Laughter in the Shadows (11 page)

The director, impressed with Friedman’s briefing, turned to the director of operations and told him to put Cham on the “front burner.” He would go over and brief the president, who would undoubtedly want to know what our agency was going to do about it.

I was later told that after Dulles briefed the president on the situation in Cham, the president commented, “Those damned Soviet locusts are on the move again, and they’ll be descending on Hawaii soon if we don’t stop them. Get that outfit of yours cracking. I don’t want some half-assed Asian country blowing up in my face!”

Henry enjoyed being in the eye of the storm. He had gotten the green light to come up with a political action program and had already drafted his cable proposing to assist the Cham to establish a national “rice-roots” political organization, with chapters in villages and hamlets throughout Cham, to support civic action projects such as digging wells and setting up dispensaries, to organize hamlet militia, and to recruit and train political action and psychological warfare cadre to support the program. He added that four additional case officers would be required.

Although there was a certain amount of grousing at Headquarters about the “snake-oil charlatan” and his program, the grumbling was muted. A task force was organized and a message sent canvassing for case officer candidates.

In less than a month Henry’s “four horsemen” had been nominated and were at Headquarters “reading in.”

There wasn’t that much to “read in” on. Material on Cham was sparse, limited to dated issues of the
National Geographic
, foreign missionary memoirs, French military dispatches, and extracts from the
Congressional Record
documenting abuses of the U.S. AID (Agency for International Development) program, the
Record
alleging that licenses issued for importing Caterpillar tractors had been altered to permit the import of Mercedes Benz. The result was that Viensiang boasted more Mercedes per capita than Stuttgart did.

Bt the end of June, we four case officers requested by Henry had finished “reading in” and were on our way to the Land of a Million Elephants.

Henry was shorter than I had expected. His jocular face was contrasted by a Teutonic jaw, and his piercing eyes warned against trifling.

Henry was in a good mood, having just come from a verbal sparring session with “the great white whale,” as he referred to the ambassador. Henry didn’t waste any time. After welcoming us to the Station, he briefed us on the program we were to implement. He emphasized that the program would not really be “covert,” because the term had little meaning in Cham, where there were no secrets. In Cham everything was out in the open and tradecraft was useless. The Cham political action program was couched as “nation building” and “civic action.”

Henry said that, with the exception of the Pathet Cham, all of the political organizations and parties in Cham were tattered colonial relics. We would have to start from scratch and create a national rice-roots organization with chapters in every province, district, and village. It was a tall order, and Henry said he counted on us being up to the task.

“To teach you the finer points of raw political action and bare-knuckles politics, a former Chicago ward boss and Agency consultant, is arriving tomorrow. He will instruct you in the techniques of dead voter registration, ballot box switching, and making use of the pork barrel, or in the case of Cham, the rice crock. He is also an expert on precinct organization, how to organize the local population and ensure getting them all out to vote on election day. Chicago may not be Phu Khat or Phong Saly, but the techniques of political organization are universal, and what works in Chicago and Peoria can work in Viensiang and Pat Peng.”

Henry then went over to the map of Cham tacked on the wall of his office. He said we would be playing catch-up to a well-organized Pathet Cham political action program already under way. With his pointer, he indicated the red areas on the map. These were controlled by the Pathet Cham, and, at least for the time being, we could forget about them. The areas shaded in blue were population centers such as Viensiang and Pak Boun, which were more or less pro-government. We should encourage the Cham to set up chapters and do some organizing, but not spend too much time there. “I want you to concentrate on the green areas, the villages and hamlets in the countryside that are neutral or noncommitted. Color that area blue!”

It was a fiery pep talk from our Bavarian Knute Rockne. Now it was game time.

Vienna

Vienna wasn’t a crisis Station. A few double agents, defectors, and information peddlers claiming the Russians were dumping nuclear waste into the Blue Danube. Vienna was often referred to as the “Lederhosen” post.

One night Peer, the station chief in Vienna, was called in by his communications officer for an “OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE” from Headquarters. Peer read the cable twice, then summoned his case officers to his office.

Peer was standing in front of his desk, waving a cable at the five groggy case officers who sat in front of him. “What I want each of you to tell me is why, yes, why all your contacts seem to be unaware of what’s going on in this Austrian paradise they live in. Are they so full of beer and apple strudel that they are sleeping through the biggest crisis in this country since World War II? The entire Red Army could be marching down Lindenstrasse and I have to hear about it from Headquarters!

“I have just been advised by Langley that significant numbers of political action cadre, armed and trained in Moscow, are at this very moment infiltrating this Hapsburgian kingdom through mountain passes and river valleys! I want you to roust your contacts from their hibernation and have them find out about these infiltrations!”

The sleepy-eyed and puzzled case officers looked like chastened school-boys whose knuckles had just been cracked. Peer was still waving the cable at them when the communications officer burst into his office. “Sorry, sir. It was a mistake. The cable was sent to Viensiang and was routed to Vienna by mistake. One of those communications glitches. Headquarters says they’re sorry for any inconvenience.”

Peer sent his befuddled case officers back to bed. His curiosity had been aroused, however, and he reread the cable with its references to black-pajama cadre, pirogues, buffalo carts, and panji-staked trails. He put the cable down and went over to the world globe standing next to his desk. He spun it several times looking for this “Viensiang” without success and finally gave up, deciding to try the
Rand-McNally
the next day.

Boostershot

All events in history reappear in one fashion or another . . . the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.

—KARL MARX

Henry’s wasn’t Cham’s first political action program. Two years before his arrival, the American embassy’s “Country Team” had come up with Operation Boostershot, a program that had gone badly wrong.

The program centered around two Caterpillar tractors that had been gathering dust in an Agency for International Development (AID) warehouse. The plan called for airdropping the tractors into two districts controlled by the Pathet Cham. The pro-government candidates would take credit for bringing in the two tractors and the grateful villagers would express their gratitude at the polls on election day. The Country Team planners forgot, however, that Cham was a security sieve and the plan was bound to leak.

Rumors that a plane would be arriving had spread quickly through the two districts, and when the C-130 appeared, a crowd had already gathered on the ground. The first plane flew over and dropped the crate with the tractor inside attached to two parachutes. When the crate hit the ground, the Pathet Cham candidate rushed out shouting, “Look! The ‘peoples’ tractor’ the Pathet Cham has gotten for you! With it you can build roads and plow new fields. Long live the Pathet Cham.”

The villagers ran out onto the field, trampling over the hapless pro-government candidate still holding his prepared speech. When the crowd reached the gigantic crate, they ripped it open, revealing the bright yellow tractor. They climbed over it, stroking the silver smokestack, pulling levers, running their hands over the
tracks. The Pathet Cham leader climbed onto the seat and pressed the starter button. Puffs of blue smoke belched from the exhaust as the engine caught and the tractor lurched forward, heading across the field. The government candidate, picking himself off the ground, had no doubt about who was driving his tractor.

The performance was repeated in the second district, the Pathet Cham candidate again taking credit for the yellow “manna from the sky.”

Both Pathet Cham candidates won by a landslide. Boostershot was consigned to the shredder.

Henry called the Country Team meetings “The Ambassador’s Amateur Hour.” He had no intention of giving a briefing on his program. He was required, however, to keep the ambassador informed about all nonintelligence operations in which his people were involved. So, Henry told the ambassador his people were working with the Cham on a “civic action program.” Its objective was to help the Cham in “strengthening their democratic institutions.”

The ambassador suspected there was more to the program than Henry told him, but he couldn’t quarrel with “fostering democracy.”

The Young Turks

Henry had already begun laying the groundwork for his political action program before we arrived, organizing evening seminars for young Cham army officers and government officials, Cham’s “Young Turks” fed up with the “Francophile gerontocracy” running their country. Henry worked these seminars like revival meetings, lashing out at communism and corruption, extolling freedom and democracy. He told his audience they were tomorrow’s leaders and should start thinking about what they could do for their country.

The night Henry introduced us to his group; the theme was “political organization.” He agreed with their concerns about the country stagnating because it was run by what they referred to as stale, colonial leftovers. Cham was a new country and needed new blood, new ideas, and a new political organization. Henry, after telling the group he thought the leaders of such an organization were here tonight, excused himself and left the room.

A lively discussion followed until General Ouane Rathikone got up to speak. “Henry’s right. We have to organize a political movement of all the Cham and have soldiers and civilians working together in the interests of the country. We could call it the Cham Union Banda Solidaire, CUBS.”

Ouane had gotten the group’s attention, and they all started talking at once among themselves. The general was a good speaker and a popular figure. The betel-nut chewing army chief of staff, a former sergeant in the French maquis,
had been expelled from St. Cyr, the French military academy, for referring to his instructors as “wooden-headed officers with Dien Bien Phu complexes.”

I was surprised to hear the rough ex-sergeant speak so eloquently about the need for a “national movement” and even giving it such a high-sounding name. Then I remembered Henry telling us about his “very good friend” General Ouane, and I knew where his inspiration for the CUBS had come from.

When Ouane finished, Phousat stood up and nominated General Ouane for CUBS president. The group clapped and someone seconded the nomination. Then another member of the group stood up and nominated Lieutenant Colonel Oudone as CUBS vice president. This nomination was also applauded and seconded.

I was sure Henry was pleased at this demonstration “of political action in the raw,” but I saw that he seemed upset and had taken Ouane aside out of earshot of the others. When Ouane returned, he took the floor again, this time nominating Impeng Soolay, a minor official in the ministry of information, as secretary general. After brief applause and seconding of Impeng, Oudone nominated Ciao Sopsana, a schoolteacher from Luang Prabat, as treasurer. The nominations were then closed.

Henry was breathing easier. With two leadership positions filled by civilians, he couldn’t be accused of midwifing a military junta.