THE CIA IN CHINA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80R01720R001100040021-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 7, 2004
• Sequence Number: 21
• Publication Date: October 12, 1970
• Content Type: NSPR

WASIIIPIGTON, D. C. GAZETTE
12 Oct 197
Approved For Cease 2004/07/08: CI -RDP80R0172
0,.
1-IOUEI SAI, Laos
kong River town is as
(LNS) -- This sleepy Me-
close as a journalist with
any regard for his safety can get to a secret
CIA outpost which is the staging area for armed
reconnaisance teams being sent by the U.S. in-
to China.
Sources
close to the CIA pinpoint the staging
area at a small mountain valley airstrip called
Nate Lieu (Nam Yu) fifteen minutes flying time
north of Housei Sai. According to the same
highly reliable sources, "there is always a
team in China. "
The teams are armed with American small
arms, a special three pound radio with a range
e
ao
an equivale
of four hundred miles, and other special equip- of a "tiger's cage" -- a twelve- b
-tw
l
b
y
e
ve-
y
-
ment. Their missions are to tap Chinese tele- twelve foot pit exposed to the elements and with-
graph lines, watch roads and do other types of out sanitation facilities -- and eventually execu-
intelligence gathering. Teams have gone as far ted.
as two hundred miles into China. Like .most CIA operations in Laos, the one
Each team is said to consist of about fifteen at Man Lieu is directed from a super-secret
-men, most of who are Yao hill tribesman. Yao headquarters at Udorn airbase in Northeast
are used because this tribe lives in large num- Thailand. There are four Americans in Nam
bars along the mountainous frontiers of Laos, Lieu, however, headed by a veteran clandestine
Burma, Thailand and China. There are approx- mercenary organizer named Anthony Poe. In
imately two million Yao living inside China, and addition to activities inside China, Poe and his
some of the mercenaries have family connec- team also work with hill tribesman in the area,
tions there. Meo and Lao Theung tribesmen are organizing "SGU" (special guerilla units) and
also used for. similar reasons. Thai Army which they direct at Xieng Lom south
The teams are normally flown to a sod air- of Houei Sai on the Lao-Thai border.
strip known as "Site 93" of "Moung Moune, it a- Poe is an ex-Marine non-commissioned off,-
bout twenty kilometers north of Nam Lieu, near cer, wounded in landing at Iwo Jima, who re-
the Mekong River where it forms a border with mained in Asia after World War II. In the fif-
Burma. Sometimes they are put down right on ties he helped organize Tibetan CIA-aided in-
the banks of Mekong by helicopters. They car- surgents, escorted them to Colorado for train-
ry instantly inflatable rubber rafts to use cross- ing and finally went back with them into Tibet.
ing the Mekong into Burma. From Burma they Later he worked in the Thai- Cambodian border
The teams from Nam Lieu are one three to other parts of Thailand with other mercenary
four months maintai
i
n
ng contact: by radio with f
, groupsor a total of five years. He has been in.
Nam Lieu and with airplanes which fly close to and out of~ Laos since before the Geneva Accords
the China border in order to pick up their broad- of 1962, and was one of the first Americans 'n-
casts. volved in arming and training hill tribe - ra-
On at least one occasion an'air lane has been p-
P military groups in Laos.
almost shot down for straying into China. Dur- There are reasons to believe Poe's opera-
ing July 1968, an Air Amsrica "porter" single- tions at Nam Lieu are 'ust the ti of u
an ' b
p - -6
engined plane with two aboard crossed the Chi- of U.S, activities'in China and Burma. 'Take
nese frontier near the tri-borders of Burma, for example:
Laos and China. Parts of both wings were --Sources close to the CIA report that th
blown away by anti-aircraft fire, but the plane . CIA is working with Shan mercenary groups
was able 'to limp back to base. roving into China from northern Burma. Ac-
Several of the teams inserted into Chitsa
Approved For Release 2004/07/08 CIA-RDP80R01720R001100040021-9
continue northwest, entering China about fifty area with the "Khemer Blue" anti-Sihanouk fore.
l c
D ISP/~TCI-l ~1CV.'s
have been captured, and some have
allegiance, returning to Nam Lieu t , cc,,,nt,,e
spies.
There has been at least one occasion, .?
a returning team brought Chine c lb:,c1-' will,
them. During 1968, five local. Chinos, functio~,-
aries ousted from their posts by the Cultural
Revolution in China defected to a Nam Lieu re-
connaisance 'team. They were brought back to
Nam Lieu by the team. There they vici a ell-
treated by the Americans for a time but , "entu-
ally turned over to the Royal Loatian govern-
ment. According to sources close to the CIA
the five were thrown into th
L
ti
nt
 Approved For Releass004/07/08 : CIA-RDP80R01720R001'I'A6040021-9
of their men have been recruited?at high salaries'
to work in CIA-run mercenary bands on the
North Vietnamese and Chinese frontiers. The
Nungs are given 500, 000 piasters (about U.S.
cording to the same sources, the Burmese gov-
ernment is getting assistance from the CIA
mounting air-strikes on anti-government insur-
gent groups in the same area. This second op-
eration is centered at Mandalay.
--Burmese borcier officials at the Thai-Bur-
ma border northwest of here claim there is per-
manent CIA "intellegence gathering activity"
going on in Burma near the Chinese and Lao
borders. "White Chinese" guerrillas (rem-
nants of Chiang Kai Slick's army forced out of
China by the communist revolution) numbering
2, 000 men armed with American M-1, M-2, ands
M-16 rifles are also said by the Burmese to be
active in the same area (Chinese Communist
troops are also reported by the Burmese to be
in the area.
--Nung people originally from the mountains
of the North Vietnamese and Chinese borders
now living north of Saigon near the provincial
town of Xuan Loc in South Vietnam, report some
$1500 at the free market rate of exchange) be-
fore they leave and another 500, 000 if and when
they come back six months later.
The people of I-Iouei Sai know much more
than they let on. Long a center of the opium
trade, it has learned to hear no evil, see no
evil, and speak no evil. Everyone from the
bearded IVS (International Voluntary Servi,:cs)
volunteer and the USAID refugee officer': the
,t village restaurateur are part of the "Leam. it
Nobody here talks abo;;C aam I-ieu. Expressions
of fear indicate the name of To-&,4 Poe is tbo3.
It is not hard to understanc; -4hy.
Approved For Release 2004/07/08 : CIA-RDP80R01720R001100040021-9