Harvesting Pa Chay's Wheat: The Hmong and America's Secret War in Laos

U.S. military personnel their funding funneled through the CIA began operating covertly in Laos in 1957, training and leading troops against communist insurgents. Later, as America's involvement in Vietnam escalated, Laos was the focus of one of the largest and least publicized bombing campaigns in military history. Most of the soldiers in the CIA's clandestine army were Hmong hill tribesmen, 35,000 of whom were killed in battle; almost one-third of the Hmong, most of them non-combatants, died during the war from disease or starvation. After the communist Pathet Lao took control in 1975, the Hmong were herded into concentration camps. Over the next 10 years nearly half the Hmong people fled Laos, many eventually immigrating to the US. Quincy (government, Eastern Washington U.) traces these events within the larger context of Laotian national politics under French, American, and Vietnamese domination. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)