Obits for "Fabled Hero" of Vietnam War, Vang Pao, Omit CIA Drug Connection
Author(s):
Hallinan, Conn
Format:
Report
Publisher:
Washington : Inter-Hemispheric Resource Center Press, 2011.
Language:
English
Abstract:
[Vang Pao], who died Jan. 6 in Clovis, a small town in California's Central Valley, was described in the Times as "charismatic" and in AP as a "fabled military hero" who led a Hmong army against the communist Pathet Lao during the Laotian civil war. Van Pao's so-called "secret army" was financed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency as part of the U.S.'s war against North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front in South Vietnam. Well, "financed" is a slippery word, and while, it was true Vang Pao got a lots of money and arms from the CIA, a major source of his financing was the opium trade run out of Southeast Asia's "Golden Triangle." That little piece of history never managed to make it into the obits, which is hardly a surprise. The people the CIA hired to run dope for Vang Pao went on to run dope for the Contras in the Reagan Administration's war against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. And talking about close ties between drugs and the CIA in Southeast Asia and Central America might lead to some very uncomfortable questions about the people we are currently supporting in Afghanistan. Readers should search out a book by Alfred McCoy called "The Politics of Heroin in South East Asia," and pull up a Frontline piece entitled "Drugs, Guns and the CIA" by Andrew and Leslie Cockburn. What they will find is not in the Times and the AP obits.