relief aid to refugees and isolated villagers. Frequently, the aid was in the form of bags of rice air dropped by Air America aircraft. Air America was the CIA owned civilian airline operating in Southeast Asia. Buell became a "one-man supply corps." Buell became involved with the CIA largely through circumstance with his volunteer activities. Buell downplayed his CIA role. Although it was not central to his mission, he was one integral part of the CIA program in the Plain of Jars where the CIA was building up a Hmong resistance. To increase the Hmong tribes' effectiveness as a military force, Buell helped strengthen the Hmong economy by using his agricultural skills to improve Hmong techniques for planting and cultivating opium. Buell told the Hmong, "If you're gonna grow it, grow it good, but don't let anybody smoke the stuff." As a result, opium production increased. Buell supplied modern day medicine to the Hmong. Because of this, local opium consumption for medical purposes declined. This made more opium available for international markets. Buell took money out of his retirement fund to buy supplies when U.S. government funds and resources were interrupted, as they often were at the far end of the supply chain. He was known to the Hmong as Tan Pop, "Uncle Pop". His opinion about the war in Laos was that it was for the Hmong to defend themselves against North Vietnam’s Pathet Lao, pointing out "for every Hmong that died, one fewer American soldier died" in Vietnam. Many thousands of Hmong died in the war. He became one of several seldom-seen but mythical figures of the war in Laos—which is almost always described as "secret". Later life The Hmong army held off the North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao for many years, but with the Paris Peace Accords of 1973 U.S. military aid and most economic aid to Laos ceased. The position of the Hmong army and the Royalist government became increasingly untenable. In 1974, Pop was out of a job with the Hmong and the U.S. government. He worked briefly as a teacher in Vientiane, but the American Embassy there soon learned that his name was on a list of people to be murdered by the Pathet Lao and the North Vietnamese who were completing their conquest of the country. Continental Air Services, Inc. pilot Les Strouse evacuated Buell from Laos by dressing him in a pilot's