Requirements Office

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Laotian T-28 from the American government's MAAG Lao program. The military aid was organized through the requirements office .
Military aid to the Lao Armed Forces was organized from Thailand as Laos was officially neutral in the Vietnam War.

The Requirements Office was a secret program of the Military Assistance Advisory Group Laos in Vientiane , Laos , or MAAG Laos for short .

The program was under the American Embassy and was officially operated by the United States Agency of International Development USAID . The program existed since 1955 under the name Programs Evaluation Office and was officially operated by the MAAG Laos. After the signing of the Treaty on the Neutrality of Laos (English: International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos), signed on July 23, 1962 in Geneva, the United States was no longer allowed to operate military facilities in Laos. The Programs Evaluation Office was officially closed and MAAG Laos relocated to Bangkok, Thailand in the Sathorn Tai next to the German embassy and merged with the Joint United States Military Advisory Group Thailand , which still exists today. The program was officially continued under the name Requirements Office by USAID and was the organization's only military project. The program organized the supply of military goods for the Lao Armed Forces and existed until 1973. It also operated a hangar in Vientiane Wattay . The requirements office was headed by retired members of the US armed forces and operated by local forces. The military supplies were organized through the American bases in Thailand . So were z. B. handed over officially retired aircraft by the US Air Force to the Lao Air Force . Small arms and machine guns were also made available to the Lao Armed Forces. The program maintained camps in Thailand for this purpose. In addition to the American military, the American foreign intelligence service, the CIA , also operated secret programs to equip Laotian paramilitaries.

Some of the requirements office's actions were quite unorthodox. After it was discovered that members of the Lao Air Force had been involved in corruption (e.g., planes were used to smuggle drugs ), the office created a “social program” for military personnel to supplement their meager pay . They bought casings from fired machine guns and grenade launchers. This meant that the soldiers senselessly fired ammunition just to be able to sell the used cases to the requirements office .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Joint US Military Advisory Group Thailand (JUSMAGTHAI)
  2. ^ Billy G. Webb The Secret War in Laos and General Vang Pao 1958-1975
  3. ↑ Eugene D. Rossel: Usaf Air Commando - Secret Wars from Laos to Latin America

literature

  • Castle, Timothy (1995). At War in the Shadow of Vietnam: United States Military Aid to the Royal Lao Government, 1955–75 . Columbia University Press. ISBN 9780231079778 .
  • Conboy, Kenneth and James Morrison (1995). Shadow War: The CIA's Secret War in Laos . Paladin Press, ISBN 978-1-58160-535-8 .