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7‘7, WV HARPER' S 1#1r • JULY 1972 • OGC S UB JE.REI,AbC
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•, • , .• ' a. FLOWERS icb,.,110- , 1- I • • /"•v• I • 1":4..N. .,•:t I ,;.:1"1:7".- • • ; F 1VIL LdViiiirA • • ra a 4,34i • The CIA and the heroin trade
T adies and gentlemen," announced the genteel British the Laotian Embassy had turned out to welcome the new -Lt diplomat, raising his glass to offer a toast, "1 give you ambassador. There were warm embraces, kissing on both Prince Sopsaisana, the uplifter of Laotian youth." cheeks, and more effusive speeches. Curiously, the Prince The toast brought an appreciative smile frOin the guest of insisted on waiting for his luggage like any ordinary tourist, honor, cheers and applause from the luminaries of Vientiane's and when his many suitcases finally appeared, after an unex- diplomatic corps, assembled at the farewell banquet for the plained delay, he immediately noticed that a particular one was Laotian ambassador-designate to France, Prince Sopsaisana. A missing. Sopsai angrily insisted that his suitcase be delivered at member of the royal house of Xieng Khouang, the Plain of once, and French authorities promised, most apologetically, Jars region, the Prince Was vice-president of the National that it would be sent to the Laotian Embassy as soon as it was Assembly, chairman of the Lao Bar Association, president of found. Sopsai departed reluctantly for yet another reception at the Lao Press Association, president of the Alliance Francaise, the Embassy, •and while he drank the ceremonial champagne and a member in good standing of the Asian People's Anti- with his newfound retinue of admirers, French customs of- Communist League. After receiving his credentials from the ficials were examining one of the biggest heroin seizures in King in a private audience at the Luang Prabang Royal Palace French history. on April 8, 1971, he was treated to an unprecedented round • The Ambassador's suitcase contained sixty kilos of high- of cocktail parties, dinners, and banquets. For Sopsai, as his grade Laotian heroin — worth $13.5 million on' the streets of friends call him, was not just any ambassador; the Americans New York, its probable destination. A week later, a smiling Considered him an outstanding example of a new generation of French official presented himself at the Embassy with the honest, dynamic national leaders, and it was widely'rumored in suitcase in hand. Although Sopsaisana had heen bombarding Vientiane that Sopsai was destined for high office some day. the airport with outraged telephone calls for several days, he The final send-off party at Vientiane's Wattay Airport on suddenly realized that accepting the suitcase was tantamount to April 23 was one of the gayest affairs of the season. Everybody an admission of guilt and so, contrary to his righteous in- was there; the champagne bubbled, the canapes were flawlessly dignation, he flatly denied that it was his. Ignoring his French, and Mr. Ivan Bastouil, charge d'affait •es at the French declaration of innocence, the French government refused to Embassy, gave the nicest speech. Only after the plane had accept his diplomatic credentials, and Sopsai remained in Paris soared off into the clouds did anybody notice that Sopsai had for no more than two months before he was recalled to forgotten to pay for his share of the reception. Vientiane. • His arrival at Paris's Orly Airport on the morning of April 25 was the occasion for another reception. The French am- Fragile flower, cash crop bassador to Laos, home for a brief visit; and the entire staff of
espite it resemblance to comic opera, the Prince Sop- Allred W. McCoy, a Ph.D. student in Southeast Arian history at Yale D saisana affair offered a rare glimpse into the workings of University, bat written numerous articles on Southeast Asia and has the Laotian drug trade. That trade is the principal business of edited a political history of Laos. Laos, and to a certain extent it depends on the support (money, Adapted from a chapter in The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, by guns, aircraft, etc.) of the CIA. Unfortunately, the questions' Allred W. McCoy with Cathleen B. Read, to be published by Harper er Row, Publishers, Inc., in September. Copyright 0 1972 by Allred raised by the Prince's disgrace were never asked, much less IV. McCoy. answered. The .French government overlooked the ern. c 0 I NONE/UNKNOWN on tinuo d NONE/UNKNOWN It
The harvesting of the opium crop takes place between January and early March. When the opium it ready, the petals fall away, leaving the bare bulb. In late afternoon or early evening the Mee women Oa driationt in the bulb with the three-pronged knife shown below. The following morning the congealed opium tap it collected from the bulb', surface with a small shoed-like tool, and carried in a smolt container worn around the neck. barrassment for diplomatic reasons, the international press ignored the story, and the United States Embassy demonstrated a remarkable disinterest in the entire subject. Over the past fifty years, Laos has become som. ething of a free part for opium. The delicate opium, poppy grows abun- dantly at high elevations in the northern mountains, and under a sequence of different regimes (French, American, Laotian), the hill tribesmen have been encouraged to cultivate the poppy as the principal cash crop. Opium dens can be found in every quarter of Vientiane, and the whereabouts of the opium refineries ate a matter of common knowledge. The leading citizens, whether princes, generals, or politicians, zealously control the drug traffic and regard it with good reason, as a strategic • industry. . The Laotian indifference to Prince Sopsaisana.'s misfortune therefore becomes easily understandable. The reticence of the American Embassy, however, requires a few words of ex- planation. Sopsai had allegedly received his sixty kilos of heroin through the kind offices of a particularly aggressive Laotian general named Vang Pao. Vang Pao also happens to be the commander of the CIA secret army in northeastern Laos. He has commanded that army since 1961, add during the past eleven years he has become an increasingly notorious en- trepreneur in the Laotian drug trade. But the American Embassy remains curiously unaware of his involvement in the narcOtics traffic. Nobody has any in- formation on the operation of the Laotian drug business, and Embassy officials appear to have adopted an attitude of benign neglect. That attitude was characteristically expressed in a letter written in December 1970 by Ambassador G. McMurtie Godley to a journalist inquiring about the opium traffic. Godley wrote:
The purchase of opium in Soutbeait Asia is certainly less difficult than in other parts of the world, but I believe the Royal Laotian Government takes its responsibility seriously to prohibit international opium traffic . . However, latest information available to me indicated
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