The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia

7 The Golden Triangle: Heroin Is Our Most Important Product

1. Lao Presse (Vientiane: Ministry of Information, #1448/71), April 8, 1971.

2. Ibid. (#1459/71), April 24, 1971.

3. Ibid. (#1460/71), April 26, 1971.

4. The New York Times, August 11, 1971, p. 1.

5. Interview with diplomatic officials, Vientiane, Laos, August and September 1971.

6. Interview with an agent, U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, New Haven, Connecticut, November 18, 1971.

7. Report of the United Nations Survey Team on the Economic and Social Needs of the Opium-Producing Areas in Thailand (Bangkok: Government House Printing Office, 1967), pp. 59, 64, 68; The New York Times, September 17, 1963, p. 45; June 6, 1971, p. 2.

8. Interview with John Warner, Washington, D.C., October 14, 1971. (John Warner is chief of the Strategic Intelligence Office of the S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.)

9. John Hughes, The Junk Merchants (Boston: The Christian Science Publishing Company, 1970), pp. 13-14.

10. The New York Times, April 3, 1970, p. 3; the director of the U.S. Bureau of Narcotics, John E. Ingersoll, has testified that the 80 percent figure "has been handed down from very obscure beginnings" and admitted that he has not been able to verify the figure. (U.S. Congress Senate Committee on Appropriations, Foreign Assistance and RelaQ Proqrams Appropriations for Fiscal Year 1972, 92nd Cong., Ist sess., 1971, p. 610.)

11. The New York Times, June 6, 1971, p. 2.

12. Alain Y. Dessaint, "The Poppies Are Beautiful This Year," Natural History, February 1972, p. 31.

13. Morgan F. Murphy and Robert H. Steele, The World Heroin Problem, 92nd Cong., Ist sess. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, May 1971), p. 20.

14. The Milford Citizen (Milford; Connecticut), September 28, 1971.

15. Interview with an agent, U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, Washington, D.C., October 21, 1971.

16. The New York Times, June 6, 1971, p. 2.

17. Interview with Police Col. Smith Boonlikit, Bangkok, Thailand, September 17, 1971. In mid 1971 the going price for a gram of no. 4 heroin in Bangkok was about $2 (40 baht), compared to about 120 (2.5 baht) for no. 3 heroin.

18. About sixty-five tons of opium are smuggled into the major cities in upper and central Burma for local consumption, but almost none gets beyond these cities into the international markets (interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971. William Young worked for the CIA from 1958 until 1967).

19. Ibid.

20. U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, "The World Opium Situation," mimeographed (Washington, D.C., October 1970), p. 10.

21. The New York Times, June 6, 1971, p. 2.

22. The Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), June 19, 1972.

23. Interview with Elliot K. Chan, Vientiane, Laos, August 15, 1971. (Elliot K. Chan is a USAID police adviser to the Royal Laotian government.) Interview with an agent, U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, New Haven, Connecticut, November 18, 1971.

24. Interview with Edward Fillingham, Vientiane, Laos, September 5, 1971. (Edward Fillingham is the director of the Foreign Exchange Operations Fund.)

25. Louis Kraar, "Report from Laos," Fortune, September 1, 1968, p. 52.

26. Ibid., p. 54.

27. Far Eastern Economic Review, 1971 Yearbook (Hong Kong), p. 216; Straits Times (Singapore), August 22, 1969; Eastern Sun (Singapore), February 24, 1971.

28. British Broadcasting Corporation interview with Sisouk na Champassak, Vientiane, Laos, 1970. (The quotation is filed at BBC Lime Grove Studios, London, England.)

29. For example, Sisouk himself made this statement before the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs in 1957:

"The Royal Government is determined, as it always has been:
1. to prohibit the production or consumption of opium derivatives throughout the national territory under its control;
2. to take vigorous measures to combat illicit traffic;
3. to ensure effective and complete enforcement of the prohibition of the consumption of opium"


(United Nations, Economic and Social Council, Commission on Narcotic Drugs, Illicit Traffic, 12th sess., agenda item no. 4 [E/CN.7/1_1691, May 28, 1957; [no. 295/MPL/ONU] May 29, 1957).

30. The Washington Post, July 8, 1971.

31. Interview with Police Col. Smith Boonlikit, Bangkok, Thailand, September 21, 1971. (Colonel Boonlikit allowed the authors to read and copy reports from U.S. customs, U.S. Bureau of Narcotics, and Interpol relating to Corsican syndicates in Southeast Asia. Practically all of the following information is based on these reports unless otherwise noted.)

32. Interview with Touby Lyfoung, Vientiane, Laos, September 4, 1971; Time, February 29, 1960, p. 35.

33. Paule Bernard, Lotus, Opium et Kimonos (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1959), p. 90; telephone interview with an agent, Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, Washington, Dr.., December 20, 1971.

34. Paul Louis Levet's syndicate consisted of six men, including himself:

1. Jacques Texier.
2. Jean "Jeannot" Giansily, who reportedly arrived in Indochina from France in 1954-1955 and first worked for Bonaventure Francisci. Later hired by Levet.
3. Barth6lemy "M6m6" Rutilly, Levet's contact man in Saigon.
4. Charles Orsini, an elderly Corsican resident of Phnom Penh who served as the contact man in Cambodia.
5. Tran Hung Dao, an alias for a Vietnamese member of the syndicate.

35. In late 1959 or early 1960, for example, a small Beaver aircraft chartered from Roger Zoile picked up three hundred kilos of opium at Muong Sing, in northwestern Laos, for Levet's "account." The aircraft landed at a small strip on the western edge of Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia, where the opium was repacked in orange crates and trucked to the Cambodian seaport of Kompot. From there half was shipped to Hong Kong and the other half to Singapore.

36. Interview with Lt. Col. Lucien Conein, McLean, Virginia, June 18, 1971.

37. Interview with Gen. Ouane Rattikone, Vientiane, Laos, September 1, 1971.

38. Joel "alvern, "The Role of Chinese in Lao Society," Journal of the Siam Society 49, pt. I (July 1961), 31-34.

39. Joel M. Halpern, Economy and Society of Laos (New Haven: Southeast Asian Studies, Yale University, 1964), pp. 117-118.

40. Stanley Karnow, "The Opium Must Go Through," Life, August 30, 1963, pp. 11-12; Hong Kong Dispatch 4222, from Jerry Rose to Time, Inc. (November 9, 1962).

41. Ibid.

42. L'Express, no. 1052 (September 6-12, 1971), p. 18. (This article identified JeanBaptiste Andr6ani, a Guerini partisan during the vendetta discussed in Chapter 2, as an associate of Antoine Guerini and Bonaventure Francisci.)

43. U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs has the following information on this incident:

1. Owners of the aircraft: Ren� Enjabal and Lucien Don Carlini.
2. Vientiane opium dealers: Roger Lasen, Maurice Lecore, Ao Thien Hing (Chinese resident of Laos), and Thao Shu Luang Prasot (Chinese resident of Laos).
3. Waiting for the opium on the ground in Ban Me Thuot were: Charles Merelle (French), Padovani (French Corsican) and Phan Dao Thuan (Vietnamese).
4. Opium was destined for two Chinese distributors in Cholon: Ky Van Chan and Ky Mu.
5. Also believed to be involved as financiers: Roger Zoile and Francois Mittard
(telephone interview with an agent, U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, Washington, D.C., December 20, 1971).

44. Karnow, "The Opium Must Go Through," p. 12.

45. Telephone interview with an agent, U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, Washington, D.C., December 20, 1971.

46. Also arrested were Mme. Isabela Mittard, Roger Boisviller, Roger Paul Jean, Etienne Kassubeck, and Jean Roger Barbarel. Barbaret escaped from prison in 1960 and has never been apprehended.

47. According to Vietnamese Passport Control, Frangois Mittard visited Laos briefly from December 28 to 30, 1964, and left Saigon for Laos on January 31, 1965. He has never returned to Vietnam (interview with Ton That Binh, Vietnamese Passport Control, Saigon, Vietnam, September 10, 1971).

48. Hong Kong Dispatch #222, from Jerry Rose (November 9, 1962).

49. The New York Times, May 8, 1953, p. 4; U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, "The World Opium Situation," p. 10.

50. Interview with Gen. Ouane Rattikone, Vientiane, Laos, September 1971.

51. Len E. Ackland, "No Place for Neutralism: The Eisenhower Administration and Laos," in Nina S. Adams and Alfred W. McCoy, eds., Laos: War and Revolution (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), p. 149.

52. Arthur J. Dommen, Conflict in Laos (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1971), p. 116; Roger Hilsman, To Move a Nation (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1967), pp. 114-115.

53. David Wise and Thomas B. Ross, The Invisible Government (New York: Random House, 1964), p. 153.

54. Interview with Gen. Ouane Rattikone, Vientiane, Laos, September 1, 1971.

55. Interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 14, 1971.

56. Interview with Gen. Ouane Rattikone, Vientiane, Laos, September 1, 1971.

57. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, p. 219.

58. Le Monde (Paris), May 24-25, 1964.

59. Far Eastern Economic Review, May 28, 1964, p. 421.

60. Le Monde, May 24-25, 1964.

61. General Ouane gave the authors the following statistics:

Contr�le du Opium au Laos
Month Report No. Amount exported Profits Equivalent (Dollar)
November 1963 Report I/A 1,146 kgs. 1,948,200 baht $97,410
December 1963 Report 2/V 1,128 kgs. 1,917,000 baht $95,880
January 1964 Report 2/V 1,125 kgs. 1,912,500 baht $95,625

(Interview with Gen. Ouane Rattikone, Vientiane, Laos, September 1, 1971.)

62. Ibid.

63. General Kouprasith told one reporter that, "some of the things he [Phoumi] has done with the economy of the nation are wrong, including the introduction of gambling and the monopolies. Some of the things he has done have helped to support and strengthen the Communists in their attack on us" (Dommen, Conflict in Laos, p. 265); Lao Presse (Vientiane: Ministry of Information, #3764), April 20, 1964.

64. D. Gareth Porter, "After Geneva: Subverting Laotian Neutrality," in Adams and McCoy, eds., Laos: War an,~Revolution, p. 204.

65. Far Eastern Economic Review, May 28, 1964, p. 421.

66. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, pp. 286-287.

67. Lao Presse (Vientiane: Ministry of Information, #3998), February 8, 1965.

68. Cabled dispatch from Shaw, Vientiane (Hong Kong Bureau), to Time, Inc., received September 16-17, 1965.

69. The New York Times, The Pentagon Papers (New York: Quadrangle Books, 1971), pp. 313-314.

70. Interview with Gen. Ouane Rattikone, Vientiane, Laos, September 1, 1971; interview with Gen. Thao Ma, Bangkok, Thailand, September 17, 1971; Don A. Schancbe, Mister Pop (New York: David McKay Company, 1970), pp. 240-245.

71. The authors visited Long Pot village in the region west of the Plain of Jars in August 1971 and interviewed local officials, opium farmers, and soldiers who confirmed Air America's role in the local opium trade.

72. James Hamilton-Paterson, The Greedy War (New York: David Mckay, 1971), pp. 275-276.

73. Interview with Gen. Edward G. Lansdale, Alexandria, Virginia, June 17, 1971.

74. Interview with Lt. Col. Lucien Conein, McLean, Virginia, June 18, 197 1.

75. Interview with Gen. Edward G. Lansdale, Alexandria, Virginia, June 17, 1971.

76. Peter Kunstadter, "Vietnam: Introduction," in Peter Kunstadter d., Southeast Asian Tribes, Minorities, and Nations (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967), pp. 681-682; Howard Shochurek, "Americans in Action in Vietnam," National Geographic 127, no. I (January 1965), 38-64.

77. Interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971.

78. Interview with Gen. Edward G. Lansdale, Alexandria, Virginia, June 17, 1971.

79. Genevieve Sowards and Erville Sowards, Burma Baptist Chronicle (Rangoon: Board of Publications, Burma Baptist Convention, 1963), pp. 411-414.

80. Interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971.

81. The Boston Globe, September 3, 1970.

82. The CIA's Tibetan operations began in August 1959, when twenty Khamba tribesmen from southern Tibet arrived in Camp Hale, Colorado, for special training. These men, and others like them, served as cadres in the CIA's guerrilla army, which devoted most of its resources to mining the two major roads between Tibet and China. Through these operations the CIA hoped to slow the flow of Chinese men and materiel moving into Tibet, and thereby strengthen the political position of the exiled Dalai Lama. When the operations were curtailed in May 1960, there were an estimated forty-two thousand Khamba guerrillas fighting for the CIA inside Tibet (L. Fletcher Prouty, article in The Empire Gazette [Denver, Colorado], February 6, 1972).

83. Interview with Don A. Schanche, Larchmont, New York, February 12, 1971. Don Schanche is the author of Mister Pop.

84. Interview with Maj. Chao La, Ban Nam Keung, Laos, September 12, 1971. (Maj. Chao La is commander of Yao mercenary troops in Nam Tha Province for the CIA.)

85. Schanche, Mister Pop, p. 5.

86. John Lewallen, "The Reluctant Counterinsurgents: International Voluntary Services in Laos," in Adams and McCoy, eds., Laos: War and Revolution, pp. 361362; for an official USAID admission of the military character of these "humanitarian" refugee operations, see U.S. Congress, Senate Committee of the Judiciary, Refugee and Civilian War Casualty Problems in Indochina, 91st Cong., 2nd sess., 1970, pp. 22-24.

87. Schanche, Mister Pop, pp. 241-242.

88. Interview with Touby Lyfoung, Vientiane, Laos, September 1, 1971.

89. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, pp. 294-295.

90. Interview with a Royal Laotian Army officer, Vientiane, Laos, August 1971. (This interview is the basis for the foregoing description of Vang Pao's early career.)

91. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, pp. 133-134.

92. Lao Presse (Vientiane: Ministry of Information, #2,700), September 12, 1960.

93. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, p. 154.

94. Lao Presse (Vientiane: Ministry of Information, #2,692), September 1, 1960.

95. Ibid. (#2,716), September 29, 1960.

96. Interview with a Royal Laotian Army officer, Vientiane, Laos, August 1971.

97. Interview with Touby Lyfoung, Vientiane, Laos, September 1, 1971.

98. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, pp. 161, 296; interview with Touby Lyfoung, Vientiane, Laos, September 1, 1971.

99. Hugh Toye, Laos: Bufler State or Battleground (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), p. 161.

100. Schanche, Mister Pop, pp. 75-76.

101. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, pp. 179, 207.

102. Interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971.

103. Interview with Ger Su Yang, Long Pot village, Laos, August 19, 1971.

104. Interview with Capt. Kong Le, Paris, France, March 22, 1971.

105. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, p. 207.

106. Schanche, Mister Pop, pp. 97-100.

107. Brig. Gen. Edward G. Lansdale, "Resources for Unconventional Warfare, S.E. Asia," in The New York Times, The Pentagon Papers, pp. 138-140.

108. Schanche, Mister Pop, pp. 103, 115-116.

109. Ibid., pp. 162-163.

110. U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on United States Security Agreements and Commitments Abroad, United States Security Agreements and Commitments Abroad, Kingdom of Laos, 91 st Cong., I st sess., 1970, pt. 2, p. 473.

111. Interview with William Young, Chianginai, Thailand, September 8, 1971; interview with a former USAID official in Nam Tha Province, Laos, June 1971.

112. Interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 197 1; Schanche, Mister Pop, pp. 171-173.

113. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, p. 183.

114. The New York Times, April 25, 1963, p. 7.

115. Interview with Capt. Kong Le, Paris, France, March 22, 1971.

116. An Australian anthropologist working in northern Thailand has shown that the high price of opium enabled the Meo in one village to support themselves on only onethird of the land it would have required to produce an adequate amount of rice for the village's subsistence (Douglas Miles, "Shifting Cultivation-Threats and Prospects," in Tribesmen and Peasants in North Thailand, Proceedings of the First Symposium of the Tribal Research Center [Chiangmai, Thailand: Tribal Research Center, 1967], p. 96.)

117. Schanche, Mister Pop, pp. 240-245.

118. Interview with Gen. Ouane Rattikone, Vientiane, Laos, September 1, 1971; interview with Gen. Thao Ma, Bangkok, Thailand, September 17, 1971.

119. Inter-view with Lo Kham Thy, Vientiane, Laos, September 2, 1971.

120. Interview with a former USAID official, Washington, D.C., June 1971.

121. Interview with high-ranking Meo officials, Vientiane, Laos, September 1971.

122. U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee

on United States Security Agreements and Commitments Abroad, Kingdom of Laos, pt. 2, p. 465.

123. Ibid., pp. 470, 490.

124. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, pp. 297, 299.

125. A Meo social scientist of Paris now working for his doctorate at the University of Paris estimates that there were eighty thousand Meo in Meng Khouang Province and fifty-five thousand in Sam Neua Province before the mass migrations began (interview with Yang Than Dao, Paris, France, March 17, 1971). One USAID refugee official at Ban Son estimates that there are a total of about 250,000 hill tribesmen living in the mountains of these two provinces (interview with George Cosgrove, Ban Son, Laos, August 30, 1971 ).

126. Schanche, Mister Pop, pp. 294-295; Senate Committee of the Judiciary, Refugee and Civilian War Casualty Problems in Indochina, pp. 24-28.

127. Interview with George Cosgrove, Ban Son, Laos, August 30, 1971.

128. Ibid.; U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on the Judiciary, War-Related Civilian Problems in Indochina, Part II: Laos and Cambodia, 92nd Cong., Ist sess., 1971, p. 48.

129. Interview with Lyteck Lynhiavu, Vientiane, Laos, August 28, 1971. (Lyteck Lynhiavu is a member of one of the most prestigious Meo clans in Laos and director of administration in the Ministry of the Interior.)

130. Ibid.; interviews with Meo villagers, Long Pot village, Laos, August 1971. The Royal Laotian government conducted an investigation of Vang Pao's regular infantry - battalions in September 1970 and found that all of them were far belO*w their reported payroll strength of 550 men: the Twenty-first Battalion had 293 men, the Twentyfourth Battalion had 73, the Twenty-sixth Battalion had 224, and the Twentyseventh Battalion had 113. According to Laotian army sources, Vang Pao was pocketing the difference.

131. Interview with George Cosgrove, Ban Son, Laos, August 30, 19 1. (George Cosgrove is a USAID refugee officer for Military Region II.)

132. James G. Lowenstein and Richard M. Moose, U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on U.S. Security Agreements and Commitments Abroad, Laos: April 1971, 91st Cong., Ist sess. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, August 1971), p. 16.

133. Robert Shaplen, Time Out of Hand (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), p. 352.

134. Interview with Chinese merchants, Vientiane, Laos, August 1971. It is very difficult to measure the exact impact of the U.S. bombing campaign and refugee movements on Laotian opium production. However, the U.S. Bureau of Narcotics has made an attempt. In 1968 the Bureau estimated Laos's production at 100-150 tons. In mid-1971 it estimated Laos's total production at 35 tons. (U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, "The World Opium Situation," p. 10; U.S. Congress, Senate Committeee on Appropriations, Foreign Assistance and Related Programs Appropriations for Fiscal Year 1972, 92nd Cong., Ist sess., 1971, p. 583.)

135. The authors visited Long Pot District from August 18 to August 23,

1971. Most of the following information is based on these six days in Long Pot unless otherwise noted.

136. Interview with Ger Su Yang, Long Pot village, Laos, August 19, 1971.

137. For a detailed examination of the problem of "choice" in a Meo village in Thailand, see W. R. Geddes, "Opium and the Miao: A Study in Ecological Adjustment," in Oceania 41, no. I (September 1970).

138. One Thai government study reported that "tasting" is an important part of opium cultivation:


"In each village, one or a few men are able to determine the suitability of the terrain for poppy by tasting the soil; apparently a highly respected qualification. When the ph [soil acidity index], after several years of continual use, begins to decrease, these men can 'taste' when the soil becomes unsuitable for further poppy cultivation" (F. R. Moormann, K. R. M. Anthony, and Samarn Panichapong, "No. 20: Note on the Soils and Land Use in the Hills of Tak Province," in Soil Survey Reports of the Land Development Department [Bangkok: Kingdom of Thailand, Ministrv of National Development, March 19641, p. 5).

139. F. B. G. Keen, The Meo of North-West Thailand (Wellington, New Zealand: Government Printer, 1966), p. 32.

140. For a description of the burn-off in other hill tribe villages, see Paul J. Zinke, Sanga Savuhasri, and Peter Kunstadter, "Soil Fertility Aspects of the Lua Forest Fallow System of Shifting Cultivation," Seminar on Shifting Cultivation and Economic Development in Northern Thailand (Chiangmai, Thailand, Janu~iry 18-24, 1970), pp. 910.

141. Geddes, "Opium and the Miao: A Study in Ecological Adjustment," pp. 8-9.

142. Keen, The Meo of North-West Thailand, p. 35.

143. Ibid., p. 36; Dessaint, "The Poppies Are~Beautiful This Year," p. 36.

144. In comparison, Professor Geddes found that the Meo village of seventyone houses he surveyed in northern Thailand produced a minimum of 1,775 kilos, or over 11/4 tons of raw opium. This is an average of 25 kilos per household compared to an estimated 15 kilos for Long Pot villaee (Geddes, "Opium and the Miao: A Study in Ecological Adjustment," P. 7).

145. Interview with an agent, U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, Southeast Asia, August 1971.

146. Interview with Ger Su Yang, Long Pot village, Laos, August 19, 1971.

147. A Report on Tribal Peoples of ChianRrai Province North of the Mae Kok River, Bennington-Comell Anthropological Survey of the Hill Tribes in Thailand (Bangkok: The Siam Society, 1964), pp. 28-29; Delmos Jones, "Cultural Variation Among Six Lahu Villages, Northern Thailand," (Ph.D. thesis, Cornell University, 1967), pp. 40-41, 136.

148. Interview with the headman of Nam Suk village, refugee village, Long Pot Divrict, Laos, August 21, 1971.

149. Interview with the headman of Nam Ou village, refugee village, Long Pot District, Laos, August 21, 1971.

150. Many Meo clan leaders regard Vang Pao as something of an uncultured usurper. According to a number of influential Meo, Vang Pao is acutely aware of his low social stature and has tried to compensate for it by marrying his relatives into Touby's family. In 1967 Vang Pao's daughter,

May Ken, married Touby's son, Touxa Lyfoung. In 1969 Vang Pao's son, Franqois Vangchao, married Touby's daughter, May Kao Lyfoung. Finally, in 1970 Vang Pao's nephew, Vang Gen, married Touby's niece, May Choua Lyfoung. Vang Pao was threatened by military setbacks and mounting opposition from the Lynhiavu clan, and so felt compelled to arrange this last marriage to shore up his declining poli ical fortunes.

151. Interview with Edgar Buell, Ban Son, Laos, August 31, 1971.

152. Interview with Ger Su Yang, Long Pot village, Laos, August 22, 1971.


153. Ibid.

154. When the authors left Long Pot District on August 23, a number of village headmen explained that their people would begin dying from starvation in several months and urged us to somehow force the Americans into making a rice drop. Upon return to Vientiane, we explained the situation to the local press corps and an article appeared several days later in The Washington Post and on the Associated Press wires. As might be expected, many American officials denied that the rice had been cut off.

Edgar Buell was incensed and told the authors, "When you're saying that no f-- rice gets into that village you're not saying that Charlie Mann [USAID director] won't send it in. And sending or not sending soldiers don't make any difference. Hell, hippies, yippies and every other thing won't go. Now if they won't send soldiers we don't take 'em out of college or pL4 'ern in jail; we give 'em rice. . . .

"You shouldn't have snuck into that village and then talked to Charlie Mann. You should have come here right off and talked to Pop Buell and got the real story. You've caused a lot of trouble for people here. Hell, I'd kill anybody who'd say old Pop Buell would let somebody starve" (interview with Edgar Buell, Ban Son, Laos, August 30, 1971).

On September 2 Norman Barnes, director of United States Information Service, and Charles Mann, director of USAID/Laos, flew to Long Pot village to make a report on the situation for USAID/Washington. Norman Barnes later contradicted Edgar Buell's assertion that the rice drops had not been cut off and admitted that there had been no deliveries since early March. Mr. Barnes denied that there were any ulterior motives and explained that the presence of Pathet Lao troops in the immediate area from early March until August 20 made it impossible for aircraft to operate in Long Pot District. But, Mr. Barnes was now happy to report that deliveries had been restored and a rice drop had been made on August 30 (interview with Norman Barnes, Vientiane, Laos, September 3, 1971).

However, the authors saw an Air America UH-lH helicopter land at Long Pot on the afternoon of August 19 and were told by villagers at the time that Air America's helicopters had been flying in and out of the village since the rice drops stopped. Moreover, villagers reported that Pathet Lao forces had left the area several months earlier.

155. Interview with the assistant headman of Ban Nam Muong Nakam, Long Pot village, Laos, August 21, 1971.

156. Interview with Ger Su Yang, Long Pot village, Laos, August 19, 1971. In late 1971 one American reporter flew over the Plain of Jars and described what he saw:

"A recent flight around the Plain of Jars revealed what less than three years of intensive American bombing can do to 6 rural area, even after its civilian population has been evacuated. In large areas, the primary tropical color-bright green-has been replaced by an abstract pattern of black, and bright metallic colors. Much of the remaining foliage is stunted, dulled by defoliants.

"Today, black is the dominant color of the northern and eastern reaches of the Plain. Napalm is dropped regularly to burn off the grass and undergrowth that covers the Plain and fills its many narrow ravines. The fires seem to burn constantly, creating rectangles of black. During the flight plumes of smoke could be seen rising from bombed areas. . . .

"From an enlarged negative of a photograph covering one small, formerly grass-covered hill about 100 feet high, I spotted several hundred distinct craters before losing count. In many places it is difficult to distinguish individual craters; the area has been bombed so repeatedly that the land resembles the pocked, churned desert in stormhit areas of the North African desert" (T. D. Allman, "Plain Facts," Far Eastern Economic Review, January 8, 1972, p. 16); for a description of life under the bombs in northern Laos, see Fred Branfman, ed., Voices from the Plain of Jars (New York: Harper & Row, 1972).

157. Interview with Ger Su Yang, Long Pot village, Laos, August 19, 1971.

158. Interview with George Cosgrove, Ban Sop, Laos, August 30, 1971.

159. The bombing has seriously disrupted opium production even in villages that manage to survive the attacks and remain in their original location. In August 1971 the authors visited the Yao village of Pha Louang. in the mountains eighty miles north of Vientiane. Residents reported that their village had been bombed in August 1964 by a squadron of T-28s bearing Royal Laotian Air Force markings. When the planes first appeared over the village, people hid in their houses. But as the bombs began hitting the houses they tried to flee into the forest. The aircraft strafed the village, shooting the people as they tried to climb up the steep ridges that surround the village. All the houses were destroyed, most of the livestock was killed and twelve people (about 20 percent of the inhabitants) were killed. There were five Pathet Lao soldiers hiding in a cave about a mile away and villagers feel they might have been the cause of the attack. Once the planes left, the Pathet Lao emerged from the cave unharmed and marched off. Villagers report that the mid 1971 opium harvest will equal the harvests before the bombing attack. However, intervening harvests have been much smaller because of the material and human losses they suffered.

Long Pot itself is no longer producing opium. In late 1971 Roval Laotian Army troops turned the village into a forward combat base in preparation for the upcoming dry season offensive by Pathet Lao forces. When the offensive got underway in December, Pathet Lao forces attacked the area and reportedly "overran" Long Pot on January 10, 1972. This dispatch appeared in a NLF newspaper:

"Meantime, at Salaphoukhoun [junction of Route 13 and Route 7], 70 km west of the Plain of Jars, LPLA [Laotian Peoples' Liberation Army] overran the Phouphaday, Phouvieng and Ban Long Pot positions, knocked down hundreds of enemy troops, captured many others, and seized a great deal of weapons."(South Vietnam in Struggle [Hanoi, DRVN], January 17, 1972, p. 7.)

160. Interview with Gen. Ouane Rattikone, Vientiane, Laos, September 1, 1971.

161. Interview with Gen. Thao Ma, Bangkok, Thailand, September 17, 1971.

162. The New York Times, The Pentagon Papers, pp. 313-314, 362.

163. Interview with Gen. Thao Ma, Bangkok, Thailand, September 17, 1971.

164. The New York Times, October 22, 1966, p. 2.

165. Gen. Thao Ma had good reason to fear Kouprasith. Following the February 1965 coup, General Phourni's right-hand man, General Siho, fled to Thailand. After consulting with a monk in Ubol, Thailand, who told him that it would be good luck to go home, General Siho returned to Laos. General Kouprasith had him arrested and imprisoned at Phou Khao Kquai, where he was shot while "attempting to escape" (Dommen, Conflict in Laos, p. 287). According to a former USAID official, Loring Waggoner, Kouprasith's right-hand man, Gen. Thonglith Chokbengboung, told him at a funeral for one of Thonglith's relatives several years after the incident, "Siho was dirty and corrupt," and that he was "glad" that he had a hand in eliminating him (interview with Loring Waggone~, Las Cruces, New Mexico, June 23, 1971).

166. Interview with Capt. Kong Le, Paris, France, March 22, 1971.

167. Ibid.; interview with Gen. Ouane Rattikone, Vientiane, Laos, August 21, 1971; interview with Gen. Thao Ma, Bangkok, Thailand, September 17, 1971.

168. Lao Presse (Vientiane: Ministry of Information, #232/66), October 22, 1966.

169. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, p. 290.

170. Interview with Gen. Thao Ma, Bangkok, Thailand, September 17, 1971; The New York Times, October 22, 1966, p. 1; ibid., October 24, 1966, p. 4.

171. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, p. 29 1.

172. Interview with Capt. Kong Le, Paris, France, March 22, 1971.

173. Interview with Jimmy Yang, Chiangmai, Thailand, August 12, 1971.

174. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, pp. 217-218.

175. Interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 1971.

176. Interview with Maj. Chao La, Nam Keung, Laos, September 12, 1971; Peter Kandre, "Autonomy and Integration of Social Systems: The In Mien ('Yao' or 'Man') Mountain Population and Their Neighbors," in Kunstadter, ed., Southeast Asian Tribes, Minorities, and Nations, 1. 11, p. 585.

177. Interview with a former USAID official in Nam Tha Province, Laos, June 1971.

178. Interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971.

179. Interview with a former USAID official in Nam Tha Province, Laos, June 1971.

180. J. Thomas Ward, "U.S. Aid to Hill Tribe Refugees in Laos," in Kunstadter, ed., Southeast Asian Tribes, Minorities, and Nations, vol. 1, p. 297.

181. Inter-view with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971.

182. Fred Branfman, "Presidential War in Laos, 1964-1970," in Adams and McCoy, eds., Laos: War and Revolution, p. 270.

183. Interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971.

184. Interview with Maj. Chao La, Nam Keung, Laos, September 12, 1971.

185. Interview with a former USAID official in Nam Tha Province, Laos, June 1971.

186. Ibid.

187. Interview with a former USAID official in Nam Tha Province, Laos, New York, June 1971; interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971.

188. In the early 1950s for example, anthropologists estimated that there were 139,000 Lahu in China's Yunnan Province, 66,000 in northeastern Burma, and 2,000 in Nam Tha. Currently, there are 16,000 Yao in Nam Tha and probably over 100,000 in Yunnan, most of whom dwell in the border regions. (Frank M. Lebar, Gerald C. Hickey, and John K. Musgrave, Ethnic Groups of Mainland Southeast Asia [New Haven, Human Relations Area Files Press, 19641, pp. 31, 82; interview with Maj. Chao Lao, Nam Keung, Laos, September 12, 1971; Peter Kunstadter, "China: Introduction," in Kunstadter, ed., Southeast Asian Tribes, Minorities, and Nations, vol. 1, p. 1~4.)

189. Kandre, "Autonomy and Integration of Social Systems," p. 607.

190. Interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 14, 1971.

191. Sowards and Sowards, Burma Baptist Chronicle, p. 409. (Emphasis added.)

192. Ibid., p. 411.

193. Ibid., pp. 412-413; for one of Reverend Young's early reports from China, see Lizbeth B. Hughes, The Evangel in Burma (Rangoon: American Baptist Mission Press, 1926), pp. 124-129.

194. Sowards and Sowards, Burma Baptist Chronicle, pp. 413-414.

195. Interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 14, 1971.

196. Lebar et al., Ethnic Groups of Mainland Southeast Asia, p. 32.

197. Interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 14, 1971.

198. Hugh Tinker, The Union of Burma (London: Oxford University Press, 1957), pp. 159-160.

199. Josef Silverstein, "Politics in the Shan State: The Question of Secession from the Union of Burma," Journal of Asian Studies 18, no. 1 (November 1958), 54.

200. F. K. Lehman, "Ethnic Categories in Burma and the Theory of Social Systems," in Kunstadter, ed., Southeast Asian Tribes, Minorities, and Nations, vol. 1, pp. 94-95. The vehemence of the Shan reaction to these arrests by Ne Win can be seen in these paragraphs from a communiqu� by the Shan State Army:

"Our leaders secretly and fervently hoped against hope that they would come out successful and save Union of Burma from plunging into Racial Wars and eventually forced into a potentially hot-spot for the stability of Southeast Asian Countries. Their dreams turned into a nightmare, and their hopes shattered but shaping up of events and situation developments shows that what they had forseen [sic] are materializing and we are witnessing it. Everything proved to the Shan people's suspicions on the Burmese or rather Newin and the only choice we had in wanting to own our own rights proved to be correct. This armed struggle that they did not want was the only choice after all" (Communiqu� from the Central Executive Committee, Shan State Progress Party, typescript [Chiangmai, Thailand, September 1971, pp. 1-2).

201. Interview with U Ba Thein, Chiang Khong District, Thailand, September 11, 1971.

202. Interview with Rev. Paul Lewis, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 7, 1971. (Reverend Lewis was working in Kengtung at the time of the U Ba Thein's departure.)

203. Interview with U Ba Thein, Chiang Khong District, Thailand, September 11, 1971. departure.)

204. The Washington Post, August 6, 1971. departure.)

205. One of the first camps used for training was located in a river valley about twelve miles due north of Nam Keung, but this was closed in 1965 when Chao La arxd a group of Chinese opium smugglers opened an opium refinery nearby. Young was afraid that the constant movement of mule caravans and boats in and out of the area would compromise the base's security; eventually it was moved across the Mekong River into Thailand and rebuilt in an uninhabited mountain valley, known only by its code name, "Tango Pad" (interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971). departure.)

206. Interview with a former USAID official in Nam Tba Province, New York, June 1971. departure.)

207. Interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 14, 1971; interview with U Ba Thein, Chiang Khong District, Thailand, September 11, 1971. departure.)

208. The Boston Globe, September 3, 1970; interview with a former USAID official in Nam Tha Province, Laos, New York, June 1971. In general, the security on these cross-border operations was terrible, and almost every hill tribesman in the Golden Triangle region knew about them. In mid 1971 the authors met several Yao tribesmen in northern Thailand who knew the names of five or six Yao who had been on the forays and could recite their itinerary with remarkable accuracy. Both the Chinese and Burmese governments knew about the operations, since they have captured a number of teams. In fact, it seems that the American public were the only interested party ignorant of their existence. departure.)

209. Interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 14, 1971; interview with U Ba Thein, Chiang Khong District, Thailand, September 11, 1971. (Since Young's resignation from the CIA in 1967, these bases have declined in importance and may no longer be in operation.) departure.)

210. Interview with U Ba Thein, Chiang Khong District, Thailand, September 11, 1971. There have been a number of reports that Air America helicopters have been forced to land in Burma because of mechanical failure. According to one report by Dispatch News Service International correspondent Michael Morrow, an Air America helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing in May 1971 in the eastern Shan States. The helicopter had been chartered from Air America and was reportedly carrying a CIA operative (Dispatch News Service International, November 8, 1971 ). departure.)

211. Interview with U Ba Thein, Chiang Khong District, Thailand, September 11, 1971.

212. Ibid.

213. Interview with Rev. Paul Lewis, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 7, 1971; interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971.

214. Interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 14, 1971.

215. Interview with U Ba Thein, Chiang Khong District, Thailand, September 11, 1971.

216. Interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 14, 1971.

217. Interview with U Ba Thein, Chiang KhoUg District, Thailand, September 11, 1971.

218. Adrian Cowell, "Report on a Five Month Journey in the State of Kengtung with the Shan National Army," typescript (1965).

219. Ibid.; For Eastern Economic Review, July 24, 1971, p. 40; interview with Adrian Cowell, London, England, March 9, 1971.

220. Cowell, "Report on a Five Month Journey in the State of Kengtung"; Far Eastern Economic Review, July 24, 1971, p. 40.

221. Cowell, "Report on a Five Month Journey in the State of Kengtune."

222. Interview with Jimmy Yang, Chianamai, Thailand, September 14, 1971. (This story was confirmed by several former members of the SNA, leaders of other Shan armies, and residents of the Huei Krai area.)

223. Out of the seven hundred tons of raw opium produced in northeastern Burma, approximately five hundred tons are exported to Laos and Thailand. A maximum of 15 percent of the opium harvest is consumed by hill tribe addicts before it leaves the village (Gordon Young, The Hill Tribes of Northern Thailand, The Siam Society, Monograph no. 1 [Bangkok, 19621, p. 90). In addition, an estimated sixty-five tons are smuggled into Burma's major cities for local consumption (interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971).

224. Interview with Jimmy Yang, Chiangmai, Thailand, August 12, 1971.

225. Interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971.

226. The New York Times, February 17, 1961, p. 4; ibid., February 18, 1961, p. 1.

227. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, p. 193; according to President Kennedy's Assistant Secretary for Far Eastern affairs, Roger Hilsman, Kennedy pressured Taiwan to withdraw the KNIT forces from Burma in order to improve relations with mainland China. However, Taiwan insisted that the evacuation be voluntary and so "a few bands of irregulars continued to roam the wilds (Roger Hilsman, To Move a Nation,pp. 304-305).

228. Interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971.

229. Paul T. Cohen, "Hill Trading in the Mountain Ranges of Northern Thailand" (1968).

230. Ibid., pp. 2-3.

231. Ibid., pp. I 1- 14.

232. Young, The Hill Tribes of Northern Thailand, p. 83.

233. F. W. Mote, "The Rural 'Haw' (Yurmanese Chinese) of Northern Thailand," p. 489.

234. Ministry of the Interior, Department of Public Welfare, "Report on the SocioEconomic Survey of the Hill Tribes in Northern Thailand," mimeographed (Bangkok, September 1962), p. 23.

235. Ibid., p. 37.

236. Interview with Col. Chen Mo-su, Chiang Khong District, Thailand, September 10, 1971; The New York Times, August 11, 1971, p. 1.

237. Interview with Col. Chen Mo-su, Chiang Khong District, Thailand, September 10, 1971.

238. Interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971.

239. The Weekend Telegraph (London), March 10, 1967, p. 25.

240. Interview with Jimmy Yang, Chiangmai, Thailand, August 12, 1971; interview with Jao Nhu, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971; interview with U Ba Thein, Chiang Khong District, Thailand, September 11, 1971.

241. The New York Times, August 11, 1971, p. 1; interview with Jao Nhu, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971.

242. The New York Times, August 11, 1971, p. 1; interview with U Ba Thein, Chiang Khong District, Thailand, September 11, 1971.

243. Interview with Jao Nhu, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971.

244. Interview with Jimmy Yang, Chiangmai, Thailand, August 12, 1971.

245. Interview with Jao Nhu, Chiangmai, Thailand, August 12, 1971.

246. Ibid.; The New York Times, June 6, 1971, p. 2.

247. The New York Times, June 6, 1971, p. 2; interview with Jimmy Yang, Chiangmai, Thailand, August 12, 1971.

248. Interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971.

249. Ibid.

250. The New York Times, August 11, 1971, p. 1.

251. Interview with Jimmy Yang, Chiangmai, Thailand, August 12, 1971.

252. In May 1965, for example, The New York Times reported that General Ma was operating in a mountainous area of western Yunnan about twenty miles across the border from Ving Ngun and said that unmarked aircraft were making regular supply drops to his troops (The New York Times, May 18, 1965, p. I).

253. Interview with U Ba Thein, Chiang Khong District, Thailand, September 11, 1971.

254. The Weekend Telegraph (London), March 10, 1967, pp. 27-28. In September 1966 four hundred of General Tuan's best troops left their barren wooden barracks on top of Mae Salong mountain, saluted the gaudy, twenty-foot-high portrait of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek that decorates the parade ground and marched off into the jungle. After plunging across the Burma-China border into western Yunnan Province, General Tuan's troops fled back across the border, leaving eighty casualties behind (The New York Times, September 9, 1966, p. 3; The Weekend Telegraph, March 10, 1967, p. 27).

255. Interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971.

256. "Opium War-Take Three," dispatch from McCulloch, Hong Kong, filing from Saigon, to Time World, New York (August 22, 1967), p. 10.

257. Jeffrey Race, "China and the War in Northern Thailand" (1971), p. 26.

258. Interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971.

259. Interview with Jimmy Yang, Chiangmai, Thailand, August 12, 1971; "Opium War Add," dispatch from McCulloch, Hong Kong, filing from Saigon, to Time World (August 23, 1967), p. 2.

260. "Opium War-Take Two," dispatch from Vanderwicken, Hong Kong, filing from Saigon, to Time World, New York (August 22, 1967), p. 4.

261. The New York Times, August 11, 1971, p. 1.

262. Race, "China and the War in Northern Thailand," p. 27; interview with Lawrence Peet, Chiangrai, Thailand, August 9, 1971. (Lawrence Peet is a missionary who was working in Lahu villages near the caravan trail at the time of the Opium War.)

263. Interview with the principal of Ban Khwan public school, Ban Khwan, Laos, August 9, 1971.

264. Ibid.; interview with Gen. Ouane Rattikone, Vientiane, Laos, September 1, 1971.

265. Race, "China and the War in Northern Thailand," p. 27.

266. Interview with Gen. Ouane Rattikone, Vientiane, Laos, September 1, 1971.

267. Ibid.

268. "Opium War-Take Two," dispatch from Vanderwicken, p. 5.

269. Interview with Gen. Quane Rattikone, Vientiane, Laos, September 1, 1971.

270. The New York Times, August 11, 1971, p. 1.

271. Race, "China and the War in Northern Thailand," p. 28.

272. "Opium War-Take Two," dispatch from Vanderwicken, pp. 4, 6; The Evening Star, Washington, D.C., June 19, 1972.

273. The New York Times, AuPust 11, 197 1, p. 1.

274. Interview with the principal of Ban Khwan Public School, Ban Khwan, Laos, August 9, 1971.

275. Race, "China and the War in Northern Thailand," p. 28; Mote, "The Rural 'Haw' (Yunnanese Chinese) of Northern Thailand," pp. 488, 492-493.

276. Report of the United Nations Survey Team on the Economic and Social Needs of the Opium-Producing Areas in Thailand, p. 64.

277. Race, "China and the War in Northern Thailand," pp. 21-23.

278. Ibid.

279. Ibid., pp. 29-3 1; the insurgency in northern Thailand is regarded as the "most serious" military problem now facing the Thai government. (A Staff Report, U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia: January 1972, 92nd Cong., 2nd sess., 1972, p. 14.)

280. Alfred W. McCoy, "Subcontracting Counterinsurgency: Academics in Thailand, 1954-1970," Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, December 1970, pp. 64-67.

281. The Weekend Telegraph, p. 27.

282. According to a 1961 report by Gordon Young, 50 percent of the Meo, 20 percent of the Lahu, 75 percent of the Lisu, and 25 percent of the Akha tribesmen in northern Thailand have some fluency in Yunnanese. In contrast, only 5 percent of the Meo, 10 percent of the Lahu, 50 percent of the Lisu, and 25 percent of the Akha speak Thai or Laotian (Young, The Hill Tribes of Northern Thailand, p. 92).

283. Interview with Col. Chen Mo-su, Chiang Khong District, Thailand, September 10, 1971.

284. Interview with General Krirksin, Chiang Khong District, Thailand, September 10, 1971.

285. Interview with Col. Chen Mo-su, Chiang Khong District, Thailand, September 10, 1971.

286. The New York Times, June 6, 1971, p. 2; NBC Chronolog, April 28, 1972.

287. "Opium War-Take Three," dispatch from McCulloch, pp. 1-2.

288. Interview with Jimmy Yang, Cb~angmai, Thailand, August 12, 1971.

289. Interview with Hsai Kiao, ChiaNrai, Thailand, September 13, 1971.

290. Interview with Jao Nhu, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971.

291. Inter-view with Jimmy Yang, Chiangmai, Thailand, August 12, 1971.

292. The Shan Unity Preparatory Committee was a coalition of the rightwing Shan rebel groups formed mainly to provide effective joint action against the Burmese Communist party. This quotation from one of their communiqu�s conveys the group's conservative character and its anti-Communist first principles:

"In the areas bordering Communist China in the Kachin and Northern Shan States particularly, armed bands trained and armed by the Communist Chinese composed mostly of China born Kachins and Shans are now very active.... The Shan Unity Preparatory Committee (SUPC) believes unity within the Union of Burma is definitely attainable and there is no reason why unity based on anti-communism, a belief in Parliamentary democracy and free economy, and last but not least, a unity based on the principles of Federalism cannot be achieved..." (The Shan Unity Preparatory Committee, "Communiqu� No. 5," mimeographed [Shan State, March 14, 1968], pp. 12).

293. Interview with Jimmy Yang, Chiangmai, Thailand, August 12, 1971.

294. Communiqu6 from the Central Executive Committee, Shan State Progress Party, September 1971, pp. 1-2.

295. The Shan State Army admits to having transported the following quantities of raw opium from the northern Shan States to northern Thailand: 160 kilos in 1964, 290 kilos in 1965, 960 kilos in 1966, 1,600 kilos in 1967, nothing in 1968, and 80 kilos in 1969 (interview with Jao Nhu, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971).

296. Interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971.

297. Far Eastern Economic Review, 1968 Yearbook (14ong Kong), p. 123; Far Eastern Economic Review, 1971 Yearbook (Hong Kong), p. 108.

298. In September 1971, for example, the authors were invited to visit a Shan rebel camp near Huci Krai. However, on the morning of the visit (September 13) the authors received the following note:
"Sorry to inform you that your trip with us to Mae Sai is not approved by the Thai authorities. Because it is near the Burmese border and it might be possible for the Burmese to know it.

"It is better to stay within the regulations since the host, the Thais, is giving us a warm and friendly reception. [signed] Hsai Kiao"

299. Far Eastern Economic Review, May 1, 1971, pp. 47-49; ibid., April 17,1971,pp.19-20.

300. Interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971; interview with Jao Nhu, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971.

301. Interview with Hsai Kiao, Chiangrai, Thailand, September 12, 1971; interview with Jimmy Yang, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 14, 1971.

302. Interview with Psai Kiao, Chiangrai, Thailand, September 12, 1971.

303. The New York Times, June 6, 1971, p. 2.

304. Far Eastern Economic Review, December 12, 1970, p. 22; ibid., April 17, 1971, p. 20.

305. Newsweek, March 22, 1971, p. 42,1 interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971.

306. The New York Times, January 3, 1971, p. 9; ibid., January 31, 1971, p. 3.

307. Interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971.

308. It was not possible for U Nu to ally with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), which controls much of Kachin State. Its leaders are Bantist Christians who resented U Nu's establishment of Buddhism as a state religion. The head of the KIA is a Baptist Christian named Zau Seng. He founded the Kachin Independence Army with his brothers in 1957, and with the exception of brief negotiations with Ne Win in 1963, he has been fighting ever since. When he is in Thailand trading in opium and buying arms, his brothers, Zau Dan and Zau Tu direct military operations in Kachin State. Unlike the Shans, Zau Seng is the undisputed leader of the conservative Kachins, and his troops control most of Kachin State. Relations between Zau Seng and the Kachin Communist leader, Naw Seng, are reportedly quite hostile.

309. Interview with Jimmy Yang, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 14, 1971.

310. Interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971.

311. Interview with Jimmy Yang, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 14, 1971.

312. Interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 14, 1971.

313. Interview with Hsai Kiao, Chiangrai, Thailand, Sentember 13, 1971; interview with Brig. Gen. Tommy Clift, Bangkok, Thailand, September 21, 1971.

314. Interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971.

315. Interview with Hsai Kiao, Chiangrai, Thailand, September 13, 1971.

316. It appears that the Young family is revered mainly by the Black Lahu of northern Kengtung State and western Yunnan. The original prophecy of the White God was made by a Black Lahu, and the Youngs had a remarkable conversion rate among them. In contrast, the Red Lahu have generally remained animist and regard the "Man God" as their living deity. The "Man God" has his headquarters west of Mong Hsat and is influential among the Red Lahu of southern Kengtung State. The terms "red" and "black" derive from the fact that different Lahu subgroups wear different-colored clothes. On the other hand, the term "Red" Meo is a political term used to designate Communist Meo insurgents. Many Red Lahu tribesmen have now become afraid that their ethnolinguistic designation may be misinterpreted as a political label. Red Lahu tribesmen in northern Thailand usually claim to be Black Lahu when questioned by anthropologists. Thus, when the "Man God's" son spoke, he said that the Red Lahu were not Communists as many people thought and would willingly join their brother Lahu in the struggle against Ne Win (interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971).

317. Ibid.

318. Tinker, The Union of Burma, pp. 38, 395.

319. Ibid., pp. 40-41.

320. Pacific Research and World Empire Telegram 2, no. 3 (March-April 1971), 6.

321. The Burmese Communist party's (BCP) reasons for abolishing the opium trade are very pragmatic:

1. Since the BCP is a political enemy of the Burmese government, the KMT, and the Shan rebels, it would be impossible for it to send an opium caravan into Thailand even if it wanted to.

2. Continuing the exploitative opium tax would alienate the BCP from the people.

3. Since Shan rebels and government militia are only interested in occupying opiumproducing territories, opium eradication weakens their desire to retake lost territory (interview with Jimmy Yang, Chiangmai, Thailand, August 12, 1971).

322. Interview with Gen. Ouane Rattikone, Vientiane, Laos, September 1, 1971.

323. Interview with residents of Chiang Saen, Thailand, August 1971.

324. Interview with officers in the Royal Laotian Air Force, Vientiane, Laos, JulyAugust 1971.

325. "Opium War Add," dispatch from McCulloch, p. 2.

326. "Opium War-Take 2," dispatch from Vanderwicken, p. 6.

327. According to a U.S. narcotics analyst, General Ouane's control over the opium traffic in the Ban Houei Sai region was further improved in 1968 when Colonel Khampay, a loyal Ouane follower, was appointed regional commander. Colonel Khampay reportedly devoted most of his military resources to protecting the Ban Houei Tap refinery and moving supplies back and forth between Ban Houei Sai and the refinery (interview with an agent, U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, New Haven, Connecticut, May 3, 1972); The Evening, Star, Washington, D.C., June 19, 1972.

328. The New York Times, June 6, 1971, p. 2.

329. Interview with William Young, Chiangmai, Thailand, September 8, 1971.

330. The attack on Long Tieng in early 1972 has inevitably created problems for narcotics dealings among Vang Pao's troops. It is entirely possible that they are no longer in the heroin business, but it will require time before we know whether they have reopened their laboratory somewhere else.

331. Interview with Elliot K. Chan, Vientiane, Laos, August 15, 1971.

332. Cabled dispatch from Shaw, Vientiane (Hong Kong Bureau), to Time, Inc., received September 16-17, 1965.

333. Lao Presse (Vientiane: Ministry of Information, #56/66), March 16, 1966.

334. Lao Presse (Vientiane: Ministry of Information, #58/66), March 18, 1966.

335. Direction du Protocole, Ministre des Affaires ttrang6res, "Liste des Personnalit6s Lao," mimeographed (Rovaume du Laos: n.d.), p.155.

336. Interview with a Thai police official, Bangkok, Thailand, September 1971.

337. Interview with an agent, U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, New Haven, Conn., May 3 - 1972.

338. Interview with Western dir)lomatic official, Vientiane, Laos, August 1971; interview with Third World diplomatic official, Vientiane, Laos, August 1971 (this account of the incident has been corroborat(-.d by reports received by the U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs [Interview with an agent, U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, New Haven, Connecticut, November 18, 19711) -, interview with a Laotian political observer, Vientiane, Laos, August 1971.

339. Interview with a Laotian political observer, Vientiane, Laos, August 1971.

340. Lao Presse (Vientiane: Ministry of Information, #1566/71), September 6, 1971.

341. Interview with an agent, U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, Southeast Asia, September 1971.

342. Ibid.

343. Hamilton-Paterson, The Greedy War, p. 194.

344. Far Eastern Economic Review, December 4, 1971, pp. 40-41.

345. In its July 19, 1971, issue, Newsweek maga7ine hinted that the United States had used its "other means of persuasion" to force Gen. Ouane Rattikone into retirement. This suggestion is based only on the imagination of Newsweek's New York editorial staff. According to the Vientiane press corps, Newsweek cabled its Vientiane corresnondent for confirmation of this story and he replied that Ouane's retirement had been planned for over a year (which it was). Reliable diplomatic sources in Vientiane found Newsweek's suggestion absurd and General Ouane himself flatly denied that there had been any pressure on him to retire (Newsweek, July 19, 1971, pp. 23-24).

346. Interview with Gen. Ouane Rattikone, Vientiane, Laos, September 1, 1971.