"accidentally" struck in the no-strike area surrounding the objective. Also, Air America acquired two unmodified civilian OH-6s and put them into service in Laos in April 1972 as a cover for the 500Ps' later arrival in-country. Two months later, after the OH-6s had established a presence in Laos, the 500Ps were smuggled into Laos to continue training at a remote base near Pakse, called PS-44. Here, the Chinese pilots proved unequal to their task. When a Chinese pilot crashed one of the 500Ps in a night landing, the dispute-riven Chinese contingent was cut from the project. Two of the Air America pilots would fly the infiltration mission into North Vietnam instead. A rigorous training program was effected. A mockup of the wiretap site was set up for practice maneuvers; a tree was stripped limbless and a cross spar supplied to imitate the targeted telephone pole. The route to and from the site was memorized with the aid of overhead photography. The pilots practiced flying nap-of-the-earth, including flights between the banks of stream beds, until they dropped in on the mockup. The two Lao commandos chosen to set the wiretap practiced exiting the 500P and climbing the mock phone pole to staple the tap in place. The pilots practiced setting communications relays that would return the wiretap's signal to CIA listeners. By Autumn 1972, the mission was ready to go. However, it required certain optimal moon and weather conditions. A quartering moon was needed for the pilots' night vision goggles. A slight overcast was also desirable. When the first opportunity for the mission came on 5 October, the forward looking infrared (FLIR) camera needed for navigation failed, causing the mission to abort. The FLIR also failed on two subsequent occasions. The next attempt, during the last week of November, actually made it into North Vietnam before it was turned back by dense ground fog. The mission On 4 December 1972, United States National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger arrived in France to represent the United States of America for the Paris Peace Talks to end the Vietnam War. On 6 December, the "Quiet One" launched successfully. It was flown by Air America pilots Daniel H. Smith and Lloyd George Anthony Lamonte Jr. Speeding east through mountain passes and within ravines the copter covered 48 kilometers at an altitude of . It overflew known North Vietnamese antiaircraft positions without drawing fire. The copter