CIA spook recalls Thailand's role in secret war

ACTION MAN: James Parker (centre) as a CIA chief of unit in Southeast Asia in 1986. Deputy Harold Nicholson, left, was later found guilty of spying for Russia. (Photo by © Jim Parker)

A CIA spy who helped orchestrate America's "secret war" in Laos said US President Barack Obama's visit should not dwell on the past as he defended the soldiers he fought beside, including the Thais.

Mr Obama will be in the country from Tuesday to Thursday, the first US president to visit Laos since 1975 when America lost its war in the landlocked nation -- along with a similar defeat in Vietnam.

"Obama's diplomatic visit to Vientiane certainly isn't the time nor the place to find value or fault in anything the USA did in Laos," retired CIA officer James "Mule" Parker said.

Now aged 73, he was a CIA paramilitary case officer in Laos from 1971-73 and authored several books about his experiences in Southeast Asia including Codename Mule, Battle for Skyline Ridge, Last Man Out: A Personal Account of the Vietnam War and his latest, The Vietnam War Its Ownself. All are available at Amazon.com or at the author's own website, muleorations.com.

In Laos, he fought alongside thousands of anti-communist troops under General Vang Pao's ethnic Hmong guerrillas, the Lao army and 4,000 US Special Forces-trained Thai "Tiger Soldiers" (Tahan Sua Pran) against invading communist Vietnamese.

North Vietnam had constructed the strategic Ho Chi Minh Trail through the jungle in Laos, moving weapons and troops to attack US-backed South Vietnam while securing Hanoi's sanctuary in northeast Laos in the Plain of Jars.

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