This book is an absorbing account of secret operations and political intrigue in wartime Thailand. During World War II Free Thai organisations co-operated with Allied intelligence agencies in an effort to rescue their nation from the consequences of its 1941 alliance with Japan. They largely succeeded despite internal differences and the conflicting interests and policies of their would-be-allies, China, Great Britain and the United States. London's determination to punish Thailand placed the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) at a serious disadvantage in its rivalry with the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The US State Department, in contrast, strongly supported OSS operations in Thailand, viewing them as a vehicle for promoting American political and economic influence in mainland Southeast Asia. Declassification of the records of the OSS and the SOE permits full revelation of this complex story of heroic action and political intrigue.

This book is an absorbing account of secret operations and political intrigue in wartime Thailand. It sheds new light on Thailand's clandestine relations with Britain, the United States and China, each of which had ambitions for postwar influence in Bangkok, and on the rivalry between the SOE and the OSS.

The untold story of how America’s secret war in Laos in the 1960s transformed the CIA from a loose collection of spies into a military operation and a key player in American foreign policy. January, 1961: Laos, a tiny nation few Americans have heard of, is at risk of falling to communism and triggering a domino effect throughout Southeast Asia. This is what President Eisenhower believed when he approved the CIA’s Operation Momentum, creating an army of ethnic Hmong to fight communist forces there. Largely hidden from the American public—and most of Congress—Momentum became the largest CIA paramilitary operation in the history of the United States. The brutal war lasted more than a decade, left the ground littered with thousands of unexploded bombs, and changed the nature of the CIA forever. With “revelatory reporting” and “lucid prose” (The Economist), Kurlantzick provides the definitive account of the Laos war, focusing on the four key people who led the operation: the CIA operative whose idea it was, the Hmong general who led the proxy army in the field, the paramilitary specialist who trained the Hmong forces, and the State Department careerist who took control over the war as it grew. Using recently declassified records and extensive interviews, Kurlantzick shows for the first time how the CIA’s clandestine adventures in one small, Southeast Asian country became the template for how the United States has conducted war ever since—all the way to today’s war on terrorism.

The U.S. Air Force operated from seven primary bases in Thailand and nearly 300,000 servicemen were stationed in the country. Through extensive research, including previously classified government documents, and interviews with airmen who flew the missions, a detailed history of Air Force operations in Thailand emerges. The primary focus is on the units, their missions and the aircraft involved. The plight of POWs who flew from the Thai bases is also thoroughly examined, with a discussion of the current status of the POW/MIA issue.

At the same time the Vietnam War was being broadcast into the living rooms of Americans across the country the CIA was conducting a large-scale secret war in northeastern Laos that few heard about. Agency case officer Jim Parker's five years of combat and immersion in Southeast Asian culture had a lasting influence on him and his family. His dramatic, provocative reminiscence of those years is the first account by a participant to portray America's involvement in Laos.

He was the CIA's most effective agent in Southeast Asia, yet few knew his name or what he did. One high ranking diplomat wrote a scholarly account of the Secret War in Laos but didn't mention him. Didn't mention the guy who was literally running the Secret War during the years that this Embassy-bound "authority" was stationed in Vientiane. He was the number one expert on the political and military situation in both Thailand and Laos. Spoke the languages fluently. Understood the people and empathized with them. Knew all the all the movers and shakers and, just as importantly, knew the people at the bottom of those rigidly hierarchical societies. Knew the peasants and the press-ganged draftees who did the dirty work of war and suffered its losses. Knew everyone from top to bottom. Even knew HM King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand. Spent 18 years in Thailand and Laos, married the sister of one of Thailand's most prominent statesmen. Held the rank of Colonel in the Royal Thai Police.Yet he was a quiet self-effacing man. Never out front. Working behind the scenes. No taste for either fame or fortune. Staying in the background until action was needed then striking decisively fast and effectively. Not what you would expect in a spy. Not handsome or dashing. Speaking slowly and carefully. Always to the point without so much as a single un-needed word. So reticent that many dismissed him as a low-level "field man". He didn't mind that. Such arrogance amused him. He knew what he was, and he knew he was in charge. He saved his brilliance for when it was needed and usually delivered it in writing rather than verbally.So, what exactly did James William "Bill" Lair do? He trained spies, guerilla warriors, and anti-guerilla warriors; directed a paramilitary army of 30,000 in battle; busted drug lords; ran an intelligence gathering net that spanned Thailand, Laos and parts of China; fed and rescued war refugees. That's just for starters. The poor fatherless boy who grew up in the rough vicious oil boomtowns of the Texas Panhandle during 1920s-30s, went off to the bloody beaches of Normandy, got a GI Bill degree from a Cow College, and carried his Texas backcountry twang to Southeast Asia may have sounded like a hick to his polished associates, but they often found that there was more to plain old countrified Bill than met their eye. Some came to call him "The Lawrence of Laos". Not that bad a description except that he was much more successful at what he did than T. E. Lawrence... and he never wrote any books about his exploits...So I have.

The groundbreaking account of U.S. clandestine efforts to use Southeast Asian Buddhism to advance Washington’s anticommunist goals during the Cold War How did the U.S. government make use of a “Buddhist policy” in Southeast Asia during the Cold War despite the American principle that the state should not meddle with religion? To answer this question, Eugene Ford delved deep into an unprecedented range of U.S. and Thai sources and conducted numerous oral history interviews with key informants. Ford uncovers a riveting story filled with U.S. national security officials, diplomats, and scholars seeking to understand and build relationships within the Buddhist monasteries of Southeast Asia. This fascinating narrative provides a new look at how the Buddhist leaderships of Thailand and its neighbors became enmeshed in Cold War politics and in the U.S. government’s clandestine efforts to use a predominant religion of Southeast Asia as an instrument of national stability to counter communist revolution.