIA recommendations. 
The much increased CIA role in targeting and operation control is due more to its mystique than formal delegation of authority. The Agency is highly regarded by the military, both in terms of its general intelligence gathering capabilities and its familiarity with Laos. Air Force officers attached tp the 4802nd Joint Liason Detachment at Udorn -- which coordinates Air Force and CIA functions -- ragard approval by the Agency as an index of their performance, and rarely oppose its recommendations. 
As control of the air war has passed to those advocating a hard bombing policy, former Ambassador Sullican's fear that the ground war would escalate along with it has been realized. Whether increased ground war is the cause or the result of the escalated air war is debatable. What is certain is that Laos now knows more war - above and below than ever before. 

human cost 
When asked about the bombing a Pathet Lao defector, a former lieutenant, said: " We would move through the forest, in small groups. We had our own methods to hide. ut the people had to stay near their villages. For every soldier who was killed, 50 villagers died from the bombing. I never had a man in my company killed or even injured from the bombing."
The comment underscores the essential dilemma of American air power in Laos: though it does extensive damage to the Pathet Lao civilian infrastructure, it is relatively ineffective against military targets. 
Despite the massive bombing of the last two years, the United States now finds itself in a weaker position in Laos than at any time since the air war began. During the past two years, communist forces in Northern Laos took the major bases of Na Khang and Moung Soul, rendered Sam Thong inactive as a center for refugee operations, and installed themselves in force southwest of the Plain of Jars for the first time. In southern Laos they captures the provincial capitals of Saravene and Attopeu, and extended their control over most of Laos' six southern provinces.
The CIA directed Armee Clandestine has taken high losses, and according to informed sources in no longer capable of carrying out a sustained offensive. The Royal Lao Army, assigned to static defense of major towns and bases, has found its area of control shrinking steadily. 
At this writing the Royal Lao Government controls little more than from ten to twenty percent of Laos' territory around the 12 (of 16) provincial capitals in RLG hands. Most of the area is supplied by air, and no more than a few hundred miles of roads are considered safe for travel by American or Lao civilian officials. The Pathet Lao control about 60% of Laos. The remainder is no man's land where small roving bands of communist guerrillas forestall permanent RLG presence.
The military ineffectiveness of air power was illustrated by the well publicized battle of the Plain of Jars in February , 1970. Despite some of the heaviest bombing to date, including the first use of B52s in northern Laos, communist forces retook the Plain in five days. In May, 1964, before the beginning of the air war, the Pathet Lao took the Plain in three days. 
Refugees and defector sources indicate that the bombing increased moral and combat efficiency of Pathet Lao troops, and led to a replacement of losses with men and material from North Viet Nam. 
A Young refugee who fought with the Pathet Lao for five years recently explained : "Before the bombing started, we really didn't know what they meant by 'American imperialism' . Most of us had never even seen an American. But the bombing made us hate the Americans very much. We fought much harder than we ever had before, for our villages and families, homes and belongings."
Refugees from the Plain of Jars say that during the 1964 and 1965 volunteerism for the Pathet Lao army was about 30%. But by 1969 almost all young men and women were willing to volunteer to fight. It was "better to die fighting than hiding in a trench," they often said. 
In heavily populated civilian areas, moreover, "people's Armies" needed to devote a good deal of their time and resources to working together with the local population. But in such areas as the Plain of Jars, from which the civilian population was taken down to Vientiane in February, 1970, the Pathet Lao were freed for more exclusively military activities. Defectors indicate that this increased combat efficiency. 
A key to Pathet Lao successes in recent years had been help from Morth Viet Nam As the bombing of North Viet Nam failed in its primary objective partially because of aid received from the Soviet Union and China, so has North Vietnamese aid sustained the Pathet Lao during the escalated bombing campaign that began in November, 1968 
(continued on bottom of page 8)

[insert]"There are no American ground combat troops in Laos.
" We have no plans for introducing ground combat forces into Laos
" No American stationed in Laos has ever been killed in ground combat operations."
Richard M. Nixon
President of the United States
Key Biscayne, Florida
March 6, 1970 

7

Saving...

for final approval before being turned over to the Air Force for execution. The Ambassador during this period, William Sullivan, was opposed to unrestricted bombing of civilian targets, and imposed other limitations such as forbidding the use of napalm in populated areas. He argued basically that a widened air war could only result in an escalated ground war, and possibly open up a second front for the United States in Laos. Opposing the introduction of American ground troops against the Ho Chi Minh trail on much the same basis, he was infrequent conflict with both the military and the CIA. By 1967 the CIA had become a forceful advocate of bombing population centers in Pathet Lao territory. Unlike Vietnam, where its main function was intelligence-gathering, the CIA has been intimately involved in operations here. It directs the 30,000 man Armeee Clandestine, which does the bulk of the fighting. And with its own team of photo interpretors, control of reconnaissance aircraft, and teams of local ground observers, the CIA has played a key role in targeting sessions as well. As the Armee Clandestine began suffering reverses on the ground, the CIA held that heavy bombing of the Pathet Lao civilian infrastructure was necessary. Its position was in part conditioned by the attitude taken by Meo General Vang Pao, who controls most of the Armee Clandestine's forces. Vang Pao is generally reluctant to launch offensives unless they are preceded by massive American bombing. He is well known in Laos his periodic retreats to his base at Long Cheng, where he is said to sulk until requests are granted. The need to keep Vang Pao fighting had much to do with the CIA's hard line on the bombing. As long as the Air Force placed first priority on the air war over North Vietnam, however, Sullivan was able to enforce a policy of limited strikes. Relatively few aircraft were available for strikes outside the Ho Chi Minh trail. And, through the use of his own photo interpretation team. Sullivan managed to keep tabs on most of the bombing. When the bombing began, a group of four photo interpretors were assigned to Vientiane. Although members of the Air Force, they were assigned to the top-secret Project 404 of supplementary military personnel. As such, they were directly responsible to the Ambassador. Going over reconnaissance film daily, they provided an independent check on Air Force Activities. This means of verification, however, has its limitations. Unlike in North Vietnam, reconnaissance missions were not flown after each strike. Rather, a given target would be photographed by jets of the 432nd tactical reconnaissance squadron once over a period of 2 weeks to 3 months. Thus it was often most difficult to assess when a given strike had occurred, or who had been responsible for it. In addition, reconnaissance was rarely done on areas which had not been approved as targets. The Terrain Following Radar, meant to record the point at which bombs were released, proved equally imprecise. Depending upon the wind and angle of delivery, ordinance might land as far as a half mile away from the point over which it was dropped. And it was rarely possible to check back over the tens of thousands of feet of barely distinguishable black blobs recorded on the radar tape. These restrictions on the Ambassador's control over the bombing were dramatically illustrated by the bombing of Sap Nao in September, 1967. Sap Nao was a small village in northern Laos, about 2 miles from a communist off landing area near Highway 19. The CIA, arguing that ammunition was being stored in Sap Nao, put it forth as a target for bombing on four separate occasions. The Ambassador refused to authorize it each time, on the ground that there was no evidence that it was an arms depot and that as a village it was this off limits. In November, 1967. however, a reconnaissance aircraft accidentally strayed off target and happened to photograph Sap Nao. A routine check of the film revealed that the village had been obliterated. Unofficial investigations showed that CIA personnel on their own initiative had instructed AIE pilots of the 56th Special Operations Wing at Nakhorn Phanom Air Force base in Thailand to bomb Sap Nao. The pilots, unaware that the Ambassador had not approved the target, had made the strikes. It was later established as well that in fact no ammunition had been stored in the village. The incident did more than reveal the inadequacy of Ambassadorial verification procedures. No disciplinary action was taken against the CIA men responsible. Caught between powerful pressure groups, Sullivan was unable to exert full control over the air war. Sap Nao and similar incidents led to a good deal of friction between the CIA and the Project 404 photo reconnaissance teams in Vientaine. In September 1968, CIA pressure finally resulted in the removal of the reconnaissance group down to Udorn, Thailand. Its departure marked the [insert] " The President has made it very clear that should any decision be made, or a recommendation on his part be made as far as the use of American military ground combat forces in Laos, that he would come to the Congress of the United States for such approval." Melvin R. Laird Secretary of Defense Washington D.C. February 26, 1970 end of independent verification by the Embassy of strikes against targets it had approved. November, 1968, marked the befinning of the end of the restricted strike policy. As bombers began to pour into Laos. limited targeting and strike control became almost impossible. The departure of Ambassador Sullivan five months later removed most of the remaining limitations on civilian raids. His replacement G. McMurtie Godley III, soon allied himself with those urging a wider bombing campaign. Arriving at the end of a dry season in which the communists had made greater gains than ever before, Godley also felt that operational efficiency demanded closer working relations with the military and CIA. An American official intimately concerned with the bombing recently explained the change: " Sullivan was constantly on the outs with the Air Force. Oftentimes he'd have to go all the way to Washington to get the military to do what he wanted. But under Godley, things are much smoother. Everything is worked out here. Basically, he allows them to do what they want on the "Trail" and in return he gets the aircraft he wants [hand drawn map] elsewhere His requests have top priority now." Godley's tenure has seen a meeting of minds between the Embassy, Air Force and CIA. All are in agreement on the necessity of a widened air war. At this point, target selection within Laos rests almost entirely with the CIA. Based on its own photo interpretation team, and ground observers operating behind or near enemy lines, the CIA puts up targets for Embassy approval. These requests are handled by a junior Foreign Service Officer, who lacks both formal training in photo interpretation and independent means of verification. Embassy authorization of suggested targets has become largely pro forma. With the abolition of weekly target meetings, the Air Force has acquired a greater degree of control over the air war. Weekly "frags" (strike schedules) are no longer the result of heated controversy. They are prepared by the Air Force from a large list of approved targets, based on its own priorities and CIA recommendations. The much increased CIA role in targeting and operation control is due more to its mystique than formal delegation of authority. The Agency is highly regarded by the military, both in terms of its general intelligence gathering capabilities and its familiarity with Laos. Air Force officers attached tp the 4802nd Joint Liason Detachment at Udorn -- which coordinates Air Force and CIA functions -- ragard approval by the Agency as an index of their performance, and rarely oppose its recommendations. As control of the air war has passed to those advocating a hard bombing policy, former Ambassador Sullican's fear that the ground war would escalate along with it has been realized. Whether increased ground war is the cause or the result of the escalated air war is debatable. What is certain is that Laos now knows more war - above and below than ever before. human cost When asked about the bombing a Pathet Lao defector, a former lieutenant, said: " We would move through the forest, in small groups. We had our own methods to hide. ut the people had to stay near their villages. For every soldier who was killed, 50 villagers died from the bombing. I never had a man in my company killed or even injured from the bombing." The comment underscores the essential dilemma of American air power in Laos: though it does extensive damage to the Pathet Lao civilian infrastructure, it is relatively ineffective against military targets. Despite the massive bombing of the last two years, the United States now finds itself in a weaker position in Laos than at any time since the air war began. During the past two years, communist forces in Northern Laos took the major bases of Na Khang and Moung Soul, rendered Sam Thong inactive as a center for refugee operations, and installed themselves in force southwest of the Plain of Jars for the first time. In southern Laos they captures the provincial capitals of Saravene and Attopeu, and extended their control over most of Laos' six southern provinces. The CIA directed Armee Clandestine has taken high losses, and according to informed sources in no longer capable of carrying out a sustained offensive. The Royal Lao Army, assigned to static defense of major towns and bases, has found its area of control shrinking steadily. At this writing the Royal Lao Government controls little more than from ten to twenty percent of Laos' territory around the 12 (of 16) provincial capitals in RLG hands. Most of the area is supplied by air, and no more than a few hundred miles of roads are considered safe for travel by American or Lao civilian officials. The Pathet Lao control about 60% of Laos. The remainder is no man's land where small roving bands of communist guerrillas forestall permanent RLG presence. The military ineffectiveness of air power was illustrated by the well publicized battle of the Plain of Jars in February , 1970. Despite some of the heaviest bombing to date, including the first use of B52s in northern Laos, communist forces retook the Plain in five days. In May, 1964, before the beginning of the air war, the Pathet Lao took the Plain in three days. Refugees and defector sources indicate that the bombing increased moral and combat efficiency of Pathet Lao troops, and led to a replacement of losses with men and material from North Viet Nam. A Young refugee who fought with the Pathet Lao for five years recently explained : "Before the bombing started, we really didn't know what they meant by 'American imperialism' . Most of us had never even seen an American. But the bombing made us hate the Americans very much. We fought much harder than we ever had before, for our villages and families, homes and belongings." Refugees from the Plain of Jars say that during the 1964 and 1965 volunteerism for the Pathet Lao army was about 30%. But by 1969 almost all young men and women were willing to volunteer to fight. It was "better to die fighting than hiding in a trench," they often said. In heavily populated civilian areas, moreover, "people's Armies" needed to devote a good deal of their time and resources to working together with the local population. But in such areas as the Plain of Jars, from which the civilian population was taken down to Vientiane in February, 1970, the Pathet Lao were freed for more exclusively military activities. Defectors indicate that this increased combat efficiency. A key to Pathet Lao successes in recent years had been help from Morth Viet Nam As the bombing of North Viet Nam failed in its primary objective partially because of aid received from the Soviet Union and China, so has North Vietnamese aid sustained the Pathet Lao during the escalated bombing campaign that began in November, 1968 (continued on bottom of page 8) [insert]"There are no American ground combat troops in Laos. " We have no plans for introducing ground combat forces into Laos " No American stationed in Laos has ever been killed in ground combat operations." Richard M. Nixon President of the United States Key Biscayne, Florida March 6, 1970 7