A great place to have a war
Subtitle: America in Laos and the birth of a military CIA
By: Joshua Kurlantzick
Edition: First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition.
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 323
ISBN-13: 9781451667868; 9781451667882
Copyright date: 2016
Subjects: United States; Vietnam War, 1961-1975; United States. Central Intelligence Agency; Campaigns; Secret service; History
Other titles: America in Laos and the birth of a military CIA
Description: 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.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Baci; title: The CIA's first war; title: Vang Pao, Bill Lair, Tony Poe, and Bill Sullivan; title: Laos before the CIA, and the CIA before Laos; title: The CIA meets Laos; title: Operation Momentum begins; title: Kennedy expands Momentum; title: The not-so-secret secret: keeping a growing operation hidden; title: Enter the bombers; title: The wider war; title: Massacre; title: Going for broke; title: The victory and the loss; title: The secret war becomes public; title: Defeat and retreat; title: Skyline Ridge; title: Final days; title: Laos and the CIA: the legacy; title: Aftermath.