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Morrison, Gayle L. Hog's Exit: Jerry Daniels, the Hmong, and the CIA. Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University Press, 2013. 431 pages.
Hmong Studies Journal, 15(1): 1-5.
Hog's Exit: Jerry Daniels, the Hmong, and the CIA, by Gayle L. Morrison. Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University Press, 2013. 431 pages. Review by Nengher N. Vang.
It was late 1960 when CIA operative William James Lair first made contact with anticommunist Hmong leader General Vang Pao, then a lieutenant colonel of the Royal Lao Army (RLA), in the mountains near the Plain of Jars in Xieng Khoung Province, northern Laos. From 1961 to 1973, the United States, through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Air America, provided training, money and logistical support to tens of thousands of Hmong and other ethnic minority groups in a covert operation against the communist Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese Army in what has become known as the Secret War in Laos. During that period, the Hmong served in both the regular RLA and the Special Guerilla Units (SGU) paramilitary units authorized by the RLA but directly supported by the CIA. At the height of the war in 1969, forty thousand Hmong were in the SGU. Some Hmong became pilots and flew on air strike missions. Others were spies and radio operators gathering critical intelligence on the movement of Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese troops. As America's foot soldiers, many Hmong and other minority groups risked their lives to rescue American pilots shot down by Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese gunners, often paying a heavy cost in lives. Yet, after the United States signed the peace treaty with the communists to end its involvement in the war in 1973, it withdrew all funding to the Royal Lao Government and the RLA, of which the SGU had been a subset, and left the region, leaving its allies-both Hmong and those from other ethnic groups- entirely on their own to defend themselves. The United States made its final evacuation of American military personnel from Laos on 14 May 1975, one day before the communists took over the country.
Gayle L. Morrison documented the tumultuous evacuation of 2,500 Hmong from Long Cheng, the "secret city" where the military headquarters of the CIA and General Vang...