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 Copyright 1998 ADST The oral history program was made possible through support provided by the Center for Development Information and Evaluation, U.S. Agency for International Development, under terms of Cooperative Agreement No. AEP-0085-A-00-5026-00. The opinions expressed herein are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Agency for International Development or the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. TABLE OF CONTENTS From the Peace Corps to USAID 1963-1965 Rural Development Division (RDD) 1965 Refugee Work 1965-1966 Misplaced Emphasis on the Meo A Day Off Carrying Arms Rice Drops Quonset Hut Fire General Ma's Visit Mendenhall and the AID Operation Charlie Mann as Mission Director in Laos Kuhn's Relationships with AID Employees Chao Saykham's Relationship with the French Meo and Guerilla Tactics American Relationship with the Meo U.S. Objectives in Laos Integration of the Meo into Laos Notion of an Autonomous Meo State Personality of Vang Pao Vang Pao's Suspicions of Pathet Lao Refugees, 1969 Nai Khongs and AID 1 Don Sjostrom's Death, 1967 Development of Operation Linkup Senator Young's Visit, 1968 Rumors of Phou Pha Thi Under Attack Eleven Americans Honored by the King of Laos North Vietnamese Attack Phou Pha Thi TACAN- Navigational System AID Command Post for Sam Neua--Site 111 Defense of Pha Thi Decision to Abandon Pha Thi Refugee Problem Following the Attack BBC Documentary on Laos, 1968 Media Attention on Laos Events of the Autumn of 1968 New USAID Mission Director Vietnamese Road Built Near Pha Thi North Vietnamese Attacks Vang Pao's Attempt to Recapture Pha Thi Helicopter Accident End of the Attempt to Retake Pha Thi and the Attack on Na Khang Refugee Work at Lat Sen Evacuations to Vientiane, 1969 Attack on Muong Soui Leading to an American Death, 1969 Airstrip at Xieng Dat Transferred to Ban Houei Sai Bombing of Friendly Areas by American Planes Refugee Work in Ban Houei Sai 1970 Amnesty is Offered to Communist Terrorists, 1970 Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs' Fight Against Heroin Reassignment to Vientiane 1971-1975 Unofficial Assistance to the Pathet Lao, 1973-1974 Evacuation of the AID Mission, 1975 Chapman Keeps the Embassy Open in Laos Map of Laos, 1965-1975 Map of Xieng Khouang, Sam Neua and E. Luang Prabang Provinces, 1965-1970 INTERVIEW 2 Q: 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 KUHN: Okay. My name is Ernest C. Kuhn, Ernie Kuhn. I was in the Peace Corps in Thailand from 1963 through mid-1965 working in a...I’m going to use the politically incorrect term of Meo rather than Hmong because at the time we are talking about no one referred to anyone as Hmong...I was living in a Meo village up near the Thai/Lao border in Loei province. While I was in the Peace Corps two of our directors in Bangkok had been AID employees in Laos and were familiar with the program and basically recruited me or suggested that I might be interested in working up in Laos. They set up a trip for myself and four other Peace Corps volunteers the summer of 1965. We went up to Laos, 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 Laos to work in September 1965. 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 IVS (International Voluntary 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 IVS 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 Lao village security. Q: What province was this? KUHN: Well, these were all over. There were cluster and forward area people in Sayaboury, in Savannakhet, outside of Saravane, the Pakse area, Muong Soui, generally all over. Refugee Work, 1965-1966 Q: Did you move around from one to the other? KUHN: I wasn’t in the Forward Area Program, but they didn’t 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 exposed area than people who were working in the clusters which was just general rural development work. 3 The third section, the one that got all the raised eyebrows in Vientiane, and we were all suspected of not being AID employees. In fact, people would say to our face, “You people are all CIA agents and not AID people.” That section was the refugee relief program. This was the program that by 1966 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 1973, the attention turned from relief to more resettlement. So by the early ‘70s we were sort of half relief and half resettlement and by 1973-74-75, we were strictly trying to resettle people. But the refugee relief work was the most dangerous, the most exposed. We had at Sam Thong at various times, where I was assigned, anywhere from three to five people; Luang Prabang usually had one or two people and Ban Houei Sai had either one or two. Later 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 “Pop” 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. Q: Was he still in the country when you arrived? KUHN: 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 March 1970. Later on, he retired but still stayed in Vientiane until 1975 when he went down to Bangkok. He died in Manila visiting a mutual friend there. So, Pop was quite 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, “Jiggs” Weldon, and his wife, Dr. Pat McCready, the Field Marshal. These two people along with Pop were able to put together an integrated program with medical relief, educational facilities, agricultural programs that was really quite remarkable for its breadth and scope, the number of people that we served given the conditions that we served under. Q: Do you have any general number of people you were serving? KUHN: 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 extraordinary system using both Air America and Continental Air Services. People don’t 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 Six who was the owner of Continental Airlines had started up this subsidiary to get a piece of the pie. Bob Six and his wife, Audrey Meadows who played the wife of Jackie Gleason on the Honeymooners, took a personal interest in the program. In fact, they would themselves come over to Sam Thong and even 4 donated a jeep to Pop back in the days when AID was not giving him any support. So Continental was a major player. Later on, there were other smaller airlines, helicopter airlines. I can’t 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 Requirements Office, which supported the government troops, and the CIA representatives all sat down and tried to figure out who was going to pay what portion of the bills.