The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project Foreign Assistance Series

The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project Foreign Assistance Series ERNEST C. KUHN Interviewed by: Arthur J. Dommen Initial interview date: March 25, 1995 Co yright 1998 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS From the Peace Corps to USAID 963- 965 Rural Development Division (RDD) 965 Refugee Work 965- 966 ,isplaced Emphasis on the ,eo A Day Off Carrying Arms Rice Drops .uonset Hut Fire /eneral ,a0s 1isit ,endenhall and the AID Operation Charlie ,ann as ,ission Director in 2aos 3uhn0s Relationships with AID Employees Chao Saykham0s Relationship with the French ,eo and /uerilla Tactics American Relationship with the ,eo U.S. Objectives in 2aos Integration of the ,eo into 2aos Notion of an Autonomous ,eo State Personality of 1ang Pao 1ang Pao0s Suspicions of Pathet 2ao Refugees, 969 Nai 3hongs and AID Don Sjostrom0s Death, 967 Development of Operation 2inkup Senator :oung0s 1isit, 968 Rumors of Phou Pha Thi Under Attack Eleven Americans Honored by the 3ing of 2aos North 1ietnamese Attack Phou Pha Thi TACAN- Navigational System AID Command Post for Sam Neua--Site 1 Defense of Pha Thi Decision to Abandon Pha Thi Refugee Problem Following the Attack BBC Documentary on 2aos, 968 ,edia Attention on 2aos Events of the Autumn of 968 New USAID ,ission Director 1ietnamese Road Built Near Pha Thi North 1ietnamese Attacks 1ang Pao0s Attempt to Recapture Pha Thi Helicopter Accident End of the Attempt to Retake Pha Thi and the Attack on Na 3hang Refugee Work at 2at Sen Evacuations to 1ientiane, 969 Attack on ,uong Soui 2eading to an American Death, 969 Airstrip at Xieng Dat Transferred to Ban Houei Sai Bombing of Friendly Areas by American Planes Refugee Work in Ban Houei Sai 970 Amnesty is Offered to Communist Terrorists, 970 Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs0 Fight Against Heroin Reassignment to 1ientiane 97 - 975 Unofficial Assistance to the Pathet 2ao, 973- 974 Evacuation of the AID ,ission, 975 Chapman 3eeps the Embassy Open in 2aos ,ap of 2aos, 965- 975 ,ap of Xieng 3houang, Sam Neua and E. 2uang Prabang Provinces, 965- 970 INTERVIEW %: Would you like to tell us some basic facts about how you got to Laos? First of all your name and what you were doing when you were sent to Laos. From the Peace Corps to USAID 1963-1965 3UHN: Okay. ,y name is Ernest C. 3uhn, Ernie 3uhn. I was in the Peace Corps in Thailand from 963 through mid- 965 working in a...IAm going to use the politically incorrect term of ,eo rather than Hmong because at the time we are talking about no one 2 referred to anyone as Hmong...I was living in a ,eo village up near the Thai/2ao border in 2oei province. While I was in the Peace Corps two of our directors in Bangkok had been AID employees in 2aos and were familiar with the program and basically recruited me or suggested that I might be interested in working up in 2aos. They set up a trip for myself and four other Peace Corps volunteers the summer of 965. We went up to 2aos, were interviewed and I was offered a job immediately on contract at first and later on became a full Foreign Service officer. Rural Development Division ,RDD- 1965 I arrived in 2aos to work in September 965. I was assigned to the Rural Development Division (RDD). Under the RDD there were mainly three different sections or subdivisions within that division. One was the cluster program. A cluster program was straight community development work. Working with groups of villages, hence the name clusters, anywhere from three to five villages. The AID employees, or in many cases they were I1S (International 1oluntary Services) people, lived in one of the villages and worked in the cluster. The second major office in RDD was the Forward Area Program. These again were either AID or I1S people who lived in one village which was in an area of general intermittent fighting or least civic or military tension. Hence the term, forward area, they were a little bit forward of the mainstream 2ao village security. %: What province was this? 3UHN: Well, these were all over. There were cluster and forward area people in Sayaboury, in Savannakhet, outside of Saravane, the Pakse area, ,uong Soui, generally all over. Re.ugee Wor0 1965-1966 %: Did you move around from one to the other? 3UHN: I wasnAt in the Forward Area Program, but they didnAt really move around. They would be in one village basically conducting political, social and agricultural programs and things like that. Those people were in a more eCposed area than people who were working in the clusters which was just general rural development work. The third section, the one that got all the raised eyebrows in 1ientiane, and we were all suspected of not being AID employees. In fact, people would say to our face, D:ou people are all CIA agents and not AID people.E That section was the refugee relief program. This was the program that by 966 was almost driving the AID program there. The refugee relief program was broad and included the whole school system, the medical system and, of course, the relief part. After the cease fire of 973, the attention turned from relief to more resettlement. So by the early F70s we were sort of half relief and half resettlement and by 973-74-75, we were strictly trying to resettle people. But the refugee relief work was the 3 most dangerous, the most eCposed. We had at Sam Thong at various times, where I was assigned, anywhere from three to five peopleG 2uang Prabang usually had one or two people and Ban Houei Sai had either one or two. 2ater on, people were assigned to Savannakhet and Pakse in refugee relief. When I got there the primary emphasis was in the north. The program had been started by a man by the name of Edgar DPopE Buell. Pop, along with whatever support he could get from the CIA, whatever support he could get from any source available, really started the refugee relief program and, of course, later on AID picked it up and it became a huge operation. %: Was he still in the country when you arrived? 3UHN: Oh, yes. I was interviewed by Pop and hired by Pop. He was the one who had the final say as to who was sent to Sam Thong. He was there until Sam Thong fell in ,arch 970. 2ater on, he retired but still stayed in 1ientiane until 975 when he went down to Bangkok. He died in ,anila visiting a mutual friend there. So, Pop was Huite the character. There were two people who were widely instrumental in promoting the refugee relief program and really making it a success, at least we considered it a success at the time. The other man was Dr. Charles Weldon, DIiggsE Weldon, and his wife, Dr. Pat ,cCready, the Field ,arshal. These two people along with Pop were able to put together an integrated program with medical relief, educational facilities, agricultural programs that was really Huite remarkable for its breadth and scope, the number of people that we served given the conditions that we served under. %: Do you have any general number of peo le you were serving? 3UHN: Well, there were times when we were feeding well over 300,000 people. Now, of course, that included people in the south, too. I suppose in the north at any given time we probably had upward to 200,000 or more people. Those people were mostly served by air. We had an eCtraordinary system using both Air America and Continental Air Services. People donAt really give much credit to Continental because the popular perception is that Air America was the CIA airline and did all the work. But, in fact, a major part of the work was done by Continental Air Services. Bob SiC who was the owner of Continental Airlines had started up this subsidiary to get a piece of the pie. Bob SiC and his wife, Audrey ,eadows who played the wife of Iackie /leason on the Honeymooners, took a personal interest in the program. In fact, they would themselves come over to Sam Thong and even donated a jeep to Pop back in the days when AID was not giving him any support. So Continental was a major player. 2ater on, there were other smaller airlines, helicopter airlines. I canAt think of names right now but there was a series of little airlines who got contracts with AID. The way these contracts worked both with Continental and Air America was on a cost sharing basis. Even though Air America was a proprietary airline somebody had to pay the bills. So, once or twice a year there were these huge meetings where the AID contracting people and the Air America contracting people, the ReHuirements Office, which supported the government 4 troops, and the CIA representatives all sat down and tried to figure out who was going to pay what portion of the bills. It got sort of arcane and bizarre because at any given air drop, at any given location we might have S/U troops which would get support from the CIA, we might have refugees who got support from AID, we might have dependents of FAR troops who would get support through the RO (ReHuirements Office). So these things became rather bizarre in trying to split up the costs of the aircraft. %: This raises an interesting -uestion. How much of these costs were actually secret? Presumably the AID budget was all public.

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