This book details CIA-supported paramilitary operations in Laos during the height of the conflict in that kingdom, from late 1969 through the conclusion of agency participation in 1974.
Ken Conboy Knihy
Volumes 1 and 2 covered the rise of the CIA's cover operations in Laos. Volume 3 covers the gradually escalating CIA-supported overt operations, foremost including the build up and combat deployment of the regular Royal Lao Armed Forces.
This is the story of how the US government — primarily through the CIA and often in cooperation with India — came to harness, nurture, and encourage Tibetan defiance in one of the most extreme covert campaigns of the Cold War. In particular, it details an important chapter in the CIA’s paramilitary history. In Tibet, new kinds of equipment — aircraft and parachutes, for example — were combat-tested under the most extreme conditions imaginable. New communications techniques were tried and perfected. In many cases, these lessons learned would be applied to other Cold War battlefields like Vietnam, Laos, and elsewhere. Tibet, therefore, became a vital proving ground for CIA case officers and their spycraft.