and intense, not the gradual escalation that was used. Laos 1965 The year 1965 marked the beginning of major military activity in what became known as the secret war in Laos. Although the full extent of the conflict was not revealed to the U.S. public until 1969-70, the war was not all that secret. News of the fighting frequently found its way into the pages of the Bangkok Post, The New York Times, and other newspapers. Congress was kept well informed. As former CIA Director Richard Helms has pointed out, the Appropriations subcommittees were regularly briefed on the war funds. Also, Senator Stuart Symington and other Congressmen visited Laos and gave every indication of approving what transpired. They believed, Helms noted, that "It was a much cheaper and better way to fight a war in Southeast Asia than to commit American troops." The CIA was largely responsible for conducting military operations in Laos, but the U.S. Ambassador was the man in charge. The secret war in Laos, author Charles Stevenson has emphasized, "was William Sullivan's war". Ambassador from December 1964 to March 1969, Sullivan insisted on an efficient, closely controlled country team. "There wasn't a bag of rice dropped in Laos that he didn't know about", observed Assistant Secretary of State William Bundy. Sullivan imposed two conditions upon his subordinates. First, the thin fiction of the Geneva accords had to be maintained to avoid possible embarrassment to the Lao and Soviet Governments; military operations, therefore, had to be carried out in relative secrecy. Second, no regular US ground troops were to become involved. In general, Ambassador Sullivan and his successor, G. McMurtrie Godley, successfully carried out this policy. USAF-Navy combat sorties from July through November ranged from about 1,000 to 1,500 per month. In November, because of a perceived rise in communist activity, Gen. Westmoreland increased his required number of sorties to 4,500 per month, but because of bad weather and some diversion of the effort, achieved 2,700. In March, the American embassy and MACV was able to successfully implement "a small-scale chokepoint program". This program was aimed at preventing easy commerce between North Vietnam and Laos to "increase the burden on enemy supply lines." An Air America combat rescue mission in May 1965 resulted in the most serious accidental airstrike incident to date, even though Ambassador William Sullivan thought that the contractor was more likely to avoid incidents than