7. Secret War in Laos
In April of 1953 the French colonials in Indochina asked for the U.S. to provide air support to fly tanks and equipment to their forces in Laos. The French pleaded with the U.S. saying that the equipment would mean the difference between winning and losing in Laos. At the time the country was falling into civil war between the Community Pathet Lao and the Royal Lao Government (which was sympathetic to the French and not communist). This meant that Laos was a prime candidate for a proxy war.
President Eisenhower did not want to give overt support to the Royal Lao Government but he had a way that he could fulfill the French request without openly supporting the campaign. The CIA had recently purchased assets of Civil Air Transport, which was an airline that operated out of China. While the airline continued to act as a private commercial airline, CAT also supplied crews and airplanes for CIA missions. Using CAT, Eisenhower gave the CIA authority to help the French in Laos.
Throughout the next few years CAT was kept busy making numerous air drops while the U.S. continued to covertly increase support for the operation. The operation in Laos grew to be the largest CIA operation in history as the mission grew to include unconventional methods of warfare. From 1960 to 1975, the CIA began bombing missions and dropped more bombs in Laos than have been dropped anywhere else in the world.
In 1971, the secret base that the CIA had been using to conduct operations was discovered by journalists, who broke the story of the CIA in Laos. In response, the U.S spent $54 million to convince the American public that the mission was solely a humanitarian one. Further controversy was created when the CIA was accused of selling drugs in order to finance the operation, but the U.S. official position has yet to admit to it. The U.S. pulled out of Laos in 1975, leaving millions of unexploded bombs all over the country.