BCAS Vol. 28, No.1 (Jan.-Mar. 1996) - “Rumor, Innuendo, Propaganda, and Disinformation”; about...

Review Essay Rumor Innuendo Propaganda and Disinformation

by Frank Proschan

For many years Jane Hamilton-Merritt has carried out a publicity campaign in supportofVang Pao andthe so-called Lao resistance while condemning the government ofthe Lao Peoshyples Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) and anyone who chalshylenges her own views Hamilton-Merritt has demonstrated great effectiveness in marshaling the mainstream media reputable public figures and otherwise respected institutions as the chanshynels or even mouthpieces for her campaign The publication of Tragic Mountains highlights her ongoing efforts to find accepshytance for her fanciful vision of the recent history of Laos (and the United States) Hersuccess inthis campaign has been possible only because few in her audience know the facts behind her distorted misrepresentations In this book Hamilton-Merritt conshystructs a fantastical account of the Hmong the Americans and the secret wars for Laos that bears little relation to the truth of the events and personalities she discusses

In my critique here I seek to discern Hamilton-Merritts essential arguments and establish that they are unsupportedshyor indeed often contradicted-by the facts I attempt to disshycredit Hamilton-Merritts arguments within the terms ofthose very arguments as she sets them out leaving aside certain larger issues and questions that bear on the issues HamiltonshyMerritt raises Thus to offer one example I take no position here on current debates about the adequacy of the definition of genocide used in the 1948 UN convention since Hamilshyton-Merritt never raises such underlying questions but instead alleges that the Lao PDR is guilty of genocide as defined legally by that convention Readers of this review who have not read Hamilton-Merritts book may nevertheless wonder whether she might not in some cases be accidentally right for all the wrong reasons-for instance even if a strict legal standard for genocide may not have been met was there not de facto genocide I believe however that the evidence shows that she is indeed wrong for all the right reasons

What are Hamilton-Merritts fundamental allegations that serve to structure her account In Tragic Mountains she intends

TRAGIC MOUNTAINS THE HMONG THE AMERICANSAND THE SECRET WARS FOR LAOS 1942-1992 by Jane Hamilton-Merritt Bloomington IN Indiana University Press 1992 illus 580 pp Hard cover S 2995

to demonstrate that the Hmong universally supported the French and United States during the First (1945-54) and Second (1954-75) Indochina Wars that they alone constituted a loyal and effective (albeit invisible) ally ofthe United States in Laos that since 1975 the Hmong have been the target of genocide by the Lao Peoples Democratic Republic that the Lao PDRwith Soviet assistance ifnot control subjected the Hmong to chemishycalbiological warfare (CBW) and that the US government has betrayed and abandoned its former ally ignoring or suppressing evidence of CBW use and most recently supporting the forced repatriation of Hmong refugees from Thailand to a certain death in Laos Not one of these major tenets is supported by adequate factual evidence

The Problem of the Unverifiable

According to a prominent oral historian the prerequisite for a work to be considered as a credible work ofhistory is that its claims and evidence be subject to scrutiny by other historians a fundamental canon in the use ofhistorical evidence is that it be capable of being verified or falsified This principle is embodied for example in the American Historical Association (AHA)s Standards ofProfessional Conduct Historians should carefully document their fmdings and thereafter be prepared to make available to others their sources evidence and data inshycluding the documentation they develop through interviewsz Tragic Mountains cannot satisfy the prerequisite ofverifiability

1 David Henige In the Possession of the Author the Problem of Source Monopoly in Oral Historiography International Journal of Oral History vol I no 3 (1980) pp 181-94 (p 184)

2 American Historical Association (AHA) Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct (as amended in May 1990) (Washington DC American Historical Association 1992) p 5 cf pp 6 25-27

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Hmong guerrillas receiving marksmanship training with assault rifles in the early years ofthe misnamed secret war that consumed Laos from J945 to 1975 The underlying thesis o[fragic Mountains is that the majority ofHmong supported France the United States and the Royal Lao Government (RLG) in the First and Second Indochina Wars but since the defeat ofthe RLG in 1975 the United States has betrayed and abandoned its one-time Hmong allies This photo and the next one were provided by Frank Proschan arefrom and reprinted here courtesy ofthe Civil Air TransportAir America Archives at the University ofTexas in Dallas

that would allow it to be considered a reliable work of history even though it purports to be a work ofscholarship and has been taken by others to be an authoritative source

Crucial aspects ofHamilton-Merritts argument depend on allegations made with absolutely noprimary evidence to support them Examples are legion numerous demographic claims are made with no supporting documentation (pp 303 403 448 503)3 the alleged killing of pro-democracy demonstrators in Xieng Khouang (p 500) is unattested in any credible source the translation of Hmong as meaning free people or those who must have their freedom and independence (p 3)has absolutely no linguistic foundation4 the fable of a Hmong alphabet supshypressed by the Chinese (p 5) is apocryphal the claim that most or the majority ofHmong supported the French and Americans

3 Some are presented as Hamilton-Merritts figures and others are the unsupported allegations of others compare also Hamilton-Merritts use of very divergent figures in her other publications and congressional testimony

4 See Joakim Enwall Miao or Hmong Thai-Yunnan Project Newsshyletter (Canberra Australia National University) no 17 (1992) pp 25-26 Thomas A Lyman The Free Mong An End to a Controshyversy Anthropological Linguistics vol 30 no 1 (1988) pp 128-32 and Cheung Siu-Woo A Preliminary Survey of the White Hmong Vocabulary on the Hmong Classification ofEthnic Categories unpubshylished paper 1989

(pp 45-46 p xviii) is insupportable the claim that Missing in Action (MIA) survivors were captured and kept as prisoners (p 186) is pure speculation In some cases Hamilton-Merritt can provide no evidence because the facts are simply wrong or invented she claims that in 1990 Phoumi Vongvichit (then acting president of Laos) was a guest at a July 4th party at the home of the US charge d affaires in Vientiane (p 50 I) she mistakes him for Phoun Sipraseuth the foreign minister who did attend

Throughout both informantsinterviewees and historical actors are identified with pseudonyms or nicknames and their true identity is disguised even in some cases where the actors are already publicly identified with their actions These data are consequently unverifiable and of little or no evidentiary value from the standpoint of accepted historical methodology Footshynotes and other citations of sources when they are provided at all do not allow specific information to be related to a specific identifiable and locatable source Moreover there is no indicashytion in the text that the author has deposited notes documents and interview tapes and transcripts in any public archive where they may be examined by other scholars

5 Hamilton-Merritt made no reply to my letter of 14 December 1995 inquiring where your notes recordings and supporting documentation are archived and under what conditions they are available to interested scholars for examination


Admittedly the nature of the subjects about which Hamshyilton-Merritt writes (including the past or present Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] affiliation of a number of actors and informants and the ongoing illegal activities of the Lao resistance terrorists) might impose particular problems with confidentiality and the protection ofidentities Oral historians and other scholars have nevertheless devised methods of balancing confidentiality and verifiability such as recording identities under seal or depositing materials in restricted arshychives Hamilton-Merritt makes no mention of such provishysions and the effect ofher inadequate citations is to ultimately make it impossible to verify or validate her historical intershypretations As David Henige notes no scholar has the right to seek both the approval ofhis peers and immunity from any criticism based on their familiarity with his sources6

Presented in the veneer ofa scholarly study with the trappings ofscholarly apparatus the book has great potential to deceive naive readers into mistakshyenly believing it to be a reliable work of research and interpretation

The issue of proper citation adequate supporting docushymentation and the verifiability ofthe authors claims takes on greater than normal importance because in numerous instances where historical evidence is readily available itfalsifies Hamshyilton-Merritts account or interpretation Examples are legion where she distorts the evidence she herself presents or makes what can only be construed as misstatements of fact Hamilshyton-Merritt regularly violates the AHA canon that Historians must not misrepresent evidence or the sources of evidence 7

What then should we expect where the historical evidence exists nowhere outside of Hamilton-Merritts own files

For instance Hamilton-Merritt misrepresents easily accesshysible documents when she claims on two occasions that the 1954 Geneva Accords prohibited [North Vietnam] from using a second country (Laos) in order to fight in yet another country (South Vietnam) (p 114 cf p 126) Instead the Final Declashyration ofthe 1954 Geneva Conference states explicitly that the military demarcation line [at the 17th parallel] is provisional and should not in any way be interpreted as constituting a political or territorial boundary 8 Note that this is not a question of whether the 1954 accords were eventually superseded by later events that made North Vietnam and South Vietnam de facto separate countries as many reputable experts on international

6 David Henige Oral Historiography (New York Longman 1982) p124

7 AHA Statement p 5 8 Geneva Accords of1954 Final Declaration sec 6

law have contended The question is simply whether the Geneva Accords said what Hamilton-Merritt claims-or whether she instead misrepresented the evidence itself

Hamilton-Merritt also misrepresents the contents ofa cited source when she claims that international drug enforcement agencies documented that the current drug lords ofLaos were the communist government (p 541) and cites the US Departshyment ofState s International Narcotics Control Strategy Report March 1992 as the source In fact that document reaches exactly the opposite conclusion despite receiving reports (note there is no material evidence beyond hearsay) of involvement by low-level military and local officials the USG [US Governshyment] has no credible evidence that senior officials directly engage in encourage or facilitate the production or distribution of illegal drugs 10

Beyond the numerous misstatements factual distortions and unsupported allegations in the book-only a few of which have been detailed above-there are endless small mistakes Lao words are frequently misspelled (typically a Thai spelling is substituted for the proper Lao spelling) dates are wrong the Democratic Republic ofVietnam is misnamed a peoples demoshycratic republic and place names are confused The profusion of such mistakes taken together call the authors credibility into question on other matters as well Beyond the mistakes ofdetail however there are also much larger conceptual faults and distorshytions to which we now tum

The Unanimity of the Hmong

Hamilton-Merritt would have us believe that all of the Hmong in Laos shared a single political viewpoint on the major events that engulfed them between 1940 and the present In fact there is virtually no way to quantify the proportion of Hmong who sided with the French and later the Americans as compared to the proportion who supported Lao independence from France and later opposed the United States Certainly Hamilton-Merritt offers no data to support her claims that most let alone all supported Touby Lyfoung and Vang Pao Compare the situation of Hmong in Vietnam Hamilton-Merritts account of the 1954 battles for Dien Bien Phu asserts that all the Meo were loyal to the French (p 58 quoting Trinquier) In fact the sizable Hmong population in the vicinity of Dien Bien Phu joined the Viet Minh they rendered great service to the Viet Minh 11

By McAlisters account without Hmong support the Viet Minh could never have achieved victory

In Laos the largest part ofthe Hmong population endeavshyored to stay alive by staying out of things supporting neither the RLG nor the Pathet Lao the communist-led independence movement more properly known as the Neo Lao Hak Xat

9 Richard A Falk ed The Vietnam War and International Law (Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1968-72)

10 U S Department ofState International Narcotics Control Strategy Report March 1992 (Washington DC US Department of State 1992) p 280

11 John T McAlister Jr Mountain Minorities and the Viet Minh A Key to the Indochina War in Southeast Asian Tribes Minorities and Nations ed Peter Kunstadter (princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1967) vol 2 pp 771-844 see p 824 cf p 831


1 I

The hero ofthe Hamilton-Merritt hagiography Vang Pao shown here in the early years ofhis involvement with the us Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) An opponent ofLao independence from France in the years after World War II Vang Pao was later chosen by the CIA as military leader ofan irregular army composed ofHmong and other ethnic minorities recruited to fight the Pathet Lao the communist-led independence movement In painting Vang Pao as a great Hmong hero Hamilton-Merritt ignores the fact that many Hmong in Laos chose to support the other side Hamilton-Merritt also tell us nothing about Vang Pao sefforts to have the Hmong secede from Laos his documented alliance with the ousted Khmer Rouge after 1979 or his supporters continuing corruption in the United States and terrorist acts against Laotian civilians

(NLHX) But the Pathet Lao indisputably enjoyed the support of several Hmong leaders equal in prestige and popularity to Touby and Yang Pao including Faydang Nhiavu and Laoshyfoung A 1959 US intelligence analysis notes the support of Meo in Phongsaly and Sam Neua for the Pathet Lao pointing out that most of the guerrillas in the northern provinces are ex-Pathet Lao soldiers and Meo and Black Thai tribal groups 12 Similarly a 1964 CIA working paper notes that the Neo Lao Hak Xat (NLHX) represents the many ethnic groups in Laos and provides a potential means to power and prestige for Kha and Meo minorities who have in the past been ignored or persecuted by the Royal Lao Government (RLG)13 See also Arthur Stillmans report that great tribal leaders on the Pathet Lao side are equally numerous ifless well known [than those on the RLG side]14 Despite grudging acknowledgment that her study concerns only those Hmong who sided with

12 Pentagon Papers House ofRepresentatives edition document 292 SNIE 68-2-59 18 Sept 1959

13 Central Intelligence Agency The Structure ofCommunist Organishyzations in Laos as ofMarch 1964 CIA-31900003-64 20 Oct 1964 pp 8-9 Microfilm edition Paul Kesaris ed CIA Research Reports Vietnam and Southeast Asia 1946-1976 (Frederick MD University Publications ofAmerica 1983)

the Americans Hamilton-Merritt insists absolutely without any supporting evidence that they constituted the majority of the Hmong in Laos (p xviii)

The Singularity of the Hmong and Their Devotion to the Lao Nation

From Hamilton-Merritts account one would never learn that members of other ethnic minorities-specifically the Mien and Kmhmu-made up a substantial proportion of the troops under Yang Paos command or under separate but coordinated CIA patronage Mien and Kmhmu in the Nam Tha region under the command ofYao (Mien) leader Chao Mai were recruited as irregular troops beginning in 1959 prior to the first documented CIA recruiting ofHmong under Yang Pao ls Other Kmhmu were

14 Arthur D Stillman Notes on Minority Policy in Laos (Santa Monica CA The Rand Corporation 1970)

15 Alfred W McCoy The Politics ofHeroin in Southeast Asia (New York Harper and Row 1972) pp 297ff (revised edition The Politics ofHeroin CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade [Brooklyn NY Lawrence Hill 1991]) cf Timothy N Castle At War in the Shadow of Vietnam us Military Aid to the Royal Lao Government 1955-1975 (New York Columbia University Press 1993) p 155


members ofVang Paos Military Region II troops from 1960 on Indeed the participation of Kmhmu in Vang Paos armies was so substantial that by April 1971 Lao Theung [in other words Kmhmu] comprised 40 percent of his troops 16 HamiltonshyMerritt sees fit to mention these other groups only in passing and they are otherwise invisible in her account This silence on the central role ofother ethnic groups can only be taken as willful distortion of the historical record

A similar distortion of interethnic relations is HamiltonshyMerritts Claim that [the Plain ofJars] belonged to the Hmong (p 232) There is no historical basis upon which the Hmong could Claim ownership of the Plain of Jars According to Douglas Blaufarb the Plain ofJars itself is not Meo-inhabshyited [although] a concentration of Meo villages exists in the hills around it 17 The plain was the home oflarge numbers ofLao Phouan Kmhmu Tai Dam and other ethnic groups who probably outnumbered the Hmong (who had indeed migrated into the region barely a hundred years before displacing other prior inhabitants) No matter how sympathetic one might be to recognizing indigenous land rights Hamilton-Merritts claim on behalfofthe Hmong can only be seen as completely without merit in fact it trespasses on the land rights of other earlier populations

adopted precisely to respond to the Hmong ssecessionist tenshydencies 20 Compare Blaufarb again CIA advisers urged Vang Pao to reject Meo autonomy both symbolically and in his policies and programs [but] Vang Pao thus far [1972] is not inclined to accept Lao domination ofthe Meo people after the United States withdraws 21 Whether or not one believes that ethnic minorities ultimately have a moral or political right of secession from larger nation-states or that the Hmong might have had justification for seceding from Laos it is clear that Hamilton-Merritt attempts here to rewrite the historical record by denying-in the face ofconsistent and unrefuted evidenceshythat Vang Pao sought to do so

Finally especially egregious are Hamilton-Merritts racist characterizations of the Vietnamese the lowland Lao Loum in general and the Lao Theung affiliated with Kong Le (inCluding Kong Le himself) Hamilton-Merritt discusses the traditional enemies [of the Hmong] the Vietnamese (p 83) without offering any evidence to support the assertion that Hmong and Vietnamese were traditional enemies In fact Hmong and Vietnamese had virtually no contact prior to 1850 in northwestshyern Vietnam and northeastern Laos there were no sizable Vietshynamese populations and only minimal Vietnamese (or Laotian) administrative authority and the Hmong came into conflict not with Vietnamese but with highland Tai populations Projecting contemporary ethnic or national conflicts backward into the primordial past is a familiar strategy it is of course simply jingoism rather than sound history and least of all scholarship

The issue ofproper citation adequate supporting documentation and the verifiability ofthe authors claims takes on greater than normal importance because in numerous instances where historical evidence is readily available it falsifies HamiltonshyMerritts account or interpretation Examples are legion where she distorts the evidence she herself presents or makes what can only be construed as misstatements offact

Hamilton-Merritt also seeks to deny the well-documented secessionist tendencies ofVang Pao and his followers Discussshying National Geographic author W E Garretts 1974 account ofVang Paos earlier efforts to proclaim an autonomous Hmong nationI8 Hamilton-Merritt claims that according to teacher Moua Lia Mr Garretts statement is wrong (p 327) However Bernard Fall G Linwood Barney Gary Wekkin Alfred W McCoy D Gareth Porter and others provide evishydence consistent with Garretts statement 19 Marek Thee gives the most detailed account of measures that Souvanna Phouma

16 McCoy Politics of Heroin p 281 summarizing congressional testimony

17 Douglas Blaufarb Organizing and Managing Unconventional War in Laos 1962-1970 (Santa Monica CA Rand Corporation 1972) p 23 emphasis added

Genocide against the Hmong as a People

The authors assumption that all Hmong agreed with and supported Vang Pao is a necessary foundation to her Claims that since 1975 the Hmong in general and in toto have been the target of genocide by the Lao PDR Hamilton-Merritt makes great rhetorical use of the trope of synecdoche substituting the part for the whole or perhaps metalepsis in which the general idea substituted is considerably removed from the particular detail 22 Statements that might be true when referring specifishycally to those Hmong under Vang Paos command or that

18 W E Garrett No Place to Run the Hmong of Laos National Geographic vol 145 no 1 (Jan 1974) pp 78-111 see p 89

19 Bernard Fall Anatomy ofa Crisis The Laotian Crisis of1960-1961 (Garden City NY Doubleday and Company 1969) G Linwood Barshyney The Meo of Xieng Khouang Province Laos in Southeast Asian Tribes ed Kunstadter vol 1 pp 271-94 Gary D Wekkin The Rewards ofRevolution Pathet Lao Policy towards the Hill Tribes since 1975 in Contemporary Laos Studies in the Politics andSociety ofthe Lao People sDemocratic Republic ed Martin Stuart-Fox (New York 8t Martins Press 1982) pp 181-98 McCoy Politics of Heroin D Gareth Porter After Geneva Subverting Laotian Neutrality in Laos War and Revolution ed Nina S Adams and Alfred W McCoy (New York Harper Colophon Books 1970) pp 179-212

20 Marek Thee (pseudonym for Marek Gdanski) Notes ofa Witness Laos and the Second Indochinese War (New York Random House 1973)

21 Blaufarb Organizing and Managing p 79 emphasis added

22 J A Cuddon A Dictionary ofLiterary Terms (Harmondsworth England Penguin Press 1982) p 391


small number ofHmong who violently resisted the Lao governshyment after 1975 or those Hmong terrorists who today support Yang Pao instead ofKong Le or Pa Kao Her are not necessarily true of the Hmong in general or the Hmong as a whole (and are oft~n demonstrably false) Indeed the most damning evidence that Hamilton-Merritt can offer of the Lao PDRs purported gen6cidal intentions invariably either involves misquotes or remdins undocumented (see below)

Hamilton-Merritt may well be unaware of the degree to which many Hmong have thrived politically under the Lao PDR government The vice-president of the National Assembly and the president of the Lao Front for National Construction are Hmong as is the governor of the National Ban1c There are several Hmong governors or vice-governors in the northern provinces and areas of heavy Hmong population such as Nong Het Xieng Khouang Km 52 and Muong Hom are governed by Hmong district and sub-district chiefs There are Hmong highly placed on the Central Committee of the Lao Peoples Revolushytionary Party Hmong professors at the teachers college at Dong Dok and Hmong vice-ministers and department directors Of course none of this necessarily means that Laos has become a multi-ethnic paradise The fact that certain members ofan ethnic group may achieve high positions does not preclude the possishybility that others might be victims ofinjustice or ofhuman rights violations23 But the facts do belie Hamilton-Merritts claims that the Hmong are singled out for systematic and pervasive pershysecution based upon their ethnicity itself yust because they are Hmong (p 524 emphasis added)

Note in this regard that in the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide (inserted by Hamilton-Merritt as an appendix p 533) the crucial defming factor is that of intent Under the convention simply killing members of a group or causing them bodily or mental harm does not constitute genocide it is only genocide when those acts are done with intent to destroy in whole or in part a national ethnical racial or religious group as such The Lao PDRs efforts after 1975 to eliminate or control that tiny fraction of the Hmong people who were actively engaged in violent resistance to the government do not constitute genocide under the terms ofthe UN Convention on Genocide No matter how harsh the Lao governments efforts might on occasion have been (and even ifthese efforts might have involved human rights violations the use ofCBW or other acts that could be considered war crimes or crimes against humanity) such actions in themshyselves do not prove genocidal intent to destroy the Hmong as a group Recall also that Hamilton-Merritt never argues (as have some indigenous groups international lawyers and other scholshyars) for a broader or less state-centered defmition of genocide that recognizes effects rather than intentions and in the end she offers no credible evidence of either intent or genocidelike effects

The evidence that Hamilton-Merritt does offer to support her imputation of a policy of genocide to the Lao government

23 For recent views of ethnic minority policies and their effects in Laos see Wendy Batson After the Revolution Ethnic Minorities and the New Lao State in Laos Beyond the Revolution ed Joseph J Zasloffand Leonard Unger (New York St Martins Press 1991) pp 133-58 and Carol Ireson and W Randall Ireson Ethnicity and Development in Laos Asian Survey vol 31 (1991) pp 920-37

is flimsy at best when it is not simply distorted or invented Crucial to Hamilton-Merritts charges ofgenocide is her assershytion that sometime in early May 1975 Phoumi Vongvichit (at the time vice premier and foreign minister of the Lao governshyment) announced on national radio that the Hmong must be taken out at the roots (p 337) Elsewhere relying on a 1981 letter from Yang Pao to then secretary of state Alexander Haig Hamilton-Merritt recounts a strikingly similar threat Vang Pao also reminded Haig [that] The Pathet Lao had threatshyened to wipe out the Hmong ethnic tribe once they were in power the Pathet Lao News Bulletin in May 9 1975 stated that the Hmong are the sole enemies ofthe Pathet Lao such an ethnic group must be destroyed and all roots must be pulled up (p 424) Whether this was one event or two on radio or in print Hamilton-Merritt provides no primary source citation whatsoever nor does she refer to any publicly available secondary source the only citation is to Yang Paos letter written six years after the alleged event(s) While proving a negative is impossible and thus I cannot say with absolute certainty that no such broadcast was made or bulletin publishshyed an exhaustive search ofthe Foreign Broadcast Information Service Daily Reports Joint Publication Research Services Reports and BBe Summary ofWorld Broadcasts for the period from I- April through 30 June 1975 shows absolutely no evishydence to support Yang Paos and Hamilton-Merritts allegashytion24

It is all the more regrettable that Tragic Mountains propagates a view ofHmong history that glorifies and reinforces the authority 0an older generation ofHmong whose leadership poorly serves the comshymunity at large and especially its younger members

Moreover the public record instead suggests the unlikeshylihood ofany such blanket threat--all contemporaneous broadshycasts speeches and statements ofthe Pathet Lao and Phoumi Vongvichit are careful to distinguish a very small handful of named individuals as the subjects ofthreats not an entire group or class In the early part of May Phoumi was acting as host to the king and queen ofLaos during a visit to Viengxay in the liberated zone it is highly unlikely that he would have taken the occasion to threaten an entire ethnic group of Lao citizens (many ofwhom were indeed allied with the Pathet Lao) From 7 May until the end of the month he was in Vientiane as the

24 Foreign Broadcasting Information Service Daily Report Asia and the Pacific Joint Publication Research Services Reports and British Broadcasting Service Summary ofWorld Broadcasts Far East


The opposing sides in the conflict in Laos pursued very different military and political strategies The United States and the RLG placed great faith in military armaments and firepower carrying out a strategy of technowar that blanketed most ofthe countryside with bombs At the same time the United States supported guerrillas drawn from the Hmong and other ethnic minorities bypassing the elite families ofthe majority Lao ethnic group that dominated the RLG The Pathet Lao in contrast placed its faith in the support ofthe rural populations both Lao and minority Because ofits success in enlisting support from inhabitants ofremote mountainous areas the Pathet Lao was able to maintain control over most ofthe country for decades even iffinal victory over the RLG came only in 1975 This photo from Khaosan Pathet Lao the news agency ofthe Pathet Lao and later the Lao People s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) shows a low-tech supply convoy during the war when the United States was flying in supplies to Vang Pao through its Air America affiliate

highest NLHX official in the coalition government the Provishysional Government ofNational Union since Pathet Lao Radio was broadcast from Viengxay he could not have been on the radio after 7 May2s

There was indeed another broadcast over Pathet Lao radio on 6 May 1975 that Hamilton-Merritt employs as a keystone ofher argument although it did not involve Phoumi Vongvichit and it included no language approximating that referred to above26 Taken in full the broadcast criticizes a handful of special forces that were formed trained armed and commanded by the CIA and that remained under the direction ofthe Vientiane ultrarightist reactionary clique 27

The Patriotic Armed Forces the broadcast continues have no fear of this handful of special forces We can wipe them out (at any time) That is not our primary goal we are

25 The foregoing events are described in FBIS and BBC-SWB for the period

26 A full translation of this broadcast is included in the FBIS Daily Report Asia and the Pacific (9 May 1975 p 13 titled [by FBIS] The US-Vang Pao Special Forces Must Be Completely Cleaned Up) excerpts are provided in another slightly different translation in the BBe Summary ofWorld Broadcasts Far East (12 May 1975 p FE49011Bl)

constrained to repeat because we want to preserve the spirit of national concord called for in the [1973] peace accords 21

Clearly the Pathet Lao are simply boasting here they do not threaten the shrinking membership of the special forces (only some of whom in fact were Hmong) instead simply calling for them to be disbanded as promised in the 1973 accords and denying any hostile intent against them while bragging ofthe ability to wipe them out if they wished

The only threat made in the broadcast (and in all contemshyporaneous statements ofthe Pathet Lao) is directed very specifishycally against the obstinate reactionary clique on the Vientiane side-that is a dozen or so (non-Hmong) Lao government officials-who were accused of directing the activities of the special forces the Patriotic Armed Forces must exercise our

27 In contemporaneous broadcasts and speeches the members of this reactionary clique are identified by name constituting a dozen or so prominent lowland Lao officials and on occasion Yang Pao as the single non-Lao clique member For names of those in the ultrarightist reactionary clique see FB1S Daily Report Asia and the Pacific 5 May 1975 p 11 12 May 1975 p 115 19 May 1975 p 13 21 May 1975 p 15 23 May 1975 p 11 23 May 1975 p 112

28 FBIS Daily Report the words in parentheses are in parentheses in the original


I right of self-defense and duly punish or wipe them out 29 The them who are the subject ofthis direct threat are the lowland Lao generals and ministers-Sisouk Na Champassak the Sanshyanikones and other prominent lowland Lao officials-not the special forces in general nor the Hmong in particular Yet throughout the book Hamilton-Merritt repeatedly asserts that in this 6 May 1975 broadcast the Pathet Lao threaten to wipe out the Hmong as a people in their entirety and with genocidal intent For instance note the chronology where she alleges that the Pathet Lao publicly announce plans to wipe out Hmong (p xxvi) cf the chapter heading pp 337-51 Wipe Them Out with an exclamation point added See also where she refers to the LPDRs publicly stated policy to wipe out the reactionary Hmong (p 516) Hamilton-Merritt quotes out of context in two respects first where she presents the radio broadcast at some length (p 340) but omits the crucial sentences that would make it unmistakable that threats were leveled not against the special forces (and least ofall against the Hmong in general) but only against a clique of Lao officials who were charged with sponsoring those illegal special forces and second where she further excerpts and further misrepresents the threat (pp xxvi 337-51 516)

Although the Lao original text is not available to us it is worth making quite plain that nowhere in the English translations is there any mention of the Hmong ethnic group as such There is a very important issue here during this period the Pathet Lao were careful and quite consistent in their use of the two paired tenns Meo and Lao Soung (and Hmongwas indeed never used by them during this period) The tenn Lao Soung was used to refer to that sizable proportion of Hmong who actively supported the NLHX and Patriotic Anned Forces The tenn Meo (usually qualified by adjectives identifying them with the United States) was used only to refer to that small proportion of Hmongwho continued to support Vang Pao and refused to accept the tenns of the 1973 Vientiane Agreement under which his special forces were to be disbanded So even if there had been any threats directed against the Meo-and remember Hamilshyton-Merritt provides no evidence thereof nor is any available in the most likely sources-the referent would have been not the Hmong in general but Vang Paos troops in particular

Beyond one seemingly fabricated radio broadcast (or news bulletin) and another whose content Hamilton-Merritt distorts and misrepresents the only other evidence she offers of a genocidal intent includes confessions of two Laotians who defected (one to China and one to Thailand) and then claimed to have witnessed or participated in Soviet andor Vietnamese genocide against the Hmong Ifwe had genuine documents from Laos Vietnam or the Soviet Union showing such an intentionshy

29 Quoted from FBIS the BBC text differs only trivially The same distinction is made elsewhere between dissolving the special forces and punishing the rightist clique that directed them See FBIS Daily Report Asia and the Pacific 7 May 1975 p 14 dissolve immediately the Vang Pao special forces [and] punish those who use the US Vang Pao special forcesto attack areas under the control ofthe patriotic forces (emphasis added) FBIS Daily Report Asia and the Pacific 14 May 1975 p 18 the patriotic forces side has many times demanded that the Vientiane side dissolve at once the Vang Pao special forces as defmed in the Vientiane agreement (emphasis added)

or indeed if there existed even a shred ofmaterial evidence of CBWuse or genocidal attacks--then personal testimonies (even dubious ones like these of self-interested parties such as these two defectors) would provide important corroboration alone they do not

IfHamilton-Merritt is unable to offer any credible evidence ofa genocidal motivation from the Lao PDR (and recall that to distinguish genocide from other mass killing human rights violations or war crimes requires proof ofintent) she nevertheshyless attempts-ultimately with no greater success-to show genocidelike effects Though Hamilton-Merritt herself never argues for a defmition ofgenocide based on consequences rather than intent has she perhaps marshaled evidence that might be used to establish that the Lao PDR was guilty under an expanded effects-based defmition of genocide In a word no what little she has to offer that purports to show genocidelike effects is simply numbers she has plucked from thin air with absolutely no supporting evidence

The publication of Tragic Mountains highlights Hamilton-Meitts ongoing efforts to fmd accepshytancefor herfanciful vision ofthe recent history of Laos (and the United States) Her success in this campaign has been possible only becausefew in her audience know thefacts behindHamilton-Meitts distorted misrepresentations

Hamilton Merritt asserts for example that in 1978-79 on Phou Bia alone the poisons had killed 50000 another 45000 had been shot died ofstarvation or tortured to death (p 403) The Hmong population ofLaos prior to 1975 could not possibly have exceeded 250000 A total of 50000 fled to Thailand in 1975 and 1976 and another 25000 in the years between 1975 and 1979 according to statistics of the UN High Commission on Refugees IfHamilton-Merritt is correct this would mean that one-half of the remaining population of Hmong in Laos died in the space of a few months on Phou Bia alone a ridiculous claim This is also irreconcilable with the current population of Hmong in Laos if there were only 100000 Hmong alive after the attacks on Phou Bia in 1978 there could not possibly have been a population of231000 Hmong in 1985 as a UN funded and supervised population census established Compare Hamilshyton-Merritts previously published estimates of500000 Hmong in Laos in 1960 (approximately 350000 more than any reliable source suggests and this was at a time when the population of the entire nation did not come to 15 million) bfwhom perhaps 70000 are still alive in 198030 This figure of70000 is patently impossible considering that between 1980 and 1988 45000

30 Jane Hamilton-Merritt Gas Warfare in Laos Communisms Drive to Annihilate a People Reader sDigest Oct 1980


Hmong entered Thailand from Laos-at that rate there would be only 25000 or so left in Laos rather than 231000 Note also that the present assertion is clearly based on Vang Paos claim (cited by Hamilton-Merritt in previous articles) that 45000 died from starvation and disease or were shot trying to escape to Thailand but now she has inserted that they were also tortured to death 31

Elsewhere Hamilton-Merritt recounts that Yang Xeu anshygrily reported that somewhere between 50000 and 70000 Hmong had died in the Phou Bia area ofLaos many from CBW (p 448) With a typical population density of 9-14 pershysons per square kilometer in mountainous rural areas ofnorthern Laos a population of 50000 persons would require an area of more than 4000 square kilometers (more than 63 kilometers along each dimension) far vaster than the Phou Bia area itself And there is no way that the Phou Bia area itself could have sustained a population ofthis size especially since by HamiltonshyMerritts account many were displaced persons and could not plant rice fields

Betrayed and Abandoned

The second half ofHamilton-Merritts book centers on the authors notion that the US government motivated by its own domestic and international purposes cynically betrayed and abandoned its former steadfast allies the Hmong Refighting the Vietnam War (Second Indochina War) Hamilton-Merritt purshysues the thesis that an increasingly violent [] antiwar movement (p 247) in the United States compelled the US government to abandon South Vietnam and Laos even though we were winning (the hackneyed argument we won all the battles in Vietnam but lost the war in Washington and Berkeley) Disingenuous Congressional peaceniks forced the administrashytion to disavow its commitments to the Hmong (p 225-29) and then cut off a naive and inexperienced Kissinger at the knees in his negotiations with the intractable hard-core strident Vietnamese (p 245) According to Hamilton-Merritt Nixon cynically bought domestic peace by betraying Vietnam Laos and especially the Hmong

The second leg of Hamilton-Merritts betrayal thesis holds that the US government covered up evidence of CBW use by the Soviets in Laos (or at least pursued the issue in a dilatory manner) in an immoral and crass effort to push through bilateral Soviet-American arms control agreements (cf the Storella inshyscription on p 453) In this conspiratorial view an opportunist cabal of American academics the media and careerist State Departnlent insiders made common cause with the Evil Empire to deny or ignore Soviet CBW use so that it would not block bilateral arms-control accords This is as close as Hamilton-Mershyritt ever approaches to identifying any possible motive for why by her account the interests of the Hmong were cynically traded off for US self-interest

However the well-documented increase in US CBW activity during this period is impossible to reconcile with

3 L By 1995 the numbers had gotten even fuzzier since 1975 tens of thousands ofHmong have been killed or imprisoned in seminar camps (Jane Hamilton-Merritt Refugees ofthe Secret War New York Times 24 June 1995 national edition p 15 emphasis added)

Hamilton-Merritts vision of a US government hellbent on arms control and covering up Soviet-sponsored CBW use A far more credible thesis holds that charges of Yellow Rain widely promoted by the US government in both domestic and international forums were made precisely in order to gain public support and then Congressional authorization for the Reagan administration to push forward with the manufacture ofnew CBW weapons that had previously been abandoned by Nixon and later banned by Congress (and concurrently to delay or weaken bilateral accords with the Soviet Union) The carefully orchestrated Yellow Rain pUblicity campaign ofshyfered the perfect pretext for US rearmament (and for adoption of new types ofCBW) Clearly ones larger political perspecshytive will determine which one takes as cause and which as effect did Soviet use of CBW in Laos compel Reagan and Schultz to seek new US CBW weapons out of necessity or did their eagerness to push through new weaponry cause them to orchestrate a propaganda campaign (Although the CBW charges first surfaced under the Carter administration the fervent campaign of atrocity propaganda was only later the child of the Reagan administration)

Hamilton-Merritt rather than engaging in any meaningful debate or in any way disputing these studies ofYellow Rain on accepted scholarly and scientific grounds simply condemns them all anonymously and collectively

Among the most striking deficiencies of Hamilton-Mershyritts book is her almost total disregard for virtually all previous scholarship There are quite sizable bodies ofliterature on these topics but Hamilton-Merritt studiously ignores any evidence that in any way undercuts her own arguments (she also overshylooks substantial evidence that could support her interpretashytions) This is not the place to detail this sizable literature but to question how a historical work written in 1992 could be isolated so thoroughly from all previous scholarship Consider the allegations that Yellow Rain was used against the Hmong32

32 See among proponents of the Yellow Rain accusations Sterling Seagrave Yellow Rain A Journey Through the Terror ofChemical Warfare (New York M Evans and Co 1981) Yellow Rain Hearing before the Subcommittee on Arms Control of the Committee on Foreign Relations United States Senate (Washshyington DC US Government Printing Office 1982) Chemical Warfare in Southeast Asia and Afghanistan Report to the Congress from Secretary of State Alexander M Haig Jr March 22 1982 Special Report No 98 (Washington DC US State Department Bureau ofPublic Affairs 1982) and Chemical Warfare in Southeast Asia and Afghanistan An Update and Report from Secretary of State George P Schultz Special Report No 104 (Washington DC US State Department Bureau of Public Affairs 1982)


Jane Hamilton-Merritt says that one of the ways the United States betrayed and abandoned its former steadfast allies the Hmong was by covering up evidence ofchemicalbiological warfare (CBW) carried out against the Hmong by the Lao PDR with Soviet support Her allegations depend heavily on the testimony ofHmong who claim to have been the victims ofchemicals known colloquially as Yellow Rain bull However the material evidence that has been offered to support claims that Yellow Rain was used has been shown by scientists to be insufficient proof Many believe that much ofthe oral testimony resultedfrom coordinated efforts by Vang Pao and his allies to propagate the Yellow Rain allegashytions But even the most carefully gathered oral testimony is also flawed since the alleged victims report widely divergent phenomena and results One ofthese witnesses was the Hmongfarmer Ger Thong shown above with secondary students in Ban Done Village in Vientiane Province Ger Thong believes that his son and grandson died from Yellow Rain but the effects and characteristics he reported are hard to ascribe to any known CBWagent This photo is by and copy Jacqui Chagnon and it is reprinted here with permission

There are lengthy detailed discussions of this topic from the standpoint of chemistry palynology entomology anthropolshyogy and political science33 These are published in reputable scientific journals refereed by peer reviewers carefully docushymented and basically consistent in their conclusion that there remains no credible evidence that Yellow Rain was ever used against the Hmong Note that nobody claims to have proved the negative-that Yellow Rain was not used-since that is beyond the ability of any scholar but scholars and scientists of various political persuasions nationalities and disciplines agree that the only evidence offered to prove the use of Yellow Rain is inadequate to do so Hamilton-Merritt rather

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than engaging in any meaningful debate or in any way disputing these studies on accepted scholarly and scienshytific grounds simply condemns them all anonymously and collectively Not just ignoring her obligation as a historian to disclose the counterarguments and evidence that would qualify her own argument Hamilton-Merritt actively misshyrepresents the large body of existing literature through unsupported slurs and ad hominem attacks on its authors

Hamilton-Merritt refers on three occasions to CBW expert Matthew Meselsons assertion that bees defecatshying in flight caused the death of the Hmong (p 455) Meselsons announcement that bees defecating in flight had killed the Hmong (p 456) and Meselshyson proposed that bees defecating in flight had killed these people [the Hmong CambodiaIis and Afghanis] (p 553) What Meselson himself said and wrote is indeed quite different from what she reports Notably HamiltonshyMerritt provides not a single reference to any primary source for any of the remarks she attributes to Meselson despite the fact that he has published several lengthy articles on the topic over the years in refereed scientific and academic journals such as Science Nature Scientific American and Foreign Policy3 To be sure she could hardly have provided a primary source for the statements she herself fabricated and imputed to him but at least she has the obligation to offer citations to Meselsons several readily available articles so that readers could then verify for themselves that what he actually said is nothing like what she claims

The third and fourth elements of the betrayed and abandoned argument hold that recent US policy is to ignore if not actively undermine Hmong resistance to the Lao government and to support the forced repatriation of

33 See among other sources The Riddle of Yellow Rain Southeast Asia Chronicle no 90 (1983) Grant Evans The Yellow Rainmakers Are Chemical Weapons Being Used in Southeast Asia (London Verso 1983) Lois R Ember Yelshylow Rain Chemical and Engineering News vol 62 no 2 (1984) pp 8-34 Erik Guyot The Case is Not Proved Yelshylow Rain Charges of Soviet Use of Chemical Warfare The Nation vol 239 (10 Nov 1984) pp 465ff Peter Pringle Political Science How the Rush to Scientific Judgment on Yellow Rain Embarrassed Both US Science and the US Government The Atlantic vol 256 (Oct 1985) pp 67 ff Elisa D Harris Sverdlosk and Yellow Rain Two Cases of Soviet Noncompliance International Security vol 11 no 4 (1987) pp 41-95 Howard Hu Robert Cook-Deegan and

Asfandiar Shukri The Use of Chemical Weapons Conducting an Investigation Using Survey Epidemiology Journal ofthe American Medical Association vol 262 (1989) pp 640-43 Thomas N Whiteside Annals of the Cold War the Yellow-Rain Complex New Yorker 11 Feb 1991 pp 38-ltgt7 and 18 Feb 1991 pp 44-ltgt8 as well as sources cited in footnote 32 and elsewhere in this review

34 Joan W Nowicke and Matthew Meselson Yellow Rain-a Palynological Analysis Nature vol 209 (17 May 1984) pp 205-ltgt Thomas D Seeley Joan W Nowicke Matthew Meselson Jeanne Guillemin and Pongthep Akratanakul Yellow Rain Scientific American vol 253 no 3 (1985) pp 128-37 and Julian Robinson Jeanne Guillemin and Matthew Meselson Yellow Rain The Story Collapses Foreign Policy (fall 1987) pp 100-17

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Hmong refugees from Thailand to extreme danger-ifnotcertain death-in Laos Curiously Hamilton-Merritt offers no conceivshyable motive for these aspects of the betrayal except a general implication that the State Department is so eager to pursue rapprochement with the Lao government (for some otherwise unexplained reason) that it is willing to do anything to ignore or obfuscate the plight ofthe Hmong Hamilton-Merritts conspirashytorial view of the world leads her to impute evil and insidious motives not just to the Pathet Lao all Vietnamese and the Evil Empire but also to the US State Department the Washington Post New York Times the media in general US academia everyone else who has ever written about Laos or the Hmong anyone who opposes Yang Paos terrorist bands the Thai govshyernment the United Nations refugee relief organizations and so on and so on Not only are they all conspiring to exterminate the Hmong they are also all out to silence Hamilton-Merritt or undercut her advocacy for Yang Pao (It is hard tb believe that the entire betrayal and abandonment were done simply to frusshytrate Hamilton-Merritt but reading her account one sometimes has the impression that the entire mechanism ofthe US governshyment and mass media were mobilized for the primary purpose ofundermining her advocacy for her Hmong friends)

As for the question of US support for the armed resisshytance to the Lao PDR both national and international law compel the US government to eschew violations of the terrishytorial integrity of another peaceful country and to suppress international terrorism Indeed the question should be not so much why has the US abandoned the resistance but why has the US government been so unwilling to enforce the laws it is bound to uphold that would prevent some Hmong-Amerishycans from fmancially and in person supporting and engaging in terrorist acts against Lao civilians Finally how does Hamshyilton-Merritts conspiratorial thesis jibe with the longstanding pattern of looking the other way when the State Department Immigration and Naturalization Service and Justice Departshyment have been faced with clear evidence of illegal acts by Hmong-Americans in Thailand (or in California and Minneshysota) that should make them ineligible for permanent residence US citizenship or passports and permits-to-reenter 35

A corollary question would be to what extent the United States knowingly acquiesced in or actively encouraged the Lao resistances strategic alliances and cooperation with the Khmer Rouge after they were ousted from Phnom Penh in 1979 36 This latter cooperation curiously receives no mention from HamiltonshyMerritt despite Yang Paos documented involvement (nor by the way does she mention his trips to China to arrange training

35 See among others Thailand Arrests Seven Lao Hmong on Insurshygency Charge Bangkok Post 15 July 1992 Agence France Presse Lao-Americans Arrested in Thailand 15 July 1992 Agence France Presse Laotian Rebel Leaders Deported to US21 Oct 1992 United Press International Laotian-Born Americans Deported from Thailand as Insurgents 21 Oct 1992 Reuter Library Report Lao Warlords Brother Deported from Thailand 21 Oct 1992 Bangkok Post Deshyportees Suspected of Planning Raid into Laos Bangkok Post 21 Oct 1992 It remains to be seen whether the new antiterrorism law of 1996 will be enforced against Hmong violators

36 Geoffrey C Gunn Resistance Coalitions in Laos Asian Survey vol 23 no 3 (1983) pp 328-32

and military support for his resistance bands) Hamilton-Merritt also neglects to mention threats and assaults by Yang Paos supporters against Vue Mai and other rivals both in Thailand and the United States37 the criminal corruption ofhis close associates in the United States38 and other things that might make him less worthy of public sympathy Nor does she mention the terrorist assaults he sponsors today against innocent Lao civilians the massacres ofcivilian passengers on interurban buses in Laos the torching of Lao villages that refuse to support him and so on39

Interestingly Hamilton-Merritt also makes no mention of the US governments illegal efforts to channel private funds collected from Prisoners of War (pOW) I Missing in Action lobbying groups into the Lao resistance and Yang Paos terrorist bands as documented by the 1993 report of the congressional committee on POWIMIA matters under Senator John Kerry40 Presumably in light of her extensive contacts with many of the parties and players involved in these efforts Hamilton-Merritt would long ago have had some inkling ofthis illegal use offunds (in violation ofthe Neutrality Act and other laws) Does she fail to mention this because it seriously undercuts her betrayed and abandoned theme Or is it because such revelations would discredit Yang Pao or other ofher intelligence network friends

Sensational Tales [That] Bear Little Resemblance to Truth

The execrable quality ofHamilton-Merritts Tragic Mounshytains is all the more unfortunate because it is one of only a few books on the Hmong that are likely to make their way onto library bookshelves or into the homes of Hmong-Americans Presented with the trappings of scholarly apparatus giving it the veneer of a scholarly study the book has great potential to deceive naive readers into mistakenly believing it to be a reliable work of research and interpretation So we should not be surshy

While discussing other unnamed recent books on Laos Hamilton-Mershyritt comments that some of these sensational tales bear little resemshyblance to truth (p xvii)

37 See among others Ruth Hammond Sad Suspicions ofa Refugee Ripoff the Hmong are Paying to Free Laos-but Whats Happening to the Money The Washington Post 16 Apr 1989 p B1

38 See Sonni Efron State Investigating Alleged Extortion by Laotian Agency Refugees Lao Family Community Inc of Garden Grove Demanded Money for Revolutionary Group in Laos New Arrivals Complain Los Angeles Times Orange County Edition 19 Oct 1990 p A3 noting the conviction of Yang Paos son-in-law for embezzleshyment of public funds James Leung Laotian Aid Group Under Fire The Organization is Suspected ofExtorting Money from Refugees San Francisco Chronicle 8 Nov 1990 p A2 Seth Mydans California Says Laos Refugee Group Is a Victim of Leaderships Extortion New York Times 7 Nov 1990 p A20

39 See the US Department ofState Country Report on Human Rights Practicesfor 1992 (Washington D C U S Department ofState Senate Print 103-7 Feb 1993) p 603

40 See the United States Senate Report of the Select Committee on POWMIA Affairs United States Senate (Washington DC United States Senate Senate Report 103-1 13 Jan 1993) pp 303ff Michael Ross Use ofPOW-MIA Groups in Covert Operations Alleged Activshyists Justice Dept Urged to Probe Senate Charges that Aid was Funneled to Laotian Rebels Los Angeles Times 14 Jan 1993 p A16


prised to find it cited as an authoritative source in the press and in recent publicashytions41 Hamilton-Merritt would pretend that there does not exist any reliable scholarship on Laos and the Hmong (p xvii) but to do so requires that she ignore or deny a sizable body ofworks spanning a range of ideologishycal perspectives Yet most readers (including especially young Hmong-Americans seekshying to understand the circumstances that have brought them to the United States) will likely turn to Hamilton-Merritts fantastical account instead of ferreting out reliable scho larly studies They will be poorly served by her book

Franklin Ng points out that his HmongshyAmerican college students in Fresno increasshyingly rely on printed English language sources to document their history 42 Unforshytunately for them Hamilton-Merritts book is likely to be found in libraries with much greater frequency than such serious studies as Nicholas Tapps Sovereignty and Rebelshylion which offers a comparative perspective on the Hmong in Thailand or Lynellen Longs account of Hmong in the Ban Vinai refugee camp43 A search ofthe OCLC library database for example shows that as ofMay 1996 Tragic Mountains is held by 845 librarshyies Tapp by 186 and Long by 205 Ofrecent works similarto Hamilton-Merritts and con~ cerned primarily with the involvement of Hmong in the Second Indochina War only Roger Warners BackFire comes close at 608 libraries with Timothy Castles historical monograph held by only 337 Kenneth Con-boy and James Morrisons military history by 121 and James Parkers memoirs by 14944 It can only be expected then that Hmong students [who] are drawing from external sources in some cases fragments distortions or mediated versions of their oral traditions 45 will glom onto Hamilton-Merritts book It is all the more regrettable that Tragic Mountains propagates a view of Hmong history that glorifies and reinforces the authority of an older generation of Hmong whose leadership poorly serves the community at large and especially its younger members

In its own way though Tragic Mountains offers more than enough weaknesses and vulnerabilities to ensure its own easy discrediting There is potentially a case to be made from a politically conservative perspective like Hamilton-Merritts that those Hmong who allied with the United States during the Second

41 See for instance Suchengchan ed Hmong Means Free Life in Laos and America (Philadelphia PA Temple University Press 1994)

42 Franklin Ng Towards a Second Generation Hmong History Amerasia Journal vol 19 no 3 (1993) p 55

43 Nicholas Tapp Sovereignty and Rebellion The White Hmong of Northern Thailand (New York Oxford University Press 1989) Lynelshylen D Long Ban Vinai the Refogee Camp (New York Columbia University Press 1993)

According to the us census by 1990 there were more than 90000 Hmong in the United States By 1994 the parents in this resettled Hmongfamily shown above in Seattle in 1984 were both working and owned their home and a rental property They also had one more son and their oldest son was in college Hmong growing up in the United States are increasingly turning to English-language sources to document and understand their histoshyries It is regrettable that Hmong children ofthis and later generations are more likely to find Hamilton-Merrittsjlawed book in libraries and homes than other more accurate and balanced accounts ofthe Hmong This photo is by and courtesy of Nancy D Donnelly and it is from her Changing Lives of Refugee Hmong Women (Seattle WA and London University ofWashington Press 1994)

Indochina War were to a very large extent pawns in the hands of US policy-makers and that after 1975 many of them suffered harsh retribution from the victorious Lao PDR Adherents ofsuch an interpretation may well take self-satisfied comfort in Hamilshyton-Merritts account and naive readers may well be fooled by it in their ignorance but any critical reader cannot help but notice the flimsiness of her arguments and the fallacies in her method Just as she has given any careful reader more than enough evidence to prove her own ineptness as a scholar Hamilton-Mershyritt has inadvertently provided the words for a capsule review of her own book it is no more than rumor innuendo propaganda and disinformation (p xv) no matter how much it pretends to be a work of scholarship

44 Roger Warner Back Fire the CIAs Secret War in Laos and its Link to the War in Vietnam (New York Simon and Schuster 1995) Castle At War in the Shadow of Vietnam Kenneth J Conboy and James Morrison Shadow War the CIAs Secret War in Laos (Boulder CO Paladin Press 1995) James E Parker Codename Mule Fighting the Secret War in Laosfor the CIA (Annapolis MD Naval Institute Press 1995) For more on these books see the next page of this issue of the Bulletin ofConcerned Asian Scholars

45 Ng Second Generation Hmong History p 63


Recent Works on the Secret War in Laos

Timothy N Castle At War in the Shadow of Vietshynam us Military Aid to the Royal Lao Governshyment 1955-1975 New York Columbia University Press 1993 210 pp Hard cover $4750 paper $1500

Kenneth Conboy with James Morrison Shadow War The CIAs Secret War in Laos Boulder CO Paladin Press 1995 illus 453 pp Hard cover $4995

James E Parker Jr Codename Mule Fighting the Secret War in Laos for the CIA Annapolis MD Naval Institute Press 1995 illus 193 pp Hard cover $4995

Roger Warner Back Fire The CMs Secret War in Laos and its Link to the War in Vietnam New York Simon and Schuster 1995 illus 416 pp Hard cover $2500

The warfare that consumed Laos from 1945 to 1975 really was not all that secret historian William Leary points out in his foreword to Codename Mule (p xiv) although the words secret war in Laos have a mantra-like appeal to publishers and authors evinced by the titles above Compleshymenting Hamilton-Merritts Tragic Mountains are four other recent works each of which approaches the war years in its own way although only Hamilton-Merritt gives lengthy covshyerage to the postwar years

Timothy Castles historical study expanded from a 1991 doctoral dissertation and drawing upon exhaustive documenshytary and interview research concentrates on questions of military and diplomatic policy tracing the various forms of military assistance (both overt and covert) provided by the United States to the Royal Lao Government and the structures established to administer that assistance The most scholarly of all of these works the book devotes a third of its pages to scrupulously detailed notes references and bibliographies Sharing with the other authors a strong antipathy for the Pathet Lao and sympathy for those Hmong allied with the United States Castle nevertheless provides the best available overview ofUS diplomatic and military objectives accomshyplishments and failures during the entire span of years beshytween Frances resumption of colonial control over Laos in 1945 and fmal independence in 1975 (a longer time span than similar but earlier works such as those by Bernard Fall Arthur J Dommen or Charles A Stevenson)

Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison provide military history ofa different sort blow-by-blow battalion-by-battalshyion acronym-by-acronym accounts that are often overwhe~shying in their minutiae and detail Also based on exhaustIve research the book is nevertheless virtually undocumented with no bibliography or list ofinterviews and only occasional

attributions or citations in endnotes This sparse documentashytion is especially regrettable because Conboy and Morrisons study provides a more comprehensive and at the same time more detailed account of the multiple actors and groups involved than any other source Thus th~ make it unmistakshyably clear for instance that ethnic groups other than Yang Paos Hmong were in the thick of things at every stage ofthe conflict and they provide an important body of concrete detail on incidents and individuals that is otherwise unavailshyable

Codename Mule is not military history but military memoir by a former CIA case officer involved in the Laotian conflict from late 1971 to the end of 1973 It shares with Hamilton-Merritts book a perspective ofHmong-censhytricity that renders the low land Lao and other ethnic groups invisible on the US-Royal Lao Government side and demonizes the opposing forces as all North Vietnamese interlopers rather than Laotians And like Hamilton-Mershyritt James Parker delights in war stories the hijinks ofCIA personnel and the exploits of Hmong soldiers But as a primary document the book provides an evocative and sometimes chilling account ofthe attitudes and motivations of the personnel involved in implementing US policy on the ground and in the skies over Laos

Warners Back Fire offers the broadest scope and greatest accessibility ofall the works discussed here drawshying extensively from the files and correspondence ofEdgar Pop Buell and interviews with key actors such as Buell Bill Lair William Colby Jerry Daniels Charles Weldon Yang Pao and many others Sources are cited and docushymented albeit in journalistic format rather than scholarly notes and there is no consolidated bibliography Warners account extends from the policy level ofembassy meetings cable traffic and internal CIA debates to the concrete level of battlefield engagements Alone of the works here Warshyner gives consideration to the larger political debates in Washington and the international media and to the role of antiwar activists (Fred Branfman in particular) in stopping the bloodshed

Castle points out the substantial barriers obstructing fuller knowledge of the events and decisions covered by these books resistance to declassification of materials dealing with US military involvement in Laos has come primarily from the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of State (p xi) Should such materials finally come to light perhaps they will answer some of the quesshytions raised by the present books and their predecessors But what is also vitally needed is a mbre demanding set of questions posed by authors willing to go beyond hagiogshyraphy and nostalgic war stories to write critical biographies and analyses to go beyond Hmong-centric accounts to understand the ethnic complexities of Laos and to go beyond the retrospective myth making of Vang Pao-and his US patrons seeking self-vindication-to acknowledge the fundamental misunderstandings that guided US policy from its outset


Hmong guerrillas receiving marksmanship training with assault rifles in the early years ofthe misnamed secret war that consumed Laos from J945 to 1975 The underlying thesis o[fragic Mountains is that the majority ofHmong supported France the United States and the Royal Lao Government (RLG) in the First and Second Indochina Wars but since the defeat ofthe RLG in 1975 the United States has betrayed and abandoned its one-time Hmong allies This photo and the next one were provided by Frank Proschan arefrom and reprinted here courtesy ofthe Civil Air TransportAir America Archives at the University ofTexas in Dallas

that would allow it to be considered a reliable work of history even though it purports to be a work ofscholarship and has been taken by others to be an authoritative source

Crucial aspects ofHamilton-Merritts argument depend on allegations made with absolutely noprimary evidence to support them Examples are legion numerous demographic claims are made with no supporting documentation (pp 303 403 448 503)3 the alleged killing of pro-democracy demonstrators in Xieng Khouang (p 500) is unattested in any credible source the translation of Hmong as meaning free people or those who must have their freedom and independence (p 3)has absolutely no linguistic foundation4 the fable of a Hmong alphabet supshypressed by the Chinese (p 5) is apocryphal the claim that most or the majority ofHmong supported the French and Americans

3 Some are presented as Hamilton-Merritts figures and others are the unsupported allegations of others compare also Hamilton-Merritts use of very divergent figures in her other publications and congressional testimony

4 See Joakim Enwall Miao or Hmong Thai-Yunnan Project Newsshyletter (Canberra Australia National University) no 17 (1992) pp 25-26 Thomas A Lyman The Free Mong An End to a Controshyversy Anthropological Linguistics vol 30 no 1 (1988) pp 128-32 and Cheung Siu-Woo A Preliminary Survey of the White Hmong Vocabulary on the Hmong Classification ofEthnic Categories unpubshylished paper 1989

(pp 45-46 p xviii) is insupportable the claim that Missing in Action (MIA) survivors were captured and kept as prisoners (p 186) is pure speculation In some cases Hamilton-Merritt can provide no evidence because the facts are simply wrong or invented she claims that in 1990 Phoumi Vongvichit (then acting president of Laos) was a guest at a July 4th party at the home of the US charge d affaires in Vientiane (p 50 I) she mistakes him for Phoun Sipraseuth the foreign minister who did attend

Throughout both informantsinterviewees and historical actors are identified with pseudonyms or nicknames and their true identity is disguised even in some cases where the actors are already publicly identified with their actions These data are consequently unverifiable and of little or no evidentiary value from the standpoint of accepted historical methodology Footshynotes and other citations of sources when they are provided at all do not allow specific information to be related to a specific identifiable and locatable source Moreover there is no indicashytion in the text that the author has deposited notes documents and interview tapes and transcripts in any public archive where they may be examined by other scholars

5 Hamilton-Merritt made no reply to my letter of 14 December 1995 inquiring where your notes recordings and supporting documentation are archived and under what conditions they are available to interested scholars for examination




















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BCAS Vol. 28, No.1 (Jan.-Mar. 1996) - “Rumor, Innuendo, Propaganda, and Disinformation”; about...

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