HMONG HONOR FORMER CIA BOSS IN VIETNAM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00418R000100150018-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 15, 2012
• Sequence Number: 18
• Publication Date: January 19, 1990
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

ST Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/15: CIA-RDP99-00418R000100150018-7
STAT
OW FTOW
COMMON BOND
By Les 10-
By
Staff Writer
Hmong honor former
CIA boss in Vietnam
On the chalkboara in the oabe-
ment of the modest house on Ed-
mund Avenue, someone had writ-
ten, "You Are Welcome Bill" in
big, block letters.
Right beneath it was a similar
message in the curvy script of Lao.
William Egan Colby "n, the St.
Paul boy who rose through the
ranks of spy-dom to become Cen-
tral Intelligence Agency director
in 1973, sat comfortably at a table
in front of the chalkboard.
He had stopped over to the house
during a visit to his hometown to
be reunited with about 35 Hmong
men, his former comrades in the
business of covert war.
Now well into middle age, they
once formed an army of young,
fierce CIA-trained guerrillas Colbv
helped recruit to carry out a secret
battle with communists along the
Ho Chi Minh Trail along the bound-
ary . between Laos and Vietnam
during the Vietnam War.
"It always is a pleasure to visit
with old friends," he told the veter-
ans who crowded into the base-
ment Wednesday night to honor the
man who was their highest patron
in the U.S. government.
"The last time I had this hap-
pen," he said, nodding at the party
decorations around him, "was at
Long Tien."
Many of the men nodded and
smiled at the mention of a familiar
place from their past. Long Tien
was the CIA's secret base in the
highlands of Laos, where the
Hmong trained and were supplied
during the lgi0s and early 1970s.
The Hmong. a proud and isolated
hill people, eventually had to flee
their country wnen Laos fell to the
communists in 1975. Those who
gurvived the journey had to wait in
Thai refugee camps - where
100,000 of their cohorts and fami-
lies remain - before being al-
lowed to emigrate to the United
States and elsewhere.
An estimated 15,500 Hmong live
in St. Paul. The Twin Cities have
the country's second-largest con-
centration of Hmong, behind
Fresno, Calif.
Near the head of Colby's table, a
giant floral centerpiece towered
over him, while farther away, a
roast pig stared at him from a
platter. A dish of fruit and boiled
eggs, all sacred objects in the
Hmong religious beliefs, was
placed in front of Colby for his con-
sumption.
The Hmong had invited Colby to
a baci ceremony - pronounced
"ba-see" - to wish him good for-
tune and a long life, said Nkajlo
Vangb, chairman of Lao Family
Community, a Hmong self-help or-
ganization headed mainly by ex-
CIA Hmong war veterans.
Each of the Hmong veterans
bowed and tied pieces of string to
Colby's right wrist, which grew
steadily thicker like a cast. The
string symbolizes the giver's good
wishes.
Appointed CIA director by Presi-
dent Richard Nixon, Colby was
fired by President Gerald Ford and
replaced by George Bush in 1976.
In the 1960s, as CIA bureau chief
in Saigon, Colby masterminded the
CIA's covert operations in South-
east Asia.
He recently wrote a book on the
Vietnam War, "Lost Victory,"
which argues that the United
&States actually had won the strug-
gle by 1972, partly through its ef-
forts to arm civilian patrols.
But South Vietnam eventually
fell in 1975 because the American
people wanted to withdraw from 1
Southeast Asia and would not sup-
port the South Vietnamese Army
any more.
"Despite the problems that oc-
curred in Laos, despite the fact
that you had to come here, we
guard our relationship as a very
close one, where we once worked
together as comrades in arms,"
Colby told the Hmong through a
translator.
The Washington Post
The New York Times
The Washington Times
The Wall Street Journal
The Christian Sclanos Monitor
New York Daily News
USA Today
TM bona
oate MN
Colby was in St. Paul to deliver a
speech on trade in Asia to the Min-
nesota Trade Office on Thursday,
said Stephen Young, a St. Paul at-
torney who is a close friend of Col-
by's from Vietnam.
When members of the city's
Hmong community heard the ex-
CIA chief was coming, they asked
to honor him with a ceremony
Wednesday night.
"They wanted to tell him, 'We
remember you. We want you to re-
member us,'" Young said.
Many of the Hmong veterans be-
lieve that since they fought under
and with U.S. forces they should be
entitled to veterans benefits. But
Colby said that under U.S. law they
cannot collect benefits because
they weren't officially part of the
U.S. armed forces.
"We did what we could within
the limits," Colby said. "We cer-
tainly did try to help them get out
of the camps."
Pape A-3
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/15: CIA-RDP99-00418R000100150018-7