THE YANKEE 'KING' OF LAOS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200100003-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Sequence Number: 3
• Content Type: NEWSPAPER CLIPPING

lt~
lord, are on the run. The Itidlanan during 'a bloody, od ,three- train d and led
srflear d under Communist fire dust a few tack. Once, be personally o an art Illy DON SCHANCHE I days ago lf baseiat refugee peo- blows upo30 kilometersolofothe Commu-
i and supp y
vincial capital he founded seven years nists' main supply highway from Hanoi I
ago on a high mountain plateau 15 miles to the Plains des Jarres, stalling the ;
T HE STRONGEST ,FORCE be south of the Plains des arres. ernne K's war In Laos for a precious six 1
hind the headlines in the strange, h Buell advanced
secret war of the CIA-supported On another occasion, T with a guerrilla patrol to the fenceline
f the Pathet Lao's main headquarters
ho
w
o
Meo guerillas in Laos is a 57-year-
"my father" ti eMEO er" and occaslonallytgnore his ,(in Sam Neon city, close to the North
old retired Indiana farmer whose CIA advisers to follow the hig do hoed- I Vietnamese border. After helping to re-
bizarre career as, humanitarian, advice, is fighting to save connoiter the stronghold, h
and it has pneumonia on the long trek back to his caught
philoe tactician es qualities "quarters 19 miles away. now" town called Long Tieng an equally own base camp and almost died.
philosopher combines the qualities been swollen to the proportions of an Twenty times in the last 10 Years.
of Albert Schweitzer, Lawrence of , uell has been forced to flee under fire's
American subut+b by a vast infusion of ! into the darl4ened Jungle to escape Com-
n
m the CIA tha
f
ro
t and men
Arabia. and Will Rogers. e uipmen
untat attacks against villages in which
He Is Edgar (pop) Buell, area Vn . Air Force and the Army of !that, he ,was sleepping. and each time he has
t vlsi~ted lion Ticn led thausnnds of terrified refugees out
S Agerioy
r the U
f
i
t
di
.
rs
o
f
or
na
coor
When I t . On one night alnne, early in
J or Internationftl Development in I -el ht yearn ago, it was an aandane with him.
`/ field in a bowl.~iko do- the wa , be Ravel 0000 Moo and t.ao
088
,
.__,_ fI r1...>_ n vit igh in the- mountains, - hen t on le rem slaua ter by leadlnit
nntl key figure in' n uty high _ _-_'Nwas P _ r_ ghee. enemy force. For
1
ugg
th lng s
eo
he
-?-eo --
pay.
munist Pathet Lao. The pr m Ve ? ,the second largest city in Laos, these actions and 9
; Meo tribesmen think of him as-It than the, royal capital of Luang ra- ,.tartan work among Laotian and Meo war
refugees, King Savang Vatthana of Laos,
t as large as the politi>
and almos
demi-god. His close friendship bang chieftain, cal capital, Vientiane awarded him the highest decoration a,
with 'their mysterious Communist capture of these two foreigner can receive the Order of a -
-...114 1114410 ..,,..__ "1...a-....fr. The men have given
.
iturned the course of the war and
i I
fluenced American policy in that
n
The aging Hoosier, a plain and
d
t W
!
ao
hly man even by Gran
ome cost sought was a period of peace In bouts
UCCAI
standards, has lived with the Meo the mountains and an opportunity to In-' mountain plane crashes and has
for 10 tears, yet
il
t d
l
i
y
a
a
under fire almos
j in the mountains around the famed' it ,te mite: the ;b ckward Meo into the soc
Plains des Jarres since 1961. He has led .~?f:Erat,bf:sLttos. Wh'et'has' happened 111'% he never leas been :-Founded. Vang Pao, r
!them in victory, rallied them in defeat, ?+ i:;on tho' 16th i' hatld;'''nas'been shot twice
founded their first schools and hospitals, stead is that both have become tragically ?
d seriously injured several times In
ear war in which:
10
d i
l
-y
n a
an
e
ding embroi
performed emergency surgery, inclu 30 amputations, and taught them a crude American involvement has grown from' crashes of the small courier planes he
'but efficient "new" kind of 19th century a . few bags of rice, given by Pop Buell' and Edgar Buell use to hop around the
agriculture. to Moo war refugees in 1961 to a losing mountains of northeast Laos. re
,if I can get 'em from a thousand last-ditch stand involving hundreds oL Both are tireless wdrkers. It is ra
years behind the rest of the world to American fighter bombers, more than a to find day. "I wpuutt putting Insless ss the than IS-
only 70 or 80 years behind ," Buell said billion dollars worth of munitions, a bun- ~~
"they're that much better off, ain't 1 dyed-odd U.S. Army unit advisers and that Fought to do a little bit extra after,
t'It'a
they?" dozens of CIA counter-insurgency ex- I did my day's work" said Buell. e
In his devotion to the welfare of the., perts. that little bit that sells America to thes)
half million Meo and Lao refugees un- . When President Nixon minimizes people."
der his care, Buell frequently boils over, , American Involvement in ground combat The fates, of Laos and American In-
with irritation at American bureaucrats In Laos, he obviously hasn't been told terests in that country have been inter
and diplomats who resist his demands" about Pop Buell, just as he reportedly twined since the two small men (each is
for short-cuts in speeding supplies-tog was not told about the death of Army 6'4") first met In a native restaurant In
he displaced people. His deep friend- Captain Joseph Bush in combat at Muong the village of Lhat Houang, just south
(~. as not only, with Gen. Van Pao and Soul Laos, which I reported, to the of the Plaine des Jarres in 1960, The
scaled a ersonal pact that night which
g consternation of the White House, a few
other oleo leaders, but with Premier y ,
! Souvanna Phouma and dozens of other weeks ago. has often" overshadowed the policies of
Laotian leaders, including King Savang both the Laotian government and the
Vatthana himself, has made even high United States.
~UELL has led Meo troops in battle Buell itben was a volunteer agricul-
State Department officials reluctant to tural adviser, receiving token pay of $65 erase swords with him. many times. On one occasion a few years ? a month from Internatio "
1 As I write this, Buell and his close ago his ppresence alone was credited with Berviees" a private peace ,
ifriend, Van Pao, a tough tribal leader hoMin to then a,pitifully weak defen-~ modul sndsr e : ta,'USAID4
iwbo Wes. like an ot1D, I,iai ~E 6'i ~.? ti 0002'00100003-0
Gen. yang Pao, has often mountain bases in the cr5zy-`1"1- ...... Irnu1u11 ^~1?.a..-~
Maj
AS stet comparable, on him divine status and call him "Tan'
a
Approved For Release 2006/06/197.C;IA-KUP88-01350
5 APR 1970
war will boa s
Laos' small scale, to what the American pops which means "Mister Sent From'
command in Vietnam would face if Above?' - heart Danang and Saigon were to be seized by tack 13411 one suffers
Cong.
__d y
the Viet
pan month from recurring;
n
l
ay,
l
a
g