Since Captain Song headed the operations of the counter-insurgency unit, we worked together daily. A maverick who got along beautifully with his co-equals and his subordinates, he took an immediate dislike to anyone with direct authority over him. He had a trace of royal blood in his veins, which undoubtedly had helped him attain the rank of captain. Every day he and I would review the incoming intelligence from the counterinsurgency unit’s scattered posts. There wasn’t a lot of hard intelligence, since not much was going on.
Most of our reports covered the activities of the various ethnic groups in and around the Thai border area that were plotting their independence from Burma—the Karens, the Shan State Independence Army, the Red Lahu, and others. We also kept an eye on any possible Communist incursions among the numerous hill-tribe people who populated the highland areas around the border—the Hmong, the Yao, the Lisu, the Haw.
Many of the hill tribes had lived in China but had migrated south. Most lived in mountain villages at an altitude above 3,000 feet. They practiced a slash-and-burn style of agriculture and as a result had to move frequently to look for new fields. They raised rice, poultry, and livestock, but the major cash crop was opium from the poppy.
In addition to gathering information, I or another Agency officer would accompany the Thai commander of the counter-insurgency unit on his jeep trips to remote outposts. During the rainy season some areas were inaccessible, and we would schedule one of the station’s planes to take the commander on his trip. One time the station sent up a C-47 with instructions to use it. The station’s contract with the Agency airline, Air America,3 called for a minimum number of hours of use each month. At that particular moment, in a most unusual situation, absolutely no one seemed to have any requirements for a plane. I offered the use of it to the local officers of the Joint United States Military Advisory Group, who had done many favors for us. They were delighted, and we took off for Chieng Khong, a small airstrip on the Lao-Thai border. The pilots were new to the area and had difficulty locating Chieng Khong. We flew much too long and suddenly we spotted a large airfield. We immediately turned around and headed for home. After we got back, we recharted our time, speed, and direction and determined we had been flying over China—an incident none of us reported to our superiors.
The other Agency officer and I coordinated our activities with the American consul, Larry Pickering, who was a thoughtful and disciplined diplomat. He frequently invited us to official functions, and I briefed him weekly on any intelligence. I was somewhat in awe of Pickering’s status until one occasion when I began to understand the influence of the State Department compared to that of the Central Intelligence Agency. This occurred at a ceremony marking the beginning of the construction of a university.
On that day the Thai Prime Minister, Sarit Thanarat, came north with a large entourage of Buddhist priests, senior foreign diplomats including the U.S. ambassador, high-level Thai officials, and some members of the royal family. The CIA chief of station, whom I shall call Rod Johnson, also came but was not a member of the official party. I picked him up at the airport and took him to the ceremony, where we sat in the open stands at the side of the processional route, far from the official area, which was covered and roped-off. The sun was bright, and it was as steaming hot as only Thailand can get. As the ceremony concluded, the dignitaries in the enclosed area formed a line behind the Prime Minister for the recessional. As the group slowly moved our way, the Prime Minister spotted Rod in the stands. As he drew near, he held up his hand for everyone to stop. He signaled Rod down to him. While the assembled laymen, clergy, and royalty sweltered in the sun, Sarit told Rod that he would like him to join him at a party at his Doi Su Thep mountain retreat. Sarit complained that the American ambassador had heard of his plans and had asked to come along. The Prime Minister did not especially like the ambassador and wondered if Rod could in any way prevent him from attending the party. Rod said no. As the conversation ended, the slowly melting official groups staggered out to their waiting cars.
Pickering had scheduled a briefing for the ambassador at the consulate following the ceremony, and I was one of those there to brief him. An hour or so after the incident at the ceremony an angry, red-faced ambassador stormed into the consulate. He did not want to be briefed. He went into an adjoining room and furiously wrote out a message. Apparently at the party Sarit had waited for about half an hour and then asked the ambassador to leave because he wanted to have a private conversation with his good and close friend, Rod Johnson, the chief of station.
This incident demonstrated the relationship that many chiefs of station have with heads of state—primarily, I suppose, because of the Agency’s ability to back a chosen individual as the leader of his country. In this case Rod Johnson not only had the powerful CIA behind him but also was a model for the role. He was a gregarious, six-foot-four-inch, red-headed, back-slapping extrovert who avoided all confrontations. He had a genius for developing close relations with whoever became a country’s leader. After Sarit died, there was a period of strained relations between the CIA and the new government of Thanom Kittikachorn and Praphat Charusathien. Praphat officially was the number two man in the government, but in fact he held the real power. Rod Johnson quickly overcame the tension and developed such a close relationship with Praphat that the Thai foreign minister complained that he could seldom get in to see Praphat because Praphat was always with Johnson.
Johnson liked to tell the story of his trip to see Praphat early one Sunday morning under orders from Headquarters in Langley. He arrived unexpectedly and Praphat came out to greet him in his undershorts. After settling business and after a few drinks, things loosened up a bit, and playful blows between Johnson and Praphat developed into a full-scale wrestling match. The battle between the six-foot-four-inch Caucasian and the short, fat Thai (who so closely resembled in appetite, conduct, and appearance the word many Thais used to describe him—pig) began to favor Johnson. Praphat got angry, and the chief of station, deciding diplomacy was more important than victory, allowed Praphat to pin him.
Rob Carson was also assigned to the North. His responsibility was to oversee the equipment and physical plant of the counterinsurgency force. Rob, who was about 50 and in great shape, had been the instructor for the survival/dirty fighting/ physical education courses at the “farm” during my paramilitary training.
Both Rob and I started studying the Thai language at the same time and after a few months I—no whiz at language study—was able to order food in a restaurant and exchange pleasantries with Thais. Rob, on the other hand, spoke hesitantly. It was painful in a restaurant when he tried to order in Thai. Others would just name the dish, but not Rob. Every time he would go slowly and carefully through the ritual, enunciating each word, “pom dtong khang” (I want), while the Thais looked on in impatient exasperation.
But this aside, Rob was quite pleasant and we worked smoothly together. In the small community, if we had not liked each other, it would have been very difficult.
One day after I had been in the North for about six months, I received a message from the deputy chief of station, Dave Abbott, to report to the station. Before seeing Dave, I first checked in with my parent office. Everyone seemed to be furious, and I quickly realized that the reason was Dave Abbott. Demanding and critical, Dave was genuinely disliked; each person in the office had his own stock of Dave Abbott stories to tell.
Sam, one of my friends in the office, took me down to the cafeteria for lunch. He said most of the officers in my parent office—two of whom were my direct supervisors—had formerly been with the Agency’s training division. Abbott had it in for trainers. He had really gone after my boss John, and John had had a heart attack. The American doctor wanted to send a dispatch to Headquarters pointing out Dave’s inability to handle people and specifically what he had done as the deputy chief of station. Both Dave and the chief, Rod Johnson, pleaded with the doctor that such a dispatch would ruin Dave’s career. The dispatch was never sent.<
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“Dave and Rod are a typically matched Agency chief and deputy chief of station,” said Sam. “They form a great team. Where one is weak, the other is strong. Dave pays attention to detail and is the shouting top-sergeant type who sees everything is done on time. Johnson is the so-called good guy. He butters up the Thai leaders, he greets everyone, ‘How are you, you old rascal?’ and never has a harsh word for anyone—at least not to their faces.”
Sam warned me that Dave would probably follow a strict ritual at our upcoming meeting. “He’ll make you wait in the secretary’s office up to half an hour before having you escorted in,” said Sam. “Then he’ll pretend he is reading and make you sweat while you stand there waiting for him to acknowledge your presence. Then he’ll look up and say, ‘Well, what do you want?’” According to Sam, Abbott did this with all subordinates to keep them on the defensive.
After lunch I was called to Dave’s office. Much to my surprise, I was immediately escorted in, and he was standing there waiting to greet me. Dave gave me a big hello, came around from behind his desk, and motioned me to take a chair while he did the same. He asked how things were going in the North. I told him I had a problem with my old jeep that kept breaking down and was costing a small fortune to keep running. “I’ll take care of it immediately,” he said. “You’ll have a new one in a few weeks, if I can get the training idiots around here to do their job.”
Dave then got down to the purpose of the meeting. “You know these people who head your office here were all forced on the station by the Agency’s training division,” he confided. “They were all teachers who never had any real operational experience. They really prove the maxim that those who teach cannot do. I have to really follow what’s going on here and with you people upcountry or they’ll get everything screwed up.”
He then asked, “What’s happening in there today?”
This really took me by surprise, but I tried to recover and outlined the various administrative things I knew were being done in my parent office. I did not mention the state of angry confusion that seemed to permeate the place.
“Look, Ralph,” he said, “I have to know exactly what is going on in there, what they are saying, what they are doing. I want you to become my eyes and ears.”
He was tearing down my superiors in my presence and was asking me to spy on them for him! I was angry, embarrassed, and most of all confused. What could I say? How could I respond? I tried to act as if I really did not understand what he was asking, and we parried words for a while before he curtly dismissed me.
I later observed that others who accepted his “recruitment” attempt instantly became important men in the station and had many hurried calls to the front office. But after their tours in Thailand ended, they were marked men. No one wanted a fink in his office. As for me, for the time being I’d kept my reputation, but, as I was to find out later, Dave Abbott never forgot or forgave a man who turned him down.
Early one November morning in 1963, a friend of Norma’s came by to tell us the sad news she had just heard over the short-wave radio: President Kennedy had been shot and killed. We were stunned. The prince of idealism who had challenged us all “to ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” was dead.
The Thai people had admired the young President and his beautiful wife. Pictures of them had appeared in the press, and there were favorable comparisons made between the Kennedys and the young King and Queen of Thailand. That day I could not go to work and stayed with my family. We were all confused, angry, and distressed. To occupy my mind, I decided to fix the flat tire on Scott’s bicycle. I went to the local hardware store to buy a pump. I took it off the shelf and asked the clerk, “Gyi baht krup?” (How much?). He said, “Baht deeo” (five cents). I looked at him in disbelief, but his sad eyes insisted. It dawned on me that with this subtle gesture he was expressing his sympathy. I appreciated his heartfelt attempt to assuage my grief.
After I had been in Thailand for more than a year, I was assigned to “observe” a program for the hill-tribe people being conducted by the Thai counterinsurgency organization. The purpose of the program was to help build close relations with the hill tribes and to lessen their vulnerability to Communist subversion. The program included training young tribal members as medics and issuing them basic medicines; training other young men in more advanced agricultural methods and assisting them to develop a cash crop other than opium; and improving the breeding stock of their pigs and chickens by providing breeding boars and cocks. An initial phase of the program required us to convince the hill-tribers to help construct small mountainside airstrips to facilitate transportation to their isolated villages. Of course, coincidentally, this also would allow a military force more rapid access to the area.
Rob Carson was the chief observer for this project. I was not a part of it and continued my intelligence-gathering duties. But I was asked to accompany a counterinsurgency team on a walk up to the villages. It occurred to me at the time that we were sacrificing intelligence-collection efforts to the demands of policy. This was my first indication that, to the CIA, policy might be more important than intelligence.
I prepared for the trip by outfitting myself with boots, fatigues, and a backpack. I decided to test the equipment by walking up the nearby Doi Su Thep mountain with Scott. As we trudged up its many miles, including the 100-plus steps up to the temple at the top, my feet felt increasingly uncomfortable, but I doggedly walked on. When we arrived home, my feet were a bloody mess. With the coming trip to the mountains only a couple of weeks away, I steeled myself to taking that long hike in rubber thongs since my feet were just too blistered for shoes of any kind.
On the appointed day I flew to a small Thai village on the Lao border, where I joined a 10-man team of the counter-insurgency group, accompanied by a pony train. Most of the Thais loaded their backpacks on the ponies, but I, macho man, indicated I would carry my pack myself.
Up the mountain we went, I in my shower thongs with the 50-pound pack. It was at the peak of the monsoon season, and we came to a stream that was rushing wildly, swollen from the downpours. We strung a rope across the stream, and all helped to get the ponies and equipment across. I then tried to cross, holding on to the rope. The chest-high roaring water hit the heavy pack and swept me under. As I was tumbling over and over, I instinctively reached out and grabbed a low-lying tree branch and pulled myself over to the opposite shore. I had had enough of my burden, and as soon as I had wrung out my soaked clothes and taken a reserve pair of thongs from my pack, I loaded it on one of the ponies.
We climbed up and up. It seemed we would never reach our destination. Crossing another shallow, slow-running stream, my feet were attacked by leeches. Never having encountered them before, I quickly grabbed them and pulled them off. I should not have done that. The normal procedure is to put a lit cigarette to their backs, and they will release and fall off. When I grabbed them, they simply clung tighter and bit me, injecting a serum that decoagulated my blood. As I pulled them off, I ripped small holes in my skin which proceeded to bleed for hours. They bled so much that my rubber thongs became slippery, making it impossible to keep them on, so I walked the rest of the way barefooted.
We continued to struggle upward through heavy jungle, passing various types of wildlife, including a large translucent snake with bright red eyes which stared at us from a ledge within striking distance of the trail. By late afternoon I assumed we were approaching the village. We stopped, and the team leader said we should camp for the night. But we had scheduled an airdrop of food and equipment for the next morning, and I did not want to have to radio back and admit we could not reach our destination. In my inadequate Thai I argued with the team leader, a master sergeant who was not at all happy to have an American with him on the trip. After an angry discussion we started up again. We had been walking along a trail that continually wound around and rose slowly upward, but we now came to a steep straight shot. I figured that now we must
be approaching the village. Wrong again. We had to do more climbing now than walking, slowly and painfully dragging ourselves up this precipice. Just about dusk we arrived at the village. We were a worn-out, haggard group. All the team members blamed me for their condition. After making arrangements for the morning parachute reception, I was given a spot on the floor in one of the hill-tribe houses. I broke open my sleeping bag and crawled in.
The next morning the Air America plane arrived on schedule and parachuted its load all over the adjacent forest, so we had to cut down a couple of huge trees to recover the equipment. We then had an egg, pepper, and bamboo shoot breakfast. I don’t know where the cook learned his trade, but as the weeks progressed his meals grew from bad to intolerable. He gathered bamboo shoots as we walked along the trail, and he added them and the fiercely hot small green peppers to everything. On the three-week trip I lost 20 pounds down to 175, a weight I had not seen since late grammar school.
Having rested and eaten, I began to walk around the Yao village. This was my first opportunity to study a semi-primitive society. About two dozen bamboo houses with roofs of thatch were scattered on level spots at various intervals on the mountain. Livestock and chickens ran loose around the village, and the pigs seemed more wild than domesticated. The human and livestock traffic had worn paths between the houses. An elevated system of bamboo water pipes ensured a steady supply of water. The adjoining fields were alive with the reddish hues of the opium poppy, the main crop of this and most other hill villages. We ignored the poppy fields as we were here to make friends, not to cause problems. (There may have been other reasons for ignoring the poppies: some said that the counter-insurgency force got a rake-off from the opium traffic.)
The villagers resembled the Chinese, although they seemed to be somewhat smaller. The men dressed in an assortment of Western and native clothes, the basic outfit being black pajamas. The women wore jacket-like blouses made of heavy red worsted yarn, loose-fitting dark trousers with fancy ornamental embroidery, and unusually colorful and decorative turbans around their hair. On festive occasions they added heavy silver neck loops and earrings, and sewed silver coins and buttons to the front and sides of the blouses.
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