COVERT ACTION

By Region

Asia

Included here:

1. Generally

2. Cambodia

3. China

4. Japan

5. Thailand

 

1. Generally

Ali, S. Mahmud. Cold War in the High Himalayas: The USA, China and South Asia in the 1950s. New York: Palgrave, 1999.

From advertisement: "The book examines elite-insecurity perceptions in India, Pakistan and the USA in the 1950s, the consequent linkages in alliance-building efforts, and subsequent triangular covert collaboration against Communist China."

Leary, William M. "Aircraft and Anti-Communists: CAT in Action, 1949-52." China Quarterly 52 (Oct.-Dec. 1972): 654-669.

Leary, William M. Perilous Missions: Civil Air Transport and CIA Covert Operations in Asia. Birmingham, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1984. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute Press, 2003.

According to Motley, IJI&C 1.1, Perilous Missions is an "important and penetrating account that unites CAT's airline history, intelligence activities, and the Cold War." CAT operated 1946-1959 when it became Air America. Tovar, IJI&C 8.3, calls it "a serious study of the operations of CIA proprietary airlines" (fn. 5).

For Goulden, Washington Times, 8 Jun. 2003, Leary's is a "sound work, based on CAT's corporate archives." It serves as "a palliative for the wild yarns circulated about CAT and its successor organization, Air America, over the years."

Bath, NIPQ 20.2, gives this work a "highly recommended" rating. The new edition has "a helpful new preface that summarizes CIA's proprietary air operations subsequent to the transformation of CAT into Air America.... Perilous Missions remains the best study of CAT and CIA's early involvement in the air over Asia."

U.S. Department of State. Office of the Historian. Ed. Edward C. Keefer. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968.

Vol. XXVII. Mainland Southeast Asia; Regional Affairs. Washington, DC: GPO, 2000. Available at: http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/history/vol_xxvii/index.html.

The editors' introductory note, "U.S. Covert Actions and Counter-Insurgency Programs" is available at: http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/history/vol_xxvii/covert.html.

2. Cambodia

Bitar, Mona K. "Bombs, Plots and Allies: Cambodia and the Western Powers, 1958-59." Intelligence and National Security 14, no. 4 (Winter 1999): 149-180.

In 1958 and 1959, Sihanouk learned that he could use neutrality in the struggle against Thai and Vietnamese influence in Cambodia. Henceforth, he assumed that "he could score points against his neighbours by carefully balancing East against West."

Sihanouk, Norodom, and Wilfred Burchett. My War with the CIA: Cambodia's Fight for Survival. London: Penguin, 1973.

3. China

Holober, Frank. Raiders of the China Coast: CIA Covert Operations during the Korean War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1999.

Clark comment: The author, who served with Western Enterprises Incorporated (WEI) on Quemoy in 1951-1952, details the activities of CIA-sponsored anti-Communist guerrillas along China's southeastern coast in the early 1950s. Except for an annoying tendency to use made up conversations from the past to advance some of his story, Holober provides a good read. This reader even guffawed several times. Ever the instructor, Holober provides little snippets of Chinese along the way. Nevertheless, you need to be interested in learning about this little-known covert action to get full enjoyment from this book.

Sulc, CIRA Newsletter 23.2, comments that Raiders of the China Coast "should be greeted with great interest by historians.... Holober has done a very good job" in his writing about "the forgotten war within the 'forgotten war.'" Similarly, Copper, IJI&C 13.3, says that "Holober is to be credited for telling a story that needed to be told."

For Jonkers, AFIO WIN 35-99, 3 Sep. 1999, this book "can be read as a rousing story or as history, celebrating an exceptional cast of American characters involved in these clandestine operations.... Highly recommended."

4. Japan

Weiner, Tim. "C.I.A. Spent Millions to Support Japanese Right in 50's and 60's." New York Times, 9 Oct. 1994.

"In a major covert operation of the cold war, the Central Intelligence Agency spent millions of dollars to support the ... Liberal Democratic Party and its members in the 1950's and the 1960's.... Since then, the C.I.A. has dropped its covert financial aid and focused instead on gathering inside information on Japan's party politics and positions in trade and treaty talks....

"The C.I.A.'s help for Japanese conservatives resembled other cold war operations, like secret support for Italy's Christian Democrats. But it remained secret -- in part, because it succeeded. The Liberal Democrats thwarted their Socialist opponents, maintained their one-party rule, forged close ties with Washington and fought off public opposition to the United States' maintaining military bases throughout Japan."

5. Thailand

U.S. Department of State. Office of the Historian. Gen. ed., David S. Patterson. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968.

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