50 Years Ago, a Top-Secret CIA Base Was Overrun By Vietnamese Commandos In Laos

Lima Site 85 in Laos. Lt/Col Jeannie Schiff, USAF (Wikimedia)

Sebastien Roblin, National Interest: Revealed: 50 Years Ago, a Top-Secret U.S. Base Was Overrun By Elite Vietnamese Commandos

Fifty years ago on March 12, 1968, a top-secret U.S. base on a mountain top in Laos was overrun by an elite force of Vietnamese commandos. Only six of the eighteen CIA and Air Force personnel manning the remote outpost escaped with their lives in an incident that would remain veiled in secrecy for three decades.

This was because the U.S. military was legally prohibited from operating in Laos. The southeast Asian nation had been wracked by a civil war pitting right-wing royalists against Pathet Lao communists—the latter backed by North Vietnam, which used Laotian territory to clandestinely funnel troops into South Vietnam via the Ho Chi Minh trail. However, in 1962 Washington, Hanoi and Laotian factions all signed a peace treaty in which the foreign powers agreed to withdraw their forces from the country.

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WNU Editor: Only "six of the eighteen CIA and Air Force personnel manning the remote outpost escaped with their lives". Those six survivors must have quite a story to tell.