Supporting the "Secret War"
CIA Air Operations in Laos, 1955-1974
The largest paramilitary operations ever undertaken by the CIA took place in the small Southeast Asian Kingdom of Laos. For more than 13 years, the Agency directed native forces that fought major North Vietnamese units to a standstill. Although the country eventually fell to the Communists, the CIA remained proud of its accomplishments in Laos. As Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Richard Helms later observed: "This was a major operation for the Agency. . . . It took manpower; it took specially qualified manpower; it was dangerous; it was difficult." The CIA, he contended, did "a superb job." 1
Air America, an airline secretly owned by the CIA, was a vital component in the Agency's operations in Laos. By the summer of 1970, the airline had some two dozen twin-engine transports, another two dozen short-takeoff-and-landing (STOL) aircraft, and some 30 helicopters dedicated to operations in Laos. There were more than 300 pilots, copilots, flight mechanics, and air-freight specialists flying out of Laos and Thailand. During 1970, Air America airdropped or landed 46 million pounds of foodstuffs--mainly rice--in Laos. Helicopter flight time reached more than 4,000 hours a month in the same year. Air America crews transported tens of thousands of troops and refugees, flew emergency medevac missions and rescued downed airmen throughout Laos, inserted and extracted road-watch teams, flew nighttime airdrop missions over the Ho Chi Minh Trail, monitored sensors along infiltration routes, conducted a highly successful photoreconnaissance program, and engaged in numerous clandestine missions using night-vision glasses and state-of-the-art electronic equipment. Without Air America's presence, the CIA's effort in Laos could not have been sustained.
A Distorted View
Air America's public image has fared poorly. The 1990 movie Air America is largely responsible for this. It featured a cynical CIA officer who arranged for the airline to fly opium to the administrative capital of Vientiane for a corrupt Asian general--loosely modeled on Vang Pao, a military leader of the mountain-region-based Hmong ethnic group. The film depicts the CIA man as having the opium processed into heroin in a factory just down the street from the favorite bar of Air America's pilots. The Asian general, in return, supplied men to fight the war, plus a financial kickback to the CIA. Ultimately, we learn that the Communist versus anti-Communist war in Laos was merely a facade for the real war, which was fought for control of the area's opium fields.
Air America pilots in this film are portrayed as skilled at landing damaged airplanes, but basically as a wildly unprofessional menagerie of party animals, including a few borderline psychotics. These ill-disciplined airmen are not the villains of the story; they are merely pawns in a drug game that they either disdain or oppose outright.
A Bum Rap
The connection among Air America, the CIA, and the drug trade in Laos lingers in the public mind. The film, according to the credits, was based on Christopher Robbins's book about the airline, first published in 1979 under the title Air America. 2 Although Robbins later claimed that the movie distorted his book, 3 it closely followed the book's theme if not its details. Both movie and book contend that the CIA condoned a drug trade conducted by a Laotian client; both agree that Air America provided the essential transportation for the trade; and both portray the pilots sympathetically.
Robbins provides factual details that the movie lacks. Citing Alfred W. McCoy's 1972 study, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, he relates how Air America helicopters collected the opium harvests of 1970 and 1971, then flew the crop to Vang Pao's base at Long Tieng in the mountains of northern Laos, where it was turned into heroin at the general's drug laboratory. 4
My nearly two decades of research indicate that Air America was not involved in the drug trade. As Joseph Westermeyer, who spent the years 1965 to 1975 in Laos as a physician, public health worker, and researcher, wrote in Poppies, Pipes, and People: "American-owned airlines never knowingly transported opium in or out of Laos, nor did their American pilots ever profit from its transport. Yet every plane in Laos undoubtedly carried opium at some time, unknown to the pilot and his superiors--just as had virtually every pedicab, every Mekong River sampan, and every missionary jeep between China and the Gulf of Siam." 5
If the CIA was not involved in the drug trade, it did know about it. As former DCI William Colby acknowledged, the Agency did little about it during the 1960s, but later took action against the traders as drugs became a problem among American troops in Vietnam. The CIA's main focus in Laos remained on fighting the war, not on policing the drug trade.
How It Began
The story of the real Air America begins in 1950, when the CIA decided that it required an air transport capability to conduct covert operations in Asia in support of US policy objectives. In August 1950, the Agency secretly purchased the assets of Civil Air Transport (CAT), an airline that had been started in China after World War II by Gen. Claire L. Chennault and Whiting Willauer. CAT would continue to fly commercial routes throughout Asia, acting in every way as a privately owned commercial airline. At the same time, under the corporate guise of CAT Incorporated, it provided airplanes and crews for secret intelligence operations. 7
In the 1950s, the CIA's air proprietary, as it was known in the lexicon of intelligence, was used for a variety of covert missions. During the Korean war, for example, it made more than 100 hazardous overflights of mainland China, airdropping agents and supplies.
Supporting the French
CAT also became involved in the French war against Communist insurgents in Indochina. In April 1953, the French appealed to President Eisenhower for the use of US Air Force C-119 transports and crews to fly tanks and heavy equipment to their hard-pressed forces in Laos. "Having such equipment," the French emphasized, "might mean the difference between holding and losing Laos." 8
While reluctant to commit American military personnel to the war in Indochina, the Eisenhower administration was anxious to assist the French. This led to a decision to use CAT pilots to fly an airlift in US Air Force-supplied C-119s. In early May, a group of CAT personnel arrived at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines for 72 hours of concentrated ground and flight school on the unfamiliar C-119s. On 5 May, they flew six of the transports, now bearing the tricolored roundels of the French Air Force, to Gia Lam airbase, outside Hanoi.
Operation SQUAW began the next day. It continued until 16 July, with CAT pilots making numerous airdrops to French troops in Laos. With the waning of the Vietminh offensive, which was due more to the weather than to French resistance, the CAT crews were withdrawn. 9
The war in Indochina, however, continued to go badly for the French. In November 1953, French paratroopers occupied Dien Bien Phu in northwestern Vietnam, 10 miles from the Laos border, and established an airhead. Gen. Henri Navarre, the French military commander, wanted to lure the Vietminh into a setpiece battle in which superior French firepower could be used to good effect. Among the many mistakes made by the French in placing their troops 220 miles from Hanoi was their miscalculation of the air transport resources needed to keep their isolated forces supplied. Col. Jean-Louis Nicot, head of the French Air Transport Command in Indochina, lacked sufficient aircrews to meet the Army's demands. Unless additional assistance could be obtained, the French garrison could not be kept supplied. 10
In early January 1954, Washington alerted CAT for a possible return to Indochina. Under a contract signed with French authorities on 3 March, CAT would supply 24 pilots to operate 12 C-119s that would be maintained by US Air Force personnel. Operations from Hanoi's Cat Bi airfield to Dien Bien Phu got under way just as the Vietminh began their assault on the French position. Between 13 March and the fall of Dien Bien Phu on 7 May, CAT pilots flew 682 airdrop missions to the beleaguered French troops. One plane was shot down in early May, and the two pilots were killed; many other C-119s suffered heavy flak damage, and one pilot was severely wounded.
CAT operations continued in Indochina after the fall of Dien Bien Phu. Between mid-May and mid-August, C-119s dropped supplies to isolated French outposts and delivered loads throughout the country. CAT also supplied 12 C-46s for Operation COGNAC, the evacuation of civilians from North Vietnam to South Vietnam following the signing of the Geneva Agreement on 21 July 1954. Between 22 August and 4 October, CAT flew 19,808 men, women, and children out of North Vietnam. It also carried members of the CIA's Saigon Military Mission north of the 17th parallel. Attempts by the CIA to establish staybehind paramilitary networks in the north, however, proved futile. 11
Concern About Laos
The Geneva Conference of 1954, in addition to dividing Vietnam at the 17th parallel, confirmed the status of Laos as an independent state. The nation would be ruled by the Royal Lao Government from Vientiane on the Mekong River. Members of the pro-Communist Pathet Lao would regroup in the northern provinces of Sam Neua and Phong Saly pending integration into the central regime. The French were allowed to maintain a small military presence in the country to train the Royal Lao Army (FAR).
Laotian independence suited the policy of the United States, so long as the government remained non-Communist. Laos represented one of the dominos in Southeast Asia that concerned President Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Although the country had little intrinsic value, its geographical position placed it in the center of the Cold War in Southeast Asia. If Laos fell to the Communists, Thailand might be next, according to the domino theory. And the collapse of Thailand would lead to Communist domination of Southeast Asia--and perhaps beyond. 12
Under an agreement signed in 1950, the United States had been supplying economic and military aid to Laos. Following the Geneva Conference, Washington decided to expand this program. In January 1955, it established the United States Operations Mission (USOM) in Vientiane to administer economic assistance. At the end of the year, the Programs Evaluation Office (PEO)--staffed by reserve or retired military officers and akin to a Military Assistance Advisory Group--was set up within USOM to handle military aid. 13
CAT soon became involved in USOM's aid program. In July 1955, USOM officials learned that a rice failure threatened famine in several provinces in Laos. Because a number of these areas were in remote, mountainous regions, airdrops would be the only feasible means to delivering essential supplies of rice and salt. Three CAT C-46s arrived at the northeastern railhead of Udorn, Thailand, on 11 September to begin the airlift. By the end of the month, CAT had flown more than 200 missions to 25 reception areas, delivering 1,000 tons of emergency food. Conducted smoothly and efficiently, this airdrop relief operation marked the beginning of CAT's--and later Air America's--support of US assistance programs in Laos. 14
CAT's permanent presence in Laos began on 1 July 1957, when CAT pilot Bruce B. Blevins brought a C-47 to Vientiane to service a new contract with the US Embassy. Blevins found flying conditions primitive in Laos. At least Vientiane had a pierced steel plank runway and the only control tower in Laos. Elsewhere, he usually landed on dirt strips that had been built to support Japanese fighters during World War II. There were no aeronautical charts available, so he had to use French topographical maps. The only radio aid to navigation in the country was a 25-watt nondirectional beacon at Vientiane that was operated by employees of Air Laos, the country's commercial airline, who turned it on when it suited them. 15
Between 1957 and 1959, the unstable political situation in Laos led to a growing American presence in the country as the United States increased its support of the FAR. Air America--the name changed on 26 March 1959, primarily to avoid confusion about the air proprietary's operations in Japan 16--provided essential transportation for the expanding American effort in Laos. The airline's C-47s and C-46s passed more frequently through Vientiane to fulfill urgent airdrop requests. Blevins also was kept busy, landing throughout the country and making numerous airdrops to isolated FAR posts. He developed an especially close relationship with a CIA case officer who had arrived in October 1958 and who was assigned to support neutralist Capt. Kong Le's parachute battalion. The case officer frequently called on Blevins to carry personnel and supplies.
The summer of 1959 saw the introduction into Laos of a US Special Forces Group, codenamed Hotfoot, under the command of Lt. Col. Arthur "Bull" Simons. Twelve Mobile Training Teams took up duties at Vientiane, Luang Prabang, Savannekhet, and Pakse. 17 The appearance of the Americans coincided with the outbreak of fighting between the FAR and Pathet Lao. In light of these developments, CIA officials in Laos requested additional air transport resources.
Increasing Air Support
In August 1959, CIA headquarters ordered its air proprietary to send two pilots to Japan for helicopter training. Robert E. Rousselot, vice president for operations, remembers being called into President Hugh L. Grundy's office in Taipei and shown the message. The requirement had "come out of the blue." He assumed that the CIA had a special operation in mind that called for the use of a helicopter and that it would be "a one-time deal." Little did Rousselot realize that this would be the beginning of a major rotary-wing operation in Laos. 18
Eventually, four CAT pilots were trained on US Air Force H-19A helicopters in Japan and the Philippines. The CAT contingent did not reach Laos until March 1960. Due to the operating limitations of the H-19s, the underpowered helicopters could fly only at lower elevations in the country. Generally, they were used to carry CIA case officers to meetings in outlying areas and to distribute leaflets during elections. 19
By June 1960, it had become clear that helicopters would form a permanent part of Air America's operations in Laos. It was equally apparent that neither the underpowered H-19s nor the inexperienced Air America rotary-wing pilots could do the job. Both Rousselot and the CIA recognized that better equipment and properly trained pilots were needed to accomplish the mission. Rousselot hired four experienced US Marine Corps helicopter pilots who obtained their discharges in Okinawa to fly the H-19s. Later in the year, the CIA arranged for the Marine Corps to transfer four UH-34 helicopters to Air America to replace the H-19s. 20
The Helio Courier
At the same time that Air America was trying to develop a rotary-wing capability in Laos, the company also was taking steps to introduce STOL aircraft into the country. Maj. Harry C. Aderholt, a US Air Force detailee with the CIA, had supervised the development of the Helio Courier while serving with the Agency's air branch. Convinced that the aircraft could survive the short, rugged airstrips often found in remote areas, he became the foremost advocate for Air America's adoption of the Helio Courier. 21
Air America obtained a Helio for trials in Laos in the fall of 1959. The STOL program got off to a poor start. The Helio's engines proved temperamental, frequently developing vapor locks on starting. Mud, rocks, and gravel tended to block the aircraft's crosswind landing gear. The rudder needed modification so that it would not jam. Also, the first pilots who flew the airplane were used to multiengine transports and did not receive adequate training on an airplane that demanded special handling techniques.
Air America came close to abandoning the Helio. It was saved by Aderholt, who believed in the aircraft's capability and was determined to see it work, and by Rousselot, who feared that the CIA would give the STOL mission to a rival company--Bird & Son--if Air America proved incapable of doing the job. Early in 1960, Rousselot assigned Ronald J. Sutphin, a talented light-plane pilot, to the project. Both Aderholt and Rousselot agree that it was Sutphin's skillful demonstration of the extraordinary capability of the STOL aircraft that led the CIA to greatly expand the program.
Supporting the Anti-Communists
In August 1960, President Eisenhower complained at a press conference that "Laos is a very confused situation." Civil war had broken out between the neutralist forces of paratroop commander Kong Le and rightwing Gen. Phoumi Nosavan. The Communist Pathet Lao supported Kong Le, while the US military and CIA lined up behind Phoumi. As Adm. Harry D. Felt, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, explained: "Phoumi is no George Washington. However, he is anti-Communist, which is what counts most in the sad Laos situation." 22
Air America UH-34s at Sam Thong, Laos, 1961. The shirtless man at the left is Edgar "Pop" Buell, senior USAID official at Sam Thong. Photo courtesy of E.C. Eckholdt.
As Phoumi prepared to march on Vientiane from his base in Savannakhet, US assistance to the rightwing general increased sharply. Special Forces personnel conducted intensive training of Phoumi's troops, while Air America transport flew in supplies from Bangkok. Phoumi also obtained support from his close friend, Thai Prime Minister Marshal Sarit Thanarat, who sent teams from the elite Police Aerial Reinforcement Unit to work with Phoumi's soldiers.
Heavy fighting took place in December as General Phoumi drove Kong Le out of Vientiane. By the end of the year, Kong Le--now receiving support from a Soviet airlift--had retreated north to the Plaine des Jarres (PDJ), securing the vital airfield complex in that area. 23
The appearance of the Soviets alarmed American military authorities. Admiral Felt cabled the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 29 December: "With full realization of the seriousness of the decision to intervene, I believe strongly that we must intervene now or give up northern Laos." Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Arleigh Burke agreed. "If we lose Laos," he told the Joint Chiefs on 31 December, "we will probably lose Thailand and the rest of Southeast Asia. We will have demonstrated to the world that we cannot or will not stand when challenged." The effect, Burke warned, would soon be felt throughout Asia, Latin America, and Africa. 24
In preparation for possible US military intervention in Laos, the Joint Chiefs ordered the emergency mobilization of a task force at Subic Bay in the Philippines. On New Year's Day, the American warships left port and headed north. At the same time, President Eisenhower was looking for ways to stabilize the situation in Laos without having to introduce American troops into the conflict. He therefore viewed with favor a CIA proposal to arm and train Hmong tribesmen.
The PARU Program
The Hmong project was primarily the work of CIA paramilitary specialist James W. (Bill) Lair. A veteran of World War II, Lair had joined the CIA at the outbreak of the Korean war. Assigned to Thailand, he had worked as a civilian instructor with the Thai Police Department in a CIA-sponsored program to enhance the organization's ability to deal with threats from Communist insurgents. Attached to the Border Police, Lair soon encountered the problem of assisting remote border outposts. When police units in outlying areas of Thailand were attacked by Communist guerrillas, it often took a week to get reinforcements to the stations. Lair argued that it would be better to have a parachute-trained unit for such emergencies. Although the Thai Army was not happy about the appearance of a paramilitary police organization, Thailand's government approved its creation. Aware of the Army's sensitivity, Lair selected an innocuous name for the new organization: Police Aerial Reinforcement Unit (PARU). 25
Lair was proud of his role in developing the PARU program. He selected a training camp in south Thailand and initiated a rigorous program to create an elite paramilitary force. At one point, the PARU program was in danger of losing CIA support. It was saved through the intervention of Desmond FitzGerald, chief of the Far East Division in the Clandestine Service. By 1960, the PARU force numbered more than 400 highly trained individuals.
Enter Vang Pao
The key to the Hmong program was Vang Pao, a Hmong military leader who commanded the FAR's 10th Infantry Battalion on the PDJ. A talented and ambitious officer, Vang Pao had earlier come to the attention of Americans in Laos. In April 1957, the PEO had selected him to attend a six-month counterinsurgency training program at the Scout Ranger Base in Manila.
When fighting broke out in Laos at the end of 1959, Vang Pao had grown concerned that the Hmong were likely to suffer reprisals from the Communists because of the Hmongs' previous close association with the French. Encouraged by General Phoumi and assisted by a US Special Forces team, he began to organize a Hmong staybehind force on the southeastern edge of the PDJ. If the Communists occupied the Plaine, Vang Pao intended to relocate the Hmong to seven strategic mountaintops surrounding the PDJ and carry on the fight. 26
Aware that Vang Pao was seeking General Phoumi's assistance, Lair decided to look into the possibility of an expanded program with the Hmong commander. In late December 1959, Lair met with Vang Pao. VP, as he was known to the Americans, said that he either had to fight the Communists or leave the country; if the United States supplied the weapons, Vang Pao said that he would fight and that he could easily raise an army of 10,000.
Impressed with the Hmong commander, Lair returned to Vientiane and reported the contact to station chief Gordon L. Jorgensen. As it happened, Desmond FitzGerald was passing through Vientiane en route to Vietnam. Jorgensen suggested that he and Lair get together with FitzGerald for dinner. FitzGerald told Lair that the PARU's assistance to General Phoumi during his campaign against Kong Le had been worth everything that the CIA had spent on the program. Lair then outlined a program to support the Hmong. FitzGerald asked him to write up the proposal and send it to Washington. 27
Although Lair "never thought they would do it," he quickly dispatched an 18-page cable. A positive answer, he recalled, came back "surprisingly soon." Lair's proposal also gained the support of Admiral Felt and the State Department. President Eisenhower, looking for ways to avoid direct American involvement in Laos, was willing to go along with the CIA's scheme. 28
Backing the Resistance
With authorization to arm and train 1,000 Hmong as a test of the concept, Lair again visited Vang Pao and arranged for an arms drop at Pa Dong, a mountaintop base south of the PDJ. In January 1961, Air America delivered weapons to the first 300 trainees. The program nearly got off to a disastrous start when an Air America helicopter, carrying Lair and the PARU training team, crashed after failing to clear a ridgeline when approaching the Hmong camp. Fortunately, there were no injuries. 29
The PARU team conducted a three-day training program for the Hmong, involving the use of their weapons and basic ambush techniques. Lair also asked Vang Pao to select 20 men out of the 300 for training as radio operators. These individuals were sent to the PARU training camp in south Thailand for instruction.
With the Hmong scattered on mountainous terrain surrounding the PDJ, Lair recognized from the beginning that good communications would be crucial for effective operations, and he turned to Air America. In the early months of 1961, Air America had only a handful of helicopters and STOL aircraft available to support CIA operations in Laos. This changed in early March, when the new administration of President Kennedy became alarmed after Kong Le and the Pathet Lao captured a key road junction and threatened Vientiane and the royal capital at Luang Prabang. Kennedy again placed US military forces in the region on alert, and he also authorized the transfer of 14 UH-34 helicopters from the Marine Corps to Air America to be flown by Marine, Army, and Navy "volunteers." 30
On 29 March 1961, pilot Clarence J. Abadie led a flight of 16 UH-34s from Bangkok to Air America's new forward operating base at Udorn in northeastern Thailand, 40 miles south of Vientiane. The helicopter forces soon became involved in supporting Hmong forces engaged in a fierce battle with the Pathet Lao at Pa Dong. On 30 May, the first Air America helicopter pilots died in Laos, when Charles Mateer and Walter Wizbowski crashed in bad weather while trying to land supplies to the besieged Hmong. 31
Driven from Pa Dong, Vang Pao moved his headquarters to Pha Khao, 10 miles to the southwest. In July, Brig. Gen. Edward G. Lansdale--at that time a US security adviser--reported to Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, President Kennedy's military adviser, that 13 PARU teams (99 men) were working with the Hmong, assisted by nine US Special Forces personnel. Nine CIA case officers were assigned to the Hmong program, with two backups in Vientiane. More than 9,000 Hmong had been equipped for guerrilla operations, with the possibility of securing 4,000 additional recruits. 32
As the Hmong force grew, so did Air America's presence in Laos. To connect the scattered Hmong outposts that were separated by mountainous terrain, Lair ordered the construction of a chain of airstrips, labeled Victor Sites (later called Lima Sites), that could be used by Air America's STOL airplanes. In April 1961, William R. Andersevic arrived in Vientiane to take charge of Air America's Helio program. Under his direction, the number of STOL sites expanded rapidly. Andersevic would locate suitable areas, then arrange for local people to cut down trees and level the ground as best they could with their primitive equipment. By the summer of 1961, Andersevic had given Lair a firm foundation upon which to build what would become an extensive network of STOL fields throughout northern Laos. 33
Air America transports were also the key to feeding the people in the Hmong villages where the men had gone off to fight. Lair had enlisted the assistance of Edgar M. ("Pop") Buell to deal with this program. An Indiana farmer who had arrived in Laos in June 1960 to work with the International volunteer Service, Buell proved an inspired choice for the task. After a two-month trek around the perimeter of the PDJ, Buell arranged through Lair for Air America to make scheduled airdrops of rice to the Hmong villages. 34
The Diplomatic Track
While the Hmong program was expanding, President Kennedy had been seeking a diplomatic solution to the situation in Laos. At a meeting in Vienna in June 1961, Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev issued a joint statement of support for "a neutral and independent Laos." At the same time, negotiators met in Geneva to try to work out a settlement to the problem.
Air America Dornier DO-28 being refueled by buckets at a mountain airstrip in northern Laos, 1963. Photo courtesy of E.C. Eckholdt.
On 23 July 1962, a formal "Declaration on the Neutrality of Laos" was signed in Geneva. It provided for a coalition government and the withdrawal of all foreign troops from the country by 7 October. The United States pulled out its 666 military advisers and support staff, and Air America stopped dropping weapons to the Hmong. Assistant Secretary of State Averill Harriman, who was intent on ensuring US compliance with the Geneva accords, allowed the CIA to retain only two men in Laos to monitor Communist compliance with the agreement. 35
Air America's operations declined sharply in 1963. Restricted to food resupply to the Hmong, which averaged 40 tons a month by summer, the airline laid off people and mothballed airplanes. By May 1963, the number of UH-34s assigned to Udorn had dropped from 18 to six. Flight hours, which had averaged 2,000 per month before the Geneva accords, dropped to 600. As helicopter pilot Harry Casterlin wrote to his parents: "There are 37 of us over here and not enough work.... We are doing virtually no flying in Laos anymore." 36
A Broken Agreement
Reports reaching CIA Headquarters from its two officers in Laos suggested that the apparent quiet was deceptive. It soon became clear that 7,000 North Vietnamese Army (NVA) troops had not left the country. In fact, the NVA was expanding its areas of control, attacking both neutralist and Hmong positions throughout Laos. As Hmong ammunition stores dwindled, William Colby, who was head of the CIA's Far East Division, pleaded to Harriman to allow the resumption of air shipments. "My arguments became more forceful," Colby recalled, "reflecting the intense cables I was receiving from the two CIA officers who were still up in the hills observing and reporting on what was happening." Harriman reluctantly approved an Air America arms drop--along with instructions that it be used for purely defense purposes. Further shipments followed. As Colby pointed out, however, Harriman personally approved "each and every clandestine supply flight and its cargo." 37
As Hanoi sent additional troops into Laos during 1963, the Kennedy administration authorized the CIA to increase the size of the Hmong army, now headquartered in the valley of Long Tieng. By the end of the year, a reported 20,000 Hmong were armed. They acted as guerrillas, blowing up NVA supply depots, ambushing trucks, mining roads, and generally harassing the stronger enemy force. Air America again took a greater role in the slowly expanding conflict. "The war is going great guns now," helicopter pilot Casterlin informed his parents in November 1963. "Don't be misled [by new reports] that I am only carrying rice on my missions as wars aren't won by rice." 38
Full-scale fighting broke out in Laos in March 1964, when North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao forces attacked across the PDJ. By mid-May, the Communists had taken control of the strategic region, bringing an end to the already shaky coalition government.
Search and Rescue
While contemplating direct American military intervention, President Johnson ordered Navy and Air Force reconnaissance flights over the PDJ to provide intelligence and to send Hanoi "a message of American resolve." On 6 June, a naval reconnaissance aircraft was shot down over the PDJ. As the military services lacked a search-and-rescue capability in Laos, Air America undertook the responsibility. 39
This unsuccessful attempt to rescue Lt. Charles E. Klusmann--who later escaped from his captors 40--marked the beginning of what was perhaps the most demanding and hazardous of Air America's operations in Laos. The airline's pilots were neither trained nor properly equipped for the dangerous search-and-rescue task, but there was no one else to do the job. This mission became even more difficult during the first half of 1965, when the air war expanded into the northwestern portion of North Vietnam.
As Air America crews in helicopters, transports, and T-28s risked their lives to save downed US airmen, rumors grew that the civilian pilots were receiving a bounty of $1,500 for each rescue. This story apparently originated with a US Air Force captain in the air attache's office in Vientiane. Charged with briefing military pilots on rescue capabilities in Laos, he visited Air Force bases and US Navy carriers, spreading the word that airmen who were shot down over Laos did not have to worry about being picked up: Air America's pilots would be there to get them out, competing for the $1,500 bonus. 41
When the story reached Air America, it created a good deal of resentment. In June 1965, after an especially hazardous long-range mission into North Vietnam in which two helicopters were badly shot up and a local Lao commander killed in what turned out to be a successful rescue of two Air Force officers from a downed F-4C, one of the Air America helicopter pilots wrote: "The AF doesn't, I'm sure, appreciate what we are doing for them at great risk to ourselves... . What makes us mad is that the AF thinks we get $1,500 for a pickup. We get nothing--but ulcers." 42
Not Very Secret
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 American people 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 that provided the funds for the war were briefed regularly. Also, Senator Stuart Symington and other Congressmen visited Laos and gave every indication of approving what was happening. 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." 43
The CIA was largely responsible for conducting military operations in Laos, but the US 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. 44
Activity at Udorn
The Ambassador in Vientiane delegated responsibility for the tactical conduct of the war to his CIA station chief. The primary headquarters for supervising the war, however, was in Udorn, Thailand. Located adjacent to the Air America parking ramp at Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base, the 4802nd Joint Liaison Detachment was the CIA's command center for military operations in Laos. Lair was in charge of the 4802nd until the summer of 1968, when he was replaced by his longtime deputy, Lloyd ("Pat") Landry.
Both Lair and Landry had excellent rapport with Gen. Vitoon Yasawatdi, commander of "Headquarters 333" at Udorn, the Thai organization in charge of that country's forces in Laos. The Thai general, who had direct, private access to both the Lao and Thai prime ministers, had been identified by one senior CIA officer as "the single most important player in the Laos program." 45
Weather and the War
The early years of the war took on a seasonal aspect. During the dry period, which lasted from October to May, the North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao went on the offensive, applying pressure on the Hmong in northern Laos and on government forces throughout the country. During the monsoon, lasting from June to September, the anti-Communists took advantage of the mobility provided by Air America and struck deep into enemy-occupied territory. The situation was a mirror image of Vietnam. In Laos, the Communists acted as a conventional military force and were tied to fixed supply lines. The Hmong, at least at first, countered with guerrilla tactics.
Air America C-123 on ramp at Long Tieng, 1970. Photo courtesy of D. Williams.
The limited nature of the war was reflected in the modest losses--that is, modest in comparison to what was ahead--suffered by Air America during 1965, 1966, and 1967. Despite a rapid growth in personnel, Air America lost only 11 crew members in Laos during these three years, five of which were due to enemy action.
North Vietnamese Pressure
The character of the war began to change in 1968. The North Vietnamese, impatient with the progress of the Pathet Lao, introduced major new combat forces into Laos and took control of the year's dry season offensive. By mid-March, they had captured a strategic valley north of Luang Prabang, successfully assaulted a key navigational facility that was used by the US Air Force for bombing North Vietnam, and threatened to push the Hmong out of their mountaintop strongholds surrounding the PDJ.
On 21 March 1968, CIA Headquarters issued a Special National Intelligence Estimate (SNIE) to top-level policymakers in Washington on Communist Intentions in Laos. Despite the presence of 35,000 NVA troops in the country, CIA analysts concluded that Hanoi was mainly interested in protecting its supply routes to South Vietnam and did not wish to destroy the general framework of the 1962 Geneva settlement. 46
Events soon proved the SNIE to be correct. The NVA offensive ended with the onset of the monsoon in May. The Hmong, however, had suffered heavy casualties, losing more than 1,000 men since January, including many top commanders. A recruitment drive turned up only 300 replacements: 30 percent were between the ages of 10 and 14, 30 percent were 15 and 16, while the remaining 40 percent were all over 35. According to "Pop" Buell, those between those ages were all dead. 47
Offensive and Counteroffensive
As the strength of the Hmong waned, the United States tried to redress the growing imbalance of forces in the field through increased use of airpower. Between 1965 and 1968, the rate of sorties in Laos had remained fairly constant at 10 to 20 a day. In 1969, the rate reached 300 per day. 48
During the rainy season of 1969, Vang Pao abandoned the use of guerrilla tactics and launched a major offensive against the NVA/Pathet Lao forces, using the increased airpower to support a drive against enemy positions on the PDJ. Operation About Face was a huge success. The Hmong reclaimed the entire PDJ for the first time since 1960, capturing 1,700 tons of food, 2,500 tons of ammunition, 640 heavy weapons, and 25 Soviet PT-76 tanks. 49
But the victory was short-lived. In January 1970, the NVA brought in two divisions that quickly regained all the lost ground and threatened the major Hmong base at Long Tieng. For the first time, B-52s were used to blunt the enemy drive.
NVA strength in Laos had reached 67,000 men, but CIA analysts continued to argue that the enemy did not want to risk a decisive action. "The Communists believe that when they obtain their objectives in South Vietnam," the CIA's Office of National Estimates predicted in April 1970, "Laos will fall into their hands." 50
The monsoon season of 1971 saw the last major offensive operations by the Hmong, now assisted by growing numbers of Thai volunteer battalions, trained and paid by the CIA. Vang Pao again captured the PDJ in July and established a network of artillery strongpoints, manned by Thai gunners. Vang Pao's hope of retaining the PDJ during the dry season went unfulfilled. In December 1971, the North Vietnamese launched a coordinated assault against the artillery bases. Using tanks and 130-mm guns that outranged the Thai artillery, the NVA quickly recaptured the PDJ. 51
The last days of 1971 and early months of 1972 saw increased enemy pressure on the main Hmong base at Long Tieng. Air America suffered heavy losses during this period. In December alone, 24 aircraft were hit by ground fire and three were shot down. Between December and April, six Air America crew members died in Laos. 52
The war also went badly in southern Laos, where the CIA recruited, trained, advised, and paid indigenous personnel who were organized into Special Guerrilla Units. Heavy fighting erupted in 1971 for control of the strategic Bolovens Plateau, with Air America providing the essential air transport for the CIA-led forces. By the end of the year, however, the NVA clearly held the upper hand following the capture of Paksong, 25 miles east of the Mekong River town of Pakse, on 28 December. 53
On 24 April 1972, Air America's vice president for flight operations sent a telex message addressed to all crew members. Noting that "the past few months have produced an appalling toll in lives and serious injuries," he urged all flight crews and supervisors to reappraise the factors "which make flying in our operations a particularly unforgiving profession. We are called upon to perform under possibly the most difficult environmental conditions in the world considering the combination of remote, mountainous terrain, absence of modern navigational/communications and air traffic control facilities, active presence of hostile armed forces, absence of adequate means of reporting and forecasting the varied seasonal weather and winds, and marginal airfields and landing zones, to name a few examples." Everyone, he warned, should exercise extreme caution when conducting flight operations in Laos. 54
At the same time that Air America crews were being reminded about the hazardous nature of operations in Laos, DCI Helms was deciding the fate of the air proprietary. On 21 April 1972, he ended a lengthy debate within the CIA over the continued need for a covert airlift capability, and ordered the Agency to divest itself of ownership and control of Air America and related companies. Air America would be retained only until the end of the war in Southeast Asia. 55
Air America complex at Udorn, Thailand, 1973. Photo courtesy of Judy Porter.
On 27 January 1973, the Paris agreement on Vietnam was concluded, providing for the withdrawal of American troops. The following month, a cease-fire agreement was signed in Vientiane, leading to the formation of a coalition government for Laos. Although the end of the war was clearly in sight, Air America continued to lose people. Indeed, it is somewhat ironic that Air America suffered its heaviest losses in the two years following the CIA's decision to terminate the company. Between April 1972, when Helms issued his orders, and June 1974, when Air America left the country, 23 crew members died in flight operations in Laos.
On 3 June 1974, the last Air America aircraft crossed the border from Laos into Thailand. The end went well, Air America's operations office in Vientiane informed Washington ". . . .and the departure of AAM from Laos was without incident, although some lumps are visible in the throats of those who put so much of themselves into the operation over the years. . . .We grieve for those missing and dead in Laos and regret that they too could not have enjoyed today." In all, 100 Air America personnel had died in Laos. 56
The base at Udorn was shut down at the end of June. Operations in Vietnam continued until the fall of Saigon in April 1975. When plans for a new stay-behind company in Thailand, staffed by a contingent of select helicopter and transport pilots, fell through, all Air America personnel were discharged. The company finally closed its doors on 30 June 1976, returning more than $20 million to the US Treasury. 57
A Distinguished Record
CAT/Air America performed superbly for the CIA. The skilled aircrews and ground personnel of the air proprietary had given CIA the air transport capability required for a variety of covert operations in Asia. Although this "air complex" 58 had caused legal problems for the CIA's Directorate of Administration, there is no question that personnel in the Directorate of Operations considered CAT/Air America as an essential tool for their work.
During the war in Laos, Air America was called upon to perform paramilitary tasks at great risk to the aircrews involved. Although lacking the discipline found in a military organization, the personnel of the air proprietary continued to place their lives at hazard for years. Some Air America pilots flew in Laos for more than a decade, braving enemy fire and surmounting challenging operational conditions with rare skill and determination. As pointed out by a senior Agency official during the dedication of a plaque to Air America personnel at CIA Headquarters in May 1988: "The aircrew, maintenance, and other professional aviation skills they applied on our behalf were extraordinary. But, above all, they brought a dedication to our mission and the highest standards of personal courage in the conduct of that mission." 59
The exploits of CAT/Air America form a unique chapter in the history of air transport, one that deserves better than a misleading, mediocre movie.
William M. Leary is a Professor of History at the University of Georgia.
1 Ted Gittinger, interview with Richard Helms, 16 September 1981, Oral History Program, Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, Austin, TX. For recent studies of the war in Laos, see Timothy N. Castle, At War in the Shadow of Vietnam: U.S. Military Aid to the Royal Lao Government (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993); Jan Hamilton-Merritt, Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, The Americans, and Secret Wars for Laos, 1942-1992 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993); Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison, Shadow War: The CIA's Secret War in Laos (Boulder, CO: Paladin Press, 1995); and Roger Warner, Shooting at the Moon: The Story of America's Clandestine War in Laos (South Royalton, VT: Steerforth Press, 1996), which is the revised edition of Back Fire: The CIA's Secret War in Laos and Its Links to the War in Vietnam (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995).
2 Christopher Robbins, Air America: The Story of the CIA's Secret Airlines (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1979).
3 See Robbins, "'Air America' Doesn't Fly Right," The New York Times, 28 August 1990.
4 Robbins, Air America, p. 138.
5 Joseph Westermeyer, Poppies, Pipes, and People: Opium and Its Use in Laos (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), p. 51.
6 Ted Gittinger, interview with William Colby, 2 June 1981, Oral History Program, LBJ Library.
7 For a detailed account of CAT, see Perilous Missions: Civil Air Transport and CIA Covert Operations in Asia (University of Alabama Press, 1984).
8 See Department of Defense, United States-Vietnam Relations, 1945-1967, 12 books (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1971), Book 9, p. 38.
9 Leary, Perilous Missions, pp. 164-67.
10 Bernard Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1966). This remains the standard account of the battle.
11 Leary, Perilous Missions, pp. 181-92.
12 In US policy toward Laos, see Arthur J. Dommen, Conflict in Laos: The Policy of Neutralization, revised edition (New York: Praeger, 1971), and Charles A. Stevenson, The End of Nowhere: American Policy Toward Laos Since 1954 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973).
13 Castle, At War in the Shadow of Vietnam, pp. 16-17.
14 "Rice Drop Over Laos," CAT Bulletin 8 (December 1955), pp. 4-5.
15 Leary interview with Blevins, 11 July 1987.
16 See "Minutes of Meeting on Name Change," 4 April 1959, in microfilm collection of Air America legal records, in the author's possession.
17 See Conboy and Morrison, Shadow War, pp. 20-21.
18 Leary interview with Rousselot, 10 August 1987.
19 Leary interview with Dale D. Williamson, chief pilot of the first helicopter contingent to Laos, 13 July 1987.
20 Leary interview with Rousselot, 10 August 1987.
21 Leary interview with Aderholt, 28 August 1990.
22 Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960-61 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1961), p. 641; Felt is quoted in Edward J. Marolda and Oscar P. Fitzgerald, The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict: From Military Assistance to Combat (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1986), pp. 24-25.
23 Stevenson, End of Nowhere, pp. 110-120.
24 Felt and Burke are quoted in Marolda and Fitzgerald, United States Navy, p. 55.
25 Leary interview with Lair, 3 July 1993. Lair's story is best told in Warner, Shooting at the Moon.
26 Jack F. Mathews to the author, 15 February 1998.
27 Leary interview with Lair, 3 July 1993.
29 Hamilton-Merritt, Tragic Mountains, pp. 86-94.
30 Castle, At War in the Shadow of Vietnam, pp. 29-30, 43-44.
31 Abadie to Leary, 10 June 1990; Hamilton-Merritt, Tragic Mountains, p. 108.
32 Lansdale to Taylor, "Resources for Unconventional Warfare in S. E. Asia," [July 1961], in The Pentagon Papers - New York Times Edition (New York: Bantam Books, 1971), pp. 130-38.
33 Leary interview with Andresevic, 19 June 1987.
34 On Buell, see Don A. Schanche, Mister Pop (New York: David McKay, 1970), and Warner, Shooting at the Moon, passim.
35 William Colby, Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), pp. 191-93.
36 Casterlin to his parents, 24 January 1963, copy provided to the author by Captain Casterlin.
37 Colby, Honorable Men, pp. 192-95.
38 Hamilton-Merritt, Tragic Mountains, pp. 113-26; Casterlin to his parents, 11 November 1963.
39 Marolda and Fitzgerald, United States Navy, p. 378.
40 For Klusmann's account of his escape, see his "The Price of Freedom," Air America Log 14 (October-December 1997), pp. 12-15.
41 Leary interview with James L. Mullen, who worked in Air America's Flight Information Center in 1965, 13 July 1987.
42 Casterlin, "For Posterity," 21 June 1965.
43 Gittinger interview with Helms, 16 September 1981.
44 Stevenson, End of Nowhere, pp. 208-18.
45 See the informative staff report of a visit to Laos by James G. Lowenstein and Richard M. Moose: US Senate Subcommittee on US Security Agreements and Commitments Abroad of the Committee on Foreign Relations, Laos: April 1971, 92nd Cong., lst sess., 1971; Leary interview with Landry, 3 July 1993.
46 CIA, Special National Intelligence Estimate (SNIE) 58-60, Communist Intentions in Laos, 21 March 1968, Declassified Documents Reference System (DDRS), 1989: 1865. For a detailed account of the ground war in Laos, see Conboy and Morrison, Shadow War.
47 Robert Shaplen, Time Out of Hand: Revolution and Reaction in Southeast Asia (New York: Harper and Row, 1969), pp. 347-48.
48 Raphael Littauer and Norman Uphoff (eds.). The Air War in Indochina, revised edition (Boston: Beacon Press, 1972), p. 79.
49 CIA, SNIE 14.3-1-70, North Vietnamese Intentions: Indochina, 3 June 1970, DDRS 1980: 324.
50 CIA, Office of National Estimates, Stocktaking in Indochina, 17 April 1970, DDRS 1977: 270C.
51 Leary, "The CIA and the 'Secret War' in Laos: The Battle for Skyline Ridge, 1971-1972," The Journal of Military History 59 (July 1995): 505-18.
52 The Washington Post, 21 January 1972.
53 On the war in the south, see Soutchay Vongsavanh, "RLG Military Operations and Activities in the Laotian Panhandle," Indochina Monographs (Washington, DC: Army Center of Military History, 1981); and Conboy and Morrison, Shadow War.
54 AVPFO/DFD TPE to All Chief Pilots, 27 April 1972, the papers of David H. Hickler, Air America Archives, University of Texas at Dallas.
55 United States Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Operations [the Church Committee], Foreign and Military Intelligence - Book I - Final Report [No. 94-755], 94th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1976), p. 241.
56 Telex, VP-NTD UTH to Chief Executive Office, 3 June 1974, Hickler Papers.
57 United States Senate, Foreign and Military Intelligence, p. 239.
58 An oft-used term at the time, encompassing all of the various elements of CIA's air proprietary in Laos.
59 Remarks by James N. Glerum at the annual ceremony for CIA employees who died in the line of duty, 31 May 1988.


When calls started coming in to the Alabama Department of Public Health from concerned parents who reported illnesses in adults and children after a local softball tournament, the state launched an investigation into the outbreak.
Most people are exposed to legionella regularly and usually don't get legionellosis, but people with weak immune systems are typically more susceptible to the disease.
Most people get infected by inhaling the bacteria. It can't be transferred by person to person contact.
"It can be found in the water in systems like swimming pools, hot tubs, cooling towers, fountains, especially the ornamental fountains that spray water. It can even be associated with people doing stuff in their yards with hoses and sprinklers," explained Dr. Mary McIntyre, State Epidemiologist.
There are no statewide requirements for specific testing when it comes to public pools and only eight counties in Alabama have local pool regulations.


The Allure of Expository Preaching
By definition expository preaching means preaching which exposes the meaning of a passage of scripture. As generally practiced this method of preaching, by necessity, deals with portions of the Bible as if they are to be understood in isolation from most of the rest of the Bible. In other words it assumes that the meaning of a small part of the Bible can be determined, relying merely on the words employed, separate and apart from any broader context.
In actual practice, what passes for expository preaching often addresses only a part of the passage under consideration. Even though a limited portion of scripture is evaluated, within this limited text some parts are elaborated upon and others are briefly mentioned or ignored all together. Rarely would an expository sermon deal equally with all parts of the text, partially because of the time constraint inherent in the weekly sermon format. Often in trying to decipher troublesome verses, the expositor will resort to stating what the verse cannot mean, in opposition to what it apparently says. This diversion usually involves citing another text in the Bible which supposedly disallows the apparent meaning of the statement in question. Lost in this standard practice is the obvious question of which passage is the rule and which is the exception.
Despite the high regard which many church goers hold for so called expository preaching, what we experience under that label is not often educational in the sense of providing new knowledge. More often than not, sermons of this type merely repeat a familiar message, reiterating what has been previously presented and generally accepted. Unless new knowledge is shared, no learning can take place.
Any attempt to understand isolated Bible passages is as meaningless as trying to understand any other book based on a small portion thereof. That is especially true of a book which clearly relies on so much symbolism, poetic language, and cultural nuances.
In my observation, this preference for expository preaching is mostly demonstrated by the older generation of church members. It is the bread and butter of their engrained church experience and tradition. Having been raised in an environment where preachers most often read a Bible passage and then expounded thereon, they feel most comfortable with that type sermon.
In contradistinction, we often hear from our younger church generation that they desire sermons which emphasize life applications- how does the Bible affect how I live and how does it prepare me to deal with life issues. Simply reading the Bible and repeating a traditional interpretation to these young people is simply tiresome and not particularly practical and uplifting. In addition, such an approach to sermonizing never promotes a questioning spirit in the listeners, one which might lead to a real spiritual breakthrough and provide the impetus for real personal transformation. Instead this type expository preaching spoon feeds pat answers to complex and confusing life situations and then suggests that rejecting the answers provided is not only disallowed but spiritually dangerous.
Dealing with the Bible is a complex business for sure. In my opinion the best approach involves great open-mindedness. Assume very little and be ready to change your opinion often. Certainly, any Bible study that doesn’t challenge the way I live and call me to re-think what I already believe is not really meaningful. Study implies new learning and learning must have practical application or it becomes simply an academic exercise, effecting no good beyond personal satisfaction at one’s superior knowledge. Bible study can easily become just that, an attempt at personal aggrandizement, hardly a spiritual positive.
In the final analysis, Bible exposition should be a personal effort, one which initiates with few assumptions. The more truth we assume before we open the book and the more we rely on other men and women’s expertise, the more likely we will be to draw unwarranted conclusions and miss the real message.


Impoverished Tanzanian Muslim families were extended Ramadan aid. IHH officials distributed food packages to 225 families, organized a fast-breaking dinner for 750 people in the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba. Fifty families that have converted to Islam lately in Unguja Island were given food packages.
Orphans, aged and poor people were given priority in aid delivery. Those who received food packages thanked the charitable people for extending their help.
"Tanzanian people suffered from slavery, colonialism, racism and poverty for centuries. Colonialists exploited the country as much as they could. But now we are extending donations of our charitable people without asking for anything in return. This makes them happy. Tanzanian people need mosques, schools and hospitals. State bodies are failing to meet to these needs. The IHH has so far materialized significant projects in Tanzania, but there is still much to do," IHH officials said.
Tanzanians pray for rain
Tanzanian Muslims are trying to perform their fasting obligation despite all hardships. Mosques get very crowded during Friday and Tarawih prayers. Muslims pray for rain after prayers. Rain means much to Tanzanians. Rain waters are indispensable to farming since irrigation systems are not widespread and primitive methods are still in use.
Life standards low
Tanzania has a population of 36 million people. It is an underdeveloped country and people live on farming and livestock breeding. Tanzanians are generally impoverished and their life standards are low. Majority of the population has converged in mountainous regions. There are about 120 different tribes in the country. Tanzania, which has a large coastal strip that stretches along the Indian Ocean, is one of the biggest fish producer countries in Africa. Fish is a staple for economically poor Tanzanian citizens. Rice and corn are other widely consumed foods.
Tanzania has rich gold, oil and precious stones reserves. However, Tanzanians are still living in poverty.
Arab merchants introduced Islam to Tanzania in the 8th century. Although one third of the population is Sunni Muslim, Christians are in control of administration and religious affairs. There are many schools, libraries, educational centers, clinic, hospitals, aid agencies and foundations that have been founded with the support of Christian missionaries. Thanks to these efforts, the number of local Christians is increasing.
Tanzanian Muslims lack opportunities to carry out and improve educational and religious activities due to lack of funding and support. Muslim schools and mosques are in bad conditions.
Tanzanian Muslims need the support of Turkey and other Muslim countries.


Between 1970 and 2000, teacher education was deeply affected by a number of changes coming from the State and federal governments, the universities and the profession itself. These changes include:
· removal of teacher education from employer control;
· university takeover of the whole process;
· extension of teacher education preservice period from two to four years;
· lack of clarity over the emerging roles of teachers:
· curriculum designer
· manager of learning
· manager of student behaviour at school
· role model as life-long learner;
· the role of professional socialisation processes within universities;
· depletion of the cultural life of the new universities;
· universities slow to respond to changes in schools following State legislation to establish the Curriculum Council and new School Education Act.
These changes have yet to be absorbed by the education system and new policies on civics, citizenship education and the appreciation of a civil society and values education cannot be implemented without a full awareness by teacher education institutions.
As already indicated, schooling for a civil society should follow the cycle of plan, do and review. It should start with the determination of the curriculum by as comprehensive a group of stakeholders as possible, including teachers. Then should follow the selection and preparation of the teachers who will implement the curriculum. Finally, all the stakeholders evaluate the outcomes. In other words, while teachers are trained in curriculum theory involving the development, implementation and evaluation of curriculum, their specific professional role rests with the implementation stage.
The implementation stage involves the teacher in knowing content and in being able to design appropriate learning activities, including the selection of resources. Courses in teacher education and professional socialisation must involve a study of:
· The nature of the society and culture in which schooling is instituted;
· The nature of the curriculum and knowledge;
· The nature of the child, childhood and youth; and
· The nature of the learning processes.
The basic professional disciplines include philosophy, sociology, anthropology, history, linguistics, psychology, and the study of teaching as both an art and a science. In addition, there are the content areas relevant to the learning areas and teacher specialisations.
There have been major changes in the processes of teacher education over the past 30 years in response to changes in society itself but, in particular, the increasing demand for much higher levels of educational achievement across the whole society.
In 1870, Western Australia tried to introduce English-style local School Boards which would have been an interesting step towards a civil society but the small and scattered nature of the population and the multiplicity of religious denominations made this almost unworkable. (By 1920, the community consultation role of the School Boards had been taken over by the more restricted role of the Parents and Citizens Associations.) In 1890, full internal self-government was granted and education became one of the four original ministries of the new government with the Education Department established in 1893 charged with the introduction of ‘free, compulsory and secular’ education between the ages of six and 12 years (later 14) for all non-Indigenous children in Western Australia.
Within 20 years of responsible government the basic context for teacher education was established; compulsory primary education 1893, Perth Technical College 1900, Claremont Teachers Training College 1902, the first State high school (Perth Modern School) 1909, and The University of Western Australia in 1911. A pattern of teacher education was soon established that was to last until the 1970s. For primary teaching there was a preservice two-year Teachers Certificate, and for secondary teaching a university degree in one of the basic disciplines (English, French, German, History, Geography, Economics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics etc), followed by a one year graduate Diploma in Education. To matriculate into the teaching profession at either the University or Teachers College, students typically had to pass seven subjects chosen from the list above and studied at secondary school for five years. Secondary education was selective and only a tiny minority completed the five years.
In relation to the teaching of civics and citizenship there were a number of significant features. All primary teachers were expected to have studied some Australian history (largely political and economic) and some Australian geography (largely physical and economic). If they had not studied these at secondary school level, they had to study at least one unit of history or geography content as part of their Teacher’s Certificate course. Secondary teachers of history were expected to hold a degree with a major in history and to teach a content established by the Public Examinations Board which comprised subject committees led by university specialist staff.
In addition, students at the teachers’ colleges participated in interest clubs and voluntary associations which were self-governing and provided a training experience for the teachers as community leaders and for their involvement in voluntary associations. Students also participated in various rituals, communal activities and assemblies as part of the process of professional socialisation. Finally, all students received training in pastoral care by being allocated a staff mentor with whom they met regularly. These aspects of teacher education were not always valued for what they were.
For secondary teachers, the four-year degree plus diploma meant that for three years they were not in a process of professional socialisation but were free to participate in the clubs and associations which were found in the universities of the time. However, the one-year diploma became a compacted year of teacher preparation. The content they taught in secondary schools was the content they studied in their undergraduate courses.
All this was to change in the 1970s, but before we leave this period it is worth noting that the contribution of the State teachers colleges and the state primary and secondary schools toward an Australian identity, citizenship and a civil society has not really been acknowledged. For most Australians of the period 1870 to 1970 the local State primary school was the only common cultural experience in addition to the common language.
From 1970 through to 2001, teacher education has been subjected to fundamental challenges from without and the authority of the curriculum has been undermined, content has been ignored in the promotion of process, and ‘education’ has been pushed aside by an emphasis on ‘training’.
In 1972, the teachers’ colleges (Claremont 1902, Graylands 1955, Secondary 1968, Mount Lawley 1970, and Churchlands 1972) were excised from the control of the Education Department and given autonomy, access to federal funding and all academic positions were made subject to open advertisement. Each college was given a governing board under a loose Western Australian Teacher Education Authority. In addition Curtin, Murdoch and The University of Western Australia were allowed to offer full preservice degree courses as well as postgraduate courses.
In 1982, the colleges were amalgamated into the Western Australian College of Advanced Education which thus became the educator of most of the State’s teachers. Finally, with the Federal Government’s decision to do away with the binary system of higher education by creating 38 public universities. WACAE was designated as Edith Cowan University.
Associated with these changes were a numbers of others that have affected the ability and willingness of the schools/faculties of teacher education to respond to the changes in educational expectations. Firstly, the length of preservice teacher education has doubled. In 1968, the long-standing two-year Teacher’s Certificate was replaced by a three-year Diploma of Teaching. In the mid-1980s this was upgraded to a Bachelor in Education which could be converted by a fourth year of study, while teaching, into a Bachelor of Education. By 1998, all teachers were expected to complete a preservice Bachelor of Education degree. An analysis of the content of these extended degrees might suggest that they would have been better described as Bachelor of Teaching degrees. The relationship between education and teaching is analogous to that between medicine and surgery.
Secondly, as the secondary schools responded to meet the needs of secondary education after 1955, the type of education background of prospective teachers changed but little analysis was done to ensure that gaps in the secondary background of teachers in secondary content areas were being addressed during the extended period of teacher education. From earliest times teacher education has always included the secondary education as the basis for primary teachers’ content and a secondary teacher was expected to have a first degree in the content area to be taught. This has affected the preparation of teachers of citizenship.
Thirdly, the universities as new players in the full program of teacher education failed to provide for the complete professional education of new teachers with a reasoned integration of preservice, inservice, graduate and postgraduate teacher education. Either teacher education was interpreted narrowly as little more than curriculum and instruction or would-be teachers were deemed as needing to be educated in the liberal arts, with a program controlled by specialists in the sciences, social sciences and humanities but with minimal focus on the nature of children and adolescents or on the processes and curriculum requirements of schooling.
Furthermore, there was little input from stakeholders such as parents, citizens, government or the teaching profession. Academic leadership in universities and schools has become somewhat unclear as designated principals, heads of university schools and deans have become managers of physical and human resources. The monitoring of what is being taught in schools and universities and how well it is being taught and learned is dangerously unclear. Even the processes of peer review of curricula, a strong feature of the former colleges of advanced education, are not established fully in universities despite the Commonwealth Quality Audits of the early 1990s.
At a time when there are claims about a knowledge-based society, it is uncertain as to whether many teachers can distinguish between information and knowledge. Teachers are trained in questioning techniques but there are no guarantees that they know the content areas from which the questions are drawn, nor just how the questions may help the students to convert information into conceptual knowledge.
It is within this context that the perceived need for explicit values education, civics, citizenship and a civil society has to be seen. It is one thing for federal politicians to fund the notion of active citizenship within Australia’s democracy and quite another to have it implemented within Australia’s schools.
What is happening now? A survey was conducted among the schools/faculties of education within the four public universities in Perth and into the four-year Bachelor of Education degrees (Early Childhood, Primary and Secondary) and the one-year Graduate Diplomas of Education.
Responses were received from each university with some seven responses from Society & Environment specialist staff covering both degree and diploma courses.
In each course there was a semester-length core unit on the curriculum and teaching of the Society & Environment learning area for all early childhood and primary specialists and for relevant major and minor students in the secondary specialism. About 10 per cent of the time and learning activities in each of these core units was allocated to values, civics and citizenship education.
In addition each university provided opportunities for students to elect to do extra units in the teaching of values, civics and citizenship but few students chose to study these units and in the relevant content areas of history and political science there were few units to enable students to explore Australian political and economic history with even smaller percentages of students choosing to study them.
In response to a question about the preparedness of student teachers to teach civics and citizenship education, the responses varied from ‘basic and sound’ in relation to teaching strategies to ‘poor and negative’ in relation to background content. The Society & Environment lecturers are part of larger organisational units and when asked about the priority that civics and citizenship education has within the schools of education, the majority of responses indicated that the Society & Environment lecturers were keen within the restraints of a crowded curriculum but that lecturers in schools of education as a whole had little understanding and even less commitment.
Finally, in response to a question about the civics and citizenship education focus within Society & Environment, most drew attention to the good work being done by the Commonwealth-funded Discovering Democracy team in producing resources and in the implementation and inservicing of teachers by the special task force. The Discovering Democracy taskforce is not only involved in the very extensive on-the-job training program in schools, but also is used by the schools of education in the universities to provide training and awareness for preservice teachers.
In response to an open question, it is significant that only one of the seven responses offered any reference to the connection between ‘active citizenship’ and a civil society and what universities and schools may be able to do about promoting these. The interpretation given to civics and citizenship education was essentially that of ensuring that the students ‘knew the facts’, the privileges of citizenship and the challenges faced by schools in moving from learning ‘that’ to ‘learning how to do that’.
In short, the civics and citizenship education specialists thought that the subject was important, considered that they were doing the best that they could in an unresponsive environment and a restrictive, overcrowded curriculum.
The present situation for teacher education for civics, citizenship education and a civil society is unsatisfactory. The solution to this basic challenge rests with both the universities as well as with the wider society. The responses here confirm the findings and support the conclusions of a recent national review of the Discovering Democracy project within civics and citizenship education (see Print, Moroz and Reynolds, 2001, 208-210).
Universities must grow to appreciate the complex nature of the teaching profession and to see teachers, even university teachers, as people with more than a liberal arts education and a piece of chalk, or as trainees who know about classroom communication and behavioural management but who are not very learned in any area of knowledge and who are not role models of lifelong learning.
A national curriculum demands a national understanding of the role of schools, schooling and teaching. From this should emerge the guidelines for national teacher education. Western Australia already has the makings of a publicly-accountable Curriculum Council and the new Education Act has the potential through its proposed school councils to convert ‘State’ schools into ‘public’ schools. Together the legislation has the power to ensure that ‘private’ schooling, in so far as it receives public moneys and is monitored by the Curriculum Council, also meets the requirements for schooling within a civil society.
The teacher education curriculum must include secondary education, preservice university education, postgraduate and inservice education. Within this ideal construct of what is essential for a professional teacher and educator, entrants into teaching need to be positioned so that omissions in their secondary education can be met. The critically reflective practitioner must be able to distinguish between knowledge and information, education and training, and must be able to justify which knowledge is of the most worth and the nature of the good life.
Schooling as a process has four general aims. These are:
1. Maintenance of the cultural heritage (achieved through the study of the humanities and the arts);
2. Preparation for social and cultural change (achieved through the study of mathematics, sciences and social sciences);
3. Encouragement of individuality (achieved through the practice of the performing and creative arts and physical culture);
4. Development of a sense of community (achieved through the study of values and civics and the practice of active citizenship within a civil society).
Not each of these four aims has received or is receiving equal priority in history nor in stages of child development nor levels of education. However, all the content and processes listed above are variably represented in the whole of the schooling process. During the past 30 years preparation for social and cultural change and the development of individuality have received most emphasis with much less on cultural heritage and the sense of community, values and citizenship. While State and federal governments have made moves to address this situation, the university schools of education have been slow to respond.
Their response must be not only to insist that certain studies and content are essential for all teachers, but also to ensure that the professional socialisation processes within the university schools of education incorporate the basic elements of a civil society. This means the encouragement of voluntary associations reflecting a wide range of social and cultural interests as well as a comprehensive range of stakeholders being involved in the determination and evaluation of the teacher education curriculum.
If the Western Australian Curriculum Council declares that civics and citizenship education should not only be part of the Society & Environment learning area but should also be, like the shared core values of Australian society, taught across the whole curriculum, then the schools of education must change course structures and their whole operation to ensure that graduates are able to implement the new initiatives effectively. If civics and citizenship education requires teachers to know something about Australia’s political and economic history then such studies should be mandatory for all teachers.
Interestingly, the State Education Acts do not mandate any studies but proscribe dogmatic theology (but not general religious instruction) and polemical politics from State schools. Curriculum is left to tradition and the teaching profession. In contrast, within most of the State systems in the United States the teaching of American history is mandated at all levels.
In terms of remedial action, there is an interesting parallel case study of Aboriginal Studies by teacher education students. In 1992, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody recommended that all teachers be taught a unit of Aboriginal Studies and the Commission recommended that the implementation of its recommendations be monitored on an annual basis. Initially nothing happened within the university schools of education other than that a small minority of students continued to choose to study an elective of Aboriginal Studies.
However, in 1996 the Director General of Education in Western Australia issued a policy statement that from 1998 no new graduate teachers would be employed by the State Education Department if they did not have at least one unit of Aboriginal Studies within their degree. The four State universities moved quickly to change course structures to ensure that their graduates would not be disadvantaged in seeking employment within the State system. Only nine of Australia’s 38 public universities have such a compulsory unit even though all States and territories have accepted the recommendations of the Royal Commission. Of the nine, four are in Western Australia. Such is the power of the prospective employer to cut through the labyrinthine nature of academic politics!
This parallel is instructive. If the public and governments truly believe in the critical importance of civics, citizenship education, democracy and civil society, then the employing authorities have the power to withhold employment of teachers lacking the relevant concepts, skills and values in any school system (State or independent or private) which is in receipt of public moneys and which is under the monitoring of the Curriculum Council of Western Australia.


Finland is a parliamentary democracy, which means that it has a head of government and a head of state. The country is very sparsely populated. Most people live in the south. The country shares borders with the Baltic Sea, Sweden, Norway and Russia. Tourism is becoming more and more important, especially for structurally weak Lapland.
VWP member: 1991
Population: 5,503,000 (31 December 2016)
Political system: parliamentary democracy
Year of foundation: 1917 (independence from Russia)
Official languages: Finnish and Swedish


Jet contrails--the line-shaped clouds produced by high-flying planes--have long been suspected of affecting weather on the ground. Now a unique experiment has tested the idea for the first time. By taking advantage of the U.S. air traffic shutdown during 3 days after the 11 September terrorist attacks, a research team has shown that jet contrails do indeed influence the weather.
Contrails are "condensation trails" made up of water vapor and particulates emitted from jet engines. Although contrails evaporate quickly in dry air, in humid air they grow into extensive cirrus clouds identical to naturally occurring clouds. Because clouds reflect solar radiation, they keep the ground cooler during the day. At night clouds trap heat, keeping the surface warmer. Researchers suspected that contrails would do the same in heavily traveled areas, but they never had direct evidence.
To fill that gap, climatologists David Travis of the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater, and Andrew Carleton of Pennsylvania State University, University Park, compared ground temperature data from 4000 weather stations in 48 states collected between 1971 and 2000 with similar data collected during the 3-day aircraft shutdown last September. The difference between daytime maximum and nighttime minimum temperatures was 1.1°C greater in the absence of contrails, the group reports in the 8 August issue of Nature. This difference was even greater in areas where contrail coverage is normally thickest--the Midwest, Northeast, and Northwest.
The results make sense, says climatologist and contrail expert Patrick Minnis of NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The increasing amount of jet traffic could explain why the daily temperature range has been decreasing over many parts of the globe during the last 3 decades, he says. "If contrails are significantly affecting the diurnal temperature range, then air traffic is having a measurable climate impact and therefore should be included in model estimates of climate in the future."


By John Petersen
Absolute Beginner's consultant to Databases brings the weather of a database jointly utilizing effortless to appreciate language, excellent for the genuine newbie. It not just provides particular arms on perform, but additionally presents an summary of designing, preserving and utilizing a database. This ebook covers what databases are used for, why databases are very important, why the layout of the database is critical, database normalization, keys to stable database layout, modifications in forms of databases, and indexes--what they're, how we use them, and why they're vital.
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Extra resources for Absolute Beginner s Guide to Databases
7, you can see that each customer row has a different value for CustomerID. That same CustomerID value is carried in the Orders table. This is how a database knows which child records belong to a given parent record. 4, you can see the Orders table is both a child and a parent. It is a child with respect to the Customers table and a parent with respect to the Order Details table. From the perspective of the Customers table, the Order Details table is a grandchild. The following summarizes the relationships contained in the Northwind Traders Database: ■ A customer can have zero or more orders, and an order belongs to one customer.
This toggles to the Design View. 3. Click the View button again; this toggles to the Datalist View. The Datalist View is an alternative way of designing a table. It is not as useful as the Design View. 8 Clicking the View button enables the user to toggle between the Design View and Datalist View of a table. Column details, such as column name, data type, and description, can Lookup tab Design View. Field Properties Note It is important to take great care when viewing the structure of a table. As you scroll up and down the list of fields, it can be easy to disrupt the attributes of the field.
Consider the blueprint of a building. Looking at a blueprint, you immediately get a sense of the building’s purpose and structure. The blueprint accomplishes much more than words could ever hope to accomplish. In a sense, a database model is a blueprint of a database. The focus of this section is to get you on the path to creating your first database model. CHAPTER 3 AN INTRODUCTION TO DATABASE DESIGN 51 What Does a Database Model Look Like? In Chapter 2, “The Anatomy of a Real Database,” you were introduced to your first database model.