Operation Barrel Roll was a covert U.S. Air Force 2nd Air Division (later the Seventh Air Force) and U.S. Navy Task Force 77, interdiction and close air support campaign conducted in the Kingdom of Laos between 14 December 1964 and 29 March 1973 concurrent with the Vietnam War.The original purpose of the operation was to serve as a signal to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) to cease its support for the insurgency then taking place in the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). This action was taken within Laos due to the location of North Vietnam"s expanding logistical corridor known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail (the Truong Son Road to the North Vietnamese), which ran from southwestern North Vietnam, through southeastern Laos, and into South Vietnam. The campaign then centered on the interdiction of that logistical system. Beginning during the same time frame (and expanding throughout the conflict) the operation became increasingly involved in providing close air support missions for Royal Lao Armed Forces, CIA-backed tribal mercenaries, and Thai "volunteers" in a covert ground war in northern and northeastern Laos. Barrel Roll and the "Secret Army" attempted to stem an increasing tide of People"s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and Pathet Lao offensives.Barrel Roll was one of the most closely-held secrets and one of the most unknown components of the American military commitment in Southeast Asia. Due to the neutrality of Laos, guaranteed by the Geneva Conference of 1954 and 1962, both the U.S. and North Vietnam strove to maintain the secrecy of their operations and only slowly escalated military actions there. As much as both parties would have liked to have publicized their enemy"s violation of the accords, both had more to gain by keeping their own roles quiet.Roger Warner, Shooting at the Moon. South Royalton VT: Steerforth Press, 1996, p. 135. Regardless, by the end of the conflict in 1973, Laos emerged from nine years of war just as devastated as any of the other Asian participants in the Vietnam War.



Preliminaries (1962-1964)



Background

After a series of political and military machinations conducted by the U.S., the Pathet Lao, and the North Vietnamese in Laos that are described in the History of Laos since 1945, a Declaration on the Neutrality of Laos was signed in Geneva, Switzerland on 23 July 1962.Three fine works on the early days include Nina S. Adams & Alfred W. McCoy, Laos: War and Revolution, New York: Harper & Row, 1970, Paul F. Langer & Joseph J. Zasloff, North Vietnam and the Pathet Lao: Partners in the Struggle for Laos. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970, and Sisouk Na Champassak, Storm Over Laos. New York: Praeger, 1961. The agreement, an attempt to end a civil war between the communist-dominated (and Hanoi-directed) Pathet Lao, neutralists, and American-backed rightists, included provisions that required the removal of all foreign military forces and precluded the use of Lao territory for interfering in the internal affairs of another country - a blatant effort to shut down North Vietnam"s growing logistical corridor through southeastern Laos that would become known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail.Arnol R. Issacs, Gordon Hardy, & MacAlister Brown, Pawns of War. Boston: Boston Publishing Company 1987, p. 69.A coalition Government of National Union was installed in the capital of Vientiane, but it soon ran into difficulties. By the 2 October 1962 deadline for the removal of foreign troops, the North Vietnamese had pulled out only 40 personnel, leaving approximately 6,000 troops in the eastern half of the country.Issacs, Hardy, & Brown, p. 72. Meanwhile, rightist elements (in control of the army) opposed the new government. The U.S. played its part by increasing its assistance to the right by covertly supplying the army through Thailand. Issacs, Hardy, & Brown, p. 72 Despite another international accord, Laos remained ensnared by the political and territorial ambitions of communist neighbors, the security concerns of Thailand and the United States, and geographic fate.Timothy N. Castle, At War in the Shadow of Vietnam. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993, p. 46.Fighting soon erupted between elements of the Pathet Lao and the Royal Lao Army. Although tentative negotiations resumed between the factions, matters took a turn for the worse when neutralist Prime Minister Prince Souvanna Phouma was arrested during a right-wing coup attempt. U.S. Ambassador Leonard Unger then notified the generals that the U.S. government would continue to support Souvanna. This turn of events had a profound effect on Laotian politics: First, it affirmed American support for Souvannah, only a few years after the U.S. had denounced him as a tool of the leftists; It also caused the neutralists to shift political allies from the left to the right; Finally, in May 1964, Souvannah announced the political union of the rightists and neutralists against the left.Issacs, Hardy, & Brown, p. 74.Heavy fighting broke out on the Plain of Jars as the members of each political grouping chose sides. Souvanna called upon the U.S. for support and was answered in the affirmative by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who was eager to support a rightist/neutralist alliance in Laos.Colonel Rod Paschall, The Making of A Clandestine Army. Boston: Boston Publishing Company, 1988, p. 113. In November 1963 General Maxwell D. Taylor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had proposed that U.S. armed reconnaissance missions be conducted over Laos as part of a two phase program that would warn Hanoi of U.S. determination to support the Saigon government.John Schlight, A War Too Long. Washington DC: Center of Air Force History, 1993, p. 19. The missions were to take place along North Vietnamese infiltration routes then developing in the Laotian panhandle.On 19 May 1964 low-level photo reconnaissance flights (codenamed Yankee Team) over southern Laos were authorized and launched by Air Force RF-101 Voodoo and Navy RF-8 aircraft. When they were fired upon during a mission, escort aircraft were provided. Two days later American aircraft began flying low-level photo recon missions over the northern part of the country. The American aerial commitment to the covert war had begun.

Covert war

For the Americans, Laos became almost exclusively an air war, one which saw a reversal of the role it played in the conflict in neighboring South Vietnam. In Laos, the Air Force applied conventional air power in the support of an unconventional ground war. The mission of the U.S. Air Force was to seal off the southern Mekong River Valley, thus providing a buffer for Thailand; insulating the Vientiane government from direct communist threat; draining PAVN manpower and resources; and interdiction of the approaches to the Ho Chi Minh trail.For U.S. interests, the aerial interdiction effort against the trail and the protection of Thailand were preeminent and they became the reason d"etre for the covert war in the northeast. According to U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, after 1964 and the increasing U.S. commitment to South Vietnam, "Laos was only the wart on the hog."Christopher Robbins, The Ravens. Bangkok: Asia Books, 2000, p. 140.Originally, the American arrangement in Laos was based on the premise that the situation in South Vietnam would be controlled within a year or two. A holding action in Laos was all that was thought necessary. No one expected that the conflict would last ten years.Robbins, p. 137. Air Force historian Colonel Perry F. Lamy described Washington"s view of the situation succinctly:Since the fate of Laos did not depend on a military solution in the air or on the ground in Laos and could only be decided by the outcome in Vietnam, winning the war against the DRV in northern Laos was not the objective. Instead, maintaining access to the country was paramount and keeping the Royal Lao government in power became the primary objective.Colonel Perry L. Lamy, Barrel Roll. Maxwell Air Force Base AL: Air University Press, 1995, p. 26.For Hanoi, Laos was also a "limited war" with goals and objectives that were tied to its continued use of the Ho Chi Minh trail.Schlight, p. 187. The covert nature of the North Vietnamese logistical effort through Laos also had to be maintained in order to support the fiction that the conflict in South Vietnam was a popular uprising that was not directed by the north.Morocco, p. 26. Although PAVN could have fielded enough troops to conquer Laos at any point during the conflict, the communists only sought to instigate a stalemate, one that would allow the trail system to operate unhindered by the Americans and Laotians.Back in 1959 a Laotian Lieutenant Colonel of the minority Hmong tribe had been taken under the wing of the CIA effort in Laos. The highland Hmong were more aggressive than the lowland Lao and Vang Pao was quickly elevated to their leadership in hopes of creating a paramilitary force that would counter the Pathet Lao in the northeast.Paschall, pgs. 107-108. Historian John Prados believed that the need to keep the Vientiane government weak, and to give free rein to the Hmong army, flew in the face of fostering the type of national government that could defeat the Pathet Lao. John Prados, President"s Secret Wars. Chicago IL: Elephant paperbacks, 1996, p. 273. During 1961, the first weapons were delivered to the Hmong and their training was begun. Nine CIA specialists, nine U.S. Army Special Forces personnel, and 99 Thai members of the Police Aerial Reconnaissance Unit (PARU) participated in the training and equipping of what became known as les armee clandestine or the secret army.Robbins, p. 135.