Ex-CIA Man Casts Doubt on Hmong Trial

A former CIA operative who advised a venerable Hmong leader, General Vang Pao, on a plan to put military pressure on Laos is expressing doubts that the aging general played a role in a plot against the Laotian regime, as American prosecutors alleged in an indictment last year.“My assessment is he’s an old man. There’s just no way. He’s not full of piss and vinegar,” the ex-CIA officer, Michael Spak, told The New York Sun yesterday. “The younger people surrounding him might be a different story. … He’s just too old. Too feeble. This guy couldn’t even stay awake through our meeting.”Mr. Spak said his meeting with General Vang Pao in January 2004, first disclosed in the Sun last week, lasted three or four hours and involved presenting the general with a plan to set up a “military wing” that would press the Laotian government to stop massacring and hunting members of the Hmong tribes. “Commence subtle and direct sabotage,” the ex-CIA operative’s talking points for the meeting said, according to a copy he provided to the Sun. He proposed to “start with a cadre of 500 soldiers” who would seek to seize funds and food belonging to the regime. The talking points propose a budget of about $4.3 million to get the operation off the ground and about $235,000 a month to keep it running.Mr. Spak said the general was thankful for the suggestions but indicated he wasn’t interested in a military campaign. “It was clear Vang Pao wasn’t going to consider conducting anything like that. He was kind of excited about his little political plan,” he said. “I told him that would not work in the absence of a military wing that would ensure they pay a price for continuing to kill Hmong.”Despite the tepid response, Mr. Spak, who says he retired in 1996 after 26 years as a CIA operations officer, said he decided to run the idea of some use of force past a colleague to gauge the agency’s interest. “The guy I told was a very senior guy,” Mr. Spak said. A week or so later an answer came back from Langley: “Good luck.”“I know if they’re at all interested, they’d say a whole lot more than, ‘Good luck,'” Mr. Spak said. He said he never got back to the general and never got anything more than a thank-you note from one of the general’s aides.Last year, General Vang Pao and 10 other men were indicted in federal court in Sacramento after an undercover sting operation allegedly snared them seeking missiles and explosives to carry out a coup in Laos. They face firearms and terrorism-related charges, as well a charge of violating the Neutrality Act by seeking to overthrow a country at peace with America. No trial is expected before next year.A spokesman for the CIA, Paul Gimigliano, said yesterday that the Justice Department was correct to deny any participation by the CIA in the alleged plot against the Laotian regime. “The CIA stands by the earlier statements regarding the noninvolvement of our government in this,” the spokesman said. He said he could not immediately confirm or deny Mr. Spak’s claimed role at the agency.Mr. Spak said he got a call in June from the CIA’s Office of General Counsel asking for the name of the CIA official he contacted after the 2004 meeting. Mr. Spak said he told the attorney he’d be happy to give the name, but only in the presence of the prosecution and the defense. The CIA lawyer said that wasn’t feasible.Mr. Spak stressed that his idea was to put military pressure on the Laotian government, not to topple it: “If they said they were planning to overthrow the government of Laos, I would have said, ‘You’re out of your mind.’ You’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars and years of work.”The ex-CIA officer said he does not believe the agency played a role in the plot allegedly broken up last year, but that officials may have been too hasty and too sweeping in their denials. “They said they had no idea about it and were not involved. … Then a real CIA guy shows up,” the ex-CIA man said. “That caused them to break their Crayolas a little bit.”Asked if General Vang Pao might have grown more militant since 2004, as prosecutors have suggested, Mr. Spak said, “Sure. Anything’s possible.” However, he said it was “a little far-fetched” to think the general, now about 78, had recovered from the frailty he showed a few years ago.

Ex-CIA Man Casts Doubt on Hmong Trial

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