Date: Wed, 4 Oct 1995 15:28:26 GMTWarner, R. (1995). BACK FIRE: THE CIA'S SECRET WAR IN LAOS AND ITS LINK TO THE WAR IN VIETNAM. NY: Simon & Schuster.Back Fire contains the reminiscences of various CIA officers as their secret guerrilla war became a major military operation eventually decimating the Hmong hilltribers that fought for the CIA. "From 1963 to 1973, behind a bizarre front of 'neutrality,' Laos was a secret annex to the main Vietnam theater, overseen by the U.S. ambassador, run by the Central Intelligence Agency, and bombed by the U.S. military, without the consent of Congress." To support the war the U.S. paid for the Lao Army -- Force Armee Royale (FAR), about fifteen thousand Thai SGUs, thirty thousand mostly Hmong irregulars, and the carpet bombing. Once the bombing began, the civilian population became the target for more than two million tons of bombs.
Anthony Lewis wrote that this "was the most appalling episode of lawless cruelty in American history." Both this book and Conboy's book, Shadow War, show the inside of this major covert operation, describe the varied CIA personnel involved and to some extent detail the consequences of the secret operations of the CIA.
