Before the Quagmire: American Intervention in Laos, 1954-1961

Chapter 7: Normal Dishonesty

Chapter 7 Normal Dishonesty On Thursday, March 17, 1960, the National Security Council gathered at the White House for its weekly meeting. For President Eisenhower, who highly valued organization and order in managing the complexity of foreign affairs, the NSC was a mechanism for long-range planning and interdepartmental coordination. He viewed the NSC as a critically important advisory body for making recommendations to him and encouraging frank discussion of national security issues. Foreign-policy problems requiring immediate decisions, however, were generally reserved for smaller groups in the Oval Office. Each NSC meeting had specific topics scheduled for discussion, with background papers prepared and circulated to the principals in advance.1 On this day Southeast Asia was the main topic of discussion, which began with an extended briefing on developments in the region from Central Intelligence director Allen Dulles. The first country discussed was Laos. Dulles reported that although overt Pathet Lao attacks had been reduced in number and intensity since the previous summer, the insurgents had expanded their influence in the country. The communists, he said, were effectively exploiting the grievances of the tribespeople, who constituted approximately 50 percent of the Lao population. The Pathet Lao no longer controlled completely the two northern provinces, as it did before the November 1957 Vientiane agreement, but it now had pockets of control in all twelve provinces. “Real security exists only in towns, is considerably less in adjacent villages, and is virtually nonexistent in most of the rest of the country,” according to a CIA summary prepared for Dulles’s NSC briefing.2 158 Normal Dishonesty 159 To illustrate this last point, Dulles told the president and his advisers about the recent experience of a US Information Service team that had attempted to tour the mountain villages of Xieng Khouang, a province in northeast Laos with a large minority population. Although the RLG had assured the USIS team that the area was fully secure, Dulles said, uniformed Pathet Lao forces appeared, interrogated the Americans, and turned them back. The team observed that the insurgents exercised considerable influence over the villagers. Dulles discussed briefly the election for a new National Assembly, scheduled for April 24, 1960. The conservative politicians, he said, “could be persuaded” to agree on a single slate of candidates, which should prevent a repetition of the 1958 election fiasco. Whether the NLHS intended to participate, boycott, or disrupt the April election was still unknown. No matter what course of action the communists pursued, Dulles warned that the problem in Laos “would continue to be a difficult one for a long time and was not susceptible [to a] quick or easy solution.”3 The DCI informed the NSC that in Laos the communists preferred to achieve their goals through subversion, guerrilla warfare, and legal means rather than open aggression. Perhaps seeking to end his Laos presentation on an upbeat note, or maybe tossing a bureaucratic bouquet to his colleagues at the Pentagon, Dulles concluded his remarks on Laos with a non sequitur that was not part of his prepared briefing material: “Our military mission in the country was doing an excellent job in combating Communism.” Secretary of State Herter elaborated on this positive theme, reporting that the United Nations planned to send more representatives into Lao villages and to appoint advisers to various departments of government. Herter believed that a partial shift of responsibility to the United Nations in such fields as public health and agriculture would be a favorable development for the US government. According to the minutes of the meeting, Dulles replied to Herter’s observation, agreeing that UN representatives “watching over the situation in Laos is important.”4 After Dulles reported on South Vietnam—“Communist terrorism and guerrilla activity designed to undermine Diem was on the increase ”—and each of the other countries of Southeast Asia, he discussed recent developments in South Korea and Cuba.5 With the intelligence briefing concluded, President Eisenhower raised a straightforward issue 160 Before the Quagmire that could have stimulated a thoughtful, far-reaching discussion among his most senior advisers: What is the appeal of communism? How many people had been won over by poor living conditions, and how many by the hope of power? Western ideology, he said, seemed incapable of appealing to people in the same way communism did. Virtually none of the underdeveloped countries in the world appeared to be “completely antagonistic” to communism. If the US government...