The Nam Yu contingent already had the three teams in place, and would push southeast to join them. When the time rolled around to stage Operation Snake Eyes, two separate guerrilla units were poised for a pincer movement. They took up road watch duties in June 1970. In the meantime, a company of Commando Raiders was recruited in Luang Prabang and trained to monitor the road. CIA-sponsored hill tribes road watch teams augmented by Chinese Nationalists from nearby Burma would spy on the builders in the meantime. It would be supported by the Royal Thai Air Force. Īs events turned out, Operation Snake Eyes was put on hold for six months so that it would begin in the rainy season against a skeleton crew of Chinese workers. Ī week later, in response to the Thai bombing, the original Snake Eyes proposal to block Route 46 was approved, but with one proviso: Laotian Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma would have to cease waffling and publicly oppose the road construction to give justification for the attack. In January 1970, as the road watch proposal was being bruited about in Washington, two Thai mercenary pilots of the Royal Lao Air Force bombed a Chinese convoy on Route 46, destroying 15 trucks. did not take action to support its allies in the war, they might act unilaterally. His argument for the operation was that if the U.S. He countered with a plan to scale the suggested Operation Snake Eyes back to a passive road watch program spying on Chinese activities. military and paramilitary activity in the Secret War, his aggressive suggestion was rejected in Washington. Even though Godley was in charge of all U.S. Three guerrillas platoons from Nam Yu were infiltrated 50 kilometers south of Luang Namtha to spy on the road construction they were dubbed Teams 37A, 37B, and 37C. McMurtrie Godley had suggested that the Central Intelligence Agency's guerrilla forces might block Route 46. The American government had a vested interest in Thailand the Kingdom was a major American supporter in the ongoing Vietnam War. The presence of 25,000 Chinese troops and 400 antiaircraft guns along the new road raised anxiety not only in the Thai and Lao governments, but also in Washington. The Royal Thai Government worried it might be extended across trackless northwestern Laos to the Thai border. As Route 46, the new road gathered ever more attention the further south it progressed. They then began an entirely new road construction project in early 1966, extending south from Yunnan Province past Luang Namtha, down the Pakbeng Valley. The Chinese originally built a road across northern Phongsali Province in 19 as a foreign aid project. At the time the agreement was announced, the Battle of Luang Namtha was being fought on the Lao/Chinese border to spark the Laotian Civil War. The Chinese government committed to building a network of roads connecting Yunnan Province with northern Laos despite the developing Laotian Civil War. Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma curried favor with the People's Republic of China by striking a road construction deal with them in January 1962. This would eventually result in an attempt to settle the Laotian Civil War, the International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos signed on 23 July 1962. Since the 1954 Agreement was signed, a Pathet Lao insurgency had burgeoned, threatening the national sovereignty. In March 1961, the Geneva Conference of 1954 reconvened with wider participation to reconsider the neutralization of the Kingdom of Laos. The United States stepped in to provide foreign aid to Laos, to aid in quelling the uprising. From its inception, Laos was troubled by a communist insurrection. The Kingdom of Laos was freed by the French at the end of the First Indochina War. Attempts to limit Chinese expansion toward the south would be left to future operations, such as Operation Phalat and Operation Sourisak Montry. Fearful that Operation Snake Eyes would arouse even greater publicity, the Central Intelligence Agency handlers of the guerrillas canceled the operation on orders of the White House. When it was finally ready to be launched, it was pre-empted by the furor caused by the Cambodian Incursion. The offensive by guerrilla raiders was delayed six months for operational reasons. Ambassador to Laos, the planned interdiction of the newly constructed Chinese Road, Route 46, was aimed at halting the road's progress toward the border with Thailand. Operation Snake Eyes was a proposed military operation of the Laotian Civil War. 1960 Laotian coups ( Battle of Vientiane).
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